HOME | DD
TRiGGER80 — MiND MATTERS
Published: 2009-05-18 04:22:55 +0000 UTC; Views: 3336; Favourites: 49; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
My other contest entrys:PWND: [link]
Welcome to the show: [link]
Wild Wild Chess: [link]
Behind Enemy Lines: [link]
So... Chess.
I started modeling this chess-set a while ago, but then i sort of took a break from it.
But when the "Bring your Vision to Life"-contest was announced, i decided to finish it off.
Chess, to me, somehow has always been about "black vs white", "King against King", "mind vs mind", duality and contrast, so i thought, that might suite the theme quite well.
Aside from that... hmm, i think, there is a little double meaning converning the title of this deviation here:
Chess is a game of two minds, challenging each other.
So its definitely a mind matter...
Arent good and evil, too ...?
In fact, i had a COUPLE of nice ideas for this chess-set, but somehow i managed to procrastinate all this quite a bit, and on top of that sort of "got carried away" with this image a little, and so i dont have too much time anymore to finish my other ideas i had for this. (or to start them for that matter, haha! )
I should ahve started earlier, haha!
Anyways, my entry so far. Hope you like it
I do.
Oh, and for the techies among you:
Maya, MentalRay. No HDR, just two area lights, and some postwork in PS (just compositing the passes and a little Depth of Field, no colorcorrection or "clean up" or such).
[EDIT:] Just in case you´re wondering: The black parts in the glassfigures... Well, at first, i thought it was a rendering error, because my rayTracing was set too low or something, but in fact its correct that way: The glass figures (as well as the black ones) DO all have a small black SOCKET to stand on, which is a little bit "inside" the figure. I thought, that would make sense, because you wouldnt want the figures to scratch over the surface of the field, right? And if youre thinking, the chessboard was hovering in the air a little: youre right. The Board has four small feet it stands on, so it wouldnt get scratches when you put it on the table. [/EDIT]
Related content
Comments: 65
Thank you very much, m'dear!
And trust me: The Knights were a b*tch to model!
Glad you like this
Thanks for the comment.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Still not sure if you made it of glass or if it's a 3D thingy.... to be honest I don't know what Maya stands for, but sounds to me 3Dish, but the explanation doesn't help me much either, as it's from it that I think it's real when you give details of it standing on its four feet. But then the word "rendering" sounds to me so much like digital... Now I've read a comment below, so apparently it's a game you play chess with? anyway yes awesome work, it made me doubt!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hello, Pzycho!
So, first of all: i am very, very sorry for the late reply. But ya know... Thats life.
Thanks for the kind comment and the time youve spent for it.
Now, to clear things up:
No, this is not a real, physical chess-set, it is completely digital, a rendered 3D Model.
I've dug around on my harddrive a little and found the original scenefile and made a screenshot of it for you:
img513.imageshack.us/img513/68…
"Maya" is the name of the 3D Modeling / Animation package i am using, you can read more about it here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk…
The reason why i was talking about the chess-set and the figures standing on feet is because i actually modeled those in, too.
Your comment really is one of the nicest ive come to read so far.
Not only is it a really big compliment that you were wondering whether this was a "real" set or not (that actually means i must have done something right with the image 
but i also really appreciate the time you've spent with the image, looking at it, thinking about it and reading the description and other peoples comment.
That doesnt happen too often on deviantART, really.
So thank you very much for that, i really appreciate this.
(and i will reply to your other comments, soon! pinky-promise!)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is sweet. The glass texture looks really good and it's great that the board reflects back a bit too.
You ever play chess in Maya then? It's so funny to watch! (My friends did that so it looked like a real game was played, but then it crashed so they had to replay.)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you very much! Though, i believe i could do this a tad better these days... i just need to get my a** up and do more stuff, HAHA!
And yeah, i wanted the board to have a little bit of blurred reflection to it... just felt nicer to me and a little more realistic.
