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Comments
Next revision thanks for all the helpful advice. Did major tweaking on expressions. The comment about the left arm of the girl on the left. Although she has the upper hand the first rule in any fighting art is always protect yourself. So i raised the right arm on the girl on the right to reflect the vulnerability of a possible strike. Made some small adjustments to the fighting lines. I also put in a tree off camera to cast some shadows into the little training area to help sell the time of day as well as break up some of the monotony of the lighting in the scene in general. I also changed the color of the girl on the lefts top her breast isnt actually touching the other girl but the black of the top was blending into the black of the print on the the other ones clothes so i changed it to make more of a contrast between them.
Daniel
Good work on the leaves. They seem more natural. The symmetry of 5 leaves on the left & 5 leaves on the right is somewhat distracting. It looks like two groups of leaves to me. Also, the 4 leaves in the bottom right form a nice diamond/square. As a general statement, the spacing between the leaves also seems a bit regular.
I don't like the symmetry when you're trying to make it look like what nature intended. Instead, it looks like someone placed those objects into the scene because the mind can easily organize the parts into a logical pattern. Avoid the unintended patterns with nature.
(Yes, the nautilus shell has a pattern (from which some might derive "Intelligent Design" or whatnot), but when it comes to groups of leaves, avoid the patterns in order to avoid the appearance of design.)
I like the lighting. The lighting works with the colors in the scene.
I still want to move the camera to the left (without losing the bottom of the staff to the right). The scene is very concentrated on the left side, and there's something missing on the right. Perhaps rotating the camera would also work here (turn the scene counterclockwise).
Otherwise, it's quite close to complete.
Have you thought about removing the hair from the man on the right? The staff is more of a monk's weapon, I guess. The hair is obscuring his face, as you are already aware.
Again, good improvements.
Technically, I think you are close to completion.
Story-wise, I think you can do more.
When I look at the background and the clothing choices, I wonder what they are trying to tell me about the story behind the image.
The clothing is very "training" or "practice", and not "Enter the Dragon".
The background, on the other hand, seems less like "practice" and more like "Enter the Dragon".
The characters may be fighting in a logical, consistent way, but something about the background and the clothing is still taking me out of the scene.
I'm not saying the work isn't good. I like the shadows on the background and the surfaces in general. The clothing also works. They just don't all work together for me.
Of course, this competition is based on "Action", so take this with a grain of salt. How the judging will be based on the other parts of the composition (story-wise), I do not know.
Hi, Blurst.
Good concept. Here are a few things to consider:
When you're scared, you usually contract. Shoulder hunch, arms pulled up to body, hands clenched.
Looks like you're going for a cowardly type run, so he's trying to get away, but obviously wants to keep making sure where she is so he knows he's getting away from her...if that's what you're going for...just push it. It helps intensify the line of action in the scene as well as his line of action.
Great lighting from the door; accentuates her form.
Photometric lights haven't disappeared; they are part of the parameters for lights when you use Iray. You'll see Photometrics listed.
This has come such a long way since your first version, Daniel. Great job!
Good work on the leaves. They seem more natural. The symmetry of 5 leaves on the left & 5 leaves on the right is somewhat distracting. It looks like two groups of leaves to me. Also, the 4 leaves in the bottom right form a nice diamond/square. As a general statement, the spacing between the leaves also seems a bit regular.
I don't like the symmetry when you're trying to make it look like what nature intended. Instead, it looks like someone placed those objects into the scene because the mind can easily organize the parts into a logical pattern. Avoid the unintended patterns with nature.
(Yes, the nautilus shell has a pattern (from which some might derive "Intelligent Design" or whatnot), but when it comes to groups of leaves, avoid the patterns in order to avoid the appearance of design.)
I like the lighting. The lighting works with the colors in the scene.
I still want to move the camera to the left (without losing the bottom of the staff to the right). The scene is very concentrated on the left side, and there's something missing on the right. Perhaps rotating the camera would also work here (turn the scene counterclockwise).
Otherwise, it's quite close to complete.
Have you thought about removing the hair from the man on the right? The staff is more of a monk's weapon, I guess. The hair is obscuring his face, as you are already aware.
