Digital Art Zone

@David:  Hahaha…no David, I don’t have any formal training in art appreciation.  A couple of art courses in college to satisfy my humanities requirements does not do to train one in art appreciation.  It’s more a matter of just being able to tell what needs/should/shouldn’t/is more than anything.  I don’t know where it comes from, but I have it.  And I’ve found it can irritate some people.  I think it falls under the heading of doing it without realizing how.

As an example, after I got the toy balls in my pull toy image situated, I knew something needed to be placed to the right of the wagon.  But couldn’t determine what because anything placed there was going to be somewhat distracting.  I thought about it for a few moments and realized nothing had to actually be there, just something in that area to give the impression something was in that area.  Hence the shadow of a large ball not in camera range.  I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. 

Speaking of which, that second underwater scene is, in my opinion, even better than the first.  And here’s more of my don’t know how I do it, reasons.  First, the foreground statue is more pronounced, giving the viewer a good reference point to come back to.  It also, once again, guides the viewers’ eye further out into the haze, making them ask the “what’s out there” question.  Which is a guide to the furtherest object, back to the nearest, and to the foreground.  While the eye may explore the above, far out, side to side, the eye will always come back to the object in the foreground in order to further study that object.

Second, the object on the left, which looked like a rock mound in the first image, can now be seen as a statue.  Giving better definition of where it’s located, along with the right side object which can now be deduced to be another statue.

Third, what you used to create the light rays works better in this scene.  Along with the added bubbles.  Even without the fish I’d recognize it as being underwater.

Fourth, it’s render size.  You and Dave have posted underwater scenes, and they have been about the same size, the size of your latest render.  You also did another underwater render of an anchor, again about the same size.  After looking at what both of you have done, and what others have done, I beginning to think the viewer’s eye can be better tricked into thinking underwater with the smaller size renders.  More detail has to be placed into a large render in order to trick the viewer into thinking underwater.  The more that’s added, the more the eye takes in for comparison to see if it fits the belief of what underwater looks like.  And the greater the chance something will be spotted that doesn’t quite meet with expectations.

Side Note:  David’s question gave me pause to realize I might be irritating some by giving in-depth reasons why I like a scene.  If that is the case I apologize, and will limit my responses.  Others have been kind enough to offer valuable insights into the renders I’ve done, which have been of great help, and I think it only fitting to try and offer the same.

Horo - 13 October 2012 09:54 AM

dwsel_ - 13 October 2012 09:09 AM

@David Brinnen
That last one is really realistic, it has that feel of being at the bottom of a sea.

Here’s my try on this thread - murky, muddy water. Just settled with the lighting, I plan to add some objects to it - don’t really know what to add

Good start. Water doesn’t need to be blue, it is not if the sky is grey and the scene not very deep down. Your camera man needs to clean the lens.

Oh, surely the lens is filthy after diving in such conditions.

GussNemo - 13 October 2012 10:27 AM

@dwsel:  That is a very interesting scene.  It appears to be in shallow water,  my first impression being of a closeup of a Salmon egg, with the haze being a Salmon digging a pit for her eggs.  What else to add?  Look at that scene again and ask yourself, what’s off to the right, in all the haze?  Which I think is just right.  Shallow water, perhaps a good loose looking small plant or two?  I see a dark shape in the haze to the right.  Perhaps a plant near that shape placed within the haze.  Then a bit forward and to the right, a frond just appearing into the scene?  Doing something like this would balance the entire scene.

Thanks! Now I can see the plants on that hill to the right, partially hidden in the mud. Turning that red ball into the float and adding the fish. I also think I like more the caustics pattern that David Brinnen uses, but at the other end they’re more diffused and they won’t generate such strong volumetric lighting effects as the ones (sharp) I currently have. But I guess they can be enough for a shallow diving conditions?

The Kraken, by Alfred Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber’d and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

* * *

Just priming you for the monstrous image I’m rendering…

* * *

Starring Great Cthulhu as the eponymous Kraken.  Underwatery effects achieved using this process Bryce 25 minute lighting project - advanced underwater effects - a tutorial by David Brinnen

Rendered in 5 and a half hours.  Saved as HDR.  Tonemapped.  A score of black fireflies removed and gamma corrected in PSP8.

