Novica & Serene Night’s Renders, Tips, Tutorials & Product Reviews PART 2
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Thank you! This is a fun set. Daz needs more realistic light up props!
ALERT...
The $5 off your $30 spending is now UNLIMITED USE and is not shown on the promo page, it is in the banner on the New Releases (where I always check) page. PAFEST-5 is the code.
Wouldn't you know it, my order is $29.94 so I have to buy something else. I have too many lights already, but if it's $5 off, this would be $6.47 for me so I'll add it.
http://www.daz3d.com/new-releases/inaneglory-s-photo-studio-point-and-shoot
Also getting:
Danaides
Saba'a AlKair
SaSi Daisy
Tiki Island is the freebie, be sure and pick that up.
Let us know how you like that light set. Looks interesting.
Tatiana Hair
LR's Bianca For V4
http://www.daz3d.com/tatiana-hair
http://www.daz3d.com/lr-s-bianca-for-v4
This hair is... harsh. I don't particularly care for the clump-i-ness of it, it might be good for underseas renders? The first three images are out of the box. There was no smoothing available.
If there is no smoothing available, go up to the menu to the left of the words V S Node, then Edit>Geometry>Apply Smoothing ModifierYou can find this in our References section in case you ever need it (I just did!) under Smoothing. Remember the References, Product Reviews, etc are handily linked from our first post.
I will come back and add Smoothing 16. EDIT: Done. Testing Smoothing 40. Will post later.
I used Tatiana hair on Amber for a while (in the pic I use for my avatar, even). It is a bit like a nest of snakes, isn't it? Doing that fantom occlusion trick on it seems to held a teeny-tiny bit, but I've moved on to a different model, because it ended up being a bit meh.
No kiddin.' Perhaps with one of the toon shaders, or as mentioned, an underwater render as a mermaid/merdude, or if you like this style. It does have nice "blowing" effects but I'm more into realism than snakey-clumpy. Below is smoothing up to 40, that's all I'm going to mess with it. I like your avatar btw.
Thanks for the tip on adding smoothing, I was playing with V3 and Casual V3 outfit, added the loRise V3 pumps and the skin was showing through, got frustrated trying to figure out how to fix it so went to the forums and you just posted that tip...lol...thank you so much :)
You're welcome. It's been awhile since I messed with smoothing and collision, but for poke through, sometimes doing a combination of both instead of cranking one way up, helped my render time. If I recall, when I had clothing against clothing, that's when I used collision and smoothing. For clothing against skin, smoothing was usually enough. Someone else can chime in here because I've been very fortunate that the clothing I've been testing has had good fits and I haven't had to combine smoothing and collision too often recently.
I think the top of the hair looks pretty good, and the model, posing, and lighting are great. Its just the lower half of the hair where it starts to look weird. It is too bad they didn't just chop it and make it a cute short hairdo. then it would be kind of cool. =-)
Heads up:
Just picked this up: http://www.daz3d.com/neanderman-action
It is for the Neanderthal which used to be in the store, but the poses are really interesting and diverse. A good value if you like pose sets. It applies well to genesis M5, which I tested it with.
The PAFEST-5 code is STILL GOOD. If you spend $30 or more, don't forget to use it! NOTE: IT CAN BE USED MORE THAN ONCE SO IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH FOR TWO ORDERS, YOU WOULD SAVE $10.
Of interest (to me) are:
To quickly get m4 or h4 into position for laying, sitting, kneeling, look at this variety. Or use it as a reference for your own. But for $3.98, why not scoop it up?
http://www.daz3d.com/m4-h4-humble-poses
For Carrara- look at all the neat lighting opportunities for this sci-fi set! Be sure and go through the thumbnails.
http://www.daz3d.com/radius
Take a closer look at this, because it doesn't HAVE to be dilaplidated. There are several areas where you can do nook and cranny shots and have pretty backdrops. The entire top of that tower is in good shape. The doorway scene, as long as you don't get the area that is crumbling to the right, makes a pretty archway with big stones. It's $14.98 half price, and deduct the $5 from that (spending $30 or more) and it would be $9.98, a steal!
http://www.daz3d.com/torprin-tower
The vegetation ROCKS- (same vendor as the tower.) http://www.daz3d.com/orestes-plants-vol-1
So basically I'm getting the tower, the humble poses, the running shoes (for Genesis/2 as I want FLAT shoes, tired of messing with heels that dont work and hate absurdly high platform shoes) and pose stuff. Will buy http://www.daz3d.com/new-releases/sublime-illumination
so I can test it for you, IF I have enough to place two orders and get another $5 off
Dang, am I good or what- (lol)
I decided to splurge (have been a good girl and not bought anything on some of the days even though items were wishlisted for awhile, or under $5 on others) so I did get up to $61. plus change. I managed to get one order to $30.94, just 94 cents over the requirement of buying $30 worth. If you want to hit that combination and get $5 off ($25.94 would make each one of these about $8.65 apiece!) then this is that combination to get you slightly over that $30 mark.
