April New User 3D Art Contest "Open Render" (WIP)

Saphirewild

dHandle said:

Knittingmommy said:

Wow, indeed! dHandle, this is super good!  I love the echo of the figure going back.  Very Nice.

dracorn said:

VERY nice, dHandle!  She is reflective, the pose looks great, and I love the tunnel/time travel effect through/from the open door behind her.  This nearly monochromatic image reminds me of Tim Burton - now all you need is a small splash of color somewhere. 

Thanks all! 

@Dracorn  I thought about your suggestion of adding a splash of color.  I've looked at it several times, and nothing really occurs to me.  Not sure how to achieve that effect with this image, even though I've used that technique before.  The only real color in the scene is the gold axe head, and it's kinda washed out. (I did add a glint...)  I tried adding different colored rays...red...blue.  Nothing seemed like an improvement.

So..I setteld for a few feathers.  But of course, they're white, or gray...so no help with color splashes there.

Any suggestions?  I'm stumped.

Here's where I'm at.

May I suggest maybe a colored trim on the dress for the little splash of color?

mjc1016

Llynara said:

She looks great, H_Habash! And wow, the details on that towel look so lifelike (as does her wet skin!) The lighting is spot on too. I like the birds in the background as well.

I really need to get a better rig and start doing Iray! (I just need to ban myself from the DAZ store for a while to afford it!)

Scanner + towel...muhahahaha!

VortigensBane

Wonderland said:

 

Here is a screenshot of what happens when I click contol, I don't see "options."

And here is the bottom half of the settings for the flare. The color looks white which is weird because it is supposed to be blue and looks aqua in the unrendered scene. I used the highest light of Jepe's presets but that washes the whole scene out in bright white...  On the arch, I don't see a way of selecting the runes separately, but I selected the arch with the glow on the runes... Thanks for everyone's help!

Unfortunately, I'm not running a Mac, so I don't know the exact button to use.  When you hit Ctrl, you are getting the dialog that usually shows up when I high right-click.  I would try double-clicking (left side of mouse) while holding the "option" key, and if you don't get a dialog then, try using the "apple" key.

The glowing runes fix is a little easier (maybe)...  In order to make the runes emissive but not the rest, you need a black and white map (which you can lift off of the arch's texture map) which has any areas that you want to emit light to be white, and all the rest to be black.  This image needs to be plugged into the "emission color" parameter of the arch, and then only the areas that are white on the map will emit light.  The color of the emitted light is greatly effected by the emission temperature, which is measured in Kelvins, just like for a standard lightbulb.  You can look at lightbulb temperatures and color output to get a pretty safe idea of what settings to use.  Studio default is 4500 K, which is I believe a "warm white" or a "soft white" lightbulb.  It is also possible that the map needed for the runes is already available.  The emission parameter creates "about" the same effect as the ambient lighting parameter in Poser, which could also be controlled by a map.  If you already have a map for it (check textures folder), it just needs to be plugged into the right slot.

One other thing that comes to mind is to make sure that your render engine is actually set to use iray and not 3Delight.  That's in the render settings pane at the top.  Other things to check are, if you are actually using the iray render engine, to see what settings are being used there.  There are settings in the Environment section that can actually turn off all the lights in your scene...

Wonderland

SGTGhost777 said:

Wonderland said:

SGTGhost777 said:

Wonderland said:

SGTGhost777 said:

I call this "The Briefing"

I am using DAZ Studio with postowork done in Adobe Lightroom

I love this! Wish I could figure out how to do that kind of lighting...

Wonderland, thank you very much for the compliment.  There is a lot of lighting in this render; more than I usually use, and more than is recomended for most scenes.  Everything that would produce light in reality is emitting light in this render; the screens, the scifi console with the digital 3D map, and there are four lights with the building that I used as a prop.   

I'm a sci-fi geek and what you did is exactly what I'm trying to do with lighting, just have everything emitting different colored lights, but unfortunately I'm failing miserably.... Is there a tutorial on that, or how did you learn, or are you wiling to share settings?  I REALLY love your render, right up my alley, reminds me of Stargate or Battlestar Galactica or something...  Also, I like the guy with the gun, it feels like there's a story there. He seems like security for a top secret mission and is carefully watching his superior and if anyone tried to enter, he would have the right to shoot them. And the other guy looks a bit confused, like he's trying to figure out some major strategy and is frustrated or is watching a hologram of something bad happening in real time and has to stop it...  OK, I watch too much sci-fi TV, but I love it...

