Carrara Non Photo Realistic Works

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    That's exactly what happened to me. But I shouldn't have let it. I'll try to not get impatient this time.

    Shoestring has also been on my wish list as well - for a long time. Holly got me into wanting that years ago! LOL Those numbers are (such a bummer) such a slight bit over what I get as a spending budget, that I never get them. I need to change that too! LOL

    I have some things by Fenric - when you mention proximity, it reminds me of one of his that I have. 

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 7,757

    shouldn't you be memorizing your speech?

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921

    there's a neat double sided shader he has - i wonder how that could be put to weird uses using transparency on one side and a glow on the other - must look at that one too ;)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Oh right! 

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    Stezza said:

    shouldn't you be memorizing your speech?

    Dart won't need to - he can adlib :)

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Oh... I thought he (Stezza) was talking to you (HW) and that it was something that went over my head. But no... the Wedding! Yeah... I'm a living speech! LOL

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Also as an FYI... Eric W has some articles in this cool Carrara e-zine collection - among many others (cool magazine!):

    3DXTRACT E-Zine thread, here in the forums (with link to download the complete collection)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921

    thanks Dart, I love going through those,

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Me too!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited May 2017

    Another Carrara render pass mixup, this time using the Photon Map as well - and Topaz plugins

    Photon Map (first image)  attached for reference.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    closehigherarmlphotonmap.jpg
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    deathofbosun3.jpg
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    yesR.jpg
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    Post edited by Headwax on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    I really like all of them! The middle one being my fave, and it also has a very NC Wyeth look to it. Did you do that for me? (just say "yes" so I can start dancing;)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    I have to go bust me arse with fricken wedding stuff until it's all over tomorrow night, when I'll get to grab my totally awesome Grandchildren and shuttle them to the hotel and Disney out with them until I pass out! So I'll see you sometime after all of that ;)

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 7,757

    My son and his new bride are on their way to our place for a visit this weekend... haven't seen them since the wedding.. it's a 1,000km trip...

     

    enjoy your weekend and wedding ... good luck to all :-)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103
    Stezza said:

    My son and his new bride are on their way to our place for a visit this weekend... haven't seen them since the wedding.. it's a 1,000km trip...

     

    enjoy your weekend and wedding ... good luck to all :-)

    Thank you! :)  And I'm glad for you! I get overjoyed anytime I get a chance to be with my kids... and they live fairly close. Busy lives make visits difficult some times. I do get to have a slumber party with my Grandchildren almost every week though... I love that! 

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited May 2017

     

     

    I really like all of them! The middle one being my fave, and it also has a very NC Wyeth look to it. Did you do that for me? (just say "yes" so I can start dancing;)

    Hey Dart thanks, Wyeth yes but of course. !!

    I've always admired Pirate paintings by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Pyle but one day I discovered a lot of them were Wyeth (evilproducer could have told me!

    And Andrew Wyeth - I never realised they were related.

    But seriously, I promised myself I would sit and study Pyle and Wyeth (and the Red Rose girls - Pyle's students) but I always get carried away in the middle of it and rush off to do a render because I want to make my own images.

    Looking forward to getting better with VWD because when you look at many famous illustrators they have so much joy in making the folds of their fabric. I've failed so far with blowing capes because they always look like alien artifacts strangely attached to the neck

    and also trying VWD's hair sim - to get that windy look

     

     

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921

     

    C arrara render passes worked up in Topaz Simplify and Impression. Used a little bit of Photon render as well.

    Also attached prepost image

     

     

     

     

    beforepowt-1.jpg
    1200 x 966 - 762K
  • UnifiedBrainUnifiedBrain Posts: 3,588

    Another rich an interesting render, Andrew!  And as always, thanks for including the original render, which looked pretty darn good, and would have looked even better with a little more care in Carrara (but I know that wasn't your intent).

     

    A quick question.  All this Topaz stuff has me questioning if I should get PSE.  I can pick up PSE 8 for a song.  Is it too old?

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    A quick question.  All this Topaz stuff has me questioning if I should get PSE.  I can pick up PSE 8 for a song.  Is it too old?

