October Carrara Challenge WIP Thread: Create a pulp magazine cover with Chills, Thrills, & Carrara S
sukyL
Posts: 251
It’s time to check out the October Carrara Challenge entries here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47729/ and VOTE!!!
Voting is open until November 3 around 10pm US Mountain Standard (DAZ) Time. Voting is open to anyone with a DAZ 3D account.
Greetings! My name is sukyL. I’m Editor-in-chief of DAZling Stories magazine [not really, this is just for fun]. DAZling Stories is a fictional magazine in the tradition of classic 1920s-50s pulps like Startling, Amazing Stories, and Weird Tales. We’re in a jam! Our cover artist has met with an ironic end at the hands of a troop of jumping gorillas. We have a deadline fast approaching and need a cover by the end of the month! Choose your genre--jungle, horror, spicy detectives, strange science, unsettling mysteries, weird menace, dinosaurs, romance, inner Earth, saucy airships, planetary conquest, western adventures or any combination. We publish it all! What!? Don’t know what this month’s stories are? No worries! The original pulp publishers rarely worried about the cover matching the contents. Make something up!
I know you Carrara artists are up to the task. We have heard some impressive things about this Carrara software. Show us what Carrara can do! New to Carrara? Don’t worry! You won’t be when you’re done with this challenge.
Our sponsors are so appreciative of your saving this issue of DAZling Stories they have agreed to reward the top entries handsomely…Behold!
It is my great pleasure to announce that DAZ 3D and The AntFarm--maker of wondrous environments, curious creatures, and mechanical marvels-- will be sponsoring this month’s challenge. Please take a look at The AntFarm’s DAZ 3D shop (http://www.daz3d.com/the-antfarm) and be awed!
DAZ 3D is once again offering:
1st place: $100.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s)
2nd place: $50.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s)
3rd place: $25.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s)
Honorable mention: $10.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s)
The AntFarm is most generously offering:
1st Place: Any 3 items from The AntFarm’s shop
2nd Place: Any 2 items from The AntFarm’s shop
3rd place: Any 1 item from The AntFarm’s shop
Honorable Mention: Any 1 item from The AntFarm’s shop
Extra special thanks to DAZ 3D and The AntFarm for sponsoring this challenge! Super-secret extra thanks to Britney Creek for help with DAZ 3D sponsorship!
Special addendum to the awards list: 1st Place winner also gets the great honor of hosting the next challenge. The winner gets to choose the theme and the rules.
The challenge rules are:
1) There must be some sort of mechanical element in your scene (e.g. robot, robolimb, control panel, containment tube, mechanical tentacle, spaceship, thing-a-ma-gig, etc,). **UPDATE 10/3: mechanical element does not need to be a major scene element
2) Entrants must create an original rusty metal shader in the Carrara texture room, show how it set up in the WIP, and apply it to at least one scene element. Texture maps imported from external sources are acceptable as long as the majority of the shader is set up in Carrara.
3) Two items (in addition to application of the rusty metal shader) must be either created in or significantly enhanced* in Carrara
4) No other specific Carrara functions are required, but you must use a Carrara feature not part of your usual toolkit, and identify what it is. **UPDATE 10/3: 3rd party plugins are acceptable, but a WIP showing setup would be appreciated.** If you are new to Carrara, then just let us know what function gave you the greatest challenge or satisfaction
5) Pre-made content is allowed (and even encouraged) as long as you credit it. Links (if possible, but not required) would be great!
6) A screen cap of your scene setup in the Carrara Assembly room must be included in the WIP thread
7) Renders must be done in Carrara unless you use a Carrara plugin to get the scene into a 3rd party renderer, such as Octane or Lux, in which case a description of the process is required in one of the WIPs.
8) This is a magazine cover, so the final entry must be in portrait format (taller than wide) and must include the following elements: title--DAZling Stories; issue--October 2014; at least 2 fictional story titles; and price **UPDATE 10/3** -- 25¢-- in US currency or similar small denomination in artist's native currency if preferred. The Carrara text tool may be used for this, but is not required, and would count towards the Carrara-made item requirement.
9) Postwork is allowed. If Postwork (other than the cover text elements) is used, you must post a raw render prior to postwork and a brief summary of the postwork that was done in one of your WIPs.
10) When the entry thread is opened, you must link to at least two of your WIPs from this thread in your entry.
11) You may enter up to two images, the image(s) must be new works created for this challenge that have not been posted elsewhere. Votes will be on a per image basis, so there will not be a combined vote for both images (should two be entered).
12) Final images must be posted in the Submissions Thread by the submissions deadline to be considered. If you can’t enter your image in the submissions thread due to extenuating circumstances, PM me (sukyL) so we can work something out.
13) Voting is open to anyone with a DAZ 3D account. Voters may vote for 3 images (1 vote each) and give suggestions for Honorable Mention. Anonymous voting is allowed only with exceptional circumstances. PM me (sukyL) to find out if I will allow it.
Dates To Remember:
• Friday, October 3, 2014 -- WIP Thread opens and closes when voting begins
• Saturday, October 18, 2014 -- Submission Thread opens
• Sunday, October 26, 2014 around 10:00 PM U.S. Mountain Time – SUBMISSIONS CLOSE and thread is changed to Voting Thread
• Monday, November 3, 2014 around 10:00 PM U.S. Mountain Time – VOTING ENDS
I live in the US Eastern Standard Time zone, but will keep the reference time DAZ 3D time, which is US Mountain Time. For more information on US Mountain Time please check out: http://www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_US-UT.aspx
*What are “created or significantly enhanced” objects?
1) Creating an object in Carrara’s vertex modeler, the spline modeler, the metaball modeller, the plant editor, or terrain editor
2) Morphing or modifying an object (including a primitive) beyond recognition or cutting parts from it, and using it for something completely different.
3) Covering an object with fur or creating dynamic hair for it.
4) Rigging and using that rig to pose an object.
5) Altering or creating UV-maps, or creating special shaders or textures.
6) Using the 3D-paint feature to texture the object or create shaders, shader masks, distribution maps, etc.
7) Creating unique variations of things like plants, oceans, particle generators, terrains, clouds, etc.
8) Inventive use of replicators. Just replicating an object doesn’t count as significantly enhanced, but creating new shapes using replicated objects does, or using distribution maps or nested replicators to create environments or interesting concepts would also count.
If you are not sure whether your enhancements qualify, please ask in this thread.
** There were several heartbreaking file losses reported last challenge. I suggest making incremental saves and backups to prevent or, at least, minimize loss of effort. To speed up saves, you may want to choose the local save option and uncheck compression.
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Comments
This challenge is open to anyone interested in Carrara at any experience level. If you are new to Carrara, there are many people here willing to share their Carrara knowledge, so don't hesitate to ask for help. If you are an old hand, there is always something new to learn. This challenge is meant to show the world how great we think Carrara is. Above all have fun!!!
You may wonder what's up with the magazine layout. I'm being crafty. I notice from my survey of past challenges that a lot of you really like the landscape mode. I purposly chose portrait mode to change it up a bit. Don't be afraid to make use of the whole space! Zoom in, zoom out, look over the shoulder of figures in the foreground, have elements spilling out of the cover boundries, or use interesting POVs and angles. The possibilities for themes are pretty much endless.
Please ask if you need clarification about any aspects of the October Challenge. The thread is open for WIPs. I so hope you enjoy the challenge this month! Good luck!
Here are some examples of pulp magazine covers mainly from my collection. They aren't all action/adventure (check the last one out ?!) There is truly something for everyone here. :-)
**UPDATE 10/3** In case you aren't familiar with pulp magazines from the early Twentieth Century...These were genre fiction magazines that featured stories by famous writers such as Daschiell Hammett, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and many more. Their lavishly illustrated covers competed for reader's attention at newsstands of the time. The pulps laid down the foundation for modern science fiction, horror, and crime/detective fiction.
Even though my challenge title is pretty exciting ;-), you are absolutely not limited to action and adventure for this challenge. There is a lot of room for interpretation. You don't have to totally recreate the medium of the cover art either. Just try to capture a bit of their Amazing, Astounding, Fantastic, Thrilling, or DAZling spirit.
Here are a couple sites with historical background, covers, and stories that may provide inspiration for this challenge:
http://www.thepulp.net/pulp-info/pulp-history/
http://www.pulpmags.org/default.htm
Nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For anyone scratching their heads looking for inspiration, head over to:-
http://comicbookplus.com/
Plenty of subjects, and plenty of retro stuff as well.
A rusty robo-doohicky as part of a magazine cover for the October 2014th issue of DAZling Stories?
I like it!
A rusty robo-doohicky as part of a magazine cover for the October 14th issue of DAZling Stories?
I like it!
That should be 2014, I'll fix that.
Bunyip Super cool site!
Here are a couple sources for free, non-commercial use only fonts, which may come in handy for the cover text.
http://www.fontspace.com/ (this one has many commercial use fonts)
Hold on the second suggestion. I'm going to check with the owner to make sure it's alright for a challenge with awards.
So will I. I will edit my post. :-)
Since we have to use a tool that is not part of our usual toolkit, I have decided to play with the magnet tool in the vertex modeler. I never use that.
Here is a quickie that might be helpful for people who don't usually do their modeling in Carrara. This is one way to make your text warped and spooky (and you can add dripping blood if you want).
- use insert text
- type DAZling Stories and choose a font
- return to the assembly room
- use edit : convert to modeler
- choose vertex modeler
- enter the modeling room
- choose the magnet tool from the top menu
- warp the text
- I suspect that you get better results with the magnet tool if you use one of the directional cameras instead of the directors camera
You could do the same thing with other tools, such as soft select, but I used the magnet because I think I will be using the magnet as part of my two created or customized objects.
So, I want to see at least one person have some blood dripping from their title!
Diomede You got me at dripping blood! You must show how!
Metaball!
Or, people can choose from a lot of ways to do the same thing. In the September challenge, EP had the dripping sauce on the cheesecake, so blood could be done the same way. The dripping blood could be done as a separate object, but I will show one way to do it as part of the same vertex object as the converted text. You have to decide if you want the text oozing blood or if you want the blood to be on top of the text and dripping over it. Here is one way to have blood oozing from the i.
- enter the modeling room for the vertex text
- use construct : 3D : sphere
- make sure the whole sphere is selected, resize and move to well below the i in DAZling.
- select the top few rings of the sphere and click soft select. Reduce the effect area of soft select to taste.
- pull the top of the sphere up towards the i, clicking the - button to reduce the soft select area as you go
- create another ring of vertexes along the bottom of the i. Select the bottom of the i and pull it down towards the sphere, reduce sale
- optional, smooth the edges of the i,but crease the all of the other edges of the text. Use smooth the to soften the i, and click convert.
- join the bottom of the i and the top of the sphere. You can weld a few vertexes, or you can use the bridge tool, for example.
diomede I love it the dripping text! I'm definitely going to give it a try. Thanks so much for showing how. I have never even tried out the text tool.
Talk to you all much later. I've got to go to bed. I've over done it and now have only 2 1/2 hours before I have to get up for work. :down:
Great theme, sukL - I've been toying around with this idea, so here's the opportunity to put it to the test:)
A question I asked last round but never got a reply was whether using an external renderer include using MCJ's script to send a Carrara scene to Blender Cycles?
I'd better get busy and finish off my mech warrior!
Good tips there, thank you diomede :)
Do people have to have a toon look? How to do that, I have seen Toon Levels but the manual is very vague on using them. Is that what they are for?
Biting nails here... don't know if I can be done before we go on holiday! :ohh: Silene
Roygee
I just watched a video on Blender Cycles. As long as you meet the requirements I set in for this challenge and do all your setup within Carrara, I don't see that Cycles is functionally different from rendering out to Octane or Lux. Just remember, if you don't use Carrara's render engine, you have to show how you set up your lighting and materials, etc to work in the external renderer in the WIP thread. How you used the script to output to Cycles would certainly be informative.
Now, I'm positively comatose. Good night all!
Hi Silene,
Great question! Pulp covers were often done in pastel chalks or painted, but that effect isn't necessary for this challenge. Unless you want to, of course. It's all about the spirit of the pulps, the sense of adventure, excitement, or mystery they convey depending on the theme.
You could try the Carrara non-photorealistic render setting as opposed to photorealistic or one of the freebie plugins or for purchase toon render product from Digital Carvers Guild. Since this would be a Carrara effect, no extra WIP. If you do want to do postwork, I'm sure there would be something in FilterForge that would work. Since we want to show off Carrara, you just have to show a pre-postwork render in the WIP and give a brief summary of what you did in post.
I hope you have time to get something made. I can't wait to see what you come up with.
Enjoy your trip to the States!
sukyL
You could also use a depth pass in Photoshop to achieve a hybrid look. This is what I did for Stu's Carrara challenge:
I rendered my image along with a depth pass and opened it in Photoshop. I copied and pasted the background layer a couple times so I wouldn't alter the original. I then created a layer mask out of the top layer, went to channels where the depth map resides, and copied and pasted that into the layer mask. I then applied the Poster Edge filter to the layer below. I don't recall if I had to invert the depth map's color.... Anyway, the effect I was going for was to have the foreground look more "real" and the background look more comic bookish.