Those leaves will be my doom, Times, :-P It's very hard to create chaos willingly, but then it comes so easily to my home.. guess I should ask my kids to place the leaves. ..
The problem with turning the camera will always end in one face less seen and the heavyness on the left side was quiet intentional to not have everything filled out equally and thus give the movement room in the render. Seems I need to work on that impresseion some more, to not just have empty space on the right.
I might shorten the hair of the staff fighter but, no he's not intended to be a monk, as he's the fourth son, four being an unlucky number in japanese and some chinese myth as it has a similar sound as death in htose languages.
So thanks for the feedback, will take some time to think things over.
Some nice work, Linwelly.
Suggestions:
Consider a landscape, instead of square, image to give room for the action follow-through.
Give the guy being hit a reaction wave in his body with a curve because it's perceived as movement, where with him straight, it's like a piece of stone is being hit, so perception is immobility. Does that make sense?
I also raised him a bit...the weapon tips are now asymmetrical.
It's little tweaks that can give the image a whole different feel.
Hi, Gallows, good to see your first draft. I have some questions.
Are his pants painted? They have a bit of a toon render look to them where everything else has a more rendered.
Right now, this is feeling very staged/posed. I am unsure if they are fighting. What are you trying to accomplish with your scene?
Here's where you start to make decisions and choices to further your goals. Take a look at the other projects in the thread and the advice being given. And don't forget to have fun. :)
Very nicely done. Only critique I have is possible pose the left hand making a fist. It's just a person taste. I know they use both hand unfolded and a fist so either one works. I just think the fist may sell it more. Regardless of that you did a great job.
Thanks for the feedback. Very helpful!
Here's a quick render after a couple changes.
I dialed in his arms. I gave him something to hold onto (a beer bottle), which also allows for spills onto the floor (unless that is urine). I wish the wet spots were more reflective, though. They're not doing much of anything. I'll have to see what's going on, or maybe hit them with additional light if I keep the spots. (I'd add more spots, but I wanted to see what they did).
I also wanted the beer bottle there because it says where his mind was at (Party time!) prior to running away.
To add to the "party time" feeling, I swapped out his shorts for a fuzzy towel, and gave him flip flops.
I'd like to dirty up the corridor some more. I threw an apple on the ground as a first step, amongst other things. I have boxes and things I can add. I want to make it look more frat house, less clean.
I pumped up the light emitters from the robot's pupils.
Fist
First draft for the second time. I couldn't get into the last picture so I started over. I think I need more dramatic lighting and sweat. How do you do sweat?
Been working on this a bit. I have a lot more to do.
Title: Mondays
A paperwork vortex visits the office, but given the casual nature of our office workers, this is just another Monday.
Title: Mondays
A paperwork vortex visits the office, but given the casual nature of our office workers, this is just another Monday.
I really like this one. I see it every Monday. Nice concept.
There are products for Sweat & wet skin in the Shop. These generally give you various maps to overlay your skin. You throw on some sort of setting (depending on your renderer) in order to give some sheen & some water-like qualities to the maps.
(EDIT: I have the Wet Body Geometry Shells (which have both G2M and G2F flavors):
http://www.daz3d.com/wet-body-geometry-shells
(EDIT 2: Note, these are shells that fit over the skin, so they have their own surfaces. Makes it easy to drop an Iray shader (water or whatever) instead of using different surface channels for maps.)
There's also this one for G2F
http://www.daz3d.com/wet-sweat-rain-for-genesis-2-female-s
This is likely not an exhaustive list, but it's what I know exists.
There's others for V4 & whatnot.)
The other thing to do is to generally give more glossiness to your figure (for that oily sheen). Amp up whatever gloss setting you have so that the skin angles catch & reflect more light back into the camera.
What renderer are you using? Any specific advice will depend on your renderer of choice (and if it's not Iray, I probably couldn't tell you much of anything in particular).
Newest version. I tried to get a "laser" light for the kitten to chase.
I was considering entering this contest because I'm a total newb, but the more I read, the more I think maybe I shouldn't.
Now, I've got the premise and pose in DAZ. I also read a thread about contests and post production and I realized my stuff is primarily post production - I think.
