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The angle of the light in the scene won't cast a shadow on the bed and most tube lights aren't blueish in color so unrealistic. it could be a bit brighter just by adding a bit of ambient to the bulb.
I did, thank you. You ever thought about rendering a 3D frame you like? I know in Studio that you can render out as a .tif file. There is an alpha channel created so as long as you leave the inside and outside of the frame empty you would get something like what I did with this frame in the attached image. Then pull it into gimp. Pesto you have a customized frame. I know that I can parent the frame to the camera that I am using to create the render and render the whole image all at once too. Just something to think about.
One other thing, I really like the eye being a part of the image. It kind of tied the two images together. It was the first thing I noticed when I was looking at the images. In your new ones you only have it the center and I miss it. :down:
Thank you Dollygirl, had a look at the site and there is a lot of awesome stuff on it. I think .obj can be imported into DAZ, will have to play around with them and see what happens.
Your welcome aaron575. Yes you can import obj into Studio. looking forward to what you end up with.
Thank you very much Frank.
aaron I sent you a PM, please respond
Hey all! It has been fun to see all the changes and improvements people have been making! Kismet.. your double environment spheres scene with 2 sets of clouds is very cool looking, and I was driving into the setting sun in a fairly rural farm area of NY the other day, and saw your field, minus the cowboy. I was like whoa...
Linwelly- add me to the list of people who are glad you did not abandon your image, it was way too cool, and the "little people" adaptation in pretty brilliant. I am all for capturing little people and studying them, poking them to make them giggle like the Pillsbury Doh Boy, and then getting my finger bit. I think we all have a cruel streak... ;-) The shoulders are looking a lot better! I have never tried deformers myself and well.. its now on the list of toys to play with as I have needed to arrange my images so as not to show those kinds of problems, because I didn't know how to fix them. Are you using gen 2? It has morphs for the breast directions which also might help that pocket under the arm look less squished. I still think giving her more traps would help.
Giovanni- as I have been following this thread, I have been thinking a lot about your fish camp image. I like the coloring and the hazy lighting feel, and I agree that it feels like an old painting. The one thing that seemed to be itching me about it was that it was hard to read the buildings because the image was taken from such a far perspective. The changes you made have made it easier to read, by a lot! The buildings and the ground so close together, compared to the camera distance, that they were looking flat. One thing to continue to make it look less flat might be to tweak the depth of field on the camera so that the tops of the buildings are slightly more in focus than the ground? or use the rule that things closer are warmer and crisper while things further are more blue and fuzzy? Or maybe put a distant light that hits the roofs and casts a slight shadow on the ground? Just thoughts.
Smurph9- The lighting you added to the fire is very nice! One thing that is making the image look odd is the size of the fire compared to the figures. For comparison, it looks like a log in the fire. But if you stood your figures up where they are, they would be 7 feet tall compared to very small fire. I would suggest moving the fire in front of them, increasing the size, and playing with the camera angle to be able to get it all in the scene...
Teofa- Regarding your single figure image- You said you were trying to decrease the "busyness" in order to emphasize her eyes and the changes you have made do put more empahsis on the eyes, and make the image as a whole more interesting and feel like it has more depth. What I think is hampering the progress towards focussing on them is that the wide katana pose is forcing you to shoot her face from a far angle, and forcing you to incllude a lot of background ivy which is adding distraction. I think you want the pose to read "none shall pass", and that she is serene and ready. Perhaps poaing her so both hands on the hilt, positioned down near her left hip (from our view the right side), with the blade at a 45 degree angle across her body. Something like this stock photo, but without the elbows bent: http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/118135/126435881/stock-photo-girl-with-katana-in-studio-126435881.jpg . The other thing that is working in the stock photo is givivng the figure a contraposto, this also puts emphasis on the face and eyes. Tweaking the pose would let you keep the full length of the katana in the picture but at the same time would let you make the image more close up. It would also let you shoot it in a vertical format, which would give it more of a sense of "action". I think one of the reasons why you might like the two figure image better is that it is blocking all that busy ivy on the left.
