That's my take on the CGSociety lighting challenge #26

I think I will use a render of this setup with higher radiosity quality 
settings as 2nd submission (still workin' on the 1st).
The color scheme (and shirt motive) is chosen on purpose to give the 
scene a 70ies look - thats how the scene modeling by Dan Konieczka looks 
to me: a 16mm projector and the sound system is neither THX or Dolby 
Digital ;)

Criticism quite welcome - before I hit the run button for the final render!

-Ive

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Ive <ive### [at] lilysoftorg> wrote:
> That's my take on the CGSociety lighting challenge #26
>
> I think I will use a render of this setup with higher radiosity quality
> settings as 2nd submission (still workin' on the 1st).
> The color scheme (and shirt motive) is chosen on purpose to give the
> scene a 70ies look - thats how the scene modeling by Dan Konieczka looks
> to me: a 16mm projector and the sound system is neither THX or Dolby
> Digital ;)
>
> Criticism quite welcome - before I hit the run button for the final render!
>
> -Ive

Wow, they sure didn't have stadium seating here in Florida back in the 70s. And
cupholders in the chairs, that's a 21st century innovation (and is what has made
the movie theaters more money than anything else recently, since they typically
/lose/ money on ticket sales).

The shot looks good, but I think it needs a bit more direct lighting coming from
the screen, seems a little too dark overall. I love the Bowie t-shirt, great
touch!

-------------------------------------------------
www.McGregorFineArt.com

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On 03/18/2011 09:05 AM, Ive wrote:
> Criticism quite welcome - before I hit the run button for the final render!

There aren't any criticisms ... but agreed I /can/ see how a little more 
radiosity work couldn't hurt.

I really like how you can see reflection of the screen in his eye's ... 
also the seating (plastic part) ... nailed it! Cool Bowie tee! Make sure 
to post the final, I'd love to see it.

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Am 18.03.2011 15:20, schrieb Robert McGregor:
> Wow, they sure didn't have stadium seating here in Florida back in the 70s. And
> cupholders in the chairs, that's a 21st century innovation (and is what has made
> the movie theaters more money than anything else recently, since they typically
> /lose/ money on ticket sales).
>

Err, don't know about Florida but where I live this kind of chairs was 
already replaced by much more comfortable ones (without the drop down 
seats) during the mid 90ies of the last century within all major theaters.
And for the cup-holders: I remember the theater very well where 'The 
Rocky Horror Picture Show' and later 'Blues Brothers' used to run at 
late night and the cup-holders where called bottle-holder and did 
actually alternate with ashtrays. And as far as I remember (too lazy to 
look it up right now) the Rocky Horror Show was from the mid 70ies and 
the Brothers from late 70ies.
But what really puzzles me: since when are those plastic cups in use as 
I cannot remember that.


> The shot looks good, but I think it needs a bit more direct lighting coming from
> the screen, seems a little too dark overall.

Yeah, still unsure about the overall brightness, when making it too 
bright the image looses its movie theater atmo - I think - but making it 
too dark makes it look flat and uninteresting.


>I love the Bowie t-shirt, great touch!
;)

-Ive

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Am 18.03.2011 15:25, schrieb Jim Holsenback:

> There aren't any criticisms ... but agreed I /can/ see how a little more
> radiosity work couldn't hurt.
>
> I really like how you can see reflection of the screen in his eye's ...
> also the seating (plastic part) ... nailed it!

Thanks. What about the brightness? As sayd in my response to Robert this 
*is* one of the aspects I'm quite unsure.


 >Cool Bowie tee!

;) I knew there was a reason to store all my long player records in the 
basement even if I will not listen them anymore - the cover art!

-Ive

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Ive <ive### [at] lilysoftorg> wrote:
> Am 18.03.2011 15:25, schrieb Jim Holsenback:
>
> > There aren't any criticisms ... but agreed I /can/ see how a little more
> > radiosity work couldn't hurt.
> >
> > I really like how you can see reflection of the screen in his eye's ...
> > also the seating (plastic part) ... nailed it!
>
> Thanks. What about the brightness? As sayd in my response to Robert this
> *is* one of the aspects I'm quite unsure.
>
>
>  >Cool Bowie tee!
>
> ;) I knew there was a reason to store all my long player records in the
> basement even if I will not listen them anymore - the cover art!
>
> -Ive

Brightness is tough as it is somewhat of an artistic decision.  For the human
eye, the brightness would be relative to how long one's been in the theatre
..i.e. your pupils widen the longer you are exposed to lower light, allowning
brighter perception of the scene.  The lighting hasn't changed, just the
viewer's perception of it.

You don't want to brighten it up so that is seems unnaturally bright like the
lights are on, but you do want it bright enough to notice the scene while
maintaining the feel of being in the theatre.  Generally, the lighting you have
doesn't look too bad.

If you want to brighten it, make sure you do it while maintain the feel.  The
main lighting on the character will be coming from the screen, so it should
mainly come from that direction, preferably as an area light (this is why for my
scene I created an image based, area light area, to simulate the actual screen
reflected light).  You may have some secondary lighting coming from the theatre
lights (ceilings and walls), but generally these would be low enough that the
have no noticeable effect on the scene as a whole, but only localized bright
spots at their locations.
One other source of light would be from the projector beam (this is the next
light I am going to add to my scene when I get back to it): the dust in the air
would tend to scatter it a little.  This would be minor compared to the screen
lighting, but could still have some general ambient effects on the scene, for
example some possible minor lighting around the projector window, and minor
directional area lighting on the chracter and seats.  I would probably keep this
to 10% or less of the screen relative brightness, as you don't want it to
overpower and be directly noticeable and competing with the main lighting, but
just add subtle ambience and complement the main lighting.

Overall good work.  Nice to see another POVer getting involved in th 'big boy'
challenges to show em what we can do!  Hopefully I can pull away from my other
sidetracking here at some point to get back to my scene a little more.  One
difficulty I have with this type of scene is texturing, as I like to try to make
things realistic looking, but we are dealing with a cartoon-type character.

-tgq

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On 03/18/2011 03:34 PM, Ive wrote:
> Am 18.03.2011 15:25, schrieb Jim Holsenback:
>
>> There aren't any criticisms ... but agreed I /can/ see how a little more
>> radiosity work couldn't hurt.
>>
>> I really like how you can see reflection of the screen in his eye's ...
>> also the seating (plastic part) ... nailed it!
>
> Thanks. What about the brightness? As sayd in my response to Robert this
> *is* one of the aspects I'm quite unsure.

I think the overall brightness probably shouldn't be too much more or 
the theater atmosphere is lost ... localized lighting around the 
character looks good but the stuff that's lost in the shadows towards 
the background has a slightly flat appearance ... nearest_count tweak 
with the radiosity maybe ... I'm for sure not a guru in that aspect

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I like what you're trying to do.
One thing I've heard is that to portray people at night/ in the dark, use very
high contrast, rather than making everything 50% black.  Maybe that would help
your effect here.

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Am 18.03.2011 13:05, schrieb Ive:

> Criticism quite welcome - before I hit the run button for the final render!

Projector looks very realistic to me - unfortunately that generates a 
stark contrast to the cartoon-esque character.

I'd personally prefer more "comfy" seat textile (if you know what I 
mean), though I'm not sure how to achieve that look.

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> I'd personally prefer more "comfy" seat textile (if you know what I
> mean), though I'm not sure how to achieve that look.

I was going to be trying a simple 'quilted' normal on mine.  A velvety texture
could be acheived using an aoi pattern perhaps.

-tgq

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