And no, i didnt play Chess in maya yet, heh.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thanks kindly!
^__^
Meh, i need to finally DO some more stuff.
Especially 3D stuff.
I mean.. A) most stuff in my gallery is Photoshop stuff, while i originally signed up to showcase my 3D work, so this is odd
B) the last thing i uploaded was over a YEAR ago... same goes for journals and such xD
Hmmm... i still have this 3D model of that digital Election Urn i modeled for a brazilian TV Station... i mean, it aint a pretty thing, but maybe if i finally get my ass up i could render a few nice Pics and load them up, lol!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
DO IT! Stalking you will be more fun if you post stuff! XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, i think i could use a few more uploads definitely!
And i have to return the compliment!
Stalking you is fun, too
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I like stalking you =3
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Stalking is fun. Stalking your stalker is funner.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
And since the stalker you are stalking stalks you back, we are in a stalk-loop.
Which is the MOST fun!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
O:
All this time, and I still love it!
(Maybe your next one should be chess pieces made from butter, non? Omnomnom...)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
HEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!!
Didnt hear from you in a while!!!!
How ya doing ???
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Oh wow, what a beauty! I absolutely love chess, I think it's the science of logic and war, the exhilaration of crushing your opponent's mind. I used to play when I was younger but I stopped, luckily again retook it but I'm on my own, so very slow progress. But I'll always regard chess as one of the greatest inventions of the human mind.
Do you play, yourself?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I agree:
Chess is a really massive invention.
Even though the movement capabilities of the figures are limited and the rules are simple, it offers great capabilities in terms of tactics and strategy and requires the player to "think ahead".
Thanks for the kind compliments.
Well, i like chess, and lets put it like this:
I know how to /move the figures/ and the other rules, but i dont know how to properly /PLAY/ chess
(If that makes any sense xD)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes, I've been told that the game Go has mathematically more possibilities than chess, and perhaps it tickles your brain cells as well, but I'm sure that it is nowhere near as challenging, fun or rich as chess. I don't know how to play it, but I definitely should sometimes, though.
And haha, it makes sense because it's surely my same situation. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
WOAH!!!
This is seriously awesome!!! Good Job, No, AWESOMETASTIC JOB!!! Why does this have under 100 faves? Me love!!! <3
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Now, thats high praise!
Thank you very much for such nice words ^___^
And yeah, i like how it turned out, too.
but i guess, the reason is, that there already many much better "Chess"-themed deviations, especially in 3D Computergraphics.
Just go and make a search for "3D Chess", and youll see what i mean
Aside from that:
A) a chess game aint THAT hard to model in 3D
and
B) its not one of the most original things to do, haha!
But yeah, i felt like it, and i like how it turned out.
And on the same page as it isnt very original, i think, every 3D Artist should have done a chess-set at least once
Thank you for the kind words, my friend
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Nah, you're's is so awesome, non of them can match up!!
I can't model anything in 3-D, I don't know why, but no matter how hard I try, I fail!
A lot of things aren't original, but that doesn't mean they aren't good!
No problem, my friend!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hm, what software did you try for your 3D ?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
*hug*
Hmm, I can't remember, I was so frustrated I ended up deleting it! Haha, but can you recommend me one?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
SEE MY USERICON???
Lol, its really just a matter of taste and personal preference...
I dont like this entire "my program is betah than yourz" stuff...
Theres quite a lot of good software out there, and you just have to try it out...
If we´re talking about the "big ones", these would be Maya, 3dsmax, Cinema4D. Softimage XSI, and probably Lightwave... oh, and the OpenSource Program known as "Blender"... but ya know what? I´ll note you and copy-paste a comment i dug up for you, when i had a conversation with someone about just that subject. Its rather lengthy though, lol
(and feel free to ask whatever you want, i wil ltry my very best to help
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
haha, i hate that!!
