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

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Comments

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    Previous post is the raw render pre-postwork. And here is what I was able to come up with through layer compositing in post.

    Still not happy with the damned fur! :( But I am about ready to declare defeat :( though I dearly wish I know what the hell am I doing wrong here.

    I am still open to suggestions, as i would love to get this look more realistic, but if no suggestions appear (of the ones I haven't tried yet), this will have to be my final entry :(

    EP, If I fall off the radar again, please re-post this one for me in the final entry thread when it opens! (But I'll try to remember and check back here before the deadline to post it myself if I can.)

    Other suggestions for improvement (not just of fur) are also welcome, as always. But the fur is my biggest sore spot here.
    In case it needs to entered into final entries thread in my absence, here are the specs:
    Title: Size matters: Difference between life and death.
    Credits:
    Rabbit and Owl from Poser Animals pack.
    Grass and Flowers are butchered objects from Howie Farkes
    HDRI is from Dimension Theory
    (Shaders are all my own and so is the hair. The postwork is DOF + layer compositing - lots of layer compositing...)

    Hi Antara,

    I can certainly submit the image for you if you're not able to do so.

    Regarding the hair, what is it specifically that you don't like? The dull look to the hair? The styling of the hair? To me, the styling of the hair looks fine. The hair itself looks a bit dull. Can you post a screen shot of the color and highlight/shininess portion of the hair shader?

    The other issue could be the lighting. The hair looks great if you can find a way to add a rim light or key light. This is especially important if you're using the Skylight or Indirect Light, as the diffuse light can dull the fur.

  • pimpypimpy Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    Previous post is the raw render pre-postwork. And here is what I was able to come up with through layer compositing in post.

    Still not happy with the damned fur! :( But I am about ready to declare defeat :( though I dearly wish I know what the hell am I doing wrong here.

    I am still open to suggestions, as i would love to get this look more realistic, but if no suggestions appear (of the ones I haven't tried yet), this will have to be my final entry :(

    EP, If I fall off the radar again, please re-post this one for me in the final entry thread when it opens! (But I'll try to remember and check back here before the deadline to post it myself if I can.)

    Other suggestions for improvement (not just of fur) are also welcome, as always. But the fur is my biggest sore spot here.
    In case it needs to entered into final entries thread in my absence, here are the specs:
    Title: Size matters: Difference between life and death.
    Credits:
    Rabbit and Owl from Poser Animals pack.
    Grass and Flowers are butchered objects from Howie Farkes
    HDRI is from Dimension Theory
    (Shaders are all my own and so is the hair. The postwork is DOF + layer compositing - lots of layer compositing...)

    Very nice work Antara
    I like it!

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    EP, thank you! (I am not posting it yet in hopes of making it batter in the remaining time, but I might not get a chance to post it later, so if you see it still not there closer to deadline, please post it!)

    The main problem I have with the fur is that it doesn't seem realistic to me. When I look at rabbit photos, there is much more fluffiness to the fur, especially if the animal has more or less uniform coloring. I think if you just type in rabbit into google image search, you'll see what I mean.
    http://www.freewidewallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/love-Rabbit-hd-wallpaper.jpg
    http://www.animalspot.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Rabbit.jpg
    http://easttowneanimalclinic.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/rbir.jpg

    Even when I increase hair count and reduce hair width, I still don't get the fluffiness look I am after. Also, even where the hair is short, and when I make root color same or even lighter than tip color, I get too much internal shadow in the hair, where's real fur has more light absorption it seems and doesn't get such deep shadows. I tried turning shadows off on one of the hair objects (the shorter under-layer fur/fluff) but then I get it looking just flat :(. I'm not really seeing much shine to rabbit fur, so highlights didn't help make it more realistic.

    Lighting might help gloss over the issue, but I think I still need to mess with hair properties more. I just don't seem to know in what way.

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    pimpy said:
    Very nice work Antara
    I like it!

    Thank you! :) But I really wish I could make it better.

  • pimpypimpy Posts: 274
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    pimpy said:
    Very nice work Antara
    I like it!

    Thank you! :) But I really wish I could make it better.

    I'm sure you can do it! ;-)

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,073
    edited December 1969

    @Antarra, I think the fur looks great now. I guess I just don't have the eye for detail. I wish I had some suggestions for you.

    My cheesy idea is not working out at all. The general idea of having the previous picture on the camera screen play with perspective just is not being conveyed at all. Even if I could get the scene working in the most general way, all of the shaders are wrong. Not enough time to fix it.