Next post... my stuff! Hope these comments help, it has been fun to watch the images develope.
After adding the materials, some of that blue feel disappeared because of the dark wood but that doesnt matter I guess, can´t have blank walls and furniture.
So what do you guys think? The shoes are too glossy I will need to fix them but I feel like I could do a final render tomorrow which will probably take whole day : D
Also have you noticed when you turn SSS mouth on (I think by defult when loading any figure, it is of, isnt it) it has this weird orange/pink/red glow around the mouth area? is that intentional or is there something wrong with the SSS mouths?
Hey who let Barbie in here? Very nice effects Giovanni. Really dig the steam punk air ship. Your most welcome. It is the least I can do to pay back my mentors who taught me how to play with Studio. Oh goody, I am glad to hear that you are still working on that image.
So I think if I were playing with this image I would add a ubervolume light to the airship. Like a spot light shining down on the ground. Not sure it would work but would be kind of neat to see if it did. I would also see if I could take some tendrils and make them volume lights that come out from under or through the fence to make a bridge between here and there. Here are a few I found over at shareCG to play with:
Tentacle #8 by kawecki
Versatile Tentacle Figure by Tempest
Poseable tentacle for Poser/DAZ by ancestorsrelic
I just am crazy about Barbie's make up. So takes me back to 1959 when I got my first Barbie. Don't know if that is your intent but man that is how it hits me. Looking forward to seeing what you do.
Okay- on to my image! Firstoff I have to thank someone- I can't remember WHO, that said "thank God for the spot render tool" . I thought to myself.. what is this magic thing they speak of? No kidding, every change I made, I was making a new render. 8-) Talk about a time sink! Thank you a million times over for that sentence!
I have been busy trying to implement Dolygirls suggestions. I scrapped all my lighting and used the 5 point system she recommended, as well as changing my Uberenvironment to moonlit and occlusion with dir shadows. I think I have figured out that the more lights there are in a scene, the less effect the uberenvironment has, as it puts ambient light and shadows where there isn't any. I suppose it helps smooth out lights and shadows in places where they dont reach or perhaps the raytracing off the environment sphere helps them no to contradict? As I added lights beyond one, its influence stopped being noticable.
So- did you ever start something over, make a million changes, and end up exactly in the same place? Except for changing the scene so the lantern was shining on the figures, the lighting came out more or less exactly the same. What this told me is that, as an old art teacher said, I was "seeing with my brain, not my eyes". So I compiled reference images and put them next to my image, scrapped all the lighting in the scene except for the moonbeam, and then slowly built up one by one.
On the other front was the matter of the expression on the face... and the face in general. I know this is a lighting thread but no amount of good lighting will make a bad image look good. The wrong light and shadows can emphasize the wrong aspects, as well. Camera angle, distance... it all works together.
I asked myself... how did this fairly cute looking little girl I started with (center photo) end up looking like a chimpanzee? (2 and 3) I went back and found an early render, as well as a reference photo, and then created a comparison image of those next to my current image. I tried to take it to a better place. I determined that I was shooting pointing at the chin, firstoff, which would make the chin larger and the forehead smaller, and second, that my camera was giving me distortion because I had a close camera angle with a short depth of field. I tried moving the camera back and increasing the depth of field, which helped, but playing with the morphs ended up taking it to a worse place. (see 4 and 5). So I went back to the early version of the scene and grabbed the face shape morphs and face pose as a preset. (see 6). Better-ish but still not good and nowhere near what my original nor the reference looked like.
