First attempts

[voodoodad]

Guys, I definitely need some advice here. I'm looking to create some ivy to partially cover the roof and front walls of my hobbit hole, but I can't seem to wrap my head around making leaves. My main question is where did the flare options go in the fibermesh sub pallet? I know the very first time I played with those when 4r2b was released I came out with a perfectly acceptable leaf, but now I'm having problems adjusting my thinking to width profiles and the like. I miss my flare options! If any of you fibermesh plant gurus (yes, I'm looking at you *insert username here*) can help me get over this speed bump, I'd very much appreciate it.

Here's where I stand right now. The fibers in this render are one of the presets included with 4r3 lightly tweaked, but still not quite what I want. Please help an old man in his hour of need!

edit; I'm fairly satisfied with the "vine" parts of this preset, but when I go to add some leaves to fill it out... well, let's just say it was either bow ties or butterflies, neither of which was acceptable to me.

[voodoodad]

After a very looong night of tweaking, I now have this which is a little closer to what I want, but I would still like it to be more leafy and less grass like.

[voodoodad]

Okay, I finally got the ivy on the walls the way I wanted and I think the fibermesh "gardening" in the front works pretty well. I think I may end up redoing the grass and weeds on top of the house. Tell me what you think!

[deckard01]

Looking good - now it's all about the lighting and atmosphere.

D.

[voodoodad]

Thanks, Deckard01! I'm really flattered you stopped by! Btw, I'm still a little miffed that your "vivid dream" sculpt never got top row. That was a masterpiece! Anyway, I've still got quite a way to go with this one, A tree, fence, stone walkway and stairs, among other things. Taking my time and trying to do it right.

[voodoodad]

Afternoon/evening progress. Still to do; details on windows, redetail the door due to a dynamesh meltdown, and then decide where to go from there. I'd like to pull back for a wider angle but there's nothing to the right, left or top right now. Oh well, that's part of the fun.

[voodoodad]

I have to post this one. I love it when something works way better than I expect it to. Notice the windows, please.

[FairCat]

Looks great my friend!

[Sangius]

I love it, but where's bilbo?

[voodoodad]

Looks great my friend!

Thanks, Faircat!

I love it, but where's bilbo?

Thank you Sangius! I'm becoming a big fan of your work. I particularly like the Frankenbutler and Psyionic chamber sculpts. Unfortunately, Bilbo is still locked somewhere in the deepest recesses of my organic sculpting repressed mind. My stupid mind! Stupid! Stupid!

Sorry, couldn't resist the temptation to use a Plan 9 From Outer Space quote...

[voodoodad]

Beginning the long process of finding the best angle and proper lighting. I'm going to add another section of wall/terrain with a bigger window in the dead space on the left side of the image, and of course patch the visible holes in the already existing terrain. C&C please?

[voodoodad]

I think I'm done with the major sculpting, unless someone points to something that I'm not seeing. Working on lighting now.

[blueferret]

Wow ! Your environment has come a long way since last I checked......Awesome work.....I never imagined that thats where you were going......

[voodoodad]

Thank you Blue! This one is a real labor of love for me. I still re-read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy every couple of years. I'm thinking of branching out from this one and doing some elven architecture next. There's definitely enough reference material on the internet for it lol.

Small update with a few new details and colors.

[voodoodad]

Two hours, a couple more additions and finally turning on sss and ao plus turning spix up to the max and this is what I have. Wish ZBC accepted bigger image files, this image started out at 1.8mb and I had to take the quality down be 40% to get it to upload. /sigh