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To kick things off (see Old Technology...discussions), I'll start with the
winning image...
One of the nicest things about this image (that I failed to mention in the
comments file) is the farm in the background. So many of the Old Technology
entries had objects with very little background. Of course we all know the
reason for this: even objects in the background require a lot of work to
look good, and there's a time limit on this competition. But the farm,
fields, hills, and sky in this image make a great environment. Jeremy
obviously spent a lot of time on them.
I notice one of the comments suggested a radio tower instead of a farm in
the background. I'm not sure that would gain much, and might be a
distraction.
Someone also mentioned the grass should be more glossy. I wonder if the
color of the sunlight shining on the grass might be the reason the grass
appears less glossy. Is the sunlight a yellowish light, or pure white?
I was very impressed with the grass, with good weeds. How they were kept
from passing into the radios?
Someone mentioned the prominance of the fence. I wonder what this image
would look like with a little more sky, or a shorter fence? As it is the
fence top fills the sky, and it has a bit of an ominous look (well, it is a
graveyard :-). Speaking of which, this is the second winner in a row
dealing with death...maybe we need a "Funny" round.
Of course the radios themselves are great, and they're so many of them! I
really like the plasticy-wood surface of the radios, very realistic
looking, and it gives the image a classy feel.
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Renderdog wrote:
>
> To kick things off (see Old Technology...discussions), I'll start with the
> winning image...
>
> [...]
There is one interesting point about this image - the fact that none of
the comments mentions the lighting. Don't get me wrong, i like this image
in a lot of aspects - the concept, the composition, good modelling work.
But the lighting is fairly inconsistent. The shadows clearly indicate
full sunlight but without the shadows and the highlights it appears more
like a cloudy situation.
The most important point to consider when designing a sunlit scene is to
economically spread the limited dynamic range of the image file and
computer monitors. If you load this image in HCR-Edit and apply the
exposure adjustments "exposure 2.5, gain 1.2" you get something much
nearer to a realistic sunlight appearance but of course this means an
immense loss of image quality which you can especially observe in the low
contrast parts like the shadows and the sky.
Christoph
--
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 28 Feb. 2003 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______
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You're absolutely right. Lighting is something that I really haven't delved
very deep into at this point, along with a great deal of other things. I
struggled with it toward the end. The radiosity was making the shadows too
bright, so I adjusted that, but overall the scene continued to be too dark.
For my final render, I tried making the light brighter, but it still didn't
seem to be enough. I was surprised that no one had commented on it. To me,
it was the most obvious flaw of the picture. However, it looks brighter on
my computer at home than it does where I work.
Nevertheless, it was intended to be an evening picture, but not necessarily
sunset. The end of a warm summer day, where you almost get a feeling of
haziness. Ok, the haziness feeling wasn't intended, but I get that feeling
nevertheless. ;-) For a time, I considered a fall scene. Had I been able
to pull it off, it might have been better, but there were too many things
that I'd never attempted to do before. Fall colors would certainly have
matched the radio colors better.
Did you notice that the top 3 images are somewhat dark? I'm not sure what
to make of that observation, but I thought it was interesting.
--
Slash
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I can be quite a talker at times, so be warned... ;-)
> One of the nicest things about this image (that I failed to mention in the
> comments file) is the farm in the background. So many of the Old
Technology
> entries had objects with very little background. Of course we all know the
> reason for this: even objects in the background require a lot of work to
> look good, and there's a time limit on this competition. But the farm,
> fields, hills, and sky in this image make a great environment. Jeremy
> obviously spent a lot of time on them.
I've had mixed feelings about the farm myself. But since I live in an area
surrounded by farms, it was an easy place to get inspiration. I would
slowly drive by silos on my way home from work. Many of them are rusty,
which gives them much more character. I hope to do a farm scene some day.
Or perhaps several scenes.
> I notice one of the comments suggested a radio tower instead of a farm in
> the background. I'm not sure that would gain much, and might be a
> distraction.
>
> Someone also mentioned the grass should be more glossy. I wonder if the
> color of the sunlight shining on the grass might be the reason the grass
> appears less glossy. Is the sunlight a yellowish light, or pure white?
The sunlight was quite yellow. Additionally, there is a big yellow spot in
the sky around it. The grass began to look really blue when the radiosity
would reflect it from the blue sky. I made the sky a little more
grey-white, and added the yellow gradient.
> I was very impressed with the grass, with good weeds. How they were kept
> from passing into the radios?
They weren't! Actually, I rotated them slightly around X or Z, giving them
a tilt which avoided the problem for the most part. I'm sure there are
places where they pass into the radios, but even at 3200x2400 it would be
difficult to spot.
> Someone mentioned the prominance of the fence. I wonder what this image
> would look like with a little more sky, or a shorter fence? As it is the
> fence top fills the sky, and it has a bit of an ominous look (well, it is
a
> graveyard :-). Speaking of which, this is the second winner in a row
> dealing with death...maybe we need a "Funny" round.
The fence was originally taller and closer. It's only about 40" tall, IIRC.
