"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> schreef in bericht 
news:web.465bad01d8d381745bd27f590@news.povray.org...
> BTW, in case it isn't screamingly obvious, the buildings are just an
> image_map, a piece of Photoshop silhouette artwork with an alpha-channel.
> But it's applied to a bumpy procedural height_field (the bumps face -z.)
> The HF is positioned so that  *some* of the bumpiness actually *pokes
> through* a thin, textured "fire box" that  bisects the middle of the 
> HF--to
> make it look like flames are not just behind the "buildings", but are
> licking around and through them.  I was kind of proud of that!
>

That is really ingenious!!! Thanks for telling us the trick. I shall have to 
remember that  :-)

Thomas

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> Any critiques and suggestions welcome.

OK, dude - here are my humble suggestions, both regarding the green death
rays: First, it might be cool to light up the inside of the raygun barrels.
It seems odd to me that there are beams of light coming out, but the inside
of the barrels themselves are dark. Maybe just a point light_source with a
fade_distance placed inside each barrel would do the trick. Second, the
beam coming in from the right seems to be hitting the leg of the Martian
tripod. Probably a result of how media works, but distracting nevertheless.

This is the coolest picture! It's great to see a completed scene with so
much detail. The time you've spent working on it really shows. Thanks for
sharing it!

Regards,
Dave

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> "Stephen" <mcavoys_AT_aolDOT.com> wrote:
>
> >

> > realistic. It looks like hydrocarbons flaring off. The burning town is so

> >
> Thanks!! (And I like that description--'flaring hydrocarbons'. Great!)


flares. I made it my job to tell someone if they went out.

> The "halo" above the rising gasoline fire in the center is one of the few
> things in the scene that's not 3-D. I didn't want to use media to get that
> effect, so I rendered the 3-D gas fire just by itself, against blue (like a
> bluescreen), then took that into Photoshop, made high-contrast B&W artwork
> of it, blurred that, turned it into an alpha-channel, then re-applied it in
> POV-Ray to a thin box, as an image_map.  The box is placed behind
> the real gas fire in the scene, and lit only with colored ambient light.
> Kind of a cheat, eh? :-)

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"Dave Blandston" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> "Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> > Any critiques and suggestions welcome.
>
> OK, dude - here are my humble suggestions, both regarding the green death
> rays: First, it might be cool to light up the inside of the raygun barrels.
> It seems odd to me that there are beams of light coming out, but the inside
> of the barrels themselves are dark.

Now that's something that completely got by me. I shall definitely add
something there.

>Second, the
> beam coming in from the right seems to be hitting the leg of the Martian
> tripod. Probably a result of how media works, but distracting nevertheless.

Yeah, it's due to the transparency of the green ray. I did add some
absorbing media to it (along with the main emission media) to make it a bit
more opague, but it's still too "transparent" there--which is brightening up
the Machine's leg way too much. This is a problem that doen't have a good
soluntion: If I add more absorbing media, the ray *would* look more solid,
and keep the leg brightness down. But I'm trying to avoid a more solid
look, which would hide some of the green, elongated "sparks" inside the ray
(just stretched, partially transparent spheres, BTW.) Haven't given up on
finding a solution, though. Perhaps scattering media is worth a
try--although that would lead to problems in lighting it correctly.  *Ugh*

The ray is actually three elements: A main cylinder; the random green
sparks; and an SOR object that looks like repeating ovoid shapes. All
(hopefully!) balanced so that no one element calls undue attention to
itself.
>
> This is the coolest picture! It's great to see a completed scene with so
> much detail. The time you've spent working on it really shows. Thanks for
> sharing it!

Many thanks!!

KW

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:

> No gravity effect yet; that's probably obvious.  I *could* say that the explosion is
> at the "moment of detonation," before gravity and air resistance have had a
> chance to show themselves.  ;-)

It strikes me that air resistance is *already* showing itself--in that the
smoke trails are getting smaller as they proceed upward.  In effect, the
"lighter" or smaller particles of dust are being slowed down, while the
heavier parts are continuing on. I guess that's why real smoke trails have
that *look,* more or less.

KW

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"Allen" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> "Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
>
> > You're definitely better at that than I am!  :-)  I wouldn't know where to
> > put 'em, or what kind of pose they should have.  Suggestions?
>
>
> I have a few actually.
>
> Book Art
> http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n3/n17423.jpg
>
> The two I chose to post are some pictures I took of the Broadcast CD I have.
>  That may give you some ideas.

Sorry to be so slow at answering some of the comments; work has been taking
up more of my time than usual.

BTW, some of my own posts haven't been showing up; they've disappeared into
the internet void, it seems. But I'll keep trying...

Thanks for the inspirational photos. The book art is really nice--especially
the people. They have a stylized look that I would *love* to be able to copy
in 3-D.  Reminds me of classic Disney concept art (for their theme parks)--
they *look like* people, but are illustrated in a style that doesn't call
attention to themselves. I suppose that's a somewhat standard
architectural-rendering device.

The CD images have that wonderful MARS ATTACKS bubblegum-card look--
gruesome yet over-the-top, in a fun(??) way. Great!

Ken W.

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"Allen" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Simply amazing Ken!  It seems to me that you have the code and physics
> down... they work really well.  May I add some suggestions though?

LOTS of good suggestions here.
>
> As earlier stated, the lighting on the distant robot seems too blue.  With
> all the explosions and burning buildings, one would expect there to be no
> atmospheric bluing.

