November 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Materials

ricswika

daybird said:

 

I stuck in my picture. Everything I do with the shader makes it worse. The rendertime explode over 20h at 0% and sometimes the whole programme crashed. Maybe I should try somthing different, but until now I try to save my work.

Don't know what's the the problem. I verified all shaders and if they are iray, added three light sources and put the setting to dome and scene. So there must be enough light for Iray. 
I also have checked if the shaders have to much displacement or refraction, but I find nothing extreme what could inflict such a explosion in the render time.

Looks promising. Sorry to hear about the rendering issues. Did you look in the log file? That might give you a clue to the culprit. You get to it from the Help menu.

Maybe you can turn everything off then only turn on a few things to see if you can isolate what causes the explostion. Good luck in working it out.

ricswika

Three Piglets, a Sow, a Squirrel and a Donkey

Daz Studio, Iray, no post work.

Made with...

• DAZ Pigs
• DAZ Squirrel
• Hunter's Moon
• 3D Donkey
• Creepy Forest
• Ruined Cottage

I worked on improving the materials and converting them to Iray. I improved the animal fur, stones and some of the grass.

barbult

daybird said:

 

I stuck in my picture. Everything I do with the shader makes it worse. The rendertime explode over 20h at 0% and sometimes the whole programme crashed. Maybe I should try somthing different, but until now I try to save my work.

Don't know what's the the problem. I verified all shaders and if they are iray, added three light sources and put the setting to dome and scene. So there must be enough light for Iray. 
I also have checked if the shaders have to much displacement or refraction, but I find nothing extreme what could inflict such a explosion in the render time.

Is the shader on the curtains using translucency? That could cause a slow down in rendering. As an experiment, try setting translucency weight to 0 and see what happens. If that makes it faster, you have to decide whether the nice look of translucency is worth the render time. An alternative might be to set the cutout opacity to something around 0.5 and leave translucency at 0. Or maybe that is how you already have it set up.

Also, it really doesn't look like there is enough light on your character. She looks dark to me. That could also slow down rendering. If you want the nice back lighting effect with the dark girl, like it is now, you might try increasing the light in the scene and increasing the EV value in tone mapping to compensate.

I also recommend turning off the navel morph on the character so it doesn't show in the leotard.

I like the concept you have here with the girl pushing out the curtains.

barbult

shaneseymourstudio said:

Chameo said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

I am brand new to 3d art and rendering. Just a week ago I started using daz3d and was blown away at how much you can accomplish especially with iRay! I have scoured forums and posts to try and learn and understand about lighting and getting a grasp on the reigns of all the immense options. I was so excited to get renders out and after learning about the differences of 3delight and iRay I was sold on iRay and even ended up getting a new graphics card to render in it since I have used an AMD card for last couple of years for photoshop and adobe premiere work.

 

I made this image using hdr studio light setup and wanted the unique studio colors to reflect the light not only on the glossy black car but off the models hair. After reading several posts and finally just deciding to take the time while in iRay view, I started messing with the controls individually to try and get something reflective on the hair to show the colors as well as to make the hair look more realistic. In my first several days rendering out images the one aspect that seemed most unrealistic, to me, was the hair so I really paid attention to that here.

Wow - that's some impressive work for someone who just picked up the program. The curving reflections on the car's surface are amazing. Hair is always tricky - I'm really impressed by your level of attention to small details. Where the hair is still - her bangs and the long, sleek portion on the viewer's right - may be the best texturing I've seen on hair. Honestly, the one thing that feels "off" is the movement of the hair. It feels like it's going in too many directions at once - like there's a little whirlwind right above her head. It's really only noticeable at full resolution, and it could just be my eye, but you might want to take a closer look at that.

I changed the hair pose and threw it back in the oven for a quick render. It has fireflies because I didnt let it bake long but the hair being settled lets alot more of the studio light show off it. I am happy with this one and will, at some point, let a full render complete.

Excellent start for a beginner! The woman and her hair look very nice to me. The posing is great. Her foot touches the floor and she seems to be in contact with the car. I'm a little put off by the way the image crops off the very top of her head. I'd recommend pulling the camera back a bit to include all of her.

The plain white background and floor look out of place with the reflections in the car. Where are those green and brick reflections coming from if the surroundings are all white?

barbult

daybird said:

sueya said:

Here is a more close up version of my image. I think this shows off the materials textures better than previous versions. The furniture is now in better proprtion to the woman too.

