office building exteriors...

[Kalle Eliasson]

hooowdy hooo!

This is an old model that I did last summer. Since im working on my portfolio I thought I would remake some things in it (manly the lighting).

Ive got some problems with the trees, they seem to cast ugly shadows on themselves (theyre bitmapped). Ill try to fix this.

As usual, I want you to give me critique on everything that seems odd or plain wrong. (although I wont change the design of the building at this point, its not mine, and I dont think the architect would approve if I did)


thanks in advance boys n girls!

[Raymond Fiore]

I like it! The only thing I would change are the gray cardboard cutouts--they're a little distracting.

[Doron Serban]

I like em too...kinda has the cutout quality (don't know if that's what you were going for)

critiques:

I'd def take out the people. At the least, they're distracting, so either balance them with the rest of the image, take them out all together, or go for a more artistic approach (blurry, not quite opaque, etc).

the first image: I'd lower the reflections on the windows. ALso, I'm not so comfortable with the camera angle. It looks almost like it's a facade at the foreground (can't see any depth to the front of the near side of the building). I know it's a design detail, but it make it hard to dissiminate. Either show more of it by raising the perspective (more of an overhead shot) or by getting more inline with the side of the building (though that would probably ruin the rest of the image). I'm not a fan of the repeating ivy along the wall. Looks like you just pused the trees into the wall. Lastly, the sky need to be reworked. Either that's one hell of a hill in the background or those clouds are crashing into the ground (never a good thing )


Overall, I like the images.

[Kalle Eliasson]

thanks ray n schmoron!

"I like em too...kinda has the cutout quality (don't know if that's what you were going for)"

sorry, dont really know what you mean with "Cutout". Could you explain this please....

Heres an update....
I really hate 2d bitmapped people, but many architects wants them so I think atleast a couple of my portfolio images must include people.
Do you think its better or worse this way? (to make them look like real people instead of paper-siluettes).
I know they dont cast shadows, but thats just cause Im lazy. When Im happy with everything else, I will render a bigger version and paint their shadows in photoshop.

Im focusing on this image for now.... dont really know what to do with the other one (camera angles etc) Maybe I should drop that camera to eyes-level too?

keep em coming!

[Kalle Eliasson]

I just read the NPR tut by Rick Eloy (very nice), and I thought I should do a quick test on this project.

So, heres the same image as before, but with (hopefully) some kind of handpainted look....

It would probably look much better with people-sprites that looked handpainted as well, but I dont have any of those.

crits n comments please!

[Kalle Eliasson]

tried to get rid of the "flatness" of the trees.....

[elif serencio]

I love the last 2 images

[Ricardo Eloy]

Very nice, Kalle!
I'm really happy to see my tutorial was of any help! I like the results, and, for the people, you could take the same people you used and apply them in PS, so you'll have their sillouetes and images on different layers. Then, you can work on them to make them look handpainted (and have them as a sort of library for further works!).
Congrats!
Rick

[Kalle Eliasson]

thanks rick and giraffe!

Having the people on a separate layer would definetly make things easier... ill try that.

Heres another angle... a bit different settings in photoshop, but basically the same technique as the last two.

what do you think?

btw - yesterday I uploaded a 169 kb jpeg, but now it said the maximum size was 97 kb? did you change that on purpouse or does this new forum have a mind of its own? =) anyway, I had to save this image with a quality of 19 (!) so it may look a little blurred.