Novica & Serene Night’s Renders, Tips, Tutorials & Product Reviews PART 2
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If you don't V4 PRO or M4 PRO, they are currently giving them away if you buy three items...
Wednesday Light Tutorial Part 2
Using the lights from Part 1, we're going to add another Distant Light, move the DistantRight light to the back, and dim the Spotlight to work in conjunction with it.
My goal is to get more light on the face without having to worry about that hand casting a shadow. I'll also be tweaking the color and adding blue as the character is too ruddy. I also want to show you that when you add a Distant Light from the front, you can move your side Distant Lights to the back and create a nice "pop" to the character. (Pop means to stand out. Think of the nice out rim glow you can get with UberEnvironment2) I normally start with one of my Distant Lights over the shoulder, but I wanted to show you in Part 1 some of the other effects when you have two Distant Lights on the side and one in front.
I do want to address something that will start coming naturally to you with time, although many of you will know intuitively to do it. That is creating depth with lighting. I am going to finagle (my favorite word) so the hand is slightly more lit than the face or has some "pop" (a faint blue or white outline) to place it more dramatically in front of the mouth/face. That's where the Spotlight / Overhead lighting / lights from behind come in handy.
TIP: DO NOT LIGHT YOUR FIGURE EVENLY. Lighting your figure/props which are closer to the front will create more depth. You can also use darks (such as a knee bent, in shadow, which is coming toward you in the scene and closest to you) to accomplish depth.
TIP:
Test your lights for overlap- KNOW where they do.
This tutorial is VERY important. I am going to show you an EXCELLENT way to test your lights. Seriously. You HAVE to know where your lights overlap. And there's one parameter slider that gives you a lot of options from a back distant light, that may not be used enough by beginners. (And the rest of us forget to use. It happens.) Read on! :)
Photo 16
Used the Perspective view again to setup my light. Then as usual went to Create>New Distant Light> and applied the active transforms for Perspective. I named this one DistantRiteFrnt as it's the Distant Light coming from the right, and is out front. And yes, I DO know how to spell "right." LOL.
Photo 17
The lighting from DistantRiteFrnt. Note how it provides a nice fill for the face. If you don't want as extreme dramatic lighting, you can use this one to replace the spotlight completely. You won't have that shadowed jaw though. (The spotlight is Off, remember) There's no reason why you can't use both- if you want a dim fill light for the entire body, you'd still use the face Spot Light.
DistantRiteFrnt: Color: 237 / 242 / 255 Very pale whitish blue
Now you may be wondering how the first distant light on the right (DistantRight) will interact with the new DistantRiteFrnt. Is there going to be overlap?Well yes, there is, except we haven't tweaked yet and when I add a Distant Light to the front or front side, the original DistantRight gets moved back to create a "pop" light.
This just comes with experience. The first half of this tutorial was to show you Distant Lights equally from both sides as those come in handy for a certain look, now we change and go to the rear. This is where I typically always START with my lights- at least one Distant from behind (or Spotlight.)
Photo 18
So we're going to turn on ONLY the original DistantRight light and the new DistantRiteFrnt, with a very dim DistantLeft. I do want to have SOME indication of how that contributes. So turn on your light from the other side, but not as a major player (10-15% max. I did 14%)
I am now going to make the original DistantRight bright pink to see where there is overlap with our new one in front. The new DistantRiteFrnt is at 80%. At this point, rename your DistantRight to DistantBack, because we are going to be moving that light from the right side (remember, as we view it) to the back.
You can see there is too much overlap with the DistantRiteFrnt and the original DistantRight (which is now our DistantBack) Both hit the chest and frontal areas too much.
Photo 19
This is the view from the DistantBack camera.
Photo 20
I've moved the DistantBack light farther to the rear, keeping it higher than the figure but not above it. I'm getting a sliver of the chest, which I want to try and avoid. More tweaking needed!
Wednesday Light Tutorial Part 2 CONTINUED
Photo 21
I cranked up DistantRiteFrnt with the blue light so you can see it. We already knew it illuminated all the front, including the chest, so we can safely move the DistantBack one more toward the back so it misses the chest.
Photo 22
The new location for the DistantBack. Keep this image in mind when you are placing yours, note the height of the camera and how I am not DIRECTLY behind the figure.