I agree with the others. You created a peaceful scene here. She look very relaxed and cute. 
Don't know if the camera angle is a problem here, because of the shadow. 
Always when I look to the sofa and the shadow it casts, I get the imagination it floats.
It would be interest, to see the scene from a higher position.

 

The composition is much improved with the tighter cropping, @sueya. I areee with daybird that the furniture seems to be floating. When you scaled it, maybe it scaled around the center and brought the legs up off the floor. Ctrl-D is a shortcut  for moving items to the ground level in the scene. First select the item in the Scene pane and then type Ctrl-D. (You have to be careful, because Ctrl-D uses 0 Y as the ground, If the floor of your dream house is above 0, Ctrl-D may drop your furniture down into the floor.) When you move the couch down, you'll have to adjust the girl down to the couch level.

shaneseymourstudio

barbult said:

daybird said:

 

I stuck in my picture. Everything I do with the shader makes it worse. The rendertime explode over 20h at 0% and sometimes the whole programme crashed. Maybe I should try somthing different, but until now I try to save my work.

Don't know what's the the problem. I verified all shaders and if they are iray, added three light sources and put the setting to dome and scene. So there must be enough light for Iray. 
I also have checked if the shaders have to much displacement or refraction, but I find nothing extreme what could inflict such a explosion in the render time.

Is the shader on the curtains using translucency? That could cause a slow down in rendering. As an experiment, try setting translucency weight to 0 and see what happens. If that makes it faster, you have to decide whether the nice look of translucency is worth the render time. An alternative might be to set the cutout opacity to something around 0.5 and leave translucency at 0. Or maybe that is how you already have it set up.

Also, it really doesn't look like there is enough light on your character. She looks dark to me. That could also slow down rendering. If you want the nice back lighting effect with the dark girl, like it is now, you might try increasing the light in the scene and increasing the EV value in tone mapping to compensate.

I also recommend turning off the navel morph on the character so it doesn't show in the leotard.

I like the concept you have here with the girl pushing out the curtains.

Wow that is awesome advice! I actually learned about the tone map settings in the first couple of days working with Daz but totally forgot about those options for dark scenarios in particular to change either ev or f stop! Learning so much...

shaneseymourstudio

barbult said:

daybird said:

sueya said:

Here is a more close up version of my image. I think this shows off the materials textures better than previous versions. The furniture is now in better proprtion to the woman too.

I agree with the others. You created a peaceful scene here. She look very relaxed and cute. 
Don't know if the camera angle is a problem here, because of the shadow. 
Always when I look to the sofa and the shadow it casts, I get the imagination it floats.
It would be interest, to see the scene from a higher position.

 

The composition is much improved with the tighter cropping, @sueya. I areee with daybird that the furniture seems to be floating. When you scaled it, maybe it scaled around the center and brought the legs up off the floor. Ctrl-D is a shortcut  for moving items to the ground level in the scene. First select the item in the Scene pane and then type Ctrl-D. (You have to be careful, because Ctrl-D uses 0 Y as the ground, If the floor of your dream house is above 0, Ctrl-D may drop your furniture down into the floor.) When you move the couch down, you'll have to adjust the girl down to the couch level.

Awesome shortcut I didn't know existed! I have been manually tweeking the Y translate in iRay view with Ground Position Mode set to manual in render settings to get things on the ground...I figured there had to be a simpler way to do this but havent come across it yet...Love these tips! 

I have noticed when the Ground Position Mode is left at Auto that when I lower someone with Y Translate it seems to never quite touch the ground but always hover a little below. I am not sure if this is caused by something else in the scene that is crating that base plane or not. Typically when setting up my characters I just use a white background for environment so have not tested with buildings.

daybird

barbult said:

daybird said:

Is the shader on the curtains using translucency? That could cause a slow down in rendering. As an experiment, try setting translucency weight to 0 and see what happens. If that makes it faster, you have to decide whether the nice look of translucency is worth the render time. An alternative might be to set the cutout opacity to something around 0.5 and leave translucency at 0. Or maybe that is how you already have it set up.

Also, it really doesn't look like there is enough light on your character. She looks dark to me. That could also slow down rendering. If you want the nice back lighting effect with the dark girl, like it is now, you might try increasing the light in the scene and increasing the EV value in tone mapping to compensate.

I also recommend turning off the navel morph on the character so it doesn't show in the leotard.

I like the concept you have here with the girl pushing out the curtains.

I  checked the surface setting of the curtain and no, the translucency is set to zero. I only use the opacity to simulate the effect. 

