3d matte painting/fantasy environment

[CognizanCe]

One of the pieces for my demo reel.
A fantasy/Atlantian environment/arena.
It may not look like much here, but inside has weapons and decorations and stuff inside (more renders will be submitted some other time).

But I'm finally done.
EVERYTHING (except for the water and sky and dome), has been zBrushed (exported from maya). Thank GOD my computer didn't crash. I guess the 8 GIGS OF RAM helped. This one frame took 25 minutes to render, and about 2hr's worth of work in photoshop adding the waves and dolphins etc.

Figured this would be a good time to submit this because I'm using this for a grade for a class.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/screamus/AtlantisDA.jpg



Question:
Is 3d allowed in the "it's finally finished!!!" thread?

[Siamese Goldfish]

well you deserve a comment. :) Few thoughts:

The horizon is way screwed up. it looks like your 'ship' is in the bottom of a deep swell.

The textures need work - including grime and wear and environmental aspects.

Lighting appears to be coming from nowhere in particular.

and yes, 3d does end up in finally finished, but if you read the rules, finally finished is for professional grade (or very close) quality pieces. While this is not a bad piece, it does not fall into that category.

Keep working away at it! its a good concept and a great start.

[CognizanCe]

Thanks for the reply.

"The horizon is way screwed up. it looks like your 'ship' is in the bottom of a deep swell."
Not quite getting what you're saying, but I'll work on it.

"The textures need work - including grime and wear and environmental aspects."
I guess I didn't have any on the big fin things, but it's there when I submit some up close renders.

"Lighting appears to be coming from nowhere in particular. "
I used images based lighting, trying to imitate a sunset. You provide the iage, wrap it around a sky dome, and maya does the lighting based of that.
So i was trying to do shy based lighting is what I guess I'm trying to say.

[Matsign]

The big, white highlight on the bubble suggests the light source is high above. The waves do not receed to the horizon. I'd suggest evening/straightening out that horizon line. With the waves so large that far away you kill the depth of it.