I can’t take credit for the Hidden, IRIS, or map model I did however change the map a little, instead of elevators it’s glass doors, and made the animation poses.
Map: Executive
I know the outside needs a little fixing up and the pose of the Hidden needs to be tweaked, but more Critique would be appreciated.
The first thing I’d change is the angle of the camera. Try something more dramatic, and experiment with tilting the camera a little. Personally, I’d take the camera behind and just to the right of the IRIS minion, and tilt it just a little clockwise.
That’s not all this scene needs, but it’d be a start.
The Hidden Pose is more of what I was looking for when I started the project, I positioned the camera like silent 1 said but I don’t really know… I mean it looks good but… IDK, I fixed up the outside but it can’t be seen from this angle.
A few extra things jump immediately to mind. Firstly (or, rather, easiest to fix), your muzzleflash is far too small. You may see muzzleflashes of that approximate size on handguns, but rifles tend to make a larger bang (about 3x as much). Your scene should also have a little more contrast in light and shadows.
In regards to the camera angle, you could do the inverse of what I just told you, and have the camera following the hidden as he sweeps in for the kill, showing the exterior. Hell, render out both versions to capture the duality of the game.
I’ll warn you, though, I’m no expert with renders. Hopefully a real heavyweight of rendering will respond soon enough to grant you far superior suggestions.
The Muzzle Flash is one of those things that’s REALLY hard to find anywhere, I found ONE video on YouTube shooting a FN F2000 at night, and that was about the size of the Muzzle Flash for it, and making it bigger takes away from the picture and doesn’t look very good.
I will attempt to fix the lighting issue but as it stand now it is VERY hard to fix since the scene is so big, I don’t want to change the size of the scene because if I change something or add something else from the map it’ll be very hard to implement.
As for the camera angel I will also do what you said and make 2 pictures of the different angles, since this one turned out pretty dang good.
As for getting someone else to comment… It’s hard for me to get replies on my forum posts in just about any forum, i don’t know what it is but it’s almost ALWAYS like this, I can post a really long thread that is important and only have 1 guy make a post in 3 months :|.
The muzzleflash doesn’t quite have to be realistic. Reasonable, yes, but also theatrical (try looking at what the game itself uses for size). However, you wouldn’t want that blocking your scene, so I understand your stance.
I’m also not sure about the Hidden’s pose. Most of it seems right, but it just doesn’t have that elusive sense of ferociousness. I’d move the shoulder of the striking hand back and up to prepare a more powerful lunge, and depending on how much control you have over the rig, I’d also clench his hand a lot tighter on the knife.
Lastly, what do you mean about changing or adding to the map? Is the problem in render times, assets, or something else I’m missing?
Actually since you mention the pose of the Hidden, I changed it in the newest render, and the arm is farther back, as for control over the rig, the character is never meant to be seen, so his rig doesn’t have fingers, everything else does except fingers, so that puts a damper in it… Lol.
I did not make the map, the map is a map from Hidden it’self and so are the characters and the rig, and the objects in the scene are VERY big, which actually leads me to a question, when I imported the IRIS body and rig with the Default scene it made it so that there was no fog in the 3D view on big objects so no matter how much I zoomed out it would never disappear, is there a way to do that to all of my scenes? (Compositing, UV Mapping, Animation, etc) Back to what I was originally saying, the objects are very big and I cannot make them smaller because I have another layer that has all of the assets like the computers, the chairs, and the monitors, If I make it smaller and then need to import one of those assets it’s going to be hard to place it where it’s supposed to go.
Do you mean to say that the fog won’t work in the 3D View, or altogether (even in renders)? If the latter, that’s pretty strange.
You could safely adjust the scale by showing all layers, selecting all objects, setting the cursor at the center of the scene and using it as the pivot point, and scaling all objects down by snapping (holding control, which will lock the transform to the nearest tenth). That way, if you import any other objects, you can repeat the transformation by using the center of the scene and a scale of, say, 0.1 as constants. Though it probably would be simpler to import any other objects you plan to use beforehand.
Fixed lighting a little
Fixed the super glossy pillar in the background
Made the Hiddens arm go back farther and twisted the hand a little
Fixed the Gate not being in the background
Render IRIS Perspective
Render Hidden Perspective
The fog won’t work in 3D View, which is AMAZING for the size of the objects, it still works on the camera, I have to set the camera fog distance.
Turned the Hidden Executive into Hidden Executive-b5, which is why it’s night time.
Added the Light fixtures and flag which I forgot to add earlier.
