Autumn

[Eldar]

***Updated***
By popular demand, removed DOF and tweaked the trees a bit.
************

Here's a little environment I did recently.

It was actually my first project rendered with Vray. Next one should be a lot more polished now that I know how to optimize the settings better and what pitfalls to avoid. It was a learning experience. Done in 3DS Max 4.2 with compositing in After Effects. All textures painted in Photoshop or designed in Illustrator.

The goal of this piece was not so much to achieve photographic quality of rendering, but to try to make an impression of autumn season.




Here is a wireframe:



And the shaded view:




I wrote a few lines about the process of making this environment on my website which you can read at http://www.eldargraphics.com/tutorials/. Nothing too elaborate, but there are some more images of different passes used in the final composite, and few tidbits of info. Most likely nothing new for the veterans of this forum.

Comments welcome, as I am always eager to learn and improve.

Happy new year to everyone.

[nully]

Thats lovely, a nice cartoon effect, this scene is crying out to be animated.

The one thing I would improve on is the water - the scale and the 'structure' of the ripples is wrong somehow, it makes the scene look like a tiny model.

[restoeboemi]

i think what makes it look like a tiny model is the DOF

[Seraph135]

Is it just me or is there some selective DOF??? The water in the extreme forground should be just as out of focus as the ground right next to it. Some areas in the background have similar weirdness. That said, I really like the style and mood of this render.

Tim J

[taboo]

very nice rendering. And i like your demoreel also.

one questions. ( i am sure so many people asked this).
That is what? a volumetric effect?? Afterburn.
please let me know how did you achive that efect.
thanks.
Ali

[Eldar]

Thanks for the comments and input guys.

Is it just me or is there some selective DOF??? The water in the extreme forground should be just as out of focus as the ground right next to it. Some areas in the background have similar weirdness. That said, I really like the style and mood of this render.

Tim J

First of all, thank you for your compliments. Coming from such an esteemed source is quite flattering.

Hmm.. not sure what to tell you about the focus up front. It might be because of the vertical difference in height of the sidewalk and water level which makes it further from the camera. Will have to look into it, but I definitely see your point.

Some of the areas are bit fuzzier than they would be normally due to post processing work in After Effects. I was kinda trying to go for the painterly fairy-tale look. Next time around will try to tone it down a bit to avoid confisuon.

very nice rendering. And i like your demoreel also.

one questions. ( i am sure so many people asked this).
That is what? a volumetric effect?? Afterburn.
please let me know how did you achive that efect.
thanks.
Ali

Sorry, I'm not quite sure I understood the question. Volume effect is just two regular volume lights. It is somewhat accentuated with the lens flare pass in After Effects, which is there to add a bit of a zing to the feel of lighting.

[taboo]

hmm.. okay i am sorry. let me put it this way. How did you do the leaves on the trees? it looks like from the wireframe, you put some particles and do a volumetric effect or Shag:Hair ?

i was just wondering which one?

[Eldar]

Oh, the trees.

Yes, the trees are bunch of particle systems with a few differently colored leaves instanced.

[lukx]

beautiful work ELdar. I got question about water caustic on shore (or I don't know how to call it). It's texture or render effect?

[rhino]

nice

[Eldar]

Thanks guys

lukx - the caustic is projected with spotlights as an animated texture.

Going back to the question of DOF. I checked settings and re-rendered the front area again. It came out the same: (straight out of the renderer)



It's probably due to optical illusion that it looks like it might need to be same DOF on water and sidewalk, but the distance from the camera is different due to height and angle.

This is a quick Z buffer output of that area from max default renderer:



Not the actual Z used in DoF calculation, but you get the point.

[Seraph135]

I suspected it might be the height causing that. You have a nice reel BTW.

Tim J

[Eldar]

Thanks Tim!

I did an update on the original image. Enough people have complained about the Depth of Field, so I decided to remove it. I only left a bit of haze / specular bloom in the far back.

Please let me know what you think.

[dbuchhofer]

I must say I like the non-dof version much better... When you had DOF on the scene looked like a small model..

Lovely mood.

[Seraph135]

Much better.