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Thank you!
The Gamma and post did a very good job adding realism and that crisp cold atmosphere to the image.
And please don't forget to post your entry here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/49155/
:)
Great work, everyone. Just got a chance to look through and update a couple threads in the commons. Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong.
In addition to a bear getting ready to hibernate, I plan to have a beaver patching a dam in a stream. When I do this sort of thing, I start with a grid in the vertex modeler, then use the add point tool to draw where the stream will be. Then I extrude down to create the stream bed. I then set shading domains for the bottom of the stream and one for the banks. I select the stream bottom, copy, then go back to the assemble room where I insert a new vertex object and paste the copied stream bed. I then move the copy in the Z axis and use modeling in the assemble room to make sure the copy extends to the banks. I apply a water shader to the raised copy. I can then replicate rocks along the lower stream bed.
I am still on the road so it will be a while before I can post the beaver or stream WIP.
Keep up the good work, and if you get a chance, check in on the thread in the commons from time to time.
Okay, here's a try at an ice fall. It looks better than I thought it would, but not as good as I hoped it would. ;-)
The mesh is a mess, and that probably does more to make it look cartoony than anything else. Still, the proof of concept is there, I just need to execute the modeling a bit better.
I do like the translucency in the shader, so with some minor modifications, I think that will stay.
Thanks for thinking of me :)
I got very carried away experimenting with terrains - now eventually got some inspiration back, so will give it a go!
Such good submissions - don't know where to start with the compliments, so I'll just say, "Well done, everyone" :)
Wow- people have been busy! What great concepts and work, all the way around.
Well, I went ahead and finished the Studio version (Studio meaning actually seeing the poster inside a residence of sorts).
Everything except the birdbath (model inside of C8 that I re-shaded the cement and water on it after deleting the bird figure), the couch, carpet, the overhead lights and the deco prop piece in the room behind the red wall were from Design 14 and 12 by Arrin. The shaders for all of them came from the basic C8 selection with modifications by me.
The building, windows were made with planes and cubes, the sky/lighting were made by blending the GI promo in C8 with my sunlight settings, and each overhead light has a bulb light as well. The poster (frame, poster plane, glass plane) is a mix of planes and a vertex object. Shaders from C8 and a tweak here and there.
Minor post in Photoshop.
Raw render and the post worked version included.
Some changes to the grass, and trying to blend the winter to the autumn.
The chains were quite easy.
Created a master link.
Duplicated, and moved in place. Made it a child of the previous. Duplicated those two, made child... and so on.
When the full length were created, I could then pick one link, rotate it in place, and the childs of it would rotate as well.
I created the picture in stages.
The autumn part was created as a separate document.
The queen with bears as one.
The Ice trees as one.
The chain as one : a copy of the queen, removed the unnecessary parts, create chain and save it to the object browser as a temp object.
The brown bear as one.
I then had a master document, where I imported the different elements.
WOW! Great work Varsel
Welcome to December, everyone! :)
I hope people in the US had a great Thanksgiving (and are starting to come out of the food coma by now :)...), and that all the Novemeber writers have achieved their goals and are happy with the results!
There are still 24 days for this challenge, so I hope everyone gets a chance to submit an entry (I've settled on my own ideas, too and should start posting WIPs soon.)
Pimpy and DarwinsMishap, thank you for posting your entries to the Entries thread! It no longer looks empty and desolate... Yay! :)
I am very happy to hear you are thinking of participating! Yay! Can't wait to see what you come up with :).
The mesh is a mess, and that probably does more to make it look cartoony than anything else. Still, the proof of concept is there, I just need to execute the modeling a bit better.
I do like the translucency in the shader, so with some minor modifications, I think that will stay.
Nice! I like where you are placing them they look great there. I am also liking the translucency in the shader.
I am guessing your idea is closest to these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Frozen_Waterfall_Ohiopyle_State_Park.jpg
And I'd say your base mesh is getting there, but most frozen waterfall pictures I've seen have icicles of greatly varying sizes mixed together. So you might be able to get a more realistic look by adding much thinner icicles to the ones you already have, and making them go down in a more strict vertical.
