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Okay lets kick this to the curb. The link is to Theres something fishy going on here in my gallery, which I threw up with normal AA until I can get a premium render to finish. The concept was a National Geographic Explorer / Dr. Joseph Ballard expedition in your fish tank. The challenge was trying to sell the transition from cheap plastic plants and fluorescent aquarium lighting in the foreground to a sea wall drop-off complete with thermo cline in the space of about eighteen virtual inches. All complicated of course, by the fact that water is a much denser transmission medium than air. (There are no caustics because Ive never seen caustics in fish tanks, or the last time I dove the wall in Montego Bay.) What Im hoping to get is help with the lighting, both native and in post for both the environmentals and for the sub. Cuz what I ended up with was a royal pain and Im not exactly in love with it anyway. Ive got every flavor of positive and negative radial known to man strewn about, a handful of spots, and a honking big parallel light cube going on and I figure theres just got to be a better way. So please, if you are one of the lighting Gods, take a look through the wire frame and settings that follow and let me know how youd have approached it. Excruciating detail and painful redundance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

wire frame (get out your jeweler's loop)

Skylab settings

Skylab settings

Skylab settings

Skylab settings

well, a number of things, actually... and this is only my opinion, feel free to flame me afterwards. zo. the composition of the scene in terms of lighting takes attention from the sub and puts it on the fish up front. So the background might as well not exist. 2. the fish up front are way too large. there's no perception of depth, and much of that is due to the fact that the lights either have no shadows or are too strong. so strong, in fact, that their position lends the eye to believe that they're coming from behind the camera instead of from up high. 3. the textures, that mossy rock thing, is fine, and actually came out surprisingly good. the plants up front could do with a bit of bump mapping (something from the presets, whatever. 4. the plants up front seem to be standing in the water, considering that right below them there's a huge crevase. 5. the sub's light cone is a mat cone and not a light. the light cannot just end in a circle, it needs to hug the terrain. solutions... screw the atmosphere details. no atmosphere at all. set up the terrains and the plants, the fish and the sub, lose the camera depth blur for that last one. make the mats, assign them. make the plants and fish smaller, move the plants to come out of the rocks, and copy them around at different points of the terrain. lighting. this is what makes the scene what it is. the feeling of depth, which is given by the dark shadows, the 'murky' atmosphere. there's no singular thing in a render that actually tells someone 'there's water there'. it's a number of things. so set up like 3 or 5 round lights, squared setting, and some water mat on their actual projection (i don't know the technical terms, hope you follow). so 3-5 lights set out high over the ravene. make the middle one, the one above the sub the strongest, and make two cones of light coming from its reflectors, give it volume, make it visible. then it's all a matter of photoshop. the murk. hope this helps. drac

Agree about the lighting of the fish. Tone that down very much. The leftmost fish is burned through. Then, you don't get a sense it's a fish-tank. Enclosing a scene in a cube with a water mat applied might help. Also, it would be nice if there was a room or something wisible behind the sub. Putting a thin cube in front of the camera with a medium glass material applied would make it more plausible, but would also increase the render time. I think you need more specularity on the fish and the water weeds. And put something close to black in the Specular. You'll get a wetter look. BTW, rotating the skalar and the koi along the Y axis, so more of the bodies is visible, might help, but I'd have to try that to see. Also, more transparency on their fins would make it more plausible.

Concept and 'pop' only go so far, and those that 'know' know an image where all the elements complement and reinforce each other to make a 'complete' presentation. This little puppy may be the best concept to try to achieve that with but that's the direction I want to head. Drac and Erlik have really done me good service by going beyond pointing out incongruities and offering possible solutions. Thanks and keep it coming!