How could the same morphs and face pose settings look so different? I changed the skin from Jessie, which I had gotten because I liked the eyebrows and freckles, to mats settings I had for Wildfire in a prev render that was nice-ish, SSS and color-wise. (see 7) The unseeable difference between the two is that Wildfire uses Victoria 6 UVs, and Jessie for Teen Josie uses Base UVs- or Vic 5. BIG difference. I don't think I would have bought them if I had known! Also, I realized that when I had changed the pose to make the figure not be holding the pillow and hold the bear instead, I turned her head about 30degrees counter clockwise. #7 also has the image itself rotated to see if made a difference.. and I was shocked how different it could look. So.. I added pillows underneath the figure and it is "better". The head is tipped towards the camera which might make the forehead larger, but it is like the refernce picture morso than my original image. (#8) Not pictured here, but shown in the lighting comparison, I tilted the head back some in version two, and you can tell how it makes the face look "plumper". Not sure which "face" I like better.
Now... I feel better about working on the lighting! (see next post for talking more about the lighting and where it's going.. sorry to take up three long posts but it has been two weeks worth of work. I hope showing the changes helps someone, and I hope seeing the changes will help someone steer me further! )
Sorry Scavenger for not providing you with some links to ubervolume lights. In my post to Fionathegood, I give some links to a few tuts and videos so here is that portion of the post:
" You did lots of work to create your moon light and it is a cool effect, but I think that you might want to watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umL5Fu--W8c by Frozen Florida Photography to help you with the ubervolume shader and lights, especially placement. I also found out that you can take any shape and apply the ubervolume shader to it. I found this thread to be of interest http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/18815/."
Thank you very much for the link to the terrain popped that baby into my wish list.
Instead of trying to find a place to put your camera that gets you the angle you want with the expanse of terrain you want in your image play with the focal length of the camera instead. So set the camera angle and then adjust the focal length to capture the expanse you want. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Image development- lighting
So.. after scrapping all the lighting for the third time, I put the image I originally posted in the middle of a bunch of reference photos and tried to make the lighting be inspired by the images. I ended up working on 2 versions- one with the head pointed towards the camera and one with it tilted back, since I was on the fence about which was better. The first image is going towards a softer, more "realism" feel, while the second has a lot more going on, and a bit of drama, which is taking it a little less towards realism and a little more towards being picturesque or illustrational? It also take about ten times as long to render. (Due to adding the second UberSurface, I am guessing. UberSpotlights also take longer to render than reg spotlights...since I don't need the shader on the spotlights that comes with the Ubers, I should probably switch them to regular spotlights.)
My thoughts about each....
First image setup- Besides the moon pane window setup which casts light as explained in the past post and an UberEnvironment with a dark blue light, 100% intense 200% saturation, and moonlight setting, there are 3 directional spots (edit: should be directional point lights, not spotlights) coming from the same point in the lantern with various falloffs to mimic the falloff of real candle light. The white directional point is the 100% intense, but does not travel as far, only reaching to the face. The yellow is only 20% intense, but travels as far as the back of the head, and the same for the orange. There is a far away overhead white spot on the whole scene at 20% for a tiny bit of fill light.
I tried adding godrays, and learned that I had come to depend on the shader to block some of the window image, and make it look less like a photo and more like an environment :-(. I was already using the god-rays opacity map on my cone, but the UVs are different and it doesn't line up to form straight lines. Nonetheless it breaks up the atmosphere, also in ways that I have come to rely on.. I wish I knew what the "default UV" map for my cone was, as I would make an opacity map that fits the UV map! I also need to learn to make my own shaders, and looking back at old contests there are good references for how to do that.
Compared to the original that I posted, I like the softness of the light and light/dark contrast between the figure and the background. At least the lights on the face which are supposed to be coming from the lantern are now the same color- originally the lantern was yellow and the face was pink! I changed the SSS on the skin to neutral (red green and blue the same for reflect and absorb) so that I was working with a neutral palette. Sometimes the light color vs the figure color can be very confusing and I thought that would help me focus on just the light.