    I am a cheese failure. :sick:

    I may have to move backward a few steps and just work on the render that was going to be put on the camera screen. Might not be enough time to fix that either.

    wip_colossa_not_satisfied.jpg
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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    My idea wasn't working either.

    Antara, perhaps a thicker and denser under fur, and a thinner, longer and less dense over fur would work?

    I'm doing a bit of testing, but I think the under fur could use large hairs. The over fur could use longer, thin or medium hairs, and fewer of them than the thick hairs.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Actually, for the over fur and under fur thing, I would say if you use 50,000 large hairs for the under fur, you would still need 50,000 medium hairs for the over fur.

    Here's an example of using a shorter, thick hair over an entire sphere, and then to contrast the difference, using a longer, medium sized hair for the over fur. I didn't brush or style the hair. I used the frizz channel in the hair shader for both, but for the short, large under fur, I customized it, and for the long, medium hair I left it at its default.

    Picture_1.png
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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    EP, thank you! (I am not posting it yet in hopes of making it batter in the remaining time, but I might not get a chance to post it later, so if you see it still not there closer to deadline, please post it!)

    Sorry if I caused you confusion. I though that's what you meant. I figured if I didn't see it in the thread just prior to me closing the entries, I would post it over there for you.

    BTW, if anybody has posted an entry and noticed a mistake or are not entirely happy with the version that was posted, you can swap it out with an updated version up to the time the submissions are closed.

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 7,790
    edited December 1969

    head wax said:

    PS stezza, can you fit our Lord Mayor in there instead of the purple toy - if you do he might give you a paper bag with 10 grand in (sorry non Aussies it's an oz joke)

    hmm... made a twenty dollar note from a vertex object with a twist and bend modifier applied.. ;-)

    then added them to a replicator... dunno if there's 10 grand or not though!

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

    Antara said:
    EP, thank you! (I am not posting it yet in hopes of making it batter in the remaining time, but I might not get a chance to post it later, so if you see it still not there closer to deadline, please post it!)

    The main problem I have with the fur is that it doesn't seem realistic to me. When I look at rabbit photos, there is much more fluffiness to the fur, especially if the animal has more or less uniform coloring. I think if you just type in rabbit into google image search, you'll see what I mean.
    http://www.freewidewallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/love-Rabbit-hd-wallpaper.jpg
    http://www.animalspot.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Rabbit.jpg
    http://easttowneanimalclinic.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/rbir.jpg

    Even when I increase hair count and reduce hair width, I still don't get the fluffiness look I am after. Also, even where the hair is short, and when I make root color same or even lighter than tip color, I get too much internal shadow in the hair, where's real fur has more light absorption it seems and doesn't get such deep shadows. I tried turning shadows off on one of the hair objects (the shorter under-layer fur/fluff) but then I get it looking just flat :(. I'm not really seeing much shine to rabbit fur, so highlights didn't help make it more realistic.

    Lighting might help gloss over the issue, but I think I still need to mess with hair properties more. I just don't seem to know in what way.

    My spiders top half of the head has a little fluffy look to it- http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/661040/

    I have large strands, 130000 count, stiffness 65%, in the shader my root and tips are almost the same color, the tip is slightly lighter, base thickness is 100%, the tip is 16%, the head has a colored shader with a texture map added. The texture has a lined design. Also in the hair modeling room I kind of brushed the hair guides in different circular motions so they aren't straight or sticking out.
    For some reason my screen capture isn't working, or I would have put up pictures

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    Thank you EP and kashyyyk!

    I already had the wider short hair as the under-layer and thinner longer hair on top of that. When I increased the difference in length, I got this test render, and to me it doesn't look more realistic than the other one :(.

    I did more work on the eye and ears, so the current "final" is a product of more test renders composited together with the initial render (I added red to the ears in the glow channel and then copied it over to my existing full image, and I also rendered out the eye diffuse map separately with the eye surface alpha-ed out to see the pupil and iris and then added that diffuse map under the reflection to get a more realistic eye. (I will post it next, to avoid confusion).

    So attached here is the different length difference render for the fur, the separate diffuse map i used for the eyes, and my attempt to composit the 2 different hair renders together - also not working well, I think.

    Doc11ed2.png
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    Doc13_MaterialDiffuse.jpg
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    Doc12.jpg
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  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    Here is the current "Final".

    Since my attempts to make it better made it worse, I really don't know what else I can do. Is it even possible in Carrara at all?

    This is the current latest composit. If I have time on the weekend, I'll try to make things better again, but at this point I don't have much hope.

