Every year since 2012, I have produced Merry Christmas and Happy New Year CGI renders using Blender. In my opinion, the quality has been gradually improving, both in terms of the modelling itself, the materials and the render quality – the latter has been the main limitation, with some of the renders being poor quality due to the excessive time needed to render (usually taking hours) and limited PC resources – trying to overload it just causes the render to fail while reducing the quality caused a lot of noise.
Things have improved, both on my PC and with the Blender software – the new version (3.4) released a few months ago features improved de-noising and much quicker rendering for the Cycles render engine, which can produce photo-realistic images.
I have also started using a greatly improved set of materials/textures, which can be seen in the 2019 onward images, and, in late 2022, PBR textures to improve the realism.
Happy New Year
I have been using Blender for over 10 years now and Trainz for over 15 years but never until the last days of 2022 put the two together! I was put off by the complexity of validation rules and the requirement for PBR textures, which have three image textures instead of the standard one that I was using for (for example) bricks or tiles. Once I had set this up a few times, I can do it without too much of a problem as it is definitely worthwhile as the extra two textures alter the reflectiveness and depth so it specifies which parts of say a wall should jut out. This reflects the lighting and adds greatly to the realism. Most of the textures shown here are PBR apart from the temporary ‘sea’. I created every part of this model from scratch apart from the doors and windows I had previously created.
According to the Trainz forums, creating PBR textures is a laborious process needing dedicated software so I have decided for now to use third party textures from various free sites and made sure they are in the public domain and can be released and distributed without needing permission or crediting but I will add a credit to the licence files. Most of them came from https://www.cgbookcase.com/textures/ and https://ambientcg.com.
If and when I need to create anything bespoke I will look into the creation process but I have found the vast majority of what I need, even some obscure things such as the OS print floor’s unusual yellow parquet floor and the bricks here will be put to good use in West Block.
The main focus of my intended Trainz export activity will be buildings and small items of scenery that I need for my (mainly UK) routes that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere so a detailed seaside pier and amusements/bingo buildings were the main thing. I will add a narrow gauge railway along the pier and part of the complex of buildings in this model (but out of sight here) includes a space for a station.
The front of the building contains amusements and a nightclub and small pub above, only the last three bays of this is visible to the left of this scene. The building with the numbers will be a purpose-built Prize Bingo hall.
The architectural inspiration for this comes from various sources, including Portsmouth’s Clarence Pier and the barrel vaulted roof from various industrial buildings. The front canopy can’t be seen here as its text/graphic embellishments is not finished but has a corrugated steel front; for some reason that was all the rage in the 70s/80s. A virtual recce of UK seaside resorts has helped with the substructure (the metal beams and columns) but like much of the rest of this was put together in a hurry. I will make further improvements and then try and import it into Trainz. I have successfully imported the substructure but the main buildings are more complex.
Happy New Year 2022 scene for Facebook. This one was not my best work and there are lots of things that are missing or unfinished. It was intended to show the diagonal zig-zag railings, which were used a lot in the 50s/60s and stairs but the lighting was not particularly good. This was intended to be the admin block for a TV studio complex I have been gradually working on.
Happy New Year scene for Facebook on 31/12/2020. This scene, like the Merry Christmas render a few days before it was inspired by 1950s American roadside architecture such as coffee shops and diners, evoking space age elements. I made everything here apart from the car and diner seats, which were from Blend Swap (a 3D Blender model library). 2020 was a year I was very glad to see the back of for several reasons so its text from last year’s model is in the skip!
Another year I was glad to see the back of was 2019. This scene (above) sees a return to the familiar TV studio used in many of the renders, there is not really anything new here at all. The 60s video tape machine and TV monitors, along with the sound monitors have been used many times before.
The start of 2019’s scene was spoiled by lack of time to render due to selecting too high a texture resolution. The scene is the basement of ‘Arthur Flowers House’, a 60s office building I made for Sim City 4 but the boilers were based on photos of the OS boiler room.
Happy New Year 2018 CGI scene of the OS staff Restaurant set for a musical performance with familiar backdrop wallpaper, monitor speakers and some kind of multiple camera monitoring system.
The huge numerals on the floor are still very popular. The location for this is the usual small TV studio with an austere wallpaper and the bar’s beer pumps on the right are covered with an orange cloth. The stack of old TV monitors show places I had been that year on holiday.
