Digital Art Zone

Good point about the interaction of objects.

One of my favorite scenes that I did used a photo of a nebula that the Hubble had taken. I used that as a backdrop for my scene and used a couple Star Trek models bursting out of a volumetric cloud that I had colored to match the nebula. I did quite bit of work on getting the lighting to match.

I did two versions. One with a more modern style ship and another with the classic movie Enterprise and a classic Klingon Bird of Prey. I tried an experiment with the model of the old school ship and added the NASA image to the scene’s background and enabled the Skylight, so it would act like an IBL. I like the effect, but there is quite a bit of noise/ashiness in the image and in my opinion not worth the render time.

The image with the more modern ship is just the standard renderer with no bells and whistles.

BTW, Rogue, not to pick on you but, I agree with Evil that the first and last images are much nicer.

And I think the reason is partly because of the consistency in lighting as well as the sense of distance and perspective. The other two, IMO, seem a bit jumbled with different ships and different light levels just mangled together without a clear focus nor a clear sense of depth and perspective and action. And that’s exactly the point I’m making, that 90% of images you see of space scenes look like an inconsistent jumble of ships and planets with little or no clear focus and composition and interaction.

The first and last images are, OTOH, quite nice and have some nice composition, as well as all that other stuff.

RoguePilot - 12 December 2012 04:29 PM

I know what you mean about space scenes.

Boring.

I can’t seem to get any feeling of drama or action into them.

Maybe I should stop trying.

Heh, I think that bottom image is looking pretty sexy actually - whatever turns you on I guess ....
Dynamic composition, lots to look at - maybe a little oversaturated colour wise but its looking great,
I can almost hear those x wings whizzing by…. hold on, you can’t hear in space…. well you can, but you can’t (because of space earwax)

Who cares if its true to the phyics of the situation? As long as it looks good, that’s what I reckon

And BTW, Rogue, I realize that you and many others here like to take the attitude of “know the rules yet break them”, but I think your images provide a clear example of why NOT to break the rules. In this case, the rules of composition.

I’ll bet that a majority of people here would agree that the second and third images in your post are less pleasing than the first and last. And why is that? Well, probably because you broke the rules of composition.

Nothing wrong with breaking those rules if you don’t care that a majority of people will enjoy the images less. But if you care about how others receive your images you’ll be very, very hesitant about breaking those rules unless you have a really, really good reason.

Of course for those who don’t want to learn the rules, it’s easier to just say ‘rules are made to be broken’ 

And also BTW, in the same way that the rules of light and cameras and all that stuff still apply in space as they do on earth, the rules of image composition also apply in space… 

I think a lot of people forget that.

head wax - 12 December 2012 10:24 PM

RoguePilot - 12 December 2012 04:29 PM

I know what you mean about space scenes.

Boring.

I can’t seem to get any feeling of drama or action into them.

Maybe I should stop trying.

Heh, I think that bottom image is looking pretty sexy actually - whatever turns you on I guess ....
Dynamic composition, lots to look at - maybe a little oversaturated colour wise but its looking great,
I can almost hear those x wings whizzing by…. hold on, you can’t hear in space…. well you can, but you can’t (because of space earwax)

Who cares if its true to the phyics of the situation? As long as it looks good, that’s what I reckon

Funny that you should say that, because the top three images are built in the same scene and have exactly the same light rig, the only thing that changes is the camera position and treatment in post. It’s based on a 2 point binary star system.

If you really want accurate deep space lighting then you’re only allowed one light source with very local indirect light. When close to a planet, moon or nebula the reflected light becomes significant. Ship running lights or space station floods are very handy. The NASA nebula pics are enhanced and colour shifted to make them more attractive but I say ‘what the heck, if that’s what works’.

The composition is a personal choice to indicate a building battle and confusion. A personal choice and necessary to the story, so I suppose that’s the intended reaction from you. I know that I miss on composition sometimes but I get very few critiques, so thank you for that.

The first one looks good (has more depth and feel of motion) because I massively forced the perspective. I boosted the ambient in post to give more pleasing shadows. I used the same tricks on the last one and but also lit counter intuitively to the background. The framing on both helps to sell the sense of motion, something that the panavision aspect ratio is really good for.

Evil, that’s a good way to work with a nebula image, nice call on matching a volumetric cloud to the background.

I’ve not done a proper Star Trek render yet, that makes me want to try.

Thought I’d have a go at the real world for once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxGARc4LhsA

The YouTube compression really kills the details but I was working with that in mind to match some posted live action videos.
The starfield gets lost but can be briefly seen during the lens flare.

The setup is one distant light (soft shadows) to act as the sunlight. A bulb (turned down) is parented to a glowing Sun object to provide the disc and the flare at the right time. Another distant light is shining up through the earth to provide a little reflected light.

The final light is a spot parented to the camera to provide a floodlight from the ‘orbiting’ shuttle camera. That’s why you can still see the ISS all the way around.

And that’s it for the lights, zero ambient.

I tried to time the shuttle manoevers to the music and it comes out quite pleasantly.

RoguePilot - 13 December 2012 05:27 PM

Thought I’d have a go at the real world for once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxGARc4LhsA

The YouTube compression really kills the details but I was working with that in mind to match some posted live action videos.
The starfield gets lost but can be briefly seen during the lens flare.

The setup is one distant light (soft shadows) to act as the sunlight. A bulb (turned down) is parented to a glowing Sun object to provide the disc and the flare at the right time. Another distant light is shining up through the earth to provide a little reflected light.

The final light is a spot parented to the camera to provide a floodlight from the ‘orbiting’ shuttle camera. That’s why you can still see the ISS all the way around.

And that’s it for the lights, zero ambient.

I tried to time the shuttle manoevers to the music and it comes out quite pleasantly.

Sounds interesting. I’ll take a peak at it when I’m not rendering.

Looked at the video. Very nice.

I’ve been plugging away at an animation for awhile now, but I haven’t been moving very fast at it. This thread has given me the impetus to get it done. There’s a few more grand shots I need to do, a couple cut-aways and a couple shots that are just going to be a chore. It’s these shots that usually get me out of the mood to do anything.

Ok, here’s the first part of my SUN TUTORIAL in Comicbook format™... YAY!

Step-by-step, and suitable for beginners! This section covers building a sun model and texturing the photosphere with sunspots. I had to stop there because it has been 3-days working on this and I need a break, lol. Also the next steps require plugins and elaborate “tricks” to get the effects, so I will add them later as “bonus” pages…

Eventually I will put it in PDF and upload it to my website… or maybe CARRARA CAFE would be so kind as to host…

Please let me know if any part is unclear or contains typos or mistakes….

Sun Tutorial continues…

Sun tutorial continues…

Final panel….

Thank you for your hard work Holly! I’m going to DL and go through the process step by step!

Yes, thanks for that, I always love your comic book style tutorials.