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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Mar 29, 2013 8:57:30 GMT -9
Good day. Hope I picked the right place for this thread. I've been building papercraft RPG accessories and terrain for a while now. Lately however I've been thinking about making my own. Decided to start out with a bit of furniture and I'd like to get some honest critique. I've approached this through 3D modelling since... well... I'm artistically impaired otherwise. Here's a test render of my mesh and texture experiments, only the bottom one is really intended to eventually become a model, the rest are just bits. imgur.com/QVdLaOJDo you fine papercrafting people think this captures depth properly? Is the way the lighting and shading done in an acceptable way? And if I were to make a furniture set, what models would you like to see?
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Post by oldschooldm on Mar 29, 2013 10:23:37 GMT -9
Welcome! This place is as good as any... :-)
That is definitely a great start. Have you tried a test print and build?
Also the props inside should have a lot more contrast with the shelves - they'll definitely disappear on the tabletop...
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Mar 29, 2013 12:55:46 GMT -9
Good point, I should try to not place brown pots against brown wood.
I haven't built this yet. It's just a box fold, so I'm not worried about that as much as I am about getting the textures right for now.
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Post by nikloveland on Mar 29, 2013 13:23:25 GMT -9
I find when scaling something to table-top size, a lot of detail will be lost so it almost needs a cartoon-ish look when it's viewed on the computer (hi contrast, thick lines, bright colors). This may not be quite as important for props as it is for figures though.
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Post by Parduz on Mar 29, 2013 13:57:43 GMT -9
Hey, welcome! You don't know me, but i'm the one that does not draw (or build) almost nothing, but that is an hassle for all the one that do it, 'cause i always criticize all So, do you think you're safe from me 'cause you're just here? LOL Well, Nik already gave you a good tip. But, you have to think also about what "setting" are you making your props for. If (as it seems) you're drawing that ... what's the name? Sorry for a fantasy/medieval world, think how it is lighten: or by the sun from a window, or -more often- from a fire in a chimney. The latter produces some effects: - the light is yellowish/reddish (warm colors) - the shadows are much more darker and defined ('cause the light is'nt strong enough to "bump" a lot of time around the walls softening the shadows) - unless the light are from torches or candles attacched to the ceiling, it will come from mid-low height, and so the shadows are cast from that height. Now, the first two points are the "realistic" reason that makes Nik point even stronger. The last one is a matter of choice: i think you should choose a "consistent" direction for your lighting for all the props you'll draw from now to the future. About what to build, you've plenty of choices: if you're drawing a medieval world, just google for medieval fornitures and copy them. In a fantasy setting then you could add magic tables, torture things, and racial-specific stuffs.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Mar 29, 2013 14:33:35 GMT -9
imgur.com/au4IJOf1) Coloured lighting is actually bad for this. Terrain is naturally illuminated by whatever light people use for gaming and it's best to use neutral (i.e. grey) light for illumination within the virtual scene. I've already tested this elsewhere. There are some uses for coloured or otherwise more fancy light but this is not one of them. 2) I don't "draw". These are 3D models. They are illuminated by light sources placed in the render scene.
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Post by grendelsmother64 on Mar 29, 2013 15:36:53 GMT -9
Yeah....the lighting in a gaming room is going to be room light. But your model might be the inside of a tavern lit by torches...so its only going to look like that if you render it that way.
And think of your angles as well. If you're trying to create the illusion of depth, remember that objects on the game table are going to be viewed from above...not from table level. So the objects inside a deep shelf are going to show a little "top" as well as "side" so you have to cheat the perspective a little. They'll look flat if you render them from side on.
Hope this helps.
GM64
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Post by bravesirkevin on Mar 29, 2013 16:10:22 GMT -9
Hi there, and welcome to Cardboard Warriors!
First up, your renders are actually really pretty! Good use of textures and your shadows are really well done. They definitely help with the illusion of depth and they will definitely help in "reading" from a distance.
There are a few things you should pay a little more attention to though: • You need to watch the scale. if these are scaled for a 28mm figure, then they're currently twice as big as they should be. The plates would be 2' diameter platters and that pot would be a collossal clay cauldron that would be above eye level of the average mini.