This is set in the usual location with the tiled walls, table, bar, TV and double doors. Note also the studio lighting above, which was deliberately included in the scene. The black-painted out walls above ground floor level work well in clearly separating the subject of the studio from the behind-the-scenes area.
Happy New Year 2015, a departure from the usual scene. This one was intended to be a 60s/70s shopping centre atrium.
This one was rather austere and probably reflected my mood at the time. The building was based on some old plans of part of a hospital and its rather clinical nature reflects this. The solitary chair symbolises loneliness. The building gradually evolved into a TV studio as the height was perfect for mounting studio lighting – lighting scenes in Blender works in much the same way as in the real world.
This image is spoilt by the noisy render, I must have been trapped for time. The location is between two of the temporary OSO Crabwood style huts, the doors would have led to the main spine corridor.
Merry Christmas
I have created Christmas Eve Facebook images every year since 2012. All but two of these were made in Blender but the early ones were not great quality due to long render times. Luckily the latest version of Blender (3.4) is much quicker at rendering plus there is denoising as well that helps to blur the ‘fireflies’, dots of reflected light. The Cycles render engine carries out ‘ray tracing’ to simulate light and reflection from objects, which is a very intensive load on the graphics card.
When trying to decide where to centre my Christmas 2022 graphic, a look around my OSHQ Maybush model led me to one of the more complete parts of the site, the boiler house/refrigeration plant area as I had found some chiller models on a free Blender model site (Blend Swap) that look fairly similar to those at Maybush and were exactly the right size. Modelling the real things myself would not be easy so these models are certainly good enough substitutes plus I could amend them if necessary.
The valves and pumps here were models I had previously made not based on any specific ones. I added pipes to connect parts of the chillers and pumps and worked from photos where possible but much is inaccurate or incomplete.
Much of what can be seen here is not to scale such as the windows and ground floor link corridor and was made temporarily for this scene.
With a new version of Blender that renders a lot faster, I was able to use PBR materials for the first time and am learning that process so I can export models for Trainz soon. The best example of the realism of PBR here is the grey mosaic tiles where the PBR textures add the effect of light reflecting off them.
In 2021, I took a different approach for my Merry Christmas graphic, using the Sims 4 instead of Blender as I had a creative block on what to put together in Blender at the time and had been using the Sims 4 for creating large buildings, including a functioning science lab complex, hospital, several houses, bars, wedding venues, pubs and shops including Layla the Vampire’s Skellig Stores, a department store, 2 theatres, a TV studio complex and a garden centre that turned into a huge Christmas shop. Most of the content above was custom content I downloaded from Sims Resource website so this was a job of me assembling the scene rather than creating my own models in Blender.
Merry Christmas scene for Facebook on 31/12/2020. This scene, like the new year render a few days after it, was inspired by 1950s American roadside architecture such as coffee shops and diners, evoking space age elements. I made everything here apart from the Christmas tree, which was from a 3D model store. The 70s wallpaper to the right is rather familiar and about 4 metres away from my right now. The stacked stone block wall is also great, I’m looking for a PBR version of this without success.
This scene is similar to the previous one but the camera has been rotated by 180 degrees. The tree is exactly the same. However, the materials look a lot better, particularly the glass and shinier floor materials. I have used an HDRi to produce a realistic-looking environment outside the glass although this is just a standard one that obviously does not resemble Maybush!
CGI scene of the Staff Restaurant facing the south corner. The Christmas tree and its decorations/gifts were from a third party model I purchased.
Merry Christmas 2017, in contrast to the other ones I have made in Blender, this was created from The Sims 3 although most of the items here are non-standard custom assets created by other players.
A cosy festive scene at the usual studio location with bar, picture of a roaring fire and lots of empty glasses.
I assume I put this through some serious filtering to increase the saturation, probably in an attempt to disguise the noise generated by short render times if I was in a hurry.
Merry Christmas 2015, one of only three festive renders that have no mention of the year. This was heavily post-processed to try and deal with what looks like a very short (and therefore noisy) render. The location is the usual studio with bar etc.
I can’t find anything from Christmas 2014, that is the only year that seems to be missing.
My first ever Christmas CGI scene and one of the best. This was a stock Santa model in a very basic brick hut based on one of those at OSO Crabwood.
Last updated on Monday 2 January 2023 by GaryReggae