Lighting Challenge #18: Science Fiction

[MeanPi2]

Good points Jeremy, thanks. I'll work on all of those suggestions.

Arsad like the new update. Maybe raise his arms up in a wth shrug type thing? :)

[arsad]

MeanPi2 Thank you! You won't believe it that was exactly the modification I did. Render is complete I just have to adjust some stuff in fusion then I will upload the new version.

[arsad]

Ok here is my latest version.

http://arsad.free.fr/ScienceFictionChallenge18_v005.jpg

[runejw]

Going for the "less is more" lighting here with fairly dark/moody atmosphere.

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/3596/sf18o4lo7.th.jpg (http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/3596/sf18o4lo7.jpg)

Certainly a learning experience to not rely on FI/GI.
Rendertime 15min + 2 min for AO.
There's a some unwanted shadows I just noticed from the spot fill light... will correct...
http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/4329/sf18o4bdy4.th.jpg (http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/4329/sf18o4bdy4.jpg)
Fixed sort of... by making spot selective... but introduces more change... rendertime down to 11 min though...

Lots of awesome work here, personal favorites are Slazzo, philip, MikeBracken and maxx043 and several nice runners-up as well :thumbsup:

[rmejia]

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/5686/bot1qp7.jpg (http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bot1qp7.jpg)
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/bot1qp7.jpg/1/w1024.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img231/bot1qp7.jpg/1/)
Early WIP and for a first time dealing with the light effects what a pain in the rear. Anyways went more for the actionyishy "what the *$&% just happened we're all maybe deadish real quick kinda probably sorta.." look.

That looks pretty awesome! I like the wtf look of the robot. The cable behind his head could use more smoothing. How did you do the sparks!?

[Shordy]

great images here! arsad is my fav today :)

here is my first wip the walls need textures und more colors....

http://www.cg-creatives.de/files/18_ScienceFictionChallenge_shordy_v2.jpg

[MeanPi2]

rmejia, thanks for the words and I'll fix that wire. Maybe his polyish head too..somehow.

Ah, the sparks. The huge nightmare in the whole ugly pink fuzzy ball of nightmares and headaches the picture is. Seriously the effect has broken so many times I'm now an official alcoholic. :)

They're a 'lite' version of a cool effect posted by VFXWizard on the Newtek forums:

HyperVoxel emitter set to Surface
small Voxel size (1-3" or so for the HUGE scale of the model)
orangy color (or gradient)
stretch on velocity
80ish% added stretch
500-3000% luminous or so
random values for inital velocity
then blown out of the emitter at Ludicrous Speed with a particle blur of 300ish% and however motion blur passes.

It's nice because every motion blur pass stretches out each 'spark' more (try 30 with a bounce collision!). But of course that's currently broken in the setup because I either looked at a setting wrong or Lightwave is being a big meanie.

For LW users: LWs old DOF works great but the new DOF kills the effect unless Oversampling is set between .7-1.0. If I say anything more about this part I'll start screaming..

[phil-w8]

Hi everyone,

Here's an update of my scene.
I've added more texture, and tried to tweak some lights.

I'm running into an issue here, i've added a spot light that is supposed to light the right wheel of the bot, the spot light is only casting diffuse but the light isn't showing, any ideas why?

Your comments and critiques are most welcome :)

Thanks.

Here goes...

http://www.philippelhage.com/lighting_challenges/scifi18.jpg

[arsad]

@shordy

Thx for the compliment! I like your first wip as well. It's a nice idea though
currently your robot seems to be a bit over lit. I am eager to see your next steps...

Btw. I'm also from cologne, ne äschte kölsche jung, but now I live in Paris, France.

[jeremybirn]

I can't sit on the sidelines watching all of you have this much fun without trying this myself!

Rendered in Maya with Mental Ray, sorry I don't know the render time but I'll tell you for the next test. I used raytracing on this, with raytraced reflections and shadows. Haven't yet done render passes, compositing, or texture mapping, maybe texture maps and compositing could be goals for Sunday. Anyway, here's what I have so far:

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/science_fiction/JeremyBirnTest01.jpg

-jeremy

[DanAvery]

Jeremy, Excellent POV that not only focuses on the robot but the lighting as well. Wonderful highlights on the floor throughout. A very illustrative and appreciated example.

[OrkanOrkan]

Jeremy, thanks for your comment and suggestion
I learned a lot from this challenge, with so many great renders. Looking forward for next one!

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/9500/scifi0602vrayfinal12h43wb6.jpg

[phil-w8]

Mr. Birn, i'm a big fan :)

[Mirco83]

I can't sit on the sidelines watching all of you have this much fun without trying this myself!

Rendered in Maya with Mental Ray, sorry I don't know the render time but I'll tell you for the next test. I used raytracing on this, with raytraced reflections and shadows. Haven't yet done render passes, compositing, or texture mapping, maybe texture maps and compositing could be goals for Sunday. Anyway, here's what I have so far:

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/science_fiction/JeremyBirnTest01.jpg

-jeremy

Great Geremy,
This is a very good example!

[punytjoshi]

Nice to see you posting your work after a long time I think after 5 to 6 lighting challanges,
Highlights on robot and reflections are really catchy, also liked point light behind robot.

[runejw]

Think this will be my final one. Did some retexturing. Also added FG/GI for this final shot - no new lights. FG/GI ca 10 min each for their maps and then 38 min for the final render (took longer because of all the new reflective textures). Slight gamma correction added to camera.
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4057/sf18p4ok3.jpg
There's some weird curvature to the panels I notice in my renderings - probably due to surface normals not quite right after the import to XSI...

OrkanOrkan - nice image! But 12h - I wouldn't have the patience for that...

Jeremy thanks for your comments, and your own rendering shows class - very nice color scheme to the lights even at this stage.

EDIT: Hmm, misremembered the deadline... 2.nd march not 2.nd feb ... might still do some more changes then :wip:

[bshao]

Nice one Jeremy! I love how the reflection of the light array in his eyes gives the impression that he's enchanted by the "magical" panel.

Didn't think it was spooky enough so decided to put in the fan light:

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/bshao/LightingChallenges/ScienceFiction3.jpg

Comments welcome from all! :thumbsup:

[BlenderFan]

Great job Jeremy. Would you mind telling us your system specs?

[jeremybirn]

bshao - Nice job! Much better with the extra lights. There are very soft highlights on the floor (I guess there are supposed to be soft reflections of the ceiling lights?) but the robot blocks part of the left one with a very hard-edged shadow or reflection. If you could soften that line, or else make more realistic reflections of all of the lights, it would look more believable. The highlights on the sides of the robot's head also look like just two lights, and they seem to be level with his head instead of above him like the visible light sources. Adding some blue light is nice, maybe some could hit the robot?

runejw - Nice job! I agree you could fix the polygon meshes by making the edges hard above a certain angle, maybe above 30 degrees or so? The text on the light doesn't look like a futuristic font and doesn't seem well integrated. The more you can simplify your lighting, make textures more subtle so they don't distract, draw people's attention to a simple point, the more powerful and engaging your scene will be.

punytjoshi, MircoP, phil-w8, DanAvery - Thanks for your comments!

OrkanOrkan - Great scene! I especially like the impression that there are flourescent tubes behind the glass in the side light panels, and the indirect blue light in the ceiling. Those are really classy, engaging touches. I had to look at the scene a while before I got the idea that the highlights on the floor were supposed to be the illumination from the robot's eyes. I think you'd have to do more to tie the eyes together with the circles on the floor, maybe make light from the eyes illuminate more of the robot's immediate surroundings, or give the eye light a color that's unique in the scene, or more of a glare at the source?

phil-w8 - Nice scene! I think the robot needs a little light to bring-out his hands. Sometimes the camera's perspective matters a lot, right now it looks like the camera is far away, but zoomed in. If you move the camera closer and zoom-out, you'd get the impression of a longer hallway behind him.

Shordy - Oh Noes! The spaceship is flooded! I agree texture would help, the water surface looks a little plasticy to me right now but I'm sure another pass at it and some waterlines on the set and robot could help that.

arsad - Great scene! I love it!

Great job Jeremy. Would you mind telling us your system specs?My home computer is a BOXX Windows XP, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+, 2.41 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM. Nice job on your scene, too!

-jeremy

[phil-w8]

Thank you Mr. Birn for your comments.

I'm really enjoying this challenge, because i get to learn a lot from everyone's work and from every comments that is given in this thread. So thank you Mr. Birn for these awesome challenges, and thanks to Juan Carlos Silva for taking the time to create this awesome scene.

Regards,

-philippe

[stef0506]

Hi,
This is my second try at lighting a scene.
Haven't really textured anything but was just looking for the "right" atmosphere although I'm not completely happy with it.

[MasterZap]

kanooshka - Inverse-square decay in real life applies to all light.

Nope, if that was true, a reflection intensity would fall off by the square of the distance, which it most certainly does not.

We have two fundamentally different units at work here, radiance and irradiance. In plain Swedish you can say that radiance is "how bright something looks" and irradiance is "how much something illuminates something else".

Irradiance indeed falls off with the geometry term (i.e. distance squared), but radiance is constant along a ray (this is why reflection intensity doesn't change). A specular highlight is more a reflection than not, and hence really shouldn't fall off by distance for highly specular surfaces. (Simplified, you can say that the blurrier reflection, the more it should fall off, you can imagine it as blurring a small bright dot; if you blur it alot, it becomes less and less bright since it's light is spread out over a larger area, but only if your blur radius is larger than the dots radius; if the blur radius is less than the dot radius, some pixels will retain the original intensity. A blurry reflection works in a similar way; as long as the blur is less than the projected area of the light, at least some pixels of it will not fall off). A perfect mirror reflection would hence have no falloff.

This fact (that speculars do not fall off like diffuse do) is one of the fundamental missing things in most CGI lights (or really the main "problem" with the old "specular highlight" fake we are all still using).

For those who were at the SIGGRAPH class I co-taught ("HDRI For Artists") heard me ramble on this.

/Z

[herbertagudera]

herbertagudera - Great concept. Good start with it. Maybe play-up the blue light coming from the center more, with some real shadows on the robot and behind the robot from the blue/green light? You can also use the different areas of the scene to have different qualities of light, especially around the partition on the right, and the beam area vs. window area vs. darker corners.

thanks again jeremy..

heres an update..

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3408/3246458657_02f3abfd05.jpg (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=3246458657&size=large)

[tstephens]

Here's my take on the scene...

[rmejia]

Here's my take on the scene...

LOL, he could start a clone army and rule the universe as father and sons :)

[maxx043]

jeremy - I am very pleased about your comment

- here is a little break-down of the scene

http://maroscgblog.blogspot.com/

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/926/sifi081280highvz5.jpg

[Jadetiger]

Hey, I noticed that when i import the OBJ file into maya, there are between 2-5 duplicates of many of the objects. I'm going to use the maya file version but I was just curious if anyone had any problems with the obj file as well.

[Washek]

Wow, this is really nice challange, hope that I'll join it too since there is one month left.

[jeremybirn]

Hey, I noticed that when i import the OBJ file into maya, there are between 2-5 duplicates of many of the objects. I'm going to use the maya file version but I was just curious if anyone had any problems with the obj file as well.

Try importing the .ma version. (If your version of Maya is from 8.5 to 2008, be sure to go into the File Open options box first and check "ignore version" so a 2009 file imports...)

To make the .obj version, a lot of work was put into expanding out all the instanced models into real models, and converting all the NURBS components into polygons. Especially where some geometry was used as the parent of other groups, some nodes easily could have ran through a function twice.

-jeremy

[arsad]

Jeremy Thank you very much, you made my day! :)

I call it final, as I have some work coming in and I won't have much time anymore.
This challenge has been great for me and thanks very much to Jeremy Birn for all his time
and efforts to host such a great challenge and his valuable comments and help.

And also a big thanks to Juan Carlos Silva for the marvelous model!

There are some really impressive and beautiful images in this thread!
Good luck to everybody and have fun!

http://arsad.free.fr/ScienceFictionChallenge18_v006_big.jpg

[Womball]

How do you make the glowing lights on the floor illuminate the scene?

[rmejia]

Nice work Arsad, I like the rendering and the story it conveys :)

[rmejia]

How do you make the glowing lights on the floor illuminate the scene?

You could probably make the front material transparent (glass) and place a light behind it, inside the compartment.

[jojo1975]

Update thanks
http://www.giorgioluciano.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/vfinallight.jpg
changed lights , no GI, three light settings, kicked a bit the light, and here we are ;)

[Ac0rN]

Some amazing work in here so far. :)

Here is my first try at this lightning challenge.

The max file is enormous :eek:, the scene is very large and polygon rich.

I did threw a few shaders on top of some objects and repositioned the robot.
3dsmax 2009 + Mental Ray

http://hem.passagen.se/kr3ml2008/images/robotinspaceComp_small.txt

[BlenderFan]

Isn't it great, this thread got on the front page.

[ssilva1515]

I am try to get into the whole HDR thing so here is where I am at....
http://www.sgsdesign.net/robo.200.jpg
http://www.sgsdesign.net/soloHDR.079.jpg

[bshao]

Thanks for the comments Jeremy, I'll work on those for next time :)

Jojo1975 - I love that camera angle! Gives the impression the whole corridor's drifting through space! :thumbsup:

[arsad]

How do you make the glowing lights on the floor illuminate the scene?

