Large Accident Scene WIP

[ddustin]

Here is a screen shot of one of my latest projects.

It's going OK but lighting isn't one of my strong suits.

The vehicles look like they're above the road........

 

David

[Guest jandals]

I think it looks pretty good... I see what you mean about the shadows though. If you experimented with softer shadows it might give you darker shadows around the wheels. That would help "ground" the cars.

 

Wish I could tell you exactly what settings to use but lighting's not my strong suit either.

 

Rhett

[Nosferatu]

David,

 

I have good results with vehicles when I sink the tires below the surface by a virtual inch or inch and a half. It makes it look like the weight of the vehicle is flattening the bottom of the tires. If your tires aren't rotating, you can bulge them at the bottom, too.

 

I would assume that you have to have the sunlight corresponding with the actual time of day you are depicting, is that right? All I can suggest is giving the sunlight a bluish cast. This makes it look a little more realistic in my scenes.

 

Now how on earth are you accomplishing those great road surfaces? I'm really struggling with this. My textures invariably go bonkers at render time, no matter what I do.

 

Your work gets better and better with every project. I'm genuinely impressed.

 

Nos

[luckbat]

As Jandals pointed out, you want some light "spill" beneath the car, except for the four tires, which cast hard shadows.

 

I think the "correct" way would be to use raytraced shadows with lots of rays, but that's a serious render hit. A good way to fake it would be for each car to have its own shadowcasting klieg in a light list so it shades only that car, with Orient-Like -> Sun and Translate-To -> car. Then use Z-buffered shadows to get the hard/soft look you're after. The lights should be pretty close to the ground.

[Zaryin]

To help with the render hit I would use the 8-light skyrig by Yves. It should help enough with the floating thing and won't be as big a render hit as the other lightrigs.

[heyvern]

I know you want perfection... but you also have to know when done is good. This is accident "recreation".... not... a scene from jurassic park.

 

 

I wouldn't fret too much over those shadows. As I looked at it... I had to "try" and see the cars as "floating"...

 

... they sort of float yes... but... I am not aware of any gravity defying cars for sale anywhere at this point... I guess my "brain" kind of sticks them to the ground.

 

Nice job.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

[ddustin]

I think it looks pretty good... I see what you mean about the shadows though. If you experimented with softer shadows it might give you darker shadows around the wheels. That would help "ground" the cars.

 

Wish I could tell you exactly what settings to use but lighting's not my strong suit either.

 

Rhett

 

Rhett,

I'll experiment with your suggestion.

Thanks

 

David,

 

I have good results with vehicles when I sink the tires below the surface by a virtual inch or inch and a half. It makes it look like the weight of the vehicle is flattening the bottom of the tires. If your tires aren't rotating, you can bulge them at the bottom, too.

 

I would assume that you have to have the sunlight corresponding with the actual time of day you are depicting, is that right? All I can suggest is giving the sunlight a bluish cast. This makes it look a little more realistic in my scenes.

 

Now how on earth are you accomplishing those great road surfaces? I'm really struggling with this. My textures invariably go bonkers at render time, no matter what I do.

 

Your work gets better and better with every project. I'm genuinely impressed.

 

Nos

 

Nos,

I do the same thing with the tires (in fact they're all below the surface).

 

The sunlight position will change just a little, I still have to calculate it exactly. It's Georgia on an August afternoon/early evening so it's not going to change much.

 

Road textures........ ah the pain of it all. I have an image I use with the bitmap plus plugin that creates that look. The dirt on the road is a diffuse map made in PS. The road surface image is made tile-able in PS than applied to the road group as a material. I think I have a normal map in there too if I remember right.

 

Thanks,

 

 

As Jandals pointed out, you want some light "spill" beneath the car, except for the four tires, which cast hard shadows.

 

I think the "correct" way would be to use raytraced shadows with lots of rays, but that's a serious render hit. A good way to fake it would be for each car to have its own shadowcasting klieg in a light list so it shades only that car, with Orient-Like -> Sun and Translate-To -> car. Then use Z-buffered shadows to get the hard/soft look you're after. The lights should be pretty close to the ground.

 

Luckbat,

 

I'll try it to experiment with your suggestions. I have played with Z-buffered lighting mainly for lights with volumetric effects.

 

There are already a bunch of list lights in the scene to get the signs to appear lighted.

Thanks,

 

To help with the render hit I would use the 8-light skyrig by Yves. It should help enough with the floating thing and won't be as big a render hit as the other lightrigs.

 

There are about 50 tree panels in the scene that look washed out when I use the light rig.

the tree panels are targa's with tranparency.

I don't understand why they wash out, because I like the look with the light rig.

 

Thanks,

[ddustin]

I know you want perfection... but you also have to know when done is good. This is accident "recreation".... not... a scene from jurassic park.

 

 

I wouldn't fret too much over those shadows. As I looked at it... I had to "try" and see the cars as "floating"...

 

... they sort of float yes... but... I am not aware of any gravity defying cars for sale anywhere at this point... I guess my "brain" kind of sticks them to the ground.

 

Nice job.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

 

Vern,

Yes that's a problem I have, knowing when it's good enough. I'll spend days tweaking something only to have 90% of the people watching it, never notice (it's usually the forum peeps that see them).

The lawyer I do most of my work for has gotten spoiled with the theatrics I put in his animations. And has come to expect this level.

 

I had shown him some images and animations from some other software used specifically for accident recreation, and he commented right away how poor the graphics were.

 

Thanks, for the compliment

David

[arkaos]

Great looking scene. I really like the decaling on the road surface. Nice job. Are you going to show us the fininshed animation? Would be COOL.

[luckbat]

The lawyer I do most of my work for has gotten spoiled with the theatrics I put in his animations. And has come to expect this level.

Then perhaps it's time to expand into indie-film special effects?

[ddustin]

The lawyer I do most of my work for has gotten spoiled with the theatrics I put in his animations. And has come to expect this level.

Then perhaps it's time to expand into indie-film special effects?

 

When I say Special Effects I mean parts flying, smoke, water and some fire......... hmmm maybe you're right.

 

David