October Carrara Challenge: VOTING ENDED... WINNERS ANNOUNCED!!!

sukyL · October 2014

The October Carrara Challenge: Create a pulp magazine cover with Chills, Thrills, & Carrara Skills! VOTING HAS ENDED!

Welcome to the voting thread! Please peruse these incredible entries then VOTE!!! It is not required, but it would be much appreciated if you could include comments about the entries when casting your vote! Anyone is welcome to vote.

A special note for voters: Please take the time to click on the images and view them at full resolution!!! The smaller down-sampled images visible in the thread seldom look anywhere close to the quality of the full image!!

To see how these Amazing! Astounding! DAZling pulp covers were created in Carrara and for complete challenge details be sure to visit the WIP thread (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/)!

Voting rules:
The rules for voting are fairly simple (and are very similar to the ones dustrider posted last month): ;-)

--Voting is open to anyone with a DAZ 3D account.

--Each person may vote for up to three entries.

--Votes are per entry. If an artist has two images you wish to vote for, you may use a vote for each one, leaving you with one remaining vote to cast.

--An artist may place in the top three, plus Honorable Mention only once. If an artist has enough votes to place more than once, the entry with the most votes will be the one that is placed, and the entry with the next highest votes will be moved up.

--Anonymous votes will be accepted with good cause. Please PM me (sukyL) if you think you need to vote anonymously. An example would be if a forum moderator or admin wishes to vote without giving an appearance of favoritism. There may be other issues as well.

--Tie breaking rules and Honorable Mention rules will be added soon. Feel free to give your suggestions for honorable mention, as it may help with this very difficult task.

If there are any questions, please ask!

You can find the complete challenge rules here (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/)

Dates To Remember:
• Monday, November 3, 2014 around 10:00 PM U.S. Mountain Time – VOTING ENDS 

MarkIsSleepy · October 2014

Entry #1

Artist: Mark D. Olsen (MDO2010)

Title: Robot Attack

WIPs:
Raygun Modeling
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/690812/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/691016/

Rust Shader Setup, Wall Model, Test Shader Render
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/692029/

Robot Design Sketch, Modeling Top, Final Model/Rigging
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/691018/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/692666/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/693151/

Scene Setup, Carrara Render(pre-postwork), Postworked Cover
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/693162/

Content Used: Victoria 4, RM Tharyn, Espresso Hair, Shadowcaster, Michael 4, M4 Basic Wear, Riccardi hair. SparrowHawke3D's Edge Falloff shader was used in the glow channel to make the glass dome on the robot pop out a little more from the background. Titles use the "Startling" font by Gaut Fonts and the "H.H. Samuel" font by deFharo, both from dafont.com.

How Challenge Requirements Met:
Mechanical Element: Created the robot from scratch in Carrara's Vertex Modeler.
Rusty Shader: Created from scratch using a multi-channel mixer. Source 1 is just a slightly modified version of the Basic Dull Metal shader that came with Cararra. Source 2 is the rust. It’s an orange and an orange-ish brown mixed using a cellular function. The shininess is turned almost all the way off on the rust and there’s a little bit of a bump to it, generated using the same cellular function that is mixing the colors. The rust and the base metal are mixed using a marble function.
Two Items Made/Enhanced in Carrara: Created the raygun, robot, manacle/chain and wall in the vertex modeler, painted a rough alpha for the pants rips using the 3D paint tool, created the glass shader on the robot's dome and control panel in Carrara. Rigged the robot using the bone tool.
Unfamiliar Element: I had never used the vertex modeler before, and had never rigged anything before

Postwork: Cover Text, fine tuned tears in M4's pants, fixed some minor poke-through, color aging, added wear effects (foxed edges, wrinkles, scratches, rip, tape repair).

Comments: I played with reversing the stereotypical gender roles of the period art a little bit with a more modern heroic female and a helpless male in need of her rescue. I deliberately kept the lighting, color palette and composition very simple on this, which both fits the style of the covers I was trying to emulate and works well with my lack of experience in Carrara. ;)

DustRider · October 2014

Entry # 2

Artist:
DustRider

Title:
DAZling Stories - Raie and the Triassic Terror!!