The luminosity (glow) is a map and I used an area light that I've put in front of the polygon. Other than that a bit of GI helps once the main lights are posed.

Nice work Arsad, I like the rendering and the story it conveys :)

Thank you very much! It's a great pleasure to see that the story is clear.

[kanooshka]

jeremybirn: Glad to see you join in the challenge! I really enjoy the eyes and gradation on the head. I feel like there should be some more consistency from the ceiling lights in the background. The ceiling fixture on the left has light around it to bring out the rim of the robot but it is also casting light on the ceiling. I feel as if the other 3 light fixtures should have a similar effect and if not maybe they shouldn't be white like the left fixture. Also, the reflection in the robots eyes appears to be different than the buttons. Maybe the glow is desaturating the buttons. The two left bottoms of the wheel rims appear to be too bright compared to the shadow they're in as well as don't seem to be reflected in the floor. I look forward to textures and updates!

OrkanOrkan: I really like the lights along the corners. Great colors! I'd like to see some color variation in the buttons on the walls. I feel like the robot in the center is too bright to fit into the scene. I'd like to see a lot of light casting bright light on the 2 edge robots bouncing from the center robot so as to make the scene a little more cohesive.

runejw: Looking better! I'd like to see someglow around the 'sun' object. You may also need to adjust your raytrace settings. The tires appear to not recieve shadow reflection from the floor. I still feel like this scene might just have too much going on. Also, I don't feel the glowing yellow wire adds anything to your scene, it seems to draw my eye away from the point of interest.

bshao: Good work! I'd like to see some rim lights on the top of the robots head from the lights above him. To create a spookier look you could try to increase your fog but also increase the falloff of the light being cast through it. I also feel like some strong highlights would help your scene and also some reflections can push your render to be even better!

herbertagudera: Fantastic! I really enjoy the blue light being cast from the hologram. The transition of colors also works very well.I'd like to see some color added to the white square around the projecter. Also a bigger render now would be nice =)

maxx043: Awesome! I like your concept.The one thing I'd like you to work on would be the glows around the buttons. Try looking at some pictures of car breaklights/neon lights I'm looking forward to the final version if you're not done already!

Arsad: Good scene so far. I really like the shader on the robot, good work with that. The lighting has a very cloudy day feel to it, that's not a bad thing if that's what you're going for. I'm a little perplexed by the single light on the floor panels. Your lighting doesn't feel very motivated for some reason. The robot is lit from the right but there doesn't appear to be anything casting that much light. I know your done I just wanted to give me 2 cents =)

jojo1975: Oh no what happened to the gravity! Nice concept I like the limited color palette. I'd like a couple more hints of red on the panels to balance the image a little bit more. I look forward to some more updates!

kr3ml: I really like the limit color pallete and the shader on your robot. I look forward to an update!

ssilva1515: Good start, the image looks like flash photography so far. My suggestion would be to start with a main light and just use the hdri for reflections. Keep going!

[Womball]

You don't use any special type of material for the glowing part? NO mesh based illumination?

[herbertagudera]

herbertagudera: Fantastic! I really enjoy the blue light being cast from the hologram. The transition of colors also works very well.I'd like to see some color added to the white square around the projecter. Also a bigger render now would be nice =)


thanks dan.. if you click the image youll be transported to a much bigger render.. =)

i'd surely consider adding more color on that thing..

thanks again..

[phil-w8]

Hi everyone,

Here's a version of my render with a DOF. I used the DOF attribute of the camera, i'd like to try and use the bokeh effect in the Lens shader node that's in the mental rat tab.

Your comments are welcome as always :)

thanks.

-philippe

http://www.philippelhage.com/lighting_challenges/scifi19.jpg

[jeremybirn]

phil-w8 - Nice scene! The DOF is a little harsh, it makes the dark black tubes on the left look like abstract micro-organisms of some kind. The reflections on the robot's head integrate him pretty well into the environment, I think the hands could use more reflections and light too.

kanooshka - Thanks for all the feedback!

ssilva1515 - Welcome! Maybe lighting based on HDR panoramas would be better suited for outdoor scenes, or scenes with large windows. I'd love to see more attention to light from sources within the set, or at least light sources that radiate away from a hallway or nearby position with a nice decay like a small light bulb in the spaceship.

kr3ml - Welcome! Nice pose! Keep going with your scene!

jojo1975 - Nice shot! The floor looks brighter than the ceiling lights, which really makes me wonder where the light is coming from. Maybe there could be more light from the ceiling panels (or some other source) and you could tone-down the floor a bit?

arsad - Great job! I love how he's got the Blue Screen of Death on his spaceship!

Washek - Welcome! We look forwards to your work!

maxx043 - Wonderful scene! I hope everyone visits your break-down webpage at http://maroscgblog.blogspot.com/ -- that's terrific!

tstephens - Welcome! I like the idea of all the mini-me's (or robot nano's or whatever you call them...). I hope you can work on lighting: add shadows, create light from specific places in the set...

herbertagudera - Nice job! Your scene keeps getting better!

stef0506 - Nice scene! He looks very glow-y (too bright) in between his eyes, and parts of the set seem very evenly lit. See if you can limit and control the light, so it only comes from specific sources.

-jeremy

[phil-w8]

Thank you Mr.Birn for you feedback,

One question though, from which direction should the light come from in order to light more the hands ? My main light comes from the left and bounce lights on the right.

I would really like your opinion on that :$

Thanks in advance.

-philippe

[jeremybirn]

Nope, if that was true, a reflection intensity would fall off by the square of the distance, which it most certainly does not.
Compare light from the Sun to light from a more distant star. Let's say the star is actually a bigger/brighter light source than the Sun, but is much farther away from Earth. Here on Earth, wouldn't a reflection of the star look less bright than a reflection of the sun? In fact, whether you looked at the brightness of the star vs. the Sun on a mirror, on shiny plastic, or a matte-finished surface, in any of those comparisons the Sun would be brighter, because it is closer to the surface.

Irradiance indeed falls off with the geometry term (i.e. distance squared), but radiance is constant along a ray (this is why reflection intensity doesn't change).
Radiance is constant along a ray, but if a finite number of rays are being cast out in all different directions from a light, then as a surface moves farther from the light source, fewer and fewer of those rays would reach the surface, and more of the rays would head off another way and miss the surface completely. That's why, if you took a mirror into a football stadium with a bright light at one end, the reflection intensity would be very bright with the mirror right next to the light, and much dimmer if the mirror were at the other end of the stadium from the light, right?

-jeremy

[wasimattar]

HI, was off a long time bit busy with some other project done some texturing on the side panel will send the update asap C&C are welcome.....
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk28/wasimattar/Sci-fi-14.jpg

[arsad]

Thank you very much Kanooshka for your compliments and comments.
The lights illuminating the robot from the right are the bottom and upper light panels (area lights) and the blue screen (spotlight). And there is another bottom area light like the light panel in front of him to his right (you can make out the panel in the right bottom edge of the image).
So there is quite a bit of light shining on this little robot! ;-)

@ womball
No, an area light, a black and white map on the panel for the luminosity and a bit of glow in fusion. that's all ;)

[kanooshka]

Here's my second progress image!

http://dockay.com/CGTalk/LightingChallenges/18_ScienceFiction/science_fiction_02

[phil-w8]

@ kanooshka : Very Nice!, Very Neat!, i'm a fan. :)

[arsad]

@ kanooshka

very nice lighting and texturing!
Just a tad too bright in the corridor behind the robot.

A bit missing, for my taste, is the story or idea behind the image.
Right now the robot stands in the middle of the junction without doing
anything. Why does he have his arms in this position?
For the moment my eye has nothing special to hold on, to inspect.

Other than that great entry!

[Mirco83]

Hi,
Here's some lighting/atmosphere adjustments.
I've started shading/texturing work too.
C & C are appreciated, as always ;-)

Bye,
Mirco Paolini


http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1337/sfwipze9.jpg

[dirtyharry]

really cool artworks here.......love it

here´s my try

cinema4d AR3
a few lights an of course the new gi-engine


comments please....


gre

[rahulsociety]

HI.... :wavey:
Here is another version of my work....
c&c are welcome....
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1331/try5uk4.jpg (http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=try5uk4.jpg)

[AdamHerbert]

I'm using Blender 2.48 with the Blender renderer. C&C welcome!

First Attempt:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6753/render1wf0.jpg (http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=render1wf0.jpg)
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/render1wf0.jpg/1/w1920.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img153/render1wf0.jpg/1/)

[bshao]

Thanks kanooshka! Do you mean like generic atmospheric fog in the scene? That would be cool, I'll see if I can add it in for next time :)

[Mirco83]

Hi all,
I changed the shot a little and adjust the glow of the buttons.
C & C are welcome!
Bye,
Mirco Paolini

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/1071/sfwip2on7.jpg

[TCPortfolio]

I'm still fairly new to the 3D world, so c&c would be greatly appreciated. I have two renders for this challenge so far.

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh223/Treytrumpet1/LightingChallenge18-Mars.jpg (http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh223/Treytrumpet1/LightingChallenge18-Mars.jpg)

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh223/Treytrumpet1/LightingChallenge18-Blue.jpg (http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh223/Treytrumpet1/LightingChallenge18-Blue.jpg)

Please tell me what you think I could do better. I didn't spend a lot of time texturing stuff, like others. However, I do have 8 spot lights and I used GI.

Thanks!

[padfoot7726]

This is my first try at a lighting challenge, and the modeling here looked really good, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
Here's my render: Blender Internal 2.48
Not sure if this is my final render. I may make some changes.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb43/padfoot7726/Scifirender3.jpg

[BlenderFan]

Hey padfoot, I use Blender too. It's nice to see that there are several people in this challenge using it. I would recommend that you tone down the lens distortion and DOf a bit. Nice other than that.

Cheers.

[jeremybirn]

padfoot7726 - Nice image! The DOF actually looks good, compared to some of the DOF approaches that have been posted here. The shaders and reflective surfaces look nice overall. In terms of the lighting, it's a good start. The yellow panels are nice. There's a fairly unifom overall tone to the lighting, it has a pale green foreground, midground area, and background, without any big changes in direction or type of light. If you start with a dark space, add light coming upwards from the yellow panels, then add some light very selectively from whatever other specific sources you choose, I hope you can get things to add-up to interesting selective lighting that gives different parts of the space different looks. The charecter is pretty well defined, except for his right hand, which is hard to see.

TCPortfolio - Welcome! Those images look as though they were rendered at a very low resolution and then scaled up very big, which really shouldn't be necessary. Just try making smaller images at a higher quality of sampling. The shadows look very faint, as if some of the lights don't cast shadows, try to light the scene selectively from just a few light sources in the scene, and let some areas fall into shadow or darkness where the lights don't hit.

MircoP - Nice image. Be careful with your use of the color red. If you had it in just one place, like the villian's eyes, it would carry a lot of weight. When it comes from several places, it seems less important and doesn't call attention to the opponent. Even though there's a row of square lights on the ground, they seem to be causing just two round highlights on the ceiling, try to get the illumination and reflections to match the sources better. I don't really like the bright light between the wheels of the right guy, see if you can darken that light, but add some rim or kick lights around his edge to help him look more back-lit.

AdamHerbert - Welcome! I think you need to fill-in a little more of the scene with light or reflections, something to add interest to the black areas. Try lighting the characters more. The guy on the right could use some kicks of light coming from in front of him. The guy on the left needs illumination to accentuate the missing eye and arm, or light the arm on the floor to show that he's dropping parts.

rahulsociety - Good basic set-up. If the bright white panels are supposed to be your light sources, then try to get the illumination and shadows on the set to look like it comes from those sources. Shadows from large panels of light like that are very soft, so I'd expect much softer shadows from the robot onto the ground. If you don't want to use all of those panels, then turn some of them off, and focus on illumination from some smaller areas.

dirtyharry - Welcome! Nice scene! Overall the robot reads pretty well, but I'd like to see some kicks of light illuminating the black parts, especially the tires, so those don't get lost completely. The sides of the wheels might be too bright, but the times should show-up a little.

kanooshka - Great scene! You're really capturing the "retro" side of the retro-futurist scene here. The shading on the metals, the floor, etc. all looks like something from the 1950's, which fits the models pretty well. You might work on creating some variety in the different areas of the scene, as if some areas were brightly and softly lit, other areas more dark and shadowy, perhaps with some color diffrences between the light sources.

wasimattar - Great scene! I think the robot could get more light from those light panels over him, helping to shape and define him and separate him from the background.

-jeremy

[Mirco83]

MircoP - Nice image. Be careful with your use of the color red. If you had it in just one place, like the villian's eyes, it would carry a lot of weight. When it comes from several places, it seems less important and doesn't call attention to the opponent. Even though there's a row of square lights on the ground, they seem to be causing just two round highlights on the ceiling, try to get the illumination and reflections to match the sources better. I don't really like the bright light between the wheels of the right guy, see if you can darken that light, but add some rim or kick lights around his edge to help him look more back-lit.


Thank you very nuch Jeremy for your suggestions.
I'll try to fix these problems.
Bye,

Mirco Paolini

[Mirco83]

Here's some fixes:

-Added some kick and rim light to the robot;
-Motivated a blu light on the left
-Some shading corrections
-Put the red color only on the eyes of the evil robot

Bye,
Mirco Paolini

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5193/sfwip3yo4.jpg

[stef0506]

stef0506 - Nice scene! He looks very glow-y (too bright) in between his eyes, and parts of the set seem very evenly lit. See if you can limit and control the light, so it only comes from specific sources.


