Post Your Renders - Happy New Year yall
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Joe don't give up. It's always nice to read your stuff. Just chill, that's all.
Okay, Rashad...I'll take a deep breath and try to understand what you're referring to, even though you can't clearly state your point in terms and concepts that are generally understandable.
Now, my understanding is that we are discussing multiple issues....but it seems that now your biggest issue is with the softness of shadows, and your belief that shadows are always softer the further away from the object casting the shadows. And I believe you originally asserted that the sun casts soft shadows, which I believe has already been refuted as a general statement.
Now, my guess is that you are now referring to a phenomenon called "penumbra", which exists to varying degrees depending upon the parameters of the light source. In some cases, like with the sun, it is fairly negligible since the sun's rays are virtually parallel as I said, and you can see that in the shadow photo I posted. In other cases, the penumbra is more substantial, and is a wide swath of "soft" shadows, again due to the parameters of the light source.
Now, is that what you're referring to when you say that shadows are ALWAYS softer the further away you are from the object? Are you talking about "penumbra"?
I showed a photograph with relatively sharp shadows, even at relatively long distances from the object, and you showed a photo of a different object being lit by a different light source which had softer shadows a closer distances. And you seem to equate those images even if they are lit with different light sources. And that is the point I've been trying to make.
The softness of the shadows depends upon the parameters of the light source, as well as the environment surrounding the object, including other light sources.
As I mentioned before, this includes the diffuseness of the light source. Do you know what that means? It means how the rays emanating from the source travel. Are they in a straight line, or do they travel in many directions?
Also, do you effectively have multiple light sources at different locations lighting the object? If so, then the different sources will light different shadow areas, giving the effect of a softer shadow. This also applies to a large, diffuse light source, similar to, as I mentioned, a soft box used by photographers. A 3 foot by 3 foot soft box has a wide area of light emission that serves to soften the shadows cast by the object.
Now, if you really want to assert that shadows are always softer the further you are from the casting object, then fine, go ahead. But all you have to do is go outside on a bright, clear, sunny day to see that that assertion is, in some cases, either negligible or irrelevant. And there are other types of light source/object combinations where an assertion like that is just not true. For example, if you get outside if the earth's atmosphere, where there are no atmospheric effects, the sun will cast virtually perfect, crisp shadows with only the most negligible penumbra.
But, this being the Carrara forum, I'm pretty certain that this discussion will come down to nothing more than an "oh, that's what I meant even though I was unable to clearly explain what I meant", like most technical discussions here become once we've travelled far enough down the rabbit hole.
We cannot keep hijacking threads with our back and forths Joe. Let's try to get to a point where we can have discussions about what matters and not continually getting sidetracked by the need to correct every statement that doesnt fit exactly into your personal manner of understanding.
Bingo. Sorry I don't always have the words you are expecting, it doesn't mean I suffer from a misconception. And even if I DID suffer from a misconception, do you see the evidence of misconceptions in my work? If so then that is where I'd most appreciate being straightened out.
I think to most people on this forum, you and I both are insensitive "Know it Alls." People don't like me any more than they like you, trust me on that if you will.
Don't ever give up!!!!! My worry with you is that it seems that on some unconscious level you may have decided that there is nothing else new for you to learn from the mere members of our forums. It seems by your posts that your general thinking is that if a concept doesn't agree with your assumptions and training then it must be flawed; like the notion of using multiple point lights instead of only a few when faking GI. You said multiple point lights were a bad idea before you'd ever actually tested it. Test render after test render has proven I was right, that the look is better and the render time is more than acceptable. Smart though we may be; our thought experiments aren't as valid as real experiments. Testing is the only way to know.
Next time you observe a "misconception" in a forum post you should first ask yourself this: Does this person's flawed thinking lead them to produce results which are unwanted? If not, then don't bother trying to correct them. If the scene looks right, then who cares about the specifics of how the artist was thinking, clearly he /she has made some sort of personal sense out of it and that is more than enough.
Lastly, the only reason anyone would ever get upset with you Joe is the tone of the posts. It's that you tend to assume you are everyone's instructor, here to correct their "misconceptions." You misdiagnose miscommunications as misconceptions all the time. Who died and made you the source of all knowledge? Worry less about correcting people and more about helping people to solve their particular issue at that time, which you have often been very good at doing. Telling them to do their general CG homework is great, but simply giving them the answer they need for the short term isn't always such a bad thing either.
