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ADVICE FOR SAPHIREWILD:
1) POSE. The man is a little off balance. Remember that the shoulder is always in line with the weight-bearing leg. You need to fix the right foot because it is not on the ground. To give the appearance that they are standing in snow, sink the feet and bottom of snowman into the snow a little. Hands: Are His fingers supposed to be away from his body? If not, you will need to adjust that. Best advice for posing: Use yourself (or a willing friend) as a model. Take a picture in front of a mirror - you will see how the weight is distributed on the feet.
2) LIGHTING. The reason why your shadows are too dark in 3Delight is that you have only one distance light. You need some ambient light via a fill light. You can do this by adding another distance light. Change your viewport to the new distance light and point the direction so that it is looking up at the figures from the floor. Turn off the shadows so you don't get conflicting shadows - all you want here is additional light. You will find that it softens the look of your shadows. Make some adjustments to the light intensity so it's not too bright.
3) TREES / BACKGROUND. You're right about the trees - it appears that not all the textures loaded on them and it looks weird. You can try to re-download them to fix what is missing. I, personally like the background photo and would change to a landscape view rather than portrait, just so I could offset the characters to the left rather than having them in the center.
I keep wanting to see this larger... pretty sure that's a good sign, in general. I still can't find the shadow of the butterfly... and that bothers me. But the depth is back in the foreground and I like the new pose on the tiger (but I kinda liked the old one... I just wanted him lower). Certainly improved. Aiming Distant Lights can be a problem. Have you tried placing a null and pointing lights at it? I used to do that in 3DL when I was trying to place a troublesome distant light. Have you considered using UE light instead of AA?
I have worked with Uberenvironment before and it takes a much longer time to render than the Advanced lights. This scene is so full that the viewport is slowing down, even with my powerhouse computer. I wanted to see what I could do with advanced lighting. As far as the position is concerned with the distance light, I'm wrestling not only with the butterflies but also have to keep the tiger from becoming too illuminated. I still want the tiger's lower teeth so show but it was late last night and I was done. I think I'll try the null, but not sure if I want to mess with it in this scene. My final entry render will be larger.
I'm not done playing with 3Delight yet, and wanted to explore it a little more before I sink by teeth into IRay. I was thinking of trying an experiment with a scene rendered in 3Delight, then render it again in IRay to see the difference.
I have been rendering characters in 3delight and Iray (and sometimes Reality) to see the difference. And there is a big difference. Not a bad thing, I think all three will have their uses once I have a good grasp on how to use them effectively. But they are very very different. And I can see the butterfly shadow but its not super obvious.
Thank you so much for this advice and I am going to go back and use all 3 and see how it turns out.
a different frame??? not sure what you mean. can you explain a little more plz?
the boundaries of your image or within an image meant to bring more focus to your subject. Think of using a camera, how you turn one. Portrait is traditionally a rectangle with a longer vertical, while a landscape traditionally has a wider horizontal. A big part of composition is manipulating the "frame" to present a better image.
Framing can also use elements within the image to "frame" the subject. Doorways and windows are common examples.
Lasai and Kesa in a portrait style "frame" with an additional Archway "frame" within the image. (unexplainedly wearing Fishnets)
By popular demand, I added some background elements, so it's clearer he's in a pub.
The first two fingers of his right hand had a strange twist in them, which I've corrected (good catch dracorn, thanks!). I played with the pose on his left hand, and even compared it to my own hand holding a book, but nothing seemed better so I went back to the original pose. His thumb is at a bit of a strange angle, but that's because he's holding a frame and trying not to cover the picture. I also adjusted his arm/hand position closer to the original render and I like it better.
Finally, I added a gradient to the ale and the teardrop back in with Photoshop. Comments welcome.
Use your photoshop magiks to add some head to that ale maybe. Looks good. Funny how sometimes adding some small thing to an image becomes a project in itself.
Using scenery to frame thing is fun, and often done in Photography as well as 3D images.
The image makes me sad looking at it, so I'd say you're definitely doing something right.
I agree.
This is a render I'd like to do, but will likely not happen simply because it's rendering too slowly... This wip is with a bit over 7 hours and 1113 iterations done at a whopping 0.82% converged... So my apoligies for the graininess and general difficulty to see things clearly. I'm attaching a viewport screenie too to better show the scene.
But for the sake of learning, anyone has any comments to spare regarding composition? The idea is that the center girl is the focus, being the obvious leader and the one that will catch the viewers' eyes even with her more scantily clad followers behind her.