Thank you very much Jeremy.
Have started all over again because I wasn't really happy with it in the end.
I'm still learning (well I guess you never stop learning ).
So..back to work ! :-)

[kanooshka]

I got into a very diligent mood and set out to do another composition as quickly as possible with the fastest render time. A big part of this image was using kick/rim lights as well as fill lights in the background to allow the silhouette of the robot to be pushed into the middle ground. Scene info:

Rendertime: 7 Minutes
GI/FG: No
Lights: 27 Spotlights, 11 casting depth map shadows

Crits welcome!

http://www.dockay.com/CGTalk/LightingChallenges/18_ScienceFiction/Science_fiction_composition2_01.jpg

[nojak]

Still not done texturing or lighting. This has just been a day of work.

http://jonpayneart.com/images/Lighting_Challenge_18/Lighting_Challenge_DAY_1.jpg

http://jonpayneart.com/images/Lighting_Challenge_18/view3.jpg

http://jonpayneart.com/images/Lighting_Challenge_18/view2_v7.jpg

[rmejia]

I got into a very diligent mood and set out to do another composition as quickly as possible with the fastest render time.

Nice work, I like the idea of the spot lights coming out of the robots eyes (I thought about doing it myself at first but didn't go for it!) I think it looks interesting, totally sets the mood for the composition, looks cool :buttrock:

[runejw]

Did some various tweaks to the image - but more a wip now than the former one. Reduced reflectivity on the floor, made the panels straight (not sure if that looks better but more correct anyway...) and of course added a sort of plot. Added more lights. Added simple DOF (depth (2 min) + gaussian blur). AO pass (2 min) to give more defined shadows to the floor.

Would have liked to do some movement of the robot heads/arms, but a bit unpractical with all parts in a flat list and named NurbsToPoly__

No GI/FG on this one - 35 min render.
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4512/compsf18qqi0.th.jpg (http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4512/compsf18qqi0.jpg)
..."the robots sensor circuitry were fully focused on examining the starship surroundings following what the ship log flagged as possible asteroid impact. But given the alien's predatory skills it was doubtful if even their maximum environment scanning abilities could have detected the alien in time..."

kanooshka - thanks a lot for the instructive c & c. "Fixed" the glowing wire... Now they lead to a point of interest... :cool: From your renders I like the amount of details/clarity. Floor with skid-marks etc - nice touch. Last render also cool - reminds me a bit about 2001 and/or a submarine movie

Jeremy - thanks also for c & c - still working on lighting - good point on single point of interest... will have to work more on that... note taken regarding "Modeled by..." distracting placement agree...

[padfoot7726]

Thanks for the feedback. I lowered the DOF and chromatic dispersion a little. upped the lighting in the foreground, and brought down the background lighting.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb43/padfoot7726/ScifiRenderB1.jpg

[Nothingness]

I'm using Blender 2.48 with the Blender renderer. C&C welcome!


You got a very nice choice of lighting technique but doing it a little wrong. Or i am getting it wrong.
The way i see it, the robot covered in dark is the one lighting the scene. So you get the spotlight effect of it all. So what i would do if i were you, was to create 2 simple spotlights that represent the lighting eyes. These can be given a hard raytraced shadow. If you want to in a later stage, is to make them a little more area light so they create softer shadows that are casted on further shapes.
Then in a second stage, you can add final gathering, and if that is not enough you can use global illumination. But the effect should stay low cause the lightsource is not strong enough for casting long lasting light-rays.
Then the third stage should be like jeremy suggested, adding some reflection to certain objects. All things reflect light, and reflection is just what reflecting light is all about. It's just the settings for the reflections that get you a great look. Theoretically speaking, when you turn on reflection you should loose the specular. Cause specular is kind of a faked blurry reflection of high light sources. And the real blurry reflections will get you a real nice effect.
I think i might try it too, but still i'm not sure if i'm gonna go for a try. Still too stressed out from the last big cg challenge.
Cheers and hope you give these suggestions a try.

[wasimattar]

wasimattar - Great scene! I think the robot could get more light from those light panels over him, helping to shape and define him and separate him from the background.

-jeremy

Thanks Jeremy for your comment i will be adding the panel button lights as post effects which i have kept for the later part right now i am working on the overall texture and feel of the scene.
Thank you. Your comment makes our work even better with every post.

[Nothingness]

Little more info:
i'm new to any of these lighting challenges, and really feel the urge to participate one. I'm a little stressed out from 4 months of big challenge work and really want to take it a little slower.

But while i rest a little, before starting the lighting, i wanted to ask a global question to maya 2009 users ! :
Does anybody else got the "parti_volume" shader node to work?
I did but with a lousy workaround. I'd love to use it this time to see what i can do with it.
The problem seems to happen when the camera is located inside the volume that has the shader applied to it. When it's outside it works just fine.

So the workaround basically is attaching the volume cube to the camera and get is so close it's just no inside of it. You don't notice it.
I think i'll give it a try this weekend to lighten and render this scene. Hope it's gonna be fun.
cheers

padfoot7726: i think i'm missing the bump on the floor. I know it's a tear-plate, but it doesn't look like one. And you see like bump distortion on the reflection or the light on the left side, but the right side is uneffected.

[phil-w8]

Hi everyone,

This is my last update. Using Maya/mental ray no GI/FG.

Any comments to help me improve are welcome :)

thanks.

-philippe

http://www.philippelhage.com/lighting_challenges/scifi21.jpg

[jokerxel]

Hello, just trying out the lighting challenge here. I set up a fill amb-occlusion on all my shaders. Testing out something I learned from Jeremy Vickery's Gnomon Master Class. Need to work on extra lighting and texturig. WIP>http://www.elliot-contreras.com/images/lightChallenge_jokerxel_v01.jpg

[jeremybirn]

This morning I just uploaded a video on how to adjust rim lights and kick lights that some of you might be interested in. It's a clip from my DVD about Maya lighting, but I think anyone can follow it:
http://www.vimeo.com/3089924

jokerxel - Welcome! That's a good start, as a base layer of fill light. If you have a lot of metal in a scene, then maybe instead of so much ambient occlusion, more reflection occlusion could be used instead? Then think about physical light sources that could add to the shot, with distinctive light coming from specific places.

phil-w8 - Nice scene! Things look very uniformly lit down that hallway. I wonder if there could be less contrast with distance, or any overall gradient to define the space? Even up and down the walls the brightness could shift more, with all the lights near the top. Maybe you could do more with the two lights right over the robot's head? The left side of frame could go darker, especially within the shadows.

Nothingness - Welcome! We look forwards to your entry. I used parti_volume on a previous challenge entry http://www.3drender.com/challenges/hauntedhallway/page13.htm a while back. I think the bounding volume did need to be visible to the camera for it to work, but I don't think that's a huge problem. It was just a tweaky shader in other respects to set-up.

padfoot7726 - There seems to be too harsh a diagonal line where the fog cuts off below the fan. This impression might just come from how well the fog lines-up with the hallway ceiling and side-wall behind it, but still that's how the image looks. Maybe that can be softened so the fog looks smooth and continuous. For the floor panels: the one that's been lifted out looks good, I just can't see a shadow or reflection under it on the floor. The floor could use a matching edge that looks like the same material and thickness as the panel that was removed. Maybe just model a little frame to fit in there and texture that. The robot could use more light or reflection on his hands, especially the right hand.

runejw - In terms of simplifying and creating a clear focus, the new wall texture helps, it's not as distracting as the old one, but the floor seems to be super-bright yellow and still looks brighter than the light source. Do everything you can to clarify and simplify your scene so it clearly communicates a single point and focuses the viewers on the area(s) where they should look.

nojak - Welcome! Already a strong start on the scene! Keep going!

kanooshka - Nice composition and idea. It seems as if you could either add some interest in more of the frame, or else push in closer and get a better view of the interesting parts of the scene. The fog/glow doesn't seem 100% connected to the eyes, maybe it looks more as if it all comes from one of them. Maybe a little more work on local optical effects around the eyes would drive that point home. The reflection of the robot's head in the ground is OK, but I'd like to see the 2 highlights on the ground where the eyes appear in reflections.

MircoP - Your scene keeps getting better and better! If I hold up my hand over the right side of the frame, it seems as if we could crop off the right side and the scene would still work. Some of the highlights are so bright that they are clipped-out to pure white. I think if you reduced those highlights, but added to the sense that the light sources illuminate their surroundings, it would help the scene. For example, the two really bright highlights near the top of frame could be cut to half their brightness, but the illumination from those highlights onto the robot could be boosted. Those glowing panels could illuminate the wall and floor right next to themselves more, even if the panel itself got a little shading instead of hitting pure white. Even the highlight on the left side that's white in the center and cyan on the edges could come down a lot.

-jeremy

[Nothingness]

Nothingness - Welcome! We look forwards to your entry. I used parti_volume on a previous challenge entry http://www.3drender.com/challenges/hauntedhallway/page13.htm a while back. I think the bounding volume did need to be visible to the camera for it to work, but I don't think that's a huge problem. It was just a tweaky shader in other respects to set-up.


Thanks for the info, but you see, i think your example is done with a previous verion to the maya 2009. I can get it to work in the older versions, but it's a problem that effects only 2009. But i guess i'll just stay with the workaround.
thanks anyway

[jeremybirn]

Thanks for the info, but you see, i think your example is done with a previous verion to the maya 2009. I can get it to work in the older versions, but it's a problem that effects only 2009. But i guess i'll just stay with the workaround.
thanks anyway

Quite true. My luck with different MR shaders does seem to change from version to version...

-jeremy

[AdamHerbert]

Thank you jeremybirn! I've added some extra fill lights to the scene to make the rest of it pop more.

Thank you for the C&C Nothingness. I see what you mean about the robot pointing the light. I've added more lights and reflections to the surrounding area as well as a fill light on the robot shining the light.

Ambient Occlusion with DOF
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3104/render2amboccoc2.jpg (http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=render2amboccoc2.jpg)


DOF
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/8/render2ov6.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=render2ov6.jpg)

[Synk2]

Hey there! This is my first challenge on CGS, and I have to say thanks to Jeremy and everyone for putting these up. I'm an hobbyist CGer still learning the ropes, and most of my time has been spent learning modeling and the software, so I figured this would be a great way to jump in with both feet and learn a bit about lighting and rendering. It's been a real blast so far, and I've learned a WHOLE lot about mental ray and the like while playing around with the scene. As of now, I'm stuck on a problem that I just can't get around, and was hoping one of the wise peoples on here could help me with it.

Here's the setup. I'm using Max 09 and mr, imported the fbx file and got to it. I'm using photometric frees in the center and a mr mat with a glow effect in the surface slot on the angled panels, top and bottom (if there's a better/easier/faster/etc way to get a nice lighting effect on these, I'd love to hear about it...my setup is just what I found through trial and error). I'm liking the look of things so far, but I've certainly got a long way to go on it. The problem I'm running into is with the walls and top panels. No matter what I do, the flat parts render transparent (you can see the edges illuminating, they're yellow). I've tried pulling the lights and illuminating them with just an omni, changing materials, and even rebuilding them from scratch. Here's a quick render of the results (sorry about the quality, just wanted to demonstrate the effect and get this posted before I head off to work). Rendered with GI/FG, though the effect shows up no matter what.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/synk2/LC18_wallTest.jpg

The detailed panels in front of the wall show up fine, I just have them turned off right now to improve render times and viewport workflow. I really have tried resolving this, but have had zero luck. I've never run into anything like this before, though I'm sure it's something simple that my inexperienced brain is missing! If anyone has any suggestions I'd just love it, so I can get back to the fun part of this: the lighting!

Another quick question: Since the scene is so object heavy (3k+ I believe), would attaching some of the objects like the panel details improve render times or viewport response? I have a feeling it would, but I really don't want to tie up a day optimizing if it's not going to give much back. Thanks again and happy lighting.

[okazaky]

Here's my entry. It was done with Cinema 4D and rendered with Fryrender.
The scene is really cool, thanks to Juan Carlos Silva :thumbsup:

http://www.okazaky.de/temp/lc_18_okazaky.jpg

Best regards,
Daniel

[UncleEntity]

First post on this forum...

My initial pass getting the lights (mostly) set up and some basic textures to determine the color theme.

Blender internal render with no compositing...yet.

http://www.trollwerks.org/scifi1.jpg

[giron]

Hey all. This is my first time doing a lighting challenge and posting one. Done in maya 2009 and mental ray. rendered using the new render pass system which actually gave me no problems this time. render time about 20 minutes with fg/gi

I'd love to get some critique on this.

Thanks,
Kevin


first draft:

http://www.gir0n.com/robotDance.png

[bshao]

Rejigged the lighting setup, some of the textures and put in some fog at the distance for added spookiness!

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/bshao/LightingChallenges/ScienceFiction4.jpg

Comments welcome!

Synk2 - that really is weird! you've probably already checked these, but have you checked the shader transparency? Whether the renderer is rendering those layers as well within the scene? Sorry if I'm not much help but it's hard to figure it out without actually looking at your setup...

