Vinaya - The slow path to completion

[radiant]

Could we see the displacement maps for the dirt and board?

[ElBloko]

Could we see the displacement maps for the dirt and board?

I assume you are talking about the sand. There is no displacement in the scene. The sand is made of several millions of instances created from particles in Maya. Each color is exported as a separate cluster and merged in octane using scatter nodes.

Why? Well... Really just because I can.

Here is a snapshot of the Mandala graph itself:


One single grain of sand (approx. 0.3mm in diameter):


And a couple more of them:


Finally, in order to finish the illusion, below the actual sand geometry there is a mock mandala. Made from a single piece of geometry with a fake sand texture. It provides quick solution to fill any visible gap between the sand grains.

[grimm]

ElBloko, that is insane, and also awesomely cool too! Are the sand grains placed with a particle system? Or did you use a rigid body simulation? Thanks, very nice.

[ElBloko]

ElBloko, that is insane, and also awesomely cool too! Are the sand grains placed with a particle system? Or did you use a rigid body simulation? Thanks, very nice.

Particles, yes. All particles are emitted from a simplified sculpted model of the mandala so as to not come out completely flat. This geometry is the same one that is used as the under layer
(mock sand) in the final render.


Each color of sand is a separate emitter using the same source object but each has its own emission mask. Here is the mask for the red sand:


A simple geometry is then instantiated across all particles using a couple of expression to add random rotations and size variations per particle.
Then each color cluster is exported to Octane through a useful little script courtesy of user tchoa. http://www.scaphandrier.net/?p=303#comment-388

Only a quarter of the mandala is generated, but it is replicated 4 times in Octane through transform nodes in order to form the complete mandala. Each quarter has a variable color input for the color of the sand representing the 4 individual continents surrounding Mount Meru.

I think that covers it. Don't hesitate to ask questions, I'll try to give answers as detailed as possible.

[grimm]

Thank you for the explanation. Constructing it in quarters is a very smart way to do it. Very cool.

Jason

[bepeg4d]

damn, unbelievable, the grain of sand is insane and unbeatable
please, could you re-render the v2.0 splash screen with the new skin shader? the improvement is incredible
ciao beppe

[aoktar]

How much particles? I'm very interesting to see capacity of Octane.

[rund]

Absolutely mindblowing work ElBloko! Your attention to detail is out of this world. Could you give an estimate of how many triangles this scene contains in total?

[ElBloko]

could you re-render the v2.0 splash screen with the new skin shader? the improvement is incredible
ciao beppe

I got bound by time for the splash screen. I knew the shaders weren't up to par with what I wanted. I'm not sure if the team would change it now though.

How much particles? I'm very interesting to see capacity of Octane.

The complete mandala amounts to almost 14.6 million grains of sand.

Could you give an estimate of how many triangles this scene contains in total?

Good question. Unfortunately I don't know precisely. For one thing, the scene isn't complete yet and as it stands, I can't load the whole scene on the GPU. I will show stats when I figure it out.

And a quick blurry progress shot.

[Olitech]

YES!!!!

El-B, that is insanely impressive. Skin shader looks perfect!

That last image has definitely crossed 'reality' for me.

You rule.

best,
O