Attached is a new version, updated to take into account various comments. In
particular:
1) an area lights is used now,
2) the sea has been replaced by grass disappearing in a fog, and
3) the moment now casts a shadow on the grass (this works better now in
combination with the above two changes)

The lack of blue gives it an entirely different feel and I quite like the
result. Also nice is that the image is now quite different from other images I
have made, as many featured a lot of blue (water, skies, blue tiles, etc). So
thanks to all who have provided comments. Of course, feedback is still
appreciated on this image as well. :-)

Unfortunately, rendering time has exploded. It used to take less than two
minutes to render the scene without anti-aliasing at 600x800. That has now
become 25 minutes. This is even though area lights are adaptive, and the media
is very basic (fixed density and intervals set to 1). It is because the grass,
fog and area lights are each relatively expensive to render, and the combination
especially so. At the moment, the area lights have no added value inside the fog
(as there are no significant shadows there). However, I do not know yet of a
good way to exploit this to speed up rendering time. :-(

Cheers,
Erwin

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Attachments:
Download 'failure-variant4.jpg' (341 KB)

Preview of image 'failure-variant4.jpg'

> Attached is a new version, updated to take into account various comments. In
> particular:
> 1) an area lights is used now,
> 2) the sea has been replaced by grass disappearing in a fog, and
> 3) the moment now casts a shadow on the grass (this works better now in
> combination with the above two changes)
>
> The lack of blue gives it an entirely different feel and I quite like the
> result. Also nice is that the image is now quite different from other images I
> have made, as many featured a lot of blue (water, skies, blue tiles, etc). So
> thanks to all who have provided comments. Of course, feedback is still
> appreciated on this image as well. :-)
>
> Unfortunately, rendering time has exploded. It used to take less than two
> minutes to render the scene without anti-aliasing at 600x800. That has now
> become 25 minutes. This is even though area lights are adaptive, and the media
> is very basic (fixed density and intervals set to 1). It is because the grass,
> fog and area lights are each relatively expensive to render, and the combination
> especially so. At the moment, the area lights have no added value inside the fog
> (as there are no significant shadows there). However, I do not know yet of a
> good way to exploit this to speed up rendering time. :-(
>
> Cheers,
> Erwin

For your fog, are you using a media? Use a simple fog instead. fog is 
much faster than media, and in this case, should be a very good alternative.

Anyway, when using media, you should never use anything else than 
intervals 1, the effective default value.


Alain

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I really like this version!

One comment though (forgive me!). If you move the sun a tiny bit so that 
the shadow of the leftmost column falls behind the central column, the 
illusion will be even better I believe.

Well done!

Thomas

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Eriban wrote:

> At the moment, the area lights have no added value inside the fog
> (as there are no significant shadows there). However, I do not know yet of a
> good way to exploit this to speed up rendering time. :-(

As Alain mentioned, using media may be overkill for this kind of fog.
Apart from that, it might be possible to cut up the grass object into
one part that interacts with the rest of the scene (monument shadow)
and another part that doesn't, and use light_group's to restrict
the use of the area light to the part that needs it.

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"Eriban" <pov### [at] spamgourmetcom> wrote:
> Attached is a new version, updated to take into account various comments
....
> Cheers,
> Erwin

Nifty - It started out very nice and got even better. Now you're entering the
phase I often have the most trouble with myself - deciding when to stop tweaking
and just declare it DONE. ;-)

(You're already guaranteed a success in any case.)

Best Regards,
Mike C.

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Always brilliant concept; amazing improvement!

I think the coolest improvement is the shadow inside the structure; it removes
focus from what I thought was the biggest flaw: the way the round part abruptly
changes from the straight about mid-height.  Because of this improvement, I'm
even wondering if the grass were necessary.

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Hi all,

I am much humbled by the praise on the latest version of the image. I am happy
to hear that the changes are indeed considered improvements and that the
resulting image is to your liking. :-)

I won't have much time over the next couple of weeks to work on the image, but
when I have the time, I will apply the necessary finishing touches. In
particular, I need to refactor it to cut down the rendering time.

