Was inspired by watching the thread on High Dynamic Range Imagery - and especially this:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=149161

So I tried my own double dome environment with some of my 2d abstract images used as environments for a scene with plain white spheres (40-50% reflective).

A variety of different moods emerged...

I think I will develop the large greyish really moody one (last image) further - also maybe the redorange one.

Nancy, even your experiments look dreamy. I love your style and composition. You've got something special

great Nancy..love the look

That is just gorgeous Nancy, your style does bring tears to my eyes, and yes ,that's a good thing.........

Michael

Wow, that is beautiful Nancy. Great work.

I like it! I made it my wallpaper :)

Post that orange one on CG talk. Just to see what the reaction might be. It is so un-CG.

Beautiful and festive experiments!

Thanks all for your comments - I'm truly truly flattered.

It's a continuing goal of mine to get a rendering style that resembles traditional media (e.g., watercolor, oils) for its warmth, imperfections, fluidity, yet takes advantage of the controlling capabilities of CG. And then ultimately to use this style in animation.

Hopefully it will look like a melding that would be difficult to achieve in either genre by itself. And even better - hopefully it will look impossible to achieve in either.

I ain't there yet. And will probably never be - as it's the journey that's really the fun.

I am kept busy by trying to keep up with A:M's flexibility & infinite combo possibilities, along with inevitable new (and old) feature toys to explore, as well as watching the wonderful creative efforts on this forum.

I use to love using a progam called "painter" I'd change the phots of my boys to a water color look , I just didnt have the time to learn how to do real watercolor like I wanted,
When I see what many of the AM user are doing Im so struck, like with your art Nancy, I scratch my head and say "how on earth did they do that !" One never knows what treats they will find when viewing this forum..

Michael

I still love Painter. It was the first software I purchased ever (ver 2, 3?) - I got in 1992? for my hand me down 486-50mhz along with a bundle deal with a wacom tablet (6 x 9 - still using) at a trade show for 159? Blew me away. And still does to this day - very innovative, creative software - and even better today (ver 9).

All the 2d images used above as projections were created in Painter.

Wow! Those are really nice images. Each have their own mood. Personally, the blue one is my prefered one. I guess everybody will recognize its own mood.

I don't see a blue one ? maybe that's why Im not a Lighting expert...LOL....honestly.....it looks purple, violet, grape...

sorry, just having fun with myself, or at my own expense...

Michael

Thanks Yves - Thanks for the comment - and yes - everyone will have their own color preferences & mood as color seems to hit people on an emotional level.

And definitely I must say: Thanks for sharing your expertise & excellent tutorials on double domes & skylights (as well as everything else). I'm embarrased to say it's taken me this long to actually try using the dome techinique.

I'm guessing (from some of your comments in the other thread) that I will have to modify it some with ver 12/13 as I was using a 50% transparent outer dome/ground with a flat shaded, front projected inner dome/ground. There are only 2 kliegs outside the dome pair (top 180 degree, & yellow bottom, both raytrace shadows), along with 1 volumetric orange klieg inside behind the spheres, and 1 klieg in front (z buffered), also inside. I probably will be experimenting more with negative lights & soft reflections (when ver 12 arrives)

And Mr Kamikaze - interesting feedback about color - the image is overall blue toned to me. I'd even say periwinkle-ish (not quite). It's always a problem.

Hard to factor in how color really looks to others. How would we ever know how someone sees a color? Do your eyes pick up colors differently then mine (yes), is your experience of what you call blue different (yes, you had a different brand of crayons then mine), Is your monitor calibrated differently then mine? Probably.

I don't know what to say - Other than: it must be Purple-Violet-Grape in your universe. Maybe I'll do another image in what I would call purple & violets & grape (which are 3 different colors to me). I thank you for the reminder about color.

Aaack Kamikaze - I just revisited the Purple picture - You're right! it is more violety to me too - more than I remembered. Forget the periwinkle crap. Geesh.

What? You mean that the fourth one does not look blue to you? How do you know then that I was talking about that one?






PS. Of course I'm kidding about the fourth one. We all know that it is the fifth one which is blue.

My god woman,

People were burned at stakes , not long ago, for doing this kind of magic.

as allways your work inspires me ;-)

C

I hadn't seen this before. I really like the artwork. Especially the tangerine one. Can I ask how you did the band of "star dust" on the render?

Yevs, Nancey...

