October 2017 - DAZ 3D New User Challenge: Atmosphere

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  • TynkereTynkere Posts: 834

    @ Shinkji

    Ha!  I'm glad there's room here for a sense of humor.  "Eject 007!  Missiles in the mirror!"  How'd you come up with the idea?  Great stuff!  : )

    @ Chameo

    Mermaid in Manhatten?  Pretty cool.  Like the limited splash (as only a water creature could make) and the moon is a nice touch.  I'd hate to be the judges for all these.  

    Also owe you another thank you.  Not sure if I've completely solved camera presets problem.  (Your advice worked, but it loaded from a previous camera, so will have to practice at it.)

    @ Ricswika

    Put scene in portrait mode and would look like cover art for a book.  With that many elements in it, imagine tweaking all the lighting & placement took a great deal of work.  Noticed the bats way up there in RH corner-- nice little touch.

    ---

    As for me, think I figured out the DoF trick thanks in part to Chameo's advice.  Render through the camera view.  Really like at feature.  Seems to work just like a real one.  DS is pretty amazing. 

    Guess that's it then.  Learned more by posting here than tutorials. Thanks again, everyone, for friendly welcome & input. smileyyes

    Oh, and Happy Halloween! 

    ---

    "Car Trouble" via DAZ 4.9 (win 64bit);  other products: 'Terradome3', 'Roads-n-Rails for Terradome3', 'Urban College Guy Fashion for G2M' & '1961 AM Roadster'

    (Post processing *.jpg exif junk data via: "Batch Purifier")

     

  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    Tynkere said:

    @ Shinkji

    Ha!  I'm glad there's room here for a sense of humor.  "Eject 007!  Missiles in the mirror!"  How'd you come up with the idea?  Great stuff!  : )

    @ Chameo

    Mermaid in Manhatten?  Pretty cool.  Like the limited splash (as only a water creature could make) and the moon is a nice touch.  I'd hate to be the judges for all these.  

    Also owe you another thank you.  Not sure if I've completely solved camera presets problem.  (Your advice worked, but it loaded from a previous camera, so will have to practice at it.)

    @ Ricswika

    Put scene in portrait mode and would look like cover art for a book.  With that many elements in it, imagine tweaking all the lighting & placement took a great deal of work.  Noticed the bats way up there in RH corner-- nice little touch.

    ---

    As for me, think I figured out the DoF trick thanks in part to Chameo's advice.  Render through the camera view.  Really like at feature.  Seems to work just like a real one.  DS is pretty amazing. 

    Guess that's it then.  Learned more by posting here than tutorials. Thanks again, everyone, for friendly welcome & input. smileyyes

    Oh, and Happy Halloween! 

    ---

     

    "Car Trouble" via DAZ 4.9 (win 64bit);  other products: 'Terradome3', 'Roads-n-Rails for Terradome3', 'Urban College Guy Fashion for G2M' & '1961 AM Roadster'

    (Post processing *.jpg exif junk data via: "Batch Purifier")

     

    Nice finish! I'm glad you found the advice helpful. You obviously know your way around rendering (far more than I do!), so a lot of it is learning what tools you have, and where to find them. What I've found amazingly helpful lately is to pick an earlier month and just go through the posts. Last month's challenge was DOF, which I'd never actually played with before. Welcome aboard - hope you stick around!

  • ricswikaricswika Posts: 132
    edited October 2017
    ricswika said:
    ricswika said:

    I hope this shows up, it looks good on my monitor. Night scenes are so hard to judge. Someone please let me know if it appers too light or dark for night. The only thing I might do is add some rim lighting off to one side for a bit more definition.

    Title: Rat Monster

    Made With: Daz Studio, Iray - No Postwork

    Uses: Creepy Forest, 3 Raven Place, Monster Rat, Millinium Cat, Super Bat, Grave Yard, Atmocam

     

    Here is my next version. I tried to improve the lighting in the drak areas with more creepy shadows and some rim lighting. Please let me know if the shadows falling on the bat and rat are too busy and confusing. I never saw anything like that before and it seemed to add to the 'creepy atmosphere' of the piece. I lost some of the 'blueness' of it and maybe some contrast, but the values are probably more realistic. I'm not sure if this is the final version, probably not. I will wait to hear what kind of feedback I get.

    I'm finished. I mangaged to get the look I was after. No sense in over working it :) Thanks everyone for the feedback.

