Wow, man. Reeeeally nice.

> Note that the shadows of the columns will be made with arealights in the
> final version, but I left it out for time-consuming reasons in this
render.


Good, I was going to mention that.

You need more lighting from the front though; as Ger mentioned, the rose is
no longer the focal point. I would suggest trying a shadowless light to just
give some depth and visibility to the rose. Maybe even use an extra
spotlight on the top of the rose, or consider making the rose petals
themselves glow, or something. Bring back some of the focus to it.

Finally, you might consider adding subtle sunbeam effects to where the light
is streaming in through the pillars. The obvious way to do this would be
with scattering media, but that'd be way too slow. So if you want to do it,
I would recommend making some simple triangle meshes by hand which match the
shape of the blocks of light which are coming through the pillars. Since
there are hardly any shadows in this scene, the meshes could be very simple,
and as long as they're in just about the right place and all of their edges
are oriented towards the sun (this can be done with some relatively simple
vector math), they would look just like you used scattering media. Then
you'd just add a small amount of emitting media to them. (I used this trick
for the beams of light in
http://www.slimeland.com/images/pictures/PaddedCell.jpg .) Note that it's a
good idea to add a density{} which will make the lighting effect stronger in
the places where the light is coming directly from the sun to the camera and
weaker in other areas. Don't forget to add an object for the light coming in
from above the object the pillars are suspending. Keep the amount of
emitting media low so that the edges of the meshes aren't very visible.

Nice job.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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> np ?  I say, am I being insulted?  Barbara(!), Barbara(!), did you hear
> that, he just called me a "np", and in public too!  Well, I've never been
so
> insulted...  oh.. no... hang on , I have been that insulted,  last week.

Sir, are you british?

That sounds *so* Monty Python... :-)

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Woooooooooooow... that's fantastic!!

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> Just one comment (besides "it's nearly bloody perfect" :) )

Thanks for the praise!

> The rose is too dark now so the eye gets drawn to the sun.

Yup, somewhat noticed that as well. I'll see what I can do. Maybe a fading,
shadowless lightsource might do the trick...

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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> Bring back some of the focus to [the Rose].

Yes, noticed that as well. Didn't have to time to fiddle much with it, so I
just posted the most recent version I had completed. I'll work on that.

> Finally, you might consider adding subtle sunbeam effects to where the
light
> is streaming in through the pillars.

The sunbeam is actually a scattering media on a cone, so if there'd be
lightbeams, some of them should show up. I've also had some experiments with
haze to create the effect your mentioning (beams of light between the
columns), but that didn't work out, the effect was way too strong and
saturated the entire image too much. I'll give it a go with that mesh-idea,
I've used that in older pictures as well and have a little experience with
it. Maybe that'll create a better effect than realistic haze...

> Nice job.

Thank you!

Regards,
Tim


-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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> Woooooooooooow... that's fantastic!!

:-) Thank you very much.


-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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I like it very much. May I add one more comment to those
already made: I have a problem with the scale. The
woodgrain under the rose suggests a scale that differs
more than an order of magnitude from the one that is
suggested by the columns. That may be intentional, but
I get a sort of Necker-reversal experience here.

	Andrel

Tim Nikias v2.0 wrote:

> Latest installment of the Rose. I've now set it to sunset and really like
> the outcome of it, the backlighting helps creating more volumetric clouds.
> Sunbeams get rid of a little of the monotony due to the repeating colums, as
> well as providing a counterweight to the red petals on the left side.
> 
> I've incorporated some of the suggestions I got from my last post: raised
> the camera somewhat, put it into a sunset theme and thus got some more color
> onto the otherwise grey backdrop. The sunbeams also play a crucial role in
> spicing up the backdrop's repeating nature.
> 
> I'll experiment a little more with the textures for the floor and columns,
> right now, only the floor is textured. Maybe I'll introduce a slight
> reflection on the floor and a marble texture for the columns, but I'll have
> to experiment a little if I can get it right. I don't want to make too great
> anymore, as the deadline is nearing (her birthday is on the 3rd of June, and
> this image will probably need somewhat ten hours to render).
> 
> Note that the shadows of the columns will be made with arealights in the
> final version, but I left it out for time-consuming reasons in this render.
> I'll tackle thorns and the leafs for the rose next before I head for the
> refinement of the background.
> 
> As always, comments and suggestions welcome.
> 
> Regards,
> Tim
> 
>

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Here is a lightbeams test I rendered while working. Made of a true
media-object for light-interaction, along with the cone-structure to
simulate the direct sunlight and glare, it is clearly visible that the
columns don't throw as nice shadows as one might expect. I'll have a quick
go at the mesh-technique once I get some other issues settled, as I believe
that the lightbeams would be supplementary to the image, but not a
requirement. More like an icing on the cake.

But first, the cake has to be finished... :-)

Regards,
Tim

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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Attachments:
Download 'birthday_c2.jpg' (36 KB)

Preview of image 'birthday_c2.jpg'

> I like it very much. May I add one more comment to those
> already made: I have a problem with the scale. The
> woodgrain under the rose suggests a scale that differs
> more than an order of magnitude from the one that is
> suggested by the columns. That may be intentional, but
> I get a sort of Necker-reversal experience here.

Hm. The problem here is, with a sufficient scale for the texture, it would
end up more like some noise than some visible pattern. But I wanted to work
on it some more anyway, so maybe I'll come up with something else and more
interesting. I'll keep that scale-problem in mind, thanks for mentioning it!

Regards,
Tim

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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> it is clearly visible that the
> columns don't throw as nice shadows as one might expect.

Yeah. Maybe that's due to low sampling parameters, or maybe there isn't
enough glare to really see the areas where there *isn't* glare (the
shadows).

In any case, between this one and the previous one, the previous one is
definitely better. The extra glare isn't worth it if you don't get those
nice shadows through the fog.


 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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