So far I am completely loving all the interpretations of the theme people are coming up with.
Excellent evolution in your WIP, Varsel!
If I can still deliver my opinion, the fog which leaves the mouth of the bears should frost at least the exposed part of the isolated tree.
A fog just up the ground would increase the effect, I think.
Some little clouds in the forest should be nice too.
Bravo for this work !
EP, I think what you want create in vertex should be easier with the metaballs modeler but, it's your choice and it's nicely done !
It might work better with the meta-ball modeler except that I need to follow along the contours of my cliff. Since the meta-ball modeler doesn't have a model in Assembly room option that I am aware of, that makes it less than useful.
I may have to delay further work on this as my nice long holiday weekend was spent in bed with the flu, and I'm still sick. I also have a deadline coming up for a paying job and with me frittering three days away in bed didn't help.
I am really sorry EP, the influenza is a dirty thing.
I made my vaccine two weeks ago.
It is true that it is difficult to place the metaballs correctly, but with a little practice, one arrives there.
I often use them in animation as bases for flows of water and that works well.
Good cure (a small a whisky before going to the bed!).;-)
Hi stringtheory9,
I like your render! The full composition and the lighting but if I were you should put a bit of snow on the trees ... but this is my opinion ...:)
Hi Pimpy,
Thank you.
Yes, I've been going back and forth with snowless and snow covered trees trying to make up my mind but I agree with you, snow-covered wins :-)
Hi Roygee,
I've taken your advice and spent quite some time fiddling with tree placement and getting my final lighting in place. I focused on brightening up some of the shadows on the skier and it makes a big difference. Thanks :-)
Hi Antara,
I'm glad to hear you are feeling better. Thank you for your kind compliments :-) I'm working on implementing some of your suggestions and they are making a world of difference. Thanks again! I'm looking forward to seeing your upcoming WIP!
Here's my late starter - mainly because I was experimenting with using USGS data to create terrains :)
The original is at 1600 X 730 - reduced to 800 x 365 for the WIP
Clicky for biggy :)
This one uses USGS data from the Himalayas and Alaska, transformed to height-maps in 3DEM, terrains made in Bryce and exported as .obj. The rock textures on the terrains are a mix of two photos of rocks, with snow overlay done using terrain layers in the texture editor.
The starry sky and Aurora Borealis was painted in Gimp and used in the backdrop.
The mangy howling wolf is a freebie by umar6419 from http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/wolf-91025.html (the manginess is all my own doing in the hair room!).
Things which still need doing:-
1. get a blizzard going with the particle generator
2. Redo the starry sky and Aurora Borealis - I made them at the wrong size and they got stretched
3. Find a good place to put the wolf into the scene
As always, C & C most welcome :)
Looks fantastic!
Just an FYI that I've used a lot for large landscape scenes like that:
That wolf looks really cool. If you actually place him anywhere on the terrain, you'll never be able to see him. So I would send him to the same position as the camera, then set the Director's camera to the same view and back it off enough to push the wolf forward into view. If I need a bit of ground so that I can show the feet, I make a new, smaller one. Otherwise I just keep the feet down out of view and get that main object nice and close to the cam. Just a tip that I've used a lot when I really wanted to show off a cool, large terrain, yet still get a cool subject into view.
You can change the scene magnitude on the fly which will change the camera movement and nudge amount, etc. So you could use a large scale scene and then change it to medium scale when you start working with characters. The grid size won't change automatically , but you could do it manually.
Personally, if I plan on having human or near human sized objects in the scene I just start it as a medium scaled scene. You can still bring in large scale terrain with no issues.
I just hadn't gotten around to getting the Flu shot yet.
As to the Whisky, I'm a teetotaler. ;-)
Ok, your long absentee fox has decided to try this one. :D
Winter Weather is Coming.
WIP #1, everything here is from Carrara, and I modeled the snowflakes.
