GR#162 - Lithone 2005

[cels]

Yes, it's definitely a stylistic choice, and not a realistic one. And I really want to stay true to that style of art in this piece, also by keeping those dark lines. Some of the 1980's cartoons have some really high contrast with a lot of black and near-black fields, which is something it would be cool to achieve here, perhaps.
And indeed, the reflection technique I mentioned above is usually applied to flat surfaces. On curved surfaces, it's easier to apply more normal and realistic techniques, even in cartoons. I had already picked up on that, but thanks anyway

A minor edit with the classic, mandatory "diagonal bands of light" over the window. It's the same principle, perhaps, which I don't understand in either windows, metals or other reflective surfaces.

[Probo]

quick edit i did. I changed the direction of the lines, and to my eyes your reflection was too dark, it looked almost like a tint.

i did away with the sun/moon, i couldnt quite square the fact the glass was reflecting a lot of the light from the inside with such a bright light coming in from the outside. but perhaps it could look fine if my reflection banding wasnt so OTT and centralised

i also added a top to the window frame, which let me add shadows into the reflection lines

just some ideas!

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Probo created a good edit. I agree that sun(or moon whatever) should be removed, cause image was to busy. Also maybe you should play around more with those diagonal lines on glass that Probo created, they are good but maybe it's to may of them.

I have problem with reflection on top part of that dome. Light is one direction only. With this many flat metal surfaces definitely will be some reflections from walls, so left and right part wouldn't be so dark.

Dark and light blue on those metal pillars(in walls), should be distorted reflection of environment. They should have some orange tone too, if you aiming for semi-realistic render.
This room is very well lit and have many reflective surfaces, but definitely there will be some shadows.

I really like the the "tunnel" in bottom right, and small heart under the dome, nice details.

Overall this is nice image and very good challenge for your skills. 

[Mathias]

Lighting too monotonous. Eye confused. Draw it to the important stuff.

Sloppy light edit:


Floating stasis crystal, why not.

I like the aforementioned idea to use only one light source, maybe ditching the blue sun.

[HezaKey]

This might be an idea to keep in mind, but the reason reflections band on glass (and metal) is that it's surface is never perfectly flat.  Glass warps and it also get's worse as it ages.  If the glass is fairly warped there can also be rather organic shapes, but there's also loads of other stuff that can affect the shape of the reflection (light source: round or square, objects block lightsource, amount of warping in glass)

Also metal reflects it's environment.  Using your example, even stylized, the reflections are mostly white or a darker color... because it's space!  Something like Chrome would give you a near perfect reflection.  I think you can still be stylized with them, but also hint at the surrounding environment through the reflections.  (Doesn't have to be 100% correct, since are brains aren't geared towards spotting inconsistencies with reflections.)

If I look a little harder I can actually see what kind of environment those screenshots are in.

1. sun
2. strong light source: possibly nearby star
3. Actually not too sure, seems to have some soft light from below
4. Seems to be flying over a nebula, actually probably a reflection of the purple/black portions of the sky/space
5. lit from above, clouds or warping causing bands
6. at least one or two overhead lights
7. sun again.  Darker bands are actually just a lack of reflection on the windows.
8. Nearby light source reflected on the vehicle. (white)

I mean these are all super stylized, and not 100% correct, but they still correlate to their surroundings.

Anyway, I hope that was some helpful insight.  Let me know if I should clarify anything.

[cels]

Here is the reference I'm primarily using for this piece. It's a collection of screenshots from the 1985 Transformers movie, featuring the planet Lithone which is destroyed in the year 2005.


@ Probo: I quite liked the sun, but I understand what you and Harvey are saying, so I removed it.
I will play around with the glass reflection, but I don't really like changing the direction of the lines without understanding why. I really wanted to use this piece to learn more about reflections, so it feels like admitting defeat if I just do stuff because "it feels right". Especially when it comes to something where a correct answer does exist and it's not just a matter of taste.  Your version is probably correct, but I'd like to understand why!
I will say that yours look more easily recognisable as glass reflections, due to the light colours with low saturation, but I rather liked the tinted glass effect I had going, so I'll need to look at a compromise that makes sense.
In regards to the window frame, this is the one thing I am certain I will not include, because I feel it makes the scene a bit cramped and takes away focus from the horizon.

