Post Your Renders - Happy New Year yall

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  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited March 2015

    And here's an image of very translucent leaves, being lit by bright, direct sunlight.

    And you'll notice that he leaves are very BRIGHT green. Why? Because they are emitting a great deal of bright green light that bounces around and into your eyes. It's bright green light, and the leaves are almost acting like green light bulbs.

    And the fact that they are bright means that a lot of light is being emitted by them and falling on the ground below the tree, and causing green shadows. And as you can see they are also diffuse light sources, so the light they emit is bouncing all over the place, not just on the ground below.

    They are converting the bright, direct white sunlight into bright, diffuse green light.

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  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Joe, you're pretty much convincing me to leave (!) it as it is - which is the quickest and simplest option anyhow!


    (why is it leaf/leaves and not leaf/leafs or leave/leaves...)

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    And here's an image of very translucent leaves, being lit by bright, direct sunlight.

    And you'll notice that he leaves are very BRIGHT green. Why? Because they are emitting a great deal of bright green light that bounces around and into your eyes. It's bright green light, and the leaves are almost acting like green light bulbs.

    And the fact that they are bright means that a lot of light is being emitted by them and falling on the ground below the tree, and causing green shadows. And as you can see they are also diffuse light sources, so the light they emit is bouncing all over the place, not just on the ground below.

    They are converting the bright, direct white sunlight into bright, diffuse green light.

    Different leaves of course have different levels of translucency, and even those leaves will look different if you change the camera angle as they are strongly backlit by a bright sun.

    There is also the idea that Rashad was trying to get across, which maybe could have been phrased better, but when you are standing thirty feet from a tree that is casting shade on the ground, the human eye doesn't perceive the individual shadows of the leaves each with their own green cast. Especially if you're in bright sun, perceiving the shadow from the outside as it were. If you were under the canopy of the tree, within the shadow, you would perceive it as a generalized green light, or not, depending on how translucent the leaves actually are.

    Now, when you shine light through translucent objects in Carrara, unless you are using soft shadows, it acts like a light gel with hard edges. making it look more like a projection than a shadow.

    Joe's stained glass is a great example of the desired gel look you get in real life, because it is designed to do that. A tree on the other hand isn't a single pane of glass. It is layers upon layers of randomly placed and oriented translucent objects that light has to bounce through. Finding the right level for a particular scene is the trick. If a scene I was doing back-lit then a stronger level of translucency may work great, as in your back-lit leaf. On the other hand, that same level may look off in a front lit scene.

    Take my three photos of Apple Blossoms for example. Ignore the blossoms, but look at the leaves. There is a degree of translucency in all of them, but depending on the light angle it is more or less obvious. There is also not a strong green cast to the light in the shadows because of the relatively low translucency of the apple leaves. Joe's example would be different. I should note that Tim seems to be using oak trees in his scenes, and they are like apple leaves, not that translucent when compared to a maple or birch leaf for example.

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  • magaremotomagaremoto Posts: 1,227
    edited March 2015

    wip - lighting rig for photo realistic animations
    7 min render time, resolution 4k

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    Post edited by magaremoto on
  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Finished my UFO. The textures are a bit rough, but it's going to be rendered in scene at a mid-distance; it's just under 10 meters across and will be about 40 meters away in the image I made it for so I think that the spots where things on the textures are not quite straight won't be very noticeable. I hope. :)

    I could be wrong though - I'm planning to composite it into a photo, so those issues might end up being a problem - we'll see when I start working in Photoshop.

    Mark

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Looks pretty sweet!

  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited March 2015

    And Rashad, I'm really trying to understand where you're coming from in your understanding of shadows.

    To be clear, a shadow is not a "thing", and it doesn't "travel". A shadow is the absence of light relative to its surroundings. Light travels, shadows don't. Shadows only exist because some things block the travel of light. And some things block it a lot, and others only a little.

    If I stand outside on a sunny day, and the sun casts a shadow on the ground, the shadow is still light, just at a lower level. Unless of course there is absolutely no light whatsoever in the shadow and it's totally black. But usually that's not the case. Because light is always bouncing around, and even shadow areas are illuminated.

