Very interesting looking scene so far! My comments would be that the girls face looks a bit off to me. It may be the anatomy, her face seems a bit flat. And also with regard to the rocks that you sculpted, they look pretty good but the tops and edges of them are looking a bit soft compared to the rest of it. But other than that it's looking pretty great.
Is this scene inspired by anything or of your own creation?
Hi, thanks for the feedback Nickcomeau! I had some issues getting the expression right on her face. I looked into Gary Faigin's book on Facial Expression to get the understanding of how the facial fat and muscles are moving on an angry facial expression. It could also be the lighting.
This piece was a creation of my own. I can post some sketches I made for this piece. In terms of inspiration I was mostly looking up into Firefly, Serenity, Star wars and Parks and Rec
Xiao, the expression and character portrayed in this piece is fun! I agree with Nick in regards to the flatness in the woman's face. She looks a bit like a doll. I can't help, but think of Chucky from Child's Play. The details in the ship are great. Keep up the great work!
lol the girl looks so scary(evil) in the straight render 1st image.
For some reason reminds me of a movie or show of some kind, idk y.
Will check back for more texturing love, so far looks good, girl is fixed with textures unless you went back into it and corrected whatever it was making her scary looking.
Hi, I added some Depth of Field, but I have several Depths map to increase the focus.
This is what I consider final render settings, but I am open to do some additional tweaks.
ok i will just plainly look at your render from my photographers pov now...
i assume you are using a somewhat medium to small focal length lens lets say 35-50mm
more 35mm. so its not a wide angle shot --> usually you would use an aperture lets say
3.5-5.0 for some decent image focus and DOF. your DOF looks more like some F12+ aperture. its still a very high field of focus since you mainly want the characters to pop out. i would set the focus distance the way that the nearest spot of the right ship is just still sharp an the ship then slowly fades away into out of focusness. the composition of the shot as is i think is good. no distracting lines, nicely divided and the forms of the ship guide the eye through the picture quite well. maybe just lower the cam a bit so the guys foot is not cut off or cut it off more.
as for postprocessing if i would do color correction on the picture. reduce the pink of the ship. desaturate it big time it really distracts from the scene since the pilots clothes are so similar to the colours of the ground. maybe add some popping colours to the suits texture to attract the eye more this direction colorwise. also may desaturate or brighten the sky more towars greyblue, since there has been a plane crash the air is full of dust and smoke. there is no blue heaven. also drastically add more smoke around the ships make the smoke the frame of your picture and use it as a vignette to focus at the people even more. lower left and right corner full of smoke, more smoke clouds and pile over the pic
im looking forward how far this can be pushed since i like it even now
*edit may also reduce the normal/bump on the ships texture and or scale it down to a more subtle structure
The modeling and characters with their expressions are great! The lighting is flat and boring though. I would push the lighting. I'm not really crazy about the vignette smoke in the foreground either.
Thanks for the feedback! I may have a bit crazy with the smoke, and I will reduce it. On a second look, the lighting is a bit flat. I may have overlooked a previous feedback. Do you have any suggestion to what kind lighting angle I could use to push this?
I think the angle is probably okay. What it really needs is more contrast in the brights and darks in the lights and shadows. You may be able to do this in post processing.
Are you sure your monitor is calibrated correctly? Maybe you're just not seeing it?
Here's a quick levels adjustment in Photoshop. The light on the skin may be a bit too harsh but maybe this gives you an idea of where to push it.
My monitor is calibrated. It is just I have been looking at this for the past few weeks, so I am sort of a bit blinded xD. But some contrast is needed to make this piece more excited and I also realized some bounce light is needed. I am setting some new lights to render.
Thanks for suggestions!
I will come up with an update early tomorrow or late today!
I was suppose to put another update yesterday, but I had some issues with the hair render looking washed. Stupid me manage to put the Ambient colour on the hair shader to slight grey :P
Here are two version with different brightness level!
- I like your sculpt and characters. Not too convince with other things. I don't know what style you're going for so please take this with a grain of salt.
- I think you need to take a step back and study some reference for sand. Is this something you're going for?
The pattern of the sand... the sort of rumble the sand creates when pushed by weight, etc. Those are the few things that stood out as really out of place when looking at your piece.
If you really want a top-down light, your lighting will need to be much harsher than this. Else I recommend you go for beauty lighting instead with more side-way lights that could create more interesting core shadow pattern.
- Your metal material/shader needs lots of work. They're not convincing at all at the moment.
Thanks for the feedback DireWolf and skodone!
The ground was hard to sculpt or get proper grasp of, so that is something I will look at again.
Thanks for the reference image, and I wanted something similar, but did not manage to sculpt it. I will research similar images to get fully grasp of what I want.
I am also going to change the lighting direction, so the image gets a stronger contrast, and better shadow shapes. The metal shader is something I am struggling with, because I got this plastic look rather than metal. I a manage to find a solution yesterday where I utilise some specmaps, and hope that will improve the shader.
I also got another feedback that I should add more debris on the ground, and with this I think I can create a better separation between foreground and background.
There are lot of tweaks and fixes that needs to be done, so I hope I can come up with an update by this weekend! And I thought I was almost done with this piece xD! It is good with all this feedback, so I get a new perspective of this piece, and more motivation to finish it properly!
Sorry for being a bit late on this update, but it took more time than anticipated! I changed the ground, added a bit more debris, scratches and changed the light.
hehee.
Yeah, I saw your post here few minutes ago and decided to post my last post here as well, so others can see and possibly give you more feedbacks.
Looks much better already! One little thing that's not 100% clear to me yet is their poses though... It looks like she is about to throw her helmet at him in anger - is that what is happening? If so, maybe you could separate her helmet from her head silhouette-wise and have her torso anticipate the throw a bit more, to make the pose more readable.
If she is just supposed to be taking her helmet off, then I think her hand is grabbing it a bit awkwardly for that. Maybe even try and have her hold it with both hands?
@Hrinwirbel Thanks for the feedback! I wanted her to have that pose. I tried sitting in a similar stuff and throw stuff (Try explaining that to people entering your room :P ). What I realized is that position gives you an awkward throwing pose, especially on your throwing hand.
The readability of the pose could be better, but I am sort of happy with her pose.
Here is another update! The vignette and the dust particles gave this scene a much dirtier look, so thanks Amirabd2130 for the tips. I also added a stronger yellow photo filter, and some blur on the foreground elements.
I think I have to consider this piece done soon, and just leave it, and come back to it later to get a fresh perspective. There are flaws that can be fixed, but I am happy with the progress of this piece so far.
So I played around with the several setting of the Camera Raw Filters and Lens Correction, and went back and forward with different results, but I decided to be more subtle with the changes. In the end I came up with this.
I still think you can improve this further!
I think you should reduce the saturation a little.
Why don't you blur the foreground objects? is there a reason?
I think the slight flair in the background suggest light source coming from that direction instead of upper left. It feels a bit contradictory at the moment. You may want to add a little brightness from the upper left to make light direction more convincing.
For some reason when I blur the foreground elements in Photoshop it works, but when I upload it on the net, I get this weird graininess on some areas of the foreground elements, so I did not push the blur to avoid this problem. I went a little wild with the saturation since I felt the previous version was a little gray and bleak, but I will reduce it!
Haha, I got a bit too excited when I blew up that flair. It gave a nice contrast, but it doesn't make sense with the current light source. I will decrease it and add a indication of the main light source in the upper left!
Again amirabd2130 and DireWolf thanks for the help, and helping me and pushing me to improve!
I think the latest post effects are overdone, but overall the iteration & composition + colors of the second page is a lot nicer
What I do not like is the foreground and the addition of vignette, id tone that down, you now have the curtains effect, which is used to show secrecy or something hidden or mysterious, while the scene is light hearted and on the funny side, it should be "open" and inviting, not closed, and thus I would try making it less enclosed by all the debris and less dark. The vignette dosnt help and overall increased exposure would do better
Edit: Here is my take
I think a more sandy and dusty look is better, its brighter and more inviting and fits the scene, has a bit of a star wars feel
(my dirt etc was very rushed obviously)
I did decrease the dark areas with levels as they were too dark and eating detail and used color lookup with filmstock50 to get a more cinematic look and yellow + a bit of vibrance. Her teeth need a bit of photoshopping tho : P Her hair is also very dark. The faces could also use a bit of editing brightness wise maybe, my monitor is rather dark https://hostr.co/file/8UfYcq6ldrbo/Capture.PNG
not saying this is perfect and the way you should do it but i think thats more the right direction
Also some numbers and non distracting text on the metal pieces (like on 2-3 places) would make it more believable
@Shrike Thanks for the feedback! Now I have a sort of dilemma of which direction I should take :P
The idea of a piece this light hearted should have a more open and inviting composition is something I did not see, and gives me more to think about. On my monitor this pieces is not so dark, and I color calibrated it and the gamma should be correct.