Thanks again, but I forgot to tell you that some of the things you wrote made me laugh!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well, if i managed to make you smile, then i am actually very happy ^__^
I hope, these were things that were MEANT to make you laugh and i didnt say soemthing stupid XD XD XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Nah, you didn't say anything stupid, it was the stuff that was meant to make someone laugh! XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Glad you like it, Gen, thanks! ^__^
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Holycrap O.O that's awesome man
Heard so much about you
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you very much!
i like how this one turned out, too!
And heh, Heard so much about me?
Probably TOO much! xD
But i heard a lot about you, too, and i have had a peek at your gallery, too...
Pretty interesting and impressive stuff you have there!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
3D is amazing
this looks like i could reach out and grab it
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks man!
I guess, some of that "depth" ad "3d-ness" are due to the Depth-of-field i added in post
Did i mention that i love DoF ?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
i have to say, that i really like the render!
the shading looks great!
i guess chess can be used to show good vs evil, however, i think you could have shown your ideas more clearly in the render, than just showing the chess setup.
but from a technical point of view it is really good.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you very much for the compliments
Yeah, like i said: I didnt actually want to put this up the way it is as a contest entry, i did have two or three more original ideas for this chess-set regarding the "good vs evil" contest, but i somehow managed to procrastinate long enough to run out of time xD
But in fact, i am working on two of these ideas right now, so... lets see how fast i am xD
But thank you for the warm comment, its highly appreciated
Friendly greetz from germany
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
wow, nice render! I like it, especially the white chess... I hope someday I can do render like that.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you very much for such a nice comment
Well, rendering is not /that/ hard... you just need to learn a little about how these things actually work... especially with mentalRay, you sort of need to know what youre doing.
I am really glad, that you like this render
And yeah, i am kind a proud of the glass-chesspieces... Lol, i just wanted to make "normal" white chesspieces at first, but then i thought, i might give glass a try
Thanks for the comment and the
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
nope
About the mental ray, Sometimes I still confuse to do a render with a right material, and do a Hypershade ;(
did u use the Mia_Material to that chess? hehe
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hmmm... i remember, when i was first lookign at Maya´s Hypershade... well.. i just didnt GET it xD
You must know, first 3D Program i ever used was "Autodesk 3D studio R4" (no, not 3d studio max, i mean the DOS program "3D Studio R4") And.. .well, there, you didnt even have shaded previews, haha!
And later on, i moved to 3D Studio MAX, started there with Version 1.0. That material editor, i found cool! Sometimes a little "confusing", when you tried to make complex materials with lots of layering and masking and maps and such, but very, VERY intuitive!
Well, and a while later, i moved to Maya, and There, hypershade did take quite soem time to get used to, but once you get behind it, the nodebased system is really quite powerful
Well... I think, i did use the mia_material_x_passes on the black figures. The glass-figures use the dialectric material with the according photonshader (for the caustics, which you can BARELY see in the final result, haha!). The background / floor uses a mia_material, too, i think. The board and the playfield are just normal blinns, with the mentalray-reflection blur turned up. For the lighting, i just used two maya-spotlights, which i turned into mentalRay-arealights int he options, and they both have white planes attached to them, just for the reflections.
I didnt use any HDR here, just the two arealights and finalGather. There is an environment-sphere around the scene, though, which has three white stripes on it (used a ramp) that are aligned to fit the arealights and the stripes are "fading out" at the bottom. Again, the sphere is just to provide reflections
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
hehe... but I still confuse to use Hypershade, I Just apply material...
, 3Dmax v1.0? when it release?
actually I want to try 3Dmax but my OS is Mac, so I study Maya, and I start to get use to it.
Mia material X is powerful, i think almost all material can use Mia Material X, especially with glossy or refection thing.
and I always use Mia Material X to do a render. oh you use maya spotlight? i think u use like ambient light or directional...
once again: I like the render! hehe
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah... Hypershade... well, the principle aint tHAT tough, but its just some things that can be a little confusing...
