Generic Example of Progression

[White Claw]

So I've been trying to sprint through a couple of these pictures, and it comes with an unusual side effect. Blender can keep up to 8 rendered frames while you're working, but they all disappear when you exit. Since I've been doing these recent buildings much quicker, I haven't had been hopping in/out of Blender as often as usual. So what that means is that many of my "in progress" pictures have been sticking around.

Flipping through the progress was mildly entertaining for me. Looking at my progress for the factory was pretty neat, though I didn't bother to save out all the pictures of the in between steps. However, I just finished the police station (which has it's own unique features), and I have several of the in-progress steps. I thought I'd share, so you can see how things build up. There's nothing particularly magical and I don't claim to be an expert artist...But I thought it was mildly interesting to see.

Enjoy!

[leeor_net]

I think it's all sorts of interesting to see. It's easy to see the progression of software from one version to another but not everybody gets to see the progression of the artwork.

[Hooman]

That is actually really cool to see.

I sometimes wish you made a screencast of a development session. Even if it was edited, or time lapsed for some of the slower parts, it would probably be really neat to see.

[White Claw]

Do you have a recommended piece of software? My initial reaction is that I'd want something free and incredibly easy (I don't care if it has a watermark). Since I would likely only do this once or twice, I'd rather not go through the hassle of setting up accounts and plans.

[chris2222]

Gimp is super powerful, free and is the photoshop alternative but may not be easy.  I was thinking Paint within windows would almost be enough. 

[White Claw]

Sorry, I guess my question was without context. I use Gimp and Paint fairly often for graphic editing. However, I was referring to Hooman's wish for a screencast of one of my development sessions. So I was asking about screencast or video recording/editing software.

[leeor_net]

OBS Studio

Gimp is terrible. 

[White Claw]

Gimp is terrible. 

I agree it's not great. But given how little graphics stuff I do, it seems unwise to invest in photoshop at this point.

Also, I just downloaded OBS...so I'll be giving that a try soon.

[White Claw]

Some progressive shots for the surface mine. I realized after the fact that I didn't keep many of the in between shots where I started adding some details. So there's a bit of a jump between 4 and 5.

[Hooman]

I was going to suggest Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) as well.


Very neat seeing the progress images. That mine looks very futuristic. 

[leeor_net]

OBS has a learning curve. Learning Curve being code for "Shitty Interface". It's the reason I tend to prefer commercial software... sure, it's expensive sometimes but it's often worth it to get something that "just works", is intuitive and easy to use... unlike most GUI open-source software.

Anyway, back to not derailing the thread, this is the surface mine? I'm definitely loving it so far. Better than the current one though the current one does have the advantage of moving parts.

[White Claw]

I made a video of the underground commercial building (#416). There's no narration, just an 8x playback of the modeling. This building was actually kind of quick. Took just under an hour, but probably two to three times that fiddling with the video.

Cheers

[Hooman]

Wow, that was really neat. 

I actually didn't know quite what to expect for the process. I'm kind of impressed by the tooling. I didn't think it'd have quite the support that it did. You knocked out the general shape of the structure quite quickly. I thought that would have taken much longer. Very neat to see how you fine tuned the details, and line everything up. Managing to get a whole new image done from scratch in about an hour is quite impressive.

[Vagabond]

White Claw,

Thank you for sharing the time lapse. It is fun to see Blender being used by a pro.

We are lucky to have you working on OutpostHD.

-Brett

[White Claw]

Thanks, fellas.

I think I'm getting fairly proficient at the modeling process, but need to improve my materials quite a bit. I'm certainly no pro, but I appreciate the compliments.

An hour was pretty quick, actually. For some reason that building was a bit easier. I don't know if that's because I had a good idea to start, or if it was because I felt a little time pressure with the video recorder going.

[White Claw]

Example of adjusted shadows. The new angle (15) looks a bit "flat" compared to the old (45).

[leeor_net]

I see what you mean... what about something in between?

[White Claw]

Shadow and color adjustments for the smelter for comparison (to match what was done on the park and nursery).

[White Claw]

I've been tweaking coloring and shadows. I thought I'd go back to one of the original things I did and pull up the construction site. I've allowed the shadows to extend beyond the bounds of the tile and have fiddled with the coloration in an attempt to make it more vibrant (while trying not to go overboard).

VerA is the "current" and VerB is the modified shadows/coloration.