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The Conquest (Revised)
I too had a rather long render. Suggested revision by Linwelly didn't take all that long. Also noticed right hand was partially buried in the demons right leg so I fixed that: how else can I improve this image? :)
Here is a new one I am working on. The skeleton is hanging on a chain although it is hard to tell in render. I know I need to fix that and make it stand out a little more but any other suggestions or comments are welcome.
Ah...the truth comes out! :-P it was YOU! Now I can't remember what the image was about and am curious as heck! Feel free to email me a jpeg at my username @gmail. Enquiring minds want to know! *giggle*
So I took the ladys skin of, went to the Gimp and made it all new. The result is in the latest render here. As well I recoloured the boots of her to a more fitting colour and adjusted the poses a little.
And I decided that for the effect of looking like in the old swashbuckler films the render settings with gamma off work best.
In total I am rather happy with the result, other that there is lacking some part of the story.
I guess I will let it lie for a while and work on something else maybe that will find me the last part of the story or the missing item.
I just remembered that there is a freebie posable sash in the fiery dragon tutorial pack Linwelly. Jourmeyer or something similar.. the male outfit.
Included in DAZ you just have to find it :)
Yes I support this, the copy is fine as she is, I wouln't make her more articicial.
But a Blueprint or a poster on the wall of the copy with markers on her abilities (eg enhanced sight, infrared perception, reduced reaction time...) would make it more obvious to the viewer.
Also I would like to see what the original is thinking about this, is she proud of being the one copied from, is she just very supportive to her boss lady or maybe are there some hidden disagreements.
yes I tried that, looked incredably stupid :bug:
Thank you!
Made lots of changes.
This looks very neat, I like the colour settings and the action. For some reason i liked the pose in the old one a bit better, in this very frontal view it clearly meant they look at the viewer but they do look a bit cross eyed. Maybe you could include something they are chasing away from their nest.
Linwelly, I totally changed the pose on the Security Chief.
I think honestly this image probably should be a panel in a comic.. with a caption. It makes sense to me, and probably to fans of that genre of Science Fiction, but I'm finding it impossible to convey a whole story without cluttering the image and adding the number of "clue" doo-dads needed to convey the story to someone unfamiliar with the genre.
Its a Cyborg. Like T1, Cylons, and many others. They could be made to look like any organic.. and that is the point I am not conveying. A copy of the Security Chiefs appearance, not a clone.
I had thought about the Boss holding a holo generator, but that is just too much Star Wars crossover.
I'll save the image for a multipanel I guess.
Ha, thanks for the quick reaction, and congrats on your german.
In your render there is a crazy lot of things going on at the same time, the obvious ones are the lady with the sword is the conqueror and the red guy with the hooves ins the conquered one. Where are they actually, is she home and has brough the guy as the prisoner? Or are all those people there at his place where he is pressed into submission? From the children and the secretary I take it its the first. Then the question arises, to whom is she presenting the captive? And what is that dragon doing out there?
I like that you tried to use a lot of people in one place, but I guess they need to be in a stronger interaction with each other to make sense.
I like the light you used very much and the effect of that portal and the sky in the backgound.
The red guys surfaced do look painted. If that's an effect you want to go for, you need to get that on the rest as well.
And for the last suggestion her pose is very static in the moment, she seems to be fully rigid, knees and the swordarm overstraight.
Teofa, i feel with you, I've had that feeling several times as well, that I would need some panles around for the story, espacially as I am huge fan of webcomics. But then its a challenge as well to really get acoss what you want in just one picture. This monthly challenge has made that clear to me for the first time and I guess my was influenced by that a great deal.
I think you are not that far from a complete story in your render. Maybe get a musing buyer inspecting that copy, to whom the boss lady is adressing. by the wy thats the first time I see that duke hair brought to a good use.
And yes I 've seen all the caprica series...:P
I removed a bit of the glow from the sword but I really don't want to get rid of it.
I also cut back on the glow from the cyborg's eyes now that I've learned how to work with Iray's "ambient" lighting :)
So Linwelly, I have liked your progress on this image so I have some suggestions that you may do what you may with them.
First, I would give your male counterpart a devilish grin. If you have watched any of Errol Flinn's movies you will see him smile a wicked smile if he thinks he has the upper hand in the fight. I think that would help give your composition a little bit more interest. You could do the same with your female but I think the impact would be more for the male.
Second, I would see if this curtain, or something similar or maybe a combination of curtains, could be used instead of the flag you are currently using. http://archive3d.net/?a=download&id=746df1db I don't know how familiar you are with this site but just in case,
just click on the image and the download page will come up. This is a .3ds file so you will need to convert it to a .obj file. You can use Poseray which is free to do the conversion, if you do not have Poser, Hexagon, Carrara or Blender to do the converting for you. If you click on the tags line of the curtain link page, you will see many curtains that might fit the bill. The below image shows the curtain with KerWar Fancies 01 shader being used.
