Only one thing to say, that this is my new desktop background :)

...Chambers

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Stefan Viljoen <spamnot@<removethis>polard.com> wrote:
> Well done, I love the colors.
>
> One thing might be to make the sun disappear more "behind" the tree? Right
> now it looks as if the sun is shining in front of the tree's branches,
> instead of behind it.
>

Thanks for the comments Stefan, that's the effect I was  going for I found
the following reference image for the effect of the sun setting behind
trees
http://www.well.com/~wolfy/2003-09/Small/0074-2003-0908-2031.jpg
As you can see the sun is so bright it shines through the tree, I was not
expecting to be able to reproduce this effect with POV but was pleasantly
suprised..

Thanks,

Sean

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> I agree with others here that the image is more "thoughful" with the
> snowman's face turned away from camera. And when you add the arms, the arm
> positioning (posture?) should add to that feeling.
>
> A scarf 'round the ol' boy's neck would look nice.
>
> I do like those tiny snow glints!  Which will be hard to retain if/when AA
> is added. (This one of those cases where the single-pixel glints could
> probably(?) do without AA, but the thinnest, filigree tree branches would
> benefit from it; currently, they look a bit too bristel-y at the tops.)
>
> Looking forward to the final image!!
>
> Ken

Thanks for the comments Ken, I would like to add a scarf but my past
attempts at modelling cloth with POV have been pretty poor. If I can do it
without losing the realism I will have a go.

Sean

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"Trevor G Quayle" <Tin### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>
> The shading on the fence looks as though it may have some ambient value.  Is
> it set explicitly to 0?  If not, you may get more colour bleed than desired
> from it.
>
> -tgq

That is probably the problem, this was only really a test render to check my
fence macro worked and to add the snow, the fence currently only has a
pigment value so the ambient will be defaulted to 0.1

I am also using some rather silly values for the Sun light (approx rgb <300,
120, 30>) which gives the glow effect on the clouds. I have noticed when
trying to use such high values before that you can get strange artifacts in
the image. I don't think these setting are meant to be set so high and may
also be adding to the fence radiosity/colour bleed.

Thanks,

Sean

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Chambers <bdc### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> Only one thing to say, that this is my new desktop background :)
>
> ...Chambers

Thanks, glad you like it.

Sean

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I also like the hard/icy look of the snow.  I like the bumpiness too (don't
smooth it out too much), because I can imagine a bunch of kids tromping
everywhere around the snowman the day before, making a low spot in the snow
in the area of the snowman from gathering the snow...  Maybe they finish
late in the day having started in the afternoon and they'd get a good
picture of themselves next to their snowman with the sun in front of them
and their house/cabin behind them.  Then all those footprints get weathered
and indistinguishable overnight and partly melted on a clear day in the sun
the next, only to be re-frozen by now when this picture "was taken".
You've captured this look well and it put all of these assumptions into my
head.

There've been a number of comments about the trees, but I think the thing to
work on would be the fence.  I think its smoothness is more distracting than
the evenness of the trees.  As for the trees, are the ones in the background
evergreens or deciduous?   I'm thinking about those wells that often
accompany evergreens.  It's been a while since last time I've been skiing,
so I'm not picturing how big the wells ought to be reletive to tree-size.

Charles

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Hi Sean,
            Well first of all, you fooled me into thinking your photo was
"real". I mean, not altered. And I have to agree, looking at it, I can feel
the warmth of the sun on my face and the crip of the snow. You can even
almost feel the texture of the snow. I think it's an absolutely fantastic
image.
            Here's why I'm writing to you. I recently formed a new
non-profit organization called Save a Snowman. What we do is act as a
snowmen orphanage, where people can choose from our adoption books and
adopt the snowman of their choice. They get a picture, a profile and
letters from their snowman for as long as they keep sponsoring him. All the
money we raising is used to fight climate change. The idea being, snowmen
are growing extinct due to the earth warming up. Right now, we are focusing
on alternative energy, cleaning our air and protecting our forests and
oceans.
            We collected about a dozen snowmen that people donated to us
from all over the world, and we are really excited about launching our new
organization.
    I saw your photo online months ago and I fell in love with it....might
be my own nostalgia of white winters. Per your agreement, I would love your
photo to be our main page on our website. I understand you may have already
copyrighted your image. But if you are interested in our cause I would love
to find a way to work with you to set up a release form that would be fair

be available to the public.  Any possible links back to you will be deleted
from the picture, as your privacy is important to us. Unless you would
prefer otherwise.
 I hope you'll think about it.  You can email me back directly at
mar### [at] saveasnowmanorg.
         Our website; www.saveasnowman.org will be launched in November 2007
but you are welcome to visit us in the mean time for periodic updates.

        Thank you for your time, and by the way, we love that he doesn't
have a face or arms, it makes him the perfect sympbol of a snowman.


Hope to hear from you soon,

All the best,

Marie-Noelle Marquis
Founder & President
Save a Snowman

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