I'd like to add my East Gate model composition. It's still a WIP, but it's a bit of a monster with 231 lights!
Attached are:-
1. Top of the Watch Tower.
2. A zoom out to see all of "East Gate".
3. Bottom of the Gate. Featuring "The Level 4 Worker Entrance" and the "Toll Booths".
Jeez...in just a few weeks it will be my 6th anniversary in Texas. Oh why can't I find a job that pays as well in Toronto? Or Brisbane.
or NE Wisconsin?
Hehehehehe...fair enough! It would be green at least...but I'd still be cursed with the hassles of work visas. Mind you, one winter later and I'd be b****hing again... :lol:Nah... we'd get a game of D&D going... Sunday morning Bloody Mary sessions, bike down the Ahnapee(sp) Trail, and render 'till the end of time. And then make some more renders. Heck... we should just get a grant that pays us to purchase 3d products and render them... that's what I want to do when I grow up!
Yeah, it is time prohibitive. I'm leaning towards individuals adding their own grass and shrubs. I have a bit of my own library of stuff that I've acquired over the years. Why reinvent the wheel. My goal is a quickly loading scene without a lot of overhead that renders (hopefully) fast.
Well, with that in mind, why don't we just make a nice little patch of field grass and include a few clumps here and there, acording to where the default camera placements will be. Then the end user may move them around, duplicate them, replicate them... however that wonder scene works best for them. I could send you an example, if you'd like ;-)
I really like this scene. I think I might get my hands on a Daz Horse 2 bundle of some sort and see how this place looks with some medieval life scrambling around. Maybe an additional charge for that amazingly complete Low Rez Horse by Predatron. You ever see that thing? It comes all complete in one easy pack - just like his LR people. Alright... I'm gonna say it again: "I really enjoy using Predatron's Low Rez figures!" Have any of you tried any of his LR packs? It's like... Lorenzo comes with morphs and textures to turn him into an Orc, Zombie, Elf, Dwarf... I can't remember all of them - but they look great, too. Maybe we should write him and see if he could make us a pack of Low Res knights and peasants! :)
EvilProducer, man... Sir.. Professor...
This piece is outstanding. Perhaps you should consider just releasing that thing now. You could always keep tweaking on it and release newer versions or expansions that just load in as a group. Just Strain Borming. ;-)
Yeah, it is time prohibitive. I'm leaning towards individuals adding their own grass and shrubs. I have a bit of my own library of stuff that I've acquired over the years. Why reinvent the wheel. My goal is a quickly loading scene without a lot of overhead that renders (hopefully) fast.
Well, with that in mind, why don't we just make a nice little patch of field grass and include a few clumps here and there, acording to where the default camera placements will be. Then the end user may move them around, duplicate them, replicate them... however that wonder scene works best for them. I could send you an example, if you'd like ;-)
I really like this scene. I think I might get my hands on a Daz Horse 2 bundle of some sort and see how this place looks with some medieval life scrambling around. Maybe an additional charge for that amazingly complete Low Rez Horse by Predatron. You ever see that thing? It comes all complete in one easy pack - just like his LR people. Alright... I'm gonna say it again: "I really enjoy using Predatron's Low Rez figures!" Have any of you tried any of his LR packs? It's like... Lorenzo comes with morphs and textures to turn him into an Orc, Zombie, Elf, Dwarf... I can't remember all of them - but they look great, too. Maybe we should write him and see if he could make us a pack of Low Res knights and peasants! :)
EvilProducer, man... Sir.. Professor...
This piece is outstanding. Perhaps you should consider just releasing that thing now. You could always keep tweaking on it and release newer versions or expansions that just load in as a group. Just Strain Borming. ;-)
Dart
My next task which I've been avoiding is writing a new read-me/tutorial. I figured I'd shoot it over to you guys with the final revision of the terrain.
It's funny you should mention horses! I've been setting up a warhorse for the tournament grounds!
I'm sure you have - and I bet it's awesome! That tourney grounds will make some excellent jousting renders come easy! It's already all set up for the games!