I'll produce two versions over the weekend and see what works better.
The shot seems a little too staged. Something about it feels robotic. Maybe the characters poses are too stiff? Also, that girl's face seems really off to me. Have you thought about giving her a different hair style? Right now her frizzy hair and big eyes make her look like an 80s barbie doll.
You need a new camera angle/lens. Try getting a more zoomed in shot of the characters faces and move the wreckage further back in the scene. Use the right kind of lens to bring rubble forward to make it seem bigger and add a piece of the ship to the foreground so it overlaps the characters just a bit - it'll add more depth. Also, study some of your favorite shots from movies with good cinematography for a more dynamic angle. I think a lot of the problem with this image isn't the models or the characters... just the angle we're looking at them from. It looks like a promo piece for a TV show instead of a shot from movie. Save a version of this scene, and then go wild! Have fun! Move some pieces around in different ways... I think you'll be surprised.
@jhoythottle Thanks for the feedback!
Your feedback was a bit overwhelming to read and fully understand, but after taking some time to think through about this, I agree that the camera angle in the composition needs some improvement to create some more excitement in the image. It will be a rough ride, but I will come up with an update as soon as possible
I just hope I finish this piece by the end of next week or the week after. My showreel has to be up by the end of this month
Great attitude XiaoAbe.:) You've been very receptive to feedback in this entire thread. Being able to handle constructive criticism is half the battle when it comes to work like this and I think you're almost there. Good luck!
I have to admit I was a bit cocky when I started my studying 3d animation 3 years ago, but I learned that taking feedback requires as much practice as creating 3d images.
I don't have any renders ready, but I moved the ship back further and zoomed in a bit on the character, but not too much, since I still wanted to maintain enough space for background. So I am still working on getting that balance. I did take a peak on some good old Star Wars movies and Serenity to get the grasp on how they did some of their dynamic shots. I may not be able to come with an update until Tuesday or next since I have some arrangements this weekend, and I am also working on an other groom project for my groom showreel
I was suppose to display this yesterday, but I managed to mess up one of the cameras during rendering :P
So I created 3 versions based on the recent feedback session, and I am still not sure which version is the best direction of this piece, but I hope to pick one soon and then create an absolute final version. The final version is obviosly going to contain flaws, but I am happy with the progress I have made because of the feedback I have received the last couple of weeks. So thanks for pushing me and giving me good advises on this piece!
I think this is looking much better in that last pic. You gave the characters more space so we can read their expressions as individuals. Seeing their faces close up really helps. The framing is now more character focused instead of competing for space with the ship. Before, my eyes didn't know where to look. Now the direction is clear. Somehow, I think the framing has even improved the believably of their poses.
I'm still not a huge fan of that girl's face/hair. I think maybe a lot could be fixed if you uncrossed her eyes a bit.
Also, just now seeing this, the location of the bend in the guy's fingers seems a bit off. Reference your own hand making that identical pose and you'll see that it's not very natural and a bit difficult. Add a more natural curve to the hand bending at all the joints instead of just the top parts of the fingers or even rotate the wrist a bit so it's not so straight on.
Overall though, these are nit-picks. I think this has turned into quite the portfolio piece. Nice work!
Sorry for the late reply!
Thanks for the feedback amirabd2130 and jhoythottle!
@jhoythottle thanks for the tips on playing around with the scene! It was quiet fun moving stuff around, and be less restrictive with composition! I am sorta fan of the hair, since I wanted to go for a style around the 60-70s, but I understand the look can make her look like a barbie doll. I realized while working on this piece that facial expression and body shape is very hard to get right, so I spent some time during this summer doing anatomy practices and going through Goldfinger's anatomy book and Faigin's guide on facial expression, so I hope that I can get a better anatomy and facial expression for my future works .
Replies
Is this scene inspired by anything or of your own creation?
This piece was a creation of my own. I can post some sketches I made for this piece. In terms of inspiration I was mostly looking up into Firefly, Serenity, Star wars and Parks and Rec
Again thanks for the feedback!
For some reason reminds me of a movie or show of some kind, idk y.
Will check back for more texturing love, so far looks good, girl is fixed with textures unless you went back into it and corrected whatever it was making her scary looking.
I feel close to finishing this piece, and hope to move into something different
next week.
This is what I consider final render settings, but I am open to do some additional tweaks.