Please do me the favor of describing the effect I demonstrated above in technical terms. If you can do that for me, and have everyday people understand it, then I will gladly concede that technical descriptions are always the way to go and will make an effort to to do so more often myself. I personally would greatly appreciate having a smarter vocabulary about this sort of thing. Thanks in advance.
Whoa, hey now, not sure how I got dragged into this? Unless by the term 'everyone' you meant... um, 'not everyone'? :)
I'm absolutely certain no offense was intended, and I wouldn't take offense anyway, but lately I keep seeing posts alluding to how 'touchy' and prone to knee-jerk angry reactions the Carrarists around here are (even though I've never seen much evidence of that myself); if so it might be best not to put out blanket statements accusing anyone who might wander by of not caring about truth (as an example). I tend to think not everyone here is as low-down rotten insidious and nefarious as I happen to be, and there might even be some poor souls who actually do care about what's true (not me personally, of course, as I am a villain through and through :) ).
I've been following the discussion avidly, learned quite a bit actually, and freely admit my lack of expertise, but it doesn't seem to me like there's much you guys are actually disagreeing on except terminology? Apparently Rashad is describing an accurate behavior of shadows, but used technically incorrect language to do so, is that the main grievance? If so, what is the correct technical terms for the shadow softening/lightening behavior he's describing and got circled in the image he posted?
Also I saw a Brain Games episode not long ago talking about the way our eyes perceive color can shift based on the strength of the colors beside the first color (I'm probably not saying that very well, but the gist is that we might very easily see a color that isn't there, or more accurately see the wrong color). While I don't often notice the 'stained glass' effect of the light passing through a translucent object and taking on it's color, I'm wondering if the translucent color is there but to some degree our eyes don't notice it as it just appears 'darker' in the shadow, so we automatically convert that to 'gray' in our perception, even if it ought to be closer to 'dark green' (as an example of light going through leaves) in real life?
Went googling and found a page under the search term 'color illusions' that shows some examples of what I mean. For example in the 1st image the 'A' and the 'B' are actually the exact same color gray as each other, but due to the perspective of the shadowing it's almost impossible to perceive that, we naturally think that 'A' is darker grey than 'B'. And in the second image, the gray of the top 'square' that's superimposed on the blue is exactly the same color as the gray of the bottom square, but again it's really hard to perceive this. Found a blog with several of these color illusions. http://big-images.blogspot.com/2007/03/color-illusions.html
If this relates, then maybe this could be why we don't often see the 'stained glass' color gel effect out in the real world when walking through the forest. Doesn't mean the translucence isn't happening, but just that it is difficult for the human eye to register. If so (and I'm only speculating) what would be more correct for a render that's trying to mimic realistic light interactions? To have a straight black/gray shadow or to go with a shadow formed of the translucent color? And if done correctly, would we really register the actual color with our eyes, or would most of us still just perceive it as 'darker' and not really see any color, even if it were there?
cross posted
Penumbra wasn't quite the word I wanted to use because as you note, it tries to attribute the effect entirely to the width of the light source with no consideration for the way the shadow continually softens until it effectively disappears with distance. I've never seen a picture of Saturn with a dark circle on it that represents Earth's shadow being cast on it because Earth's shadow softens completely after so many millions of miles, no eclipse is visible.
From now on, I will always try to provide visual examples of what I am describing. I will be back in a moment
+1
Regarding colour illusions, life itself is an illusion, just like 3d art, for example Rashad and Joe are in reality sharing useful information and stimulating thought, but are creating the illusion of having a mighty quarrel while at it.....that's my Zen statement for the weekend! :coolsmile:
Whoa, hey now, not sure how I got dragged into this? Unless by the term 'everyone' you meant... um, 'not everyone'? :)
I'm absolutely certain no offense was intended, and I wouldn't take offense anyway, but lately I keep seeing posts alluding to how 'touchy' and prone to knee-jerk angry reactions the Carrarists around here are (even though I've never seen much evidence of that myself); if so it might be best not to put out blanket statements accusing anyone who might wander by of not caring about truth (as an example). I tend to think not everyone here is as low-down rotten insidious and nefarious as I happen to be, and there might even be some poor souls who actually do care about what's true (not me personally, of course, as I am a villain through and through :) ).