Third, I think you need to muss up the scene just a bit more. I would replace the stone bench with something like this or this and tip them over. You had asked earlier if anyone knew of a candelabra so I found this. The only problem with this one is that when Poseray converted it one of the legs was flipped but if you are careful with your posing I think it still will work. You can fix this issue with Hex or Blender but I don't know how comfortable you are with these tools. The reason why I would use this is that the candles are a separate material zone. This allows you to make them invisible so that you can knock down the candelabra and scatter candles about. I found this candle to be a nice model for the fallen candles.
As always these are just suggestions. Hope they help you in your story telling. Looking forward to seeing what you do.
New version. Added a few snakes and made their eyes glow. Any suggestions on the scene?
Thank you!
Made lots of changes.These little critters are cute and scary at the same time. Their wings to me seem a bit too big. To the rest of them it seems disproportionate. This may be on purpose and if so I understand just wondering how it would look with smaller ones and more open space around for effect.
So Linwelly, I have liked your progress on this image so I have some suggestions that you may do what you may with them.
First, I would give your male counterpart a devilish grin. If you have watched any of Errol Flinn's movies you will see him smile a wicked smile if he thinks he has the upper hand in the fight. I think that would help give your composition a little bit more interest. You could do the same with your female but I think the impact would be more for the male.
Second, I would see if this curtain, or something similar or maybe a combination of curtains, could be used instead of the flag you are currently using. http://archive3d.net/?a=download&id=746df1db I don't know how familiar you are with this site but just in case,
just click on the image and the download page will come up. This is a .3ds file so you will need to convert it to a .obj file. You can use Poseray which is free to do the conversion, if you do not have Poser, Hexagon, Carrara or Blender to do the converting for you. If you click on the tags line of the curtain link page, you will see many curtains that might fit the bill. The below image shows the curtain with KerWar Fancies 01 shader being used.
Third, I think you need to muss up the scene just a bit more. I would replace the stone bench with something like this or this and tip them over. You had asked earlier if anyone knew of a candelabra so I found this. The only problem with this one is that when Poseray converted it one of the legs was flipped but if you are careful with your posing I think it still will work. You can fix this issue with Hex or Blender but I don't know how comfortable you are with these tools. The reason why I would use this is that the candles are a separate material zone. This allows you to make them invisible so that you can knock down the candelabra and scatter candles about. I found this candle to be a nice model for the fallen candles.
As always these are just suggestions. Hope they help you in your story telling. Looking forward to seeing what you do.
Thank you Dollygirl, that is great stuff you found there and good suggestions, and the candelabre is looking just what I had in mind. Now I will start with downloading this poseray and then onto the next steps. Never gets boring :-)
If I was looking for swashbuckling fencing inspiration I would watch the legendary Inigo Montoya vs The Dread Pirate Roberts!!
Ha, thanks for the quick reaction, and congrats on your german.
In your render there is a crazy lot of things going on at the same time, the obvious ones are the lady with the sword is the conqueror and the red guy with the hooves ins the conquered one. Where are they actually, is she home and has brough the guy as the prisoner? Or are all those people there at his place where he is pressed into submission? From the children and the secretary I take it its the first. Then the question arises, to whom is she presenting the captive? And what is that dragon doing out there?
I like that you tried to use a lot of people in one place, but I guess they need to be in a stronger interaction with each other to make sense.
I like the light you used very much and the effect of that portal and the sky in the backgound.
The red guys surfaced do look painted. If that's an effect you want to go for, you need to get that on the rest as well.
And for the last suggestion her pose is very static in the moment, she seems to be fully rigid, knees and the swordarm overstraight.
Greetings and thanks, I had the great fortune to live in Germany for seven years.
Thank you also for your suggestions. This image will become part of a series of illustrations I have been working on that depict life on the Planet Hetra. The setting is the Great Hall of Justice, a gateway to the cosmos. Warrior Maiden Ariannah has defeated and captured the evil Shaytan. Seated behind the desk is Princess Lyalah, to her right is a Guardian with Esau and Jacob. On the far right is Re'bekah, mother of Esau and Jacob, and their grandfather, Abram. Outside, looking in, is Lizzie, Warrior Maiden Ariannah's loyal dragon.:)
Greetings and thanks for your suggestions, I'm reviewing the position of the dragon. :-)
Thank you!
Made lots of changes.These little critters are cute and scary at the same time. Their wings to me seem a bit too big. To the rest of them it seems disproportionate. This may be on purpose and if so I understand just wondering how it would look with smaller ones and more open space around for effect.
Thanks for the sugestion but I really like the model the way it is. :-)
Revisited the forum today- these renders here, they are much improved! I really like Teofas tough Lady boss, the Security Chief. She looks bad-ass enough for a whole long adventurous story.
My own render didn't change much, just tweaked her pose and her face a bit, to show she is interacting with the dragon (she tries to convince him of doing something very foolish together). And I gave her a background.
My first problem still isn't solved. The dragon looks crisp and well lighted, the Lady (with the same light in the same render) looks a bit dull and unsharp in comparison.
Any idea what I could try?
