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Winter Dragon SkiBoat Is Here
Still setting this up in DAZ to save as a Scene.duf file.
Combination of Subdragon & Ancient Greek boat.
Then into the fun Carrara stuff !!!!!!
Going for an exotic fantasy look.
Interesting concept and well set up, Bunyip :)
My second WIP - got the hair and fire done. All the items were painted in 3D paint in Carrara in colour, the maps desaturated then re-mapped to the various bits.
Now to give the cave a bit of character, bring in snow drifts and the faithful hound. I'm having huge problems getting the Millenium Dog to bend correctly to lie on his tummy without seriously bad deformations of the joints. May have to re-rig?
@ Bunyip - definitely achieved the exotic look. Can't wait to see it all come together.
@Roygee - very natural looking drape. Love the fur. Curious, why so many different programs? If you are doing the drape in Blender, why not model in Blender? I've been working through some tutorials for Hexagon, but for the time I am putting in, should I be devoting that to learning Blender's interface?
Aside - I think the boolean you proposed in another thread could be done very easily and quickly with either a compound shape in the spline modeler or using a polyline curve on a grid in the vertex modeler, then extruding twice. Or, you could just use a tif image and a displacement shader on one side of a cube. But I only think that, can't confirm it, because my dang computer has still not been fully repaired and returned to me. Aaargh. If it doesn't arrive soon my participation in this month's challenge is in doubt.
Anyway, I see a lot of progress on many fronts. Keep it up, everyone. I will update the commons thread later today, but feel free to stop by there and add your own.
Thanks Diomede - yes, Blender's dynamic cloth is really good. Why not do the whole thing in Blender? This is a Carrara challenge, so i try to keep it in the family - what I can't do in Carrara, I do in whatever Daz product I can do it in. Only what I can't do with a Daz product do I go outside the family :)
Modeling that cloak and boots on a posed figure was pretty complex and I had to go back to the old school method of poly-by-poly (or point-to-point) which is way beyond my Carrara modeling competence!
The point of that Boolean was not that the shape could be done; there are many ways it could be achieved, but that in Hex you can vary the depth of the cut and keep varying it until satisfied. The only other method I know to do that is in Bryce.
I would encourage you to keep on learning Hex - Blender has a lot more modeling functions, but Hex is a lot simpler and easier. If I hadn't had the Hex grounding, I doubt I could have made any progress in Blender.
Hello Roygee
I had been thinking about the concept for a while, tried a few variations but this one was the best looking.
When I opened the Subdragon up I had saved him as an already arranged DUF file the setup came in wrong.
It took a few attempts at getting the skeleton-rig right, you might need to do the same with the Mil Dog.
Fur on your two-legged critter looks great - I'll need to learn how to do that myself in Carrara.
Update from me on the Dragon Ski-Boat:-
Now into Carrara, basic setup with import faults fixed up.
Crowsnest (Fantasy Gazebo) & Earrings (cages) added.
Next job is getting rid of the oars & rudders, followed by sorting out the shaders.
After that modeling a set of ice skis, cabin on the deck, battle-stations, and adding some details to getting it to look the part.
Followed by a crew, and finished off with an ice-planet terrain.
Fingers crossed that I don't run out of time.
Everyone keep up the great work !!!!!!!
@Bunyip - you are getting it together nicely and have your work cut out for what you still want to do. Go for it!
About the hair/fur - I battled for ages and practically gave up a couple years back. Don't know about others, but what I've found works best for me is to use the UV based and texture maps options. The biggest spoiler is the brush tool - far better just to use the select and translate tool. Somehow these just give me better control, no brushing through the mesh. Shading seems to work better using texture maps rather than colours and lower the highlight and shininess right down.
Finally got done with my paying gig which was delayed by me getting sick over Thanksgiving, so hopefully I'll be able to finish my project for this challenge.
Hi all,
I was just cleaning up my scene a bit before doing a final render to post to the submission thread and came up with a question. I'm not sure exactly how to phrase this - I guess I'm wondering what the "best practice" would be here.
