Hi all!

Now that I've finally finished my particle system and got some more spare
time at hand, I've made a new pic. It isn't final yet, as I'm still tweaking
some stuff to get the look right.

First, the mental side: I wanted to depict something like "absence". The
person, on which the raindrops are falling, is missing in the image, yet she
has some impact and effect on the environment. I'm not too sure if it's
easily visible, and that's one of the things I'm working on, she's smiling
and embracing the rain. So, what it boils down to is the memory of a person,
like she is being missed or such. Though comments on this part of the image
(interpretation) are appreciated and surely of interest, that's what I'm
trying to do with it for myself. :-)

The technical side: I'm using my particle system for this (is it obvious?
;-) with well over 10.000 particles. There are 1800 particles being dropped
on her just to get that splashed-rain-effect. Each of these particles
explodes into 5 smaller particles which either just stay in midair (to make
sure that some effect is still on the invisible person) or trickle down the
body or drop off of it. Then there are 6500 particles for the actual
raindrops floating in midair, and another 3500 drops placed onto her face to
make it visible. That's the part where I need to experiment a little more,
as her smile isn't really obvious enough for my taste. It's exagherated on
the model, but still doesn't come through on the final pic. Any ideas on
that? I guess I'll raise the particle-count on the face and place the light
(or add some more) so that the specular highlights show it better...

Anyways, render time is 3.5 minutes on my 2.4GHz Athlon XP at 1280x960 with
AA-Method 2, parsing 4 minutes (for 19.000 particles total, minus 5 seconds
to load the model of the woman).

Comments and suggestions appreciated and welcome!

Regards,
Tim

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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Attachments:
Download 'memory.jpg' (22 KB)

Preview of image 'memory.jpg'

I love it!

Could you make me a larger version (1152*864, or even larger :)), with a little
more contrast (a darker shade of blue)?  I would love to replace my Tubular
Bells background with this :)

tnx :p

cu!
--
camera{location-z*3}#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*(C/50)#end#macro L(b,e,k,l)#local C=0
;#while(C<50)sphere{G(b,e),.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1
;#end#end L(y-x,y,x,x+y)L(y,-x-y,x+y,y)L(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)L(-y,y,y+z,x+y)L(0,x+y,
<.5,1,.5>,x)L(0,x-y,<.5,1,.5>,x)               // ZK http://www.povplace.be.tf

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Tim Nikias v2.0 wrote:

> Hi all!
> 
> Now that I've finally finished my particle system and got some more spare
> time at hand, I've made a new pic. It isn't final yet, as I'm still tweaking
> some stuff to get the look right.

<snip:mental />

<snip:technical />

WOW!
-- 
Respectfully,
Dan P
http://<broken link>

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> I love it!

Thanks for the praise!

> Could you make me a larger version (1152*864, or even larger :)), with a
little
> more contrast (a darker shade of blue)?  I would love to replace my
Tubular
> Bells background with this :)

I'm always rendering at 1280x960, so that shouldn't be a problem. I'll
figure out how to get her smiling today, and then I'll see what I can do for
you, k?

Regards,
Tim

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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> WOW!

Heh, thanks! :-)

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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Its a neat trick, I've done similar in the past by accident, in my case I
defined an isosurface ground object and dropeed trees and bushes onto it,
but forgot to actually render the ground.

v. Nice BTW

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> Its a neat trick, I've done similar in the past by accident, in my case I
> defined an isosurface ground object and dropeed trees and bushes onto it,
> but forgot to actually render the ground.

But I didn't forget the model! ;-) Seriously though, it is quiet difficult
to show certain details on a model when it is invisible. Showing that
*something* is there isn't the problem. But when I used darker colors and
the face wasn't very visible, it seemed more like a threatening image, e.g.
"Hollow Man" on the loose.

> v. Nice BTW

Thanks!

Regards,
Tim

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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Final version is now available on my website. I've put a link to a 1280x960
PNG version as well (411kb), as the JPEG does show some colorbanding. If
you're interested, have a look:

<http://www.nolights.de/v2gallery/images/memory.html>

Regards,
Tim

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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Tim Nikias v2.0 wrote:

> Final version is now available on my website. I've put a link to a
> 1280x960 PNG version as well (411kb), as the JPEG does show some
> colorbanding. If you're interested, have a look:
> 
> <http://www.nolights.de/v2gallery/images/memory.html>
> 
> Regards,
> Tim
> 
I like the idea but I think this image is very unbalanced. 
There's a very dense cloud of particles around the head and a lot less
particles at the rest of the body. I understand your argument of using a
large number of particles to bring out the features in the head but you
have to, imo, do the same for the arms and chest.
-- 
Ger

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> I like the idea but I think this image is very unbalanced.
> There's a very dense cloud of particles around the head and a lot less
> particles at the rest of the body. I understand your argument of using a
> large number of particles to bring out the features in the head but you
> have to, imo, do the same for the arms and chest.

Okay, I'll give it at try and raise the particle amount a couple thousands.
My brother also suggested placing more raindrops surrounding her, so I'll
try that as well.

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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