hi there, I won´t say what I tried to make here because I hope you will see it.
I am not to confident though, because I always find it hard to achieve the impression of really big size and depth that some of you so masterly create.
I used the beautiful ivy trees, whose creator I couldn´t remember and Mr Lampposts long grass.
Correction:the ivy tree is by dandelO!
Old version, scroll down for newer one!
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/5008472891_8c59836a4e_b.jpg
If some of you can guess what I tried, I would like to hear your comments and love to see better approaches on the idea!
Best regards,
Jan
I would say that you pointed the camera down at a water shader/pond to get the reflection. I tried this once. I found that to get a good reflection the settings have to be set too high. On my old P4 the render took much too much time. I went on to something completely different...
Is it underwater looking up? I can't decide what I'm looking at.
I think the ivy trees may be mine. :) http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?qynzhzitzza (3mb)
Yes dandelO, thats your Ivy tree, thanks, I really like it.
Well, normally three guesses are allowed, but I fear that I just didn´t achieve the effect I was aiming for.
It is no reflection you are looking at, I wouldn´t have made such a fuss for a picture looking at a pond ;)
You are looking "up" through the trees at the actual lightsource and atmosphere positioned at the center of a hollow sphere.
The idea was "Dyson Sphere", but will have to work on that some more.
Best Regards,
Jan
If you read some tipps and tricks about photography, you'll notice, that the more zoom, the less depth (think of those sunset shots with a lonesome tree in front of the sun ... lots of zoom, but no depth).
Go to your camera and use at least a FOV of 75° ... or just go right for 90° .... do not forget to use the atmosphere for adding scale to the render! :)
Nonetheless, I feel tiny in your image ... it may not be flawless, but I like watching it :)
Thanks Volker, that was a great help.
Concerning fotography that wasn´t so new to me, but I never thought about changing the camera-settings in TG before!
Well, here is the next result.
I photoshopped the bushes in to save rendertime, lensflare and colour adjustments.
The "Sun-container" is made quickly in Blender, just three tori and six cubes.
Its still far from perfect, but I think there are enough hints now to get the geometry (and the sci-fi-ness) of the idea.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4087/5018251065_ba78cd6717_b.jpg)
What do you say, people?
That's much more perceptible as your goal image now. Very cool!
You could maybe try some non-adaptive AA sampling, you can only use AA=3 I think, eh? That should take away some of the sharpness of the glints on the rings. I like Mitchell/Netrevali AA, it's a good balance of sharp/soft. I'd also check the AA bloom box.
Looking good, though! 8)
I think it is interesting , Mahnmut :)
For me the problem is that i can not sense where and at what we quite look. Sometimes with such ideas it is hard to get the right picture.
Maybe you can try a much wider or higher aspect ratio and try to put the ground or some high structure (skyscraper etc .) in the picture too.
I searched for Dyson Sphere images but there wasn't many ,but you can find many Ringworld images.
It seams that Dyson Sphere images are a little hard to make !
Glad you like it,
I also think I made some progress.
Thanks for the AA-hint, Maybe I will try that some day, for now it will be photoshop.
I am not only constricted by the limits of the free version, but by my old, slow and loud PC.
I can´t sleep while it runs, so there is a limit to the rendertimes.
Same problem with exotic aspect ratios, 800 is the longest image I get for free.
I tried to integrate Volker Haruns procedural cityscapes, and they work great, but without shadows they are just grey spots in the green.
That may be the main problem with dyson-sphere images (even for a small one) : the light comes directly from above at every point in the sphere.
I already thought about a "polar" lightsource instead of a central one.
but first I should concentrate on my exams (in ten days)
Best Regards,
Jan
great update!
Quote from: Mahnmut on September 24, 2010, 09:30:05 AM
... but without shadows they are just grey spots in the green ...
My first thought was, that every vertical face inside a sphere should be in shadow ... but you are right this is really a problem.
I really like your idea of the Dyson sphere ... but first best of luck for the exams.
Thanks for all your encouraging comments!
Volker Harun, I think in theory you are right about the vertical faces, even more so in a small sphere like mine.(r=36km, which is not very dysonlike at all, should be 1AE [AU? I think I saw AE in English]) The Sunlight isn´t as parallel as on a tiny ball far away like the earth.
You say I was right, but I had to think about why that is so.
On one hand, the lightsource is not punctual. (I actually used 3 lightsources in one cloudlayer)
On the other hand, when I look up at my dyson-sky, I see only the sunlit rooftops of my antipodes (Anticephaloi?)
Thanks for the good wishes, i shouldn´t be here now but learning learning learning!
I will try to concentrate, see you in two weeks then.
Best Regards,
Jan
It's AU. It stands for Astronomical Unit, the distance between Earth and the Sun. ;)
Ok, well.
In German its AE (Astronomische Einheit) and I thouhgt I had read AE in English texts to.
But AU makes sense.
Back to learning!