Ron's Brushes (are great).
dreamfarmer
Posts: 2,128
Apparently I have over half of his catalog of 105 brushes. How did this happen? Why do I keep buying??? How can I use them more?
I always have this problem when I render something that I want to postwork a lot: I can't *see* what I want to do very well so I'm never satisfied with the render until I get it to a point where most of the postwork is filters and touchups and paintovers. I've only managed a few with significant post brushwork:
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/304671
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/403436
and one of those doesn't even use Ron's Brushs. (It uses Orestes, though. Another great brush maker!)
Show me your use of Ron's brushes? And maybe what you started with, if you have it?
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I got the idea of using the brushes to make billboard props in Daz :)
Need a puff of smoke a certain way? use the brush in photoshop (or gimp) to make your smoke, create an opacity map for it, then use it as a texture on a plane. Then you can use it multiple times and whenever you need a puff of smoke without having to postwork it every time
(I've not actually bought any of Ron's brushes yet, but I plan to now that I know I can use most of them in gimp)
It's really great when using a distance/depth camera, so you can place puffs of cloud in a specific 'location'
I too own many many Ron's brushes and that of others, but so far have used them far less than I would like. I've experimented with them, but never really attain the look that I want as it can be frustratingly tedius (for me) to use them and get them to look right. Eventually, I do hope I get around to really getting much use out of them.
I get excited when i see a sale for ron's brushes,then I remember i have them all already.
ALL of them??? I am really impressed!
Yeah I use them a lot, and I mean like every picture i've done uses the brushes in them somewhere a lot. so I snatch them up as fast as i can lol.
I spent my first year and a half with DAZ not doing any postwork as I wanted to force myself to make the render as close to what I wanted as possible (Its too easy for me to cheat and say oh, I'll just do it in postwork and I wanted to really LEARN studio). I am just recently starting to do a lot more with my renders in postwork and I do love all of Ron's brushes (I have a lot but not all lol). Its really hard for me to say which brushes I have used to be honest, I have (gulp) hundreds of them from all over the place, although Ron's and Orestes are two of my faves. This render with TRex definitely uses one of Ron's water brush packs. The first one is without, the second one with.
And this render uses his smoke brushes.
This used lots of brushwork
1) Particles for Leaves flting up by trees...
2) Dirt/dust for dirt debris up from the ground
3) Smoke or some kind of fog for dust kicked up by the monsters feet...
4) Ron's Slime I think does saliva..
5) And his powder to one of those grunges to dirty up the whoe image...
6) The sky might be his clouds too...blurred in photoshop to make a wash
7) It's cropped out but there was even dust from the human feet too.
Oh shoot, before I forget, here's the comic it's from
https://issuu.com/producersedge/docs/thebesthunterintheworld
Me, I'm the exact opposite. I was A "Cheater" straight from my first render on lol. Set up the render just to spend 12 hours on it in post, but thats why i like this (medium?) Everybody has there own way to do things, and no one's wrong on how they approach it. Sometimes a little passinate on thier process they like? sure but arn't we all to a point.
on FB i even end up sometimes posting the orginal render with the postworked one for a laugh.
A couple of my example and even a before and after (though i don't usualy do those in public I already hate my finished stuff but the before's are pretty bad)
Wow, great stuff!
Yeah, to each their own.
Somebody said postwork was cheating once...
I read that and thought I think the opposite. I actually feel like I'm being lazy if I just render something and use it straight as is.
Sometimes I'm very tempted to.
But those that rely strictly on Daz probably have a ton of iray effects and tonal adjustments, if not tonal products and probably are comfortable with HDRI/Domes and such.
I own some fogs and clouds and even fireflies and debris...I keep promising myself I'll explore those products, but I never get around to it.
I had to sink into Daz more when I started playing with 360 renders as an idea.
I also love it whenever I'm looking through the Daz store and come across wild products...
https://www.daz3d.com/comic-fx-complete
I love it.
