I'm Sorry

Hi all. This is a project I’ve been working on for a couple of weeks. It was made with the 2.5 beta builds, and rendered with blender internal.

[MOST RECENT IMAGE]

The only thing i’m not sure about is the very yellow colour.

The inkpot seems off somehow, but i have no idea what’s wrong with it. Any ideas, or a i just hallucinating? (edit: don’t worry, i was hallucinating :))


Sam

Edit: I know! it’s horrible:(


a quill pen wouldn’t be able to write like that, It looks very cg and fake. I’ve included a sample of text written with a quill, hopefully this helps.

how can I reproduce that writing? there are no fonts on the net like it (at least i don’t think so), and i cant write like that. does anybody have an answer?

Buy a quill. You can get one for about 10 dollars and there much more worth it then pens. I don’t know how someone could use ball points when they’ve had the pleasure of using a fountain. Then you can scan it into a computer and edit it in gimp if you want to change it.
Or… go to 1001 free fonts and look up Champignon.

I’ve changed the writing, but unsure whether it still looks cg and fake.


Hey I really like your image. Doesn’t look fake to me at all. Great work! :slight_smile:

pg

looks great…
just the primary light… appear to be vertical over the paper (with circular diffusion), but the object down of the screen have a strange shadow (opposite)

fixed the shadow, and changed some of the lighting


Are the words and the page a single texture? If so I would give some opacity to the ink layer in photoshop. I think it will look less cg, because paper usually absorbs a bit. Maybe you could blur the edges a little bit too.
I like the feather :slight_smile:

Lovely image! I think the bump of the paper texture should affect the Ink layer too, as ink wont stand up like cement over paper. It gets absorbed.

I find the black box thing at the bottom of the image rather distracting though.

seems ok now :wink:

I redid the paper/word texture so the words blend in a bit more with the paper. Also removed the “black box thing” (which was meant to be an inkpot), as it didn’t really compliment the scene (thanks agentmilo for making me realise this), as well as adding the writing on the book(now diary) in the bottom left hand corner, so it looked important and useful.

what do you think now?


Quills are usually very big feathers, you have to be able to hold the stem of the feather, that feather you’ve got there is way too small I think. Also, if you’re still worried about how yellow it is try editing it in gimp or photoshop, see if there is a saturation setting for sepia. That’ll give the effect you want.

The paper shouldn’t be perfectly flat. Especially since it’s thicker & rougher than modern paper, and because it’s already written on (deformed by sweat, touching, etc). So the paper will look more convincing when wavy.

I noticed in the very first render that there was a drop shadow effect on the text, which would be very unrealistic if the text is actually written on the page. It doesn’t seem to be there in the latest render but since I was looking for it I think there seems to be some small bleeding or saturation/shadowing around the text (for example at the bottom left of the big “I”. But maybe I’m imagining it now.

However that did remind me that when you use a quill, leaving the pen stationary too long will create blots if you aren’t careful. It might add an extra pinch of realism if you added some blotting around the stress points of the text (areas where the quill would be resting on for slightly longer).

Otherwise I can’t think of too much else to make this better - good job so far!

Yes there is some bleeding of the the text onto the paper (something like this was suggested to me joni.giuro, is that what he meant?). In the first render, the words were a text object lying ontop of the paper, so if they were slightly above the paper they would have cast a shadow. Now, they part of the paper texture, and I slightly blurred the edges to make the words blend in with the paper(they look like cg text otherwise). Should I lessen the blur? (is that what you’re talking about?)

any idea where the quill would be resting on for slightly longer than usual?

I slightly blurred the edges to make the words blend in with the paper

That must be what I was seeing. I wouldn’t change it though because joni.giuro is right - there would be slight bleeding.

any idea where the quill would be resting on for slightly longer than usual?

It really only happens when the writer pauses for too long by mistake, (for instance, thinking about the next word while resting the pen on the page at the end of the last one). So it wouldn’t need to be everywhere, since a person skilled with a quill would probably have learned to avoid doing it. But imperfections tend to lend realism to things so adding some small blottings would make the text seem more authentic. Especially since the quill is clearly shown leaking ink on the page in the image.

Also for the background text, perhaps you could bring the texture into an image manip program and slightly mis-align the words like in the example posted by mexicoxican. Subtly skewing or rotating them.

I’ve made the feather bigger, made the paper a little more “wavy” and older looking, misaligned some of the background text, and added splotches in various places. Behold, update 5!


These are window-dressing changes…

The notion is an original one, and the execution is (and always has been) good. I do wish that more of the text (leading up to “I’m sorry”) was in better focus, but it seems to me tha you are well into the realm of diminishing returns now. Call it “good” (it is!), and call it, “done.”

Time for the shrink-wrap and the shipping container. And the celebratory beer.

The words “I’m sorry” could be half the size and still (the only ones) clearly readable. It is uncomfortable to write close to the edge of the paper and even half the size would still make the words big enough to be shouting, yet feel more realistic…