"Rainy Street" - Call for crits

[scooter]

Studio/Institution: Michel Cavro
Client: Portfolio Image
Genre: Commercial Exterior
Software: Blender 2.6 - Gimp 2.8
Website: http://www.michelcavro.com
Description:

Hi Guys,

It's being too long since I've posted on CGA, and appologies for that.

The story behind this image comes from my every day experience during this winter.

Contrasts are low, and yet some colors reveal different tones especially when it rains.

This street doesn't exist. I wanted to play with the cobblestone texture and build my scene arround it.

 

Need some crits.

 

Modeling, texturing, render (Cycles) on Blender 2.6.

Touchup editing (glare and people) Gimp 2.8.

[kirthaymore]

Hi Michel, the image looks great! I think you did a nice job with the cobblestone. the only thing that stands out in an odd way to me are the leaves on the grass. Not sure why though. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing more of your work.

[scooter]

Hi Kirt,

Thx man.

You're right about the leaves ... I think I did spread them too high at the "tip" of the grass.

I will post more of my stuff soon.

Michel

[jameswelch]

Michael, this is looking really good. I love these sort of night-time, wet renders. I would agree with the above about the leaves and the soil, seems to standout against the quality of the rest of the image. Also the cars don't seem to fit right to me, especially the mini to the left of the image. Would there me more reflections off these wet vehicles too?

 

I think you've got the cobbles surface spot on though... nice work!

 

James

[scooter]

Thank you James,

You've got the eye :-)

Exact, the cars where rendered separetly because of memory issue and added after. I was aware of that and will work on it as well.

Do you have lots of cobblestone streets in Leeds?

In the scene I decided to choose a map where they're alligned perpendicular to the street. Most of the ones I've seen where disposed on a curved line like on this picture: http://cdn.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/8cobblestone.jpg

I was just not confortable with the expected result.

[Dimitris Tolios]

The feel is great.

I would also prefer more reflective car paint - especially for the mini that is closer.

 

I don't know why the light blue umbrella is so bright on the left side of the sidewalk...self illuminated? Is that street-lamp above it so focused on it? I would burn it in PP a touch.

 

The BMW should have its headlights illuminate the wet road more, especially a few meters in-front of it with volumetric effects - probably add some camera glare to us too as its angle is pretty head on.

 

The Audi in its own behalf should be leaving a small/med light trail from its tail-lights. It is moving away from the camera and we would be using slow shutter speeds in RL, thus we could not "freeze" it like that. Some motion blur for the car and light-trails would give a proper illusion.

 

The leaves are ok...too uniformly arranged maybe?

The bulk of those on the street would be pushed by the air around the passing vehicles to mostly pile against the sidewalk...you can great some interesting little linear piles.

[scooter]

Thank you Dimitris,

There is some great crits here. I like your ideas. I'm going to do a great use of them.

Michel

[andstef]

I was just telling someone how Blender isn't that popular in the design/architecture/visualization industry and how I spent two hours figuring out how to draw a straight line and gave up on learning it. I guess I didn't try hard enough

Good work!, nice image. Other from what Dimitris and the other have said, I don't have anything else to add.

 

all the best!

[scooter]

Thank you so much Andrei.

Originally I'm comming from Maya (during 10 years) and at the beginning (last year) I had a hard time too.

Now I would change Blender for nothing else :-)

[scooter]

Hi guys.

Again, thank you for your feedbacks.

Here is the list of the crits source of the modifications:

 

- leaves direction on grass

- leave texture

- grass more reflexion

- leaves in the air, falling

- woman on left, umbrella too bright

- audi motion blur

- audi leaves sucked by the air speed

- grass higher in the center

- big building left texture

- lighting a bit "flat"

- building lights more diffuse

- bricks too repetitive

- cars reflexions

- more fog in background

- overall color balance

- desaturate building colors

- cars glare too bright

 

[Guest sachinwalvekar]

Hi Michel,

 

I am stunned to see such great work with blender. I really really wish and request you to write an article for 3dsmax users. Great Work. I have blender loaded but unused on my system. Now this gives me motivation to work harder on it.

 

Warm Regards.

[scooter]

Thanks Sachin,

Blender has made some incredible progress. Visit my website to see other works at http://www.michelcavro.com/portfolio-2/

If you are motivated, I can give you some links that really helped me switch to Blender.

