Hi friends, i uplod my first wip image,stil now i am working on some textures on the porch of the cabin so you’ll notice the door and some other things are still just a material but I will get to them.
Lighting Challenge #24: (WIP) The Cabin
NAYAK33
#221
sagecgi
#222
That was a lot of grass to plant! I opt’ed to place it manually so I could get exactly the distribution I wanted. Some things just need the human touch I guess.
Not sure If I should keep the cube’s, luckily I have some time to mull it over.
Goico
#223
@sagecgi, I like very much the second one, because I can see more close the details you gave to the house. Good idea the old paint on the walls!
@bimalbose, your image is very nice, I´d dim the trees which are closer to the cámera, to improve the picture framing on the cabin.
@tuffmutt1, each time your image is better, I´d give less blue to the stone in front, and more green, sutil. And the few trees behind doesn´t seem to be far away, maybe you can give them less saturation, and a minor detail I would put some grass in the join between the trees behind and the ground.
Here is my update
Holzi
#224
tuovni:
I really like your set up. The sky looks amazing! However a little fill-light would do good to the scene as more details from the porch and the axe would be visible.
I really love ur grass and the fog!
sagecgi:
Ur grass looks pretty neat as well, the texturing is great so far. However in both images the horizon is pretty center. U can add much more feel to the scene if u move it either up, or down (2/3 rule out of photography)
Nayak:
I love ur idea with the old man sitting on the chair. However, he looks pretty unrealistic/solid. Not because of texturing but because his legs are bit straight away from the chair. Its not a natural pose. He looks a bit as if he would be part of madame tussauds 
tuffmutt1
#225
Update: Changed the Light mask a bit to let more light in. I think the previous one had the Grass too much in shade. Now some of the vegetation gets specular picked up. changed the rocks and textures. Lightened up the Background layers for more depth. changed the sky to more reddish. Lightened the entire image a bit in photoshop. C&C welcome. High Res. 
Gabba
#226
Here is my first try. A desert sunset. I have to do a little more texturing and also create some more vegetation and details in the front and some more into the background.
Softimage 2011 and mental ray.
Goico
#230
@Holzi; thanks for your comment, I was thinking the same, but there are so many details that you start losing in the macro :hmm:
Waiting to see your update!
@Andr0x;I like the atmosphere you achived with the fog, I´d put some more footage to fill the empty zones. beware with the skull, have some problem with the fog.
@Gabba; I like very much you image, and the idea to work mostly with one color. The desert is a scenari that lends itself to that.
imatias3d
#231
Hi, can someone please tell me how do I make an ambient pass?
I’m referring to the overall ambiance/mood of the scene and not the occlusion pass (as some may mistakenly think of).
We know that we can change the bright/dark attribute of an occlusion shader. What I want to do is to separate the bright color of the occlusion and after that I will do another pass (a black and white) which is the occlusion for the contact shadows.
The Problem
If I do a regular occlusion pass (black and white) the problem is that I lose the mood/ambiance, because only the blacks are left when doing a multiply.
I’m not really sure if it is done by separating the bright color of the occlusion to get an ambient pass.
For example, if I have a heavy modeled scene with high textures I don’t want to be rendering with an occlusion all in the same layer. I can separate an occlusion with a cool blue color in the bright attribute. but then the problem is that I can’t use multiply since it uses black and white to determine what to show and to extract.
Any help and tips for rendering would be appreciated.
Thanks!
eduroam
#233
Hello everybody, WOW :applause: There are excellent works in this challenge. I can’t participate in the last one. But I don’t want to lose the opportunity to participate in this one.
This is my image. Any comments are welcome.
Maya 2011
Mental Ray - Direct Lighting without GI
Composition in Nuke and After Effects.
Thanks and great jobs for everyone. :wavey:
Eduardo
PD: sorry for not helping with comments, but right now I’m writing my thesis, and keeps me busy, I hope to help in next challenge.
arusnak
#234
I Like the desert scene so far. The light is bright without being too overblown.
My critique is more about the background. Try adding a normal or displacement map to help add more texture to the sand and mountains. The silhouette is way too smooth for mountains or sand dunes.