Like... meh, that entire "affair" with alphachannels and mattes xD
MAX 1.0 ... uhmm... i think, somewhen around April 1996 xD
Oh, and it only ran on WindowsNT 4.0 !
And, LOL, here is a screenshot of "Autodesk 3D studio R4", haha!
Pure DOS program! [link]
And yeah, MAX would be a great choice!
Its flexible, powerful and relatively easy to use!
I still love it!
I never quite got, why they didnt work on a MAC version of it...
mia_material is Great!
But theres one reason, why i shy away to using it in Maya 2009:
It doesnt work well with the new RenderPasses System.
It cant put out all the passes =/
And most of the other mentalRay materials dont work with the Passes-System AT ALL...
I think, only mia_material_x_passes, fast_skin_passes and mi_carpaint_phenomenon_passes do support it.
And not even all passes.
where as standard Maya-Materials, such as a blinn, phong, lambert, etc do work perfectly fine.
and yes: i did use two, normal maya spotlights, but i turned em to mentalRay-AreaLights ion the options and added two white planes (for reflections) to them. these are the only actual lightsources in the scene. Theres just an environment sphere with a tiled ramp on it, but thats only for reflections. The rest is final gather
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hi Sascha!
SCHÖÖÖNES FOTO!
Sag mal, welchen Glasbläser hast du denn bestochen, daß er dir solch schöne Figuren nach deinen Bauplänen zusammenpustet?
Nee, quatsch; ich weiß doch, daß du das alles digital geschnitzt hast.
Aber die Glasfiguren sind ja echt der Hammer!
Sehen echt cool aus. Und der Springer paßt auf jeden Fall zu diesem Set.
Nur, ähm, vorne die Ecke des Brettes vermisse ich irgendwie. Habe erst gedacht, daß der REchner das Bild nicht komplett aufgebaut hat, aber oben ist ja auch ein schwarzer Rand, hähä.
Nee, du, weiter so!
Keep on the good work.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Na, cvielen Dank für die Blumen!
Ich bin auch sehr zufrieden damit
Das mit der Ecke von dem Brett...
Ich weiss was Du meinst... Mein erster Impuls war auch, die Kameraposition zu verändern, damit ich auch "ja alles im Bild hab!" ... hab ich dann aber doch nicht gemacht... ich denke, das gibt dem ganzen so´n bischen "imperfektion"...
Ich hab aber echt mit mir gehadert, die kamera einfach nen Stück zurückzusetzen um das ganze Bild einzufangen, hab mich aber dann doch dagegen entschieden.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Wenn ich so recht überlege, war das die bessere Entscheidung. Die KAmera weiter zurück zu setzen hätte das Brett auf dem Bild viel kleiner gemacht, und die Figuren (um die es ja hauptsächlich geht) hätten an Wirkung verloren.
Vielleicht wäre noch eine Option, den Bildausschnitt zu vergrößern, sprich, unten nochmal einen Balken an Pixeln ranzusetzen. Mit der digitalen Kamera geht das doch sicher. Ob das Bild dann besser aussieht, müsste man gucken.
Schöne Grüße,
Jack
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Eigentlich sind eben jene Balken Intention.
Schau Dir mal das format des bildausschnitts an: 16:9 Widescreen...
die balken müssten vom Kino bekannt sein
Die sind nämlich auch erst nachträglich in photoshop drangesetzt worden weil ich genau den Effekt haben wollte xD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Tja, man merkt, ich bin eben kein Cineast.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Now there's my desktop
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Glad you like it so much
Makes me smile
And thanks for the good-luck-wishes!
And yeah: glass-pieces are pretty cool
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
lol
Personally I like the knight best
Lol
But seriously now.
WELL DONE.
i ish so proud *tears up*
So ya...
Critical comments...
You were up only 2 hours ago...
I DIDNT MEAN IT WHEN I SAID STAY UP!!!
I love it :]
Congratulations
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
| Next =>