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Here are some of the plant settings for trunk, branches leaves, and shaders - including the ornaments. The ornaments are actually just gouped spheres and cylinders..
Oops, the render passes are in bmp format so I can't upload them right now. Have to go to work so don't have time to convert them. Will update tonight, after I do my light fixtures for the animation club project.
As always, suggestions welcome.
Hre are a bunch of render passes. The following include
depth pass
diffuse pass
object index pass
reflection pass
shadow pass
volume priitive pass (2 versions)
As usual, suggestions on how I can use these render passes to improve the image are welcome. I will be adding wrapping paper and making some other changes.
depth pass - useful for adding Depth of Field (particularly with the Lens Blur filter in Photoshop, which allows you to select which "distance" is in focus) and distance haze/fog effects
diffuse pass - the "base" layer for putting your composited image together
object index pass - useful for selecting individual objects in your scene. Once selected, you could (for example) brighten or darken just that object, change its colour, etc
reflection pass - usually combined with the base layer using "Screen" mode. Allows you to interactively control how much reflection there is in the scene
shadow pass - usually combined with the base layer using the Multply mode. Allows you to interactively adjust the depth of shadows in your scene
volume priitive pass (2 versions) - Use Screen mode for the white with black hairs (to mask out where the hairs will be) and then over that use Multiply mode for the other hair image to put the hair into you scene. Again having them on a separate layer allows you to adjust brightness, colour, etc. independently
I hope this help, sorry if this is all self-evident.
Thanks, Phil. Very helpful, and not self-evident.
And can be used as a matte to add color to your shadows, something Carrara desperately needs.
Colour in a shadowed area (in the real world) must come from somewhere, either light from another source (for example from the sky on a sunlit scene) or from light reflected from other objects. Both of these can be modelled in Carrara by using the indirect lighting options. Or if you are looking for faster renders (when animating say), you can fake it by using the Indirect Light option (which you can tint), ideally with the ambient occlusion option turned on so that it not just totally flat. So I would say that Carrara gives a good degree of control of how shadows look, by controlling the light that is illuminating the shadowed areas.
Thanks Phil for info. Maybe I foolishly do everything I can to stay away from that panel in the Render Room because of (1) limited experience and (2) an outrageous "progress" bar when rendering from what little past experience I have in that area.
For what it is worth, here is my touch up by combining passes, selecting elements, and compositing and filtering. No doubt, I love a little toon flavor. As always, comments and suggestions welcome.
That looks great doimede, I love the style you are developing
Yes, great styling in this!
Thanks, guys. Always appreciate your help.
Struggling with composition on a new project. During the sale, I got the camp props. I want to have a scene in which a couple of survivors are using the camp equipment to build a crude stockade. Feel good about the shaping of the terrain. But before I start replicating foliage, I want a better idea of how much of the terrain will be in the shot.
Here are the camp props.
Here are the grayscale images fo the terrain height and the opacity mask to separate grass and dirt for the terrain.
Here is what the terrain modeling room. I loaded the terrain heightmap but with a slightly less elevation than would want. I applied some erosion to it. I then loaded the same heightmap a second time but with just enough elevation to make up for what I had left out the first time. I find dong it this way adds some roughnessback in after the erosion smoothes the terrain.
Here are some test renders without the foliage and the couple with camp props that will be added.
Diomede - nice work on this so far!
The always generous SickleYield just posted some more tutorials, so I am linking to them here so I won't lose them. These are on using Marvelous designer, and on how to model and texture for geografts.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/138001/tutorial-post-2-new-year-tutorial-boogaloo#latest
And really appreciate your encouragement, Phil. Have been procrastinating on that project, but hope I get back to it. I guess I could use the terrain and stockade as the start for a battle as one of my monthly callenge entries.
I love the toon effect you've come up with - particularly with the pattern on the sofa / chairs
Yeah, me too! Very nice use of those extra passes!
Cool explanations, Phil! Very nicely done!
Man, diomede, I really love your Toon look! Just beautiful!
Reviving elements of an older project as part of an effort to get better at modeling outdoor environments. I want to create and render a woodland stream that has been dammed by some beavers.
To give myself a deadline so that I make progress, I plan to enter a submission to Lola Lane's render a month thread. January is "Nature." A short while back, I was working on projects related to the Appalachian frontier during the 1750s. This is the period during which the Iroquois Empire, backed by the English and her colonies, suffered some subject tribes (Shawnee) along the Ohio River Valley attempt to defect to the French. (ultimately led to the worldwide 7-years war between England and France). The Iroquois Empire had formed almost a century earlier to dominate the main routes of the beaver fur trade around the southern and eastern rim of the Great Lakes. By the 1750s, a century of change in the way of life saw orchards and farms displace fur trappers on both sides of the frontier.
