October 2019 - DAZ 3D New User Challenge - Atmosphere

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  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,893
    Fishtales said:

    What is your Crush Black setting in Tone Mapping? It might lighten the shadow if you can lower it.

    I set the Crush Blacks down to 0.10, and in combination with a ghost light it seems to have helped. Thanks for the tip. smiley

     

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,038
    TigerAnne said:
    Fishtales said:

    What is your Crush Black setting in Tone Mapping? It might lighten the shadow if you can lower it.

    I set the Crush Blacks down to 0.10, and in combination with a ghost light it seems to have helped. Thanks for the tip. smiley

     

    You're welcome smiley

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @bastian2560, I really like where this image is going, but one thing continues to bother me. The piece of furniture at the foot of the bed looks like it's cutting through the bed. I opened the image in Photoshop and lightened it enough to see that it is only up to the foot of the bed, but as dark as the interior is, I think it would help to move it away from the bed by a a few "inches." The image might also look good if this piece of furniture is removed altogether.

    Regardless, I love how the light is reflected off the gold decorating the furniture, and the distorted reflection of the window in the curved mirror of the headboard is really cool!

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @L'Adair: Thank you so much for that tip, it makes many things so much easier! This isn't the only context where I've tried to adjust multiple things at once, but until you pointed it out my attempts always ended with just doing everything one by one.

    19-10-Tentacle Threat-Mk1

    Here's the second version of the spooky spacestation scene. The kid's dilemma is a bit more evident, and the previously quiescent tentacle is both more active and joined by a pair of compatriots. Given how much easier it was thanks to L'Adair, the next version will probably round out the set with another three making their way around the top and right sides of the image. The lighting can still use a bit of work. I think the current hierarchy is how I want it, with the main light coming from the left with additional lighting outside the room to the right, but right now I think both of them are a bit too sharp. Right now the majority of the scene's lighting comes from a pair of tiny sphere primitives floating out of view. Especially on the right, I think the next step is going to be trading luminosity from the spheres to the neon light geometry in those areas of The Green Room. Though, it might lend a suitably spooky feel to move the left light close to the ground, like a flashlight was abandoned over there.

     

    I haven't gotten into contrasting the cubic atmospheres of the two scenes I made yet, but I suspect that their might be an issue with all of the lights being inside the cube, similar to how it fails if the camera is inside it. If that's the case, then I could probably get it to work by being a lot more selective about where the primitive covers. (My current approach was to parent it to the camera, scale it super big, and then move it by a hair more than half its length to get it entirely in front of the camera. Super quick and dirty, and may be contributing to the issues I saw.)

    @rcbcgreenpanzer, You're welcome. smiley Looking good.

    Instead of using sphere primitives, you can speed up the render by replacing each sphere with a single-division plane primative of the same size. To get the rounded look of the sphere, you can add a transparency map with a white circle on a black background. Plug that into the Cutout Opacity channel. You can also set Two Sided to off, just make sure the plane is pointing in the right direction.

    Just remember, Iray has to calculate the light bouncing off objects in the scene for every polygon that is emissive. The more emissive polygons, the longer it's going to take to get a clean render. Adding more light to the scene can help, though, and also speed things up. Then you can use Tone Mapping to lower the exposure to make the image dark again.

  • DaventakiDaventaki Posts: 1,621

    These are my final submissions. 

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    Tweaked my scene a bit. Rotated the Sun to backlight the image and moved the lights a bit to illuminate the figures from the front. Also added another, thicker volume behind the first one. Not sure what happened, but when they didn't overlap but lined up next to each other, the 2 volumes tinted the whole pic very bright and glowing red.
    Eventually played a bit in photoshop. Adjusted levels and the contrast a little. Tried out autotone, it made the center of the image a little colder which looked interesting so I stayed with it.

    Pumpking and the Fox


    Rendered in Daz Studio 4.12. Some postwork in Photoshop.

    This looks really good. I think the "autotone" adjusting the color in the figures created a nice color contrast to the orangish light and pumpkins. The sun from behind made a really nice godray. It really highlights the misty aspect of the atmosphere. Well done.

  • rcbcgreenpanzerrcbcgreenpanzer Posts: 99
    edited October 2019
    L'Adair said:

    @rcbcgreenpanzer, You're welcome. smiley Looking good.

    Instead of using sphere primitives, you can speed up the render by replacing each sphere with a single-division plane primative of the same size. To get the rounded look of the sphere, you can add a transparency map with a white circle on a black background. Plug that into the Cutout Opacity channel. You can also set Two Sided to off, just make sure the plane is pointing in the right direction.

    Just remember, Iray has to calculate the light bouncing off objects in the scene for every polygon that is emissive. The more emissive polygons, the longer it's going to take to get a clean render. Adding more light to the scene can help, though, and also speed things up. Then you can use Tone Mapping to lower the exposure to make the image dark again.

    Good point to keep in mind, but when I say sphere, it would be more accurate to say dodecahedron. I use them for a lot of things, in many cases purposes better served by nulls. When it comes to lighting, though, they have one big advantage over a plane: I don't care which way they face!

     

    19-10-Tentacle Threat-Mk2​

    19-10-Tentacle Threat-Mk2

    • Lighting work:
      • Left side got replaced with a flashlight prop from Rescue Equipment - it has a neat approach to shaping the light, and you can sorta see it reflected in the helmet.
      • Right side got the temperature dropped and some of the lumiosity traded to the existing meshlights in the room.
        • NB: I suspect that high-poly meshlights might be underepresented in the iRay preview, as the main room lights are brighter than I thought. In the preview, the room to the right glowed dull red, whereas now it is just tinged.
    • I pushed back the fog, as it was starting to get a bit too cloying. I may have overdone it, so I think the next version will try to bring it partway between these past two versions.
    • New tentacle, who dis?

    I really have to get a better sense of the differences between preview and photoreal, as the lighting came out significantly differently from what I was expecting.

    19-10-Tentacle_Threat-Mk2.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 2M
    Post edited by rcbcgreenpanzer on
  • L'Adair said:
     

    19-10-Tentacle Threat-Mk2​

    19-10-Tentacle Threat-Mk2

    • Lighting work:
      • Left side got replaced with a flashlight prop from Rescue Equipment - it has a neat approach to shaping the light, and you can sorta see it reflected in the helmet.
      • Right side got the temperature dropped and some of the lumiosity traded to the existing meshlights in the room.
        • NB: I suspect that high-poly meshlights might be underepresented in the iRay preview, as the main room lights are brighter than I thought. In the preview, the room to the right glowed dull red, whereas now it is just tinged.
    • I pushed back the fog, as it was starting to get a bit too cloying. I may have overdone it, so I think the next version will try to bring it partway between these past two versions.
    • New tentacle, who dis?

    I really have to get a better sense of the differences between preview and photoreal, as the lighting came out significantly differently from what I was expecting.

    awesome render

    very cinematic indeed

    yes

  • DaventakiDaventaki Posts: 1,621
    L'Adair said:

    @rcbcgreenpanzer, You're welcome. smiley Looking good.

    Instead of using sphere primitives, you can speed up the render by replacing each sphere with a single-division plane primative of the same size. To get the rounded look of the sphere, you can add a transparency map with a white circle on a black background. Plug that into the Cutout Opacity channel. You can also set Two Sided to off, just make sure the plane is pointing in the right direction.

    Just remember, Iray has to calculate the light bouncing off objects in the scene for every polygon that is emissive. The more emissive polygons, the longer it's going to take to get a clean render. Adding more light to the scene can help, though, and also speed things up. Then you can use Tone Mapping to lower the exposure to make the image dark again.

    Good point to keep in mind, but when I say sphere, it would be more accurate to say dodecahedron. I use them for a lot of things, in many cases purposes better served by nulls. When it comes to lighting, though, they have one big advantage over a plane: I don't care which way they face!

     

    19-10-Tentacle Threat-Mk2​

    19-10-Tentacle Threat-Mk2

    • Lighting work:
      • Left side got replaced with a flashlight prop from Rescue Equipment - it has a neat approach to shaping the light, and you can sorta see it reflected in the helmet.
      • Right side got the temperature dropped and some of the lumiosity traded to the existing meshlights in the room.
        • NB: I suspect that high-poly meshlights might be underepresented in the iRay preview, as the main room lights are brighter than I thought. In the preview, the room to the right glowed dull red, whereas now it is just tinged.
    • I pushed back the fog, as it was starting to get a bit too cloying. I may have overdone it, so I think the next version will try to bring it partway between these past two versions.
    • New tentacle, who dis?