Thanks, guys :)
Actually, it is a medium scene - I had to scale the wolf down considerably to fit it in!
Made some changes - mapped the Aurora Borealis to a plane, instead of including it in the backdrop, so I could add glow -still not fully happy with it. Incorporated a full moon into the starry sky. What is a howling wolf without a full moon to silhouette it?
The light was wrong, with no apparent source. So I made a render, put that into the background for IBL and turned the lights down. Next I'll try putting a spot or distant light where the moon is, see if that will improve the lighting. I think the background mountains need to be a lot bigger?
Now, on to try making a blizzard :)
I'm back and really liking what I'm seeing. Great to have you participating Fenric. I will update the commons threads tomorrow.
Alas, my own WIP is delayed because although I am back from traveling, my computer is still being repaired.
First of all, evilproducer, I am really sorry to hear you are sick. :( Please get better soon. I really hope you are feeling better by now, and I hope your posting here is a good sign...
Wow, that's very impressive work on the terrain. The shader on those rocks is beyond fantastic! So beautiful and realistic! I'd love to know more about how you did it.
About image size: please make sure that your final image fits one of the ratios listed in the first post to this thread. (Once again, the size is optional, but the ratio of width to height must conform to one of the 3 listed in the rules.) The WIPs can be of any size, so this is just a reminder for the future when you'll be setting up your final render.
I think your background will look a lot better when you add the atmospheric effects like the blizzard. I think right now the major problem of it is that it looks too smooth, which will be fixed when it gets obscured by atmospheric effects.
I've never seen the real Aurora Borealis, but in the images I've seen, the stars always shine through the effect, so perhaps adding the stars to your Aurora Borealis texture will also add the realism you are after.
I love the idea for your image and can't wait to see it with the better lighting and the blizzard.
Winter Weather is Coming.
WIP #1, everything here is from Carrara, and I modeled the snowflakes.
Yay! I am so happy to see you joining this challenge!
Beautiful scene. I love the heavy snow clouds descending over the mountains in the background. Having them obscure the mountain top is such a perfect detail to show the particular type of snowy day. Lovely snowflake, too. Is that for the foreground snow?
diomede64, welcome back! I've missed you. And thank you! How was your trip? Was it fun? Did you see any inspiring sights? Did you take any reference photos? ( :red: not trying to bombard you with questions, just happy to see you back.)
Best of luck with the speedy computer repair!
OT - I am so glad to be back. My trip started out great. Seattle? Fantastic, and can't wait to go back. What is better than watching octopus feeding time? Watching a group of school kids watch octopus feeding time! Rocky Mountains? They do "winter is coming" very well. Got some great inspirational photos. Loved Montana and North Dakota. Seriously, that movie Big Country with Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons? They nailed it. Met a wonderful variety of interesting people. But then I arrived in Minneapolis and the whole trip spiraled out of control. Among the many disasters, my camera is no more, along with my pictures from the trip. My phone? Broken. Rental car reservation? Like a Seinfeld episode, they were good at taking the reservation, but not good at holding the reservation. The end? I arrived home to discover that the parcel with my computer had never been picked up to be sent to repair.
What is the status of the new Beta? I'm really interested in the reported fix for the duplicate-with-symmetry function (partially flipped normals). But I've read that people have had trouble with the install. Scratch that, I'll ask in another thread.
EDIT: I updated the commons thread. I encourage everyone to stop by and post any thoughts or observations.
@Antara
Thank you for the comments :)
The terrain texture is pretty simple. I took two photo's of rocks and put them in a mixer channel, with a cellular blender. Cellular bump, then used the altitude and slope settings to cover with snow. My settings attached.