I'm still not buying characters (have enough) or even hair, mostly going with sets, props, brushes, tutorials.
Orestes plants, Torprin Tower, and Magic Effect Brushes For Photoshop (look at the thumbnails!)
http://www.daz3d.com/magic-effects-brushes-for-photoshop
Those look awesome. Nice find. I've wislisted those.
Well, if my studio ever starts working, maybe I'll get to use them. All Smart Content is gone, reinstalled did nothing, I HATE VERSION 4.6.
Please check your email.
Cathie
I literally laughed so hard I cried. If you aren't aware of the Spyro vs Jaderail "poke fun at" war going on over on this thread, you should GET aware. This is priceless. I've started you in the link below where Jaderail starts the "war." Enjoy :)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/809/P540/#430633
The forums are screwing up again, and not taking the pictures in order. Hard to do a tutorial that way. I will post only a few images and see if we can get this accomplished.
Wednesday Light Tutorial Part 1
Going to go step by step on how I set up some light scenes, and show you each tweak. If you like something, you'll know how to get that result.
I start with dark backgrounds. I want to SEE what those lights are doing. I will often do the characters' lighting then see how it impacts the background and props. If your characters don't look good, the scene won't matter! I went with a dark dress so you can see how the lights work better, they have to "work harder." I also left her barefoot so you can more easily see the skin / arches of the top of the feet.
You'll see how just placing simple lights can provide dramatic lights- by just ROTATING your figure. Sometimes we forget to rotate the figure- you change the VIEW, but not the ROTATION.
Wednesday For Aiko 4 and Aiko 5
Sexy Silky For Genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/wednesday-for-aiko-4-and-aiko-5
http://www.daz3d.com/sexy-silky-for-genesis
First, be sure you are in the Lights and Cameras activity tab (yes, that's the official name) and turn that lightbulb OFF. (It will show black.) But it's still on, what gives? As long as you have NO lights, you will still have the default lighting. The minute you add a light, Studio knows it and your default light goes "kaput."
These are all going to be screenshots. I set up lights then tweak after several are in place. Let's set up 3 distant lights then spot render.
Photo 1: Wednesday with default light. This is what you'll see even though the light is OFF as we have no other lights in the scene.
The second thing you need to know- out in the viewport, you see the options for viewing. Perspective is the default. When you use these views, they are views- unless you choose a LIGHT. Then when you move around out in the viewport, YOU ARE MOVING THE LIGHT.
Photo 2:
To set up your light, use Perspective view and pretend you are the light looking at the scene. Whatever and wherever you want lit, move your camera to that view. .
So we're in Perspective View. NOTE THE BLUE CUBE. Don't shoot from straight sideways. Get a side/somewhat top view. In Photo 2, I drew red lines to show you that when you tip your blue cube, that line on the cube (between the Top and Right surfaces of the cube) lined up with the Camera Pan/Dolly tool (the plus sign with arrows on the end.) I did the initial tilt to line up that way so you'd have an easy reference.
We are going to go to Create>New Distant Light>Apply Active View Transforms Perspective view>Accept. Voila, whatever you were looking at in the Perspective view is lit up! It will always be bright white at 100% BEFORE YOU HIT ACCEPT, rename the light DistantLeft so you can more easily identify what it lights up (and can do what I do more easily.) As you look back at Photo 1, this is the LEFT SIDE of the screenshot.
I rename my lights DistantLeft, DistantRight, DistantFront. I name mine AS I VIEW THEM. Keep that in mind as we go through this, it is NOT the character's left or right. Makes it easier as I work with them.
I set the lights (all of these) at 80% brightness and 50% softness under Shadows. Select the light in the Scene tab, then go to Parameters under Light (for intensity) and Shadows (for shadow softness.) We'll tweak later.
Photo 3:
Repeat. Ensure you are in Perspective view, move your cube carefully, keeping that edge of the cube lined up to the bottom of the Camera Pan / Dolly tool where the red line is. We're first experimenting with distant lights that are all at the same height. Rename this Distant Light "DistanceFront." Also notice the neat lighting that your Distant Left is throwing. That's just with ONE distant light!
Photo 4:
How those both look. (DistantLeft, DistantFront.) Very glaring and bright, right?
Photo 5:
But here's my point- look at photo 5. If you change just your VIEW look at the dramatic lighting and totally different result. (With just 2 distant lights!) Remember to check different views as you are working. You may find one you want to come back to. And then as I mentioned before, rotating the figure changes it up. But we'll get to that after all the lights are in place.
