NancyGormezano

Depends on how complicated your scene is, as well as visibility range, and if its for an animation or a still? Are you trying to recreate the image you posted? Or something different? Hair would definitely be a good choice for one method, for lots and different varieties, with easy variations in shading, tones. If you want realistic plant imagery - use image emitters for the hair that are taken from photos of the plant (like the leaves in your photo) If for an animation, you would probably want to use multiple methods - background billboard imagery, then "cut-out decal" imagery, hair plants, modeled plants - for far to near viewing. EDIT: Mark Skodacek - does wonderfully realistic hair trees, foliage, and is probably more what you were looking for. However when looking for some of my old examples of plants - I found this thread and this image for hairy garden plants

Noooooooooo....!!! If Robert did it a lazy way, then we wouldn't be able to think him crazy...I kinda enjoy thinking of him as insane. This experimenting, besides having great entertainment value, has the possibility of providing a spark for something more useful ... It's known that complicated materials have an impact on render times (sometimes quite severely) - decals are usually, almost always faster, and easier to create, but of course have other drawbacks.

Happy Birthday!

Yup - that propell-lah thang has me totally convinced..have to agree with Marcos. Quite Amazing! (as well as wonderfully ridiculous)

OMG - a Holmes Cooked Light Butter Tutorial? A permanent cure for the Vapors? Eternal Life? Exactly what I was looking for. No more black holes for me, I can hardly contain the alpha void. I am known to stare blankly on the edge of abcesses...er...abysses...(abyssi?) exceptionally well! I'm off to do me some learnin'...Thanks!

hmmm...Seems like I can do most things to the exr files in AE 4.1 that I can to all files - I guess AE automatically converts to 8 bit ? - just not in PS, would have to change it to 8 bit - In 16 bit very few operations are available (just a few filters - eg gaussian blur, sharpen, noise, high pass, etc). I'm not understanding the utility of exr files - other than for more precision eventually? Where? I'm also not understanding A:M light buffers and how to generate, and how to use them in some program? But I also haven't fooled much with A:M composite - a bit confusing as well

Thanks, I got the plugin - but I don't seem to be able to do anything with the exr files from A:M in PS 6.01, other than read them - and I haven't figured out how to generate the different channels in the exr file from A:M. I suspect I wouldn't be able to use them in AE 4.1 either (haven't tried). Coincidently, I share common ancestors with Martin, as my great grandmother's maiden name was America Hash. Martin's 5th great grandfather was my half 4th great grand uncle. That makes us half sixth cousins once removed (which makes Heath my half sixth cousin twice removed). This could account for some of my weirdness...but not all.

Yup - too blurry. Don't think a smart anti-aliasing filter would help either as in the smaller images, the displacement resolves to too few pixels (stairstepping/edge crawling effect is due to contrast with adjacent pixels). Need the extra pixels in larger images so that they can get "sampled/averaged" to more graduated, less contrast tones. No different than noisy, busy textures, or thin hair rendered at low resolutions flickering. I'm guessing.

On second thought, char flat render pass with AI=100, may not be what you want, need - you probably want to render with lights on, no shadows, AI=0 to get self shadowing, specularity, other surface properties on the models - unless rendering to exr does that for you. I've never used exr nor light buffers - so that may be what you want instead - I would have to experiment (don't think I have anything that works with exr - ps 6, AE 4.1)

A slight blur post effect might also help in anti-aliasing instead of oversampling? Reduction in resolution of the original render averages the pixels in some manner which is a form of anti-aliasing. Same with blur. It looks to me like displacement runs into problems when it resolves to less than 1 pixel. That's what anti-aliasing is for.

I would do the char render flat shaded probably. This can be done with setting AI=100 with no lights on. This will have No occlusion & No shadows. I thought you were doing a shadow pass as well as an occlusion render ?

I would render the objects (with no background) with alpha buffer - then in AE I would composite the objects & desired background - then in AE I would set the occlusion pass render to multiply on the composite of the objects and desired background. (In my example that I did in PS - the globe is roughly selected and I sloppily cleared it's background - which accounts for rough edges - it would have been cleaner if I had done a flat shaded alpha buffer render in A:M with just the globe)

Not sure I totally understand what you are wanting (not sure why you want to separate occlusion) - but if your occlusion render contains only values/shades of gray (ie you did a white render of your scene) and you also have a color layer, would using "multiply" in your composite program (AE?) work for you ? In my example I only did a flat shaded color render and an occlusion render(100%AI, AO), did not have lights, shadows - but those could be composited as well.

When you render to a tga sequence (or mov or png) you have the option to render with an alpha channel: camera/output options/buffers/alpha =ON you will NOT have the option if you render to jpg, avi, bmp

wonderful !

Looks very cute - congrats on finishing! Found some grammatical errors - Should be "You're a cloud" instead of "Your a cloud". Same with "You're a sun". And probably "I am yellow and hot" not "am yellow and hot"

looks pretty good!

There is water and then there is water... I haven't really played with liquids - here's one tutorial here's BigBoote's quickie intro to fluids John the Bigboote Campbell Soupie-Floopie man - also has done a video - use search on "liquids" and ye shall find - And then again - there is cloth, or just making a surface and displacing cps - all depends on whatcha wants to do.

(Oh sure, sure...) Have a wonderful, HAPPPPPPPPYYYYYY Birthday anyway !!!!

Thanks Stian! Thanks Pixelpucker!

Beautiful chess set! - beautiful render! Stian - could you share the details/technique of your lighting, texture setup on the chess set - when you say depth map - do you mean using fog to generate a depth map? Stunning! EDIT: - I found this topic discussing creating a depth map in A:M - quite good

Susan Boyle? Bugs Bunny? Kidding, kidding. I am absolutely amazed at what you've been doing with these materials...

Steffan has a plug-in - called resurface I haven't used it - but from the description it sounds like it might be helpful EDIT: never mind - I see that you already discussed that plugin

Never meant to imply there were any formulas to composition that had to be strictly followed (that would be boring) - I definitely understood that you were trying to balance the curves. I like the softer lines. This works better (for me) - and you are absolutely right - it's all subjective and a matter of personal taste. The sketch is also terrific

I like that you've added some complementary textures on the guitar, love the equation - but not quite sure about the crossed red lines, seems to disrupt the composition (for me) - perhaps try the lines horizontal and parallel ? perhaps about 1/3 down from top ? Beautiful stuff ! (Do I have to keep saying that?...YES!)