July/Aug -Noob - Dooster
 

Hello,
I am going to take a stab at this challenge. It is my first one and I am really bad at lighting but I would like to try and improve my work. I was thinking about doing a scene depicting a mosquito flying away from a mosquito zapper, while another mosquito is being electrocuted behind him. For the lighting aspect I was going to try and focus on creating the glow of the zapper, an evening sky, and maybe some little torches that people put in their yards. I will update soon with screens of the mosquito and the zapper (I have already modeled them as a part of a different project). Please give crit and/or compl.

sounds cool!

Mmmm..... cccrrriiissspppyyy......!
Looking forward to seeing some wips!

Cheers! priimate.

interesting idea! :)

Can't wait to see what you've got!

Here some shots of the mosquito I have made. Please give crit and/or compl.

Sorry about the last thread. I attached an image file but it didn't display, can someone please give advice to how to display my screenshots.

Make sure the images are in a file format that is allowed.

gif jpg png lws txt lwo zip bmp jpeg ma mb mel qt avi

Choose browse at the bottom by attach image. Navagate to your file and select it, your good to go. I usually always use jpeg you can get great compression and excellent image quality. Its also a good idea to make sure the image is a good size for people to see on screen. You dont want to have to side scroll to see the whole image. Usually in the 300 pixal range is great for anyone surfing.

Here we go again. Hopefully this shot of the mosquito will show up. Thank you Johnny9ball for your advice. Please give crit and/or compl.

And here is one of the mosquito zapper with glow applied. Please give crit and/or compl.

word
 

DUDE!!! You rock! oh man I just killed a mosquito, sorry. Wicked good models dude, you're gonna win!!! I hope I can do something with that suggestion you gave me, it could be tough...

pianoman


:headbang: <-- haha look at that guy

looks good some great quick models :) great idea to

Well, looks like a pair of neat models!;)

On your mosquito tho, I feel that the wings are a little short and need to be elongated to add to the look of the moquito. :)

Thank You Zeeman for the advice. I had pondered the length of the wings for awhile. I made them longer, but please say if you think they are still too short or are too long. I also added a UV map to the belly to add veins, can't decide if I like it or not right now. Please give crit and/or compl.

Here is another model that I made. It is the start of a Tiki Torch that I would like to put in the scene for lighting and the added effect of a backyard. Please give crit and/or compl.

Dude, SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTTTTT tiki torch
It looks REEEAAALLL

:bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:
how do I post images, by the way?:alien:

Those bugs look awesome dude they must have taken me hours to build,.... aarrgg... mama help!

Here's a link to some nice images for reference.
http://whyfiles.org/016skeeter/index.html

The main thing I notice is the body proportions are off. the legs on you model look way to short and fat. It looks more like a fly to me. Also look at the curve of the body in the reference images. Just a bit of tweaking will make it look better.:nod:

Thank you for the reference pictures nemac4! Those were great! I tried to correct the body proportions of the mosquito and I think it looks a lot better now, but when I was doing it I realized that the eyes were completely wrong. I want them to be much bigger than they were before, but I can't seem to do it well. This image shows the revamped proportions and a quick reshape of the eyes down merely by a size change and slight geometry change. Please give advice and crit. Thanks!

i like where your going with this. thats a big ole bloodsucka looks
great. as far as advice if you where making the bug have cartoon eyes i would give the rest of his surrounding eye the same look. like say eye lids or a brow?...... so he could show more expression .but if you going for more realistic eyes i would keep the geometry the same.keep up the great work cant wait to see this one

This is a start to my final composition. I did a quick rough sky tracer for the background. I haven't added trees or the flame and base of the tiki torch. I also need to add more fear to the mosquito's expression. Please comment and give crit to the layout and basic lighting. Thanks. Peace...

This is some more progress to my comp. I added so more expression to the mosquito's face. I played around with the lighting (I still think it needs some work, please give suggestions). I added a flame, bottom, and new texture to the tiki torch. I also added grass and two trees, one in the background and one that holds up the zapper, and whose shadow you can see on the ground. I am lost in terms of how to fill the background. So if anyone has any ideas, please yell `em out. Please give crit and/or compl. Thanks

I am trying to fill in the background of my scene. I am thinking of adding a rockwall behind the visible tree, and then maybe more trees farther behind (very dark). I have started on the rock wall, but right now it is extremely uniform and I don't like it very much. The only idea I have right now for making a good rockwall is to model each rock individually which I would very much like to avoid if possible. Please shout out ideas for creating a better wall. Also I added a rough texture to the rocks, so if it looks wrong or could use improvement just holler. Please give crit and/or compl and suggestions. Thanks!

i think that would add alot more depth to the image.good job so far keep going:attn:

I'd suggest varying up the sizes and shapes of the rocks so they aren't all so much the same.

