shadows? - Page 2 - Simply Maya User Community

# 16 21-09-2008 , 07:43 PM

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i can't help but keep thinking this is a rendering of a dollhouse... everything looks small, even though it's technically correctly proportionate to the walls... *shrug*

the reflections are distracting from the effect of the shadows... i'd tone them down a bit (turn down the reflection value in the wood texture).

if this is supposed to be a normal-sized house i could see a directional light working (cause the sun shines through my windows every day and those shadows are pretty consistent) but if this is a smaller piece you're working on i'd go with arran and use a spotlight, or maybe even an elongated area light.

Accept no substitutions.

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# 17 22-09-2008 , 04:53 AM

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i made a couple of couches and i wasnt very happy with them until i took your advice and added some directional light (actually its just another ambient light with a higher intensity) to simulate the sun, the added lighting added a bit more realism i think, what do you guys think? (btw i didnt tone down the flooring reflectivity yet, i seem to have forgotten where to find that particular slider. i'll find it, lol)

PS: i think im going to be adding this to my portfolio so can apply for a job at bioware so i want this looking as real as possible

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# 18 22-09-2008 , 08:50 AM

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i just finished the oven and cupboards, i like how it turned out aside from the fact that you can see clear reflections in the chrome, can anyone tell me how i can diffuse them so you see reflected light, but no defined shapes?

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# 19 22-09-2008 , 09:03 AM

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Originally posted by Kalzenith
i just finished the oven and cupboards, i like how it turned out aside from the fact that you can see clear reflections in the chrome, can anyone tell me how i can diffuse them so you see reflected light, but no defined shapes?

Originally Posted by

Reflection Blurring. This can be done in several ways, the first of which is the best and most effective way to do things. But since your just getting back into things I won't bother overloading you just yet. The best method would be to render the reflections out as a separate pass and then blurr them in post production. But in Maya you can do it.

What renderer are you using though? The differences between Software, Mental Ray and any other renderer are significant and will have dramatically different methods. Looking at Maya Software options I don't know that you can blur the reflections on a blinn material.

Let us know so we can help you more specifically.

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# 20 23-09-2008 , 12:43 AM

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i would prefer not to have to do it in post production since im hoping to create a video with this and it'd be a pain to edit every frame.. i am using mental ray btw

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# 21 23-09-2008 , 05:48 AM

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Compositing

Have you got any compositing software like Shake, After Effect etc. that you can use to render the separate layers and then composite together?

You can then apply a blur to the reflection layer and composite into your main image. This way you won't have to edit each and every frame...

-J

Poly-pushing on a '96 SGI O2

Last edited by halfloaf; 23-09-2008 at 05:53 AM.

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# 22 23-09-2008 , 01:50 PM

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Originally posted by NeoStrider
i can't help but keep thinking this is a rendering of a dollhouse... everything looks small, even though it's technically correctly proportionate to the walls... *shrug*

Originally Posted by

I think it looks that way because of the scale of the wood textures.

Kalzenith, you're using Mental Ray, you can just lose the ambient lights and use GI and FG. In that case you would have to change the directional light to something else like a spotlight if you're going to emit photons from it.

As far making it look believable, you'd probably have to change a couple things as far back as the modeling stage like, the sofa, it looks very rigid (so are the cushions) and it has nothing between it and the floor. You may want to start beveling edges also. The kitchen floor, I can see someone tripping and falling every time they need to get a drink and the knobs on the stove are too large. The bevels on the small cabinet drawers would look better if they were scaled non-uniformly, just so the proportions looked like that of the larger cabinet doors. I'm guessing that some of the textures are stand-ins since I don't think they're high res enough to stand up under a final render. Hope I didn't come across as being harsh, just pointing out what I'm seeing. Anyways I think you should put this in the W.I.P section.

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# 23 24-09-2008 , 02:45 AM

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i have adobe after effect, but its not a program im familiar with, i havent used it much.. i was hoping for a solution right in maya.. but if i have to do it in post production i guess that works too..

it could be the wood textures, and i fixed a few of them, and as for emitting photons i cant say ive ever done that before : / i may need to look up a tutorial. though i have no directional lights in my scene, they are all ambient

i lowered the tile in the kitchen to cut down on tripping, and about the couches, youve *obviously* never been to ikea, they are all stiff as a board.. : P jk, youre right, i'll get to work on that... could you explain what you mean by non uniformly scaling the cabinet drawers? do you mean i should make them less regular and skew the vertexes a bit or something? as for the textures some of them are stand ins unfortunately, but thats because i seem to have bad luck making my own and i dont really know where to find high res ones. speaking of textures and beveling, i seem to be having a new problem, i beveled a number of edges, but the textures dont appear to show up on any surface that has been beveled, its gone on the countertop, the fridge, most of the oven, the coffee table and the cabinet doors, but the textures stayed on objects that havent been beveled, i dont know why, i tried re creating the textures and re applying them, but that didnt seem to help.

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