Lighting Challenge #9: Neon and Chrome

[sandykoufax]

Thanks for comments, jeremy and yamyam.

This is my second try

I have adjusted camera view and some material and light colors.

but maxwell is not so easy to controll many emitter like this.

http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/9490/neonandchrome2copyah3.jpg

[maxx043]

- a new version

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/6020/cgneonchrome08od4.jpg (http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/6020/cgneonchrome08od4.jpg)

3DS MAX
Mental Ray - FG Low 4-Bounces
CarPaint Shader all other Materials Arch & Design (mia)
Glow - Glare Lume

[jeremybirn]

sandykoufax - Your image hosting server is _very_ slow right now, hard to get the full image to load. It looks from the top of it like you've made progress on the indirect light from the light sources through...

maxx043 - The light from the front of the truck is distracting, it casts such a sharp shadow of the round P sign, and such clear pink highlights on the base of the traffic light, maybe you could soften it and tone it way down, and then get more light motivated by the light sources that are on-set. Try car paint and the traffic light look too similar in tone, try adjusting those. Try to get some reflections onto the front and windshield of the truck, and maybe you should even make those black tinted glass instead of being so clear. The Ente sign and the AUTION sign are a little distracting, you might change the Ente to a red Exit sign, and maybe replace or remove the AUTION.

-jeremy

[sandykoufax]

Sorry, I changed to another server.

[jeremybirn]

sandykoufax - Nice light from the neon tubes on the nearby surfaces, that's real progress. We still don't have different parts of the scene getting different brightness and color from different light sources, though. Look at the ground, inside of the garage, and on the sidewalk outside. They are almost the same. There's no hint of the different color from the flourescent tubes inside vs. the area behind the truck with its red lights vs. the area outside the garage lit by the colored neon. These changes are a key part of the challenge, to not just make a flat gray everywhere.

-jeremy

[Russta]

thanks for the comment jeremy. someone else said the same thing about the intesity of the flair. i got a little shiny happy! here's my second attempt:
http://www.betheridge.dreamhosters.com/tempstore/carFINAL_version2.jpg

[Russta]

just wanted to say, HambergerTrain & Minigorille, thats some great work guys. theres loads of great work here, but you guys really caught my eye :thumbsup:

[arqam]

lovely work!

one question though. . . is there a way to light the scene using the mentalray glow shader in the neons only WITHOUT using lights? and to have those neons cast shadows?

i've been trying to do that in mentalray (3dMAX) but nothing seems to work. all i get is the LOOK of a neon but it neither emits photons nor cast shadows!!

any tips? :)

thanks

[jeremybirn]

Russta - That motion-blur from the tail light is great! Really nice element to include in your scene. The garage seems to be missing some important parts, with floors just hanging out sideways, and could use some texture. Some of the white frosty stuff on the side of the truck could be brought down to reveal more of the look of chrome at night.

arqam - With Final Gather turned on in Mental Ray, any shader that's bright enough will illuminate other surfaces near it. You might need to set the Final Gather Scale to a color with a value higher than 1, or set the shaders to have a very high brightness or high level of incandescence or ambience, but if they are bright enough they will look like light sources. The FG even gets blocked by other geometry, making things that look like shadows.

-jeremy

[snoopyBG]

well, here's mine. hope you like it.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2531/pickup600yr8.jpg (http://imageshack.us/)

full res version : http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9655/pickuppq0.th.jpg (http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pickuppq0.jpg)

[maxx043]

jeremy - thanks for your comments

so here is a new version

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6448/cgneonchrome20xf1.jpg

[tuffmutt1]

Boy this is a tough one! but gonna give it a serious run...
3dsmax and MR.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/6448/trucklighting00100000nl3.jpg

[jmachete]

snoopyBG nice work I like a lot the position of the sun light..:thumbsup:

[Jera]

@ Hamburgertrain, jeremy: thx for the comments! hadnt really noticed about the tubes in tunnel, it's now added to the list of things that need to be tweaked..

@ TiRomain: that is one sweet chrome you have there, btw i like the license plate :P

@ snoopybg: nice work on the textures!

@ yamyam: thanks! very cool render with the sparks. im not so sure about the lensflare tho, maybe using them for only the brightest lightsources could improve the look of it.

@ maxx043: good start! i bet this will look cool when all the textures are done. i think the neon arrows would look better if they are less bright so it can let more of the color through.

[Minigorille]

thanks all for comment's !
this is really a sooooo goood challenge !
it's amazing to see how each pepole render this scene , with personal touch !
:-)

[tuffmutt1]

just the fluorocents on....http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/5771/trucklighting003wipld2.jpg

a closeup of neon reflections.....
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/5691/trucklighting005xy1.jpg

a neon test WIP

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/898/truckneontestwipuk0.jpg


a toppish angle...still not all lights on....WIP

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4562/trucklighting008wipok6.jpg

[jeremybirn]

@snoopyBG - Great scene! Sun lighting looks terrific. The thickness of some of the neon tubes isn't your fault, I guess they just look different in the day. The carpaint shader looks a little too diffuse or not reflective enough to me, I don't see the reflection of the sky in it the way I'd expect. Can you find reference pictures of red carpaint in the morning sun and try to match that?

@maxx043 - Nice! If there are 2 things to work on, it's the flourescent tubes inside the garage (are they on or off?) and the upper right area (maybe swap the illumination and make the outside of the building brighter, unless you want light coming from inside?)

@tuffmutt1 - Good start. It seems like you're still testing a lot of things. The neon tubes will need some ambience or incandescence or something so they look more like light sources.

-jeremy

[snoopyBG]

jeremy, i agree with u partly. Having the car reflective is one way to deal with it, but i've had enough of shiny cars. i wanted to make it look a little more worn than as if it had just left the showroom. i also don't like the tint and the reflections that a cloudy sky adds to the carpaint. Therefore i left the gradient that the sky system made to reflect in the car.

[seedo]

helloooooooo guys:


well i finish my first frame it took an hour and a half to render this pic, i used final render and a very little touch from combustion, i hope u like it and i will post more from another angle soon, so tell me what you think about it?

http://www.sadeed.net/FINAL_RENDER_SHADERS/final_1.jpg

thank u

[StefanAlbertz]

jeremy, i agree with u partly. Having the car reflective is one way to deal with it, but i've had enough of shiny cars. i wanted to make it look a little more worn than as if it had just left the showroom. i also don't like the tint and the reflections that a cloudy sky adds to the carpaint. Therefore i left the gradient that the sky system made to reflect in the car.

