A light exercise

[ssyed]

I think it looks great!!! how'd u achive that effect? don't use Maya but wondering.. the light shining through pillars... maybe lens flare + volume light?

[RogerM3D]

looks nice to me. A bigger picture would be nice, because you cant see a whole lot of detail. overall the lifght looks very nicly done

[silvia]

Wow thank you for the compliments!
You are right, the picture ended up being a bit small, but I was trying to keep it below the max size to post images on this forum. I will post the next a bit bigger, maybe by rendering at lower resolution.
The light between the pillars is done by having what should be glass being instead a highly translucent and reflecting material
with area lights behind and in front of it, and by giving it a glow.
You said you don't use Maya; what do you use?

[Dave Black]

Looks very nice.

Just so you know, you can post a larger image if you host it on your own site. If you look around CGTalk, you will see links to free web hosts. I'd do that instead of posting like this, as it's impossible to truely see what you are up to, and also does not do anyone's work any credit.

Just a head's up if you did'nt know.

Welcome to the forums, BTW.

-3DZ

:D

[silvia]

Ehy thank you so much for the tip, I had no idea I could just post a link to a page with the image in it. I just registered, so need to learn my way around. Thanks again!

[Dave Black]

No problem, friend.

When making a post, look for the icon to "insert an image". Click it, and it will ask you for the url of the image. Paste in your image url, and it will format it so that it automatically shows in the forums.

Anyway, like I said before, look'n good.

-3DZ

:D

[silvia]

Thanks again, and here is a less microscopic picture of my work in progress...
Well, let's see if I did it right...

http://home.attbi.com/~alan971/venus2.jpg

[vanilla shotgun]

Hehe, cool image! I love the sort of coloured glass in the top of the image...
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[Dave Black]

It's really a neat effect. My crits would only be that I think the light is almost too bright. Even with the lighting conditions that are present in your scene, the effect of the glow seems overpowering. It may be that it's because the stature is lit from the front, were it sould seem like it should be almost in silhouette. I realize that the figure would probably be lit from the bounced light from the windows, but since the window lighting is so strong, and well, unrealistic, I'd want to see the forground a bit dimmer.

Other than that, I think it's a neat, moody effect.

Good job!

-3DZ

:D

[ME3D]

Mental Ray for the renderer to achieve a suscatter on the statue?

I would say the material on the floor needs attention to come away from the flattened look....... paint in grunge and bump should help it.
Great look to the scene. I have a similar shot coming at the end of my rockface city.
The glowy window effect is a good dramatic. Also how about a camera angle to add interest and make it more "Grand". Say lower looking more up and off to the left. Try that if you'd like.
Nice work...Keep it goin.

[silvia]

Wow, thank you so much guys for the great tips!
In particular since, for now, I am just using the Maya renedred, since I haven't had the time to really experiment with Mental Ray, could you be more specific in how to achieve the effect with Mental Ray?

[Error404]

the shadow on the statue is way off, from what it should be with that light source.

The shadow should blur out quicly with all that light coming at those angles.

[ME3D]

Actually if you've gotten this far with the maya renderer I have to say stick with it. the MR method is more time intensive. I still am getting better time and results from the standard renderer. Plus several studios "Ive heard" actually prefer using the maya renderer and just knowing it really well.

Really could just tweek the lights down and add some color to them to take it to the next level.

If your really set on the MR thing using subscatter for the statue. http://www.motiondesign.biz/ has a great tut.

Cool looking windows BTW I just remembered where why they seem familiar. Nice touch in adding the stained glass. Did you paint this?

[ssyed]

i use 3dsmax... there is a similar effect called glow in that too

[ME3D]

What were you referring to there? I really wasnt sure if you were just being fecisous ( did I spell that correctly?) or not.
Well trying to be funny or not it is.

What method did you use sir? I like to call this effect.... glow. For I next piece I will exhibit " blur".... :)

Sorry I hope I'm not making fun here but it struck me funny;)

[Dave Black]

You know what you do with max?

You add a blur filter, set it to blur by luminosity, then set the intensity to way over 100.

Boom. Instant "specular bloom"/"glow".

Not quite as elegant as Maya's methods, but it gets the job done real well in most cases, FWIW.

I'm so interested to see Maya's methodologies. Very interesting stuff.

Again, neat effect.

-3DZ

:D

[silvia]

I appreciate the comments, and I have tried to implement some of them in this new version. I worked mostly on getting the modelling down, refining the architecture and so on.
I am going to finish this in the Maya renderer first, then I may try to redo the whole illumination in Mental Ray as a way of learning it. It would be interesting. Unfortunately, for things that require so much fine tuning like lights, I get impatient waiting for MR to render.
The person that commented that the shadow of the statue is wrong is right (that was a strange combination of words... :p)
I need to work more on that.
Please guys, keep the comments coming, they really help!

http://home.attbi.com/~alan971/venus2.jpg

[ssyed]

me3d: are u talking aboout me? i just meant that i don't really use maya but i think in 3dsmax u could pull of the same feat w/ a glow effect

[ME3D]

Yeah, I'm just playing with ya. It struck me funny when I read it. Probably caused by sleep deprivation. So Dont be offended i'm just keeping it fun within my own mind...lol

Lttle cartoons playing in my head. Maybe I shouldnt tell anyone that? hhhhhhmmmmm

I was a maxer to begin with....... so I knew what you meant.

[silvia]

:bounce:
I think this thing is finished. I worked on the shadow and the floor texture, as some of you pointed out. I just noticed that,
since I have uploaded the image to the web page instead of
creating a new one each time (laziness is one of my virtues...)
you can only see the latest image, if you don't count the one of my very first posting. I appreciate more comments, otherwise I am thinking of posting it as finished work. Thanks again for your help, guys!

