Quote:sweno wrote:1) This is intentional, not an oversight. Whether it works or not is a different matter; it could still be construed as a mistake, but what I'm saying is the shades are deliberately imbalanced that way, it's not something I left out. Liz's psiblades are a light source, and since there's two of them and they're larger, potentially a stronger one. You will notice that ALL the shades are stronger on Jeff; from his face, to his jacket, to his pants, there's a lot more shadow on Jeff compared to Liz. It's a deliberate and consistent choice.
*heaps more praise*
very much with the wow, seriously nice.
Though I have nowhere near the skill to do better, I hope I can point out two things that will make such wonderful things just that little bit better.
1) assuming the same generic light source (upper right) the shadows on the pants don't match. Jeff's pants are dark at the half way point, and Liz's are no where near as dark, or from the same degree.
2) on a similar point, dealing with different light sources (for glowing wands and blades). I'm not sure what tools you are using, but if you have something that does layers (what doesn't), alpha channels, and color overlays it's much easier. You can paint where the light would fall, tweak the saturation, toss a roughly circular gradient filter in the alpha channel, and your done. Or close enough that it makes life much easier.
The sonic screwdriver Jeff is holding probably seems like a stronger light source, but the glow effect is a filter I added on a whim; I hadn't originally planned on it, so it's come off stronger than I'd anticipated - by which point I'd already shaded the figures.
The multiple light sources in this picture made the shades and highlights pretty challenging, however, and I know I didn't get it entirely correct. There's a few bits which I'd definitely do differently in retrospect.
2) I already work with translucent layers, obviously - as you've noted, who doesn't these days. Most of my images are actually anywhere from 10 to 30 layers, depending on complexity.
Having said that - a gradient fill for lighting isn't something I'd considered. That's a good point. Mind, I'm not sure how you'd make a circular gradient patch, but I'm sure I can figure that out. Mind, I note that's only good for an improved glow effect, even doing it that way one'd still need to manually paint in shades and highlights on the lower layers, 'cause that'd just be a 2D illumination rather than a psuedo 3D one... it's not simply a matter of throwing brightness on, it's also a matter of shaping the brightness to create the illusion of creases and contours.
Thinking about it, due to that, it might actually be better to shade the glow light in manually as a sequence of screen layers or somesuch, which would achieve roughly the same effect but with better control. I'll have to experiment.
-- Acyl