Environment WIP - Cathedral
polycounter lvl 18
Updated Below!
I'm working on this for my demo reel, and would love any comments or critiques you guys have.
Also, I was hoping for some opinions. On my reel I'm thinking about building a facade for the front of the church and having an out-doors jungle scene the camera flies through, into the doors of the church, then up the isle. Would this be a good way to present it?
I'm thinking that I might change the altar at the front to the trunk of a large tree breaking through the ground and through the roof of the alcove at the end. I think this could add more interest.
Good idea's, or no?
Anyways, thanks for the help.
I'm working on this for my demo reel, and would love any comments or critiques you guys have.
Also, I was hoping for some opinions. On my reel I'm thinking about building a facade for the front of the church and having an out-doors jungle scene the camera flies through, into the doors of the church, then up the isle. Would this be a good way to present it?
I'm thinking that I might change the altar at the front to the trunk of a large tree breaking through the ground and through the roof of the alcove at the end. I think this could add more interest.
Good idea's, or no?
Anyways, thanks for the help.
Replies
It's also very much like Durham Cathedral.
http://www.pitt.edu/~pascual/Durham%20Cathedral%20interior.jpg
It seems that the vegetation has taken root, and is therefore abandoned. With that in mind, the pews are to new and clean looking. If the plants have moved in, what about wildlife?
Who built it? Why? They loved it enough to give it a stained glass window and decorated pews, but no other decoration? No lighting?
Consider this as an extreme of how it might have once looked:
There is an age discrepancy between the pews and the building. The age and size of the plant life tell us it has been wet in here for quite some time, yet the wooden pews are shinny and bright? If those are cushions on the pews they would have mildewed and nearly rotted off. Even if the wood was lacquered it would start to split, twist, swell and discolor if there is enough water coming in to support plant life. I think you can solve this pretty quickly by just turning down the saturation on the pew texture.
Good start so far, just gotta nail down the texture and age of those pews, and then the lighting. Bounce some subtle lighting around and bring the ambient light level up quite a bit.
Anyways, thanks for all the critiques I've started working on some and am working heavily on others.
Thanks for pointing out hte thing with the viewport lighting Malcom. I threw up some screen grabs without lighting as you said. The new renders are also no compressed nearly as much. One question though, for some reason when I render I lose a lot of the texture detail. It's most apparent on the pews at the front. In the viewport you can see the texture fairly clearly and well, but renders seem to blur it up a fair amount. Is there a way to fix this?
It is fairly narrow rooster, but more so because of the perspective. Thanks for pointing it out, I had the focal length on the camera set too low. I still might, I'll have to play with it some.
And thanks for point out about Durham Rick. I hadn't known about that, it's actually based on Wells Cathedral (Very similar). Though i took a lot of artistic liscence. And thank you very much for pointing out about the decorations Rick. I've been trying to figure out how to populate it more without overdoing the plants, as it seemed to bare. I'd say you definitely hit the nail on the head there. I'm going to try to find some more interesting decor to put in now.
As for the pews, I've done some quick retexturing, but I think I'll have to age them more based on your guys' comments.
And I think I will have to play some more with the bounce lighting as you've said Vig. I upped the Ambient light a lot, and you were right that it helped, but I might play around with it all some more.
Thanks again guys, any more comments you have would be wonderful!
reminds me of zelda tt
..when I render I lose a lot of the texture detail. It's most apparent on the pews at the front. In the viewport you can see the texture fairly clearly and well, but renders seem to blur it up a fair amount. Is there a way to fix this?
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You should render the picture two times. once without texture filtering and once with. Then blend them together in photoshop.
I like the lighting you are working with, especially in the second render - it's very warm. However, something needs to be done about the symmetry of the scene overall. cathedrals are really symmetrical places; but normally the interplay between the symmetrical forms and the assymetry of the lighting conditions makes them so beautiful. what I'm trying to say is - experiment with making your lighting more assymetrical. possibly adding rays (not overdone), or harsher cast shadows, or something. can't hurt to try pushing it a little further!
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..when I render I lose a lot of the texture detail. It's most apparent on the pews at the front. In the viewport you can see the texture fairly clearly and well, but renders seem to blur it up a fair amount. Is there a way to fix this?
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You should render the picture two times. once without texture filtering and once with. Then blend them together in photoshop.
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To add upon what Katz said, It'd definately be worth looking into some solution for Maya's rendering woes. (I assume your using maya. :P) The blurring is definately being caused by Maya's Quadratic texture filtering, which can be disabled in the realtime port, or disabled per texture for rendering.
In your viewport.
