On 1/14/21 8:50 PM, Mr wrote:

> I love the details of main ship, through its openings and the kind of wrecked
> scar in the sphere above. The only thing I'm not that fond of is the green gaz
> cloud, it looks like it's somewhat screen space mapped or maybe too abruptly
> delimited. The scene looks like a looot of work ! great !

Likely the scene that I spent the most time on meanwhile. But a lot was 
trial and error. It's been my first 'big' povray scene.

Trial and error ... I wanted to reduce the green clouds and it looked ok 
in the pre-render, but with the final settings they almost vanished. The 
result is fine, but at times I wish I had more control.

-- 
Some of my PovRay works:
https://www.deviantart.com/antarasol/gallery/42758766/3D

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"Hj. Malthaner" <han### [at] nospamgmxde> wrote:
> On 1/14/21 8:50 PM, Mr wrote:
>
> > I love the details of main ship, through its openings and the kind of wrecked
> > scar in the sphere above. The only thing I'm not that fond of is the green gaz
> > cloud, it looks like it's somewhat screen space mapped or maybe too abruptly
> > delimited. The scene looks like a looot of work ! great !
>
> Likely the scene that I spent the most time on meanwhile. But a lot was
> trial and error. It's been my first 'big' povray scene.
>
> Trial and error ... I wanted to reduce the green clouds and it looked ok
> in the pre-render, but with the final settings they almost vanished. The
> result is fine, but at times I wish I had more control.
>
> --
> Some of my PovRay works:
> https://www.deviantart.com/antarasol/gallery/42758766/3D

Those kind of streak-crossed  stars are coming out great.
Green cloud is perfectly matched now!
Now I must really search hard for things to improve in the picture !  Should I
go on? If I do, the next tiny things would be :

a) Geometrical composition balance where a perfect one really is the one YOU
find to convey your idea, depending on disorder/ dynamic level.

However, I feel like the cluttering of saturnistic blue planet between ship and
strange shell like object looks somewhat too much. Next is rather food for
dreamy thought than advice:

Here is one way among so many to search for this balance : putting the main ship
slightly off center in the lower right direction as well as move the sea shell
object slightly up and left ...
With that would remain all the other smaller distant objects currently all in
the top margin of image:  I would mentally draw a line connecting ALL floating
objects and see if I like the shape it has and direction the eye takes when
sliding along it. The sense of depth must appear so those background objects
must have different resulting sizes once moved out  of the same plan and onto
this curve. Only take care not to cut the objects on the right and bottom side
of the image if you don't want too much chaos (you should imagine there is a
safety margin up to your watermark for these sides). The way this work is our
eye is used to read and enter the frame top left and exit lower right corners.
So objects or spaces cut by the frame in top left corner can act as an entry
point, but having also a lower right exit point can create a kind of
eye-highway, getin-getout effect. Instead you'd rather want the viewer's eye to
get back to the details before it leaves. so lower right is rather bouncing
place than exit point. Once the relative position of objects is established or
confirmed, you would still bring back the overlaps between them to increase
sense of depth BUT doing so you'd start looking at objects as if they were
silhouettes (maybe use the Gimp contrast curves) and focus on the shape of the
empty spaces between them: can the eye flow in that space between from island to
island with a suitable trajectory to your goal: serenity / chaos. These empty
spaces will mentally get well defined if the image is to be readable but can be
hard to control. Among some "cheats" you can decide to mix some masses together
by more overlap or focal blur, to emphasize some viewing trajectory.

b) The four similar shaped objects on the top are they intended to work together
as some kind of satellite lighting system? If so maybe having them shed some
kind of converging very slight media / halo would make that point, or any
interconnection between them, or minimally bringing them closer to each other.
Because otherwise it's not clear they have a function that would depend on each
other, yet the light blue cylinders on them are so very saturated that they too
loudly appear as duplicates if they are not meant to be some.

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On 1/15/21 4:29 PM, Mr wrote:

> However, I feel like the cluttering of saturnistic blue planet between ship and
> strange shell like object looks somewhat too much. 

I think you have a point here. I already had made the ring blend more 
with the background, likely it will be good to make the whole planet 
darker so it appears more to be part of the background.

[snip]

> So objects or spaces cut by the frame in top left corner can act as an entry
> point, but having also a lower right exit point can create a kind of
> eye-highway, getin-getout effect. Instead you'd rather want the viewer's eye to
> get back to the details before it leaves. so lower right is rather bouncing
> place than exit point.

Learned something new here! Thanks for the explanation. Not sure if can 
make immediate use of this, but for sure it will help when designing new 
scenes. Thank you very much!


> Once the relative position of objects is established or
> confirmed, you would still bring back the overlaps between them to increase
> sense of depth BUT doing so you'd start looking at objects as if they were
> silhouettes (maybe use the Gimp contrast curves) and focus on the shape of the
> empty spaces between them: can the eye flow in that space between from island to
> island with a suitable trajectory to your goal: serenity / chaos. These empty
> spaces will mentally get well defined if the image is to be readable but can be
> hard to control. Among some "cheats" you can decide to mix some masses together
> by more overlap or focal blur, to emphasize some viewing trajectory.