Meanwhile, please find below my responses to specific comments and suggestions.

Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:
>
> For your fog, are you using a media? Use a simple fog instead. fog is
> much faster than media, and in this case, should be a very good alternative.
>

Unfortunately, simple fog does not work here because of the way I achieved the
illusion. Not all objects are at the distance they seem to be. However, I
started faking the fog by putting up a transparent screen with varying
transparancy and that seems to work. It achieves the desired fade out and
renders faster.

Thomas de Groot <tenDOTlnDOTretniATtoorgedDOTt> wrote:
> One comment though (forgive me!).

No problem, comments are always welcome.

> If you move the sun a tiny bit so that
> the shadow of the leftmost column falls behind the central column, the
> illusion will be even better I believe.

I see what you mean, however, I am not sure if shifting the light is the best
way. I would like to leave sufficient room between the shadows of the pillars.
Also, I quite like how the front wall does not fully cast a shadow on the base
of the frontmost pillar. Nevertheless, I will see what I can do to improve the
illusion.

Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:
> As Alain mentioned, using media may be overkill for this kind of fog.
> Apart from that, it might be possible to cut up the grass object into
> one part that interacts with the rest of the scene (monument shadow)
> and another part that doesn't, and use light_group's to restrict
> the use of the area light to the part that needs it.

Ah, I did not know about the light group feature, but that should do the job
perfectly. I will definitely try this. Thanks for the suggestion.

"Mike the Elder" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Now you're entering the
> phase I often have the most trouble with myself - deciding when to stop tweaking
> and just declare it DONE. ;-)

Well, the main tweaking I cannot avoid is refactor the scene to get bearable
render times. It currently takes nearly 8 minutes on my machine to render a
single line of the anti-aliased 640x800 image, which is way too much, especially
given the fact that I want to render it at 2400x3200.

"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> I think the coolest improvement is the shadow inside the structure; it removes
> focus from what I thought was the biggest flaw: the way the round part abruptly
> changes from the straight about mid-height.

This transition from round to straight is actually not as abrupt as it seems.
The transition starts pretty much at the bottom of the pillars and continues all
the way up to the top. However, I fully agree, that's not how it appears.

Cheers,
Erwin
..

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Final update: For those interested, please find attached the final version of
this image, properly anti-aliased. I managed to get the rendering time down to
acceptable levels (2400x3600 in just under 24 hours). Two things did the trick.
The use of a light_group to avoid using an area light for the top part of the
image resulted in a significant speed up. Secondly, I noticed that I had been
using non-default anti-aliasing settings. I cannot remember changing it, but
restoring the threshold from 0.1 to 0.3 really helped, especially the parts of
the scene where rendering had slowed down to a crawl.

Once again thanks for all suggestions. These definitely helped to improve the
image.

Cheers,
Erwin

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Attachments:
Download 'failure-1_10.jpg' (280 KB)

Preview of image 'failure-1_10.jpg'

"Eriban" <pov### [at] spamgourmetcom> wrote:
> Final update: For those interested, please find attached the final version of
> this image, properly anti-aliased. I managed to get the rendering time down to
> acceptable levels (2400x3600 in just under 24 hours). Two things did the trick.
> The use of a light_group to avoid using an area light for the top part of the
> image resulted in a significant speed up. Secondly, I noticed that I had been
> using non-default anti-aliasing settings. I cannot remember changing it, but
> restoring the threshold from 0.1 to 0.3 really helped, especially the parts of
> the scene where rendering had slowed down to a crawl.
>
> Once again thanks for all suggestions. These definitely helped to improve the
> image.
>
> Cheers,
> Erwin

Very nice indeed.  Thanks for sharing the image and its development with us.

Best Regards,
Mike C.

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This one is really great. It really catches you off guard.

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