January 2018 New User 3D Art Challenge - Composition

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Comments

  • Noswen said:

    Thanks for the comments everyone. Following up on my image I believe I know what's happened (but haven't tried any sort of rendering to check it).

    What I have at the moment for the previously posted picture: -

    Render 1: The character and the bike only

    Render 2: Everything else

    Posted picture: Render 1 + Render 2, with Render 2 motion blurred in GIMP.

    The problem is probably that the bike is above 'ground' level in render 1 because the road has height to it! surprise And with that the road isn't there to keep the shadow starting where the wheel is instead of an inch or so away in the render's scale.

    @linwelly: I'm not really understanding you with why I'd need 3 renders with one of them for moving them to their designated places? Also it floated before the motion blur (I kept the motion blue to be the angle of the road as best as I could judge).

    I think it looks great. I got the feeling that she was catching some air in this one, and having a blast doing so.

  • Linwelly said:
    daybird said:
    Noswen said:
    Linwelly said:

    @everybody, there was a question about motion-blurr at some point, but I couldn't find the original question. As Kismet already mentioned, true motionblurr can only be done in 3delight at this point but there are some neat little gimmics that can help the impression, so please can you post the original question and context again, maybe there are some options

    I think this came from my comment originally. I'm planning to motion blur the background and keep the bike and figure unblurred to give the impression of speed and movement, I had been planning to do this with two renders and postwork plus combining the images, though I've never even tried this before so not sure how well it will work.

    Great idea, I tried it by myself in a render I did a while ago. My goal was to create a feeling of movement at her cape, the hair and the city.

    After I failed to do it in Iray I finally used Gimp to create the effect. With more or less success. ^^ (see attachment)

    But if I remember right, than Shinji had used a motion blur tool for Iray and can maybe tell you more about that.

    The script that I brought up is Motion Blur for Iray sold here at Daz by DraagonStorm. It's on the pricy side though, $25.95 right now so it might not be for everyone.

    I didn't realize there was a product for that.  Thank you for sharing Shinji.  Now if I can just get my brain to remember this stuff.

     

    From what I understand that product won't give you the smooth motionblurr as we get it with 3DL.

    @Noswen, Nice first stab at that! If you will continue with that direction you micht want to render the bike and the background  seperately as an additional layer ( ending with three renders, you witll need one with all of it to move thing to their designes places.

    I guess it started floating through the direction in which you moved the background for the motionblurr

    The difficulty I have with the script is that I have to pre-animate and keyframe what I want blured and if I'm not smooth with that, then the resulting blur effect is off as well.

  • NoswenNoswen Posts: 358
    Noswen said:

    Thanks for the comments everyone. Following up on my image I believe I know what's happened (but haven't tried any sort of rendering to check it).

    What I have at the moment for the previously posted picture: -

    Render 1: The character and the bike only

    Render 2: Everything else

    Posted picture: Render 1 + Render 2, with Render 2 motion blurred in GIMP.

    The problem is probably that the bike is above 'ground' level in render 1 because the road has height to it! surprise And with that the road isn't there to keep the shadow starting where the wheel is instead of an inch or so away in the render's scale.

    @linwelly: I'm not really understanding you with why I'd need 3 renders with one of them for moving them to their designated places? Also it floated before the motion blur (I kept the motion blue to be the angle of the road as best as I could judge).

    I think it looks great. I got the feeling that she was catching some air in this one, and having a blast doing so.

    Thanks, I'll probably try a second version where I lower the bike on it's render and see what the two look like compared to each other later today.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,780
    Noswen said:

    Thanks for the comments everyone. Following up on my image I believe I know what's happened (but haven't tried any sort of rendering to check it).

    What I have at the moment for the previously posted picture: -

    Render 1: The character and the bike only

    Render 2: Everything else

    Posted picture: Render 1 + Render 2, with Render 2 motion blurred in GIMP.

    The problem is probably that the bike is above 'ground' level in render 1 because the road has height to it! surprise And with that the road isn't there to keep the shadow starting where the wheel is instead of an inch or so away in the render's scale.

    @linwelly: I'm not really understanding you with why I'd need 3 renders with one of them for moving them to their designated places? Also it floated before the motion blur (I kept the motion blue to be the angle of the road as best as I could judge).

    Ok, I'm not the most expert with putting things together from different layers in postwork, so take this with a grain of salt. And maybe if ,as you say the floating was there before the move, the problem will be solved with two renders rendered with the bike grounded.

