Lighting Challenge #8: Haunted Hallway

#161

That’s excellent Mr.Birn.
I’m glad I’m not there…:smiley:

I need to give this challenge a try.

#162

Here’s my try, with a dusty/foggy version:

3 ligths, no textures, maya/MR. Played a little bit with the volumetric dust, and the render took ages. Don’t know if I used correctly the parti_volume shader.

Thanks

Cuni

#163

Cuni,that dust in the air is nice. Would you be willing to share how to do that?

Thanks,

Slatr

#164

@jeremy… thanks for the comments… Im using GI but its not creating to much fill light also i got that white edge left to the window kinda light leaking ? i use 2 other lights to get some light in there one is an area light outside kinda white and the other is red in the light bulb both with raytrace shadows ok…

Im plannnig to add hdr image instead white simple GI to see how that changes also il try diferents light colors

bye

#165

my first try. still have to add textures and volumic

#166

Hi all,
Here is an update.
I tryed to improved that GI quality, and i hope that it will be ok now with some dirt and colors, even if there is still some artefacts…
I hesitate between a black/white/red render, or a usual colorised one without the blood…

(no message against any religion in that pics)

jc

#167

Good job with the textures. It feels very dirty and well gross! But i can see a little but to much brump mapping and it looks maybe to blurred? Talking specifically in the upper wall left and right to the redlight in terms of picture space. maybe try to sharpen it up a bit? get some more high frequency up there.
I like how you made it day outside which adds more to the feel of this! an unpleasent reminder of the beautiful safe world that lies outside…if you ever make it out again…

#168

My “haunted pass” could really just be called an “ambient pass.” It was a regular pass (no change to shaders, textures, render settings, etc.) lit by just 2 volume lights. They have default settings, except the front one (shown selected in white) is colored red, the back one is colored green, ‘emit diffuse’ and ‘emit specular’ are un-checked, and ‘emit ambient’ is turned on. So really they are just emitting colored ambient light within their respective spheres.

VolumeLights.jpg844x496

(For people who don’t use Maya, a “Volume Light” is just a light that takes on shapes such as spheres, cubes, or cylinders, and only lights objects within the volume it encloses. You can edit a gradient from center to edge for the brightness of the light within it. Maya users use Volume lights emitting ambient only when they want to make specific areas of the scene brighter or darker.)

-jeremy

#169

Cuni - That’s a nice scene! The fog is a little grainy but it looks good. I don’t really like how light is leaking through the top of the lamp, maybe you could plug the hole in the top with that cylinder. The biggest lighting issue seems to be that it could use more shadowing or occlusion. Some areas like the corners where the columns meet the walls should have some of the light blocked more to look more solid and connected.

Leotril - I know what you mean, GI is often a waste of time and effort. I played with GI in my scene but decided not to use it.

purpp - Good start! The light from the lamp could use soft shadows or occlusion, some approach to make the corners get darker.

akwavox - That’s a nice scene. Maybe that warm sunbeam hitting the floor should cause more bounce light, so the shadows or occlusion behind the cross and under the arch there wouldn’t be quite as dark and colorless?

-jeremy

#170

Sure!!.
I just put a cube filling the scene with a volume shader called parti_volume. If you use photons you may need the parti_volume_photon shader.
Played the game "try,tweak, try, tweak … " with scatter and extinction values.

Good luck!!

Cuni

PS Oh, and read the help for the shader :wink:

#171

Jeremy: Many many thanks for your help and advices. I’ll try to get some occlusion wich will definetely improve the whole scene. But it’ll be by next year because I’m already on vacations.

Have a good time and a better 2007!!

Cuni.

#172

Hi
Congratuations to all for their hard work and making this challenge such a success , till now after seeing almost all the entries I find one thing very strange that unlike all previous competitons this one lacks the new ideas ,i find everybody was working within a defined pattern laid by the original "Antifan image " may be I am wrong but i come to this conclusion b’coz everyone is tring to replicate the original though the theme is haunted hallway it lacks the spooky feeling ,to me it looks more like lonlines.[b]
I specially want to know from jeremybirn b’coz of his exptional skills and knowledge in the field of lighting whether I am right if not why i am having such a feeling .

what is the most prominent part in a scene which makes it look haunting or gives it a spooky feeling.

what is it in lighting through which we can create such a feeling.
plz share your views as i think it also helps others .
[/b]

#173

ok here is something from me…
with oout GI and textures…there is more work :slight_smile:

and i just want to know am i on good way :slight_smile:

here is is:

#174

Jeremy, I have a question if you don’t mind? You suggested that I try making a taller composition. I was just curious as to why? So that I know what it is I am trying to accomplish in this particular scene and for future reference.