• The centre of gravity is a full inch above the ground, and it's only an inch wide, so it's going to get knocked over by a slight nudge. I usually overcome this by tapering the box and/or adding a heavy base that's wider than the model
• You're likely to run into a few problems with the printing. Photo papers and other high quality ink jet papers will hold the detail, but they're a pain to work with and expensive, so a lot of people use simple cardstock. Cardstock has a very absorbant surface so the ink bleeds out and makes images look muddy. this can be mitigated to a degree by ensuring there is enough sharpness in the detail. You don't need to go as extreme as Nikloveland suggested, but you do need more than you have right now. A specific problem that you're going to run into is that your beautiful stacks of plates are not going to look like stacks of plates when the model's built. Use the Unsharp mask filter to push the detail to a usable level.
• Contrast, like the others have been saying, is critical. In the latest example, the white crockery is perfect. The blue is okay, but likely to be problematic against the brown background. Might do okay on the grey. The tan crockery doesn't work at all on the brown background, but does okay against the grey. It's not just a matter of making the hue's different, you need to have have a noticeable difference in brightness (ie, a light and bright object against a dark, murky background, or a dark, richly coloured object in front of a light, dull background.
I hope that helps!
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Mar 29, 2013 22:20:04 GMT -9
"You need to watch the scale. if these are scaled for a 28mm figure, then they're currently twice as big as they should be. The plates would be 2' diameter platters and that pot would be a collossal clay cauldron that would be above eye level of the average mini." It's just a test render to try out the texturing, I realise I need to rescale the props.
"The centre of gravity is a full inch above the ground, and it's only an inch wide, so it's going to get knocked over by a slight nudge. I usually overcome this by tapering the box and/or adding a heavy base that's wider than the model" Never had a problem with this to be honest.
•"You're likely to run into a few problems with the printing. Photo papers and other high quality ink jet papers will hold the detail, but they're a pain to work with and expensive, so a lot of people use simple cardstock. Cardstock has a very absorbant surface so the ink bleeds out and makes images look muddy. this can be mitigated to a degree by ensuring there is enough sharpness in the detail. You don't need to go as extreme as Nikloveland suggested, but you do need more than you have right now. A specific problem that you're going to run into is that your beautiful stacks of plates are not going to look like stacks of plates when the model's built. Use the Unsharp mask filter to push the detail to a usable level." I'm making this primarily for myself and I've made all of my models using photopaper. I think that if you are really into papercraft of this sort you should be using high quality paper, no matter that it costs more.
•"Contrast, like the others have been saying, is critical. In the latest example, the white crockery is perfect. The blue is okay, but likely to be problematic against the brown background. Might do okay on the grey. The tan crockery doesn't work at all on the brown background, but does okay against the grey. It's not just a matter of making the hue's different, you need to have have a noticeable difference in brightness (ie, a light and bright object against a dark, murky background, or a dark, richly coloured object in front of a light, dull background." Yeah, still working on this.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Mar 29, 2013 22:27:30 GMT -9
Yeah....the lighting in a gaming room is going to be room light. But your model might be the inside of a tavern lit by torches...so its only going to look like that if you render it that way. This is seriously a bad idea. Believe me. Prebaking light like this never looks good.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Mar 30, 2013 0:04:09 GMT -9
Yeah....the lighting in a gaming room is going to be room light. But your model might be the inside of a tavern lit by torches...so its only going to look like that if you render it that way. This is seriously a bad idea. Believe me. Prebaking light like this never looks good. You're right, it does look bad most of the time. The exception would be that if the light source is visible on the model, like a sconce on a wall or a raging fire in a hearth, then the effects of that light should be baked in to the texture.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Mar 30, 2013 0:16:48 GMT -9
I agree. If I had, for example, a candle on the shelving or a fire in an oven I'd back in the light it gives of.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 7, 2013 0:17:26 GMT -9
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 7, 2013 4:30:38 GMT -9
Scale's definitely looking a lot better. Interesting use of shapes there too. These are going to be some good looking shelves when you're done!