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):

Mechanical Element - Modled the little flying drone in the Carrara vertex modeler, did a very basic UV map, then used shaders from the Octane LiveDB as a stering point for the textures on the model (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P204). The Time machine also mets the requirement for a mechanical element.
Rusty Shader: This was probably the weakest of my required elements. I used a rust shader from the LiveDB shaders, then modified it to fit my needs. I wanted to simulate the type of rust patina found on old gun barrels (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P204)
Two items (in addition to application of the rusty metal shader) must be either created in or significantly enhanced* in Carrara:
1. The little drone maodel and materials/shaders
2. All of the text was created with the 3D text feature in Carrara, then converted to vertex models for improved placement/shading, then custom Octane materials/shaders were used.
3. The Genesis 2 figure has a custom shader set created in Carrara for Octane. It is also a custome texture set created from a V4 merchant resource converted to the G2F UV set, then modified in GIMP.
4. The Time Machine only had basic colors for textures. New custom Octane materials were assigned in Carrara. You can see a render showing the original materials here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P309
5. All of the Clothes on the G2F figure were significantly enhanced for use with the Octane plugin (the gun as well).
Underused Carrra feature
I've only used the 3D Text feature in Carrara once before. I selected this as the underused feature that I would use for this challenge. Originally I was just going to do the title text in a separate Carrara project, then merge it with cover render in post, and add the rest of the text in post (Gimp), but as the project progressed, I decided to do ALL of the text in Carrara, as a part of my cover project, and render it all as one image.

Postwork:
Re sized Image from 2400x1855 to 2000x1546, very slight levels adjustment to brighten just a bit, and converted it from png to jpg. No additional post-work was done.

Comments:
I wanted to create a cover that was reminiscent of the old pulp fiction covers, while being more modern, glossy, and full color (similar to what is seen on graphic novel covers). Hopefully I was able to pull it off. The project was rendered using the Octane Render Plugin for Carrara, I modified almost all of the Materials/Shaders. The entire layout, including all the text, was done in a single render in Carrara/Octane. Please click on the image to see the full sized version. The reduced image shown here has lost a lot of the original image quality/impact (IMHO).

AntMan · October 2014

Looking Good! It's fun how to see how the type and color choices being used really dial in the pulp vibe.

pimpy · October 2014

Entry # 3

Artist:  Pimpy

Title:  The incredible experiment

Content Used:
Michael 4 (Carrara)
Gorilla LE (Carrara)
ModaCuts AtoE (http://www.daz3d.com/hair/modacuts-atoe) -
Knight Champion for M4 (only Arming Doublet) (http://www.daz3d.com/knight-champion-for-m4)

How challenge requirements met:
Mechanical Element: Control Panel and all the other items modeled in the Carrara vertex modeler.
Rusty Shader: Created in Carrara8 pro ( Carrara procedural shader) and applied to all the pipes of the scene
Two items (in addition to application of the rusty metal shader) must be either created in or significantly enhanced in Carrara:
Walls, floors and ceilings ( primitives - created material shaders)
Dividing wall (modeled in vertex modeler, created multi shader and material shaders)
Control Panel, buttons and levers (modeled in vertex modeler, created UV map and material shaders)
Electrical panels (modeled in vertex modeler, created multi shader and material shaders)
Tubes (primitives and created material shaders )
Elements for generate lightning and lightning (modeled in vertex modeler and and material shaders)
Arming Doublet (Knight Champion for M4) (edited collar shirt in vertex modeler)
ModaCuts AtoE ( edited original shader)
Gorilla skin ( edited original shader - http://carraracafe.com/tutorials/complex-lighting-tutorial-by-mark-bremmer/ )
Text (created in Carrara text editor - color edited in Gimp)

Underused Carrra feature
It was the first time I used Carrara text editor to create complex texts.
My first step was to create the text on a different file, and then paste it on the image but when i made the final render the result gave me subdued colors. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P135/#691248 http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P180/#693165
Then I created different layers using Carrara (alpha channel) and enhanced the color in post in Gimp I think that could be this the “Underuse of Carrara”. The first step, I'm sure was correct but the render I made was wrong... http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P180/#693165

Postwork: 
I decided to enhance and change color to some components of my scene (only text and gorilla figure) using Gimp I rendered separate layers using the option in in the “Render Room” file format : Photoshop and “Render alpha Channel”
I created in this way some images of the text and the gorilla figure.
After that in Gimp I assembled all the transparent images, using as background image the scene with no text ( - comic effect – w.i.p http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P180/#693165 ) and I changed to each layer, color, contrast and intensity.

Comments:
My idea for the cover was to create a scene that reflected with objects, materials, and crazy ideas, the historical period in those years.
So I created the character of the mad scientist who uses electricity for an impossible experiment.
(The first Frankenstein movie's was in 1931)

Diomede · October 2014

Entry # 4
Artist: Diomede

Title: Daughter of the Falcon

Content Used: None - everythig is custom

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):
- rust shader was created using the gradients and the 3d paint tool, then applied to the ashtray
- mechanical elements are the army knife (combination of spline and vertex objects) and the revolver (combination of primitives with boolean subtraction and vertex objects)
- Carrara creations - everything, people are vertex objects derived from humanoid base figures that I modeled for comic-style projects
- underused feature - for this project, my underused feature was the 3d paint tool, which I used a lot, but two examples are painting makeup on the cheeks of the femme fatale, and creating the opacity mask for the rust shader

Postwork:
- none, if that means in another program
- actually, rendered a toon version with prop hair and a photoreal version with dynamic hair. Then used those renders in a multichannel mixer on a new plane the size of the production frame. I used an opacity mask so that most of the result was a 50% mixture, but the hair is 100% dynamic.

Comments:
Had a great time with this project. I had originally planned a fun alien approach (see my second entry - hopefully), which is why I was using the custom figures instead of Daz figures. Once I settled on the detective theme instead of the aliens, I probably should have switched to Daz figures, but I was having too much fun playng with my own.

Antara · October 2014

Entry #5

Artist:  Antara

Title:   Robot And Juliet

Content Used:
Victoria 6 by DAZ3D - http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-6 (The morph, however, is my own.)
Droid by DAZ3D - http://www.daz3d.com/droid
Sci-Fi Bedroom by Stonemason - http://www.daz3d.com/sci-fi-bedroom
Poppies are from the Essence Bundle by Mada - http://www.daz3d.com/essence-bundle
Head piece is a freebie by the excellent freebie creator Oro_snake - http://www.morphography.uk.vu/dlqueen.html but this is the piece I actually butchered and only used as the base for the hair I was going to create.

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):
- Rust shader - on the pipes.
- Mechanical item: the Droid
- Items enhanced or changed inside Carrara:
-------- The headpiece has been morphed, reshaded and added to in order to make it different from the original and more romantic looking. I left the hair part of it intact and then messed with the rest.
-------- The dress has been created in Marvelous designer, after which I brought it into Carrara, changed shading domains, added custom shaders and surface replicators with the purple beads around the belts. I also morphed the draped object when I changed the pose of the hands and wanted to accommodate the new pose without re-draping.
-------- The blanked was reversed in Carrara, then more morphs were added to accommodate all figures and changes.
-------- Rings are custom objects.
- The features not commonly used
-------- Lighting the scene using only the indirect lighting driven by glow from the objects in the scene with the use of Shaders Plus plug-in GI Brightness feature.
-------- Batch rendering. Knew about it for ages, but somehow never used it. I'd often leave things rendering overnight, but in the main renderer only. I think some time ago there were some posts in the forum that the batch renderer was broken, so I never tried it, but I gave it a chance this time and am very pleased with the results. Maybe it worked due to the specifics of my scene setup/lighting, but everything rendered exactly as in my smaller test renders from the main renderer. Only I was able to run multiple renders overnight and wake up to a bunch of them, not just one.

 Postwork:  Multi-pass compositing + Adding Text titles in Photohop. Postwork was really minimal this time around if you don't count the text. Just enhanced the Reflections and the GI pass a bit. Downplayed the glow on the Droid and duplicated the Ambient channel with a mask to make it more uneven. Then added a vignette layer to darken the edges and corners.

Comments:
I got inspired by the early sci-fi stories with a rather anthropomorphizing take on the robots idea. The challenge was a lot of fun to work on. But even though I had a very clear idea of what I wanted the scene to be, the composition gave me great trouble, as can be seen in the WIPs. So, huge thanks to all who helped me figure things out by sharing with me their preferences and reactions.

Varsel · October 2014

Entry # 6

Artist : Varsel

Title : The Long Sleep

WIP's :
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/691184/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/691297/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/691730/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/691908/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/698558/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/698571/

Content Used :
Genesis 1
http://www.daz3d.com/rawart/ape-world-bundle
http://www.daz3d.com/mad-doctor-for-genesis-male
Victoria 4
http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-2-bodysuit

Challenge requirements :
Cryogenic tubes and control panel, modelled in the vertex modeller, and applied with a rusty shaders to simulate age.
The bend modifier in both assembly room and in vertex modeller.

No postwork, except combining text and cover-picture.
Text are created in Carrara with the text primitives, and then rendered out as a .png, with transparent background.

evilproducer · October 2014

Entry #:7

Artist:  evilproducer

Title:  Secrets of Pandora or How to Get Boned.

Content Used: DAZ Skeleton (discontinued??), Shukky's SpaceSuit "2" for A3, Aiko 3, elements from Howie Farke's, Stoney Creek. Specifically the grass clumps and some of the ferns.

