The View from Inky's Butte (version 2)

[schmeerlap]

Yep, that's li'l ol' me checking out my head for heights on Inky's butte.  
Went out onto my balcony and struck a fearful looking-over-the-edge pose.
Trees are Xfrog and Dandelo's Larch, and the bush is from Mr Lamppost.

The repaired version is here:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=10741.msg110564#msg110564

John

[airflamesred]

Oooh now I like that

[dandelO]

Wow!
Brilliant imagery, John! But, standing way out there like that, are you clutching your camera or, something else?

[Kadri]

Interesting image , John
I like the background the most. Foreground looks a little like a comp because of the angle. The integration of your photo is nice.
Only you look like you are standing nearly horizontal (or is it me ) and i think the shadow are not aligned with the TG2 part.
Can you make a photo from a higher ground of yourself John ?
A little level-contrast adjustment could make the image a little better as it is too.

Don't get me wrong after so much nitpicking i like it , it has great potential thus i chatter so much , John

[inkydigit]

nice view John, never knew it was this big!
great sense of scale and population control, good photo integration too!

[domdib]

Very nice point of view. Only suggestion is a little more colour variation in the surfacing. Everything else is excellent.

[ra]

Great work! Where did you get that strange object in the foreground from? 
No, just kidding, this is really awesome! Well done!

[schmeerlap]

. . . . standing way out there like that, are you clutching your camera or, something else?

Just my insanity, Martin 

Foreground looks a little like a comp because of the angle.

At first I couldn't see what you meant by this, but now I think this must also refer to the poor aspect integration of the photo onto the foreground. You're quite right with the photo aspect, I did, as you rightly point out, pose myself at same level as camera. I was aware of this flaw and tried to fake a downward shot with PS's Transformation> Perspective and Distort tools. That helped a wee bit, but not nearly enough. And, looking at it now, I think your right with the shadow too; it should fall a nat's smidgin more to the right.

Where did you get that strange object in the foreground from? 

Don't worry, ra; there's only one of them about . . . . . I hope. 

John.

[Kadri]

... poor aspect integration of the photo onto the foreground...

John

Not poor! Quite opposite i think it is very good . The only problem is the angle.  
Take a photo of you from a 3 (approximately) high floor and it would look much better i think.
Not everyone would see the different light angle especially at first. So the shadow isn't so much important here.
But if you can , change it too , John.
I would love to see this  

[Henry Blewer]

Frankly I would prefer to add myself in the image than stand there.

Very nice render John. I think that the image post work is good. I wonder if you could get a 3D figure and map your image to it? That way the object John could be easily added to any scene.

[Seth]

no shadow from the character ?

[schmeerlap]

no shadow from the character ?

Yes there is!

If you look more carefully, (enlarge with magnifier), you can see the lower part of it (from my foot and lower leg) on the top slab, where I'm standing. The rest of it merges with the shadow of the projecting rock. As kadri has already pointed out, though, it should probably be cast more to the right. In that case it will be more visible as it will fall over more of the exposed rock at the top.

John

[Seth]

no there is not just below the right foot for example. and from the left foot, it looks like "soft shadows"
the idea is good but i don't think the integration of the character is well done. from the sun orientation i think the majority of it should be far darker.
but well, i am not a matte painter so i might be wrong.

[dandelO]

I think instead of 'burning' the shadow into the original image(which it looks like you've done here, I might be wrong), I would soft clone brush an existing shadow tone, from the rock directly behind, and with a bit of transparency in the brush, you could build that up. All the other shadows are kind of grey/black when the figure's shadow is brown.

[schmeerlap]

@ Seth; no you're not wrong. As Martin has subsequently identified, I rather lazily burned the shadow in, and it is indeed not well done. When I usually create a character's shadow, I copy/paste the figure, and then darken and decrease the contrast so that the copy is a dark silhouette. I then (when I do it properly) use the transform tools to flip the figure vertically, and stretch and distort it in line with the sunlight's direction, and then blend it in. I'll be redoing this scene with another pic of me which will this time be taken at a downward angle, and this time I will lay the shadow properly.

John