This is where I eat my hat

[balistic]

UPDATE: See the final version on page 2 of this thread

 

Decided to re-render "Window" with real radiosity instead of the old version's manually-placed lighting.

 

One light, sixteen passes, six hours:

 

The only light leak I wasn't able to address was that bit under the lip of the table . . . I chalk it up to it being geometry that was modeled six years ago. Otherwise, I'm impressed. Working GI in A:M. Ain't that some chit?

 

Thanks to Yves P. for his radiosity primer.

[ChrisThom]

Nice shot. Is there a WF to go along with this?

[balistic]

Sure.

[zandoriastudios]

I have to say, I like the radiosity version more. The sunbeams in the original seemed too dominant... Both are great pics.

I can't wait to see what kinds of things you do with the higher dynamic range that is coming in V12! It will be Sweeet!!

[balistic]

I like the new version more too, not because it's radiosity, but because I've learned quite a bit about tonal balance and composition since I made the original piece.

[Paul Forwood]

Just beautiful!

[JTalbotski]

Absolutely fantastic! It's got so much atmoshere and feeling of space.

 

An incredible render!

 

Jim

[dimos]

much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much BETTER!!!!!!!

 

And I though the first one was totally amazing when it first came out. Great!

 

Dimos

[binder3d]

Wow. That render shows that AM can compete with the other more $$ apps. I think thats just as good as other stuff Ive seen from the bigger well known apps. Great work! It makes me feel like Im in the room.

[steve392]

Ooh thats a rare treat ,love them both ,the old version makes me feel warm but I like the new version for its crispness ,great work Brian

[KenH]

Fronter on CGT.com?

[Zaryin]

I love the newer version. The only thing I don't really care for is the reflection on the table. It seems a little too sharp and strong to me.

[balistic]

Thanks guys!

 

Gonna set up a 25-pass version tonight with some tweaked settings that fix the light leak under the table and make the photons a bit less splotchy.

 

It's nice to have renders going while I sleep again

[John Keates]

What a beautifull composition. I particularly like the light catching on the shelf.

 

The only suggestion that I have is to make the window a little wobbly.

 

Looking forward to seeing some more.

[KenH]

It's probably too late, but I'd like to see a little hint of "God Lines".

[Vash]

No wonder it's so good, it's Brian Prince's work. Geese, that's amazing!

[ChrisThom]

I'm just curious, what was your render time on that puppy?

[NancyGormezano]

It is a wonderfully gorgeous image - (Chris - I think Brian said 6 hours, in first post) -

 

Speaking of rendering times - given that these images take so long to render - Brian: What is the process that you go thru to tweak your settings ? I haven't tried this photon stuff as I have a hard enough time when an image takes 1 minute to render...

[balistic]

Thanks for the feedback guys, here's what I'm calling final:

 

 

I think the composition reads a little better this way . . . or it could just be because it's different than what I'd been staring at for six years.

 

Fixed the light leak on the table in A:M, tweaked a few little things in Photopaint, including a few subtle pieces of floating dust. Stopped the render at 21 passes because it looked good enough, and because I needed my computer back render time on this one at 1280x960 was 12-ish hours, but I increased a few of the radiosity settings more than I probably needed to.

 

As for how to work with heavy scenes like this, it's actually pretty painless to do preview renders if you keep the settings low while you work. It only takes about 15 seconds to throw 80,000 photos around the scene, and with final gathering samples set to minimum, I can do progressive renders pretty quickly.

 

edit: the white background on the forum destroys a lot of the shadow detail in the image . . . try saving it to your PC and viewing it on a black background to see what's going on in the darkness.

[NancyGormezano]

Looks terrific - tho I must say I would have a very hard time picking which one I liked better - the first (2005 new) one that you posted has a different - more dusty feel to it - this new render looks cleaner - crisper - Love them both - also can't decide on which orientation is better - must mean the composition is PERFECT.

[balistic]

thanks for the feedback Nancy. I just now went back and bumped up the bottom end of the tone curve a little bit, and added a bit of the noisy bloom that the first version had. It's subtle, but it brings the image more in line with the image in the first post.

[Vash]

I saw B. Prince written on the crate. What could it mean? OH MY-nope nevermind. Just figured it out. Wait! WAIT! NO! OH NO! Wait. Wait no. Nevermind. WAIT! No. ( He continues to act like an idiot)

[ypoissant]

Hey Brian,

 

That looks really good. I, too prefer that one to the old one. Lot more moody.

 

I see two areas where a tweak would help:

 

1) The light leak under the table could be taken care of with two methods: a) The right way is to increase the sampling area size. But at some point, you would need to increase the number of photons too. Another way is to cheat a little and set the radiance of the patches under the table to some lower value.

 

2) The Photon Mapping algorithm does not store photons on their first hit. That means that the spots where the sun directly hits the table top, the wall, the floor and the chair, do not contribute to the indirect illumination while they should contribute the most. There is a simple way to correct that. It is to use a special light rig, two klieg light back to back used as sun. One is pointing in the room and the other is pointing on a mirror that reflects the photons back in the room. And since the first hit in on the mirror, the wall, table top, etc will store the photons. I have designed such a rig and you can find it in the following thread:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10029&st=15

 

Good to see you use photon mapping. You get really good results. And thanks to your attention to realistic details, texturing and composition.

[balistic]

Ah, thanks for that mirror tip Yves. I was wondering why I seemed to need to crank the intensity of the photon map to 700% to get it bright enough.