Im not necessarily disagreeing with anything, and certainly not negating any of the feedback, but I want to make this a 360 degree endeavor so here are some further discussion points. I agree that the fantail guppy is overexposed. I had almost resolved myself to having to fix that in post. Believe it or not, beyond the guppy, the lighting on the fish is real-world consistent with a full-spectrum florescent on a 75 gallon tank. I made a trip to the pet store yesterday to verify that. The guppy is on the larger end of the scale but the fish are also actually actual size as verified by the trip to the pet store. Discus and angels can get even bigger, but then they also get meaner and dont co-habit well with more docile types. I framed it all based on the full sized fish (which may not have been advisable) just the same as when I stooped down in the pet store and looked at then from a distance of ten inches. None of the fish pictured hang out at the bottom of the tank, and when we were looking at each other, I wasnt seeing the bottom of the tank even if it was within my field of view, but I was seeing a portion of the foreground plants. Also, there werent really any shadows in the tank, or any real perception of front-to-back depth beyond the placement of the fish it was only about 18 inches there certainly wasnt murk in the tank, but the sub could certainly have the potential to kick some up even though it is probably a scale inch and a quarter. My hope was to have the fish be the primary focus and then for the viewer to discover the sub sub scene after a few moments. Id like help trying to sell these points if at all possible instead of abandoning them again if its possible to achieve I think the biggest challenge is trying to sell the quasi-overlap of one environment with the other and trying to balance the compromises. I could probably pull off a straight fish tank or a straight underwater scene, by Id like to try to marry the two even if it isnt working out as harmoniously as either single concept would be by itself. Maybe the whole cross-boundary thing gets in the way too much but I dont know where Id find a bunch of people to come up with a creative solution set than here if it is. Thanks and keep it coming

How do I get it to hug the rock?

"The challenge was trying to sell the transition from cheap plastic plants and fluorescent aquarium lighting in the foreground to a sea wall drop-off complete with thermo cline in the space of about eighteen virtual inches."

Alright, I agree with placing the whole scene inside a cube of water, but in addition to that you should place a water plane directly infront of the camera. Also the spotlight on the submarine is totally unnatural, it needs to fall off on all the edges as well as project onto the ground. Also the sub could use a bit more detail mostly in respect to more interesting textures, because at the moment it sticks out really badly as a bright yellow blob. Add some rust or scum or something mainly. As for the windows on the sub they are just as bad, texture them if u can otherwise atleast make the material reflective or transparent so there is some sort of other detail on it. Also are you sure you AA'd the whole scene? The plants look highly aliased but that may just be caused by the fact that they are so different from the terrain? Again with the plant texture it needs more detail, I know you are going for the plastic look but even plastic has dirt/blemishes. The fish models are pretty good and the textures arent bad either, MAYBE make the mat a bit more specular (emphasis on the maybe, I dont know if this would actually help the scene) ? The main problem with the fish though is that they look like clipart pasted onto the scene, spread them out, they dont have to be too far back but put them at different depths where the lighting will intereact with them differently, this will give the entire scene more depth which it lacks at the moment. Another suggestion for lighting would be to use the softest shadows possible for this undersea scene, turn up the fog and have it fall off at a slower rate but have it start right in the very foreground of the image. You might also want to consider putting some colored spotlights in some of the darker areas and have the shine up on to the fish, be very careful with this effect though as it would be easy to overdo, just be very suble, it would be like the light coming from the surface reflecting off the rocks below, stick to greens and blues for this. Also I don't know what you use for postwork, but Paint Shop Pro has an amazing filter for lighting that comes with the program, I don't know if Photoshop has an equivelant filter but if you wish to know how to use it for your scenes I'd gladly show you, I use it for nearly everything I do, almost always helps dramatically. Also if you don't have it already, grab the freeware copy of Universe or download the plugin, it's filters would be very helpful for this image as you can sort of show the light shining down through the water and pillowing off the objects it hits most intensely; again if you need help with this technique I'd gladly teach you what I know, if you don't have Universe, Eye Candy 4000 has a good corona filter which may do as well. Anyway I think this image has a lot of potential and I really look forward to seeing revisions, keep us updated!

To get it to hug the rock, simply click on "Infinite Light"

blog, paragraphs man, paragraphs! :) and miller, yeah, i get your points. then concentrate the lighting on the fish. just fixy fixy on the lighting :) drac

Thanks for the excellent feedback guys. These are some truly insightful suggestions - and the way the dog renders, should keep me busy until they release the P5 chip! A couple specific questions - First kind of @ Blog - I'm sitting on PSP8.1 here, which filter did you have in mind? I've also got (but never use) PS Elements if there are any alternatives in there. Second - clicking infinite on the spot throws it forever - is there any way to get a better gradient on the falloff on the side of the light cone or is that handled in post? Incidentally I'm gelling those with one of my 'brooding cloud' photos which is also up on a 2d plane behind the sub with only about 40% diffuse to show the density difference and current upsweep for the thermo cline. (Any divers here?) Third - is the terrain itself getting in the way? Does it need something less convincing and more fish tanky? Hell, Im just about starting over from scratch here anyway Fourth and finally for now got any specific mat suggestions for the sub cockpit dome? They are going to run dark or red in there to preserve their low-light vision so there wont be a lot coming out, but how do you think the light hitting it from the outside should interact with it? Well no, not finally, this is finally Thank you all for your patient attention and helpful feedback.

