Sky train WIP

[Levisarts]

Been working on this for a bit. Finally starting to come together after quite a few problems with the allz. I have this animated, though as long as the render times are it will be a while before I have a complete animation rendered. Still working on textures and lighting lamps and so on. Kinda needs something else though I’m at a loss to what that could be.

Last render to date. Some problems with the light poles. I have that worked out now but will be a while before I re-render.

Harsh crit is welcome as well as some ideas to what might be missing. TTYL :spin:

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[Yanneyanen]

Nice, I like it You could add a couple more of those signs/ads, maybe to the building on the right, and make them illuminated to add a bit more light to the scene. Though if you make them too big and bright, they might steal the focus from the train.
I understand it’s a night scene, but it could do with some lights other than the railroad ones.
The second building could also be slightly different from the other one, so it doesn’t look like it’s just a copy.

[travellingmatt]

Hi,

there are a few things you could do to improve the composition:

Firstly, lose a lot of the track on the extreme right of the image. It just makes the train look smaller and shorter. It also reduces the impact of the front of the train. (the image is mainly of the track, not the train)

Secondly, move the signs downwards. This will make the train look higher up. The two signs directly above one another have too much impact on the scene, cutting the scene into two. By putting them lower, you make it more obvious that the train is ‘high up’. Side by side ( visually at least) will bring the train to the top of the image, making it more important.

Thirdly, add some lights/rooms in the buildings.

Fourthly, trains have lights, not only on the front, but they have windows in the sides. This alone will light your scene, with just a touch of moonlight to pick out the darker areas.

Fifthly, add some sky. The buildings don’t look as obviously buildings without a skyline.

HTH

Matt

[Levisarts]

Good stuff here. Thanks for the input.

I will lower the signs because that sounds like it might add some pop to the depth as well as set the train higher as you said.

This is a train animation which is rendering as we speak. So the track is needed because the train comes out of the tunnel then in your face so to speak(at least that was the plan). All is subject to change.

This is directly out of my head with no for sight into planing so mostly just winging it lol.

I will definitely add more lighting to the buildings and the train itself. But on the train the use of vector blur will nullify most of the detail on the interior.

I already added a new building, though it needs some texture work. The left most building in question was just a place holder for when I got around to making something new.

New pic with new building and the lights are better looking.

I plan to spend a lot of time on project and just do something neat. And prolly have a lot of questions on some things like faking smoke and haze with out mist and so on.

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[Levisarts]

I must add that this is rendered at 1920x1080 so a lot of detail s lost in this forum do to limiting the size. I will add a link to the full size pic shortly.

Hope this works. Full size.Click on the image twice to go full size.
http://levisarts.deviantart.com/art/Sky-Train-209331615

[locnar]

If the train is in motion there should be some motion blurring. There’s a really good book called The Wow Factor that gives really good advice on achieving effects like that. There really should be some lighting in side the train spilling out.

[Levisarts]

Yes I have the wow factor and konigs video tutorial on nodes is prolly the best imo. I have the blur off for still renders cause it just looks better. I will render on later and throw it up with the vector blur on so you can see it. Right now I’m rendering the full animation in chunks which will take a few days I think at 1080p.

[Levisarts]

Working now on fleshing out the interior of the buildings and I may have to rescale every thing lol. Hind sight is 20/20.

But other then that it is working out well and the amount of detail for the interior scenes will be a long task. Thank god I upgraded my memory last night to 8 gigs cause I’m going to need it for this project, which is already in the millions of pollys.

So here is a simple render with the building interiors fleshed out mind you still have a few bugs to fix.
/uploads/default/original/3X/8/b/8b6e2a30fb3ae90234ea1058648022b780369672.jpgd=1305823470

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[Levisarts]

Ok here is another one. This one has some motion blur on the train. I scaled down the buildings and changed some stuff around. Now I have the hard part. Rooms! I will have to model a few rooms and layouts for all the windows that are open and some curtains or blinds for some of the rooms. This is at 3 mil pollys atm so I still got about 4 mil more before my laptop says thats enough.

Ok so here we go with the new image. I really think this one looks good. Let me know what you think. And, IDK like flying cars or something? Still needs something I just don’t know what. Power lines?

Well any way…

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[lazerblade]

Wow, esp for those buildings. Is that maybe a little time consuming?

[Levisarts]

Tis rough but I got plenty of timeXD.

[travellingmatt]

Hi,

looking good.

A few things that might help; Firstly, you can render the background buildings and apply the result as a texture to simple boxes. This allows the train to be reflected in the windows, but means you don’t have to re-render the interiors for every frame of your animation.

It’s getting a bit light now, so you are losing the effect of your lights and obviously, if you add lights from the train, you will lose them too.

Oh, and there is something weird about the pattern of lit windows. Generally, if there is a building that has windows allround like yours have, if one window on one side of a corner is lit, so is the other around the corner, as they look into the same room. Also, rooms tend to have 4 or more windows, as they are often office blocks. Think out how large each of your windows is, and how big the rooms are. Remember that in big blocky buildings like that, rooms tend to be large, because otherwise the light does not penetrate into the interior of the buildings. They are generally not full of very small square rooms, which is how your buildings come across. If you visualise your buildings as they are, there is a huge amount of the interior of the building which would have no external light at all. This would be very unusual.
This is a biggy- when a real high speed train goes around a corner, it is banked into the corner, otherwise all the people inside fall over. Your train doesn’t look fast, because it is cornering but still horizontal. You wil get a lot more wow from your animation if the train banks into the curves. Also possibly if it is longer, but that’s just me.

HTH

Matt