Hi, this is kind of my first ever attempt at a still image in blender.
I made it for the weekend challenge one morning, but I’d like to continue it and make it better so any C + C would be appreciated.
Cuby
Nice work so far, I like the idea for composition and lighting. However, I reccomend textures and/or bump maps, and if not, try some ambient occlusion. I find it always improves the feel of the image. Keep up the blending.
I couldn’t get an amb occ to work and look good, but I’ve added a texture to the wood, and bent the man over a bit more.
How do you think I could make the hills look better?
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I think the lighting could be improved. The fore ground is dark and the hills in the back ground are lit up. The subject is hard to see. I don’t mean the lighting is to dark its just not focused on what I think you want us to see. Don’t worry to much about having all the light coming from the moon I would add some lights to focus on the man and the dock. For the hills I would use mist and just sort of hide them.
The sky could be more dramatic…
Ok, I’ll try to add some mist infront of the hills, possibly put stars in the sky.
I’ll also try and lighten up the scene a bit, but I kind of want the subject to be a siloette.
you should make the edges of the jetty ridged.
add a spot lamp in front of the figure to cause a dramatic shadow to be cast along the jetty.
Allright, Thanks guys! I’ll try all that soon. I’m away from my home computer at the moment though, but will update it ASAP.
You should dramatically sharpen the specularity on the water, and make it reflective if possible. Plus the hills go below the water line at a distance that looks too close to be a horizon , perhaps you should make the water go beyond the hills or have both end at the same distance.
Ok, I’ve added some stars, brought the subject closer to the camera, +changed the water reflection a little.
What do you think?
I still need to add some mist in there though.
Actually, how do I add mist only infront of the hills???
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It looks like she is lloking at the edge of the world. I’d say make a horizon of some sort.
Blender doesn’t have any settings to make the built in mist appear in front of something only. If you need mist then I advise you create a cloud of verticies and set them to a halo texture. (don’t forget to tweak the alpha)
Or to get the mist in front of the hills, you could tweak the “Dist” setting until it is just right…
Reflections on water are always directly below the illuminating object (the moon here) and are always vertical. This is true no matter where you stand or how you move relative to the object… unless you take a crooked photo
You could add simple mist by just whacking a big vertical plane in front of the hills, give it a white or pale blue texture, make it shadeless and give it a low alpha setting. Or you could use render layers and composite nodes.
Thanks AndyD
Now I’ve made the reflection more under the moon, but don’t really mind about it being on an angle.
I’ve also put kind of a mist the way AndyD suggested, but it’s tricky to achieve something that really looks like mist. I’d probably have to use photshop for that.
Anyway, what do you think? Is it finnished, or is there still loads I could improve on?
Cheers
Cuby
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Raytraced shadows would be nice. Especially from the poles (or whatever they
are called)…
//Mathias
Each one of these pictures seemed to be getting better … I think, until the last one. Then, I started finding my eye being pulled to one side, to the bright spot on the water. The eye always gets pulled to the brightest and the most contrasty part of any scene. Obviously, for this scene to work as intended, the viewer’s attention has to be drawn to, and then repeatedly back to, the contemplative little boy.
In the next-to-last image, some of the strong points are that, while the lighting throughout is quite subtle, there are edge-defining and surface-defining highlights and rim-lights which keep the various objects in the picture distinct from one another. That was missing in the first shots.
It all has to come back to the boy. That’s your subject. And, it has to feel lonely without feeling threatening. I rather feel that in the next-to-last image “you had it,” and now it’s starting somehow to begin to wander away. You need to be sure to continue to execute, and to change, this picture with a very light touch.
M.h.p.e.: mmm, I agree, but in some ways I like having no deffinite shadows. Also, when I do render with ray, the moon texture disapears. Anyone know why?
sundialsvc4: Thanks, alright I’ll try and draw the eye to the boy, though, when I tried this in the past I ended up lighting up the jetty/wood too much. Also, I always immagined him as a silloette.
Any ideas on how I could achieve this?
Thanks for all the feedback.
Is this a lake or sea ? On a lake the waves should be smaller, more and that they should not be too high.
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