[rmejia]

Hi,
I've been trying to darken the scene, going for a darker mood. Turned off the hallway lights and added some fog. I'm open for any crits about the lighting! Thanks in advance.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/93640/Forums/CGTalk/Lighting%20Challenges/18%20Science%20Fiction/spaceship7.jpg
http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/93640/forums/spaceship7.jpg

[Nothingness]

Rejigged the lighting setup, some of the textures and put in some fog at the distance for added spookiness!


looking better then the previous one without fog. I think the global fog could be more present overall, but not too bright. When you get the fog to apear a little behind the character, you'll accent it's outline just a little and will give it more mood. It's a dark scene, looking ok, but just miss the presence of the character a little.

cheers

[Nothingness]

Hi,
I've been trying to darken the scene, going for a darker mood. Turned off the hallway lights and added some fog. I'm open for any crits about the lighting! Thanks in advance.


It looks very good. But the thing i find strange, is the fog. If there is only a bit of local fog at the front, this could be possible, but very unlikely. Physically fog is more present - or visible - where the light travels more distance through it. Fog shatters light and hence the blurryness or lack of Hue. For this reason, people aren't used to see fog in the front and no fog in the distant. It looks kind of strange.
But i don't think you need a big distance fog, but maybe you could stretch out the fog over the whole scene as a very low hanging fog. And maybe just a little global fog to dim the dark colors from the back just a little bit.

cheers

[rmejia]

the thing i find strange, is the fog

Thanks for the crit. The fog is actually just rising about a foot (.3m) from the ground, covering the entire scene. In the back it gets pretty dense, it cuts of the robots wheels, but it gets so dense and gray, that it kind of looks like the floor and not a fog. I agree it seems a little hard to read, I'll try adding more to that back part to make it read better.

edit:
Also... it seems I can't get this scene dark enough :curious:, it looked twice as dark in my desktop computer than it does now from a laptop ... Guess I need to calibrate one of the two.

[bshao]

Thanks Nothingness! I'll play with the fog for my next render. Also thinking of putting a little bit in the foreground where the fan light ends to make it more interesting...

Cheers!

:thumbsup:

[rmejia]

This morning I just uploaded a video on how to adjust rim lights and kick lights that some of you might be interested in. It's a clip from my DVD about Maya lighting, but I think anyone can follow it:
http://www.vimeo.com/3089924

Interesting video, thanks for sharing it!

[MartinRomero]

Hello Jeremy and hello everyone,

Everyone here is having fun with this challenge and I did not want to be left behind so here is my work in progress.

The texturing and lighting were done in Maya 2009, with Mental Ray turned on for the ray trace shadows.

I finished 90 percent of the texturing, there are only a few things here and there that need some love but is not a big deal.

Lighting: I will be making some changes to the incandescence for now I am just playing with values to see what will be the best way to go about it.

The lighting in the back, behind the crates will stay like that, kind of dark. I will adding some bounce light around the Fan, I know it looks too dark but it won't stay like that. Anyway it feels good to be back on another project.

Got to go back to work....
later
Martin Romero


http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g00/234000/234000_1233896457_large.jpg

[phil-w8]

phil-w8 - Nice scene! Things look very uniformly lit down that hallway. I wonder if there could be less contrast with distance, or any overall gradient to define the space? Even up and down the walls the brightness could shift more, with all the lights near the top. Maybe you could do more with the two lights right over the robot's head? The left side of frame could go darker, especially within the shadows.

-jeremy

Thank you Mr. Birn for your comments. I'll work on my scene asap. One question though, I tried to define distance in my scene by using the DOF, but i'm not sure it was a "success". Is there any other way to show the distance in the hallway? I'd really like your opinion or any other opinion form the many artists in this thread on this matter.

Thank you.

-philippe

[jpm55]

http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse456/CurrentQtr/robot20.jpgHi everyone, this will be my first challenge as well. I plan on doing a lot more but this is my initial scene and setup. I want to keep it a very limited palette, possibly just black and white. I have only used depth map shadows so and maya software render, at some point I might switch to mental ray etc.

Any feedback welcome and thanks for looking!
-J.P.

[dineshb]

http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g94/364394/364394_1233919961_large.jpgThis is my first work in lighting challenge.. I Love this model verymuch.so i decided to do this scene in maya which i use to lightthe scenes ....Here is my WIP..C & C are always welcome...
Thanking you
Dinesh

[wasimattar]

Done some work on the panel texture and floor texture next will upgrade the corridor texture a bit more .....
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk28/wasimattar/Sci-fi-02big.jpg

[BlenderFan]

@Martin Romero: That's a really wonderful image. It has a horror movie feeling to it, which really works. I agree that the fan might be a little too dark.

[Aridiel]

hi guys!
first time on a challenge here.
is really the first time i got some time actually.
love some of the works found here. specially the one form slazzo. (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=356236)
hope you like this. made on max with mental ray. Is the mi first render in mental ray, im still looking into it, so if you can help me out here, be glad to hear from you.

Seeya!


[/url][url="http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=robotlightingmv6.jpg"]http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/126/robotlightingmv6.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=robotlightingmv6.jpg)

[TCPortfolio]

Wow, this is a very unique take on this challenge Aridiel! Really cool, and inspiring. I'm learning a great deal about lighting just doing this comp...so it's worth it just for that! Thanks to everyone; I'll be taking the crits into consideration and posting another render soon.

[AdamHerbert]

Wow! Great looking stuff here guys! I'm impressed!

Here is an update to mine. Started some texturing and added a few elements to lend to the atmosphere.

Blender 2.48 internal renderer:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/4853/render4ti7.png (http://img10.imageshack.us/my.php?image=render4ti7.png)

[Pigments]

cooolll... excellent work guys... i have downloaded the scene now.. i will have my hands on it from tomo...

BE GOOD....DO GOOOD

[tomoyasu-hotei]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3497/3258264155_e78f43af28_o.jpghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/metafus/3258264155/?edited=1http://www.flickr.com/photos/metafus/3258264155/sizes/o/http://www.flickr.com/photos/metafus/3258264155/sizes/o/

Here is a test render. I will work on the texture of the walls later.

[Nothingness]

Done some work on the panel texture and floor texture next will upgrade the corridor texture a bit more .....
It's looking very nice. But maybe a little too monochrome. I think it would be nice to have at least one of your lights to be blueish. For example, you can have a room lit by 10 to 20 yellow tl-lights, but 1 is a blue one. This could break the monochrome lighting a lot. Next thing you could find out is how to make your lights look like they are emitting the color. Now they are just plainly white. If you imagine these lights to be lights with tl-tubes inside, you could make a shader that has bright white in the centre, and a little of your color to the edges. And this combined with some glow will make the lights more integrated in the nicely lit scene.

hi guys!
first time on a challenge here.
is really the first time i got some time actually.
love some of the works found here. specially the one form slazzo
hope you like this. made on max with mental ray. Is the mi first render in mental ray, im still looking into it, so if you can help me out here, be glad to hear from you.
Seeya!


It looks great. How did you composit the light? Or was it within mental ray? And did you composit a seperate character on a background? Cause the colored reflection on the robot seem not to be matching the scene color. It's ok if the colored light is behind the camera, but the robot reflects red that is behind the robot. And behind it is way too much white and no red at all. But looking great anyway.
ps. if you put your name under the image, you should give credit to the modeler.

Wow! Great looking stuff here guys! I'm impressed!
Here is an update to mine. Started some texturing and added a few elements to lend to the atmosphere.
Blender 2.48 internal renderer:


Looking better. But here are some suggestions. I never worked in blender, so you'll have to found out how to do this for yourself. The spotlight is essence is not bright enough to make the back as bright as it is now. So you should try to use a fall-off distance for the lights. Meaning they will be less bright towards greater distances.
The fog is nice too, but it seems to be only visible in the direct lighting. It could be a hard case to crack (so do this one only when you want too and got the rest figured out) but fog in theory just scatters lights. So, you see fog because it scatters a little of the light back before it hits any real surface. But, it scatters the light to everywhere and not only back to the camera/spectator. So this could mean that the light could get scattered many times so that it comes back to the camera from another place then the first scatter position. In short: fog will also be seen in places not directly lit by the spotlight. But i'm not saying you need to put fog everywhere. Just a little is more than enough.
But this is my opinion so do with it as you like. It's a nice case to examine.

cheers all

[AdamHerbert]

Nothingness-Thanks for the C&C! I created some more fog floating around. I also played with the decay rates of the lights in Blender and didn't like the results so I ended making a custom decay rate and it works great! I think this is turning much better than it started. Thanks again!

Blender internal 2.48:
http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/6249/render5fq9.png (http://img158.imageshack.us/my.php?image=render5fq9.png)

[movilk]

Hi everyone!!! This is my first post and challenge and have to say I am excited about doing it after not been able to participate in previous ones due to lots of work.

Thanks Jeremy for this fantastic opportunity for learning lighting techniques in such an interactive way. I have seen lots of great results and source of inspiration. You are creating a good school Jeremy!!!

Well this is my first test at the scene. Only gone for the lighting and a little bit of texturing.
Using 3ds Max 2008 with Mental Ray.

Lighting approach: Light coming from the light panels on the walls and Final gather / AO
Will try to be a bit more creative (mood and personality of the scene) on my next test.
Looking foward to hear your comments!

Thanks Juan Carlos Silva for your GREAT Modelling of the scene!!!
http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv323/movilk/render3_00000.jpg

[wasimattar]

It's looking very nice. But maybe a little too monochrome. I think it would be nice to have at least one of your lights to be blueish. For example, you can have a room lit by 10 to 20 yellow tl-lights, but 1 is a blue one. This could break the monochrome lighting a lot. Next thing you could find out is how to make your lights look like they are emitting the color. Now they are just plainly white. If you imagine these lights to be lights with tl-tubes inside, you could make a shader that has bright white in the centre, and a little of your color to the edges. And this combined with some glow will make the lights more integrated in the nicely lit scene.


Hi thanks for your comment i will sure do that...

[BlenderFan]

This is my final submission, at least for this take on the scene (I may do another angle). I rendered and composited this in Blender 2.48. Textures and some fog and color correction were done in Photoshop. I had a very good time with this image, and I am continually amazed by people's unique interpretations of this scene. Good show, everybody.


God bless you all.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3505/3259819746_e6b676428b_o.jpg

[Waters]

Hi everybody. This is my first time joining in the lighting challenge (or any challenge). Comments and crits very welcome. There's some amazing work on here.

I am going for an old dusty and dark environment. It should feel eerie and abadoned. I want to add something to that wall for the robot to be curious about.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5615/lightingchallengescifimbv7.jpg

[BlenderFan]

@Waters: Are we to assume that the robot's eyes are illuminating the wall? If so, and the environment is dusty and dirty, some volumetric beams between the robot's eyes and the wall would both help convey the sense of dustiness and give us a better idea of where the light is coming from. I like the throw-pattern from the light. Just my two-cents.

Cheers.

[Mirco83]

Thank you Jeremy for your appreciaments and suggestions!
Here's the new fixes:
-Lowered the intensity of the blue light on the left
-Lowered the glowing panels
-Lowered the reflection on the ceiling of the glow panels
-Added more light in the corridor caused by the glow panels
-Added some lights on the robot caused from the bounce of the glow panels on the ceilings
-A little bit of texturing update
-Adjutsted the Bokeh effects

Bye,
Mirco Paolini

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1682/6thupdtateim2.jpg

[Rals]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35179308@N06/3261351978/
hi everyone, this is my first lighting challenge :)

[Rals]

hello Jeremy Sir :)
This is my first lighting challenge, but m not able to load a larger image,the image tat i loaded is in form of a thumbnail. So please help me to know t correct way of loading a larger image like others :)

Rahul
Thank you :)

[BlenderFan]

@Rals: You need to upload the image to some sort of image hosting site (ImageShack, Flickr, etc.) and then copy and paste the URL from the site into the box that comes up when you click the Insert Image button. You will find this button in the html editor that comes up when you reply. Using this, there is really no limit to the quantity or size of the images you upload. Hope that helped.

Cheers.

[Rals]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3489/3261351978_8007cf58f2_o.jpghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/35179308@N06/3261351978/
hello everyone, this is my first lighting challenge, hope u like it . :)

[Nothingness]

hello Jeremy Sir :)
This is my first lighting challenge, but m not able to load a larger image,the image tat i loaded is in form of a thumbnail. So please help me to know t correct way of loading a larger image like others :)

Rahul
Thank you :)

First off, welcome!
If you have a question or doubt, please don't be afraid to post your question directed to everyone out here. The community is full of experiences.
This forum only hosts images (final ones) that you submit as portfolio. So for all other images, like for this challenge, you need to get them online in some way. Then you can use the url to incorporate the image in this forum. Just be careful about the size of the image to make viewing of it stil comfortable.

cheers and curious to see the work.

[Rals]

First off all
thanks to Phil & Nico :)
it been a gr8 help for me to know ab8 uploading t image :)
would also like to get a comment 4m you, but pls do consider t fact that m a beginner :)

Thank you very much & i really mean it :)

[Waters]

@BlenderFan - Thanks for the feedback. Agreed, I needed volume lighting. I did the volume lighting in a separate pass because of render times, and it took me forever to find out I was getting killed on render times because the default max step length was way too big.

I tried a different camera and gamma after reading a tutorial:

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3507/lightingchallengescifimhm6.jpg

[BlenderFan]

Hey Waters, I am curious to know. Is the tutorial you followed yves poissant's gamma correction tutorial? I read it recently and learned a ton. Just wondering.

Cheers.

[Waters]

I was reading the lighting tutorial by Florian Wild, floze on here.

[dineshb]

Hi everyone,
This is my second image which am uploading here.this is my wip2 image..i jus wanna share my lighting feel in this scene....doing shading & texturing ..and i will upload the final image ASAP.......C & C are welcome plz........http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g94/364394/364394_1234061881_large.jpg

[DragonSFX]

so, this will be my first attempt at a lighting challenge. i almost did the December one last year but didn't have the time to finish... so didn't start. hopefully i will have better luck this time.

so, this is Day One. still along way to go, but i wanted to get a post in before i changed my mind again :D. i still haven't settled on a camera angle yet or anything. i'm still just playing around to see what is going to work. i am going to try to get away without having to uv anything. we will see how that goes tomorrow.



http://www.dragonsfx.com/media/0001b03wm.iff%20copy.jpg

[brookselliott]

My first draft at the scifi challenge..
Here's a link to a higher res version:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3261994199/

[jojo1975]

sorry double post

[jojo1975]

Update :)
More color in panels, changed values of the three lights according to suggestions. Thanks to all for the feedback. Color scheme same as in 2001 space Odysseyhttp://www.giorgioluciano.net/CgTalk/XVIIOdyssey.jpg

[punytjoshi]

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o168/modelerpunit/ScienceFiction_5.jpg


[punytjoshi - Looks good! The robot has a nice solid look, with nice rims and kicks defining his form. The fan could use more contrast, it looks like soft plastic with a glow running through it. The area above it could ramp into darkness more smoothly though. The wall behind the robot, on the left, looks better than the right walls, because the nice reflectivity adds some punch and interest to the surface.]



Here is my improvisation I tried using premult option in mental ray render setting but it gave me white outling and I could not find premult option in shake please guide me where I can find but I got rid of that black line when I tried applying alpha to each pass I rendered plane alpha of charecter(using white surface shader with high sampeling) and applied it to each passes.

Pls comment

[DragonSFX]

so here is a new one. i settled on the shot, now it is just a matter of texturing everything.
http://www.dragonsfx.com/media/0001b08.iffwm%20copy.jpg

[FreshFX]

Hey lad's

Very nice work going on here, Seeing some really great renders / textures and a lot more. I have ben working on my own one, but due to moving country and delays with that ive had to slow down a bit on the challenge, but im still in!..

Im getting twitchy fingers because im seeing great updates / new images being contributed into this challenge. Good work lads and very nice renders!

Keep it up and hopefully ill be adding my own render hehe :).

Jamie

[jeremybirn]

FreshFX - Welcome!

DragonSFX - The composition of the new one is fine, but just be careful about how there's more room behind him than the way he's facing, you have to do something to add graphic weight to the area behind him or else people's eyes will get trapped in the area in front of the robot where he's looking. I guess you could texture everything if you want, although some people more or less skip that and focus on lighting scenes full of untextured materials. Looking forwards to your next step.

punytjoshi - Shake expects things to be rendered premult, over black. If you render everything premult and comp with shake's over node, there's no matte lines. There's a lot of ambient light in your scene. The area aroung the fan seems to be all ambient, no shadows or occlusion anywhere. Nice textures on the robot, his eyes oculd be a little more bright or clear to bring him to life more.

jojo1975 - You image is getting better and better! The ceiling, and black and lighter reflective panels on the side, are starting to look much more clear and solid. Maybe that round monitor on the right could have the black material inside the frame? I can't tell what the white things along the left and right of the floor are. They look bright enough to be light sources, but they don't seem to be illuminating what's above them, and then near the last panels near the intersection fade off into pink, I don't know why they do that. Maybe the side panels of the floor could go darker instead of lighter to avoid confusion? That last section of floor near the intersection gets pink and dusty near the edges, but the center is one of the brightest parts of the scene. What's causing that highlight on the floor in front of the robot's left wheel? It gets super-bright in that one area, then it gets uniformly dark in the center of the intersection. The far hallway look good. Maybe it could have a little more light in places, so there's more to bloom out with bokeh effects?

brookselliott - Welcome! That's a good start. I think the whole scene has a lot of ambient light in it now, giving most of the surfaces very even illumination. Try to get a little more contrast and variety into the scene, so that shapes and distances are defined as gradients running from light to dark.

dineshb - Great idea with the dynamic pose and the lightening on him. It could have even more impact if you darkened down some other parts of the set, to most of the light was coming out of the electrical activity. You could even make blue lights come out of the electricity and illuminate nearby parts of the set if you want.

Waters - I agree fog would be nice for the light coming out of the eyes. If you can't do the fog, then add some optical effects like flares or blooms around the eyes. If the lights in the eyes are bright enough to overexpose the wall, then they should cast at least a little glow onto the robot himself, as if the brightest lights near him were those two points. I also think there needs to be some bounce light, like an area light coming away from the bright part of the wall, bouncing back onto the robot and set.
But wait a Minute!!! Your version 6 was much better than version 7! Nice colors, nicer shading, composition that works better! I'm working through backwards so that I comment on the latest version of everyone's work, but you had something nicer in the previous page!

Rals - Welcome! I think the whole scene has a lot of ambient light in it now, giving most of the surfaces uniform illumination. Try to create contrast and variety into the lighting. Use only a few lights, and make sure they each cast shadows and make sense in terms of light that would exist in the scene.

MircoP - Great scene! The idea that the thing he's facing is another robot seems to have been lost in this shot. Maybe that's OK, depends on what you want people to see. Your image is looking better and better in terms of getting the lights and shadows balanced out and believable, though.

BlenderFan - Nice work.

movilk - The Depth of Field is very strange. In the reflection on the floor, the whole hall is 100% in focus. Above the floor, the hallway gets murky very quickly. Either fix the DOF or just get rid of it. There lighting is off to a good start. Try using less overall ambient light, and more light coming from identifiable light sources. Since the robot is right near those light panels, you might put some kicks and some rims on him to make his head and body look more back-lit, and to give some presence to the black wheels and arms. That circle of light on the ceiling near the ladder looks unnatural. get rid of that or tone it down.

AdamHerbert - Looks good! Try to get darker shadows, especially the shadow to the left of the left robot could be darker and also should get softer with distance.

tomoyasu-hotei - Good start! I think now the robot is lit mostly with reflections, it would be good to get some real lights in there as well.

-jeremy

[klabund]

Great works and some very intriguing texturing to see here! Thanks again to Jeremy for all his comments and suggestions.

Since I managed to overwrite my initial file, here's another attempt I will pursue from now on. Still very basic, as some texturing has to be done as well as some postwork on the candle, especially the flame. Might change the color scheme around a bit, but I guess I have to go with this from now on, otherwise I wander away again. ;)

Crits & comments welcomed!

http://www.desertwalker.com/img/light02.jpg

[jeremybirn]

hi guys!
first time on a challenge here.
is really the first time i got some time actually.
love some of the works found here. specially the one form slazzo. (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=356236)
hope you like this. made on max with mental ray. Is the mi first render in mental ray, im still looking into it, so if you can help me out here, be glad to hear from you.

Seeya!


http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/126/robotlightingmv6.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=robotlightingmv6.jpg)

Aridiel -

That's great! Really world-class image you're developing there. I love the blown-out background. I wish there were more light gleaming from the background creating rims and kicks on the robot and the tubes holding him. The dark warm tones on the robot are great, it creates nice contrast to make him that dark. His eyes might be an exception, something brighter, maybe concentric rings of reflective brushed metal, maybe glass lenses, something that can catch some of the gleam, might add to the character. You could say I have an eye fixation from working at an animation studio too long, but they are important. The tube his right arm is hanging from looks kind-of angular, as if it needs more tessellation. The plates on the floor are terrific, wonderful texture there. On the left side, the upper and lower panels look like twins of each-other, with the same brown thing in their lower corner, maybe those could be switch around so they don't look like repeats. The instruments behind the robot on the right could use a little more texture, whatever you put there be sure it helps build contrast and keeps the robot visible, though, it has to remain a background element even if it gets more variety.

Congratulations again on such a fine image!

-jeremy

[Mirco83]

MircoP - Great scene! The idea that the thing he's facing is another robot seems to have been lost in this shot. Maybe that's OK, depends on what you want people to see. Your image is looking better and better in terms of getting the lights and shadows balanced out and believable, though.

-jeremy

Thank you very much Jeremy!
I'm so glad that you appreciated my work!
The main idea of the evil robot is lost a little...Because the two evil red eyes aren't so definited becouse of the eccessive glow,i think!...I'll fix it!
Now it's time to refine a little bit of shading...
Bye,

Mirco Paolini

[eldonaldo]

heres my try with cinema 4d.. i wanted to go for a late 70s cineastic look.. didn't have a lot of time to spend so the shading isn't really what i intended it to be.. but hey. also: worst sampling and postwork ever.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4682/robbkz7.jpg

[jeremybirn]

klabund - Good start. Nice idea with the candle. It looks like candle light is leaking into the interior of the robot's head, might need more shadows. If he gets reflective, reflections of the candle would help. The candle's wick should stay mostly black and the candle flame might get a little more blue near the base. I think the robot's eyes could have some shading and candle highlights in them.

wasimattar - Nice image! The robot could use more punchy lighting from the top and sides motivated by those light panels. I don't think the tire tracks are working yet: I was looking at them at first wondering what kind of funny shadow that was under him before I realized you're texturing tire tracks on the floor. Some light on the tire treads themselves could help bring attention to the wheels also. I love the subtle shading in some of the background areas such as around the ladder, very organic looking there.

jpm55 - Welcome! That's a good start! Keep going...

phil-w8 - There are lots of ways to show distance. Move the camera in closer, with a wider field of view, and you get more perspective. Use fog or something to reduce contrast and saturation in the distance. Give some overall variety to the lighting, or else go light-dark-light for constrasting forms stacked on top of eachother. Often the best insights come from finding some reference images you like and studying what happens to the colors and tones in real life.

MartinRomero - That's great! His head doesn't look like it's shaded as well as the rest of him yet, that's probably a part you're still doing. Those 4 round lights stuck up on the right side of the ceiling don't seem to be fully attached or functional, maybe you could move those so they look like they are stuck on a beam? Great textures on the floor. I'm a little confused about where the up-light is coming from on the bottom of his wheels, etc.?

rmejia - Nice work! The idea of the robot liking the panda video is reasonably clear, even if that action is shoved off to the side instead of being focused on. The two background robots are almost hidden though, you need to look for a long time to see those. The TV screens don't really look like TV screens: maybe some scan-lines or something to make a less perfect picture, or some curvature and reflections on the glass, might help? I don't know what the white stuff is in front of the ladder on the right.

bshao - Good start. If the set is going to stay that dark, then try to put some glints and reflections and maybe rim light on the robot to help him pop.

giron - Welcome! That's really good -- nice solid scene there! There's a funny dark edge around the robot's arms, I don't know if it's a compositing problem or the arms just need some rim light. I think you could do more with the light panels, maybe make them even brighter in the center, give some texture or shaping to them, let them cast more illumination out into the scene? The colors in the background are nice. The robot's body buttons look a little off, maybe because they are darker in the center then the glow forms around them?

UncleEntity - Welcome! Good basic set-up. Keep going with the lighting, try to get some variety and shading and shadows in there!

okazaky - Welcome! That's a great job!

Synk2 - I can't answer every Max question, but if you're missing some walls you might try importing a different file format as the starting point?

-jeremy

[klabund]

klabund - Good start. Nice idea with the candle. It looks like candle light is leaking into the interior of the robot's head, might need more shadows. If he gets reflective, reflections of the candle would help. The candle's wick should stay mostly black and the candle flame might get a little more blue near the base. I think the robot's eyes could have some shading and candle highlights in them.

-jeremy

Thank you again for the great feedback! Yes, I agree that these are the weakest parts yet - and probably not thought through enough from my side. I'll work on it. :)

[Shordy]

Hi here is an update...

http://www.cg-creatives.de/files/18_ScienceFictionChallenge_shordy_v7.jpg

[eldonaldo]

now thats more like it, shordy..

i demand underwater fog.. maybe trough z-buffer and postwork.
and that you move the camera closer to the line separating water from air..
then add DoF - do a search on flickr with "over under water" - you'll see some photos that you can use for reference.
if you can nail that effect, you're a god. i think it will be pretty tough though.

[philip]

now thats more like it, shordy..

i demand underwater fog..

you *demand*?!

ROFL

[Zedblade]

still waiting for a horror themed one. Blood all over the walls and over the robot,broken panels and a creepy lighting scheme. Make it look like the robot went insane and killed everyone. Would do it myself, but I don't have the time :(

[herbertagudera]

herbertagudera - Nice job! Your scene keeps getting better!
-jeremy

thanks again jeremy.. i really had fun doing this challenge..

heres an update.. im calling this my final render.. i just added texture on the floor..
i think i'll do another render but with a different camera angle.. hehe.. ill post a breakdown of my render very soon.. i forgot how many layers i used here.. but im sure its more or less 20 layers.. hehe

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1256/3265341398_8c3f6927a1.jpg (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=3265341398&size=large)
click image to view larger version

great job guys.. so many cool renders and concepts.. i really like aridiels work..

:bounce:

[wasimattar]

wasimattar - Nice image! The robot could use more punchy lighting from the top and sides motivated by those light panels. I don't think the tire tracks are working yet: I was looking at them at first wondering what kind of funny shadow that was under him before I realized you're texturing tire tracks on the floor. Some light on the tire treads themselves could help bring attention to the wheels also. I love the subtle shading in some of the background areas such s around the ladder, very organic looking there.