Literally, in this case, I think it is the nature of the beast. The dragon is lighter and they are generally set to a higher metallic reflective. In any shared light he is going to pop more than skin or matte. Look how much pop you have on her gold ornament.
I don't think the girl is unsharp.. just subdued in comparison. I would try just a face light. The other thing I would do is just part her lips a bit more.. indicating some convo. Doesn't take much. I would fiddle with her eyes a little to try and really force the "looking at the dragons eyes" thing. I have found that conveying a sight line is one of the hardest things to do (for me). Try just lifting her chin a bit with a head or neck bend. I have found when looking around my head will move in the direction I look, without thinking, long before the eyes reach a movement limit. The head seems to follow the eyes, even if not really needed to.
The other thing would be to look at the dragons material properties, tone it down and relight.
I personally don't think the sharpness difference is that great. I think it is more reflective differences. Personally, I wouldn't jump through hoops to try and "fix" it.
The other small thing I would try if this were my image would be consistency to the hair. Sweep all of it more to match the long tress, or sweep the long tress much less to match.
It is a very good image. I love the Asian fantasy feel of it.. her dress colors.. hair color and complexion. Now comes the hard part.. the tiny things without disturbing the whole.
I ink the woman's skin is a shader/surface thing. You could try adding a bit of gloss to her skin so she matches the rest of the image. Remember what it's currently set at in case it doesn't look right.
for lack of a correct term, I call this a "face light"
A narrow focus low intensity spot dedicated to just face. I turned every other light off to show how subtle. (I didn't turn specular off so the neck chain is still popping). No shadows and basically independent of any other light.
This spot is violet colored.. as I was using it on Dark Elf skin. They can be all kinds of colors to enhance whatever.
There are a few things that you can try to make her seem sharper.
1. Use Depth of field on you camera, and put the focus at the plane where her eyes are. Use the f-stops to let the dragon begin to be out of focus. You can change how much depth of field you are allowed to manipulate by moving the physical camera in your viewport closer and further from the subjects.
2. You can change the gamma just on the girl to make her brighter... under surfaces, go to the diffuse map, and click on it, and scroll all the way to the top to where it says "image editor". There is a slider to increase the gamma. Also, you could decrease the gamma on the whole image in the render settings, and then increase it just on the things you want to be brighter.
3. You can put ever so little bit of a motion blur on the dragon...
4. I am told, but I am not sure that it is correct, that sometimes when the content creator who made the original textures saves maps that are supposed to be greyscale in RGB format that "appear" grey but have color info, that 3Delight does not proceedurally read them correctly and makes them fuzzier. Try going into a 2-d editor and saving a version of the maps in true greyscale mode. Not sure it will help but it wont hurt.
5. Using a lower shader setting in the render options will increase the sharpness of the skin, as well as increasing the shadow samples and decreasing shader rate on the Uber light if you are using one. Also, turning "trace displacements" to "on" for the skin surface will give sharper details in the darks in low light settings.
6. If you have SSS on the skin, increasing the percentage of diffuse compared to other maps will make the diffuse map crisper and the skin look harder. SSS will make the skin look "waxy" and lose details. On the other hand, no SSS will make your skin look like it is made of rock. Check to see if the diffuse setting has any amount of grey in the color channel.. changing it to a whiter color will make her brighter and crisper. Putting your diffuse map in the ambient channel sometimes helps as it keeps the ambient from overpowering the subtleties of the skin. Make sure your lights are not in any fleshy colors as this will wash out skin details. Also.. the rgb on the SSS settings- the more rgb in the absorb, the greyer, the more rgb in the reflect, the brighter. As long as you keep the proportions of red, green, and blue the same, you wont make her a wonky color, just change the brightness.
7. Using normal and displacement maps for your characters skin will always make the details seem sharper. Sometimes they do not load by default... check the folders to see if you have them, and apply them manually if they are not being used.
Look at her hands. I doubt they have different settings. It is lighting.
Simple solution first.
Hi everyone,
Well, here is an early attempt at exploring 4.8 and iRay (and the new nVidia card I had to buy to get some cuda cores to run it on). The only light sources are the crystals themselves, which all emit to varying degrees (including some outside the frame - to provide light on the front of the explorer and her little dog too). Yes, the splash screen with the glowing crystals sent me (an my explorer) off to an alien cave to try and find some crystals like that...but they seem to radiate more than just light...
As always, I welcome any and all feedback. Hopefully work won't drag me away and I'll be able to finish this one and actually enter it ;-)
P.S. Even if I don't have time to actively render, just reading the feedback on this forum is inspirational. It's worth using DAZ just to be part of this community!
Thanks for all your help!
Added lighting, tweaked the pose a bit.
This is what I consider my final version, first one pure render, second one with postwork (reflexes on the skin of the girl, slightly changed color of the dragon skin, brightened eyes of the girl, changed form of eye for the dragon, and overall sharpening of the picture).
Now may I introduce princess Thalia, who just tries to convince her dragon that an nice little excursion down the forbidden abbys will be pure fun ...
Very nice Cherpenbeck :)