L'Adair's WIPs

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  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    KevinH said:

    I liked reading how you created Mr. Tumnus. Didn't realize that he was based on a literary figure. Since you mentioned Narnia, I assume he was from those movies. I think I have at least two of them, but I think I only watched the one. I remember complaining about something after I watched the one to a friend and she said I needed to watch the other one to understand. She refused to tell me what I wanted to know. Said I had to watch it.

    My guess is you watched the second movie, Prince Caspian. Had you seen the first movie, you'd have recognized Mr. Tumnus. laugh I did base my version of Mr. Tumnus on the McAvoy portrayal, not the description in the books, (which I haven't yet read.) I read online his hair and beard are black in the books.

    I have seen all the Narnia movies and love each one.

    You did an amazing job on Mr. Tumnus right down to his scarf!!!

    Thank you. IDG's christmas freebie arrived just in time. In fact, having the Super Long Scarf was part of the inspiration to do Mr. Tumnus. I doubt I would have tried without a suitable scarf.

    always interesting to see other's workflow, I've enjoyed browsing through this thread. :) Thank you!

    Thank you, Darwin. Drop by anytime.

  • deathbycanondeathbycanon Posts: 1,227

    Wow! The diffrences bewteen the 3DL and the IRay versions are amazing, thanks for sharing that.  

  • Very nice conversion. It's amazing how different things are when we revisit them after long periods of time and education. I loved seeing the differences.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    You're welcome, @deathbycanon. I'm glad you enjoyed the post.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    Very nice conversion. It's amazing how different things are when we revisit them after long periods of time and education. I loved seeing the differences.

    Thank you, Cathy.

    I have a gallery with the renders I did for a contest back in Feb'15, (all 3DL renders,) and I have to laugh at myself. I was proud of those early renders, but holy cow... what a difference three years can make!

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited May 2021

    Here's a little something I'm working on now: a wedding cake.  I'm trying to create the smooth fondant icing look, with patterns added on. So far, the plain layers look right, but the attempt on the bottom layer to add a lace overlay is giving me grief. I just can't seem to make it look like frosting on frosting. Sigh.

    Cake, a WIP by L'Adair

    This is one of my infrequent forays into modelling. In this case, each layer started out as a cylinder in DS. I used the bridge to bring them into Hexagon and round the upper edge. Not exactly super-duper stuff, but getting Hexagon to do something I want it to do is still quite a challenge. Most of the time I end up scrapping my "work" and figuring out a workaround in DS.

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    LOVE the wedding cake.  Honestly, even though it may not be the look you are going for, there is now edible lace available for cakes and it looks just like what you have.  So, it still works even if its not what you wanted lol. 

  • Nice start on the wedding cake. I've thought of modeling something similar. I'd love to model some piping and flowers and stuff. Haven't even come close to starting something like that. I like the look on your bottom tier.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    Thank you, Sonja and Cathy.

    One of the biggest issues I'm having is with the UVs  Because each layer is just a modified cylinder primitive, the UV for the top doesn't line up with the sides, making it impossible to apply a pattern to the entire frosting layer. The seams then show up really awful. I certainly wouldn't try to sell it, but I think it will do for my project.

  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035
    edited January 2018

    I like your thread. :) The renders are great even your earlier ones. Like Sonja said I feel like i hardly know much at all some times. My first renders were not that great and I started out using 3DL too, because of my pc. I still work in it. I determined to learn how to make things look really good in it. I like I said before I really loved Mr Tumnus. I have seen all three Narnia Movies! lol

    Post edited by Liana on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,780

    Wow for the cake, the white fondant looks point on, probably the lace this would work better in the same colour as the other? and probably make the pattern larger, as it's really hard to make such a fine lage with fontant (regardless from the fact that I never succeed at anything with fondant, LOL)

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Liana said:

    I like your thread. :) The renders are great even your earlier ones. Like Sonja said I feel like i hardly know much at all some times. My first renders were not that great and I started out using 3DL too, because of my pc. I still work in it. I determined to learn how to make things look really good in it. I like I said before I really loved Mr Tumnus. I have seen all three Narnia Movies! lol

    Thank you, @ Liana. The truth is, I feel that way, too, like I hardly know enough to render scenes that look like snapshots, let alone render scenes that look artistic. I don't have anything against postwork like Sonja is doing, I'm just not very good at it.

    And an update on Mr. Tumnus, who you put on the scrolling banner last week: He's holding steady with 26 likes, but due to images older than a month, he's moved up to 8th from the bottom! Yay!

