December 2016 New User 3D Art Contest - Free Render Month (WIP Thread)

kanegs

nonesuch00 said:

kanegs said:

kanegs said:

nonesuch00 said:

kanegs said:

Here's what I got so far... I'm open to all comments and suggestions.

Create bloom but not too much. Moon if you can cast it with a light blue hue but barely and it would be nice if you put it up & to the right top (the moon) and have it cast a pale barely blue light on the right (her left) shoulder and in front of her on the path. If you do the light effect with the moon you will need to dial bloom effect way down.

Thanks for the suggestions. I did a test render last night using your sugestions. It looked promising, but I tweaked a few settings and started another one.

Side note..., DA Let it Snow is available for FREE for today only (Dec. 9th). See here: http://www.daz3d.com/da-let-it-snow.

I like how this version turned out. I have a second version rendering with a brighter fill light for the face.

Changes made:

• Moonlight is a shade of blue
• Moon moved
• Tree on right moved
• Lantern flame changed
• Slight pose change
• Reduce environmental (HDRI) intensity
• Added fill mesh light for face.
• Turned on bloom

All comments and suggestions welcome.

That's gorgeous, a much more vibrant picture.

You're too kind. Thanks for the suggestions!

I tried further changes to the snow and the lighting and decided that none of them improved the picture any further (e.g. if I make her face brighter, the details on the fur trim get blown out).

Shinji Ikari 9th

daybird said:

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

 

Here we are with version d. Made use of DOF to try and draw the focus on Cheetah. Because of my system trying to run low on memory I had to do three renders, 1.) Cheetah + Background, 2.) Ivan + Background, 3. Cheetah on her own without anything.

I then brought said renders into photoshop where I lined every thing up, and used the third render on the list to help create the mask used to bring the other two together

The DOF worked very well and now cheetah is definitely the middle point in your picture.

Thanks daybird, now if nobody sees any last minute changes and coments about them before I get home this evening, I think that I'll call this one in the bag (Still needs a name eather way though.)

Vacation time's over, and I have to be in for my first day back at work in a little over 2 hours as I type this.

daybird

nonesuch00 said:

nonesuch00 said:

daybird said:

 

Linwelly said:

nonesuch00 said:

Water looks awesome now but there seems to be a mismatch between the face texture and the body texture. As I'm not a texturing expert, or even decent amateur, I would suggest putting a wide-brim tropical feminine hat on the lady to put her face in a bit of shadow (it's be a cool effect if the brim was laced and threw laced shadows on her face) and hide the tanning mismatch, although I guess such a tanning mismatch between face & body is more common nowdays with strong sunscreens.  

Lol, must be a vers stron sunscreen. I agree the water looks cool now. For the face i guess you applied some facial materials that were meant for another character than the rest of the skin. Try applying all material for the lady from one character (skinset) and choose the makeup options from the same character set, that schoud prevent "Tan lines"

Shame on me. There are so many things I've learned and forgotten. I have the feeling to be the greatest noob of all.

Now I have implied the correct material on her. However, I have lost the sweat effect on her skin. Any chance, to get him back?

Yes, the easy way without buying a product:

1. go into the Surfaces and for each her Skin & Nail Surfaces & set the Top Coat Map to None

2. increase the Top Coat Weight to Maximum for all her skin & nail Surfaces

3. For her Skin Surfaces set the Top Coat Roughness to 40 and for her Fingernails & Toenail set her Top Coat Roughness to about 20

4. Adjusting the Top Coat Roughness to smaller numbers makes her look most plastic like/wet while making them bigger make her look dryer

Instead of deleting her Top Coat Map you could maximze the Top Coat Strength settings and then set the Top Coat Roughness to smaller numbers to get a sweaty look without looking too wet/plastic but that only works for some Top Coat Maps or you have to create up the lights to be extremely bright.

It's up to you which you prefer.

OK, I didn't know you have Genesis 2 character.

If you are doing 3DL render, someone else needs to chime in, I have no ideal.