    Anyways what I meant with three renders: I would use the last render with everything in it as a measure to see where the bike should be touching ground, and when its done remove that layer altogether. Does that make sense now?

    Another possibility I just remembered would be to render the bike (andr rider) with nothing but the ground activated in the environment settings, (plus the lights obviously) that way you will get a render of the bike with a shadow that is transparent, so you can lay the shadow on the street togthter with the bike.

  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    Noswen said:
    Noswen said:

     

    I think it looks great. I got the feeling that she was catching some air in this one, and having a blast doing so.

    Thanks, I'll probably try a second version where I lower the bike on it's render and see what the two look like compared to each other later today.

    I'm not a whole lot of help on compositing or on motion blur, but for what it's worth, I agree with Shinji here - that little bit of lift looks exactly as if she was catching air, and emphasizes the movement.

     

  • timmercado1975timmercado1975 Posts: 17
    edited January 2018

    So, I'm very new, and have been busy with work but this render is my WIP version 2 of my first serious render.  

    I attempted to consider composition and lighting here (aiming for a night scene) but as I'm sure most of you can tell, I certainly need to work on some basics. 

    I know I need to re-pose the character... He's causing quite the splash for walking out of the water so nonchalantly.  So I need to adjust him to a more 'leaping out' sort of pose, at the very least. 

    After work I'll read up on some of the links in the OP, but would certainly appreciate any tips from users as well. 

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    Post edited by timmercado1975 on
  • NoswenNoswen Posts: 358
    edited January 2018

    Thanks all, as said earlier here's the second version, exact same background layer but with a new render of the character and the bike (and the shadow of it) on the top layer with the y axis lowered on the group for rendering.

    @linwelly: I think I understand what you mean now, but gotten away without needing it for this one I believe.

    Not sure which of the two I prefer, but I did want to try using the layers a second time as I've never done it before the previous picture.

     

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    Post edited by Noswen on
  • Was hit with this idea last night and let it run for 5 hours 34 minutes 57.35 seconds and 15000 iterations. I'll see if there's time this afternoon to make some tweeks to materials and the orc.

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  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    So, I'm very new, and have been busy with work but this render is my WIP version 2 of my first serious render.  

    I attempted to consider composition and lighting here (aiming for a night scene) but as I'm sure most of you can tell, I certainly need to work on some basics. 

    I know I need to re-pose the character... He's causing quite the splash for walking out of the water so nonchalantly.  So I need to adjust him to a more 'leaping out' sort of pose, at the very least. 

    After work I'll read up on some of the links in the OP, but would certainly appreciate any tips from users as well. 

    Welcome timmercado1975.

    Night scenes are not easy to light but you have done a nice job.  Right now the flowers to the left of the image are drawing my eye.  They are the brightest against dark elements in the image.  Are you using Iray?  Did you apply an emitter to the flowers? 

    If you want the frogman to be the focus perhaps try to bring the glowing orb closer to his face when you play with his posing?  This might bring the attention to that area and the focus to him.

    It is a great start. 

  • timmercado1975timmercado1975 Posts: 17
    edited January 2018
    Right now the flowers to the left of the image are drawing my eye. They are the brightest against dark elements in the image. Are you using Iray? Did you apply an emitter to the flowers?

    If you want the frogman to be the focus perhaps try to bring the glowing orb closer to his face when you play with his posing? This might bring the attention to that area and the focus to him.

    It is a great start.

    Thanks for the welcome :) This is an iRay render, and I adjusted most surfaces in this scene to use iRay shaders. I don't recall messing with the petals on the flowers, though, but I do agree they detract from the scene. I don't know why they are so bright... I'll have to look into toning them down. Also, that's a fantastic suggestion about bringing the glowing rock closer to his face after re-pose to bring attention to him... Thanks very much for that!! I do appreciate your advice, tonight after work I'll begin implementing it, and begin the re-posing. Haven't had a chance to work on this since the weekend. Edit to add: the only emitter I created was on the glowing rock. It's a normal landscape rock prop that I adjusted to emit. That took some research to do, and as I type this at work away from my computer, I forgot what I did lol.
    Post edited by timmercado1975 on
  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    Was hit with this idea last night and let it run for 5 hours 34 minutes 57.35 seconds and 15000 iterations. I'll see if there's time this afternoon to make some tweeks to materials and the orc.