What diomede is doing to alter the the text is great. The other advantage is that by converting the text to a vertex object, it saves the hassle of having to make sure the same font is on other computers you use for network rendering. If the font isn't on the node computer it is ignored and not rendered.
I should point out that like most things in Carrara, there are multiple ways to achieve your goal. One of those ways to distort your text without converting it to a vertex object (thus leaving it editable), is to use any one of the available deformers on it.
...and why not a soft body deformer EP ? :-)
Oh wow. This theme is so far out of my comfort zone, it's not even funny. I usually find those covers cringe-worthy... I can't even imaging creating one myself... But this is why it's a challenge, I guess.
I'll try to enter, if my schedule allows me. But this is definitely not something I could fit into my tests or practices for ongoing projects, so I am not sure I will have time for it.
Question about the rules: Would using one of the Carrara plug-ins I've got (like the ones from DCG, Inagoni, Sparrowhawke3d, etc), but never used before, be considered as using "a Carrara feature not part of your usual toolkit"?
Pity that we must have a mechanical element. I've looked at the covers in the pulp magazine archive and the ones that appealed to me most were pure fantasy ones. Fairies, mermaids or nature related.
Also, I have a feeling that the most difficult part for me is going to be "2 fictional story titles" :) - I am so not a writer.
Another question: Is there a fixed price for the magazine? The editor should definitely include it in the brief! :)
...and why not a soft body deformer EP ? :-)
I did say available deformers. ;-P Soft body physics is something that I can't do with my version of Carrara.
Wow EP, that's awesome already! Love the title too :)
I think this one's gonna be a LOT of fun, great challenge idea SukyL!
Rust? I decided to look under the hood of the rust shader that comes with Carrara in the scene wizard. It seems to be based on three texture maps.
- first is a texture map with a dull color and a copper-ish color in the color channel. It seems to have some contrast.
- then shininess is set to 100%
- the highlight and he bump share a greyscale shader. It seems to have some contrast.
- the reflection channel has a third map. This one seems less sharp.
I am attaching screengrabs to encourage experimentation. I also attach a render of a simple sphere with the rust shader applied. I don't really think it is the best rust shader, but you probably have it. I think it can be helpful to take apart the shaders and objects that come with Carrara to see how things work. I will have to give thought to how I plan to experiment. I think I would prefer to use some sort of procedural shader rather than a map, but I'm not sure yet.
Wow EP, that's awesome already! Love the title too :)
I think this one's gonna be a LOT of fun, great challenge idea SukyL!
Sorry for any confusion Jon. When Stu hosted the challenge, his theme was a movie poster theme with a requirement to use the text primitive. I just re-posted one of my entries from that challenge as an example on how to use a depth pass and layer mask to get a hybrid photo/comic book effect.
and here are some reference photos of rusty metal gathered from around the web. there seems to be quite a variety of rust out there.
Rust? I decided to look under the hood of the rust shader that comes with Carrara in the scene wizard. It seems to be based on three texture maps.
- first is a texture map with a dull color and a copper-ish color in the color channel. It seems to have some contrast.
- then shininess is set to 100%
- the highlight and he bump share a greyscale shader. It seems to have some contrast.
- the reflection channel has a third map. This one seems less sharp.
I am attaching screengrabs to encourage experimentation. I also attach a render of a simple sphere with the rust shader applied. I don't really think it is the best rust shader, but you probably have it. I think it can be helpful to take apart the shaders and objects that come with Carrara to see how things work. I will have to give thought to how I plan to experiment. I think I would prefer to use some sort of procedural shader rather than a map, but I'm not sure yet.
Yes, I have that one going back to C5 actually.
You should be able to get a good rust look by using a procedural shader. I'm thinking for the color, you would want to start with a color gradient with fractal noise. Let me see what I can "WIP" up.
I think the plugin AnythingGoos will find the edges of the geometry and generate effects in those area that can look like dirt, goo, rust etc. in crevices and seams. Think of a rusty car as an example.
You could get a similar result manually by using Carrara's 3D paint tool to paint black and white areas that you want the rust to appear and use the resulting map to drive the distribution.
Hi Antara,
Thanks for checking out the challenge. I so hope you give it a try. I think your initial reaction of how in the world are you going to come up with something for that assignment is perfect for an artist. You may have to wrestle with the theme a bit to come up with a satisfactory and creative solution to make it something that engages you.