     

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    Post edited by ricswika on
  • daybirddaybird Posts: 655
    ricswika said:
    ricswika said:
    ricswika said:
    I'm finished. I mangaged to get the look I was after. No sense in over working it :) Thanks everyone for the feedback.

     

    The last one looks great. I like the creepy atmosphere and the light from the house turns out great. How did you get the smoke black?
    Btw. where did you get the trees? I want them too? :)

  • ricswikaricswika Posts: 132
    daybird said:

    The last one looks great. I like the creepy atmosphere and the light from the house turns out great. How did you get the smoke black?
    Btw. where did you get the trees? I want them too? :)

    Thanks for the encouragement! It took 1000% more effort to get it maybe 10% better, but I learned so much it was worth it. Next time it will be that much easier.One thing I learned is to use groups for collections of objects.That way you can turn them on and off in one click. It really speeds up previews and making adjustments.

    Having groups for everything also saved my butt because at one point I added a new light and all my other lights somehow got erased. I don't know if that is a bug or feature :), but luckily I was able to just grab my light group from a previous version and I had everything back in place. That would have been a lot more work if they wern't already grouped.

    To answer your question regarding the chimeny smoke, I used a black image map. At first I was trying to add some illumination to the material, thinking maybe that would help it to show up through the fog. That didn't really work, so instead I increased the amount of light in the sky by using a 'sun' object that I could control and move around. That was enough to make the smoke show up,

    The trees and forest are from https://www.daz3d.com/creepy-forest. I've used it on several projects for Halloween and found it to be put together really nice and it comes with Iray materials. I learned a lot just by looking at how they did things.

  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    ricswika said:
    daybird said:

    The last one looks great. I like the creepy atmosphere and the light from the house turns out great. How did you get the smoke black?
    Btw. where did you get the trees? I want them too? :)

    Thanks for the encouragement! It took 1000% more effort to get it maybe 10% better, but I learned so much it was worth it. Next time it will be that much easier.One thing I learned is to use groups for collections of objects.That way you can turn them on and off in one click. It really speeds up previews and making adjustments.

    Having groups for everything also saved my butt because at one point I added a new light and all my other lights somehow got erased. I don't know if that is a bug or feature :), but luckily I was able to just grab my light group from a previous version and I had everything back in place. That would have been a lot more work if they wern't already grouped.

    To answer your question regarding the chimeny smoke, I used a black image map. At first I was trying to add some illumination to the material, thinking maybe that would help it to show up through the fog. That didn't really work, so instead I increased the amount of light in the sky by using a 'sun' object that I could control and move around. That was enough to make the smoke show up,

    The trees and forest are from https://www.daz3d.com/creepy-forest. I've used it on several projects for Halloween and found it to be put together really nice and it comes with Iray materials. I learned a lot just by looking at how they did things.

    What @daybird said. I already liked it, but this version - let's just say I didn't think there was as much room for improvement as you found. The light from the house makes such a difference! And I'll definitely have to play with groups - it sounds like it will make my own life so much easier.

  • ricswikaricswika Posts: 132
    Chameo said:

    An earlier version that I still like a lot..

    I like that one too. It has a simple charm. What else could you do with the atmosphere? Did you try shinning a spot light through the trees and into the fog. I wonder if it would make god rays?

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    ricswika said:
    ricswika said:
    ricswika said:

    I hope this shows up, it looks good on my monitor. Night scenes are so hard to judge. Someone please let me know if it appers too light or dark for night. The only thing I might do is add some rim lighting off to one side for a bit more definition.

    Title: Rat Monster

    Made With: Daz Studio, Iray - No Postwork

    Uses: Creepy Forest, 3 Raven Place, Monster Rat, Millinium Cat, Super Bat, Grave Yard, Atmocam

     

    Here is my next version. I tried to improve the lighting in the drak areas with more creepy shadows and some rim lighting. Please let me know if the shadows falling on the bat and rat are too busy and confusing. I never saw anything like that before and it seemed to add to the 'creepy atmosphere' of the piece. I lost some of the 'blueness' of it and maybe some contrast, but the values are probably more realistic. I'm not sure if this is the final version, probably not. I will wait to hear what kind of feedback I get.

    I'm finished. I mangaged to get the look I was after. No sense in over working it :) Thanks everyone for the feedback.

     

    Nicely done.  All that hard work has paid off. 

  • Chameo said:

    I've been playing with the scene I started with at the beginning of the month. Here's the latest version.

