dobermunk: Thanks 
stooch: The lighiting is pretty much defined by the backplate I was given. They even sent me a still of the same enviroment with a white styrphome ball so I could very accuratly get angles, color etc. Might be a little too accurate though. Iāll. . . see what I can fudge in. Get some more interesting change from light to dark.
catizone: Its only a 5 second shot so I wanted to try and have as many spill out of the box as I could without it looking too crammed.
Fantastic work Wegg! I think the lighting and shadows fit the plate well. Will the final shot have camera movement or perhaps subtle background movement to make the scene a touch more alive / realistic? The ants are amazing though! 
Some slight movement on the foreground twig as an ant brushes past it may add just that extra touch of liveliness! Sorry if Iām exasperating you with difficulties beyond the amazing work youāve already doneā¦ keep going :applause:
Yea a little camera move would be sweet. Maybe even a touch of ābring the ants into focusā as well. But. . . The director hasnāt been very forthcoming with where he wanted me to take the shot so Iām trying to stay a little more vanilla. The twig moving would be a nice touch. I have to do another shot with these little ants. Iāll see how quickly I can do that and maybe come back to this one.
This looks great Wegg. Really enjoying seeing your work. Always knew your animation skills were rock solid but lately it is your rendering mojo that has me really excited. Definitely will have to get an IRC client as I am sure I will have many, many questions in the next few months.
And definitely add me to the list of people who will gladly pay for a Wegg rendering tutorial.
One quick thing, have you played much with Depth of Field Pro to do DOF (http://www.dofpro.com/info.htm). Curious how that would compare in end result (and speed) to messiahs render DOF.
I have seen stuff like that. And Taron even sells one that works directly in your comping app. After Effects etc. http://www.taronites.com/lenscare/lenscare.php
Iām sure they would all be faster than the still I made but. . . it was just a render test. No DOF in the final render so no need to play with it any more. Better shadow buffers would be nice though. Haveing to do another pass with wacked out freaky materials to ācatchā shadows is a bit of a downer.
ok, but you are not accounting for ambient lighting, even in that situation there would be contact shadows 
light also bounces off the ground and even mist int he background and radiates back onto the ant from all angles, right now the shadows looks off to me. but overall its great.
Watch it again. I changed the lighting a little so they get a little darker at the bottom of the box to fake some ambient light. There are little contact shadows on the box as they walk down. . . but they are ants. Little translucent bodies with itty bitty feet.
Client read your mind Stooch. He wanted ācontact shadows on the boxā. <sigh>
So. . . I hope this is the final version.
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