Just something I've been working on to help teach me more of Rhinoceros. I built all of these preposterous weapons in Rhino, except for the Hammer, which is all Brycean. The case has a glass front and reflective interior, and with the window on the other side of the room, the only way to render this scene and actually SEE the trees was at 10 Rays or more... (you can count the bounces for yourself, it's fun!) My problem is, after rendering this POS for two days, it just doesn't seem realistic enough, and the weapons themselves aren't clear enough to REALLY showcase the details. Any advice? Ornlu, what's wrong with my lighting here? Anyone else of course feel free to slay this image down for and/or with me... It was rendered with Regular AA, 10 Rays, 10 TIR, minimal optimizations, and 35 lights partly overhead for the soft shadow effect (aside from the 7 lights in the case itself). The render took 38 hours, at this resolution on an AMD 1.3/512 DDR rig, which is obnoxious for me, considering I don't like the result enough to put into the galleries.

The mirror in the back of the case is fooling my eyes. My first impression is that the two men are inside the case, or in a room that can be seen as if the case is a window looking in. Other than pulling the camera back so that we can see the men as well as their reflections, I don't how to fix it. The modelling is great, the textures are great, love the floor and carpet, and the lighting. Obviously a lot of hard work in this.

Yes, I agree with Tjohn, the impression is of the two people being inside the case. My suggestions would be to move a bit the window on the side, so to not reflect it whole in the case. Then, I think you can increase TIR and MDR up to 15-20 without affecting too much the rendertimes and improving the overall reflection/transmission quality. This is a great work. Textures and lights are really great. S.

I think the biggest problem is there is no dark, anywhere. It looks like trees and a big picture window are reflected. In the real world this much light would blow away any other light source in the room so you wouldn't have soft shadows. The two fighters would be in silhouette because the brightest source is outside the room. The case lights are bright white. Every dojo or sports club Ive seen this kind of display in the bulbs were yellowish. Try changing the color a bit and turning down the intensity or even removing some of the lights. This will also increase the render times if you can remove some. If the weapons cant be seen you might try just upping the ambient component of the color. You sort of have two foci in this picture, the weapons and the fighters. If your intent is to focus on the case silhouette the fighters by removing the light from inside so that only an impression of the fighters remain.

it's a bit dark in the center. I usually drop a radial light into the dark spots, then use the 'e' (whatever it's called..;) to just tone down the intensity enough so that the details are revealed, but the light doesn't interfere..just an idea.

Thanks a lot, everyone, those are all great ideas... Back in a bit with a new version, or maybe two!?!?!

Looks cool but I have a question. What is the focus of this picture? The case or weapons? The focal point should be obvious. Everything else should support the focal point and not steal attention. Kudos on the color choice and texture mapping.

Aye, you are right SevenofEleven, thus I posted it in the forums and not as a gallery image... I've got a long way to go to finish portraying these ridiculous weapons in their true beauty... Thanks for your critique, it's important...!

Want to see the 10 Rays vs the 7 Samurai.