Stephen wrote:

 > It might be because I expect the volcano to loom over me.


I think that *is* hollywood. Volcanos (and mountains in general) are too 
big to loom. By the time they're looming, you're standing on them and 
they're under you.

Now, volcanos I think don't tend to be quite so vertical, nor quite so 
symetric.  There would probably also be outbreaks of lava on the slopes 
as well. It does, after all, melt through rock.

The smoke seems very symetrical also. If there were no wind, I'd think 
it would be going mostly up, or up then back down in an umbrella-like 
shape. Maybe having the smoke going one way and the lava coming down on 
the other side would give a nice balance.

I also doubt you'd find snow on the slopes of an active volcano, as it's 
not unusual for the ground to be like 3000 degrees six inches down. I 
was caught in a rain storm once in Hawaii that came down so hard you 
couldn't breathe if you weren't looking at the ground. My feet stayed 
dry, because the rain all evaporated somewhere around my knees. This was 
at tourist distances from the lava, too, not like I was in there taking 
samples. But of course getting rid of the snow would ruin the artistry 
of the image, so that's more a nit than anything.

The ground is both too black and too bare. Lava is very shiney, as the 
surfaces were all liquid a short time ago and cooled under gravity. It's 
mostly brittle and crunchy, like blown glass. Plus it's full of 
delicious plant nutrients, so even days after an eruption, you get grass 
there, saplings, etc.

The water near the shore looks kind of grey, but I don't know if that's 
correct or not. Unless that's supposed to be a beach or something.

I'm looking forward to how you manage the glow of the lava. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
    Luke, the Force is a powerful ally,
    second only to The QuickSave.

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Tek wrote:
> Following my earlier post I've decided to go with the volcano image. This is 
> the latest version, but I'm suffering a case of povver's block! I can see 
> the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?
> 
> 

The "something look's wrong" feeling is maybe due to the fact, that normaly the 
tip of the volcano is blown off if you have such a vivid erruption, leaving a 
crater huger then the lava fountain. Also a lava river rinsing from a break at 
the top would make it more Hollywood like.

... dave

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I'm sure our ideas on what a volcano should look like will differ with what
kind of mountains are nearby.  For me, here are the two I think of first
when I think 'volcano'since they're the neighborhood mountains (climbed
Helens, skied Hood.) They probably won't be much help for lava realism
though.  I agree with Darren about the symetry & verticality.  Hood is
fairly conical but still a lot flatter and irregular than how your mountain
is now.  St Helens apparently was once noted for how symetrical it was
(prior to what it's most famous for - it's 1980 dissappearance of it's
top). :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Hood

Also, something about the lava (which I associate with places like Hawaii)
rather than ash/steam, and the light color of the water makes me think
'tropical' which is incongrous with the snow. If the snow is due to
elevation I would expect foothills or something to show that the body of
water is a mountain lake or something.   On the other hand,  in response to
Darren, Mt St Helens is an example of an active volcano that does have
snow.

Hmm, anything else... How far away is it?  Maybe some haze?


Charles


"Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> Following my earlier post I've decided to go with the volcano image. This is
> the latest version, but I'm suffering a case of povver's block! I can see
> the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?
>
> --
> Tek
> http://evilsuperbrain.com

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I agree with that last idea. I think the volcano lacks a feel of depth 
somehow, and a haze could really help. You could play a bit with the 
lighting as well, to make the overall shape more perceptible.
There is also something that disturbs me with the texture, but I can't 
exactly spot it now... Maybe it's just to sharp ?

Otherwise the cloud looks really impressive already... Last time I 
attempted a thing like that I failed miserably ;-) I think you're on the 
right path with this one !