    Linwelly said:

    Wow for the cake, the white fondant looks point on, probably the lace this would work better in the same colour as the other? and probably make the pattern larger, as it's really hard to make such a fine lage with fontant (regardless from the fact that I never succeed at anything with fondant, LOL)

    Thank you, @Linwelly. I've never tried to make fondant. In fact, I haven't baked a cake in at least 2 decades. Too busy. (And my husband isn't picky! He likes store bought cake!) The lace I used is just a stock image I already had. I was using it for testing purposes. I wanted the lace to cover the entire layer, but the UVs aren't cooperating and I have no idea how to rework them. So the layer will get lace on the side, but not the lace in the current WIP. And I actually changed the color of the lace to render that image, as it was completely washed out otherwise! lol

  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035
    edited January 2018

    I can relate to the postwork thing .I can do some, but well it is pretty basic. :) I use mostly Gimp, because I have for about 8 years now doing various things. I have to admit I like how the brush dynamics in adobe work better. Each has their pros and cons. I try to most of my work in Daz which I think can be a bit limiting in ways and hard to do, then there is lighting. My worst hurdle I think. lol

    Yay for Mr Tumnus! Glad I could help. :)

    Post edited by Liana on
  • nekyonekyo Posts: 54

    I also really enjoy seeing how people put their scenes together, that Tumnus render turned out great!

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Honestly, postwork is just practice.  And a ton of you tube videos lol. I did have more experience in Photoshop than Daz which helped a bit once i picked it back up.

  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035

    Honestly, postwork is just practice.  And a ton of you tube videos lol. I did have more experience in Photoshop than Daz which helped a bit once i picked it back up.

    It seems that is how one gets better. I am sometimes amazed at what I can do once I learn a few techniques and such. :)

  • SaphirewildSaphirewild Posts: 6,648

    I for one think you did an amazing job on the lace to the cake!!!

    I would be the first one to buy that cake to render a funny wedding disaster!!!!

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    Liana said:

    Honestly, postwork is just practice.  And a ton of you tube videos lol. I did have more experience in Photoshop than Daz which helped a bit once i picked it back up.

    It seems that is how one gets better. I am sometimes amazed at what I can do once I learn a few techniques and such. :)

    lol crazy isn't it?  My biggest problem is my own fear of failure I think.

     

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    nekyo said:

    I also really enjoy seeing how people put their scenes together, that Tumnus render turned out great!

    Thank you, @nekyo. It was one of the more fun renders I've done in while, and it feels good that you and others like it as well as I do.

    @Liana, I've played around with "artistic" postwork, but I haven't spent the time to learn how to do the fancy stuff. Most of the postwork I do is corrective, and even then, a lot of that is layering spot renders and masking them if necessary, rather than rendering an image again to fix something I missed. (Like the time I discovered those were toes poking through a pair of men's shoes!) The viewport is relatively small and many times the small details just don't show up until I render full size, And I sometimes integrate my own photography for backgrounds, rendering the scene with a transparent background and adding one of my photos in post.

    @IceDragonArt, when I first started hanging out in the forums and galleries, I was quite impressed with the artist who now goes by mugzie101; I wanted to be like her, when I grew up, (3D art-wise.) Now I want to be like you. And as I recall, you started 3D after I did!

    @Saphirewild, the layers of that cake are just cylinder primitves I created in DS. With my barely there grasp of Hexagon, I am amazed I was able to round the upper edges. The cake risers are just one of the many columns in my runtime, with a glass shader applied to the base, and a gold shader applied to the accents. I think the scale of the upper column is 6%. The lower column was created from the upper column, with the Y-Scale increased to make it longer. And I used instancing, so there are really only two columns used. I'm sure you could do it, too.

     

    Liana said:

    Honestly, postwork is just practice.  And a ton of you tube videos lol. I did have more experience in Photoshop than Daz which helped a bit once i picked it back up.

    It seems that is how one gets better. I am sometimes amazed at what I can do once I learn a few techniques and such. :)

    lol crazy isn't it?  My biggest problem is my own fear of failure I think.

    Guilty, too. Though a general lack of time to do everything I want to do doesn't help, either! However, you do such wonderful things in postwork, you really have no need to worry about failure.

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    @IceDragonArt, when I first started hanging out in the forums and galleries, I was quite impressed with the artist who now goes by mugzie101; I wanted to be like her, when I grew up, (3D art-wise.) Now I want to be like you. And as I recall, you started 3D after I did!