I haven't done much with the DAZ marketplace, but when I see something I like, I get it. Right now I have Giovanni pro - with Hector et al, and the DAZ Horse 2, the latter was just recently offered on sale. Speaking to the horse specifically - and the equine is my thing - it's one of the best 3D productions I've seen in a long time. As an artist, I see my expertise with the equine quite high, and the Pro model did not disappoint. I was seriously impressed. But all things have room for improvement - namely my own work. So I've been experiment with ye olde horse.
You see, I like bringing things into photoshop and tinkering. I love developing custom brushes and stumbling into (through more error than trial) off the wall techniques. In reading a thread here about post production - I guess I'm a mite strange in that respect. But hey, I'm a writer and artist, I'm used to being weird. lol!
Basically, what I did is set up a character and horse in DAZ - bare minimum, then used the bridge to Photoshop and am running with it. I've attached it here so you can see it in all of it's awful WIP hideousness. I'm doing so in order to get the newb feedback if at all possible, because I highly doubt it should be entered in the contest. It does follow the action premise but my post production work disqualifies it, I think.
If there is a better place for me to post this and get newb feedback without stepping on anyone's toes, I would appreciate if someone could direct me.
Thank you for your time and patience.
Cheers all!
Kathryn
Merged post with the contest WIP thread
"Popo's Rescue"
I have no art training, for the most part have only created cartoon type graphics for my daughter and this is my first attempt at a contest but everything begins someplace so at my daughters encouragement and in the hope that I get lots of good advice and great tips... I submit Popo's Rescue.
I created it using:
- Daz Studio 4.7
- MPCyclorama
- Aiko 6
- Popwawa for Genisis character
- Ranger Outfit for your Genesis 2 Female(s)
- Greater Goblins
chaos213
So welcome to the newbies contest, Kathryn,
As you might notice when you flip htrough the thread and mybe the older ones as well, we are all here to learn and the moment we started to enter the contests we all had a steep learning curve.
We are all trying to help at our best possibilities and the mods are doing a wonderful job in pushing our limits.
For your art and your personal preference there is absolutly nothing wrong with working your renders in photoshop or whatever program is your favorite, here in the contest the main advice will go in the direction of improving you abilities with the 3d Program you are using, I believe for the moment we are mainly Daz 4.7 and Iray users here but there are some carrara and Poser people here as well.
Concerning our topic "action" this month you made a good start, there is dynamic and movement in your render.
Here are some ideas for the next steps:
try giving the horse a surface of fur and skin, I don't know the horse bundle you own but I'm sure there are some materials that come with your horse.
You can as well think of a background for your scene, there are some sceneries that come with the program you might try for starters (eg in the dragonslayer setting). Try to get all of your horse into your sceneview and you can think as well about what your rider is attacking so the viewer can get into your story.
I hope that gives you some ideas.
Welcome to the contest chaos213,
you have a very beautiful scenery for your render and your one golblin makes a good show of dying there.
I did have a hard time though to find that Popo being rescued, she is rather camouflaged and gets lost in the colours of your scene.
my idea would be to zoom in quiet a lot , yes that will cut of great parts of your background but it will gife a better view on your protagonists. add some lights on your main cast an maybe get the rest darker for better contrasts.
your archer is standing there rather at leasure, I would like to see her more involved. All of your cast needs a little more grounding with the environment.
Hope that helps with your progress.
Some nice work, Linwelly.
Suggestions:
Consider a landscape, instead of square, image to give room for the action follow-through.
Give the guy being hit a reaction wave in his body with a curve because it's perceived as movement, where with him straight, it's like a piece of stone is being hit, so perception is immobility. Does that make sense?
I also raised him a bit...the weapon tips are now asymmetrical.
It's little tweaks that can give the image a whole different feel.
Thank you Cris, I don't know why I ended up with a sqare again, that format seems to stick with me, but yes the landscape makes sense. I can see what you mean with the perceived movement, will make a go at that.
Hello Linwelly,
Thank you so much for your response!