Photo 23
Now we need to check out what the DistantLeft light does, which is going to be on our RIGHT side as we are viewing from the back. Let's make it neon GREEN.
This shows what DistantLeft is doing. I like the small amount of overlap. So this position will do nicely. The DistantBack is higher than the figure, but NOT directly above her. Now, it's time to go back to the front perspective view and see where this DistantBack light is hitting while I still have it at hot pink. I am also going to show you a tweak that will give you a lot of variation from this DistantBack light.
Photo 24
That tweak is using your ROTATION sliders- particularly the Z rotation. These two side by side show you the changes may not be observable at first. These settings were .0001. and -27.26.
Photo 25
So going more negative, you can see how the lighting changes. Rotating lights provides some nice options! This is -76.30 and -110.87 which is where these highlights peak so far as the face and legs. Going further starts reducing the light.
Wednesday Light Tutorial Part 2 CONTINUED
Photo 26
This is the screenshot with the light blue 199 / 255 / at 133.1% intensity for the DistantBack, and for the DistantRiteFrnt (our new distant we had added this time) was another blue at the previously mentioned 237 / 242 / 255 and 62.9% I'll do a tiny test render showing you with and without the Spotlight, with these other light settings unchanged. We're almost done.
Photo 27
No facial/hand Spotlight.
Photo 28
With the face Spotlight, at 37.5% which is a bit bright. The Spotlight was left at the same coordinates, no changes made from when we placed it in the first part of the tutorial.
You now have a beautiful light setup, without any glaring Spotlights to affect props directly behind your figure :)
The screenshots show you where to place them and I was quite specific on how to line them up in the viewport with the blue cube. You will need to tweak depending on the poses anyway. Here are the final intensities:
DistantLeft: 84.1% (a light/medium blue)
DistantRiteFrnt: 63.7% (make it more a lighter whitish blue)
DistantBack: 133.1% (the blue should be slightly darker than DistantLeft but vibrant)
DistantFront: 27.8% and white. DON'T overdo this one or you'll wash out the nice shadows!
SpotFrontBottUp 34.6% white.
And next post- your final render if you use this setup. With these light locations, you can dim one and brighten another and get wonderful renders. ROTATE your person- you'll see in the next posts how versatile this set is. Hope it opens up some new opportunities for you.
Cathie
Wednesday!
CLICK TO ENLARGE THEN CLICK AGAIN.
And if you use this setup, would love to see it! :)
Cathie
I know! How sad am I. I've bought numerous 'buy 3 items.' I am bummed they run this promo now when so many people are saled out. =-/
If anything, this makes me suspect M6 will be released next month.
I wonder how they determine the PA sales sequence. The ones around the first and 15th of the month benefit from the pay periods, Wonder if there will be one big sha-bang at the end of the month with everything. With this $5 off spend $30, some people wait a day and lump the stuff together so they can hit that mark. But who knows when that will end. I'm wondering if the sale isn't going as full blast as they hoped so the $5 is an incentive. Worked for me, lol! (Particularly since you can use it over and over again. That is still in effect, btw. It's on the New Releases page.)
Today's review is Hazai M4
http://www.daz3d.com/hazai-for-m4
What can I say? I LURVE Hazai. I only wish he were for genesis!
At any rate, I have both the V4 Hazai female and V4 Hazai male and they both look great. The skin is very nice and vibrant and I love the flowing lines and the interesting hands and legs. There are a number of eye color and face paint options and the skin has a painted on loincloth. (wish it were a clothing prop. There aren't enough decent loincloths in 3d-land).
I found he looks pretty good with the http://www.daz3d.com/king-of-the-steppe-for-genesis-male outfit, since most of my sci-fi clothing is of the body armor variety. Hair is: http://www.daz3d.com/shaolin-hair
He lights well. I set him up with a red-rock backdrop from Morguefile highly blurred to give the illusion of motion. The final banner I did is using Predatron's DS lights.
There are several objects in the store for Hazai including pose pack which I don't own, and a female version as well, and a critter, which requires an additional dino to use I believe.
One thing that is fun to do with Hazai is apply the textures to genesis. They look really nice and alien especially those eyes. I'll show you this soon.
Overall this is a neat figure. Useful to those who enjoy rendering Science Fiction characters.