Thanks for the feedback
Added a bit more Depth of Field.
i assume you are using a somewhat medium to small focal length lens lets say 35-50mm
more 35mm. so its not a wide angle shot --> usually you would use an aperture lets say
3.5-5.0 for some decent image focus and DOF. your DOF looks more like some F12+ aperture. its still a very high field of focus since you mainly want the characters to pop out. i would set the focus distance the way that the nearest spot of the right ship is just still sharp an the ship then slowly fades away into out of focusness. the composition of the shot as is i think is good. no distracting lines, nicely divided and the forms of the ship guide the eye through the picture quite well. maybe just lower the cam a bit so the guys foot is not cut off or cut it off more.
as for postprocessing if i would do color correction on the picture. reduce the pink of the ship. desaturate it big time it really distracts from the scene since the pilots clothes are so similar to the colours of the ground. maybe add some popping colours to the suits texture to attract the eye more this direction colorwise. also may desaturate or brighten the sky more towars greyblue, since there has been a plane crash the air is full of dust and smoke. there is no blue heaven. also drastically add more smoke around the ships make the smoke the frame of your picture and use it as a vignette to focus at the people even more. lower left and right corner full of smoke, more smoke clouds and pile over the pic
im looking forward how far this can be pushed
*edit may also reduce the normal/bump on the ships texture and or scale it down to a more subtle structure
Thanks for the feedback, and looking back at the piece I can see issues much more clearly.
I tend to get a bit blind in the postprocess xD.
Everything are in different layers so colour correction should be fine!
I really appreciate this feedback, cause I felt a bit lost on what to do to push. I will bring a new update by today or tomorrow!
what about getting the cam a bit closer to the cars so theyre bit bigger?
Sorry, I did not understand your feedback?
Did you mean move the camera closer, or move the ship closer?
Are you sure your monitor is calibrated correctly? Maybe you're just not seeing it?
Here's a quick levels adjustment in Photoshop. The light on the skin may be a bit too harsh but maybe this gives you an idea of where to push it.
Thanks for suggestions!
I will come up with an update early tomorrow or late today!
Here are two version with different brightness level!
the focus is getting clearer and clearer i like it!
but somehow fore and midground, background are not separated enough still... but it could also be me
as im super dslr look damaged
- I think you need to take a step back and study some reference for sand. Is this something you're going for?
http://www.motoringme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/VW_CC_Desert_32.jpg
The pattern of the sand... the sort of rumble the sand creates when pushed by weight, etc. Those are the few things that stood out as really out of place when looking at your piece.
- From the shadow it looks like your light is pointing straight down from the top. It's true you can go for a harsh lighting like this but usually that's the direction we try to avoid when taking photo.
If you really want a top-down light, your lighting will need to be much harsher than this. Else I recommend you go for beauty lighting instead with more side-way lights that could create more interesting core shadow pattern.
- Your metal material/shader needs lots of work. They're not convincing at all at the moment.
The ground was hard to sculpt or get proper grasp of, so that is something I will look at again.
Thanks for the reference image, and I wanted something similar, but did not manage to sculpt it. I will research similar images to get fully grasp of what I want.
I am also going to change the lighting direction, so the image gets a stronger contrast, and better shadow shapes. The metal shader is something I am struggling with, because I got this plastic look rather than metal. I a manage to find a solution yesterday where I utilise some specmaps, and hope that will improve the shader.
I also got another feedback that I should add more debris on the ground, and with this I think I can create a better separation between foreground and background.
There are lot of tweaks and fixes that needs to be done, so I hope I can come up with an update by this weekend! And I thought I was almost done with this piece xD! It is good with all this feedback, so I get a new perspective of this piece, and more motivation to finish it properly!
Thanks for the suggestion again
How could I forget adding dust particles in the air. I will try something similar, and see how it turns out!
Yeah, I saw your post here few minutes ago and decided to post my last post here as well, so others can see and possibly give you more feedbacks.
Looking forward to your next version.
If she is just supposed to be taking her helmet off, then I think her hand is grabbing it a bit awkwardly for that. Maybe even try and have her hold it with both hands?
The readability of the pose could be better, but I am sort of happy with her pose.
I think I have to consider this piece done soon, and just leave it, and come back to it later to get a fresh perspective. There are flaws that can be fixed, but I am happy with the progress of this piece so far.
I still think you can improve this further!
I think you should reduce the saturation a little.
Why don't you blur the foreground objects? is there a reason?
Kind of like how the Sun is clearly in the center in this piece. You may want to make yours more subtle.
http://img06.deviantart.net/d249/i/2010/344/7/e/uncharted_3_wallpaper_by_crossdominatrix5-d34kyhb.png
For some reason when I blur the foreground elements in Photoshop it works, but when I upload it on the net, I get this weird graininess on some areas of the foreground elements, so I did not push the blur to avoid this problem. I went a little wild with the saturation since I felt the previous version was a little gray and bleak, but I will reduce it!