Yes, Daz 4.7 is what I'm using aside from Photoshop, and I understand completely what you mean by improving my abilities with the 3D program, which is why I'm hesitant to actually enter the contest until I figure out a key point.
You are very correct in that materials come with the horse bundle I purchased but I'm actually trying not to use those. (Like I said, I'm weird). Is it possible for me to create my own mats in photoshop, import them into DAZ and use those instead? I think there is but that needs more research on my part.
Now, the mats that come with this Horse 2 Pro bundle I purchased are wonderful. Someone really knew horses when they developed them. But I would like to try with my own if at all possible. That stems from my time when I painted realistic equine sculptures and competed with those on the national level. It may sound like a silly thing but I learned painting those sculptures that realism and action can come from a hint of detail - for example, I follow the hair growth pattern when I painted the sculptures and I've found that does indeed translate somewhat to digital 3d. Skin stretches and moves and just a hint of that hair growth pattern adds a lot to realism. If the premise will make the translation entirely . . . well, we shall see. ;)
I'm posting the horse's head here so you can see what I'm going for, this is photoshop, yes, but I'd like to try to import my own mats created in photoshop back into DAZ and go from there on the scene in the contest if at all possible.
This is all painted by hand thus far and is a bit dark, but I still have to work on the shading and highlight and it depends what I can get with the render is DAZ.
No matter what - I'm having a blast with this. :)
Welcome to the contest chaos213,
you have a very beautiful scenery for your render and your one golblin makes a good show of dying there.
I did have a hard time though to find that Popo being rescued, she is rather camouflaged and gets lost in the colours of your scene.
my idea would be to zoom in quiet a lot , yes that will cut of great parts of your background but it will gife a better view on your protagonists. add some lights on your main cast an maybe get the rest darker for better contrasts.
your archer is standing there rather at leasure, I would like to see her more involved. All of your cast needs a little more grounding with the environment.
Hope that helps with your progress.
Thanks for the tips and observations. I do target archery and the best archers seem almost motionless and casual but that is reality and this is a fantasy scene so a bit more involved makes sense. I changed the view slightly, zoomed in a bit and did the entire scene a bit darker. My daughter thinks it is an improvement over the original and though she is a total cartoon zealot she is my muse so her opinion is important. I also agree on it being better. Let me know what you think and any other ideas.
chaos213
Yes!
It's not a closed system, and you are free to retexture these objects. You could even make your own models if you were so inclined.
What you are looking for is in the Surfaces tab.
Here's the documentation for the tab:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/dazstudio/reference/tab_surfaces
If you're looking at the colors, you'll be looking for the Diffuse channel.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/dazstudio/reference/st_diffuse
You'll need to click on your object (that you want to retexture) in the Scene tab (on the left, typically). Then locate the Diffuse channel in the Surfaces tab (on the right, typically).
That will allow you to mess around with the surfaces of your object.
Other than that, you'll have to experiment. I'm still finding my way around the various channels myself.
Your daughter has the right of it, I think.
I like the revised stance because it allows you to concentrate the scene, but your background was quite nice. Of course, in writing, the trick is to kill your darlings, so do whatever it takes to make the scene work better. Cutting down the background does help to focus it.
It's still hard to see the creature that she's trying to rescue.
The monster on the left... I don't like the line of the right arm because it's very straight in the eye of the camera.
The monster on the right... would it curl backwards like that after taking an arrow to the chest? It seems a bit unnatural (i.e. posed).
The colors are all very similar. Why not punch it up, make it more blatant? Like Diego Rivera, his peasants wearing white clothes. Your monsters are brownish with grey-greens, your archer wears greens and browns. You could throw more color variation into the scene, I think.
Your daughter has the right of it, I think.
I like the revised stance because it allows you to concentrate the scene, but your background was quite nice. Of course, in writing, the trick is to kill your darlings, so do whatever it takes to make the scene work better. Cutting down the background does help to focus it.
It's still hard to see the creature that she's trying to rescue.
The monster on the left... I don't like the line of the right arm because it's very straight in the eye of the camera.
The monster on the right... would it curl backwards like that after taking an arrow to the chest? It seems a bit unnatural (i.e. posed).
