Floating Paradise

[Caveman]

Some more angles ;;)

[Caveman]

Even more

[Draise]

That cloth is dope. How did you do it?

[nodeway]

Looks like Marvelous Designer.

[Caveman]

My 200th post is a necro post, yeah!

Yes draise it's marvelous designer. Though I have omitted that character from the island and have been doing some animations with him.

A good example of bad compositing. It's a 7 seconds animation. The tree and ferns and blah blah grows The cloud flows. And the water falls.

[NNois]

Hi,
If i may, sometime we need a bit of critisism to be better. I think the global proportions of the island needs to be reworked.

Take an eye like this:
1. If you shoot a wide view (like the one you just post), your island doesn't look like a floating island but a giant tooth in the air, too heavy, too round. The roots doesn't help too because they follow too closely the "tooth" shape
-> take a breath and do some heavy photoshop deformation on that
2. If you shoot closely this time, maybe we can find the tree is too small, and more importantly, due to the heavyness of the rock you loose the floating spirit.
-> make the tree bigger, and do some heavy spacing between the roots and the rock, we need to "feel" the gravity, the floating, the air. (by the way on the small rocks we need to feel the gravity too)

;-)
Keep going,
Noël

[Caveman]

Hi Noel I am new to camera works. What lens should I use 35 mm?

Okay I will put more space between the large and the smaller rocks.

Should I increase the size of the smaller rocks?

The tree was at first larger than right now, but I felt it made the island look tiny so I shrunk it.

I just wish to make the island look huge, in the 3d software itself without the use any photo manipulation.

I need good a cinematographer

[Mathaeus]

I think NNois meant wide view, not wide camera (could be wrong).
Anyway, first of all, I'd try to decentralize the pic. You can simply follow the rule of thirds, it will be always better. Alternative it's portrait, where actor is in center, but for effective portrait, you want to 'loose the attractiveness' from center to margins, by some sort of vignetting. Here, I'll stay with rule of thirds.

To emphasize the floating, I'd go anywhere else of almost vertically aligned camera and actor. So, look down or look up. Wouldn't hurt to introduce more than one object - I hope it's not big deal to rotate the islands around vertical axis or, to remove central tree or few
details from some of islands.

Regarding wide camera angle, this is nice if you want to emphasize some huge thing with dispersed volume, like big aircraft, ship, typical example could be Star Ship Enterprise from Star Trek. For almost compact volume here, perhaps it's not so important. Narrow angle could give a nice illusion of looking from long distance, using telescope.

About clouds, make decision, are they playing important role of not. If they are 'actors' too - concentrate them around opposite lines of rule of third. If not, make them more uniform - in first screenshot, light blue randomized grid, plays role of dense layer of clouds, bellow. Or, just choose a plain sky with only a few, not so prominent clouds.

Make lighting more diverse, having a more clear direction. As an rule of thumb, anything is better than front light ( coming from camera).

[Caveman]

Hi! Mathaeus thanks for the tips. I have read the chapter on compositing in Lighting and Rendering book by Jeremy Birn. Why I forgot those is beyond me

[Caveman]

Requesting for suggestions. Are any of these compositions any better?

Is there a way to lock the grid in Softimage, so I can use it as guides just like in the Rule of thirds?

[Caveman]

Hi everyone. This is what I have come up with



Moderator edit: fixed the image link - HB

Link to higher resolution render

https://goo.gl/photos/ZokJNqgxgiKs7ZTn7

[Hirazi Blue]

A huge improvement IMHO. I like it very much...

[Caveman]

Hi Hirazi where can I find the link to my image that you used to fix my post earlier?

Sorry I think I broke your fix

[mc_axe]

Hey Caveman that looks much better indeed!

Just the left side vines look a litl bit tense to mee when they come out of the big rock.

Just one idea for the rule of thirds, you can use a simple grid, place it nicely in front of cam, and parent the cam to it

[Hirazi Blue]

Hi Hirazi where can I find the link to my image that you used to fix my post earlier?

Sorry I think I broke your fix

Thanks for ultimately fixing it yourself. I messed up big time in not properly saving the original link...

[Caveman]

Hi Hirazi where can I find the link to my image that you used to fix my post earlier?

Sorry I think I broke your fix

Thanks for ultimately fixing it yourself. I messed up big time in not properly saving the original link...

I don't understand where did you get this link https://lh3.googleusercontentDOTcom?

Wish to know so next time I can do it on my own.