Strangely, I'm not seeing that on my end (other than the bluish skylight.)
I'll take a more critical look there; I must be missing something.  The
explosion DOES have a large, rather subtle(?) media sphere around
it--emission and absorption media, as an overall explosion "glow"--which
may be causing problems.
>
> In light of the above stated fires, there isn't any smoke in the scene.
> There should be lots of clouds of smoke around.  That shouldn't be too hard
> to create since you already did the fire and explosion smoke.

Actually, there are three dark smoke "plumes" in the background (one of
which is visible behind the smaller Machine.) But I agree, for such a
firestorm, there should be so much smoke as to almost blot out the sky. And
therein lies the problem. :-) I didn't want an all-smoke sky; it would hide
the clouds. Don't want to hide the clouds; they add drama. I'll try and
come up with a better compromise, though.
>
> There is not any debris on the ground.  Lots of stuff got blown up, but it
> isn't on the ground.  Maybe add some of that to add a better quality to the
> scene.
> I also don't think that everything has been blown up... maybe add some
> charred vehicles or crushed vehicles.

Good idea; hadn't thought of that.
>


>
> For the robots themselves... might I suggest chrome for the legs?  And maybe
> a layer of dust from all the stuff they blew up.
>

In the comic, the Machines have what looks like a metallic gold color
(actually just yellow, with a few suggestive strokes of the pen!) I'm still
searching for just the right blend of color / brightness / reflection /
highlights. Changing one element changes the others; it has been a somewhat
maddening back-and-forth process to zero-in on the right look. But fun and
challenging, of course. :-)

A dust layer would be a good addition (if I can find a way to do it without
obscuring the burning city too much.) Another challenge!

Ken W.

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Kenneth wrote:
>> As earlier stated, the lighting on the distant robot seems too blue.  With
>> all the explosions and burning buildings, one would expect there to be no
>> atmospheric bluing.
> 
> Strangely, I'm not seeing that on my end (other than the bluish skylight.)
> I'll take a more critical look there; I must be missing something.  The
> explosion DOES have a large, rather subtle(?) media sphere around
> it--emission and absorption media, as an overall explosion "glow"--which
> may be causing problems.

I'm convinced that it's the combination of the skylight, light/media 
from the explosion, and the clouds behind that make the robot look 
"funny". With the dark clouds, it feels like the blue light is magically 
coming from nowhere, which feels wrong.

It's not such a problem on the foreground machine, partly because the 
angle mostly obscures the top, and partly because its not more or less 
surrounded by flaming media.

I assume that there's still open sky behind the viewer, and that's the 
source of the light? If so, it's probably physically correct, but still 
doesn't feel right, because we can't see the sky. (Oddly enough, the 
blue highlights in the clouds works fine, even though they're probably 
from the same light source.)

My vote still is to either make more blue sky visible, or tone the 
skylight waaay down. I would go for the latter. It would be quite 
dramatic to have the robots light entirely be the fires. :-)

-- 
William Tracy
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You know you've been raytracing too long when whenever you write 
include, even in essays, etc, you always add a "#".

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William Tracy <wtr### [at] calpolyedu> wrote:

> I'm convinced that it's the combination of the skylight, light/media
> from the explosion, and the clouds behind that make the robot look
> "funny". With the dark clouds, it feels like the blue light is magically
> coming from nowhere, which feels wrong.
>

Thanks for going into detail. I do see what you're talking about now. The
blue skylight *is* out of place, realistically speaking.  As mentioned,
it's more of an artistic effect.  But it seems to be a jarring effect to
some. That's probably because I made the clouds shadowless, so that the
light wouldn't be blocked; but now it looks like it's coming from a
cloudless sky.  Honestly, I was hoping I could get away with it!  ;-) Oh
well; I may try putting some cloud shadows back in (and toning the blue
light down a bit, as you suggested.)  But I'll also try a render without
that blue, to see the effect.

One thing that's also happening is that the explosion's overall surrounding
media sphere is brightening up part of the smaller Machine, really making
the blue toplight there stand out even more than it was meant to.  Haven't
found a solution to that yet.  But I still have a few ideas to try...

KW

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Kenneth wrote:

> 
> Thanks for going into detail. I do see what you're talking about now. The
> blue skylight *is* out of place, realistically speaking.  As mentioned,
> it's more of an artistic effect.  But it seems to be a jarring effect to
> some. That's probably because I made the clouds shadowless, so that the
> light wouldn't be blocked; but now it looks like it's coming from a
> cloudless sky.  Honestly, I was hoping I could get away with it!  ;-) Oh
> well; I may try putting some cloud shadows back in (and toning the blue
> light down a bit, as you suggested.)  But I'll also try a render without
> that blue, to see the effect.
> 
> One thing that's also happening is that the explosion's overall surrounding
> media sphere is brightening up part of the smaller Machine, really making
> the blue toplight there stand out even more than it was meant to.  Haven't
> found a solution to that yet.  But I still have a few ideas to try...

I think the image looks great as it is.  It well reproduces the kitchy 
feel of those early scifi illustrations.  Or, most cover illustrations 
for that matter, which play fast and loose with depictional language to 
achieve an attention-getting image.  Yours is all about the explosion 
which is the compositional focus as you planed and it looks explosive. 
The  attacking machines are large and fearsome and are given to us in 
the tactile trops of the day.  The current vogue for distressed textures 
is still well into the future arriving with Star Wars and its ilk.  And, 
of course, it is not as if movies themselves are realistically lit.  Or 
do people think that buildings all have gigantic kleig lights shining in 
through their windows at night, or that WWII was fought entirely in Band 
of Brothers cool sepia tones.

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