Maybe it´s not the amount of reflections, but the high saturation of the red? the orange/reddish sunlight add to that color, so it´s close to burn out. just some amount of reduction could make this appear more real - just a thought. :)

[seedo]

hi guys i render two more frames frpm deferent angle, hope u like it

http://www.sadeed.net/FINAL_RENDER_SHADERS/FINAL0.jpg

http://www.sadeed.net/FINAL_RENDER_SHADERS/FFINAL0000.jpg

[jmachete]

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/7508/final3frontfc8.jpg

comments are welcome :scream:

[Russta]

cheers jeremy, I've made a few changes, can't be bothered to go back to the max files now, so just cosmetic photoshop work. last version of this i think, i'll do something different next time.
great work jmachete btw, makes me feel warm :)
http://betheridge.dreamhosters.com/tempstore/carFINAL_version3.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Russta - As I said, good work!

jmachete - Great scene! Since the inside of the garage is so prominant in the shot, I think it could be defined better. Those columns especially seem very flat and could use more shading and definition. It seems as if there could be more light on the set from the truck's headlights and tail-lights as well.

seedo - Nice scene! The "backwards traffic light" is like nothing I've seen before. :) It looks as if your scene would benefit greatly from softer shadows, and probably some occlusion in the corners and under the truck.

-jeremy

[suchoparek]

Hi, this is my wip: it's noon (well, should be...), texturing is yet to come, please consider only lighting attempt.
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/9136/neonchromelp8.jpg

[tororiental]

hi. all . i can joy for cg talk .please comments.
best regards.


http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/8702/neontive02eg1.jpg

[jeremybirn]

tororiental - Great start! I love the colors! Try to get rid of the specular highlights from the colored lights where they glare on the walls, that gives away that the light isn't really coming from the signs. Try to get more shadows or occlusion under the truck, so the truck blocks some of the red light. If the EXIT sign is giving you trouble, maybe delete it or delete the bad text and replace it with some other sign there?

suchoparek - If you're just going for daylight, at least work on the fill light from the sky, and make some bounce light from where the sun hits the ground. Maybe the glints off the chrome of the truck make some caustics in the shadow areas? Also, check outside at noon tomorrow and see if you got the sun angle right.

-jeremy

[suchoparek]

Maybe tomorrow won't be possible to check outside, there's a Groenland perturbation... ;). Thanks for your tips, I guess I have to make some bounce light into the parking too.

[tuffmutt1]

weekend spent gathering photons...
heres some more test stuff....most of them have glare shader added on to glow some parts.
still working on them neons to get right...but anyways...here it is...http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/3958/chromeneonuksideof8.jpg

I hate that glare on the wall so hopefully i can fix it in the next post.(its not generated by the glare shader...too many clustered photons i guess)
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/825/chromeneonukvertja1.jpg

again toomuch glare on the poster...gonna fix that...:( and the pizza signs a bit faded out.

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/7447/chromeneonukwide2pi2.jpg

lens flare added for the headlghts!

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/3051/chromeneonukwhtcarcy3.jpg

and this ones a heavily color corrected and DOF added in post.

[maxx043]

- thanks for comments

changed the light a little - some Textures
and addes some Details

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/2176/cgneonchrome25bb4.jpg

hope you like it

[Leotril]

Nice work everbody i give some comments later.. I did some work on the scene last week :)
I did have a light setup on my last render i mean a bunch of arealight for the ceiling and also pointlights for the neon but now i increase the V value from HSV on al the neon surfaces shader and tey acually give light this way and i save a lot time on rendering but im still using 2 arealigts for the trucks specular and pointlights here and there.. i notice some noise on the GI setup with colorbleeding (final gather) thats not noticeable using occlussion as the shadowsing in renderman probably incresin more samples will go away/... i addes some fog also using a volume light ,,i hack the trucklights for now sorry.. comments most welcome for next render :)


http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9673/fogjpgvy6.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Leotril - A lot of things look undefined in this version but that's probably because you're still working on them, just keep going...

maxx043 - Nice scene! The reflections in the truck are great, the windows and chrome are looking good, and the reflections in the paint are nice, the color of the car paint looks like a kind of sickly pale pink color, not a color I've seen a truck in. The white lightbulbs around the sign don't look as if they are lighting anything, and the same could be said for some of the flourescent tubes under them, and the green neon around the P.

tuffmutt1 - Nice scene! I especially like the top one with the side view of the truck. It's OK for an illuminated sign to be overexposed a bit in a shot that exposed for a night shot like that.

-jeremy

[tororiental]

tororiental - Great start! I love the colors! Try to get rid of the specular highlights from the colored lights where they glare on the walls, that gives away that the light isn't really coming from the signs. Try to get more shadows or occlusion under the truck, so the truck blocks some of the red light. If the EXIT sign is giving you trouble, maybe delete it or delete the bad text and replace it with some other sign there?


thank you for comments.

i can develop this scene soon. but now i have many works ..well many thank about all models.for study.
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

best regards.

[tuffmutt1]

Thanks for the critic Jeremy.

I made an attempt to recreate the neon sign only using some googled up references.
What i wanna do is to get the same quality of illumination on the neons as against simply glowing it with glare or glow it in post.anyways...will post new renders as soon as i am done torturing my machine some more...LOL!!!http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/672/neoncompareqa0.jpg

ofcourse the one on the right is a photo...
so i am working on getting all the neons as sharp as this one and also the illumination colors seem to change as we can see from yellow neon to red diffuse illumination.

Thanks for the critics again...

[cclarke]

Hi all. This is going to be my first challenge.
Do i just upload my pics as I go and get feedback?
sorry if this sounds ignorant but Ive never done this before.
I haven't got anything to show yet. Will be working on it over the nxt week.
I attach pics at the bottom of the thread aye?
yes.
The quality of work looks outstanding. Im a beginer but lighting is something I want to really get into.
grat to be apart of this challenge.
cheers

[jeremybirn]

tuffmutt1 - Nice post!

cclark - Welcome! Post your work whenever you've got some. Even when people move on from this thread, this challenge will continue to be a valid entry in the On-Going Challenges thread, for people doing any challenge scene. There are more detailed image posting instructions at the top of the challenge 10 thread, I started putting them in every thread now in case people don't read them elsewhere.

