--August Carrara Monthly Challenge: SIZE MATTERS!-- WIP thread

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Comments

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Garstor said:
    Alas, time is conspiring against me once more. I'll have to bow out. I may revisit my idea in a non-contest environment. ;-)

    I only had the one (extremely vague) WIP. It was to become a land/water terrain being held in M4's cupped hands while V4 looked over it from above. Flipping the roles of small versus large.

    C'est la vie!

    Really nice work so far everyone! I look forward to voting.

    Awww! That's too bad Garsman! I understand about the time constraints all to well. I was hoping to have my Kong picture done so I could move on to another idea by now.

  • d-j-od-j-o Posts: 345
    edited December 1969

    Here is 1 more image, I need to work on the legs next, and then visits EP way of doing DOF, since hair doesn't appear in the depth map.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited August 2014

    kashyyyk said:
    Here is 1 more image, I need to work on the legs next, and then visits EP way of doing DOF, since hair doesn't appear in the depth map.

    I use a depth pass and volume primitive pass. In PS the volume primitive pass appears as two layers. The top layer is a color layer with just the hair and is set to Add. The second layer is a black and white pass with the hair strands being solid black. This layer is set to multiply. What I do, is use the magic wand tool to select the hair and copy and paste it into the depth pass. I then lighten the black color to match the object that the hair is supposed to grow on. I don't worry to much if there are subtle gradations in the underlying object. If it's dramatic then I manually add the gradations to the hair.

    In my example, I painted the white area in the center of the sphere of hair black to match the outer edges. I didn't bother to try and correct for the fringe around the hair.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Using the same method with the hairy object in the middle ground. Before I pasted the volume primitive into the depth pass, I used the color picker to select the color of the underlying sphere, and used that as a rough visual guide when using the brightness and contrast controls to adjust the pasted volume primitive to approximate the underlying shade of gray. I then painted the white area in the middle the same shade of gray. It's not perfect, but it's close enough for government work.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Here's a sample of my render. It's going alright, but when it hits the hair it crawls.

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  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited December 1969

    Ha ha, you are excelling yourselves! (as one schizophrenic said to himselves)

    heres something , i am looking forward to using philw's cityscape in this if i get a chance

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  • pimpypimpy Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Wow!
    @ EP incredible! I like it
    @ Head Wax Good idea but I must remembar to close my windows!

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,026
    edited December 1969

    Some amazing WIPs. But - what is with all the insects and bugs?

    And EP, you have outdone yourself with your challenge leadership. I just came across your running commentary thread in the other forum. What a great idea, and what a PITA for you. Above and beyond the call, truly. I hope that has drawn extra people to come and check it out.

    Well, my C8.5 computer finally fully died. A replacement came, had issues, got sent back. I am now awaiting another replacement. I was fully prepared and have a backup drive for my content so no tragedy, but I haven't been able to work on my challenge projects. I may try to complete the Colossus sketch with my doodling laptop, but it has an older version of Carrara and I get very frustrated with its response time if I add any replicators, hair, or anything else complex. May have to content myself with just the existing version of the ship in a bottle render.

    Keep up the good work everyone.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited August 2014

    Thanks Pimpy!

    headwax, nice job on the lizard. You even made the little sticky pads/suction cups on his feet look correct!

    Here's my Kong render aged. I forgot to alter some of Kong's textures, fix the mysterious glowing finger nails on Anne, and add more vegetation, so I'm going to re-render it.

    I also remembered a brick-stupid-easy way to add the hair volume primitive to the depth pass. I'll elaborate on that tomorrow, as I'm a bit punchy today. I did play around with aging the image, so I'll post that here now at any rate. Not that happy with it. It was a pre-made script, so I think I'll figure out my own way to do it.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited August 2014

    diomede64 said:
    Some amazing WIPs. But - what is with all the insects and bugs?

    And EP, you have outdone yourself with your challenge leadership. I just came across your running commentary thread in the other forum. What a great idea, and what a PITA for you. Above and beyond the call, truly. I hope that has drawn extra people to come and check it out.

    Well, my C8.5 computer finally fully died. A replacement came, had issues, got sent back. I am now awaiting another replacement. I was fully prepared and have a backup drive for my content so no tragedy, but I haven't been able to work on my challenge projects. I may try to complete the Colossus sketch with my doodling laptop, but it has an older version of Carrara and I get very frustrated with its response time if I add any replicators, hair, or anything else complex. May have to content myself with just the existing version of the ship in a bottle render.

    Keep up the good work everyone.

    Thanks Diomede! It's not that bad. I try and add to it when we start a new page. I keep hoping someone will pop in and leave comment besides myself. I know there are people that have Carrara over there, but are maybe afraid to open it and give it a try.

    Edited to add, that I'm sorry your old computer was giving you problems. Hopefully you'll be up and running soon!

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    Here some elements of my WIP and the final render.
    Diomede, your boat in a bottle is really nice enought !

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Here some elements of my WIP and the final render.
    Diomede, your boat in a bottle is really nice enought !

    Looks really god DUDU! Were you able to solve problem of the disappearing model when the camera was moved very close to it?

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    I took your advice and also for the parameters to move the camera more slowly.
    Thank you!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    This is probably the final iteration of my Kong picture as I want to try and move on to another idea.

    I'm including the postworked version and the raw version. I will explain what I did in Post in the next couple posts, as it will take some time to explain and I'll need a few screen shots. ;-)

    I will probably add some noise to it as well, so that it doesn't look as clean.

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,026
    edited December 1969

    whoah! great job, EP. That black and white image could really be a promo still for the '33 Kong. Well done.

    So, I am going to take a shot at completing some version of the Colossus idea. I don't have the patience to do resource intensive features on my old clunky laptop, so there won't be any replicators or hair. It became an immediate issue for the sea, because I was going to do the replicated/terrain/sea approach, but not now. Still, not too unhappy with the result of just playing with shaders.

    The colossus is the Freak figure from Daz. I posed him and then modeled a tunic for him around the pose. Don't plan to make it a real conforming figure as this is a one shot deal. I then experimented with some different shader mixes until I got one to apply to the figure and the tunic. Just did the tunic with vertex modeling in the assembly room.

    I then modeled some simple vertex objects to act as the terrains by his left and right foot. I mixed a stone texture map that I have with a preset terrain shader (rocky) with a cellular function in the blend to get the mix I liked, and then upped the bump for each layer. Mixed results - I'll see if I can get it improved.

    I also played with the realistic sky editor by adding more cloud layers and changing the sky color to a more purplish color. I then put a weak purple spotlight on the sailboat entering the harbor.

    The terrain in the distance is a placeholder. Just the default that results when you insert a terrain from the top menu.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    I'll cover how I enhanced the atmosphere.

    When I rendered my image, I also rendered a depth pass and a volume primitive pass. The volume primitive pass was rendered to add the dynamic hair to the depth pass, which was covered previously.

    I took the raw background layer, select all, and copied and pasted a couple times (I like extra layers to play around with). One of the background layers I just created I turned into a Layer Mask. I clicked on Channels tab, selected the Depth Pass which PS calls Distance, and copied it.

    I went back to the Layers Tab, and option clicked the layer mask, and pasted in the depth pass. I created a new layer and used a color gradient to fill it. I placed it under the layer mask. I saw that I needed to invert the layer mask.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited August 2014

    Continued from above.

    I'll explain more of the postwork in another post.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    To create the aged black and white look, plus add the DOF, I merged the layer with the layer mask and the color gradient. I then desaturated the image. The next thing I did was apply a photo filter. I chose Sepia and set it to

    I then added a Lens Blur. I had the blur radius pretty high.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Continued from previous post...

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited August 2014

    Nice work Diomede! If I can use my circa 2003 or 2004 1.8 Ghz, single processor PPC PowerMac, you'll do just fine with the laptop! ;-)

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Here's the final with noise and a bit of a blur added. It's more noticeable if you click the picture and look at the full sized image.