Thanks for the advice. I tried to vary the size and shape by merely jittering the entire object repeatedly. I think it looks a lot better than it did, but please give crit or advice if you think it needs more improvement. I also added trees to the background. I am not sure right now whether they make the scene too busy, I tried to subdue them by lowering the diffusion on the surfaces. If you have any ideas or comments please shout. Here is an image of my scene currently (sorry about the size).

Sorry, hit post instead of attach. Here is the image:

Oh I did it again, I'm terrible. Sorry.

Nice modeling.

Quick Crit:
Since the other bug is getting zapped behind him...and the zapper light itself is pretty strong...maybe the foreground bug should have more light hitting him from the behind-right area...kind of a cold blue color?

looking good may i suggest you mow the lawn lol. the grass looks great just its a bit tall and isnt in proportion to the other object mainly the size of the grass to the hieght from the ground of the bug zapper other than that i like what you got.:beer:

Thank you very much for the advice digitalshow. I think that is going to drastically improve my scene. The only problem is on the face of the mosquito the blue light doesn't fade it has a distinct line which, in my opinion, looks terrible. If I move the light back farther the light doesn't show at all on the face, but I feel that you don't really see the blue light. If anyone has any ideas to fix this problem, please yell them out.
Equinox, the grass height, was a mistake because I had changed the object's size in modeler and because of that the saslite height was drastically larger. Thank you, though, for pointing it out because you're right, it needs to be changed.
This image shows the altered grass and the blue light. Please give crit and/or compl. Thanks.

looks alot better man Good job only question i have is this . ......
is the tiki torch lit or is that just the wik? if it is the wik never mind lol but if it is lit i think it should cast a hint of its light onto the bugzapper and just maybe a little on the bug but just play with it nothing to strong just enough to give it some life.keep it up its lookin great

Instead of moving your light back...just make sure you are using the intensity falloff feature with it. Then you can adjust your intensity range/nominal falloff distance to control how far out the light reaches.

If you use linear....it fades off gradually over an even distance...but since you don't want the light to hit the bugs face so much...try using the Inverse distance or Inverse distance ^ 2. Those two tend to be a lot brighter closer to the light with a much faster fall-off. Maybe that will help it hit the back...but fall-off before it hits the face?

Oh -
(if you have never used that feature before...it's helpful to switch to a top viewport too as you adjust the value - it will give you a graphic representation of how far that light is reaching.)

Thanks so much for the advice digitalshow! That really helped. Equinox, I tried to give the fire more light, but it is rather isolated in the scene, and if I make it powerful enough to reach the zapper and the mosquito, the mosquito's hair becomes very orange and it looks strange, so right now I have abandoned that. I would like to have the light but I don't want to compromise the mosquito's hair.
This image shows the new blue lights with inverse distance on them. Please give crit and/or compl. Thanks.

Glad to help.

If you want the torch orange to reach the zapper just boost it to where it looks good on it...and then exclude the bug from the lights effect.

If you want a small bit of orange on the bug too...just create another orange light and move it to where it looks good on the bug... then just exlude it from hitting everything else :)

Thanks for the advice Digitalshow. I couldn't seem to get the orange light to look good on the bug because the light would always change the color of the hair, even if I excluded the bug from the light. I got the orange to show up on the zapper though. Please give crit and/or compl.
Since we are nearing the end of the competition I am thinking this is going to be my final render, I will tweak minor things, but this is pretty much my composition. If anyone thinks something is missing or it could be improved please throw out suggestions.
Also, I need to make my images really small so the byte size is low enough to be allowed on the site. Does anyone know how I could compress the image so I could have a larger image but with low enough bytes so it would be allowed on simply lightwave?
Here is the render with the slight orange light on the zapper.

That looks sweet dude, awesome final. I can't find anything missing or wrong, but I'm no expert... haha:attn:
Now I need to finish mine...:headbang:



------>:bow:

The final image needs to be restricted to 640x480 jpeg anyhow, so I wouldn't worry too much about the byte size. If it's still too large to load up to the site at that size, I'd load it into Photoshop and adjust the compression on resave.

Thanks for the advice Mark. My image is more of a wide angle shot, so I plan to submit an image with the aspect ratio of 640x360 (same as the one below). If this is not acceptable please tell me. This image is basically my final, it is the same as the last one except I added some depth of field and played with the focal length trying to put the mosquito more in focus. It isn't too extreme. Please give crit/compl. Thanks

I was just looking at my scene for awhile and thought that it needed more depth. I modeled a quick stone walkway and put it in, but the grass from the ground grows right through it, and I don't know how to stop that from happening. If anyone has any ideas please shout them out. Also if you don't think the walkway fits well or is necessary please say so. Thanks.

I like the addition of the stepping stones. It does add depth, nice move.

~~CM!