I wanted to make this scene so much better. the water ended up looking flat, but I did not consider the camera angle before making it, I also wanted to add more detail to the “leviathan”, like big pincers but I completely forgot about the collab since I was working on a small game. I’m comfortable enough to post this, but I’m not even remotely satisfied.
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Well, everything looks a tad too clean and regular for something that looks like ancient ruins that are bathed in sunlight and even have water pools. I’d expect more jagged edges and cracks in the building, as well as moss and plants here and there as Nature finds its way into them. At least from a point of view of realism.
Just out of curiosity, why are you taking this project to UE4 and not 5 now it’s officially released?
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Oo yes it could really use some moss and plants. 
Well I downloaded UE5 and loaded it up, only to find my computer kick into overdrive just in the basic scene doing nothing. It seemed to have Lumen enabled or something and I’m such a noob that I couldn’t immediately figure out how to turn it off. I hate having my computer too hot so I went back to UE4 for now.
You can disable Lumen in your project settings, under Rendering. Using regular Shadow Maps instead of Virtual ones helps, too. Here’s a hint:
It’s true that UE5 is more demanding than UE4, though.
I also have my doubts because of that.
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My 1-year old project… that fits thematically better here compared to the subject it was made for… Excalibur:
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Should be a hand coming out of the lake catching it!
There is! Just after I took the picture
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This is a witch from Pendle Hill in Lancashire. I only lived there until I was about 5yo, but I remember the stories of the witches that drank red ink and flew around at night. I think it was used as incentive to keep us kids in bed at night. I used to wonder why drinking red ink was supposed to be scary.
Anyway, I tried a bunch of different things to get this witch done - started late because I had no ideas - and then rushed through everything so it’s once again something I might fish back out in the future to make it better. I’m pretty sure I did the grease pencil stuff all wrong, so cannot move the camera. The lighting was very time-consuming as I was trying to get the cat to look less like a collection of mechanical parts. I thoroughly enjoyed the process. Blender is a great adventure.
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I really like the atmosphere of this. The sun is a really great connection to the pyramids. The only comment I would have is the greenery in the background. It makes me wonder if the pyramids are small, and the vegetation is grass or are the pyramids large and the vegetation is huge. My brain seems to go to the former. Love the colour scheme.
Submission this week along with a little background info.
First vision
was to do a depiction of „The Rat Catcher of Hamelin“, a German folklore which goes back to a real event in around 1280. Tried this and that to create a telling scene, but I got overwhelmed by the. Process. The Project exceeded my capabilities and free-time by far. Had a pretty stressful week and couldn’t afford to put much more hours in the project than I already spent creating a single rat as time flew away. (If anyone wants to create a render with that project, i would love to see that! It’s a really interesting story (Very weird and dark af!), it would be a great concept if someone needs an idea to start a new project - link to the lore attached) (Somehow some „facts“ on wikipedia differ from German to English language)
Second thought
„Sword in the stone! - Yes, I can definitely do this in low-poly!“ Threw away the idea when I saw the WIP by ZachDude - which already is such a great submission. Had a „dammit!“-moment^^
Final
Finally came up with something else nice and short, which goes into a completely different direction. But I don’t know if it works as „myth or legend“ for people from other countries. And I definitely could’ve done better from the technical aspect.
But I’m relatively new to blender and making gifs. But i´m still proud i produced “something”, instead of just letting it slide.
Note to myself: When making a looped gif, i need to work with reduced but harmonic colours from the start. Having a fine, clear render and then compressing it to 4MB really hurts to see afterwards!
Honestly, every submission and WIP I’ve seen so far this week is so awesome, that I can just humbly raise my hat. Yet I hope my little gif can at least produce a few smiles. I wonder if someone can relate to it. Sorry for the flickering background …
Have a great weekend!
Kasimir
It has been told …
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Haha there’s nothing wrong with two interpretations of the same subject! 
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Definetely not. But for me it is very hard to start when i know there already is another version which is and will be much prettier than my own. I know in reality that´s a really bad habit. I needed years for acknowledging that creating graphics/art with the use of references is simply the best way (most of the time). Some little dictator in my head always whispers “If someone else has done it, yours won´t be original! So it´s not worth it!”
Thanks for helping me to stand up against him 
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I have struggled with that a lot too, so I always try to remind myself of this quote “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
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The visitors
Non-competing.
Unrelated WIP GN experiment I started yesterday which happens to fit in thematically with this challenge… .
