first ever participating entry to a Weekend Challenge. In fact, it’s a try in disguise about the use of the new particles system: I added three small vortex fields to disturb the smoke flow, and the cave is a deflector to keep the smoke “in” the cave but I didn’t success at that, yet. Static particles for the pilosity of the Caveman, BTW. This is a MakeHuman figure with extreme targets applied on all the body (in fact, the caveman is bulky, short and hideous even if it’s not very visible on the render because of the pose and the angle of camera).
I’ll give some try further about props and pose, if I manage to find time, which is unlikely. Anyway, I post it in the WIP section, and C&C are welcome, of course!
Forgot to tell:
-the small jars are from my old ‘Linux in the Black Realms’ thread (yes, I was lazy) (see my sig for the link)
-if I find time, there will be prehistoric paintings on the skin frames on the wall
-volumetric light achieved with two shadowbuffer spots with halo on getting through a small grid with some faces deleted
-I didn’t want to use an Area lamp for soft shadows (which would be beter for the shadow in the back of the cave) because the results was not convincing at all
-I used one blue lamp for the background, one warm yellow-orange lamp for the fire, one small value and white hemi at the rough of the cave, and of course two faint blue spots for the volumetric light. Oh, and Ambiant Occlusion (value 0.8 and 10 samples).
-The cave is a icosphere with some vertice manually displaced to form the stalagtites and columns textured with some cloud based procedural displacement, too, but with a small value (0.2 or so).
-Fire and smoke made acording to my now very old Tutorial about Animation effects on: http://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/pages/didacticiels/didacticiel-ang.html
Not having much comments, definitively . Thanks Modron for replying, though
Here’s an update:
-rendering 100% of 640*480 instead of 75% like just before
-changed the pose and the expression of my Caveman; now its reading something and its mouth is closed. The pose is more meaningful, too…
-added a LinuxMagazine special Blender in its hands… Suppose it’s some sort of modern primitve guy Used UVmapping for this. Something seems weird about the magazine, though… I’ll check if it’s correctly subsurfaced (weight added in the corners for sharp angles) and smoothed…
-increased AO up to 1.15 and also increased the value of my Hemi light. Please tell me if it’s too bright for a firelit cave?
Doesn’t look that firelit, you need to make the light quite a bit darker and put yellowish lights in the fire area to give it the look of it being truly firelit.
Here’s my final update. I’m a little sad because I finally got the feedback I wanted, but I won’t have time to update my entry accordingly.
Caleb72: thank you very much
Grimreaper: Makeuman, of course I think I’ll work a little more on the bodysettings and turn it into a real template for the MakeHuman project.
3DMantis: don’t be so rude with poor Grimreaper: I had so few comments I’m glad he commented in any case
Kansas_15: you are right. Certainly I’ll give it a go even if won’t enter the WC in time.
Timf: I’ll also give a go to longer hair, I promise! For the moment, I’m not sure you can randomize the location: either the face and/or the vertice.
Grimreaper: everything is allright, dude!
The update:
-I played a little with the cave shader to give it a wetter appearance. Tell me what you think of this one!
-I fixed the issue with the magazine (in fact, turned subsurf off)
-bodyhair has been shortened for more realism.
-skin now using ramps, but in this warm lighting, I can’t see nothing different in my render, but hey, I know that the Ramps are there!
-adjustments of the smoke emitter; somehow I messed it since my second post but I haven’t noticed
-cave is darker and the light more warm: more realistic, and more moody
-the wet stone shader for the cave finally turned quite well to my own humble opinion
My main disappointment is that I gave a try to a better light setting. The consequence is (smaller values of Hemi and AO) that the face of my caveman is, unfortunately, unlit. I already got more down the magazine. I tried to lower the pose and the magazine at teh same time but it resulted in a unatural pose for the caveman.
Never mind, the result pleases me enough for me to post it with a few shame only
Gr8RedShark: thank you Unfortunately I already tried this and even with low Energy and Distance values I couldn’t soften the shadows without breaking light equilibrium of the character as per the rest of the scene. Only ways I found was either turning up the value of the Hemi lamp (0.05 actually!) or the value of the Ambiant Occlusion (0.80 at the moment) but unfortunately both produces a cave too lit (yes, even the Hemi up at 0.10 does this, because somehow I’m at the lighting equilibrium).
So I call it final. All in one, I’m quite pleased with my very first entry for a Weekend Challenge.
. Thanks Modron for replying, though 
Used UVmapping for this. Something seems weird about the magazine, though… I’ll check if it’s correctly subsurfaced (weight added in the corners for sharp angles) and smoothed…
