January 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Composition

daybird · January 2017

yhzmurphy said:

More evolution inside the bottle. Now that I'm not afraid of moving the camera or objects, I've changed the camera angle, and added another character to create some interaction.

This is hilarious and a genial evolution. It gives the whole situation a great and crazy background.

Xangth · January 2017

Hi all, I added a few more elements to this and here is my next render on the project; I used all the last suggestions that everone gave me. I shrank the fox model, added a spot light and used FOV on the render and moved the camara and fox model position.

Winter Fox

daybird · January 2017

just2u said:

glad to have the expert's eyes on this, here's what i adjusted:

Poor boy, I see clearly what's coming. *gg*

I found Shortcuts suggestion something difficult to implement, without take away the sense in the scene, but you have it genuinely solved and the head cinema are immediately in motion.

IceDragonArt · January 2017

just2u said:

@Ice Dragon Art thanks for the tip!

Your welcome!

IceDragonArt · January 2017

just2u said:

Shortcut said:

just2u said:

a humble work of mine, just trying to catch up with everyone!

Title: Someone In Trouble

Software: Daz 4.9 / Iray

Sometimes showing less can say more … (see attached). Not suggesting that you should crop exactly like that, but experiment with alternative points of view that don’t necessarily ‘show everything’. Hands can be as expressive as faces with the right pose and context. The look of horror alone on the guy’s face says it all about what he might be confronting…

If you’re going for the whole lot, then firstly female figure in your scene needs to be corrected. She is floating and her feet need to be touching the floor. Nice lighting from the window gives it a homey feel, but there is a problem in the female figure’s trousers. In portrait photography with standing poses there needs to be some separation between the legs. You’ve achieved it on him with lighting and fair skin, but her lower half is more like a shapeless dark mass. This can be done by changing the pose slightly, with one leg forward perhaps, which would also help accentuate the aggressive challenge of the female figure. As it is right now the two figures are both very strongly linear and upright and divide the scene into equal thirds. It’s very static and side-on so I would suggest adding some angles in her pose, as well as to the camera position to give it dynamic. Consider the point of view. Over his shoulder or over hers? Experiment with positioning your figures too. Perhaps he is sitting on the bed while she confronts him? By accentuating her height above and relative to his you can highlight her feelings of anger and power, or from his point of view how terrifying she is.

Keep at it!

glad to have the expert's eyes on this, here's what i adjusted:

The expression on his face is priceless. Give s

daybird said:

yhzmurphy said:

More evolution inside the bottle. Now that I'm not afraid of moving the camera or objects, I've changed the camera angle, and added another character to create some interaction.

This is hilarious and a genial evolution. It gives the whole situation a great and crazy background.

I LOVE this! Very well done.

IceDragonArt · January 2017

Xangth said:

Hi all, I added a few more elements to this and here is my next render on the project; I used all the last suggestions that everone gave me. I shrank the fox model, added a spot light and used FOV on the render and moved the camara and fox model position.

Winter Fox

This is much better! Now the beautiful fox is the focus of the render and everything flows much better.

barbult · January 2017

dstuffle said:

I've tried to take everyone's advice (and thank you all for giving it to me), and I think my scene is stronger for it (I could, of course, be wrong).

I moved the clock forward by 5 - 15 seconds, the shootee is now down in the dirt, the horse is now looking at the shooter (as far as its reins will let it, being tied to the hitching post and all), and the smoke is just a trickle rising from the six-shooter (not the massive rolling blast).

Please let me know what you think about this (hopefully final) draft.

Yes! This is looking very nice. It has a good story to it. You really listened to comments and made some good improvements.

Knittingmommy · January 2017

TheFaxMisher said:

I've got a wip I'm working at entering, and I'm posting the current iterations for some suggestions. My goal was to portray a member of the crew of a deep space ship, barely hanging on to the outside of the ship. With the back drop being the inky black infinite vacuum of deep space, I wanted to highlight the peril the member would be in if she were to slip or let go.

I kit bashed a couple of space suits, and usd the Antares as the ship, with a stardome to set the background scene. I spent most of my time on the suit, (still very basic texturing and shading), a large amount of time trying different camera shots, and another fair amount of time posing the figure to convey the gravity of the situation (no pun intended.)

I need help with suggestions for materials for the suit, and suggestions for lighting, as well as anything else you might spot that could be improved.

I've got 6 or so different shots of the scene, and I haven't yet had the time to make a selection for which shot(s) ot move forward with, so I could use some critique there as well. Thanks ahead of time!

I really like the camera angle and the composition of the last one with that closeup. I'm not familiar with that suit, but does the visor have a clear option so you could maybe do something with the expresion on the figure inside? Even as is, it's a great start.

dstuffle said:

I've tried to take everyone's advice (and thank you all for giving it to me), and I think my scene is stronger for it (I could, of course, be wrong).