On my rowhouse models I ended up with a lot of extra geometry that isn't needed so I merged all the co-planar faces. The result was lower in poly count but I ended up with weird n-gons all over the place, which I've always heard is to be avoided. So I triangulated the n-gons. The result looks pretty bizarre but it definitely has a lot fewer polys. Since I'm just using the model(s) for this one image, entirely in Carrara it doesn't really matter but I was wondering what the normal process would be if I were exporting for use in other programs or distributing the model.
Would people just keep the original? Are a few n-gons that big a deal (I know DAZ Studio doesn't like them)? Is the weird look of the final triangulated version ok or would some sort of additional work be needed on those parts?
The difference in complexity if anyone is curious:
Original Model: 2470 polygons / 5132 edges / 2683 vertices
With Co-planar Faces Merged: 372 polygons / 957 edges / 624 vertices
With N-gons Triangulated: 852 polygons / 1565 edges / 670 vertices
Thanks,
Mark
I just wanted to chime in and note how awesome everyone's work is on this challenge!!! Some really fantastic (and interesting) WIP's here. I doubt I'll enter, I just can't come up with a good idea. But it's still great fun watching what everyone else is coming up with and seeing how you are doing it - keep up the good work!
Finally had some time to work on my scene!
My scene is based on an environment I've been designing for awhile now. It is based on the Wisconsin Dells. Not the tourist trap, water slide and time-share Dells, but the "real" Dells. The beautiful and dramatic natural landscape created by eons of erosion.
The scene was originally designed as a summer scene, but I did extensive work and modifications on all the shaders to give them a winter look. I have also modeled new elements, such as some icicles, ice falls and a frozen river surface.
To get my ice falls to look less cartoony, I increased the smoothing level and used displacement painting on the model to roughen it a bit.
To give the pine trees a snow covered look, I ripped off the leaves from Howie's snow scene and applied them to my trees. He used translucency for the snowy leaves, but to save render time, and as an experiment, I removed the translucency and added a similar color at a low intensity to the glow channel to see if I can get a similar effect.
I also used a color gradient on the tree's shader for the trunk and branches to make it look like there was frost or snow clinging to the crevices in the bark. It is subtle, so it may not be to noticeable at a distance.
So, here's what I've come up with. I have two angles that I like, but I haven't decided which one I will enter. Any feedback would be appreciated. Both are raw renders.
Hello EP
I like the set-out of the second picture.
Is it possible to add just a bit/fraction of texture to the snow in the foreground ?
Don't know if it will make it look "wrong" or if it will give it a "wow" factor but there's only one way to find out.
A question about the icicles (bearing in mind I have lived in a warmer environment for most of my life), should they be a fraction more translucent ? ( I assume there would be quite a difference between "deep-freeze-your walnuts off" weather and "spring-thaw" weather )
Also would the ferns near the base of the rocks look better with a slight coating of snow ?
Refer the attached photo for icicles ( photo by kconnors DSCFWINT00015.jpg - at morgueFile free photos )
kconnors has a number of photos that may be of help (especially if you are after textures for your shaders), also do a search for icicle as well as snow.
http://www.morguefile.com/archive#/?q=icicle&sort=pop&photo_lib=morgueFile
http://www.morguefile.com/archive#/?q=snow&sort=pop&photo_lib=morgueFile
Regards, Bunyip
Hello EP
I like the set-out of the second picture.
Is it possible to add just a bit/fraction of texture to the snow in the foreground ?
Don't know if it will make it look "wrong" or if it will give it a "wow" factor but there's only one way to find out.
A question about the icicles (bearing in mind I have lived in a warmer environment for most of my life), should they be a fraction more translucent ? ( I assume there would be quite a difference between "deep-freeze-your walnuts off" weather and "spring-thaw" weather )
Also would the ferns near the base of the rocks look better with a slight coating of snow ?
