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You're too kind. Thanks for the suggestions!
I tried further changes to the snow and the lighting and decided that none of them improved the picture any further (e.g. if I make her face brighter, the details on the fur trim get blown out).
Thanks daybird, now if nobody sees any last minute changes and coments about them before I get home this evening, I think that I'll call this one in the bag (Still needs a name eather way though.)
Vacation time's over, and I have to be in for my first day back at work in a little over 2 hours as I type this.
THX again to you. I have tried a few settings and now I'm pretty pleased with the result.
The Blue stuff on the child's face is intended as it is a not permanate tattoo maybe I should turn her around a little bit to make it more noticeable I agree, as for the christmas tree it a cardboard cutout ment to look not real as the child and mom was supposed to have made it and stuck it out in the hallway
!!! Thanks so much for the advice Linwelly and I will work on the fact of showing the tatt off more so.
Point taken Shinji Ikari 9th, she does look photoshopped, but I think it's the lighting in general, rather than the shadows. If you look at her against the rocks behind her she's simply not lit the same as the background image. I'm not good at lighting in DS. I'm a blender head, and I'm still not good at lighting in blender. Quite honestly, I had been fighting with the hair... got it to work, and just threw in the background and lights from one of the tutorials. If I do enter, I'll probably go a different direction, and use blender's cycles render engine. There's still a lot of month left.
In DAZ, there's a light set for that background. With nothing selected, it's in Smart Content under Lights | Exterior | Surfer Guy Beach Lights.
You can also find Surfer Guy Beach Lights in the Content Library under Products | Genesis 2 Starter Essentials.
Thanks kanegs. I'm on Linux, so my Smart Content doesn't work by default, and I haven't fought to fix. But I dug around a bit... That light setup is also found under Scene Builder->Starter Essentials in the standard content library. I'l remember that the next time I need to throw together a simple environment.
Skip
I recently reinstalled my Linux and my bicycle model got messed up. Decided this would be a good time to fix it, and so I'll post my progress. This is one of the reasons I bought the Saffron Hair; It's pigtails, and fits easy in a helmet. Still a lot of work to do on it.
It's time for my semi-annual try-to-make-progress-with-DAZ. After a weekend of struggles with render settings, lighting and shaders (including a strange one where changing the surface on the window glass made random other items - like clothes or hair - disappear), it's finally looking done enough to share. I think the thickness of the glass is making the double reflections, but I'm hoping there's a shader tweak instead. As always, any and all feedback welcomed.
This is the first draft of my entry for December. I am planning to change the camera angle so you can see the girl's reflection in the mirror as well as the reflection from the windows.
I may also change the girl's outfit as I have recently bought the Dance Gear for Gen 3 Females. At the moment there are two shadows for the girl because I have made the shadows visible for both spotlights but I'm planning to switch off shadows for one of them.
Trying out a new, more comic-y style for this one.
any suggestion on that!!?
The lighting is a bit unnatural. It's very intenense from the front/right, making it look like it was shot with a flash. It looks like a 3delight render, and I haven't used that in a while, so I'm not sure if the best solution is an area light, or something else. I'd suggest thinking about where the light in the room is coming from, and either make those sources of light sufficiently big to avoid the flash look, or (I think this is how it works in 3delight) add more lights to simulate the bounces. Also, you need a point light where the light in her hands is—it's very bright, but doesn't appear to light up the back fo the creature in front of her. Finally, watch for blow-outs—the light you have coming in from in front of the characters is too bright, so it's washing out the details in what should be the focal point.
The composition isn't bad, but I wonder if it might be a bit better if you panned out a bit so the sorcerer figure fits more easily into the frame.
Here is another version I revamped a bit of things Like the cardboard cutout of the tree put that in the kitchen and put a actual tree in the hallway with presents under it moved the dog too.
Cool concept.
1. It looks like the sorceress is floating - you need to bring her feet down to the ground. Same with the ghoul's foot - it's at an angle, so you need to twist the foot a little and bring it down so it looks like it is firmly on the ground.
2. I like the lighting and the shadows - even though the lighting is a little over-exposed, it's a nice effect. Is the effect between her hands an object in the scene or is it postwork? Something that bright should cancel out the shadow of her arm against her breasts. Do you have a light there or is it set to emit light?