-jeremy

[weng888]

hi im weng , am from the philippines .This is my first post . and my first try on lighting challenges #9

will be glad to recieve any comments from you jeremy . thanks .

done in maya useing maya render . with a little tweak in photoshop for adding grain into the shot .

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/4/web/508000-508999/508693_88_full.jpg

[cclarke]

I understand that I wont always get feedback, but do the experts often offer
advice on where we need help?
I guess I'll post and find out.
cheers
cc

Hi all. This is going to be my first challenge.
Do i just upload my pics as I go and get feedback?
sorry if this sounds ignorant but Ive never done this before.
I haven't got anything to show yet. Will be working on it over the nxt week.
I attach pics at the bottom of the thread aye?
yes.
The quality of work looks outstanding. Im a beginer but lighting is something I want to really get into.
grat to be apart of this challenge.
cheers

[weng888]

hi . this is a revision of the first render ,

purely maya render no photoshop tweak on this one .

revised mall map - added incandesence map
revised some spills - on the wall of the garage removed unessesary spills from the light bulbs .
revised rim lights - added some more rim lights to the back tires and back of the truck . and hood of the truck (from the mall map)

total time spent on this project . 5 hrs. + 30 min on revisions .

appeciate all comments thanks .

here is the image

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/4/web/508000-508999/508693_89_full.jpg
(http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s275/weng_888/challenge9_v02_800_600.jpg?t=1174792712)

[weng888]

sorry i am new to photobucket

here is the image . i mensioned above ..

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s275/weng_888/challenge9_v02_800_600.jpg?t=1174793656

sorry again .

[Leotril]

heres 2 new shots .. i hope to add some street texture and lamps for my next render also im trieng blur on reflections no comp this time i forgot to add glow .. C&C most welcome

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/198/74838211wr3.jpg
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/5166/28067309rr4.jpg

[jeremybirn]

weng888 - Nice job! Maybe there could be more colored light behind the truck, from its tail lights and the traffic light in the center (just because you can't see the light source doesn't mean you shouldn't see the light...)

Leotril - It's hard to say much based on those blocky test renders, but it looks as if there's way too much raytraced reflection, making most surfaces look mirror-like, but not much illumination coming from all the different colored light sources.

-jeremy

[Leotril]

@jeremy.. i kinda loose objective during the testing light process ill see what u mean now when i look at my previous render images i been kinda lousy with textures so ill work on that too..

later

[weng888]

weng888 - Nice job! Maybe there could be more colored light behind the truck, from its tail lights and the traffic light in the center (just because you can't see the light source doesn't mean you shouldn't see the light...)


-jeremy

noted , will add those as soon as i get on my computer later . will post revised copy after .. thanks .

- sher :)

[maxx043]

- thanks for comments

yea - the Light Bulbs dont get the Glow
so I reworked the Glow on all Neon signs

I think this is my final Version and I call it "Last Exit"

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/2939/cgneonchrome29gn9.jpg

[jeremybirn]

maxx043 - It's not about which things have a glow effect, it's really about the lighting. If the things that are supposed to be light bulbs were really emitting light, then the surfaces near them would be lit by that light. The shades around neon tubes would be bright if the neon tubes within them were turned on, for example. Ah well, nice job on the challenge! I like the way you added a little dead guy and the cracks in the windshield.

-jeremy

[weng888]

light challenge #9 revision v.03

added green lights effect of the stop light and red break lights .

-sher

jeremy ,

thanks for pointing out the back lights . i really missed those . i added it already just very suttle just to have a hint of green and red on the walls . green light on the car is a bit prominent though . figured its closer to the source .

will much appreciate more comments . thanks

anyways here is the revised version of it .

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/4/web/508000-508999/508693_90_full.jpg

-sher

[cclarke]

Hi there. Ive started to shade and light the truck.
Im having a problem with the chrome front "fender?" .
the steel "grill" part of truck.
I like the chrome Im getting for the wheels. and Ive used same shader for
the front but Im not getting that steel chrome reflection i need.
Ive attached the car and the shader .
can I get some advice on what to do to get a more chrome steel front grill?
Cheers.
I havent planed my lighting yet so it looks alitlle rough.
cheers
cc
ps How do I put my pics into the thread so they arnt little thumb nails?

[weng888]

cc ,

try adjusting the value of the ramp . i believe you piped the envsphere to the reflection color attr . so the colors that you see are the once from the the ramp .

try to increace the reflectivity value . make sur the defuse is set to 0 . max out spec roll off and spec color .

if these settings still dont work then try to adjust the 3d placement node , try to tweak you uvs . and tone down your light a little .

my two cent only .

-sher -

[jeremybirn]

cclarke - Try to use real raytraced reflections of the environment, instead of environment maps, for your reflections. You might need to create an extra polygon texture mapped with a building at night or night scene or something to put in front of the truck for the front reflections, but there's already enough geometry in the scene for the reflections from the back, side, and top I think. Once you get the neon working, why not use raytraced reflections of the neon?

weng888 - Nice job. If you wanted to fix up the materials and textures, you could do a lot more work there, that red surface with the black grid doesn't really look like anything yet, and the car paint seems to have a lot of diffuse instead of being more glossy in areas like the hood. You might get the lighting in the upper right area to ramp off in a nice gradient. If you wanted to fix up the lighting on the screen-right side signs, there'd by blue light from the blue neon tube and maybe a more even glow instead of just stripes from the vertical flourescent tubes.

-jeremy

[weng888]

weng888 - Nice job. If you wanted to fix up the materials and textures, you could do a lot more work there, that red surface with the black grid doesn't really look like anything yet, and the car paint seems to have a lot of diffuse instead of being more glossy in areas like the hood. You might get the lighting in the upper right area to ramp off in a nice gradient. If you wanted to fix up the lighting on the screen-right side signs, there'd by blue light from the blue neon tube and maybe a more even glow instead of just stripes from the vertical flourescent tubes.

-jeremy
jeremy , i didnt really pay much attention on the building's texture. but i think the car paint looks alright for me a bit more shine it will look like brand new and wet.

neon blue lights i'll try to correct . but the other two , gradience for the light bulb on the upper right may not look natural if i put gadiency on it, its just a little area that it is illuminating . .. vertical florecent tubes on the small sign ? do you prefer my first version with an even backlight glow (maybe a toned down version of it ,,)or maintain the florecent tubes ,i dont quit get you there ?