    I like it! The only thing I can see is maybe if you could make the splash around her a bit larger? At first glance I wasn't sure what that was, it looked more like a wall or ring of stones..neat idea for a scene!

  • Chameo said:

    An earlier version that I still like a lot..

    very serene..

  • daybird said:
     

    Mhh, maybe you're right with the position of the bridge, but I don't know if I have time for another render. For now, I have tried to add some lens flair, but I'm not sure if it makes the scene better.indecision

    I think the lens flare is nice, it adds more contrast up there. Nice scene!

  • Tynkere said:

    @ Shinkji

    Ha!  I'm glad there's room here for a sense of humor.  "Eject 007!  Missiles in the mirror!"  How'd you come up with the idea?  Great stuff!  : )

    Thanks Tynkere, but to be honest, version a of the one in question hit me out of nowhere about a week ago while I should have been getting some sleep and whouldn't leave me alone until rendered and posted. It just grew from there in the following days into what I have now. 

  • Shinji Ikari 9thShinji Ikari 9th Posts: 1,188
    edited October 2017

    Here's versions f and g of my primary render for this month.

    Looks like I forgot all about posting version f so that's why I've got both of them here, g is the most recent of course.

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    Post edited by Shinji Ikari 9th on
  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    Here's versions f and g of my primary render for this month.

    Looks like I forgot all about posting version f so that's why I've got both of them here, g is the most recent of course.

    Of the 2 I prefer G.  Moving the guard to the left in the image makes him stand out.  I'm not sure I would have even noticed him if you hadn't posted both mages to use as a compairson.  Nice tension in the image.

  • HighElfHighElf Posts: 365

    Thanks to a Dataloss I wont participate this month. :(

    I've lost my whole *.duf folder. Now I will play with some ideas around and wait till I get my new graphic card, before I start anything serious next month.

  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306
    HighElf said:

    Thanks to a Dataloss I wont participate this month. :(

    I've lost my whole *.duf folder. Now I will play with some ideas around and wait till I get my new graphic card, before I start anything serious next month.

    Oof! That really stinks! I had my own little crisis when I let Windows update my system to the latest video driver, and it totally destablized my entire system. It took me the better part of a day to even figure out what had happened, and then I had to convince the OS that yes, really, I _do_ want to roll back my driver.

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    HighElf said:

    Thanks to a Dataloss I wont participate this month. :(

    I've lost my whole *.duf folder. Now I will play with some ideas around and wait till I get my new graphic card, before I start anything serious next month.

    So sorry to hear that HighElf. A crying emoticon

  • halfmast88halfmast88 Posts: 63
    edited October 2017

    Cabin Fever

    Daz Stuio/ Iray

     

    Hello everyone, I’m late to the party but hopefully people are still looking through the thread. I wanted to do a B-Movie inspired horror scene for Halloween and this is what I ended up with. Let me know what you think. Thanks  

     

     

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    Post edited by halfmast88 on
  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,966
    edited October 2017

    Ok I have two finished pictures just don't know where to post them. Where is the entries thread, it seems that I can't find the link to it in the first post or on this part of the forum.

     

    Here it is first is Dragon Companion, I am couldn't make shadow work on the ground and I tried to add some vegetation but my computer couldn't take it :) so I make another picture which is called Dragon and Fireworks, now just to post it in the entries thread if I could only find it.

     

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    Post edited by MilosGulan on
  • halfmast88halfmast88 Posts: 63
    edited October 2017

     

     

    Post edited by halfmast88 on
  • daybirddaybird Posts: 655
    HighElf said:

    Thanks to a Dataloss I wont participate this month. :(

    I've lost my whole *.duf folder. Now I will play with some ideas around and wait till I get my new graphic card, before I start anything serious next month.

    That is real horror HighElf. Now I think about save my .duf files on a stick.

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 655

    Cabin Fever

    Daz Stuio/ Iray

     

    Hello everyone, I’m late to the party but hopefully people are still looking through the thread. I wanted to do a B-Movie inspired horror scene for Halloween and this is what I ended up with. Let me know what you think. Thanks  

     

     

    Lot of Story in this picture. It don't look like a happy ending. They seem to drift into the sun and the whole situation looks worse. The guy has seen no other option, than to blow his brain away and the console seems to be short before an crash. Only one of the hypernetik pods seems to work proper, but the poor girl seems doomed too.

    Nice piece of work. I really like how you tell us a story with it. You did a good job with the smoke and the girl who is floating in the tank. Good use of refracting and the bubbles let us know there is liquide in the tank.
    And what to hell has pulled all his flesh from his bones? The heat? A virus?
    Only the sun looks a little flat (not so bright), but in the fact, that you will show us a B-Movie style, it fits.