I will follow your advice and try to increase the light a little, but what exactly is EV? Any link to a tutorial available?

shaneseymourstudio

barbult said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

Chameo said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

I am brand new to 3d art and rendering. Just a week ago I started using daz3d and was blown away at how much you can accomplish especially with iRay! I have scoured forums and posts to try and learn and understand about lighting and getting a grasp on the reigns of all the immense options. I was so excited to get renders out and after learning about the differences of 3delight and iRay I was sold on iRay and even ended up getting a new graphics card to render in it since I have used an AMD card for last couple of years for photoshop and adobe premiere work.

 

I made this image using hdr studio light setup and wanted the unique studio colors to reflect the light not only on the glossy black car but off the models hair. After reading several posts and finally just deciding to take the time while in iRay view, I started messing with the controls individually to try and get something reflective on the hair to show the colors as well as to make the hair look more realistic. In my first several days rendering out images the one aspect that seemed most unrealistic, to me, was the hair so I really paid attention to that here.

Wow - that's some impressive work for someone who just picked up the program. The curving reflections on the car's surface are amazing. Hair is always tricky - I'm really impressed by your level of attention to small details. Where the hair is still - her bangs and the long, sleek portion on the viewer's right - may be the best texturing I've seen on hair. Honestly, the one thing that feels "off" is the movement of the hair. It feels like it's going in too many directions at once - like there's a little whirlwind right above her head. It's really only noticeable at full resolution, and it could just be my eye, but you might want to take a closer look at that.

I changed the hair pose and threw it back in the oven for a quick render. It has fireflies because I didnt let it bake long but the hair being settled lets alot more of the studio light show off it. I am happy with this one and will, at some point, let a full render complete.

Excellent start for a beginner! The woman and her hair look very nice to me. The posing is great. Her foot touches the floor and she seems to be in contact with the car. I'm a little put off by the way the image crops off the very top of her head. I'd recommend pulling the camera back a bit to include all of her.

The plain white background and floor look out of place with the reflections in the car. Where are those green and brick reflections coming from if the surroundings are all white?

Thanks for the feedback!

I have a similar white cyclorama/infinite wall setup at my photo studio as what is in the HDRI that I used for this scene which if items were not flagged off in the background it would reflect on shiny surfaces. I chose that HDRI image for the green cast that it has which I loved for this shot, just happened to have alot of other stuff in it. I am not sure yet how to edit/change the hdri images for use in Daz but I dont mind it for this shot but the reflections would be coming from off camera above and across from the cyclorama or infinite wall. I am sure I can use similar color effects from a mesh light and turn its cutout opacity down to keep it out of the reflection but I have not experimented much with that yet, just been using hdri's alot.

I changed the composition so that her head was not cut off and softened her expression slightly so that it was a little less vogue/rbf.

I only let the render run for a couple of minutes so will have some fireflies.

I love the tips keep them coming!

shaneseymourstudio

barbult said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

Chameo said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

 

 

daybird said:

barbult said:

daybird said:

Is the shader on the curtains using translucency? That could cause a slow down in rendering. As an experiment, try setting translucency weight to 0 and see what happens. If that makes it faster, you have to decide whether the nice look of translucency is worth the render time. An alternative might be to set the cutout opacity to something around 0.5 and leave translucency at 0. Or maybe that is how you already have it set up.

Also, it really doesn't look like there is enough light on your character. She looks dark to me. That could also slow down rendering. If you want the nice back lighting effect with the dark girl, like it is now, you might try increasing the light in the scene and increasing the EV value in tone mapping to compensate.

I also recommend turning off the navel morph on the character so it doesn't show in the leotard.

I like the concept you have here with the girl pushing out the curtains.

I  checked the surface setting of the curtain and no, the translucency is set to zero. I only use the opacity to simulate the effect. 

I will follow your advice and try to increase the light a little, but what exactly is EV? Any link to a tutorial available?

EV is exposure value compensation. It will allow the scene to either brighten or darken when adjusted. The settings in the Tone map tab are similar effects to camera settings such as fstop/iso and shutter speed which all work together to give the final image. Adjusting the exposure value on your scene will have a dramatic difference on how bright or dark your scene is. In the image that I posted with the girl on the car, the Exposure value was set to 13. If I increased to 13.5 it becomes an overall darker/underexposed image in my scene. If I bring it to 10 it becomes a very bright/overexposed version as shown below:

daybird

shaneseymourstudio said:

barbult said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

Chameo said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

 

 

daybird said:

barbult said:

daybird said:

Is the shader on the curtains using translucency? That could cause a slow down in rendering. As an experiment, try setting translucency weight to 0 and see what happens. If that makes it faster, you have to decide whether the nice look of translucency is worth the render time. An alternative might be to set the cutout opacity to something around 0.5 and leave translucency at 0. Or maybe that is how you already have it set up.

