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Tim Nikias wrote:
> So, latest installment. After the macros for dropping snow onto objects were
> working, I tweaked a few hours (parsing times can get high at times, and
> small tweaks can have great impact, and thus, you quickly add up to long
> hours...) and went on with the image. A selection of four more trees were
> generated with Arbaro and are used with a randomization process to create
> the forest, which actually consists of roughly 3200 trees.
>
> Some cleaning up of the sources is in order soon, as I've had to move quite
> some things around for several lightgroups. The main tree's trunk casts an
> arealight-shadow, but doesn't receive arealights itself, the foreground
> casts and receives arealights, the background only point-lights... I'm
> pondering what to place above (image-wise speaking, not in 3D) the cat. I've
> been experimenting with a small macro to create some random houses and
> create a little town, then again, I'd also find it fitting to somehow
> encircle the cat with a space of white, to further point out that it is
> alone and waiting for it's friend, the bird, to return (which is "back in
> spring", hence the small note on the tree).
>
> The sky will of course get some clouds in due time.
>
> Suggestions, comments and questions welcome,
>
> regards,
> Tim
I'm floored every time you come out with a new image, time. Very
impressed...and inspired too.
One comment, one suggestion and two questions. First the comment, the
face on the cat looks a little strange. Maybe it doesn't at a higher
resolution, I don't know. It's just a little difficult to tell where the
facial features are. It almost looks like the cat's head is tilted to
its left about 45 degrees, but then it also looks like it's pointing its
nose at the sign and smiling. Is this just an illusion at the smaller
size or am I right somehow? :)
Now for the questions. I was taking the garbage out this morning and had
POV and snow on my mind (I promised myself I wasn't going to open up
POV-Ray for about a month, but so far I've broken my promise twice and
it's only half past nine.). I was trying to figure out what made the
difference between real snow and raytraced snow - somehow the fake stuff
always looked, well, fake...yours has excellent distribution, the right
"blobbiness" - yes, it looks that way in real life, I checked - but it's
missing that granulated powdery look. The snow at the base of the tree
has it somewhat, but that's all.
I suppose this could be accomplished with a bump map or some averaged
normals or something, but I was trying to think of a better way to do
it. There seems to be a general sentiment running that bump-mapping is
cheating somehow, and I don't like using normals to simulate actual
shapes (personal preference, probably completely unfounded). So I
wondered...would it be possible to use Surcoat to do the general snow
layer with a good blob factor, then to do it again on top of that and
shrink the blobs to a really tiny size so that they don't join at all,
but rather look like little crystals sitting on top of the snow layer?
Kind of like powdered sugar, in a way.
Second question: how does Surcoat handle the snow layers? Does it call
them all blobs as a union or a merge or is it handled after the scene is
created? I'm wondering whether it's possible to do extra
texturing/finishing/interiors/normals on the snow particles without
having to internally modify Surcoat.
Lastly, the suggestion...it seems likt there's a high "blue factor" in
your snow. With such strong shadows I think it would be a tad more
realistic if it were more blindingly white. Maybe it's that "artistic
license" again...just a thought.
Overall incredible work. You're in my HOF book now. :)
~Mike
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