[ME3D]

Nice work,
Looks like the anitialias look is fixed as well. I figured you catch that for the final. Last thing that grabs me is the highlight thats on the joints coming towards us. I dont believe we see that from our angle. The joint should show shadow from our orientation. Its probably catching enough light from behing the camera, but this is looking good otherwise.
Nice job.

P.S. Still have to mention the camera again. Sorry but I'd love to see how it could change the feel from being anything other than dead on looking at the focus.

[silvia]

Thank you for the suggestion.
For the lights, there are lights pretty much everywhere in that thing... I am scared of touching a single one of them!!!!
For changing the angle... did you really have to catch me with my pants down????? :) I didn't model the entire room, so if I change the camera angle you can see pieces missing... so embarassed now that you uncovered my dirty tricks...:blush:

[ME3D]

Sorry to mention the camera. Its a nagging little thought in the back of my mind.
As for the other little lighting highlight. I would actually guess it should be fixed in the texture not the lighting so it could be as easy as decreasing the specular highlight or changing the spec value to fan it out.
A higher Eccentricity value and lower specular roll off is what I had in mind.

-Garry

[silvia]

Hey, no nagging, pal, I appreciate your comments very much! I took a look at your work in your web site, and I'll take comments from people who can do what you do any time!
Exactly, what kind of camera shot did you have in mind? Maybe I can get it.
Also, for the luminosity are you refering to the 2 arches that support the vault, the ones shooting out of the 2 front columns?
Changing eccentricity and rolloff sounds good! I'll look into that.

[ME3D]

Thanks for the kind words I appreciate it.

The camera lowered and offcenter to the left. Then looking more up at the arches. It doesnt have to capture anything new from the scene. I think you have it framed in nicely. Just moving the camera to a different angle and keeping all the objects you now have in focus to remain in the frame.

I have a quick example from Johannes
http://www.schloerb.com/gallery/3D/detention.htm

BTW did you find the spec change work for the floor tiles? (That little line of reflective specularity.)

Not sure what the luminosity was in reference to.

[silvia]

I was getting a bit tired of this project, so I gave myself a bit of a break before going back to it.

http://home.attbi.com/~alan971/venus5.jpg

[silvia]

I have added some shadow for the columns: do you guys think they are ok?

http://home.attbi.com/~alan971/venus6.jpg

[silvia]

I have used compositing to change the shadows.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/sysite/hpbimg/composite_venus.jpg

[ME3D]

I do like the new comp withe deeper shadows.
Something did come to mind seeing this image. Adding volume light with floating dust would bring in some hint of motion....Could be cool. And then you could animate the dust for a cool little snippett scene.

[silvia]

You know, I was thinking exactly the same thing about having dust in the air, but I didn't know how to do it. Volume lights are only in MentalRay, right?
And I like the idea of having them floating in an animation!!!!

[ME3D]

No. mayas rennderer does volume lights and they look pretty good and "depending on the speed of your machine" render fast. I felt the disclaimer necessary for anyone else who may be reading...

under the light attributes>Light effects>Light fog And click the icon to its right. This takes you into a new roll out but leave it as default to beign and go back. The Fog Spread and Fog intensity need to be set. A good starting place is 2.2 for both . Then tweeking adding noise can be done back in the window that popped in before. Light Fog Attributes.
I'll post an image from near the arches in my Hall the will be similar pretty soon.

The animation could be as easy as moving the texture node. Cant wait to see it! Good luck.

[silvia]

I added some background at the windows. What do you guys think?

http://home.attbi.com/~alan971/composite_venus_1.jpg

[ME3D]

Hey there Silvia.
I like seeing more of the walls on the sides now....I hadnt noticed them before. Not to sure on the image though. In fact I think the angle of perspective in this view doesnt match the image's. Sorry I just taught a class on perspective so this popped out at me. We seem to be positioned closer to the floor in the 3d scene. So well probably see more sky and the ground plane will seem flatter. Godd check is to finwhere all angles in the images scene point to and do the same for your scene. Then check to see if the match up.

Gotta go,....good luck.

[silvia]

Hey ME3D, how is your beautiful city coming?
Yeah, perspective is a little thing I just seem to have a bit of a problem with, starting from traditional media all the way to 3D.
Did you really just teach a course? Where? It sounds interesting! I haven't had any art courses in a while, maybe it would be worth picking up a couple.
I saw precisely your point about the angle of the image outside, which is a picture of some building in Europe (can't even remember where I got it from...). I reworked a couple of things in Photoshop.

http://home.attbi.com/~alan971/composite_venus_2.jpg

[ME3D]

Nope im not kiddin about having just finished the 3d course.
3D and perspective drawing class for Park University. I kinda got suckered into it but it was fun I love teaching. If it helps and you'd like t ocheck out some books I can suggest ones I had the class buy? In the Architecture and Art section of bookstore most have "Chang" Hes the author. I'll check on the title. Also "Rapid Viz by Hanks and Belliston" is good if your looking for drawing skills and how to practice.

The image is really cool, and much closer. Follow the lines at the edge of the floor till they meet in the middle. The background image's horizon line should still move down to that point. I have to admit writing this is much more difficult the drawing examples on a marker board so forgive me if its vague sounding.

Thanks, such compliments. (blushing)
The city is coming along I did finished some initial animations to send the reel I mentioned before, but I plan to keep working on this city to create a short film from it. Probably take the rest of the year. Stop in, The animation is on my site today.

See ya later.

[silvia]

Oh crap-o-rama, I hate when my internet provider sells out and all my images go to hell with my internet page and so on and so forth... :mad:
Anyway here is a last tweek of the image. I am getting a bit bored of it, so I think I am going to dedicate my time to a new project I have started and leave this as it is.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/sysite/composite_venus_3.jpg

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