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Like where you are going, Kismet. Love the play of light on her and the colors of the foreground, mid-ground and background. I have just one question, what is that cat doing over there?
I think you have handles turned on on her outfit. Looks cool but don't know if you want to have that or not.
Looking forward to seeing what you do.
He is using the column as a scratching post. :cheese:
It is hard to tell, because of the lighting I think, but those are supposed to be bells on her skirt. I may remove them though as they are a bit distracting in this particular composition.
Yeah, those bells are a little odd. Maybe if she was moving... but even then, I don't quite understand the bells.
I kind of want her to do something. Maybe she's frustrated that the cat is scratching that column. Maybe she's doing her own search for something in that scene. She's just passive, and she's not really telling a story on her own.
Lighting would help, but it's early, and you're already thinking about it.
Thanks!
Yeah, the guy with the pyramid (a Sith Holocron, for all the Star Wars nerds) needs some tweaking. In any case, I'll be looking at a lot more Pro Wrasslin' pictures to get better ideas.
I'll have to do a second scene after that when the Sith Warrior jumps on top of the two Jedi in order to see what I can do with Iray lighting... I still don't 100% like what the emissives are doing (which isn't very much at all), but the whole thing needs better lights :-p
Happy easter to everyone who likes to celebrate that hollyday
Here is my start for this month render. I am aiming for the feel of those older swashbuckler films.
There are a ton of things that still bug me. For one I would like to have the guy really grab that courtain. I tried to apply a node weight modyfier but it pushed the courtain only forward or backward. I will try to get it to move sideways ( and hopefully with the impression of being more crumpled) with a d-former in the next attempts but maybe one of you has a better idea to achieve the effect.
The other thing I'm not content with is her skin. It looks to plastic like in the moment. I have been looking around for skin modifier but it's always for Victoria or something, I didn't find one for the genesis 2 female basic. I'm willing to spend money on that if it's good quallity but I don't have a need for those ready dialed females (I ususall don't even like).
As well I would like do get her dressed in a different Jacked or shirt, preferentially armoured to some degree. I will try my hand at some kitbashing here I guess.
I will come back later for some comments.
h_habash, a small note on the readability of this threat; it would be easier if you not update in your original post, usually people come to the end of the thread to look around what is new. so just post anew when you have new renders to share. It will be a good thing for you and everone else as well to look at the development your your image makes through the month.
Now for your new render, those are very good improvements. The background is very fitting, the positioning of the horses and the boy looks very nice like this and the horses look like they have fur and the figures have much better interaction with each other.
For the next step maybe you look at you lights. I can see some shadows on the boy but neither he nor the the horses or the barn have shadows on the ground. If you add more light and allow shadows for your main light everything will gain more substance. and the attention of the onlooker will be drawn to the interesting places of your image.
Then I would suggest as well to look at the bump of your floor. I guess that if you increase the bump the ground will look less blurry.
One last minor aspect for your render to think about is the barnpost that hides the hindquarter of your Grey. Either think of making that invisible or pan your camera angle so that the overlap will be less troubling.
Very nice work so far.
How's this look Dollygirl, somewhat what you were thinking of?
Yes much better. I can see the hand now and the pad has become an added point of interest. I think you need to up the shading rate either in the uber lights or in render options when you get ready to do your final version. You are a little too specklely and dropping the shading rate to a lower number will help that.
I tried to mess with uber lights this morning Dolygirl, and it looks like I got rid of some of that 'specklely' look in the last one. Thanks again for all the feedback you've been giving me on this.
3ch0_419, this looks like an intersting scene, however I still find this a bit hard to read, That strange animal is coming though a wall here? or is it using some kind of camourflage? If its breaking the wall maybe you can give more distinct colours to the wall and the animal?
What is your story with that second person where you see only the hand, will they help or are they attacked as well, or something different altogether?
I like how the light from the outside is zickzacking through the room, maybe you can push that effekt further and make it part in your story?
But Blurst of Times makes a valid point as well with more light coming from the camera side will help the viewer.
Yes, I agree with Linwelly on that. we actually save all the old WIP threads and add the links to this thread
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28192/
so that people can always look back on them for tips and trips
I also edited the size of your text, so that it is easily readable.
He is using the column as a scratching post. :cheese:
It is hard to tell, because of the lighting I think, but those are supposed to be bells on her skirt. I may remove them though as they are a bit distracting in this particular composition.
My, that's one huge cat there. Fun idea and a beautiful landscape setting. The question I have is, as the two of them belong together (I guess) why put them so far apart? I would think that the relation could profit from a closer positioning.
Just a though I had is, that it would be fun if there were actually scratches seen in that column from the cats claws
This is an interesting scene with a nice natural light and environment. I think you could drive the story a bit further, I mean there is a guy sitting with some strange humanoid creature having a nice chat, the man obvioulsly isn' thinking this a weird situation but I guess you want the viewer of the scene to be thinking of the weirdness. Maybe you can let them share a few beers or a pizza, something like that.