One thing that improved I think is that the light looks like it is coming from the lantern, and from the moon, and the scene doesn't have too much light. Thanks Dollydgirl for pointing out that the light didnt look like it was coming from the lantern- originally I'd had it arranged differently and had thought I could get away with cheating...ha ha. So not! I think at this point, the face and arm could be brighter. But I dont like the color of either the lantern or the light it shines on the face. It should be more orange and less yellow. I made the cone of the moon shine on the pillow, which practically took an act of God because there is a lump in the pillow that is *still* casting a shadow. How can one little lump cause such a pain! While I like the darkness of the background wall, the shade of blue is too intense. I also wish that the light coming in from the window cast a glow like #2 and #9. The original inspiration to do a night scene was based on seeing #1 on Pinterest..I thought "Wow, what a lovely, quiet, picture". I would need to make the window less intensely colored, too, to make it feel like this nice realism. But I don't like how monochromatic #1 is. I like the feel of #2 with the color scheme of #3. I would like to get a "wraparound" feel like #3 has where the moonlight seems to hit the opposite shoulder from where its coming... such a cheat because I cant figure out how light would do that, but I confess I like it
Second Image:
Setup: The second version has "bells and whistles".. All of the above plus.. I added a second Uber spotlight and shader cone in the window to look like light coming from the whole window. I added a cornflower blue directional point light between the figure and the window to hopefully make that "glowing edge" to the window. It also hits the back of the figure's head. (Not effective:-( ) And lastly, I added a small orange regular point light to the lantern.
In the second image, the thing I am happiest about, change-wise, is the color correction the point light gives to the lantern, and the light and shadow it casts on the top of the barrel. I am sad about losing seeing the flame, I wish I could have *both*. I think the second cone is doing good things to the background, but the blue point light is too intense. I think the effects might be over done? I think I need to continue to work on balance between the back light and the front light. Thats the thing I enjoy though about moonlit scenes that have interior lights interacting with them... the place where the blue light hits the yellow light and makes that sort-of "lavender". If I could make that kind of magic I would be happy!
Things I would like to do, but dont know how- create that "glow" around the window rim...paint a moon beam across the hair/face?
Things I know I need to do.. make the light on the face brighter? Light Balance. Color correction...
I am very open to suggestions, comments and feedback... as Kismet said, happy accidents are a good thing!
Toyen, my, I like where you are going with this one. Much more romantic but still quite sexy. So I am guessing that you are currently rendering your images at a high shader rate just so you can get something out. I say this because there is lots of graininess in the current image but you say that when you render it will take a day. Is that correct? If so then we are golden on that point.
So I have attached your image with some highlighted issues and I think if you address them you will be happier about your results.
Let's talk about the tangent issue first. If you look closely at the light tube and the top of your lady's head you are going to see that they just kiss each other. This affect is called a tangent. here is a good explanation of what tangents are. Now that is not to say that having tangents in an image is bad but that sometimes they can be very distracting. I think just a bit of a nudge on your camera might help separate the two objects and bring focus back to the lady.
Now the next issue is about lighting. There is a spot light on the left side of the viewer shining towards the lady. You can see it's reflection in the glass (which is already looking gorgeous by the way), her shoes, arm and hair. The spot on the right shows up on the wall and the glass. So I can tell you that as you reduce the shader rate these areas will become sharper. I would see if you turned off specularity on the left spot light and only use diffuse what would happen. Not sure you will like it but the goal would be to get the lighting to be a bit softer coming from that angle. I think the right spot light just needs to be less intense or make the light's fall off rate not reach the wall.
As to your question about SSS making the lips glow I am not sure. What it tells me though is that the lips are bouncing a goodly amount of light off of them and that light is being seen in the surrounding areas. That being said maybe the ambient color is to strong. But I am only guessing.
Looking forward to seeing what you do. This is a very classy image and I am so glad you chose to work on this one.