#175

What do you think? When there’s something like that light resting right against the top edge of the frame, does it draw your eye and overpower the rest of the composition and make the image look a bit symmetrical and forced? To me it looks as if you could loosen up a bit and give some room above the light reflector instead of cropping right along its edge. But just zooming out could create too much monotonous black space at the sides, unless you did something else there, and just tilting up could crop the bottom awkwardly, so I suggested that you might want to try a taller aspect ratio, that could fit better with the scene and the areas you have lit in the scene.

-jeremy

#176

Another update, maybe final I’m not sure.

This challenge was a great learning experience for me.
Cinema 4D and Photoshop was used in this image.

I used:

  • 1 spot light for the moon, with volumetrics.
  • 1 spot light for reforcing the moon in the window
  • 1 Omni light for upstairs
  • 1 spot for debris
  • 1 spot (very narrow) for lamp only.
  • 1 rect area light for stairs
  • 2 big area lights for some ambient light, one for each arc.
  • 2 lights for the character shadow one with simple shadow and another one with a red outline shadow.

Only shadow maps was used and every light is configured with falloffs.
Glow was added for the upstairs light.

This render takes 1 min and 30 secs.

And additional AO pass (20 min rendertime) was used to composite in photoshop.

#177

Try No.2:rolleyes:

#178

Hi Yogesh -

First, on the issue of how you judge the works that are posted here, your feelings about whether other people were being creative or coming up with many new ideas are valid artistic judgements. Evaluating creativity in artwork is always a matter of opinion. Although, if you start out with an opinion even before you even see people’s works, or you have attitudes towards a whole project from page one, that kind of feeling could cloud any artist’s judgement. As an artist, I bet you could see these images differently if you set your mind to it. Imagine if you cleared your head and just looked through the whole thread, and for each image you tried to find one or two things that seemed to be interesting or unique or looked like good ideas. I bet if you did that you could find some ideas that were good enough that you’d wish you had thought of them, which is always my measure of what’s a good idea or not.

On the issue of whether a scene looks “haunted” – I used the name “haunted hallway” because I thought it was a catchy title for the challenge, that’s all. There is no rule you have to take the title as a literal requirement. As I recall Gary Tonge’s original concept art had a haunting, etherial feeling (although I saw it several months ago, I don’t know if it’s still on the web somewhere?) as does Dan Wade’s rendering that I posted on the first page. The models certainly look like a good “haunted house” type set to me. If you wanted to develop a new render based on this scene, and wanted to make sure that it was haunted in a “spooky” or “creepy” sense, then perhaps a good place to start would be doing some research by renting DVDs that have scenes you thought looked really spooky and grabbing some frames to study as reference or use for inspiration on issues of lighting and color and contrast and shadows.

-jeremy

#179

I hope this is not a taboo means of learning?

Jeremy suggested that some reference photo’s be used to see how to light this sort of scene. Well I have been looking at all the renderings for this challenge and I really liked Blackravenskys interpretation of the lighting challenge so I set about to attempt to light my scene the same way. Please take it as a compliment!

In doing so I’ve had to learn how to achieve a certain lighting quality by critically analysing the lighting in the scene and then learn who to use the software to achieve the look. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t beleive my attempt is not as good as Blackravenskys but it was I think a great reference. And by the way Blackravensky I like the vacantness of the room as I think it needs to feel cold, unfriendly, sparse, drab to give a scence of unwelcomeness.

Heres my latest attempt.
http://www.gooddesign.com.au/Haunted_hallway_3.jpg

Thanks for looking

Buggsy

#180

Hi Bassem,
I’d be the first one to comment on your second try… (Probably the last one your expecting online comments from… hehehehe)

things that grabbed my attention… (besides that we’re both after the sunny non-Haunted look)
1- the sharp shadows on the stairs, if they are supposed to be shadow from the sky light entering through the window to the left, they need to be much softer, right now it seems to me that the sun is coming from 2 directions.
2- the wall below the stair landing, is almost black, if the floor beside it was getting that much illumination I’d expect a noticeable bounce on that wall (same goes for the back of the stair case and the sides of the columns, I’d expect a bounce from the wall)
3- the light leaking on the right wall below the stairs landing, (I guess your using a shadow map on the key light) try tweaking the bias

and one more thing… quite happy to see you here :slight_smile: