[Louisch]

I'm currently modeling the Space Station from 2001: A Space Odyssey (I only have the main elements so far, and I'm a long way from the small details).

My current problem has to do with the windows. Here's an image of the windows as seen in the movie:



When I render my scene, using an emitter plane located behind the windows, I necessarily get the result below instead:



The illumination at the bottom of the windows doesn't seem to be present in the movie (I don't know how that was possible, but that's how it is). The fact is that these reflections are very annoying, specially when the space station is seen from afar.

Any idea on how these reflection could be eliminated? I guess what would be needed would be to have the emitter behind the windows be only visible to the camera and invisible to everything else in the scene. Can this really be done?

Thanks

[eric nixon]

Use black window sills (as per the movie).

[mashium123]

tried hiding the emitter object from GI?

[Louisch]

tried hiding the emitter object from GI?

That did the trick, you're a genius!



Thanks Mesut

As for Eric's suggestion:

Use black window sills (as per the movie).

I don't think they used black window sills in the movie, as you can see in this picture:



But, if you look closely, I think the windows are in fact small blocks of plastic protruding from the openings thus minimizing the light reflections on the window sills.

Thank you both, I really appreciate the help.

Louis C.

[Fernando Tella]

Probably the light from the windows was much dimmer than the light used to light the model. Just thinking.

[RichG]

Fwiw, I think it was better when it did cast a bit of light on the sills. I bet the guy who did the original opticals would have preferred yours too!

[polynurb]

your reference footage has motion blur and a certain camera response curve which is not present in you render.

i think in the ref the sills simply merge with the window frame itself as the light from the interior is much stronger than the ambiance. but to get that "film" look you have to apply a lot of post. maxwell outputs very balanced images in terms of gamma,saturation and pixel blur, therefore film references are hard to compare 1:1


eg. in the original footage the space station completely blends into the dark space at some point but still the windows are bright white.

if your application supports it, try to animate camera and/or model and post process the 32 bit output with something like motiva real camera, maybe there is something similar for analog motion film response curves but i wouldn't know..

[Louisch]

Fwiw, I think it was better when it did cast a bit of light on the sills. I bet the guy who did the original opticals would have preferred yours too!

In the end, I kind of agree with you RichG. The light on the sills is a lot less distracting when more details are added to the model.



But, maybe just to add on last comment on this subject, the station in the movie did indeed appear to have its windows made of small plastic pieces protruding from the main structure, as can be seen from this very detailed picture of the actual model. Seen head on and lit from the side, you can clearly see shadows cast by the windows. But I won't change my model or its illumination and will leave them as they are right now. They do look a bit more natural.

to get that "film" look you have to apply a lot of post. maxwell outputs very balanced images in terms of gamma,saturation and pixel blur, therefore film references are hard to compare 1:1

if your application supports it, try to animate camera and/or model and post process the 32 bit output with something like motiva real camera

I also agree with you on this. My modelling application is Rhino, so animation and motion blur are not really part of what I can do at the moment. But it would certainly be very interesting to create an animation of the space station similar to the ones in the movie. I'll certainly consider it when my model is complete. As you mentioned, the look of the movie is very different from what you get with Maxwell. The images in the movie have a lot of film grain and chromatic aberration that would need to be replicated in order to obtain the same "look and feel" as the original. Motiva RealCamera seems like a very interesting application to simulate those kinds of effects. Any suggestion concerning this would be more than welcome.

Thank you all