whatz the avg response time to a hello image?

Valandar

Also... no, there is nobody at work on the weekends at DAZ. The Review Meetings are in the mornings (Mountain Time) on weekdays.

Taoz

Novica said:

I have to agree, it's totally unprofessional not to send an automated email or SOMETHING as a response. No excuse. It's not professional. 

+1

pds

SickleYield said:

pds said:

SickleYield said:

MistyRara said:

sent my first hello image. 

is it weeks?  a month? 

thanks 

made a Carraractor, Samantha for Mika 7, for carrara.

 

In answer to the original question, if there is no answer in max 3 weeks the answer is usually no, and it's usually because they didn't like the renders. They very seldom actually send a rejection. It took me more than a year to create something they liked, and I only finally got on when a senior artist helped me with my promo renders.

Hi SY,

Out of curiosity (which may also be helpful to Misty), what tips did the senior artist share that helped with your promo renders?

That was long pre-Iray.  I didn't know how to use UberEnvironment lights, and she showed me how to do that.  I didn't learn to separate specular and diffuse lighting and use non-black shadows until later, but knowing to use Uber plus a specular was enough to get a good start.  The original poster has made a product for Carrara, so I'm afraid I can't help much with what looks best in Carrara's lighting.

It really really often is lighting, though. 

Sometimes there are composition things too, but I don't know if that was even a thing for Misty.  I'll say them anyway in case it helps anyone else who might be struggling with it.

It is nearly impossible to make a scene with more than max three figures look good as a promo.  It's challenging to do more than one.  Even RawArt does this infrequently, and his work on his deviantart in particular is a great exemplar of composition with figures.

And I haven't heard anyone say this, but it's a rule we mostly follow: don't intersect figures with each other that aren't meant to be touching.  They cannot visually overlap or it's usually going to look bad, with few exceptions.  This is an incredibly common beginner mistake.

In Western culture the eye obviously travels up and right.  Don't put things in the lower right and left corners that you want people to see as the main focus of the image.  If there's going to be a slant to the composition, it mostly needs to be upward and to the right.  "Gotcha" things in a horror image go in those bottom areas or on the left in the background.  You can center things, that's not "bad" as such, but it's not always the best way.

All of these are guidelines.  Individual images can break them and still be great.  But you need to be doing it consciously and for a purpose, with the intent that you're "breaking the rules" to achieve an effect (or pitching to a read-right-to-left culture, etc.)

I'm always available to talk about lighting or composition via PM here or on deviantart to the extent that I know about them.  I stress that all of this is on-the-job learning. I have no academic art education (back in the day I was a science major, haha).

Thank you very much for taking the time to offer such a detailed and considerate response. I pick up pointers from your posts here and DA frequently. :-) As for RawArt's DA compositions, I couldn't agree more and I think your deconstruction of them is quite beneficial to anyone seeking to improve their compositions.

nonesuch00

LOL, when I was like 10 years old I wrote some really blush inducing song lyrics and posted them to Warner Bros Records and they sent me back a letter saying they don't accept unsolicited music.

SickleYield

Oh, and one other thing that I learned from a friend who was into rendering.  He never got into it as a profession, but he still gave me some of the best advice on promos I ever got, and when I follow it my promos are much more likely to be accepted:

When rendering figures, always try to achieve a clean read of the silhouette.

Your figures need to stand out from what is behind and around them.  This might seem obvious but it's also the easiest thing in the world to screw up.  The figure needs to be lighter or darker than its backdrop, or it needs to have a rim light to create a luminous outline around it, or ideally both.  Don't put a figure in dark, noisy clothes on a dark, noisy background; don't put a dead white figure on a dead white backdrop.  Your audience needs to be able to see roughly what the scene is even if they're just looking at an uncropped thumbnail or they may not click on it. 

Artistic outfit design for rendering or comics also usually follows the rule of lighter on top of the outfit, darker on the bottom (if the outfit is not uniform in color, as superhero uniforms usually are). This is a rule you should follow when mixing/matching outfits as well.  Look at these outfits by Esha:

https://www.daz3d.com/work-clothes-for-genesis-2-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/casual-tourist-for-genesis-3-female-s

Lightest piece on top, darkest piece on the feet.  Esha is a really good example of this design principle and she's one of our finest clothing artists.

Veteran artist Nikisatez does it on many things too:

https://www.daz3d.com/millennial-business-casual-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/arabian-prince-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/gone-girl-outfit-for-genesis-3-females

Look at the beautiful promo effect on this one, where the skin is used to this effect instead of a clothing item:

https://www.daz3d.com/vampire-queen-outfit-for-genesis-3-female-s

Now I don't know who did that promo, but Daz's promo artists usually know what they're doing as far as color composition as well.

