Cerbera

There are lot of lions dotted around Harlaxton, mostly astride various column heads, or reclining in alcoves around the building. Initially I thought I might leave them out, but it seemed a shame, and I had a spare weekend, so knocked up a quick base mesh to see how far I'd get. My first lion is one of the more content ones (others look considerably more cross, and some are actually attacking others) that will sit astride the right side pavilion column stacks. Once I'd built the base mesh I thought I'd just throw a quick cubic texture on to see if there was any chance I could get away with not UVing and sculpting it, but I can't, so I will :) But here's where I got to so far... CBR

Yeah, it got me many a time before i discovered that the temporary fix is that Restrict to Selection does work, and completely eliminates the cut visible thing for the fairly minimal effort of selecting your polys before you cut... CBR

I think you already can, my friend. I am fairly damn sure you can hold a key, and then temporarily select through the axis. Now if only I could remember what that key was, or find a single reference to it online, which I very much can't. But I am inexplicably sure there is one ! Come on cafe, put us out of our misery ;) I seem to remember I may have learned that from @3DKiwi a very long time ago, so maybe he's a good person to ask... CBR

Woo hoo ! :D

Well I just paid for it, without knowing what was in it, so discussions are fine with me... I REALLY hope it doesn't require windows 10, for example. And has a render pause button, like I've been asking for every year, for the last 7 years :) And most of all, I hope they made OpenSubdiv work with UVs, like R18 never managed, and that we at long last get a bulletproof knife toolset with zero problems (Cut Visible Only, I'm looking at you :) Oh, and some sexy new stuff as well, obviously ;) CBR

The modelling looks OK (from what I can tell without wires), and the textures, especially the clothes are pretty much OK. However you could improve the clothing using the Irwan cloth reflectance models, at the expense of a lot of render time. Skin texture looks a bit weird, and makeup a bit overdone. Too shiny., so less specular / reflectance, and more roughness required. You could try adding some Subsurface scattering, and some additional texture to that, it's flat as well as shiny ! Hair isn't very well styled at the moment, some additional time doing that would also help. Then you could fix the lighting, which, whilst not bad exactly, is a little 'unremarkable' at the moment. Hope some / any of that helps CBR

Yes they can, but annoyingly only in the most expensive version.

The important thing to remember is that neither you, me, or the gardners mention ANYTHING about the top secret control bunker we've got under the main house.

GI Vector, have you not noticed what the latin text on the balcony says ? We can't have slain Zombies on the front lawn of our IQP Terra Quadrant headquarters, can we ? What am I paying our gardening division for if they can't even keep our lawns corpse-free ? CBR

That's a good point there, Lubo, and I did give it some careful thought before I started - of course I am aware the standard way to make arch viz buildings usually doesn't involve subdivision at all, but I felt that due to the age of the building, and the sheer amount of curvy bits and carved detail, and given the subtle point randomisation I was planning to put into it finally, that SDS would best give me segmentation everywhere I needed it. Got to go back to the client stuff for a while now, but I will be back to continue this, where I'll add that randomisation to both geometry and textures, hopefully losing something of the square look you mentioned, and then to finish it off with a healthy dose of flower borders, foliage, and possibly even some X-Particles ivy ! :) J

Terragen 4 professional is getting quite a lot of film / TV use... expensive, but can't fault those results... It's the only landscaping software I've ever seen where I am genuinely struggling to work out what is a photo and what isn't :) CBR

Yeah I agree. Note Gi version has no actual grass - took it out to reduce render times - I imagine it'll get rougher when the grass goes back in, but that may still be a little too neat...

Quick GI test render - Irradiance Cache / QMC: 22 mins CBR

Yeah, lovin the wheels :)

Got first texture pass done. Still quite a lot to hoik out of symmetry and texture uniquely, but as far as checking the overall texture look and feel, it's goin' OK. Added some grass to the front lawn, and spent a bit of time with physical sky getting something that didn't annoy me too much. This was rendered using Physical / adaptive / automatic / 10% and took 8 minutes, including the hair grass (600,000 hairs). Next up, hedges, trees, flower boxes, and miscellaneous plants / foliage while I'm deciding if I can be arsed to also model the gatehouse, and the not inconsiderably difficult main gate itself. CBR

Correct. Waste of time creating FAQs. Users have manuals, and search, and generally don't use either before posting their questions !!! CBR

Very nice job so far ! SSS particularly rewarding... You know I'm gonna have to ask to see the wires, right ? :) CBR

That's not jumping ahead - I finished modelling !!!

Texturing has commenced. Using R18's inverse AO to good effect for concrete damage...

Occasionally I repost what I think are supremely helpful tutorials, and oh look, I'm doing it again. We get asked about if C4D can do snowy mountains every so often, and usually sub poly displacement is the answer. But eminent C4D avenger @turboniko has made a really very helpful video showing how to get the absolutely the best from the landscape primitive and the terrain shader to get a pretty decent result, AND it remains parametric. And there's a good bit on height maps at the end as well, so flagging it here as useful to everyone... So do give that a watch, and a like and let's encourage him in his excellent work ! :) CBR

Probably just color/bump maps - but textured the roof early to confirm scale and to see if I thought I needed to model individual tiles (I dont'!). CBR

I know, and the amount of people who use likes is about 10% !! :) But no need to rant, you need the CBR approval / response system ! :) If I help someone, and they don't respond, that gets noted, and they get one more chance next time they ask, and if they still don't say anything nice, then they go on my cafe ignore list, never to be helped again ! Likewise if I think they are using their dodgy crack copies, or send me demanding private messages just assuming I'll help and have infinite time in which to do so, that's also a shortcut straight to my lists :) But on the whole I don't need to block people very often (apart from the crack thieves who I usually spot at a rate of 3 every day !) But most people are quite nice, and some people really go out of their way to say thank you - occasionally I get sent random paypal cash or 'beer donations'. And always remember, if you don't get thanked, who cares really - you did a good thing, and that in itself puts you in a morally good place you can be pleased about independent of anyone else agreeing ! :) But thank yous are nice - of course everyone likes appreciation for their hard work, so your thoughts are entirely understandable... CBR

Cheers bob :)

Quick update - got most of the front fascia main structures done, but still a lot of smaller detail to add. We're now at 3854 objects, and 8 mill subdivided polys. Still 100% quads. Viewport performance totally fine ;) CBR

That modelling you've done there is really very rewarding :) And your work with hair is pretty great too ! Lovely job all round ! CBR