I have made this with the help of different tutorials and my own imagination. C&C’s Welcome. This is my first serious blender scene.
I also don’t know why the window on the light house looks the way it does tried recalcing normals outside…but to no avail.
Ler er rip!
thanks,
Don.
Beautiful! The water and wind/fog are beautifully done and the lighthouse looks great! The only thing I would suggest is maybe making the lighthouse come out of the water just a bit and zooming the camera back just a smidge. Otherwise, very hard to find much to critique in this one! Excellent!
well, u seems to have got a nice ocean and the lighthouse…but i would suggest some change in the composition for the scene to look dramatic. it looks like some textbook image like those ‘L for Lightouse’ kindergarten books. the image is too small to suggest anything for the windows, however i am sure the lamp lenses at the top as well as the roof could do with some more detailing.
In addition to what anuraag_01 said, the beam of light looks a little too solid.
One suggestion for the windows would be to make a circle with about 8 vertices, then extrude it down and give it the glass material. It’s just a suggestion, but it might improve the overall quality of the lighthouse.
I’m looking forward to see how it turns out. Good luck!
Here is the latest. Please let me know your comments.
Don.
The details of the shingles and the windows are a big improvement.
The boat looks good, but the dock looks a little strange because it doesn’t really look connected the the base of the lighthouse.
It’s really improving!
Can you make the fog look more real? Right now, it almost seems like a background image.
I don’t know how you’re doing the fog right now, but since this isn’t too insane an image to render, you could probably try for an actual volumetric fog (add a plane that emits static fog particles, for instance).
To make it more dramatic (if that’s what you want), lower the camera, darken the scene, and make the beam brighter but more diffused at the edges. That will also help realism and keep the lighthouse from looking like a toy.
Finally, you could try replacing the glass railing with a black ‘cast-iron’ railing. If you make it slightly ornate (little spirals at the joints or cones on top of the posts, for instance) you’ll make the whole scene look old and imposing.
The staircase by the door looks really cool - you could probably try adding more rocks so that it’s apparent that it goes down to the water. Maybe put the dock (smaller) there and have a mainland or breakwater behind the lighthouse instead.
Keep it up!
Very cool. The lighthouse looks much more real in that shot.
You have a weird line halfway up the lighthouse - are you repeating a texture that doesn’t tile nicely?
As far as modeling, I second bsinger - the dock should look connected to the lighthouse base somehow. And just for effect, try adding one or two craggy rocks just jutting out of the water.
Really nice job with the water, though. It fits very nicely with the fog.
Here is the latest. The lighthouse has undergone several changes and the scene now has a shore thanks to Terragen. Please give C&C’s.
Thanks,
Don.
In this latest incarnation, the intended treatment of the subject-matter has clearly shifted away from photorealism and toward a symbolic treatment. I will therefore give my opinions in that light.
First of all, no matter what, the lighting of the core subject needs to be adequate, and right now it isn’t: the lighthouse is “too dark.” It needs to be, not only adequately lighted, but key-lighted.
Then, you simply need to be sure that the lighting which is given to the sea does not supplant or overpower the lighting that is given to the subject… the lighthouse itself.
Finally, if the lighthouse is to be seen to be “emitting light,” the lamp must be clearly evident.
A dramatic setting and camera-angle is appropriate and is largely realized… except for the overlighting of the sea (or the underlighting of the lighthouse).
I agree. This scene could look incredible if well-lit.
One other suggestion would be to add vegetation to the landscape, both from a symbolic and aesthetic standpoint.
Integration with TerraGen: Very cool! And well done - the terrain fits the scene very well.
As far as dramatic camera angle being “largely realized,” I agree. Move the camera somewhat closer (to make the lighthouse more powerful and take our focus off the water and to the light).
Well done - can’t wait to see what the next version looks like!
I took the critique to heart. I am trying to keep the feel of night time while illuminating the scene. I changed the camera angle to avoid the problem with creating whitecaps on the shore. I think it gives it a better look.
Let me know any thoughts.
Don.
It looks nicer as far as the camera angle.
I’ve had this problem myself. There is a tendency to under-light night scenes. It may be realistic to have completely black areas (RGB = 0,0,0), but the result on a computer monitor is not realistic enough.
The angle in this shot is better, as is the look of the water. But you need to enhance the lighting, even more than in the previous version. And try messing around with the exposure settings. Just as a physical camera will use a longer shutter time for a night shot, you should increase exposure to allow more light to hit the camera.
Another option might be to increase the gamma amount a little bit to make the darkest parts of the image more visible.
Again, great work so far!
Angle is better, however (as Caius said) it is too dark. It is also way too blue. In day light, water looks blue because of the sun/sky. At night water wouldn’t refract so much blue, it should look grayer.
As for the composition, you could add a moon or something in the background at the left of the lighthouse. That would be the most logical light source for the scene (other that the spot from the lighthouse of course) and good way to add a back light for the light house. It would also help the composition if you moved the camera closer and lower, pan the camera a bit to the left to take care of that empty space on the right. That way you’d have the moon at the left and the lighthouse at the right with a nice reflection of the moon on the water. Kinda hard to explain without visual help, hope you get the idea.
Here, I was bored, here’s what I meant about the composition (moon on the left, lighthouse on the right). This was done in 10 minutes so don’t bother with the lighting as I don’t think it would work for what you are trying to do (in my version the focus of the pic is the moon). But you get the idea, using the reflection of the moon you could get a decent effect I think, without losing the focus on the lighthouse.
It’s usually a bad idea to place the subject right in the center, especially for landscapes, unless you got other things pointing the eyes right to it.
EDIT: Oh, and of course I’m not saying you need to have a moon in the pic, just that the pic needs something more than just the lighthouse, it would make it easier for you to play with the compositon. Could be a boat or anything.