Also, it really doesn't look like there is enough light on your character. She looks dark to me. That could also slow down rendering. If you want the nice back lighting effect with the dark girl, like it is now, you might try increasing the light in the scene and increasing the EV value in tone mapping to compensate.

I also recommend turning off the navel morph on the character so it doesn't show in the leotard.

I like the concept you have here with the girl pushing out the curtains.

I  checked the surface setting of the curtain and no, the translucency is set to zero. I only use the opacity to simulate the effect. 

I will follow your advice and try to increase the light a little, but what exactly is EV? Any link to a tutorial available?

EV is exposure value compensation. It will allow the scene to either brighten or darken when adjusted. The settings in the Tone map tab are similar effects to camera settings such as fstop/iso and shutter speed which all work together to give the final image. Adjusting the exposure value on your scene will have a dramatic difference on how bright or dark your scene is. In the image that I posted with the girl on the car, the Exposure value was set to 13. If I increased to 13.5 it becomes an overall darker/underexposed image in my scene. If I bring it to 10 it becomes a very bright/overexposed version as shown below:

Ah, thats a setting I never touched before. Too bad that I must wait a few hours until d'Force has finished his work to give it a try. Thanks for your advice and explanation.

And again I learned something new about light and DAZ. :)  ...hope I could use it to my advantage

ricswika

shaneseymourstudio said:

I will follow your advice and try to increase the light a little, but what exactly is EV? Any link to a tutorial available?

EV is exposure value compensation. It will allow the scene to either brighten or darken when adjusted. The settings in the Tone map tab are similar effects to camera settings such as fstop/iso and shutter speed which all work together to give the final image. Adjusting the exposure value on your scene will have a dramatic difference on how bright or dark your scene is. In the image that I posted with the girl on the car, the Exposure value was set to 13. If I increased to 13.5 it becomes an overall darker/underexposed image in my scene. If I bring it to 10 it becomes a very bright/overexposed version as shown below:

With the exposure turned up, the reflective black car paint looks awesome. The tires and model are over-exposed as you noted. Too bad you couldn't get the best of both worlds. That hood is sweet. Will stay tuned.

shaneseymourstudio

ricswika said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

I will follow your advice and try to increase the light a little, but what exactly is EV? Any link to a tutorial available?

EV is exposure value compensation. It will allow the scene to either brighten or darken when adjusted. The settings in the Tone map tab are similar effects to camera settings such as fstop/iso and shutter speed which all work together to give the final image. Adjusting the exposure value on your scene will have a dramatic difference on how bright or dark your scene is. In the image that I posted with the girl on the car, the Exposure value was set to 13. If I increased to 13.5 it becomes an overall darker/underexposed image in my scene. If I bring it to 10 it becomes a very bright/overexposed version as shown below:

With the exposure turned up, the reflective black car paint looks awesome. The tires and model are over-exposed as you noted. Too bad you couldn't get the best of both worlds. That hood is sweet. Will stay tuned.

Great idea ricswika!

I did a quick render with the overexposure and took both the original and overexposed into PS and used a layer mask and quick selections with a little touch up to the model and tires using black to bring them through. This is the result:

daybird

 Holy shit, what a impressive work to enter this thread. Far beyond my skills 

I would prefer a other shader for the rims, but that's more a personal taste.

Btw. is this Monique? She nearly steals the car the show.

 

shaneseymourstudio

ricswika said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

 

daybird said:

 Holy shit, what a impressive work to enter this thread. Far beyond my skills 

I would prefer a other shader for the rims, but that's more a personal taste.

Btw. is this Monique? She nearly steals the car the show.

 

Ya I should do that. The wheels were my least favorite part about this car and came a single object. You have given me an idea to do two different texture renders with the wheels and then to combine the best of both for tire and for rim in PS like I did with the last. 

Thanks for the idea!

shaneseymourstudio

daybird said:

 Holy shit, what a impressive work to enter this thread. Far beyond my skills 

I would prefer a other shader for the rims, but that's more a personal taste.

Btw. is this Monique? She nearly steals the car the show.