    The first thing I noticed was the female character's feet are cut off. 

    The red light reflected on the surface of the gun is intersting.  I find it is drawing my eye but then my eye jumps to her face.

    The red light and the ceiling light over the Orc's head draws my eye there and then to him.  The glasses are a nice touch.

     

     

     

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 645
    Noswen said:

    Thanks all, as said earlier here's the second version, exact same background layer but with a new render of the character and the bike (and the shadow of it) on the top layer with the y axis lowered on the group for rendering.

    @linwelly: I think I understand what you mean now, but gotten away without needing it for this one I believe.

    Not sure which of the two I prefer, but I did want to try using the layers a second time as I've never done it before the previous picture.

     

    FANTASTIC!!! 

  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    edited January 2018

    @linwelly - I hadn't even noticed that I cut the feet off in that first render. This one corrects that, and adjusts the lighting slightly, and is cropped more tightly. I've also got a second render cooking that's an alternative take on my original too-steamy render from earlier in the thread. (@Tynkere - I did this one at higher resolution so you could get a better look at it on your ginormous display :) )

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    Post edited by Chameo on
  • harrybroomhallharrybroomhall Posts: 31
    edited January 2018
    Linwelly said:
     

    I like that idea with the snowglobe, it has something surreal to it

    if there are enough polys on that snowglobe "bottom" you could try adding a d-former and push it a bit down where the boy sits, or you really pursue the snow idea ( brr he must be cold then) you might want to add a snow sprincle inside the globe , that would make it easier to think of the bottom as snow

    I had a look at dform, and after finding some docs had a go.  I don't think in this case this will work.  Or I need to have a lot more experience using it!

    So I came to the conclusion that, as not everybody realized that it was a snowglobe, that I needed to do some work on the pose.

    I have now done this, and now I need to look at the base of the snowglobe.

    Harry.

    Post edited by harrybroomhall on
  • Noswen said:

    @harrybroomhall: We've all been there with our first renders, so we won't laugh. In addition to what kismet siad the snowglobe is also overlapping with some parts of the environment such as the pillars and some leaves, probably the easiest way to get around that would be to shrink the snowglobe's and the figure's scale down a bit, but not sure what side effects that might have.

    My current thinking is that if I modify the base of the snowglobe to match the material of the pillars then it will look like it was built like that.

    So far I have not been able to work out how to do that.  I suspect I may have to port it to hexagon , but I'm not really sure.

    Harry.

     

  • Here's version b of my latest idea. I would have posted sooner, but had trouble getting up and about, and when I did get myself up and moving I had to head to the store to get a few thing.

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  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    edited January 2018
    Noswen said:

    @harrybroomhall: We've all been there with our first renders, so we won't laugh. In addition to what kismet siad the snowglobe is also overlapping with some parts of the environment such as the pillars and some leaves, probably the easiest way to get around that would be to shrink the snowglobe's and the figure's scale down a bit, but not sure what side effects that might have.

    My current thinking is that if I modify the base of the snowglobe to match the material of the pillars then it will look like it was built like that.

    So far I have not been able to work out how to do that.  I suspect I may have to port it to hexagon , but I'm not really sure.

    Harry.

     

    If the pillars are a "material" rather than a shader, it can get really tricky. A trick I've used when I want two different items to have matching textures is to pick a shader, and change the texture of both items to the new shader. You may lose patterns, but not the underlying structure. Here's an example:

    I started with a copper lid from a canister set and a stone statue from a different set. Obviously, the textures are very different, but I want them to look like they're carved from one stone piece.

    1. Position them.
    2. Select the lid.
    3. Click the Surfaces tab.
    4. Click the Editor tab within the Surfaces tab. The down arrow will open each of the surface areas you can alter. Select the one you want to change. In my case, I want to change the entire thing, so I just selected the item.
    5. Switch to the Presets tab in the Surfaces tab. I nearly always start by applying the Iray Uber Base shader.
    6. Find the shader you want to apply and double-click it to apply.
    7. Repeat for the other pieces.
    8. Result!

    Not sure how well that would work with what you want to do - you would lose patterns on the pillars, for example - but it might be something to try, and a whole lot easier than joining the models in Hexagon.

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    Post edited by Chameo on
  • Wow!  Thanks for all the info and the screenshots.

    My problem is that you lost me almost from the start.

    I am aware of 'shaders', and I believe they are sophisticated and complex transformations, but have no idea of details beyond that.

    I am working from the newbie guide, which makes almost no mention of shaders.

    I'm sure that your screenshots are very good, but I don't see anything like that in my system.  :-(

    Finally, the snowglobe is all of one piece, so applying a change globally will change the glass as well - which is not quite what I want!

    But many thanks for taking the time to respond.  When I know more about what I am doing it will probably make sense!

    Harry

     

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    Wow!  Thanks for all the info and the screenshots.

    My problem is that you lost me almost from the start.

    I am aware of 'shaders', and I believe they are sophisticated and complex transformations, but have no idea of details beyond that.

    I am working from the newbie guide, which makes almost no mention of shaders.

    I'm sure that your screenshots are very good, but I don't see anything like that in my system.  :-(

    Finally, the snowglobe is all of one piece, so applying a change globally will change the glass as well - which is not quite what I want!

    But many thanks for taking the time to respond.  When I know more about what I am doing it will probably make sense!

    Harry

     

    @harrybroomhall - Last year's November New User Challenge involved Materials.  There are some tutorials and information on Materials in the first post that might be helpful.

     

  • GallowsGallows Posts: 95

    "My Hero"

    How to make the sky look real?

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  • NoswenNoswen Posts: 358
    Gallows said:

    "My Hero"

    How to make the sky look real?

    Image has come out a bit small to see anything there, but the easiest ways are either to set the background to a photograph of the sky, or in the render settings set Draw Dome to On and make sure you're using a HDR which has a reasonable sky. If you don't already have one you like you can find a number of ones that you can download for free, take a look through the Freebie forum and you should see some.

  • GallowsGallows Posts: 95

    Thanks

    Is there a tutorial on attaching larger pictures?

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,780
    edited January 2018
    Gallows said:

    Thanks

    Is there a tutorial on attaching larger pictures?

    what is large in your measurement?

    edit to say, the one you attached above was only the icon which is by deflat large, chose the same name without "icon" at the end

    Post edited by Linwelly on
  • daybirddaybird Posts: 645
    edited January 2018

    Wow!  Thanks for all the info and the screenshots.

    My problem is that you lost me almost from the start.

    I am aware of 'shaders', and I believe they are sophisticated and complex transformations, but have no idea of details beyond that.

    I am working from the newbie guide, which makes almost no mention of shaders.

    I'm sure that your screenshots are very good, but I don't see anything like that in my system.  :-(

    Finally, the snowglobe is all of one piece, so applying a change globally will change the glass as well - which is not quite what I want!

    But many thanks for taking the time to respond.  When I know more about what I am doing it will probably make sense!

    Harry

     

    I know how you feel. That was and is one of my main problems too. People want help me and gave good advices, but they are sometimes to complex, or I have not the right background knowledge, to use them.
    Don't be worry. Some things, you will learn fast and some other make take a while until you see a tutorial or find out by yourself how things works.
    Until then just have fun and do the things you like. If something will not work, try something else. 

    For the snowglobe.I don't know which style you use, but look in the top for the tab called Windows. Click on them, search the surface tab and click on it.

    (pic surfaces 1)
    Now a new tab should appear.

    (pic surfaces 2)

    As example I load a small chair. He's a object like your snowglobe.If you click him ( or your snowglobe) in your scene tab, he now apears in the surface tab. 

    (pic surfaces 3)
    Here you can double click on him and most time a tree will apear (even at objects) where you can see the different surfaces of the prop.

    (pic surfaces 4)

    If you click now of one of them, you can change many things for that area on the right side. Even make some areas fading away or invisibility with the tab cutout opacity

    (pic surfaces 5)

    In the left uper corner of the Surface tab you can also see what type of shader it is. Most you will see Daz Default or Iray, but there are a few other typs. 

    To change shaders it's important to choose the object (or the area you want on the object---in my example the seat and the backrest) in the scene tab and EVEN in the surface tab. 
    Click  on your content library and tipe Shaders in the search tab above.
    Now they should apear different symbols and things like Shader/materials/script.

    Materials are designed for a special prop and work only with them. Scripts and shaders can be used on nearly everything. When you move your mouse over a shader and don't move her for awhile, a hint appears and mostly you can see if the shader is default or iray. If you use iray it's important to use iray shader.

    (pic surfaces 6)

    If you now have chosen the area you want change in the SCENE AND SURFACE tab, double click on the shader.
    The chair looks now so.