Having quite a bit of fun rendering composite style. I can see that I'm going to be able to speed up my animations dramatically! Running avi files as texture maps can be finicky. Lots of finger crossing! :)
I'd like to add my East Gate model composition. It's still a WIP, but it's a bit of a monster with 231 lights!
Attached are:-
1. Top of the Watch Tower.
2. A zoom out to see all of "East Gate".
3. Bottom of the Gate. Featuring "The Level 4 Worker Entrance" and the "Toll Booths".
Cheers!
well that's hot damn fantastic :0 bit of bladerunneresque
Having quite a bit of fun rendering composite style. I can see that I'm going to be able to speed up my animations dramatically! Running avi files as texture maps can be finicky. Lots of finger crossing! :)
Nah... we'd get a game of D&D going... Sunday morning Bloody Mary sessions, bike down the Ahnapee(sp) Trail, and render 'till the end of time. And then make some more renders. Heck... we should just get a grant that pays us to purchase 3d products and render them... that's what I want to do when I grow up!
This would be a heck of a lot more fun than what I usually do. I love that grant idea!
She sure has come a long way over the years. She started off as an incredibly low-poly Neverwinter Nights model. Then I tried making her from the Poser 5 woman. Then I was introduced to V2 and V3 - I think V3 was a free promotion at that time, and Daz Studio beta build 0.7 was available. The V3 version was really good - but didn't look much like Rosie. This V4 version looked a lot like her from the first version I made, but is constantly getting tweaked upon as she is the show. Without her, everyone can just go home! ;-)
This image, that I shot for an example of an explanation, is what convinced me to stop replicating thousands of curls into her hair figures - and go back to using shadows in her hair. The image illustrates the standard V4 model without any morphs applied, but sporting the same shader setup as Rosie. Her hair is the same as Rosie's except without the replicated curls and none of the custom morphs and tweaks I've made to get it more like the real Rosie's hair. The Kimono (Kunoichi - by Anna Benjamin) on V4 is the original with one of the many, included MATs for it. Rosie is wearing the same kimono after I graced it with a scissors and my own cloth shaders.
I'd like to add my East Gate model composition. It's still a WIP, but it's a bit of a monster with 231 lights!
Attached are:-
1. Top of the Watch Tower.
2. A zoom out to see all of "East Gate".
3. Bottom of the Gate. Featuring "The Level 4 Worker Entrance" and the "Toll Booths".
Cheers!
well that's hot damn fantastic :0 bit of bladerunneresque
Thanks man. We are getting there (creating the Blade Runner world).
I'd like to add my East Gate model composition. It's still a WIP, but it's a bit of a monster with 231 lights!
Replying in code:
while Garstor.Jaw.Height != FLOOR {
Garstor.Jaw.Height - 1;
}
That's the Power of Carrara, right there. A lot of patience and a good vision of what you want - and a good understanding of the fact that subtle changes to many of the effects will take you all over the places you want to go, and you'll be doing scenes like this. Right Steve? You can do stuff like this in many of the big modelers - like your LW - but with Carrara, we don't have to build all of our own assets. We can by Stonemason products, Kibarreto, Predatron, etc., who have already taken the liberties of zoning out the models and giving us all the channels we need to make our visions a reality within our short life spans!
Oh... and yeah. I'm still looking for my jaw too. I have to go lay stone. I guess I could do that without my jaw. Dog gone thing bounces into areas under my workstation and I'm just too muscle-strained to go through all of the crouching, right now.
Thanks man. We are getting there (creating the Blade Runner world).
Once it's made then the fun REALLY starts!!
True that!
That's what all of my scene creation is for. Like Sci Fi Funk, here... my real passion is in the animation! :)
Gee Rosie is looking betterer and bettererer
Quite the set of differences, methinks.
Very nice! Did you use AO to get the "inked" look on the figures? I've always been a sucker for that.
