Level of Detail

For our next Renderman project, we were required to model a 6 inch or so strand of spanish moss, which is found everywhere here in our beautiful city of Savannah. We created a high resolution model, and a fast rendering low resolution model. Using Renderman and the Renderman Shading Language (RSL), we created a script that would allow the renderer to render the high res model of the moss when the camera was close to it, and the low res model when the camera was farther away, thus saving valuable rendering time.

In the above image, I "told" the low res model to render red, and the high res model to render green. Because of the created script, a "Level of Detail" effect is created. For a more complete technical breakdown, you can check out my Renderman Portfolio here. The site is not finished yet, so check back next week for the completed page.

I really enjoyed doing this project, not only because it was fairly simple to do, but also because it's an invaluable technique.

As difficult as this class is, I am really enjoying it. Professor Malcolm Kesson is a joy to work with, and has a way of explaining the procedures that makes them not-so intimidating.

I look forward to the rest of the semester! More projects to come.

Illustration Friday Topic: Germs!

This week's Illustration Friday topic also conveniently coincides with my homework! The above image is text generated using Pixar's Renderman. This means that I was not working in a 3D interface like I am used to, but instead used the Renderman Shading Language (RSL) to generate the image. I did however use Photoshop for the background. I started with a series of cylinders and spheres, which I then positioned to generate the above shapes. If you would like to know more about how I did it, you can feel free to visit my technical breakdown page. If you would like to follow my progress in the class, you can also visit my online Renderman Portfolio, which will be ongoing for the rest of the quarter.

More from my Renderman class (as well as my other classes) coming soon!