Thank you Jeremy 
This help me alot. I coudnt agree more. I have now work more with the lights and the ground. So the ground fade out to a darker shader.
I have also started to adjust in photoshop, just to see were I can go with post work.
I have rendered out a ambient occlusion map, and also zdepth (not sure how that worked out?)
Im kind of stucked right now so any kind of critique woud help
dboydesign - Wow! Thatās shaping up to be a great scene! Very storybook/polar express looking. I think the little dots in the sky need work, itās hard to tell if they are snowflakes or blurry stars, but I think you could do more with different scales and depth for snowflakes in your scene. The trees on the left look terrific, I just wonder if they could have a little more shaping, just getting a little less light from the left so they clearly are lit from the right? The beam from the lighthouse looks like it could be brighter near the source and fade out more and travel further to the right even if it is very dim on the far parts. You could use a little more glow around your light sources, the moon already has enough but the brighter lights also need some glow.This is minor, but you might get rid of that bright line along the bottom of the frame, near the left side. The ocean surface is looking pretty good, I wonder if you could make a little more of it visible (higher up? Fewer rocks in front?) and make it reflect the moon more.
weng888 - Wow! Great job! The bricks on the lighthouse are spot-on. You could improve the fence if you split the railing into multiple planks and such, sorry the fence doesnāt look better in close-up. The surfaces in the foreground look either a bit like snow and ice, or like white rocks. I guess they are all rocks, and the wooden fence was just pounded into rock?
casagan - Welcome! Good start! A nice sky and some texture and maybe vegetation could help that scene.
psycosven - Great! The fence is halfway there, just need to split the foreground part into separate planks, maybe a few cylinders for nails, get the woodgrain running vertically on all the postsā¦ that tree needs some lighting and shading work on the leaves, at least. It really stands out as the only colorful part of the shot. If the foreground had a little more contrast, then the depth fading from the fog would be more apparent. It would be great if we were looking back at the sun or something for some variety through the fog.
jmBoeksestein - Looking good! Thatās nice water. Maybe you can get the sun reflecting in it or something else interesting? Keep going!
-jeremy
Weng888- I like this one! Light design and realism look good. My suggestion is a little less contrast and specular lookā¦ maybe perhaps a slight amount of Z hazeā¦ but mostly, the CG geo will always have tooo straight/mathematical edgesā¦ try refining geo where ever an edge meets sky or is too straightā¦ like along the roofline and certain bricks along the edge of lighthouseā¦ make them bumpy/irregular.
Very nicely done.
hi jeremy ā¦ hehehehe lol ā¦ been doing this scene on spare time and often on a rush ā¦ my logic kinda slipped pass me ā¦ will change the fence to metal once ā¦ lolā¦ and those are white rocks ā¦ post my updates in a while ā¦ as always your c & c is always appreciated ā¦ thanks a lot
-grabennouitch
thanks so much :) and keep up the good work as well ..
-shertan
weng888 - So awesome! I can almost hear the seagulls and the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks. I also really like the camera angle and the textures on the lighthouse. Super job!
Just wanted to play with angles and light here. Its all CGā¦ all in 3dsmax. I separated some Zdepth and a light occlusion pass (basically the colored lights blasting on grey materials to get a pass that could be tweaked to increase the brightness on lights and to use for the shining light above.
This one is mostly done in comp. I used attenuated omnis in max to control lights. All the volumetric stuff is just comp tricks and Zfogā¦ way faster.
This one kinda takes on a Spielbergesque light directionā¦ which is intentional. One thing I noticed is that Spielbergās films look great in black and white. I almost just threw out the color on this oneā¦ Iād recommend that - Put your work in black and white and see if the composition works, then bring the color back in. This one is OK, could be betterā¦ I have this problem of seeing my shots as moving sequences, from which I have to āpullā out one frameā¦ The problem is which āframeāā¦ Sometimes my work looks like I might have pulled a few frames too early or too late.
hi jeremy , heres some revisions , just some tweaks to the scene . thanks for your c&c , changed the fence hehehe ā¦ added 1 bird , tweaked the edges of the roof and the tower a little , added z haze thanks to mmoses00 it did look and felt better ā¦ here it is ā¦ thanks guys .
lauras - thanks , added a seagull for you hehehe
weng thats pretty, very nice mood, good job!
mmoses really nice as well, good job! still in the film noir mood it seems 
Hi, Iāve been a lurking for a while, enjoying all the artwork presented. I am especially fond of lighthouses so I thought this might be a good one to finally jump in on. I hope no one minds.