Here's my first attempt.
Any and all feedback (not just on composition) is welcome. I'm brand new to this and still learning a whole bunch.
Welcome TabascoJack!
Still learning myself, so I have no advice to give. But I'll happily share my thoughts. The blue glowing sword demands all my attention and that's quite the feat with an attractive scantily clad lady right next to it.
isidorn
It looks more out of focus than grainy. Do you have DOF turned on in the camera by accident?
*facepalms*
This is why it's not to recommend setting up scenes when tired. Yes, I have DOF on the camera. I moved the characters further back in the corridor for this render but forgot to adjust the DOF. Now when I checked, the focus point is far in front of the characters...
I think if you want to focus on the middle girl by having the other two more skimpily clad then the one on the left needs more skin. My eyes are being pulled either to the left to focus on the two with outfits that cover the stomach because its a block of color or pulled to the right because the girl on the right has more skin showing especially in the middle. Does that make sense? Its kind of hard to describe. I'm not syaing make the two on each side identical but the one on the left needs some skin showing so the the middle girl looks more framed. Feels a little lopsided to me. Of course, it might just be me as it frequently is lol.
Are you using Iray or 3Delight?
Iray. No postwork.
I believe this has been covered by the posts from Teofa and Chohole, if there are still questions, I will try to answer them.
Very nice work! Two nitpics though: I would reduce the opacity of the drink if its meant to be ale, as ale is mostly translucent with the yellow golden tint. second it probably only in postwork possible: from the hair it seems he is supposed to be naturally bald, but the darker hue of regrowing hair is seen a little, I guess there is no option to make him a shiny bald in the render so I guess its postwork
ok the too you use here is symmetry to get the attention to the girl in the middle and I have the impression it works pretty good. I would think the sun coming in from the windows would be enough rather leave the atmospheric beams away. I would rather try to get some light into the lead girls face, she is rather shrouded.
Welcome to the forums TabascoJack (are you very spicy?). Your render is a nice start though it is a bit hard to say something specific as it is rather darc. It is pretty hard to make a good scene with a night setting.
For the moment surely is the main eyecatcher, if that is supposed to be the way it would be an additional aid to move it to one of the grid line intersections. The most light in the moment is pointing to her chest. While that certainly is an intersting bodypart for about half of the population, it doen't help telling your story, compostitionwhise you habe the right half of your render filled with empty space. That is not a bad thing but should be used intentionally. rith now the render appears a little unbalanced.
Now for planning what to change and how you need to think what kind of story you want to tell. On the one hand you have someone sneaking around in the darkness with a weapon, but that weapon is absolutely unsneaky (I will not talk about the dress here as there could be all kinds of reasons why she wears that thing). As an idea how about changing that weapon to a more traditional dagger /shortsword which is accidentially blinking in the light shining out from the room.
Whatever you decide that is now up to you. I will be interested what you come up with.
Thanks so much for explaining a bit more and now that you also showed me an example I am going to go back to the drawing board and try new angles.
Thanks Chohole for the example and I am off now to figure out how I need to do this again.
I love dark images but they are tricky. I find I end up using more lights..low intensity, than I do on a bright image. I would think, perhaps that changing the angle (rotation) of your pose (or just the torso) to have more of it as a silhouette would let the low light show some details that are a little hidden. It would also allow you to emphasize her looking to her left more, as if something might be behind her. If it were mine, I would go off center a bit more, to which direction depends on what you have in mind.
I think the sword would be maybe better with a glow rather than being so bright. In your dark image, it's going to want to keep taking focus. Ignore me if that's your plan, it's a neat sword.
The only "off" thing that I noticed... and this is really minor, is that she is Fantasy and Stone cities era backed by what seems to be modern city window lights. Like I said, minor.
Any time I am in a posing mode, I do it on myself. Sitting here, I find that if I calmly look to the side, I have her position. If I am turning as if to see behind, I find I lift that shoulder/collar slightly and twist my torso. I don't know which you want.
Not advice but I do have a comment, I am kinda waiting for Britney Spears to burst out in front of these girls and say "Opps I did it again" giggles
I titled this Master and Student.
I posed and rendered everything in DAZ, then did some postwork in Photoshop CC 2015.
A
Here is another angle and more lighting still a WIP till the postwork if it doesn't have to be rendered again giggles!!!
BTW: I figured out why the leaves look so weird it is the shadowing effect from the raytraced shadows