I use other artists' work and not my own for very good reasons. :D  I will be the first to admit that I know a lot of things I have trouble executing.

 

Brugan

SickleYield said:

Oh, and one other thing that I learned from a friend who was into rendering.  He never got into it as a profession, but he still gave me some of the best advice on promos I ever got, and when I follow it my promos are much more likely to be accepted:

When rendering figures, always try to achieve a clean read of the silhouette.

Your figures need to stand out from what is behind and around them.  This might seem obvious but it's also the easiest thing in the world to screw up.  The figure needs to be lighter or darker than its backdrop, or it needs to have a rim light to create a luminous outline around it, or ideally both.  Don't put a figure in dark, noisy clothes on a dark, noisy background; don't put a dead white figure on a dead white backdrop.  Your audience needs to be able to see roughly what the scene is even if they're just looking at an uncropped thumbnail or they may not click on it. 

Artistic outfit design for rendering or comics also usually follows the rule of lighter on top of the outfit, darker on the bottom (if the outfit is not uniform in color, as superhero uniforms usually are). This is a rule you should follow when mixing/matching outfits as well.  Look at these outfits by Esha:

https://www.daz3d.com/work-clothes-for-genesis-2-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/casual-tourist-for-genesis-3-female-s

Lightest piece on top, darkest piece on the feet.  Esha is a really good example of this design principle and she's one of our finest clothing artists.

Veteran artist Nikisatez does it on many things too:

https://www.daz3d.com/millennial-business-casual-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/arabian-prince-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/gone-girl-outfit-for-genesis-3-females

Look at the beautiful promo effect on this one, where the skin is used to this effect instead of a clothing item:

https://www.daz3d.com/vampire-queen-outfit-for-genesis-3-female-s

Now I don't know who did that promo, but Daz's promo artists usually know what they're doing as far as color composition as well.

I use other artists' work and not my own for very good reasons. :D  I will be the first to admit that I know a lot of things I have trouble executing.

 

These are all things I learned in HS art, maybe earlier. It's funny how you forget them when you stop using them. Thanks for the info, even the most basic art fundamentals get lost sometimes in all the fiddling with technology.

I have a lot of pictures where I was really happy with the composition, but still felt there was something missing. Characters weren't "popping", I wasn't being drawn to a focal point. It's easy to get wrapped up in "does this look real enough?" and lose sight of "does this look good?"

This has given me some fresh ideas to go back to basics and relight some of the renders I've done over the last few months, I just hope I remembered to save the scene files lol

exstarsis

My experience with professionals in book publishing is that if you submit something digitally, you only get a refusal if they really like something about your stuff and want to encourage you to try again.

SickleYield

Brugan said:

SickleYield said:

Oh, and one other thing that I learned from a friend who was into rendering.  He never got into it as a profession, but he still gave me some of the best advice on promos I ever got, and when I follow it my promos are much more likely to be accepted:

When rendering figures, always try to achieve a clean read of the silhouette.

Your figures need to stand out from what is behind and around them.  This might seem obvious but it's also the easiest thing in the world to screw up.  The figure needs to be lighter or darker than its backdrop, or it needs to have a rim light to create a luminous outline around it, or ideally both.  Don't put a figure in dark, noisy clothes on a dark, noisy background; don't put a dead white figure on a dead white backdrop.  Your audience needs to be able to see roughly what the scene is even if they're just looking at an uncropped thumbnail or they may not click on it. 

Artistic outfit design for rendering or comics also usually follows the rule of lighter on top of the outfit, darker on the bottom (if the outfit is not uniform in color, as superhero uniforms usually are). This is a rule you should follow when mixing/matching outfits as well.  Look at these outfits by Esha:

https://www.daz3d.com/work-clothes-for-genesis-2-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/casual-tourist-for-genesis-3-female-s

Lightest piece on top, darkest piece on the feet.  Esha is a really good example of this design principle and she's one of our finest clothing artists.

Veteran artist Nikisatez does it on many things too:

https://www.daz3d.com/millennial-business-casual-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/arabian-prince-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/gone-girl-outfit-for-genesis-3-females

Look at the beautiful promo effect on this one, where the skin is used to this effect instead of a clothing item:

https://www.daz3d.com/vampire-queen-outfit-for-genesis-3-female-s

Now I don't know who did that promo, but Daz's promo artists usually know what they're doing as far as color composition as well.

I use other artists' work and not my own for very good reasons. :D  I will be the first to admit that I know a lot of things I have trouble executing.

 

These are all things I learned in HS art, maybe earlier. It's funny how you forget them when you stop using them. Thanks for the info, even the most basic art fundamentals get lost sometimes in all the fiddling with technology.