Takes me back to my War-games figure painting days as a teen.Nope. That part was Dogwaffle post work. I wouldn't be able to begin to tell you how I did it, since I'm so new to Howler, It's all a bunch of experiments right now :)
I still buy and paint minis on occasion. But the last dozen or so, I've made myself out of sculpting epoxy that gets plasticy hard after it sets up. So I model a bunch in that first hour workable envelop time frame, then carve with knives the more fine details. Most Warhammer 40k buffs even let me use them in tournaments since they look just like GW Eldar. I never even told them that most of my jetbikes, their riders and weapons are all my own carvings! lol
Half the time I can't even tell which I've carved, so I have to pick them up to find out. Mine are many times heavier than GW's plastics. My Swooping Hawks are all bikini-wearing babe Eldar... so you can tell those right from the start! :)
The first idea that popped into my barely-caffeinated brain...wouldn't it be cool to see a series of images/renders of Rosie Over The Years.
I have drives full of them. Many of which I simply cannot share here :)
Rosie wouldn't appreciate me showing those anyways! lol
while Garstor.Jaw.Height != FLOOR {
Garstor.Jaw.Height - 1;
}
Ha ha! That had me literally LoL'ing. (Being a programmer as well you see).
Stonemason
re: Stonemason. He really is the best. There isn't a single scene in the film which doesn't have his work in it somewhere. (Ok I exaggerate but it's almost true).
re: Your Rosie images. I see. Well it works! It really works!
re: Painting. It's all part of the same jigsaw - observing and re-creating.
I'm super lucky to have found Rosie. Well... she's hot, for one.
But she totally doesn't get my passion for D&D and stuff, but she likes what it does to me, so she supports my need to buy a book or a pile of minis now and again, even though I don't actively game. But I still like the books and love the minis. Painting them is really good for me. Sculpting my own is even better - and then painting those is, again, good for me.
Speaking of good for me things, I have to get to my job site and lay a few tons of stone to give Carrara a chance to animate some more clips for me. It takes many seconds to come up with several minutes, you know!
Here's my attempt at adding life to my scene. I did do a little postwork to paint out a collision artifact between one of the knight's feet and his stirrup, but otherwise aside from converting to .jpg, there was no other postwork.
I had tried one of the darker light domes (have both I and II) - The over all effect is good.
But the skin looked like plastic afterwards, which galled it for me after three days of rendering. Not sure what happens to the skin shader (working with Carrara Delphina Skin Shader Settings) but it loses all its details (freckles, stubbles and such) as soon as I use Light Domes or GI.
If anyone has an idea how to kill that awfully smooth looking barbie / ken skin effect with lightdomes or GI, any hint is welcome.
Well, for one... I'd never use a light dome for an indoor render.
Domes are made to simulate the fact that light actually comes from all around you when you're outside - even though the sun remains in a single spot in the sky. This is because the sun is so energetic and bright that light reflects (many people incorrectly say that it bounces - something that light simply cannot do) from nearly everything around you - even the atmosphere.
Inside, however, lights are not even close to having that kind of power. To help with this, Carrara allows you to set how far the light travels from bulbs and spot lights. Beyond brightness, distance gives you power to the brightness. With the fall off values of both of those light types, you can even further resemble what happens indoors. So a brightness of 60 with a distance of 60 and a falloff of 60 will make for a great indoor light. Now play with the color - trying not to get too saturated (saturation is the measure of hue compared to gray scale) - I like to stay a little closer to the gray scale that to the color side of the color triangle.
I hope this tid bit gets you started... let me know how it works for you.
One more tip:
Even if you don't actually have a bright source of light represented in your scene behind your characters, a nice strong back light can also help to highlight them. My up and coming Environ Kits : Woodlands has some good tutorials regarding highlighting your characters and such.
Best wishes, and I'm glad to help further should you want it :)
Sorry for the late answer. Somehow I missed the info mail that there had been a reply. Damn exams... keep my head busy with the real world.
Thank you for the hints. I will try to get it work. My last attempt with candles had been rather dark. Either the center is far too bright and nearly burns out the "corner" in which the candle is standing and the rest is dark... I think it's experimenting. The scene I am trying for is is inside a worn medieval village room, with an open window and a small night stand with a candle.