    Very vague question. PSE didn't fit my needs when I went looking, because it lacked the ability to work with HDMI, which I was very interested in in a Photo app. I couldn't find anything in the promos, so I actually contacted Adobe.

    I can't seem to find a list of supported photo editors that Topaz labs products work with - it says PhotoShop, LightRoom, and Many other popular photo editors... so I'm sure that PSE is supported. PSE 8? Not sure.

    I wonder if they work with PaintShop Pro? I bought that over PSE due to it having HDMI and many other features that PSE was lacking. Still... I find myself doing most of my image editing a more painterly way in Project Dogwaffle. Hmmm... I should ask Dan Ritchie if Topaz works with Dogwaffle! ;)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited May 2017

    Another rich an interesting render, Andrew!  And as always, thanks for including the original render, which looked pretty darn good, and would have looked even better with a little more care in Carrara (but I know that wasn't your intent).

     

    A quick question.  All this Topaz stuff has me questioning if I should get PSE.  I can pick up PSE 8 for a song.  Is it too old?

    Thanks UB , I was starting to wonder if there is much interest in this in the carrara community after all? ;) 

    hi , I have pse 9 and 12  ? But I still use 7 because I know my way around. It works well with topaz filters I have (simplify and impression) 

    Best way to use them is subtly, but building one upon t'other to get a final result. From watching others it seems there is a want for a one click make art button ... so far I haven't found it. 

    The before image is just the beauty pass. There is much more info in eg the diffuse, the shadow, the reflection and the colour pass ... also depth and index amongst others. Plus info in the photon pass.

    looking forward to see your dogwaffle post work dart :) 

     

     

     

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103
    head wax said:

     

     

    I really like all of them! The middle one being my fave, and it also has a very NC Wyeth look to it. Did you do that for me? (just say "yes" so I can start dancing;)

    Hey Dart thanks, Wyeth yes but of course. !!

    I've always admired Pirate paintings by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Pyle but one day I discovered a lot of them were Wyeth (evilproducer could have told me!

    And Andrew Wyeth - I never realised they were related.

    But seriously, I promised myself I would sit and study Pyle and Wyeth (and the Red Rose girls - Pyle's students) but I always get carried away in the middle of it and rush off to do a render because I want to make my own images.

    Awesome! Yeah, I like to let my image evolve according to my own tatses - but often find my tastes being led by what I've seen by other amazing works of art. Stuff that catches my eye and inspires me. I never try to 'copy' them, but let the inspiration from them guide my targeted lighting, action flow, render settings and then post work.

    I love perusing your online gallery! Your art always moves and inspires me. Again... not to copy you or your style, just to delve off into my pre-3d -  more traditional artform roots.

     

    head wax said:

     

     

    I really like all of them! The middle one being my fave, and it also has a very NC Wyeth look to it. Did you do that for me? (just say "yes" so I can start dancing;)

    Looking forward to getting better with VWD because when you look at many famous illustrators they have so much joy in making the folds of their fabric. I've failed so far with blowing capes because they always look like alien artifacts strangely attached to the neck

    and also trying VWD's hair sim - to get that windy look

    Me too. I've always loved painting flowing movement, even scuplting it in stone - my first alabaster piece was of an (nude) angel flying out of a cloud with a very flowing cloth making it more acceptable for a library showing, but the sculpture was stolen before I ever finished it. I've never found as nice a piece of alabaster since, though I now have several that I just got last year - in the hopes of getting back into it. Alabaster is very nice for sculpting. Soft, and translucent. Very translucent! The piece I mentioned above was going to go onto a base, lit from below to cause the whole thing to glow softly.

    Poser used to have these flowing cloth images for their cover art. It immediately reminded me of the angel I was sculpting. It was a lot like the image on the right, but only one figure, with white flowing fabric.

    And, yeah... I want that with hair too!

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Another rich an interesting render, Andrew!  And as always, thanks for including the original render, which looked pretty darn good.

    Absolutely! I love the original render! I do like your end result better, but the raw render has a wonderful, stark and contrasty look and feel with wonderful reflections... I love them both! 

