I'm working up a little something for the Fall Equinox tomorrow, so what better subject matter than Stonehenge? But I'm very unhappy with this. The model looks like it is just taped on top of a background photo rather than part of the scene. I don't seem to have any shadows on the ground at all. How do I fix that? And I thought some haze would be good, but forgot how to do that too. In fact, I've been away from Vue for so long I darn near forgot how to drop the trees onto the terrain! Suggestions most welcome. jon

There are several ways to increase shadow strength.

1. For your sunlight source, you can set the shadow density to +100% (i.e. 200%). You change this under the light's 'shadow options'.

2. You can change the color of the 'ambient light color' to a darker color. You do that in the atmosphere editor / light tab.

3. You can change the percentage of the 'light balance' to a higher percentage of sunlight. You do that in the atmosphere editor / light tab.

I hope that helps.

Charles

You can also increase "from sky" and decrease "ambient" setting. ;=) Yves

Thanks. That helped a bunch. I have got to get back into this program again big time, I just like it so much. I'll have to take the model into Poser and add some people and re-render for the final scene, but clothes are going to be a problem. I don't want naked people in the scene, but don't want modern clothes either. Guess I'll just have to make some. :-( I made the Stonehenge model in Wings3D by the way. Anyone interested in it for the Free Stuff? No textures, just a bare .obj file. jon

Oh yeah. Any general suggestions on the scene? Should I loose the moon? Anything else to improve it? jon

It's just my opinion, but I prefer the first scene which looks more realistic (I don't know why exactly). Your stone model is very nice. ;=) Yves

I agree with YL. Perhaps you should try boosting the shadows using 'shadow options'. Another option is to add some additional fill lights to create self-made ambient light.

Charles

I think your scky settings were better in the first one (including moon)... Argentium Thri'ile

That's the problem with changing a bunch of variables all at once. I'll never get it back to the way it was. :-) But I did play around with it a bit more. Brightened up the moon again, shifted the Ambient Light away from blue towards green. Add six Poser people. I think I want to add some more people to create a bit more of a crowd. I'll wrap it up tomorrow one way or the other. Thanks for your advice all. Still open for comments. jon

I like your latest version (!) though lens flares are a generally a distraction unless used with great care.

You know, I did not ask for a lens flare, it just came out that way. I feel much the same way, so I'll look to turn it off before I finalize this. I'm guessing it's in the lights menus somewhere. Must have clicked it by accident. jon

Yep, your last version is much better. Though, there's still something that looks to me wrong. In fact, the circle of stone doesn't look massive for me. I just can't see it like dolmens, but like little stone assembled by a child. I think this is something with the point of view... What do you think about this, others ? Argentium Thri'ile

that's true Argentium Thri'ile ! maybe due to the bumps size, and because there is no other object near the stones to indicate the scale (grass or plant, human,...). We should wait for the final result with the characters around the circle of stone ;=) Yves

Well, actually they are in there already. Six of 'em, but they are hard to see. I used dark skined people (except for the woman painted light blue very near the circle with her arms upraised) and they are in deep shadow, which makes them hard to see. I will investigate the bump size issue and see if that helps. I also plan to add a few more people and place at least a couple of them in the sunlit areas. Thanks for all the advise. jon

Another adice : think that Stonehenge is not only a circle of dolmens... there are trees, grass, rocks surrounding this place... bring more life (and credibility) in this and you'll avoid the size problem !!! :-) Hope it can helps Argentium Thri'ile

Last WIP for this, I promise. I hope the people are now visible enough (12 people, 1 dog) and help alleviate the size problem. I also did some funny stuff with the texture sizes for the stones, made one .2 and the other 20 I don't know what I'm doing, but it seemed to help. :-) I also scaled the stones up a bit. I have one more question (I hope just this last one). When I turn lens flare off I loose the bright morning glow on the horizon and the whole scene get much darker. I fiddled with the settings to no avail, and cannot seem to figure out how to keep the morning glow and overall brightness of the scene while getting rid of the annoying flare circles in the foreground and that really annoying green spot on the stones. Is this a case of you can't have it both ways? If I turn off lense flare the sun just looks like a washed out disk and the people become much harder to see. :-( Advise? Thanks for all your help everyone. I'm learning a lot. Oh yeah, I also moved the camera back, down and to the right a little. I think that helped a lot. jon

jon,

In the lens flare editor, turn off random streaks.

I think your scene still needs more work. The camera seems to be too distant from your subject, and the people are obscured by the shadows. Perhaps you could bring the camera closer and lower camera's focal setting. Then again, you could also put something entirely new in the foreground below the stonehenge. Or you could move the people together onto the side as if a crowd had gathered.

I would experiment a little more. Let me know how it goes.

Charles

Thanks for the camera tip! I would never have thought to even mess with the focal lenght. It helped a lot. Tried to incorporate most of what you all suggested. I'll post it in the gallery in a bit. Thanks again. jon