In that case just needing to convert your model to iRay the steps are still mostly the same but:

1. Select you character & then in the Smart Content Tab for the or the Content Library folder for your Genesis 2 assets you must select the Apply iRay for Genesis 2 Female icon I'm not sure exactly the name of that icon but if you look around a little bit then you will find it, otherwise just select in the Content Library in Shader Presets the very 1st shader preset in the iRay Uber Shader - it's 1st on the top left when you navigate to that folder of iRay Preset that comes from with DAZ Studio, just select your model in the scene tab, select that model's Surfaces in the Surfaces Tab, and then double click the iRay Uebershader icon in that Shader Presets folder in the Content Library Tab/Pane.

2. Now, if you scroll in the Surfaces tab for the various skin surfaces and you find there is no 'Top Coat' map applied that saves you some work - just set the slider for the 'Top Coat Weight' as high as it will go and the 'Top Coat Roughness' between 0.3 - 0.6 as discussed earlier to create a 'sweaty' or 'oily' look to the model's skin.

THX again to you. I have tried a few settings and now I'm pretty pleased with the result. 

Saphirewild

Linwelly said:

Saphirewild said:

Here is a revised version with lights turned down some and some shadows turned off

On a footnote my granddaughter is the insperation for this render she is only 3 years old and told me that Mommy told her that Santa needs to eat after all the running around he does on Christmas nite so the items in the picture is what my Granddaughter told her Mommy to put out for Santa and his reindeer!!!!

Wow, lots going on there. There is some blue stuff on the kids face, was that intended? If yes you probably need to make that more obvious, probably having blue icing over her hands as well or somthing like that.

The chrismas tree and presents could probably use some work as well right now they look a bit too much like a plane with an image of the tree on it. If you don't have a good prop for that you could try using DOF so the kitchen with mom and Kid is clear and next room is blurred out of focus.

The Blue stuff on the child's face is intended as it is a not permanate tattoo maybe I should turn her around a little bit to make it more noticeable I agree, as for the christmas tree it a cardboard cutout ment to look not real as the child and mom was supposed to have made it and stuck it out in the hallway !!! Thanks so much for the advice Linwelly and I will work on the fact of showing the tatt off more so.

SkpFX

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

SkpFX said:

Hey all, it's looking good. Just dropped by because I'm was fighting with getting some hair to fit. Did a quick render. Probably won't enter, but it's free render, so... gratis. She's a Lil' Hippy Chick(obviously)

Crits and Comments are welcomed.

Not a bad start in my openion, but I'd recomend getting some more shadows from her on the ground so as to anchor her into the set. To me it almost looks like she was photoshoped in since I'm not really seeing any shadows on the ground around her.

Edit: Looking a little closer, I saw a bit of shadowing right under her. Sorry about that.

Point taken Shinji Ikari 9th, she does look photoshopped, but I think it's the lighting in general, rather than the shadows. If you look at her against the rocks behind her she's simply not lit the same as the background image. I'm not good at lighting in DS. I'm a blender head, and I'm still not good at lighting in blender. Quite honestly, I had been fighting with the hair... got it to work, and just threw in the background and lights from one of the tutorials. If I do enter, I'll probably go a different direction, and use blender's cycles render engine. There's still a lot of month left.

kanegs

SkpFX said:

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

SkpFX said:

Hey all, it's looking good. Just dropped by because I'm was fighting with getting some hair to fit. Did a quick render. Probably won't enter, but it's free render, so... gratis. She's a Lil' Hippy Chick(obviously)

Crits and Comments are welcomed.

Not a bad start in my openion, but I'd recomend getting some more shadows from her on the ground so as to anchor her into the set. To me it almost looks like she was photoshoped in since I'm not really seeing any shadows on the ground around her.

Edit: Looking a little closer, I saw a bit of shadowing right under her. Sorry about that.

Point taken Shinji Ikari 9th, she does look photoshopped, but I think it's the lighting in general, rather than the shadows. If you look at her against the rocks behind her she's simply not lit the same as the background image. I'm not good at lighting in DS. I'm a blender head, and I'm still not good at lighting in blender. Quite honestly, I had been fighting with the hair... got it to work, and just threw in the background and lights from one of the tutorials. If I do enter, I'll probably go a different direction, and use blender's cycles render engine. There's still a lot of month left.

In DAZ, there's a light set for that background. With nothing selected, it's in Smart Content under Lights | Exterior | Surfer Guy Beach Lights.