I'm in between. I try to get the best render I can in DAZ, but that's only half the job. The second half is always post work, which includes tonal adjustments, filters, and Ron's brushes. I have most of them. In fact, when i look at his store page there's only a half a page left of stuff I don't own.
Here are a few of my favorites, some of which I've shared on other "I love Ron's Brushes" type thread, LOL I seem to use the smoke brushes the most. I really love the Angel Dust and Digitial Energy brushes as well. And those fireflies are awesome! (Click for larger images)
From my Black Kat series:
Other Stuff:
OMG, I love this one! The looks on their faces are priceless! Really fantastic work, avxp!
These examples of brushes in action are all very inspiring! I have something cooking now that will hopefully get where I want it to be with brushwork... we'll see.
Yay! Can't wait to see it! Keep in mind that many of Ron's brushes also come with styles. The mud ones do, as well as fireflies. Those can be used for all kinds of things. I actually used the firefly styles on the Fairest cover for the fonts as well as the brushes.
It's obscured a bit by postwork, but all the smoke bits are Ron brushes, as is the fire coming from the horse's eyes.
Where the heck is that? Hellish landscape....
And where is he going...to meet who?
https://www.daz3d.com/planet-lava is part of it... heh
I dont consider postwork cheating personally in fact probably the opposite to me postwork is a way personalize the image and make it pop and renders are just the canvas to me most of the time Then again I have yet to see a render that couldn't be enhanced by postwork....
i do like rons brushes but haven't had much use for the more recent sets involving big particles. They look odd to me although I've bought them haven't done much with them since I haven found a technique that I've liked that looks good with them.
I have about 20 or more of his sets and dont know how to use a single one properly. Turns out, its not my strong point.
Doesn't help that I dont own PS and that I dont like the Gimp
I used Ron's Angel Dust in the above render, and was so excited to win Honorable Mention in ShibaShake's contest!
I used Ron's Light and Shadows in the above render.
I used Ron's Digital Energy in the above render.
I went a bit overboard with 6 of Ron's brushes in this sci-fi scene.
https://www.daz3d.com/planet-lava is part of it... heh
No sir, I meant the story behind your render, not the products used.
Where is that from? You just render craziness from time to time?
Do you not?
There are some good tutorials on the use of photoshop which I think will teach those who learn that way how to use brushes more effectively. I am sort of a trial-by-error sort of person, but I've learned more from certain well-done videos than I would by tinkering alone.
One thing I've found that many overlook when doing postwork is that added lights in the form of special effects will reflect of the surrounding area. So either one needs to light the scene with this in mind using point lights or something similar, or use photoshop to add that effect in later. Both are doable, and since one may not know where one wants to put the postwork effect, it might be better to add it in at a later date.
Learning the use of layering in photoshop will greatly enhance the choices one has in producing a well-done postworked image.
Here's one of mine before and after using Ron's Weeds. In this image, I have used the brush set with the clone stamp instead of the brush tool.
I started by saving out a png image consisting of just rendered 3d item; then brought the png into Photoshop. In first image, I have layered my rendered image of just 3d items over two Filter Forge texture tiles added under image to give base ground and sky. Second image is final with filters applied for lighting etc. I used the clone stamp and brushes from Ron's Weeds to suppliment the base ground texture so it would interact with my 3d object elements. I work using lots of layers so weeds and other "fixes" are on multiple layers not just one.
The second one has so much life! That's awesome.
Do you not?
The comics have taken over, so unless it's a story I don't do too much rendering....
I always say that I'm going to create a portfolio.
Or a print book of my art. That would be a good thing to have laying around the house.
People come over and you slide them a massive artbook full of emotive renders.
I want to do a whole bunch of merch.
Hmm. I'm thinking maybe I should make a project of going through each brush set and using it, with a render planned for that purpose. Although with some of them I'm not even sure where to start for the render side. Like... Dead Tech. There's so many stamp-like pieces of architecture, I wonder if I ought to just start with a person in a blank room and then go wild...
I've always through we should have a thread dedicated to Rons Brushes !!!
I couldn't of got my last lot of promo's done with out Ron !