Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I've been playing with my IRTC entry from last year (the one that's
>...
> Anyway, hope y'all like the images.
>
> Bill

I am speechless.

Except, how am I going to learn this ghost effect? Please maybe?

aQ

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I have loved this image since I first saw it.

my $0.02 worth here:

There should be something reflected in the glass covering the photos on 
the wall and the lamp.  The Lack of any sort of reflection there makes 
the scene look like it was done on a 2 wall sitcom stage.

Anything: the same bookshelf, or a wall with a window, door and drapes - 
even a patterned plane with amorphous shapes - placed behind the camera 
and reflecting in the scene objects would give the scene more realism.

That said...

AWESOME WORK.
B

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Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I've been playing with my IRTC entry from last year (the one that's
> still on the IRTC home page!),

[snip]

I think that this is looking better and better.
But thinking about it, it seems to me that the ghost is emitting too much
light and you can see too much from here glow. (She must have over done her
Weetabix:) To be this bright I think you would need your night vision and
that would mean loosing the colour from the scene. Or you could add an
external light that was seeping into the room and slightly illuminating it.


Stephen

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"Stephen" <mcavoys_AT_aolDOT.com> wrote in message 
news:web.47063badae3c8c78726bd13c0@news.povray.org...
> Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> I've been playing with my IRTC entry from last year (the one that's
>> still on the IRTC home page!),
>
> [snip]
>
> I think that this is looking better and better.

    Agreed. It really is an excellent image and idea which is *well* 
executed imo. (Nice one Bill).



> But thinking about it, it seems to me that the ghost is emitting too much
> light and you can see too much from here glow.

    I wonder what would happen if that uplight was used instead for the main 
lighting, and the intensity of the lady ghost was turned down a little? My 
point being that the uplight would mostly be on the ceiling, casting light 
over the ceiling and some of the room, but the lady ghost may 'stand out' 
more as a ghost (not that she doesn't now). Worth experimenting I reckon 
with such a good scene as this. (Keep your variations Bill!)  ;)


(She must have over done her
> Weetabix:)


   LOL!  :)  Did you mean her 'Ready Brek'?

     ~Steve~




> Stephen
>
>

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"alphaQuad" <alp### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> I am speechless.
I'll take that as a positive comment! :)

> Except, how am I going to learn this ghost effect? Please maybe?
Well, it wasn't that easy to be honest. I took the DAZ model, posed it and
exported it as a .obj file. Then I opened it in Blender, plugged any holes
(mainly in the face), shrank it very slightly along its normals, then saved
it as a separate .obj file. Now I have two copies of the mesh, one very
slightly smaller than the other.

Next, I converted them to POV-Ray using PoseRay, and put them together as a
union. The inner mesh was textured a dark blue, and the outer mesh was made
transparent and filled with emitting media. In this way, you get a thin
shell over the mesh surface that is brighter at grazing angles because of
the additional viewing ray length, giving a glowing outline effect.

If desired, the inner mesh can be differenced from the outer mesh, then the
ghost will be fully transparent. Making the mesh fully closed is important,
otherwise holes will show up as saturated by the media colour. It's also
important to scale the mesh along its normals - using scale in POV-Ray will
not work.

The hair was imported into POV-Ray as a separate mesh and completely filled
with the same media.

(there may be a simpler way to do this with clever pigments, but I'm not
sure...)

Bill

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Bryan Valencia <no### [at] waycom> wrote:
> There should be something reflected in the glass covering the photos on
> the wall and the lamp.  The Lack of any sort of reflection there makes
> the scene look like it was done on a 2 wall sitcom stage.

Hmm, I know what you mean, but I'd probably have to fake it. The light drops
off quite rapidly, so anything reflected would be extremely subtle and might
just look confusing, if visible at all. The glass ball is the only object
that really betrays the (intentional) simplicity of the setting.

Anyway, who says there's glass covering the photos? ;-)

> AWESOME WORK.

Thanks!

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"St." <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote:
> "Stephen" <mcavoys_AT_aolDOT.com> wrote in message
> > I think that this is looking better and better.
>     Agreed. It really is an excellent image and idea which is *well*
> executed imo. (Nice one Bill).

Thanks Steves. :)

> > But thinking about it, it seems to me that the ghost is emitting too much
> > light and you can see too much from here glow.

It was difficult achieving a brightness balance I was happy with. I agree
she emits quite a lot of light (although why shouldn't she?), but I didn't
want the surroundings completely indistinct either...

>     I wonder what would happen if that uplight was used instead for the main
> lighting, and the intensity of the lady ghost was turned down a little? My
> point being that the uplight would mostly be on the ceiling, casting light
> over the ceiling and some of the room, but the lady ghost may 'stand out'
> more as a ghost (not that she doesn't now).

The look I was going for all along, before I even knew if the ghost would
work or not, was of the ghost being the *only* light source in the scene, a
proper pitch-black environment. I guess this variation would make her look
more ghostly in a kind of indistinct way - she should probably be
transparent if I tried this version... hmm, perhaps I will give it a go.
Render times for the large version (4800x2000) are only a day or two and
this would probably be quicker because I wouldn't need big fat area_lights
any more. Although I would have to crank up the radiosity settings a bit.
I'll get back to you!

I have done a daylight version too, although I used a 'live' subject in that
and not a ghost.

> (She must have over done her
> > Weetabix:)
>    LOL!  :)  Did you mean her 'Ready Brek'?
Yep, she died of a breakfast cereal overdose. You heard it here first. :)

Bill

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On Mon,  8 Oct 2007 10:43:35 EDT, "Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

>Well, it wasn't that easy to be honest. I took the DAZ model, posed it and
>exported it as a .obj file. Then I opened it in Blender, plugged any holes
>(mainly in the face), shrank it very slightly along its normals, then saved
>it as a separate .obj file. Now I have two copies of the mesh, one very
>slightly smaller than the other.
>
>Next, I converted them to POV-Ray using PoseRay, and put them together as a
>union. The inner mesh was textured a dark blue, and the outer mesh was made
>transparent and filled with emitting media. In this way, you get a thin
>shell over the mesh surface that is brighter at grazing angles because of
>the additional viewing ray length, giving a glowing outline effect.
>
>If desired, the inner mesh can be differenced from the outer mesh, then the
>ghost will be fully transparent. Making the mesh fully closed is important,
>otherwise holes will show up as saturated by the media colour. It's also
>important to scale the mesh along its normals - using scale in POV-Ray will
>not work.
>
>The hair was imported into POV-Ray as a separate mesh and completely filled
>with the same media.
>
>(there may be a simpler way to do this with clever pigments, but I'm not
>sure...)
>

Wow, I thought you were just using the slope pattern.

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Kyle <hob### [at] gatenet> wrote:
> Wow, I thought you were just using the slope pattern.

I take it you mean with a camera ray as the direction vector? It looks
subtly different... no matter how you tweak it, the effect is reminiscent
of lighting, and I wanted the ghost to look a little more ethereal.

I agree the technique does seem a little overkill! :)

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> I agree the technique does seem a little overkill! :)
> 
Not really, I remember playing with the idea a bit back in the heyday of 
the flesh-tones-through-sub-surface-scattering quest.

PS.  I'm not sure I ever got around to complementing you on this 
picture.  There is more complexity to it than just the technical 
problems.  It is primarily a picture about lighting, and in a 
significant way, that seems to infuse the larger humanistic meaning.

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