 

I'll have to try that next time.

[J L Johnson]

I'm going down the list of comments here and thinking I sure can't think of any constructive advice -- in fact WHO COULD after all this is Brian Prince then I come to Yves -- yep! the one person that could actually make some valuable suggestions --

 

The whole scene is so photo-real that I smacked myself to make sure I was real. I like the last render the best, probably that left to right writing thing, but it sure flows better for me. Really excellent picture!

[Vash]

My mind goes through the list of modelers, and I've always wondered. Can Martin actually model? The sole person who created A:M-can he actually model. No offense just wondering.

[zacktaich]

 

I tried putting a black matte around it for you. I ended up having to shrink it to fit it nicely in the forum. I downloaded it and saw it on a black background, and the difference was huge. I was hoping to save some people the effort. It loses some of the effect, but I think you can see the darks better.

 

If you'd like me to take it down, I'd be more than willing.

 

I love the lighting. This is a great piece.

[ypoissant]

Brian,

 

Did you apply some Gamma correction in this image?

[John Bigboote]

Great work Brian. It's fun to see you pull that out of storage and rework it. In all fairness to the 'original-version'... I still like it...and almost prefer it. And I'm sure it was not rendered with multipass....

[robcat2075]

Are these new images intended to be similar in illumination level to the non-radiosity version? The new ones look very, very dark.

 

It could be that my monitor isn't set right, but I have to really crank the gamma to see the details in the new versions, whereas almost any other image I view on the web is fine.

 

?

[balistic]

Brian,

 

Did you apply some Gamma correction in this image?

I bumped up the very bottom of the tone curve, without touching the absolute blacks. It's definitely a dark piece, but I think that's about what you'd get if you pointed a camera at a similar scene.

 

It's always tricky working in the bottom third of the luminance gamut . . . there's so much variation there from display to display.

 

robcat: this one is meant to be darker, but it may be too dark . . . I think I need a few days away from it to get a fresh eye.

[KenH]

I think there's less light on this side of the house. I brightened the latest in PS and liked it better as you can see the roughness of the walls better. But I like abit of darkness in there.

[NickHutson]

Nice Brian! I did'nt think that your still life could get any better. But I stand corrected ( As I often do). Man this thing is Wicked Awsome!

 

And hay Kenh. How did your render go with the volumetric artifact? I never saw how it turned out in the end, or if you got it fixed. I would love to see it.

[KenH]

Oh yeah, it's in the competition. You should see it sometime after the 4th March. Also, I didn't elliminate it completely. It seemed to have problems in an enclosed space.

Anyway....back on topic....

[JohnArtbox]

All the boys are coming back to town

Beautiful piece Brian. Absolutely superb.

[John Keates]

Hey brian, I saw your entry in the Expose website. Good luck! I have some digital paintings in there too. I was looking at your painting of a tower illuminated by sunset, not realising that it was yours, thinking "Damn! I don't have a snowflakes chance in hell".

 

I think you could be in for a chance. Tough competition though. Real tough.

[balistic]

I'm not counting my eggs before they hatch either John . . . we'll see if anything I threw decides to stick.

 

As cool as the Expose books are, they seem to have a habit of going a bit ga ga over anything with a lot of detail . . . CGTalk is the same way. Tough to get noticed unless you drench your image in noodly details.

 

I'm more selective with my detail . . . there's a lot to be said for just capturing an impression.

 

edit: and good luck to you too, man!

[jo b.]

[NickHutson]

Oh yeah, it's in the competition. You should see it sometime after the 4th March. Also, I didn't elliminate it completely. It seemed to have problems in an enclosed space.

Anyway....back on topic....

 

 

 

Which competition?

[nyahkitty]

Now all we need is for someone to animate a photoreal character within that scene.

[gschumsky]

Stopped the render at 21 passes because it looked good enough, and because I needed my computer back

So how do you stop a render and keep the image it's rendered so far?

[bentothemax]

I have been inspired beyond belief. I will now spend the next 5 years trying to accomplish a fraction of the beauty of the final render. Then when im 17, I'll have something, and if its 1/8 as good as that, I'll get some college money from a magazine

 

 

Thanks for the inspiration. The final looks amazing.

[balistic]

Stopped the render at 21 passes because it looked good enough, and because I needed my computer back

So how do you stop a render and keep the image it's rendered so far?

If you can fit the whole thing on screen, just hit printscrn and paste into your favorite image editor. Do it before you abort the render though, as A:M seems to occassionally empty the frame buffer and hide the image when you abort a multipass (I wish it didn't).

 

bentothemax: Glad to be able to provide some motivation for you. Find something in CG that interests you greatly and persue an in-depth understanding of it. People will eventually take notice.

[gschumsky]

Stopped the render at 21 passes because it looked good enough, and because I needed my computer back

So how do you stop a render and keep the image it's rendered so far?

If you can fit the whole thing on screen, just hit printscrn and paste into your favorite image editor. Do it before you abort the render though, as A:M seems to occassionally empty the frame buffer and hide the image when you abort a multipass (I wish it didn't).

Thanks Brian,

 

That's what I thought, but was kinda hoping there was a place it saved the image as it rendered each pass (it shows up in my images folder in the PWS as it's rendering...).

 

Btw, for any Mac users seeing this, we would use command+shift+3 (that would grab the whole screen), or just for that window, use command+shift+4 (and you can outline the area you want to grab).

 

Greg