[scooter]

I changed the building texture to emphasize the low part with wet, new view angle, new lighting, worked on the trees textures, new subject with the "Blender Hotel" as main subject.

 

Here is the latest try:

 

Edited March 24, 2013 by scooter

[meherthakker]

nice mood in the render..!!

[Tommy L]

I preferred the old camera view.

People are great, cars are poor. Im not familiar with Blender, so I cant give any pointers on that.

[scooter]

Thanks Meher.

Thanks for your reply Tom. You are right. I prefer also the previous camera view. I'm working on a new render with the old camera setting.

Characters are pasted colored and calibrated with Gimp, and I'm working on the car shaders as well for the next render. LEt's hope it will look cooler :-)

[Dimitris Tolios]

Has been some time since I've seen it...

Flat or not, I think the 1st render's lighting was revealing more stuff...I prefer the 2nd view's lighting. More contrast can be pursued in PP, without mudding reflections and killing car paints.

 

I like both views, but what I believe draws you into the 2nd camera view is the more dynamic composition.

Maybe you should add something closer to the 1st camera view's foreground to catch the eye...One of the cars and/or the umbrella couple could be closer.

Then certain elements like the "flying leaves" or leaves in general are too small for us to see would also have a meaning, as now are almost undetectable for someone who is not "directed" to go looking for them.

 

Oh, and add some variety to the building's interior lighting seen behind the windows*...you have a very "cool"/bluish color outside, inside would probably be much warmer. Storefronts are fine, as would probably have some short of fluorescent lighting which is cool, but houses and more intimate commercial spaces (hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes etc) use incandescent bulbs or other filtered light sources (mimicking incandescent 3200K~4000K tops) that look much warmer.

 

* I don't know if we seeing the sky reflecting on the glass or lighting from the interior - should be a variety of both.

[scooter]

Thanks Dimitris, nono, english is fine with me :-) I will have a very hard time in greek.

I'm working on most of the elements you've mentioned. They make sense to me.

And, by any chance do you know another Dimitry? Liatsos "Liatsman" back in Athens?

 

Cheers

 

Michel

[Dimitris Tolios]

by any chance do you know another Dimitry? Liatsos "Liatsman" back in Athens?

 

I lived in Athens starting as an undergrad student and for almost 9 years before being "exported", still I don't think I know your friend though - doesn't ring a bell. Athens is like 4.5M population, lots of Dimitri

[Francisco Penaloza]

I also think the first camera was better, now in both cases, what called my attention was the even illumination in the whole scene, if you are trying to recreate a rainy day, what happens it usually it is cold outside and warm inside, also the over all mist make the view foggy so in your first image the very back of your image, should be darker than the beginning, where the camera is so if you can create a color gradient with a Depth pass it will give you a more dynamic image, the way you setup the shot is guiding the eye in that direction and now nothing happens there, also make the interiors warmer, accentuate the blue/gray color of outside in contrast with the lights from the buildings, the leaf on the floor should have some variance on the Z too, now they all seems to be on the same plane, and last add more dirt or A/O to your buildings this will help you to define the shape of them, those European building with all those moldings and windows look very rich in form and shape so accentuate that and you'll get a rich image.

my 2 cents.

[scooter]

Thanks Francisco,

Rich advices. I have plenty to do on it now.

I post the next one when I get a chance to work on it.

Michel

[scooter]

Dimitris,

Dimitris Liatso is a 3D modeler/graphist that's fairly known in the CGTalk community and use to work for a VFX studio in Athens. Now he has his own studio there.

I was just wondering ;-)

Michel

[Michael J. Brown]

Good progress, Michel. And please ignore if this has already been stated (I only read through about 60% of the comments), but if you could simulate several rain droplets falling (motion blurred) as if caught in mid-air by the camera's shutter, that would lend a lot to the image.

[scooter]

Hi Michael, wel I thought the droplets would kill the depht of the picture, that's why I didn't try. I'm going to though, just to see ... :-)

 

Finaly I came back to the previous camera angle wich I thought is more dynamic and worked on the lighting, most of the textures and add a few FX. Here is the latest try:

BTW; the original renders are done in 4K.

 

[johannes]

How about some Depth of Field?