Photo 6:
Create your Distant Light right, using the Perspective view and repeating the previous steps. Again, remember to get a somewhat top/side view, not a straight side view.
Photo 7:
And this is what it looks like with your Distant light on the right lit up. Now you have all three Distant Lights. Time to play! They are all the same strength, let's fiddle with that.
Awesome. I'm going to have to study these this evening! Thanks for taking up the review of this. I'm curious I admit!
The forums are messing up so bear with me. Be sure and hover your mouse over the images as these FIRST come up, because they most assuredly will be out of order. I then have to remove them, post them one by one, and even then they are going out of order. I can do it backwards, forwards, and the one in the middle goes to the front of the line, etc. More coming, but this is frustrating. It normally happens only after midnight, so there's no excuse for this. DAZ knows about this problem and DOES NOTHING.
Wednesday Light Tutorial Part 1
What to look for in these: before we tweak, look at what light does what. I put Wednesday in a walking pose, so you can see that even though the light on that side (our right) is off, the arm is still lit when the DistantLeft is on. The face is not lit, even when you have the DistantFront on. That's good. You can have more control with spotlights that way. Any time you layer lights, you change the dynamics. I actually like it when the distant lights stay out of my way for the face! Very dim spotlights make great fill lights.
I'm not numbering these as the order makes no difference. They are photos 8, 9, 10, 11. They are all 50% intensity, white. See the potential?
You start with 3 Distant Lights, and you have interesting lighting because of the poses. Some areas are lit, others aren't. Makes it interesting. Just remember to get some height with those distant lights- you can always lower them later.
Now we're going to shoot UP and make the face, arm, chest more interesting. Note the blue cube, that will help you get yours positioned correctly. I am not going to light the part of the arm that already is illuminated. Again, avoid layering lights if you don't have to. You can always overlap them later.
Keep in mind I'm doing this and you're seeing it as I go along. We may or may not like these results.
SpotFrontBottUp is the name of this one, and using that view in the last image (Perspective view again) I know I am going to have to change it because there is light on the chest, and if I use this view I am going to get a problem area of excessive light (In a very difficult place to fix. I could always shine a dark spotlight on that area, but why set myself up for more work?) So we'll have to finagle getting the underneath of the arm/hand without the chest.
I did the same thing as before but this is now a SPOTLIGHT and not a Distant Light. (Create>New SPOTLIGHT> then selected the active transforms Perspective view.) Now, I am going to show you how cool having a spotlight from this view really is. I'm going to tweak the distant lights and this spotlight. Check back in a few minutes. I'm playing :)
I'm rendering this for you to see as we'll have to make a major tweak. The Spotlight shooting from below is going to cast a big shadow on her face. No problem, we'll just move it. The fun with lighting is experimenting. The rest of the lights are as follows so far as intensity:
Distants: Left 63.2%, Front 44.1%, Right 39%, the frontbottUp spotlight was 97.1%
I am rendering now. We are moving the spotlight toward us, up, and to the right. With just 3 distant lights and 1 spotlight to tweak, you can easily light your character with interesting shadows and highlights.
Settings: Distant Left 63.2%, Distant Front 29.4%, Distant Right 41.2%, SpotFrontBottUp 58.1%
Keep in mind, we have not even tweaked the location of the distant lights!
This was with all shadows turned off, except the Spotlight.
Here is the new spotlight location. I will also give you the coordinates, as this is a very important light. My Genesis is at World Center, coordinates 0/0/0.
This is XYZ translation then XYZ rotation:
16.71 / 159.57 / 47.45
11.13 / 17.23 / 0.91
Don't forget rotation when you are tweaking your lights :)
So you have a nice variety of light and shadows. This is just with white light, you can adjust the lighting and get some dramatic results.
Remember I asked you to ROTATE your figure after you got your lighting figured out? Even though I can tweak this some more, look at what you get if you rotate Genesis. NOT the view- the actual figure. Using the exact same lighting as before, I pulled Wednesday around (always use Y rotation) to our right.
And this one. I may play around later and change up these lights to blue as the figure is too ruddy.
So hope this gives you a starting point for lights. 3 distant and a spotlight- and ROTATE YOUR FIGURE.
Part 2 of the Wednesday Light Tutorial is coming tomorrow. We will move one of the distant lights to the rear, and add another distant light in the front but to the side. You'll really like the results. It gives you a versatile light set as you can dim some of the lights and intensify others and get totally different looks without moving any of the lights.
I am getting ready to post the second half of the tutorial, the forums are messing up and giving a server error. Had to take down the second post with the 20's photos as the first set didn't post. So excuse the confusion if you are subscribed to the thread. Here is the render showing you the lighting from this tutorial which began yesterday.
Be sure to click to enlarge, then click again, and go around the outline of the body and look carefully at all the subtle lighting you can do!
Reserved