By now, you are asking, "why the history trivia?"
1) It is my thread, and I'll share what I want to, share what I want to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_My_Party_(Lesley_Gore_song)
2) Frequent visitors might notice the relationship to what I said would be the underlying theme of my Brash Lonergan and Moxie Espinoa adventures. Difficulties of maintaining peace and goodwill along the galactic frontier.
3) *** Justification for focusing on plants and environments native to the eastern portion of North America.
Speaking of which, I found a great website for plant references. The USDA has a website with all sorts of plant information that can be sorted by all sorts of categories. It includes photos and other images that make great references. Check it out.
https://plants.usda.gov/gallery.html
For this project, I don't think I will have any people, even though I have a what I consider a pretty good fur trapper for distance shots.
Beautiful scenery, Diomede! I like composition too. Maybe I would add some contrast extra lighting, just to accent the figure and some details.
Thank you, Vyusur. I will definitely refer back as I get my dam ready.
I am attaching some photos of beaver dams during various seasons. I even have a cool model of a beaver by AM. http://www.daz3d.com/beaver-by-am
The dam looks like a job for a replicator! I am considering ways to use heightmaps to create the stream and pond, and at the same time help place the dam replicators. I will also probably want to have stones thrusting upward from the stream bed below the dam, but not in the pond. More replicator tasks. I will be posting screenshots as I experiment with the terrain editor, the modeling of the plants, and replicating stuff.
As always, suggestions welcome.
In Studio, this seems like a job for ultrascater, which I own. So, if anyone knows of a tutorial to achieve a similar result in Studio, I'd appreciate a pointer for comparison.
THIS USDA SITE IS JUST TOO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://esis.sc.egov.usda.gov/
Ecological Site Information System (ESIS)
ESIS is the NRCS repository for ecological site descriptions and for information associated with the collection of forestland and rangeland plot data. ESIS is organized into two applications and associated databases; the Ecological Site Description (ESD) application and the Ecological Site Inventory (ESI) application. This section, plus the access tab on the right, provides quick access to technical resources and technical guidance for developing and understanding ecological sites.
Ecological Site Description (ESD)
The ESD application is used to enter, edit and store ecological site information. Only approved ecological sites for forestland and rangeland are available to the public. Open this section to access approved and non-approved ESD’s. Entry/Edit privileges are required to access non-approved sites. Click on MLRA/state of interest, and available ESDs within that MLRA/LRU for the state will be displayed.
Forage Suitability Group Descriptions (FSGD)
Forage suitability group descriptions (FSGDs) are interpretive reports which provide a soil and plant science basis for conservation planning where forage crops are grown. FSGDs identify adapted forage species, yearly forage production estimates, and distribution of production during the growing season. Open this section to access approved and non-approved FSGD’s. Click on MLRA/state of interest, and available FSGD’s within that MLRA/LRU for the state will be displayed.
Ecological Site Inventory (ESI)
The Ecological Site Inventory (ESI) application provides the capability to enter, edit, and retrieve rangeland, forestry, and agro-forestry plot data. ESI stores plot data collected via the Soil-Woodland Correlation Field Data Sheet (ECS-005), the Windbreak-Soil-Species Evaluation Data Sheet (ECS-004) and the Production and Composition Record (RANGE-417). To access ESI information, open this section or click on either the Forest or the Rangeland, “button” to the left.
Interagency Ecological Site Handbook for Rangelands
This Interagency Ecological Site Handbook for Rangelands provides the framework to implement the policy outlined in the Rangeland Interagency Ecological Site Manual. This handbook is specific to rangeland ecosystems and pertains only to ecological sites on rangelands regardless of their current vegetation or land use. Implementation of this policy will complement existing agency (BLM, FS, NRCS) protocols for classifying, describing, mapping, and the inventory of soil and ecosystems.
National Ecological Site Handbook (NESH)
The National Ecological Site Handbook (NESH) provides standards, guidelines, definitions, policies, responsibilities, and procedures for conducting the collaborative process of ecological site description (ESD) development. Responsibilities for ESD development are shared among disciplines, including soils, range, forest, agronomy, wildlife biology, and hydrology. The NESH describes steps needed to collect information on site attributes, site correlation and classification, site dynamics, and site interpretations to ensure the quality and utility of Ecological Sites.
