[balistic]

The JPeG is pretty big, sit tight . . .



Its about 75% done now, with most of the big chunks in place. The last stretch is mostly going to be small details like nails and splinters, chunks of cement, et cetera. It still needs some lighting and texture refinement too.

Done in A:M 8.5, with Photo-Paint 8 used for wall textures and post-render level adjustment. The lighting is all placed manually, no GI or radiosity was used.

Feedback would rule



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Brian "balistic" Prince
3D Artist
Eggington Productions

[AliasMoze]

Hey, that looks neat.
The hill in the background looks a little too close in value to the wall.

Looks pretty real; can't wait to see it with the details.

[Binke]

that looks excellent, my comment would be on the bluey-ness om the shadows.. that is, they look a little too blue. I might not be correct though, just my opinion.

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http://binke.gamesquad.net

[Chapel]

I like it. I would probably go with a different color texture for the wood. Its a little too close to the color of the walls. Also, something doesn't look right on the log in the doorway. The lighting or something on the part sticking outside looks weird.

[Kenzo Tanaka]

The hill does look really close to the back wall. I think it's due to the back wall and the hill being a very similar color. Maybe if the back wall were desturated just a bit, to suggest some distance.

Outside of that nit, looks fantastic... a typical high quality balistic effort

[WacoMonkey]

Very nice, very convincing. Great bounce light, I don't think the shadow color is off at all. What is A:M 8.5? Animation Master?

Maybe a hint of a specularity map on the corrugated metal would help, especially around the broken edges, I think they would pick up a little more light. I also agree with the Mozster, The bkgd and wall blend together too much, might want to separate with a bit of haze or a hue shift in the bkgd.

Nice stuff!

[This message has been edited by WacoMonkey (edited August 03, 2000).]

[Francis]

I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more in the way of construction details. Right now you mainly have very large elements, like the big beams leaning against the wall. How were those elements connected to the wall? For instance, it might be nice to see some metal brackets or pockets or something in the inner surface of the walls showing how the roof structure was supported, or rust stains running down the surface or something similar. Adding more, smaller debris on the ground would also tell more of the "story" about how the building was constructed and how it came to be destroyed. Different sized debris would also help to give the image a sense of scale (although it's pretty good already in that respect, more wouldn't hurt).

Along those lines, maybe you might add some more "breakage" or evidence of structural damage along the top of the wall. Right now it's really straight and regular, like the roof just sort of sat on top, without being connected to the walls.

Really nice image - definitely "looks real." Looking forward to seeing more of this.

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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[balistic]

Thanks for the crit guys! I never would have seen the value similarity between the hills and the wall on my own. I think I'll push the atmospheric haze back a bit and see if that helps.

Hey Francis, did you and Fred work with Victor Navone while he was still at Presto?
Hash played his "Alien Song" every five minutes at their SIGGRAPH booth . . . it was hard to resist singing along with it during my demo

BTW, I had a very similar run in with Justin Evans. He's notorious in the A:M community . . . sometimes he comes into the #hash3d IRC channel under aliases and asks about himself. I think he's gone through at least two dozen artists just doing the eight minute teaser for his project . . . when it takes you two years to put out an eight minute demo, maybe something's wrong with your managerial skills.



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Brian "balistic" Prince
3D Artist
Eggington Productions

[Francis]

Yes, Victor, Fred, Wacomonkey and I were all coworkers at one time. Victor's one of the most "interesting" people I've ever known. Brilliant artist, just ... "interesting."

As for Justin Evans, I hope his show is as kick ass as he keeps telling everyone it is, but I'm glad I passed on the job.

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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[waylon]

Really looks convincing, especially the bit of corrugated metal.

I do agree with Binke though, the shadow seems a bit too blue. There would be a lot more warm light reflecting off of the walls to the right and the ground, especially around that time of day (3:00 PMish?) The shadows look like something you'd see closer to dusk, when the sunlight isn't as bright and most of the ambient light is coming from the sky.

Really great, otherwise. Very convincing details.

[FatPenguin]

I'm a bit confused. What exactly do you meen by: 'The lighting is all placed manually, no GI or radiosity was used'

forgive me if this is a stupid questoin

[rdgraffix]

WoW! That looks fantastic. Esp. the twisted corrugated metal, it adds a bit of 'organic' form to the otherwise very geometric scene.

The texture of the walls looks great, and the hand-done shadows are very convincing and have a nice sharpness falloff as theey retreat from the casting object.

I think that the hill might be a bit warm, especially against the cool blue of the shadows, and this could be causing it to visually creep forward a bit much, maybe a bit of atmospheric perspective with a blue tint would help push it back a bit and give the image some more depth.

The mottled pattern on the planks might be a bit repeditive and prominent though - and should the planks be a bit more weathered considering the condition of the rest of the house?

It's fantastic work though. It's good to see someone go to the trouble of accurately rendering hand-drawn cast shadows.

Keep it up. It'll be interesting to see it once you've done the final touchups.

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[balistic]

There seems to be some misunderstanding regarding my lighting technique. Let me clarify:

The shadows are all from manually-placed area lights, not painted in by hand. There's a cluster of lights in the sky for diffuse illumination, a tighter spot light to represent the sun, and numerous bounce lights to fake indirect illumination. So the shadows are raytraced, but all of the secondary diffuse illumination was done with deliberately-placed lights instead of using radiosity or GI.

Hash has implementations of both methods, but I prefer the control afforded by handling all light manually.

Thanks for the interest!

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Brian "balistic" Prince
3D Artist
Eggington Productions

[rdgraffix]

hi-hi, I did gone and get meself confuzed wit dat shadow stuff - I guess the rest of my post still applies though

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix