Dive Bar

[nf1nk]

At this point I have the room and some of the lights, once I feel I have these basic elements right, I will start adding the glasses and the smoke, and the creepy people. Interesting point the door in the back has no texture or color yet and neither does the ceiling. I am not sure I need to add texture to the cieling.

Also does anyone hav any tips on shooting in confined spaces? should I pull off a wall or go with wide angles?

[luckbat]

Nice. But most dive bars generally don't have carpets, though. For obvious reasons.

[arkaos]

Nice retro dive-bar carpet, dude!

[Eric2575]

Where's the pool table and pinball machine? WHERE IS THE BEER? WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?

 

Just kiddin...looking pretty moody!

[oakchas]

Seems you have the props right for a low-rent bar, or especially one in a hotel (or "no tell motel") ... A lot of stories can originate in such a place.

 

The lights over the tables are a bit bright...

 

Carpet's okay, just needs "muddied up" a bit around the door, and a bit less sharp elsewhere.

 

Needs more light under the bar on the back side (so the bar tender can see what he's mixing up) and less light on the bar and back bar wall.

 

Hope you don't mind the crits... I really like the concept & direction... just trying to make it more "real."

[John Bigboote]

The walls need some 'grunge', as in dirt and cracks in the plaster. How about some tacky beer mirrors or neon?

[nf1nk]

I refined the bar a little more, I hated the light from the cieling showing up on the wall so I fixed that, I added some lights under the bar, I also made a dirty carpet. I feel progress is being made.

[Slipin Lizard]

As for shooting in confined spaces... in reality yeah, it tends to be a set with removable walls. Whatever wall or walls are not going to be in the shot are usually non-existent to allow freedom of movement and lens choice. Don't let the set dictate your lens choice, but rather visa-versa.

 

Looking good so far... how about some cheezy beer posters on the wall?

 

Cal.

[nf1nk]

Cheesy beer thingy? check

lame sports pics on wall? check

Cracks on wall? I used a bump map but I can't make them out

worse looking flooring, I think so, but in this case worse is better

Lighting still needs work.

Chrome on table edges is still too bright any thoughts?

Things I think I need

Beer tap set

some mirrors

better cracks

dirtier floor

 

I have the chairs, I will add them later

Any criticism would be great

[nf1nk]

I upped the resolution and can now just barely make out the crack, but this is my first attempt at a bump map so I guess having it show at all is something.

Edit>the rack is at the upper right corner of the door

[Hutch]

OB Beer!? Is this a Korean dive bar? Boy that brings back some memories.

[nf1nk]

OB Beer!? Is this a Korean dive bar? Boy that brings back some memories.

Good call. Yeah its roughly built off a bar I visited in Anchon Ri (outside camp humphreys) called the 7 club.

Of course my memories are a bit hazy...

Perhaps I was hazy when I visited it

[DanCBradbury]

Looking good so far.

 

Some helpful stuffs:

Your door looks a bit square. You might want to make it taller, and if you do... the knob should already be in the right place.

 

Maybe add some chairs and some empty or part empty bear mugs to the table in front... or some kinda food stuffs to make it all messy and such.

 

If you want a bit more realism to the shot, you might want to think about raidosity, and some reflective caustics.

 

hope to see how it comes out

[nf1nk]

Here is an update, I made the door at the back of the bar taller and narrower I futzed with the lights more (they never are just right, are they?) I added chairs, stools, ashtrays, glasses and bottles, I am pleased, but could use some input.

[DanCBradbury]

Now that's lookin awesome nathan. You did a real good job populating the scene. You should add some stuff over the bar area though; it looks a little plain on that side of the picture. Maybe a shelf with bottles and such or a mirror.

 

You should realy consider radiosity for your shot now... and if you want i can show you how. The only problem with radiosity, however, is that it realy bogs down the system and depending on the quality of the radiosity it could add hours to a still that size; but... it will come out lookin fantastic. Global Illumination is amazing and adds a lot to renders. The most importan part is that it allows you to create simple lighting rigs. Lighting is never wrong with radiosity on the line. lol. Let me know if you need any help if you decide to go that route.

[nf1nk]

I wonder if radiosity will work on my pathetic little box, I have only 20Gb hd and I have read that it eats swap space like mad. I have my machine building radiosity right now, and it is taking a while. What would be a quick way to get started?

The one sad thing is that I started this as a set to use in an animation, but things have gotten somewhat larger since then, So I am afraid that the render times may be prohibitive for any actual animation. (I am @ 30 min a frame, without radiosity).

UPDATE:

my acursed antivirus program decided to do some sort of memory intinsive back up thing in the middle of my radiosity render, crashing the whole thing (10 hrs in) I need to figure out less intensive settings so I can get a frame done in less time.

[DanCBradbury]

Can i ask what version of A:M you are using? From the sounds of it you are using version 7 or lower. If you have anything before version 8, then radiosity as a means of practical rendering is not an option to you. One of the programmers around here, Yeves, refers to the old way of radiosity calculation as "The Monte Carlo" approach, and it is incredibly unrealistic and will not add anything but incredible amounts of noise to your radiosity render. For the monte carlo approach to ever get anywhere near the quality of the newer approach you would have to let it calculate hundreds of millions, or even billions of rays, where as the new one would only need 10,000 or at most 1,000,000 ray casts. I would recomend that if you have some extra dollars lying around, to just go ahead and buy the incredibly inexpensive A:M v12. It's worlds better than the old ones i can tell you that.

 

Included is a picture of the best possible render you could ever get with a monte carlo radiosity calculation. You can realy see the noise and bleeding.