The scene has few "areas of visual rest" I think that is what you are 
referring to. Must think some more if and how I can change the scene to 
do better there without making it a whole different scene.

> b) The four similar shaped objects on the top are they intended to work together
> as some kind of satellite lighting system? If so maybe having them shed some
> kind of converging very slight media / halo would make that point, or any
> interconnection between them, or minimally bringing them closer to each other.
> Because otherwise it's not clear they have a function that would depend on each
> other, yet the light blue cylinders on them are so very saturated that they too
> loudly appear as duplicates if they are not meant to be some.

They are indeed supposed to be flood light drones to light the upper 
half of the damaged ship as well as the platform itself.

The bright blue cylinders are a bit out of place ... remnants from reuse 
of the basic shapes from another scene where these lights were linked to 
drive effects. But in this scene, everyone else uses rockets like 
thrusters as dives. So you are right, I should do something there.

Thanks for all the suggestions! The next days I'll be busy with other 
things, but I'll keep in mind to read your message again before I return 
to work some more on this scene.

-- 
Some of my PovRay works:
https://www.deviantart.com/antarasol/gallery/42758766/3D

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On 1/13/21 4:02 AM, Hj. Malthaner wrote:
> Trying to update another old scene to take full advantage of the 3.8 
> gamma and lighting features. Needs more work.
> 
> This light cruiser was hit hard by those alien disruptor rays.

Finally found the problem why the normals for the ship surface weren't 
working properly. Now this is more like a battle scarred veteran ship.

-- 
Some of my PovRay works:
https://www.deviantart.com/antarasol/gallery/42758766/3D

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On 1/19/21 3:58 AM, Hj. Malthaner wrote:
> On 1/13/21 4:02 AM, Hj. Malthaner wrote:
>> Trying to update another old scene to take full advantage of the 3.8 
>> gamma and lighting features. Needs more work.
>>
>> This light cruiser was hit hard by those alien disruptor rays.
> 
> Finally found the problem why the normals for the ship surface weren't 
> working properly. Now this is more like a battle scarred veteran ship.

And I still have no idea what the enemies are and what their ships look 
like ...

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On 1/19/21 3:58 AM, Hj. Malthaner wrote:
> On 1/13/21 4:02 AM, Hj. Malthaner wrote:
>> Trying to update another old scene to take full advantage of the 3.8 
>> gamma and lighting features. Needs more work.
>>
>> This light cruiser was hit hard by those alien disruptor rays.
> 
> Finally found the problem why the normals for the ship surface weren't 
> working properly.

And another iteration. More fixes for texture quirks, adjustments to 
some colors, a sort of license plate and bay labels. Starts to look more 
balanced now.

-- 
Some of my PovRay works:
https://www.deviantart.com/antarasol/gallery/42758766/3D

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"Hj. Malthaner" <han### [at] nospamgmxde> wrote:
> On 1/19/21 3:58 AM, Hj. Malthaner wrote:
> > On 1/13/21 4:02 AM, Hj. Malthaner wrote:
> >> Trying to update another old scene to take full advantage of the 3.8
> >> gamma and lighting features. Needs more work.
> >>
> >> This light cruiser was hit hard by those alien disruptor rays.
> >
> > Finally found the problem why the normals for the ship surface weren't
> > working properly.
>
> And another iteration. More fixes for texture quirks, adjustments to
> some colors, a sort of license plate and bay labels. Starts to look more
> balanced now.
>
> --
> Some of my PovRay works:
> https://www.deviantart.com/antarasol/gallery/42758766/3D

Impressive! The color dynamics are fully under your control now!

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"Hj. Malthaner" <han### [at] nospamgmxde> wrote:
> >> Trying to update another old scene to take full advantage of the 3.8
> >> gamma and lighting features. Needs more work.
> >>
> >> This light cruiser was hit hard by those alien disruptor rays.
> >
> > Finally found the problem why the normals for the ship surface weren't
> > working properly.
>
> And another iteration. More fixes for texture quirks, adjustments to
> some colors, a sort of license plate and bay labels. Starts to look more
> balanced now.

This is pretty cool, looking really good. I haven't rendered a space scene in
decades, I might need to try something, thanks for the inspiration :)

Cheers,
Rob

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On 1/23/21 1:15 AM, Robert McGregor wrote:
> "Hj. Malthaner" <han### [at] nospamgmxde> wrote:

>> And another iteration. More fixes for texture quirks, adjustments to
>> some colors, a sort of license plate and bay labels. Starts to look more
>> balanced now.
> 
> This is pretty cool, looking really good. I haven't rendered a space scene in
> decades, I might need to try something, thanks for the inspiration :)

You're welcome and good luck with your project!

-- 
Some of my PovRay works:
https://www.deviantart.com/antarasol/gallery/42758766/3D

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