-jeremy
thanks jeremy for your comment I am still workign on the tire track texture and I will will also put some extra back light to make the robo highlighted

[lamokprod]

Hi !
my participation!
> Maya > Mental Ray > Render time : 1hrs 30.

http://www.lamok.re/lighting.jpg

See yaaa
Darko

[arunakavaram]

My first attempt..... rendered with Maya Software render.
http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g46/364746/364746_1234155347_large.jpg

http://picasaweb.google.com/arunakavaram/3DLight#5300656772925349746

[MartinRomero]

MartinRomero - That's great! His head doesn't look like it's shaded as well as the rest of him yet, that's probably a part you're still doing. Those 4 round lights stuck up on the right side of the ceiling don't seem to be fully attached or functional, maybe you could move those so they look like they are stuck on a beam? Great textures on the floor. I'm a little confused about where the up-light is coming from on the bottom of his wheels, etc.?

Thanks Jeremy I am glad you liked it. I am working on those changes right now.

Cheers

Martin

[Thykka]

http://xs536.xs.to/xs536/09071/wobot414.jpg

First try. Still WIP...

[arunakavaram]

My first attempt..... rendered with Maya Software render.

[Calogan]

Hi guys. This is my fist time to participate in the lighting challenges. Here's my first render. I still have some final gather spots to take care of (render time is pretty long, and I didn't want to re-render). It's still a work in progress so all crits are very welcome.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g160/exodius47/ScienceFictionChallengeNEW.jpg

[chickenkts]

here is my first try
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/nguyen_tien_kts/wall-E2.jpg

[CaptainHook]

Hey everyone,

I'm a complete 3D newb!
This is the first time i've lit a scene and it's been a huge learning curve. It's been
really interesting trying to apply what i've learnt about using lights in photography
to 3D. This is a still a work in progress, and i hope to learn how to texture before
the deadline as so far all my time has spent learning how to use lights in maya.
(i can't model or anything else yet either! - although i did take about 2 days working out
how to do some "steam" from the vents.. haha.)

I spent some time playing with different shaders on the bot to try figure out how
they work, but i don't even how to best separate geometry to apply different shaders
to different areas, eg separate the arm into a few pieces to shade/texture differently..?
I'm sure i'll get there but if anyone here wants to let me know, be my guest. :)

Also, any tips on depth of field? I tried using the lens_bokeh shader and physical
lens_dof shader but they both took ages to render and were very noisey and looked to be
honest, terrible. Is it best to do this in 'post'? Compositing software? I hope to
look into how to do different render passes and assemble in shake or after effects.

Jeremy! I've learnt so much from your posts and this forum/thread so thank you!
Your dedication and commitment to giving feedback astounds me!! I've never seen
anything like it. Maybe other mods on this site are the same but i haven't been anywhere
else yet, just been lurking in this section.

So intro out of the way, here it is.

Maya/Mental Ray.
No FG/GI (don't know how to use them yet. :P )
Depth Map and Ray Trace Shadows/reflections.
Render time: about 35mins on my poor old comp. :(

http://www.dudleystudios.co.nz/clients/CGTalk/18_ScienceFictionChallenge_CaptainHook.jpg

[Breuer]

Ok, heres my first go at this challenge. I have to say Im loving the scene. Lot of fun:)

This is my first render/comp. Already have a pretty long list of things to add/fix.
Rendered in 3dsmax, comped in fusion. Three passes for the render so far, beauty zdepth and AO. Comped in Fusion.

/Erik

[maxx043]

an update with some little changes

- the gradient on the lights
- the buttons material and the glow

rendered with higher aliasing settings

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1597/sifi091280highyb3.jpg

- thanks for all the comments and feedback

[LukeZ]

hello this is my wip first try render in Lightwave for mesh test... + little post in ps
http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g17/7217/7217_1234182867_large.jpg
cheers

[DragonSFX]

ok, thanks for the advice. here is today's work. i haven't decided what to do about the empty space yet. in the end, if i don't change the camera angle or add anything, maybe i will add dof. i actually had originally planned on some smoke or something billowing out from the end of corridor. i haven't thought too much about it though, as of yet. i want to get the close stuff finished first, before i worry too much about the other end.

again, thanks for the input.
http://www.dragonsfx.com/media/0001b10.iffwm%20copy.jpg

[lamokprod]

Hi !
my render > 3h with Mental Ray
with lighting placement & colorimetrics.

http://www.lamok.re/lighting3.jpg

See ya
thx for comments.

Darko.

[runejw]

Excellent, excellent renderings here...

With all these great new renderings I thought I'd make a twist to my own to get some fun back into it...

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3135/compsf18swg7.th.jpg (http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3135/compsf18swg7.jpg)
Can you see the little changes in detail ? :)

Just XSI7 + mentalray, no FG/GI, forgot to time it but ca 1h

[movilk]

movilk - The Depth of Field is very strange. In the reflection on the floor, the whole hall is 100% in focus. Above the floor, the hallway gets murky very quickly. Either fix the DOF or just get rid of it. There lighting is off to a good start. Try using less overall ambient light, and more light coming from identifiable light sources. Since the robot is right near those light panels, you might put some kicks and some rims on him to make his head and body look more back-lit, and to give some presence to the black wheels and arms. That circle of light on the ceiling near the ladder looks unnatural. get rid of that or tone it down.


Thanks Jeremy for your comments & suggestions!!! I definetively agree wirh all of them.
Here is my 2nd take on the scene with the incorporated changes:
- Lowered ambient light. I think the light sources are more obvious now...
- Added some kicks and rims to the robot, and I think it works much better now. Maybe I over did it?
- Got rid of that weird green light on the stairs and added a light source coming from the left (that area was a bit blacked out before)
- The scene has a lowered DOF on the far end of the corridor which I think it works now, but would it be correct not to put DOF at all, would the scene not loose depth?
- Also changed the reflection type on the floor.

Looking foward for C&C!
http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv323/movilk/render7_cambios00000.jpg

[brookselliott]

Composition, color, and contrast changes...
Thank you for the excellent comments..
High res version here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3267555877/sizes/o/)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3267555877/sizes/o/

[Mirco83]

Here's my final entry,
Thank you Jeremy for all the suggestions during my work and congratulations to all the great works i've seen here!
So here's my image,I hope you'll like it.
Bye,
Mirco Paolini

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/1599/finalqp1.jpg

[Delude]

i've been watching this challenge for a while, and there's some great work already posted in here.

i was unsure whether or not to participate in this one... i gave it a try but without much success since there's many things to texture, and not a lot of time to organize the whole scene for C4D.

when i had already given up, and in the middle of trying out the vray demo for c4d, i got a satisfactory result, altough not quite sure why or how the fan red light resulted like this...

so i wouldn't call this an entry just yet and i dont know if i'm gonna have the time to continue it, but here it is my small contribution to the thread

http://werlintm.no.sapo.pt/SFC02.jpg

the only thing textured here are the yellow stripes on the ceilling, and i added a little detail for the archs, something in the lines of the blast door...
the rest is just the corridor without the robot, and some vray lights without gi

ps: sorry for the watermark i dont have the full version of vray...

[tomoyasu-hotei]

how did you do the depth of field in the background?
did it take long to render? what renderer did you use?

Update :)
More color in panels, changed values of the three lights according to suggestions. Thanks to all for the feedback. Color scheme same as in 2001 space Odysseyhttp://www.giorgioluciano.net/CgTalk/XVIIOdyssey.jpg

[baklabo]

hi bros! im ronald mchargue from philippines this is my 1st competition ever,your comments will be much appreciated hope i did a fine job:wavey:. . i used 3ds max 9,vray rc5. .

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee155/baklabo/CHALLENGE18-2.jpg

[zmuh11]

Hello everyone,

My name is Zach Haugen. This is the first lighting challenge that I have had the courage to try. There are a lot of amazing works already done in this challenge and I decided why not give it a go. This image is my first rough draft. There are no textures yet just some basic materials and glows. I'm still very new to shading, lighting, and rendering but I hope to improve my skills.

This image was made in Maya 2008 rendered with Maya Software. I wanted to go for a red alert type feel but also keep the image industrial looking. Obviously the industrial part will come out more in the textures which are still forthcoming but I wanted to get some of the lighting down to see if anyone had any critiques.

Thanks everyone
Zach Haugen

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3434/3270406578_a6e443c17c_o.png

[Nothingness]

how did you do the depth of field in the background?
did it take long to render? what renderer did you use?

It obviously look like the depth is done with the renderer itself and not post-process. Look at the graininess of the depth. It will have taken a heavy time for sure.

Hello everyone,

My name is Zach Haugen. This is the first lighting challenge that I have had the courage to try. There are a lot of amazing works already done in this challenge and I decided why not give it a go. This image is my first rough draft. There are no textures yet just some basic materials and glows. I'm still very new to shading, lighting, and rendering but I hope to improve my skills.

This image was made in Maya 2008 rendered with Maya Software. I wanted to go for a red alert type feel but also keep the image industrial looking. Obviously the industrial part will come out more in the textures which are still forthcoming but I wanted to get some of the lighting down to see if anyone had any critiques.

Thanks everyone
Zach Haugen


nice first try! I think the fog is too bright. In a former post of mine i have done a little explanation about fog and why we see it. So the problem is, the fog is as bright as the light that hits the floor. In fact, you can't even see it because of the fog. (mostly the easiest way is to do the fog in a different pass and composit it in another app. This way you also have more control about how bright it should appear. Then you don't need to rerender the whole image. But it's your choice.
The other lights - especially in the front - look like out of an underexposed photo. So you need to pump up the brightness to get it to look like actual lights. Unless they are meant to be very dimm lights. But for the light they emit i think they still are a little weak.

cheers

[Nothingness]

i've been watching this challenge for a while, and there's some great work already posted in here.

i was unsure whether or not to participate in this one... i gave it a try but without much success since there's many things to texture, and not a lot of time to organize the whole scene for C4D.

when i had already given up, and in the middle of trying out the vray demo for c4d, i got a satisfactory result, altough not quite sure why or how the fan red light resulted like this...

so i wouldn't call this an entry just yet and i dont know if i'm gonna have the time to continue it, but here it is my small contribution to the thread

the only thing textured here are the yellow stripes on the ceilling, and i added a little detail for the archs, something in the lines of the blast door...
the rest is just the corridor without the robot, and some vray lights without gi

ps: sorry for the watermark i dont have the full version of vray...

I'm a bit confused, but you might be able to give some answers. The first thing i find strange, it that it seems you have a lot of objects fully smoothed. I think it's an obj import fault for c4d. I think the way to fix it is to either manyally set your phong-angle, or have a look at the obj. Don't know if anybody else got the problem, but when you export the obj from maya, it's best to export the normals as well. Importing the obj in c4d will give you the right kind of normals like they were intended in maya.
Second of all, i think you use the wrong kind of lights in the wrong places :banghead:
I think for the ceiling and floor lights, you use a simple point light. This is not really the way to go. You see, the lights modeled are supposed to be area lights. In c4d you can create these and position them just in front of the model and point the same direction the model does.
My suggestion: Try another scene but work up from the start. So first just give everything the same material (white or just mid grey) without specular or reflection. Then create one light and see what it does. Test with all low settings for speed, and just try to get a lighting that should look like it should. You can then test with gi if you like. But after you get the feeling it's good, hide the light and do the next one (for example on the fan) and get it right. You can duplicate the area light for the lower lights, and see about intensity cause the more lights you get the brighter the scene. So be carefull not to get 1 light to lighten up the whole scene.
So the best is to start from the start and discover all the possibilities a light has to offer, and what you can use it for.

And a nice hint: when you are testing the lights and setup, you could hide the detail on the wall just to get faster test renders ;)

hope this get's you off your feet some more

[Nothingness]

Composition, color, and contrast changes...
Thank you for the excellent comments..


Looking nice, but i was thinking, have you ever experimented with Fresnel dropoff ?
I think it would be nice to use this dropoff technique for reflection on the robot. Just in case you don't know what i'm talking about: it's the dropoff where there is less reflection where the material's normal gets closer to aim to the camera. Why is this? Some materials like glass or varnish on top of car-paint let light go through, where only a part gets bounced back. But when the light hits the same material but at a higher angle, the lights get less absorbed and reflects thus more. Hence you see more of it reflected back to the camera.

i think it could be a nice finishing touch. But don't exaggerate in the contrast of it.

