Beach monster conflict WIP, suggestions welcome

[Kogomat]

A game event inspired scene, intended to be printed on textile - not a job though, luckily.

Finished so far: sand, rocks, portal, background, composition, and most sea monsters (to be linked instead of cubes later).

Individual pieces look okay, great even, but the whole just looks bad and I can’t seem to zero in on a solution. I intend to ignore the characters as much as possible - gave the front one a cloak only because it covers everything. I’ll give it better textures at the end and leave it there.

If anyone has ideas on how to make the scene look interesting… any suggestions welcome. shrug

My thoughts are that first, I need interesting light. I thought a textured area lamp would work, but it just looks weird, I guess I dont know what to light with it and how much. Currently there is one at 2 o clock but it’s not even visible.

Tried making sun rays through soft clouds and mists to give scene depth, but… well, not very visible.

Water looks horrible - balls instead of foam, but it was the best I got. Is there a proper way to do it that makes it look like actual liquid? Resolution was over 200 for this bake, but print will be around 50cm long.

The sand needs some definition too. It’s good sand, you just can’t tell it’s even there. Maybe a fresnel node to make it shinier… and maybe I should make it wet, somehow.

Does anyone else think something is missing between the rocks and sand? Like there should be some interaction there and that the rocks look like they just “appear” from the sand? I tried putting plants there and it sort of helped.

[etn249]

I would say the biggest problem is composition. I am not sure which part of the image you want me to look at.

• Are the characters the most important part? They are very small in the image and the front character gets somewhat lost in its surroundings because of its color palette and lighting.

• Is it the burning pit in the foreground? It’s the brightest part of the image, to the point of stealing the show from everything else. However, I’m not immediately sure what I’m even looking at, it looks a bit abstract.

• Are the sea monsters the important part? It could be interesting, though you will have to make sure their silhouettes are well visible against the color of the sky, unlike the placeholder boxes.

@Kogomat

My thoughts are that first, I need interesting light.

You could cheat the lighting a bit. Add a large, soft spotlight that subtly adds light to the more central areas of the image, where the characters are. Some extra lights to the side of the characters too, giving them rim lights.

But, I would say something as important might be to make the fire pit less attention grabbing. Do I understand correctly that the guy at the front is burning some monsters he hunted? Then, maybe the monsters in the pit could be charred, with some dying embers instead of an intense fire? This would get the point across without stealing the show. Or maybe the pit could be moved to the side and the character could be brought closer and made more visible?

@Kogomat

Does anyone else think something is missing between the rocks and sand?

The rocks lack detail. They could really benefit from some actual displacement rather than the bump or normal map they have. This would make their border with the sand more jagged.

Also, if there are large boulders, there would also be smaller pebbles around them of various sizes.

@Kogomat

The sand needs some definition too. It’s good sand, you just can’t tell it’s even there. Maybe a fresnel node to make it shinier… and maybe I should make it wet, somehow.

Use texture paint to make a black and white mask. Use that mask as the “fac” of a mix shader to blend between 2 different shaders: one would be the current sand, the other would be the wet version (darker, lower roughness, lower bump intensity).

@Kogomat

Water looks horrible - balls instead of foam, but it was the best I got. Is there a proper way to do it that makes it look like actual liquid? Resolution was over 200 for this bake, but print will be around 50cm long.

Is the entire ocean a simulation? If yes, that would result in a very low resolution. I would shrink the domain so it covers only the area where the water meets the shoreline and I would make the rest of the ocean with a displaced mesh. That way, the resolution of the water gets concentrated where it matters.

Then, set the simulation cache to the “uni cache” format and activate “use speed vectors” in the mesh section. This will allow you to use motion blur at render, making the water more realistic (and helping to blur the balls into something that looks more like moving foam and droplets).

In the render settings, go to the max bounces section and increase the “glossy” setting to a much higher value than the original, like 16 (also set the total bounces at least as high or it will get limited). Having more glossy bounces will make the water droplets more realistic, as light will bounce inside them.