The old man gave Bren a long, slow look.
“Do you want to know, boy,” he said quietly, in the even larger quiet of the empty room, “Do you want know why we built Morris Hostel in the ceiling? Do you want to know why there aren’t any ladders or elevators working any more?”
Bren looked at him, cautiously.
“I might want to,” Bren replied, after some consideration.
“We built this in the ceiling,” said the man, cryptically, “because we couldn’t build it on the ground. We dared not ever go near the ground. Do you know why?”
“Because of monsters.”
“Hah!” barked the man, with a sudden, sharp laugh, “Oh yes? And what would you know about monsters?” Bren bristled at this dismissal, but the man went on. “Tell me then,” the old man said, his long beard rustling into the shape of a grimly amused smile, “what monsters do we fear?”
“The sistiks, mainly,” Bren stated, proud for a chance to show off what he knew, “and the shadowers, and the banshees, and the lost souls.”
“Hmph,” grunted the man, his smile vanishing as suddenly as it arrived, “banshees are the last of your worries. No, no no. See, what you have to be afraid of is…” he paused; whether it was for purposeful theatrical effect or not was not readily apparently, but his eyes flickered to the window behind Bren’s chair, giving the boy a sudden crawling chill up his spine.
“…What you have to be afraid of, is…” the man started speaking again, slowly, “is the fog.”
blender 2.45
no post-pro except for slight photo noise
edit: v1.05
Minor corrections. Re-rendered and saved as vertical HD/ half float .exr, and transposed to smaller 8-bit .jpg in photoshop. Same post-pro as before, i.e. barely any.
Nice piece of work. I’ve been staring at it for ten minutes trying to imagine how to improve it without breaking the mood, and came up blank. This would make a nice science fiction book jacket. I think you have another gallery piece on your hands, here.
Dude! This is glorious. Just the overall mood itself is pretty darn rad. I dunno. It sounds kinda cheesy, but this picture really made me imagine that I was “there”.
Great atmosphere ! Would like to spend 1 or 2 nights there
Agree with others regarding AO, don’t know exactly how to improve it, maybe try to reduce the darkness, I would also add a soft back light to increase the volume.
I’m not sure that I see what the others mean about the AO problems. Perhaps it’s just my untrained eye. Nice render with a lot of atmosphere, and definitely appreciate the contextualisation - sounds like an interesting setting. I’m only wondering as to the scale - are those portholes in the spheres? If so, then are they about two feet across in diameter?
TheANIMAL: Yeah, I just made the words up for this. That probably explains why they suck.
the above et BgDM: I tried to fix the most ghastly ring, which turned out to be a modeling problem, and clean it up a bit, but I’m not sure how much I managed to get done. If it means anything, the AO is subtractive AO layered over a hemi-light that shines from underneath.
iliketosayblah, marsan: I’ve just been around long enough to learn how to be a dirty cheater, which speeds up the lighting and rendering process to no end. Also, www.cgtextures.com is a beautiful, beautiful website.
MrDodoBird: Wow, I appreciate that. Project London (subjectc, possibly) looks great, btw. I envy your camera.
enricoceric: Yeah, you’re probably right. I know this sounds defeatist, though, and I’m really sorry, but I’m not sure how much more I’ll be working on this. Any week-end challenge that takes much longer than a day ceases to be for the week-end, for me, and can drag into an actual project.
Dan: Ok, after fixing the size discrepancies your comment brought to my attention. I’d say the windows at the bottom are maybe roughly 1 to 1.5 feet across, whereas the bigger ones at the top are like 3. Refresh to make sure you get the new one.
I’d say the windows at the bottom are maybe roughly 1 to 1.5 feet across, whereas the bigger ones at the top are like 3. Refresh to make sure you get the new one.