Constructive Criticism Corner ( C3 ) 
02/08/2001
A page maintained by our good friend PimpTastique...
C3 is a place where great artists visit various forums and pick some people whom they feel have potential but could use some help. We then take their pictures and attempt to give them direction. This service is provided in a friendly manner so that we may all learn from other's mistakes. These are not "bad pictures," they are rather ones we feel could be improved on with some work. We are attempting to help, not humiliate the pictures creator. 

- Image Here - While this is a relatively good picture there are some areas which could be improved upon. First, aside from the main ship the other ships look really low poly and don't really add to the scene. I'd suggest moving them more in the background, making them darker (harder to see their detail level that way) or focusing only on the main ship. Also where is the light coming from? Generally you should try to keep the lighting consistent among ships, in this case you appear to have some ships with lighting from behind and others with lighting from above. Other ships appear unaffected by lighting. Plus if you take the lighting cue from the planet this picture should be really dark, and it would appear that the light is coming from the back right on the big planet, yet the smaller planet is completely dark when it should be light since it appears that one main light source is coming from right by it.

- Image Here - This picture is pretty well done, but its just lacking. You have a basic background with just a Defiant with motion blur. Its simply uninspired. Also the motion blur doesn't really convey speed, its more fuzzy, try to get the ship to have motion blur more length-wise so it appears to be moving. You may also want to add other elements to this pic so it is less barren.

- Image Here - The picture's creator is not a newbie to 3D art. The Whitestar (ship at right) and the ISA Excalibur (ship in middle) look like pretty well done models. The alien ship however is almost an embarassment to this picture. A total of 2 textures were used, one appears to be the standard Star Trek bussard texture everyone uses. Plus the ship looks like a newbie just quickly connected a bunch of points. Whereas the other two ships are smooth and have good surfaces (they are reflecting the light) the alien ship is incredibly unreal. The sharp angles, uninspired shape and textures severely detract from this picture. The Whitestar appears to be intending to ram the Excalibur from the angle, something I would hope could be easily corrected using a slight rotation to make the ships more parallel. We have a main light, the sun in the middle of the picture, which appears to not affect the alien ship, correctly affect the Whitestar and affect the wrong parts of the Excalibur. Unless there is a second light source it is odd that the Excalibur has light hitting its main body the way it does. Also with the intense light from the sun, as can be witnessed on the hulls of the two ships, the blue light on the Excalibur is inappropriately bright. That glow should be more muted because of the incredibly strong light light from the sun would blanket out any ship based lighting. How to improve this image? First get rid of the atrocious alien ship. It looks bad, has unrealistic and overused textures, and just should not be used. Second, tone down the brightness a bit, its a little overdone. Third, vary the starmap, the stars are too big and too regularly sized and too numerous, this is a common newbie mistake which I should think a more experienced artist would not make.

- Image Here - First this model is not very realistic looking, I am not sure if its low poly or the lighting which makes it look bad. Second I would have to think that you need to make those torpedos smaller as they are bigger than the entire bridge section right now. Also the second torpedo does not appear to be coming from the launcher but rather from some point at the edge of the deflector dish. The terrain could be made a bit more interesting as right now it seems to be too uniform, even if it were a sand dune it should have some variety to it. A good attempt though.

- Image Here - This is a pretty good image. Only a few things are really in need of improvement. The lighting seems to be pretty consistent coming from the right side of the picture. The beams are pretty well textured, but are too red. Also the perspective is odd, are we supposed to be getting a laser beam view or are we an opposing ship? I think the beams should be a bit more transparent as they are a little too opaque for coherent beams of light right now. The motion on the ship suggests that either we or the ship or both are moving, but again this motion blur is more of a fuzzy than moving nature. The big revolving gravity thing should have its own movement blur as its not only moving forward but also in a circular motion.

- Image Here - Again we are cursed with lighting. There appears to be no uniform light source here. I would suggest trying to spread the ships out, have fewer of them and make the lighting consistent. Many people make the mistake of thinking that it takes 20 ships to make people think there is a fleet there. If you have 2 or 3 in the main part of the picture, a few at the edges (you only need part of the ship to be visible for people to recognize it as a ship) and a few placed way back in the scene you can create the same effect. This is particularly important in a scene like this where there are only 3 different kinds of ships. Tactically ships tend not to stay grouped together as it increases the likelyhood of friendly fire, decreases maneuverability, and most importantly increases the chances that a missed enemy shot will find another target. When creating a pic its not just the meshes and lighting, but also the believability. At the link this individual has posted a few similar images, these comments can be applied to all the images.

- Image Here - The background here is pretty well done, though I would recommend making the stars smaller, though I do like that the stars are different colors. Nicely done. The meshes we are working with are very basic, but pretty good for "newbie" meshes. The lighting seems overly strong given how close the planet appears to be. Especially since the planet appears to have an atmosphere, note faint outline at top of planet, it should not be so close to the sun. I would recommend making the picture a bit darker. Also we see the Oberth "docked" with the station, though it appears to be a ways away from the docking ring. Also there is a lack of perspective between the foreground ship and the station, they appear to be similar in size - which is likely not the intention. A good start though.

- Image Here - To begin, I must say good work on using your own meshes. Its the best way to learn and it makes you better at creating images. Why? Do it and you'll find out. Ok now for my comments, first thing I notice is the "flatness" of the stars. They seem to be too uniform, too many of them, and too big. Try to vary their size and decrease their amount. The lighting is consistent, though a bit too bright. Bring it down a bit and things will look better. I am not sure if the glow for the ships was done in the 3-D program or is a photoshop add-in. Either way you need to tone down the glow on the ships nacelles and deflectors. The main problem with the ships and base is how basic they are. The easiest way to spot a CG image is the lack of details and the unnatural angles. If you add small details (nurnies, greebles, squeebles, whatever you call them) and make the edges less sharp and pronounced you will greatly enhance the realism of the pictures. I truly think you have good potential and could be churning out great images and meshes in no time with some practice and attention to detail.

Next week will be a special week for C3 ...yes, me and the good ol' Pimptastque are going analyse and nitpick to death ( we'll even try our brand new anal probes) the work of 2 exceptionnal individuals here : Craig 'CAClark' Clark...( CA = ConstantAsshole )..but PimpTastique prefers to call him "Sea of Crap" ..and.. Kier 'I am the Law' Darby...but PimpTastique prefers to call him "Queer Darling"

Note:
Me ( the 3D god )& PimpTastique decided not to host or display the images because we don't want to get to court because we didn't ask authorization for displaying them.
We know you understand :)
...what, you don't ? oh well doesn't matter, we rule here !

Send this page to a friend, or to the guy that got his image reviewed so at least he is aware he needs help from us :)