[Delude]

Nothingness, i ajusted the phong angles of the floor, and probably a couple of others i think... and some poly normals, and repositioned a couple of lamps that were wrongly rotated due to export issues and so on...
but i didn't spend that much time to adjust everything that could be wrong with it.

about the lights.... i know they are supposed to be area lights, thats what i started off with the other day when i made this with the scanline

http://werlintm.no.sapo.pt/area%20line%2001.jpg

but with scanline or vray, these many lights.. take forever to render on a dual core with only a g8600....

every irradiance prepass takes forever even if it is just one with low settings on the gi

and as i said i wouldn't call that an entry, until i have time to confirm if the accident driven by the conflict of the fan's red light and the small blue ones that replaced the original area lights, is due to the corridor's arches having holes or not, since i tought i closed with tose meshes that you can more clearly see in the picture just above these lines

fortunate accident that, as far as i can see produced an interesting result on the right handed panels, but that also comes with other problems like if i try to texture the floors, they turn to the red light for illumination.

for the time being as i said i just posted that render because an accident produced a comic strip like result diferent from all the photorealistic ones, and i posted the image on that tought, that light don't allways have to be realistic, well tought out, or in a full textured model to produce a fairly good and curious result outside photorealism.

ps:
speaking of photorealism, i almost forgot to give a thumbs up for this one from breuer
http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=137951
except the stone textured panels, i think its one of the best here in terms of dramatic composition,i dont even know if the grain noise is deliberate or result of test settings but either way it adds to the whole comp and even if its not on purpose i wouldn't take it out

[blackberryf1]

Here's my entry. Unfortunatelly my PC wasn't able to handle all the stuff I wanted to. So, this final image is far away from the result I had in mind. It has no GI, AO and the shadows needed to be rendered as soft, raytraced or area lights just were giving me insane render times.... anyway.... hope you like it.

Thanks for the challenge! I gained a lot of knowledge.
Julito

http://i735.photobucket.com/albums/ww354/blackberryf1/sciencefictionchallenge01.jpg

[jikz]

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/58/l_be38d8b6a2a745dca6b7aed9ab2471d9.png
It is my first time posting a picture on CG Society- Thank you for putting on these challenges.

Used Blender 2.48a
Yaf(a)Ray 0.1.0 Photon mapped (Background for some lighting, all others are mesh lights)

Sorry it is small, I have serious hardware limitations, this alone took over 8 hours-but you can get the lighting idea anyways. The buttons need to be more vibrant. Trying for a sterile, almost all metal scene. I cheesed out on the great wall panels so far, they may require more time than I can give. Also I will not use caustics again with so many reflective surfaces, note the odd random spots on the ceiling. I am most proud of the diamond plate i done know why, it just looks neat.

Materials and lighting has to be my weaker subject in 3d stuff, so this is great for me to learn. Please let me know what you think. Thank you again!

[Waters]

Waters - I agree fog would be nice for the light coming out of the eyes. If you can't do the fog, then add some optical effects like flares or blooms around the eyes. If the lights in the eyes are bright enough to overexpose the wall, then they should cast at least a little glow onto the robot himself, as if the brightest lights near him were those two points. I also think there needs to be some bounce light, like an area light coming away from the bright part of the wall, bouncing back onto the robot and set.
But wait a Minute!!! Your version 6 was much better than version 7! Nice colors, nicer shading, composition that works better! I'm working through backwards so that I comment on the latest version of everyone's work, but you had something nicer in the previous page!

-jeremy

Thanks for the feedback Jeremy. I thought what I had earlier didn't have enough impact, so I used a tutorial as a basis for going a different direction. I took a wrong turn!
I'll add more of a bloom effect to the eyes and volumetric light. I do have some bounce lights in there for the wall, maybe they are better defined in the first image I posted, I'll work on that. The image is boring right now, I need to add visual interest.

[lamokprod]

Hi !
Other Robot Position :))

http://www.lamok.re/lighting5.jpg
See ya !

Darko

[send2raj]

Hi Everyone,
This is my first post here..Still in work in progress..would like C&C from all you.

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/341/wip01gk5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/wip01gk5.jpg/1/w1200.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img240/wip01gk5.jpg/1/)

Software:Maya,Mental Ray & Photoshop
Render time: 3Hrs

[JorgeIvanovich]

Hi,mi name its Jorge from Argentina land of chaos,hunger and cheap 3d artists,this is my first challenge.

Since Jeremy work in Pixar i like to say thanks for taking care of my kids(1 and 3 years).
I just plug the tv with some of the dvds and they got hooked,leaving my ass alone in peace.

Well here it´s the in progress C&C are welcome.

Thanks!

PS:Im working in the monster still got too much puffy look it suppose to be not too scary

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/6817/progressxw0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[phil-w8]

Hi everyone,

Lots of more beautiful renders here. :)
I couldn't work for the past few days, 'cause i was on a project. I'll post a new render soon.

-philippe

[wasimattar]

hi this is my new take will upload the new update pretty soon....
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk28/wasimattar/Sci-fi-23.jpg

[Mirco83]

Hi all,
This is my final scene, I hope you'll like it.
Congratulation to all the wonderful works i've seen here!
Thank you Jeremy for all of your suggestion during my work.

Software:Maya, Mental ray

Bye,
Mirco Paolini

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/8990/final2ck5.jpg

[zbugja]

Hey guys and girls! Here are 2 different angles of Rob and the ball in zero G.
Hope you don't see much wrongs in them! MAx2009 Vray render + photoshop.

enjoy!

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3586/roboreadysmallem5.jpg




http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8612/robsmall2uj2.jpg
http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=roboreadysmallem5.jpg

[Rals]

hello everyone, i m a beginner & this is my first lighting challenge, hope my work is fine :)
pls do comment :)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3489/3261351978_8007cf58f2_o.jpg

[DragonSFX]

but here it is my small contribution to the thread

http://werlintm.no.sapo.pt/SFC02.jpg



i like this one, it is different and kinda Marvel(R)-esqe

[MasterZap]

Jeremy,

I hope you don't mind I used this scene as a test in 3ds Max Design 2010 (see the 3ds Max announcement thread).

The left image is the mental ray rendering. The right image is the realtime view of the same in the 3ds Max Design 2010 viewport.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f366/MasterZap/vp-gi3.jpg

/Z

[AdamHerbert]

Latest update:

Blender Internal 2.48 and AE CS3 for Compositing
2 Composited Layers
Subtractive Ambient Occlusion - 10 minutes
Normal Render - 2 minutes

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/4700/render10kx1.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=render10kx1.jpg)

[dopecg]

gonna take up my first of these challenges. lets see wat i com up wid.

apart from tht.......seen some gr8 renders out here mayne...wud love to get critics from all ya guys.

cya all then.:thumbsup:

[CaptainHook]

The right image is the realtime view of the same in the 3ds Max Design 2010 viewport.

WOW!! That's impressive. :eek:

[movilk]

JorgeIvanovich....IMPRESSIVE!! Congratulations!! Texturing, lighting...and the monster!!fantastic!!! Out of curiosity...how did you create that smoky monster??

Master_zap that 3ds Max viewport visualization looks REALLY interesting!

[Aridiel]

Jeremy: thank you so mutch for your comments!
im really glad you found mi image intresting. not every day someone with your experience say those things about my work.

i made some changes based on your critics.
do you think there´s too much color variation now? should i get rid of the green?

i can't find an appropriate effect for the eyes yet. i want to make them look shuted down but evey time i put some reflection on them they look too much alive.

thank you again for your time

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5523/robotlighting02ok0.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=robotlighting02ok0.jpg)

[punytjoshi]

Here is My improvisation on my work will be looking for comments and critics.
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o168/modelerpunit/ScienceFiction_6.jpg

[jacqu]

HI, Eveyone! This is my version WIP!
MAYA/MR with GI/FG, rendered about 40mins. some little ps work!
C&C are welcome!





http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/8928/robotcopycopypk4.jpg

[phil-w8]

hello everyone,

here's an update of my work.

Comments are always welcome :)

thanks.

http://www.philippelhage.com/lighting_challenges/scifi22.jpg

[JorgeIvanovich]

JorgeIvanovich....IMPRESSIVE!! Congratulations!! Texturing, lighting...and the monster!!fantastic!!! Out of curiosity...how did you create that smoky monster??

Master_zap that 3ds Max viewport visualization looks REALLY interesting!

Gracias Miguel!!!

The monster it´s a basic shape filled with pflow and rendered with FumeFX,but i don´t know,i thinking in afterburn,fume it´s great but in closeups i find it more time demanding even using textures to control opacity and this smoke need to be very defined ,detailed and now is still puffy.

Im thinking also in doing another version,the typical cute holding a bear left by someone maybe his owner and crap like that.

Saludos para la madre patria!!! y que la crisis no nos arrastre al coño!

[AdamHerbert]

Here is My improvisation on my work will be looking for comments and critics.


I like this image, you have some really nice textures and atmosphere. I also like the lighting from the fan as well as the reflections on the floor and ceiling.

I do think the robot could use some more dirt textures though. His head and his body seem to be really beat up and old, but his other parts are shiny and new.

Also, the light coming from the fan looks great, but it doesn't appear there is a light source up there. It looks a little dark to be creating such a bright light.

Keep up the good work!

[baklabo]

hi jeremy hope u will like my entries this one took 10hrs of rendering maybe bec of the dof effect hope u can give some comments for more improvements of my entry thanks. .

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee155/baklabo/CHALLENGE18b-1.jpg

[punytjoshi]

I like this image, you have some really nice textures and atmosphere. I also like the lighting from the fan as well as the reflections on the floor and ceiling.

I do think the robot could use some more dirt textures though. His head and his body seem to be really beat up and old, but his other parts are shiny and new.

Also, the light coming from the fan looks great, but it doesn't appear there is a light source up there. It looks a little dark to be creating such a bright light.

Keep up the good work!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your commets. I really appreciate,you are right about the area about fan beiing a bit dull compared with light coming in.


About robot yes while deciding on the look for my robot I did texture it with completely dirty textures and completely Glossy textures and ended up on this look finally.



Thanx
Punit Joshi

[JorgeIvanovich]

hi jeremy hope u will like my entries this one took 10hrs of rendering maybe bec of the dof effect hope u can give some comments for more improvements of my entry thanks. .



Hi Ronald,nice image,just a coment if you dont mine,there is a strange shadow in the air display also it will look more cool if look something like this

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9581/starwarsdeathstarhologrur1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


You can do dof in post ,in fact it´s crazy render dof.With renderman-air ok but you use vray

In photoshop you could use lensblur ,in after Frischuluft Lenscare ,in nuke Zblur node

If you dont know how to output a z depth channel render the scene with white self illuminated materials and black fog

In vray you can set qmc to 0.1, in irradiance secondary bounce to lightcache and enable glossy in light cahe and store shadows.

With this rendertimes speed up a lot, put 1200 in lightcache for final render for testing 100

[Basil]

hi jeremy hope u will like my entries this one took 10hrs of rendering maybe bec of the dof effect hope u can give some comments for more improvements of my entry thanks. .

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee155/baklabo/CHALLENGE18b-1.jpg

I don't know what Jeremy would say but I like the crispness of your image. The light on the bot's body is confusing to me, it should be a highlight coming from the light panel on the ground but it looks like a light cast direcly, I think it needs to be sharper or less shiny. The green, blue and red buttons (or lights), need to cast a little more illumination on the body I think, and the third light on the top light panel shouldn't be casting that much highlight on the ceiling. How about changing the shader of the hands to mach the shader of the neck? It looks like a painted metallic shader now, very difficult to bend :)
I like the rays forming the holograph and the offset of the holograph image. Overall I think it's a great image.

[TiMrozek]

This is my first time entering a challenge on here. I haven't spent much time with lighting so I wanted to get a little practice. Also, this scene just looked too fun not to get involved.

I plan to change the composition of the image as well as start working with some DOF but not yet. Just trying to get the basic feel down. Any feedback is welcome. I still have a ways to go with texturing.
http://fc31.deviantart.com/fs41/f/2009/043/b/4/LightingSciFi_by_tmrozek1.png

[Aridiel]

nice start TiMrozek, i like the color combination!

perhaps you could make the relfeccion of the walls a little less defined so the space dont apear to be bigger and keep it more like a corridor.

maybe also use some rear light to generate a specular in the contour of the robot to separate it form the backround. o rmaybe make the backround a little darker.

nice job!

[lamokprod]

Hi !
other render :)
Maya > Mental Ray > Portal Light > 3hrs 55

http://www.lamok.re/lighting7.jpg

See ya !
Darko

[herbertagudera]

wow great updates! i wanna comment on a few images. hehe

aridiel - i kinda like the green.. awesome image..

jacqu - i like it.. the colors and lights are awesome.. the ntextures really good too.. maybe tone down the reflectivity just a bit? and that dark squarething just below of the robots pits is kindov distracting.. hehe.. just a thought.. great work man..

baklabo - welcome! nice update.. i like the robots texture.. very solid.


anyhow.. heres my update.. just changed the angle.. thanks.. hope to hear comments from you guys..

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3351/3275906672_7fbcbbd598.jpg (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=3275906672&size=large)
click on the image for a larger version

[Pigments]

My first WIP for the challenge. There are some major changes with the robot and the environment. Will upload that when i am done with it :)

http://img4.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wipyp4.jpg

[CHRiTTeR]

quick test


http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8902/sciencefictionchallengejl1.jpg

[brookselliott]

My latest update:
High res version Here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3276600468/sizes/o/)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3276600468/sizes/o/

[lamokprod]

Hi !
a other render
thx for comments

http://www.lamok.re/lighting8.jpg

See ya!
Darko

[Kengis]

Hi Jeremy and everyone~

My first challenge and my first post, hope to get some comments. Awesome renders some of you guys have here :)

Still WIP, gonna work on the shaders, lighting, volumetric, dof and making the glass panel on the ceiling to look like one. Will be adding in the robot after fixing the background.

Done using Max9 mental ray. Render time around 16 minutes.

Thanks for looking~

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4039/lightingchallenge18giovjo5.jpg (http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lightingchallenge18giovjo5.jpg)
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/lightingchallenge18giovjo5.jpg/1/w640.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img246/lightingchallenge18giovjo5.jpg/1/)

[brookselliott]

My latest update with observation deck view and large screen viewer, added more composition contrast I think, and changed Fresnel reflection for robot body.