    Now if you take a huge, blue, translucent sheet and hoist it in the air, it will block some of the sunlight, but it will also cast a blue shadow on the ground. Imagine a big colored parachute, and the wind catches it and "inflates" it, and it blocks some of the sun. But it's very colorful and translucent, so it casts a colorful shadow on the ground.

    And if the canopy of a forest is composed of thousands of translucent green leaves, they will also cast green shadows on the ground, depending upon how translucent they are.

    First off, I need you to realize that to some people shadows may very well be a thing that falls, so please stop arguing that point, its not important. The important issue is that shadows, while real or not, have behavior and their behavior can appear to change under certain types of conditions. You seem to fail to recognize that shadows CHANGE based on the way they are perceived. A shadows edge is sharper only an inch away from the subject than it is a few feet away from the subject, I call it traveling because its mentally clearer for me, so please don't ruin it for me. Let me think shadows travel and fall so long as I know what to expect from a given shadow

    Saturated translucency values are a problem. Treating leaves like stained glass is a common error in thinking Joe, it happens all the time. A good example of it actually happens here to Howie Farkes. Hopefully Howie doesn't mind me using his example to demonstrate my point.

    Do you see how the stained glass thinking has led to the highly unrealistic color tinted "shadows" that are "falling" onto the building. Have you ever in your entire life seen a real photograph that demonstrates leaves casting green and magenta tinted shadows onto other items? You've seen none.

    Like I said, if you were to take a photo of a white sheet of paper held only an inch away from a leaf with light passing through it you will still see the green as perceivable. But if you were to hold that same white sheet of paper a foot away, though there may still be green there, it will not be perceivable.

    Leaves are not stained glass. They aren't nearly as color saturated to begin with as colored glass panes. The little green saturation that leaves do carry tends to be imperceivable by the time those shadows have "reached" the ground, call it travel if you will.

    The advice I give in these forums Joe, is always well thought out. My advice works, every single time, if you only try it first before mentally challenging it. Nothing I post is untested. As a landscape emphasis, I've been down all these roads before so while the issue of colored translucency leaves is a new one for you I've considered his very subject a hundred times and that's why I already know with confidence that colored values tend to look wrong just as they do in Howie's example.

    I even remember a few years ago some people were concerned about "green" looking humans when they used Howie's scenes. Howie is not often criticized, so it isn't a big deal generally but it is still an issue none the less.

    I end this post with again asking you if you've ever noticed green colored shading on the white sidewalk as you pass by a tree during your walk to the grocery store? No. My argument about scattering and mixing could well be wrong but it doesn't matter if its perfectly scientifically correct so long as I avoid turning everything in my scene green just because I've got some green leaves on some trees. Avoid green looking humans as well. Use less saturated or completely grayscale values for the translucency and you will easily avoid it.

    It's that simple.

    Edit: I should add that in Octane however, I can use colored values just as logic would dictate and it works perfectly fine without color tinting the shadows as it does in Carrara and Bryce. So realize this isn't an argument about real world physics, this is an argument about how the render engines handle this task and because the render engines handle it wrong it requires that we compensate by starting with less saturated values in the first place.

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    Post edited by Rashad Carter on
  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    wip - lighting rig for photo realistic animations
    7 min render time, resolution 4k

    The environment looks very good. Michael himself seems a little lacking in shading, I'd like a little more depth to his shadow casting but otherwise I'd say this looks perfect.

  • stu sutcliffestu sutcliffe Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Some Gremlins...

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  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Here's the reverse angle, I left in the oven so to speak while I was out today. Not as interesting, but it's renders like this that make me think "I could put a such-and-such there", and consequently why I never get anything finished!

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  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    Here's the reverse angle, I left in the oven so to speak while I was out today. Not as interesting, but it's renders like this that make me think "I could put a such-and-such there", and consequently why I never get anything finished!

    It looks amazing!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    edited December 1969

    Some Gremlins...
    love it, love the expression
  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Some Gremlins...

    Awesome. Love all the little details.

    Funnily, I was looking across the runway at my favourite GA airfield this afternoon, thinking 'this would make a brilliant large scale Carrara scene...'

  • RestifRestif Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    Some Gremlins...

    Truly a fantastic render, super expressive and fun!

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    The second "while I was out" render has finally come to pass. And yes i still forgot to switch the shader to "waves"!