    I think that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

    Lack of time - I'm pretty sure I've said it several times, I really need at a bare minimum a 48 hour day to do everything I want to do lol.

  • Worlds_EdgeWorlds_Edge Posts: 2,142

    Mr. Tumnus looks great.  And wow, that cake looks real.  I didn't know you have modelling talents in addition to setting up wondeful renders.  

  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035

    That is mostly what I have done to is corrective. I think I seen sonja mention it too somewhere about rendering without backgrounds and then add them in. I think I will start doing that myself. I find it hard to make backgrounds look good or find what I want. I am begining to think that might change how my works looks significantly. :)

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited May 2021
    Liana said:

    That is mostly what I have done to is corrective. I think I seen sonja mention it too somewhere about rendering without backgrounds and then add them in. I think I will start doing that myself. I find it hard to make backgrounds look good or find what I want. I am begining to think that might change how my works looks significantly. :)

    One of my favorite artists does amazing things in post. I don't know for a fact, but her images look to me as though she renders the 3d elements without a background and then adds the background in Photoshop or Gimp. Plus a lot of other things. I really love her body of work. You can check out her latest here. (Gallery links changed and I can't find her…!) I tried to learn from her style, and ended up creating "Coming Home," my first image to make the scrolling banner. The background is a stock image I purchased just for that render. (I'm thinking of redoing the image, using dforce on the clothing. Not sure if it would be an improvement, or just an exercise in frustration!)

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited May 2021

    Okay, the wedding cake did not get used as originally planned. Instead, I focused on just the top layer. In the final image, I also added the bottom layer, but more as a background element. As usual, after rendering the image overnight, I discoverd some things I needed to fix, so post work consisted mainly of incorporating spot renders of the corrections. I am trying to step outside of my comfort zone, so I tinkered with the NIK filters on a copy of the image. Surprisingly, I found something I really liked.


    Mr. & Mrs. BobbleHead, by L'AdairBobbleHeads with NIK HDR Efex applied, by L'Adair


    So what do you guys think? No postwork or postwork? (Links go to the corresponding gallery images, so you can see the larger images, if you want. Full-size images are 2000 x 2600 pixels)

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    With postwork. The details really pop while still maintaining the DOF.  And you know you can layer the NIK filters too....

    I recently started rendering 90% of my stuff without a background.  I leave draw ground on as it gives me shadows that help ground the render.  That way, I can pretty much do whatever I want. It also has the added benefit of shortening the render times quite a bit. Or, if I really want to use a particular background I will put the whole thing together then render them separate.  That way, I can still do lots of layers in between.

  • kloolessklooless Posts: 115

    I agree, I think the postworked version is sharper and catches the eye a little more than the non-postworked one.  I use NIK filters all the time, love them.  

  • Worlds_EdgeWorlds_Edge Posts: 2,142

    I like both versions, but the one without post work is more photo realistic (the other one looks non photorealistic to me like say chalk pastel work).  If I had to pick, I like the one w/out post work better.  However, you might try layering the post worked over the original, and reducing its opacity of the top layer to lower the post work effect.  This would get you a look that's in "between" the two that you have now.  Might be interesting to see the difference. 

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,780
    edited January 2018

    You really did an amazing work with that image! all the preparations it's amazing.

    I agree with Worlds_Edge, I prefer the one without postwork it feels a bit too much contrast in that one but the suggestion to layer it is great, I've tried that on several of my renders by now and its really useful, play as well with the mode of overlay to see the different results.

    Post edited by Linwelly on
  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035
    L'Adair said:

    One of my favorite artists does amazing things in post. I don't know for a fact, but her images look to me as though she renders the 3d elements without a background and then adds the background in Photoshop or Gimp. Plus a lot of other things. I really love her body of work. You can check out her latest here. I tried to learn from her style, and ended up creating "Coming Home," my first image to make the scrolling banner. The background is a stock image I purchased just for that render. (I'm thinking of redoing the image, using dforce on the clothing. Not sure if it would be an improvement, or just an exercise in frustration!)

    I can see why you liked her images. Lovely! Awwww.. I like yours too. Something nice to image is what happens. :)

  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035

    I like the no post work one too, but mostly on the cake alone. haha The cake is really great though! :) All I have been doing is watching my video tutorials on modeling and texturing. I have not done anything for renders. Watching sales too trying to pick up merchant resources for things.

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