The "How The Heck Did I Do THAT?" Thread
zombiewhacker
Posts: 696
I can't recall exactly where I read it, but anyway longago, many decades past, Nintendo software programmers were reportedly noodling around on their computers one night when they "accidentally" created a new 3D-shaded game engine. I say 3D-shaded because Nintendo's top system at the time (the Super Nintendo) was only 16 bit and therefore didn't have the muscle to run a true 3D game. Nevertheless, the new engine certainly gave the appearance of 3D -- and ultimately resulted in the creation of a hit title for Nintendo, Donkey Kong Country.
So, to summarize -- get hit on head by falling apple, discovery theory of gravity, mission accomplished.
In that creative spirit, I'd like to open up the floor to all of you, PAs and customers alike: do any of you have similar stories to share? Situations where you were trying to do one thing in a software program -- be it DAZ Studio, Poser, Blender, whatever -- and the results turned out WAY different than you expected and you thought, "Whoa. That's weird. Actually, come to think of that, that's kind of cool. In fact... I want to remember how I did that so I can do it again next time."
On the other hand...
Have you had other occasions where the results didn't come out the way you wanted, you definitely don't want to make that mistake again, but the results were so wacky, you saved the render anyway for posterity? 
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More like, waaay back shortly after Poser 5 was released, I applied the cloth room to Posette... and then promptly built an image around it. It's a little NSFW, but it's still at Rendo under the title of "Moral Decay"... posted in 2003...
ah now curious person wants a link to that image. As long as it has filters applied rendo end it is OK to post the link here. (not the actual image obviously, just a link to the page)
Oops, double post. See below:
Glowing slime in Carrara.
I was working on a render for one of the monthly Carrara forum challenges a while back and I created what was supposed to be just wet-looking, transparent drool with a little color to it, but when I went to do the final render it was glowing! I believe this happened because Carrara’s native renderer has no internal concept of energy conservation, so when the total of the diffuse color, reflection, and translucency channels is greater than 100% it actually reflects back more light than is hitting it. Normally the result just looks super unrealistic and you go back and adjust the settings to fix it, but it turns out that if you hit the right combo it makes it look like it is both translucent and glowing internally, an effect that would normally be impossible since the color channel in Carrara shaders usually overrides the translucent and diffuse channels. Turning on caustics on top of that, as I did in this image to get the reflected disco-ball sparkles, makes it look like it is also casting a soft light onto very close surfaces.
My initial reaction was very much “WTF?” But after looking at it for a bit I decided I liked it so much that I kept it like that for the final image I entered and also saved the shader so I could use it again later.
Link to Valandar's Image:
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/moral-decay/497163/?p&ca
I don't have any personal stories on this, but it did remind me of the story of how post-it notes were invented by a chemist who was trying to make a better superglue.
...that's pretty freaky in a Dali like way.
yes, totally way out
Hmmm... could that be called "Deflated Egos"?
very cool.
i saw a nice article illustration this week that i could've sworn was created in studio or poser...if it hadn't featured a similar deflated skin. now i guess it could have been.