-sher

[cclarke]

Thanks for advice. I will try toinight after work and post.
I love this stuff.
cheers.
cc

[cclarke]

your two cents are priceless bro. Thanks.
I'll try these tonight.
I new my light setup is wrong anyway..
would it be wise to use a different shader for each part of chrome bits?
I mean 1 shader for the wheels, and one for the front grill\roll bar thingi.?
cc

cc ,

try adjusting the value of the ramp . i believe you piped the envsphere to the reflection color attr . so the colors that you see are the once from the the ramp .

try to increace the reflectivity value . make sur the defuse is set to 0 . max out spec roll off and spec color .

if these settings still dont work then try to adjust the 3d placement node , try to tweak you uvs . and tone down your light a little .

my two cent only .

-sher -

[weng888]

your two cents are priceless bro. Thanks.
I'll try these tonight.
I new my light setup is wrong anyway..
would it be wise to use a different shader for each part of chrome bits?
I mean 1 shader for the wheels, and one for the front grill\roll bar thingi.?
cc

use as much shader as you like cc . it will give you more control but the downside is you have to tweak all of them when you want a different look . i mean all of them . so it really depends of you bro. control or convenience .... ??? you call is as good as mine .. sometimes i do that with a lightless scene so i can control the ambiant and incandesence of each shader .

-sher

[jeremybirn]

weng888 - All I meant by a gradient in the upper right is making the upper right corner of the image fade darker as you move away from all these lights. Yes smooth back-lighting would look better on the sign than vertical bars, usually even if there are vertical tubes behind a sign the glass is frosted or translucent to you can see the sign clearly not just the tubes behind it. Don't worry about either of these things if you don't want to, I'm just providing feedback.

-jeremy

[weng888]

weng888 - All I meant by a gradient in the upper right is making the upper right corner of the image fade darker as you move away from all these lights. Yes smooth back-lighting would look better on the sign than vertical bars, usually even if there are vertical tubes behind a sign the glass is frosted or translucent to you can see the sign clearly not just the tubes behind it. Don't worry about either of these things if you don't want to, I'm just providing feedback.

-jeremy

jeremy, was just being frank in expressing what i thought my appologies .. for what its worth i think your feedback is great and will try your suggestions soon ..

-sher

[cclarke]

Hi jeremy. I have a question about how to get the reflection of the neon onto
say the bonet and sides of the truck.
Ive raytraced a pass with the MR car paint shader and i get crazy swirly reflection
of something that isn't the neon in scene.
Ive always had a problem of just where to put my lights.
and how to get a reflection from the neon is a classic problem I keep coming across.
can u shed some "light" on what Im doing wrong?
cheers.
Your'll see how theres crazy reflections all ove r the truck.
cc

cclarke - Try to use real raytraced reflections of the environment, instead of environment maps, for your reflections. You might need to create an extra polygon texture mapped with a building at night or night scene or something to put in front of the truck for the front reflections, but there's already enough geometry in the scene for the reflections from the back, side, and top I think. Once you get the neon working, why not use raytraced reflections of the neon?

weng888 - Nice job. If you wanted to fix up the materials and textures, you could do a lot more work there, that red surface with the black grid doesn't really look like anything yet, and the car paint seems to have a lot of diffuse instead of being more glossy in areas like the hood. You might get the lighting in the upper right area to ramp off in a nice gradient. If you wanted to fix up the lighting on the screen-right side signs, there'd by blue light from the blue neon tube and maybe a more even glow instead of just stripes from the vertical flourescent tubes.

-jeremy

[snoopyBG]

when is the challenge due to end? just asking.

[cclarke]

I have a slilly looking neon reflection but i feel I getting somewhere slowly.
Im trying to get the paint to be reflective first.
still cant seem to work out how to get a real effective neon light FX.
heres lastest pic.
cc

[jeremybirn]

cclarke - Maybe to simplify the reflections, create a primitive sphere and place that around where the truck is. Hide the truck, give the sphere a reflective material, and be sure not to do any environment mapping or anything else, so it's just a raytraced reflection. Look at what's reflected in the primitive sphere as you go forwards with lighting and shading the environment around it, and if it all looks good, so will a reflective truck. I think you are doing things with reflection mapping or environment mapping that are pulling you away from seeing a raytraced reflection on each surface of the geometry that's right around it.

snoopyBG - I expect the challenge to keep going at least for the rest of this decade, maybe much longer. Probably you should post in the On-Going Challenges thread, we are consolidating posts for all the pre-existing challenges into that one thread, so that everyone can post in a place that has high traffic and people will see and respond to your work more. Next weekend when I make a gallery for this thread I'll lock it and start redirected people to post in the Ongoing Challenges thread for all their new images.

-jeremy

[Jera]

so finally had some time to fix a few things and do some tweaks, i made a different color scheme aswell.
i tried adding some other effects like heat distortion above the hood of car but i couldnt get the look i was going for so i left that out, just like the insects flying around the outside lights which i had planned, so i think this is final.

http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/5195/lighting9v1tx3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/6708/lighting9v2ia7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

i just want to add that this was a great subject for a lighting challenge, ive seen lots of good stuff and learned a few things along way and i hope that goes for everyone!

[jeremybirn]

Jera - Great job! Congratulations. Your post reminds me that I need to put together a gallery for this challenge soon. :)

-jeremy

[cclarke]

sorry for sounding ignorant but i really want to understand how raytracing and reflection works.
The chrome shader I had on the wheels and grill areas had an envioment map.
are you saying dont use these?
should I use a phong meterial?
I had a blinn on the truck with no envioment mapping at all.
I also dont have a envionment map surrounding the scene.
the effect I get with the chrome wheels I like but are u saying try a reflective material
and let the raytraceing sort out the chrome FX?
I tryed the sphere trick and still had no results of reflected neon arrows etc.
I'm starting again and will post my result.
Thanks for help jeremy/
cc


cclarke - Maybe to simplify the reflections, create a primitive sphere and place that around where the truck is. Hide the truck, give the sphere a reflective material, and be sure not to do any environment mapping or anything else, so it's just a raytraced reflection. Look at what's reflected in the primitive sphere as you go forwards with lighting and shading the environment around it, and if it all looks good, so will a reflective truck. I think you are doing things with reflection mapping or environment mapping that are pulling you away from seeing a raytraced reflection on each surface of the geometry that's right around it.

snoopyBG - I expect the challenge to keep going at least for the rest of this decade, maybe much longer. Probably you should post in the On-Going Challenges thread, we are consolidating posts for all the pre-existing challenges into that one thread, so that everyone can post in a place that has high traffic and people will see and respond to your work more. Next weekend when I make a gallery for this thread I'll lock it and start redirected people to post in the Ongoing Challenges thread for all their new images.