    I really have to get a better sense of the differences between preview and photoreal, as the lighting came out significantly differently from what I was expecting.

    Looking good!  I personally like the lighting and tones in this one better.  The only thing I see is the kids boots are sunken into the floor.  I think bringing the fog back somewhat would be good.

  • sueyasueya Posts: 824

    Reposting my final entry to make sure it gets noticed

  • Sisyphus1977Sisyphus1977 Posts: 305
    edited October 2019

    Posting my final version of "Tigers at Night"

    Tigers at Night FINAL 2.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 2M
    Post edited by Sisyphus1977 on
  • Daventaki said:

    Looking good!  I personally like the lighting and tones in this one better.  The only thing I see is the kids boots are sunken into the floor.  I think bringing the fog back somewhat would be good.

    @Daventaki: Thanks for pointing out the clipping; I completely missed that.

    19-10-Tentacle_Threat_Mk3

    Tentacle Threat Mk3

    Some small, final tweaks.

    • Some posing adjustments to try to alleviate the worst of the clipping. (If I had more time and energy, I could play with dFormers to try to get the spacesuit shaped better, but I'm not super practiced with that tool.)
    • I brought the fog back in somewhat.
    • I adjusted the lights on the right to try to get the contrast in the final render that I had been seeing in the preview. Is the red overdone?
    19-10-Tentacle_Threat-Mk3.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 2M
  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562
    edited November 2019

    Halloween Night

    Halloween Night

    Halloween Night.jpg
    163K
    Post edited by Galaxy on
  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562
    edited November 2019

    Halloween Night low light

    image

    Halloween Night low light.jpg
    1280 x 720 - 93K
    Post edited by Galaxy on
  • Galaxy said:

    Halloween Night

    <snip image>

    @Galaxy: When inserting an image into your post, pay attention to the height column. It should change to maintain the aspect ratio when one changes the width, but occassionally it doesn't. In those cases, one has to do the math. In your case, assuming an 800px width, you'll want a 450px height.

    (What good is a computer that makes you do the math? Doing math for us is their whole point!)

     

    When it isn't buried in white by the rest of this page, I prefer your low light version. Just enough detail is visible to create a spooky atmosphere, whereas the brighter version pulls back the curtain, so to speak.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited November 2019
    Galaxy said:

    Halloween Night

    <snip image>

    @Galaxy: When inserting an image into your post, pay attention to the height column. It should change to maintain the aspect ratio when one changes the width, but occassionally it doesn't. In those cases, one has to do the math. In your case, assuming an 800px width, you'll want a 450px height.

    (What good is a computer that makes you do the math? Doing math for us is their whole point!)

    To the immediate right of the Width field in the Image Properties is a small icon. It's actually a padlock, but that small, it might be hard to tell! Anyway, to constrain the aspect ratio, that little padlock should be closed. Just click on it to toggle the locked/unlocked state.

    That makes the site software do the math for you.
    wink

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited November 2019
    Galaxy said:

    Halloween Night

    Halloween Night

    It appears you have embedded the thumbnail. That's why your image looks blurry in the post. Right-click on the thumbnail of the attachment and select "Copy Link Location" (or whatever variant your browser uses,) open the comment to edit by hovering the upper right of your post and clicking on the gear icon the shows up, then on Edit. Now right-click on the image and select Image Properties. Paste the copied Link Location into the URL field if the Image Info tab. Set width to 800 or less, make sure the padlock, (mentioned in my post above,) is in the locked position and click on the Okay button. Now click on the Save Comment button. Now the attached image will be embedded in the post.

    I agree with rcbcgreenpanzer, the image with the lower light looks much spookier!

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • WinterMoonWinterMoon Posts: 1,893

    There. I'm just gonna squeeze this in here.

     

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    This challenge is now closed.


    Thanks to everyone for participating!

  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562

    Thanks, updated.