I got myself the tutorial how to work with lights from Dreamlight now - it explains every type of light and things like 7 Point Light.
Sadly, it's only Lightwave and DazStudio - but I guess the mechanics and light-lore should be more or less the same.
Sorry for the late answer. Somehow I missed the info mail that there had been a reply. Damn exams... keep my head busy with the real world.
Thank you for the hints. I will try to get it work. My last attempt with candles had been rather dark. Either the center is far too bright and nearly burns out the "corner" in which the candle is standing and the rest is dark... I think it's experimenting. The scene I am trying for is is inside a worn medieval village room, with an open window and a small night stand with a candle.
I got myself the tutorial how to work with lights from Dreamlight now - it explains every type of light and things like 7 Point Light.
Sadly, it's only Lightwave and DazStudio - but I guess the mechanics and light-lore should be more or less the same.
The names may be slightly different. For instance I think (though I'm not positive) DAZ Studio calls a Distant Light a Point light. I still haven't figured out what an UberLight is, and how it relates to an UberEnvironment. I just know it sounds UberlyComplicated. ;-) No matter, the point is, that while the jargon may differ a bit from program to program, the concepts are the same. The harder part will be translating that to a different UI than those in the tutorials.
My tip for the candles is that the range is short and so is the light intensity. The range fall-off would be high. Also remember, if you have three candles with their own lights clustered together, and you set the illumination for each light at 50%, the effect will be additive. Meaning, those candle lights will look like one light set at 150%. If you want the equivalent of a 60% brightness set each candle's light to 20% brightness. Of course if the candles aren't clustered and they are placed far enough from each other that the range and fall-off are factors, then you needn't worry about it.
Comments
I'd like to add my East Gate model composition. It's still a WIP, but it's a bit of a monster with 231 lights!
Attached are:-
1. Top of the Watch Tower.
2. A zoom out to see all of "East Gate".
3. Bottom of the Gate. Featuring "The Level 4 Worker Entrance" and the "Toll Booths".
Cheers!
Those are very cool! Love the lighting!
Thanks man. Working on the background buildings next.
Amazing, Steve. I want that!
Hehehehehe...fair enough! It would be green at least...but I'd still be cursed with the hassles of work visas. Mind you, one winter later and I'd be b****hing again... :lol:Nah... we'd get a game of D&D going... Sunday morning Bloody Mary sessions, bike down the Ahnapee(sp) Trail, and render 'till the end of time. And then make some more renders. Heck... we should just get a grant that pays us to purchase 3d products and render them... that's what I want to do when I grow up!
I really like this scene. I think I might get my hands on a Daz Horse 2 bundle of some sort and see how this place looks with some medieval life scrambling around. Maybe an additional charge for that amazingly complete Low Rez Horse by Predatron. You ever see that thing? It comes all complete in one easy pack - just like his LR people. Alright... I'm gonna say it again: "I really enjoy using Predatron's Low Rez figures!" Have any of you tried any of his LR packs? It's like... Lorenzo comes with morphs and textures to turn him into an Orc, Zombie, Elf, Dwarf... I can't remember all of them - but they look great, too. Maybe we should write him and see if he could make us a pack of Low Res knights and peasants! :)
EvilProducer, man... Sir.. Professor...
This piece is outstanding. Perhaps you should consider just releasing that thing now. You could always keep tweaking on it and release newer versions or expansions that just load in as a group. Just Strain Borming. ;-)
Dart
I really like this scene. I think I might get my hands on a Daz Horse 2 bundle of some sort and see how this place looks with some medieval life scrambling around. Maybe an additional charge for that amazingly complete Low Rez Horse by Predatron. You ever see that thing? It comes all complete in one easy pack - just like his LR people. Alright... I'm gonna say it again: "I really enjoy using Predatron's Low Rez figures!" Have any of you tried any of his LR packs? It's like... Lorenzo comes with morphs and textures to turn him into an Orc, Zombie, Elf, Dwarf... I can't remember all of them - but they look great, too. Maybe we should write him and see if he could make us a pack of Low Res knights and peasants! :)
EvilProducer, man... Sir.. Professor...
