Render Tests

The images below are test renders which I am most pleased with. Although these renders are by no means perfect, they depict what I intend the look of the final results to look like. These renders show my leaning progress and development.

Above I have added some secondary lighting to the scene. The blue light is created using a spot light with and area light attached to it so that the edges are softer and have a nicer drop off. This technique needs some tweaking as it is still not quite right and there is not a lot of opportunity for interesting light streaks to be created by the venetian blinds. On the other hand I do not want too much secondary light that it becomes distracting.

Above is a similar apartment layout, however the lighting technique is different and in my opinion far more effective. Instead of using the basic default area light, I went into the mental ray tab in the area light attributes and went to the use light shape option. I changed the area light from the basic default rectangle/ square shape and changed it to a spherical shape. That way the light behaves more like a light bulb and light is emitted outward in all directions. I gave this light some nice softer ray trace shadows so that the edges are not so harsh. I gave the light a little colour too, by adding a pale yellow tint. What I am most happy about however is the way the lamp shade looks now. It looks far more believable and looks as if it is being illuminated from within. To acquire this effect I included a very small percentage of transparency to the overall lambert applied to the lamp shade as well as a fair amount of translucence. This will enable the lambert to allow some light to penetrate the lamp shade model. I added an orange colour to the lambert material to achieve a similar look to the initial concept. To get smoother edges to the shadows I increased the shadow samples to a higher setting. Although it is not so obvious I did also apply a (mib shadow transparency shader) from the mental ray nodes under shadow shaders. This should allow the lamp shade to cast shadows that were not so black and corresponded to the colour of the lamp shade. I really like the lighting here as not all of the room is completely visible, however I feel that the room seems too illuminated. The intensity of the light itself may need to be reduced. I am particularly pleased about the mood that is portrayed within this render. I wanted the lighting to be quite dark yet warm in terms of colour and high in contrast between light and shadow. I do feel that the shadows need to be softened somewhat as they still seem to be consuming the scene too much. Perhaps this look may add to the sense of mystery and may provide a nice artistic look. The absence of light can in some cases make a shot more interesting and dramatic. Blade Runner is a good example of this in terms of the use of lighting in certain shots.

Above is a test render of the apartment room interior, so the settings were generally low. Thus the quality is not as good as it could be. All of the crucial furnishings are in place with simple blinn shaders applied to them. I wanted to get a rough idea of what the apartment interior would look like with colour textures and lighting. This test was a pleasant surprise. Although it is by no means perfect it provides me with a good idea of what the final result may look like. This render also gave me confidence that if done well the final result should look impressive. An occlusion pass I believe will make this render look even better because it will add depth and surface shadows to the surfaces within the apartment.

The most important issue at the moment with this render is the lighting. It is not quite right as the table shadow is far to harsh and distracting. This could probably be softened by adjusting the Accuracy and Point density in the Mental Ray settings tab. The suspended table lamp in this particular render in my opinion does not look good enough. I shall see if I can look at some digital tutor tutorials online which may help to get a better lighting setup. All in all however I am pleased because we have a representation so very early in production which demonstrates what I intend the final result to look like. The very essence of my animation short is depicted within this image.

The render above I thought turned out rather nicely. The lighting here is particularly effective. I really like the soft shadows that are created by the lamp shade upon the wall. There is also a very nice glow effect on the walls where they are closest to the light source. The lambert applied to the walls may be a little too red, but I do like the warmth of these colours in this image. Red could be used to symbolise that there is blood on his hands or that this warmth comes from Frank's love for Rachel.

Above is a simple light setup where I was experimenting with light fog to create a cone of light. This effect is a good way of suggesting a smokey atmosphere. It may not be essential to the final renders however it was a feature I wanted to learn more about as it had until recently eluded me as to how to use it effectively. I did not really understand how it worked. I have since discovered that in order to use this feature you must use depth map shadows instead of ray trace shadows.

I was pleased with this render. Adding colour to the lights really brought it to life. I was glad that the lighting here is starting to resemble the lighting in my concept illustration. I think the scene here is still too dark and needs an ambient light to introduce more light to the scene.

This was the first render I did using an area light as well as an incandesent lambert texture on a crude bulb model. As you can see it works a lot better. It still needs work but the mood is there. I was rendering in black and white so that I could focus on the lighting setup rather than worrying about colour for the time being.

In this render I used an incandescent lambert shader applied to a simple plane to serve as a light source. This method created nice reflection patterns. This is a very simple and effective method of creating an illusion of a light source without using regular lights. The glass effect was achieved by applying an Anisotropic Shader to the model.