Aug 2016 New User Contest "General Render" (WIP-THREAD)
NeilV_1
Posts: 442
New User's Contest - August 2016
Sponsored by DAZ 3D and OrestesGraphics
OrestesGraphics is offering 1 product to each winner in this month's contest.
Are you new to the 3D World? Are you at the beginning stages of learning 3D rendering? Have you been around for a little bit but feel you could benefit from some feedback or instruction? Have you been around awhile and would like to help other members start their creative journey? Well then come and join the fun as we host our newest contest...
"It's all fun and games (until someone loses an eye)"
This contest is a general render contest (based on a having fun) where you should focus on the different aspects of 3D that you have learned so far.For information and help, take a look at in the previous contests that you may have entered. This whole theme is to have some fun with your renders as well as practice the skills that you have been learning over the previous months, so have fun and show us what you can do.
I will be checking in on the WIP thread as will the rest of the Community Volunteers to try and help with anything you may need, so feel free to ask questions.
Don't forget to look at previous themed contests where information and hints are available.
For a list of the current contest rules, please see this thread : Contest Rules.
To enter the contest, please post your completed image to the Entry Thread.
For those veterans of the forums that would like to help, because this contest is designed for the beginner to learn from, we will be randomly selecting posts offering helpful tips and/or critiques to receive a special voucher as well so whether you are a seasoned artist or an aspiring one, there is fun for everyone!
Closing Date: August 31, 2016
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Comments
Here is my first go at morphing G1F with some freebie dials I got from shareCG a bit ago, thought I would finally have the nerve to play around a bit to make new Charactors to come out and play!!!! I will be using her in a complete render by the time the month is out I promise. Just going to work on new charactors first. I Morphed her waist, face, breasts, and hips. Also used 2 different of speed light and Steph 5 skin.
Any and all suggestions are most welcome as I am so totally new to the morphing.
Here is my second attempt at Morphing GM1 this time using the RawDwarf Morphs in Daz morphed his body and face. Using all the same type of ligting (Speed Lighting) I think he turned out ok. Like I said I am going to be using these charactors in the final render :D
Here is another Charactor Glenda Child Dwarf, of corse spun outta RawDwarf Morphs, Speed Lighting done all in Daz no postwork.
Probably too early to commit to an image just yet, but this is what I have at the moment.
I think that the background is a little to washed out maybe if we could see a bit more of what is going on back there it would help tell more of that story you are trying to get across to the viewer. But her pose is real good and his well he is the very unlucky one to tick her off :D
Good point, Saphirewilds. Made a few tweaks.
That is certainly getting much better at telling the story just a bit more on the left side in the background should be the final step in telling the story.
As always, you have interesting characters @Saphirewild . I'm looking forward to see what kind of trouble you will be putting them in.
@tubbyfalls1 Seems someone has lost more than an eye here, but the main character certainly seems to have fun!
Speaking of eyes. Is that horns for eyes?
I don't know what advice I could give, so I'll leave that to the professionals.
The building in the background makes a big difference. In a good way.
@saphirewild I am so glad you were able to find some morphs on Sharecg. Looking good!
I have something cooking but it looks like its going to be at least a couple more hours and its past 3am here. I'm off to bed hoping it turns out the way I want it to lol.
This is an interesting character and scene, but its confusing to me. She looks like she is grinning, which seems a stark contrast to the rest of the image. I didn't even really realize there was a human figure in the foreground until someone else pointed it out. Between the DOF and the lack of prominence in the framing, I completely missed that he was even there.
Its very busy. The DOF leads the eye some, but I think the lighting needs to help it out and isolate those things you want us looking at a little better than it does currently.
Her lack of eyes (?) is unsettling and not in a good way.
Okay, all those things I said I was going to get done last month didn't get done. In my last post last month I said I was happy with the 3du Little Ones, because they morphed well and were "turn key" for making a cute kid. Well I remembered, I've had a really neat modelling project on the back burner because I haven't been able to model a cute kid I'm happy with, from scratch.
Anyhow, this should give an idea where I'm going this month. The bike is a project I've been working on, but it is also modeled from scratch, and hasn't appeared anywhere except in a WIP thread over at blenderartists.org. And ultimately the bike is just a prop.
It's all in Blender Cycles. The hard part of the character rigging is done. The bend and twist bones properly follow thigh and arm mechanism bones, and all correctives morphs are setup with bone transform drivers to properly deform with the armature.
