final streetscape

[dspace]

I'm always afraid to give critiques as people seem to get offended.

Yes, but without the critiques there'll be no improvements and poor level of realism in the forum.
It's about us improving guys, not Fletch!

[Stu]

I'm always afraid to give critiques as people seem to get offended.
I try to hold back and see what others will say, giving others a chance to say something w/out me possibly influencing comments?!

I think that the camera angles could be a lot more exciting.
I think you need some foreground elements... these views lack a frame.
I think they all look a bit overexposed, and people look flat/washed out.
I think trees need some post-pro to thicken them up/give them depth.

Trees casting shadows across foregrounds do wonders!

Fletch, don't hold back mate!.....your comments are super helpful [and open to challege anyway ]......and I dont think there are too many wooses here who cant accept a fair crit.

And Oli....we want Dogs...undreds of um!!!

[Fletch]

well, I learn something new every day!
about the images appearing washed out/overexposed... could just be my monitor - got a new one recently, and possibly need to calibrate it.

What I try to do is find real photos similar to scene/lighting/view I am rendering and make my image 'look about like that'. I found out that grass looks much better darker... and of course depends on the digital cam as each one has their own custom saturation settings... but the grass can be darker and "ground" the image quickly... making it more solid/realistic.

The tonemapping of an image is absolutely critical to achieve a great render. It actually belongs on the "list" of things needed for a "great" render. the list on page 2 of the manual... I should "fix" that in the manual, perhaps?

[olishea]

Finally...the master speaks

I hope its not overexposed....i really spent a long time balancing the image and not using too much sun. on my PC at home, the images look slightly blue and pale. On my mac they look very rich and darker....closer to how they print. but the enotourage is wahsed out yes I agree (need to use miguel's emitter trick or render separately) . I'm kinda scraping angles for the last few images as you can tell! I've already done the beefy ones! This part of the site is modeled the least as you can probably tell, no idea what's going on in the green space except for that long bench etc.

Please crit Fletch, I dont care how severe it is....you can not offend me. I have been to uni and understand the importance of critique, I've been through that "offended/defensive phase"! The images are satisfactory but they are missing something....so thats why I post on the forum; to get other people's insight...not to say "hey look what I rendered!". so fire away whenever! I welcome and encourage all comments and crits especially the negative (constructive) ones.

Stu: undreds of dogs? lol the way you wrote it is similar to the accent in my area lol


so yeah crit your asses off guys

[Fletch]

One more tip... it's really odd when you do it at first, but one tip is that you can "fake" some foreground trees/bushes even if you are in the middle of the street.

I learned this from a guy that did quite lovely hand drawings. He would draw perspectives from parking lots/entry drives/main streets, but always sketch in some bushes or leaves popping up to help frame the image and hide the ugly pavement.

I picked it up, and do it even in my photo-artistic images, and most people never notice or mention it in a negative way.

It is, after all, a form of art, right?

ps - saw the images on a diff. monitor, and they do not look nearly so washed out... definitely time to calibrate that new lcd...

[Stu]

Good tip Fletch...and if I could just add a bit..

The majority of cutout transparent PNG [and the like] trees look pretty average in the foreground. Reason being, because of their size, they're photographed from a distance and so begin to pixelate if you zoom in close on individual leaves and branches.

Some companies, ImageCels for example, have dedicated sets of hi-rez framing branches that can be used in the upper left and right corners of an image.

Smaller plants and shrubs should be less of a problem as the photographer can get up a lot closer and therefore has more hi-rez detail to work with when doing the cutout.

Its worth bearing in mind that a great model and render can be spoiled by using poor quality cutouts close up.

[olishea]

thanks for the advice guys, finally, it's like a proper forum again!

here is a perspective elevation:



comments welcome

can anybody think of a better way of representing the 'sub terrain', kinda looks like road at the moment (the dark grey in the foreground, under the thick black ground line). I would use ANSI diagonal cad hatch but it didn't look right.

[Fletch]

that's a tough one, Oli, don't have a good answer for you, sorry!
I'd say what you have is not distracting. If you have tried a color like med gray with a pshop texture or something, maybe - could be distracting/might work...

[Stu]

Oli, you could indicate a series of stratas....soil, clay, shale, rock, magma [glowing red!]

eh...maybe forget the magma

[olishea]

fletch is right, cant get too distracting. I will leave it as it is. I will post the final drawing sheets soon, they look fabulous as a collection. Thanks twilight team, I wouldn't have enjoyed my rendering experience without this beautiful software and all your help.