High res version here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3277169258/sizes/o/):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3277169258/sizes/o/

[ocularb0b]

http://ocularbl0g.scottmaher.net/hosted/WIP8.jpg

big version
1680x1050 PNG - 1.6MB (http://ocularbl0g.scottmaher.net/hosted/WIP8.png)

Done all in Blender including composite and overlays.

This is lots of fun, people are doing really cool things with this scene.
All comments and crits are very welcome.

[baklabo]

Hi Ronald,nice image,just a coment if you dont mine,there is a strange shadow in the air display also it will look more cool if look something like this

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9581/starwarsdeathstarhologrur1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


You can do dof in post ,in fact it´s crazy render dof.With renderman-air ok but you use vray

In photoshop you could use lensblur ,in after Frischuluft Lenscare ,in nuke Zblur node

If you dont know how to output a z depth channel render the scene with white self illuminated materials and black fog

In vray you can set qmc to 0.1, in irradiance secondary bounce to lightcache and enable glossy in light cahe and store shadows.

With this rendertimes speed up a lot, put 1200 in lightcache for final render for testing 100


Thanks for the great tips man i will post my update soon goodluck to everyone. .

[lamokprod]

Nice Render and Perspective OcularBob ! right!

[lamokprod]

Hi !
a other render for the Saint Valentin :)
thx for comments :)

http://www.lamok.re/lighting9.jpg

See ya !
Darko

[wasimattar]

This is how the final look of the shot would be next update will have some more post fx work .....
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk28/wasimattar/Sci-Fi.jpg

[shivahegde]

hi everybody ..please check....give feedback
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4693/fictionja1.jpg

[jasvant]

hello jeremy sir,here is my entry.i used maya,mental ray(IBL,FG) and little bit re-lighted in after effects by normal pass.only robot is 3d,i just composite him with mars image and other things done in post production.
my theme is like a robot was searching another robot at mars.now he has found and looking at him.i hope you will like it.:wise:


http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii257/jassi782477/smallresolution.jpg

[JorgeIvanovich]

ocularb0b Great angle man very cool!!

wasimattar (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=98090) Nice colors!,reminds me the last alien movie



hi everybody ..please check....give feedback


Hi shiva,nice colors,my only coment if you don´t mine it´s the lack of shadows and the front light,generally most people separate with light the main subject from the background,front lighting tends to make the image flat(unless you control the deacy in order to make a flash effect).

You can work first in the background maybe like most of people placing lights in the sides or maybe from below the floor through perforated plates,also you can think some mini small story about him,what it´s doing there?.

Cheers

[lamokprod]

Hi !
Other Render :)
Thx for comments

http://www.lamok.re/lighting10.jpg

See ya !
Darko

[bshao]

Thanks for the pointers Jeremy. Raised the overall light level (thanks Nothingness for spotting this as well) as well as putting in some harder glints on the robot.

I also gave him ANGRY EYES! :D

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/bshao/LightingChallenges/ScienceFiction5.jpg

[quicksheep]

Hey all. Even though this scene is a near replica of a star-trek hallway crossed with a nasa space station, i figured hey--why not go for a LO-FI look?

http://www.axiomltd.ca/storage/photos/012_mia_both2_small.jpg

Feedback Welcome.

[TiMrozek]

Nice approach Madlamb. I've enjoyed viewing all the posts so far, but I feel like you chose a pretty unique direction here with the wood and the soft, almost pastel colors. I guess this is how a spaceship would look if the old station wagon designers were building them. Keep it up.

[lamokprod]

Hi !
other render :)
thx for comments

http://www.lamok.re/lighting12.jpg

See ya !
Darko

[bshao]

Hi !
other render :)
thx for comments

http://www.lamok.re/lighting12.jpg

See ya !
Darko


Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! :)

[ocularb0b]

New Render: Image links to full size.
http://ocularbl0g.scottmaher.net/hosted/WIP9.jpg (http://ocularbl0g.scottmaher.net/hosted/WIP9.png)

Thanks!

@lamokprod: Thanks, I really like your Ideas and the coloring, my eyes want for shadows a bit.

@JorgeIvanovich: much thanks

@wasimattar: love the overall quality.. That poor poor bug.

[zbugja]

ocularb0b you've got some serious blender skills my man! and i like the little story there too, cause i wanted to do the same thing with my robot, just a little more dramatic maybe.
Anyways, really good stuff there!

[BlenderFan]

@ocularb0b: Would you mind sharing your material settings for the robot body? I have not been able to get metal like that in Blender, and I am curious to learn how.

It's a great image. Good job.


Cheers and God bless.

[visua]

Some slight progress, haven't really had the time to work on this challenge
until now. Maya/mental ray, rendertime about 4 minutes:

http://www.nicz.net/wallE2.jpg

[ocularb0b]

@blenderfan : Thanks, glad you like it.
Basically I just turned RayMirror all the way up plus a tiny bit of green in the Mirror color. All the shader settings get occluded by the mirror so thats it really. Oh and set FullOSA for the Material or you'll get nasty speckling.

blend on

[brookselliott]

Ocularb0b -

Great work, composition and lighting.. although a bit dark I think it works really well..

I was wondering if you used a Defocus, or a Blur node in blender or was this some other post processing for background blur?

[lamokprod]

Hi !
a other little rendering :)

http://www.lamok.re/lighting13.jpg

see ya !
Darko

[ocularb0b]

@brookselliott: thanks a lot. Dark for sure, I tend to err on the side of dark before light.
Everything was done in blender, It's a defocus node, I put the Z noodle through a math node to tweak before the defocus, then a lens distortion node with extremely low numbers in distortion and difraction, then a glare node before RGB curves and bright/cont. Thanks again

@visua: I like you're last render. Interesting how the bot stands out because it's the darker thing int the frame.

[MartinRomero]

Hello Jeremy and everyone,

Here is the new image with changes on things you mentioned previously.

That's great! His head doesn't look like it's shaded as well as the rest of him yet, that's probably a part you're still doing. Those 4 round lights stuck up on the right side of the ceiling don't seem to be fully attached or functional, maybe you could move those so they look like they are stuck on a beam? Great textures on the floor. I'm a little confused about where the up-light is coming from on the bottom of his wheels, etc.?

http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g00/234000/234000_1234747759_large.jpg

[wasimattar]

wasimattar (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=98090) Nice colors!,reminds me the last alien movie

thank you for ur comment u have posted some excellent render for the challenge

[shivahegde]

ocularb0b Great angle man very cool!!

wasimattar (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=98090) Nice colors!,reminds me the last alien movie





Hi shiva,nice colors,my only coment if you don´t mine it´s the lack of shadows and the front light,generally most people separate with light the main subject from the background,front lighting tends to make the image flat(unless you control the deacy in order to make a flash effect).

You can work first in the background maybe like most of people placing lights in the sides or maybe from below the floor through perforated plates,also you can think some mini small story about him,what it´s doing there?.

Cheers
Thanks for important feedback.I will start lighting that way like Your suggestations.

[Kev3D]

quick test


http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8902/sciencefictionchallengejl1.jpg

Hi Chritter, was just browsing through the last few pages and almost scrolled past this little gem. I really like the retro sci-fi look. It's something that's hard to achieve but I think you've come pretty close. Maybe a bit too much grain for my liking.

madlab: I like the textures and I think you've achieved a decent level of realism. I feel that maybe it's a bit bright? Also, the composition suggests that the center of interest is the black area at the back but the lighting there doesn't match the quality of the rest of the piece.

[MiekeJensen]

hey everybody, nice work so far.. this is my first CGChallenge and my first post so.. im looking to learn so please C&C!! so far i´ve only illuminated the scene, no textures. Maya 9 and mental ray with raytracing!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t295/mieke720/mieke_CGch_illum2.jpg

[phil-w8]

Hello everyone,

This is the latest render i got. But i feel that there's something missing, i'd like to adjust my render more ,can you guys help me out by 'guiding' me a bit. Your comments will surely help a lot.

thanks in advance.

http://www.philippelhage.com/lighting_challenges/scifi22.jpg

[quicksheep]

Hey, i think it might help if you added a brighter light source off of the right side. The side of the bot's head and his wheels would really 'pop' if they had a nice rim light to bring out the shapes a bit more.

Keep up the good work.

[quicksheep]

Thanks for the feedback,

I just finished up the bulk of my texture work and popped the bot in there. I'm thinkin' it could use some ambient occlusion.

http://www.axiomltd.ca/storage/photos/BoominGranny_small.jpg

Suggestions?

[phil-w8]

Hey, i think it might help if you added a brighter light source off of the right side. The side of the bot's head and his wheels would really 'pop' if they had a nice rim light to bring out the shapes a bit more.

Keep up the good work.

Hey madlamb, thank you for your quick reply, i will try it asap and will post a new render soon.

thanks again :)

[phil-w8]

Hi everyone,

Here's an update of my image, i added some highlights on the right side of the bot.

I'm using maya/mental ray, w/ raytracing no GI/FG.

rendered in two passes beauty pass, and occlusion pass.

Only the blurring was done in post.

Plz do comment as i would like to improve more :)

thank you.

-philippe

http://www.philippelhage.com/lighting_challenges/scifi24.jpg

[ocularb0b]

@MiekeJensen : I like what you did with the little guys face.

@phil-w8 : looks good man, some things I'll mention since you asked... With a real world camera if there is a lamp or lightbulb in the frame It's will always burn out to white(or to a color for things like LEDs or neons) and the round spots on the ceiling look kinda gray. His eyes too, but maybe they aren't meant to be illuminated. Maybe a pich of light on the floor down the hall in the back would add a bit to the composition too. The quality of the render is very nice and I love the floor grating.

[brookselliott]

I really am liking madlamb's take on the interior with more of a bomb shelter look. Nice instrument panel detail and lighting. I think the robot could use something interesting to do in the scene. I was thinking since you've got a lot of carpet you could introduce your own version of one of the Roomba vacuum cleaners and have the robot follow it around even though he has nothing to do. hehe

[Galvo]

Hi guys, I'm not a lighter but I'll give it a try, just for fun ;)


Rendered out in 9 passes, no GI/FG used, only 32 standard lights, 2k textures.
Rendertime aprox 19 min@720.
Hope you like it!



http://i498.photobucket.com/albums/rr343/Galvoman/FComp_cgc18_hi.jpg

[MiekeJensen]

@ocularbOB: thanks.. i like the fact that you can see a camera-sorta-thing in your robot´s eye´s reflection instead of just the hallway. very cool

[Rogoski]

Was playing with Final Gather. Decided not to use any lights.

Render time about 13 minutes

Gotta do some proper texturing but I'm just experimenting with the lighting mainly atm.

http://www.chrisrogoski.com/sas/test4.jpg

[lamokprod]

Radioactivity ! yes :)

[MrBobble]

Decided to try a different approach...

As though you're looking at a security monitor where one droid has malfunctioned and is destroying another.

Had to degrade the image pretty heavily, but I dunno!? It's something different I guess <shrugs>

[phil-w8]

@phil-w8 : looks good man, some things I'll mention since you asked... With a real world camera if there is a lamp or lightbulb in the frame It's will always burn out to white(or to a color for things like LEDs or neons) and the round spots on the ceiling look kinda gray. His eyes too, but maybe they aren't meant to be illuminated. Maybe a pich of light on the floor down the hall in the back would add a bit to the composition too. The quality of the render is very nice and I love the floor grating.

Thanks ocularb0b for your feedback, i agree with you a 100% about the ceiling and the eyes of the bot, they're the two things i don't like in my image. i'll see what i can do.

thanks again :)

-philippe

[phil-w8]

Hi all,

here's an update, did some arrangements to the ceiling and to to light in the hallway.

Awaiting your feedback :)

thank you.

http://www.philippelhage.com/lighting_challenges/scifi26.jpg

[ocularb0b]

@phil-w8 : I barely noticed the changes without downloading them and doing a side by side. but the new one does look better.

@miekeJensen: gald you noticed, wasn't sure if anyone would :thumbsup:

[JorgeIvanovich]

Monster Fix more alienish,the robot still need some tweaks

[/url][url="http://imageshack.us"]http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8521/comp100000qo2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[brookselliott]

Here's another view point with observation hallway..
High res version here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8011986@N02/3288302594/sizes/o/)

[CHRiTTeR]

Little update...


http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/237/testromtonemapped2geb8.jpg

[EarVant]

Chritter.. look, a hot-air balloon!

*Yoink his pic*

muhahaha!


No seriously, love your last update Chritter. On a side note, I need to get started on it...

[rmejia]

Monster Fix more alienish,the robot still need some tweaks

Cool looking scene! :buttrock:

[herbertagudera]

Decided to try a different approach...

As though you're looking at a security monitor where one droid has malfunctioned and is destroying another.

Had to degrade the image pretty heavily, but I dunno!? It's something different I guess <shrugs>

i like it very much.

[DanielWray]

There are some amazing works in here :)

This is just a quick render, ignore the flare/ burnt/ lightend parts, that was an error in the compositer =/

Any crits, thanks :)

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/9595/rendertes11tys8.th.jpg (http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rendertes11tys8.jpg)

Im trying to focus the scene/ lighting on the robot looking around the corner, but im struggling a little bit, it's also meant to be quite a dark scene.