This is my entry for the 3D-RTC "Before-After" round.

At the moment, I'm basically happy with this image, although I'm sure 
that someone here will point out something that I have to change. Which 
is why I'm posting it here. :-)

There are two things that still bother me a little about the image:

1. The phong highlight on the walking can in the very foreground. Before 
I added focal blur, it was a beautiful, round, highlight. Now it's 
square-shaped. I have no idea why it does this, but I think I can live 
with it.

2. The handle on the cane. I did a 180-degree half-loop. All the real 
canes continue the curve at least another 30 degrees, but 180 degrees 
was easier to do in CSG. :-) At this angle, though, I'm starting to 
think it would look a lot nicer with another 45 degrees. We'll see 
whether or not I get around to fixing it before the deadline.

Other than that, I need you guys to point out what's wrong with it. :-)

The area light and focal blur (especially the focal blur...) made this 
go from an image that renders in a few seconds to one that takes over 
twenty minutes to render on my 2 GHz Athlon. I think it's worth it, though.

The background was inspired by the "Chicken Chair" video on Blender.org
http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/movies/
(About halfway down the page, on the right-hand side.) All the surfaces 
of the environment are the same color, and lit in such a way that you 
cannot distinguish the walls, floor, and ceiling from one another. 
(Which makes for some very interesting scene transitions in the original 
video, BTW.)

I set a background color of rgb 1, and a ground color of rgb 1, then 
cranked up the light until the ground rendered in the final image as 
actual #FFFFFF white. Then I had to darken down the colors (and 
highlights!) on the glasses and walking cane so that they weren't 
overexposed.

I actually used a box for the ground surface, as I knew that point 
lights tend to not illuminate the far reaches of a plane very well. Then 
I remembered that I could use a parallel light to illuminate an entire 
surface evenly. So, I could have used a plane, but I kept the cube anyway.

-- 
William Tracy
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|a|f|i|s|h|i|o|n|a|d|o|@|g|m|a|i|l|.|c|o|m|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|w|t|r|a|c|y|@|c|a|l|p|o|l|y|.|e|d|u|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

You know you've been raytracing too long when you start perceiving 
people who don't raytrace as a lower form of life.
Taps a.k.a. Tapio Vocadlo

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'before-after.jpg' (18 KB)

Preview of image 'before-after.jpg'

> Other than that, I need you guys to point out what's wrong with it. :-)

William,

Image organization:
The focal blur in the foreground is disturbing, as the eye must wander the 
triangle between small isolated background objects and a blurry foreground 
thing. Not a lot of pixels conveying engaging information is another way of 
thinking of it. All the glossy wood texture you showed previously is gone.
The viewpoint on the handle does not help that. Perhaps putting specs and 
handle in a sharp foreground would be better?

Reality check:
A walking stick / cane will typically be capped by a ferrule at the business 
end (to give grip on the floor), and will never be a nice shiny rounded tip.

Go well with your efforts - I look forward to more.

DLM

Post a reply to this message

I agree that you might work on the composition a little bit.  There's a lot
of empty space.  Just an idea, but perhaps the glasses could be really
close, and in fact the camera is looking through the lens to see part of
the cane behind it?  Just to add some more interesting modelling, a shiny
brass handle on the cane might be good (btw, I really enjoyed your
animation of the making of the glasses--that was an excellent idea).

IMHO, I can't imagine that someone who would wear *those* particular glasses
would use *that* particular cane (not that she could see it, but I imagine
she'd pick something a little more unique).

I like the idea, and I look forward to seeing it develop.

-- Kirk

Post a reply to this message

> Image organization:
> The focal blur in the foreground is disturbing, as the eye must wander the 
> triangle between small isolated background objects and a blurry foreground 
> thing. Not a lot of pixels conveying engaging information is another way of 
> thinking of it. All the glossy wood texture you showed previously is gone.
> The viewpoint on the handle does not help that. Perhaps putting specs and 
> handle in a sharp foreground would be better?

What I had originally envisioned was to have the entire walking cane in 
the foreground out of focus, and the glasses in focus. In terms of 
composition, it didn't quite come out how I envisioned.

I had in mind the cane being the now (after), and the glasses being the 
past (before); the present is up in your face where you can't get away 
from it, but the viewer's mind is still focused on the past.

Visually, though, you're probably right. :-P

> Reality check:
> A walking stick / cane will typically be capped by a ferrule at the business 
> end (to give grip on the floor), and will never be a nice shiny rounded tip.

D'oh. Can you tell that I'm not old enough to use these things myself? :-)

> Go well with your efforts - I look forward to more.

Alright!

-- 
William Tracy
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|a|f|i|s|h|i|o|n|a|d|o|@|g|m|a|i|l|.|c|o|m|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|w|t|r|a|c|y|@|c|a|l|p|o|l|y|.|e|d|u|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

You know you've been raytracing too long when you describe a criminal to 
the cops in terms of a mesh.

Post a reply to this message

> Just an idea, but perhaps the glasses could be really
> close, and in fact the camera is looking through the lens to see part of
> the cane behind it?

That's an interesting idea. I'll have to think about how that could work.

> Just to add some more interesting modelling, a shiny
> brass handle on the cane might be good (btw, I really enjoyed your
> animation of the making of the glasses--that was an excellent idea).

Thanks. :-)

> IMHO, I can't imagine that someone who would wear *those* particular glasses
> would use *that* particular cane (not that she could see it, but I imagine
> she'd pick something a little more unique).

Well, that's supposed to be the before-and-after bit--the glasses are 
from a younger, more playful time in life. But, honestly, this image is 
really about trying to use together things that I was already modelling 
anyway. :-P

Yeah, I may need to spice up the walking cane.

-- 
William Tracy
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|a|f|i|s|h|i|o|n|a|d|o|@|g|m|a|i|l|.|c|o|m|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|w|t|r|a|c|y|@|c|a|l|p|o|l|y|.|e|d|u|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

You know you've been raytracing too long when you have had the urge to 
recreate your house in POV-Ray.

Post a reply to this message

William Tracy wrote:
>> Just an idea, but perhaps the glasses could be really
>> close, and in fact the camera is looking through the lens to see part of
>> the cane behind it?

It just occurred to me that I could do that, and have the cane out of 
focus but in focus when looking through the glasses lenses. That would 
be neat. :-)

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any way I can get that to work 
before the deadline. :-P

-- 
William Tracy
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|a|f|i|s|h|i|o|n|a|d|o|@|g|m|a|i|l|.|c|o|m|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|w|t|r|a|c|y|@|c|a|l|p|o|l|y|.|e|d|u|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

You know you've been raytracing too long when your family thinks you are 
avoiding them.
Quietly Watching

Post a reply to this message