Realistic Cave Scene

#1

Hello! This is a render of the last personal project I’ve been working on, it’s almost finished except for a couple more details/fixes that need sorting out. It isn’t based on anywhere in particular but I was aiming at creating a realistic looking cave, with a couple of unusual things thrown in there like glowing crystals and “ancient” manmade stuff to make it look more interesting. :keenly:

Any feedback/critique/suggestion is hugely welcome!

Modeling done in Maya, texturing in Mari/Photoshop, some sculpting in Zbrush and rendering in Arnold.

Cheers

External link : http://i.imgur.com/WrjGhXo.jpg

#2

It’s a nice concept. I wonder if the image composition could be improved because there’re not enough crystals! I did this…

You may want to incorporate some of my changes, up to you. My paintover isn’t wonderful but it might get you thinking. You have an interesting concept on your hands but it’s presentation could be improved.

I reckon the lighting could be worked on a little more. It’s a cave and quite dark but careful placement of lights could provide some nice rim lighting. The stalagmites on the left would probably benefit from this.

Also, around the crystals is cast a yellow light which illuminates the rock. Since the crystal is blue, the cast light should probably be blue no?

One of these days I’ll get round to using Mari, it looks so much fun. Can you post some Mari screenshots, I’d love to see how it’s working for you!

#3

Hey thanks for the c&c mate, really REALLY appreciated!
I see what you mean by lack of presentation, looking at your paintover makes me realise how “empty” my scene is at the moment. I’m definitely gonna incorporate your idea and fix the crystals lighting (as well as improve the texture), I’ll post something as soon it’s getting there!
In the meantime I rendered out some light passes and done some tweaking in Nuke, hopefully it’s already a bit better!

About Mari, here’s a screenshot http://i.imgur.com/IiAPr03.jpg showing my basic dual screen setup :thumbsup: it’s a very powerful piece of software, easy to learn and to work with. Ask me anything about it, hopefully I can be of help! To be honest though, I kinda wish I was making 3D content for games, software like Substaince Painter and Quixel’s DDO blow my mind…

http://i.imgur.com/b8oQmwz.jpg

#4

Here’s an update on the scene, hopefully I did justice to Miked08’s feedback!
I’d like to use this for my portfolio so please help me get this to look the best it can :beer:
Cheers

External Link

#5

Loking good so far! I’d make the foreground a bit darker to create mode depth, but not as dark as in the first one.

#6

This is coming along nicely, but I think the crystals on the left are a bit too big. It takes away from how intricate the cave is itself. Maybe scale them down more towards what Miked08 did in that paint over. Can’t wait to see the finished piece. :keenly:

#7

Thank you guys, that’s some great c&c!!
I’ll post the updated version as soon as it’s ready.

#8

Finally an updated version of the scene, it took me a while as I was busy with another personal project (separate thread coming soon :keenly: )
I’ve done some changes to the crystals and the foreground lighting as per last feedback, hopefully the scene improved a bit.
Bring the c&c on!

External link

#9

Hey there!

Really great job so far. You are making some nice progress and I had some notes that I think will improve the image.

First off, I think you are missing an opportunity to really add some nice color to the scene. The lights are all very neutral and if the sun were that low to be shining into the cave like that, the value would be much, much warmer. Plus you would be getting some cooler bounces from the water. I have attached some links to reference images at the bottom.

Also, someone mentioned this earlier, but if you pivot the camera angle slightly to the side of the opening of the cave, you can see the god rays coming in more clearly.

The other thing to keep in consideration is what is the central focal point of the image? What is the audience supposed to be looking at within the frame? Is it the opening? The crystals? The image needs to be constructed in a way that will focus the audience’s attention on the most important elements.

Here are some other notes from my paintover:

Red :: the atmospheric falloff is pretty consistent from the midground to the background. It would be nice to see some variation there.