Fiona, thank you very much for providing your insight. Back in the day when I was training engineers we were taught that there are three phases to understanding and being able to be effective. The first phase is to read, watch and listen. The second phase is to do. And the third phase is to explain and demonstrate. Your participation really completes the efforts of those hosting this contest and ensures that we have given you all the tools to do wonderful images.
fionathegood:
Let me first say that I really admire your workflow...compiling all those inspiration images into a montage seems to be a great tool for figuring out where you are with your image and which direction to take it in. And creating two versions of the same scene, with some different features, can be helpful too. In this case, I really like the lighting of the image on the right, but I think I prefer the camera angle of the image on the right. They're both very nice renders.
To create the "glow" around the window frame...that I suspect would be a challenge in DAZ Studio. It might require a volumetric camera (like Age of Armour's Atmospheric Effects Cameras). UberVolume, which comes with DAZ Studio, can be used to create atmospheric effects too, but I'm not sure whether it would work for what you want to do. For the moonbeam, again I'm thinking some sort of real or simulated volumetric effect would be needed, like either of the things I already mentioned or something like Simple Godrays. Not sure which of these you already tried...
We could do a whole contest specifically about volumetric effects...so I won't get into too much detail about them now, but there are some good tutorials available if you search online. You might want to start with UberVolume (since you already have it). Here are a couple UberVolume tutorials to get you started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umL5Fu--W8c [edit: oops, Dollygirl beat me to it...I just noticed that she already posted that link]
http://greywulfslair.twilightparadox.com/lair/2009/12/22/when-the-spotlight-falls-the-dance-begins/
Anyway, this is coming together really well...keep up the good work!
This is a nice way to show just how important all of the different aspects come to play in creating an image. It also shows a good way to make sure that as your art teacher said so well, to look with your eyes and not with your mind's eye. And it is Kismet that deserves your thanks.
Your image is coming together well, Toyen! To answer your question...yes, it's not exactly something wrong with the SSS mouths, but what you're seeing is a fairly common problem that happens when you put a character with SSS (especially using the Age of Armour Subsurface Shader) together in a scene that has at least one light with shadows OFF. Check your lights and make sure each one has shadows enabled (ideally, shadows should be set to Raytraced for best results). If, for some reason, you need to have a light with no shadow, make sure to turn SSS off for your character's mouth area, or use a different skin shader. Let us know if you need more information about how to do this.
My thanks to all the constructive input and insights. On the left is the "before" image and on the "right" where I am right now. I turned down the overall light a bit and added a spotlight upper left, very low on the horizon as if the sun is just breaking through. Compare the left part of the stream, the big building, and the building to the right of the black Ford with the light inside as suggested by Dollygirl. Fionathegood and Dollygirl deserve the credit if you all feel as I do. Kudos also to Scott for his insight. I feel the image has more interest and a greater sense of dimension, which is difficult to pull off in this perspective. Grazie mille!
Dollygirl, as to the other image . . . well it started out as a light study and has morphed into something I may develop using some of your suggestions. I may enter it in the weekly contest after some more work. I do have another image I've been working on for this contest and will be seeking feedback probably early next week. As to your question concerning my teaching art, I'm more student than teacher. My formal training started with John Herron School of Art, I have an undergraduate minor in art from Florida Southern College, and numerous graduate hours in art from the University of South Florida. My favorite subject to teach is geometry. Art is a passion. Thanks for helping me grow! :-)
This looks really nice. Moody without being muddy.
The only thing that I would change is the DOF. It seems like it is to strong. It makes it look like a miniature. I the DOF is useful to help sell the scale of the image, but it could be a bit more subtle.
Hven't tried the different lights yet...worked on the settings with what I have currently..
One thing I've failed to do is, with the basic settings, get the road signs to act as they would in real life, where they reflect light to become very bright, but not mirrors (( I can't use ambient settings to simulate, because they're all a single unit, so there'd be no variation based on the light hitting it).
