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Your girl there is really pretty :) loving her hair and her facial expression.
Is that one Vicky or Genesis?Tweaked out V4, Tweaked out and multiplied by three Angelina Hair by Goldtassel - totally tweaked out and torn Kunoichi kimono by Anna Benjamin - Swashbuckler boots by our sponsor, Age of Armour - Kazai Skirt by Val3dArt :)
Thank you :)
Stezza, Roygee (welcome back to you!!!), Gareth (already welcomed you back - but again, welcome home!), Varsel,
Great stuff going on! Head Wax, Thanks... Howler lightning is fun! I think that my short blurb about what you posted is way too mundane for how I feel. So I'd like to add you to this to, and say that I really love, not just the kickin' renders, but the presentation as well. I really like the message of the song, but I like Roygees's selected song much better, especially Aquarius... Love that song and the musical! I certainly cannot compete amongst such amazing renders, but it's fun to post my nonsensical workings nonetheless!
Roygee, haven't seen you since you and Andrew were helping me figure out how to attach rigging to clothing - and we had a short trading of words regarding the wonderful little modeler (I still love it) anim8or! Has it been that long, or am I just really loosing it? Still working that room, eh? Anyways... I really like your pair of renders and how they came to be! Music is a powerful form of inspiration.
Stezza, I cannot agree enough with Head Wax on this one: It really does look like something you've been contracted to do - brilliant! Fireman are absolute heroes in my eyes. I lost a house to fire a little over ten years back. Watching these heroes perform their skills was truly amazing. I was still in the shock of finally discovering that my wife and kids were okay - so the main memories I have of the whole experience was my worry for those amazing people! Nice freaking Truck, Man!!!
Mr. Davies, I can hardly wait to see how that renders out! I love the design!
Varsel, I like what you've done. Looks cool all zoomed back out, like this. I'd love to see one of the closer vantage like you had before as well. Nice work!
I have just realized how many pages there are already - I'm going to have to go through and have a look at all of the rendering WIPs in here!
Hey Rhiana, you gotta do one too, right? :)
I am beyond impressed. 4 pages since my last reply! Wow! And with so much interesting and exciting entries and posts. I feel like my replies are getting longer every time. Maybe I need to find a different approach to this...
Starting at the top:
Dartanbeck, thank you for the Replica help! I will definitely check it out, when time permits. In the mean while, if you end up working with it, please share your experience, from your comments already, I can sense a tutorial in there :)...
And I do agree with you about the magic of these WIP threads. Even though I have trouble keeping up, every time I look forward to allocating the time and reading through all the updates. (then I look at how much I've missed and panic, because my allocated time did not include what it would take to fully respond to everyone...)
I am loving your WIP's and I see that you appear to have a very different workflow from what I'm used to: you are setting up a full animation, just to render a still at the end? WOW! I am so impressed, andI can definitely see benefits to this workflow, especially when there are particles, dynamics and physics involved, but I clearly lack the brain for this sort of thinking... But I can clearly see that it works. Did i mention WOW?
Although I do have difficulty understanding what animation-rendering improvements you are talking about. Did I miss a helpful thread about it somewhere?
Philemo, Interesting approach with the lines instead of NPR. I like how the shadows and highlights are working on it. I think it can really do the trick. But I am also curious about why the NPR didn't work? Too hard to control line orientation, brush-stroke continuity? Too long to render?
What options are there for getting rid of the moiré effect?
I am very interested in your progress. It looks like a lot of fun.
Sockratease the 3D Carrara text will definitely count as Carrara-created item, so it might be the only thing missing :)
Roygee, welcome to the challenge! I find your idea really cool and fascinating. Now to answer your questions:
Water - personally, I think you are being extraordinarily brave. I usually lose patience, give up, and add things like water streams in post - easier and doesn't slow render time to a halt... But if you can develop a realistic water inside Carrara, I'd be the first to be really happy about it, because I feel like a cheater every time I resort to it in post... :)
Can you post a screen shot of the skies you are talking about? Some need to be loaded from the atmosphere edit window, through the load preset button or the wizard icon. if that doesn't work, please post the screen shot and maybe we can figure it out collectively.
Rendering in layers: for this challenge, I would consider it postwork, BUT, all postwork IS allowed. The only thing I ask is that you post your separate layers in this thread, so we know how the final image was composited. The purpose of this rule is to enhance learning. I think it is very important for artists to share their process, so we can all learn from each other and improve. I know that I render scenes full (usually) and just wait for it to render or crash, when instead I should be rendering in layers to speed things up and to have some pity on my computer. I have a mental block where layers are concerned, and I would love to see how people do it (I am fairly certain I am not the only one), and seeing the separate layers and the final image, might just be the recipe for such learning experience. If you can post your 2D editing app screen-grab to show how the layers were arranged there - even better :).
I also like where your images are going - with the added flowers and smoke. will they be 2 separate entries, or do you intend to combine them in a single image for the final entry?
evilproducer Thank you for all the help you are providing to everyone here! :) And thank you for the cloud link: I wonder whether replacing SSS with glow would make things faster. It usually does for me. However, I don't know how that would work with NPR. And if you do find that water, please share! I am very interested in the subject too.