Shading -> Hardware Texturing Box-> Turn the slot that say's quadratic to unfiltered, and then apply.
To disable render filtering.
Open the node with the texture in either Hypershade or Multilister, and open the 'File02' or whichever number the texture has been applied to, and above it's directory there should be another drop down slot that has "Quadratic" in it. Change it to 'Unfiltered' or whatever the equivilant is if you want it off.
That being said, unfiltered texture passes have some nasty disadvantages. Though you won't have any texture blurring, you'll receive that effect you've probobly seen in old games where if the camera passes by a very fine texture, (say, a chain link fence) you'll see strange waves appear at distances where the resolution can't handle rendering every pixel at that difference.
As for your light issues, it sounds like you have them solved, which is good, but it's best to choose "one golden monitor" which has good settings. : P Now that you're nearing the end of your lovely experience wherever you are, you'll probobly have noticed that all the monitors are radically different. Find a normal one, and build everything for that monitor. (And make sure you get that monitor for the Portfolio show.)
It's looking great Tulk, I'm liking the lighting quite a bit. Good luck man.
Also how do they get water?
Are you going to have a centerpiece on the alter, or something specific for the audience to look at, or are you going to let them see the whole inside all at once? I've been told that it's generally better to have your audience focus on something smaller (or maybe a defined path when you start planning out how your camera is going to move through this). What's going to be the focus?
Noritsune - Thanks for replying man, your cathedral was definitely inspirational to me for this, so it's great to have some input from ya. I've made the lighting asymmetrical as you suggested, and really feel it helped. I've touched on some of the other things you suggested, but plan to look into them more.
Uly - I already talked to you about most of what you've said. But thanks again man. I've definitely got to work with the rendering some to get it crisp.
Malcolm - Thanks for the comments man. I'm going to have to work with the rendering some, but I think you've got a great idea with the post render sharpening. I'm rendering with Maya Software at the moment. Given that I was wondering if Mental Ray is a better solution than Maya Software.
Black_Dog - Great idea, I think that once I get the roof broken up some more I'll work with putting some moss up there in the appropriate places.
Squirmy - Great ideas. As you can see I've knocked the door out like you suggested and will be knocking out parts of the roof to allow for water.
Nogan - I already talked to you about this some. As you can see I've used the idea of a fallen tree that broke the roof around the end alcove. I've begun to put vegetation in there, but need some more work done to it. (Going to put in broken bricks etc... it still needs a lot of work)
Nice compositional element there, with the leaves pointing down the cathedral. I like it.
Nice work
Sam, Vig, and Rooster, thanks for the comments guys.
Keep the crits coming, I need more!
The scene at current is muddy looking because lack of uniform pixel density. That being making sure that everything is and well defined as any other part. It kills the shot when a pixle next to another one is 10 times the size of the other one.
Another good term is uniform saturation level. Where nothing is more saturated than any other part unless its intentionally supposed to be bringing your attention to it. The idea is always to use color to move your eye around and to let you know what is important.
Your pants could use alot of love in that area.
I like the last shot posted there, the lighting on the roof is nice. Now some contrasting light across the pews would be nifty.. perhaps a long sliver of light draped over them? Or have the coloured light from stain glass leak through and on to the pews? Hard to say.
keep it up.
I'd rethink the plantlife a bit. You have a couple of big plants in the middle of the floor (carpet?)
A) plants are like dirt (cuz they like dirt) and will start in the corners & creep their way out.
I'll see if I can pull up some referrence, but think about how those plants would grow a bit more and I think it'll lead your eye through the scene better.
Your pants could use alot of love in that area.
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I think a nice addition to the vegetation would be creepers growing up some of the pillars and roof arches. At the moment the plants higher up just seem to be there, without evidence of how they'd get to those cracks to grow in.
hope that helps any.
And a sliver of light along the pews is a great idea Adam, thanks.
[email="Por@szek"]Por@szek[/email] - thanks man.
Tumerboy - Yea, I've been working with the plants, but still have a ways to go. It doesn't show well in those renders because for some reason the sky didn't show, but I've broken the roof out where the plants are growing with the idea that it gives a place for both direct sunlight and water. The plants then can grow from where the tile meets the pillars. Would that make sense? If if so, any idea on how I can sell it better?
Lupus - thanks man, creepers are a great idea. I'll definitely add them to my to-do list.
kiril0t - Yea, I've had a friend of mine point out that my tiles look like carpet. I really need to work with them some more I think. :S Great suggestions as well, I'm definitely going to break up the ground in some areas as you suggested.
Thanks again guys, keep the C&C coming! I'm going to work on what's been suggested and post again asap to get some more critiques.