How challenge requirements were met: I created three rusty shaders for the metal bits on the space suit and the crashed ship in the background. The mechanical elements include the wrecked ship and the space suit. The underused Carrara tool that I used was the 3D paint tool and shape lights,

 Postwork:  I used PS for postwork. See the last four or five links to the WIP thread for more details, but I rendered several passes, such as depth, glow, volume primitive and volume effect. I ended up using the depth pass as a Layer mask to transition between a more photographic foreground and a comic book style background. I used the glow pass to create a light bloom on the glowing elements in the scene. I used the volume effects pass to enhance the light cone in my scene.

Comments: I had intended this to be a daylight scene under a heavy, alien, jungle canopy. My dilemma was how to make the jungle seem lush and vibrant, albeit alien, and yet imply the toxicity of the atmosphere. I toyed with many different ideas, like a weird sky color or clouds of off-colored vapor. As I started to build the muted forest lighting and experimenting with the colors, it hit me that a night scene would be eerier, could better hide the background, thus saving me work and provide an easy way to suggest an alien jungle with bioluminescent plants. it then occurred to me that I could make a pop-culture callback to the movie, Avatar and explain the toxic atmosphere through a common reference.

MarkIsSleepy · October 2014

Entry #8

Artist: Mark D. Olsen (MDO2010)

Title: Space Station Zero

WIPs:
Scene Setup and Planet Textures
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/698114/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/698554/

Space Station
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/698230/

Space Ship, Rust Shader and Test Carrara Render
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/698276/

Final Carrara Render and Post-worked Version
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/698980/

Content Used: None, everything created in Carrara. Planet and ship textures created in Carrara using native procedural textures and FilterForge.

How Challenge Requirements Met:
Mechanical Element: Space station and Space Ship
Rust Shader: I re-used my rust shader from my first entry, applying it to the wing and adjusting the scale and marble settings slightly to get it to fit better
Two Items Made/Enhanced in Carrara: Planet and Sun textures created in Carrara, Space Station and Ship modeled in Vertex Modeler and textured in Carrara.
Unfamiliar Element: Continued playing with the modeler, this time I tried a little bit of UV mapping. Used full indirect lighting to get some nice glows from scene objects, which I did not even know was a possibility until a couple weekends ago when I started watching Phil Wilke's Carrara Realism videos; this was the first time I tried it out at all.

Postwork: Combined the planet from an earlier render with the final full indirect lighting render, added cover text, slight color adjustment, blur around the engines/drives.

Comments: I had a lot of fun playing with perspective and size of objects in this one. I used a low focal length on the camera to stretch the apparent depth of the scene. The star background is an actual star map from the official NASA site (Star map created using an image map found at the NASA site http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/) applied to a very large sphere primitive surrounding the entire scene. Where my first entry I went for an aged and damaged look, this one I tried for a clean hard scifi look with sharp colors like it's fresh off the newsstand.

d-j-o · October 2014

Entry #9

Artist: kashyyyk

Title: Flesh Peddler

WIPs:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/689448/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/689787/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/689795/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/690824/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/691435/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/692672/

Challenge requirements: Underused feature I used was the Yatoon plugin https://bitbucket.org/zgock/yatoon/wiki/Home, the metal shader I used is on the armor. Mechanical element is the wheeled horse. Created items- The Horse wheels, chain links and the cage cart.

 Postwork: I rendered three versions, one non photorealistic for the long lines and brush strokes, one with the Yatoon plugin for the fine toon lines and shading, and a Photorealistic. I used a blend on the photorealistic and Yatoon, to deep shadows and bring up colors. I then used that and an overlay on the NPR to add teh long lines and brushstrokes.

Comments:

TangoAlpha · October 2014

Entry: 10

Artist: Tim_A

Title: Sink Night

WIPs:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P150/#691965 - Terrain
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P150/#692277 - Adding a car: Getting scale right
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P210 - grass & trees
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P225/#694198 - Custom tree attempt
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P240/#694752 - Rust shader & victim
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P270/#695584 - Test render
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P315/#696027 - Cover tweaks

Content Used:
Victoria 6 http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-6
DP Victoria 6 Carrara Shader by Ringo Montfort http://www.daz3d.com/dp-victoria-6-carrara-shaders
Dress Code Violation Outfit (sweater) by Oskarsson http://www.daz3d.com/dress-code-violation-outfit
Crazy Locks Hair by Goldtassel http://www.daz3d.com/crazy-locks-female-hair-for-genesis-v6
Car Ranger by Petipet http://www.daz3d.com/car-ranger

How Challenges were met:
Rusty shader was created procedurally, and applied to the signpost.
Items created or significantly enhanced in Carrara: The terrain, signpost and grass props were all created from scratch. The trees were created by taking one of the presets and modifying it. The tree shaders were recoloured.
Underused feature: Terrain editor. Plant editor, Surface replicator - first time of use for all three.

