Carrara Challenge #56 - "Let There Be Light."

Mistara

caustics renders darker.  my usual light setup not working well.

mann caustics changes everything.  so beautiful is worth it.  woe is me

interesting list of ior.  sugar  lol

KatLady

 

I'm not sure about posting pictures here, so here goes.  My picture is "A Star Is Born".  It was made and rendered in Carrara, with no postwork.  It features DAZ's Michael 4 in his jumpsuit piloting the Shuttlestar starship by Kibarreto, also from DAZ.  The picture uses lights and a sun that is provided with Carrara, two cloud systems and a particle system.  It took some trial and error to make the clouds look OK and to rotate them a bit.  There was a lot of trial and error learning to use the particle emitter.  The particles are metaballs that have been rotated and allowed to merge when they collide.  The idea is to show the early stages of solar system formation after a sun has formed and become incandescent.  The clouds and dust around the star are beginning to clump together and the light of the new sun can cut through the murky dust and gas around it.

KatLady

KatLady

Mistara

title:  IOR sugar

credit:  greeble city blocks

Stezza

such good stuff ... going to be tricky picking out just 4 !  

Bunyip02

KatLady said:

 

My picture is "A Star Is Born".  It was made and rendered in Carrara, with no postwork.

Looking good, make sure you enter it !

Bunyip02

Mystiarra said:

title:  IOR sugar

credit:  greeble city blocks

Nice work Misty !

Bunyip02

I am not seeing Vyusur's Entry 19, is anyone else having the same problem ? Can still see the render if you click on the Links to WIP thread

Vyusur

Bunyip02 said:

I am not seeing Vyusur's Entry 19, is anyone else having the same problem ? Can still see the render if you click on the Links to WIP thread

Thank you for pointing out!

KatLady

From what Bunyip02 said, apparently my star picture isn't entered in the contest?  I thought that was what I was doing!  Help, please?

Diomede

Hi @KatLady.  Great image.

The entry thread is here.  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/471961/carrara-challenge-56-let-there-be-light-entry-thread#latest

By tradition, the Carrara challenge has split the work-in-progress thread and the entry thread.  Some people (like me) tend to post lots of half-finished ideas in the WIP thread asking for advice or to demonstrate and record a technique for later reference.  Others prefer to only post finished or near-finsihed images to the WIP thread.  Each approach is most welcome.  But in general, at least one post to the WIP thread is required, which you have satisfied.  But you still have to post the final entry to the entry thread as linked above.  

Entry # (would be #22 if done at the time of my posting this)

Title: (A Star is Born, or another title if prefer)

Artist: (KatLady)

Links to WIP Thread:  (I clicked on the time stamp of one of your WIP posts and copied the following - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/6493106/#Comment_6493106)

Credits: (any items purchased from the Daz store {they do sponsor us} or otherwise deserving of being credited)

Discussion: (any additional information if desired)

** Important **  insert your entry image to the post, preferably at 800 width, like you did the images that accompany your WIP posts.

 

Apologize if this is too much info.

KatLady

Thank you so much!  It is just what I need!

Dartanbeck

Very nice art everyone! 

Diomede

A little time left so I will try to do something with the Batman light signal WIP.  I placed the previous WIP on a plane instead of just inserting in the scene backdrop so that I could move it around a little bit.  For background city buildings, I inserted a cube.  I used a layers list shader to add a roof and windows to the building cube.  The shader opacities are driven by environment functions slope and elevation to separate the roof and sides.  One could do it with projection mapping, of course.  I then used a replicator to get the city skyline.  I modeled a simple Batman figure.  It will be placed on a foreground building ledge and I will add a cape.

UnifiedBrain

Remember, for there to be light there must also be darkness.

Following this instruction from Headwax, I went for long lunar shadows shadows.

 

Oh, the Sun Shines Bright on My Old Space Buggy Home

 

NASA says that Mercury has no moons.  But this render proves otherwise!

The rover is the Space Buggy, modified in the vertex modler.  The planet in the background is Alberto's Mercury (great model).  The spaceship in the back is Toon Rocket and Moonscape, although I didn't use the Moonscape part.

The lunar-styled surface is a Carrara terrain, with surface replicated pebbles scattered everywhere.  Big rocks were made in using the organic function in the modeling room.  The flying dust is done with Carrara clouds.  Tire tracks are primatives with shaders.  Carrara text for the sig, casting only the shadow.  GMIC was used for basic adjustments and slight film grain.

This render was mostly done with a single distant light, and an HDRI for window reflection.  The other distant light was used only on the Toon Rocket.

No postwork.

UnifiedBrain

I am going to do my best to enter renders tonight or tomorrow, but I might have power/internet problems.  Crossed fingers.  I feel really lucky to get this last render in.

Edit - done.

UnifiedBrain

Diomede said:

A little time left so I will try to do something with the Batman light signal WIP.  I placed the previous WIP on a plane instead of just inserting in the scene backdrop so that I could move it around a little bit.  For background city buildings, I inserted a cube.  I used a layers list shader to add a roof and windows to the building cube.  The shader opacities are driven by environment functions slope and elevation to separate the roof and sides.  One could do it with projection mapping, of course.  I then used a replicator to get the city skyline.  I modeled a simple Batman figure.  It will be placed on a foreground building ledge and I will add a cape.