FractalDimensia Thank you for the details! The water keeps looking better and better. And if you do create a new thread to talk more about it, please post a link back in here, if it's not too much trouble. I have a hard time following most of the forum, so I just follow a few threads of interest, and unfortunately, end up missing the rest :( ...
diomede64, I love your progress! You are doing some impressing stuff with the NPR! Great looking cloud. If you do try swapping SSS for glow channel gradient (or color), please let us know whether it affects/shows up in NPR and whether it improves the render time. I would imagine adding a few of these clouds would really strain the patience for the rendering...
Gareth Davies, thank you for deciding to participate! I like the bright look of your landscape and your character - she is adorable! Looks like it's going to be a great animation-style image, which I absolutely love.
I think it's wonderful that people in this challenge are experimenting with so many different styles. It's both eye-opening and inspiring for me. And I think it really shows off how far and wide Carrara can go in creating art.
wendy♥catz, I am officially intrigued :). Can't wait for the entry :).
head wax Wow, stunning colors. And the image have an easy realism to them. Is it still a render-doodle for ideas or is it going to become an entry at some point? :) I feel sad when you give up on your ideas, because I want to see them all developed, they are all so interesting and fun!
Stezza Wow. The idea is wonderful and I look forward to seeing the truck transform. I agree with Head Wax: great WIP presentation!
Rhiana, welcome to the thread. I hope you'll find some time to participate in the challenge :).
Varsel, the new mountains look great. And I like the monastery idea. Although a bigger city could probably still be achieved with replicators if you are looking for things to fill in the space.
I love how the bright colors get diluted the farther they get from the monastery. It's like the happiness gets drained out of the landscape with distance. Great concept!
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I am yet to start on my own entry, and other things have been taking my attention away from thinking about it... So I'm not sure I'll have the time to do it :(. Hopefully things will work out and I'll be able to find the time.
Yikes! I forgot the water emitter! I'll look to see if I still have it tomorrow. Sorry about that!
Now, Roygee, add "Stop, Children, What's That Sound" to the mix and you have a real 60's gig going! Can ya dig it?
Your WIP is coming along nicely! :)
FD
Gareth, paint that road yellow and stick an Emerald City in the background, and you've got something going! ;) Can't wait to see this rendered. :)
Just my 2 cents, but I kinda liked the wall you had up earlier. Did you decide to drop that? =/
HA! I'm all about stirring up trouble. In fact, I want to start a new "How Do You Make An Ocean? (Besides 1 Drop At A Time)" thread to get a few ideas going BEFORE this month's contest is up, and will surely reference and post a link here for any potential readers - just so they know the contest is a great way to learn new Carrara ideas.
I'd like to hear about other ideas about creating oceans.
FD
Yeah, can't take much time off hosting something like this! Too many people in different time zones.
As for the render, I started a second WIP - using the vertex modeler for my Carrara Created Stuffs.
The text may work for the Pair-A-Dice image, or furring the kitty, or both. But this newer render features all original items except for The Daz Cow, and it is taking too long to get some free time to play with it (EPA Inspection at the lab this week - too dang busy for play!) (Real Life is annoying sometimes).
Hi Antara :)
Thanks for the kind words of encouragement.
FractalDimensia - i really dig it, man - looks like I'm not the only retro around:)
I'm not normally one for doing much rendering, mainly because of the aforesaid old computer and I don't have the patience to do endless, slow test renders. My main interest in CG is in modeling, but my modeling Muse is off sulking since I started the home renovations and this looked like a good subject to participate in while waiting for paint to dry.
So, consider this as more of an enthusiastic fumbling amateur participating, rather than a serious competitor:)
Firstly, the water - some folks have made some pretty reasonable water flows - mine is getting close, but just beyond my grasp - EP did a good hosepipe and has promised to share with me - after freeing his cow from the fence! Looking forward to getting that right, but no rush, EP:)
The skies that don't show up in the presets are the ones shown in this screencap - I have figured out how to use them in a scene - double-click and it opens a new scene with the sky in it - save that and open into your scene - just wondering why it doesn't show up with the presets?
Layering - I'm no great shakes with 2D paint apps, though I am slowly getting to grips with Gimp. The multipass rendering in Carrara is still pretty much unknown territory for me - really wish someone would put out a good explanatory tut on that - most of the terms are Greek to me. What I've been doing to get renders done in a reasonable time is to make parts of the scene invisible, render what I want as .png with Alpha and layer that in Gimp - pretty simple, really.
The blue render, for instance, already has about ten layers - each type of flower and butterfly is an individual particle emitter using sprites, some layered in front of and some behind the figure. There is no way I could have got all those smokes in the red render to all work at once, with more to come and a great ugly cloud joining them all into a nasty bit of pollution,so each is an individual render with nothing else in the scene, scaled, and placed in Gimp.
