How to make this scene better?

[Kyriakos]

Experimenting a little more with lighting in Gimp, post-render in Blender:





Forms posted are 3d rendered first, eg i modelled the cabin and walls, while the background is a photo mapped to a plane

Looking for feedback on lighting mostly (eg of the sky, and if it looks alive or not). These aren't the final color tones or the finished models/textures.

 

[Zkribbler]

I like it. The scene reminds me of the opening lyrics of Paul Simon's "I am a Rock."

A winter's day
In a deep and dark
December,

The only change I would suggest would be to place a welcoming light in a window or two, a beaconing refuge to a half-frozen traveler, a welcome home to a prodigal son..

 

[schlaufuchs]

Are you going for a model train aesthetic? Because it looks very plastic.

 

[Kyriakos]

Thanks!

 

[Kyriakos]

Are you going for a model train aesthetic? Because it looks very plastic.

Will look grittier with added stuff. Currently trying to stabilize the sky/forest rendered backgrounds, texture and color-wise. The buildings are easier to alter cause i make them as models; the background is reliant on an actual photo and is more hit or miss.

 

[Kyriakos]

Another of the locations (not done; more buildings will be added, etc), the village:

 

[warpus]

I don't want to beat a dead horse but it looks overly yellow to me again. What would happen if you switched the lightsource to be white instead of yellow?

Maybe it's just my monitor

 

[Kyriakos]

Not sure... To me it is white-ish/very light blue-ish where the snow should be, but maybe others can tell us if it looks yellow more than white

And:

 

[Kyriakos]

Some progress:



Views?

 

[warpus]

No yellow light! I actually love this, looks great

 

[schlaufuchs]

It looks better, but the image you're using for a background makes it look very artificial. I don't know if you're going for that type of look, but the contrast between the very obviously computer-modeled buildings and the very obviously pulled-from-a-picture background is very jarring. It kind of looks like a model railroad landscape. Again, I have no idea if that's the sort of look you're going for, but if it were, I feel it would look better aesthetically if you went for a more painted background (maybe something more impressionistic or water color-y) rather than a photo (or realistic oil painting?). That's just my opinion, anyway.

I agree that the change in color palette from yellow to white does wonders for the scene though. It's a marked improvement.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Some progress:



Views?

Which direction is the wind blowing from? It seems that it must be blowing from the lower left corner, based on the placement of the snow on the building roofs, but in that case, you need some snow drifts against the sides of the buildings where the wind would have blown it.

Ditto about the yellow. That was not a good choice, and it's good that you've changed it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Snow drifts won't be easy to model. Maybe later

Well, here is another of the locations:

 

[warpus]

Which direction is the wind blowing from? It seems that it must be blowing from the lower left corner, based on the placement of the snow on the building roofs, but in that case, you need some snow drifts against the sides of the buildings where the wind would have blown it.

Haha this is such a Canadian response. Good eye though, but there are snowfalls where the snow is basically falling almost straight from the top for hours. Winds usually take over eventually though, you're right, so in theory there should probably be more snow against one side of all the houses and other objects and maybe even some snow stuck to to the walls too. but if it's too difficult to model properly it probably doesn't make a huge difference, most non-Canadians won't even notice and it gives it that certain LEGO-like aesthetic, if that makes sense

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Haha this is such a Canadian response. Good eye though, but there are snowfalls where the snow is basically falling almost straight from the top for hours. Winds usually take over eventually though, you're right, so in theory there should probably be more snow against one side of all the houses and other objects and maybe even some snow stuck to to the walls too. but if it's too difficult to model properly it probably doesn't make a huge difference, most non-Canadians won't even notice and it gives it that certain LEGO-like aesthetic, if that makes sense

Well, I wasn't thinking of huge drifts. But it's not natural for there to be such a sharp divide between the buildings and the snow. And even when the snow does fall straight down, the point is that when the wind blows, that snow will drift.

During the last cold snap (I think I mentioned -34C a time or two) I was sitting here in front of my computer, and looking out the window at the wind blowing the snow into drifts on the rooftops of the rowhouses across the parking lot. And down below the wind was blowing the snow into drifts on the ground. Sometimes snow drifts can end up looking really artistic, and it's just how the wind does it. It's lovely to look at, but a pain to shovel, and if you're trying to walk cross-country in deep drifts, a pair of snowshoes really helps.*

*That said, I'm not very skilled at using snowshoes.

 

[Hygro]

When I was a kid we had these model train mountain-tunnels made of painted, molded styrofoam. They were some of our most real-life imitating toy accessories, by appearance. A lot of these pics look like that. That's actually cool to me, it looks like an almost realistic recreation of painted styrofoam scaled modeling of terrain. In that way, it looks alive.

 

[Hygro]

model train aesthetic

When I was a kid we had these model train mountain-tunnels made of painted, molded styrofoam. They were some of our most real-life imitating toy accessories, by appearance. A lot of these pics look like that. That's actually cool to me, it looks like an almost realistic recreation of painted styrofoam scaled modeling of terrain. In that way, it looks alive.