Here’s a model I did some time ago, a MiG-15 warplane with North Korean markings. I want to make an airfield scene, with the pilot standing in front of the plane in the runway. But before I put the pilot in I’d like to focus on how to make the scene more real and believable. I welcome suggestions on texturing, lighting and whatever you might find worth improving.
The pic is rendered in Blender Internal with raytracing. I would like to render the final scene in Yafray, though. I’ll try to post a bigger image tomorrow, it took me 1 and half hours to render this one:
Camera on the first render looks to low (like it was placed on the ground). Also i dont like the scenery much - too much grey in my opinion, and the textures look low res (only the sorounding textures).
The plane looks great, espacially the Yafray render.
As promised, here’s a full size render of the scene as it is right now, I only changed the camera angle and position a little. Renders to come will be smaller, though. 3 hours is too long for a test render :(.
Ermm… no (http://www.geocities.com/albipach/pics/MiG_wip_03.jpg). I guess I could do something about it. Too bad I lost the low-poly mesh :x, so it’s going cost me a little more. Anyway, as long as I don’t take a full frontal shot, I could get away with it ;).
Here’s an update… Luckily, had time to make another full-size render (6 hours!). This time I changed the hangar texture for a dirtier one, but still doesn’t convince me. I guess I should give it more bump and spec. Also added the pilot and some minor detail, like the cannon tubes and the ladder.
Number 1 and 3 are fixed, I had duplicate objects which created the artifacts. Too bad there are new artifacts in some parts of the image.
Number 2 is also fixed, I adjusted the air intake a little.
Number 4… will take a look.
This is a nice aircraft of you!
The strong specular reflection on the front needs bump (Blender internal render). Try a spacious bumping, just to break up the uniformity of spec.
Add some dirt using photographs as reference.
I agree about the lighting (it’s only a Sun lamp), I’m not very good at it. That must be one of the reasons why the bump isn’t noticeable enough… If you look at the Yafray render in the first post, you’ll see the bump mapping is much more visible.
Will work on the dirt too, hope that will make the plane look less ‘fake’. Looking at the reference pics, though, some planes are also rather smooth, without much bump or dirt… I guess, again, that most of the problem lies at lighting.
well, that is how i would feel the lighting in this scene.
Sun coming probably from behind, from an angle between the aircraft and the building . If the aicraft heads towards 270º and the bulding 180º, the sun would be 225º, creating a nice rim effect that helps to separate the aircraft from the background, particularly from the building.
The roof of the building and the aircraft upper silouette the brightest part of the scene.
Rim effect in the top of the roof of the building. Anisotropic?
If the sun is angled and high enough, the rim efect could be seen too in the leading edge both of the wing and of the horizontal stab.
The ratio between sun light and fill light would be low.
Fill lights starting from camera angle for skylight, towards the right side of the background.
I’m trying to explain a process to make up a lighting setup.
I seemed to notice; although I cant remember the correct name for it, that the sheeting end caps on around the edge of the hanger roof look like they are modeled in one piece. I wouldent like to have to try and fit it.
There are a number of problems, I’m struggling mainly with the lighting. I’m trying to get the effect of the photo Alvaro posted, but it’s quite difficult for me. After I made the render I played a bit with a fill spot light, I guess that may do the trick, but I welcome suggestions.
Also, I notice I must lower the mirror a little, and make a better job with the dirt. I guess I’m on the right track though, but would like to hear your oppinions.
Fixed a bit the edges of the roof so it doesn’t look like it’s made in one piece (as a matter of fact, it was).
Another problem I bumped into is with the sky texture: Can I use an angmap for the reflections, but showing a different, higher-res image in the background instead?
The building looks much better. Here goes a trick:
You can increase the feeling of depth in the appereance of the sky by adding some gradient to the blue sky.
The clouds look terrible. My advice is working with plain blue with gradient by now.
if you dont like plain blue, I would try a composition with a real photo.
You only would need the sky and a bit of background of that photo. In the airliners.net photo database you’ll find a lot of photographs.
I’ve made a composition test on your image. This test give you some information:
The level the horizon in the background should be, slightly higher than current one. But take into account that doesn’t exist such horizon unless you are on the middle of a sea, so a higher horizon with some mountains (tiny, please) would be good.
The height of the camera (Note the green line on the pilot’s knee)
And the “tarmac” looks terrific, maybe too grainy for my taste but vey good anyway.
Regarding lighting this is my advice:
Focus on the Keylight and forget everything else (including AO). When you have the Keylight fixed (intensity, brights, shadows) then add more lights. Test some positions for the keyligth.
you shadows are too dark. in such a situation shadows are never solid.
you should draw a uv texture for the mig with all metal plates on it and use it as a bump map. the mig still looks too much as one piece!
also the refelctions seem to be to clear.
also the highlight at the red nose seems to be to dense.
but that might be because of a missing metal surface light shader
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