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 655

    Ok I have two finished pictures just don't know where to post them. Where is the entries thread, it seems that I can't find the link to it in the first post or on this part of the forum.

     

    Here it is first is Dragon Companion, I am couldn't make shadow work on the ground and I tried to add some vegetation but my computer couldn't take it :) so I make another picture which is called Dragon and Fireworks, now just to post it in the entries thread if I could only find it.

     

    Nice PoV in the second picture, but I still try to figure out, why you don't get shadows. How many lights do you have in this picture? My graphic card can only show up 8 light sorces. If I imply more, I can see them in the viewport, but they don't show up in the render. 

  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,966
    edited October 2017

    Ok I have 25 distant lights, only two or three are turned on and lots of cameras too. I also have one plane for shadow catcher but it is turned off too. I am not sure what it is and my computer is very old so it was frozen with it for 2 days when I decided to try again but only with dragon. I will try it again soon and see if I can get shadow.

     

    Just if someone could post entries thread link I seem I can't find it.

     

    Edit: I have tried and it is working. Probably I didn't set direction of light with shadow good so it wasn't showing on the picture. I am not sure or maybe other 2 or 3 lights a bit bright or it was something else but as my scene was a bit heavy I couldn't figure how to do it.

    Post edited by MilosGulan on
  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252

    Ok I have 25 distant lights, only two or three are turned on and lots of cameras too. I also have one plane for shadow catcher but it is turned off too. I am not sure what it is and my computer is very old so it was frozen with it for 2 days when I decided to try again but only with dragon. I will try it again soon and see if I can get shadow.

     

    Just if someone could post entries thread link I seem I can't find it.

     

    Edit: I have tried and it is working. Probably I didn't set direction of light with shadow good so it wasn't showing on the picture. I am not sure or maybe other 2 or 3 lights a bit bright or it was something else but as my scene was a bit heavy I couldn't figure how to do it.

    This year there is no "Entries" thread.  Just post your finished images here.

     

    I am really liking the idea of the dragon and the fireworks.  Great concept.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,956

    Ok I have 25 distant lights, only two or three are turned on and lots of cameras too. I also have one plane for shadow catcher but it is turned off too. I am not sure what it is and my computer is very old so it was frozen with it for 2 days when I decided to try again but only with dragon. I will try it again soon and see if I can get shadow.

     

    Just if someone could post entries thread link I seem I can't find it.

     

    Edit: I have tried and it is working. Probably I didn't set direction of light with shadow good so it wasn't showing on the picture. I am not sure or maybe other 2 or 3 lights a bit bright or it was something else but as my scene was a bit heavy I couldn't figure how to do it.

    Milos, since we changed from contest to challenge there is no separate entries thread anymore, the CVs will look throuhg the thread who participated and did they find ways to improve on their knowledge about DS or other programs and understand some ideas of how to create a certain effect.

    As for teh lights, try to make one light the main light with a strong shadow and make the other two just contributors as a maximum of 30% light intensity. dial the shadow complete to soft shadow for those. to ease up your mashine delete all other lights.

  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,966

    Ok thank You, I have made very nice render today (I mean I have done lightning good), I will post it here just for info tomorrow. Just one question, my idea was to set up lights from different sides as needed. It seems I have 25 total which might be more then my original idea was (there are 3 versions of same light I guess I somehow loaded it few times). But anyway I would like to have at least 8 of them or more in the scene with maybe 2 or 3 active as You suggested. If I turn off others (they are not visible on the scene) will it make difference for the memory usage. If it is better to keep only few lights as possible I will delete them, but I was thinking to save time and to keep them in one place and just turn on when needed.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,956

    Memory consumption will be reduced reasonably by turning them off as you did, but if your computer is struggeling already with your scene as you descibed, I would remove everything from the scene completely that I don't really need. everything that is listed in the scene will need some memory even if its just to notice that its not necessary. I do it even with a computer that is rather on the well equipped side.

  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,966
    edited October 2017

    Ok, thanks for info. I guess I should save them and cameras too and bring them in as needed. And here is the picture I was talking about, I have it finished and I think I got it good this time.

    Post edited by MilosGulan on
  • Hate it when I get a last minute idea, but that's what happened last night. Whould have posted it this morning, but didn't have any time before I had to be out the door to head to work.

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