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103
    head wax said:

    Another rich an interesting render, Andrew!  And as always, thanks for including the original render, which looked pretty darn good, and would have looked even better with a little more care in Carrara (but I know that wasn't your intent).

     

    A quick question.  All this Topaz stuff has me questioning if I should get PSE.  I can pick up PSE 8 for a song.  Is it too old?

    looking forward to see your dogwaffle post work dart :) 

    ...and I look forward to showing it off. You've seen some of it before, but not my actual intention, which is, of course, animation. I've done a lot of experiments that show a lot of promise. 

    To me, using multipass rendering is huge, but even with that, I still go back to good ol' rotoscoping techniques - often even so much that I end up not even using the valuable info I've created during muiltipass. Roto is a lot of fun to me, even though it's considered a huge PITA to most - bing the first major stepping stone task to get into animation crews. I'd love to score that position and just stay there! I can rotoscope all day and night, I think, if I had the time to do so!

  • UnifiedBrainUnifiedBrain Posts: 3,588
    edited May 2017
    head wax said:

    Thanks UB , I was starting to wonder if there is much interest in this in the carrara community after all? ;) 

    After the great examples from you and Artini, how could there not be interest?  What you are doing is too good to ignore.  The problem for me is getting pulled into too many directions at once.  I still want to become at least competent in the modeling room, and to learn animation.  I haven't started either yet.  So forgive me if it takes me a while to get going here (even though I actually purchased PSE 8 today, thanks for the recommendation).  Now that the Challenge is over, there should be more time for learning.

    head wax said:

    Best way to use them is subtly, but building one upon t'other to get a final result. From watching others it seems there is a want for a one click make art button ... so far I haven't found it. 

    Thanks for the advice.  There are some one-click filters (and some look very nice), but that is not what you are doing.  Glad to hear.

    head wax said:

    The before image is just the beauty pass. There is much more info in eg the diffuse, the shadow, the reflection and the colour pass ... also depth and index amongst others. Plus info in the photon pass.

    Ah, that makes it clearer.  I'd like to see the full Carrara version as well, but if it is too much hassle, forget it. 

    Two questions:

    What percentage of your finished work (typically) is the Carrara-generated part?  How much time (percentage) is spent in Carrara vs spent in postwork?  I realize that your answers will probably vary from render to render - just wanting to hear your own subjective idea of some ball-park numbers.

    My experience is that the last 2% of the render - getting it just right - takes about 50% of the total time!

    Post edited by UnifiedBrain on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921

    Another rich an interesting render, Andrew!  And as always, thanks for including the original render, which looked pretty darn good.

    Absolutely! I love the original render! I do like your end result better, but the raw render has a wonderful, stark and contrasty look and feel with wonderful reflections... I love them both! 

    hya thanks dart :) I just google rotoscoping and found a Scanner Darkly - interesting, interesting :)

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921

    A quick question.  All this Topaz stuff has me questioning if I should get PSE.  I can pick up PSE 8 for a song.  Is it too old?

    Very vague question. PSE didn't fit my needs when I went looking, because it lacked the ability to work with HDMI, which I was very interested in in a Photo app. I couldn't find anything in the promos, so I actually contacted Adobe.

    I can't seem to find a list of supported photo editors that Topaz labs products work with - it says PhotoShop, LightRoom, and Many other popular photo editors... so I'm sure that PSE is supported. PSE 8? Not sure.

    I wonder if they work with PaintShop Pro? I bought that over PSE due to it having HDMI and many other features that PSE was lacking. Still... I find myself doing most of my image editing a more painterly way in Project Dogwaffle. Hmmm... I should ask Dan Ritchie if Topaz works with Dogwaffle! ;)

    hi they have trial versions - give them a go !