Linwelly, a nice start. Love the swashbuckler. I agree that your best bet to show the cloth held in his hand would be deformers. I know of no other way except to take the model into Hexagon or such and create the new folds. As for your skin issue. I would highly recommend getting this video. It is my bible when it comes to getting a skin to work well with the Uber lights and it is any skin. I have used his method with Victoria 2 skins with great success. It is only 5 bucks today to boot.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Hey there everyone!
I hope to take part this month as well.
Here´s my first looks at the render.
A couple. I saw a modeling shoot with a couple and I thought the pose was interesting so I decided to do this kind of couple render.
I hope to render this image with reality. It is going to take a while though because there is only one light in the scene but I really want the shadowed areas in there.
Also, anybody has any idea why do nail on the default g2m skin render in grayish color in reality? : )
Let me know what you think!
Well, for the skin, I'd say to use Iray if you feel like experimenting with the new thing.
Yes, the guy should grab the curtain. Barring that, he should be performing some other sort of action. If he is the bad guy, then maybe his footing isn't secure, and he's unbalanced/about to fall? Something that pushes the scene towards change. The figures give the impression of being at rest, for whatever reason.
The other question is about your female figure. If the pistol isn't doing something, then might I suggest something else? A bag of coins, a secret note? Something to propel the guy to chase after the girl (other than the usual boy-meets-girl, boy-chases-after-the-girl-with-a-sword story).
I'm not sure the random pistol is adding something these other than making me wonder why she hasn't shot the guy already.
You have a very understated pose/scene. I think it's nice, but then you're going to have to nail the lighting. Yes, trying to keep the shadow is good because the shadow tells some of the story. Don't give it up!
Can't say why the G2M nails do that in Reality. My machine doesn't work well with it (being old & slow). Play with the specific Nail surface under the Surfaces tab? There has to be a material setting that works better.
The hair colors are a bit similar, I guess. How does he or she look with another color? There's enough difference in the skin to catch the eye, but the hair is very similar. I don't know if that helps you tell a story at all.
A mirror might help, though, to catch more expression. Or, taking a page from Linwelly's Showroom last month, a picture frame or something. Some jewelry or bling, perhaps?
Talking about picture frames & jewelry, I know where I'd push the story, but it's much more radical & I'm not sure you want to go there.
Okay... here's version 2 (while I am wrapping up my @#$! taxes)...
I made the Sith Holochron into an Emitter to see what that did, which was bad. So I'll figure a different way to rig it. Maybe a tight spot on it.
I cranked up the lumens on the emissives, but they still aren't doing everything I want them to do.
I was going to do an Indiana Jones/Raiders of the Lost Arc thing with the Holocron, but then I got distracted. In any case, the male figure in the front needs a better pose. I will say that the Iray textures & Iray don't make his fingernails look like he's a dead guy. ;-)
I'm also trying to change the female figure's clothes. I couldn't 100% solve some of the pokethroughs in a good way, so I tried going more form fitting just to see how it looked... but it's a work in progress.
The background is still wonky. I threw a Fog thing in there (the free thing out of ShiftingImage's mountain scene) because the Sith Warrior was blending in with the grey crypt stones. Lighting will help, I think
I'm fairly new to the 3D-world, so this is my first render, intended for a book cover, "Dragontalk". Still without background. The lighting is fiery genesis preset.
Of course the format is landscape, which is wrong for a book cover, but I didn't find a way to get another format (portrait) for the render picture so far.
I totally revamped this image. You were right Dollygirl. Those where handles. I am not sure why I thought they were bells. :shut:
I like the guy hanging out there behind the pillar. The woman looks like she's getting ready for trouble... although one guy versus the woman and the cat? I don't like those odds (for the bad guys, I mean).
I think you are trying to create tension, but then I don't feel the tension in it because of the odds being against that one guy. Maybe add more people behind pillars? Use the rest of the space in your image to add more drama? I'm guessing that's where you're headed, and that this was a test image. Keep building it up! I think this works better than the other image, in general.
One issue: The cat seemed more interesting in the other picture. With a front-on pose in this one, and with the cat shrunk down rather than posturing to look mean/big, it seems a bit diminished. I liked the side view of the cat better. In this image, you have a lump of cat, and I can't tell what the purpose of the cat is. There would be more interest in the scene if the woman was alone, and the dudes behind the pillars were the other part of the story.
Okay... here's a fast Iray render, probably about 10% converged.
I added an actual Iray photometric light source (beyond the Iray Emissives, which are the Lightsabers). This disabled the default lighting.
I can see that the Lightsabers (with the Iray Emissive shader on the blades) actually are casting light into the scene. The Sith Warrior stands out a bit better against the background.
The mood is better without the default light, although the lighting sucks. There's an odd shadow, cast against the background fog, which is coming off of the Sith Warrior via photometric light source (I think).
The guy in the bottom right with the Sith Holocron needs better lighting. I wanted to stick a spotlight on the Holocron, but whatever I did, I didn't do it well. I think I'll drop a spot directly from above, onto the exact center of the Holocron.
I still want to tweak both Jedi for a variety of reasons.
I wanted to poke my head in to say hi... and a special hello to the new folks. Glad you could join us and I hope you are having fun so far. :-)
I wanted to let y'all know that after a very fortunate 3.5 years during which the same, relatively low side effect chemo was holding my cancer at bay, it started growing again. Not by much, but if the chemo isnt working it isnt working and they need to move on to something else. Getting hooked up to something else takes poking and prodding, and a bunch of tests, so I am not sure how much I am going to be here this month. Dealing with it is where I have been lately and where I likely will be... though I have a few things that I am half heartedly working on. Just not feelin it if ya know what I mean... and every idea I have seems to require prep in blender, which is something I have wanted to learn to incorporate, but is in itself frustrating too. Maybe some awesome idea will come to me as I am sitting around bored to tears tomorrow and Tuesday undergoing two days of tests where I must stay perfectly still for 4 straight hours while doing absolutely nothing... not even talking! Nonetheless I will try to get in and offer feedback as I am able. The renders so far are looking promising but with room to grow, which is the best thing about this contest. I hope that I am wrong and I get to participate more than I anticipate this month!
I hope everyone who celebrated one of the holidays over the last few days enjoyed their time with family and friends, and for those who didnt celebrate, that you had a great week just because. :-)
Fionathegood- Will be thinking about you and hoping that your Daz thoughts will occupy your time and help you through the tests. :)
For me, the thing is that if you look at the shadows, you can see that all of the light is coming from opposite the camera... so everything visible to the camera is in shadow, and it's not showing off your work.
I think you need something from behind the camera, projecting towards the scene. Maybe it's a flashlight on a gun, pointed towards the monster. I don't know. I'd point to first person shooter video games with a lot of darkness as something to look at.
It just needs light going from the camera to the figures in a way that doesn't overwhelm whatever dark you want to keep.
Thanks for your feedback Times, I tried to mess with the lighting some after reading your post but I think it still needs some work.
Fiona, I hope that they do find something to help you quick and efficient, and with as few sideeffects as possible so that you can return to what you like to do, but getting better again is the most important. As Novica said, maybe thinking about your render plans helps you to get through the time
Off topic:
Fiona, as far as I kow, they have developed genetical tests which can tell the doctor which kind of treatment will succed without having to try several different drugs in vain.
Depends on the sort of tumor you got, of course.
Wish you all the best!
I'm not sure how you set up the fog, but if it's a plane or cube or something, select the object and somewhere in the setting/parameters for the object (I'm not sure where in Iray) should be something along the lines of accept shadows. You want to turn that off.
Here's mine I started. In last month's contest it was mentioned that my background was too busy and it seems I do that a lot. Something about wanting to fill up the space with something interesting.
Anyways, I've made the scene much simpler this time and I've yet to add effects (engine flames, gun bursts, motion blur, etc.) and proper lighting (right now it's using Ambush Alley's default light set)
Anyways, here is my WIP!
The Chase.
Another thing. How did you do the muzzle flare? Is it casting light? That's probably a easy way to pump up the lumens in a believable way. In Iray, you throw an emissive shader on it. I forget the 3delight toggle. Ambient? Under the Surfaces tab. Or put a point light somewhere in that.
The lack of light casting from the muzzle flare is maybe the oddest thing, looking at your image. That should give us a better view of the beastie in the wall.
I think a lot of us strive for realistic light patterns, and not necessarily the art of lighting in a way that shows off our work, so our scenes don't pop as much as they should. When I have the spare $$$, I'll buy that digital lighting textbook because lighting is srs business.
...
Also, fionathegood, I'm not sure if you've heard this before, but cancer sucks.
Ok, maybe I was being sarcastic.
Chemo (the full on kind) isn't as debilitating as it used to be, or so I hear from relatives who've done multiple bouts over the years. I plan to live forever, so I guess I wouldn't know about that.
Take care of yourself Fiona. We are thinking of you. Sending you healing vibes.
I like the guy hanging out there behind the pillar. The woman looks like she's getting ready for trouble... although one guy versus the woman and the cat? I don't like those odds (for the bad guys, I mean).
I think you are trying to create tension, but then I don't feel the tension in it because of the odds being against that one guy. Maybe add more people behind pillars? Use the rest of the space in your image to add more drama? I'm guessing that's where you're headed, and that this was a test image. Keep building it up! I think this works better than the other image, in general.
One issue: The cat seemed more interesting in the other picture. With a front-on pose in this one, and with the cat shrunk down rather than posturing to look mean/big, it seems a bit diminished. I liked the side view of the cat better. In this image, you have a lump of cat, and I can't tell what the purpose of the cat is. There would be more interest in the scene if the woman was alone, and the dudes behind the pillars were the other part of the story.
Thank you for your feedback Times. You have given me an idea of where I can take this image.
Cool! I'll have to check that out.
The fog is more or less planar (with a curve, as I recall). It's from Shifting Images mountain scene, repurposed to make the stones in the crypt more muted without camera tricks with field of focus for those three people in the image.
This definitely looks promising. I am looking forward to seeing this with all the affects added.