I've totally redone the Aurora Borealis - still mapped to a plane and the stars shine through - thanks for the hint :)
So far, my efforts to get a blizzard going have been a total flop - can't get the particle generator to behave and volumetric clouds don't play well with the transmap for the Aurora! Still, I have a couple of weeks to play - any suggestions most welcome :)
About the dimensions. I've never worked in print and aren't familiar with the terms you used. I imagine the difference between final trim and live area would be a blank border? Anyway, I did some maths to work out the proportions in pixels and always came up with a fraction! Looked at the proportions of the WIPs others have posted and came nowhere near any of the dimensions I calculated, so copied the dimensions of one of the entries which the poster said will be the final image 1600 X 730.
Could you please give me some guidance here - I get it that the height must be at least 800 pixels, which my maths gives me a range of six sizes between 1043.478 and 1584.401.
This is important to me, because I must make the sky background and the Aurora Borealis to the final proportions.
Thank you for showing your terrain settings. Now I get what you meant, great shader!
If you'd like to use volumetric clouds, I'd recommend either converting your Aurora to a full background plane (no alpha map - just pre-combine it with your background), but instead use the transparency from your current alpha map to multiply the glow channel by (if you are using black for invisible areas, if you are using white for invisible things - invert first) - that way the background would not emit glow, only the Aurora light will. But the fog and volumetric clouds should not have an issue with the full backdrop anymore.
Another way, if you'd like to get fancy with it, would be to convert it to an HDRI and use it as a full background (bonus - you'd be able to use it for lighting too, if you choose to light with GI), but that would take a bit more work and might be a bit tricky with final placement of the scene against the background if you want to be precise with the portion of the background you want to be showing up in your frame.
About dimensions:
If we take the height as 800 pixels, then you have 3 choices:
800hx1033w
800hx1043w
800hx1567w
The live area is similar to title-safe. The idea is that the image extends to full size (bleeding edge printing), but nothing visually important should extend beyond the live area in the middle, because it might (in some cases) get obscured by the display case frame, so if a figure in your scene is too close to the edge, you might want to move it into the safe area, otherwise it might get cut off in an awkward, composition-breaking way. So that's why the live area is specified.
I hope this explains it better. I am sorry for the confusion and for not explaining it properly in the original post. :red:
Ouch. Did you lose all the images from the trip, or just the latest ones in the camera? With so many things going wrong, I am glad you got home safe and sound yourself... About a year ago I had to go about a month with a regularly malfunctioning phone - it drove me (and the people I had to talk to) nuts. I hope you can fix the broken tech quickly and get back to normal life and schedule.
I haven't tried the beta yet - too busy wit other projects, trying to clear up some time to start my WIP. I hadn't opened Carrara in weeks. Not for anything real, anyway. I am having withdrawals :).
Thank you for updating the Commons thread!
Thank you so much for the explanation on the dimensions :)
I'll give your suggestion regarding using volumetric clouds a go - I hope that will work better than my effort at a blizzard!
What I did with the next WIP is to put two particle emitters into an empty scene, one with a flow force and the other with a point force. Did several alpha renders at different points in the animation, combined them and gave some motion blur in Gimp, then layered that over my render of the scene.
I also cloned a bit of the sky over a background rock to give the wolf a better profile.
Is that overdoing the postwork limitation at all?
I did try putting the emitters into the scene, with motion blur, but that took so long to render that I gave up on it before seeing the result - come to think of it, that would probably have blurred the whole scene?
Thanks for the guidance - much appreciated:)
I have been busy watching Phil's tutorials to learn how to do terrains and replicators.
I have the Chickenman and Lady done with I think.
Now to move onto the rest of the scene.,
I am going to have to take a little break as my daughter was invited to dubmit any animations she has done to the Melbourne Animation festival after here entry at the Ottawa international animation festival was viewed by some on from Melbournes festival.
She has submitted her original claymation and now wants to do a Carrara one. Has to be submitted by 15 Dec for us international contestants.
I will try to get things done in time for the contest.
WIP #2
Tweaked shaders a bit to brighten up the snow and add a hint of the blue cast you always see. Added some Lisa's Botanicals dead bushes and grass to a second replicator. Changed the angle a bit to show a hint of clear sky to one side (after all, this is "Winter Weather is Coming")
And, of course, added the 9mbi red fox.