-jeremy

[cclarke]

Hi there jeremey. Im not mapping any envioments onto materials and I think Its starting
to get somewhere,
I no that the neon is over bearing on the main arrows and I dont have any light source
on the truck.
I just used a simple phong metal type meterial for chrome and the raytracing is working nice
with thoise areas.
Ive got to call it a night but if u g=could give some feed back I'd be greatfull.
Im also trying so depth of feild.
still have alot of atmosphere to add into background.
But thaNKS for advice.
is it getting better?
please dont take into account the actual truck colors yet.
cheers.
cc

[jeremybirn]

cclark -

Yes, focus on getting all your reflective surfaces to reflect other objects, and get rid of environment maps or any tricks you might not even need. I look at the side of your truck and I don't see the chrome or the paint reflecting what's right next to it or the ground or anything. That funny white line on the side muffler still looks like something you mapped on, not a reflection of the sign next to it. Also focus on getting all your lights to cast shadows. Right now there is a lot of strange light that is showing up in places it shouldn't, and objects don't all seem to be shadowing. My best advice would be not to add anything slow or fancy like DOF, atmosphere, etc. until you have 100% debugged the shadowing and reflections. If you have a problem with raytraced reflections in your software, maybe test on a simplified scene with a few spheres until you are 100% sure you can make all the reflective surfaces reflective.

-jeremy

[ahven]

I tried to open Cinema 4D file with my v. 9.6 but I'm prompted about Unknown File.
I suppose you have saved in version 10?

[cclarke]

I know that i should be doing any fancy DOF. But jeremy all my shaders are straight materials with no mapping in reflection colour.
theres no evionment sphere around scene.
I will carry on until its right.
Do u segust setting up lights fist?
I know my lights are wrong atthis stage. should I approach the lighting situation as if it was real world?
meaning put lights where they would be in cinema car park?
The "chrome on mufflers is just a phong with high reflective. NO MAPPING.
when u say mapping you mean putting a texture or envionment node into the reflective node
aye?
I was to start with but after your first suggestions not to I havent.
I'll do some full on test first ok.
also Im using maya software renderer no MR. would u say to use MRay? or stick with software renderer?

Im at work now so I'll start testing when I get ho,e and post results.
THANK MAN.
come to NZ. its a cool place.
cc




cclark -

Yes, focus on getting all your reflective surfaces to reflect other objects, and get rid of environment maps or any tricks you might not even need. I look at the side of your truck and I don't see the chrome or the paint reflecting what's right next to it or the ground or anything. That funny white line on the side muffler still looks like something you mapped on, not a reflection of the sign next to it. Also focus on getting all your lights to cast shadows. Right now there is a lot of strange light that is showing up in places it shouldn't, and objects don't all seem to be shadowing. My best advice would be not to add anything slow or fancy like DOF, atmosphere, etc. until you have 100% debugged the shadowing and reflections. If you have a problem with raytraced reflections in your software, maybe test on a simplified scene with a few spheres until you are 100% sure you can make all the reflective surfaces reflectivity.
should I be playing with refractions?
I'll do some serious tests with the sphere.
Im also using maya software at this stage. Would that be a safe option instead of MRay?
Look I really love the help man.
thanks.
cc

-jeremy

[cclarke]

Hi J. I was practicing at work using non mapping reflections on a job so I could transfur what i learnt onto challenge.
Can I post a sample I did of a job and ask same questions relating to raytracing and reflections?
Im going to anyway, sorry.
ok. I put a sphere around the geometry and added a file to reflect onto geo.
The meterial on the geo is a blinn only.
I put a sphere infront of plate with a surface shader and lots of glow just to see if
I would get a glow reflection. No i didn't.
I got a raytraced relection of the sphere so thats something i guess.
Is this the right approach ios what Im asking.
But how do I het nice soft glows to reflect?
anyway i'll post the truck tonoight when I get home.
thank you jeremy.
cc

[Goksimaster]

Hi I am new here :) . when I sow my friend d4rk3lf I couldn't resist but to join in.
This is the first pas of light (moonlight) it;s pure maya softver no mr :scream: :thumbsup: . I am thinking to go on mr later but only because I can't use reflection blur with maya softver
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e217/goksimaster/test1.jpg
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e217/goksimaster/test11.jpg

[jeremybirn]

cclark - I think it's your shadows that are missing from reflections, maybe you have the ray depth limit set too low on some of your raytraced shadows? Or number of shadows too low in Render Settings? Maya's shader glows are a post-process, they aren't supposed to appear in reflections. Probably the easiest way around this is to add specular lights that look like glows in a reflection.

kraphik - Try importing another file format like .obj

-jeremy

[ahven]

kraphik - Try importing another file format like .obj

-jeremy

Thanks it works just great.

[weng888]

just my two cents cc,

raytracing - is when the camera picks up the light bounced from an object and anything the light see in your scene hence the word traceing of rays .

blin material chrome .

diffuse - 0
ecentrisity - .08
spec roll off - max
spec color - max
reflectivity - max
then leave everything to default .

assign to your bumper . then put a cube right in front of the car to test reflectivity .

*simple sphere test .
1. make 2 spheres and make one larger about 3 time the other .
2. assign blin chrome to the inner sphere .
3. assign lambert texture to the bigger sphere . make ambiant to almost 30% tp 50%, assign a checker texture on it.
4. focus your camera on the small sphere . make sure you have your camera inside the bigger sphere .( or just select the small ball and press f)
5. make sure on your render globals set it to production quality and turn on raytraceing .

you should have a simple chrome test .

the the same thing with the car bumper of the truck . like the simple test ray is sent from the lcamera to the small ball to the big ball , back to the small ball , then to the collected by the camea . hence you see the small ball with the reflection of the big ball .

so just apply this to your scene then vwalla .

hope this helped .

