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Geesh, I'm sorry to hear that! Glad you're better now. Yeah, drivers going through red lights around here is a big problem. I thought drivers in NY were bad, but they are even worse down here! Luckily, we always carry full coverage because you just never know about these things. I'd rather pay the extra for full coverage and not need it than just liability and wish I had had full coverage.
@KindredArts Hey, that's probably better than I could have done in post! I like what you did with it though. I like the little flare of light you have going over the bow of the ship, too. And, well, J.J. Abrams is certainly someone to take note of how he does things so it's a good idea! Thank you for the nice words. Great art that ship ain't and I know it! :) I'm working on a render now with some bloom. We'll see how that goes.
Ouch! When you mentioned it in the first post, I didn't realize it was that bad! A few broken bones isn't exactly nothing! I'm glad everything has healed up. Yeah, I can't imagine getting on a bike after that. I love that line about a 'fleeting introduction'!!! That's very cute! :)
Ah, well, thanks, @donovancolbert! I think you're right about the lens flare. KA does good work! :)
I managed to play around with the new squirrel for a bit: Rodents by AM: PolyMorph & Rodents by AM: Squirrels of Eastern Hemisphere by @Alessandro_AM. Of the ones I saw in the gallery, people were all doing the eastern squirrel. I had to be different and try out the Provost Squirrel. I happen to think they are cute with that splash of red fur. Not bad for a first run at the squirrel, I think. Rendered in Iray. Minimal post in Gimp.
Prevost Squirrel
Gallery Link
edit: for the title and gallery link
I tried one more time with the squirrel before coming back into Linux. I will be so happy when LAMH works in Linux again. Here are two red squirrels playing in the woods. Believe it or not, I actually rendered this in 3Delight! Yes, I did! @Stonemason made it easy because he has a whole light set for the 3Delight version of Willow Creek which I've been using for my squirrel pictures. I love this set and it works just as easy in Iray as it does in 3Delight. Anyone who doesn't have this yet should rush to get it. For the Iray version, Stonemason included camera presets with render presets for each camera along with the Sun-Sky settings and the Tone Mapping settings that he used for each of his promos! Wow! Very nice! He includes an uber light set which is great for people like me who are still flummoxed by lighting in 3DL. It was quick and easy to do this render.
Red Squirrels
Gallery Link
edit: the '@' symbol seems to have taken a dive again. I don't know why that doesn't always work.
Cute squirrels, KM. Very well done in 3DL as well.
Ah, thanks. I'm getting better at 3DL. It helps to have products that come with great lighting already. I've found a couple of good tutorials on setting up lighting in 3DL from scratch. I just have to find the time to go through them.
Very cute squirrels. Something else I need to find time for.... lol Nice job on the 3Delight!
Thanks. Each time I try it out, it gets a little bit better. :)
I thought I would do a proper non-action headshot for the heroine in my current story. The image doesn't get any larger. I was rendering to a specific size so I can use her headshot on a couple of writing sites I use. She is a blast to write about and I'm sure I'll be doing a few renders of the trouble she has been getting into as well. I mean she's blowing stuff up so that definitely deserves a render! I haven't rendered explosions yet so that could be a challenge. :)
Mellie Hayes
Gallery Link
edit: accidentally used the file abbreviation instead of her actual name. Oops! Fixed that!
Ouch is right. Glad you you have a sense of humor about it ("fleeting introduction"). I understand about your passion for two wheels... after an accident, it does make one shell-shot for a while. I still approach that intersection with caution. I am especially cautious about driving too fast in the rain. Nothing is scarier than hydroplaning - hitting the brakes and nothing happens. My husband drove over the crest of a hill and on the other side was a guy waiting for someone who had stopped to make a left turn. A river of water was sheeting over the road. We hit the first guy who slammed into the second guy. My husband had one hand in a cast so he held onto the steering wheel tightly to protect it, and literally bent the wheel. There were no broken bones or serious injuries, but that's when I first got a nasty case of whiplash.
I, myself am struggling with a dark ship in a space scene. I like the dramatic shadows, but I need to figure out a way to make it stand out. Hmm, maybe a lense flare might be an option.
But you are right about backing away from the ship to give us a feeling that space is bigger. I made my pic super wide. Also, angle the ship - is it coming towards us or going away - that will give a little more 3D feeling rather than the side view. The background is gorgeous - and the lights on the ship are very nice as well. Remember how the Enterprise has spotlights on the ship itself? No practical reason other than to show it off, but that's an idea. For some contrast, how about chaning the lights to red?
Yep, I tried changing the lights to red and made the ship smaller. It really helped to improved the image. I decided to add a few asteroids. I need to render it again once I'm done. I tried doing bloom in Iray for the thrusters, but those didn't quite work well. I might have to do like KA did with my picture and add it in post if I can figure out how to do that. I really liked the lens flare across the bow so I'll have to play around with that too.
I spent a little bit of time this evening trying to figure out how to use the book mockup templates that are all over the place for Photoshop in Gimp. One drawback is that Gimp can't use the smart objects that make those templates basically plug 'n play. You drop your image into the right spot and it updates the layers in the .psd with the appropriate angle and such so that you don't really have to think about it. Since I can't do that in Gimp, I had to figure out if it was possible to do that in Gimp manually and still make use of the templates. It turns out you can and I did. It took me a bit to figure it out. It's really quite simple once you know how. So, now I'll have to work on some appropriate covers and spines. It was definitely an interesting exercise in frustration at times. I'm stubborn, though, and I really hated that PS users could do that so easily and Gimp users can't. While it might not be as quick, you can literally put a cover image in one of those templates in under five minutes once you know what you're doing.
Here's my test run. Note that I did not pick an image that was actually ready for a cover and I had issues with the text as that was an afterthought because I hadn't actually planned on going that far with it. I also didn't have a spine ready for the template either. I had just wanted to see if I could do it. The text should actually be done as part of the image and not as an afterthought because that actually makes it ten times harder to get the text on the template!
So, mission accomplished! Done in Gimp using a Photoshop mockup .psd template with smart objects, but all applied manually.
Note: I really probably should have scaled this down a little bit.
Looks great! I just picked up tutorial a couple days ago on doing book covers. Glad you got it figured out in Gimp!
Which tutorial did you pick up? Curious minds and all. :) And, thanks. Yes, I was very happy to figure it out.
How to Create Outstanding Book Covers . I haven't had a chance to look at it yet though.
Yeah, that's a great tutorial. I have that one. :)
Alas, I don't have the funds for any of the Digital Art Live tutorials.
They are kind of pricey. This one I actually managed to pick up when it came out because I used some Christmas money my mom sent me. So, that was my belated Christmas gift from her. I would like to get a few others, but I can't really afford them even with the lower prices during MM. I was able to swing that shader seminar when it was live, but I had to put it on the credit card. It was a topic I really wanted to learn about and I justified it by the possibilities of being able to create some shaders that I might be able to sell at a later date. I can't really see being able to afford any other live seminars even though I really got a lot out of the shader one. They are just way too expensive. At least, here in the DAZ store, there is a chance to get the seminars cheap even though they aren't live anymore. I'm waiting to see if any of the ones I want ever show up in Fast Grab.
I only got that one because I got something like 80% off when all was said and done. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to pick it up either
What surprised me about this was how much Esther does in post. Here I am trying to do as much in a DS render as possible because I still suck at post most of the time and she does a very minimal amount in DS and the rest is all in Photoshop. But, what she does kind of makes sense and I can see why she does it that way when she shows her process. I still have a lot to learn!
I think everyone has to work out their own work flow and how they put things together. Doesn't make one way more right or more wrong. I sometimes do most of it in studio and sometimes its half and half. Sometimes swings the other way lol. Whatever it takes to make it work is my personal opinion
I am really drooling over that shader tutorial... but as I said before, my pocketbook has no sympathy.
You're probably right. I'm still learning what my work flow is while learning new techniques.
Hopefully, it will go on sale at a good price when it isn't new anymore. I found it a very valuable workshop and I learned a lot. I'm having fun playing with shaders when I'm not doing anything else. :)
So, speaking of workflow and post work and learning new techniques, I rendered some poses of Bethany 7 in some new stuff that I managed to pick up during MM. I didn't do a whole lot of shopping, but I did manage to pick up a few things. I especially wanted to try out the new iRadiance - Light Probe HDR pack that came out. This is the third expansion in the set and I love these lights. This new one is really fun to play with and has a couple of new features including a headlamp blocker that works with the set. Very cool. Another thing I used in this is the IG Essentials - Bethany 7, Eva 7, and Karen 7 which I got all the way back in September and never used yet. This is the first I've rendered Bethany in quite awhile. I really like how it made Bethany's skin look. I'll have to see how it affects Eva and Karen neither of whom I've rendered yet.
Bethany 7
Gallery Link
I'm still working on the whole workflow thing as well.
I love those lights as well and they are categorized right at the top of my Iray light set list lol. I actually saved the headlamp blocker in two places, with the lights sets and at the very top of the lights list so I can use it anytime.
Bethany's skin does look good. I have yet to get around to rendering her.
Yes, that is looking good.
So what is Camp NaNoWriMo? It sounds like you are writing a book, @knittingmommy! I have written short stories and one novel, which I promptly did nothing with. Now adays, I mostly writes songs, lyrics and music.
@KevinH Camp NaNoWriMo is an international writing thing. There are two camps in the summer and the main event in November. The idea is to spend 30 days writing 50,000 words. The two summer camps are a little more lenient and you can use them for revisions and such and track time instead of word counts. Yes, the idea is to write a novel. I know some authors are writing a collection of short stories, too. I have lots of ideas in my head and I want to get them out and on paper. Hopefully, I'll even get them published. I have one book that I started in my first NaNoWriMo that I never finished, but it gets closer to being finished every day. I keep getting stuck with plotting issues and then have to spend time figuring out how to resolve those.
For this camp, I'm taking a break from my other book and started a new project that I've been world building for awhile. This story, in particular, is one I've been wanting to write for awhile. I am not good with things like lyrics and poetry. I like fiction, though. I always thought I'd be a published author by now. I had big dreams when I was a kid. I've always written and made up stories. I kind of got away from it when my boys were little. Now, I'm getting older and I'm more determined than ever to do something with my writing and publish it. With Indie publishing, this is probably the best time to get out there and see what others think of my stories.
I'm learning that even though I'm a pretty good writer, there are still some fundamental story crafting skills I need to improve. I'll get there, though.
This was a tone mapping experiment. I wanted to see how close to a sepia-toned type image I could get in Iray. I didn't go for the classic gold tones, but I think those are totally achievable, too. I like how it turned out. I've been wanting this Red Rabbit Bundle for quite awhile and finally got it during MM. This image comes straight from DS, no postwork whatsoever.
Red Rabbit
Gallery Link