-- 
Vincent

Charles C wrote:
> Hmm, anything else... How far away is it?  Maybe some haze?
> 
> 
> Charles
> 
> 
> "Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> 
>>Following my earlier post I've decided to go with the volcano image. This is
>>the latest version, but I'm suffering a case of povver's block! I can see
>>the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?
>>
>>--
>>Tek
>>http://evilsuperbrain.com
> 
> 
> 
>

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Tek nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 24/01/2006 12:25:
> Following my earlier post I've decided to go with the volcano image. This is 
> the latest version, but I'm suffering a case of povver's block! I can see 
> the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?
> 
> 
Maybe some more snow near the top. Make the lava ejection narower, between 1/4 and 1/2
the diameter 
of the top and uncenterer. As it must be a volcano awakening, there can be snow up to
the rim and 
inside of the crater, there should be a lot of steam. One or two steam column rising
from somewhere 
on the slopes can add much interest.
The background mountains are WAY to conical.
I would expect the water to be mostly dark gray, it reflect mostly the dark ash cloud
and should not 
be as blue as it is now. It's colour should comes from what over it and from some
fade_color.
Adding caustics can improve the aquatic effect. I don't think that using photons here
is worth the 
effort nor the increased render time.
If you are short on time, I propose that you drop the under water part, or only have
it visible 
trough the surface, disturbed by the waves: remove the cutaway in the water.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.

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"Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?

I'm not sure but maybe something like this (Photoshop cheating)

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Attachments:
Download 'volcano2.jpg' (88 KB)

Preview of image 'volcano2.jpg'

"Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> Following my earlier post I've decided to go with the volcano image. This is
> the latest version, but I'm suffering a case of povver's block! I can see
> the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?
>
> --
> Tek
> http://evilsuperbrain.com

Seeing Mt St. Helens and Mt. Hood every day it's not cloudy and raining
around here, I have a few suggestions, but they may not actually apply.

1) Around here the rock is light gray, and the trees are that dark Fir green
color, but with distance they both turn a medium blue-gray color.  If you
want black basalt for your cone, it may not turn quite as blue, but I
suspect you lose all sense of distance because of that.  The snow should be
a real light blue also.

2) Way too perfect and cone shaped.  The ones around here are rather
deformed, St. Helens looks almost like a ball buried 3/4 down in the ground
from most view points on the south side, but with lots of vert. stripes
where rain has made gullies so there is a rock/snow pattern across it.
Hood still has a peak, but it has a bunch of bumps, canyons, bulges, etc.
from just about any vantage point.  Maybe try pointing Google Earth at some
of the volcanoes you are interested in being similar to.

3) The undersea part still has a ways to go, I think.  At first, I thought
it was a broken open crashed spaceship or something.  Not lumpy enough for
a vent, the water seems to color it too much, but not hide it enough.
Maybe less green for artistry, or more obscure for realism.

Despite all that, It looks pretty good to me, and I'm looking forward to
seeing the final image.

Jon

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"Jon Buller" <jon### [at] bullersnet> wrote:
> "Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> > Following my earlier post I've decided to go with the volcano image. This is
> > the latest version, but I'm suffering a case of povver's block! I can see
> > the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?
> >
> > --
> > Tek
> > http://evilsuperbrain.com
>
> [Bunch of stuff...]

One more thing I thought of just after the post button was hit...

That ash cloud doesn't seem right.  As someone else said it's too
symetrical, but I think worse is that it looks like it just hanging above
not coming up from...  It might just be a really large dark rain cloud the
way it is...

There I've done it again, that is the point I want to make, but much too
harsh in it's presentation.  It's not as bad as I make it out, and doesn't
need a whole lot to be really great.  Keep at it.

BTW, I like the lava better in your second image, but I think it needs some
of the cloud mixed in with it.

Jon

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:43d66ec3$1@news.povray.org...
> Now, volcanos I think don't tend to be quite so vertical, nor quite so 
> symetric.  There would probably also be outbreaks of lava on the slopes as 
> well. It does, after all, melt through rock.

Good points, I'm working on all that right now :)

> The smoke seems very symetrical also. If there were no wind, I'd think it 
> would be going mostly up, or up then back down in an umbrella-like shape. 
> Maybe having the smoke going one way and the lava coming down on the other 
> side would give a nice balance.