I moved the clock forward by 5 - 15 seconds, the shootee is now down in the dirt, the horse is now looking at the shooter (as far as its reins will let it, being tied to the hitching post and all), and the smoke is just a trickle rising from the six-shooter (not the massive rolling blast).

Please let me know what you think about this (hopefully final) draft.

Looks great! I love the changes you implemented.

daybird said:

Last entry for this month. I lighten up the scene and put a few more things in her. Not sure if it's a impovement, but time runs out and I think I have put enough time in this image.

Looks good.

yhzmurphy said:

More evolution inside the bottle. Now that I'm not afraid of moving the camera or objects, I've changed the camera angle, and added another character to create some interaction.

I really like the addtion of the extra character with a ship in a bottle! :)

just2u said:

Shortcut said:

just2u said:

a humble work of mine, just trying to catch up with everyone!

Title: Someone In Trouble

Software: Daz 4.9 / Iray

Sometimes showing less can say more … (see attached). Not suggesting that you should crop exactly like that, but experiment with alternative points of view that don’t necessarily ‘show everything’. Hands can be as expressive as faces with the right pose and context. The look of horror alone on the guy’s face says it all about what he might be confronting…

If you’re going for the whole lot, then firstly female figure in your scene needs to be corrected. She is floating and her feet need to be touching the floor. Nice lighting from the window gives it a homey feel, but there is a problem in the female figure’s trousers. In portrait photography with standing poses there needs to be some separation between the legs. You’ve achieved it on him with lighting and fair skin, but her lower half is more like a shapeless dark mass. This can be done by changing the pose slightly, with one leg forward perhaps, which would also help accentuate the aggressive challenge of the female figure. As it is right now the two figures are both very strongly linear and upright and divide the scene into equal thirds. It’s very static and side-on so I would suggest adding some angles in her pose, as well as to the camera position to give it dynamic. Consider the point of view. Over his shoulder or over hers? Experiment with positioning your figures too. Perhaps he is sitting on the bed while she confronts him? By accentuating her height above and relative to his you can highlight her feelings of anger and power, or from his point of view how terrifying she is.

Keep at it!

glad to have the expert's eyes on this, here's what i adjusted:

I love the changes you made. It very dynamic and I love his expression, too!

Xangth said:

Hi all, I added a few more elements to this and here is my next render on the project; I used all the last suggestions that everone gave me. I shrank the fox model, added a spot light and used FOV on the render and moved the camara and fox model position.

Winter Fox

I love this! It looks so much better with all of the changes you made.

IceDragonArt · January 2017

daybird said:

Last entry for this month. I lighten up the scene and put a few more things in her. Not sure if it's a impovement, but time runs out and I think I have put enough time in this image.

Missed this the last time I scrolled through. The extra bits and pieces make it more realistic. I think you did some great improvements and you did a good job at taking our suggestions to improve things while still staying true to your own vision.

Knittingmommy · January 2017

So, I made some changes to my singer image. Thanks for the advice from @Shortcut and @Evilded777. I got some advice from @FirstBastion, too. Turns out it was more of a skin problem than lighting. I fiddled with some of the skin surface settings and it worked out pretty well. I was able to up the lights back up to get the slightly sharper shadowing that I liked when I started. I axed some of the smoke and didn't add any in post. What little bit of smoke there is in the original render.

Here is both the original render:

And, the one I did some post to:

Any advice for improvement would be appreciated. I'm not completely sure I'm happy with the postwork. I still have a lot to learn there.

edit: forgot some of those '@' signs. :(

IceDragonArt · January 2017

Knittingmommy said:

So, I made some changes to my singer image. Thanks for the advice from Shortcut and Evilded777. I got some advice from @FirstBastion, too. Turns out it was more of a skin problem than lighting. I fiddled with some of the skin surface settings and it worked out pretty well. I was able to up the lights back up to get the slightly sharper shadowing that I liked when I started. I axed some of the smoke and didn't add any in post. What little bit of smoke there is in the original render.

Here is both the original render:

And, the one I did some post to:

Any advice for improvement would be appreciated.

Much better on the skin for sure. And i like the way you cropped it without the mike stand in in. The only thing that's really grabbing my attention is the sharp shadow on his face. His jaw is much lighter than the rest his skin (I know its a shadow and I don't know that you could fix it in Daz, maybe in post work instead) I'm not saying get rid of it entirely but maybe you can go into gimp and blend it so its not quite such a stark line. The sharper shadows look great everywhere else and I don't know that you need to do anything else. I think it looks great.

Knittingmommy · January 2017

Ice Dragon Art said:

Knittingmommy said:

So, I made some changes to my singer image. Thanks for the advice from Shortcut and Evilded777. I got some advice from @FirstBastion, too. Turns out it was more of a skin problem than lighting. I fiddled with some of the skin surface settings and it worked out pretty well. I was able to up the lights back up to get the slightly sharper shadowing that I liked when I started. I axed some of the smoke and didn't add any in post. What little bit of smoke there is in the original render.

Here is both the original render:

And, the one I did some post to:

Any advice for improvement would be appreciated.

Much better on the skin for sure. And i like the way you cropped it without the mike stand in in. The only thing that's really grabbing my attention is the sharp shadow on his face. His jaw is much lighter than the rest his skin (I know its a shadow and I don't know that you could fix it in Daz, maybe in post work instead) I'm not saying get rid of it entirely but maybe you can go into gimp and blend it so its not quite such a stark line. The sharper shadows look great everywhere else and I don't know that you need to do anything else. I think it looks great.

Thanks for the feedback. I liked the sharp shadow on the face. Maybe it's just me. I don't know. I've made way too many test renders of this image! Aargh!!!

barbult · January 2017

Knittingmommy, I prefer the version without postwork.

Knittingmommy · January 2017

barbult said:

Knittingmommy, I prefer the version without postwork.

It figures! I think I kind of new that I over did the postwork some. Such a fine line sometimes that's easy to cross over into territory I shouldn't have gone to. :)

barbult · January 2017

Knittingmommy said:

barbult said:

Knittingmommy, I prefer the version without postwork.

It figures! I think I kind of new that I over did the postwork some. Such a fine line sometimes that's easy to cross over into territory I shouldn't have gone to. :)

It's mainly the freckles on the arms. In the postwork, it looks like bloody sores to me, and that was a turn off.

Shortcut · January 2017

Balck and White portrait of a woodland elf amongst leaves. I’m attaching my final submission with this post. I tidied up a few little niggling blemishes and things in PS, but no major changes. There is more I could improve technically, such as perhaps bringing out a little more detail in her hair, but there has to be a point when you say that your image is done and you’ve achieved your aim or you could go on potentially forever tweaking things.

I set out to capture a gentle expression from a beautiful, tranquil face looking out from amongst the leaves, a character empowered by immersion in her natural environment. I hope you also get that feeling from her gaze? I think I got close to it with the first render, and there wasn’t a lot of progression in composition from then on as I had a clear idea of how I wanted it to look. There was some revision to do with surfaces and odd highlights on the lips, and I added a leaf to balance a bright area, but not a lot else.

However, I spent many hours positioning the hands and fingers just so, experimenting with her expression, and adjusting the camera, its settings, and DOF before I decided on that render. Lighting was a simple three-point set-up and there was some fiddling to balance it. The original render is a bit dark and muddy compared to the final (both attached below) but I wanted to create a soft glow on her skin with postwork, so having it a little dark reduced the risk of making the highlights pure white during that stage. Not only the eye, which leads with a golden spiral, but the hands were an important part of the composition. While probably obscure, especially in the context of only one picture, the image references the fairy tale of the silver handed maiden, of which there are many variations – hence the importance of her hands.

I’m very glad I joined in with this thread and I hope people got something from my commentary on their own work! I’ve learnt a few things as well!

Software used: Render in DAZ 4.9 with Iray, postwork in Photoshop CS6

Title: Woodland Elf

Shortcut · January 2017

just2u said:

@just2u

That’s so much better! You’ve improved the whole dynamic of the image by just changing a few positions and poses. Love the look on his face, and it makes you wonder exactly what he’s in trouble for…could be a lot of things :-p

Shortcut · January 2017

daybird said:

Last entry for this month. I lighten up the scene and put a few more things in her. Not sure if it's a impovement, but time runs out and I think I have put enough time in this image.

@daybird

You’ve made great improvements, I think! You can see her a lot more clearly now and there are even things going on in that dark corner at top left which add a lot to the story. I know you feel that you’ve struggled, but you’ve done good work and made a lot of steps in improving the final shot! Lighting a dark or low-key scene is a lot more difficult than a light one as important details can be easily lost in pure black shadows.

Shortcut · January 2017

yhzmurphy said:

More evolution inside the bottle. Now that I'm not afraid of moving the camera or objects, I've changed the camera angle, and added another character to create some interaction.

@yzmurphy

(-: This has an endearing quirkiness and you’ve brought it to another level by adding yet another layer of playing with scale. I wonder if there’s another tiny little figure in there looking out?

Shortcut · January 2017

Knittingmommy said:

So, I made some changes to my singer image. Thanks for the advice from @Shortcut and @Evilded777. I got some advice from @FirstBastion, too. Turns out it was more of a skin problem than lighting. I fiddled with some of the skin surface settings and it worked out pretty well. I was able to up the lights back up to get the slightly sharper shadowing that I liked when I started. I axed some of the smoke and didn't add any in post. What little bit of smoke there is in the original render.