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Really nice Tim. have you considered hair for the cattails' seed pod?

    Stu, that is awesome, as always! You model your figures posed, correct? No rigging?

  • DADA_universeDADA_universe Posts: 336
    edited December 1969

    Some Gremlins...

    Truly a fantastic render, super expressive and fun!

    +1

  • DADA_universeDADA_universe Posts: 336
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    Here's the reverse angle, I left in the oven so to speak while I was out today. Not as interesting, but it's renders like this that make me think "I could put a such-and-such there", and consequently why I never get anything finished!


    These renders are really coming along nicely, now won't I love to drive a Car Ara too? Hold on....maybe I already do! ;o)

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Some Gremlins...

    Seriously awesome - your renders always make me so happy. :)


    Tim - looking good even from that reverse angle. I love your grass, I can never get mine to look so good.


    And, because I just cannot stop tinkering, here's a render of the seriously-this-time-it's-final UFO flying over Dartanbeck's Badlands set.
    Mark

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  • RestifRestif Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    The second "while I was out" render has finally come to pass. And yes i still forgot to switch the shader to "waves"!

    Wow, that is Gorgeous!

  • DADA_universeDADA_universe Posts: 336
    edited March 2015

    MDO2010, now ain't that cool! And to pay extra homage to Dart, how about a little PDHowler motion blur? :lol:

    Spent today making a new M4 character. Spent more time just fooling around with the lights and testing a gazillion settings than on the character itself, wish I could remember lessons learnt from all these long tests, but anyway, here's an image for the weekend!

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    Post edited by DADA_universe on
  • stu sutcliffestu sutcliffe Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Really nice Tim. have you considered hair for the cattails' seed pod?

    Stu, that is awesome, as always! You model your figures posed, correct? No rigging?

    Thanks!

    Yup! These days I use a "makehuman" figure for humans,they go into Carrara in fbx format nicely rigged. Then I pose it in Carrara then export to 3dcoat in a pose, though it does seem to get slightly damaged if you pose too much out of shape.

    The gremlins were completely done in 3dcoat, basically a master sculpt , reposed three times . but textured individually. A heck of a lot of work, and to be honest I'm not sure it was worth the time and effort I put in......but hey, got nothing else to do.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Really nice Tim. have you considered hair for the cattails' seed pod?

    Stu, that is awesome, as always! You model your figures posed, correct? No rigging?

    Thanks!

    Yup! These days I use a "makehuman" figure for humans,they go into Carrara in fbx format nicely rigged. Then I pose it in Carrara then export to 3dcoat in a pose, though it does seem to get slightly damaged if you pose too much out of shape.

    The gremlins were completely done in 3dcoat, basically a master sculpt , reposed three times . but textured individually. A heck of a lot of work, and to be honest I'm not sure it was worth the time and effort I put in......but hey, got nothing else to do.
    I don't know... There's more to "worth" than money. If you enjoyed the process, got the brain cylinders firing, learned something, then maybe it was worth it. I know I enjoyed looking at it if that adds into the equation.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited March 2015

    MDO2010 said:
    Some Gremlins...

    Seriously awesome - your renders always make me so happy. :)


    Tim - looking good even from that reverse angle. I love your grass, I can never get mine to look so good.


    And, because I just cannot stop tinkering, here's a render of the seriously-this-time-it's-final UFO flying over Dartanbeck's Badlands set.
    Mark

    Just to make sure it is accurate, did you use a reference photo for the UFO? ;-)

    Looks very cool BTW.

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited March 2015

    A shadows edge is sharper only an inch away from the subject than it is a few feet away from the subject, I call it traveling because its mentally clearer for me, so please don't ruin it for me. Let me think shadows travel and fall so long as I know what to expect from a given shadow.

    Rashad.
    You are generalizing some physical effects that are very much dependent upon the situation. And you are confusing your views of real world scientific/physical issues based upon how different software handles things, which is a very common approach in these forums, since many haven't had scientific training and only have experience with software.

    But that makes it difficult for someone who has a lot of training in this stuff and has taught classes to artists on color and shadow for many years.