I think there will be times during the month when sales will drop and lots of people are probably tapped out... Especially since pc club members were compelled to buy 3 to get the same deal they now offer everyday. Offering pro bundles will get some people to climb back on the buy 3 wagon. I own most of the m4 package, so while it would be nice to have, I'm not rushing out to spend more to get it.
I know! How sad am I. I've bought numerous 'buy 3 items.' I am bummed they run this promo now when so many people are saled out. =-/
If anything, this makes me suspect M6 will be released next month.
I bought the 6 cheapest things I could find which was some of dreamlights videos and then some of cute3d stuff. So I guess I spent less than $18 and and picked up two pro bundles.
I haven't bought that much this month, it is hard to find 3 things I want, even over 2 days. I started waiting until I got a coupon then I'd buy something. I think it's in the last few days with the $5 off 30 that I've started spending more. I do supsect the sale isn't going as good as they wanted, the 50% off was a miscalculation imho. I think giving it to PC members was a good idea and promotes the club highlight the benefits but they should have done that from the beginning.
Glad it was able to work out for you :)
I don't know when that promo started, but some of these (I think) aren't from the very beginning of the day- so Britney must have some headaches. It sure makes you leery of buying as you wonder what is coming up in a few hours. One time I forgot to checkout with my Fast Grabs as I decided to wait.
I have to say I too am not thrilled that they changed up the 50% midstream (had to buy 3 things.) Who does the planning on these sales? I think the $5 off being a repetitive code is their way of making up for that fiasco and I do appreciate the effort. It might also be to boost sales (as we mentioned before. ) My vendor that was wishlisted was Merlin, so I was a happy camper today. All his stuff has SO many props!
Me either. To me, the buy 3 thing was really irritating. I didn't like to be forced to buy multiple items to get a discount we used to get, without the strings.
I do think the buy 3 probably got a lot of people at the beginning but tapered off as people got tapped out. To revitalize it and to capture the reluctant pc club spender, who probably has a lot of items later and who may not buy 3 things at once, since they have a huge runtime, they offered the 50% off.
Whatever the case may be, I don't like the game changing rules. I did buy a few items, I would've preferred not to, simply to get 50%.
I understand Daz is trying to sell stuff. But I'd be mighty annoyed if I bought today, or even yesterday, and missed out on the pro bundle by a hair.
Just encountered a glitch on Carrera. I'd received an email telling me I'd get the upgrade price of $89.95 and a free PC subscription. I put it in my cart then today (UK time) I looked at my cart and Carrera was showing as $171 and I was getting a $167.05 discount (I'd used the PAFEST Coupon). In total, including the PC subs I paid $27.95.
Good for you! They fixed that fast I'm sure (not working now. I already have Carrara, never used it. Will eventually. You learn it, then you can mentor us, lol!)
I got the Michael 4 Pro Bundle because I had 3 things- going for lighting and poses-
Art Nouveau Fun Kit $7.48 http://www.daz3d.com/art-nouveau-fun-kit (20 poses for Gen 2, can mix so make 60 poses)
Fantasy Scene and Lights $9.98 http://www.daz3d.com/fantasy-scene-and-lights 10 light sets, 10 SUPER backdrops
Predatron Essential Lights & Skies $7.48 http://www.daz3d.com/predatron-essential-lights-skies 12 lightsets, 11 skydomes
ALL FOR Total: $24.94
I have everything in the V4 pro bundle. I didn't have one in the Michael 4 Pro (the $17.46 Epsilon, which I like- did you see that one SereneNight? Sci-Fi.) http://www.daz3d.com/epsilon-for-michael-4
I had everything else, but since I also got: 10 Additional Body Poses, 30 Facial Expressions I got the bundle FREE.
All this for $24.95 Those other products from the PA sale I got are worth looking at IMO. And the bundle was $69.97 on sale at 30%, free if you get 3 things today from the PA event. (Does NOT have to be a featured item. Can be in the stores. Predatron's lights and skies wasn't a featured item.)
Some items in the store are only showing 30% off. They are supposed to be 50% unless I'm mistaken.
Happy shopping!
Cathie
Photoshop CS6 (Photoshop 13) Books
So this is what I am doing today. Need to get out of the house and keep busy today.
Doing some research on Photoshop (we have the CS6, the last version you can OWN.) For any upgrades, you now have to pay a monthly fee. This discusses what the upgrades are, and if it is worth it. I know we aren't going to do it as we're still learning what the CS6 has (which, with Ron's brushes (I think I have all of them) is more than enough to use for postwork and for me to dabble with when I get around to it. I wasn't aware Photoshop had gone totally "cloud" so just to keep you all in the loop if you didn't know- this is a good article.
http://mashable.com/2013/06/23/photoshop-cc-review/
There was an absolutely superb review by an instructor who discusses the books recommended.
Look how precise and in-the-know the reviewer is. Avoid the dummies book. The recommended ones are at the end.
From those, I am getting from Amazon (if Barnes and Noble can't find the second one)
Photoshop CS6: Visual QuickStart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides) (Our Barnes and Noble carries this, going to get it now.)
Adobe Photoshop CS6 on Demand LOOK INSIDE AT THE INDEX. Seems much more specific and covers a lot. Barnes and Noble carries this too but they can't find the one copy. They are still looking. Will be back in a couple hours and let you know about these books. :) What a versatile art studio thread, eh?
http://www.amazon.com/Photoshop-CS6-Dummies-Peter-Bauer/product-reviews/1118174577/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Adobe Photoshop CS6 Classroom in a Book: Does not have enough 3D in there to catch my interest and that On Demand book looks very detailed. Also, 3dbuzz.com has CS5 tutorials (24 free, we paid the monthly fee and got all 94. Has Z Brush tutorials too. See Tobias's thread for some other tutorial links, we're in a discussion on those. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/29233/ Plus look at the cool nebula he just did with Photoshop.
However, I use the index page from books like those and type it in YouTube, and watch FREE videos on those subjects. It's like the old, "how do you know what to ask if you don't know what you don't know?" By using the logical sequence from a how-to book, you can go step by step on youtube or google and get a good start.
From reading in the QuickStart Guide, Spyder3 Elite is the external callibration tool they recommend. ElaineandPeter.com is their blog. They say computer displays become uncalibrated over time and you are not seeing the true colors. Hmmm.
EDIT:
They couldn't find the On Demand book but I looked through the CS CC (creative cloud) one- it is excellent. SO step by step! So I ordered the CS6 one from Amazon as I get free shipping and it's just as fast.
I did get the Visual Quickstart Guide Photoshop CS6 and it is awesome. Beautiful illustrations and 1. 2. 3. step by step, separated out to follow.
Wow! I admire your drive! I love Photoshop, and know my way around it somewhat, but it will be great to learn more!
What do you think about any future upgrades only being in the "Creative Cloud" and having to pay between $19-$50ish dollars? If you don't have a current version, you'd be on the high end of that. That's PER MONTH. I think I can settle for what the CS6 version does without paying that extra monthly fee- or I'd stockpile all my projects and only pay for a month's worth of access then unsubscribe. So many people can't afford to pay a monthly fee like that!
I only found out about that because when on Amazon, they said there was a "new edition" of the CS6 book, and it was the CC one. I was thinking, "What on earth is CC?"
Today's review is Magic Effects Brushes
http://www.daz3d.com/magic-effects-brushes-for-photoshop
I have to thank Novica for this one, because not only did she tip me off about these, but she also bought them for me. She is a very generous friend. =-)
At any rate, this is a nice set of brushes, easy to use, with over 60 different styles for different magical looks. Adding them to photoshop was a breeze using dim. If anyone has trouble with that, I can write up instructions, but basically you use little cog icon (top right) select the application option on your dim menu to select where the brush go. In my case C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 9\Presets\Brushes and your brushes will go there. Make sure to select where your Brushes folder in photoshop is, when programming dim.
To make a demo pic using the brushes, I loaded a character (in this case Hugh, the glowing-guy). I put a backdrop behind the character (one of the Among the trees collection) by didi_mc at rendo and a rocky ground. I posed Hugh using the sorcerous poses for genesis to give him a good spell casting pose. Be warned, most of these poses seem more suited for a lady genesis character, but I thought this one looked pretty decent as I liked the hands. http://www.daz3d.com/sorcery-for-genesis
I used lights from the candle set http://www.daz3d.com/by-candle-light-for-daz-studio I showed earlier. I added a light yellow linear point light between Hugh's hands to create a nice glow effect.
Render it, then load photoshop. Created 2 layers. Both with the same image.