 

That is Tiana for Monique. She is quite lovely!

shaneseymourstudio

daybird said:

 Holy shit, what a impressive work to enter this thread. Far beyond my skills 

I would prefer a other shader for the rims, but that's more a personal taste.

Btw. is this Monique? She nearly steals the car the show.

 

Looks so much better with the tires and rims having a different material! I used iRay uber based then applied a rubber material and tweaked glossiness and top coat values to achive this look! Honestly I could spend all day tinkering around and probably will soon:)

I didnt let the render run long so some noise in the tires and rest of course:/

Thanks again for the feedback and giving me the ideas!

shaneseymourstudio

I am also liking the Dark version with those wheels...both are appealing in separate ways...

 

barbult

daybird said:

barbult said:

daybird said:

Is the shader on the curtains using translucency? That could cause a slow down in rendering. As an experiment, try setting translucency weight to 0 and see what happens. If that makes it faster, you have to decide whether the nice look of translucency is worth the render time. An alternative might be to set the cutout opacity to something around 0.5 and leave translucency at 0. Or maybe that is how you already have it set up.

Also, it really doesn't look like there is enough light on your character. She looks dark to me. That could also slow down rendering. If you want the nice back lighting effect with the dark girl, like it is now, you might try increasing the light in the scene and increasing the EV value in tone mapping to compensate.

I also recommend turning off the navel morph on the character so it doesn't show in the leotard.

I like the concept you have here with the girl pushing out the curtains.

I  checked the surface setting of the curtain and no, the translucency is set to zero. I only use the opacity to simulate the effect. 

I will follow your advice and try to increase the light a little, but what exactly is EV? Any link to a tutorial available?

EV is Exposure Value. You'll find it in the Tone Mapping tab of Render Settings. When you edit the EV to a larger number, the scene gets darker. When you make EV smaller, the scene gets brighter. It doesn't add or remove light, it just alters the way it adjusts the internal data to create the 8 bit JPEG or PNG render.

barbult

shaneseymourstudio said:

Awesome shortcut I didn't know existed! I have been manually tweeking the Y translate in iRay view with Ground Position Mode set to manual in render settings to get things on the ground...I figured there had to be a simpler way to do this but havent come across it yet...Love these tips! 

I have noticed when the Ground Position Mode is left at Auto that when I lower someone with Y Translate it seems to never quite touch the ground but always hover a little below. I am not sure if this is caused by something else in the scene that is crating that base plane or not. Typically when setting up my characters I just use a white background for environment so have not tested with buildings.

When the ground position is set to Auto in Render Settings, it will place the "ground" at the bottom of the lowest thing in your image. It is impossible to put anything under the ground that way. Suppose you had a shovel in your scene, and you wanted to stick it into the ground, so only half of the shovel showed. You could not accomplish that with "Auto". For some scenes, Auto works well, and you don't have to worry about the Y offset of your object. But often, Manual mode works better. Sometimes I even set Manual mode to a Y value other than 0, if the HDRI I'm using doesn't have the visual ground exactly at 0. A value of 0.5 or -0.5, or so, sometimes looks more accurate.

It is a pain and slow to adjust things in Iray preview mode. I usually create a primitive plane at the ground level and adjust my object to that in Texture Shaded mode. You can even look up from the bottom to see if feet, tires, etc are poking through. Sometimes you want the objects a little low, to simulate tires compressed on the road, or feet sunk in grass. (Again. Iray Auto mode ground won't work for that.) I either make the plane invisible with the eye icon in the Scene pane before rendering, or use the Parameters pane to set the plane's display to Visible in Render Off. Then I can still see it in the viewport for scene adjustments, but it doesn't show in the render.

barbult

shaneseymourstudio said:

ricswika said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

 

daybird said:

 Holy shit, what a impressive work to enter this thread. Far beyond my skills 

I would prefer a other shader for the rims, but that's more a personal taste.

Btw. is this Monique? She nearly steals the car the show.

 

Ya I should do that. The wheels were my least favorite part about this car and came a single object. You have given me an idea to do two different texture renders with the wheels and then to combine the best of both for tire and for rim in PS like I did with the last. 

Thanks for the idea!