- sher

[cclarke]

appriciate all the help from you all.
Im a beginner and I love lighting and want to be great at it.
can you maybe advise me on how to place my lights??
thats the other thing i get confussed with.
should i put say a point light on every phloresent set that are inside the building?
do I make a light look as if theres a treet lamp somewhere close to the truck??
Its something i really struggle with cause I see some guys put lights in weird places.
anyway any advice is welcome bro,
cheers.
cc
ps just tryed the blinn example u gave me. I found a phong to be better results.
But dude my lighting is all WRONG.
Im going to spend tomorrow sorting out my light sources and figur it out properly.
The pictures Ive seen so far are ###### awesome.
but Im starting to understand raytracing.
I now need to understand how to light a night scene properly,
thganks all for Two cents worth bro. its worth much more ok.
cher.
cc

[cclarke]

right. I hope you all at=ren't getting abit bored with me here.
Im a real noviced with 3d and want to really improve.
I appriciate all your help.
here's my new set up.
ok I know its no where near where I need to go. But at least I have finaly got some reflections coming off the car.
I have 3lights set up at this stage and thats my nemisis for sure.
I have a point light in the back of parking light.
one spot light infront of car park and ay a distance to simulate night light i guess.
another spot light to the left of the truck because I thought there would be a street light or something. also I have an area light hitting the side of building where exit sign is.
to add some atmosphere. I know its blowing out.
I get confused as to where to piut lights and what type. also should I always use a surface shader for neon? should I have a light for each phloresent lights in car park?
should there also be a light on the neon?
I lot of questions i know but Im trying to figur this out m selkf as well.
Im spending hours on it actually.
and weng888 the shader works well I think.
I did use a phong instead though but i thought it work awesomelly.
anyway If i could get some Ideas about lighting a scene I'd be really appriciative.
cheers.
cc

[Goksimaster]

Litle update :thumbsup:
give me some cc
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e217/goksimaster/TEST2.jpg

[jeremybirn]

cclarke - For lights just start with lights coming from the lights you see in the shot, like the colored signs and the truck headlights. Headlights are probably spot lights. Light from the signs could be spotlights too for the light aiming away from the sign, if you use light sources to get the neon tubes to illuminate the wall right next to them that could be little spot or point lights, or else you could use Final Gathering for that. Later, you might want to add more lights for what you imagine behind the truck (tail lights for example) or off behind the camera. It looks like you have some reflections in the car paint, although I can't tell if you have shadows appearing in reflections. The chrome doesn't appear to be reflective though.

Goksimaster - I'm glad you've got different regions of the image in different lighting, that's a good start. You'll need to soften the edges of that light in the fog, but I'm sure you'll get to details like that as you move forwards.

-jeremy

[cclarke]

Thanks again man. u proberbly get sick of that phrase.
anyway.
I will play with the reflectivity of the chrome some more ofcaourse.
Jeremy why do people use reflection maps so much when u say not to???
we are talking about say a blinn and putting an envionment map into the reflective color?
is that what you ment by not using relection maps???
cause my chrome was reall chromie with that type of shader.
anyway just wanting to know the why's really.
I went to a bad school that charge me my first born child on its 21st birthday.
thats for lighting tips dude.
I love these challanges man.
cc from NZ.
come to NZ, the land of middle earth.

[Goksimaster]

the best result are when you use reflection maps and raytrace reflection. In this scen it will be the best thing because there is no sky and other side of scene that will be reflected.

You scholud try to use reflection blur , but to use that you will have to use mental ray render as a render . when you go to blin option there will be a menatl ray chapter where you can play with that. O and it's realy expencive.

jeremybirn:
Tnaks for the cc I wiill try to make it smotherr and play with the lighting more

[cclarke]

see this is where IUm getting a bit confussed cause jeremy said not to use reflection
maps and use materials and raytrace to get reflrctions from the scene,
I have some pretty cool shaders with rflection ramps for chrome but changed then to a phong with high reflection low difusse etc. worked well.
so now are you suggesting creating a envionment sphere with a texture and use that for reflections??
I love Mental ray but im also liking the results Im geting using jememys suggestions.
would u use a envionmebt sphere, env ball, env sphere, env cube etc?
I think I'll play with all of your guys suggestions cause Im learning heaps.
please keep telling me if Im mucking up or doing well.
I can take real hard out critisism.
thank

[Leotril]

hi craig.. you should go ahead an try with raytrace use the preview setting in mental ray for maya if ur using that is kinda fast.. with raytracing ur getting reflections from objects in the scene also the neon reflections in the car ..witha an env sphere ull get reflections fron the sky into the car .. give it a try ok, also make the other render without raytrace..u can get good results with shading only also

good luck :thumbsup:

[Goksimaster]

Wheel reflection ramps for chrome are ysed when you have Sterile image like car on the with surface and everything around is wight so you have to fake reflection. I am not saying that it wolud not give better result. I recomend you fined some good hdri night picture and use it as a reflection map :thumbsup: and of course tray with ramp...

You can use enviremont cube with different grayscale on the facees it's like ramp can be even better.

[ahven]

Here's my first WIP

[jeremybirn]

kraphik - Welcome! Can't really talk about lighting yet, but keep going!

-jeremy

[ahven]

ok. Well now there's some lights that cast shadows too. :)

[jeremybirn]

kraphik - I don't think all those razor-sharp shadows add much. Try to think about where the light is coming from, especially for a scene that has so many signs and lights that should be glowing, and make your light come from the light sources. You need much softer shadows on your lights, too, for the light that comes from larger signs or tubes.

-jeremy

[ahven]

kraphik - I don't think all those razor-sharp shadows add much. Try to think about where the light is coming from, especially for a scene that has so many signs and lights that should be glowing, and make your light come from the light sources. You need much softer shadows on your lights, too, for the light that comes from larger signs or tubes.

-jeremy

Perhaps less lights is better. The light which is on the sidewalk is perhaps too bright. I've used also raytraced shadows which usually are very sharp. I think my problem is now that I have too much light coming from the right side and the shadow settings are with raytrace. In cinema 4d there's option to select from raytrace or soft shadows. However I haven't tweaked any details of the shadows yet. Perhaps I can adjust the "sharpness" of my shadows somehow.

[Russta]

hey jeremy, is there going to be a gallery for this challenge?

[jeremybirn]

hey jeremy, is there going to be a gallery for this challenge?

It would have been done last week if I were less busy.

Ratatouille will come out on time. My webpage will be updated late.

