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[ENSONIQ5]

I can see floyd86's street scene ok, though it is quite dark, and I can see distinct variances in Lynn's posted greyscale.  I think the issue with your scene Lynn is that the contrast between the illuminated areas and the shadow areas is not very great.  Shadows, and the non-illuminated side of objects, tend to be fully black at night time, or very close to it.  I would suggest reducing the Ambient setting on your materials to 0 or perhaps 0.1, which will deepen the darker parts of the image, relative to the lighter parts.  I know this can be a pain, especially if you have a lot of materials, but it might be worth the effort, even if only to see the effect it has on the render.  You may also need to adjust the % value of the shadows for each light source, if the shadows look too bright compared to the dark side of, for example, the balustrade.

This is just an idea Lynn, I love what you have done so far (as I do all your work) and I look forward to seeing your folding wing solution.  After an abandoned attempt at animating a paper plane being folded (collision detection would be nice) I feel your pain!

[lynn22]

After a July evening, in the first pictures here's a June evening. Where I live it does not get dark at night in July, you could drive your car without the headlights on but it's not allowed.

ENSONIQ5; after three days of trying I gave up on folding the wings with bones as I can't get them to fold in a way that looks good enough, there are always some bits that stick out too much.
I made a new bird with transmapped wings and tail and I'll try to fold them with morphs and move them with bones, I think it will be easier.

The new birds are not rigged yet that's why they look unnatural just yet. I just put them in the scene for a test render.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions

[hihosilver]

floyd I can see your image just fine, and the lighting is nice.  I'm able to see the entire image.

[Raxx]

I could see it just fine on three different lcd monitors/tvs so I think you're safe The birds look nice, and yeah feathers are a pain to work with.

I think with some good texturing with the rails, leaves and doorframe area and the background it'll look pretty fine.

If I may suggest, however, the textures look nice by themselves but you've got stark differences when one texture leads into the other. I recommend taking the textures into photoshop/gimp/whatever and adding grime, dirt, or cracks along the edges to make the transition smoother. (for example, between the railing and concrete-ish floor, in the corner give it some cracks and grime or even just some more geometry so that the transition looks more natural).

[lynn22]

Gentlemen, I give you Frame 77 

Raxx thank you for all the suggestions, they are most constructive.

ENSONIQ5, thank you for your kind words.
I have morphed the folding/unfolding of the wings and tail and boned their movement and it was a doddle, works a treat they are both flying beautifully.

[ENSONIQ5]

The texture on the balustrade is a huge improvement and makes a bigger impact on the realism of the image than I would have expected!  Looking forward to seeing the birds animated, morphs + boned movement can produce some wonderful effects.

The only thing I would comment on now, do you indend to leave this as the camera angle?  The balustrade looks cut off by the camera plane in the foreground.  If this is not the case, and the balustrade actually ends here, the texture is stretched on the end face and should be realigned.  My inclination would be to move the camera very slightly upwards, so the balustrade continues below the camera, as if the camera was resting on the balustrade itself.

[lynn22]

Thank you ENSONIQ5, when I have rendered some flying I'll put it up on my web site and link to it.

The camera is at a fixed position for the whole animation which in short is a moment in the lives of a he and she little bird attracted to the scene by the sound of Chopin's romantic music.
It starts with she walking in from the left, sitting for a moment while flipping tail up and down (pic above), walks to the very tip of the branch (240.jpg) listens for a moment and loosing her footing, falling while spreading wings and tail and flying before hitting the floor, making a U-turn in flight (308.jpg) and landing on the balustrade, and so on....

The whole action field is the branch where she is sitting on and the top of the balustrade. Therefore the balustrade is cut and I left the stretched face in front on purpose. If the balustrade ended at the current cut point I would have to put in the third side which would obscure much of the "stage".

[lynn22]

So far I have animated and rendered 1 min 4 sec of 4 min 5 sec of music. Usually I animate and then make the music to fit the action, this time it is the other way around for I cannot have my little birds doze off when the music has a crescendo

I put up a short video of the flying, it's rather poor quality but I have to keep my bandwidth in mind also :

Chopin, a tribute

I hope you'll enjoy it anyway and thanks for watching. For those who don't know the music you can listen to it as well.

[Indian8or]

Oh!  Too bad, my browser needs some settings changed to view your work.

May be you can post a short clip on youtube.

[lynn22]

Sorry Indian8or, it's a block I have in place to prevent scrapers and bad bots to get into my site.

I have removed this block temporarily so you should have no problem accessing the page now

[Indian8or]

Nice cute bird lynn.  You have done excellent work in texturing.  I have only one suggestion.  The clip shows the bird flying from balcony floor to balustrade, but the bird is flying too slowly from one place to another.  In short, the movement looks artificial.  My suggestion is make it more quicker i.e. make the flapping of wings faster and movement from floor to balustrade quicker.

[headwax]

I agree. having the bird go up and down slightly with each wing beat as well. And direction changes need changes in the tail feather (they spread out to give more air grip).

picky picky

depends on the style you want

[Gus]

nice , i think it would be nicer if You add a gradient for the sky

[lynn22]

Thank you guys, much appreciated.

However, as I said before, the animation is made to fit the music and if some action seems slow it's because the music demands it and when played together it looks good