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited May 2017
    head wax said:

    Thanks UB , I was starting to wonder if there is much interest in this in the carrara community after all? ;) 

    After the great examples from you and Artini, how could there not be interest?  What you are doing is too good to ignore.  The problem for me is getting pulled into too many directions at once.  I still want to become at least competent in the modeling room, and to learn animation.  I haven't started either yet.  So forgive me if it takes me a while to get going here (even though I actually purchased PSE 8 today, thanks for the recommendation).  Now that the Challenge is over, there should be more time for learning.

    head wax said:

    Best way to use them is subtly, but building one upon t'other to get a final result. From watching others it seems there is a want for a one click make art button ... so far I haven't found it. 

    Thanks for the advice.  There are some one-click filters (and some look very nice), but that is not what you are doing.  Glad to hear.

    head wax said:

    The before image is just the beauty pass. There is much more info in eg the diffuse, the shadow, the reflection and the colour pass ... also depth and index amongst others. Plus info in the photon pass.

    Ah, that makes it clearer.  I'd like to see the full Carrara version as well, but if it is too much hassle, forget it. 

    Two questions:

    What percentage of your finished work (typically) is the Carrara-generated part?  How much time (percentage) is spent in Carrara vs spent in postwork?  I realize that your answers will probably vary from render to render - just wanting to hear your own subjective idea of some ball-park numbers.

    My experience is that the last 2% of the render - getting it just right - takes about 50% of the total time!

     

    hi that's great news :)

    the beauty pass is the final carrara pass without postwork - ie the pass you would get without including any render passes (others might call it their postworked photoreal image??? - I dont :) )

     

    for time I mighty spend an hour or tw0 setting up the carrara scene and then more than that doiung the postwork

    :0 cause that's the fun part...

    if I were you and you want to study post work just set up a bunch of characters and work with them (eg like dart does - or pretend you are doing a graphic novel)

     - and concentrate on the render passes and the post work.

    You could even just render out the same scene differently once you have your light set up

    so eg

    -render without shadows,

    -render with 100 percent ambient (oh no!)

    -render with different gamma settings

    -finally render out a well lit scene and tick all the render passes (name the file before you do and render in png and that way the render passes won't be embedded)

     

    this will give you eg an

    1) object and coverage pass - both good for selection masking

    2) a depth mask you can use this with eth screen parameter as a layer to reduce contrast in the distance - or just as a layer mask thing (doesnt work with transmaps)

    3) a diffuse texture layer - use this to lighten areas of your beauty render that are too dark (in ps use screen parameter and change opacity)

     

    the idea is that you look at your beautyu pass and ask why doesnt it look like a hand render?

    usual answer - too much tonal range,

    - too many colours,

    -all linbes are straight,

    -the focal point has the same contrast as everyuwhere else (tonal and colour saturation)

    - no texture to suggest a ground o r brushtrokes

     

    (Overlay parameter is your friend by the way - add texture to a neutral grey layer with this parameter)

    ----------------------------------------------

    Finally reduce the saturation of your image by eg 70 percent and hand paint colour back into it roughly (dont be neat :) ) on a new layer parameter 'colour'

    Look for complementary colours - eg if you have a blue give it a dull orange

    a red - then balance it with dull green

    While painting let some of the original colours (desatureated ones) show through and try and get some modulation (colour variation in one area of the same colour)

     

    I'll post some images soon!

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,026

    HW, thank you, Great info here.

    Hope you don't mind, but I am going to copy this into anther thread so I can find it easily later.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited May 2017

    Here's a couple of images - the 'beauty pass - the toon pro pass - a diffuse pass - and the worked up render.

    I forgot to mention one  way of reducing colour range is by using match pallette command available in some software programs

    The saturation in this is pushed too much for that nice children's book feel ..................................................

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    piraterabbleg_Diffuse.jpg
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    piraterabblegtoonpro.jpg
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    piraterabbleg.jpg
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    piraterabbleg_Diffusereal.jpg
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    Post edited by Headwax on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921

     

    Diomede said:

    HW, thank you, Great info here.

    Hope you don't mind, but I am going to copy this into anther thread so I can find it easily later.

    Hya Diomede, I'm happy and  I'm glad that was of interest :)

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Awesome results!

    So, the black and white line drawing is Toon Pro, DCG?

This discussion has been closed.