-jeremy

[seedo]

hello:

hi guys, i have a question
which the most beautiful picture thats been post for this challenge, can you give me three?

thank u

[cclarke]

Hi there. I think Im starting to get an understanding of where to
put my lights. well some.
I just starting lighting the scene from scratch again to get a freah start.
so theres still reall dark and unlit bits.
what I'd like to know is how do u light the Phloresent light areas to make the area they
are in look realistic?
Ive tryed a area light pointing up at the celling. an ambient light turned right down.
any ideas would be great.
Im still going to get this right.
cheers.
cc

[jeremybirn]

cclark -

Start your lighting with lights from the visible lights in the scene: truck headlights, neon. For the flourescent you need to fill in the reflectors above the tubes so the tubes don't look like white stripes on black. Then for the illumination from the tubes, think about filling in the interior of the garage in general, with some of the light spilling out through to door onto part of the street, you could do this with spotlights inside the garage aiming out and casting shadows. Eventually you might make a glow around all the bright lights during compositing, too, but get rid of the little cross-shaped optical effect on that light on the left, a more subtle glow would probably work better and should only be around the brighter lights.

-jeremy

[cclarke]

dude thanks. I understand about the opticalFX thing. Its easy to think that it suits the situation when infact its unrealistic.
I have got spot lights coming out from the interior like you suggested.
Im going to start again with your suggestions,
cheers.
cc

cclark -

Start your lighting with lights from the visible lights in the scene: truck headlights, neon. For the flourescent you need to fill in the reflectors above the tubes so the tubes don't look like white stripes on black. Then for the illumination from the tubes, think about filling in the interior of the garage in general, with some of the light spilling out through to door onto part of the street, you could do this with spotlights inside the garage aiming out and casting shadows. Eventually you might make a glow around all the bright lights during compositing, too, but get rid of the little cross-shaped optical effect on that light on the left, a more subtle glow would probably work better and should only be around the brighter lights.

-jeremy

[cclarke]

Thanks man I'll gve it a go. My main concern is where to put my light sources,
and where are they coming from?
u know what I mean?
I want a night scene, and of course there would be lamp street lights(I assume here actually)
what ever light Im putting in front of my truck just makes it glow like mad.
anyway I'll make a plan and keep at it.
cheers for your suggestions Leotril.
cc

hi craig.. you should go ahead an try with raytrace use the preview setting in mental ray for maya if ur using that is kinda fast.. with raytracing ur getting reflections from objects in the scene also the neon reflections in the car ..witha an env sphere ull get reflections fron the sky into the car .. give it a try ok, also make the other render without raytrace..u can get good results with shading only also

good luck :thumbsup:

[doodlerboy]

did anybody else grind there teeth when un wrapping this truck? lol. I'm doing it right now and boy it is hard. haha. Jeremy I saw a new trailer for Ratatouille the lighting is amazing. I'll show yo my truck render sometime next week. Im just lighting and rendering the truck instead of the whole scene. I wanted to focus on mainly lighting a truck.

[islaSyr]

This is my first result after about 10 days of serious work.

I've rendered it in max9 using MentalRay with Arch & Design materials for most objects and textures from "TotalTextures".
Finally I used the photoshop to add some color correction and visual effects.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s201/hosam_uddin/Car.jpg
I hope u like it.

I appreciate any comment.

[jeremybirn]

islaSyr -

I love it!

It looks like you put some extra time and effort into things like the custom paintjob on the truck, and it really paid off! I'm glad you got it in today, because I'm working on the gallery for this challenge now, too. :)

Since you're clearly a very dedicated artist, I'll give you some nitpicky feedback on the lighting as well. Overall your lighting is working. One thing that people work on in movies is getting different areas of the scene to look as if they are illuminated by different colors and tones of lighting. For example, if the left side of the shot is inside a parking garage, and the wall towards the right is outside, the inside might have been lit by flourescent bulbs with a dull greenish color, or incandescents with a warm red or yellow, but then that color would change by the time you got outside, when there could be streetlights or a dull blue glow from the sky and moonlight, but there should be some difference in the way the gray walls look as the walls move into different areas. Once you get outside, the walls facing 90-degrees away from eachother often pick up different mixes of lighting as well. The other concern is that some surfaces like the door behind the truck, and maybe some of the diagonal stripes on the warning bars, might be going into too dark a black. Usually almost any surface can usually reflect at least 15 or 20% of the light that hits it, so that way only the areas that are most darkly lit by your lights will go that dark.

-jeremy

[brro]

dear husam....good but not excelent work:shrug:....i think you got to study the lighting essentials from the real world then try to spot it to the 3d world....your lighting technique not that rocket sience....because you depend your work all of it on the built in shaders and the mental ray logarithms....try to read the "painting with light" book....may be try the tutorials that came with MAX....it have some good advices...also read the lighting help that came with max too...

in the end the textures.....try to make your textures by your own hand.

[seedo]

islaSyri love it 7lo kteeer.

i hope we will become friends am proud of u

[titanwong31]

I hope that i am not too late for this challenge. Here it goes my render. Hope you like it. Critics and comments are welcomed.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w62/khaituck/neon_chrome.jpg

[jeremybirn]

titanwong31 - Nice job! Looks like something out of Blade Runner. The light sources (flourescent tubes and neon tubes and light bulbs) don't really look as if they are illuminating the surfaces near them, though. For example, the flourescent tubes don't seem to brighten their own lampshading, and the bulbs and neon don't brighten the wall they are mounted on.

-jeremy

[titanwong31]

Tq for the comment. That images was render then comp with another glow pass. I did it by applying UseBG shader to everything except those neon,bulb that are emitting glow, because of that the glow dinnot brighten up anything tat is near by. Can i know what is the proper way to get the glow pass seperately?

Beside that i also face a problem, i found that mentalray shader will create some weird additional part alpha on the object apply to, and that disallow me to save it as other format,except JPEG. This does happen to me on the carbody,as i am using mentalray car paint shader.

Below is the image that i render together with the glow and it work. Hope you will like it.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w62/khaituck/neon_chrome01.jpg

[jeremybirn]

titanwong1 -

That's plenty of glow. It doesn't seem as if the neon and bulbs are illuminating the surfaces near them. If you're using Mental Ray, then Final Gathering allows for this to happen, you might need to turn the Final Gather Scale up to a luminance of 2 or 3 before it works (or turn the color of your neon shaders up to a value above 1), but either way all of your bright shaders will illuminate nearby surfaces. If you don't want to use Final Gather, then you could also use a lot of lights, positioning colored lights near the colored signs, but Final Gather is much easier to get working for this.

-jeremy

[Senticus]

Hi! This is my first entry - the result of about (summarized) a week of work.
Rendered with 3ds max +vray, glow added in video post and ambient occlusion pass for better contrast.
I'll be happy to hear your comments.
Sen.

http://images.resource-parade.com/N+C_camera09.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Senticus - Nice job! I like the autumn colors and the reflections!