Here is both the original render:

And, the one I did some post to:

Any advice for improvement would be appreciated. I'm not completely sure I'm happy with the postwork. I still have a lot to learn there.

edit: forgot some of those '@' signs. :(

@knittingmommy

I think the composition is now working better for you. Agree with the other comment about the postwork. You’ve taken it a bit far with the high contrast and the freckles do look like sores. It’s distracting more than enhancing. Perhaps more dramatic lighting within the scene could change the feel of the image for you? Given the context, maybe a bright blue light from one direction over the background, and a red spot immersing the figure? More smoke even?

I don’t think you’ve crossed into territory where you shouldn’t have gone. Knowing when to stop is often a good question, but with postwork it is usually better to go a bit under than over, especially if you don’t feel confident about what you are doing. Aim for somewhere in between the two versions you’ve posted. You’ve lost a lot of detail in your shadows and even lost some separation between the figure’s head and the background because you’ve adjusted the contrast up very high. Somewhere in between might be closer to what you were trying to achieve.

What postwork editor are you using?

Shortcut · January 2017

dstuffle said:

I've tried to take everyone's advice (and thank you all for giving it to me), and I think my scene is stronger for it (I could, of course, be wrong).

I moved the clock forward by 5 - 15 seconds, the shootee is now down in the dirt, the horse is now looking at the shooter (as far as its reins will let it, being tied to the hitching post and all), and the smoke is just a trickle rising from the six-shooter (not the massive rolling blast).

Please let me know what you think about this (hopefully final) draft.

@dstuffle

You’ve done well with changes to your image and taking people’s advice on board. I love the sepia/brown look that gives it a grittier/old world feel in keeping with the theme. Two things I would like to suggest – the first perhaps being to move the dead person in slightly so that his hand isn’t outside the frame. It’s a small thing, but it can be a little distracting as if the picture had been cropped in the wrong place. The second is perhaps consider adding a subtle vignette. The scene is very bright and a vignette can help by framing your scene and keeping the viewer’s eye inside. Not everyone will agree with vignettes, and there are a lot of different ways of doing them, but it can help a lot in directing people's attention to your image.

Shortcut · January 2017

Xangth said:

Hi all, I added a few more elements to this and here is my next render on the project; I used all the last suggestions that everone gave me. I shrank the fox model, added a spot light and used FOV on the render and moved the camara and fox model position.

Winter Fox

@Xangth

I like that you chose to make a portrait of the fox by having it gaze at the camera :-) It’s not a strict requirement to have your subject’s eyes towards the camera for a portrait, but with an animal it can especially bring out the creature’s personality rather than simply portray it as wildlife. If you enjoy this kind of portrait check out the photographer Nick Brandt for some inspirational animal portraiture.

Kismet2012 · January 2017

Everyone has done such an amazing job this month. All the images have progressed, some in surprising ways, some more subtle but all the changes have improved the image and the story each one tells.

Great job.

yhzmurphy · January 2017

Well, my PC has been acting up so no last minute update...Although I was torn with either zooming in and adding people in the new smaller bottle, or pulling back and putting the whole scene is a miniature display case with a large hand adding items...or maybe just let it stay as is.

The new Challenge format was really fun and amazing to watch the progress and changes across such a wide vareity of styles and themes. They're all so amazing. I personally felt less focused on creating an 'entry' and able to relax and participate a bit more, and a bit more 'community' than 'competition', so I guess the format change worked for me. Thank-you everyone for the comments and encouragement along the way.

Scrolling through the pages and seeing the feedback and changes people made, then more feedback and changes is really cool. It's too bad the forum didn't have a way to navigate by image thread within it...that would be interesting to go back to, like a series of mini-tutorials.

Gilles Proust · January 2017

Hi !

My 3rd scene, i wanted to do a scene with a car.

daybird · January 2017

This was a very interesting month for me. I learnt a few things about light and to work with texturing.I also had some frustrating moments when things wont work like I wish they should do.

It's also cool to see the workflow from other members. Some, like shortcut post one picture and it looks perfekt from the first moment and then, there are entries like the work from yhzmurphy.
First it was a Render that looks quite ok but not outstanding and than with each step he has made, I found the picture better and better, till he make his genius strike and implied the guy with the ship in the bottel.
This are moments where I enjoy it so much, that I have enterd this thread. It's very inspirating and I learn so much just by read the commends and the advices from the people. THX a lot to all the people, wich put a lot from their free time in this thread, to help us
So, enough from my horrible english and good luck to all.

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January 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Composition

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