Agreed, it's also way too translucent for volcanic smoke, I stopped working 
on it because it looks really pretty, but it's definitely going to need to 
change a lot... hopefully I can make it look pretty -and- right!

> I also doubt you'd find snow on the slopes of an active volcano,

Well according to any number of discovery channel documentaries it's pretty 
common. Volcano erupts, suddenly melts lots of snow, huge flooding in 
surrounding areas. The specific eruption that inspired this image was Mt. 
St. Helens, though the initial eruption was mostly just a huge explosion of 
snow and rock, and lava might not have started spouting out of it until all 
the snow was gone.

This isn't meant to be a stable eruption, so I'm going to need to work on 
some more dramatic effects I think.

> The ground is both too black and too bare. Lava is very shiney, as the 
> surfaces were all liquid a short time ago and cooled under gravity. It's 
> mostly brittle and crunchy, like blown glass. Plus it's full of delicious 
> plant nutrients, so even days after an eruption, you get grass there, 
> saplings, etc.

In hawaii this is true, and that's the only volcano I've been to. but my 
understanding is that volcanos that have lain dormant for a while actually 
end up covered mostly in very fertile dark soil and more mountain-like rock, 
and less smooth glassy rock... maybe... you know it's really beginning to 
sound like I need to do some research for this image! how tedious!

> The water near the shore looks kind of grey, but I don't know if that's 
> correct or not. Unless that's supposed to be a beach or something.

That's sand, and it's a placeholder I forgot I'd left in there. Oops! Thanks 
for pointing it out.

> I'm looking forward to how you manage the glow of the lava. :-)

Hmm... I thought I'd get away without radiosity in this image, but I think 
if I have much lava I'll need it...

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

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> Also, something about the lava (which I associate with places like Hawaii)
> rather than ash/steam, and the light color of the water makes me think
> 'tropical' which is incongrous with the snow.

Good point. I was basing the water colour on some documentary footage I saw, 
but of course that was filmed in hawaii. The lava I'm not so sure about, 
surely there's no reason you can't get lava in cold climates?

I think your comments on shape and how far away it is have hit the nail on 
the head, I've not really thought about the scale of the scene. I have some 
fog on the mountains behind the volcano, and was going to have some steam 
coming off the water in the foreground, but I think in any case I need 
something giving a depth cue on the volcano itself. Incidentally, at the 
moment I think the water is the ocean, and we're in a fairly cold climate, 
but I might change it to a lake if the image starts going that way.

Thanks for the links, that'll save me the trouble of looking for some good 
reference photos!

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

"Charles C" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.43d68d2c89a10e0058035aeb0@news.povray.org...
> I'm sure our ideas on what a volcano should look like will differ with 
> what
> kind of mountains are nearby.  For me, here are the two I think of first
> when I think 'volcano'since they're the neighborhood mountains (climbed
> Helens, skied Hood.) They probably won't be much help for lava realism
> though.  I agree with Darren about the symetry & verticality.  Hood is
> fairly conical but still a lot flatter and irregular than how your 
> mountain
> is now.  St Helens apparently was once noted for how symetrical it was
> (prior to what it's most famous for - it's 1980 dissappearance of it's
> top). :
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Hood
>
> Also, something about the lava (which I associate with places like Hawaii)
> rather than ash/steam, and the light color of the water makes me think
> 'tropical' which is incongrous with the snow. If the snow is due to
> elevation I would expect foothills or something to show that the body of
> water is a mountain lake or something.   On the other hand,  in response 
> to
> Darren, Mt St Helens is an example of an active volcano that does have
> snow.
>
> Hmm, anything else... How far away is it?  Maybe some haze?
>
>
> Charles
>
>
> "Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
>> Following my earlier post I've decided to go with the volcano image. This 
>> is
>> the latest version, but I'm suffering a case of povver's block! I can see
>> the volcano looks bad, but I don't know why. Any suggestions?
>>
>> --
>> Tek
>> http://evilsuperbrain.com
>
>
>

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