You can also find Surfer Guy Beach Lights in the Content Library under Products | Genesis 2 Starter Essentials.

 

SkpFX

kanegs said:

SkpFX said:

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

SkpFX said:

Hey all, it's looking good. Just dropped by because I'm was fighting with getting some hair to fit. Did a quick render. Probably won't enter, but it's free render, so... gratis. She's a Lil' Hippy Chick(obviously)

Crits and Comments are welcomed.

Not a bad start in my openion, but I'd recomend getting some more shadows from her on the ground so as to anchor her into the set. To me it almost looks like she was photoshoped in since I'm not really seeing any shadows on the ground around her.

Edit: Looking a little closer, I saw a bit of shadowing right under her. Sorry about that.

Point taken Shinji Ikari 9th, she does look photoshopped, but I think it's the lighting in general, rather than the shadows. If you look at her against the rocks behind her she's simply not lit the same as the background image. I'm not good at lighting in DS. I'm a blender head, and I'm still not good at lighting in blender. Quite honestly, I had been fighting with the hair... got it to work, and just threw in the background and lights from one of the tutorials. If I do enter, I'll probably go a different direction, and use blender's cycles render engine. There's still a lot of month left.

In DAZ, there's a light set for that background. With nothing selected, it's in Smart Content under Lights | Exterior | Surfer Guy Beach Lights.

You can also find Surfer Guy Beach Lights in the Content Library under Products | Genesis 2 Starter Essentials.

 

Thanks kanegs. I'm on Linux, so my Smart Content doesn't work by default, and I haven't fought to fix. But I dug around a bit... That light setup is also found under Scene Builder->Starter Essentials in the standard content library. I'l remember that the next time I need to throw together a simple environment.

 

Skip

SkpFX

I recently reinstalled my Linux and my bicycle model got messed up. Decided this would be a good time to fix it, and so I'll post my progress. This is one of the reasons I bought the Saffron Hair; It's pigtails, and fits easy in a helmet. Still a lot of work to do on it.

yhzmurphy

It's time for my semi-annual try-to-make-progress-with-DAZ. After a weekend of struggles with render settings, lighting and shaders (including a strange one where changing the surface on the window glass made random other items - like clothes or hair - disappear), it's finally looking done enough to share.  I think the thickness of the glass is making the double reflections, but I'm hoping there's a shader tweak instead.  As always, any and all feedback welcomed.

 

 

sueya

This is the first draft of my entry for December. I am planning to change the camera angle so you can see the girl's reflection in the mirror as well as the reflection from the windows.

I may also change the girl's outfit as I have recently bought the Dance Gear for Gen 3 Females. At the moment there are two shadows for the girl because I have made the shadows visible for both spotlights but I'm planning to switch off shadows for one of them. 

aaráribel caađo

Trying out a new, more comic-y style for this one.

anthonyonggg

any suggestion on that!!?

aaráribel caađo

anthonyonggg said:

any suggestion on that!!?

The lighting is a bit unnatural. It's very intenense from the front/right, making it look like it was shot with a flash. It looks like a 3delight render, and I haven't used that in a while, so I'm not sure if the best solution is an area light, or something else. I'd suggest thinking about where the light in the room is coming from, and either make those sources of light sufficiently big to avoid the flash look, or (I think this is how it works in 3delight) add more lights to simulate the bounces. Also, you need a point light where the light in her hands is—it's very bright, but doesn't appear to light up the back fo the creature in front of her. Finally, watch for blow-outs—the light you have coming in from in front of the characters is too bright, so it's washing out the details in what should be the focal point. 

The composition isn't bad, but I wonder if it might be a bit better if you panned out a bit so the sorcerer figure fits more easily into the frame.

Saphirewild

Here is another version I revamped a bit of things Like the cardboard cutout of the tree put that in the kitchen and put a actual tree in the hallway with presents under it moved the dog too.

 

dracorn

anthonyonggg said:

any suggestion on that!!?

Cool concept.

1. It looks like the sorceress is floating - you need to bring her feet down to the ground.  Same with the ghoul's foot - it's at an angle, so you need to twist the foot a little and bring it down so it looks like it is firmly on the ground.

