Stargate image May 2008

I modeled almost all of the items in the scene. There are approximately 5 million triangles in the scene. There are no texture maps.


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Grass

Grass geometry was generated based on a procedural model at modelling time. Each blade of grass is made up of 5 triangles. Density and height are controlled by the perlin noise parameters to match illumination levels in the scene. Note the lack of seed-stalks on the grass under the trees and in the higher-traffic area in front of the steps. Approximately 3 million triangles make up the shorter green grass. The taller tan seed stalks are approximately 750,000 triangles. There are several "zones" of resolution. Near the foreground, grass is almost physically accurate in the model. As distance increases, the width and density of the grass changes. The transitions between levels of detail are hidden in certain feature areas. Especially for the foreground, this kind of detail is difficult to achieve in a texture.

Trees

The trees are based upon a derivation of an Lsystem. Individual branches and leaves are modeled. Leaves take illumination from either side. Bark was achieved using a perlin-noise bump texture. Leaves also have a noise-based bump texture on them to add depth.

Portal

Originally I had modelled my own stargate. When I was at the point of modelling the engraving on the outer rim, I came across Stephen Meli's free model on the web . Like me, he did it all with geometry, not textures. So I used his stargate. I took parts from his model and used it. I modeled the steps with some tread wear near the high-traffic area in the middle. The grooves between the plates are worn almost away on the lower step. I found a nice mapping of turbulence to make the "dried dirt" on the steps and platform.

Human

The human figure in the background I created in my fall 2007 Machinima Modeling class. I couldn't implement a suitable sub-surface scattering model in the alloted time. For this reason I chose to place the figure in the background as an "observer" or "greeter" for those comming to the portal. I like the mirrored sunglasses. "On behalf of the agency, I'd like to welcome you to the gateway to the plains of Altair IV"