I've been following the discussion avidly, learned quite a bit actually, and freely admit my lack of expertise, but it doesn't seem to me like there's much you guys are actually disagreeing on except terminology? Apparently Rashad is describing an accurate behavior of shadows, but used technically incorrect language to do so, is that the main grievance? If so, what is the correct technical terms for the shadow softening/lightening behavior he's describing and got circled in the image he posted?
Also I saw a Brain Games episode not long ago talking about the way our eyes perceive color can shift based on the strength of the colors beside the first color (I'm probably not saying that very well, but the gist is that we might very easily see a color that isn't there, or more accurately see the wrong color). While I don't often notice the 'stained glass' effect of the light passing through a translucent object and taking on it's color, I'm wondering if the translucent color is there but to some degree our eyes don't notice it as it just appears 'darker' in the shadow, so we automatically convert that to 'gray' in our perception, even if it ought to be closer to 'dark green' (as an example of light going through leaves) in real life?
Went googling and found a page under the search term 'color illusions' that shows some examples of what I mean. For example in the 1st image the 'A' and the 'B' are actually the exact same color gray as each other, but due to the perspective of the shadowing it's almost impossible to perceive that, we naturally think that 'A' is darker grey than 'B'. And in the second image, the gray of the top 'square' that's superimposed on the blue is exactly the same color as the gray of the bottom square, but again it's really hard to perceive this. Found a blog with several of these color illusions. http://big-images.blogspot.com/2007/03/color-illusions.html
If this relates, then maybe this could be why we don't often see the 'stained glass' color gel effect out in the real world when walking through the forest. Doesn't mean the translucence isn't happening, but just that it is difficult for the human eye to register. If so (and I'm only speculating) what would be more correct for a render that's trying to mimic realistic light interactions? To have a straight black/gray shadow or to go with a shadow formed of the translucent color? And if done correctly, would we really register the actual color with our eyes, or would most of us still just perceive it as 'darker' and not really see any color, even if it were there?
I like how you are thinking Johnstark :)
Rashad et Joe, interesting discussion, I haven't been able to follow it all because it is far too complicated for me but ( this is all from memory) my poor old brain tells me that one of the words you might be looking for is 'collimated'.
Only a point source of light will produce straight (collimated) rays of light. Of course in reality there is no such thing as a pure point source of light. Perhaps if it a perfect point source of light existed it would produce so little light we wouldn't be aware of it.
So the closest thing we have to collimated light in nature is the light that comes from stars.
As for the sun, it's quite easy to see (by looking up in the sky in the daytime) that it is no where near a perfect point source.
It follows that the sun's light rays are not collimated. That is, they are not straight.
And yes, because they are not straight an object which is illuminated by the sun will always have a penumbra and umbra - whether we are aware of it or not.
In the attached diagram (that I stole from web), the geometry is quite obvious.
The diagram tell us that it's obvious that the penumbra starts as soon as the light passes the object - whether we can see the penumbra or not..
One barrier to us seeing the penumbra when it is very close to the object could be the phenomenon known as Mach's bands.
Mach's bands increase contrast between areas with different tones. Interestingly they are (from memory) caused by suppression of nerve impulse from neighbouring retinal ganglions that are shooting at the same time (caused by magnetic induction? magnetic fields?).
One other really interesting thing that is that the human eyes/visual system , especially in the periphery, have both spatial and temporal summation contributing to nerve stimulus.
And that's not even mentioning the circle of least confusion, a series of focal points along a lens' optical axis that appear to the human eye to be equally clear, when in fact none of them are perfectly clear at all, this courtesy of the fact that lenses are themselves not perfect.
In particular the crystalline lens of he human eye, even in the middle 2.4 mills which (from memory again) is the perfect pupil size to balance things like spherical and chromatic aberration (?), suffers from distortion (for example it's normal to have .50 dioptres of astigmatism even in children).
Of course that has nothing to do with anything.
Apart from the face that often what you are seeing isn't really there, and, often, what you don't see, is.
Interesting post Headly! Of course, all this real world light suff is kind of academic, in that most 3D programs mimic the light types we are familiar with, even un-biased renderers, more accurate though they may be.
