December 2021 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Open Render Challenge
Scott Livingston
Posts: 4,331
New User's Challenge - December 2021
Sponsored by DAZ 3D
Are you new to the 3D World? Are you at the beginning stages of learning 3D rendering? Have you been around for a little bit but feel you could benefit from some feedback or instruction? Have you been around a while and would like to help other members start their creative journey? Well then come and join the fun as we host our newest render challenge.
This year, we are breaking down each month into 2 different challenges. A Beginner Challenge and then also an Intermediate Challenge.
So which "Challenge" should you choose?
Follow the Beginner Challenge if you are:
- New to the New User Challenges
- New to Daz Studio
- Newer to 3D Rendering in General
Follow the Intermediate Challenge if you have:
- Participated in the New User Challenge for awhile
- Know the basics of Daz Studio and would like to learn more in depth topics
- Been using 3D Rendering Applications for awhile and feel comfortable with learning Intermediate Topics
"Open Render Challenge"
The Open Render Challenge is also referred to as a "free" month, where you can concentrate on using and combining the skills you learned in the past few challenges. Please be sure to mention in which Open Render Challenge (Beginner or Intermediate) you wish to enter into when you add your image to the thread.
Optional: in keeping with the "free" theme, you are encouraged to highlight a free product (either something you obtained for free here at Daz, or a freebie from another source) in your renders. This invitation is just for fun and intended to stimulate creativity, and use of a freebie in your renders won't have any bearing on the judging.
If you would like to review the previous topics and information you can find the topics/threads here:
Beginner/Intermediate: Composition and Instancing, & Duplication
Beginner/Intermediate: Lighting and Light Effects
Beginner/Intermediate: Posing and Posing II
Beginner/Intermediate: Using Props and Push Modifiers/Deformers
Beginner/Intermediate: Scenes, Landscapes, and Working Modularly
Beginner/Intermediate: Portrait Rendering and LIE
Beginner/Intermediate: Depth of Field and Canvases
Beginner/Intermediate: Atmosphere and Ghosts & Special Effects
Beginner/Intermediate: Materials and Next Level Kitbashing
I will be checking in as will the rest of the Community Volunteers to try and help with anything you all may need.
For a list of the current challenge rules, please see this thread: Challenge Rules
Closing Date: December 31st, 2021
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Comments
Thanks for the links to the previous topics and info. Lots to look at and try out! : )
Here's my start for this month.
I see you got those little sparkles in the hair. I don't know what causes that but I get it from time to time. I have to clean it up with Photoshop.
Beginner entry
The Crystal Cave environment is free right now for Plat+ memebers
https://www.daz3d.com/crystal-cave
I believe i forgot to give her any expression. Not sure how I feel about the fireflies in the foreground, especially the one in front of her left arm.
Lovely render! I really like the color palette and lighting, and your character fits the environment perfectly. Her face actually looks thoughtful, so I don't know if she needs any more of an expression. The distorted/skewed lens effect is great. What did you do for that?
As for the larger fireflies in the foreground - I'd probably use a blur those in post to soften them so their outlines don't stand out as much. You can try removing the one in front of her arm in post, or move it near the rocks to the right and see if you prefer it better. Nice work Alewis478!
I came across AOBB's free morph "Alluring" for G8.1F today (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/534086/alluring-for-g8-1f-old-hollywood-style-head-morph-no-textures) and decided to try out a BW portrait render with the lovely head morph.
...
EDIT: I updated and simplified this original render and added AOBB's two other morphs to showcase them all together. I've uploaded them in a post further down.
I'm using the defalt lighting as I get things setup, so that might have something to do with it.
As it is, here's version B adding a second character.
I'm still needing to do texture work on the set to convert it to Iray, and decide on the lighting, but one bit at a time.
P.S. Nice start that you have with your project by the way.
Here's my beginner entry. Never entered one of these before. Depth of field and canvasses.
Thank you. I used the aperture blades setting to achieve something similar to depth of field. In this render it is set to 8 blades.
Version C here with a start on lighting, primaraly using image based lighting for the exterior, and a couple of flame props in the first two rooms of the building. I also added a hostile lurking in the first room if one were to look closely enough.
Nice job on the flames lighting those rooms. That looks good.
some hair props have a very hight gloss or even dual lobe dialed in. Some of these have material options to use a lower gloss amount and for some you have to reduce it by hand in the surfaces tab
this is going good, as usual you could use a bit more light in your scene, in this case I woudl suggest it coming from where the characters are going so they might get outlined in the light
Image title: Lady Tannenbaum
May love and good cheer follow you every day of your life.
