CGTalk Lightning Challange 18: ScinceFiction - break-down

here you can view a highres Version

first thanks to Jermy Birn for his kind Words and his great effort for holding these challanges
and thanks to Juan Carlos Silva who modeled the scene

my first entry in the CGTalk Lightning Challange was the Lighting Challenge #9: Neon and Chrome
it was alot of fun and I learn alot from the other participants and of course from Jeremy

here you can view my final entry for the neon and chrome challange

When I first saw the Scince Fiction Challange I immediately had an Image in my mind I want to setup - So lets start...

I decided to render the Image in XSI - to train my skills in this wonderfull pice of software (normaly I do Arch an Interiors in 3DSMAX)

.. so I export the Scene in MAX to a FBX format and import it to XSI
(before export I converted all Nurbs Objects to Polygons)

next I scale the Scene to match the XSI Units - so 1 SI Unit = 10 cm

camera setup

(I want to view the scene through a observation camera)

so I choose to add a Lens Distortion under Cameras-Properties Lens Shader

Light setup

I want the Robot to be flashed by a red ERROR Message so he stands there like paralysed
- for the rest of te scene I want a dark mood

so I placed a Spot Light which act as a Projector for the Error Message and a Point Light set to Area and Disc in the middle of the round Monitor

first I get problems with the Projector Light which has very little setup possibilities
then I tried to plug the projector to a soft Light node - and it work very well - now I was able
to setup all the parameters I want

for the fill Lights from the top an bottom I created rectangular Area Lights with a very low intensity and a blue tint. For the texture a constant shader with a Gradient

in the middle of the Scene there is this big beautifully ventilator and for me a ventilator in a science fiction scene always have to cast a volume light ;-)

I also placed two area light at the top and bottom of the gangway (the hole with the ladder)

more fill lights - an omni light on the left an two more far left and right

thats it for the lights

I also add a mia_photographic exposure control to the camera to get Vignetting and to tune the
over and under exposure and also the saturation

Materials

nothing spezial - most standard material Phong or Blinn

for the robot a arch material - for the eyes I want to reflect the monitor to give him some live
- so i inserted two spheres with a glass material

for the monitors a constant material with a bit reflection

and for the buttons a constant material with an incidence fall-off

for all light objects I created a seperate Group to add a Glow effect
(a group for the red, yellow, white and the monitors)

Rendering

Aliasing min-1 max 2
Filtering Gauss 3

for the final Image I want some extra Light so I rendered with FG on

Final Gathering Automatic Rays 50 Points 5

some Level adjustments done in Photoshop