Refer the attached photo for icicles ( photo by kconnors DSCFWINT00015.jpg - at morgueFile free photos )
kconnors has a number of photos that may be of help (especially if you are after textures for your shaders), also do a search for icicle as well as snow.
http://www.morguefile.com/archive#/?q=icicle&sort=pop&photo_lib=morgueFile
http://www.morguefile.com/archive#/?q=snow&sort=pop&photo_lib=morgueFile
Regards, Bunyip
Hi Bunyip, I hope I don't come across as dismissive to your suggestions, it is not the intent.
The first thing I will point out, is that generally my goal is not hyper-realism, but rather a stylized realism.
Living in North-Central Wisconsin, I have life experience with most types of snow and ice in all different lighting conditions. I also have quite the library of photos of different snow events. I appreciate the time it took to get the references. The example image below shows ice buildup along the shore of Lake Superior. Lake ice is different than what you may get in other circumstances, however I have old-school, non digitized photos of run-off based ice flows from the Hidden Valleys area of Wisconsin that look very similar, less the chunks. You can see some similarities to the shader I made, except for the dirty streaks.
Regarding the ferns, a lot depends on the surface material, the type of snow, and a whole host of conditions related to time and place, so the ferns wouldn't necessarily be snow covered. They would be flexible enough to bend under the weight, creating a steep angle, and shedding the snow, then they would spring back. Of course, the heavier and wetter the snow, and the longer the dead plant has to endure the freeze thaw cycle, the more likely the plant would stay covered. In my image, the pine needles in the trees have captured and held onto the snow, which means it is the light and fluffy variety with large airy flakes. This is a cold, dry snow without much wind to break the flakes up as it falls vertically to the ground. More sheltered ferns would have little or no snow on them.
The mass of snow on the ground is fairly dense, so observable refraction wouldn't likely occur unless you were looking at a backlit drift, and then it would be a subsurface scattering look rather than a straight up refraction. If the snow is new enough and the angle is right, you will see sparkles from the top layer of snow flakes. Normally, on a cold, brightly lit day, the glare of reflected light from the snow washes out the sparkles and many details. Think snow blindness.
I've updated the commons thread. I encourage you to stop by and correct my misinterpretations. Scratch that. Stop by and share your own thoughts related to this month's challenge - any aspect of it.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48769/P15/
Also, my computer arrived from repair. Yay!!!
But, they reformatted the hard drive even though it was just a display wire problem. Boooo.
I've got enough of my programs and content loaded to get back to work on my WIP. Yay!!!
But I will be starting over. Boooo.
Absolutely love the progress I am seeing.
Bunyip, that dragon boat is inspired. Great job matching the shaders.
EP, the icy landscape is terrific. I prefer the view that has the open middle, rather than the view in which the column dominates the center. I can't give you a reason why.
I have also been experimenting with the hoar frost stuff. My problem is that I need a ridiculous number of replications to get the desired effect just on one plant. When I stuck the plant with replicated frost in a replicator itself, my C7.2 Pro choked on it. I did isolate the issue as the replicated frost crystal by reducing the number of replicated crystals to a couple hundred instead of the 30,000+ that I had initially set. When the number was reduced, it worked fine, but lost the look.
What I'm going to do is try and render just one plant and use that as a billboard to see how it looks.
Bravo to those who suggest using reference photos to guide how you develop your scenes !!!
I find it often very helpful to look at reference photos and try to understand how a real life scene makes me feel, with all the nuance and subtlety of lighting and surfaces and reflections. And if my renders don't make me feel the same way, even if I'm trying for something that is more conceptual than realistic, I can learn a lot from the real world.
For example, because of the subtlety and nuance of ice and snow, you can look at a photo of it and FEEL a certain way. You FEEL the cold, and how it would feel to fall into the snow with a heavy overcoat. And if my renders don't excite me in that way, I know I've missed the mark.
Gathering photo reference is usually the second thing I do on any image (first step is sketching out the general layout, with some notes on lighting and a few keywords to describe what the aim/feeling/focus of the image is) before I even open up whatever program I am using. I have a folder full of photos for almost every image I've made in the last year since I started getting more serious about my hobby.
Once I get going I sometimes veer pretty far from those references, but they make a great starting point.
