Spring Love - FINAL on page 3

[dlefik2008]

stunning work. i'm very interested in how you went about lighting this scene if you really wouldn't mind sharing. just general info or detailed like your light strength, angles, elevation, etc. i've been finding that lighting will make or break a scene and you seem to do it so flawlessly every render you put out.

[Hannes]

Great image. The DOF is fantastic.

[FrankB]

These are the close up scenes I love. Question: What was your 'Y' dimension for this scene? I almost never have been able to reach one meter when hunting for that special POV.

Again, the cam is just above the ground. I would guess that the visible terrain in this scene barely covers 15x15m, rather less.
I find it easy to position the cam low near the ground. I usually use the 3D preview with bounding boxes enabled to help find the right position.
Then I usually fine tune the position with the navigation controls, set to make the smallest possibe steps.

Regards,
Frank

[FrankB]

stunning work. i'm very interested in how you went about lighting this scene if you really wouldn't mind sharing. just general info or detailed like your light strength, angles, elevation, etc. i've been finding that lighting will make or break a scene and you seem to do it so flawlessly every render you put out.

I agree that lighting is very important. Lighting and colors. I don't mind elabortating about lighting a bit...
In this scene, pretty much everything is left like in the default project. The sun elevation is at 25 degrees, the sun strength is default 3.5.
Now the sun is heading in directly from the left. This is important with close up shot for vegetation, that you have both enough light and shadow. I made a few small detail test renders to find the right exposure. I don't have it open in front of me now, but the lighting on the vegetation looked acceptable near exposure 2. GI 2/2 was important to bring out enough detail in the plant shadows.
Then I rendered away, and took the result into iphoto, where I cautiously increased exposure and contrast once more, added a tad saturation and a hint of a pinkish tint, increased shadow lightness very very slightly. And that was about it. It's important to undo your color and level changes from time to time, and least that's what I do, to really make sure the changes I apply actually improve the look of realism. You know, when I keep tweaking I am easily fooled into overdoing it without noticing

Cheers,
Frank

[choronr]

These are the close up scenes I love. Question: What was your 'Y' dimension for this scene? I almost never have been able to reach one meter when hunting for that special POV.

Again, the cam is just above the ground. I would guess that the visible terrain in this scene barely covers 15x15m, rather less.
I find it easy to position the cam low near the ground. I usually use the 3D preview with bounding boxes enabled to help find the right position.
Then I usually fine tune the position with the navigation controls, set to make the smallest possibe steps.

Regards,
Frank

I guess I do it different than you. You mention 'bounding boxes' in the 3D preview meaning you already have the objects in place?

[FrankB]

Either the objects are in place already, or I put them in later and then adjust the camera position accordingly. See the other thread where you asked me that question, I have provided more detailed explanations there.

Frank

[choronr]

Either the objects are in place already, or I put them in later and then adjust the camera position accordingly. See the other thread where you asked me that question, I have provided more detailed explanations there.

Frank

Will do; thanks.

[Walli]

great, th lighting is top notch. About the tree in the foreground - run the trunk through another 3D application and apply a mesh smooth, then there´s no "that´s to close" problem.

[FrankB]

great, th lighting is top notch. About the tree in the foreground - run the trunk through another 3D application and apply a mesh smooth, then there´s no "that´s to close" problem.

Thanks Walli, you're over-estimating my skills, though, because  have no idea how to do that
My thought would be to run it through xfrog and give the trunk shape some more sides....

[Walli]

that would be of course also possible!

[dlefik2008]

stunning work. i'm very interested in how you went about lighting this scene if you really wouldn't mind sharing. just general info or detailed like your light strength, angles, elevation, etc. i've been finding that lighting will make or break a scene and you seem to do it so flawlessly every render you put out.

I agree that lighting is very important. Lighting and colors. I don't mind elabortating about lighting a bit...
In this scene, pretty much everything is left like in the default project. The sun elevation is at 25 degrees, the sun strength is default 3.5.
Now the sun is heading in directly from the left. This is important with close up shot for vegetation, that you have both enough light and shadow. I made a few small detail test renders to find the right exposure. I don't have it open in front of me now, but the lighting on the vegetation looked acceptable near exposure 2. GI 2/2 was important to bring out enough detail in the plant shadows.
Then I rendered away, and took the result into iphoto, where I cautiously increased exposure and contrast once more, added a tad saturation and a hint of a pinkish tint, increased shadow lightness very very slightly. And that was about it. It's important to undo your color and level changes from time to time, and least that's what I do, to really make sure the changes I apply actually improve the look of realism. You know, when I keep tweaking I am easily fooled into overdoing it without noticing

Cheers,
Frank

thank you very much for sharing those tips frank. i'll definitely keep this all in mind. by the way, i know this may be obvious, but what's your opinion about using soft shadows when doing a shot like close to the ground but in an area that has lots of trees, like in a forest. i'm sorry if it goes a bit off topic here but i was just thinking about that when i was looking at this image. my eyes see some harder shadows on the tree but softer shadows on the ground. did you use soft shadows here?

[FrankB]

no soft shadows used, although I should have. Just couldn't stand waiting the extra time for the final result. Soft Shadows slow things down significantly.

Frank

[Kadri]

I looked at the topic but couldn't find it . Which AA filter did you use Frank?

Kadri.

[FrankB]

uhm, can't look it up now. But I usually use narrow cubic. MN shoud be be fine too at higher AA levels.
Martin did a comparison recently (for this yellowstone image actually), and MN was ever so slightly superior at AA 8.

[Kadri]

Thanks , Frank