Gabba
#235
Yeah! You are completely right! I will try to work as they are “levels”. First with the foreground (need some more vegetation and other details, maybe more rocks and some “dunno” then going much “deeper” in the background, but I totally agree that this way is too flat! Thanks for the reply =)
stone_cold_ninja
#236
Hey, this is my stab at it. Going for a fresh spring day kind of thing. Comments and critiques are appreciated. Thanks.
Gabba
#237
@stone cold ninja
Umh… a little bit flat I think and a bit desaturated too. The grass seams to be too high from this view. You can have high grass but try to cut some down. Like a passage, a little road or something similar. Overall the image have some potential, keep it up! 
InfernalDarkness
#238
@stone cold badass: I really like your color palette, and the lighting works very well to me! It almost has an anime/manga feel, in terms of the colors and lighting, reminds me of Ninja Scroll.
I do think the grass could use some work in terms of placement or lighting. In the sparse areas, its hard to determine where those stems hit the ground. Should be a bit darker in there. Or perhaps a denser quantity coupled with a slightly smaller size would also help.
At this point it could be an abandoned or unused cabin, but doesn’t look “lived in” yet. Up to you of course, just an observation! Good stuff there though.
@eduroam: Looking really good! Very convincing. The axe texture is a grand idea - almost idea-snagged it after seeing yours but then decided that wasn’t cool! Awesome texturing. I think you can push the lighting a bit more, in terms of realism, but that’s an artistic license on your end of course.
@yassein: Given the brightness of the sun on the grass, I think the house would be much more lit up. Both directly on the roof and some porch, and indirectly in the shadow areas. Grass and textures are looking nice! I think the brick pattern for your chimney is a bit large - bricks for houses/buildings are generally sized for carry-ability.
But mostly I think the tree leaves need some work. Leaves are a difficult thing to “nail”, but yours seem a bit highlit? blown out? They are the brightest points in your image, and while some leaves can be very translucent and bright, they are rarely the brightest things that you see with your eyes. Yours almost appear to be emitting light. Hope that helps.
@Gabba: Yours is very unique here and somehow terribly realistic. Almost reminds me of a scene from Roland’s past. Looking forward to seeing your next update!
@me: You are bogged down in technical mental ray issues, and are unable to post an update while waiting for yet another aberrant test render that’s not working how you want it to. Be patient, it’ll be over soon, and either you will learn mental ray better or go completely insane in the effort! (smiles)
Well, here’s my progress anyway. My axe sucks here. The tree leaves aren’t behaving. The sky isn’t working well. The interior light through the windows is broken. The interior light isn’t shining through the doorway anymore. Any new ideas would be helpful, technical or artistic!
Gabba
#240
Good point. If the cabin it’s abandoned I think that it would be more and in this case the high grass would be great! Nice addition (but I know that may be too difficult) would be to create some animal tracks, left in the grass!
@Gabba: Yours is very unique here and somehow terribly realistic. Almost reminds me of a scene from Roland’s past. Looking forward to seeing your next update!
Thank you for your comment. Hope to have some more time to work on it!
@me: You are bogged down in technical mental ray issues, and are unable to post an update while waiting for yet another aberrant test render that’s not working how you want it to. Be patient, it’ll be over soon, and either you will learn mental ray better or go completely insane in the effort! (smiles)
Well, here's my progress anyway. My axe sucks here. The tree leaves aren't behaving. The sky isn't working well. The interior light through the windows is broken. The interior light isn't shining through the doorway anymore. Any new ideas would be helpful, technical or artistic!
The first thing that come to my eyes, when you told about the axe, is that you have the base of the trunk that goes into the stone ground! It’s true that some tree can grow on the asphalt and rocks, but that’s not a little one, it’s a BIG one! Maybe try to change the ground texture or work on the trunk (you can modify it so it could be a sewered trunk and left it alone out of the cabin just to do the job). The sky… I have some problem to understand where the source light is pointing. Above on the left? But your sun is behind the cabin, so something seems to be wrong.
Anyway I liked more the picture that you posted the last time. It was telling something more and had a nicer atmosphere!