Green :: again, let this cool water bounce some cool light into the scene

Blue :: The water would also refract some cool bounce into the scene. (see reference)

Orange :: It took me a while to see this rope. You may want to make it brighter or do something to make it stand out.

Reference images:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8193068@N04/490998669/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/geezaweezer/19840333900/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ericleslie/6863980160/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rainprel/9487236259/
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Eiwce13X738/TEcXvXgSToI/AAAAAAAAIkQ/FTwy0e9nejI/s1600/Caustic.ReflectionsVenice.sm.jpg

Let me know if you have any questions!
Cheers,
Michael Tanzillo
www.td-u.com

#10

Hi there, nice work with the cave, it makes you want to be there so that is a good thing.

The main problem i see is the direction of the sun light, which is just impossible for a realistic setting. I understand that you needed some light to iluminate the interior but “the sun shinning in the door” dosn’t look like a solution to this.

To get more light i see two possibilities, one would be to allow the cave to have an opening in the top, there is no need to show it…only the light passing through and hitting the floor in some areas. And maybe more important, that light will give you bounce lighting to fill the scene (since now you won’t have all the light of the sun)

And the other, to have some torches (then the ancient civilization would be only ancient for us, but that is the magic of art/cg/tv right?) This could be a sneak peek into a 1k bc cave :thumbsup:.

The other thing is the value composition, if you are not doing this atm, then you may want to use a black layer with saturation mode on top of everything you do, and check the thing in black and white. Then make it very small and see how it is reading. Now is just a grey value with a white spot directing to the viewer’s eye…

There is an Andrew Loomis book with some general guides for value composition that is extremely usefull to read at least once. I think is either successful drawing or creative illustration.

I think if you manage to resolve those two things (realistic light source/s and value composition), at least, the cave and overall picture can end up looking very very cool.

Hope that helps?

Cheers.

#11

Thank you so much guys, this is incredibly helpful!

Here’s what I’m gonna do, based on your feedback:

  • Drill a hole in the “ceiling” to let more sunlight through, the area lit by it will end up being the main focus point.
  • Reduce the intensity of the main current sunlight source to make it less of a focus point, while at the same time making it more warmer/sunset-like
  • Improve value composition. I already desaturate the entire scene in Nuke when doing some of the compositing, but thanks for the pro-tip!
  • Add some more colour to lights. Could make the light coming from the crystals even colder to go with the warmer sunlight
  • Tweak volumetric scattering falloff. Might try adding a bit of noise, to break it up a bit
  • Tweak “rope” shader to make it stand out more

One thing I wanted to do but couldn’t get to work was the caustics, or the cool water reflection Michael was talking about. I’m gonna re-read the entire section about it on the Arnold website, hopefully I just forgot to tick a checkbox somewhere or something :beer:

Thanks again to everyone who’s helping me out!
New version coming in a few days.

#12

Nice!
Looking forward to seeing the update.

One suggestion for the caustics…I always do them as a separate render pass this way:

  • Set up a render layer with everything in there except the water geo.
  • Remove all existing lights and ambient lighting.
  • Add spotlights around the scene with an animated texture map like the one attached below (I am not necessarily recommending you use this one…just as an example. You can probably find a tutorial to make your own caustic map too.)
  • Then “plus” that layer into your comp.
  • Pay extra close attention to the scale of the caustics and the speed. Look at reference for these.

Link to example caustic:
http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/409674

Good Luck!

Michael Tanzillo
www.td-u.com

#13

Thanks again! I’m almost there with the new version, did some experimenting with Arnold caustics just to see if it would work and while it’s actually “bounces” more light off the water, it’s doesn’t cast any proper caustics.

In case somebody else need a caustic maps for their project, I’ve found a free generator that comes with Allegorithmic’s Substance Player. It outputs up to 4k and can make animated procedural caustics

Download Page

#14

Hey everybody! Here’s the updated version, hope I didn’t let your feedback go to waste :beer:

Link