Preserved Topic: Troubles

Heya, all. Trying to make a realistic looking light bulb. Can you give me some insight on what I'm doing wrong? Thanks.





[Updated once since original post]

[This message has been edited by Kine (edited 11-28-2002).]

Most light bulbs have some sort of writing on the top that you can see from the side. It also doesn't look tome like it rounds out enough at the top. A lightbuld is _almost_ a sphere onto of a cone. This looks like one piece of slightly beveled material. Of course, maybe your light bulbs don't look like mine.

Change the background color from pure white to a gradient or some other color...

Looking Better? (updated it)

kine - that looks fantastic!
my only problems are:
- that black bit at the bottom is shinier, from memory, and doesn't it have a little metal tip?
- the glass is always slightly transparent... but i'm not too sure how you will manage that.
top stuff, i'm really impressed.

Ah! Can you mail me your reference?

Hah hah, it's impossible to find pearled white screw in bulbes in Brisbane. I've been searching high and low for one of these lately.

As for some comments, the metal screw-n bit looks sloppy. Sharpen it up a little. The drop shadow isn't doing it justice either. It's not a flat object but the shadow is acting as if it was, dig? The shadow is also off according to the lightsources being reflected.

Also remember that different shaped lights will produce different types of shadows. A long fluro light over head will cause blury shadows along it's length as the light will spill around the sides of the object but it's slim across it's width and will produce fairly crisp shadows in this direction. Do some playing with objects under long fluro tubes and whatch how the shadows fall, which parts are blured and which are crisp. The same applies for light coming through a window, espically if it's at an angle. The shape of the lightsource always defines the shape and crispness of an objects shadow.

Thanks for the tips, guys.

Drac, I work at a lighting store, I can get you as many as you want. =p

It's taller than it should be, it seems to me. The one I'm using source here has much less "stem" to it.

I'm not going to argue, most bulbs are stumpier, but some medium-based bulbes, which is what I'm going for, are pretty long. I had to go to a class on lightbulbs for work, there must be a million and ten different kinds of bulbs out there.

The only thing I can see is I don't like how the "stem" of the lightbulb comes closer together towards the end. Given, it should come a little bit closer, but that just seems like alot to me.

Very nice work Kine...I guess most of the tune ups you need to do, have already been said.

Over here in Europe, almost all lightbulbs have a last little transparent section at the shoulder between the metal and glass (I used to use it to check the element to see if a dead bulb was dud or not - you could see the element by looking up into the bulb though it) - from a side-on view like this, you would be able to see the glass support for the element through it. Also my impression is that the stems of most bulbs here are parallel-sided rather than tapered and they tuck in a little more where they go into the meal part.

On the other hand .. your's is pretty damned fine.

Real nice work, but it looks a bit "flat"

I think it has to do with the righthand shadow.

Something about it is off and that hinders your effort to convey the correct volume of the bulb.

Have to take a closer look later on. Time for another meeting.

Looking pretty good kine. didn't see the origianl post, so I can't really say about the improvement though.

Something that might be helpful - http://www.morguefile.com/ was just posted in the site reviews section, and has an incredibly large photo reference section, whcih has - I happened to notice when reviewing - a very large collection of high quality photos of....lightbulbs.

It is looking a little flat, but I can't offhand pinpoint what needs to be done to rectify it.

(oh, and here's the thread where the site was posted for review, for those of you missed it http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum6/HTML/001075.html )





[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 11-28-2002).]

Thanks very much for all your posts, this is why the Asylum is first on my Favorites list. Some very good advice, I'll get to work in a bit and show what I come up with. Thanks again!

[edit - DL, the Morguefile site is fantastic, thanks for the link.]

[This message has been edited by Kine (edited 11-28-2002).]

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPTH!!!

But it looks damned nice...shiny.

I'll be back in a second...I'ma gettin' reel deep.





[This message has been edited by DarkGarden (edited 11-28-2002).]

All righty.

For those following along at home, these are not to be considered guidelines or improvements, just a bit'o'advice and some suggestions for what could be done.

