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Looks like a promising start! I'm sure I'll have more to say when you post a rendered version...
Very touching...I like the sense of the meeting of two souls from different times. I will say that the ghostly figure looks almost holographic to me, especially alongside the futuristic armor of the other figure. That's not necessarily a problem, but if it's not what you're going for, you might experiment with different ghostly effects, in-render and/or in postwork.
The lighting looks good but perhaps too dark, especially considering the song title. Maybe think of some more ways to incorporate shining light, without brightening the image too much.
Thanks for the input Scott. I'll try to find a way to 'Shine Your Light' this week. I have my final today so there might not have time until Friday to work on things.
I agree. Time to try something new. Thanks Jaderail.
TobiasG:
Hello! Now that's an easier nickname to remember ^^
About your submissions: The Gateless gate is a great one. If you just want to make it supergreat (hehe) i'd soften the shadows to about a 25-30% to avoid the sharp transitional contrast on her arm and... add a spotlight behind her, pointed towards the camera (but in such a way it's blocked by the body) and use the ubervolume/dust cone effect on it.
About the force guy: i think just interposing a framed grate between the main spotlight and the guy, so that jail bars shadows are projected onto him and the bare room, would really give the picture a boost. You also should (imo) re-position his arm to be more centered under his chest, so that the baricenter of the character falls in line with his hand. I can't see his toes clearly due to the DOF blur, but they seem to be partially into the floor (i could be mistaken on this). To have a more dramatic light, color it with a really slight blue/greenish tint (neon tube style) and add a brown-ish fill light with no shadows as a distant light coming from under the floor, facing the camera. This light should be almost inexistent and the effect only 'perceived' but not seen.
3cho_419: hi there, cool scene! I though second Scott-Livingston about the lights: a pale moonlight (creamy colored, not silver) with harsh shadows and an opposite almost invisible violet fill light with no shadows might be a good setup to try...
(And about your avatar: i see a dimmed flashing something... not sure if it's me or a glitchy animated gif?)
kesh,
Thanks for the advice on the lights. I'll take a look this weekend to see what I can do to bring it about.
(And so you know, what I was trying for with the avatar is a person who's flashlight is trying to die out. It's should look like it's flickering.)
Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she
Had to go I don't know, she wouldn't say.
I said,
Something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday,
Love was such an easy game to play,
Now I need a place to hide away,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Why she
Had to go I don't know, she wouldn't say.
I said,
Something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday,
Love was such an easy game to play,
Now I need a place to hide away,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.
Kismet2012- love the angle from above- makes it very eye catching. And the photo he's looking at is very good.
Is that black triangle a shadow of a wall / a wall? The only suggestion I might make is to move it further away from the corner of the photo he is holding- it was just a bit distracting for me. I'd like to see more open space around the photo so it draws more attention. The dark form of the wall is competing IMO. I felt the scene was "cramped."
I Disagree, Novica. The darkness as a wedge helps draw my eyes from the main Focus, the Head, to the photo he is holding. To me it works very well.
I can see that too :) It's just a matter of opinion and I really like the overall feel :)
Kismet (and following comments)
I don't know, the scene and render are good and so is the concept, but there is something that is really disturbing me and makes me react negatively to the picture. I guess it's the framing, portrait style, that clashes with the composition and scene lines. Try a square format or even a panorama (horizontal rectangle) to give all the scene a bit more 'breathing space'. I understand that the small size limit for the final post is annoying and so we are all pushed to make all that's important in a scene as big as possible, to avoid loosing detais, but for a pleasant balance in a scene, also 'voids' are essential. Keep the subject a bit farther by pulling back the camera and try a different picture format. Just my 2 cents. ;)
hello Kismet2012,
I like the concept but I would reframe it something like this, and put like pot of flowers or something else in the empty spot on the grass.
Yup, Totte's example confirms my feelings.
Also: the meadow is a so-so quality object, it looks flat and lowers the overall quality of the scene; i would rather use another ground that looks more real. Even some gravel path would do (besides... a bench in a meadow is something not so frequent to see, and anyway the ground would have an area where grass is worn away by people stepping over it...). I also would suggest you use different materials for the bench: less rough wood planks for the seat and black/grey matte metal for the arm rest and structure. Currently the bumpmap is too strong and make the bench look unreal.
Thanks everyone for the great suggestions.
Novica – The “black triangle” is supposed to be a path in a park. I wanted it to be gravel and then changed it to asphalt. I could not get the texture quite right and was planning on working on it
Kesh – Thank you for your suggestions on lighting and composition. Two areas where I really need help. I use Jaderail’s Golden Rule Composition Helper ( BIG THANKS JADERAIL ) which helps but is still a tool. Feedback on composition is always appreciated.
Tottie – Thank you for reframing. It really helps to see what is being suggested and the difference it makes.
I agree about the bench Kesh. Before posting I was thinking to myself I need to change the wood and then the metal to something else. It all blended together a little too much but wanted some feedback to make sure I was headed in the right direction before going too far.
Thanks everyone. The feedback is really appreciated.
The shadow softness was already set at 35%. I increased it to 45%, but there's not much difference, I think. I'll try to go even higher.
I just added the Back Light, and tried to apply the dust shader. It's the first time I've used it - can you tell me where I can see how the light's parameters are changed by the shader? I assume the changed things are in Parameters/Display, right?
In any case, the Back Light doesn't change much, either :) Maybe toning it down to 50% was a bad move. I'll fiddle with the settings some more.
The strength guy has to wait until tomorrow.
Thanks for your feedback! Very much appreciated. And yes, Tobias is a tad easier than my surname :)
Hi Tobias :)
oook... i didn't want to put you in trouble with the volumetric light suggestion ^^ but i admire your valor in trying a thing for the first time after a suggestion!
