For this project, my initial idea was simply to have a Go scene, but I obviously wanted it to look somehow interesting. Initially, I was just going to have a group of pieces and call it “surrounded”; but in the end I went for something a little more meaningful:
I decided to call it “Lifeline”. As you my have guessed, I used the (extremely helpful) cycles material library for the wood textures. I used a focal length of ~23. It rendered in just over an hour (on CPU). If you would like any more technical information, then please do ask.
Wow. I really love the idea, and it looks amazing. I’m by no means a pro, but if you’re looking for some cc, I’d say that the perspective makes the darker bowl in the bottom right look a bit uncomfortable, so I’d use a higher focal length. Just a thought.
Pretty good. The baby shape is obvious, though it looks better on thumbnail image, when zoomed in it gets lost and a little confusing. Materials are good, would be nice to see some dirt/dust. Textures are also nice, though those on pots look a little stretched to me. Also that arch made of white pieces seems unstable (in case you were going for physical accuracy).
Generally it’s very nice, I like the idea and simplicity
gilly: I think I’d agree with you on that. I was trying to find a good angle, and the best I found was from above, but I didn’t want it to feel too orthographic, so I changed the focal length a bit. I was obviously mistaken!
Pivac: Yeah, I wasn’t sure about adding wear-and-tear. I guess I thought I could get away from it due to the symbolic nature of the piece… maybe not!
As to the pots, I thought so too, but apparently they are like that in real life…
The arch is purely symbolic. It’s supposed to be somehow “breaking the rules for the sake of life”. Perhaps I may have made the message a little too ambiguous…
Thanks both of you! Your points were very helpful!
It’s a great idea though I think that it’s just the perspective that makes the two bowls look slightly odd.
The only thing I would suggest is more to do with playing Go rather than the render. At the moment the white shape has only one “eye” and is a dead group. If you removed a second white piece from the baby then it would be have two eyes and be a “live” group.
Lol. I was just waiting for somebody to comment on the legality of it. tbh I’m surprised anybody noticed it. I did actually add the first eye to give the group a liberty in addition to the “lifeline”, which is of course bending the rules. But that’s the whole idea, so I think I can get away with it!
@GingerJuggler The lifeline thing ONLY works because it is a dead group, add a 2nd eye then why would you need the lifeline concept?
Regarding the wear and tear / dirt/dust comments… as far as the stones go from my experience cleaning mine every week, they would be fairly spotless. The board my however have the odd dent/scratch if you are up to the effort!
Main thing that stands out to me is the fact that the board looks like on of those 1/4 inch paper wood effect boards you get for next to nothing, which you don’t normally see with some nice bowls + stones. More likely to have some cheap single convex yunzi with straw bowls with that board.
Other than the harsh lighting inside of the black bowl, I’d say you managed to pull off a somewhat clever concept here.
Though about the perspective, I would think that tilting the camera a little would help in this department, though it might mean you need to model something beyond the board itself.
I didn’t even catch the ‘dead group’ thing because I’m not well versed on the rules of the game, but maybe it’s something you should consider.
Typically the outer edge of the 19x19 grid has the same line thickness as the rest.
Your star point in the upper left is a little large.
And the actual grid appears to be square (though I didn’t measure it so correct me if I’m wrong), on a real board the 19x19 grid is rectangular to deal with foreshortening when you are sitting in front of it. Hence there is actually a wrong and right way to put the board before playing, if you have it at 90 degrees they grid looks really fat! So taking a photo of a game on a board like this they grid should look a little rectangular, since it is not a natural playing angle.