@DireWolf
Haha, I got a bit too excited when I blew up that flair. It gave a nice contrast, but it doesn't make sense with the current light source. I will decrease it and add a indication of the main light source in the upper left!
Again amirabd2130 and DireWolf thanks for the help, and helping me and pushing me to improve!
What I do not like is the foreground and the addition of vignette, id tone that down, you now have the curtains effect, which is used to show secrecy or something hidden or mysterious, while the scene is light hearted and on the funny side, it should be "open" and inviting, not closed, and thus I would try making it less enclosed by all the debris and less dark. The vignette dosnt help and overall increased exposure would do better
Edit: Here is my take
I think a more sandy and dusty look is better, its brighter and more inviting and fits the scene, has a bit of a star wars feel
(my dirt etc was very rushed obviously)
I did decrease the dark areas with levels as they were too dark and eating detail and used color lookup with filmstock50 to get a more cinematic look and yellow + a bit of vibrance. Her teeth need a bit of photoshopping tho : P Her hair is also very dark. The faces could also use a bit of editing brightness wise maybe, my monitor is rather dark
https://hostr.co/file/8UfYcq6ldrbo/Capture.PNG
not saying this is perfect and the way you should do it but i think thats more the right direction
Also some numbers and non distracting text on the metal pieces (like on 2-3 places) would make it more believable
The idea of a piece this light hearted should have a more open and inviting composition is something I did not see, and gives me more to think about. On my monitor this pieces is not so dark, and I color calibrated it and the gamma should be correct.
I'll produce two versions over the weekend and see what works better.
You need a new camera angle/lens. Try getting a more zoomed in shot of the characters faces and move the wreckage further back in the scene. Use the right kind of lens to bring rubble forward to make it seem bigger and add a piece of the ship to the foreground so it overlaps the characters just a bit - it'll add more depth. Also, study some of your favorite shots from movies with good cinematography for a more dynamic angle. I think a lot of the problem with this image isn't the models or the characters... just the angle we're looking at them from. It looks like a promo piece for a TV show instead of a shot from movie. Save a version of this scene, and then go wild! Have fun! Move some pieces around in different ways... I think you'll be surprised.
Your feedback was a bit overwhelming to read and fully understand, but after taking some time to think through about this, I agree that the camera angle in the composition needs some improvement to create some more excitement in the image. It will be a rough ride, but I will come up with an update as soon as possible
I just hope I finish this piece by the end of next week or the week after. My showreel has to be up by the end of this month
I don't have any renders ready, but I moved the ship back further and zoomed in a bit on the character, but not too much, since I still wanted to maintain enough space for background. So I am still working on getting that balance. I did take a peak on some good old Star Wars movies and Serenity to get the grasp on how they did some of their dynamic shots. I may not be able to come with an update until Tuesday or next since I have some arrangements this weekend, and I am also working on an other groom project for my groom showreel
Again thanks for your feedback
So I created 3 versions based on the recent feedback session, and I am still not sure which version is the best direction of this piece, but I hope to pick one soon and then create an absolute final version. The final version is obviosly going to contain flaws, but I am happy with the progress I have made because of the feedback I have received the last couple of weeks. So thanks for pushing me and giving me good advises on this piece!
I'm still not a huge fan of that girl's face/hair. I think maybe a lot could be fixed if you uncrossed her eyes a bit.
Also, just now seeing this, the location of the bend in the guy's fingers seems a bit off. Reference your own hand making that identical pose and you'll see that it's not very natural and a bit difficult. Add a more natural curve to the hand bending at all the joints instead of just the top parts of the fingers or even rotate the wrist a bit so it's not so straight on.
Overall though, these are nit-picks. I think this has turned into quite the portfolio piece. Nice work!
Thanks for the feedback amirabd2130 and jhoythottle!
@jhoythottle thanks for the tips on playing around with the scene! It was quiet fun moving stuff around, and be less restrictive with composition! I am sorta fan of the hair, since I wanted to go for a style around the 60-70s, but I understand the look can make her look like a barbie doll. I realized while working on this piece that facial expression and body shape is very hard to get right, so I spent some time during this summer doing anatomy practices and going through Goldfinger's anatomy book and Faigin's guide on facial expression, so I hope that I can get a better anatomy and facial expression for my future works