CARRARA CHALLENGE #63: There be Dragons..... WIP

Richard Haseltine · August 2022

UnifiedBrain said:

It appears that my render was deleted? Or, was it a glitch?

I did not receive a moderator notification.

One was sent - it was the gesture that was the issue.

Diomede · August 2022

Dragon Lair for Story.

RE: my toonish hero, heroine, and dragon are getting a village, village fields, knights keep, and dragon lair. I used an image editor to draw a base height map of village fields surrounded by low hills, and then used Carrara's terrain modeler erosion and plateau filters to create the base terrain. I made a copy of that, converted to vertex object, then extruded a cave to a dragon lair. I then copied and pasted just the tunnel and lower lair to a new vertex object. I did some tests of replicating some plants on the village flats, but want to mak more appropriate plants. I intend to have an animation, but may end up having a sequence of stills like a graphic novel or comic.

Bottom line - I should be able to have a Carrara terrain model for distance establishment shots and matching vertex models for more detailed close ups.

WendyLuvsCatz · August 2022

Richard Haseltine said:

UnifiedBrain said:

It appears that my render was deleted? Or, was it a glitch?

I did not receive a moderator notification.

One was sent - it was the gesture that was the issue.

I had a co-worker who made that gesture, I assumed being a professional she meant , just one minute

Diomede · August 2022

And here is an update to the dragon helm of dor lomin (from Tolkien's Silmarillion, Turin Turumbar). Details added to the head and added leg attachments. Still no access to pen tablet for sculpting so will stick with Carrara modeling. Also want to add the sword Gurthang, which is used to kill the dragon Glaurung.

Stezza · August 2022

Bunyip02 · August 2022

Diomede said:

Dragon Lair for Story.

RE: my toonish hero, heroine, and dragon are getting a village, village fields, knights keep, and dragon lair. I used an image editor to draw a base height map of village fields surrounded by low hills, and then used Carrara's terrain modeler erosion and plateau filters to create the base terrain. I made a copy of that, converted to vertex object, then extruded a cave to a dragon lair. I then copied and pasted just the tunnel and lower lair to a new vertex object. I did some tests of replicating some plants on the village flats, but want to mak more appropriate plants. I intend to have an animation, but may end up having a sequence of stills like a graphic novel or comic.

Bottom line - I should be able to have a Carrara terrain model for distance establishment shots and matching vertex models for more detailed close ups.

Excellent workflow on the terrain & cave, keeping an eye out for this one !!!

Bunyip02 · August 2022

Diomede said:

And here is an update to the dragon helm of dor lomin (from Tolkien's Silmarillion, Turin Turumbar). Details added to the head and added leg attachments. Still no access to pen tablet for sculpting so will stick with Carrara modeling. Also want to add the sword Gurthang, which is used to kill the dragon Glaurung.

Looking good !!!

Bunyip02 · August 2022

Syezza said:

Was expecting a missing post render, maybe with a dragonfly sitting on the top of the post !!!

Grimmvald · August 2022

Late to the game here but I decided I could create an object to a scene I'm working on that might fit this challenge. The whole project is a how-to learning thing.

The true test of any warrior is to single-handedly slay a dragon and construct a shield covered in the hide. So I took the flat pattern of a Fantasy Shield, replaced the pattern of shield face with some kind of a lizard skin texture and displacement map from FilterForge I'm not sure what kind of a dragon it was but I'm sure it was mean and gnarly. When fashioned into a shield it is impervious to both Dragon Fire and that nasty green stuff from GoT.

Cut out the heraldic emblem from the origiinal and reapplied it to the lizard skin. Then put the texture map on the shield along with the displacement map. This was the first time I've used a displacement map. The 3d version has some workmanship issues but is probably acceptable.

I'm a little skeptical of the whole knight slaying a dragon thing, but at any rate this is the shield of Agnborg the Scarred. She can now take her rightful place with both the other members of the Order of the Dragon: Bjarkan the One-Eyed and Erling the Leaning.

Now I'll see if I can get the other parts of the scene put together before the challenge deadline.

(sorry for any typos but the cat is napping in my work space and you don't poke a sleeping dragon or cat...}

ed3D · August 2022

~ And Then ~

guess , ought to put-in part of these , Before time runs out Title : No Dragons or Ain't No Dragons

Headwax · August 2022

DesertDude said:

Okay, will extend the Challenge by another two weeks. On Saturday I'll adjust the dates shown at the start of the Challenge.
Still waiting on the early workers to show up - hope they do !!!

