Improving My Art
VIArts
Posts: 1,499
A lot of people have the impression that if you're doing (or want to do) art, you must have good vision. Just like a musician must he able to hear to make good music. It makes sense, yes. But here's the thing; Not those sharp senses is simply an obstacle -- a challenge that can be overcome if the heart is ambitious and passionate about doing art. Things can stand between you and your art, but nothing can take the artist out of you.
I myself am one of those artists. I'm visually impaired (as well as deaf}. I use a magnification software to help me do all my computer crap, including 2D and 3D art. I'm not color blind, but there are times when I don't know what color that is and times when I miss some kinda detail, like a poke-through, a distortion, a floating object, or lighting that's just weird or wrong.
I strive to make good art. That's why I value feedback of any kind whenever I can get it. That's why I'm tarting this thread -- to post my WIPs and stuff as I try to improve my art.
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Comments
Right now, I'm trying to work out how to simulate distance between these two. there'll be a burning village behind the dragon.
Very good... I have a couple of suggestions that may help you.
I did a quick image to show...
I set the camera at zoom set at 35mm
also I chose depth of field in the camera tab under effects.. I selected the dragon as the main focus and ramped up the blur to 46%
I also posed the dragon and the fella at an angle to each other and focused from down to up..
to make a distance between the two subjects I placed some items to try and give a sense of scale and distance. I don't have any of the subjects looking at the camera.
Hope this gives you some examples. Others I'm sure will give their tips and tricks on how they do it.
depth of field can also be your friend
I sometimes increase or decrease the size of items in my scene to give a greater/smaller sense of scale to the scene.
Glad you are starting this thread, MaJourney. I alway enjoy your posts for the Challenges, and look forward to seeing more. I will follow along with interest and offer my thoughts on topics I have had experience with. Am confident that others will also. I know that starting my thread has been a great resource for me because our Carrara community is so helpful.
Thanksb guys. Trying to work on it..,.but.,.what is it about PhilW's Fantasy Village that causes it to take forever to just start rendering at low setting with lota of things hidden?
Found it. Replicator.
Very cool (and courageous!) thread, my friend! I would never have guessed at your struggles since you seem (to me) to make a helluva nice render! Like your MAJourney avatar image... I love it!
Not satisfied, but working on the background for the dragon.
Hitfilm Pro fire
Thanks Dart! I hate to ay it, but my avatar was rendered in DS with an uber lighting preset before i had any clue about light setups. lol I did dial-spin the character though
WIP
Maybe a spotlight in front of the Dragon that illuminates the Dragon only, would not have to be very bright, just enough to bring out the Dragons details ?
I've got a couple distants on him only in that render, but they're not very bright. I could brighten them a bit.
I'm not sure if this "smoke" is even realistic. In Phooshop, i created two layers -- one in front of the dragon and one behind e dragon -- and used Fiterb - Render - Clouds on both. Stretched a bit, set the blend mode to Screen, and lowered the opacity way down
...
that is looking really impressive Jacob
+1
Anyone ever mess with all those weird camera settings in effects; like aperture, focal whatever , etc?
Are you still talking of DS?
In Carrara, we have access to a much simpler system called 'Depth of Field,' which Stezza_Carrara9 and Wendy_Carrara have already mentioned above.
Here's the effect:
Carrara: No Effect
Real World: Small Aperture, Long Focal Length
Carrara: Depth of Field: 26; Blur: 200%
Real World: Large Aperture, Short Focal Length
Aperture does have considerable effect using Octane render plugin though
I wa never talking about DSnLol In CARRARA Camera effects tab, there's a bunch of camera settings. Doing a render, so can't snip it atm.
I was talking about in Carrara and of course Octane adds a whole pile of cameras parameters in effects that were not in the vanilla Carrara you may not have realised also those DCG plugins add a fair few.
What? Where's the aperture setting in Carrara... please post a screenshot of it - there's nothing in the manual and I can't find anything on my interface and I have all of DCG's plugins installed (I don't have Octane though.).
Yes I think because he has Octane he is seeing it and it has a dramatic effect in that
Oh yeah, must be an Octane thing
Anyone got a cure for black eye syndrome? Messed with G2's eye shaders, but nope...
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/208351/black-eyes-in-gen-2
I meant to start this thread here on Carrara forum, but messed up
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/489661/sunsets
i think i solved the wave p0attern issue, but i'm kinda stuck on the haze/fog part, 'cause i cant see it too well. like...what color fog and al.titude...
i also tried to get the sun to shine brighter like a real sun, as i can barely see it even with no clouds. ive achieved the effect by turing haze density all the way up in thed RS Editor. it's a cool effect, but i'm not sure if that much haze is realistic
To access camera aperture and such, select the camera and choose the zoom option. I tried it in VFX class for dolly zoom effects and it works great, but would require practice on my part.
So yes. Those settings make a difference. Do a search for pphotography lessons and you'll find all you need to know about how to work those settings to your advantage. Digital Lighting and Rendering, by Jeremy Birn also has a bunch of info on it.
As for your really cool dragon scene, there is a common misconception that I have to let you in on - an old photographer trick:
Leave those distant lights mostly dim, but doing their thing so we can see the dragon. But they aren't giving it Any detail. For that, we need a light coming from behind or the side that is much brighter, but whose light we only see a bit of - a rim light. By "Really bright" I don't mean to overdo it, but it needs to be brighter than the current lighting, which shouldn't be hard. The 'shine' from that light needs to scatter across the texture of the dragon to bring out any 'detail' it might have.
Notice in TV shows - when they turn off the light at night, the scene gets enhanced with blue light along with some bit of stronger light coming from a hallway or window to show off the shape of the subject. This is less obvious in today's shows compared to, say Little House on the Prairie, but these techniques are still being used. It's what makes TV and movies look good - it's the cinematographer (also DP) using tried and true methods to make the subject matter stand out.
In theory, this needs to be done realistically, so there always has to be a reason for the light to be coming from where it's coming from. But often is the case that we can simply imagine what the light source is without actually showing it.
For more ideas of cool lighting setups, check out the "Lighting" portion of the Carrara browser and load in some examples. I even loaded their three-point lighting example, deleted everything in the scene except for the camera and lights, which I've then parented to a target helper object and saved it to my browser. I can load that in, scale it to my needs and rotate the target helper until the camera in it somewhat matches the direction of my own camera. Now my three point lighting is set up like the example for the most part.
Hey Dart! Thanks, I'll remember that. But that dragon project was some time ago, now I'm trying to figure out how to "perfect:" this scene before I get my mom a 36x24 print for Mother's Day.