    Doc11ed3.png
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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    If it helps, I had better luck with large hairs and medium hairs. The thin hairs didn't show up as well in my tests.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,922
    edited December 1969

    gee Antara, i would be lazy and just use a texture map :)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,922
    edited December 1969

    just a quick hit and run, my plain jane and my worked up will blah later :) and another render stezza, great bank notes thanks!

    doc17indirectlight.jpg
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    ratsHunterStreet.jpg
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    plainjain.jpg
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  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited August 2014

    Andrew, I'd love to know your postwork steps for the rat image. Totally amazing, BTW!

    Only thing: rats don't have fur on the tails :)

    Question: Is there a way to share fur object only? I did rat fur before for an image, and I can share that with you if you'd like.
    I've used it here: http://antarann.deviantart.com/art/There-s-a-ballet-being-fought-out-in-the-alley-382119949
    and here: http://antarann.deviantart.com/art/quot-Holiday-Dreams-quot-285574512?q=gallery:AntaraNN/33444054&qo=20

    Post edited by Antara on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,922
    edited August 2014

    Antara said:
    Andrew, I'd love to know your postwork steps for the rat image. Totally amazing, BTW!

    Only thing: rats don't have fur on the tails :)

    Question: Is there a way to share fur object only? I did rat fur before for an image, and I can share that with you if you'd like.
    I've used it here: http://antarann.deviantart.com/art/There-s-a-ballet-being-fought-out-in-the-alley-382119949
    and here: http://antarann.deviantart.com/art/quot-Holiday-Dreams-quot-285574512?q=gallery:AntaraNN/33444054&qo=20

    thank you for the kind offer :) they are meant to be metaphors :) meaning i was lazy ........ rattus rattus politicianus, you are perfectly right about the tails !

    here is summary of post work

    basically I render lots of passes, and do it with ambient on, off, with that linear thing of PHILW's at 2.2, then off,
    then use coverage and object index to isolate different parts of the render so i can work them up or down,
    using the depth pass with screen parameter helps for haze, I cant be bothered figuring out adjustment layers in pse so I just isolate things by hand for the DOF effect, anyway depth pass usually screws up on transmap hair ,
    the shadow pass can be used to darken shadows in the main render or if you add it to the diffuse pass you can gaussian blur it for soft shadows


    Post work: rendered out depth pass, coverage, object index, primitive passes, shadow pass. In post took the depth pass and made it screen parameter. Used object index, coverage and primitive passes to isolate foreground, blurred background, painted out anomalies with clone tool, took primitive pass, changed parameter to screen and used that to zap up the hair. Took whole into oloneo hdr to crisp it up, then hit it with a Romance Plugin to make it all snuggly.

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • DaleHardmanDaleHardman Posts: 27
    edited December 1969

    @EP - In the rules you state that submissions close "Around 8pm Mountian Time". Do you have a better idea now about when you will close things down tonight? I ask because I had an issue with my final render so I needed to start it over again but my day job has been so busy the last few days I have only been able to give Carrara 1-2 cores so I could use the rest for other un-fun things :down:

    The estimated time until done is close to the deadline but right now it is showing as just past 7pm Pacific Time so I might not make it. I am just trying to find out how much time I really have so I can decide to finish this render or if I have to submit my last WIP image instead. Thanks!

    @HeadWax - Thank you for your kind words. I am a huge fan of your work. I was working on trying to get some low poly grass (A neat trick I learned from a tutorial DT did a few years ago.) to look right when I had my fatal issue lockup Cararra. With all the deadlines in my professional & personal life I lost track of my workflow I forgot to un-check the cast shadow option on the grass blades & all kinds of bad things happened (including the fact that I forgot to save the file before I started the render) :red: I did not have enough time to start over on that so I moved on to your next suggestion & played with fog in the valleys. So thanks for the input ;-)

    Now I will cross my fingers EP sees this soon (Not Daz Soon I hope) ;-)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,922
    edited August 2014

    Go for it Dale, more the merrier, no one will be upset if we go over I reckon!
    ps i would just render the grass by itself then post it

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    Thank you for your post, DaleHardman!

    I am an idiot. I was completely sure that our submission date is the 20th, even though now I can clearly see it's today!

    So much for wanting to do more work on this thing on the weekend. But I can post it now and forget it. Although I do need to find a better way of dealing with fur fluffiness for future use.

    Andrew: Was it "thanks, but no, thanks" or do you want the rat fur? :)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,922
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    Thank you for your post, DaleHardman!

