AuthorTopic: Trainstation (Iso)  (Read 2891 times)

Offline RhysD

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Trainstation (Iso)

on: January 05, 2007, 09:11:40 am
Hey all, just signed up here today as I want to really start improving my skills by getting feedback on my art.

Anyway, this is a piece I did awhile ago. It's come concept art for a mobile phone based game which was designed to be a multiplayer/chat hybrid.

I had a bit of trouble with the lighting and the illumination of the verandah area of the trainstation, and this was what I came up with...It's not perfect lighting, but I probably should have modelled it in 3D first and added some lights to see how it worked in the environment.



Hope to see you all around a bit more :)

Offline Dusty

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Re: Trainstation (Iso)

Reply #1 on: January 05, 2007, 09:40:11 am
The lighting isn't bad, but I'd change some things.
First off, I think the light to darkness is way too 'rounded' off, or transitioned really fast. I'd smoothen it out a lot farther and over distance.
Also, I'd scrap the grey, it looks terrible. I'd say go with a dark desaturated purple/blue instead.
And last, a picture for this, this is how I'd suggest casting the shadows of the pillars:


EDIT: also, because shadows, or lack of light, is all one entity(at least if there's only one light source) the people in the dark shouldn't have a shadow at all. I'd also suggest making the shadows of the pillars blend into the darkness colours, instead of overlapping them. With one lightsource, shadows should never overlap(but if you make the change and extend the light outwards, you'll probably never have to worry about that).
« Last Edit: January 05, 2007, 09:44:01 am by Dusty »

Offline sharprm

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Re: Trainstation (Iso)

Reply #2 on: January 05, 2007, 09:45:51 am
This is looking good. I think the shadows from the columns are off. I made a model guessing at your lighting. It looks similar (and
yours is stylised which is good for isometric piece) but i think you should change it so that the two shadows that each column produces are equally dark for the centre column, and for the righmost column the left shadow is darkest and the left column the right shadow is
darkest.



Edit: Actually, I put some boxes where the people are and they should cast shadows according to the max model. The two lights under the balcony are still contributing light to the station where the people are and so there is still shadow.

Edit: surely the shading on that blue bin is off? It looks like there is 3 giant dice in the carpark.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2007, 10:01:14 am by sharprm »
Modern artists are told that they must create something totally original-or risk being called "derivative".They've been indoctrinated with the concept that bad=good.The effect is always the same: Meaningless primitivism
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/Philosophy/phi

Offline RhysD

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Re: Trainstation (Iso)

Reply #3 on: January 05, 2007, 11:02:05 am
Thanks for the feedback :) As I said, this is quite an old piece and this is really the only copy i've got of it right now (the original is somewhere at work, ill have to dig it up)

Dusty  I agree with the light being too rounded off, I can see that atm its kind of like it ends as soon as it gets to the edge of the verandah area. Sharprm's model has let me see what i've done wrong and that it should fade out at a lot longer distance. As you can see also in his model, there are two light sources, so the pillars would have two different shadows, depending on the light source. I can see where you are heading though, if you were thinking that it was only the one light source. As for the shadows on the people in the dark, I wanted them to have some sort of light source but now that you mention it I don't really think the moon would be strong enough to provide that sort of shadow. On your point of the color of the darkness, I agree it should be a different shade to add a bit more color in the scene, maybe a bit more saturation do you think? I don't know if changing it to a purplish color would do too much for the feel of the piece.

Sharprm  Thanks for the modelled lighting reference! This is exactly what I should have done before I began to colour this :) You might be able to tell but I did create two shadows for each column but I didn't darken them when they meet like I probably should have. I can also see where I went wrong in the dark and lighter shadows being mixed up. The darker ones should be the closest ones to the light source etc. The blue bin shading is completely off and I can't believe I didn't notice it when I was shading O_O As for the "dice", they're meant to be designer hedge kind of bush things but the flowers didn't turn out too great in the dark :( I'll probably need to refine my foliage style as right now it's a bit too plain for my liking.

Here's the original version, which was coloured as if it was day time.



I'll probably just recolour and fix up this one, to convert it to a night-time feel. Time to open the dreaded photoshop :( (the original was created in Paint :) )


Offline Dusty

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Re: Trainstation (Iso)

Reply #4 on: January 05, 2007, 11:20:06 am
Dusty  I agree with the light being too rounded off, I can see that atm its kind of like it ends as soon as it gets to the edge of the verandah area. Sharprm's model has let me see what i've done wrong and that it should fade out at a lot longer distance. As you can see also in his model, there are two light sources, so the pillars would have two different shadows, depending on the light source. I can see where you are heading though, if you were thinking that it was only the one light source. As for the shadows on the people in the dark, I wanted them to have some sort of light source but now that you mention it I don't really think the moon would be strong enough to provide that sort of shadow. On your point of the color of the darkness, I agree it should be a different shade to add a bit more color in the scene, maybe a bit more saturation do you think? I don't know if changing it to a purplish color would do too much for the feel of the piece.
Ya, I didn't notice there were two lightsources, which made my edit for the pillar shadows null.
And the reason I suggested purple is because shadows always seem to have a hint of blue/purple to it, instead of complete grayscale. You can keep the dull, desaturated look to it, but even just a hint of purple will make it look all the much better.