EDIT: HA, HA, HA, it's one of the rules of reality. Just say you're happy with something and reality will mock you. I said I had all the corrective morphs working properly, and by and large they do. But as soon as I looked back at that image I realize her left elbow is doing something wonky. I'll get it sorted. :)
Great job!
Okay I am pretty happy with this. My only issue really is that its taken 23 hours to render to 41%.
I wanted something that was mostly a very stark, sterile environment so that the colors would really stand out. I also wanted the light to be very strong coming in from the window. I originally wanted to use faint godrays but honestly, it increased the render times to the point of not being an option. It slowed my machine down so much I couldn't even browse the internet and since this the only pc in the house that's not happening lol. Its very rare to have anything take more than an hour or so on this machine so I am guessing all the reflective surfaces may be the issue.
@SkpFX
I'm happy if I can get a decent scene together with stuff others have made. Doing the things in the scene from scratch yourself, now that got me really impressed! I'm looking forward to see what you come up with.
I'm just about to finish a render after 2 days and 21 hours, so I feel your pain Sonja! Shiny and reflective surfaces simply isn't for speed renders. I like what you got so far though and you really get the hair to pop out from the rest in the image! Just two thoughts I have. Someone looking into a very bright light usually don't have their eyes wide open, but will be squinting hard to not get blinded. On the other hand, someone that do look straight into a bright light and also seems to be drawn to it, as this girl is, that can put a whole new level of mystery to it. Probably not very helpful, I know...
The other thing is her right foot. It seems to be up in the air. Or perhaps it's just the twist of it that makes a part of it look so?
Ya I noticed the foot about 19 hours in.... lol. I might work on it right before I go to bed Sunday night and get any changes in I need to and let it run until I get off of work on Monday. And ya she has her hand up to shield her eyes a bit but I definitely wanted her to look like she is just so enthralled with what she is seeing that she doesn't really notice much else.
I don't think I could wait 3 days for a render to finish... I'm far too impatient lol.
@Ice Dragon Art
Thanks for the encouraging words. I like yours too. :) Being on Linux I get huge render times in 3Delight and can even get into IRay. I've got an old graphics card that won't take the workload off the CPU, but still Blender just plugs along like a workhorse. The render of the kid I did above took 15 minutes. Whatever I do for a final render will probably take about 4 hours. I also was immediately drawn to her right foot, but can see that her toes are on the ground. I think the problem is how it lines up with the shadow of her left leg. If it was shifted a bit, left or right, it wouldn't look so "floaty".
@isidorn
Thanks. I've got a background in CAD, but little ability at ART. I'm slow, but something like that bike comes pretty easy. But I've been poking at character modeling for a long time, and am generally not happy with my results. :)
Lots to go here. This is the result of one of those rare (for me) flashes where I actually saw the image in my head after creating the first character. Its not quite what I saw, but its probably closer than I have ever gotten.
Interesting use of old prodcuts: bodysuit for David 3 (!) and a texture thats no longer available that I know of; boots from Genesis 1, poses for Mike 4, Michael 6....rather happy with the conglomeration of old cross-figure products.
Thoughts? I'm not entering the contest, just along for the ride.
I like it! The bricks by the superhero/villain are a bit distracting, mostly I think because they line up just enought that the arm leads to the bricks instead of the guy in white. Like the poses LOVE the texture on the suit. Maybe not so neutral an expression on the guy on the ground depending on what the guy in the air is going to be doing.
Okay this is the beginning of an idea that has been in my head for months. This one is in 3Delight but I'm not sure I am going to stay with that or switch to Iray. I still need to add the fire to the altar urn and want to put some godrays in. The girl will be finished in post work for wounds dirt etc. Going to have to use postwork to hide the cloak that is slightly bisecting her arm. The cloak is pretty poseable but I think just the position she is in.
I really like this one and can't even think of anything to improve it composition wise. Technically, you are already more familiar with DAZ Studio and it's capabilities than I to continue to iterate on it in the manner that you choose. Do you want to halftone it to make it look like a comic book or push it towards iRay realism by making eg that suit look like actual 'fire in space'. I will be interested in seeing how you develop this picture. It's classic comic book style.
I am still working on my charactors to put in my scene in which I am also still working on figuring out which background type thing I want to use.
Visually I think there are too many earthtones and if you could change the color of the carved stones to a bluestone or granite or other complementary color it would help the visual interest of the composition.
The thing that jumps out at me... Unless he's got a really long thumb, there's nothing holding her right knee up. Maybe if she was a bit more "relaxed". :)
Thanks folks. Thinking about what was said... I need to alter the camera angle some to help with the composition and those pesky bricks, though the new lighting I think helps that.
