A tomb scene.

I have been working on this image for a couple of weeks now and am hoping to get some comments on the lighting, atmosphere and pretty much everything to do with the image.

Cheers.

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It’s distracting that it looks like CG. What you have is good, but it needs “grunging” to take some of the perfection off.

EDIT: I think it’s the colouring of the textures is too uniform.

I think you should try to make full use of gamut. Even if it’s dark you should to use the full range. Search for “Low-key photography”. It seems like you have used one type of shader on everything. Try to use more specularity or gloss to get highlights. Cinematographers often makes sure that the ground is wet or tries to have some water in the scene when they are taking night shots and there is a reson for it.
If you want to use a mist it should be used consistently and things that are far away you be more affected.
I guess that the light source is the moon? I think that is would have produced a more sharp shadow.
The image may benefit from a local light source like a lantern or fire that would bring a warm tone to contrast all the monochrome bluish.
Studie how night scens are done in movies, it will help you.
Oh… and when in doubt: rimlight!

Happy Blending! :slight_smile:

Thanks.
I see what you mean about the colours being too uniform, everything does tend to look a bit blue at the moment. I will also have to see what I can do to rough things up a bit, I was hoping for a more derelict look to the scene but it’s a bit too new looking at present.

This texturing stuff is a real art form, very difficult to get right, I’ll just keep practising and hope I’m headed in the right direction.

That’s a good start you have. As mentioned by others, the image could use more dynamic and varied colors/tint…it looks a bit dull and muted right now. Also, perhaps add a few more elements of interest, eg. a moon, bats, skeletons, etc…some lit torches would really help add a warmer color to the scene and break the blue’ness.

I made some quick changes in Photoshop. Not perfect but should give you an idea how it can look with some spiced up colors and exposure.

http://i.imgur.com/NZHKKa7.jpg

Thanks all, some real good tips there. I will have a read up on low key photography and study some stills from night time movie scenes.

Adding in some lanterns or lit torches is a great idea, and I like the thought of having the moon visible in the image. Currently it’s no more than a sun lamp coloured blue and it is the only light source.

Lots to think on and study up on. Cheers.

A few question:

1- How old is the mausoleum supposed to be? … It kind of look brand new, lack weathering.
2- How well kept is that cimetary? … There seems to be a lack of overgrowth vegetation, and the fence look, again, brand new.

Hi, this is a great start. Here are some tips.

  • I’d put something like a tree in front of a light source, because shadows could bring more creepiness in the this kind of scene.
  • Bevel the edges a bit. They look too sharp.
  • Already mentioned but lanterns or such would be great to break the overall blueness.
  • Maybe try to do the fog with the smoke simulator. It might look nicer.

Thanks for the questions, Tuxon86.

1 - The mausoleum is supposed to be old, probably a hundred years or more. It’s the weathering effect that I am really struggling with, I know how to add textures and add a normal map, displace map and the like so that everything doesn’t look flat, but how to add age to a scene eludes me. It’s pretty much the same for everything I make with Blender, it all looks brand new.

2 - The cemetery is not suppose to be well tended, although it does look cared for in my image. The scene does need a lot more vegetation. I have been trying to keep the vertex count down, I’m at a quarter of a million at the moment, but I’m going to have to up the count and start adding more elements to the scene, and if my machine starts slowing too much I will just have to find a way round the problem.
The fence does look shiny new. I have been playing around with adding some rust to it so I will have to see how that one goes.

Cheers.

What immediately jumps-out, to my practiced (full disclosure: print-media biased …) eye, is “featureless and/or too-dark shadows.” And one such shadow is absolutely front-and-center: the inside of that arched door. From this, I quickly spot at least three others, in order of severity: the rightmost gate-column, the area around the trees, and the leftmost column.

As I continue to ponder this image with my now-critical eye, I wonder “how, exactly,” it is possible that the light of the moon seems to be subdivided into three distinct bands.

Oddly enough, your savior in this case might be the much-maligned “ambient light,” combined with a little bit of creative node-based compositing. What you’ll want to achieve here is that “ambient light” contributes some baseline level of lighting into a particular area, unless another lighting-source, such as the moon-proxy (or -proxies …) are contributing light into that same area. (“Twilight” is the only source of light, everywhere except where moonlight overpowers it.)

Great start. Needs more fog. :slight_smile:

Thanks, sundialsvc4.

I hadn’t thought about how dark the shadows are, but now that you mention them there is no way they would be that black. I had a quick play around with the ambient occlusion setting in the world tab and that brightened them up straight away, not sure if it’s the answer to the lighting problems though.

I will try out some HDRs and see how that turns out, but it is clear that I need some kind of baseline lighting as I only currently have the light from the world settings and even that I have turned right down with a gamma node.

Lots to think on, cheers for your thoughts.

Volumetric fog is a very good effect that I think would look great here (applied to the entire scene, rather than just the ground). besides the lack of grunge (http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/how-to-grunge/), you may be able to get some ivy on the walls to make it look older. HDRs are good too, but if you can’t access a good one, I find that sometimes, 2 sun lamps can work. 1 brighter with sharper shadows that is the colour of the light source (say, if it were the moon, white, maybe tinged slightly yellow) and 1 less bright with rougher shadows that is the atmospheric colour (blue in many cases). Beyond that, I find the ground is too sparse and the trees are looking fake. Especially in the distance on the left of the image, it is just empty, and it looks wrong. One final thing, try playing with the depth of field and see what results you can get.

Thanks for the comments, terrainer, there much appreciated.

I have been planing to add some ivy to the walls, but i will probably use images for it as the ivy generator pushes the vertex count up way too high.

I will try out volumetric fog and see how it goes. I went for the ground mist to start with as I grew up watching old Hammer Horror films and they always had plenty of ground mist in them.

Thanks for the tips on the lights and the link for grunge.

I have added rust to the railings and I think they look a lot better now but there’s lots more to do, I’m going to be busy.

Cheers.