Hey, folks - Here's a scene I'm working on for a short film project. The animation will have an F-16 fly overhead, followed by and blown up by an alien fighter. It's just one shot in a whole sequence showing an alien attack. I can't add too much more detail or it'll take a gazillion years to render an animation, but any comments and suggestions are welcome, as always. Thanks, Chip

PS: The buildings and stuff are mostly stock from the RDS CD. I altered, re-arranged, re-textured and did build some stuff from scratch....

Chip, You know that looks pretty damn good. :) It has a cool atmosphere to it. I cant wait to see it move ;) Keep up the good work! Clint

Nice total environment. Good light control! Is that building to the right floating? :) 'Ya know, after the jet gets destroyed the buildings could get sucked into the sky one by one..... Mark

When do you think you will have the movie done? I like the lighting. The picture has a tension to it, like your waiting for something to happen. I guess that is a good thing considering what is about to happen. The building next to the car looks a little odd, it has no widows or doors in it. Also the cable holding the stoplight has a funny bend on the left side of it. Please post the movie when you're done. -Grimpup

Very nice! I love the fact that it is a complete scene...it doesnt look like there is nothing behind the buildings...it looks lie an actual city block. I also really like the just rained look..thats something that prob took a bit :) Looks like you have a great set in which to tell a story. Cant wait to see that explosion rip open an object! -Brent

How'd you get that "wet" look on the concrete? I love it! Hoborg

Ah, a beautiful evening in western Washington. Great use of textures and lighting. Good composition as well. That's just how my wife parks a car.. on the curb. The camera distortion making the edge elements lean into the picture gives an ominous feeling and adds to the sense that something is going to happen. I too was wondering about the building with no doors or windows, but I assume the finished product will address that. My only nitpick would be that the street light seems to be positioned oddly; the green side doesn't face a street, it faces a building.

Looks pretty good Azchip, well done! I'm wondering about the concrete sidewalk though, it looks too reflective in my opinion. Concrete isnt that reflective when wet, unless that is supposed to be a puddle of water on top of it there. Also the you seem to be missing another support wire for the traffic light, perhaps one running to the pole next to the car. Other than that it looks great!! -Robert Lech

I just love this forum! Thanks for all the comments, compliments and suggestions. Mark - yep, the building on the right is floating, all right. I'll fix that. There's only the one shot that takes place in this environment; then we move on to downtown as the aliens and jets duke it out amongst the tall buildings.... Grim and McLarsen - the building with no doors and windows is a problem. My plan is to plaster it with posters like you see on boarded up buildings. Gives it that urban blight feel, I think.... Gotta fix that cable, too. I fought with it. (Strange that something so simple can be such a pain!) I knew the traffic light was out of place, but I think I can get away with that since the shot is only going to be about ten seconds long. I just love the Twin Peaks appeal of a hanging traffic light.... And I'm glad I hit that western Washington feel; I'm in Phoenix and we haven't had rain for months. I missed it, so I wanted to make everything wet and foggy.... Brent and Hoborg - the wet look is from a marble natural function in the reflection tab of the shader. There's a bump in the shader, too, to give it that spotty look. And Robert - I'm coming at 3D from a movie production background. On set, we always spray city streets and sidewalks down to get a super-reflective quality. Makes things look much more cool at night. I made the reflection variable across the surface of the sidewalk (the marble shader) to suggest puddles, but it may be too much.... I'll have to see about toning it down a bit. I don't know for sure when I'll have the animation done; I'm still working on the fighter models. When it's ready, I'll try to get a link posted. Thanks again for all the suggestions! - Chip

Scott's post showed up while I was writing my response; I don't want to leave you without response. Yeah, I think you're right. The car is too big. I'll play with it some more, although I did play with it for quite a while when I was building the scene. Much smaller and it looks way too small. It might be a factor of the 35mm lens I'm shooting the scene through, but I'll see what I can do to get it to work right.... Thanks for the comments and the calculation!