    (pic surfaces 7)


    Yeah, we did it, but there is one big mistake! 
    The shader has overwriten all the entrys in the surface tab. Even those we want keep, like the base color and the base map. To avoid this, hold the left strg or ctrl button before you klick on the shader. Now a new window should apear (still hold the strg or ctrl button)where you can choose ignore under images. 
    If you now click accept the base colore and base map should remain. (THX again to kevinmaistros for this great hint)

    Well, that was much bla bla, but I hope it will help you a little.

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    Post edited by daybird on
  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    edited January 2018

    @harrybroomhall - I'm sorry that wasn't helpful. Can I ask what snow globe it is? It looks like one I use all the time, so I made a couple of assumptions about being able to change the base and glass surfaces separately. (Also, I love snow globes  and use them all the time, so if that's one I haven't got... :) )

    Here's the other one I've been working on this month...

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    Post edited by Chameo on
  • daybirddaybird Posts: 645
    edited January 2018

    So, for me it will be the last entry this month. I know that there are many things that can be improven, but it took me so many time to make a render, that I have no time for another try.

    I'm happy to get the puddles to work. They may not look very realistic, but for a first try I find it very nice.

    (I set a plane primitive under the ground and applied a water shader, than I increase the displacement strength from the Ground, until the primitive with the water was showing up in a few areas.)

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    Post edited by daybird on
  • daybird said:

    I know how you feel. That was and is one of my main problems too. People want help me and gave good advices, but they are sometimes to complex, or I have not the right background knowledge, to use them.
    Don't be worry. Some things, you will learn fast and some other make take a while until you see a tutorial or find out by yourself how things works.
    Until then just have fun and do the things you like. If something will not work, try something else. 

    For the snowglobe.I don't know which style you use, but look in the top for the tab called Windows. Click on them, search the surface tab and click on it.

     

    ........

    Well, that was much bla bla, but I hope it will help you a little.

    Thank you *very* much for all of that!  Absolutely wonderful!

    I have tried experimenting on the snowglobe and it looks as if I don't need to go via Hexagon.

    It will take some time getting the hang of it though. smiley

    So far my main problem is how to get the 'Alcove' pattern to be offered as a shader.

    Once again - thanks.

     

    Harry.

     

     

  • harrybroomhallharrybroomhall Posts: 31
    edited January 2018
    Chameo said:

    @harrybroomhall - I'm sorry that wasn't helpful. Can I ask what snow globe it is? It looks like one I use all the time, so I made a couple of assumptions about being able to change the base and glass surfaces separately. (Also, I love snow globes  and use them all the time, so if that's one I haven't got... :) )

    The one I am using was a Christmas freebie mid December just gone.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/216346/snowglobe

    daybird has kindly explained above how to look at the individual parts of the snowglobe, so I feel I have now advanced a bit!

    And now I've checked - I see you commented on it so I presume you have this!

    Harry.

     

    Post edited by harrybroomhall on
  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    Chameo said:

    @harrybroomhall - I'm sorry that wasn't helpful. Can I ask what snow globe it is? It looks like one I use all the time, so I made a couple of assumptions about being able to change the base and glass surfaces separately. (Also, I love snow globes  and use them all the time, so if that's one I haven't got... :) )

    The one I am using was a Christmas freebie mid December just gone.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/216346/snowglobe

    daybird has kindly explained above how to look at the individual parts of the snowglobe, so I feel I have now advanced a bit!

    And now I've checked - I see you commented on it so I presume you have this!

    Harry.

     

    It is a steep learning curve for everyone and we don't all learn the same way.  For some videos are a good option and others prefer written tutorials.  From experience I know that giving instructions isn't as easy as one might think.  Unless I am actually performing the actions myself I often forget steps that just come naturally to me but to someone who hasn't done something before can make the difference between being able to do something and getting totally lost.

     

  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    daybird said:

    So, for me it will be the last entry this month. I know that thera are many things that can be improven, but it took me so many time to make a render, that I have no time for another try.

    I'm happy to get the puddles to work. They may not look very realistic, but for a first try I find it very nice.

    (I set a plane primitive under the ground and applied a water shader, than I increase the displacement strength from the Ground, until the primitive with the water was showing up in a few areas.)

    The puddles look great - and good on you for going that route! I still like the (now missing) little girl in the foreground, but this looks pretty darn good!

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