Don't go by what Ive said as far as color goes....my wife an I dont agree on what colors are what colors (did that make any sense?), I must be wrong, shoot I can't even spell correctly with a spell checker.(so true)............(wink)

Michael

Hi Matt - I'm enjoying watching your experiments -

As for the stardust - just a simple trick - (No sprites were harmed):

I modeled a ribbony type thing - and made the surface properties such that the specular color is a saturated cadmium yellow, specular size & intensity =100%, roughness & roughness scale = 10%, transparency = 90%, translucency = 100%. see image. My lighting is funny as the volumetric is orange & light below ground is yellow. Other lights are white.

Thanks Colin - Your work is highly inspirational to me...

(Note to Kamikaze - this is purple...um..to me)

The color discrepancies we're seeing here are much more likely to be due to monitor calibration than eyesight, I should think...

Interesting. I would never have thought of that. I probably would have used a map.

The colors move of a royla blue, or indigo.

Hey Nancy, this is looking really nice.

Sorry for not dropping in sooner, I actually have work at the moment

Looks like this forum is having something of a renaisance. Can't wait to see more.

No, No now that is the blue of blues...could not get any bluer than that Nancy.....

Now who's pulling who's leg....

Michael

Nancy, your work is so beautifully different. Your use of color, (whether blue or violet, or purple or ochre whatever that is) just makes me gaze at the screen. I keep thinking, I'd like to try that, but I never do, because I know I'll never quite get it. I really like your work.
Ed

ok youse guyzzz...here's some pink ones for ya.

First image is straight out of A:M - 2nd one is the result of manipulating it in Painter with highpass, sketch filters & adding paper texture. Again 2 very different moods.

I'm getting tired of this composition - will work on something different

Thanks Ed (Give it a try - it doesn't hurt, there's no right or wrong)

John - Thanks & glad to hear you've got work!

Very nice Nancy, my fav to date....would it make any of you uncomfortable for me to say that these pink ones seems to bring out the feminine side of me? was that just a little to much info?

Can't wait to see what you come up with next...

I sure wish my old version of painter worked with W XP, I have the version that came with my wacom? tablet a few years back.....I notice you mentioned thats where you got your first painter at too Nancy, if I recall correctly....

I am surprised at what all Gimp can do and Deep Paint.

Michael

o.OJust kiding.

Anyway, very nice renders, though my favorite one is still the blue one.

Nancy,

At some point, I'm just out of words. You do magic with color. I'm with Ed here. No matter how hard I try, I just don't get colors like you do. It seems to come out of you in a very natural way. I'm learning a lot as I look at your pieces. It's a real piece of art. You could frame it and sell it. I met an artist, 2 years ago, wo does that. He produces "giclés" of his CG artwork (he uses some fractal program and Photoshop) and numbers and signs them. Then he destroy the digital original (so he says but I don't believe him on this). And it sells.

Kamikaze,

I was kidding when I wrote that comment about the true color. I have the same experience with my wife. She likes to name colors as precisely as possible. While I like to decompose colors into their primaries or secondaries and name them according to their most prominent primary or secondary or according to the general spectrum when I talk or write about color. Sort of the same process as if I were to mix colors on a palette. This generally makes for some wicked color conversations. Since I always had problems remembering names, be it person's names or concept names or event names, whatever names, I use other strategies. For example, I always have trouble remembering which name refers to a bluer or redder color: violet or purple? Compound that with the fact that I find color names to be not so precise, the same name is oftentime associated to a slightly different color depending on the manufacturer and some color names were invented by specific manufacturers, it can get pretty wild when trying to discuss colors. Anyway, you are right that it is not pure blue. There is a good amount of red in the general color feeling. To me, it is in the general blue spectrum.

I like to be kidded with and kid back I knew (well, the best that one can truely know what another is thinking/feeling) you were kidding, and you did a fine job of it too,,,so be proud of it,,,smile,,,,,,
I once knew the colors of my old crayola crayons, confused me for life....
Yves, your the master of light (not that you invented it or anything , or did you?) and without light there is no color.....is that a correct statement?

Michael

Nancy, amazing work as always. Your style, sense of color, and composition is to be greatly admired.

Greg

I may be a bit late (somehow, some great threads pass by me), but I have to express my great admiration for everything that you do, Nancy... Great images, they ooze with mood and feeling...

Drvarceto

Nancy,

I believe you have a direct line to someone who is a Rainbow-supplier...

Excellent composition and effects.... the lighting is also top notch.

I will see which one my wife wants for her HUGE wallpaper collection.

Thanks Yves, Michael, Matt, Greg, Drvarceto, MMZ...

Thanks, everybody for your very very nice comments...I've been preoccupied with family health issues, and haven't been able to focus much on A:M'ing. I'm needing to stay focused in reality...

I will be getting back to "playing" soon enough... & It's still fun to watch what everyone else is doing.