Hi, I'm watching the Fame Story, something like music academy, reality here in Greece and I wanted to send a picture to my favorite contestant, Periklis. He's such a good person but the rest of the players, 4 to be exact, are giving him a very hard time because he's very popular and they think they're so much better than him. They, the 4 others, like to call themselves Dinosaurs since they're in the game for 6 months. Anyway I made this but something doesn't fit and I can't pinpoint what. Can you give me any suggestions, even if it's tottaly drastic, anything at all? I want it to be perfect but I just don't lke it. This is the first draft so it's a little coarse. Thank you:)

Oh, he sung, New York New York thus the suit and the whole gangster look:)

make the wall father back and the empty wall mount thingy at bottom way to near :P looks like it was added in post, the depth doesnt seem to match move it farther back with the wall

Also the image looks rather grainy and jaggy. Either set your anti-alias on or if you have P5 increase your pixel samples in your render options. And set your resolution higher when you save your picture.

The gangster looks like he is floating sort of. He is in a sitting position but no chair visible anywhere. And he doesn't look like he is in the same room as the girl. And the plaque... what's holding it?

Everything looks a little "disjointed" to me...like everything is floating about. I'd say it's a good start...but his foot needs to look more like it's acutally on the dinos neck. Perhaps that could be helped with a little added shadow in post if not possible in rendering. And make sure all the shadows match up...I think that's one of the main things throwing the image off...the shadows on everything aren't matching up. The plaques with the dino heads should look closer to the wall and only have a faint shadow around the edges and then from the heads along the wall depending on where your lighting is coming from.

It looks a bit 'flat', there's no depth. The whole scene looks too 'busy'. I don't know whether to focus on the gangster, the girl, the dead dinosaurs or the animal trophies on the wall. suggestions: - lighting - don't flush the wholes scene with light, focus your lights on your main subject. Add some darker areas (shadows) to make the scene dramatic. - depth - take the wall back a little, make the wall trophies and the wall less saturated or darker or blurrier - the right foot of the gangster is 'floating'. Lower it a little more and make it look like it's stepping on the lizzard's neck. JV

Hi, sometimes a problem is right in your face and you just can't pinpoint what bothers you. I can see it now crystal clear, all of your suggestions are 100% correct. You see lighting and shadows have always been my bigest problem. The thing is that my PC can't handle rendering all of the files at once and I end up rendering each figure on it's own and then do the rest in post work. I really don't know what I can do about doing a better lighting job, I'll probably drop the whole thing but in any case thank you so much for all the suggestions. I'll give it one last makeover and if I'm satisfied I'll post it here. Thank you again niki

If you have to render things in pieces...keep the same lighting for all of your renders. That will help everything match up a little better and then you can postwork some shadows and blur things in the background to fade out as needed. That might help things when you're putting them all together. If you haven't, get some of the free light packages from RDNA...they're great to start out with if lighting seems daunting to you as you can use them as they are or tweek to fit your needs. If you're using P5...you might consider rendering parts like the walls and a few of the props on them and then applying them as textures on one of the square props with bump and displacement nodes to achieve a bit of 3D look for background things...then add your figures and go from there. Or make a bumpmap in P4 and see how that might work for you. Camera focal might be another thing to consider...I usually set my main camera to 75-100 or somewhere around there as the deafult of 38 or so is a little funky sometimes. That might help with the perspective on your renders too. (course, I really haven't been doing this all that long...so I certainly don't know everything just yet ^_^ )

I've got the Daz global lights and use them in all my renders but they really kill the shadows, I'll try the ones from RDNA. That trick with the rendered scene as a background image really worked for me!!! It might not be perfect but it's certainly better than before, I think I'll give it another shot. Thank you!!! Niki

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=913492&Start=1&Sectionid=1&filter_genre_id=0&WhatsNe

I've posted a somewhat fixed version of the image in my gallery, I know it's not perfect but it's the best I could do with it. Thank you all for the suggestions and advices:) Niki

Nice Pic... I really have to show this one to my parents... they are in love with Periklis. I was over last sunday for supper, they couldn't stop talking about what nice he guys, how it's not fair that he always get's dumped on. They seemed to be more concered about his well being than own their son. I've never even seen famestorey and i feel bad for the guy... Do you live in Athens?

Yeah I live in Athens and I've got to say that even though Peri is older than me I feel like I want to be his mom or something:) I understand your parents perfectly well, give them a big hug from me, we Peri fans stick together:) Niki