As a Max user I am slowly trying to learn Blender, and thought I would be a little creative while doing so Blender.
Here is my “Birth of an Electromancer” low sampled renders from Blender.
I like the atmosphere of how it looks, however I can’t decide on what lighting I should use as I have very little experience with actual compositioning and lighting in this regard.
I tried to make the middle pop out the most, and make it so that would be the most natural area people pay attention to. This is why I later added some vignetting, Scratches texture normal map on the glass and a volumetric fog inside the glass sphere. I also made the electricity arcs inside the sphere more birght than outside the sphere.
I personally think I could do more with the background, but no idea what i should do besides doing some heavy modelling stuff to make it more hardsurface Sci-Fi.
How can I improve this?
What should I add to give it some more detail?
What do you make of it and what low sample render do you like the most?
I like Electromancer5 the best. The reds and blues contrast with each other nicely, and the Electromancer is more noticeable than he is in some of the others due to better contrast in values between the figure and the background. 1, 2, 4, 10, 12, and 13 especially lack that contrast.
Visual clarity in 5 could probably be improved by brightening the crosslight effect on the figure (but try not to brighten the background objects too).
9 has a really cool particle effect by the human figure, and could replace 5 as my favorite if the red circle parts were a bit brighter and if the human figure was separated from the background with brighter cross lighting. The current value range in that area makes him easy to miss.
Of the darker image set, 7 has the best value contrast in that area, but still could benefit from brighter crosslights.
I liked 6 11 and 12 the best. At a casual glance 11 feelt like the best one. High contrast, colour intensity mached similar imagery and the dark background ensured focus on the action.
At a second glance number 6 became my favourite. Tones melting together to create a whole. 6 made me notice the person in the middle.
To emphasize that it’s an electrical surge, feel even more of the motion, use more kinds of blue. More variation in tone in the dark blue to white strokes, but also lighter whiter more saturated highlights here and there, the most the closer to your dude, like you already do.
There is a lot of movement in your image. Let it reach him at it’s most intense and not fade right away. Hold a bit longer. He will be seen.
I didn’t want to spend too much time on the lightning arcs, as this project was just a way of learning blender. Lightning arcs as you suggest differentiate a lot in size and brightness and are a lot more chaotic than I have here.
