Old Red Barn Staff Pick

  • April 24, 2012
  • 1,018 Downloads
  • 16 Likes
  • Blender 2.6x
  • Render: Blender Internal
  • Creator: BMF
  • License: CC-0
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Description:

The barn is based on a photograph of an abandoned barn/work shop that I took in Pennsylvania. The inside was crammed with old discarded odds and ends, so I didn't try to replicate the hundreds of items that were actually in that barn. I did include a couple of objects to suggest an abandoned barn. (anvil, stump, whiskey bottles--with a Walnut Hill Whiskey label, a bench, and an old time whiskey (moonshine) jug. You can fill the barn with whatever else you'd like.

I did not try to create a realistic environment. I was going to use my previous Blendswap upload of realistic grass and the trees, but it made the file about 85 MB. But you can download the realistic grass and append the "short grass" and "tree" objects to this file to have instant realistic grass, weeds, buttercups and thistles. However you will need to completely redo the vertex groups weight painting to match the barn scene.

The barn is on a down slope from left to right. That's the way it was originally built so you will need to adjust your terrain accordingly.

The goals of the project were:

  1. Recreate the abandoned barn

  2. Apply realistic weathering and moss to the barn.

  3. Practice creating and using normal maps

  4. Use more advanced texturing. For example, I used a moss and stencil technique that I reverse engineered from another blendswap model, which I had to modify significantly. Specifically, I wanted to add some moss to the barn siding but the clouds textures didn't look realistic. I finally found the stencil technique worked the best--but it took me four hours before I realized that the image and stencil have to be at the top of the texture stack. Live and learn.

  5. I wanted to create the effect of soot from the grate on the chimeny. It tool me a long time to finally figure it out. I probably could have done it quicker in Photoshop, but I wanted to use the color ramp for the effect.

The packed images are all copyright free. I either made them myself or ensured that there were no copyright restrictions.

I was going to use this barn to upgrade my previous Blendswap submission for realistic grass, but the combination makes the file too big. I may try to experiment with the particle system to see if I can find a way to have realistic grass at a reasonable file size.

Anyway, there are no restrictions on this model or any of the objects.

The roof was a disappointment. I wanted the shingles to stand out more, but my normal map didn't seem to do the job. I used the clouds texture (instead of the stencil technique) for the moss on the roof. I think it turned out OK. If anyone can improve on the roof, I would appreciate a comment on how you did it with the texture image I used.

Final comment. I'm very new to Blender and so I made a number of modeling errors that a more experienced modeler would have avoided. But that's the purpose of pressing the envelope when you are new to the game.

Comments:

  • daren profile picture
    daren

    Very Excellent! The day may come when I use this in my film...

    Edited April 24, 2012
  • djziika2012 profile picture
    djziika2012

    muito bom nota 10 (very good) mais isso s

    Written May 18, 2012
  • DERPDERPDERPDERP profile picture
    DERPDERPDERPDERP

    Nice job on the moss.

    Edited August 31, 2012