"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> Very nice - and based on your past renders, I'm sure you'll be making some
> really nice improvements and subsequent storyboard frames.
>
> I also like your choice of inspirations - all excellent sorce material.
>
> Out of everything in the render, the chain looks the best in terms of texture.
>
> You might try flattening the texture on the bars - since they're likely to be
> dusty/rusty and not shiny, and maybe go for a darker shaed of gray instead of
> silver, or almost black, as most hot-rolled things will have mill scale.
>
> The pedestal and window frame have a great attention to detail - since the
> dripping will carry material down with it to produce the staining pattern.  I
> would extend that idea to the window bars, the robot, and the floor grate bars -
> the bars would likely be rusted more at the bottom due to shielding from the
> upper stone, and the direction of accumulation of condensation.   You're also
> likely going to have a blackening effect there as well.   The rusting pattern
> would likely be reversed on the robot - more rust on the bottom, not the top.
> Also less shiny.  And maybe turn the face ever so slightly more toward the
> camera?
>
> Then you can have a larger transformation if he gets up and moves and loses some
> of the corrosion.
>
> Not sure about the floor - is it wet?  Not wet?
> Also, the wall texture could use a bit more "definition" and dirtying - it is a
> prison cell after all.  Maybe more mottled patterning, more dirt near the floor,
> and just a greater visual distinction between the high and low spots - the low
> spots tend to accumulated dirt, and the high spots tend to get abraded clean.
> You can likely do that very cheaply by intersecting a very thin box or triangles
> with a very dark and highly transparent pigment with the walls - assuming the
> high spots are actually geometrically high spots...
>
> I'd also maybe raise the cam or drop the light to give a better sense of where
> that light is coming from.
>
> This looks like a fun start, and has a touch of that Wallace and Grommit feel!
> :)
>
>
> - BW

All good suggestions and will give me something to play with for a while.

I was away for the weekend, so I kicked off a radiosity render of the scene.  I
still had to keep the anti-aliasing at a moderate level; at a high level the
radiosity was taking hours for the first pass, so I didn't think it would ever
finish.  All it really seems to have done is to warm up the scene a bit, so I'll
probably leave it out while I'm working on your suggestions.

I'll be off looking for more real images of rusty iron bars, and probably run
down some rabbit holes on oxidation patterns.  I hadn't thought about the fact
that water dripping from the ceiling onto Cogito would spend more time on his
underside rather than the top, so I'll be playing with that, as well as getting
a more realistic gradient for the vertical bars for rust density.

I had just started trying to get a more realistic distribution of dirt and grime
and wet spots on the walls.  There is a gradient from the bottom, but it's too
regular and probably too small so it looks like a shadow instead of extra dirt.
I should have some other colors as well, or maybe some moss/mold growing from
the walls.

I wasn't paying attention to the light, (which I spent a lot of time modeling),
so I hadn't noticed that the 16:9 view almost pushes it out of the scene.  Maybe
a wider viewing angle on the camera, or a slightly different viewpoint.

The floor was intended to be pavers with dirt between them, and a distribution
of wet/dry spots.  There are also some puddles formed from drips in the ceiling
that don't show up very well, even in the 1920x1080 resolution.  With the
lighting, though, I'm not real happy with how it looks, so that will get
reworked a bit.

I'll do a render with Cogito turning to look at the door, probably keeping the
rust as it is to indicate that he just moved recently...

-- Chris R

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'scene-v1.1-al-hd-mq-rad11-2023-10-30.png' (4634 KB)

Preview of image 'scene-v1.1-al-hd-mq-rad11-2023-10-30.png'