Hey everyone, long time no type!
Been real busy at work but found some time to create this image. It’s based on a comic book by Ashley Wood called Popbot by IDW.
Modeled in v10.5 and v11 on my G4 Powerbook and my crappy old PIII PC.
Render size was 2200 x 3000 pixels and was rendered with Photon mapping/Radiosity. Much thanks to Yves excellent Radiosity section on the Hash Forums!
Render time was 168 hours on a 1.8Ghz P4 :eek:
I have some close-ups if anyone is interested.
The robot has a lot of personality. I mean that. He looks like he’s thinking, he looks vulnerable (even if tough) and I actually care a bit about him. Nice job there.
Cat seems a little small, when I compare her to the stairs- but maybe she’s jsut a kitten?
As nice as the image is… you gotta question a 6 day render… what did the photon/radiosity buy you that some good honest fakery couldn’t? Seriously, not being disengenuous here, would like to know.
Are the little dot to the shading/color beneath and around the stairs intentional or artifacting? Also the lighting from above (where it’s sort of volumetric looking) seems rather, spikey for lack of a better word. Seems like there’s a nice painterly effect you went for in the hallway, but for some reason the level of detail to the contrast changes is fighting that, IMHO.
Crits welcomed!
The dots on the stairs are probably the bump map on the stairs. I actually like the mottling effect of this style (turned off jitter in the Radiosity settings). That’s probably my problem, I don’t want to make perfect realistic renders. I want to make my interpretation of reality.
About the render time: I never questioned the time. I really didn’t care about how long it took to render, honestly. I wasn’t under any time constraint or deadline, so I told myself to just make it like I wanted.
Radiosity was what was going to give me the image I had in my head, so I’m okay with the time it took.
Now, if I was going to produce a full 21 page comic, [i]THEN[/i] I would look into some short cuts. 
Thanks for the reply!
Here’s a close-up 100% of the image:
wow, in the closeup you can see where some of the 168 hours of rendering time went!
Very, very nice image.
One thing I will crit if I may; the composition takes my eye down the robot, then woosh! up the stairs and off the picture and because its light and ‘open’ up there it encourages it even more.
Other than that congrats on a great image.
Awesome picture - sort of looks like a 2D painting in some parts - very good work!
Love the style of the robot too… keep it up!
Patrick!
damn man, that looks great! I miss seeing your work, gotta visit the hash section again, it’s been too long.
Really nice work as always. I like the way you handled the the robot, and his shadow; the rendering is awesome. Very painterly effects in there.
thanks for sharing
don
ps how’s hash doing with OSX now…maybe time to come back…
dAaanng,
beautiful image,
but man, 168hrs ? ever heard of compositing!? haha.
werent you worried you’d have a tweak you wanted to do afterwards??
again, beautiful image.
P.S. about the dots on the stairs,
it looks better with than without…
only ppl that know the difference between an “artifact” and “details”
are in depth cg artists… sometimes you just need to take a step back and view
things as if you were an average joe…
or at least that’s what i’m thinking lately…
That looks great man! I’m a big fan of Wood, and Popbot, and I think that captures the essence of the comic perfectly. I like the “cattie!” in the background, but he does look a little flat for some reason…still, a great piece!
~Blithe
Absolutely grand. You managed a great job from Ashley Wood’s work
…and in A:M! That’s awesome.
Hey PJC congratulations man ! Im a big fan of ashley woods and your image looks like an illustration of the master . beautiful.
I only have one questions especially the close ups …some portions I can see they blured …from photoshops…nice blur it really work well .
PJC - I think u did an awsome job… I like the simplicity of the BOT and his environment… the Lighting is amazing Def inspiring… thanks for sharing…
Wow! What a superb image! Have you posted it to the hash forums yet? It’s the kind of image that would get you an Image of the Month nod.
I’m very curious about the tecnhiques you used, though. Are you planning on doing a writeup on this piece? It’d be really nice to see a bit of your process, particularly in how you managed such a nice rendering style. That’s not all just due to radiosity.
Interesting image.
And 168 hours? Heh, good thing that nothing in the lighting solution ended up ruining the image, huh? That wouldn’t be fun to re-render.
So, who do we have to bribe to get this on the front page?