     

  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562
    edited November 2019

    With postwork

    Halloween night

    image

    Halloween Night somewhere else.jpg
    1280 x 720 - 187K
    Halloween night somewhere else again.jpg
    1280 x 720 - 245K
    Post edited by Chohole on
  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562

    It is closed however next I like to see challange of Instances to learn Instancing.  

  • Galaxy said:

    It is closed however next I like to see challange of Instances to learn Instancing.  

    you like a challange about instances

    as there should be ?

     

  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562

    It is called "node instances" of Daz Studio and some plugins can do it too.

     

  • Luftsturmregiment40Luftsturmregiment40 Posts: 328
    edited November 2019
    Galaxy said:

    It is called "node instances" of Daz Studio and some plugins can do it too.

     

    DAZ Studio is good, but it's not even close to Softimage (I'm not evangelising not only is ICE outdated but you get the idea - there is room for improvement)

    perhaps you post a sample render from yourself or someone else what you like to see

    I'm hooked

    smiley

     

    ICE instances

    Post edited by Luftsturmregiment40 on
  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562

    Well new contest is about material. I will try to post butterflies with instances. 1 or upto 3 close up butterfly (and may be a girl) and rest of the butterflies depth of field blurred. Just need to confirm if my runtime contains any butterfly or similar items.

  • Galaxy said:

    Well new contest is about material. I will try to post butterflies with instances. 1 or upto 3 close up butterfly (and may be a girl) and rest of the butterflies depth of field blurred. Just need to confirm if my runtime contains any butterfly or similar items.

    and grass instances along with it and a lake with Ladybirds

    a classic

    looking forward to it 

  • Slightly necroing this thread because I have a noobie question that I forgot to ask during the contest month - maybe missed it in a tutorial. :(
    It's about both DoF and atmosphere/volumetric light/etc in general.

    I'm very grateful for the organizers and volunteers for teaching us, noobies, these contest months and the tutorials are awesome to learn how to do these tools, but my question would be, when to use them?

    With DoF we can focus on something we want to show and dust/godrays/tint from that big transmissive/scattering cube (one day I'll learn how they are called o.O) can change the mood of the pic.
    I'm a bit confused and keep asking myself questions like these, should I use DoF or should I use bloom, how shallow the DoF or blurred the lights in the scene should be, etc?
    Or, if I don't want dust/godrays in the pic, should I/can I use atmospheric tools for other purposes?

  • Slightly necroing this thread because I have a noobie question that I forgot to ask during the contest month - maybe missed it in a tutorial. :(
    It's about both DoF and atmosphere/volumetric light/etc in general.

    I'm very grateful for the organizers and volunteers for teaching us, noobies, these contest months and the tutorials are awesome to learn how to do these tools, but my question would be, when to use them?

    With DoF we can focus on something we want to show and dust/godrays/tint from that big transmissive/scattering cube (one day I'll learn how they are called o.O) can change the mood of the pic.
    I'm a bit confused and keep asking myself questions like these, should I use DoF or should I use bloom, how shallow the DoF or blurred the lights in the scene should be, etc?
    Or, if I don't want dust/godrays in the pic, should I/can I use atmospheric tools for other purposes?

    In art the answer is not always as simple as a formula. In other words, it depends on the picture and on your creative taste. Having said that, here is my experience:

    DoF: Use it heavily when you want the viewer to focus completely on a subject, AND the background is not too important/interesting, like when in an outdoors setting, say in a field of grain, or anywhere where there is not a lot of variety in the background. Use it in a small amount in an interesting setting, like a room full of interesting objects, but where you still want the focus to be on a specific item/character. Don't use it when you want to show a beautiful vista, like a sunrise, etc.

    Bloom: Use it when there is direct sunlight, I mean from the sun, and you want a sort of a "haze/blur" effect. Don't use it when you want well defined sunrays (entering a window) and perhaps not too much with godrays. Overall it's an effect that you have to see in which situation works best, and I generally use it only in a few occasions.

    If you don't want godrays/dust etc, then don't add any volumetric effect or planes that add those effects! It's that simple. :)

  • DAZ_ann0314DAZ_ann0314 Posts: 2,783

    The featured artists for the October challenge will be posted tomorrow smiley

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