Thanks Bunyip02, I have fallen way behind. I had a certain lighting mood in my mind and it's been a challenge to capture.
Meanwhile, I made a chest of drawers (still missing the drawer handles...), a lamp and started a bed. The dragon is not posed at all how I want at the moment.

Lots of fantastic looking new work, I will be back tomorrow to comment.

wow your work is so kid's illustration like - am jealous

Headwax · August 2022

Diomede said:

And here is an update to the dragon helm of dor lomin (from Tolkien's Silmarillion, Turin Turumbar). Details added to the head and added leg attachments. Still no access to pen tablet for sculpting so will stick with Carrara modeling. Also want to add the sword Gurthang, which is used to kill the dragon Glaurung.

love your work Ted, a mesh master you are :)

Headwax · August 2022

Bunyip02 said:

Headwax said:

UnifiedBrain said:

Headwax said:

here's two I worked on last week and yesterday - not happy with either

First one I decided to make a dragon vase so I took Dragonfolk into 3d builder and for some reason did a boolean using a cut sphere then brought it back into Carrara and hit it with random metallic shaders

rendered with HDR and caustic, the patterned backgroind is from AgeOfArmour's tremendous art studio, you can also see it in the reflections as well

The adulterated one

Bunyip's comment about the tails was spot on. Also, the red reflection is overpowering the sculpture. Maybe get rid of the red?

Whatever, it is a very cool idea that is close to being fully realized.

thanks for that - yes I kind of lost my way - and ran out of time as well! If I get a chance I will revisit!

Definately an interesting sculpture !!!!

thank you :)

Headwax · August 2022

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Richard Haseltine said:

UnifiedBrain said:

It appears that my render was deleted? Or, was it a glitch?

I did not receive a moderator notification.

One was sent - it was the gesture that was the issue.

I had a co-worker who made that gesture, I assumed being a professional she meant , just one minute

@UnifiedBrain - a lot of it is cultural misunderstanding - I once did an animation called "Suepr Coolie" not knowing that in parts of the world that Coolie is an insulting word. I also told a Croatian/Serbian woman that her earings were beautiful, and that they "made her look like a Gypsy".

She took them off and threw them across the room and swore that should would never wear them again......

Hand Gestures With More Than One Meaning (tripsavvy.com)

Headwax · August 2022

ed3D said:

~ And Then ~

guess , ought to put-in part of these , Before time runs out Title : No Dragons or Ain't No Dragons

who needs dragons when you have beautiful women and flying saucers?

Bunyip02 · August 2022

Grimmvald said:

Late to the game here but I decided I could create an object to a scene I'm working on that might fit this challenge. The whole project is a how-to learning thing.

The true test of any warrior is to single-handedly slay a dragon and construct a shield covered in the hide. So I took the flat pattern of a Fantasy Shield, replaced the pattern of shield face with some kind of a lizard skin texture and displacement map from FilterForge I'm not sure what kind of a dragon it was but I'm sure it was mean and gnarly. When fashioned into a shield it is impervious to both Dragon Fire and that nasty green stuff from GoT.

Cut out the heraldic emblem from the origiinal and reapplied it to the lizard skin. Then put the texture map on the shield along with the displacement map. This was the first time I've used a displacement map. The 3d version has some workmanship issues but is probably acceptable.

I'm a little skeptical of the whole knight slaying a dragon thing, but at any rate this is the shield of Agnborg the Scarred. She can now take her rightful place with both the other members of the Order of the Dragon: Bjarkan the One-Eyed and Erling the Leaning.

Now I'll see if I can get the other parts of the scene put together before the challenge deadline.

(sorry for any typos but the cat is napping in my work space and you don't poke a sleeping dragon or cat...}

Welcome to the fun ! Nice workflow !!!

Challenges were initially set up as a place to learn new things about Carrara, so feel free to experiment.

3rd Setember is the new deadline.

Bunyip02 · August 2022

ed3D said:

~ And Then ~

guess , ought to put-in part of these , Before time runs out Title : No Dragons or Ain't No Dragons

Very cool !!!

ed3D · August 2022

Headwax said :
who needs dragons when you have beautiful women and flying saucers?