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 7, 2013 7:06:56 GMT -9
imgur.com/p5GmVo4And one more with slightly mode defined features. And some combinations. I'm almost tempted to try layered .pdf files but then I realise this won't work. This will be probably the final version and back to texture work.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 7, 2013 10:18:10 GMT -9
imgur.com/p5GmVo4And one more with slightly mode defined features. And some combinations. I'm almost tempted to try layered .pdf files but then I realise this won't work. This will be probably the final version and back to texture work. Layers could work, but there's a whole work flow behind it that might make it too much effort. In general it's good to get the components going and usable on their own, and then use the layers for optional details. If you do decide to go that way, you'll probably want to get your hands on a copy of Illustrator and a copy of Acrobat Pro so that you can do all of the editing you need to.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 7, 2013 11:52:34 GMT -9
If you do decide to go that way, you'll probably want to get your hands on a copy of Illustrator and a copy of Acrobat Pro so that you can do all of the editing you need to. This really isn't a problem for me. What I'm unsure about is how to arrange all this into layers with the delicate lighting details that spring up here and there from the interaction of various elements. That's what I can't wrap my head around if I wanted to do this.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 7, 2013 13:33:00 GMT -9
What I'm unsure about is how to arrange all this into layers with the delicate lighting details that spring up here and there from the interaction of various elements. I recently did a set that included a shelf that used layers to customise the contents. There's a whole thread about the set over here: cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=bravesirkevin&action=display&thread=4607 I don't really talk about how I set up the layers, but there are a lot of pics of the customised shelves there. Basically I set it up so that the shelf was divided into 6 sections, and each section had 4 possible options. The 4 options were all fixed in their own spaces, with the lighting and position of all elements set as is. You could do something similar. I do have to warn you that if you do go that route, you'll need to be selective about how many layers you include, because my first build of that shelf PDF was a huge burden for acrobat to bear due to the amount of RAM it took to render it with all those high resolution images. A guy I sent a preview to said that it actually crashed his Acrobat, so I had to strip it down and optimise it to make it work more smoothly.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 7, 2013 23:47:54 GMT -9
I recently did a set that included a shelf that used layers to customise the contents. There's a whole thread about the set over here: cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=bravesirkevin&action=display&thread=4607 I don't really talk about how I set up the layers, but there are a lot of pics of the customised shelves there. Basically I set it up so that the shelf was divided into 6 sections, and each section had 4 possible options. The 4 options were all fixed in their own spaces, with the lighting and position of all elements set as is. You could do something similar. I've seen that set. I've actually added it and Hero's Hall to my to-buy list. However it's not quite what I was thinking about. I wanted there to be a possibility to combine the contents of the shelf and the decorations around the shelf. Unfortunately I'm starting to think it's not feasible and it would be best to just do flat .pdfs with more pre-made options (which isn't a problem since changing components around is trivial during 3D rendering). imgur.com/jGjV1iJI think I've settled for texture schemes. Threw out the white wood, it just looked off then combined the pottery and wood textures into pairs with good contrast.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 11, 2013 6:25:47 GMT -9
Printed and assembled first batch. Looks... better than I expected. imgur.com/tgMtpK7(URL to bigger version.) Unfortunately I have only an iPhone for taking photos... So it looks the way it does.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 11, 2013 6:37:31 GMT -9
Printed and assembled first batch. Looks... better than I expected. Looks pretty good! I printed out the last batch you put up, but I haven't put them together yet. Been a bit of a busy week unfortunately. What else are you going to do now that the shelves are sorted?
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 11, 2013 6:50:13 GMT -9
These are the general ideas for models people said they wanted to see when I asked them about it + some common sense additions:
Shelving (still in progress, looks like it'll amount to 60 individual models...), cupboards, chests of drawers, dressers, commodes, closets, trunks, tables, chairs, stools, benches, beds, rugs (done, 30 + bear skin), fireplaces, stoves, ovens, mirrors, bedstands and wooden tubs.
So I'll try to work out as many of them as possible when I have time between work/assembling models from other people.