In very brief words: the effect of the dust shader would make light rays more 'solid looking' - as in many pictures of church internals, old buildings dark rooms with light blades coming in from planked up windows and so on (see my last submission in this month contest thread for a visual example ^^ ).
To achieve that (this is the quick way i used... not experimented others so far), you have to create a spotligh, then with it selected, first thing is to use the "parent cone to light" from the ubervolume links; this will create a 'volume' in front of the spotlight: you can easily access it from the scene panel, as it will be a parented object of your spotlight. Select it and then use the "ubervolume dust" to assign the material to it. You will then see the parameters of the material in the surfaces panel, it will be under default->Volume and it'll have 2 child panels: basic and smoke. You can leave all those at their preset values, maybe raising the Density to 0.020 to make the effect more visible.
2 things to keep in mind: the shadows type of the spotlight should be raytraced and the volume (of which you can see only its bounding-box, better from a top view or lateral view, and that can be moved and resized from its parameters panel) must NOT include/envelop your camera, or else the effect won't be rendered.
All the rest is try-and-fail, but i'd say the light intensity of the spotlight should be high, about 120-150%, and you can give very slight colors to the light and both the scatter and color maps of the volume: scatter will work by 'adsorbing' the color tone you set in, so if you use orange for the scatter you will have blue dust (i.e. its 'negative' or complementar color tone).
Have fun with it... and if it doesn't work as you expected, just pull it off from the render, that imo is already great looking ^^
I really love this render as is, but if I were to nitpick it I'd agree with Jaderail on the fireflies.
Great concept, good execution. You've already gotten a lot of helpful feedback on it, so I'll refrain from saying anything more specific until you post a revised version. I like it so far, though.
Hey, that's what this is about - trying to learn stuff :)
The dust effect is interesting. This is just the first attempt, trying out what does what. Unfortunately, the dust appears to blot out the sky in the background; I might need to go for something more subtle.
Is there any way to get a smoother effect, something less pixellated? I assume there's some shading I can turn up, but which one?
(Edited to add a toned town version)
Well, the pose is corrected (you're right, the toes did poke through the floor). I gave the Key Light a very slight blueish tint. I played around with a Bounce Light, but in the end, I prefer the version without one. I think it might possibly matter with a higher resolution, but at 800 pixels, the Bounce is either too strong for my taste, or not really noticeable.
It was a bit fiddly to position the gobo just so no shadow fell on the face, but it does make the render a bit more interesting (imo).
wooohoo - now the guy's one is a quite cool render!
About the volume effect: yes, you can vary the density (by very small values around 0.010 and 0.020) to control the overall 'transparency' of the dust cloud, while for reducing pixelation or artifacts you'll have to lower the step value. Iirc it starts at 4 by default, 1 is good for test rendering of good quality, or even final if you work at low resolutions, otherwise you should try lower values (0.5 for example), that will also increase rendering time though.
Good job so far! ;)
Yesterday
Here is a revised version. I changed many of the surfaces, reframed and tweaked the lighting.
Hey, that's what this is about - trying to learn stuff :)
The dust effect is interesting. This is just the first attempt, trying out what does what. Unfortunately, the dust appears to blot out the sky in the background; I might need to go for something more subtle.
Is there any way to get a smoother effect, something less pixellated? I assume there's some shading I can turn up, but which one?
(Edited to add a toned town version)The Toned down version looks very good to me, but I liked the original so...
@TobiasG: The dust effect is a nice addition to your Gateless Gate image. And I love the shadows in the other one--they add a layer of drama and meaning. I'd like to see more tension in the pose or expression though...it almost seems like he's being suspended by something, or lifted up (which I suppose would be a an interesting and meaningful interpretation, but I'm not sure it's the impression you want).
@Kismet2012: Much better...great work! Just make sure there's enough contrast between the photo and the ground plane...the colors are rather similar in that version.
I have to actually ask, I re-read the rules yesterday and realised that.. I had forgotten about the size rule with my entries in June and July contest and made them bigger than the size that says in rules. Though no one actually said anything, so that leaves me to wonder if that part of the rules were from before when the forum could not handle bigger than 800*800 or if the entries should actually be at most that size?
Also have another question, I wrote a poem back in April that I have this pictures floating in my mind when I read, and I wonder if it is allright to make an illustration to that despite that it is me that has written it? I fno that is ok, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask :)
I don't think I want to change the pose much - lowering the body and bending the arm would be possible, but it would make it harder to have the guy look into the camera.
I did try to make him look more struggling. Whether it's an improvement, I'm uncertain :)
I do get your point, but at this point I might have been at the render too long to improve it much. Contest aside, I think I'll return to it in a few days, or maybe weeks, and see whether a fresh look changes anything.
AFAICR the image size was given, so that everyone was being judged on the same res image, not because of forum restrictions, but I will query it and get back to you on that one.
I do know that way back, with the first contests, we had a requirement that the image be 600x600 and square, but did then change that to 600 on the largest measurement, because square can be such an awkward format to work in.
If the size requirement is 800 as in the rules, than why didn't anyone tell me as I know I posted bigger ones, since I had admittingly forgot about that rule. All in all, I should have been disqualified due to not following the rules, and if I had just had a nudge about the size I would have changed it on my picture *sad*
Anyhow, I try to keep the 800 in this one, if I manage to do anything.
What about the poem, can I use that despite it being me that wrote it? Just so I know if I should start something or try to find something else :)
I did some editing, I adjusted the angle and tried some things to get more of a gentle transition between the scenes. Hopefully the face on the rose is also clearer now.