I did use the focal length to pull back a little to get in the tail light of the truck. The original framing had most of the back of the truck...then realized that I was using the default 65mm, and I've been working with 120 mm as my standard (based on something I read), and changing that put me in the spiral of repositioning.
Looking good! Nice improvement over the previous version. As for the signs...I'm not sure what the surface settings are like at the moment, but I'd recommend trying one (or both) of the following things:
- Use Ambient, but plug the diffuse map into the Ambient channel so that the black areas don't glow
- Plug the diffuse map into the Specular Color channel, and possibly the Specular Strength channel if there's no image plugged in there already, and crank Specular Strength up very high
Edited to add: with respect to your previous question about overall brightness, I think the headlights should probably be brighter for the sake of realism. It is true that different monitors have different gamma settings, which can significantly affect how things look. It's something I've had to struggle with too. You can read more about gamma correction here, and here.
Hello there and thanks again for suggestions!
About the SSS mouth issue, I just turned on shadows on all my regular lights and set the intensity to 1% but that didnt fix the problem. Anything else I can try to do?
Thanks for the feedback!
I toned down the DoF and added some ripples to the water. The latter doesn't show much, but it does blur the reflections. I also made the shadow on the front/center log less strong, and the result appears to look OK. What do you think?
For the actual entry, I'd cut down the size a bit.
Toyen- I can take a stab at the mouth issue. I may be completely wrong here, but I think when a turning SSS on the "mouth" it will affect more parts of the map than just "lips". Mouth might affect gums, teeth, tongue, etc. (unless you just said mouth when you meant lips... but the difference could be key.) Since SSS makes your skin surface accept and bend light, what you may be seeing is glow coming from those inside parts of the mouth having their SSS on and being visible through the face skin? Or something along those veins.. Try going back to the default skin setting, and when you turn on SSS, do it manually with the SSS 0-1 slider just in the lips map. If that does not work, I got nothing! I wanted to say, though, that what you did when you posted your image of the red dress, with just a few lights, blew me away. It has become more lovely, of course, but my first response was very positive, and that is what art is supposed to do... make you stop and say "now thats cool".
Giovanni- Looks good, the changes you have made add a subtle sense of depth, which as you pointed out, is difficult from that angle, and glad I could help!
And since Dollygirl pointed out that it was Kismet who commented about the value of spot renders... Ty Kismet! :-)
Dollygirl- I appreciate the affirmation. TY to yourself and others for the kind feedback about the comments I have made. I dont want to be the kind of person who needs kudos and attaboys to be willing to attempt to be helpful, on the other hand, it is nice to get them. I'll take it... :-)
I found a thread by AoA from way back in 2012 about transmaps issues they were having with their volumetric camera that lead to an idea about how to fake Godrays with volumetric lighting- see the last post of the thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/1958/P15 It looks like you could put a transmap on a volume cone that was out of sightline of the camera, and have it cut shadows into the light coming through the cone? Something to try for myself and perhaps Scavenger with the headlights and Tobias with the swamp background... it also led me to some ideas about how to use transmaps on a primitive in front of a camera, to perhaps fake the look of a volumetric camera? I wish I could splurge for the volumetric camera but I have already splurged too much and the other person looking at the bank account is going to ask questions if they see anythng else from Daz on the statement! ;-)
And I forgot to mention- Tobias, I like your swamp. Or to be PC, "wetland". I grew up near a rare limestone based wetland and over the years spent a lot of enjoyable time in that greenish type of light.
On other fonts, I was looking up the difference between point lights and linear point lights, and came across this thread by Szark which I found informative... I particularly like the part about using point lights outside the scene to cast light into the scene. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/23911/
Halfway throught the month already, where has all the time gone?
Hey there Fiona! Yes, time does fly : )
I don´t know what the issue with the SSS mouth is. Sometimes I get that weird reddish glow around the mouth area, sometimes I don´t.
