A Storm is Coming (Art Contest Entry)

Artwork Focused Critiques
#1

This is my entry for my school’s annual art contest. The title is “A Storm is Coming.” I created the textures with GIMP and rendered it with Blender Internal. I have two versions: one without postpro and one with. I’m just wondering which one to submit, as I like both of them equally (a rare occurance with me :))

Only BIender’s compositing nodes were used in the postpro’ed image, though GIMP was used to correct some sharp edges on both.

The deadline for the contest is 5:00 pm October 12th, so quick critique will be appreciated.

Attachments

astormiscoming_nopostpro.jpg1024×791 162 KB

astormiscoming_postpro.jpg1024×791 189 KB

#2

I personally like the second image better, but they both seem to be a bit dark, and maybe need a star background.

#3

I agree. The second image has more pop, although the 1st image is more realistic.

#4

jc, how’d you make the atmosphere. I might have an idea to do it differently depending on how you did it.

#5

Making the atmosphere was easy, but putting it in the image was complicated. I made a sphere with a bright blue material. I turned on raytransparency and turned up the fresnel effect. I gave it a toon shader and made the size 5, smooth at max, and reflection at max. I set the emit value to 0. Afterwards, since I wanted to blur the atmosphere and halos didn’t work right, I tried out compositing nodes and drove myself mad with trying to figure out render layers and eventually quit that (only because of the contest deadline; I’ll learn render layers later). I copied the light source and put it in another layer with the atmosphere object. I then rendered only the atmosphere and saved it as a jpg. Then I rendered only the planet and used compositing nodes to put the atmosphere back in, using nodes to blur it.

#6

wow that looks nice, the only suggestion would be to add some nor map to the clouds, as Huricane/typhoon/cyclones have quite a bit of depth at the throat, when seen from LEO (Low Earth Orbit).

#7

Thanks. I don’t know why I didn’t notice that, as I had watched The Iron Giant a bunch of times right before doing this :o (the beginning of the movie is flythrough from outer space and down through the middle of a hurricane).

#8

I know this is a bit late but check out these recent pics from Space Station, the hurricane is at the bottom.
http://www.texasjim.com/NASApix/NASA%20pix.htm