Postwork: Titles.

Comments: I was going for s Swamp Thing / It came from the Swamp kind of vibe, but with a crime twist. So I came up with a magazine aimed squarely at the henching community, Henchman is an undervalued profession, with many risks and few perks...

booksbydavid · October 2014

Entry #11
Artist:
David Collins (booksbydavid)

Title:
Alien Jungle Menace

Content Used: Victoria 4, V4 Morphs ++, Michael 4, M4 Morphs ++, Classic Rayguns

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):

Mechanical Element: Built a control box for the spaceman's suit controls.
Rust Shader: My feeble attempt at a rust shader was a texture map and color using an Enhance:C shader for a mixer as well as for the bump channel. I attempted to use the shader to add some moldy detail to my mushroom trees, but it failed. :(
Two elements made or enhanced in Carrara: Everything in the scene is shaded using Carrara's shaders, mixed with a healthy dose of DCG's various shader plugins. I did model the wiggily grass things in Carrara's Vertex room.
Unfamiliar Element: I used Carrara's Vertex room for the wiggily grass things. I have never gotten along with Carrara's Vertex room, so even modelling a wiggily grass thing was a small challenge.

Postwork:
For postwork, I used Paintshop Pro X4 and Onone software's Perfect Effects. I used Paintshop for image correction (pokethrough and enhancing figure details). I also added some effects like the glow behind the evil jungle queen lady and the escaping air and condensation from our hero's broken helmet. I refined the look of the plant creature in Paintshop as well. All the text was added in Paintshop. I used Onone's Perfect Effects for some minor color correction and I used its filters to get the overall old pulp cover look. I even sent it through a last time to age it a bit.

Comments:
This challenge was great fun. My own personal challenge for this one was to model as much as possible myself without relying on content to fill out the scene. For the most part, I did it. I'm not quite up to detailed figure work, so Vickie and Mike had to stand in for that and at the end, I was just too tired to model a raygun. Another challenge I gave myself was using Carrara's shader room for all the textures. In this, I was successful. I'm quite proud of that small accomplishment. I've been playing with expanding my facility with Carrara's shaders and this challenge was sort of a personal test. :)

evilproducer · October 2014

Entry #12

Artist:  evilproducer

Title:   War of the Worlds

How challenge requirements were met: I modified a rust shader from my previous entry and applied it to the hub caps of the truck. The mechanical elements are the truck and the Martian War Machines. I made the War Machines and rigged them in Carrara. The under used Carrara feature is the particle emitter. I used two. One the emit the visible heat ray particles and the other to emit low intensity bulb lights to create the heat ray light.

 Postwork:  I did a bit of post work on this one. The last few links to my WIPs go into more detail than I can here. Suffice to say, that I used PS to enhance the heat ray, add filters such as noise, blur and a sepia photo filter to give the illusion of an aged, but little worn magazine cover,

Comments: The George Pal version of War of the Worlds is a classic film that helped set a new standard for effects films back in the early 1950s. I wanted to do an image that payed homage to not only the pulp sci-fi magazines of the period, but also the film and the great story by H.G. Wells that inspired it, although it is a rather less than faithful adaptation.

Edited to add: I fixed a text layout problem.

Stezza · October 2014

Entry #13

Artist: Stezza

Title: Get Probed

WIPs: 
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/693695/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/695933/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/696738/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/697815/

Content Used:
Genesis, Genesis M2
Dead Walker - Mr Happy
Cthulhu Rising
Alien Plus
Super Suit for Genesis
Carrara standard shaders
Martian war Machine
Them Bones
Items from Shanty town
City Ruins
Ropes 2 for G2
TP Light Domes

How challenge requirements were met
Rusty shader created in the shader room for the alien war machine and Mr Happy's knife
Mechanical elements include items made which are Mr Happy's knife and the Martians space helmet and air supply tanks as well as the Martian Ray Gun.

Carrara creations Knife, Space Helmet with air tanks & Ray Gun

Underused feature used was the displacement on Mr Happy

 Postwork was done in PSE13 by combining seperate rendered layers, adding titles & text and background blurring of the original render.

Comments: This was a real challenging challenge for me in which I was continually changing my mind on elements and presentation.. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. I should be released soon for weekends with my family!!!

