Hi all!
Holy Shit! Oops, I meant OMG. Or some similar cliché, as frankly you run out of words when it comes to describing KeyShot 8!
Took two days of hard work, but I finally figured out "Volumetrics", mainly by studying the spotlights scene in the Scenes library, and a lot of horsing around. I was getting discouraged, and then suddenly the lights went on, pun intended!
Volumetrics will benefit from thorough instructions in the manual, some videos, and hopefully more .vdb Density Textures in the Materials library. I have no idea what a VDB is, or how they are created.
So, using my test bed Cumbres Depot scene, here's where I got on my first foray into the mysterious world of Volumetrics.
Cube is "Add Geometry", resized and positioned. All rendered at 5400 wide, in the Interior mode, at maximum time of one-hour. Volume Cube thumbnail below is shown in White Wireframe.
Ended up rendering a beauty shot with clown pass, using Photographic Image Style. Then I rendered four "Volume" passes, each tweaked for a different effect. I was after the typical swirling mist in the area.
Actually, #5 and #7 below are neat as is, with no post. So consider all of them entered in the contest!
Then placed them all in turn in CS5. Used a mix of masking and transparency, as well as curves and levels, to get the final effect I was after.
Cumbres, New Mexico, is at 10,000 feet, or three miles, elevation. Cumbres is Spanish for "summit" and is the highest point on the narrow gauge Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Image is set about 1890-1900. Being high, the air is thin, and it's very dry. However, in the early morning some cloud mist is common, which when mixed with steam and smoke, is the mood I was after. The crew is in the station enjoying some warmth and a large cup of coffee, before departing at daylight for the long and perilous trip on the downhill grade. I always have a little story behind my work...
Anyway, the following images will show my workflow. This was fun!
Bill G
