January 2016 New User 3D Art contest “Composition” (WIP Thread)

IceDragonArt

Siotrad said:

Knittingmommy said:

 

I don't have an answer to your question.  My guess would be it depends on how much of the composition was created in DS and how much was Photoshop.  Since the theme of this month is Composition, I'm not sure.  Postwork is acceptable in the competition within reason according to the competition guidelines as long as the main focus of the current theme is handled mostly within DS.  Hopefully, one of the mods will pop in soon and answer your question.

 

Thank you ... Finally an initial response :)

 

Chohole said:

Will get back to you once I have found someone else on the team to consult with.  If all you have done is added a renedered figure to a prepared background, it is not really quite what we are after.   We are trying to help people get to grips with composing an image within Daz Studio.

 

I will wait the other mod advice for confirmation ... and i can understand that it will not be ok.

 

I'm also very open to any advices on my picture :) ...

Lol most of us are not qualified to answer the initial questions since we aren't mods just fellow participants.

I really like the initial picture. But it feels like its missing something.  Maybe light coming from those sabres or a more threatening pose.  There is all that action and desolation around him but he is just standing there.  And please take that with a grain of salt, that's just my impression.  the post work is very well done as well.

IceDragonArt

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

 

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Last Stop to Nowhere.     Okay this is my second one I think for the contest.  Suggestions on anything else I should change?  and I am having a hard time deciding between the two.  One is more at dusk which to me gives it a more lonely feeling but her face is a bit harder to see.  The other one is late afternoon.  I wil be doing a bit of postwork, adding some dirt to her feet and to the bottom edges of her suitcase etc.  I tried to it with a geo shell but it would not just go on her foot.  LIE didn't work either but I think that might be because its IRAY?

This has really improved since you the first render I saw earlier in the thread.  I like the darker one better.  I'm wondering if a little highlight on her head would help, maybe just enough to add a little light to her hair. I have no idea, just a thought.  I like the composition and all of your elements.  LIE should work even in Iray.  I've used it with Iray in a lot of my Iray renders and I use LIE whenever I can.  I don't know what the problem is, but I would tend to look for a different reason and that might give you the solution.  If it helps, tell me what you are trying to put on her feet with LIE and I'll see if it triggers and brain cells.  I can't promise I'll know the answer, though.
As for geoshells, still learning that one so can't help you there, though, I do know that you should be able to still go into surfaces and turn off any surfaces on the geoshell that you don't want affected by your dirt shader, but I don't think it would work for just the bottoms of her feet, it would shade the whole foot as that is the texture zone.  I don't know if you can affect just one section of a texture zone or not.

 

Thanks!  I didn't know you could pick the parts of the geo shell.  I have a LIE on the just the feet part its just a texture overlaid at about 15% opacity on the diffuse map I think. But it totally doesn't show at all in the render.  And the last couple times I have applied a geo shell its doing this weird, turning opaque white thing.  On people and objects.  Like a milky white.  And on one figure it looked like it turned the skin inside out.  Very strange

 

After you create a geoshell, click on the geoshell to select it in the Parameter tab.  Go down to where it says >Shell>Visibility.  On the right, you can turn on and off all surfaces that you want to be affected by that particular geoshell.  You can also turn the opacity down on all surfaces in the Surface tab, but I don't know that that actually turns them off.  It might just hide them and some stuff will seep thru. 

So, I did a test run for you because I couldn't remember exactly the steps from when I had done it before and I have 4 renders for you.  The first render is just my base foot so you can see what it looked like before I started playing.  The second has the geoshell with just a grunge texture and the geoshell itself looks kind of milky (probably what you are seeing when you use it), third render has the geoshell with the same skin map of the figure placed in the Base slot of the geoshell of the foot.  Under Parameters>General>Mesh Offset I have the offset at 0.050 cm.  It had the same grunge shader added as the first one.  As you can see from my test renders, the shell covers the whole foot from ankle to toes.  Those are the two parts of the geoshell that I left on.  I don't think there is a way to automatically add a shader just to the bottom of the foot.  I believe there is a way to add a new surface definition to the geoshell in which you could add the bottom as a new surface, but I don't know how to do that.  You'd have to ask someone who knows what they are doing.

Fourth render has the LIE surface with a texture added and the opacity turned way down to about 40%.  I don't know if it makes a difference, but I turned all surfaces into Iray surfaces before I went into LIE to add the grunge texture which I just borrowed from the griminator or something like that.  It isn't an Iray texture.  I don't think it matters.  I don't know have a good grunge textures though specifically for Iray for use in LIE to test that out.  LIE would probably be your best bet, but since I don't know what texture you are using I can't test that specific texture to help give you any hints.  LIE is my favorite way of adding to an existing texture.  Second favorite way of adding to a skin is to actually take the skin into Gimp, modify it and then put that back into the Base map slot and use that.

I really hope this helps.  I can't think of why you can't get the texture to show up in LIE with Iray because it should show up.  If nothing else, try making all surfaces Iray compatible before you go into LIE and then add your texture and see if that makes a difference.  Good luck!

Thank you.  Ya I have everything converted and the texture is just a jpeg.  I have a massive library of textures and backgrounds lol.  it shows in the LIE preview but not on the actual render. Weird.   Will play a bit more.

Knittingmommy

Ice Dragon Art said:

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

 

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Last Stop to Nowhere.     Okay this is my second one I think for the contest.  Suggestions on anything else I should change?  and I am having a hard time deciding between the two.  One is more at dusk which to me gives it a more lonely feeling but her face is a bit harder to see.  The other one is late afternoon.  I wil be doing a bit of postwork, adding some dirt to her feet and to the bottom edges of her suitcase etc.  I tried to it with a geo shell but it would not just go on her foot.  LIE didn't work either but I think that might be because its IRAY?