Any shorter, and it would have been less realistic. It's also a few yards
away from the radios, though it's difficult to tell.
> Of course the radios themselves are great, and they're so many of them! I
> really like the plasticy-wood surface of the radios, very realistic
> looking, and it gives the image a classy feel.
I spent countless hours working on the textures and finishes. Even so, I'm
not 100% satisfied. Maybe 90%. I'm going from memory, but I believe the
wood texture was a granite and bozo texture stretched out to look like a
wood grain. Then I overlayed a stretched agate pattern on top of that, for
the color variation. I tried using the woods.inc, but eventually abandoned
it, and made my own. Some of them also had turbulence added. Then I used,
"warp {repeat 2*x flip <1,0,0> " to flip-flop the textures to look like wood
veneer.
Some things that went wrong...
* Lighting: It's too dark, imho, and I ran out of time before I could
figure out what to do about it.
* Focal blur: A small amount of focal blur was necessary or the image_maps
of the grille cloths looked very bad. For the final render, I had set blur
samples to 200, but it would have probably taken 3 months to render. I
ended up leaving it at 50 samples. That caused some graininess, especially
in the large background tree in the middle.
Other thoughts...
Overall, I tried to do this without using things like Poser, X-frog,
pre-built models etc. Probably because I don't own any of those things. ;-)
But more to the point, since I don't own those things, I wanted to show
what's possible using just POV-Ray, and a few other simple, mostly free
tools. I think some of the scoring may have taken that into account, but
that's just my feeling.
Finally, I'd like to thank my wife, Angela (aka Mrs. Dolt), for supporting
me on this. It can get lonely coming home from work and spending the next 5
hours working on an IRTC entry. Lonely for both of us. That may be why
Gena's "Lonliness" entry had such an impact on so many.
--
Slash
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Glad to see you have already kicked this off. This image had a wonderful
American Midwestern feel for me. Reminded me of my youth in the state of
Indiana. I agree with the comments about the fence being not quite right -
shorter and a more conservative design might have fit the image a little better.
Given the age of the radios they also looked too pristine. Think about grave
stones of an age equal to the radios. If the radios all 'lived a good life' they
would be somewhat beat up... :-)
I am not as sure about the glossy grass comments. It is usually dry and dusty in
August when the corn is this height. I would actually make an argument for
adding more brown to the grass. A dusty brown environment is at odds with the
polished wood of the radios.
The concept for this image is terrific! I found myself at a loss for a 'good'
idea for the old technology round. Similarly stuck for the current
round....
>
> To kick things off (see Old Technology...discussions), I'll start with the
> winning image...
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Slashdolt wrote:
>
> You're absolutely right. Lighting is something that I really haven't delved
> very deep into at this point, along with a great deal of other things. I
> struggled with it toward the end. The radiosity was making the shadows too
> bright, so I adjusted that, but overall the scene continued to be too dark.
> For my final render, I tried making the light brighter, but it still didn't
> seem to be enough. I was surprised that no one had commented on it. To me,
> it was the most obvious flaw of the picture. However, it looks brighter on
> my computer at home than it does where I work.
Note that i did not suggest to make it brighter - the correct overall
brightness is mostly a matter of the computer and monitor the image is
shown on. The really important thing that makes an image appear as sunny
or not are the relations between the different parts of the scene.
Christoph
--
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 28 Feb. 2003 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______
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Christoph Hormann wrote:
>Note that i did not suggest to make it brighter - the correct overall
>brightness is mostly a matter of the computer and monitor the image is
>shown on. The really important thing that makes an image appear as sunny
>or not are the relations between the different parts of the scene.
I read somewhere that normal daylight is <1.0, 0.84, 0.57>*7.6 Of course
evening light would be considerably lower, maybe closer to *3.0
When I use really high values for sunlight, the light washes out surfaces
toward white, losing detail. I guess that's similar to what a camera does,
but I'm not necessarily trying to duplicate a camera view. On the Innocent
Shadow image I had to be careful not to wash out the sidewalk's texture
with too bright a sunlight (though maybe I should've sacrificed that detail
for realism?).
I would be interested in seeing the Radio Graves image adjusted using
HCR-Edit. Perhaps Jeremy would give his permission for this altered version
to be posted? I'm on a Mac so I don't have access to HCR-Edit to see the
difference.
Let's say the "exposure" was set to show the wood on the radios best, so the
grass is washed out a bit. This makes some sense to me, and Bill's
suggestion about the grass being dry and dusty also makes sense (though
there is no dust on the radios, as he mentioned). The scene looks hazy,
except the radios have not been out in the weather (appearing brand new).
I hope this isn't picking too many nits, but this kind of discussion is
really helpful to me!
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Slashdolt hammered this:
> Other thoughts...
> Overall, I tried to do this without using things like Poser, X-frog,
> pre-built models etc. Probably because I don't own any of those things.
;-)
> But more to the point, since I don't own those things, I wanted to show
> what's possible using just POV-Ray, and a few other simple, mostly free
> tools. I think some of the scoring may have taken that into account, but
> that's just my feeling.
