Nimloth chained

[stukkm]

OK so, for starters, who remembers this?
Going by the number of broken links I get when trying to find that topic, I'd say very few if anybody at all.

Well, it's taken me... eight months?! But hey, I've finished it. I pretty much gave up on Blender and 3D graphics in general some time ago, but for some reason I stuck around the community and when I found Alltaken's concept (which just screamed "Nimloth" at me) I just had to try my hand at it. There were plenty of setbacks, the main one being I actually thought 512mb of RAM would be plenty when I was building this computer. But who cares, I'm done, and considering how crappy my last stuff was I'm pretty proud of myself.

Just in case people are getting bored already, I'll post the picture here and then talk some more afterwards


Well? I know, the glow for the leaves is a bit too much, but I'm considering doing some GIMP post processing. I'd prefer to re-render it but this took an hour and sixteen minutes for me, and that's rendering from command line. (Which is why I'd be interested in knowing about an AMD optimized binary for Linux).

Well, I really planned on saying some other stuff, but I can't seem to remember what...
Aside from that, it looks like I've got more blending to do. Just for fun, of course (I've long since realised I don't have enough skill to go anywhere with this). I've gotta say though, Blender has really changed in the past year. I'd like to congratulate the developers for all the hard work being put into this. Thanks!

EDIT: Now I remember! I wanted to point out that the chains are held tight because while they're trying to hold the tree down, this is Nimloth we're talking about, and of course it's going to pull away (mmmmmagic!).

Also, would anybody be interested in looking at the .blend file? I was hoping someone would like to take a peek and point out what I could've done better (or if they think it's good, somebody could actually learn from it), but currently this is already over 70MB.

-Nick

Ah... nothing quite like an empty Blender scene to relax my mind!

[Duoas]

I like it.

I'm too young to remember the original, and all the links there are borken. (Yes, I meant to say that :| )

It seems to me that for such a bright light the trunk should be a tad more aglow. The branches in the leaves I like OK, but that's depending on how you play around with it.

Maybe a bit more color (== light) on the bottomside of the earthen part holding the tree below the chains.
Is there anything besides the grass outside that hole? Or is it completely pitch black outside?

I'll be watching this one.

[Aidan]

ah yes i faguely remember this it was a good concept i was a bit to nooby to make

[stukkm]

It's just an open field up until the mountain ranges in the distance. Though, too late, I noticed there seems to be a sort of path leading to and around the pit.

I kept a copy of Alltaken's tree for reference, uploaded here (I'll take it down if Alltaken wants).

[aquaglow]

I agree about the glow being a little too much. For me the lighting makes this piece, I love the lighting coming from the hole and the lighting on the grass is great. I too think that there should be just a little more illumination around the hole.

I'd like to see the blend file if possible, not sure why it's 70MB, guess this is just very high poly.

[Gr8RedShark]

Actually, I think the glow is fine! It creates a certain tension in the image, it looks like the tree is really straining hard against the chains. So what if it is so bright it almost hurts the eyes? I think you got a great glow effect, and I wouldn't change it.
There needs to be some background though, maybe some story skies... and those rings inside the well, it looks strange that they have the same bricks behind them.
Overall, a pretty sweet scene!

Oh, and where did you get the name of the tree as Nimloth? was it in the original post? I can't remember...

[stukkm]

Thanks about the glow. I tried to get a nice cloudy sky like in Alltaken's drawing, but I'm not that great with texturing (wanted to keep it all procedural).
Heh, it seems I forgot about the ring thingies. I actually wasn't sure what was supposed to be inside of them (Alltaken said to just do what I wanted) so I was going to leave them until later. :-?

As for the name, I mentioned before that when I first saw the picture I immediately thought of the Silmarillion. It's a book that pretty much describes everything in Middle Earth (and more) from the very beginning right to the end of the Lord of the Rings. Nimloth was one of the white trees (like in the emblem for Gondor if you've seen the movies) and it was destroyed at the counsel of Sauron.

[fudje]

Originally Posted by Coutsos As for the name, I mentioned before that when I first saw the picture I immediately thought of the Silmarillion. It's a book that pretty much describes everything in Middle Earth (and more) from the very beginning right to the end of the Lord of the Rings. Nimloth was one of the white trees (like in the emblem for Gondor if you've seen the movies) and it was destroyed at the counsel of Sauron.

No, the Silmarillion is the Elve's story of wars (and specifically about the Silmarils, wherein the light of Nimloth is stored). There is a lot more to Middle Earth than that....

Anyway, great go at this. Strangely, I knew what it was before looking at the post - I had been going to have a go at this myself (although interpreting it as Nimloth is not something I would have done so much), and was like, "Whoa, was that really that long ago?" Propz, cause I couldn't have done this well.

[Roger]

Good work, it looks great, the glow is just fine to me.

I can remember that old topic but never read it though. You've took your time but made a really cool peace. Well done.

Only crit, it seems at the edges of the ground where the tree is standing on, there seems too little grass, it looks a bit fake there therefor. If you'd make more grass around the edges of that platform i'd be great. Perhaps increase the overall lightning just a tiny bit.

[DracoFodder]

My only crit's are that the glow of the leaves is fairly overpowering. I think I'd have wanted to put some "sparkling" or star type halo's scattered about within the white area. Something that could impart the same sort of "depth" as the rest of the rendering.

That, and the camera angle is such that two of the back chains almost disappear because of the angle. Slightly moveing the camera around the perimeter would make them more distinct entities.

Very nice overall though, wouldnt mind having it as a wallpaper.