    And you're also describing your views in very non-scientific terms. So it's fine for you to say "I've thought about this stuff a lot so I know what I'm talking about", but if you don't understand the scientific concepts and terms, then please understand that others might not take your comments as very knowledgeable.

    Attached is a photograph of shadows that are due to the sun. Very direct light, which causes very sharp shadows, even many feet from the shadow source. There is a reason for that. And that is because the PRIMARY light source is the sun, which casts very uniform and directional light rays, which at the particular point in time that the photo was made cast very sharp shadows. That's because there are no other diffuse light sources to modify the shadows.

    And yes, there are other shadow effects, depending upon light source, that cause softer shadows. But like I say, IT DEPENDS on the situation, and your statements that it always applies are just not correct.

    Saturated translucency values are a problem. Treating leaves like stained glass is a common error in thinking Joe, it happens all the time. A good example of it actually happens here to Howie Farkes. Hopefully Howie doesn't mind me using his example to demonstrate my point.

    Now, apparently you have a problem with Howie Farkes' leaves, but I have no clue what that is, nor is it important.

    The fact is, leaves have varying degrees of translucency. AND they have varying degrees of what is called "diffusion". But I posted an image of one type of leaf with a high degree of translucency. Which means translucent leaves like that will transmit colored light. However, as I mention, they also convert the highly directional sunlight into DIFFUSE translucent light. Which means the light from each leaf bounces all over the place after it exits the leaf.

    Highly translucent leaves are VERY MUCH like stained glass, with one exception. DIFFUSENESS. Stained glass is not nearly as diffuse as tree leaves. When light passes thru stained or lightly frosted glass, it still maintains much of its directionality. But when light enters a translucent leaf, it has a high degree of subsurface scattering, which converts the directional light rays into highly diffuse light rays.

    I *think* your problem is arising because the translucency of the leaves in a particular software application or scene does NOT have the correct or desired DIFFUSION modelled. And as a result, the light emanating from translucent green leaves is too directional. But that is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion of the SCIENTIFIC points you raised and we are discussing.

    Now, apparently you also have an issue with colored shadows from translucent leaves. SCIENTIFICALLY, there is no reason why a highly translucent leaf (like the image I posted previously), being lit by highly directional sunlight, will not cast a colored shadow. HOWEVER, due to the diffuseness of a typical leaf, the colored light which exits the leaf will bounce all over and not cast as bright a colored shadow as, say, a piece of stained glass. However, if you have a canopy of thousands of leaves in a forest, all of them highly translucent, they WILL, as a group, cast a general, but very diffuse, green shadow on the ground. It's all a matter of degree. But the scientific principles remain.

    It's a bit like saying, if you take my huge sheet of colored parachute material, which clearly projects a colored shadow as sunlight passes thru its translucency, and cutting a small, leaf-sized piece, that suddenly that material no longer projects the same colored shadow as it did when it was part of a large sheet. OF COURSE it does, but its effect is much less than that of the entire sheet. It's just not as evident. But its effect is still there.

    With all due respect, I think you are taking an incomplete understanding of scientific principles, combining that with an incomplete understanding of how certain software is performing, and generalizing your beliefs based on that.

    I'm merely trying to correct your understanding of the scientific principles.

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  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Really nice Tim. have you considered hair for the cattails' seed pod?

    Stu, that is awesome, as always! You model your figures posed, correct? No rigging?

    Yeah I've thought about it. It's just a matter of gritting my teeth to do battle with the hair room...

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    MDO2010 said:
    Some Gremlins...

    Seriously awesome - your renders always make me so happy. :)


    Tim - looking good even from that reverse angle. I love your grass, I can never get mine to look so good.


    And, because I just cannot stop tinkering, here's a render of the seriously-this-time-it's-final UFO flying over Dartanbeck's Badlands set.
    Mark

    My grass props are quite loose, and fairly low poly. I don't go in for the dense tufts that you often see. I have 4 or 5 different props, both short grass and long grass, and daisies and dandelions. And then I replicate a shedload, with all sorts of overlaps, and it seems to work out quite well.

    of course if you set the replicators to 'show mesh', you're in for a long wait!

  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    A shadows edge is sharper only an inch away from the subject than it is a few feet away from the subject, I call it traveling because its mentally clearer for me, so please don't ruin it for me. Let me think shadows travel and fall so long as I know what to expect from a given shadow.