David Brinnen - 13 October 2012 11:25 AM

Jay, yes I know exactly what you mean about the bubbles… now… if displacement worked… or it was possible to drive instancing distribution over an objects surface using the material channel.  Then these bubbles could be created procedurally - which would be fun!

Balls, David.

No seriously; metaballs.

Having said that, I didn’t get very far in my experiments just now because Bryce crashed, twice. I could get the blobs to look like wild, intricate bubble shapes but when the transparent material was applied Bryce wanted to make them look like individual objects vaguely joined. Don’t know why Bryce is crashing on metaballs, but combined with the wretched results with transparency I’m tempted to try an external modeller and import some meshes. But that’ll have to be later because I’ve too little time.

Here’s a reference shot of the sort Len would post (in more ways than one…):
http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/imagesbubbles-underwater_small.jpg

Reminds me of the punchline of a silly joke from my childhood: “wantawaterbottlewobble”

:mrgreen:

Of course, although I’m days behind on the thread, I mustn’t forget to say how good your underwater developments are. The two before the fantasy effort are very realistic.

Although the OP appears to have bailed (boom, boom), it would still be interesting to see these techniques applied to a Rapture type city. Won’t be realistic, obviously, but probably v. cool.

_ PJF _ - 16 October 2012 05:01 PM

Here’s a reference shot of the sort Len would post (in more ways than one…):
http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/imagesbubbles-underwater_small.jpg

Hmn - may smell on the surface.

@Peasant Brinnen
That looks good, and to be honest I’m liking the fact that you had the sense to make it look soft as much as I like the fancy spectral colours (softness is a trick hardly anyone seems to recognise the importance of).  The spectral colours gives a feel of aberration to the image, and that’s another trick to making things more real.

Anyway I look forward to watching the video, hopefully over tea tonight.

_ PJF _ - 16 October 2012 05:01 PM

Here’s a reference shot of the sort Len would post (in more ways than one…):
http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/imagesbubbles-underwater_small.jpg

Honestly, the lengths you’ll go to hide the fact that you rendered it is quite commendable old chap :mrgreen:

Very good though, I know mine would be no better than that.  And in case you’re wondering, it’s not the technique that gave it away, it’s her posture in the water, she looks slightly too rigid.  The rendering itself is pretty damn amazing!

_ PJF _ - 16 October 2012 05:01 PM

“wantawaterbottlewobble” :mrgreen:

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT

I can just picture it now, baby Peter having his belly blown on.  Still, it’s good to know posh babies have to go through the same stuff as us common-as-muck sorts, mind you, if I recall, mine went something like ...

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooos a bonny little baby then - eh?
Does he want his dum dum then?
Here, suckie dum dum!

Gotta drink your milkies and you’ll be popular with the girls when you’re a big boy!

I have to say, I think the mojority of that was an absolute load of bollocks.  I must have drank enough milk to run a dairy for a year but it’s done nothing for me in the girl department now that I’m all grown up.

Big boy, at least they got that part right.

Just watched the video and see the softness is due to DOF.

Looks good either way, although I never knew that about water blurring into the distance, I always thought pure water was like a perfect volume, flawless, like diamond but with a different level of refraction.  Mind you, they wasted time teaching us History instead of useful stuff at the school I went to.  History should be an option when you’re taking exams etc, not forced upon us when we could be learning much more useful things.  I’d have studied material sciences if I’d had the option, how various chemicals work together etc.  Having real fun right now looking into plastics, adhesives, and rigid foams - and discovering what I can and can’t bond to.

Still, thank god for the internet, I’m really enjoying it.

But anyway, one issue I do have with the video (and it’s quite a biggie), is that PJF got a mention and I didn’t.  I don’t see why he should get his name mentioned in a Brinnen video and not me, especially when I am the most bestist.

David, I was attempting to use some elements of your tutorial Bryce 25 minute lighting project - advanced underwater effects - a tutorial by David Brinnen but ran into a snag at the fog and haze settings.