Thank you a lot for your edit, it did indeed give me a lot to think about!

@ HarveyDentMustDie: Thank you, I fixed the top of the dome! In regards to the pillars, I will try to see if there's a good way to add a little bit of orange reflection to them, without losing the current style. Thanks for the suggestion, I was reluctant to try it at first, but it may work. Which heart do you mean, by the way? 

@ Mathias: This is one of those times when someone takes a piece I'm working with and then transform it into something entirely different, but better looking. Your edit has much more atmosphere, it's more interesting to look at, it leads the eyes much better to the focal piece... but the only problem is that it fundamentally conflicts with what I intended this piece to be, namely an experiment with the bright, shiny, naive, dazzling, plastic-fantastic style of the 1980's. Not to mention working with shiny metal in a bright setting.
I will try to do a compromise between our two different versions, and in particular you've shown me that my last version sorely lacked contrast and realistic lighting on a larger scale.

Thanks for taking the time to do that edit!

@milokey: I understand perfectly what you mean.  Thank you. You seem to have a fairly technical understanding of these reflections, but I'm still hoping that someone will explain to me the angles involved. I have a lot of gradients and bands of light to represent reflections of various light sources, but all the angles I have chosen are almost completely random. I don't understand what I'm doing here, so I'm hoping someone is able to give me a more technical explanation. See my third post in this thread. If you can help, I would be very grateful indeed.

My latest WIP. I have not finished incorporating all the ideas and advice you guys have given me, so this will change rapidly.

[Cyangmou]

How the angles are drawn is just hightly stylized to show that it's metal or glass.

The direction of them in your screenshots depends on the overall composition and how they emphasized the action line with those reflection lines.
glass and metal always have different reflection angles
The most complex scenario is screen 7, there it seems that all of the reflection lines show to the engine.
In all other screens the lines are mostly parallel

In the other references you posted, you can see that the background metal-lighting has a much softer contrast, is in general softer, but the general direction leads you always to the focal points (I suppose it's made like that because it's an animation and they show the pictures just for a really short period of time)

If you go with the same technique as for the sprites, you could get an attention problem with the fighting contrasts of bg and fg.

TO prevent this you should emphasize the light (as Mathias showed in his edit) even more.
And adding more softer washes/gradients to the bands later on.

parts which would need more darkening:
back area and
beneath the left window.
Front left column could be darker to act as visual counterweight to the cabin/cylinder/teleporter (whatever?)

[r1k]

I think you should start blocking the figures in.  The image reads well enough now, but how will you need to adjust contrast and focus once the figures are there?  Only way to know is to put them in.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

In version from January 19, red thing under the dome, looked like a floating heart to me. 

[Mathias]

. . .
@ Mathias: This is one of those times when someone takes a piece I'm working with and then transform it into something entirely different, but better looking. Your edit has much more atmosphere, it's more interesting to look at, it leads the eyes much better to the focal piece... but the only problem is that it fundamentally conflicts with what I intended this piece to be, namely an experiment with the bright, shiny, naive, dazzling, plastic-fantastic style of the 1980's. Not to mention working with shiny metal in a bright setting.
I will try to do a compromise between our two different versions, and in particular you've shown me that my last version sorely lacked contrast and realistic lighting on a larger scale.

Thanks for taking the time to do that edit!
. . .

No problem!
But yeah, sorry about that. I saw your project here and immediately thought of a few ways to bolster it's presentation simply with light, so that was the goal of the edit.

But, in chasing that vintage look you're after, do you think it's possible that you're trying to imitate inferior art, and therefore hurting your own potential improvement? I guess as long as you're not trying to specifically imitate the "bad" traits of 80's stuff, you'll be ok. Do you have reference examples to share?