Diomede · October 2014

Entry #14

Artist: Diomede 

Title: Runaway Bride on Mars 

WIPs:
rust shader - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P30
magnet tool to make head - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P45
story titles - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P510
modeling the tentacle monster - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P480
rigging and posing bride over biker shoulder - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P135
using 3d paint tool to create opacity masks to place rust on bike - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P165 

Content Used: None - all figures, rigging, objects, and shaders original Carrara creations

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):
- rusty shader created by using procedural shader with gradients applied to spacecycle joints and underside by using an opacity mask created with the 3D paint tool.
- mechanical element - space cycle is a vertex object combined with several primitives
- Carrara creations - original space man in biker outfit, original bride with dynamic hair, original tentacle monster with dynamic hair in tuxedo, original spacecycle
- underused feature - the magnet tool in the vertex modeler was used to make the martian man head
 Postwork: none 
Comments:
- this project was an adventure because I kept changing my focus, although it was always intended to be silly. In the end, I tried to combine the "True Romance" type pulps with "Planet Stories" type pulps.

Edit: Image updated because EP alerted me that the original had a crucial absence

Headwax · October 2014

Entry #15

Artist: Headwax

Title: Robot-bears Invade Mars 

WIPs:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P540/#701979
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P165/#692829

Content Used: Eggbot, Lampbot, Bear from Daz Christmas shop
The Ralph Ling, Fenric's plugins, Neverhome

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):

Banged the bots together, ripped off teddy's body, retextures Ralph Ling and Bots, made a cylinder thing, shader is two textures combined with Anything Goos. Used caustics and anything glows - my underused features.

 Postwork: Yes :) Plenty.
Comments: Amazing contest! Thank you sukL and Antfarm

chickenman · October 2014

Entry #: 16

Artist:  Chickenman

Title:  DAZling Stories, Metal Mayhem Edition.

WIPs:  Here are links to the WIPS I did.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P465/#699571
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P465/#699573
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P510/#701471

Content Used: AntFarm’s 10TMech http://www.daz3d.com/10tmech
And The DigiVault’s Warzone http://www.daz3d.com/warzone

How challenge requirements were met: I created multiple rusty shaders for the text elements. The mechanical is the 10T Mech by AntFarm. The two Items creates were the text items with appropriate shaders. The underused Carrara tool that I used was everything as I am new to Carrara, I enjoyed playing around with the text tool which was interesting to manipulate and see the effects.

Postwork:  No Postwork all elements done in Carrara.

Comments: When I saw the theme I thought now this is something I might be able to do. I was able to watch some of PhilW video’s last weekend when I was sick so I knocked this out this weekend. I do Like Carrara as an all in one package now to just become more familiar and competent with it. I used the low camera angle to try and add drama to the image. This in turn meant I had to angle certain elements of my image to have them look right in the camera’s eye.

Jonstark · October 2014

Entry #17

Artist: Jonstark

Title: What a time to take a shower! 

WIPs:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P555
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P570

Content Used: Octane for Carrara, Sledge by sixus1 (awesome creature btw, well rigged and excellent design), Ship Elements A1 by 3-D-C, Wrapped for V4, Hesperia hair by 3dream, Daisy texture and Anabele morph for V4 both by Silver.

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused features):

Made a cheap rusty metal texture mostly from a pic from a google search turned into both color channel and bump channel, and used it to backstop some of the text, including the title. Not my finest achievement, actually (neither is the text :) ) Have never used the fog tool before, really liked the fog effect though. Also created the floor grating to make a false floor overlaying the real floor which is glowing and providing light, did that by massacring a cube primitive in the vertex room.

 Postwork: 5 different layers combined in postwork. Maybe not so much for others, but since I hardly ever do postwork, it was a lot for me :)
Comments: I love the theme of this contest, and it has been a treasure seeing the various entries take form, even though most of these kinds of pulp magazines were well on the wane before my time, I still used to find them and read them when I could, so this was near and dear to my heart. Wonderful creativity from all the other entries, just a perfect challenge for Halloween time. A big thank you to sukyL for coming up with such a great theme, and also a huge thank you to Antfarm and Daz3d for sponsoring.

sukyL · October 2014

Entry #18 CHALLENGE HOST'S ENTRY -- PLEASE DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS ONE Comments are welcome!