This piece is outstanding. Perhaps you should consider just releasing that thing now. You could always keep tweaking on it and release newer versions or expansions that just load in as a group. Just Strain Borming. ;-)
Dart
My next task which I've been avoiding is writing a new read-me/tutorial. I figured I'd shoot it over to you guys with the final revision of the terrain.
It's funny you should mention horses! I've been setting up a warhorse for the tournament grounds!
I'm sure you have - and I bet it's awesome! That tourney grounds will make some excellent jousting renders come easy! It's already all set up for the games!
Having quite a bit of fun rendering composite style. I can see that I'm going to be able to speed up my animations dramatically! Running avi files as texture maps can be finicky. Lots of finger crossing! :)
Lookin' good Dart! Your getting a good drenched effect there! Now towel her off before she catches what you have!
Oh... I did. But instead of a towel I used my...
Okay, I gotta go snuggle Rosie now. See y'all tomorrow :)
Oh... and here's some actual, Carrara Sun Light-made god rays - but they're radiating up through the clouds being quite subtle.
well that's hot damn fantastic :0 bit of bladerunneresque
Gee Rosie is looking betterer and bettererer
This would be a heck of a lot more fun than what I usually do. I love that grant idea!
I concur. The poor lass really needs to come inside and sit by the fireplace for a little while.
Replying in code:
This image, that I shot for an example of an explanation, is what convinced me to stop replicating thousands of curls into her hair figures - and go back to using shadows in her hair. The image illustrates the standard V4 model without any morphs applied, but sporting the same shader setup as Rosie. Her hair is the same as Rosie's except without the replicated curls and none of the custom morphs and tweaks I've made to get it more like the real Rosie's hair. The Kimono (Kunoichi - by Anna Benjamin) on V4 is the original with one of the many, included MATs for it. Rosie is wearing the same kimono after I graced it with a scissors and my own cloth shaders.
Quite the set of differences, methinks.
well that's hot damn fantastic :0 bit of bladerunneresque
Thanks man. We are getting there (creating the Blade Runner world).
Once it's made then the fun REALLY starts!!
Very nice! Did you use AO to get the "inked" look on the figures? I've always been a sucker for that.
Takes me back to my War-games figure painting days as a teen.
I like! Must go buy!
Replying in code:
That's the Power of Carrara, right there. A lot of patience and a good vision of what you want - and a good understanding of the fact that subtle changes to many of the effects will take you all over the places you want to go, and you'll be doing scenes like this. Right Steve?You can do stuff like this in many of the big modelers - like your LW - but with Carrara, we don't have to build all of our own assets. We can by Stonemason products, Kibarreto, Predatron, etc., who have already taken the liberties of zoning out the models and giving us all the channels we need to make our visions a reality within our short life spans!
Oh... and yeah.
I'm still looking for my jaw too. I have to go lay stone. I guess I could do that without my jaw. Dog gone thing bounces into areas under my workstation and I'm just too muscle-strained to go through all of the crouching, right now.
Great job Steve!
Very nice! Did you use AO to get the "inked" look on the figures? I've always been a sucker for that.
Takes me back to my War-games figure painting days as a teen.Nope. That part was Dogwaffle post work. I wouldn't be able to begin to tell you how I did it, since I'm so new to Howler, It's all a bunch of experiments right now :)
I still buy and paint minis on occasion. But the last dozen or so, I've made myself out of sculpting epoxy that gets plasticy hard after it sets up. So I model a bunch in that first hour workable envelop time frame, then carve with knives the more fine details. Most Warhammer 40k buffs even let me use them in tournaments since they look just like GW Eldar. I never even told them that most of my jetbikes, their riders and weapons are all my own carvings! lol
Half the time I can't even tell which I've carved, so I have to pick them up to find out. Mine are many times heavier than GW's plastics. My Swooping Hawks are all bikini-wearing babe Eldar... so you can tell those right from the start! :)
The first idea that popped into my barely-caffeinated brain...wouldn't it be cool to see a series of images/renders of Rosie Over The Years.