I am running a first proper render (3 hours and counting!) but here are some quick unfinished IPRs to compare the mouth issue and so on.
Pic 1 - SSS mouth on
Pic 2 - SSS mouth off, the red glow is gone.
Pic 3 - What do you think about adding rose(s)? No roses, one rose, more roses on the floor or on the bed or everywhere?
I also changed the hairstyle and assigned ubershader to it and played with the settings! What an amazing shader! Can´t believe I discovered it just now.
Looking better...very nice work! :) The materials, in particular, are looking great.
In terms of lighting: I think the lighting you've got is very realistic, but not particularly interesting. Obviously this is a creative choice, and you'll need to decide what you want to do, but I think it would benefit from an artificial light source...some sort of flashlight, vehicle with lights, etc. The high-tech suit contrasts nicely with the natural environment, but adding an artificial light might help to emphasize that contrast.
Also, the contest no longer has a size limit (except those imposed by the forum itself) so feel free to submit a large entry if you'd like.
Toyen- one thing with the uber shader, esp when using uber environment is make sure that you turn "trace displacements" on. In one of Omnifreakers documentations it says it helps with things looking pixely particularly with low quality renders. As for your inutitiion that it "needs something"... what about putting shadows from blinds on whatever the lightsource is coming from the right? Or the shadow of a paned window with raindrops... It is one of those things that could either be too much, or be fantastic. Also, a decanter of wine with light coming through it and casting a deep red glow/shadow on a surface would show off your skills. Another idea might be to cut off the left hand side of the picture and make it look as if you are looking into the room through a partially opened door- an invitation, more or less, to come in further....
Not recommending you buy these products but the marketing for them illustrates the effects I am talking about:
Hotel Room door: https://www.daz3d.com/suite-2101
Lighting 2 life gels bundle (window shadow) https://www.daz3d.com/lighting-2-life-light-gels-bundle... I have the Omnifreaker version of spotlight shader which also has a preset for blinds but I am a bit underwhelmed by it. I don't have this one so I can't comment.
Rainlight Gels for DS https://www.daz3d.com/the-rain-light-gels-for-ds - similar to the above but with the addition of raindrops
Easy Caustics (for the wine, but you could probably figure it out yourself! ) http://www.daz3d.com/easy-caustics
Nice. You kept the shadow and added just enough ambient. It blends better with the whole scene.
@Fiona I appreciate the feedback but for me, her pose is the story. It is ambiguous to an extent and passive/aggressive. I don't know why she is there..and I want the viewer to wonder the same. Dollygirl mentioned that, and it is exactly what I want.
@Toyen Will a longer render time address the pixellation that seems to be coming from the headboard overhead light?
I really like this scene and the new light is making it more interesting. What bugs my a little is that the background has a flat feeling to it. maybe you can give it some more depth by adding more moonlight beams deeper in the woods.
Worked on my own lights a bit more.
I tried to get the screens more glowing by pushing the ambient, added the uberarea light panels and pushed them to 300 % but still the screens were annoyingly dark. Then I realised that the diffuse colour was set to some darkish grey. So changing that made the difference.
Still I put spotlights into the screens to give the scientist some rim lights. And i turned the distant light back on, that for some time had been forgotten.
Let me hear your thoughts about it.
And sombody was asking, yes that is the genesis 2 female. There was some suggestion with that question i will have to go and find that again.
Linwelly, I love the section with the poor Fae stuck in the glass. I think the scientist needs a facelight, less hard shadow, and perhaps a yellow/orange cast to the face/chin light to give her skin some warmth. (her hand is much warmer) I don't know if you have, but in the Brie mats there is an option to turn nipples off.. a blessing with some blouses as on some even a bit of aureola give a "twin peaks" look.
On a more personal preference, I would go a different color on her blouse, something less prone to contrast with the shadows. I love the reflection in the cylinder glass and I don't know the mechanics involved, but again, for myself, I would cut the Specular/reflection on the blouse as well.