Now that the whiny bitches are appeased, let's roll

Two things bothered me when I first saw your image. First was the flatness (though it's a beautiful piece so far, the lack of variance and contrast flattened things to an odd amount). The second was translucency.

Your lightbulb, though "soft white" should still be translucent enough to have the grade of the background showing through to an extent. So that's where I started.


A little of the old cloning stamp and a new layer brings the background through a bit on the bulb itself. I set the new layer to multiply and toyed with the contrast a bit just to pull it through, but keep it faded out and still "back" from the foreground.

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Next I dealt with the issue of the shadow casting. For a translucent bulb, it sure was casting a hell of an opaque shadow. And the fact that the shadow was consitent for the metal base as well as the bulb itself caused some issues. So we make a new layer and paint. A bit of the old white paint, and a "lighten" setting helps.

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Fade the white out toward the base to keep the shadows varying then play with the opacities. Your shadow should fall in stages as you think about how it would lean against a flat surface. The parts touching the surface would cast darker shadows, but with less diffusion...dig?

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See that little light spot you have on the bottom right of the base? Yep, that's the one.

Well that tiny spot establishes a reflecting, ambient, or oppositional light source. With that in mind we have to think how it would act on the bulb itself. So... We put a little glare coming from the bottom right onto the main sphere of the bulb as well as the shaft. Subtlety is key here, but don't be afraid to go nutty. Nice white reflective spots...fun stuff. Try and keep the outer edges of your light spots nice and sharp with their curves, it establishes more of a glassy feel.

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And so we have light...and we need darkness. Contrast and transition will up your feeling of depth. A nice shadow is thrown on and then faded out. Still with crisp edges, I worked the shadows in three layers. Typical, classic, same way Doc would teach you

Play with your opacities and find what you want for the depth. You can always tweak later (there's a bit of foreshadowing for ya)

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Back to those damned shadows again. Since we established that second light source we need to establish it's cast too. So we paint a bit more, little brush here and there on the left side. Also the base needed a bit of depth to give that cylindrical feel. A few strokes along the right and left to "sink" it into the midground and making sure the highlights stay consistent.

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It's looking a bit dark now though, yes? Well let's play with the atmosphere a bit then. Same method as the shadows, but we'll keep the white highlights a bit crisper (less blur keeping the outline masks in place) then we'll go back and erase what isn't needed. A stroke here and there for any area that wouldn't be getting direct light reflection. (It's like scuplting, just carve away everything that doesn't look like a lightbulb...~grin~)

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Wait, what the hell is this?

Oh yeah, I didn't like how the background was coming through on the bulb, so this is a peek at the displacement map PSD. Why displace? Ask Steve.

heh
(Hint: Jamie drop a link to Steve's WunderTutorials here, I'm too damned lazy to grab it)

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So what do we get after we run a bit of displace on the cloned background layer? Well if we tweak the shadows and highlights a bit, we get this...and that's how we got the first gibbled image I posted.

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There we go, fast and dirty, but hopefully chock full'o'possibilities. Just keep in mind that shadow and light establish all your depth and that the variance between the two will give you roundness, and you're golden.

Now go make one that looks better than the shite I just posted.


Hope it helps.

Peter

And I thought you were on vacation...

Slick stuff. Espically since you were working with a flat file. Lots of great advice there DG, thanks.

Yeah...I got home.

~grin~

I thought this looked like fun, so I did one, too. We haven`t had a * I wanna do one too * thread for a long time.

Light bulbs , anyone ?

some photoreferences for comparison...





heh - ever felt like telling santa to get screwed? bwa ha ha, i crack me up.



[This message has been edited by reitsma (edited 11-29-2002).]

You just wrecked christmas for everyone!
Just kiddin'. Man, I really like how you guys do this stuff, one day, I'll be doin' it to

It's looking great, kine.

About the only thing I can suggest is to lighten the shadows on the base. Other than that, very nice piece of work.

just gimme 1 minute...ahhh

:-p