thanks everyone - i really appreciate the comments! it's always great to get feedback on a picture.

i really need to learn how to do render layers next - there are a few things that i would like to change or play with the adjustments.

mikeyduf - sure you can - just start small and keep adding. it doesn't take long. i do like my coffee cold and lots of ice.

mtmckinley: cheers mate! yep, my lighting needs work.

the monitors were done with an incandescent map and i think 0.1 glow. I increased them a bit, but i don't know if they actually glow that much. what settings would use? i feel like someone mentioned using ambiance...

velociraptor1 - ha! thanks mate! yeah i REALLY debated putting myself or a figure or a zombie in one of the hallways, but in the end left it. a tyrant would be mad!

thanks lealar and gster!

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arran3D

arran3D blog

Nice render and an impressive amount of detail.

Cool

Gio

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Gio

Creator of The Talos Project

thanks a lot Gio! and thanks again for that FG tip. that was a really big time saver on the renders!

here's one more.

Attached Thumbnails

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arran3D

arran3D blog

Glad to help.

Gio

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Gio

Creator of The Talos Project

Still, looking great

how long does each render take?

keep it up :attn:

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Looking fantastic arran all the hard work really paid off in this scene.
I would probably run a render off without the sofa chair in as thats the only thing that stands out as 3D to me (mainly because of the texture), the rest looks pretty darn realistic. Then post it up on cgsociety and send one to 3D world magazine and get some publicity

Simon
p.s, it'd be good to see some large high resolution versions to see the detail in all its glory

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thanks starjsjswars - the renders were taking about 45 minutes to an hour and a half - i baked out the fg before hand using gio's trick, so that took about half an hour - and i also did an occlusion.

hey thanks t1ck mate! - ha! - so the chair still doesn't cut it? i think i'm going to leave this for a bit - i'm a little sick of looking at work at work and at home! - but i'll probably look at this again in a month, make some adjustments (i'd hate to lose that chair!) and maybe think about posting on cgsociety and 3d world.

here's some larger images.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

Looks cool, but you're right sometimes staring at something too long renders you blind to it.

stick on other forums though, I have a thread on CGSociety as well.

Gio

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Gio

Creator of The Talos Project

Don't you sleep at all arran or do you just don't have a day job LOL
Great work there, what are you're going to do next ?apply for a job at PIXAR or are you just settling for ILM (sorry for the ballbreaking)

You asked a question about the glow of your monitors here are a couple of possibilities;

-Use an area light and make it match the screen size and play a bit with the intensity.
-or if you're sticking with the glow, try playing around with shaderglow(open the hypershade and in the area where your materials are is a little thing called shader glow)with this you can adjust the glowspread eccentricity etc.

Great work:bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

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Indiana Jones Post;
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May as well just do glow effects in Photoshop unless your animating, but if you want to bump up the illumination power of ambient surfaces, them increase the scale value in the final gather settings in the render globals. It's a colour value but if you use HSV mode you can increase the value to greater than 1 to give the scene more power, like an exposure control.

Can't remember if I've already said that or not.

gio

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Gio

Creator of The Talos Project

thanks mastone - ha! that would be nice. need to build up confidence in applying for jobs first!.. oh, and get together a demo reel and a website and learn AE! thanks for the tips! i haven't played with shadow glow yet.

cheers gio - no, you haven't mentioned that - i'll take a look at that setting - probably a dumb question, but how would you go about increasing the monitor glow in photoshop?

i'm also not happy with the occlusion. when i added it as a multiply it just seemed too dark, but when i used darken i would get some strange green effects - most noticeable on the edge of the wood.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

You could cut the screens to another layer and add layer effects or copy a layer of the screen on top using ironically 'screen' mode and apply a little blur to it and fade it out a bit.

For occlusion, stick with multiply and just play with opacity and brightness/contrast on the layer until you get a look that's right for the shot.

Gio

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Gio

Creator of The Talos Project

got you - thanks mate - really appreciate the help and advice. I owe you a beer or 22...

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arran3D

arran3D blog

Holly Cow!!! (As Duke once said it)

This is looking brilliant. The textures are amazing, and the renders are great too, BUT it seems this project (the longest in SM's history) will be coming to an end shortly.

Anyway, great work!

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ha ha! thanks a lot mate, though i'm pretty sure there's been longer threads.

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arran3D

arran3D blog