I have drives full of them. Many of which I simply cannot share here :)
Rosie wouldn't appreciate me showing those anyways! lol
Oh those renders... :red: Fair enough; sorry I thought of it now...I'll just crawl back to my dungeon.
re: Stonemason. He really is the best. There isn't a single scene in the film which doesn't have his work in it somewhere. (Ok I exaggerate but it's almost true).
re: Your Rosie images. I see. Well it works! It really works!
re: Painting. It's all part of the same jigsaw - observing and re-creating.
I'm super lucky to have found Rosie. Well... she's hot, for one.
But she totally doesn't get my passion for D&D and stuff, but she likes what it does to me, so she supports my need to buy a book or a pile of minis now and again, even though I don't actively game. But I still like the books and love the minis. Painting them is really good for me. Sculpting my own is even better - and then painting those is, again, good for me.
Speaking of good for me things, I have to get to my job site and lay a few tons of stone to give Carrara a chance to animate some more clips for me. It takes many seconds to come up with several minutes, you know!
Here's my attempt at adding life to my scene. I did do a little postwork to paint out a collision artifact between one of the knight's feet and his stirrup, but otherwise aside from converting to .jpg, there was no other postwork.
looking good EP
Domes are made to simulate the fact that light actually comes from all around you when you're outside - even though the sun remains in a single spot in the sky. This is because the sun is so energetic and bright that light reflects (many people incorrectly say that it bounces - something that light simply cannot do) from nearly everything around you - even the atmosphere.
Inside, however, lights are not even close to having that kind of power. To help with this, Carrara allows you to set how far the light travels from bulbs and spot lights. Beyond brightness, distance gives you power to the brightness. With the fall off values of both of those light types, you can even further resemble what happens indoors. So a brightness of 60 with a distance of 60 and a falloff of 60 will make for a great indoor light. Now play with the color - trying not to get too saturated (saturation is the measure of hue compared to gray scale) - I like to stay a little closer to the gray scale that to the color side of the color triangle.
I hope this tid bit gets you started... let me know how it works for you.
One more tip:
Even if you don't actually have a bright source of light represented in your scene behind your characters, a nice strong back light can also help to highlight them. My up and coming Environ Kits : Woodlands has some good tutorials regarding highlighting your characters and such.
Best wishes, and I'm glad to help further should you want it :)
Sorry for the late answer. Somehow I missed the info mail that there had been a reply. Damn exams... keep my head busy with the real world.
Thank you for the hints. I will try to get it work. My last attempt with candles had been rather dark. Either the center is far too bright and nearly burns out the "corner" in which the candle is standing and the rest is dark... I think it's experimenting. The scene I am trying for is is inside a worn medieval village room, with an open window and a small night stand with a candle.
I got myself the tutorial how to work with lights from Dreamlight now - it explains every type of light and things like 7 Point Light.
Sadly, it's only Lightwave and DazStudio - but I guess the mechanics and light-lore should be more or less the same.
The names may be slightly different. For instance I think (though I'm not positive) DAZ Studio calls a Distant Light a Point light. I still haven't figured out what an UberLight is, and how it relates to an UberEnvironment. I just know it sounds UberlyComplicated. ;-) No matter, the point is, that while the jargon may differ a bit from program to program, the concepts are the same. The harder part will be translating that to a different UI than those in the tutorials.
My tip for the candles is that the range is short and so is the light intensity. The range fall-off would be high. Also remember, if you have three candles with their own lights clustered together, and you set the illumination for each light at 50%, the effect will be additive. Meaning, those candle lights will look like one light set at 150%. If you want the equivalent of a 60% brightness set each candle's light to 20% brightness. Of course if the candles aren't clustered and they are placed far enough from each other that the range and fall-off are factors, then you needn't worry about it.