Intemediate Open Render Challenge.
There may be several freebie objects used in this scene.
(After getting into her Christmas tree costume, Elane wondered if she had shut the cold shed door...)
Title: Charmer of Beasts
Intermediate Challenge
Tried playing around with godrays again; feedback welcome!
Title: Scaring the Reindeer
Composed and rendered in: DAZ Studio 4.16
"At least put on some pants, Santa. You're scaring the reindeer."
Intermediate challenge
Thanks a lot for letting me know! I'll have to try that out some time. : )
Lovely render, I especially like his peaceful pose and the piglet is just the cutest. : )
Image title; "Snow Deer"
RexRed entry into the December intermediate contest.
Getting snow to accumulate and look just right on trees is a fun project using the Daz store product, "Materia".
Thank you very much!
My first time posting here
Title: Rozy and the junkyard wars
Intermediate challenge.
15 year old girl fighting robots in a post Apocalyptic Statium
-Backdrop compositing.
- Hdri and scene lighting
- Extreme Kitbasking
- Bloom filter
- Displacement
- Atmospehere
- Ground visibility and reflections
- Materials
Wow, great amount of detail and detailed textures in this render! The glow of the robot's eyes and the sparks from the one lying defeated are a great touch. : )
"AOBB's Alluring, Glamorous and Charming: 1940s Stars That Never Were" (Beginner Entry)
AOBB has 3 lovely G8.1F head morphs created in a 1940's Hollywood style available for free in the freebies section. I enjoyed doing renders with all three of them to reflect something of the time period and their names. I put up an early render before, but thought to update it and put all 3 together in a single panel showcasing the morphs. They are in order:
1) Alluring (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/534086/alluring-for-g8-1f-old-hollywood-style-head-morph-no-textures)
2) Glamorous (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/533486/glamorous-a-1940-s-hollywood-beauty-style-head-morph-for-g8-1f-no-textures) and
3) Charming (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/534846/charming-for-g8-1f-1940-s-hollywood-style-beauty-head-morph-no-textures)
I wanted to do portraits of them, and focused on composition, lighting and posing to capture the dreamy BW aesthetic that I remembered from the old movies and photos. I messed around with shaders and material settings to get the ensemble items working together. Big benefit to BW renders is that they're so much quicker to render! This was a lot of fun to do, and I love how full of character and life-like they are.
Intermediate Challenge. "Lucia", done in DS with postwork in Affinity Photo. (I think the Lucia crown was a freebie last year or the year before!) The background is from a photo I took, several years ago, in a local church.
Hello, here is my submission.
Beginner Challenge of "Open Render Challenge".
Image Title : "The best male present in the world"
Software Used to Create the Image : daz3D
The HDRi background is a free download from polyhaven.com
Hello,
Newbie here, this is my first project / 3D render I have worked on so far. Any tips, hints, advice would be greatly appricated. Not sure if I am happy with the face direction & expression yet, but don't have a lot of content to work with so far.
Beginner Challenge of "Open Render Challenge".
Image Title : "Don't Worry, She's Armless!"
Software Used to Create the Image : Daz3D, Photoshop for Background edits.
Freebie used in the render for the android skin effect.
https://www.deviantart.com/mysticartdesign/art/MysticArtDesign-Android-759619113 ;
Super first project! Great use of the android skin and the blue and pink lighting. I like the background work you've done too. Very cool effects.
My main suggestion would be just to increase lighting a bit so we can see her better, and see if you can maybe position a point light or spotlight to hit her eyes to get those eyelights, which would bring it a little more to life. Great work!
Hey everyone,
Complete newbie in Daz here, really limited 3D experience ( used Wings3D 10-15 years ago lol )
Here's my first 4k render, definitely not the best lights, but I wanted to see a neutral kind of tone first.
No posing or scene yet, but it's on the to-do list for this month.
Glad to become part of the community!
Version D here. I've added another flame prop and an instance of one of the existing flames behind my characters to try and get some more light on them.
Other then that I've done some texture work as well.
Thank you for the feedback. Increased the lighting by quite a bit as I had forgetten to turn off my HDR options on the tv for the first render. So was a lot darker than it was appearing for myself. Still working out the eyes as I can't quite get the spotlight positioned just right without it looking silly.