slatr, that background is a bit too blurry, for me it doesn’t look right for it to have a depth of field effect on it.
It’s a very good texture that you’ve chosen though. A nice soft blue light going through the window and casting soft shadows would really look good I think. Good job.
thanks jeremy. okay heres an update. i made the window trim to a chrome. i dont know how (or if it is really do-able) to blur the reflection in maya alone. comments are very much welcome.thanks!
Here’s mine…heheh I couldn’t resist doing a Sin City style!
I’ve been working on a proper scene, so I’ll post that one later. 
Ha! Ha! That rocks! That one’s going into the gallery.
Looking forwards to seeing your other entries.
-jeremy
hamburgertrain, that is so cool man…looking forward for your next image man…
okay, i made some few fixes…i rendered a few versions too…
i kinda like this version. comments are very much welcome and appreciated.
version 03-b
Ok here’s my point of view of lighting that bottles… First test render with Max’s Mental Ray and a Skylight, I will add a spot light to simulate sun and then the glass material of the bottles which I want to leave last cause it takes a lot of time to render… 
Any c&c welcome! Excuse my English
IpiotisDinos> I think you might want to adjust your exterior image to fit the perspective of the room. Seems like your horizon line abit too high now.
Greens are pretty to have but too much of them would tend to block light entering the room. If your idea is to have light pouring into the room from the window, this background image might not be such a good choice.
Well at the moment I am having trouble setting up the lights. I am working with a skylight and a spot light (all MR) and it gives error in mental ray (no emission after emitting 1000000 photons… or something like that) and I am trying to solve this out… any suggestions or ideas?
Hello - some tests.
caustics: on
caustics: on
caustics off (shadow color)
caustics off
caustics off
I don’t want to play with caustics no more! so i fake them…
I’m happy at this point with glass and “caustics” -
i need to give some changes with color and fuel…
Then i can work on the set - this may be a room, and you can see outside in the dark…
and there’s a lamplight in the room (for me the outside is the part with no floor) =
cold light from the outside (blue) and warm from the lamp (yellow).
the environment could be any hdri so the bottles can reflect in a more realistic way, but i haven’t figured out yet what one can see thru the window… Help!
(i may change my mind becouse i can’t find anywhere a ledge inside the room) hmm…
-e
slatr, that background is a bit too blurry, for me it doesn’t look right for it to have a depth of field effect on it.
It’s a very good texture that you’ve chosen though. A nice soft blue light going through the window and casting soft shadows would really look good I think. Good job.
Thanks Hamburger, I believe I can change the background out.
Shadows may be more of an issue. I seem to be having trouble getting transparent objects to cast them properly.
Maybe a composite, IE render the bottles solid and composite the shadows in. I can’t think of the name for that right now. I want to call it a shadow mask.
[
[color=#800080]](http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/9388/03bott0yy.jpg)[color=#800080]http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/9388/03bott0yy.jpgcaustics off (shadow color)
[/color][/color]
Elvis, I really like the liquid you added. It appears caustics are still on. How did you do that?
I’m using a ramp shadow with noise in the shadow color for every transparent object.
The liquid itself is less tranparent than the container and the transparency also have a decay…
mixing things one can get the wanted caustics fx.
The whole shadow (with the caustic) fall on the ledge that is reflective with blur
and since this is not animation you can see some bright color randomness just like you see
in the caustic… I’m doin’ some real test with real bottles and a flashlight here at home…
and the shadow (caustic inc.) are not colored at all!!
The color shall appear only if you put the light near the bottle…
but the caustic is always there … no matter how far is the light… he he
here i have two images:
the first had a common issue due to the shadow depth …down the bottle there is no shadow and it’s burning…
next i have some soft shadow mistakes… very fun
ps… i have to smooth all this poly bottles
Hope it’s readable and clear –
-e
The first image is gorgeous. How do you define as a mistake?
next i have some soft shadow mistakes… very fun
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/3083/06bott5ju.jpg
ps… i have to smooth all this poly bottles
Hope it’s readable and clear –
Nice works guys.
Elvis, your tests rock !!
I now it’s a contest, but I’m giving myself the right to ask you, are you using any special shader or it’s the maya’s ones?
Good luck everyone.
For the shadows of the bottles i’m using puppet’s p_shadow_transp,
and for the glass the l_glass_beta2… I’ve done a test with
dialectric and phong but i’m not happy with…
-e
A magic substance illuminating the scene.
Early test of the lighting. Not sure if I’m decided to make the window made of glass or not.
hmmm!!! im in:) will post some progress later:)
hmm how much can i change of the scene? can i add own stuff to it? and change window etc? aslong the bottles and stuff are there?
Okay I wanted to try and light this in the outdoors. To be honest I’m a little stumped on where to go with it and how to improve it, but here’s what I have so far.
elvis, cool images, i like the bottle with liquid in it. and the shadows are amazing.
lazzhar, nice. kinda like the bottle used in LOTR…very nice…looking forward for the update.
polymess, great shader…especially the one on the foreground…one thing though, the shadows is kinda bothering me. why does it stops at just before the plank ends? was there a window (trim/grill?) blocking the light? anyway…great stuff man. i like it.
sjmcc, great colored bottles. nice shader…what shader did you use?