The colors are all very similar. Why not punch it up, make it more blatant? Like Diego Rivera, his peasants wearing white clothes. Your monsters are brownish with grey-greens, your archer wears greens and browns. You could throw more color variation into the scene, I think.
Thank you for your observations and ideas. You are the second to point to the hard to see nature of the Popo creature. I had considered adding camouflage to make it blend in more since hiding would be a big part of a small forest creatures existence. It's green coloring would be it's primary defense. In nature most animals that display bright colors are trying to get attention during mating or have poison or some other major defense device in which case the color is a warning deterrent. I have tried changing it's color or having it holding something colorful but neither fit the scene but will keep working on it.
I wanted this to look as natural as a scene with goblins could but again it is a fantasy scene so "what is natural" is a moving target. When I was designing this scene I envisioned something as large and lumbering as a goblin trying to catch a rabbit. It would have to bend over and reach to make the catch because of it's size difference. I went out in the yard and chased my dog around a bit. I am good sized, she is small so I think a good match to the goblin Popo scene. You were right I almost never had my arm straight out trying to grab her so I made a couple changes there and to the Popo character. She is still small and green but I took a few tips from another post, on a different image and added some clench as well as changing the eyes and twisting the head and neck because looking back out of fear.
I am not trying to defend the scene just explain my design ideas. All of the elements in the scene are posed but how we pose them is the thing. Thank you again for the ideas and tips. The left goblin ones especially since I thought it looked right at first until I watched the video of me chasing my dog around. I wasn't tormenting her for arts sake. We were playing with her favorite toy, called the "wooby", so keep away is just part of the game. I also found out I am out of shape but that's from inaction and the focus of this discussion is action.
For some reason Daz Studio renders at times have artifacts in them. Little square colored blocks and such. The first image I posted here had one so I rendered the scene again and uploaded the new render which did not have the artifact. I have noticed if I have any other software running the frequency of artifacts goes up but it is random and uncommon so not really sure why they occur.
chaos213
Wonderful! Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed. I've got the horse almost complete and am starting on the armor. Thanks so much for this info! I really appreciate it!
Off to read.
Cheers,
Kathryn
If you want to create a proper texture for the horse, locate the folder that has the horse textures in it, and use one as "source". You can paint over it in photoshop in a different layer, and later remove the underlying original image layer, or simply merge them). Save it (preferably elsewhere or under a different name frm the original ;-)). Then you can load it in the diffuse channel by using the "browse" function.
Thank you so much lee!
That's exactly what I'm doing. Using the Source tab as previously suggested, I was able to locate the files in question. Because I originally had the horse "nekkid" I went ahead and applied one of the original materials to make sure I had all of the right ones. For example there are different ones for the body, head, and eyes, on just the horse. There will be a bunch of different ones for the armor, and rider, but I have yet to tackle those.
Using the 3D Bridge into Photoshop, I was able to import those exact image files, and judging by what I've seen thus far, I can use those as a foundation to build from using layers as you suggested, save under a different file name then export those image files again through the the 3D Bridge from Photoshop back into DAZ.
At least that's the working theory right now. ;) I'll definitely be experimenting back and forth until I nail down the actual "work flow" and hope I don't break anything in the process. lol!
Yes, the dragons have many moving parts. It's not easy to make it all work together with the wings, tail, and the rest of the bits.
Your image seems to have bits of dragons. All the dragons are partially on the image, but not fully framed within the action. It feels like a short-cut to posing the whole figure.
If the dragons already are problematic, I might suggest sticking with one dragon, and then seeing if you might add more afterwards. It may help you focus your efforts.
The swordsman is a bit of a stiff. There are a lot of straight lines in his stance, and he seems rather mannequin-like as a result.
One thing I suggest with swordsmen is to search on "Samurai duel". This brings up many images from old samurai movies. Find a pose/stance you like, and adapt it to your image.
Thank you FEWER for the advise, I've changed the swordsman cloth and pose [simply used dragon slayer pose], and added some blood for both swordsman and the dragon to look more in action (this is my first time to manipulate with diffuse so pardon me if it's not matching reality :red:).
I deleted the other dragon to save space for the close up shot, and I think I'll stick to one only.