Looking really good. Some clouds would be a really nice touch. Find a good resolution image of a sky and put the picture on a plane. Then put the plane in the background and then in the attribute editor there is a setting for cast shadows (turn it off) and a setting for receive shadows (turn it off).

Or you could create an image plane with your camera and adjust the settings on it.

Edit: Just make sure there are not too many clouds because your scene looks like a really nice sunny day, so the sky has to match that. To many clouds will make the scene look odd to the viewer whether they realize why or not.

---

Don't be satisfied with what you can do but rather strive to do the things you can't do!
Exceed Expectations!

Thanks Perfecto, I was trying out a similar thing in the physical sky where you use a sky image and set as background, it works quite well but getting the contrast and saturation right was a little tricky so I'm going to leave the sky til last I think!

is it me or does it look like the plants on the side there are growing out of the path?

the new textures are much better than the old ones

---

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Hi Chirone, thanks, I do think the new textures are getting better, glad I've got a while to experiment as with the millions of settings Maya and mentalray have doing it by trial and error is taking ages! The plants at the side of the road are meant to be growing out of the path, I thought of it as that they've built the house where these plants were, and they've grown back through everything, the ones in the planters were taken from the ground before the house and road were finished and planted there purposely, sorry, the storyteller in me is coming out even in this project!

The texture now look more good keep it up !

Cold

---

Art Director
www.sevenbullsgames.com

Thanks Coldwave, it's all a learning curve! I'm rendering a close up shot at the moment and will post it when it's done, hopefully it'll look a bit better than the long shots texture wise!

are your walls bumping the right way? one of them looks as tho the grout is further out than the brick, but that might just be the 4 pints talking/seeing...

also using the built in sky work fine for clouds and whatnot, i wouldn't use a plane for the sky.

Hammer.horror: Not sure about the bump, will check that out, cheers for pointing that out, you say the physical sky is fine for clouds etc, but how would you go about making clouds? I know how to make them from nurbs spheres and play about with the color and alpha gains but they don't seem to render right in mentalray, you get a semi-transparent sphere thingy around them. Or does anyone know if there's an actual setting to make clouds in the physical sky?

Actually,I've just realised that the grout between bricks does stick out slightly, it's called pointing, helps rain run down the wall and not seep inbetween the bricks, but I'm going to try minusing the bump to see how it looks anyway!

sorry i meant the env sky shader thing.

Ah, any idea if you can use the env shader and the physical sun together? Also, just curious, what part of London are you from, North, South etc? Feel no way if you don't want to answer that but just interested as quite a few people here seem to be halfway around the world.

yeah i think it will work, its not a lighting thing...

I'm from Edinburgh but live in Dalston, East London.

Cool, I'm from Wood green but now living in Palmers green, so just up the road really, a long road but still... I'll try out the sun and env. thing when I'm done texturing and tinkering a bit more, cheers for the help!

i thought the grout sticking out looked strange, but i thought it was a feature, didn't know it was a functional feature

if you have maya unlimited you could make clouds using the fluid preset cloud...something (there are two clouds, one makes whole lot, the other just makes one)
i saw a text tutorial using it before, although it didn't play with any of the fluid settings

somewhere on the forums i think pbman told me how to make clouds

you could do what I did in my cactuar project, make yourself a skydome and apply a panoramic sky

and i think i'm probably the only one here who's 'properly' half way round the world from you :p

---

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

True Chirone, the others are just across the waters really... Not sure about using the skydome technique, I put one over it a couple of days ago and maya crashed more than once when I tried rendering, think I had a few more polys than my Pc agrees with! May try out the fluids thing then, but it seems if I add anything more than a couple of hundred polys more my Pc just can't handle it, may stick with the env. shader or use as background in physical sun as they are the only two that will work. Here's hoping something does!

Speaking of functional features I forgot I meant to put drainpipes in.... Hope My Pc can handle that.... :p

forgot to mention, fluids will boost your render time up by a LOT
i figure you might crash and die trying to do so

how many polys does the scene have?

you could just paint in a few clouds in post

---

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D