hehe. i think you are right man.
but they all seem dark is because i have not set up any light or environment settings.
i just wanted to get the right hdr exposure and find one that fits.
tomorrow ill create a good shader and set up some high rez renders. thanx all

:bow:

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I reccomend upping your FG rays, and your sampling. Your textures will show more detail. Are you Raytracing your shadows?

there arent any shadows at the moment.
ytes, i will do a complete different lighting set up with more appropriate settings and render in passes.

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b stood out the most at first glance, then later d and g have elements which look nice.

its nice to see all the stages that you're going through that can be used to make the model realistic

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

ok. i changed the lighting and tweaked the color map a tiny bit.
i adjusted the exposure of the hdri map.
this is not final version. i'll render things out in passes.

then comped them in an external program. ill also add some DOF
im also thinking i should add a tongue for him. although these animals almost never put their tongues out [unless hunting]
some pics of them on google images you can search komodo dragon
https://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...ughes/test.jpg

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awsome! i would really lie to know how you made that render because when i try to put an hdri in my scene, it doesnt gives me as great result as yours.what you add more in your scene than an hdri with final gather and a directionnal light(as you said)?

get hdr shop.
use it to adjust your hdr image exposure settings.
u can also do this in maya by fine tunning the gain attribute of the image, but tats not so good.
create a simple 3 point light set up.
fill light, back light , and a key light ar low settings.
and do some test renders from there.

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mc-fleury, you can use any image to light a scene. It doesn't have to be a HDRI image ( the preferred choice ). I use a regular jpg ( modified to fit a sphere ) for my Image based lighting. Collect a variety of images, or HDRI images to experiment with. Thats pretty much all it takes to get good Image Based Lighting.

thanx!what intensity do you use for each light in your three point light.

cm-fleury: my light intensity will not be same as your light intensity. they will vary from scene to scene.
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this may be real close to my final submission. i dont want to spend much more time on this.

C&C welcome.

https://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...renderTest.jpg

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That looks cool, but something about this last shot looks a little lifeless to me. I don't know anything about lighting or rendering, so I am not much help I'm afraid. I think it's around the eye - it looks a little flat.

Holy CRAP. I think it looks great. Far superier to anything I could muster up

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"So the Doctor Sais I wouldn't have so many nose bleeds if I kept my finger out of there."
~Ralph Wiggum

yep, looks great!it look just like a paint.

Wow, it does look painted. That's neat!

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Nobody felt like avenging your death. Sorry.

yea this versin looks a bit flat.
because i rendered it less than half the size i wanted to.
ill make a beauty pass that show some more details at higher rez.

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