Mark
When it comes to translating an idea to any medium, be it CG or more practical methods such as paint on canvas, there are as many methods of creation as there are those that create the image. That's why I love these challenges- We can see the steps, the trials, the ideas, happy accidents and even the dead ends that go into creating the pieces of work that the artist enters. It is very enlightening.
My method is very seat-of-the-pants. I may come up with an idea at work, or while sleeping, and then mentally refine it until I can get in front of my computer. I may look at references, but I rarely have any photos open while I'm working, unless I get stuck somewhere. Sometimes I'll do a sketch for a scene with a complex layout, but mostly, I look at Carrara's empty Assembly Room as a blank canvas. Speaking for myself only, I tend to be more creative when I work with a minimal amount of preparation.
From EP
Hi Bunyip, I hope I don't come across as dismissive to your suggestions, it is not the intent.
The first thing I will point out, is that generally my goal is not hyper-realism, but rather a stylized realism.
Living in North-Central Wisconsin, I have life experience with most types of snow and ice in all different lighting conditions. I also have quite the library of photos of different snow events. I appreciate the time it took to get the references. ............
Hello EP
Was wondering if my suggestions was like trying to sell ice to the Eskimo's.
(Something that might now happen with the Arctic polar ice-cap decreasing)
My comments when made are usually asking a question - more along the lines of have you thought about doing this ????
An old engineer many years ago said to me - "Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions"
Initially I was a bit miffed, but after some very interesting life experiences I greatly value those words now.
As such just checking that you know what you want and what you want to do.
I am more of a realism freak for my landscapes, but everything else it depends on what fits with the scene intended.
Hello JoeMamma2000 & MDO2010
I love quality photographs and use them as inspiration for starters and am now using them as texture bases for shaders.
In addition to photographs another idea I use is to have a sketch-pad and pencil nearby, then doodle/sketch thoughts
or ideas when I am thinking about them. Something everyone into graphic art (2D & 3D) should consider.
Don't worry if your sketches are just stick-men with notes, it's all about capturing the concept for later work.
Still have some old sketches I did when I was a kid that have somehow survived being "filed" in the rubbish bin.
Wish some more of my Sci-Fi stuff had survived.
Had a few days off from Carrara, back into the fun stuff tomorrow !!!!!!!
(Was going to get back into it today but was recruited as a "taxi-driver" - then could not get back into my creative mind-set)
Everyone keep up the great work. Hope there's a few more late-chargers as well.
Regards, Bunyip
Was playing around with the theme idea that I had originally.... and here is something that materialized.
Beautiful flowing render, Varsel :)
Here's my final WIP, then time to kick back and get into the holiday spirit !
First, how the cloak looked in Hex before being draped in Blender. Then my Carrara setup - bulb inside the fire to give it a glow as well as act as a filler, a spot to give light direction and a a spot for the snow object and particles.
I used three particle generators for the snowflakes, each with different sizes, speed and dispersion. Used the old volumetric cloud on the ground to give an impression of windblown snow - so much easier to control than the new volumetric cluds!
Next the final renders of the scene and snow. Gave the main scene a touch of inksketch in Gimp, composited, added a touch of vignette.
All pics are half-sized.
First of all, I am very sorry for my absence, hopefully it won't happen again for so long.
Thank you all so much for keeping this thread going and with such amazing work and comments!
Roygee, there is so much raw emotion in that scene! Fantastic posing and composition. The wide stretched format is perfect for this image. I also love the minimalistic use of color. It helps enhance the bare and raw feeling of it. Are you done with your Aurora Borealis entry? If so, I'd like to remind you and everyone else that the ENTRY thread is open and running, so if you don't want to wait until the Christmas week to post you entries, you can post them as you finish them. The Entry thread is here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/49155/
Varsel, that's a beautiful image. Will it be your second entry? :) I love the pose and the feeling it creates. I can tell exactly what kind of snowfall she is creating - the beautiful slow flurries falling in still air as if they are dancing. It's so beautiful and amazing that you managed to convey it in this image.
