LOL! I see someone else worked through Andrew Price’s tutorial. My model came out a little bit different than Andrew’s as I spent a bit of time studying it from several different perspectives. The color is different too (I think Andrew had a non corrected photo from the set as a reference.)
All in all, it was a fun little project. I wanted to see what I could knock out in a weekend (I used Octane for the render, so I spent quite a bit of time flailing around with lighting and textures.) I’d like to come back and add more detail at some point…
And yes, the “runner” in the frame is a real person – my son. He wanted an updated image for facebook.
very nice, and in my humble opinion, better than andrew prices. i like the human element as well, adding a human makes it look more realistic. only problem i have is with the carpet, but you said you were having trouble with textures
keep it up
Excellent! This is way better than mine. I took Andrew’s tutorial in hopes to learn more about lighting (because I suck at lighting a scene.) and the tutorial did in fact help a lot but I think this is better than Andrew’s as well. I wish I had Octane Render, It seems like the greatest render engine out there. I was thinking about buying Octane, do you think it’s worth the money? Again, great job!
All in all, it’s simple to use and understand. And I’m happy with the results it produces, especially when using an HDRI map for lighting.
If you can tolerate the fact that the software is in beta form (it crashes a lot, and not everything is functional) it seems worth it. It’s incredibly fast in most scenarios Mesh lighting –like the scene above – seems to slow it down by orders of magnitude (which might be something I’m doing wrong.)
At the very least, it’s worth downloading the demo and watching the videos. Then you can see if it’s something that might work for you. If speed is really important to you, check out the recommended hardware.
Nice outcome! One thing that cached my attention though was the scaling of the boy, it seems like he takes up the whole door in length. Otherwise I’m impressed on how nicely he blends into the cgi, do you have some useful tips on how to achieve that?
You’re right, he is too tall for the door. I took some artistic license with the scaling in favor of composition. Namely, I wanted his head to line up with the series of pucks on the bottom of the lights. That, and I got tired of fiddling with the camera to get the lineup and the scaling just right.
The thing I work on the hardest when I’m compositing real images is trying to match the light. To match the light, I use off-camera lighting triggered via a radio. I work out the real camera angles and focal length to match the CG camera as best I can (I saw someone use a target in the real shot to help line up the CG camera with the real camera, and I really want to look into that.)
As for green screening – sometimes I use a backdrop and sometimes I don’t. They’re certainly helpful when you want to isolate a subject from a background quickly. If you’re interested in learning more about off-camera lighting, check out www.strobist.com. It’s a lighting blog that has a bunch of useful information on how to get started.
Otherwise I’m impressed on how nicely he blends into the cgi, do you have some useful tips on how to achieve that? 
