Space seen Crit please?
Hey all,
I'm pretty new to 3D, and I just completed an internship that turned into a contracted gig working on an independent film as a modeler and texturer.
I put together some of the assets I created for the movie into a scene to add to my portfolio, but I could use some advice on how to improve the scene. I've never even had a class for lighting or rendering, so off hand, I think I could do for some improvement in the lighting of the planets, and depth of the scene. The shot is a bit blurrier than I'd like as well, but I think I can fix that by saving it as a tif or something instead of as a jpg. But I'd like some advice from people with more experience than myself.
Things you like (if any), thing I could improve on, and things you don't like. All imput would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
I'm pretty new to 3D, and I just completed an internship that turned into a contracted gig working on an independent film as a modeler and texturer.
I put together some of the assets I created for the movie into a scene to add to my portfolio, but I could use some advice on how to improve the scene. I've never even had a class for lighting or rendering, so off hand, I think I could do for some improvement in the lighting of the planets, and depth of the scene. The shot is a bit blurrier than I'd like as well, but I think I can fix that by saving it as a tif or something instead of as a jpg. But I'd like some advice from people with more experience than myself.
Things you like (if any), thing I could improve on, and things you don't like. All imput would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Replies
The craft doesn't look like it would be used to venture into a planets atmosphere? If it did then the leading edges would probably show signs of wear and be more prone to rust?
It also doesn't seem to have any way of staying in the air or landing, once effected by gravity.
The rust streaks look like they're effected by gravity, again absent from space...
What about call letters or some kind of identification?
How about adding some function to the greeble?
Depth of field maybe?
SETUP:
Composition-wise this isn't too bad, but not super great either. On the one hand it feels heavy on the right side because the huge planet is there, on the other hand the subject is dead center. The angle of the ship also leads the eye out of the image via the (top)left. I'm assuming that the tower goes up, but because of the very sideways angle, I'm not sure.
For the atmosphere, (if this is prerendered, and not real time) you'll like to make a copy of the planet, scale it up a bit, and use that for the clouds. This'll give a bit extra depth, and would be really easy to animate (not having to bother with sub-materials, blending and whatnot).
You're right about the lighting, and that you need to improve that, because it's making the scene feel flat and bland. The ship and the planets are all about the same value and the planets themselves don't have any shadow either. All in all, it's lacking punch, and what;s worse, the planet's materials (sand/grass/clouds) are much lighter than the dark metal of the ship. This, combined with the large area the planet takes up, causes the planet to take focus, and it pushes the ship away.
It doesn't help that the ship is the most desaturated object in the scene either. The ship needs more color, the planet less.
Looking at it I guess you only used white light, and not many lights. It's a good idea to have a main light source (sun) and then some other lights to add highlights where you want them, and then some specific lights to grab the attention.
So what you want to do is add a more varied lighting setup, try to create a lot more contrast between the ship and the planets, so the ship takes focus. Eyes like to focus.
Onto the other big element..
THE SHIP!
Currently it doesn't look like you spent a lot of thought modeling it (though you probably did spend a lot of time). The basic shape is okay, slightly reminiscent of an aircraft carrier. But the smaller elements are what's called 'greeble' which are just random shapes. The plates and boxes and whatnot do not appear to have a purpose. I can guess that the 'mouth' is a hangar or something, and the spikes are antennae, but then there are still a lot of shapes that appear useless.
You can take a look at real-life machinery and ships to get an idea how to implement functional shapes. Think of things like an extendable airlock, a large hatch in the deck to take in bigger vessels than the hangar can handle, possibly turrets, specific compartments for fuel, or cargo, or cabins, there's a lot to choose from.
The materials are also somewhat bland. there's metal and there's rusty metal. This doesn't give the eye much to look at. Add some sections of lighter metal and darker metal, add paint, add strips of light, vary fairly smooth surfaces with detailed surface. You don't need to do all of those things of course, but give the eye something to look at, to follow around and to focus. Star Wars Destroyers for instance only use the smooth/detailed thing. The ships are comprised of a couple of (relatively) smooth shells with a tonne of greeble squished in between.
I'm also not sure about the scale of the thing, and where the people go. I see something that looks like a command tower, but there's no way to relate that to the size of a room because I see no rooms.
PAINTOVER!