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  • pimpypimpy Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Whauuu! Great work EP! Fantastic !

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,026
    edited December 1969

    Nice work Diomede! If I can use my crica 2003 or 2004 1.8 Ghz, single processor PPC PowerMac, you'll do just fine with the laptop! ;-)

    Truly, you demonstrate over and over that it is the artist, not the equipment. But I have a lot to learn before I could do what you do no matter what equipment I have. I am going to give it a shot in any case. No tragedy regarding my desktop. It lasted 8 years which isn't too bad in computer time. I had time to prepare, but the replacement that came was defective. Aargh. Have to wait until Friday for the replacement replacement. Then I will spend time configuring, etc.

    Enough about my minor annoyances. Great to see so many different approaches this month.

  • pimpypimpy Posts: 274
    edited August 2014

    I'm working on my second idea... (I love Donald)

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  • d-j-od-j-o Posts: 345
    edited December 1969

    I created some large leaves for the background for the DOF, the ground is individual round vertice objects because this spider is so small you would see dirt sort of like this.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    kashyyyk said:
    I created some large leaves for the background for the DOF, the ground is individual round vertice objects because this spider is so small you would see dirt sort of like this.

    I just knew this one would creep me out! Nice idea to use objects as dirt granules.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,106
    edited December 1969


    Dates To Remember: WIP Thread open Sunday, July 20th, 2014 and closes when voting begins. Submission Thread Open on Saturday, August 2, 2014. Submissions close and thread is changed to voting thread on Friday, August 15, 2014, at around 8:00 PM U.S. Mountain Time. Voting ends Wednesday, August 20, 2014, at around 8:00 PM U.S. Mountain Time.

    Thanks again to our fine sponsors, DAZ 3D and RingoMontfort for sponsoring this challenge!

    Owies! My, how flime ties! I... I mean... Time Flies! Or Tempus Fugit... something like that.

    Wow... GREAT Work all of you WIP submissionists!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited August 2014

    I had a couple more ideas. I wanted to do a Halo inspired render. I don't know if I'll continue with this one. It's just not grabbing my imagination as much as I thought it would.

    The technique I used to make the ring world thingy look like it is seen through an atmosphere was to render a scene with the ring world at the same resolution and aspect as my final render, then load the image into the scene's Backdrop slot.

    If you have an atmosphere, it will appear as though it is behind it. The nice thing about this effect is that you can use cloud layers or volumetric clouds and they will appear in front of the backdrop helping to sell the idea that it is in orbit or whatever.

    An image or HDRI in the scene's Background will also appear behind the atmosphere if you use one. The difference between the Background and the Backdrop is that with an image in the Background, the image wraps around the virtual universe and can be reflected and used like an IBL (Image Based Light) when the Skylight is enabled in the render room. Ideally the image in the background should be a spherical render and a fairly high resolution if it is to remain visible in the finale render.

    The first image is the ring world. The second is the scene with the atmosphere. I didn't do that great a job on the ring world object, as I wasn't sure how much detail would visible through the atmosphere. Note that if the sky is fairly dark, the Backdrop or Background image should show up better.

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,106
    edited December 1969

    THAT is SO COOL!
    Yeah, Iv'e been mentioning, a few months ago, how great it can be to simple use Carrara to composite stuff over other footage - whatever footage. I was using volumetric clouds, fire and particles and such... but a Carrara atmosphere... now That is SO COOL!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited August 2014

    THAT is SO COOL!
    Yeah, Iv'e been mentioning, a few months ago, how great it can be to simple use Carrara to composite stuff over other footage - whatever footage. I was using volumetric clouds, fire and particles and such... but a Carrara atmosphere... now That is SO COOL!

    Thanks Dart!

    Here's a version with better lighting, but I'm going to try one from a higher perspective and a different aspect to see if I like it better.

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