I rendered the scene in Vue, tweaking all the textures and the atmosphere as I went. The light beam, fog and clouds were all done in the Vue render, then I added the splashes and rain in PhotoShop. I hope thatās legal for the challenge. I love the postwork part of any image.
Hope you like it,
Lorrieann
Hereās a quick set-up in Modo to get the lighting right. Havenāt cleaned anything up nor have I really textured anything.
Hi, I am another beginner but I will not ask you to be gentle since I have too much to learn.
This is just to set scene and light. Blender with ambient occlusion.
Same but added an angular sky map. No textures yet.
rabidfox - Welcome! Sorry I didnāt see that big image from post #36 on-line when I did my previous feedback. I think you need to choose a sky image that captures the sky all the way down to the horizon. Some of them look as if youāre using another part of the sky mapped into the horizon position, and that isnāt going to work. Also, try to match the lens used, at least roughly. If you have a shot like image 4, where the camera is zoomed-in enough that a streetlight appears that big, then the lighthouse should be appropriately bigger than the streetlight. If you can find some panoramic 360-degree sky images, whether they are HDRI or not, those might better match your horizon position and final lens choice.
mmoses00 - Wow! You are packing the gallery page for this one already. I love the dramatic angles, the rain looks great, I like the lighting on the lighthouse top with the little red light as well as the big beams and the side-lit person leaning over. In the foreground, the guy looks a little angular and low-polygon, and his clothing doesnāt look like cloth. If the quality of the guy canāt be raised, then could you maybe find some way to blur or obscure the figure or pull him out of the foreground? You could try putting some light on the dark parts of him, like the bottom of the sleeve (from the light on the bottom of frame in front of him), and a little kick or rim in blue on top of his hat and sleeve from the lighthouse. The car is off to a good start, you could put a yellow light next to the headlight wrapping around the corner, and a smoother trim around the edge of the wheel-well. The tangency in having the building line-up with the headlight beam is a little distracting, the roof makes an extra diagonal line that reads like a part of the headlight fog effect. The fence has a little curse of perfection, maybe some displacement on the top, nails sticking out, glints of light from the lighthouse?
weng888 - Congratuations! Iām looking forwards to adding your work to the gallery when the challenge ends. I love the new fence, looks rock solid. You should probably listen to Matt Moses when he says youāre done, because heās once again the most productive, prolific contributor here. I think the lower right corner needs a little work with shadowing or occlusion, there are some hard edges right around the area thatās highlighted with your signature, that look very CG. This small an area might be fixed in a Photoshop paint-over, but Iād think an occlusion pass could help if youāre doing it in 3D. Darkening that area and adding a little grass or moss could also help make the foreground hit 100%. And another small area: look at the left side of the ligthhouse, right under the balcony. Thereās a bright edge, which I think comes from a gap between the balcony and the tower, and then thereās a shadow in the sun kick, but that shadow doesnāt seem to line-up with the struts supporting the tower to me.
Lorrieann - Great job! I love the color scheme, the whole scene looks like a matte painting! Nice rain! I think the lighthouse roof could use a little texture work. The light beam could use more noise or blurring or both to break it up and blend it into the clouds. I wonder if the lighting on the tower could be less uniform, if more of the light would be coming from the left or above, instead of from behind camera? Could the lightning be brighter than that in places, and maybe use some diffusing as if it were lighting the clouds around it?
K. Scott Gant - Good start! Keep going!
asierra - Good start! Keep going!
-jeremy
hi
this is my basic setup, no comp and layering.
need vegation and more texturingā¦
hope u like it
hi jeremy , thanks for the c&c ā¦ yup this is it .will follow you and mmoses00 and will stop and try to do another one if time permits here is the final output just tweaked the stone on the lower left and shadow on the tower top . thanks for considering my work for the gallery its always an honor to be there ā¦ here it is ā¦
btw work done with maya 8.5 ,headus uvlayout, zbrush and photoshop ā¦ took 6 passes to complete image , rendered in maya software and mental ray thanks
-shertan
Wow great work so far. Itās very interesting as always to see how many interpretation of the same scene can exist. a question for mmoses.
How do you put the character in the scene ? are they comp in different layers or add as low res in 3dsmax and then rendered ?
jojo
Hi Jeremy,
Itās been a long time but here I am. The texturing and lighting were done in 3Ds Max and Vray.
Talk to you soon
Martin
Here is my try on itā¦ Just start. C&C are more than welcome!
Iām planning to work on textures and find more interesting point of view:wip:
And Iām also not happy with the form of the stonesā¦ they are a bit odd:)) really need textures!
Fex, I like very much your water and clouds, does Houdini have any presets with water, clouds, etc, like maya?