AnimationBSG: HOME (Work in Progress)

softcel

bsg_raptor_interior.jpg

Some early clips from my follow up to The Field.

DarkSapiens

Hi there.

I think the lighting needs a bit more work. The local sun would likely be the only source of bright light in many of those shots, but those asteroids, planets, ships, etc. have reflective surfaces that would cast a bit of light in the shadowed areas. So I think it would be good to add a few more lights to the scene (make sure they cast shadows too, though), fainter than the sun, to avoid having an unrealistic absolute blackness in every surface that's not lit.

Also, I would make the stars less visible, smaller and/or fainter, because they don't look good in shots like the starting one. And if you can, lower the "specular" intensity in the materials and textures for the ships. They'll look more realistic too

If you make these few changes many shots will look much better, hope I can see the result!

jrhottel

I'm not a professional, so perhaps deference is do DarkSapiens observations. I love all the elements you have in play, especially the high contrast lighting. The asteroids are a problem though. As pointed out absolute black is unrealistic and the asteroids definitely have a CGI feel at the moment. I have a different take on the stars. The early stars seem fine to me. Later the galaxy and nebula images though, while beautiful, are perhaps to bright. I've played a little with making images from NASA data. The data has information outside the visual spectrum and the artist processes all the data for best visual effect. The images are likely not what you would actually see, which of course doesn't really matter. Bottom-line, I'd take the luminance down a little on those images and see if you like the results.

Saquist

Pesonaly I saw very little if not nothing wrong with the lighting.
In fact it was as dark as it should have been realistically accounting for high contrast from exposure to see things like the center of the galaxy and nebula. In reality the sky should be nearly black with twinkling stars not mass've globs of light.

But it's done for effect to enhance the background...
As a result this heightens reflective sources. Nothing wrong with that.
It was well, extremely well edited and the music over lay was familar yet different and overall good overture.

DarkSapiens

Saquist wrote: »

In fact it was as dark as it should have been realistically accounting for high contrast from exposure to see things like the center of the galaxy and nebula.

Quite the opposite, actually. To see the stars in the background you'd need high exposure, and that would make the unlit surfaces be seen brighter, not darker. And with the stars and nebulae so bright in the background or asteroids close to the ships (or even ships close to each other), the "unlit" bit would never look completely black with that level of exposure… (And it would look more realistic with just a little bit of light from that "darkness", like I did here http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?80098-Star-Wars-X-Wing-Rescue-Sullustan-Tech-Staff )

softcel

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it...im just trying to make a lil follow up to this.

DarkSapiens

Very cool!

You know what? In that video the lens flares make it almost impossible to have complete blackness in the scene, kind of solving the lighting problem. The ambient light that I was proposing would have added a level of light similar to the one the lens flare adds to the dark bits of the image, so to the eye it feels like if the light was actually there

softcel

Thanks for the feedback. Im not really trying create scenes that are photo-realistic or anything like that (I wouldn't even begin to know how) i'm just a big fan of the show. I value your input greatly. Im using Bryce 7. No post work.