Hi all, this is my first time posting to Blender Artists. I hope this would turn into a positive experience for me. I have been working on this project on/off for the past month, and I feel like I need output from others before I can progress further and finish this piece. I’m a bit stuck with the design stage, and feel like I need to add something to the model to ramp up the WOW factor. I even rigged the model myself because I couldn’t figure out what to add to the model, so I experimented with posing the model instead.
I had some fun experimenting with volumetrics in Cycles, and I’m rather impressed by it. Not very accurate between the viewport and the final render, which makes some guesswork rather a bit going back and forth. Any tips on this? So, here’s a test render (ignore the fireflies… it’s a test) and let me know! The AO render shows how the model looks like, but I made some adjustments to his upper arm, so it’s a bit better, and you can see the difference in the render.
Looking forward to hearing from you awesome Blender artists. I’ve been using Blender for a year now, and I came from a very strong Maya/Houdini background. Thanks in advance!
So far the model looks very interesting and detailed. Good work! I think an easy way to increase the interest of the piece overall would be to work on the pose. At the moment it’s hard to tell at first glance what it actually ‘is’. I first thought it was a floating robot with no legs, and the leg in the foreground was an extra arm sticking out the front. Try to have a more dynamic pose, possibly one where both legs are on the ground. You could try showing him doing something, whatever his intended purpose is. Finally, if you want to stick with this pose, try to make it look more natural. At the moment it looks like he’s going to fall over. Shift his center of gravity so that it is directly above the leg that’s on the ground. Also consider putting some bend in the elevated leg.
That’s all from me, looking forward to seeing your continued work. Good luck!
Cool model. I think you lost some details with the diffuse material. Try to make it more glossy/metal like. It may be nice if you posed him with his arms slightly above his head like he just dived in, and add some air bubbles around him.
Also, to remove those white specks go to Render> Sampling> Settings> Clamp Indirect <-- Set this to 3. You can also go to World> Settings> Surface> check Multiple Importance and set Map Resolution to 2048.
Or simply check out this article on denoising by Andrew Price: http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/7-ways-get-rid-fireflies/
I don’t have anything to add to what the other two said…
they pretty much covered it. Except maybe, if you haven’t
already check out EVERYTHING over at BlenderGuru.
Andrew has a lot of wonderful tips and tricks for getting that
“Finished” look.
@JavaLodge, Great suggestions. I will think about the pose, and the story itself. I need to figure that part out before I can really flesh it out to final. Good point… I like the idea of having him underwater, but would definitely work on the pose. Many thanks!
@soady, Thanks for the solution to the clamping issues. I come from Mantra & Renderman, so Cycles is a bit new for me. And yes, many thanks for the link. I stumbled upon it once, but I never bothered with it. Now that I’m fully committed to Blender, it’s nice to have it refreshed. Excellent idea about the arm, I’ll see what I can come up with. As for the materials, you’re right. He’ll be glossy/reflective at the end, so I should’ve made it a default material to begin with. Doing that now.
@Daellus, Thanks for the welcome to the fold! I already feel welcomed, so this is great. I’d definitely look over Blender Guru once again. Stumbled around his page a while ago, and based on your suggestions and others, I’d pay him a visit soon. Thanks!
Hi, sorry for my english, it’s not my first langage. I just saw your image and I wanted to know if you use a scatter volume as world?
I’m try to use it in Blender but the render is too much noisy for me.
@nacl I didn’t use the world as a volume scatter. What I did was that I created a cube, and assigned a volume scatter material to it. Here’s a screenshot for you so you can see what it’s like.