Unfortunately, more setbacks. The vertex cloud is great as a stand alone cloud, but had problems when I tried to use enough to get the effect I want. It took 37 hours for the NPR render engine to build the brush strokes, then it stopped working before actually rendering. Aaargh. Similarly, I'm not satisfied my attempts to render clouds using photoreal, to be used as the background of the NPR. Some background test renders follow - the first in photoreal, the others NPR.
@Antara thank you :) i take a lot of inspiration from Studio Ghibli and Disney animated films, i love how they emphasis on colour and character :) @Dartanbeck Thanks :) I really like Carrara's ability to model in the assembly room, it makes modeling go more smoothly. @FractlDimensia Thanks :) :lol: the thought of a yellow brick road did come to mind, i'm still playing around with the scene... so Oz could be a possibility :)
2nd character for the scene is complete (sort of) just needs some morphs :)
Probably my last WIP post on NPR (do I hear "hooray!").
RE: the problem of clouds and other objects that typically have transparency. As per Antara's great suggestions, I will be playing around with using vertex objects textured with gradients in the diffuse, and experiments with the glow channel rather than in SSS and displacement. The NPR still picks up the object (unlike new volumetric clouds), the object still reacts with light (unlike old volumetric clouds), and the render times are much more manageable (unlike SSS and displacement). The following pics were just quick tests to see how the NPR render engine handled it. I used a vertex sphere to create a basic blob and created shader domains for bottom, middle, and top. I then used a couple of replicators to scatter smaller blobs along the surface. I grouped the resulting base cloud. All of the elements of the cloud had the same shader, a white and off-white in the diffuse (gradient), and a grey range gradient in the glow.
Bottom line, I think Carrara NPR can create good clouds that react with light, and the render times can be manageable. Whether I have the Carrara skill or not remains to be seen. Some screen shots follow with the texture channels, and the render room results for low settings.
Okay! I was able to find the scene file. I have to iterations and they take forever to load. Here's the emitter settings from the first iteration. If the settings are different in the second iteration of the scene, I'll post some screen shots of those as well.
Roygee, is this the water flow you were thinking of?
Just checked. The emitter is the same for both versions of the scene!
I think this is going to be the final version of this scene due to time constraints. I have an idea for a second entry and if I keep tweaking this one I will not have time for the other scene.
Big changes are shader changes to the automobiles and the highway signs.
The cars are from Carrara's Object Browser under mesh models. I used a variety of them and I'm not going through the PITA of listing them all. I did redo the shaders on them though.
The Content I used was Dystopia City block 1-20. I did extensive shader work on those as well, though in this render you can't really tell. ;-)
The highway, the grass, the signs and sign posts along with all their shaders were made by me. The highway is a vertex model. The grass is dynamic hair. The signs are vertex objects and the posts are spline objects.
Liking the stuffs folks is showin' so far.
Here's a wip thingy of what's being used in my second effort - it's got some abstract elements...
The first picture is a mini tutorial as all 3 items are just vertex primitives following a simple process to "model" them.
First image is the primitive with select all, and a short extrude, second is done by inverting the selection and extruding again (setting a new shader domain before inverting the selection!), then set a third shader domain to the current selection and that's all. EDIT - I messed up my screenshot collage! One step is shown twice and I left out the untouched primitive, which really wasn't needed anyhow... Oops.
The second image shows a cone and a cylinder following the exact same steps.
This image will have a Cow in it, so everybody can relax. I know how the cat upset you all!
I'll also be using a fractal obj file and a very strange image based model made with a very old and no longer available program.
And even a fractal backdrop!
So...
MOO!
Nifty Socratease! Is the cow going to be fractal as well? ;-)
Thanks! But...
I thought all Cows were fractal already.
Oddly enough, I think The Daz Cow will be the only non bizarre element of the image...
I really like the sense of scale in this scene, must of took forever to render this with all that grass :)
Super detailed modeling right here! can't wait to see more of these :)
Modeling the third and final character for the scene :)
Playing around with the soft selection tool :lol:
I really like the sense of scale in this scene, must of took forever to render this with all that grass :)
It really wasn't that bad. I used a couple tricks to help the render time. I used my own light dome with 100 replicated distance lights to simulate GI, and I excluded the hair from the light dome. I also duplicated the sunlight and set one sunlight to exclude only the hair. I set that one up with soft shadows. The second sunlight used regular hard shadows and was set up to only light the hair. I also used one distant light to only light the hair and used that for kind of a fill light.
Try not to take this the wrong way, but you have a nice ass! ;-)
Hi Gareth, great to see a talented organic modeller entering this challenge.
(not implying that you yourself are not organic ;) )
very nice Evil, I particularly like the concept of the two lanes, great visual metaphor - :)
I heard that evil was going to dress up the cow in a skimpy out fit? is this true?
and if so would that be paradise lost, or found? :)
Antara wroteth
Oh thank you, :) I am currently working on a museum in another project, so that might 'inform' this one.
I have the feeling the big yelow taxi will be part of the reflection in a window,,
hmm, if only I could think like a 'normal' person ;)
diomede, it looks like you are making significant process. I;ve been looking for ways to render 'illustrated' looking clouds for a while. I think you are showing the way, thank you :)