[nf1nk]

I am using V11, But it is still taking forever, right now using 5000 photons, I am at 2% (17:50:05) done with and estimatet time left of 859:30:41 and climbing. I am planning on buying the 2006 update, but right now I feel like what I need more than better software, is some real iron to push it. The Laptop (2.4 ghz) I am using is fine for modeling, but everytime I run a render on it it feels like it is going to melt (I have it on stilts with a fan blowing on it right now). The keys are too hot to touch (if I kill it I have an extended waranty). My other box (the one I am typing on) is too old (PIII 450Mhz) and runs linux.

I wonder if the rendering would go better in the freezer?

[DanCBradbury]

Holy moley! um... i dont mean to brag, but my computer can calculate a million rays in about 20 seconds. Have you got programs running in the background or something? Or is this the render itself, because rendering the initial radiosity shouldn't take longer than three minutes or so.

 

If you want, you can send the project file to me and i can render it for you... if you'd like. I'm not realy sure what kind of computer you have... but, you may want to consider... maybe buying a new one... or using a desktop for renders.

[nf1nk]

I think the problem has to do with my antivirus software, some times when my computer gets idle (mouse hasn't moved in a while) it builds a back up of the current system. It doesn't seem to care that the processor is cranked out, or anything else. Also I found out that the Intel IV mobile throttles down when it gets hot, to like 750 mhz. combine the two with an unseasonably warm day and nothing gets rendered.

So looks like I need to get some better iron.

[DanCBradbury]

Hmm. i think it's time for someone to get a new comp...

[bentothemax]

Well, i don't think that its ur Pc .....

 

 

There are alot of reasons radiosity could take a while to calculate.

 

1. ur scene is not enclosd.... that makes it take alot longer.

 

2. Your lights are set up oddly, and are intersecting objects

 

And some other ones i forgot.

 

 

On 11.1.... there wre some issues with radiosty, i would try just hitting esc when its calculating after about 15seconds... and it should work.

 

 

Ben

[drpenguin]

I think the problem has to do with my antivirus software, some times when my computer gets idle (mouse hasn't moved in a while) it builds a back up of the current system. It doesn't seem to care that the processor is cranked out, or anything else. Also I found out that the Intel IV mobile throttles down when it gets hot, to like 750 mhz. combine the two with an unseasonably warm day and nothing gets rendered.

So looks like I need to get some better iron.

 

 

2.4 ghz to 750 mhz? that sounds really...bad... another reason for me to hate intel. and a lot of background process don't help either. at 750mhz it would take a while to calculate.

[nf1nk]

I changed the light set up again, and It sped up the render a bunch, 16 pass took the just slightly longer than 2 pass did. It looks like I need to add some more light so I can see the walls, or maybe not, I think I also need to change some of the settings in the lamps over the table as it looks foggier than I would like.

Any thoughts on the banding on the overhead lights? or will this sort of go away if I start moving the camera

[ypoissant]

I wouldn't attempt any serious animation with radiosity unless you already have a render farm available. This will lengthen your render time considerably. And seriously, given the general dark mood of your scene, I don't even think radiosity would be really helpfull. You would be better off with getting the mood with judicious placement of additional fill lights.

[DanCBradbury]

Wow! that's looking great. One thing though, you should increase the quality of the volumetric lights above the bar, or is that turbulance you added? either way. It's looking real good. Very nice improvements so far over your original.

 

Yeah, your mood is more of a "sin city" type feel with the harsh contrast of light, and like i said before radiosity isnt a very moving animation friendly thing. It would take days to render my stuff if it were moving. I wish i had a Cray... then i could realy do some awesome stuff.

[bentothemax]

Nice!

 

One thing i would try.... maybe only about 10 percent global ambience on the light.

 

 

I think if you could see the scene just slightly more easily, it would look great!

 

 

And maybe a bit less volume on those lights, if your going for realism.

 

 

Ben

[nf1nk]

I added a light to one corner of the bar and It did a little odd stuff to the over head lights, but the scene looks more real, but less smokey. Well progress is being made, now for work on the denzians of this vile place. Yes I plan on doing some animation in here

[nf1nk]

I added some of the denzions of this bar. I wanted them to look like I just sort of sketched them in, in stead I think they look like ghosts

[Dhar]

Too dark to see anything

[ypoissant]

I agree. This is way too dark to figure anything usefull.

 

You must simulate darkness without having such a dark image.

 

To simulate darkness. you must desaturate all your colors. In night vision, we almost don't see any color. Almost only gray tints. And we cannot distinguish details. A coarse film grain will do that. By using completely desaturated colors and a coarse film grain, you will be able to increase the general illumination in your scene.

[Dhar]

Isn't it an old movie trick where they film the scene in broad daylight but put a tint lense over the camera lense to "desaturate" the colors and give the illusion of darkness? I remember this being popular in the 70s TV series and movies.

[ypoissant]

And also, if you use the desaturation trick, lower the overall contrast in the image. All this can be done with A:M post-processing plugins. And while we are there, don't also forget to adjust the image gamma too.

[teh1ghool]

Very good!!! Wow! The only thing i don't like is thart the lighting seems too structural...too three diminsional. If the effect you're trying to mke is that it's dusty, I think it's pretty good, but otherwise it looks too much like you use big textured circles.

[nf1nk]

It has been an age since I updated this, but I did some light work and now It looks much better it might even be ready for doing a scene now

[DanCBradbury]

looks spiffy, however neither the roof nor the right wall have any illumination at all. Hope to see the animation soon.