Reflection Pool.....and a Bird on a Rock

[Gareth]

Another experiment....this time I am trying to understand and grasp the concepts of HDR versus Spherical Sky and the differences between the two and once again i am trying to get a better appreciation of the behaviour of materials under different lighting conditions.

The differences in colours (colors for my American friends...!) are quite noticeable....and so too are the exposures which i have left untouched.

The red wall is a red mosaic aimed at giving a dramatic effect with a band of yellow....i am little troubled by the lack of texture visible in the tile.

The building is unimportant at this stage

C & C welcome as always.

Cheers,

Gareth

[Fletch]

Tweaking the gamma and exposure should be considered PART of the rendering process. It is not something that should be avoided, but EMBRACED. (wait 'till you see what we have here for TWL V.2)

Imagine a photographer who refuses to change the exposure on his camera setting. May as well just carry one of those little tourist all-in-one point-n-shoots around.

For the tile, it will look much better with a proper specular and bump map. Tiles are never done perfectly. And when seen from this angle, even the best tile job would potentially look quite sloppy. So, you will need a good bump map for a mosaic tile.

Unfortunately, there are a plethora of poorly done bump maps like this available.
The problem with them is that they are a photo of a tile, not a true bump map. A true bump map respects the "rules" of a bump map.
Black=bump fully "down"
50% Grey = No bump
100% White = bump fully "up"

*edit* - I made this true bump texture example and scene for you.

So with your tile, you would have to open in photoshop or similar editor and color each tile slightly different shades of grey so that they would vary in their "depth", just like real tiles do. You may even do a very slight gradient accross a single tile to have it slightly "off" of perfectly flat. Of course, the grout would need to bump "down" from the faces of the tiles.

Easiest is to buy a good mosaic tile bump. Before you buy one, post the example here if you want us to tell you if it appears to be a "true" bump map or just a faked one. 90% of the "bump" maps we see are faked. (even on most sites selling themselves as "professional" textures )

[Gareth]

thanks for the tile info Fletch....i'll experiment with it over the weekend

...as for the exposures, it isn't an issue at this point, i have deliberately left them untouched so that a comparison can be made between HDR and Spherical Sky....but i promise i will make exposure adjustments if i use the HDR again as this WIP progresses....however, i may well stay with the Spherical Sky

[Gareth]

i had a shot at the tiles.....the bump on the tile face is indiscernable, probably because of the size...but at least the joints showed up....still needs some more work but am getting there slowly

[Fletch]

The tiles are definitely looking better here.
The water - you could try these:
Subject: Procedural Waters (28) for Twilight by Majid
Subject: Water, Procedural - Dirty and the Sea

[Stu]

Fletch wrote.....(wait 'till you see what we have here for TWL V.2)

Sorry...I can't wait....just whisper....we wont tell a soul!!

Gareth..very nice!!....and yes, the exposure tweaks make a difference!!

But...but...no one has mentioned the ....Furry PEBBLES!!!!!......they look great and go a long way to making the scene look PR.

[Gareth]

Hi Stu....you have no idea how much i wanted your opinion on those pebbles....!!!

.....they caused me a lot of grief....they still need a bit more tweaking and repositioning, but hopefully it will be worth the effort

[bing1370]

nice

you can add more bump on the water and need blurry for that to see more realistic view.

[Gareth]

a few changes.....and have used majid's water for the pool, and his fountain water too

[Gareth]

and with a slight adjustment to the exposure setting..