A couple of things on the subs spotlights: 1) Whenever you're using Gradient Lights always turn the the Falloff to "None" - this is a bug and really screws up the falloffs. 2) The range value of 51 is not even reaching to the rock (even with the offset) - I'd set the offset to 0 and up the range value until you get some illumination on the rock. You'll also want to back the Edge Sofness way off, you're not seeing it now becuase it only affects the actual illumination. 3) I'd turn SS Hard/Soft off on the spot but turn on Volume Visible Light and then in the spots Material editor switch it to a Volume Texture and mess around with the Density and Edge Softness values. This should give you a softer "cone" and fill the volume as well. The only other comment I'd make is that the Sun Shadow Intensity value of 2 seems a little low, as well as the Shadows purple color. Excelent work! Dan

Dan, purple would be great. But a dark, dark purple. I think that Wet Canvas recommends it for shadows, not black. dd, a couple of things. Yeah, I agree that properly kept aquariums are nice and clean. But you are not dealing with a properly kept aquarium here. You want people to get an impression that the aquarium is much bigger on the inside (heh, how many times I've read this phrase :-)). So, increasing the murk a bit would help, in my opinion. Also, you don't have the difference in lighting between the aquarium and the room to help you there. Then, on the second thought, I don't recall ever seeing a home aquarium with such a steep ravine in it. If you could fill it a bit towards the foreground and then allow it to deepen towards the sub... BTW, I don't have PS Elements, but if it has Filter -> Render -> Lighting Effects, that's what you need. What you might do is to duplicate the layer, apply the lighting you want where you want it and then erase the rest of layer with a soft brush plus increase the transparency of what remains.

Hey this is all GREAT - I've got my two-year-old and four-year-old with me today so all I've gotten to is rematting the sub body and windows, pushing up the specularity on two of the fish, deleting the parallel light cube, doubling the spotlight and reworking the light a bit (although from Dan's post it looks like there's still more to do in that area) deleted five or six radials and spun all the skylab settings around just to see what could be seen. I'll have a go at the rest tonight after I put them to bed. (I did however, get to go to the park, paint, and bake white chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookies - had a jones for them since that Drac debacle... freaking tease.)

Well, I can't add much to this technically, but I can a bit on the general aquarium issue. I agree with Erlik. Much as people who have them want to keep a pristine aquarium, it's virtually impossible. Plus, you've got a goldfish/koi in there. Them's dirty fish! They constantly muddle through the gravel for food particles which keeps stuff floating in the water. They're also avid vegetarians...they'd have a field day with a tank like this! :o) Just the bits of vegie matter they'd leave would leave some muck in the tank. It's hard to tell depth in this and because of that, it's hard to judge sizes of the fish. But, the fact remains that the guppy looks huge in comparison to the other fish. I'd make the discus larger, the goldfish/koi larger, the angel leave alone, the guppy and neons smaller. I also agree the sub needs fixing. Right now it just looks like one of those silly plastic aquarium toys. Last, I agree not being able to see the floor of the aquarium makes it a little hard to tell that's what it is. Have you considered something like having a faint reflection of a person in the "glass" of the aquarium? Maybe with a surprised look at seeing the sub? Or a child's hand pressed against the glass. Those could give the illusion of having a barrier between the viewer and the tank making it look more like an aquarium. And I'll stop rambling now. All in all, except for the plastic look of the sub, I think this is wonderful! :o)

If you do decide to show part of the bottom of the aquarium I put my two-cents in that it ought to be that cheap, brightly colored gravel, fading into darkness and lack of clarity further back. I think that would help to define this as an aquarium.

Believe it or not, it's the spot's interaction with the fog causing the appearance of the ring. I've been messing with it trying to get it out of there and finally gave up and moved onto the fog suggestions, and voila! Still haven't solved much in that regard but I thought you might be intersted...

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