2. I like the lighting and the shadows - even though the lighting is a little over-exposed, it's a nice effect.  Is the effect between her hands an object in the scene or is it postwork?  Something that bright should cancel out the shadow of her arm against her breasts.  Do you have a light there or is it set to emit light?

3. It looks like the chain of the ghoul on the right is attached to her waist - he would be pulling her over.  Move her over to the left so we can see that the chain is attached to the wall.

4. Ghoul poses show lots of action, but the sorceress seems a little stiff.  You can widen her stance, put one foot forward/back and arch her back a little. 

5. Expressions are good on the ghouls - the sorceress seems a little calm for the scene.  Add some determination to her mouth. 

dracorn

I missed last month's contest.  Life took my attention away from rendering.  Darn it, life just shouldn't get in the way of Daz!

Since this is a general render contest, I decided to post it here.  I did texture replacing on most objects, with subsurface replacing and optimization on the background. 

I used AoA's Subsurface Shaders for 3Delight and tutorial on the wizardress to optimize her surfaces, and added a material zone for the collar boarder.  It's the Eowyn dress, but I only used the under dress with a couple of accessories for the shoulders and elbows from MFD.  The overdress warps over large breasts, so I nixed it. 

I was planning on adding some postwork magical effects surrounding the floating Rosevile.

It's not easy getting objects to emit light in 3DL!  For the glowing vials, I set the Ambient to a bright color and kicked the strength up to 100%, and then added a pointlight inside each vial, which shined through the semi-transparent glass.

The painting in the background is classical artwork and turned out well. 

I decided to try a slanted camera angle for more drama.  Not sure which angle is best, maybe you can help me decide that.

daybird

Wow, lot to see in this picture. It looks like a lot of work to creat this setting. I am curious, how it looks, after you have done your postwork. 

daybird

Saphirewild said:

Here is another version I revamped a bit of things Like the cardboard cutout of the tree put that in the kitchen and put a actual tree in the hallway with presents under it moved the dog too.

 

The new christmas tree looks great, only the shadow from the water tab irritates a bit, first I had thought it was a strange shadow from the dog. laugh

 

Linwelly

Saphirewild said:

Here is another version I revamped a bit of things Like the cardboard cutout of the tree put that in the kitchen and put a actual tree in the hallway with presents under it moved the dog too.

 

Cool!, this makes it much clearer what you want to show, though I guess the dog would sit in the kitchen... all dog I know would

Linwelly

SkpFX said:

I recently reinstalled my Linux and my bicycle model got messed up. Decided this would be a good time to fix it, and so I'll post my progress. This is one of the reasons I bought the Saffron Hair; It's pigtails, and fits easy in a helmet. Still a lot of work to do on it.

Looking good so far, probably a bit more directed light would make the scene more interesting.

Linwelly

yhzmurphy said:

It's time for my semi-annual try-to-make-progress-with-DAZ. After a weekend of struggles with render settings, lighting and shaders (including a strange one where changing the surface on the window glass made random other items - like clothes or hair - disappear), it's finally looking done enough to share.  I think the thickness of the glass is making the double reflections, but I'm hoping there's a shader tweak instead.  As always, any and all feedback welcomed.

I had that happen with some items as well, seems some opacity settings in combination with lights or refelctions from others make that happen, at least for the 3delight settings. I never had a problem rendering though, when that happened. (probably worthwhile to nake a little test render. Other caes this happens is whn you look through one of your lights liek a camera and haft shadows turned off on some items (again in 3delight).

Other than that I can say you did a good job on that. double refelction are coming from the glass surface, whic is acutally a good thing, as that happens in real gleass as well if you look closely. A thick glass like that would certainly have double reflection. What might work a bit better if you give is a stronger light coming from the inside lighting up the outside. Last thing to mention is that I#m not sure about the amotional situation here, she is clearly irritated, not expecting to see the guy outside, so did he have an accident? I can't read his expression yet.

Linwelly

sueya said:

This is the first draft of my entry for December. I am planning to change the camera angle so you can see the girl's reflection in the mirror as well as the reflection from the windows.

I may also change the girl's outfit as I have recently bought the Dance Gear for Gen 3 Females. At the moment there are two shadows for the girl because I have made the shadows visible for both spotlights but I'm planning to switch off shadows for one of them. 

looking nice so far. I wil wait what you will come up with.