3. It looks like the chain of the ghoul on the right is attached to her waist - he would be pulling her over. Move her over to the left so we can see that the chain is attached to the wall.
4. Ghoul poses show lots of action, but the sorceress seems a little stiff. You can widen her stance, put one foot forward/back and arch her back a little.
5. Expressions are good on the ghouls - the sorceress seems a little calm for the scene. Add some determination to her mouth.
I missed last month's contest. Life took my attention away from rendering. Darn it, life just shouldn't get in the way of Daz!
Since this is a general render contest, I decided to post it here. I did texture replacing on most objects, with subsurface replacing and optimization on the background.
I used AoA's Subsurface Shaders for 3Delight and tutorial on the wizardress to optimize her surfaces, and added a material zone for the collar boarder. It's the Eowyn dress, but I only used the under dress with a couple of accessories for the shoulders and elbows from MFD. The overdress warps over large breasts, so I nixed it.
I was planning on adding some postwork magical effects surrounding the floating Rosevile.
It's not easy getting objects to emit light in 3DL! For the glowing vials, I set the Ambient to a bright color and kicked the strength up to 100%, and then added a pointlight inside each vial, which shined through the semi-transparent glass.
The painting in the background is classical artwork and turned out well.
I decided to try a slanted camera angle for more drama. Not sure which angle is best, maybe you can help me decide that.
Wow, lot to see in this picture. It looks like a lot of work to creat this setting. I am curious, how it looks, after you have done your postwork.
The new christmas tree looks great, only the shadow from the water tab irritates a bit, first I had thought it was a strange shadow from the dog. laugh
Cool!, this makes it much clearer what you want to show, though I guess the dog would sit in the kitchen... all dog I know would
Looking good so far, probably a bit more directed light would make the scene more interesting.
I had that happen with some items as well, seems some opacity settings in combination with lights or refelctions from others make that happen, at least for the 3delight settings. I never had a problem rendering though, when that happened. (probably worthwhile to nake a little test render. Other caes this happens is whn you look through one of your lights liek a camera and haft shadows turned off on some items (again in 3delight).
Other than that I can say you did a good job on that. double refelction are coming from the glass surface, whic is acutally a good thing, as that happens in real gleass as well if you look closely. A thick glass like that would certainly have double reflection. What might work a bit better if you give is a stronger light coming from the inside lighting up the outside. Last thing to mention is that I#m not sure about the amotional situation here, she is clearly irritated, not expecting to see the guy outside, so did he have an accident? I can't read his expression yet.
looking nice so far. I wil wait what you will come up with.
Looking really good so far. Only thing that comes to my mind right now is that her hair and the red moon are too much of a similar color. somethin more contrasting would be better. That Tail get a bit lost in the letters
Nice work dracorn! The shadows look a tad flat to me, as well you might want to think about compostion aspects to make it a bit more interesting. Try different camera postions for example.
Thanks. I think I'll try retexturing the tail to get it to stand out a bit, as well as moving to a less orange moon.
Thanks Linwelly.
Next time I see things disappear, I'll calm down and test render before rebuilding things :-)
I've been working to get things lit to be visible both inside and out, but I wasn't thinking about lighting outside with stronger light from inside - that's a very good idea and I'll give it a try. I'm also going to make the glass a bit thinner, so it will still have the double reflection, but hopefully less so. The scene is still unfolding, so I'll try to get expressions better as well as a more clear story...I'm just happy to be working on expressions beyond the generic Genesis stare at this point ;-). Once I get something rendered this weekend, I'll post it for more great advice like this!
"Confrontation"
Here's the next iteration - with some lighting changes thanks to Linwelly and more progress. The wine glass is being dropped versus just spilled, but I seem to have made the glass too transparent, so to be invisible...I'm also torn between adding more 'stuff' outside versus leaving space barren.
As always, any and all suggestions welcome.
This is looking quite good yhzmurphy. You might want to minimize the Earth. It is so bright it draws my eye away from the figure and the interaction going on between them.
Nicely done.
Nice posing and composition. My eye is drawn right to the gun. I hope the big guy talks his way out of this quickly.