Here is a site for native plants of the region.
http://findnativeplants.com/mid-atlantic/
Very interesting pics, Diomede, thanks for sharing. In Studio I have InstancesPlus plugin, but I guess it's not the same as replicator.
I don't have InstancesPlus, but I do have Ultascatter. I think they are similar, but I have not put the time in yet to learn Ultrascatter. I'll report any related information that I pick up.
A few years back I took an interest in the history of the period which forms the setting of the ficticious 'Last of the Mohicans'. I came across a really gripping book called 'White Devil'. The title refers to Robert Rogers who was a soldier and woodsman who formed and led a company of Rangers. He wasn't any kind of saint but was an effective leader of a powerful fighting force in times of horrific cruelty and the more I read the book the more I became fascinated and appalled by the events of those times. The Lake Champlain region was, in those days, a region of dense forests where ordinary survival was hard enough without the prospect of the horrendous fate suffered by anyone falling into enemy hands.
I don't want to stray too far from Carrara but here is a link where you can read a little about the book in case you haven't seen it before. I notice the site shows other books of interest.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69431.White_Devil
Thanks for the link. I have not read that book. Looks fascinating.
I can see why you would think "replicator" when you look at the dam picture, but I have another suggestion - physics. Make a branch (or maybe a few different ones), set to animate with physics and use a replicator to make a bunch of them up in the air, and then select to make them actual instances (you will get a warning when you do this - try to make the branch models as simple as possible). Then run the physics engine to drop them as a pile across the river. You may need to play with physics settings, you probably need friction fairly high and bounce low to none, so that they pile up rather than bouncing or slipping away. Not sure it will work, but worth a try. And don't forget to select physics for the animation method BEFORE you make the instances, or you would need to go through each one and set it manually...
hey love this thread, image looks great, so old fashioned and rich in colour
!
my suggestion, make those outlines less black
also if you add noise to the outlines sometimes that helps
you can do this with a coverage pass
or that toon pro plugin - which will give you more details
also add a lttle paper texture - make sure the paper texture is neutral grey then use the parameter 'overlay' on the texture layer
Great idea, PhilW. I think I might need to insert a leaning wall to make sure the pile of sticks doesn't spread out, physics is definitely worth experimenting with. Can uncheck visibility for the wall.
Thanks for the suggestions, Headwax. Not sure how to use the coverage pass to add noise, but look forward to experimenting. I feel like I have taken my first few steps to take advantage of multipass rendering but am still very lost. Please keep the suggestions coming.
Here is a first draft of my terrain. I am likely to start over so that the elevation change is not so sharp, but if so I will use the same basic methods. I have posted a variation of this technique before, but I think it is worth posting again. This is one of the ways that I get water for a stream to flow down on a sloped terrain when just using an angled plane won't suffice. (Another way is to model the water course in the vertex modeler).
General method:
I will be using 3 terrain models of size 256 by 256 within a medium sized scene. One is the terrain, one is water, and one is the stony stream bed.
I will be using two grayscale maps of size 1025 by 1025 that I created within Photoshop Elements. One map is the basic heightmap, the other is the inverse of where I want water (white for land and black for water).
I insert a terrain and resize it, then remove the default terrain. I import the general grayscale heightmap and set the height low, say 25 feet. I import the water course (inverse) heghtmap and set the height very very low, say 1 foot. This gives me the very rough terrain and directs where the water should go when I apply a rain erosion filter.
I apply any terrain editor filters that strike my fancy. In this case, I applied a smooth filter and I applied an erosion filter for rain. The default rain erosion is way too strong for a medium size scene so I reduce its effect to 1 percent. This smoothes the terrain, creates a basin for the beaver pond, and creates a valley for the stream.
I then duplicate this terrain twice. Rename one duplicate water and the other stony bed.
Enter the modeling room for the original terrain and import the heightmap for the water course another time. Set the height very low, such as 2 feet. This raises the land potion of the original terrain by two feet bu leaves the stream alone.
Select the water terrain and create a new shader master for it. Apply a water shader. Raise this terrain something less than the height you used to raise the land in previous step, say 1.75 feet in z axis. Water will now appear in the valley and pond basin of the original terrain.
Select the stony bed terrain and create anew master shader. Apply a muddy or a stony shader. Raise this terrain someting less than how much you raised the water terrain. Your steam valley now has water above a muddy or stony stream bed.
And hopefully it is obvious where I plan to place the beaver dam. The terrain currently has the default shader, but that will be changed.