Artist: sukyL 

Title: Extinction 2057 

WIPs:
Containment unit model: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P120/#690929 [edited to correct link. Apologies booksbydavid, I didn't meant to claim your work as my own]
General setup, caustic maps, radiation ring procedural shader: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P255/#694851 [edited to correct link]
Glow pass: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P525/#701527
 Rust shader: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P570/#702613
Final setup and pre-postwork render: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P570/#702654

Content Used:
http://www.daz3d.com/haystack
http://www.daz3d.com/gardens-of-poseidon-reef-rocks [edited to correct link]
http://www.daz3d.com/shark
http://www.daz3d.com/octopus
http://www.daz3d.com/tuna-fish
http://www.daz3d.com/rons-nuts-bolts-and-holes
http://www.daz3d.com/rons-extreme-grunge
http://www.daz3d.com/rons-grunge-overlays
RustMixed0077_S.jpg from CGTextures.com
Adventure font by Pixel Sagas from Fontspace.com

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):
Rusty metal shaders are applied to the robot and the containment unit base. The mechanical element is Haystack the robot by The AntFarm. Additional items created in Carrara include: radiation ring procedural shader, sea floor terrain created in the terrain editor, the containment unit was modeled entirely with Carrara's vertex modeler, and morphs were created in the vertex modeler to deform the struts and base of the containment unit. With the exception of a few small clothing items and props, I haven't used Carrara's vertex modeler much, so I challenged myself to model the containment unit and make morphs with the vertex modeler.

Postwork:  
Postwork was performed in Photoshop and includes: titles (altered scanned titles from an antique Amazing Stories pulp), color correction, application of grunge brushes to distress edges of the cover, applied Filter Forge PaintHDRtist filter by lipebianc to a copy of the render layer set to 22% opacity for a slight painted effect to soften the look of the pure rendered image.

Comments:
I love pulp magazine cover art. My computer room contains stacks and stacks of vintage pulps, so it was a pretty easy decision to make that the theme for the October challenge. I'm so happy everyone enjoyed the theme and it inspired such creativity and displays of technical skill. My personal challenge was to make an underwater scene, so this was a great opportunity to work that into a render. I learned so much from everyone. Thank you all for sharing and helping in the WIP thread. The camaraderie in this forum is awesome! Good luck!

DADA_universe · October 2014

Entry #19

Artist:  DADA_universe

Title:  The e-Bolar Invasion

WIPs: 

1. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P570/#702670
2. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P570/#702674
3. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P570/#702707

Content Used:

1. Daz Genesis Child
2. Morphing Python (http://www.daz3d.com/morphing-python)
3. Drone Eye (http://www.daz3d.com/drone-eye)
4. Aircraft Colo (http://www.daz3d.com/aircraft-colo)

How challenge requirements were met (e.g. rusty shader, mechanical element, Carrara creations, underused feature(s)):

Rusty shader applied was the default rust shader that ships with Carrara, the Drone Eye and Aircraft Colo make up the mechanical elements, Carrara creations limited to the lights and how they were applied (does that count?) and the underused feature is metaballs modelling in Carrara.

 Postwork: 

No Postwork apart from the final composition.

Comments:

pimpy · October 2014

Very difficult to decide.... so many good entries this month ...
Here are my picks

Entry #5
Artist:  Antara
Title:   Robot And Juliet
Fantastic idea and great composition .... (although my favorite was camera 3 )

Entry #11
Artist: David Collins (booksbydavid)
Title:
Alien Jungle Menace
Great setting of the scene and choice of visual effects

Entry #12
Artist:  evilproducer
Title:   War of the Worlds
Amazing use of lighting effect !

H. M. Entry # 6
Artist : Varsel
Title : The Long Sleep
Wonderful job of modeling

Good luck to all participants and thanks for the valuable information presented in the course of the competition.
Many thanks to DAZ and The Ant Farm and a special thanks to SukyL for the wonderful work in this competition. THANK YOU!

SileneUK · October 2014

Just back from hols in the US... terribly jet-lagged but have been watching the WIPs and submissions whilst away.

WOW! Too many excellent entries to choose from! Suky.... what a great theme to bring out many new faces and loved your distressed look to the cover as well. I liked them all but but but...sadly had to choose.

Entry # 3

Artist:  Pimpy

Title:  The incredible experiment

I liked this from the beginning. It has great technical detail in the equipment as well as electrifying illumination for the character's metamorphosis and nice bright titling!

Entry #5

Artist:  Antara

Title:   Robot And Juliet

You can feel the romance and tragedy and the colouring on the robot just sings as does the metallica font and the glow in the scene.

Entry #11

Artist: David Collins (booksbydavid)

Title: Alien Jungle Menace

So much detail created to draw you into the scene... love the bright green and the golden outer glow on the font.

Honourable Mention suggestions

Entry #8

Artist: Mark D. Olsen (MDO2010)

Title: Space Station Zero

Entry #14

Artist: Diomede 

Title: Runaway Bride on Mars 

BOTH used all original content... hard work... as many of you did this.

All entries deserve HMs in my opinion.