Please, everyone, do use any Carrara plugin you like. We definitely want to encourage development of plugins for Carrara. In my opinion, once installed, it's a Carrara tool. Hopefully this would be a great opportunity to finally put the one you have in mind to use. I added the requirement to use something out of your normal goto tool set to get everyone (me especially!) to try something new or underutilized. Even if it's a plugin someone else doesn't have, since the specific plugin isn't required, I don't see it as any different than Standard vs Pro offerings. Since we require it with the external render plug-ins, I think a WIP, showing others how it's setup, would be appropriate. ;-)
Sorry about the mechanical element. I love the classic pulp covers because they often exude a golly-gee! or scratch the head wonder factor designed to entice the potential reader into opening the cover. I purposely wanted to gum up the works with some potentially out of place element to prevent a pure genre scene. For example, as much as I love dinosaurs, a couple dinos strolling along munching vegetation might not be as interesting as, say, a couple dinos coming across a big metal obelisk and giving each other a "What the heck!?" look. Now, I'm curious and want to read further to find out how that obelisk got there.
If you are more comfortable with fantasy elements or nature, please go with that. By no means is action or adventure a requirement. Many pulps contained stories with significant social or environmental commentary. I've seen beautiful covers that were very simplistic and poignant. Ray Bradbury was originally a pulp writer. I could totally see a scene reminiscent of "There Will Come Soft Rains" where nature is once again reclaiming its right after humanity has destroyed itself. In that scene there might be a mechanical element symbolizing humanity being obscured by a lush growth of vegetation.
Now, I'm so glad I decided to require DAZling Stories as the main title. I find titles can be really difficult. The 2 other title requirement is just for looks (refer to the cover examples I posted). If coming up with an original title is a problem, please just use any existing title. Pulp titles were very formulaic, for example, [Adjective] + Women/Men + [Planet] = Green Women from Neptune. Google "random pulp title generator" or "random science fiction title generator" and there are even sites that can come up with one for you.
The price, hmm, I actually meant to put that in the rules section, but it was late. Let's make it "25¢" US or equivalent in the artist's local currency, if desired. I will edit my original post to add this.
Finally, I want to use the lack of sleep excuse as a blanket disclaimer for most anything messed up, confusing, or missing in my challenge announcement post last night :red:
Thanks for bringing up some excellent points! :-) I hope I was able to clarify.
sukyL
No worries SukyL, you're doing a fine job so far. The theme is a good one as well. I'm already imagining a cover. My trick is to try an find an under-utilized tool.... I'm going to have to dig around under the hood to see what I can come up with. BTW, that's a good requirement because it's actually making me think about it a bit.
My initial thought is the meta-ball modeler, but I've probably used it more than others have. I may end up going with some of the primitives I don't usually mess with, or maybe the deformers.
Anyone looking for rusty solutions please check this out:-
http://www.morguefile.com/archive#/?q=rust&sort=pop&photo_lib=morgueFile
(There are some good ideas to use as a base/guide/inspiration for your render as well) ;-)
Here's an initial attempt at a procedural rust shader. looking at Diomede's references, I can see I'm going to need to add some color variations to the rust. This is just an experiment. I have another idea in mind for what I want to rust up.
I added some updates to the rules section to clarify a bit. Also, I realize some may not be all that familiar with pulp magazines. I posted a little more description and a couple links for inspiration.
I want to post the challenge link in the Commons soon. Let me now if there is anything that is contradictory or confusing.
Will do.
BTW, when I have mentioned in the past that even old hands at Carrara can learn something new about it, I wasn't kidding. Tonight I learned about more advanced options to view and control the cameras in my scenes. I did a bit of experimenting and posted a graphic with a brief description of what the controls do, and how to access them. I want to give a very special thanks to tbwoq for pointing this out to me as I had never discovered the icon to toggle on and off the function.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/46849/P30/#688766
sukyL, thank you for clarifying the rules! I think it's given me an idea :). Let's see if I manage to carve out some time this weekend to start setting things up.
EP, those are very cool controls. But I remember that when I tried them out some time ago, I found that for my likening they were not precise enough, so I stuck with the manual number changes. Did you have the same experience or is there some sort of controlled way of using the controls, which I haven't stumbled upon? Like stepped modification (i.e. tilt by fixed # of degrees or zoom fixed #mm each step)?