Alien Production Facility

__davidschultz__ · January 10, 2017, 07:07:00 AM

Hello all. I've been working on a new piece. I imagined this as a sort of alien facility where they are harvesting biological elements from specimens. This was initially supposed to be a quick concept for an environment with a little more painting and less modeling. I ended up taking it further than I initially planned. Some of the geometry is still a little rough, but hopefully it gets the ideas across. I did a lot of Photoshop work to get it to this point. All of the modeling/sculpting was done in Zbrush.

I'm using Interior lighting mode following the set up described in this post: https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=13204.0

If you have any feedback, I'd be happy to hear it.

Will Gibbons · January 12, 2017, 07:57:12 AM

Looking cool David! I saw this on... polycount maybe? Looks like it's coming along well. Maybe some more color in the lighting to add to the drama?

__davidschultz__ · January 12, 2017, 08:09:28 AM

Thanks a lot, Will! I desaturated the image a good bit, and I may have gone too far. I was trying to match a few lighting set ups and color grades I saw in shots from Prometheus. It may just not work as well for this image.

Will Gibbons · January 12, 2017, 08:16:35 AM

All a matter of taste! Of course, there's no right or wrong. If that's the goal, then I'd say it's there.

__davidschultz__ · January 12, 2017, 08:26:25 AM

Thanks, Will. I didn't get quite the response on this one, so I wondered if maybe what I intended didn't quite work. Thanks for the feedback.

Josh3D · January 12, 2017, 01:21:04 PM

LOVE the detail and idea. It was a little hard for me to distinguish what everything was at first. Some other angles may be helpful. The perspective plays some tricks on the ol' eyes here

__davidschultz__ · January 12, 2017, 01:49:15 PM

Thanks for the feedback, Josh! Yep, I agree. It is a bit noisier than I'd like. I'll try another angle and see if it's better.

__davidschultz__ · January 13, 2017, 07:49:11 AM

Thanks for the feedback guys! I started looking at some other camera angles, and I couldn't really find one I liked. I sort of made the scene for this basic camera angle (within in a few degrees on Y anyway). I made some adjustments on the previous image to try and better separate the foreground from the background and hopefully help with some of the perspective issues. I might just call this one done, and move on and learn from it.

Will Gibbons · January 13, 2017, 08:26:33 AM

I thought about this one a bit more. I think one thing that may help is to create more depth. You've got DoF doing some of that, but I think the whole thing is a bit low-key. Step back and squint the eyes and it's tough to discern what's happening. Perhaps using one or two physical lights only (no HDRI) and placing the light toward the camera's position will allow the foreground to be better lit and the background to fade to near black. This might allow the shape of the space to be read a bit better/faster. Just one thought.

__davidschultz__ · January 13, 2017, 01:56:21 PM

Thanks, Will. Yeah, I did have a light that was brightening up the front area, but I thought I might be losing too much of the contrast in the front. I can try it again just out of curiosity. This is my first attempt to at not having any hdr lighting.

Will Gibbons · January 16, 2017, 08:42:51 AM

I think that reads much better!

__davidschultz__ · January 16, 2017, 04:18:15 PM

Thanks a lot for your feedback! I think I have a version that is much better now. I added back in the area light to the front and tweaked several things. I also went with a much darker look like I had on earlier WIP versions. Let me know what you think.

bdesign · January 16, 2017, 04:36:41 PM

This is a great image, David. The latest rendition has so much more depth and mood

Cheers,
Eric

__davidschultz__ · January 16, 2017, 04:53:01 PM

Thanks a lot, Eric!

TpwUK · January 16, 2017, 04:53:57 PM

Oh yeah, now ya cooking!

Martin