Added a new texture to the Hidden, the place where his heart is glows (Basically his heart is glowing).
Increased the light from the muzzle flash.
Put a Subdivision Surface Modifier on the hidden to get rid of the sharp edges.
The lighting, to me, looks really good, I do see a place or two that needs to be fixed but other then that I like how it turned out.
I did forget to add texture to the light fixture, so if it looks bland that’s why.
IRIS Perspective:
Hidden Perspective:
Feedback would be nice?
Made 4 renders without feedback and don’t really know if there’s a way to improve the render… Sooo ya…
The only other things that come to mind as far as improving the render are to add more contrast in the lighting. The lights have decent color variety, but I’d expect (and, in a horror shot, want) it to almost pitch black in some spots. Really, though, you could edit that in post, so it’s not really a rendering issue.
I do still think a few modeling changes are in order. Firstly, in the Hidden perspective, you can see that the building’s wall is far too narrow in an area that has to bear a lot of weight. I’d bulk that up a bit. I’d also add something to the edges of the floor to give a little more contrast for the shots that show it. Perhaps a strip of carpet in a different color. Or maybe some generic white tile. I dunno, play with it a bit. The whole building just seems a bit flat (not your fault, I know).
The Contrast I can try to fix but I wouldn’t know how 
Well The lighting and map are exactly how they are in the actual map so I don’t want to change that, I will thicken the place that is kind of narrow, the carpet, I may have an idea.
You’re using cycles, yes? Reduce the light bounces to a lower number (no lower than two, though). That will keep the light from seeping into the shadows so much and retain some contrast, and also lower your render times. If that doesn’t do it, try reducing the prevalence of light in most spots except for on the Hidden and IRIS soldier. And if that doesn’t work, just import the image into Photoshop (GIMP, Paint.net, etc.) and adjust the levels or brightness and contrast.
As for your concern of loyalty to the actual map, I tend to think of fan art as being about a degree of exaggeration (and these guys agree with me:http://www.gamesradar.com/best-video-game-fan-art/). You don’t have to perfectly reflect the game you’re portraying, otherwise you may as well just use in-game screenshots. Moreover, Source games, for as fun as they are to play, aren’t the prettiest games on the market, so, if you’re willing, toy with the lighting, materials, models, etc. to your heart’s content. It’ll look better, and I doubt any frequent ‘Hidden’ player will be offended.
I’m not trying to perfectly reflect it but I like how to map is set up, I like how it’s dark outside and has lights on the inside, I am going to fix the color of the sky to not be so blue it’ll still be blue but a lighter color.
I also like how the scene is right now with the hidden jumping at the guy and the guy shooting at the hidden, I am going to put some shells at the IRIS feet, and maybe a few dead IRIS solders around the area to show all of them died except that one, to add that it’s not just one single person fighting the hidden, which is near impossible in the real game.
The Hiddens Left Arm has been re-positioned (I did it like this because of an old picture done with the Hidden and IRIS a while back).
Hiddens head has been tilted.
Dead IRIS in the background of both IRIS and Hidden perspective.
Blood Decals where the IRIS died.
Shells and Weapons laying on the floor, the shells vary depending on the weapon used (Shotgun shells, Assault Rifle Shells, and P90 Shells).
A strip of carpet behind the IRIS in the Hidden perspective is different color.
On IRIS perspective there’s a shell flying out of the gun, so if you wonder what that little gold blur is it’s that.
Blue moon light is not as dark blue.
Background lighting improved a tad.
IRIS Perspective:
Hidden Perspective:
Have you used chromatic abberation here? There’s something about these renders I can’t quite put my finger on
Well if you’re talking about Lens Distortion then yes, I have a Lens Distortion with Projector checked, 0.000 distort and 0.250 Dispersion… Why?
A few hot fixes in this update:
The blood decals no longer have the grey outline
The Depth of Field has been lowered from 0.5 to 0.4 so it’s not so fuzzy
Hidden Perspective:
IRIS Perspective:
I’m very near to the end of this project.
In this update I have fixed a few annoying Normal Mapping issues that were in previous renders.
An attempt at making the Muzzle Flash bigger failed due to unwanted glare size and I like the size of the muzzle flash now anyways.
Muzzle flash has been moved to a different Layer and rendered in Blender Internal Render for a new effect.
Glare Color Modulation Modified.
Took away the Hidden’s Glowing heart to stay true to what the Hidden looks like in game.
IRIS Perspective:
Hidden Perspective:
