Attached Link: http://www.four-hands.com/marcs_WIP.htm

The picture is a 12 hour GI render. I'm liking the GI look although I need to tone down the brightness on the right side of the bottle label. I may turn the bottom a little, drop the light and darken the off-scene wall on the right that is bouncing light. The wine drips ont he label need more work too.

Also noticed some odd render effects on the lip of the glass which I do not think are due to modeling although it is possible they are some ceiling beams I have on the ceiling.

Anyway here it is, comments always welcome.

The wall and table are place holders; I'm going to do a more interesting model for both as my next step. After that, a few wine strains on the faerie and some drops on the table and some softly lit foliage in the window was about what I had in mind.

There are earlier WIPs at the attached link of the same scene (and a slightly larger version of the scene here). The others pix are not GI renders.

Marc

The scene looks good. You might consider adding D.O.F. to get more separation between the table edge and the wall/window. Yeah, I see that effect on the upper quadrant of the lip of the glass. It looks like the vertices don't match up at that one point, which might be due to a bad point on the spline curve. Like a corner point instead of a smooth spline point, or one with mismatched slope or 2nd derivative (flip).

I'll check the glass model. I hadn't notice that probelm in other renders. It is an amapi object for the glass, not a spline object. Anyone seen this type of issue with the amapi import plugin? I understand it is somewhat buggy... DOF sounds interesting. I might experiment with that. From other's posts, it seems a bit touchy, though. Have you had good luck with it? I haven't used it yet. Marc

DOF isn't very good prior to C3, but you might get lucky. Try setting the focal point at the sitting fairy, then drop it off halfway between the table edge and the wall. If you search this forum, there are some threads on using it in C1 and C2.

I think you're also using the older soft shadows option? Try using the newer one. It works great! The heel of your drunken fairy won't look like it's floating as much. -Kix

Hi, Kix, I have noticed the floating heel problem. What soft shadows option are you talking about? I'm using the one on the light's effect's tab. What's the other one? I only see that one in the manual. I'm still using CS2.1. I have the beta but I like my plugins and haven't switched yet. I was thinking of turning off soft shadows entirely because GI seems to have already softened up the shadows (and I don't like the floating heel effect.) Marc

Neat concept for a pix. Wonder if there's faery AA? Nice execution. Just have one suggestion about the composition. The fairie's elbow is right on the lip of the glass. Imho, moving the fairy so the elbow is either clearly "over" or "close" to the glass' lip would improve the picture a bit (by moving the fairy, the wing would be more clearly behind the glass.) by giving it more visual clues as to depth. Although 3D renders do help a lot with this illusion, it's still a 2D picture and any cues we can give the viewer about depth will make it seem more 'real.' just my opinion. Like the drop of wine on the fingers, the expression on both fairies. And overall, the compostion works, imho, with the exception I mentioned above. Thanks for posting, good picture.

Good catch on the elbow! Hadn't noticed. One of my buddies things I need more size cues. I was thinking of adding a plate and fork on the left? What do you think? I'll probably wait until I see what I can manage on the table. it will have individual planks which may convey size well enough. Marc

Sorry, I thought you were using the beta. C3 has a new raytraced soft shadows option which I'm extremely pleased with. Otherwise, you can go to environmental lighting but be prepared for your computer to beg for mercy. Results can be great though! -Kix

Planks could work, but I'd be careful about adding plates -- they could overwhelm the composition and distract from the fairies. Unless you want that o'course. Maybe the drinking fairy could be sitting on a book of matches? That would give an additional size cue and echo the window shape in the background. just a thought.

Yeah, I was holding off on the plates for similar reasons. Just wanted to make sure the size came across immedaitely. The book of matches is an interesting idea; I'll have to give it some thought. If I can get my table to look the way I want it to (big if) then it probably won't be needed. Thanks, Marc

Good luck dude! Interested in how it'll evolve.

One other note, the wings look FANTASTIC!!! -Kix

Thanks on the wings! They are a modified form of Thornework's universal wings available as a freebie on DAZ. I use the dragion fly texture and bump map. Thorneworks just has a pair of planes for the wing's geometry. I wanted to be able to bend them more easily so I used Amapi to make a mesh in the exact shape of the wings. (Amapi will let you put a picture in the drawing plane to trace over; LH has taht as a plugin for CS2.1, don't know if it is a CS3 feature.) It wasn't perfect, had to stretch the textures a little to fit but worked pretty well. Of course, after all that, I haven't curled the wings much but, hey, it's possibel, darn it ;) Marc PS If you want to see some ugly wings, check out the WIP link at the top. I started off with some fancier wings from DAZ (not free) but I don't care for the look in the scene...

Optional stuff I hadn't decided on:
bump or geometry gouges in the table,
off scene candle flames to reflect on glass

As always, comments very much appreciated.

Marc