Planetside Software Forums

General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: darthvader on May 24, 2008, 01:54:38 AM

Title: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on May 24, 2008, 01:54:38 AM
I really like the birds in this one.

The grass consists or four of Lightning's lush grass models with unique textures and the trees are also his Olea Europaea trees (models one and two). The birds I picked up a while ago on some freeware sight.

I think it is a bit on the dark side and also believe that the foreground could use something...mabye a nice vibrant flowerbed...any suggestions and comments are much appreciated ;D

[attachthumb=#]
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Mohawk20 on May 24, 2008, 07:09:46 AM
A bit dark, but I like the tree stump, and the birds make it come to life!
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: rcallicotte on May 24, 2008, 12:32:38 PM
I agree with Mohawk and suggest you use some dodging in PS (or similar program) to get that whole look.  The grass in the foreground, when I look at it, should be more visible.  There's a program called PhotoMatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/), which has been mentioned on this site before.  It would help.  Great scene possibilities.  Cool birds.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Mr_Lamppost on May 24, 2008, 05:03:57 PM
Nice One  ;D

I like the dark foreground, the near silhouette of the trees focuses the view on the sky, which is aI assume where you are wanting people to look. 

I would either crop off the bottom or point the camera up a little more.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: lightning on May 24, 2008, 06:04:01 PM
um it is a little dark great use of my plants!!!!
yeah photomatix is a real good program i used to use it in my terragen classic renders when i outputted them as HDRI :)
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on May 24, 2008, 06:37:43 PM
Lightning, tkany you very much for all your plants, without them tg2 wouldn't be nearly as fun. I found an easy way to make the next one lighter, just rotait the sun a bit so it is shining more on the near side of the plants. I'll upload when it finished. ;)
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on May 26, 2008, 05:07:38 AM
Here is the brighter version, I think the foreground is still kinda bland so I might tilt the camera upward some more to get a better focus on the sky.

[attachthumb=#]
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Seth on May 26, 2008, 05:26:33 AM
nice one
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: rcallicotte on May 26, 2008, 06:07:52 PM
Great scene.  Like the grass and the birds.  Lovely point of view...makes me wish I was there.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on May 26, 2008, 07:23:11 PM
thanks ;D
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Mr_Lamppost on May 26, 2008, 07:33:40 PM
I usually add a small amount of translucency to Grass.  Have a look at this example:

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4002.0

To see the sort of values I use.  I often do something similar to leaf materials.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Phylloxera on May 27, 2008, 01:29:37 AM
The second image is better !
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: monks on May 27, 2008, 01:37:19 PM
I like this pic- very serene and lush. The second is better imo.

monks
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on May 28, 2008, 03:02:56 PM
thanks everybody ;D here is my latest render, I've altered the grass to make it look more...grassy in addition to adding translucency to the grass and leaves and changing the camera orientation. As always constructive critism is always appreciated! :)

[attachthumb=#]
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Tangled-Universe on May 28, 2008, 03:08:22 PM
I like this last update a lot. The lighting looks very natural, the models look good and are not overpopulated.
There are just 2 minor crits I have. First I think the shadows are a bit to sharp and too dark. I'd suggest to increase soft shadow diameter a bit and also to add an extra sun opposite to the main sun and at the same angle. Disable all shadows and highlights, just plain light. Set strength to about 0.2-0.4. This fills the shadows a bit. It adds a tiny bit of rendertime, but this always works fine for me. Increasing GI strength on surfaces to 1.5 or 2 might also help in certain situations.
Secondly, and the easiest but most time consuming, is that I'd like to see it somewhat bigger and at higher detail settings. But that's just a wish :p
Nice work!

Martin
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: rcallicotte on May 28, 2008, 03:09:26 PM
Oh, yeah.  This is better.  The entire scene has brightened up, which adds more realism.  Good job.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on May 28, 2008, 05:31:41 PM
thanks, this last render was only 3 hours long while I was in class. The next one will actually have soft shadows enabled and be bigger, most likely will be a couple days before it's posted bu it should be worth the wait.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Tangled-Universe on May 28, 2008, 05:45:21 PM
Quote from: darthvader on May 28, 2008, 05:31:41 PM
thanks, this last render was only 3 hours long while I was in class. The next one will actually have soft shadows enabled and be bigger, most likely will be a couple days before it's posted bu it should be worth the wait.

I certainly agree, looking forward to see the final result :)
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: lightning on May 28, 2008, 08:30:00 PM
WOW! i like the latest render man love what you did with the grass
i think the scene would look realy cool with a castle or windmill in the distance
but thats just my personal taste!
or maybe try adding some of sonshines flowers and butterflies
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Mr_Lamppost on May 28, 2008, 09:33:02 PM
Wow I definitely like this last version, the first one had that under exposed because you were "Concentrating on the birds" look, which has a certain power but this latest one is a much more complete scene.  Bring on the big one.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on May 31, 2008, 09:05:50 PM
Here is the big one.
39 hours 34 minutes to render
detail: .8
AA: 12
GI: 2/2

I really like how the grass turned out in this one but I might want to fiddle with the birds so their wings don't appear so boldly white.

[attachthumb=#]
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: rcallicotte on May 31, 2008, 09:15:04 PM
It's all very realistic.  Nice.  I agree about the grass - beautiful.
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Seth on June 01, 2008, 05:21:48 AM
nice one (the last render).
the grass is very realistic ^^
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Tangled-Universe on June 01, 2008, 06:01:42 AM
Yeah man, this is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote a comment on your earlier version of this one.
Great improvements on the size and quality. Now you can see individual grasses and they are nicely AA'ed.
The soft-shadows are a great improvent, especially on the bark of the trees. I guess you didn't use the fill-light method I proposed, isn't it?
I agree with you about the birds, but I don't find it too distracting. By the way, where did you get the models?
Very nice work, keep it up :)

Martin
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on June 01, 2008, 12:29:40 PM
Thanks everybody ;D Actually, I did use your fill light suggestion, it just isn't very visible in the image. As for the birds, all I remember is that the website link is somewhere on ashundar, sorry I can't be mroe helpful
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: Tangled-Universe on June 01, 2008, 02:09:07 PM
Quote from: darthvader on June 01, 2008, 12:29:40 PM
Thanks everybody ;D Actually, I did use your fill light suggestion, it just isn't very visible in the image. As for the birds, all I remember is that the website link is somewhere on ashundar, sorry I can't be mroe helpful

Oh you did! :) I was doubting a little about that, because it is visible on the barks of the trees as well as the foreground-model, but it could also be already done by the soft-shadows but most of the times not enough. Was my guess for strength a bit accurate?

No problem you can't help me further, at least I know a good direction where to search, thanks :)

Martin
Title: Re: Take Flight
Post by: darthvader on June 01, 2008, 04:31:38 PM
yep, your guess was very good, .2 strength works perfectly