Linwelly

aaráribel caađo said:

Trying out a new, more comic-y style for this one.

Looking really good so far. Only thing that comes to my mind right now is that her hair and the red moon are too much of a similar color. somethin more contrasting would be better. That Tail get a bit lost in the letters

Linwelly

dracorn said:

I missed last month's contest.  Life took my attention away from rendering.  Darn it, life just shouldn't get in the way of Daz!

Since this is a general render contest, I decided to post it here.  I did texture replacing on most objects, with subsurface replacing and optimization on the background. 

I used AoA's Subsurface Shaders for 3Delight and tutorial on the wizardress to optimize her surfaces, and added a material zone for the collar boarder.  It's the Eowyn dress, but I only used the under dress with a couple of accessories for the shoulders and elbows from MFD.  The overdress warps over large breasts, so I nixed it. 

I was planning on adding some postwork magical effects surrounding the floating Rosevile.

It's not easy getting objects to emit light in 3DL!  For the glowing vials, I set the Ambient to a bright color and kicked the strength up to 100%, and then added a pointlight inside each vial, which shined through the semi-transparent glass.

The painting in the background is classical artwork and turned out well. 

I decided to try a slanted camera angle for more drama.  Not sure which angle is best, maybe you can help me decide that.

Nice work dracorn! The shadows look a tad flat to me, as well you might want to think about compostion aspects to make it a bit more interesting. Try different camera postions for example.

aaráribel caađo

 

Linwelly said:

Looking really good so far. Only thing that comes to my mind right now is that her hair and the red moon are too much of a similar color. somethin more contrasting would be better. That Tail get a bit lost in the letters

Thanks. I think I'll try retexturing the tail to get it to stand out a bit, as well as moving to a less orange moon. 

yhzmurphy

Linwelly said:

yhzmurphy said:

 

I had that happen with some items as well, seems some opacity settings in combination with lights or refelctions from others make that happen, at least for the 3delight settings. I never had a problem rendering though, when that happened. (probably worthwhile to nake a little test render. Other caes this happens is whn you look through one of your lights liek a camera and haft shadows turned off on some items (again in 3delight).

Other than that I can say you did a good job on that. double refelction are coming from the glass surface, whic is acutally a good thing, as that happens in real gleass as well if you look closely. A thick glass like that would certainly have double reflection. What might work a bit better if you give is a stronger light coming from the inside lighting up the outside. Last thing to mention is that I#m not sure about the amotional situation here, she is clearly irritated, not expecting to see the guy outside, so did he have an accident? I can't read his expression yet.

Thanks Linwelly.

Next time I see things disappear, I'll calm down and test render before rebuilding things :-)

I've been working to get things lit to be visible both inside and out, but I wasn't thinking about lighting outside with stronger light from inside - that's a very good idea and I'll give it a try.  I'm also going to make the glass a bit thinner, so it will still have the double reflection, but hopefully less so.  The scene is still unfolding, so I'll try to get expressions better as well as a more clear story...I'm just happy to be working on expressions beyond the generic Genesis stare at this point ;-).  Once I get something rendered this weekend, I'll post it for more great advice like this!

ebonartgallery

"Confrontation"

yhzmurphy

Here's the next iteration - with some lighting changes thanks to Linwelly and more progress.  The wine glass is being dropped versus just spilled, but I seem to have made the glass too transparent, so to be invisible...I'm also torn between adding more 'stuff' outside versus leaving space barren.

As always, any and all suggestions welcome.

Kismet2012

yhzmurphy said:

Here's the next iteration - with some lighting changes thanks to Linwelly

and more progress.  The wine glass is being dropped versus just spilled, but I seem to have made the glass too transparent, so to be invisible...I'm also torn between adding more 'stuff' outside versus leaving space barren.

As always, any and all suggestions welcome.

This is looking quite good yhzmurphy.  You might want to minimize the Earth.  It is so bright it draws my eye away from the figure and the interaction going on between them.

Nicely done.

 

 

Kismet2012

ebonartgallery said:

"Confrontation"

Nice posing and composition.  My eye is drawn right to the gun.  I hope the big guy talks his way out of this quickly.