Lighting render comparison

The attached image shows a comparison of the same scene lit in two different ways.
The image on the left was rendered with a sky dome of hemisphere lights and an area light casting shadows only. The image on the right was rendered using a combination of a small sky dome and ambient occlusion.
The image on the left is better - despite faking global illumination. It also rendered much faster than the ambient occlusion render. The whole point goes to show that "cheating" during the rendering process is the way to go!
You can click on the images to view them full size and compare the important differences between them.

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Office Hours: street scene tests

Here are two brand new images from 3D animated short film Office Hours.
One of them is late evening still of a partially modelled street rendered using nothing but Ambient Occlusion. You can see that the models look more "solid" than previously which is mostly due to the fact that they don't look plastic anymore!
The other image is a daylight street scene test render. As you can see it's coming along nicely even when lit very basically. This scene features a small sky dome of hemi lights (with specular turned off), a single shadow lamp (only casts shadows) and Ambient Occlusion. It's too bright and there aren't enough areas of high contrast shading - plus the AO samples are much too low - but it is certainly beginning to "feel" like the kind of street we envisioned when writing the script (ie: Edward Hopper-esque; and if you don't know who Edward Hopper is then go here).

More images to follow.

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Office Hours: ambient occlusion

Here are some images showing the power of Ambient Occlusion in Blender 3D.
In case you don't know, Ambient Occlusion is a global illumination feature that simulates realistic lighting in the 3D scene.
The top image shows the Ambient Occlusion settings used when rendering the attached stills. Click on it to view it full screen size.
the middel and bottom images show renders with and without Ambient Occlusion (AO). Both images were lit exactly the same with a single shadow-casting light but as you can see they look vastly different due to the effectiveness of the AO. Of course using AO results in much longer rendering times but it is well worth the extra effort and time.

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Office Hours: street scene models

Two new images from Office Hours which show some of the smaller buildings to be used in the street layout from the film. These buildings are have more of the gritty/run-down kind of look that we're after. The previous buildings didn't have much character but these have a more lived-in look.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

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Office Hours: smaller buildings

Work in progress image from Office Hours of some buildings. Until now the attention was on designing and modelling big office building locations but they wouldn't look "big" unless there were small builings located around them. The only way to create a realistic type street scene is by looking up lots of reference images. We don't want all the buildings to look too similar but we also don't want them too have radically different designs either.
By the way, those weird looking drainpipes in the picture are being replaced with some proper looking ones!

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DVD/CD burning software

What is it with burning software? I don't know how many times a DVD burn has failed or been unable to "write short lead out". It is so annoying!
I used to burn DVD video files with Magix. Trouble was it kept failing even when the program was reinstalled a few times.
Then I started to use Cyberlink DVD which worked alright for a bit (even though the DVD designs layouts were basic) until it too started acting up.
Well now I only use Ulead DVD Workshop for burning video DVD's and (so far) it hasn't let me down yet. And it's fast!
Now, burning a data CD/DVD used never be an issue. I was using Nero for that and it was pretty reliable. I'd put the occasional bad burn down to a faulty disk. But again recently Nero has been causing problems - bad file writes and sometimes even causing the computer to crash.
So the solution: a freeware program called Final Burner. It is only about 2mb in size, has a funtional layout and most importantly is very reliable. Here is the what the makers say

FinalBurner is a freeware alternative to expensive CD and DVD burners.
Its users will benefit from the opportunity to create data, audio,
and video disks and burn them onto any type of media, such as CD R/RW,
DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD DL. No tedious or confusing configuration needed.
You just select a few main settings and start burning. FinalBurner's
artificial intelligence will find the perfect recording balance.

Final Burner can rip from CD's, burn DVD video and data CD/DVD just like it's expensive commercial rivals. The protected soft website offer other programs and some of them are commercial or "pro" editions with extra features but do yourself a favour and just go for the freeware versions. (Note: Final Burner Free is for personnal use only).

Download Final Burner here.

OFFICE HOURS: office location pics

Some very "moody" lighting going on in these pictures, I think you'll agree. Or maybe just "very dark"!
Top image is a wide shot of the office location interior. The middle image shows a noticeboard (if you squint a lot you might be able to make out that the notes pinned to the board are actual pages from the office hours script). And what about the bottom image. Well, it's a machine thingy.
Keep vsiting the site for more pictures and stuff.

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SCI-FI film in the works

Yes just like the heading says, we have been doing the groundwork for a science-fiction fantasy film - all of this on top of the continuing work on OFFICE HOURS.

The Sci-Fi pic is in a very early pre-production stage but we can confirm that it will be a live action short film with extensive C.G.I visual FX.

The film is set in the not too distant future and will feature a post apocalyptic world and fantastic machines. All vehicles, buildings and locations will be computer generated while the actors and certain props will be real.

We've been doing some greenscreen composite tests and so far we've been impressed with the results. Dwarfed Films have dabbled in merging C.G.I and live action before but we've never considered doing a project of this scale until recently. Also we've never made a science fiction action film before despite threatening to make one for years!
So when does it happen? Well we're still busy with Office Hours but, as I've mentioned, pre-production testing has already began on the film. There's a lot of work to do yet!

Ok, all this might sound very vague at the moment but trust us when we say that this is gonna be something really special.
So stay tuned to the site for more info on this and our other films.

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