2024 Collab: Week 8 “Transparent” - VOTE CLOSED

[FedPete]

This is the Blender Collaboration 2024, week 8 challenge. Don’t be afraid to join, a lot of us are beginners. This is all to practice, have fun, learn, and get together.

This week’s subject is “Transparent”.

• It will be interesting to experiment with transparent materials, no matter what models
• Subject selected by the previous Week 7, 2024 “Romance” winner Lintari

The rules are simple. 1 subject, 1 entry, 1 week.
You create whatever object or scene or whatever you can think of that has something to do with the subject. It can be as simple or complicated as you want, all entries are welcome!
Post your picture here in this thread. At the end of the week, we start to vote. And if you are the winner, you may choose the next subject and win a unique badge.

Deadline: 2024-02-24T22:55:00Z

• Last week’s collab: Blender Collab: Week 7 “Gothic”
• Next week: 9 - Spot the difference
• See all previous challenges in Hall of Fame 2024
• Halls of fame 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020

If you want to stay informed of the @ BlenderCollab?
Subscribe or unsubscribe to this “BlenderCollab” group.

[zeRgenTa]

It may not be immediately obvious how transparently is used in this image, but I used three objects, two of which were mirrors. The surface becomes more opaque with each consecutive bounce.

Older Version

[Ice4ged]

A glass bonsai tree.

[CypherPoet]

My submission: Reverse Invisibility Cloak

Blender Cloth Animation Experiment: Reverse Invisibility Cloak 🧥

I created an animated short that revolved around a cloth physics simulation. Originally, I had the idea of doing something with an “invisibility cloak” from Harry Potter lore. And then I asked: What if it was a reverse invisibility cloak?

In the end… things got super spooky as I got to subverting the expectations of what an invisibility cloak should do – all while preserving the fascinating properties of transparency and wavy cloth simulations

[FedPete]

Wow, great entry and study!

[Willrun]

Edison bulb

[DustyUnicorn]

Crystal ball in the magic shop

[FedPete]

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 entry.
The new subject week 9 “Spot the difference” has already started. The winner of this week’s “Transparent” challenge may select a subject for next week 10 and win a badge.

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Transparent

• zeRgenTa
  

  

• Ice4ged
  

  

• CypherPoet
  

  

• Willrun
  

  

• DustyUnicorn
  

  

[Jindrich_Jungmann]

I just wanna say that all images are excellent and imaginative. I don’t think every image is art but here I wouldn’t hesitate to call all presented renders like that.

(Big plus for subtle Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference!)

[FedPete]

@CypherPoet Congratulations on your magical reverse transparent invisibility cloak. The physics are nice and I’ve no clue how you did this visual trick. The transparent material is smooth, and shiny and gives a nice reflection. You could explore this project further, mate it even spookier, glowing eyes, … so many fun things to explore in this project!

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• DustyUnicorn - Nice composition. But it’s too clean, too modern. Like (electric) light everywhere, in combination with candles. You could play more with the light, to get more magic into the scene.
• Ice4ged - Beautiful Bonzai glass frosted tree. Try to think about the whole composition, like a fitting background or location where you would place such a beautiful object.
• Willrun - I like the idea. Check the scene for completeness, like adding electric wires. Which adds more interesting details to the scene.
• zeRgenTa - It’s nice to see students experimenting with ideas and Blender physics. It shows the increase of Blenders knowledge and usage. Maybe a video clip could give more dynamics to the project outcome.

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Note: I don’t want to offend anyone. I try to write down positive ideas and visions in my simple use of the English language. I am also sometimes more inspired by a particular subject or solution. I’m also learning from you!

[DustyUnicorn]

I agree, it seems a bit off and a recurring issue for me! Can anyone point me the direction of good lighting videos? I can set HDRIs up but they all seem to effect the image in a way that I didn’t intend and can’t seem to find the right HDRI. For this one I had tried a church HDRI for some atmosphere, but was way too orange.

[DustyUnicorn]

Yes! Glad someone noticed the Buffy reference

[FedPete]

HDMI does not only show as an background image, but it casts also light and intensity of the HDMI on to the subject. If you have the wrong HDMI image … wrong light reflections and colors.

You can also model the complete room in a simple way to have the correct expected reflections. (or just plain images). And use a lot of lights of all sorts.

You can also have a plane (single face) as a defusor (like photo studios) for soft lights.

Remember also, Blender uses real light physics. Meaning you need to model everything on real scale. Like your own room.
5m x 5m x 2.5m and having a 100W bulb.
Light power will reduce quadratic . Like 1m away 50%, 2m away 75%, 3m 87.5% Never 0!
An other trick is to add light without shadows.

Have fun!

[Jindrich_Jungmann]

I never miss the opportunity to find Buffy even if the reference is missing.

Lights

Something to read (and I really love 80.lv )
and…
general stuff, pretty useful for intro

Not the 3d art but cinematography - it is actually pretty useful (not only) for animation
Especially now with CGI basically… everywhere.

I am still FAR AWAY from putting the theory into practice, especially as I don’t have many opportunities to play with it. But the general theory says that for realistic render lighting (including hdri) and studio lighting (you know, three point lighting etc.), the photography and the real life lighting should be studied.
On the other hand, for animations, stylized or generally any renders where “story-telling” is more important than realism, studying the cinematography lighting theory is recommended.

Presentation made by animation lighting artists

Not to forget…
shadows are particularly tricky
but…
softbox solves usual issue with hard shadows seizing all shadow space without creating gradient

This whole series about studio lighting by Wenbo is amazing. He’s the great teacher who actually explains the theory, not just showing some magic tricks to impress nerd girls. This is made to impress all nerd community

On the other hand, I am not impressed by all those: “Your renders suck. I show you why… blah blah”. I am allergic to this phrase as they are just an overconfident and arrogant clickbaits. And usually aren’t more than 5 mins long. I doubt they can get even close to actual teaching.
As far as I am concerned, these videos serve mainly as ego-boosters for various arrogant self-promoted “gurus” or are full of idiotic tictac “funny” intermezzos for ADHD kids. It disturbs my concentration. I am too old to be able to pay attention to this new crazy way of video cutting, I’ve learnt trimming and cutting differently and better! (I can rant about it whole afternoon, just let me find my crutches )
But maybe you find some good info there as well. If you dare to try it.

I am yet to see this but it seems useful