First of all: The Idea is very, very well implemented (in general)
IMO changing the origial hands into the “cropped” ones, wasn’t the best idea. I think the “problem” at looking at those prior was, that they were flat. I mean, if U construct robotic “hands” (so with 4-5 fingers), the viewer expects that they are “moveable”. So if U would have bended them, let’s say as if he stood on the “finger-tips”, (I think) nobody would have critisized them.
The mentioned missing reflection on the robot-body, in my opinion, is also valuable correct. Please think it over. As it’s always mentioned: “Everything has Fresnel” And I think some adds within the “skin-sahder” of the robot material, taking this in account, would change the view drastically.
Another point is the interior lightning. Principially, the strong sun-light, shinning into the window, should have some more intense reflection from the room’s interior. Or the interior is generally nearby completely black (what I do not think).
One last thing, I would have done. It’s obviously a “search-and-just-found” situation. So I would have “frozen” the robot at a Stop-movement. You can’t do this with the search-light, but with, f.e. one or two legs rized up… so as stopped within th slow motion of searching. This might give the whole scene somehow more tension. (which I think is missing, in general)
(last is my personell opinion, without taking in account, what Your general intention was/is)
Sadly however I’m just left kind of confused after reading them.
C_Campbell, I can’t figure out what you meant exactly but clearly you find the location to be unclear. I haven’t really seen any sign of other people also having that issue so if anyone could clarify if they agree or disagree that would be great.
And Mike, thank you for your comment but I don’t really get your first point. I just don’t know which versions of the hands you’re talking about. The original ones weren’t flat and I don’t know what you mean by “cropped” in this context. And on your second point, everything already has fresnel. Every single shader in this image is based on a pbr shader which takes into account the fresnel effect. And on your third point, are you talking about reflections as in the floor should be more reflective or are you saying that the room should be brighter in general, and why exactly. I just don’t know what exactly you want me to do or how I could implement it. I do agree with you 4th point however and I’ll try to play around with the pose a bit and see what works.
I’m sorry but I don’t know what to do with most of your guys’ criticism. If you could clarify everything a bit more that would be very helpful, thanks.
ok sometimes it’s not easy to find the “best/right” words…
So with cropped, I ment the fingers. In the first version, there were fingers, but (as u mention, flat). If this “flat” in posing would have been changed into “on the finger tips” (or something in between - flat/tips)… then I think it could have been more “agile” - If U get what I mean.
Like this here:
Ok, if there’s fresnel… then I can’t get the point (without seein’ the “technical-view” of the shader). (node-structure)
Well and the last unclear… Well, the whole surroundings are looking like been under-exposured. From a photographical point of view (which I am - I mean photographer) the render-camera did not get the whole gray-range/white-range/colour-range). The general reason herefor is (also in real-life photography) that You are shooting against a extrem high-lighted background (the window with sun) on an object, which is extremely dark (the robot, which gets light only on the non-seen sight of the body (in other words - contrary to the camera view). the only light, which get’s into the lens is the reflected light at the top/buttom of the body. There are nearly no reflections from an other angle, except of the table surface, but with the standard colour-management of Blender, You never get the full, necessary light into the render - without clipping issues, lightning the body and bouncing into the camera.
It might be a good idea, to change the colour-management. For blender there exists a new (not directly implemented) colourmangement, called “Filmic-Blender” which is free. How it works, where to get and many background-info’s on render and colour-space of cameras in general and Blender You find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9AT7H4GGrA . Andrew Price explains the issue extremly well. You’ll find him also on https://www.blenderguru.com/ where many similar “tasks and issues” are dicussed and explained on this and other topics.
I think I understand your first point now even though I didn’t say that the first version was flat, I said the opposite. For now however I will go with the new hands because they look fine to me and I would have to model an entirely new set of hands because of some of the huge limitations on the original ones. I will play around with the pose a bit more however and I’ll consider remaking the hands a second time at a later stage.
On the exposure issue, funnily enough I’m also already using filmic blender :D. To clarify a bit, the robot isn’t just lit by the sunlight. There’s a second lamp off screen casting light on the part of the robot that is facing the camera. I could try to raise the intensity of this light and maybe as someone else suggested add a third light and create more or less a three point lighting set up.
And I think some adds within the “skin-sahder” of the robot material, taking this in account, would change the view drastically.
sometimes it’s not easy to find the “best/right” words…