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

> And it shows. Fantastic work. :-)
> It looks Hollywood worthy. The fires in the background are beautifully
> done, too.

Thank you thank you thank you!
>

> It looks fine as it is, but I'm sure it would look even better with
> parabolic trajectories.

Yeah, that seems to be the general consensus. I'll definitely be adding
*some,* just not sure how much yet.
>
> You are planning on posting some code when it's finished, right? ;-)

Yes indeed!  Thanks for asking. (Actually, the Machine and its ray are ready
now, but I need to clean up the file a bit first. Building it was kind of an
"organic" process, things added to other things. Not very clean or totally
efficient.)

> The lighting on the tops of the machines seems awkward--the background
> machine in particular feels slightly "pasted in". There's blue light
> shining down from the sky, but *in* the sky all I see is black clouds.
> It feels like the machines would "fit" better if that light source were
> toned down or eliminated.

I felt I needed some complementary(?) color in the image, different from
red/orange/yellow, something to set the Machines apart from the dark
background.  It's *supposed* to be a kind of skylight/moonlight/toplight
effect, but I guess it's not coming across that way. More an artistic touch
than totally realistic. But I'll reconsider its use. BTW, I think the sky
clouds are too dark as-is--I kept changing them from lighter to darker and
back again, over and over; but they're still too dark. They're actually a
bumpy procedural heightfield, with a partially transparent cloud texture,
to let some of the blue skysphere show through--THAT's too dark too!  But
the overall idea was to get some light to rake over the bumps, to give them
a bit of actual volume. Doesn't yet look like it, though.
>

> > Some objects on
> > the ground are much-needed, but I don't want them to hide the
> > background--which presents a conundrum.
>
> I didn't notice a problem until you brought it up. :-) The image does
> "work" as it is, especially if you're going for an oh-so-slightly campy
> feel. Otherwise, maybe some low-lying rubble would work?

That's a good idea. I need to figure out what *kind* of rubble,
though--perhaps a blasted treetrunk?  Or bits and pieces of old,
pre-20th-century military hardware, abandoned by the retreating troops?
Even some traced-on grass might help. It's definitely too bare as-is. At
the same time, I'm hoping not to make the scene too *busy*--it's pretty
busy already!

Ken W.

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