Clever use of the Layers List.  I seem to remember that some of the buildings in native content use the same technique.

Fun render!  Looking forward to seeing how you finalize Batman.

UnifiedBrain

Headwax said:

finally had a chance to play with carrara ugh

 

this is a simple scene with two matching m4 figures and two spheres domes 

to get the weird tree like silhoettes I used a mandlebrot thingy in the alpha part of the shader

the main light comes from a light which just lights up the spheres only - I used caustics and reflections  to light up most of the rest of the scene  - without casutics turned on the scenes ia black

stars are in post work

 

no post work

 

post work

Very creative and vaguely disturbing (for me).

You always make such Interesting reflections.  The no postwork render was very good.  Instead of doing postwork outside of Carrara, I would probably have tried the star effect using the Bokeh filter in GMIC, and increased the contrast, also in GMIC.

Then again, your solution looked terrific, as always. :)

Headwax

Persona Non Grata said:

Playing with simple shapes, transparency and a light cone

 

The shape

 

 

The simple scene

 

 

The simple shader

 

 

 

The quick render

 

that's a lovely renderf - reminds me of fresnel effect :)

Headwax

Bunyip02 said:

Headwax said:

finally had a chance to play with carrara ugh

 

 

post work

 

Another classic Headwax - love your setups for your scenes !!!

 

thak you Mr Bunyip02 :)

Headwax

KatLady said:

 

impressive use of metaballs - great idea - wish I'd thought of it :)

 

I'm not sure about posting pictures here, so here goes.  My picture is "A Star Is Born".  It was made and rendered in Carrara, with no postwork.  It features DAZ's Michael 4 in his jumpsuit piloting the Shuttlestar starship by Kibarreto, also from DAZ.  The picture uses lights and a sun that is provided with Carrara, two cloud systems and a particle system.  It took some trial and error to make the clouds look OK and to rotate them a bit.  There was a lot of trial and error learning to use the particle emitter.  The particles are metaballs that have been rotated and allowed to merge when they collide.  The idea is to show the early stages of solar system formation after a sun has formed and become incandescent.  The clouds and dust around the star are beginning to clump together and the light of the new sun can cut through the murky dust and gas around it.

Headwax

Mystiarra said:

title:  IOR sugar

credit:  greeble city blocks

 

ah I sought and then I found - sugar is so sweet especially with the refractive index :)

Headwax

Diomede said:

A little time left so I will try to do something with the Batman light signal WIP.  I placed the previous WIP on a plane instead of just inserting in the scene backdrop so that I could move it around a little bit.  For background city buildings, I inserted a cube.  I used a layers list shader to add a roof and windows to the building cube.  The shader opacities are driven by environment functions slope and elevation to separate the roof and sides.  One could do it with projection mapping, of course.  I then used a replicator to get the city skyline.  I modeled a simple Batman figure.  It will be placed on a foreground building ledge and I will add a cape.

 

 

 

bit of a genius setup there Ted - amd oho effective to get the message across :)

Headwax

UnifiedBrain said:

Remember, for there to be light there must also be darkness.

Following this instruction from Headwax, I went for long lunar shadows shadows.

 

Oh, the Sun Shines Bright on My Old Space Buggy Home

 

NASA says that Mercury has no moons.  But this render proves otherwise!

The rover is the Space Buggy, modified in the vertex modler.  The planet in the background is Alberto's Mercury (great model).  The spaceship in the back is Toon Rocket and Moonscape, although I didn't use the Moonscape part.

The lunar-styled surface is a Carrara terrain, with surface replicated pebbles scattered everywhere.  Big rocks were made in using the organic function in the modeling room.  The flying dust is done with Carrara clouds.  Tire tracks are primatives with shaders.  Carrara text for the sig, casting only the shadow.  GMIC was used for basic adjustments and slight film grain.

This render was mostly done with a single distant light, and an HDRI for window reflection.  The other distant light was used only on the Toon Rocket.

No postwork.

 

so much going on in this - I thought that front left wheel had motion blur and the reflection in the windows give us another narrative - worlds within worlds - or even a subplot :)

 

PS thanks for the kind comment on my work - yes it would have been better to do those lihhts insitu rather than post

WendyLuvsCatz

Headwax said:

Bunyip02 said:

Headwax said:

finally had a chance to play with carrara ugh

 

 

post work

 

Another classic Headwax - love your setups for your scenes !!!

 

thak you Mr Bunyip02 :)

I thought it was Ms Bunyip  

Headwax

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Headwax said:

Bunyip02 said:

Headwax said:

finally had a chance to play with carrara ugh

 

 

post work

 

Another classic Headwax - love your setups for your scenes !!!

 

thak you Mr Bunyip02 :)

I thought it was Ms Bunyip  

 

ha ha , I should nevere assume things I dont know and are irrelvant :) I met two female actors today on separate occasions and a woman yesterday who had a wife.... so I am neither he nor she in the 3d :) but my foot is firmly in my mouth !

Bunyip02

Headwax is correct, it's Mr Bunyip02 !!!!

Bunyip02

UnifiedBrain said:

Oh, the Sun Shines Bright on My Old Space Buggy Home

Very nice Buggy, love the dust effect around the tyres !!

Bunyip02

Diomede said:

Looking great, although I would have the Batman figure standing out a fraction more !!!