:-) SileneUK

Headwax · October 2014

jibbidy jubblah, well, going through the entries for the thrice time I have come to the conclusion that all users of Carrara have great brains, morals and a sense of aesthetics that defies taste :)

I would lie to vote for

Entry #12

Artist:  evilproducer

Title:   War of the Worlds

great diagonal and lighting effects, the darkness adds mystery

Entry #11
Artist:
David Collins (booksbydavid)

Title:
Alien Jungle Menace

This one captures the inelegance of the time in it's wonderful choice of colour and text effects

Entry #5

Artist:  Antara

Title:   Robot And Juliet

thos ones sooper dooper, wonderful light and saturation and another active dagonal , wait till Juliet finds the root is stepping on her dress :)

there are so many good entries gah, it's a shame to have to pick one

I'm loving my three HM's (okay if I only get one it will be Entry #8)

Entry #8
Artist: Mark D. Olsen (MDO2010)
Title: Space Station Zero

Entry: 10
Artist: Tim_A
Title: Sink Night

Entry #13
Artist: Stezza
Title: Get Probed

"I was probed by a Martian and din't know it!" Only an Aussie could come up with a line like that :)

Headwax · October 2014

oh sukyL, the sense of a time worn magazine cover you have achieved is brilliant

d-j-o · October 2014

Wow this is tough. I think sukyL  Extinction 2057 is a perfect cover, with the wear and creases and looks drawn, I'm really going to hold up the others to the looks of his and try to get the covers that don't look like it was created with 3d software.

1 - MDO2010 Robot Attack - same thing, looks like a great used cover.
2 - booksbydavid Alien Jungle Menace - Tons of detail and pulled off that drawn look.
3 - evilproducer War of the Worlds- It could have been either one of his entries, but I loved War of the Worlds and this is a great cover that tells a story.

HM - either one could have been chosen, but the rules specified top 3 votes, not top 5.
1 Pimpy  The incredible experiment -Great effects and staging
2 Antara Robot And Juliet- beautuful colors.

TangoAlpha · October 2014

Entry #5
Artist:  Antara
Title:   Robot And Juliet
I still think I prefer the over the shoulder setup, but either way it's still a cracker.

Entry #12
Artist:  evilproducer
Title:   War of the Worlds
I went back and forth between both entries, but in the end I think I prefer this one.

Entry #15
Artist: Headwax
Title: Robot-bears Invade Mars 
He's so cute... kaboom!

HM:
Too many excellent choices. I'd like to say everybody, but...
Entry # 3
Artist:  Pimpy
Title:  The incredible experiment
Bzzzzt!

evilproducer · October 2014

I've been going back and forth for quite sometime today. I have come to the conclusion that I am going to have to sleep on it again. There are so many wonderful entries and a limited number of votes to allocate I want to be sure.

In the meantime, I guess I bumped the thread! ;-)

Diomede · October 2014

The longer I wait, the more my choices rotate. It is probably distorting my judment that I saw the Danny Kaye version of Walter Mitty recently in which he works for a pulp publisher. There are scenes specifically about improving the proposed covers. They even have meetings about the stories and themes. I can't shake some of the jokes, gags, and one liners. So, in the end, I put a high premium on (a) dripping blood, (b) torn clothes, and (c) hospital love stories. Pocketta, pocketta, pocketta. If I wait, I'll change my votes again.

My votes are -

Entry #1, Artist: Mark D. Olsen (MDO2010), Title: Robot Attack
Entry #5, Artist: Antara Title: Robot And Juliet
Entry #13, Artist: Stezza, Title: Get Probed

Suggestions for HMs
Entry #11, Artist: David Collins (booksbydavid) Title: Alien Jungle Menace
Entry #17, Artist: Jonstark, Title: What a time to take a shower!

Edit - can you guess how my three choices match up to dripping blood, torn clothes, and hospital love stories? ;-)

MarkIsSleepy · October 2014

My votes:
Entry #5 - Robot and Juliet by Antara
Entry #12- War of the Worlds by evilproducer
Entry #2 - Raie and The Triassic Terror by DustRider

Honorable Mention:
Entry #3 - The incredible experiment by pimpy

This was tough - can I have fifteen more votes, please? :)

DADA_universe · October 2014

I vote thus:

Entry #7
Artist:  Evilproducer
Title:   Secrets of Pandora or How to Get Boned.

Entry #10
Artist: Tim_A
Title: Sink Night

Entry #15
Artist: Headwax
Title: Robot-bears Invade Mars 

HM:
Entry #5
Artist:  Antara
Title:   Robot And Juliet

Notifications

October Carrara Challenge: VOTING ENDED... WINNERS ANNOUNCED!!!

Comments

Adding to Cart…