- -
Bunyip02 said :
Very cool !!!

~.~ Thanx very much -

Stezza · August 2022

Dragon Broadband

using the interwebs highway with speed to burn

modelled the modem & cables, dragon and clippy and created the texture for the modem in PSE2022

Bunyip02 · August 2022

Syezza said:

Dragon Broadband

using the interwebs highway with speed to burn

modelled the modem & cables, dragon and clippy and created the texture for the modem in PSE2022

Awesome !!!

Bunyip02 · August 2022

Just for Fun - Not an Entry

Water Dragon

Raw Render

Postwork - Topaz Adjust - Simplify - BuzSim filter

Final Image

ed3D · August 2022

So , how does "one" have all these Plants like bushes , flowrs , grass and such _ where these from ??

- have'nt seen any extras sets in Shop , like there is for Bryce example : Xfrog Packs

or have just over-look them - Thanx

WendyLuvsCatz · August 2022

I saved a lot of mine from Howie Farke's sets

sadly many others have been culled by DAZ

PhilW and TangoAlpha have some in their sets

Diomede · August 2022

ed3D said:

So , how does "one" have all these Plants like bushes , flowrs , grass and such _ where these from ??

- have'nt seen any extras sets in Shop , like there is for Bryce example : Xfrog Packs

or have just over-look them - Thanx

Like Wendy, I have quite a few plants from when the daz store carried Carrara environment sets by Dartanbeck, Mike Moir, etc. In addition, most trees and plants for Poser or Daz Studio will work in Carrara as typical props. Usual issues of shaders apply. Beware of content that relies on Daz instancing.

I posted half a dozen of my Carrara plants at ShareCG. For installation, note whether the plant is in Carrara format or I converted to DUF. The most recent one or two are DUF. ShareCG - diomede's Gallery

Diomede · August 2022

Thanks everybody for the comments and suggestions. Much appreciated.

Love the water dragon, Bunyip. Thanks for the workflow.

Oyez, oyez, oyez, Syezza! The gret Reset is upon us. Just unplug the electricity and plug back in if anything goes wrong.

Ed3D, I always suspected that aliens were responsible! Good one.

Grimmvald, excellent shield. Great minds think alike. I was partly inspired by the 80s movie Dragonslayer, in which the heroine collects dragon scales to make a shield for the hero.

Sorry for not going back further. Great to see more stuff than I have time to comment upon for now.

Diomede · August 2022

So much more to do, but I made some more progress on my environment and terrain. I exported the terrain map that resulted after my erosion filter, etc described above. I used an image editor to draw opacity maps for a trail, replicators,etc. I then creatd a new shader for the terrain and used the complex shader - layer list. Here I have used the opacity maps to create the path to the village and tower keep. At the moment,I just have some placeholder huts and primitives for the tower. The hero, heroine, and dragon are included for scale. May make the dragon bigger. Undecided. After i add replicated crops, etc and substitute improved buildings, I plan to do a few 360 renders to be placed in the background so that the full scene does not have to be rendered for each animation frame. Test scene setup without plants, and screengrab of opacity maps attached. I hope to have an opening fly through or similar.

Grimmvald · August 2022

@Ed3d do a search for Lisa's Botanical models. I think some are still available as Poser content. think the basic plants are obj's. The textures can be copied and the colors changed to give variety to the scene. I still have a lot in my library but I've yet to download any as I just haven't got that far. They worked in Carrara 8, Mine are from 12 - 14 years ago.

Also if you post work any Rons Brushes have a variety of plants. Maybe not the best foreground objects but really good for mid and far range objects.

@Bunyip03, Diomede the encouragement is appreciated

ed3D · August 2022

WendyLuvsCatz & Diomede & Grimmvald

~.~ Thanx very much then >

ed3D · August 2022

~.~ And Then - the Up Tree

Bunyip02 · August 2022

ed3D said:

So , how does "one" have all these Plants like bushes , flowrs , grass and such _ where these from ??

- have'nt seen any extras sets in Shop , like there is for Bryce example : Xfrog Packs

or have just over-look them - Thanx

As has been said, vegetation from the Carrara made scenes is very useful. I exported my Bryce Xfrog packs as obj and imported them into Carrara. I also had a number of Xfrog freebies that I imported into Carrara.