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cwichura — Dragon Rage
#luxrender #reality_plugin #subdragon
Published: 2012-03-16 13:59:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 1051; Favourites: 6; Downloads: 110
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Description
DS4P -> Reality/LuxRender to ~4000S/pI am not sure why there are no shadows on the water. I will be putting this as a question to the LuxRender folks over on their forum.
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Comments: 7
One thing about your water, and why it might be as dark back and front... Do you have a seabed as such, or is it just void below the water surface? If it is just a void, then the water will look bottomless, and that makes it very dark, which could be drowning (no pun intended?) out your water shadows? Try putting a matte plane below the water at as a sea bed, and see if it lightens the water... also if there is nothing up in the sky (like ibl or anyother objects, the reflection from the top of the water surface will also make the water look dark, as it is also reflecting the void, although if you have the reality sky, that may not be the issue. With the reality sky as a light source, it will give an overall illumination, see if when you turn the sky off in the lux light tab, if you get the shadows from having just the sun on?
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There is a dirt ground object below the water. (It's part of Stonemason's prop set.) By default, Reality converts that with a specularity of 0/0/0, but I tried increasing that to around 30ish and it didn't really change the appearance of the water, except for very close to the castle where it is most "shallow". That said, it never gets very deep at any location in the prop...
I just loaded up the film file, and turning off the sky makes the water 100% pitch black. Swapping and turning off the sun makes the water a little bit lighter blue in colour, but it is still uniform with no shadows from the castle. With the sun turned off, there are additionally zero shadows on the foreground subject itself (like the railing's shadows on the bridge, etc.)
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Sorry, I don't know what to suggest in that case... really like the perspective of the alternate view!
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Looks quite good! I'm at your post in the forum, so if someone already commented on your faux-shadow issue, my apologies.
From this angle, there really isn't anything that your light source will create shadows on your dragon other than what's already there. Looks like you've got good definition behind the shoulders and most everything to camera upper/lower right (screen wise to the viewer). Was this an IBL source?
Not sure what image its running, but you could add an alpha map to the alpha channel of a cloud pattern and get a little (slight!) impact with that. It'd be most noticeable on the largest surface, that being your water plane.
Again, there's not much you need to improve here as its very crisp. Maybe some more props on your castle, not that there's much outside of compositing that can be added as such.
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This image is using the sun/sky internal lights in LuxRender, not IBL. I don't have any images that would be suitable as IDL sources. The water is also a Reality water plane, which gets converted into the glass2 material in Lux with a "water" volume for the interior volume.
The shadows I was expecting were more about the water surface rather than on the dragon or castle. Or at least the water in front and to the sides of the castle should have been less dark than the water behind the castle, but you don't get that in this image.
I don't really have any other props that would match with the castle (I'm still pretty new to the whole 3D rendering thing). One of the guys at work was insisting the dragon needed to breath fire, too, but I don't have a good way to do that, either. My ability to paint a flamebreath in post would look terrible... 
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I couldn't tell that was V5, so good point on that one!
For props, might I suggest you take a gander at ShareCG. Its a favorite shopping destination of mine where even the thinnest of wallets is not an issue
If you're really (or even slightly) inclined to play with fire, virtual that is, check out GIMP.org and bum around DA here for fire brushes. Gimp is an open source photoshop program which in my opinion is very similar and certainly capable, plus there's a goodly handful of nifty plug-ins, such as the normal map plug-in, which is very big for Reality for better detail and faster renders of textures. I've got PS CS5 and still prefer gimp as it seems pretty intuitive once you learn a few basics.
I don't know what all experience or programs you have, but these are a few of my favorites. Being open source (free) didn't hurt either as you can learn on the cheap, and you're just a search away from tut's on anything and everything!
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Yeah, I've gotten a few things from ShareCG. But I find their search engine kind of lacking, so most of the stuff I've gotten there so far has been from links I've found on other websites.
I have PS CS3 (I come to the 3D rendering world from the perspective of a photographer). But I've never been any good at painting, so even with a fire brush, I think I'd get pretty crap results.
Thanks for the suggestions, though!
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