This has really improved since you the first render I saw earlier in the thread.  I like the darker one better.  I'm wondering if a little highlight on her head would help, maybe just enough to add a little light to her hair. I have no idea, just a thought.  I like the composition and all of your elements.  LIE should work even in Iray.  I've used it with Iray in a lot of my Iray renders and I use LIE whenever I can.  I don't know what the problem is, but I would tend to look for a different reason and that might give you the solution.  If it helps, tell me what you are trying to put on her feet with LIE and I'll see if it triggers and brain cells.  I can't promise I'll know the answer, though.
As for geoshells, still learning that one so can't help you there, though, I do know that you should be able to still go into surfaces and turn off any surfaces on the geoshell that you don't want affected by your dirt shader, but I don't think it would work for just the bottoms of her feet, it would shade the whole foot as that is the texture zone.  I don't know if you can affect just one section of a texture zone or not.

 

Thanks!  I didn't know you could pick the parts of the geo shell.  I have a LIE on the just the feet part its just a texture overlaid at about 15% opacity on the diffuse map I think. But it totally doesn't show at all in the render.  And the last couple times I have applied a geo shell its doing this weird, turning opaque white thing.  On people and objects.  Like a milky white.  And on one figure it looked like it turned the skin inside out.  Very strange

 

After you create a geoshell, click on the geoshell to select it in the Parameter tab.  Go down to where it says >Shell>Visibility.  On the right, you can turn on and off all surfaces that you want to be affected by that particular geoshell.  You can also turn the opacity down on all surfaces in the Surface tab, but I don't know that that actually turns them off.  It might just hide them and some stuff will seep thru. 

So, I did a test run for you because I couldn't remember exactly the steps from when I had done it before and I have 4 renders for you.  The first render is just my base foot so you can see what it looked like before I started playing.  The second has the geoshell with just a grunge texture and the geoshell itself looks kind of milky (probably what you are seeing when you use it), third render has the geoshell with the same skin map of the figure placed in the Base slot of the geoshell of the foot.  Under Parameters>General>Mesh Offset I have the offset at 0.050 cm.  It had the same grunge shader added as the first one.  As you can see from my test renders, the shell covers the whole foot from ankle to toes.  Those are the two parts of the geoshell that I left on.  I don't think there is a way to automatically add a shader just to the bottom of the foot.  I believe there is a way to add a new surface definition to the geoshell in which you could add the bottom as a new surface, but I don't know how to do that.  You'd have to ask someone who knows what they are doing.

Fourth render has the LIE surface with a texture added and the opacity turned way down to about 40%.  I don't know if it makes a difference, but I turned all surfaces into Iray surfaces before I went into LIE to add the grunge texture which I just borrowed from the griminator or something like that.  It isn't an Iray texture.  I don't think it matters.  I don't know have a good grunge textures though specifically for Iray for use in LIE to test that out.  LIE would probably be your best bet, but since I don't know what texture you are using I can't test that specific texture to help give you any hints.  LIE is my favorite way of adding to an existing texture.  Second favorite way of adding to a skin is to actually take the skin into Gimp, modify it and then put that back into the Base map slot and use that.

I really hope this helps.  I can't think of why you can't get the texture to show up in LIE with Iray because it should show up.  If nothing else, try making all surfaces Iray compatible before you go into LIE and then add your texture and see if that makes a difference.  Good luck!

Thank you.  Ya I have everything converted and the texture is just a jpeg.  I have a massive library of textures and backgrounds lol.  it shows in the LIE preview but not on the actual render. Weird.   Will play a bit more.

Sonja, I don't know if it will make a difference, but if your jpeg is suppose to be transperant in parts so the original textures shows through some open spaces of the texture you are applying, it should be in .png format to allow the transperant part to show through.  You should be able to export as a .png in Photoshop with transperancy because I know Gimp does that.

Knittingmommy

Siotrad said:

Knittingmommy said:

 

I don't have an answer to your question.  My guess would be it depends on how much of the composition was created in DS and how much was Photoshop.  Since the theme of this month is Composition, I'm not sure.  Postwork is acceptable in the competition within reason according to the competition guidelines as long as the main focus of the current theme is handled mostly within DS.  Hopefully, one of the mods will pop in soon and answer your question.

 

Thank you ... Finally an initial response :)

 

Chohole said:

Will get back to you once I have found someone else on the team to consult with.  If all you have done is added a renedered figure to a prepared background, it is not really quite what we are after.   We are trying to help people get to grips with composing an image within Daz Studio.

 

I will wait the other mod advice for confirmation ... and i can understand that it will not be ok.

 

I'm also very open to any advices on my picture :) ...

I like the overall effect.  It reminds me of a movie poster type image.  I agree with Ice Dragon having the lasers showing might give it a little more dramatic effect.  I think you did a good job.  I'd be interested to find out how much was actually done inside of DS.  I can take a guess based on what you said that mostly it was just the main figure and everything else was in Photoshop.  If so, you have some great Photoshop skills, something a few of us are still working on. I use Gimp and try to do as much inside of DS as I can even on images outside of the contest simply because my postwork skills are almost non existant.  Last month's contest, I used more postwork than I ever had and still there wasn't that much.  Just a few little touches with some icicle and snow brushes and some smoke at the chimney.  If I could have found a great way to do the falling snow inside of DS that didn't end up looking dorky, I would have done that inside of DS as well.  My hat is off to those who are very skilled in postwork.  They can do amazingly wonderful things with brushes.