Thats how I approach most of my images as well. Some things just cannot
be done with pure POV, like modelling realistic people. Programs like
Poser are fine for that. And for excellent plants, X-Frog is a path to
choose,
though nice gardens have been made without it.
For me, it takes the awe when I look at an image, and then see that it has
been done with X-Frog, Poser, Maya along with Mental Ray, and perhaps
Realwave or such. Unless the image has been composited very professionally,
like Gilles' "Not for sale anymore", I end up thinking that using THOSE
programs, something better could have been achieved very easily. That might
not be true, those programs aren't easy to handle, but when I see a pure
POV-image opposed to one made with the conventional $$$-programs, I
just keep thinking that most of the features are accessible with a click.
My Worldbowl image for the IRTC had been such an adventure, modelling and
texturing everything with pure POV, and its fun and a great learning
experience.
And as a little extra, I don't have to keep thinking that perhaps some day
someone might want to sue me, because I made an image with an illegal
copy of Maya. I've got an old Poser (hm. wanted to give thanks to the POVer
who sent it to me, but due to my recent System Crash, I can't find out...
Speak up, whoever it was! :-), and some programming skills (though I'm only
scripting in pure POV, its much more platform-independant that way :-)
and those two (and in most of the cases, only the last one) have made all
my images possible.
And "Gerberas"... No X-Frog used there. Not even one external program
used, actually.
POV-Ray rocks, baby! ;-)
--
Tim Nikias v2.0
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights
Email: Tim### [at] gmx de
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I think I understand what you are saying. For future reference, how would
you recommend correcting that? Should I make the sun brighter by saying
something like "rgb <3,3,3>"?
Also, I set radiosity's "brightness" to 0.3, which may have made everything
appear darker.
--
Slash
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Slashdolt wrote:
>I've had mixed feelings about the farm myself. But since I live in an area
>surrounded by farms, it was an easy place to get inspiration. I would
>slowly drive by silos on my way home from work. Many of them are rusty,
>which gives them much more character. I hope to do a farm scene some day.
>Or perhaps several scenes.
I also live in a rural area and the weathered wood and rusted metal roofs
are very beautiful, in their own way. I've seen a lot of computer generated
scenes taking advantage of that, some of them quite realistic.
>The sunlight was quite yellow. Additionally, there is a big yellow spot in
>the sky around it. The grass began to look really blue when the radiosity
>would reflect it from the blue sky. I made the sky a little more
>grey-white, and added the yellow gradient.
The sky sphere often overpowers scenes using radiosity in POV-Ray. Perhaps
the sun isn't bright enough?
>The fence was originally taller and closer. It's only about 40" tall, IIRC.
>Any shorter, and it would have been less realistic. It's also a few yards
>away from the radios, though it's difficult to tell.
Looking at the scene after reading this, I see what you say. I guess the
fence design has the appearance of a taller fence, or perhaps the corn
stalks are not as high (or as close) as I'd assumed, throwing off my
perception of the size of the radios as well.
>I spent countless hours working on the textures and finishes. Even so, I'm
>not 100% satisfied. Maybe 90%. I'm going from memory, but I believe the
>wood texture was a granite and bozo texture stretched out to look like a
>wood grain. Then I overlayed a stretched agate pattern on top of that, for
>the color variation. I tried using the woods.inc, but eventually abandoned
>it, and made my own. Some of them also had turbulence added. Then I used,
>"warp {repeat 2*x flip <1,0,0> " to flip-flop the textures to look like wood
>veneer.
I almost never get a good wood from wood, but use wrinkles and granite.
>Some things that went wrong...
>* Lighting: It's too dark, imho, and I ran out of time before I could
>figure out what to do about it.
>* Focal blur: A small amount of focal blur was necessary or the image_maps
>of the grille cloths looked very bad. For the final render, I had set blur
>samples to 200, but it would have probably taken 3 months to render. I
>ended up leaving it at 50 samples. That caused some graininess, especially
>in the large background tree in the middle.
I was wondering how the grill cloths looked so good. Excellent work. POV-Ray
always forces us to compromise one thing for another. I've been fighting AA
as well, wanting sharp textures but no obvious stair stepping.
>Overall, I tried to do this without using things like Poser, X-frog,
>pre-built models etc. Probably because I don't own any of those things. ;-)
>But more to the point, since I don't own those things, I wanted to show
>what's possible using just POV-Ray, and a few other simple, mostly free
>tools. I think some of the scoring may have taken that into account, but
>that's just my feeling.
I also like to use POV-Ray only, partly because I'd like to learn what it
can do. Once I think I've learned how to use its many tools, then I'll
branch out to add/use others. Or maybe just buy Maya!
>Finally, I'd like to thank my wife, Angela (aka Mrs. Dolt), for supporting
>me on this. It can get lonely coming home from work and spending the next 5
>hours working on an IRTC entry. Lonely for both of us. That may be why
>Gena's "Lonliness" entry had such an impact on so many.
Congrats on your hard work well rewarded. I'm looking forward to retirement
when I can play with POV-Ray all day!
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