Just a scene I've been forming to display this ridiculous sword I made in Rhino... I know the candle flames need some work, but other than that how does it look? At this point, I think the lighting is fine, I just plan on adding objects until I hit my RAM limit (768MB) on this PC. What kind of objects are appropriate? THe sword is Rhino, and the inkwell and brushes. The parchment is just a few 2D pict-based objects that I made in Photoshop, transmap, bump map, and texture map. Other than that, everything else is Bryce except the photo outside the window, a pic of the trees near my house. THanks for looking, feel free to toss me some ideas!

Awesome lighting! The parchments are a great touch. But I'd deep six that purple colour on the candles. It is so distracting from the rest of the scene. To a lesser extent, so is the colour on the other candles. As to what else to put in, hmm, more weapons? Maybe something to accompany that nifty blade? :)

Very nice. I like this. No disrespect intended to Jaymonjay, but I like the purple candles. No disrespect to you, but the candleholders they're in look a little tipsy. The lighting is eerily cool, and I like how you've taken the trouble to align the light sources. The photo image almost looks a little too good for the rest of the scene - have you considered giving it some photo grain, a littel gaussian blur, making it a little more transparent, or giving it more separation from the window so maybe it syncs with everything else a little more?

Excellent job...I agree on candles add maybe an elegant stand and yes more weapons...

hmm.. okay, let's start from the back :) the image in itself is well put together, but the lighting is missing something key. either the sun outside (from the picture) isn't shining enough or there's too much light inside the room, i can't decide. the swordstands are fine and nice. the texture of the desk needs a bit more reflection. the candlestands are also fine, even though you could set them down a bit more in the desk because they would be a bit unstable. nothing wrong with the purple candles. in fact, the wax is absolutely perfect :) the wood of the window is a bit meh for some reason (probably because there's either no reflection from the glass of the window, or it just seemsm like it's been put there as a whole as an afterthought. it needs a bit more than just a square with a cross throught it. the papers on the desk look like they're part of the desk texture, and that's what ruins the shot the most in my opinion. get a terrain, make it rolling dunes, randomize it until you get something decently paper-ish. flatten it on y, and use it like that instead of a simple 2D plane. it will give a bit of 3D depth instead of just looking like a semi-transparent thing-omabob on the desk :) the lighting is nice and warm. the scene is well placed and everything, it's just the details taht need a second look over :) drac

I'd say the lighting is superb. The only thing I see that's obvious is the parchment (as Drac pointed out). It's too flat or something. On pure personal taste, I'd put the sword on the table. I see too many works that just don't tell a story, or at least don't provoke a story from the viewer. If I see the sword on the table next to the letter I wonder what it's all about. With the sword on display, I think probably just a letter to mom. My two cents worth, keep the change!

this looks to me like an altar rather than a display....so a gruesome thought - how about adding an offering of blood in an offering-cup? then you could turn the parchments into some kind of sacred text. And add ornate hangings on the wall behind, rather than a window, maybe?

Message edited on: 05/15/2004 00:38

Ugh! We're loosing our edge! I can't believe we all missed the opportunity to suggest adding a NV...

rotfl...or a sacrificed NV with pert breasts...

I agree with what Muddygrub said in post #6...especially about laying the sword on the table rather than having it on display, and about what Drac said about the parchments in post #5.... as well as his pointing out that mainly it is the final details that need going over. Excellent image though. You could add a NV 8) lol

Id like to see a bit more shiny on the sword blade. More specularity. perhaps even a bit more ambience on the blade material. The sword is the focus, its should be just a bit brighter

I agree with funcoflipper. And something more: if the sword is the focus, why not pull the camer closer to it? This way, you've got too much area which cries for something to focus upon. I took the liberty of cropping the pic, but it still lacks a clear and distinct focus, although in my view it looks a bit better. I also played with filters in Photoshop to make the sword shinier. BTW, not everything you have in a pic has to be in full view. So, we could see only a part of the parchments, only bottoms of the candleholders, and so on.

pert? I can't find a dial setting marked 'pert'..they start at 'zaftig' and go to 'unstable'..;) all I'd suggest would be adding a sheath somewhere..just my 2p..;)

Aye, wow! Thanks for all the excellent feedback... The parchment sucks, I know, but I alerady did a scroll in another image and consider the 3 seconds it takes to model it in Rhino for me, wanted to try a different approach... But I'm gonna go with Drac's suggestion and make it a terrain instead of a 2d square object. Lighting, I think I'll Bryce-ify the outside real quick to kill the discrepancy between it all. Drac, I make, design and sell windows professionally and am sooooo tired of modeling them, forgive me for taking the easy way out on this one! But, alas, when you're right you're right. I'm going to insert a more powerful window model, which I'll post real quick as well. Candlesticks : They're old, and very high-poly for what I plan on doing with this scene. I'll make more 5-second Rhino sticks and slap 'em in there instead. Candle color : Aye, I believe in this instance it does detract from the color scheme, but considering how cluttered this desk needs to look, I'll wait to change them after I add fifty or so more objects, and determine where the color scheme's really heading. Erlik, some good ideas, thanks a bunch! I'm not sure what the final POV will be, but I am considering your idea... Believe, I will be running this through my standard favorite filters (KPT and FP). I think the sword on the table would begin to tell a story like you guys said, we'll try that out as I add more clutter... Here's my home PC desk for an example!

Oh yeah, here's a slightly more advanced window design I did on Bryce 4 a while back, I'll probably just insert this one... Any better, Drac? Worse?

Excellent thoughts... can I offer one small counterpoint as someone who has owned and had the opportunity to wield swords? Your blades are revered, never, and I mean NEVER, have any of mine been disgraced by clutter. I think that there's certainly a historical precedent for this also. I know you are considering image presentation here, but seriously, I think that anyone who's life or honor depended on an edged weapon would only feel more strongly about it than I do.

Wheee! And I thought my table was cluttered. :-)

And BTW, TWO packs of Camels?

Aye, I honor and respect swords greatly and have quite a few of them. But alas, a sword is a device made only to kill men, and inferior to the spear in every way. (grins!) I think I'll turn this into an action-waiting scene, where a man will be reading a letter and plotting murder most foul, kinda-thing. (grins at his desk) At last count there were 134,683 objects, 49,297,861 polys. Most of the polys are from the ridiculous boats at the top...! (heh)

itchy back?

Aye, well I opted for doing the parchment in Rhino, as well. No longer just a 2D pict object, sorry aobut the very unispired text but I never meant it to really be "seen"! As opposed to the obnoxious terrain-style parchment, I just patched it in Rhino, for a total of 97 polys in Bryce... (As opposed to 32,000+ polys for a Brycean Terrain) ALthough it doesn't look like much extreme roll here, all I have to do to increase the shading on it is size-pull the object on it's Y-axis. Now on to bigger and better things...