-jeremy

[titanwong31]

jeremy-- Tq for the tip. It is very useful for me. I am using incandecent for neon tubes and bulbs, after i increase final gather scale up to value 3, it does brighten up area near to them better.
Below is the update.


http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w62/khaituck/neon_chrome02.jpg

[jeremybirn]

titanwong31 -

I'm glad you're getting that working, the illum from the neon is a really key part of the scene. The whole scene is looking very bright, overexposed in places, maybe it's my fault from asking for more light from the neon all the time, but there is too much overall light in the scene. If you can turn down some of the otherall lighting it might help. Also, if you want to boost the final gather contribution from a neon tube, you could try turning the incandescent color up to a Value of 3 or 4, or higher, and then you might not need the overall FG scale up this high.

A good test of the lighting is to look under the truck, or where the truck tire touches the ground, and see if you have enough shadowing (or occlusion) to darken the ground realistically there. If there is a light in your scene that doesn't cast shadows, then that could be leaking through and making the ground under the truck look unrealistically bright.

-jeremy

[titanwong31]

jeremy-- Tq once again for those tips. Now i balance up final gather scale up value with incandescent colour value, as well as the intensity from the flourescent light.

In movie Cars, how does those blinking neon being done? Is it done by keying the incandescent colour or doing it in compositing? Cause i intend to try out some animation for the neon blinking.

I found that mentalray shader will create some weird additional part alpha on the object apply to, and that disallow me to save it as other format (example TGA because it will have some alpha on the reflected car surface),except JPEG. This does happen to me on the carbody,as i am using mentalray car paint shader. Any idea to fix this problem?


http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w62/khaituck/neon_chrome03.jpg

[jeremybirn]

titanwong31 -

Great job! It has a real "Bladerunner" look to it.

-jeremy

[titanwong31]

Jeremy--TQ for all your patience and teaching. Lighting challenge is a great way to practise and learn a lot of thing, from modeling, texturing, lighting, dynamic, and even technical stuff. I learn and improve alot from here. All lighting challenge is really benefit everyone from all over the world and connecting each other under one roof.

I have try animated the neon tubes light and light bulbs. I did the off part on them by turning off the incandescent and glow. Here it goes my animated neon and chrome in gif format, quality is not that good. Be patience, it might take some time to fully load. Hope you all will like it. Comments and critics are most welcomed.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w62/khaituck/neon_chrome_animated.gif

[Glacierise]

Hi guys!

This is a great challenge, learned quite a lot working on it for a few days! Great submissions so far, here's mine:

http://cravenous.com/NeonAndChromeChallenge_comp.jpg

Artist: Hristo Velev
Software: 3DS Max, Mental Ray, Digital Fusion
Country: Bulgaria

Thanks!

[doodlerboy]

I know this is off the subject and nto about the neon challenge but I wanted to ask you Jeremy and anybody else who is in the industry, mainly Jeremy. Poly counts. My friend wants me to keep all my stuff under 150 poly's and that's how it is in the industry and I shouldn't put any of my models on my portfolio becuase there appareantly too high. Is that true for ply counts in the industry? I've seen alot of professional work out there and their stuff is high poly. I've seen a few stuff in pixar and their stuff has more ply counts than all my work combined. lol.

[Glacierise]

Hi,

\\off
The only field where polycount is restriction is games - they need to render realtime, cooperating with the GPU and the pipeline isn't endlessly wide :) But with offline software rendering there is no such problem.

Let's try to keep the discussion in the right places, shall we? ;)

\\off

[andystopps]

Doodlerboy - IMHO, your question re. poly count is entirely relevant here, since we have finite time for rendering, and finite soft- and hardware resources with which to do it. Therefore we have to make all sorts of decisions on a case-by-case basis, such as, "If I reduce the LOD for a background object, will this reduce the quality of the rendered image, and if so, is it worth it if, by so doing I free up resources to use for some other, more important feature ?". Maybe bump or displacement mapping can do the job just as well, with less render time than using modelled detail. Or maybe not - displacement mapped surfaces can be considerable slower to render than their modeled equivalents. So I suppose the answer to your question really is, "Not too many, not too few, just enough".

[RazorJack]

And here is my attempt at this challange :)
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/821/bla1hv6.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bla1hv6.jpg)
Rendered in 20 mins with vray and then some finish up in photoshop.

[jeremybirn]

titanwong31 - Nice job on the animation. If you do another animated version you can just post a link to it instead of the animation itself.

Glacierise - Nice job! If I were making suggestions, I'd say some of the textures look very deeply bump mapped, especially on the road, more color mapping, more reflections and highlights, and less deep bump maps might help. Also, the lighting seems to use a fairly consistent fill color inside the garage, outside, and in the headlights, if the different areas could have different colors and tones motivated by the different light sources it would make for a more interesting image.

doodlerboy - I guess that efficiency in general matters. Employers might want to see wireframes and care about the poly count and topology and how things were built. But even a game developer might want a modeler would could build things more detailed, so showing off your more complex models in your portfolio sounds like a good idea, even if the only hi-poly models some developer ever made were for the box art or for baking normal maps. Not that I'm an expert on any of this, I never worked in games or focused on that stuff myself.

RazorJack - Nice job! The texture on the road could be taken further, maybe with more reflection or color map of asphalt? You have some nice indirect light in some places, maybe the neon tubes on the wall don't look as if they are emitting very much light to illuminate the wall near them.

-jeremy

[Glacierise]

Yes, Mr Birn, sir! :D I guessed about the overdone bumps myself, and the different light tone in the different parts of the environment is a great approach! Lesson learned!

And huge thanks to you, for taking the lead in this forum! I'm starting a camp here :D

[snoopyBG]

Hey, what's up with the gallery? When will you have time to arrange it? I hope it'll be soon. :)

[jeremybirn]

The gallery is on-line for this challenge:

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/neonandchrome/index.htm

If anyone wants a correction made (such as if you didn't use your full name on cgtalk and want your name corrected) please PM me.

[jeremybirn]

This is an old challenge now, this thread is archived. If you scroll down to the Challenge #9 section of the downloads page, you'll see that the models can still be downloaded for your tests, and also that a gallery has been made of top entries. Feel free to browse this thread to see what others have posted, even though you can no longer post here.

-jeremy