Teofa

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

 

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Last Stop to Nowhere.     Okay this is my second one I think for the contest.  Suggestions on anything else I should change?  and I am having a hard time deciding between the two.  One is more at dusk which to me gives it a more lonely feeling but her face is a bit harder to see.  The other one is late afternoon.  I wil be doing a bit of postwork, adding some dirt to her feet and to the bottom edges of her suitcase etc.  I tried to it with a geo shell but it would not just go on her foot.  LIE didn't work either but I think that might be because its IRAY?

This has really improved since you the first render I saw earlier in the thread.  I like the darker one better.  I'm wondering if a little highlight on her head would help, maybe just enough to add a little light to her hair. I have no idea, just a thought.  I like the composition and all of your elements.  LIE should work even in Iray.  I've used it with Iray in a lot of my Iray renders and I use LIE whenever I can.  I don't know what the problem is, but I would tend to look for a different reason and that might give you the solution.  If it helps, tell me what you are trying to put on her feet with LIE and I'll see if it triggers and brain cells.  I can't promise I'll know the answer, though.
As for geoshells, still learning that one so can't help you there, though, I do know that you should be able to still go into surfaces and turn off any surfaces on the geoshell that you don't want affected by your dirt shader, but I don't think it would work for just the bottoms of her feet, it would shade the whole foot as that is the texture zone.  I don't know if you can affect just one section of a texture zone or not.

 

Thanks!  I didn't know you could pick the parts of the geo shell.  I have a LIE on the just the feet part its just a texture overlaid at about 15% opacity on the diffuse map I think. But it totally doesn't show at all in the render.  And the last couple times I have applied a geo shell its doing this weird, turning opaque white thing.  On people and objects.  Like a milky white.  And on one figure it looked like it turned the skin inside out.  Very strange

 

After you create a geoshell, click on the geoshell to select it in the Parameter tab.  Go down to where it says >Shell>Visibility.  On the right, you can turn on and off all surfaces that you want to be affected by that particular geoshell.  You can also turn the opacity down on all surfaces in the Surface tab, but I don't know that that actually turns them off.  It might just hide them and some stuff will seep thru. 

So, I did a test run for you because I couldn't remember exactly the steps from when I had done it before and I have 4 renders for you.  The first render is just my base foot so you can see what it looked like before I started playing.  The second has the geoshell with just a grunge texture and the geoshell itself looks kind of milky (probably what you are seeing when you use it), third render has the geoshell with the same skin map of the figure placed in the Base slot of the geoshell of the foot.  Under Parameters>General>Mesh Offset I have the offset at 0.050 cm.  It had the same grunge shader added as the first one.  As you can see from my test renders, the shell covers the whole foot from ankle to toes.  Those are the two parts of the geoshell that I left on.  I don't think there is a way to automatically add a shader just to the bottom of the foot.  I believe there is a way to add a new surface definition to the geoshell in which you could add the bottom as a new surface, but I don't know how to do that.  You'd have to ask someone who knows what they are doing.

Fourth render has the LIE surface with a texture added and the opacity turned way down to about 40%.  I don't know if it makes a difference, but I turned all surfaces into Iray surfaces before I went into LIE to add the grunge texture which I just borrowed from the griminator or something like that.  It isn't an Iray texture.  I don't think it matters.  I don't know have a good grunge textures though specifically for Iray for use in LIE to test that out.  LIE would probably be your best bet, but since I don't know what texture you are using I can't test that specific texture to help give you any hints.  LIE is my favorite way of adding to an existing texture.  Second favorite way of adding to a skin is to actually take the skin into Gimp, modify it and then put that back into the Base map slot and use that.

I really hope this helps.  I can't think of why you can't get the texture to show up in LIE with Iray because it should show up.  If nothing else, try making all surfaces Iray compatible before you go into LIE and then add your texture and see if that makes a difference.  Good luck!

Thank you.  Ya I have everything converted and the texture is just a jpeg.  I have a massive library of textures and backgrounds lol.  it shows in the LIE preview but not on the actual render. Weird.   Will play a bit more.

Sonja, I don't know if it will make a difference, but if your jpeg is suppose to be transperant in parts so the original textures shows through some open spaces of the texture you are applying, it should be in .png format to allow the transperant part to show through.  You should be able to export as a .png in Photoshop with transperancy because I know Gimp does that.

I was intrigued by the last comment.  I attempted to use a png with transparency as the diffuse texture on this sphere. This is the result.  The transparency I used is overlaid on the image.  The png transparent areas rendered black, as I suspected.

 I don't know what the effect would be on a Geo or using the LIE but on a normal surface you have to create an opacity mask.

I'll test later to see if a raw png works as an opacity mask.  I doubt it, as the black color on the Imperial png would be transparent.

IceDragonArt

Teofa said:

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

 

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Last Stop to Nowhere.     Okay this is my second one I think for the contest.  Suggestions on anything else I should change?  and I am having a hard time deciding between the two.  One is more at dusk which to me gives it a more lonely feeling but her face is a bit harder to see.  The other one is late afternoon.  I wil be doing a bit of postwork, adding some dirt to her feet and to the bottom edges of her suitcase etc.  I tried to it with a geo shell but it would not just go on her foot.  LIE didn't work either but I think that might be because its IRAY?

This has really improved since you the first render I saw earlier in the thread.  I like the darker one better.  I'm wondering if a little highlight on her head would help, maybe just enough to add a little light to her hair. I have no idea, just a thought.  I like the composition and all of your elements.  LIE should work even in Iray.  I've used it with Iray in a lot of my Iray renders and I use LIE whenever I can.  I don't know what the problem is, but I would tend to look for a different reason and that might give you the solution.  If it helps, tell me what you are trying to put on her feet with LIE and I'll see if it triggers and brain cells.  I can't promise I'll know the answer, though.
As for geoshells, still learning that one so can't help you there, though, I do know that you should be able to still go into surfaces and turn off any surfaces on the geoshell that you don't want affected by your dirt shader, but I don't think it would work for just the bottoms of her feet, it would shade the whole foot as that is the texture zone.  I don't know if you can affect just one section of a texture zone or not.

 

Thanks!  I didn't know you could pick the parts of the geo shell.  I have a LIE on the just the feet part its just a texture overlaid at about 15% opacity on the diffuse map I think. But it totally doesn't show at all in the render.  And the last couple times I have applied a geo shell its doing this weird, turning opaque white thing.  On people and objects.  Like a milky white.  And on one figure it looked like it turned the skin inside out.  Very strange

 

After you create a geoshell, click on the geoshell to select it in the Parameter tab.  Go down to where it says >Shell>Visibility.  On the right, you can turn on and off all surfaces that you want to be affected by that particular geoshell.  You can also turn the opacity down on all surfaces in the Surface tab, but I don't know that that actually turns them off.  It might just hide them and some stuff will seep thru. 

So, I did a test run for you because I couldn't remember exactly the steps from when I had done it before and I have 4 renders for you.  The first render is just my base foot so you can see what it looked like before I started playing.  The second has the geoshell with just a grunge texture and the geoshell itself looks kind of milky (probably what you are seeing when you use it), third render has the geoshell with the same skin map of the figure placed in the Base slot of the geoshell of the foot.  Under Parameters>General>Mesh Offset I have the offset at 0.050 cm.  It had the same grunge shader added as the first one.  As you can see from my test renders, the shell covers the whole foot from ankle to toes.  Those are the two parts of the geoshell that I left on.  I don't think there is a way to automatically add a shader just to the bottom of the foot.  I believe there is a way to add a new surface definition to the geoshell in which you could add the bottom as a new surface, but I don't know how to do that.  You'd have to ask someone who knows what they are doing.

Fourth render has the LIE surface with a texture added and the opacity turned way down to about 40%.  I don't know if it makes a difference, but I turned all surfaces into Iray surfaces before I went into LIE to add the grunge texture which I just borrowed from the griminator or something like that.  It isn't an Iray texture.  I don't think it matters.  I don't know have a good grunge textures though specifically for Iray for use in LIE to test that out.  LIE would probably be your best bet, but since I don't know what texture you are using I can't test that specific texture to help give you any hints.  LIE is my favorite way of adding to an existing texture.  Second favorite way of adding to a skin is to actually take the skin into Gimp, modify it and then put that back into the Base map slot and use that.

I really hope this helps.  I can't think of why you can't get the texture to show up in LIE with Iray because it should show up.  If nothing else, try making all surfaces Iray compatible before you go into LIE and then add your texture and see if that makes a difference.  Good luck!

Thank you.  Ya I have everything converted and the texture is just a jpeg.  I have a massive library of textures and backgrounds lol.  it shows in the LIE preview but not on the actual render. Weird.   Will play a bit more.

Sonja, I don't know if it will make a difference, but if your jpeg is suppose to be transperant in parts so the original textures shows through some open spaces of the texture you are applying, it should be in .png format to allow the transperant part to show through.  You should be able to export as a .png in Photoshop with transperancy because I know Gimp does that.

I was intrigued by the last comment.  I attempted to use a png with transparency as the diffuse texture on this sphere. This is the result.  The transparency I used is overlaid on the image.

 I don't know what the effect would be on a Geo or using the LIE but on a normal surface you have to create an opacity mask.

I'll test later to see if a raw png works as an opacity mask.  I doubt it, as the black color on the Imperial png would be transparent.

The jpeg I used was set to about 14% transparency.  I am in the middle of a texture course and I might just see if I can do it on the channels side of things.  And I will maybe try and see if converting it to a lower opacity before actually applying it via lie will work. 

Teofa

You will still need a mask layer.

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/lie/reference/lie_masklayer

 

 

IceDragonArt

Teofa said:

You will still need a mask layer.

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/lie/reference/lie_masklayer

 

 

Thank you for the link

Teofa

No problem.  Here is a mask  or opacity map example.  I used it to create the bits of gray rubble on the sidewalk.  It's heavily displaced and bumped. It's on a primitive, plane so I could position it to best effect, rather than Image Editor.  No texture map in diffuse at all, just grey color.  This is bump, opacity and displacement maps.  All jpgs.

Knittingmommy

Ice Dragon Art said:

Teofa said:

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

 

Knittingmommy said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Last Stop to Nowhere.     Okay this is my second one I think for the contest.  Suggestions on anything else I should change?  and I am having a hard time deciding between the two.  One is more at dusk which to me gives it a more lonely feeling but her face is a bit harder to see.  The other one is late afternoon.  I wil be doing a bit of postwork, adding some dirt to her feet and to the bottom edges of her suitcase etc.  I tried to it with a geo shell but it would not just go on her foot.  LIE didn't work either but I think that might be because its IRAY?

This has really improved since you the first render I saw earlier in the thread.  I like the darker one better.  I'm wondering if a little highlight on her head would help, maybe just enough to add a little light to her hair. I have no idea, just a thought.  I like the composition and all of your elements.  LIE should work even in Iray.  I've used it with Iray in a lot of my Iray renders and I use LIE whenever I can.  I don't know what the problem is, but I would tend to look for a different reason and that might give you the solution.  If it helps, tell me what you are trying to put on her feet with LIE and I'll see if it triggers and brain cells.  I can't promise I'll know the answer, though.
As for geoshells, still learning that one so can't help you there, though, I do know that you should be able to still go into surfaces and turn off any surfaces on the geoshell that you don't want affected by your dirt shader, but I don't think it would work for just the bottoms of her feet, it would shade the whole foot as that is the texture zone.  I don't know if you can affect just one section of a texture zone or not.

 

Thanks!  I didn't know you could pick the parts of the geo shell.  I have a LIE on the just the feet part its just a texture overlaid at about 15% opacity on the diffuse map I think. But it totally doesn't show at all in the render.  And the last couple times I have applied a geo shell its doing this weird, turning opaque white thing.  On people and objects.  Like a milky white.  And on one figure it looked like it turned the skin inside out.  Very strange

 

After you create a geoshell, click on the geoshell to select it in the Parameter tab.  Go down to where it says >Shell>Visibility.  On the right, you can turn on and off all surfaces that you want to be affected by that particular geoshell.  You can also turn the opacity down on all surfaces in the Surface tab, but I don't know that that actually turns them off.  It might just hide them and some stuff will seep thru. 

So, I did a test run for you because I couldn't remember exactly the steps from when I had done it before and I have 4 renders for you.  The first render is just my base foot so you can see what it looked like before I started playing.  The second has the geoshell with just a grunge texture and the geoshell itself looks kind of milky (probably what you are seeing when you use it), third render has the geoshell with the same skin map of the figure placed in the Base slot of the geoshell of the foot.  Under Parameters>General>Mesh Offset I have the offset at 0.050 cm.  It had the same grunge shader added as the first one.  As you can see from my test renders, the shell covers the whole foot from ankle to toes.  Those are the two parts of the geoshell that I left on.  I don't think there is a way to automatically add a shader just to the bottom of the foot.  I believe there is a way to add a new surface definition to the geoshell in which you could add the bottom as a new surface, but I don't know how to do that.  You'd have to ask someone who knows what they are doing.

Fourth render has the LIE surface with a texture added and the opacity turned way down to about 40%.  I don't know if it makes a difference, but I turned all surfaces into Iray surfaces before I went into LIE to add the grunge texture which I just borrowed from the griminator or something like that.  It isn't an Iray texture.  I don't think it matters.  I don't know have a good grunge textures though specifically for Iray for use in LIE to test that out.  LIE would probably be your best bet, but since I don't know what texture you are using I can't test that specific texture to help give you any hints.  LIE is my favorite way of adding to an existing texture.  Second favorite way of adding to a skin is to actually take the skin into Gimp, modify it and then put that back into the Base map slot and use that.

I really hope this helps.  I can't think of why you can't get the texture to show up in LIE with Iray because it should show up.  If nothing else, try making all surfaces Iray compatible before you go into LIE and then add your texture and see if that makes a difference.  Good luck!

Thank you.  Ya I have everything converted and the texture is just a jpeg.  I have a massive library of textures and backgrounds lol.  it shows in the LIE preview but not on the actual render. Weird.   Will play a bit more.

Sonja, I don't know if it will make a difference, but if your jpeg is suppose to be transperant in parts so the original textures shows through some open spaces of the texture you are applying, it should be in .png format to allow the transperant part to show through.  You should be able to export as a .png in Photoshop with transperancy because I know Gimp does that.

I was intrigued by the last comment.  I attempted to use a png with transparency as the diffuse texture on this sphere. This is the result.  The transparency I used is overlaid on the image.

 I don't know what the effect would be on a Geo or using the LIE but on a normal surface you have to create an opacity mask.

I'll test later to see if a raw png works as an opacity mask.  I doubt it, as the black color on the Imperial png would be transparent.

The jpeg I used was set to about 14% transparency.  I am in the middle of a texture course and I might just see if I can do it on the channels side of things.  And I will maybe try and see if converting it to a lower opacity before actually applying it via lie will work. 

I'm not exactly sure how it all works especially on something that doesn't already have a texture that you are wanting to apply something on top of.  I just know that when I wanted to figure out how to make a transparency, all of the resources said to use .png.  I didn't find any that said .jpgs could have a transperancy layer.  I may just not have found the right resources.  I'm still learning about all of these.  The only transperancies I've made and used were all white with a clear(transperant) background so that I could make an opacity layer for fog.  I was also putting this on a geoshell that already had a uv map and all of the surface settings of the original item.  On the sphere below is one of my opacity .pngs with doodles with a fog brush.  The doodles are white on a transperant background and I added blue in the base color to show it up better.  So, it is basically the same as you got, Teofa.  On a normal geoshell where it is basically a copy of the original, and a transperancy image of white on transperant is used, the white will show thru and the transparency part will be clear.  That is about the best I can tell you.

I'm not sure it really matters anyway because when I went back into to LIE to see how I had done it last time I needed to put a an image on top of another so the bottom layer showed thru, I used the multplicative feature in the dropdown menu and if you use that it should blend the images on the new layer and the base layer no matter which file format the new layer image is.

 

 

IceDragonArt

Awesome thank you so much guys! (gals lol)

 

Saphirewild

Knittingmommy said:

So, here is my latest effort.  I changed the lighting slightly and added a water element and made the rest of the floor wet.  Let me know what you think.  This one is taking a long time to render even in 3Delight because of all the water particles which in 3Delight don't really look all that much like water particles.  First time using this.  I haven't even tried it out in Iray to see what it is should look like.  I may do that later today if I get time, just to see what the Rigged Water for Iray should look like when used with the shaders that come with it.

It is looking so much better Knitting but maybe a bit more light on the water itself or maybe the IRay version will be better for the water part

Siotrad

Ice Dragon Art said:

Lol most of us are not qualified to answer the initial questions since we aren't mods just fellow participants.

I really like the initial picture. But it feels like its missing something.  Maybe light coming from those sabres or a more threatening pose.  There is all that action and desolation around him but he is just standing there.  And please take that with a grain of salt, that's just my impression.  the post work is very well done as well.

You are totally wright for the sabers :)

 

Knittingmommy said:

 

I like the overall effect.  It reminds me of a movie poster type image.  I agree with Ice Dragon having the lasers showing might give it a little more dramatic effect.  I think you did a good job.  I'd be interested to find out how much was actually done inside of DS.  I can take a guess based on what you said that mostly it was just the main figure and everything else was in Photoshop.  If so, you have some great Photoshop skills, something a few of us are still working on. I use Gimp and try to do as much inside of DS as I can even on images outside of the contest simply because my postwork skills are almost non existant.  Last month's contest, I used more postwork than I ever had and still there wasn't that much.  Just a few little touches with some icicle and snow brushes and some smoke at the chimney.  If I could have found a great way to do the falling snow inside of DS that didn't end up looking dorky, I would have done that inside of DS as well.  My hat is off to those who are very skilled in postwork.  They can do amazingly wonderful things with brushes.

 

Good eyes ;) ... i used pictures of Batman VS Superman movie promo i made :) ... Thanks for the skills ;) ... but i followed some tutorials of relly skilled guys :).

I usualy do like you ... all in DS ... but i my time render are really a problem.

I have some days to add somme "after war content" and we will see ;)

 

With the sabers on

HitManWA

Siotrad said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Lol most of us are not qualified to answer the initial questions since we aren't mods just fellow participants.

I really like the initial picture. But it feels like its missing something.  Maybe light coming from those sabres or a more threatening pose.  There is all that action and desolation around him but he is just standing there.  And please take that with a grain of salt, that's just my impression.  the post work is very well done as well.

You are totally wright for the sabers :)

 

Knittingmommy said:

 

I like the overall effect.  It reminds me of a movie poster type image.  I agree with Ice Dragon having the lasers showing might give it a little more dramatic effect.  I think you did a good job.  I'd be interested to find out how much was actually done inside of DS.  I can take a guess based on what you said that mostly it was just the main figure and everything else was in Photoshop.  If so, you have some great Photoshop skills, something a few of us are still working on. I use Gimp and try to do as much inside of DS as I can even on images outside of the contest simply because my postwork skills are almost non existant.  Last month's contest, I used more postwork than I ever had and still there wasn't that much.  Just a few little touches with some icicle and snow brushes and some smoke at the chimney.  If I could have found a great way to do the falling snow inside of DS that didn't end up looking dorky, I would have done that inside of DS as well.  My hat is off to those who are very skilled in postwork.  They can do amazingly wonderful things with brushes.

 

Good eyes ;) ... i used pictures of Batman VS Superman movie promo i made :) ... Thanks for the skills ;) ... but i followed some tutorials of relly skilled guys :).

I usualy do like you ... all in DS ... but i my time render are really a problem.

I have some days to add somme "after war content" and we will see ;)

 

With the sabers on

Are you using Iray? You can get the bloom from the sabers with Iray using the bloom filter. Lux>Reality 4.2 is really good for bloom but that's an entirely different engine with it's own materials. You can also get the bloom with PS or gimp, it's more up to your taste. I find the bloom filter in Iray a little lacking and like the control you have over it with photoshop.

Gallows

the Prisoner...trying to get more feeling.?

HitManWA

Knittingmommy said:

So, here is my latest effort.  I changed the lighting slightly and added a water element and made the rest of the floor wet.  Let me know what you think.  This one is taking a long time to render even in 3Delight because of all the water particles which in 3Delight don't really look all that much like water particles.  First time using this.  I haven't even tried it out in Iray to see what it is should look like.  I may do that later today if I get time, just to see what the Rigged Water for Iray should look like when used with the shaders that come with it.

Really enjoying the progression on this Knittingmommy. Great job.

From the Ashes

Thanks for the feedback, opened my eyes to new things I hadn't thought about.  Never really paid attention to Tone Mapping before and that was exactly why my image was so blown out.  Here is my latest render.  

Bob

 

 

giovannipaolo

Knittingmommy said:

So, here is my latest effort.  I changed the lighting slightly and added a water element and made the rest of the floor wet.  Let me know what you think.  This one is taking a long time to render even in 3Delight because of all the water particles which in 3Delight don't really look all that much like water particles.  First time using this.  I haven't even tried it out in Iray to see what it is should look like.  I may do that later today if I get time, just to see what the Rigged Water for Iray should look like when used with the shaders that come with it.

This is a powerful image, a bit more light on the subject might make it even more powerful/dynamic.

giovannipaolo

To all of you who provided feedback on my image, thank you very much.  I have posted a final revised version in the entries thread.  Again, thanks. 

Teofa

From the Ashes said:

Thanks for the feedback, opened my eyes to new things I hadn't thought about.  Never really paid attention to Tone Mapping before and that was exactly why my image was so blown out.  Here is my latest render.  

Bob

 

 

Nice!  I think she just needs a bit more light to her face so we can see that expression better.  You did a good job with the expression.  I like the subtle reposition of her.

giovannipaolo

Hi folks, I'm having some difficulty with lighting, something is overriding my lighting choices.  Is there a way to clear all lighting from the scene.  Thanks for any help you can provide.

Teofa

giovannipaoloartist said:

Hi folks, I'm having some difficulty with lighting, something is overriding my lighting choices.  Is there a way to clear all lighting from the scene.  Thanks for any help you can provide.

I don't know what engine you are using. With 3Delight I have had issues where some of the new presets have not cleared despite being removed from the lights Tab.  I finally went to scene tab and removed them from there.  The "Surfer Guy" preset is pretty obstinate about not wanting to leave.

Knittingmommy

From the Ashes said:

Thanks for the feedback, opened my eyes to new things I hadn't thought about.  Never really paid attention to Tone Mapping before and that was exactly why my image was so blown out.  Here is my latest render.  

Bob

I really like this latest render.  I looks much better I think you are on the right track.  I don't have any advice for improving, but wanted to give you some feedback.

 

giovannipaoloartist said:

Knittingmommy said:

So, here is my latest effort.  I changed the lighting slightly and added a water element and made the rest of the floor wet.  Let me know what you think.  This one is taking a long time to render even in 3Delight because of all the water particles which in 3Delight don't really look all that much like water particles.  First time using this.  I haven't even tried it out in Iray to see what it is should look like.  I may do that later today if I get time, just to see what the Rigged Water for Iray should look like when used with the shaders that come with it.

This is a powerful image, a bit more light on the subject might make it even more powerful/dynamic.

Thanks.  I really like how it is coming together.  Right now it is rerendering.  I'm trying a different water shader to see if I like it better and I added some lighting to hopefully highlight some of the water.  We'll see.  This one is taking a long time to render and the 3Delight is setup to render straight lines across.  I will have to look and see if there is a different setup for 3Delight.  I've gotten spoiled with how Iray does it so that I can more or less telll how a render is going to look about 10 minutes in.  I don't know if I can do something similar in 3Delight.

 

giovannipaoloartist said:

Hi folks, I'm having some difficulty with lighting, something is overriding my lighting choices.  Is there a way to clear all lighting from the scene.  Thanks for any help you can provide.

I haven't had this happen, yet.  Did you make sure you selected File>New when starting the new scene or did you just highlight everything and delete after saving the previous scene?  Selecting 'new' is suppose to clear everything.  I've done both ways which is why I'm asking.  I don't know which engine you are using, but if in Iray, make sure the headlamp is off if you have things setup of automatically start with a camera on open as it is usually set on auto when you first load a camera.  I don't know if that is important in 3Delight, but it is in Iray.

IceDragonArt

Gallows said:

the Prisoner...trying to get more feeling.?

I honestly really like this.It tells the story very well (and I love this kind of fantasy anway).  There is a little bit of the shadow showing on the sky part in the background.  The shadow behind the rock on the beach and water are fine but its also showing on the sky just a bit.  Not sure if you can fix that without post work.  I have a hard time with this myself when I use planes or some of the environment backgrounds.  Other than post work or trying to move the prop back just a bit I am not sure how to get rid of it.  Hopefully someone with more experience can chime in.

IceDragonArt

Siotrad said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Lol most of us are not qualified to answer the initial questions since we aren't mods just fellow participants.

I really like the initial picture. But it feels like its missing something.  Maybe light coming from those sabres or a more threatening pose.  There is all that action and desolation around him but he is just standing there.  And please take that with a grain of salt, that's just my impression.  the post work is very well done as well.

You are totally wright for the sabers :)

 

Knittingmommy said:

 

I like the overall effect.  It reminds me of a movie poster type image.  I agree with Ice Dragon having the lasers showing might give it a little more dramatic effect.  I think you did a good job.  I'd be interested to find out how much was actually done inside of DS.  I can take a guess based on what you said that mostly it was just the main figure and everything else was in Photoshop.  If so, you have some great Photoshop skills, something a few of us are still working on. I use Gimp and try to do as much inside of DS as I can even on images outside of the contest simply because my postwork skills are almost non existant.  Last month's contest, I used more postwork than I ever had and still there wasn't that much.  Just a few little touches with some icicle and snow brushes and some smoke at the chimney.  If I could have found a great way to do the falling snow inside of DS that didn't end up looking dorky, I would have done that inside of DS as well.  My hat is off to those who are very skilled in postwork.  They can do amazingly wonderful things with brushes.

 

Good eyes ;) ... i used pictures of Batman VS Superman movie promo i made :) ... Thanks for the skills ;) ... but i followed some tutorials of relly skilled guys :).

I usualy do like you ... all in DS ... but i my time render are really a problem.

I have some days to add somme "after war content" and we will see ;)

 

With the sabers on

Much much better.  The only other thing I might change is to move one of the sabers up or down just a tiny bit so they form a perfect V.  but it that's your intention just ignore lol.

IceDragonArt

From the Ashes said:

Thanks for the feedback, opened my eyes to new things I hadn't thought about.  Never really paid attention to Tone Mapping before and that was exactly why my image was so blown out.  Here is my latest render.  

Bob

 

 

Much better!  Now that the cobblestones are not showing it puts the focus where it should be.

Siotrad

HitManWA said:

Are you using Iray? You can get the bloom from the sabers with Iray using the bloom filter. Lux>Reality 4.2 is really good for bloom but that's an entirely different engine with it's own materials. You can also get the bloom with PS or gimp, it's more up to your taste. I find the bloom filter in Iray a little lacking and like the control you have over it with photoshop.

Yes i do.

 

That is Iray bloom filter and a little noise too.

The bloom filter had to be very low because of the glass of eyes :)

Do you think it is too or not enought ?

 

Ice Dragon Art said:

Much much better.  The only other thing I might change is to move one of the sabers up or down just a tiny bit so they form a perfect V.  but it that's your intention just ignore lol.

Thank you :)

I was thinking for made it a little bit taller for a small cross saber ;)

 

But i'm working on this composition too ... to be more within DS :)

No postwork for now and some elements are still missing ... but we will see :)

giovannipaolo

Knittingmommy said:

From the Ashes said:

Thanks for the feedback, opened my eyes to new things I hadn't thought about.  Never really paid attention to Tone Mapping before and that was exactly why my image was so blown out.  Here is my latest render.  

Bob

I really like this latest render.  I looks much better I think you are on the right track.  I don't have any advice for improving, but wanted to give you some feedback.

 

giovannipaoloartist said:

Knittingmommy said:

So, here is my latest effort.  I changed the lighting slightly and added a water element and made the rest of the floor wet.  Let me know what you think.  This one is taking a long time to render even in 3Delight because of all the water particles which in 3Delight don't really look all that much like water particles.  First time using this.  I haven't even tried it out in Iray to see what it is should look like.  I may do that later today if I get time, just to see what the Rigged Water for Iray should look like when used with the shaders that come with it.

This is a powerful image, a bit more light on the subject might make it even more powerful/dynamic.

Thanks.  I really like how it is coming together.  Right now it is rerendering.  I'm trying a different water shader to see if I like it better and I added some lighting to hopefully highlight some of the water.  We'll see.  This one is taking a long time to render and the 3Delight is setup to render straight lines across.  I will have to look and see if there is a different setup for 3Delight.  I've gotten spoiled with how Iray does it so that I can more or less telll how a render is going to look about 10 minutes in.  I don't know if I can do something similar in 3Delight.

 

giovannipaoloartist said:

Hi folks, I'm having some difficulty with lighting, something is overriding my lighting choices.  Is there a way to clear all lighting from the scene.  Thanks for any help you can provide.

I haven't had this happen, yet.  Did you make sure you selected File>New when starting the new scene or did you just highlight everything and delete after saving the previous scene?  Selecting 'new' is suppose to clear everything.  I've done both ways which is why I'm asking.  I don't know which engine you are using, but if in Iray, make sure the headlamp is off if you have things setup of automatically start with a camera on open as it is usually set on auto when you first load a camera.  I don't know if that is important in 3Delight, but it is in Iray.

Thanks Teofa for your feedback.  As it turns out, I did not start a "new" file and I was rendering in Iray and the headlamp was "on."  Have made both changes and this appears to have corrected the problem.  I just love this forum.  Thanks Knittingmommy!

 

Knittingmommy

giovannipaoloartist said:

Knittingmommy said:

From the Ashes said:

Thanks for the feedback, opened my eyes to new things I hadn't thought about.  Never really paid attention to Tone Mapping before and that was exactly why my image was so blown out.  Here is my latest render.  

Bob

I really like this latest render.  I looks much better I think you are on the right track.  I don't have any advice for improving, but wanted to give you some feedback.

 

giovannipaoloartist said:

Knittingmommy said:

So, here is my latest effort.  I changed the lighting slightly and added a water element and made the rest of the floor wet.  Let me know what you think.  This one is taking a long time to render even in 3Delight because of all the water particles which in 3Delight don't really look all that much like water particles.  First time using this.  I haven't even tried it out in Iray to see what it is should look like.  I may do that later today if I get time, just to see what the Rigged Water for Iray should look like when used with the shaders that come with it.

This is a powerful image, a bit more light on the subject might make it even more powerful/dynamic.

Thanks.  I really like how it is coming together.  Right now it is rerendering.  I'm trying a different water shader to see if I like it better and I added some lighting to hopefully highlight some of the water.  We'll see.  This one is taking a long time to render and the 3Delight is setup to render straight lines across.  I will have to look and see if there is a different setup for 3Delight.  I've gotten spoiled with how Iray does it so that I can more or less telll how a render is going to look about 10 minutes in.  I don't know if I can do something similar in 3Delight.

 

giovannipaoloartist said:

Hi folks, I'm having some difficulty with lighting, something is overriding my lighting choices.  Is there a way to clear all lighting from the scene.  Thanks for any help you can provide.

I haven't had this happen, yet.  Did you make sure you selected File>New when starting the new scene or did you just highlight everything and delete after saving the previous scene?  Selecting 'new' is suppose to clear everything.  I've done both ways which is why I'm asking.  I don't know which engine you are using, but if in Iray, make sure the headlamp is off if you have things setup of automatically start with a camera on open as it is usually set on auto when you first load a camera.  I don't know if that is important in 3Delight, but it is in Iray.

Thanks Teofa for your feedback.  As it turns out, I did not start a "new" file and I was rendering in Iray and the headlamp was "on."  Have made both changes and this appears to have corrected the problem.  I just love this forum.  Thanks Knittingmommy!

 

I do so love it when I guess correctly.  It happens so rarely!

Teofa

Forgot, I meant to mention that 3Delight has a spot render function.

Won't be long till most of what I type will be invalid. I have no plans to move to IRAY so my input will be largely useless.  Oh well :).