A Learning Experience
Fishtales
Posts: 6,161
I wanted to see if I could incorporate one of my images taken here in Scotland with a render.
Image 1 -- I have several thousand images but this was the first one I came across and I added the figure.
Image 2 -- Then I added the house and set the ground plane to match the perspective of the image as best I could.
Image 3 -- I added more elements and lights then spent two days trying out different ways to get shadows and settled on pwCatch and used two planes. The one for the water using shadow and reflection and one in the foreground for the other elements using just shadow.
Image 4 -- I wasn't happy about the shadows so I messed about with the lights and increased the shadow depth.
Image 5 -- I wasn't happy with the 'house' so changed it for a Hall House and added some more elements.
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I felt the image was left side heavy so added another element and this is the 'final' render. I say final but when is it ever finished when you can return to it any time and change it :-)
Love the scenery. Scotland is gorgeous. And that sky! I like your scene. It feels realistic and generally the shadows work on the land very well. The only place it doesn't sell is the roof shadow from the house on the water. Water does strange things to shadows, it absorbs it and breaks it up because of the ripples, it would also be reflecting some of the house image back at the camera.
It would be interesting to know what technique you used to get your shadows. Caroline did some videos a while back on how to incorporate shadows into photos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo2OVy9tf8E
Thank you.
I used pwCatch using two planes for the shadows. The one for the water is set for shadow and reflection and what you see is the 'reflection' as the shadow goes off to the left. It is the first time I have used a picture as a backdrop and using pwCatcher so I probably wont be using it properly. I think the reflection looks better in the 'house' picture rather than the hall one as there is some distortion showing.
As in the title it is a learning experience.
These scenes are very nicely done Fishtales. The shadow of the hall on the water needs a bit of attention, but you know that. ;)
First attempt. Added a bump map and adjusted Displacement. It ties in with the ripple on the surface better now although it loses definition, which I would expect as it wasn't a mirror surface.
If you look at the other two pictures taken minutes apart the first is mirroring the hills but the breeze ruffled the water in the second and the mirror image started to disappear. They were all taken early morning with the breeze more or less in the same direction but in the second two the sun is on my left, I'm looking south, rather than facing me as in the first, looking east.
Another attempt with one of my own images.
Greyhounds of the Sea