Bunyip02, That boat is fantastic! Looks great and I absolutely love that you are making such a classic fantasy take on the theme.
EP, your ice looks great. I like both angles. So I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help in choosing. I think both compositions work for different reasons and have surface is more about the snow, the ice and the cold - at least it reads that way for me. Is that the lighting you are going with for the final image? Because this lighting also makes the island image more dark and serious.
I am curious about your frost solutions, please keep us posted :).
Mark, that's a very interesting question. I think the problem with strange polygons is the potential for weird planar bending, which you might encounter especially as you morph or edit a model with such polys. Whether this is a serious enough issue to religiously avoid such polygons, I am not sure. Yes, it's a good practice, because it results in a better editable mesh, but if this is a model you need for very limited purposes and fewer polygons make your setup work faster, then it might be a necessary trade-off. At least that's my understanding of it. But I am not a modeller, so I am not sure my opinion can count for much here. I'm usually more concern with the correct UV mapping :).
stringtheory9, Thank you for the wonderful idea for optimizing the render times! I am using it in my image intended for partial compositing. And thank you for the partial render tool! I am looking forward to your completed image - you keep adding more and more exciting details to that already gorgeous scene.
DUDU_00001, I am sorry for the extra work, but I am glad you made those shoes - they look great! I love how lived-in your scene looks. Those details make a world of difference.
I am sorry also, for not commenting on everything in detail, but if I try I'll end up not having enough time to post again :(.
But I also have good news for my part as well: in the crazy that has been my past week, I managed to render some prep images for my entry.
I am considering making this image a composite of multiple renders. Just because I need to learn how to do this properly. So here are 2 raw renders and the first composite of them. (There will be either 3 or 4 composited together in the final image).
diomede64 Thank you again for indexing this thread! I am very happy to hear that you've got your computer back and working again. (Sorry about HD, but I expect you have a backup... I hope...) And I hope to see your WIPs soon too :)
Meh. None to pleased with the shape of the grass or the "frost." I think I have too many replications.
Here's a sample render of what I have for my second scene. I'm still fleshing out the forest and working on some shader functions to try and create a frosty effect on leaves, branches and tree trunks. You can see a bit of it on the scrubby brush, the pine needles and branches.
Things I've done since this render is place snow on top of the fence and fence posts, added my own atmosphere and change up the lighting a bit. I'm waiting to see what the lighting changes do to the look of the grass billboards before I decide if I want to redo them.
I've also framed the shot a bit better than this version.
By the way, all the shaders are procedural with the exception of the barn which is strictly image maps, and the bark on the trees and branches which uses a black and white image map to drive a color gradient and the bump.
Antara, that is some seriously nice work on the room!
Roygee, that is a great use of using another program to get the dynamic look and then bringing it back into Carrara. Thanks for the description of the workflow. I see the look you're going for, and it is a fine line to walk. White outs by their very nature have no contrast. For this storm that socked me in for two days a few years ago, I tried to find contrasting objects to put in the shot. For other shots, the white-out was the dramatic element as distant objects were barely visible.
The second picture is a full sized station wagon. The last picture is my road. You can't see it, but the snow was waist deep.
Then again, sometimes a harsh winter is even more harsh the further north you go, which is why we had an influx of arctic visitors looking for food last winter.
OK, I've got enough of my essentials reinstalled to return to the challenge. I had a backup of a lot of my stuff, and certainly everything essential to real life, but I would have to start over on my model of the bear. I can still use my stormfront background if I want. Anyway, here is the Poser 8 bear with Carrara hair used to make fur. I used the texture map that comes with the bear in the color channels for the hair roots and tips. I reduced the shininess and the highlight. I will need to make some further adjustments around the face.
"Beary" nice looking hair! ;-)
Except for the grass, I really like the lighting, the framing and the atmosphere. When I do the final render, I will bump up the AA settings and enable soft shadows for the sunlight.
The grass is on my to-do list.
I did not use Skylight or Indirect Light. I faked the GI using my standard light dome and tweaking the color and intensity of the replicated light.