I like your forays into reflection/refraction. I loved your Image last month.
Looking better...very nice work! :) The materials, in particular, are looking great.
In terms of lighting: I think the lighting you've got is very realistic, but not particularly interesting. Obviously this is a creative choice, and you'll need to decide what you want to do, but I think it would benefit from an artificial light source...some sort of flashlight, vehicle with lights, etc. The high-tech suit contrasts nicely with the natural environment, but adding an artificial light might help to emphasize that contrast..
As per my usual,I am throwing in before and after pictures on a 50% gray background. I also am deliberately making them smaller.. in real life art class they tell us to take a step back. Well, we cant really do that in CGI, but looking at a smaller image can help see how it reads overall.I think you gained some things, but lost some things, in the second render. I think toning down the dark of the log so that you can see the details is a plus, but it might have gone too grey? Also, the lower half of the body is now harder to read because of the details of the texture against the details of the wood behind it. If the figure had the contrast of the first picture against the less contrasty wood in the second picture, it would read fantasticly. Or, if possible, smooth out the texture on that one background area and make it desaturated, just so the leg reads better. I like that changing the DOF gained you more texture on the tree on the far right, but I think losing some of the darks on the tree on the far left makes some of the texture on it less noticable. Also.. I think the reflection of the character in the water was adding a nice vertical symmetry that I miss, now. I wish that there could be an interesting effect like the waves without losing that design element.
As for what Mr Livingston said about it not being particularly interesting lighting... I think you are using some strategies that are not necessarily immediately recognizable as a lighting effect, but are subtle and "worthy", in that sense. Putting your images on a grey background made me realize that you have done what I call "black hole" composition... (there is probably a more technical name for it, I am a drawing/painting/metalsmithing person not a photographer). In essense you darken the edges and gradually lessen the darkness to creat a hole in that darkness and let the middle "show through", which gives it emphasis and adds a bit of drama. Sometimes when people do this it looks cheesy but since I didn't notice it, I would say its subtle enough! (I am guessing the atmospheric cam does this? I really do need to splurge!). You could take that effect further, making the center more contrasty, lighter and saturated and the darkenning the lighting, desaturating the color, and/or lowering the contrast as you move towards the edges. This would give the image more drama, but to do it without the viewer noticing is a good balancing act.
On the other hand, to his point, the image is a bit monochromatic and desaturated, which I think might be giving some of the sense that the light is "uninteresting" It's technically not as monochromatic as it feels, it's technically an analogous color scheme as you are using colors side by side on the color wheel... green, yellow green, yellow, yellow orange, and orange...but the lighting is doing its job and making the whole thing feel yellow-green. Also the areas of other color are very small. Something that might help is emphasizing the oranges and yellows already found in the environment, such as in the barks and moss, ever so slightly. It would make the figure feel even more like it is "in" the environment, as his oranges on his suit would not be so isolated. However increasing the apparent range of environment colors is one of those things that could easily wreck the good things you have going on, so tread carefully, IMHO. The grey figure is balancing very nicely against the color scheme as is, and the environment could easily overwhelm him as he is fairly small.
Something you could add for flare and drama might be swamp gas... some greenish lights emerging from below the water? OR.. the figure seems to be gazing intently at something. What if that something was a swamp gas-thing whispily emerging from behind the trees on the right? Or, conversely, the swamp could be sucking someone or something into the muck, and he is looking to rescue him/her/it. Something of a transparent green figure, perhaps along the lines of this: http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/48640 (I don't know the story of the picture, so I am just tossing things out there... part of what makes a picture interesting is NOT telling the whole story and making the viewer wonder, so if you add anything, only show a little bit of it, to keep the mystery element that you have going on...)
Anyhow. I think it is very good, and getting better. Certainly a render you should have in your gallery when you are satisfied with it! :-)