Michael's WIP

#1

Hello,

Here is my work in Progress. I would like to get some feedback.

Test 1:

Test 2:

And here is the Original Image:

Somehow I got the feeling that I am missing something…
Maybe an ambient light ?

#2

Nice stuff, and the reference is perfect.

The thing that jumps out at me is the difference in shadows. Your image doesn’t have the same “contrasty” quality. The ref has some real deep shadows towards the middle - it’s only the fruit around the edges that catch some good bounce light off the white fabric. Also some more contact shadow would help ground the fruit to the surface.

Hope this helps…

#3

Yes, the contrast is higher in the reference image. The reference image has a very clearly defined key light (the stove light above the fruit.) Look at how the onion is lit for the most extreme example, you can clearly see the highlight and diffuse shading from the key on the top of the onion, and then beyond the terminator where the diffuse from the key cuts off, it’s much darker. A few of the fruits are almost as contrasty as the onion. Try to get that high-contrast key light working by itself first, before you worry about filling it the rest of it.

You probably can just hide the “window” object from your scene, you don’t need that window reflection at all.

That dimmer blue highlight you see on the sides of the fruit in your reference is probably a window all the way across the room. If your blue light is lighting the fruit too much and you really only wanted a highlight from it without so much extra fill, you could set it to emit specular only, and turn off ‘emit diffuse.’ Either that or tint your window reflection more blue, and scale down and move the window object into the place that blue highlight is coming from - the reflection approach will give you more control over matching the small size of the blue highlight.

There’s too much bounce light on the bottom of some of the fruits (in your reference the very bottom of some of the fruit looks black) but you need more bounce light on the back of the background, the reference image background is fairly warm and bright all the way across.

-jeremy

#4

Thanks Jeremy & Scott. I now see what you guys mean. I will tweak the lights and post the porgress later on the day, or tomorrow.

Thanks
:slight_smile:

#5

Here is my second attempt:

More feedback is more then welcomed :slight_smile:

#6

Hi Michael -

Great, your key light is much better now!

The blue reflection or highlight on the fronts should be smaller and lower.

If the bottoms of some of the cherries look too bright on the bottom now, that’s probably because the Ray Depth Limit (under Raytrace Shadow Attributes on the light) needs to be higher, but we’ll talk about shodows next week. In terms of fill and bounce, there should be some blue fill especially below the plate in front, and some warmer bounce coming up from the fabric around the plate and warm bounce on the back wall.

-jeremy

#7

Hi Jeremy,

What do you mean by ‘lower’ ? You mean that the value of the light should be lower, or the angle ?
And ‘Smaller’ means a tighter light cone ?

#8

I mean positioned lower, as in coming from a lower angle.

A tighter light cone doesn’t change the size of the highlights, the cone only affects what parts of the scene the spotlight will illuminate. Highlights sometimes get smaller without changing the shader if you use a dimmer light, though.

-jeremy

#9

Ok, Here is another render. I lowered the blue light and also tweaked it in such a way that it hits the cloth underneath the fruit bowl. Also it hits the cloth in the background.
Btw Jeremy, I was looking again at the refference image. I noticed that the ‘fill’ blue light also hits that metal pot on the left. But to me it looks like its hitting the metal just as a camera’s flash would do. But I guess that it is very hard to know what generated that off-space light.

Here :

And here with less intensity to that same blue fill light:

#10

If you’re having trouble getting smaller highlights though your lights, you can turn down the “highlight size” or “Eccentricity” on the shaders involved instead. (It’s a shame there’s no highlight size parameter on the lights in Maya, that’s one you’d want to use all the time if it were there…)

The fruits need a little bounce from below, especially where they hang out over the fabric. And speaking of bounce lights you need to add, don’t forget about the warm bounce light that runs all the way to the upper right of your reference picture.

-jeremy

#11

Here is another attempt.

I tried to give the fruits some light coming from underneath, as if it reflects from the plate. In the original image, some light reflects from the basket to the fruits. Also I set another light, to provide the rim light that appears also in the original image.

#12

Looking good!

I think the shadows need to be softer, probably all of them, check the shadows in your reference image for that.

The bounce light looks a little harsh and obvious, see if you can tone it down and get it blended in with the rest of the shading more, maybe it should come around further from a slightly more frontal angle.

Is one of the cherries light-linked differently or something? One of them doesn’t seem to be getting the same light as the others.

-jeremy

#13

Ok, so I tried to soften the shadows a little bit. Mainly on the keylight.
I also toned down the bouncing light from the plate I found out that some of the textures got disconnected from the image source folder. I had to re-connect most of them.

#14

Be careful to set your maya project to the project you are working in and save there, the textures don’t have a full path in them, they are just looking for the sourceimages directory of the current project.

The shadows could be softer and need more rays to avoid noise. Somehow there was a loss of shadow density between the bananas that doesn’t look right, it has too much light where they touch. The bounce lighting is enough on the orange, but not enough on the top banana.

-j

#15

Here is the final result with the different passes.

Final Comp:

Key-Light:

Fruit - Fill Light:

Cloth Fill-Light:

As always - Critique is most appreciatted :slight_smile:

#16

I think you need more fill/bounce light, especially the bounce light on the lower left edge of the banana and orange.

-jeremy

#17

Will do.

Thanks.

#18

Now I added more fill light to the banana and the orange only (duplicated an exsiting one, set the color, direction, and linking)

Here is the result:

#19

Looking good! Maybe back-off a bit on the overall amount of bounce on the lower banana, amount on upper banana good.

There’s this one sharp bright edge exactly on the bottom of the banana that’s too bright, almost like a rim light right on the very bottom - if that could be shifted forwards and toned down it would help, too.

A minor point: I know we haven’t talked about reflections (or shaders in general…) yet, but some of your fruit looks like it is too reflective, and if some of that could be softened (more reflection blur) and turned down (less reflectivity) it could help too.

-jeremy

#20

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