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We @BlenderCollab have a few days to vote. You can vote fast but also think slowly about design, colors, technique, difficulty, subject, realism, etc. Choose consciously and not on your own entry.
And the new subject week 15 has NOT been started. I’m waiting for a subject. The winner of this week’s “Idioms” challenge may select a subject for week 16.
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Nice entries, well done to everyone and good luck
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@Cathy_N , Congratulations on your submission of a mysterious-looking, mesmerizing, lady in the lake. The hair looks great and it’s a good composition. Focus in the middle of the scene, well lit, even under dark conditions. To me, personally, it could be part of a horror scene …
- FedPete talking to FedPete - It’s an old project and back then it was the best you could do. But it has it flaws; the back wall looks restless, too noisy. The wood texture is wrong. The glass looks to perfect, more plastic-looking, I miss bevels on the objects, Lighting could be better (spotlight in the middle ages?). The clue of the story isn’t clearly visible (thor’s mini hammer, bottom right).
- Peter_Khromov - I like the way you’ve modeled the sword. But it is too clean. And the light could be improved (darkness on the shadow side), color …
- Lintari - Not sure, what viewers should expect to see in this scene, for “Myths and Legends”. Which is also cultural of course. Personally, I like it, but I miss the context with the Collab subject.
- Kasimir - I like the way, you did the distortion of the mirror. And yes, going for animated GIF, you need to lower the number of colors. What puzzled me, was you did the trick of the erased line. But now I think it is a rotating image plane?
- Yee - it’s too dark. I do think the small figure confronting the monster, could be more emphasized. Stronger color, light beam?. It’s about guiding the viewer through the scene. At first, I see two eyes (red beams). Beter if at first your attention goes to the small figure and then trying to find out why he’s is standing there.
- Kax - Lovely golden city of “Eldorado”. But it needs to have more spunk. Try to Improve the composition, adding details like people on the road, adding more details. …
- ZachDude - A very good start with a very promising scene. I Love the way you composed the scene. Introducing guides to the subject, rule of thirds, triangles. Really impressive, but I think you’ve run out of time. And why it the sword always 100% vertical?
- bONan - welcome back. It is a clear scene. But I miss the hand, arm of the lady in the lake. It makes the visual story complete. The (blue, white) lighted symbols, do give me a sci-fi feel.
- mimsybean - You’ve used very recognizable symbols. To express something about Myths and legends. And more details to make the scene more complete, like a sky (moon) and some rooftops with smoky chimneys …
Great entries, you should be proud of the things you did!
Jaco_Pretorius - I really like your scene. Maybe not so Myths and legends, but who knows … I’m impressed with your lighting and story. It feels like a late evening sun, with a bit of haze. It looks mysterious. maybe adding some sort of engine (descending) distortion?
Have fun, everybody!
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Hi FedPete,
thanks for your feedback. If I got you to „puzzle“ how I did the thing with the erased line, I see it as an accomplishment. Let’s solve the puzzle together, so everyone can profit from the solution
Background reflection
At first it was a mistake - I didn’t want to reflect anything in the background at all, just wanted a nice gradient. To control it a bit easier, I decided to project it on a cylinder. Didn’t find it interesting enough, so I just cranked Metallic to maximum to see what happens - my guess was it would stretch everything to unrecognizable. Didnt´expect to get a clearly visible reflection! I loved how it mirrored the circular motion going on with the objects. Made the whole thing appear more dynamic! But - uh oh - it also reflected the hdri background, which i set to be transparent for good. Couldn’t figure out how to make the cylinder only reflect the scene without the hdri. So I made the bug a feature. Will experiment more with that in the future!
Erased Line
Nope, it’s a mesh. Add (very thin) Torus → (keyframe 360 rotation) → cut in half plus positioning so it meets the tip-points of pen and eraser. Also added some more thickness where the ink comes out of the pen → scale on z-axis to 0.05. Done.
It’s that easy, but was a long way to get to this simple solution.
Originally I made it with grease pencil. Looked better and more „inky“ but didn’t render properly in cycles, it alway overlapped the other objects when they should appear in front.
In conclusion this weeks project really helped me to figure out how to do looped animations a bit better. Still so much to learn, but i clearly see progress! Thanks to the whole community!
Have a sunny day, everyone!
Kasimir
i didn’t expect that!
use camera focus and or Blender post-processing features!
You can render HDRI light info, but not visible as the rendered background image.
did not see that one coming …
Blender is so much fun in all its possibilities.
Great implementation and problem solving.
1 Like