A point light (bulb) isn't really possible in reality, a distant light shoots out parallel "photons" and uses soft shadows to simulate the penumbra you would get based on how large the source is. And of course, in raytraced renderers, the rays are traced from the camera back to the lights, which is kind of reversed to how reality works.
yes, it's our job to mimic perceived reality, nothing more, nothing less :)
unless you are me and are trying to mimic something else
Well, there's all sorts of tools for faking it. The biggest elephant in the room with all this is how light is bent and refracted in the atmosphere. The more dust and water vapor the greater the scattering. Even a bitter winter day with little to no moisture in the air will produce nearly crisp shadows, but there is still a penumbra the further you get from the object casting it, It is negligible at noon, because the angle of the rays is such that it is not going through as much atmosphere as at sunset.
Here's a couple goo images. The one with the brisket in the pa was taken around 11:00 AM on the 4th of July weekend. The shadows from pan on the picnic table are very sharp. The shadow from the tree canopy in the background, not so much.
The next picture was taken in August at some point, at sunset. The effect is quite noticeable.
Edited to add that my point about the atmosphere is that Carrara doesn't have one, so you need a way to fake that as well, but it is also full of cheats so that a computer can actually render a picture before you die of old age.
Headwax, I tried using "collimated" a while ago, but like everything it got lost in a daze of disinterest.
Honestly, none of this really matters here, as I'm sure you're aware. People aren't here to learn stuff cuz that is too difficult. They want to play with software. And as you yourself love to repeat, all of this learning stuff just inhibits creativity or some such nonsense.
We could spend weeks trying to figure out what people are talking about, and clarifying specifics, but at the end of the day, what matters here is personalities and playing. It's about who said it, and whether it's fun or not. Stuff survives if the right people say it, whether it's true or not. And stuff like this is too much like going to school and learning the rules, which people here generally tend to despise and mock.
So I'll back out of this one and let everyone get back to posting awesome renders. Which is what is really important.
I'm sorry Joe, but can you make your point without the insulting, broad, over-generalizations please?
You throw out these broad and underhanded insults, and then claim nobody likes you, nobody listens to you, or everybody dismisses what you say. If you want to make this about personalities, then look in the mirror first.
3 0815 - render time 17mins.
What does the number mean?
It looks very nice. A Howie scene? If so, which one?
What does the number mean?
It looks very nice. A Howie scene? If so, which one?
Date - yes part of Stoney Creek
Aww... but come on Joe, I'll have it known that I am here to learn difficult stuff, (like collimated and penumbra) and cure the migraine all that induces by playing with software.....is that a fair mix? :coolsmirk:
Both of these are totally believable! Extremely well done.
Both of these are totally believable! Extremely well done.
Thank you!
It helps to have taken the photos myself so I knew the camera position and focal length and exactly where all the light sources were. :)
Wow! Beautiful render bigh.
EDIT TO ADD: Ok, I lied. THIS is the last render for the weekend. :)
Wow! Beautiful render bigh.
EDIT TO ADD: Ok, I lied. THIS is the last render for the weekend. :)
Very cool!
My Dells scene. Morning mist. No postwork on this one.
like the mist - adds to the mood
Wow! Beautiful render bigh.
EDIT TO ADD: Ok, I lied. THIS is the last render for the weekend. :)
thank you
like the lighting and over all spooky look
http://tourqeglare.deviantart.com/art/Sister-s-Knowledge-III-518330016
Played with SparrowHawk's fresnel to get the soft skin approach. My mind was on the Super Mario Galaxy effect the whole time, lol.
Light postwork. Sunbeams, levels and blur, along with the girls being on a different PS layer due to transparency issues.
The environment looks very good. Michael himself seems a little lacking in shading, I'd like a little more depth to his shadow casting but otherwise I'd say this looks perfect.
thank you Rashad missed this post sorry; actually shadows in carrara is a mess if you try to accomplish a likely realistic light rig, this is where unbiased engines rock; the following are 2 shots one made in thea presto (AO) the other one in carrara; I find the first more realistic but hard to handle for animation purpose; carrara is more workable for post productions imo
Nice work, skin looks good!
Nice to see some work by a Carrara user I'm not familiar with. It looks great. Nice use of the plugin for the skin effect.
I decided to add some buildings to my scene. I should build a dock for it.
Becoming a beautiful piece evil!