Industrial city

[wilkerson]

Industrial city (sci-fi environment)

[Amphsix]

Looking good! Love the blocky structure and the sense of scale.
I have a little trouble understanding the light that shines upon the large building and the smaller ones around it. Is there some sort of giant spotlight down amidst the buildings? Or is there a hole in the clouds where the sun is shining through? (If the latter were the case, I suppose the beam would reflect more on airborne particles).

[Velocity Kendall]

Very nice!!

[velderia]

I'm loving the awesome neutral tones.

[kingkostas]

this looks great mate, at least in my eyes. Now i could probably offer some feedback only if you tell us what is your goal. I mean is there any artwork in the net that you would like this one to look like? If we have some info like that we can atleast have something to compare to and see if it needs more value work or something else.
Only thing it could definitely get is more work on the values/modeling at least in the focal area. Something like [this texture/bumpy details has to be rendered]

[wilkerson]

Looking good! Love the blocky structure and the sense of scale.
I have a little trouble understanding the light that shines upon the large building and the smaller ones around it. Is there some sort of giant spotlight down amidst the buildings? Or is there a hole in the clouds where the sun is shining through? (If the latter were the case, I suppose the beam would reflect more on airborne particles).

The idea was kind of a hole in the clouds and maybe some tall buildings blocking the ambient light. Good point about the particles though.

thanks kendall and valderia

Thanks for helping out King, I value your expertise in this area. I suppose the image that inspired this piece was this one: http://gyazo.com/5081517ca78773a99fb3cd16cd3eea10
I wanted to try some really dramatic lighting and cleaner rendering. At the moment my piece feels empty aside from the details that still need work.

[kingkostas]

thanks very much mate, i still have way to go though haha. Ok this image definitely says exactly what you wanted to do. So you said dramatic, to do the setting more dramatic you have to push the contrast more. Some could say, respect the darks some more, give them more space.
Leave your blueish background unchanged for now and simply push the main structure in the middle some more. Lets say that now it seems like you are mostly using ambient occlusion, so what you need i think is stronger cast shadows.
However your piece has this lovely transitions that also support the variety of the colors, i guess even a little more work in the light area of that big structure can add a more finished touch in this work. Definitely a great work anyway.

Another thing to do. Sometimes maybe an unexperienced eye can help you more. For example, i remember some time i asked my brother to tell me whats the difference between some of my works to some pro works. What he said on a very simple way was "his works seem to have a lot of lines here and there, while yours look smooth here and there". This was simple, but i knew to translate the "lots of lines" into level of detail matters.

Lets keep up mate!!!

[Velocity Kendall]

for dramatic lighting check out thunderstorm images, lots of big volumes moving about, veeeery useful for megascale buildings.

king breaks it down well into specific technical terms. personally i found using 3d renderer lighting regimes taught me a lot about things like ambient occlusion, cast shadow, bounce light, global light etc etc etc... by using i mean you have to figure out how to build rooms or scenes that are well lit, (something im only half way good at even after some practice) does at least force you to learn every aspect of lighting, if only by trial and error.

[Velocity Kendall]

oh and try doing a sheet of 25 versios with different colour balances, areas of contrast, overlay layers with blobs of white and black on, whatever, and see which one suits the mood youre after. maybe a touch of green and purple and boost the contrast some will make it pop, or bringing up the shadows and dimming the highlights will make it more misty and serene, etc.

[wilkerson]

Thanks kostas and kendall for your insight.
I should have mentined I made a rough mockup of the forms in maya to test the lighting but in the end, painted it. If you look at this version, the changes are very subtle. There's some red spots, more detail in the middle, testing this idea for the background, which I dont like atm. Very slight increase in contrast and hue, I'm still thinking about bigger changes.
thanks

[kingkostas]

that red color is a nice touch. It makes the focal point more focal point , adds more interest.
I agree with Al to experiment with different things, always a great way to learn.
I forgot to mention the possibility of adding a dark-sillouete foreground element [like a bridge whatever metallic thing [just an interesting horizontal shape or something], just a thought though, i am not very fan of changing the design decision.

[Velocity Kendall]

I forgot to mention the possibility of adding a dark-sillouete foreground element .

ah snap i forgot that too.
and it pays to go more creative than the generic cyber monk standing gazing from the rail too.

[kingkostas]

ahhahah true al, that damn generic monk!!!

[Pavel Sokov]

I was told that red specifically has a very short view able distance as for some reason red doesn't travel as far as other colors. So faraway red things re leaning more towards grey. If we believe that (Jason Manley said it in a color theory thing I bought), then your reds are too saturated at this massive distance.

[kingkostas]

that sounds like a very interesting aspect pavel. Gives me ideas to research on colors. Thanks!!!

[DAMJAN]

Very nice but it doesn't say sci-fi much. Add flying vehicles, etc. that will easily convey hi-tech environment.