You've come so far already, do you want another challenge? Do the car wheels object have separate surfaces in the Surfaces pane, so you can apply different shaders on the tires vs rims,etc.? If not, take a look at the Geometry Editor tool to see if you can create a new surface for just the tires. This goes WAAAAAY beyond new user level, but It sounds like you are making such fast strides that you are ready. Since the challenge is about materials and shaders, the shader  approach would be preferable to postwork.(Note however that postwork is totally allowed in this challenge, so the choice is yours.)

shaneseymourstudio

barbult said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

ricswika said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

 

You've come so far already, do you want another challenge? Do the car wheels object have separate surfaces in the Surfaces pane, so you can apply different shaders on the tires vs rims,etc.? If not, take a look at the Geometry Editor tool to see if you can create a new surface for just the tires. This goes WAAAAAY beyond new user level, but It sounds like you are making such fast strides that you are ready. Since the challenge is about materials and shaders, the shader  approach would be preferable to postwork.(Note however that postwork is totally allowed in this challenge, so the choice is yours.)

Ok they do have different surfaces it shows but I definately want to look into knowing how to use the geometry editor so that I can create different surfaces. I am going to look that up! Thanks!

sueya

Thanks for the tip. I have now dropped the settee down to the floor. I have also softened the shadows from the lights above the settee.

driver51

sueya said:

Thanks for the tip. I have now dropped the settee down to the floor. I have also softened the shadows from the lights above the settee.

Getting better all that time!!

ricswika

Great idea ricswika!

shaneseymourstudio said:

I did a quick render with the overexposure and took both the original and overexposed into PS and used a layer mask and quick selections with a little touch up to the model and tires using black to bring them through. This is the result:

Wow. That looks sweet. I haven't messed around with those settings, with much sucess, but I can see how powerful they can be. Might have to check them out some more.

Shinji Ikari 9th

Version e up on my main render. Brought in the slime from another set that I have and set it a glow. (Felt that the area under the grates needed something.)

Geffe

Stalwart Guardian

The chainmail hauberk is one of the shaders from Traveler's Uber+ Iray Medieval Armor Shaders on the tunic from the Peasant Outfit for G3M. I used another shader from the same set on the helmet and shield. The damsel in distress has eyes from Genevieve 7, and I used NGS2 on both characters (although the skin still looks kind of waxy to my eye, so I guess I need to change the lights or the skin settings more). So a fair bit of messing around with surfaces.

What I wouldn't mind some advice on is what settings to play with to make the sword reflect light better. I shone spotlights on it from about 6 different angles, changed the blade to several different metal shaders, and fiddled with a bunch of settings for glossy reflectivity, refraction, etc, but never really managed to get the blade a satisfactory shine.

shaneseymourstudio

shaneseymourstudio said:

barbult said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

ricswika said:

shaneseymourstudio said:

 

You've come so far already, do you want another challenge? Do the car wheels object have separate surfaces in the Surfaces pane, so you can apply different shaders on the tires vs rims,etc.? If not, take a look at the Geometry Editor tool to see if you can create a new surface for just the tires. This goes WAAAAAY beyond new user level, but It sounds like you are making such fast strides that you are ready. Since the challenge is about materials and shaders, the shader  approach would be preferable to postwork.(Note however that postwork is totally allowed in this challenge, so the choice is yours.)

Ok they do have different surfaces it shows but I definately want to look into knowing how to use the geometry editor so that I can create different surfaces. I am going to look that up! Thanks!

Ok I finally found a good video for utilizing the geometry editor tool so I am going to practice with this. Posting the link for anyone else who may want to view:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HhNPGXfuYZY

 

Chameo

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Version e up on my main render. Brought in the slime from another set that I have and set it a glow. (Felt that the area under the grates needed something.)

That green slime really brings this to life. It's funny how little details like that can change the entire feeling and mood of an image. Nice work!

Chameo

Geffe said:

Stalwart Guardian

The chainmail hauberk is one of the shaders from Traveler's Uber+ Iray Medieval Armor Shaders on the tunic from the Peasant Outfit for G3M. I used another shader from the same set on the helmet and shield. The damsel in distress has eyes from Genevieve 7, and I used NGS2 on both characters (although the skin still looks kind of waxy to my eye, so I guess I need to change the lights or the skin settings more). So a fair bit of messing around with surfaces.

What I wouldn't mind some advice on is what settings to play with to make the sword reflect light better. I shone spotlights on it from about 6 different angles, changed the blade to several different metal shaders, and fiddled with a bunch of settings for glossy reflectivity, refraction, etc, but never really managed to get the blade a satisfactory shine.

I really like where you're going with this. I've had the same problem with variuos swords - and I used a LOT of them last year when I was working on renders for a Tarot deck. Which sword is it? I can pull it in and experiment a bit to see what I can offer.