I have a lot of pictures where I was really happy with the composition, but still felt there was something missing. Characters weren't "popping", I wasn't being drawn to a focal point. It's easy to get wrapped up in "does this look real enough?" and lose sight of "does this look good?"

This has given me some fresh ideas to go back to basics and relight some of the renders I've done over the last few months, I just hope I remembered to save the scene files lol

I wish I had. XD  In my high school art class we looked at pictures of Henry Matisse sculptures, then made collages out of craft paper.  There was zero discussion of composition.  In my college art class they made us look at a lot of images of public art and some more controversial things and talk about why it was controversial.  No actual discussion of the theory of making images there either.  There presumably were classes where there was, but I couldn't afford to take them because there were material fees.

These sorts of things were what put me off the idea of art as a profession - I was never told or shown how technical it actually is and how completely possible a lot of it is to learn from scratch.  There's a mystique that some artists deliberately maintain that suggests art is something you just magically know how to do, or don't, not something you get better at through technique and practice.  All of these basics are things I had to learn from other people and the internet when I started trying to monetize 3d models.  My degrees are in Biology and Chemistry.

nonesuch00

I remember my high school art teacher and my college art teacher. Their classes were fun! No deeper meaning or political or cultural discussions. Actually the classes were about art appreciation and making art. Some people might derisively labor the classes crafting classes but that's fine. We were given assignments to make original art of our own like using a themes, eg, 'found objects' theme to make art.

Brugan

SickleYield said:

Brugan said:

SickleYield said:

There's a mystique that some artists deliberately maintain that suggests art is something you just magically know how to do, or don't, not something you get better at through technique and practice. 

I'd say it's 50/50. There's technical skill, and there's intuition. Both can be gained with time and practice (and not being afraid of mistakes).

Long story short, I grew up with a broad artistic background. I started with oil and watercolors early, and used to sketch all the time. I got a lot of positive feedback and won some awards, so after HS I went into graphic design as a profession and did it for 13 years. Eventually I got burned out and I haven't picked up so much as a pencil to sketch in all that time, art just became an assembly line profession for me and I lost interest in trying to be visually creative in my personal time. I picked up writing about 10 years ago which has been fun, but it's not the same.

I've done more real "art" in the last 4 months since I picked up DS than I have done in nearly 20 years. Every time I compose a new scene different lessons I learned as a kid come back, it's an amazing feeling, doing things I completely forgot I could do, only now it's a brand new medium to me with an unlimited canvas and tools I couldn't have dreamed of before. I literally can't shut off the computer some nights because it feels that good to be creative again.

That being said, the "magic" is a set of things I knew 30 years ago and is still true today.

1. Don't get too wrapped up in the details when creating the images, the most important thing is developing a personal style that means something to you deep down and sticking to it, improving it (even if well meaning people try to change it) and strive to develop good taste. I hate to be "that guy" but everyone thinks they have great taste. The people who are sure they have amazing taste in art, probably don't have good taste in many things. It's not about being an art snob, it's about being willing to challenge your work and ask more of yourself, displaying good taste in your work.
2. If you have to push yourself to keep working on an image, it's not an image that is really motivating you. If it's not motivating you, you're not a bad artist, you just haven't found your style. Don't be so invested in a single image that you can't drop it and start something new. (yeah I know, it's a catch 22)
3. Incorporate what others have done before you that you like, and toss out what turns you off. Others that came before you, have done a LOT of work for you, and there's nothing wrong with benefiting from their experience.
4. Also don't be afraid of mistakes, some of the best pieces I've done started out as something else, and a fortunate accident steered me into something amazing.

Lastly, if your'e doing it right, your images should always feel to you like you've abandoned them, and feel incredibly finished to everyone else.

 

 

Edited #2 because words... o_O

Valandar

1 ) Composition is more important than detail

2 ) Movement and emotion are more important than detail

3 ) A clear silhouette is more important than detail.

Detail is what you add at the end, after you've gotten everything else basically done. That includes set dressing (magazines on the table, knick-nacks on the shelf, etc).

SickleYield

Valandar said:

1 ) Composition is more important than detail

2 ) Movement and emotion are more important than detail

3 ) A clear silhouette is more important than detail.

Detail is what you add at the end, after you've gotten everything else basically done. That includes set dressing (magazines on the table, knick-nacks on the shelf, etc).

I couldn't have put it better myself. :)

IceDragonArt

Some really excellent pointers and advice here. Thanks for sharing!
And Misty I hope you get a good response soon I think its fantastic that you got G3 to work in Carrara and I really don't care how you did it lol.  And wouldn't understand it even if you told me.