Should go faster the better of an idea I have about what I'm doing.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 11, 2013 7:52:42 GMT -9
Should go faster the better of an idea I have about what I'm doing. Are you looking to sell the stuff when you're done with the art? If so, you're better off thinking of a theme for a set and doing a small release with a few components and an appropriate price every few weeks. If you go too big, it costs too much and takes too long to get the stuff going so you lose out on momentum. The small sets also allow you to gradually build up a fanbase. Once you have enough small sets, you can make bundles with all the small sets in them which encourages people to buy the whole lot in one go.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 11, 2013 8:03:55 GMT -9
I was actually thinking about selling them.
Thought I'd maybe break it up by colour scheme so people can choose which one they want and pricing the whole set at around 15$ (or 30$ for all three colour schemes).
Not quite sure how I'd break it up otherwise...
On a side note: sir Kev, can I know what's your source on the weapons you used in the Lair set?
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 11, 2013 8:26:31 GMT -9
I was actually thinking about selling them. Thought I'd maybe break it up by colour scheme so people can choose which one they want and pricing the whole set at around 15$ (or 30$ for all three colour schemes). Not quite sure how I'd break it up otherwise... One of the most popular sets I ever created was the Gothic Coffins, which is just 5 closed coffins and 5 open ones, with layers to allow customisation of the details, and that goes for $1.49. It's much harder to sell the bigger sets, even though the bigger sets have way more cool stuff in them. I'm actually busy working on a small furniture set (just 2 pages and lots of layers) with the same price tag in mind to see how it sells. I don't think it's impossible to sell big sets expensively, I just think that people are less likely to rethink a $2 purchase than they are to rethink one that's over $10. Apart from that, it's very easy to get a small set out quickly which means you can start earning and getting popular sooner and this important, because popularity is what takes you from selling 10 sets a month to selling hundreds of them... you'd want to get that going now, and not 6 months from now. Apart from that, I didn't really start seeing all that much money until my 8th set out. Just something to think about. You should also avoid selling multiple versions of a product that are completely indentical apart from the colour choice. People will only buy one. You'd be better off giving them all the colour choices at once, but limiting the amount of objects in the set, and then releasing a different set with new objects, so that people have an incentive to buy both. On a side note: sir Kev, can I know what's your source on the weapons you used in the Lair set? I created all the weapons in that set myself. I have 3d models of them that I created and textured. For some of the weapons, I followed the style of the illustrations in the 3rd ed DnD Player's Handbook, as a bit of an homage.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 11, 2013 8:36:35 GMT -9
Hmmmm... From one side I can see where you are coming from.
On the other hand I personally prefer to buy larger sets myself (most of the stuff I have is around the 12$ mark). So I was approaching it from that side. I also intended to throw out some free stuff that showcases what whatever set I do contains up to a buildable level. (This is because I personally find it annoying if I can't see what I'm buying beforehand.) Income too isn't an issue for me, I don't really need the money so I don't particularly need a head start. Making a few bucks off of a something I made for my hobby just to have more disposable money for plastic/paper crack sounded like a good idea though.
That's my motivation for thinking about this as I did.
The alternative could be (I guess) to just divide it up into 1-2$ mini-sets in a pick-and-choose sort of manner. Something like... Shelves and cupboards -> 1$ Tables, chairs, stools, benches -> 2$ Etc.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 11, 2013 8:41:01 GMT -9
The alternative could be (I guess) to just divide it up into 1-2$ mini-sets in a pick-and-choose sort of manner. Something like... Shelves and cupboards -> 1$ Tables, chairs, stools, benches -> 2$ Etc. Yeah, that'd be a perfect way to go about it. Just make sure that the set is self contained and useful even if the customer only buys that one on its own. Bundle the whole lot as soon as you have a few compatible sets out.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 11, 2013 8:44:23 GMT -9
Just make sure that the set is self contained and useful even if the customer only buys that one on its own. This is really the part I have the least idea about how to do.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 14, 2013 3:23:42 GMT -9
Finished up on the shelving... 7 pages x 3 colour schemes The first five contain 2 small shelves and 2 large shelves in 5 different variants. The last two contain 4 low shelves in 2 different styles (8 per page). There's a reason why the low ones come in 4 style and not 5 styles. Also pictured: rugs. Rugs are very important for breaking up floors.
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Post by labrat on Apr 14, 2013 16:29:20 GMT -9
Holy moly! that's a lot of pages.
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