I experimented with the brushes on the top layer to see which ones Iiked. The brushes are large and you'll probably need to resize them. Once I found a couple I liked I used them, experimenting with transparency until I found the right look. I then painted them on the top layer.
Then I erased the outer fingers of the top layer, to give the impression that the glowing orb was within his lands. The fingers from the unaltered layer poked through, without the brush strokes giving the illusion they are outside the hazy glow. You don't have to do that, but I think it can give a dimensionality to the image.
These are just rough images, but I think you can see that these brushes do a fine job of giving your character some nice magical energy to play with.
I think that should be entered in the PA sale thread to compete for a prize- seriously. So glad you shared that (and instructions.) Those brushes were just too good to pass up and I'll eventually get to use them. The background and everything just goes splendidly together, and the hands look great. I like the lighting on the trees- the subtle highlights running down the sides of the trunks and limbs, really good balance of light and dark.
I'm doing a render that is taking forever. It's of a male (I know, clutch your chest and say "You're KIDDIN' me.") showcasing a hair product. If it turns out I'll share.
FYI- SereneNight has a birthday this weekend! Happy Birthday gal! :)
Happy Birthday SereneNight! Gorgeous render... I love the lighting throughout. Hugh grabs the attention so easily that I'm glad Novica also brought my attention to the background and those highlights on the tree, which are beautifully done.
I'm afraid I cannot take credit for the background. It is a backdrop by didi_mc on Rendo, the trees and sky are her work, I just render over it. =-)
Everything else is stuff I put in the scene though, including the coral rock which makes a great non-water rock as well.. Thanks for the compliments. =-)
I dislike the adobe and Microsoft's 'pay for play' attitude. I stick to my old version which requires no extra fees. I resent being forced to pay subscriber fees like that.
Mon Chevalier Hair (M4)
Tankini- Genesis Starter Essentials
http://www.daz3d.com/mon-chevalier-hair
I tried different light products and ended up using my own. Dyson uses the Michael 4 UV map and I changed the Specular to a light blue 210 / 238 / 255 I left the diffuse at white. The lights are all bluish too. This render has a shading rate of .40 so it took awhile.
The Mon Chevalier Hair went on without any problem, but those stray long strands can drive you nuts. Clothing with ANY type of collar are going to have to be double checked for disappearing ends. There is a good "shorten" option to get it above the collar. I like this hair- very tousled, very carefree, rugged on the guys. Fits easily into different historical periods and modern times.
SereneNight , your render is fantastic, love the light effects...I have some of ron's brushes and PS CS2 but haven't done much with them yet. I am new to PS as I always used paintshop pro prior. Happy Birthday to you also, have a great day!
Novica Dyson looks great the lighting is fantastic. Great render!
Cute! Very nice Novica! Like him a lot!
Thanks! And thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. =-)
Happy birthday :)
Still lurking here, but not much to add. Just keep up the good work!
InaneGlorys Photo Studio (and 2 and 3)
http://www.daz3d.com/inaneglory-s-photo-studio
I looked all over for this so am posting it for you so you'll know what this entails. Read the PDF because you need to see if this is a system you want to use.
http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/artzone/azproduct/inaneglory/inaneglory_s_photo_studio_users_guide.pdf
This product uses UberArea Light Shaders (light emitting objects instead of traditional lighting.) One thing that makes sense- because these don't load as lights that Studio will recognize, the Headlamp Blocker is necessary to turn off the studio default light.
The PDF will tell you the illumination does not show up in the Preview screen. To quote the PDF "At this point you have a better understanding of how the lights are set up but you don't really know what a render looks like while using them. Let's change all that." The vendor's solution is to do a render to see your lights.
You will not be able to adjust the lights from Parameters. All you can do is move the lights side to side or up and down BUT they always maintain the same distance from the center of the scene according to the PDF. You have to go to Surfaces to make light intensity adjustment, shadow adjustments, and more. They use a latitude type system for raising and lowering the lights, and have it well documented.
The vendor certainly went to a lot of trouble to create something unique, and I'm sure the results are stunning. This approach just isn't for me. (EDIT- meaning not being able to see what your lights are doing, or what they are doing when you tweak them.)
That said, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SereneNight before I miss it, in my world its not midnight yet. %-P
Hey thanks Jaderail! Really appreciate the birthday wishes. =-)