Stone Building

Description:

Notes:

The inspiration came from a picture of an old French farm which had a building similar to what you see here. The goal was to achieve a late afternoon mood.

All of the information here and more detailed description of how I created the moss and grass on the roofs is included in a README file in the download so you don’t have to refer back here for the particle system data needed to render the scene. I turned all the particle counts in the scene to zero in order to significantly reduce the download file size.

I also had to eliminate the two trees in the background because they increased the file size too much. However, they are the same trees included in my Realistic Grass Field model on Blendswap. Download the model and just append the trees (or use your own trees) to the Stone Buildings model and position them where you like. A word of caution: Each tree in the Grass Field model has four pieces, the leaves, two sets of branches, and the trunk. Make sure you append all four parts. To be safe, just append all of the tree parts and you’ll get two trees. I also recommend JOINING all of the parts to make the trees easier to move/position.

Even so, the download file is large, but there are a lot of goodies in it as well.

You get copyright-free seamless textures (some with normal maps) of which about half I made, you get a number of models with no restrictions, and you get the benefit of my experiments in textures and particle systems.

THIS IS IMPORTANT. In order to make the blend file as small as possible given all that is in the scene, I set the grass and moss counts in the particle system to zero.

To make it easy for you to turn on the six separate particle systems, I have clearly labeled all of the objects.

NOTE: For the moss only, I have left the Grass Short count at zero and I've turned off the Grass render and visibility options in the Object Modifier tabs. I left the Grass Short options in the moss particles in case you wanted to experiment with different combinations to come up with your own versions of moss.

Also note that selecting the grass on the shed can be difficult so use the Data outliner to select Shed Roof Grass.

To render the same picture you see here (minus the trees) you must do the following:

a. Ground with Grass: Change the grass count to Grass Short = 5,000 and Grass Long = 5,000.

b. Tall Building Roof Moss: Change the grass count to Grass Short = 0 and Grass Long = 10,000.

c. Small Building Roof Moss: Change the grass count to Grass Short = 0 and Grass Long = 5,000.

d. Long Building Roof Moss: Change the grass count to Grass Short = 0 and Grass Long = 10,000.

e. Shed Roof Grass: Change the grass count to Grass Short = 100 and Grass Long = 400.

f. Long Building Roof Grass: Change the grass count to Grass Short = 100 and Grass Long = 600.

After you fill in the grass counts, press F12 and you will get the same scene but without the two trees (as noted above). Note that the Blender render will look somewhat brighter than the corresponding saved jpg image of the scene. I’m not sure why the scene gets a little darker, but the jpg image was the lighting I was looking for.

Modeling Objectives:

1. I was intrigued with the moss on the roofs of the buildings as well as the slate tiles with lichens and weathering in the concept photo so I wanted to try to produce realistic moss. I think the three colors of moss turned out better than I expected--close to the original reference.

2. The concept photo showed grass growing in the corners and along some edges of the roofs. Again, this is a particle system.

3. There is a Hemi light inside the long building in order to reveal the floor, curtains, and stucco wall through the main window. I know. It wasn't worth the effort, but I'm experimenting with ways to make scenes a bit more realistic and it's the details that can sometimes sell the image.

Everything in the image was modeled by me.

Everything in this model is free of copyrights, free to use however you like, and has no requirement to credit me. After all, who in the world has any idea who BMF is? It's just a hobby folks. I'm a senior citizen who is semi-retired and I can't think of a way that I could make a living of modeling.

One last comment. All of the objects in the model are named as are all of the textures, UV maps, etc. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to reverse engineer my models. I for one have found those models that have no names for the objects, materials, and textures to be more difficult to understand.

BONUS:

There is a bonus text file included. This document highlights six applications I’ve found useful in support of my 3D modeling. Five of the six applications are free. Some are better than others and some are easier to use than others. I have used and continue to use them all as needed.