I’m not following the tutorial strictly because I wanted to use an underwater scene made for poser. So rather then do the bit with the terrain and rocks I just imported the scene via Studio. The problem though is when I set the Haze density to 100 it covers up everything so that all one see’s is blue. I have some guess as to what the problem might be but I just found out my wife is coming home today and I have to get busy getting things ready. So rather then spend an unknown amount of time trying to solve it on my own I saved the scene without the fog.haze settings and figured I’d ask for your input here so when I can come back to it I’ll know what to do and that way I can get on with preparing for my wife’s homecoming. Thanks in advance for your help. I suspect it’s just a matter of where the scene and camera is actually positioned in the Bryce universe.

LordHardDriven - 01 November 2012 11:07 AM

David, I was attempting to use some elements of your tutorial Bryce 25 minute lighting project - advanced underwater effects - a tutorial by David Brinnen but ran into a snag at the fog and haze settings.

I’m not following the tutorial strictly because I wanted to use an underwater scene made for poser. So rather then do the bit with the terrain and rocks I just imported the scene via Studio. The problem though is when I set the Haze density to 100 it covers up everything so that all one see’s is blue. I have some guess as to what the problem might be but I just found out my wife is coming home today and I have to get busy getting things ready. So rather then spend an unknown amount of time trying to solve it on my own I saved the scene without the fog.haze settings and figured I’d ask for your input here so when I can come back to it I’ll know what to do and that way I can get on with preparing for my wife’s homecoming. Thanks in advance for your help. I suspect it’s just a matter of where the scene and camera is actually positioned in the Bryce universe.

Below are the haze setting from the tutorial.  Your problem however may be, as you hinted, simply a matter of scale and distance to the camera.  So experiment with moving things very close to the camera.  If the studio scene is large compared with my scene (second image - the tutorial scene from the overhead camera) - I’ve selected the perspective camera - as you can see the elements in my scene are not very large - visibility is perhaps only slightly larger than the sweep of the dotted lines showing the camera field of view.  Failing all else, put a place holder in your scene denoting the placement of the studio components and post me the file.  The other, other potential issue is the height of the camera, since fog is employed it can be quite finicky about the camera height - third image gives some indication of this.

David Brinnen - 01 November 2012 11:28 AM

LordHardDriven - 01 November 2012 11:07 AM

David, I was attempting to use some elements of your tutorial Bryce 25 minute lighting project - advanced underwater effects - a tutorial by David Brinnen but ran into a snag at the fog and haze settings.

I’m not following the tutorial strictly because I wanted to use an underwater scene made for poser. So rather then do the bit with the terrain and rocks I just imported the scene via Studio. The problem though is when I set the Haze density to 100 it covers up everything so that all one see’s is blue. I have some guess as to what the problem might be but I just found out my wife is coming home today and I have to get busy getting things ready. So rather then spend an unknown amount of time trying to solve it on my own I saved the scene without the fog.haze settings and figured I’d ask for your input here so when I can come back to it I’ll know what to do and that way I can get on with preparing for my wife’s homecoming. Thanks in advance for your help. I suspect it’s just a matter of where the scene and camera is actually positioned in the Bryce universe.

Below are the haze setting from the tutorial.  Your problem however may be, as you hinted, simply a matter of scale and distance to the camera.  So experiment with moving things very close to the camera.  If the studio scene is large compared with my scene (second image - the tutorial scene from the overhead camera) - I’ve selected the perspective camera - as you can see the elements in my scene are not very large - visibility is perhaps only slightly larger than the sweep of the dotted lines showing the camera field of view.  Failing all else, put a place holder in your scene denoting the placement of the studio components and post me the file.  The other, other potential issue is the height of the camera, since fog is employed it can be quite finicky about the camera height - third image gives some indication of this.

Thanks, it was the size of what I imported, typically when I import something there is already something in the scene that gives me an idea of scale and more often then not what I import needs to be shruken down somewhat. In this case I was importing into a blank scene so I figured I could just move it around until it looked right. Anyway I shrunk it down to a more reasonable size and repositioned it with relationship to the camera and that fixed it. Thanks for your help.