    I am an idiot. I was completely sure that our submission date is the 20th, even though now I can clearly see it's today!

    So much for wanting to do more work on this thing on the weekend. But I can post it now and forget it. Although I do need to find a better way of dealing with fur fluffiness for future use.

    Andrew: Was it "thanks, but no, thanks" or do you want the rat fur? :)

    Thanks Antara, that is very kind. I really need to do it myself so I can get better at it! So I will say no now, and yes later when I find I cant do it ;)

    Just PM evil for an extension maybe?

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited August 2014

    OK, PM me when you need the fur :).

    And "nah" on the extension - not worth it to hold everyone up, because I don't even know yet whether I'd be able to carve out time on the weekend to do this, and even if I do, there is no telling whether the result would be better :( .

    But I do need to figure this thing out, because there is a big project I am slowly working on, which is supposed to end up a short animation (in pre-production now), and the bunny is needed for it.

    BTW, the rule this days is: unless it's a commercial projects, everything I render needs to be animation project related, or I am not even allowed to think about it :). So I will be participating in future challenges only if I can make my entry related to the prep I am doing. I guess this way in a few months you'll all know what the animation going to be about :). I might also tire you all out with the bunny renders while I am at it :). This was fur + render speed+ style test (all failed), so back to drawing board.

    Post edited by Antara on
  • DaleHardmanDaleHardman Posts: 27
    edited December 1969

    @Antara - Glad that I could help out :lol:

    @HeadWax - I sent EP a PM like you suggested so we will see what his ruling is :-) Thanks for the tip on trying to comp the grass in post. I will have to save that for another day as I am still very new to all of this. I will just try and finish what I have for this time & keep playing & learning for next time.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Just to let everybody know, I have an unexpected task come up that will keep me away from the computer at the original close time of around 8:00 PM Mountain time. I may need to push it back by an hour or so. That is, unless anybody objects, hires a friggin' lawyer and issues an injunction. ;-)

    I didn't think so. We're all cool and laid back. Except headwax. He's clearly a simmering pot ready to boil over with crazy! ;-P

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    @ Antara, just to warn you, dynamic hair can be difficult to animate. You may get decent results if you leave it static and don't use the simulation functions. The other thing is that you will need to use good AA settings.

    The easiest way that I've found to share hair, is to drag it to a directory in the Objects browser, then using the Finder on a Mac, or Explorer (I think) for Windows, navigate to the directory that the hair was saved to, and copy or duplicate the file to share. The hair shader and all the other data should be saved internally. Please note that if it is grown on an object, the people you share it with need the same object. So for instance, if you grow hair on M4, the hair will only be correctly "grown" on an M4 mesh.

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    EP, thank you for the tips!

    :red: I don't think I know what AA stands for, or rather I am not sure. Is it Anti Aliasing? And I usually leave it at Fast, 0.5, 0.5. But 0.5, 0.5 might be too slow for animation. Although more than that might be creating some frame-to-frame artefacts. Is that what you meant?

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 7,790
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:

    Only thing: rats don't have fur on the tails :)

    you mustn't of seen rats from Newcastle!!

    hairy and huge!!

    lol

    :cheese:

    they didn't name Hunter Street in Newcastle Hunter Street for nothing... scarey.. scarey place :vampire:

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    EP, thank you for the tips!

    :red: I don't think I know what AA stands for, or rather I am not sure. Is it Anti Aliasing? And I usually leave it at Fast, 0.5, 0.5. But 0.5, 0.5 might be too slow for animation. Although more than that might be creating some frame-to-frame artefacts. Is that what you meant?

    You are correct, it does stand for Anti-Aliasing. Unless you're an alcoholic, in which case it has another meaning.

    As to the settings for hair, I think you'll want to start with good and if time is an issue, maybe start with a 1 pixel accuracy for both object accuracy and shadow accuracy. If it looks bad, try increasing it to .5 for both. In my limited experience, I had less artifacts if the two were set to the same setting. I found this was true with shaders that had fine details and with objects that had fine details. To be honest, I never tried an animation with best AA settings because the time hit seemed unacceptable to me.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Stezza said:
    Antara said:

    Only thing: rats don't have fur on the tails :)

    you mustn't of seen rats from Newcastle!!

    hairy and huge!!

    lol

    :cheese:

    they didn't name Hunter Street in Newcastle Hunter Street for nothing... scarey.. scarey place :vampire:

    The rats we have here are freakin' huge. Hazards of living on a farm I guess. Judging by the rats we catch, they do have some sparse coarse hair.

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