As someone that lived as a child in downtown Chicago I liked it better with the more noticable bricks. If you have the right sort of models in your inventory it would be interesting to see the light on the sitting fellow's look as if it was cast from a building window with all the stretching and distorting that could cause the light cast from window shadow outside from that distance. Currently it looks like a spotlight from a police car or helicopter. The flying guy might do with a bit of emissive blue light too if you what to give viewers the impression a police car has pulled up near by.
Ya relaxed seems to be very difficult the torso doesn't want to do what I want it to do. Going to have to expand some parameters or something. I will see if I can get his thumb to show without it actually poking through her leg....
Once I'm done with the lighting, hopefully the overall earthtones won't be so noticible.
Gee, you guys have been busy already!
@SkpFX I'm impressed! I haven't modeled anything that complicated yet. It looks good, though. Looking forward to how you put it together.
Sonja - I like both images. My favorite is the first one. Good thing we get two entries.
@evilded777 You posted the version with the lights before I had a chance to comment on the first. I will say that I love the addition of the lights. They really add to the image nicely. Those old clothes and props look really great. I love seeing what I can do with the older stuff. Sometimes all they need is a little facelift. Nice bodysuit. I don't think I have that one. It has a very cool texture. Overall, I like the image so far. I'm waiting for sparkles or lightening or something dramatic to add to the drama. I have to ask about the dirt on the pants. I'm not sure which pants they are or if you added that or if it was one of the texture options. It doesn't really matter which, but if you are going to keep the dirt which I think is a nice touch, I highly suggest adding some to his shoes, the bottoms, at the very least. They look too new, especially the bottoms of them. It's easy to understand the shirt not being dirty if he just went down, but if he's been walking for any length of time, his shoes would be scuffed up on the bottoms as right now they really stand out. I would scuff up the bottoms even if I ditched the dirt on the pants. Please don't ditch the dirt, though, unless you decide you really want to because I always think dirt adds just a little more realism to an image.
I'm still thinking about mine. I haven't figured out what I'm doing yet so I'm just keeping tabs on the thread until inspiration hits me! Back to work guys! :)
I am personally partial to 3Delight. I think it's a good idea to experiment with both render engines and use one or the other depending on your scene. So I recommend to keep this in 3Delight for a learning experience.
Major Point: Lighting!
You have good ambient lighting, but you need some contrasting shadows to add drama. Decide on the time of day, then bring in a distant light and tone down your ambient so it is not over-saturated - maybe 40% with the distant light at 80%, and then adjust it. Since it's 3Delight, you have to manually set the "sun." For more drama, set the sun behind and to the right, so you get a nice rim light on the right side of the Minotaur's face. This will cast dramatic shadows on their faces. Use the ambient so the shadows aren't too dark.
I would recommend either dawn or pre-sunset. Blend the light color with pale orange from the sun and pale pink from the ambient to give you an nice coral. Also, since the general lighting is reduced, you can contrast it with the glow from the fire. Use a linear pointlight with that and set the shadows to raytraced, and color it pale gold. You will have some interesting shadow dynamics between the long sunset shadows and the firelight shadows.
If the shadows are too harsh, you can set shadow softness on the distant light and the linear point light - between 2 to 20%. The softer the shadows, the more grainy they can appear. To avoid this, on the Render tab / Sampling, you can set the Shadow Samples to a higher value. Keep in mind that this will slow down your render time, so you may wish save this step for later.
Note: I can see the edges of the background picture and it looks very flat. You are probably better off getting rid of it and putting a plain ground texture, maybe stone or something.
Love the angle and the concept. Wonderful expression on the Minotaur, by the way, very believable. The bend on the end of his tail is a bit awkward.
Thanks Dracorn! its funny you should say that about dusk or dawn I have the next version rendering more toward dusk. also added the fire and linear point light to that. Worked a bit on adjusting the pose. I started out using 3Delight but tend toward using Iray for a lot of stuff. I do like 3Delight for some things, and have no intention of giving it up entirely lol. I haven't done much in 3Delight lately and I don't want those skills to get too rusty. What little skills I have that is lol!
I did not know this very useful thank you! And I will work on the ground I have several different ground planes I can use and will play around til I find one I like.
Question: does the second version make it a little more obvious we have a rescue here? Or am I NOT getting the point across?
If not, how can I fix that?
Thinking of maybe having the rescuee reaching out towards the savior... But I think that might be too much.