-more contrast between planet and ship
-increased ships own contrast (in space shadows are harsh)
-desaturated planet to make it feel further away
-lights and paint give the ship color
-added lights to the ship as focal points, and to get rid of the shadow on the tower
-saturated deep space to stop it from looking like fog
-gave the planet a shadow side (just noticed I forgot to work on the small planets)
paintover TAG
also making the planet bluer and softer contrasts nicely with the (admitedly paintover) colours/hardness of the ship
still get bounce light though, i would think about adding this if you can turn the ambient off
Thank you all for so much feedback.
Regarding the ship: The crew is mostly in suspended animation for the long voyage, and the ship is guided by the automatic pilot. The back story is that it was constructed haphazardly from the pieces of an ancient space station that was falling apart, hence the huge plates and the rust. I don't know how rust would react once exposed to the vacuum of space, so I just went with it when the producers and director said it worked (supposedly they had someone that use to work at NASA advising them on the technical aspects like that).
I didn't have a whole lot of input on the shape of the ship either because the base mesh was already constructed when I started working on it and the texture. But that brings up a good point. I didn't modify the ship for this render when the ship was constructed with certain angles and shapes that were going to be seen in the movie in mind. Not close up details like airlocks and such. I will add a bit more detail to give an idea of scale, and with functionality in mind.
But I do realize that none of this is apparent to the viewer from just looking at the ship, and so I need to either explain the back story in the info about the scene, or change the detail, or probably both.
I will most definitely tone down the colors and tone of the planets and add harsher shadows.
I'll also see if I can create a projection of a nebula to go over the particle field in the background.
And thank you so much Snader and SHEPEIRO for actually taking the time to paint over the shot. It really helps me see the possibilities. I will rework this and I think I'll get a much better end product once I'm done.
SHEPEIRO:I've always been told to stay away from lens flares because they're used too much. Is it just that this shot calls for it? I didn't want someone reviewing my portfolio to say "Oh, here's another lens flare" and role their eyes at the clicheity (totally made up that word:poly121:).
Snader: Sorry for the spelling. I'm dyslexic and as bad as it looks, my spelling has improved dramatically over the years, but I still have a ways to go if spell-check doesn't catch the mistake.
shhh, don't let jj abrams hear you. the flare isn't the point of the sheps paintover, it's creating dramatic lighting instead of the very flat/boring lighting of the original.
back in the old days (before cg) lens flare was an artifact of filming... it was generally frowned upon because it added a layer between the viewer and the action...directors generally wanted you to feel like you are there, and lensflare reminds you that you that you are not...
move on a few decades and we have eyepopin cg candyfloss...but its still feels a bit other worldly as we know/think it cant possibly exist... this is where lens flare actually helps the veiwer beleive that this is taking place that its not just an artists doodle , that there is a world outside the image a world that has rules and a camera with which to record the image that is being taken...
this not only enhances the beliveabilty of the scene but ESP space scenes can add interest to a fairly lifeless ( no pun intended seen ;-)
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.
Now regarding the suggestions about the placement of the shadow on the planet, I can't say I agree. I think the shadow would be darkest at the core shadow created by the contrast between the sun/star, and the planet. The sun is far off in the distance, so it wouldn't illuminate the side of the planet that much, and so I think the shadow would be least strong near the lower right hand corner of the planet (closer to how the small orange planet looks). I think the problem is that I didn't push the shadow to be dark enough around the outskirts of the planet.
But I totally agree with everything else you said, and appreciate the suggestions.
Reality does not agree with your disagreeance. If the planet eclipses the sun, ZERO light would hit this side of the planet. So unless you're adding another sun, this doesn't work. While shepeiro's paintover might not be 100% accurate either, the light on his planet can be explained by blueshift in the atmosphere, by inhabitants and by a faint glow off of far stars and nearby space stations.
Darn it, now I'm just going to have to do it now instead of later
"While shepeiro's paintover might not be 100% accurate either" my paintovers are 100 % FACT ;-)
Fine.. [ame]
3:35-3:50
you could break the atmosphere of the planet up into five (orso) layers (more expensive but worth it if its a render) with a fresnel component in the transparency of the lower layers and a some different cloud patterns in each layer ( high fluffy to low fat chunky)
with the lighting i would reduce the fill light a bit