    Rashad.
    You are generalizing some physical effects that are very much dependent upon the situation. And you are confusing your views of real world scientific/physical issues based upon how different software handles things, which is a very common approach in these forums, since many haven't had scientific training and only have experience with software.

    Quite possible. But in your own case, perhaps due to your extensive training, you are closed minded and thus take statements too literally which causes you to often misunderstand what people mean to say. Don't take everything so literally.

    And do keep in mind that due to the lack of background by the average forum user that discussions that are too technical will "price out" most of the readers anyhow. We need something in between.

    And in your example, the shadows are indeed fuzzier near the people's heads than they are near their feet. The same is true in your image of the spire on the dock, the shadow gets fuzzier as it progresses from the base of the column to the top. But I'm sure you never noticed that before or found it very important.

    All your training aside, you are dead wrong on this issue. Case in point, the image I've uploaded below. I took this image from the exact same Google search page that you took it from.

    Do you see the areas I've circled. Do you not see how the sharpness of the shadow decreases with distance? Please explain this phenomenon with technical words if you will, it doesn't take away from the fact that what I am talking about is real. Honestly, You've gotta have a little faith Joe, at least give me the benefit of the doubt. I'm not a moron. I do my homework and I don't spout misconceptions as you routinely like to call them.

    This will now be the third example in recent times when you disagreed with me in theory based on the vocabulary I've used, but you are more than clever enough to deduce the meaning. Come one, Buddy, work with me

    But that makes it difficult for someone who has a lot of training in this stuff and has taught classes to artists on color and shadow for many years.

    You'll just have to learn to be a bit more open minded, then. Everyone else seems to get it except you, vocabulary or not.


    Saturated translucency values are a problem. Treating leaves like stained glass is a common error in thinking Joe, it happens all the time. A good example of it actually happens here to Howie Farkes. Hopefully Howie doesn't mind me using his example to demonstrate my point.

    Now, apparently you have a problem with Howie Farkes' leaves, but I have no clue what that is, nor is it important.

    It is important, it is the very thing we are talking about. Perhaps you and I are talking about different things? I'm talking about the green and magenta colored "shadows" preset on the buildings. That isnt supposed to be there.

    I *think* your problem is arising because the translucency of the leaves in a particular software application or scene does NOT have the correct or desired DIFFUSION modelled. And as a result, the light from translucent green leaves is too directional. But that is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion of the SCIENTIFIC points you raised and we are discussing. I'm merely trying to correct your understanding of the scientific principles.

    There are two problems. First problem is you assuming you are in a place to correct me on anything. As I've told you a million times, I do my own homework, Joe, whether or not you appreciate it. You've seriously just got to trust me, just that simple.

    Second problem is that we are indeed talking about the software where are you readily admit the diffusion (scattering) isn't modeled correctly. so if you and I both know that the effect isn't modeled correctly in Carrara, then the real world physics don't actually matter, so why are you getting stuck on them? Every time you question me, I prove you wrong with examples like the one below. Aren't you getting tired of this trend?

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  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited March 2015

    Last images for this weekend. :)

    Here's two images I made playing around with shadow-catcher materials. The first is my UFO from up-thread composited into a photo taken at a nearby movie megaplex. The second is the DAZ Dragon 3 and my own Rubik's Cube model rendered in Carrara and composited in to a photo taken at my parent's house. Carrara makes this ridiculously easy and I don't know why I've never played with it before. I think if I had taken more time I could have made these pretty darn realistic.

    Mark

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  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    Okay Rashad, you win. I give up.

    You have observations, you generalize them to apply to everything, you don't understand that different things cause different effects, and tell us to "trust you" because you know what you're talking about. But you can't even use correct terminology or describe common scientific concepts. And everyone else is dead wrong.

    Fine. That's all that's needed here, just some blanket general stuff that people can believe, even if it's not true, it doesn't matter. Like you say, let Rashad say what he wants, don't be so technical, even if it's wrong, it doesn't matter.

    But I give up. Nobody here really cares what's true, so why bother. And everyone just gets upset at me (someone people dislike) for challenging or correcting you (someone people like), so everyone will just disregard what I say anyway.

This discussion has been closed.