Wonderland, sharing the settings with you wouldn't help, because I converted each surface to an Iray emissive surface; lots of manual tweaking.  I learned most through experimentation and watching tutorials that I purchased on the DAZ Studio website from the vendor Dreamlight. http://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-iray-pro-lighting.  

When I want to make a surface, that would be a light source in the real world, an emissive surface I first check the names of any texture maps that the item uses in the surfaces tab; hover over the maps icon and it will reveal the file location of the map.  Once you've made note of the base map and any opacity maps, then turn the surface into an Iray emissive surface by going to the Surfaces, Presets then select shaders, Iray emissives and then the emissive shader.  After you complete this step go back to the editor tab and change the following maps to the base texture map; base color, emission color, luminance and cut out opacity for the opacity map, if there is one.

This sounds more complicated than it is, but if you purchase the tutorial, that I pasted a link to, it will help your skills with DAZ studio improve.

Thanks SGTGhost777, I'll look into it. Right now I'm having problems rendering two products that were supposed to work right out of the box with emissive lights and neither product is working correctly. They both have Poser versions so I'm hoping they will work there. I guess I may have to contact the PAs if I have continued problems.... I really want to give DS a chance, but for me Poser is so intuitive and I can't even get premade emissive lighting products to work in DS and it seems like such a huge learning curve.... But I guess learning challenging new things is a good workout for your brain and one day in the distant future, I will thank DAZ for preventing me from getting Alzheimer's LOL...

Wonderland

VortigensBane said:

Wonderland said:

 

Here is a screenshot of what happens when I click contol, I don't see "options."

And here is the bottom half of the settings for the flare. The color looks white which is weird because it is supposed to be blue and looks aqua in the unrendered scene. I used the highest light of Jepe's presets but that washes the whole scene out in bright white...  On the arch, I don't see a way of selecting the runes separately, but I selected the arch with the glow on the runes... Thanks for everyone's help!

Unfortunately, I'm not running a Mac, so I don't know the exact button to use.  When you hit Ctrl, you are getting the dialog that usually shows up when I high right-click.  I would try double-clicking (left side of mouse) while holding the "option" key, and if you don't get a dialog then, try using the "apple" key.

The glowing runes fix is a little easier (maybe)...  In order to make the runes emissive but not the rest, you need a black and white map (which you can lift off of the arch's texture map) which has any areas that you want to emit light to be white, and all the rest to be black.  This image needs to be plugged into the "emission color" parameter of the arch, and then only the areas that are white on the map will emit light.  The color of the emitted light is greatly effected by the emission temperature, which is measured in Kelvins, just like for a standard lightbulb.  You can look at lightbulb temperatures and color output to get a pretty safe idea of what settings to use.  Studio default is 4500 K, which is I believe a "warm white" or a "soft white" lightbulb.  It is also possible that the map needed for the runes is already available.  The emission parameter creates "about" the same effect as the ambient lighting parameter in Poser, which could also be controlled by a map.  If you already have a map for it (check textures folder), it just needs to be plugged into the right slot.

One other thing that comes to mind is to make sure that your render engine is actually set to use iray and not 3Delight.  That's in the render settings pane at the top.  Other things to check are, if you are actually using the iray render engine, to see what settings are being used there.  There are settings in the Environment section that can actually turn off all the lights in your scene...

Yes, I already looked at the texture maps and there is a black and white map for the runes. And I did click delete all lights because I wanted the only lights to be emissive, I wonder if that screwed things up but I didn't see any lights being used originally except the headlamps but I added a coloful light at first but when it rendered so bright, I deleted all lights which may have turned off the runes lights? I may have to contact tech support about where the controls are on a Mac... Do you know if it's possible to save a scene in DS and open it in Poser? All the products used have Poser versions (which may be different) but it would be easier just to switch out some things in Poser than start from scratch. I created the alien with Genesis 1, is there a way to save that character and make it usable in Poser?  Thanks and sorry for all the questions, I feel like a toddler asking Mommy why is the grass green, why is the sky blue, where do babies come from?  LOL

h_habash

mjc1016 said:

Llynara said:

She looks great, H_Habash! And wow, the details on that towel look so lifelike (as does her wet skin!) The lighting is spot on too. I like the birds in the background as well.

I really need to get a better rig and start doing Iray! (I just need to ban myself from the DAZ store for a while to afford it!)

Scanner + towel...muhahahaha!

I see , good technique, now I learned something new specially for texturing, Thanks.

VortigensBane

Wonderland said:

VortigensBane said:

Wonderland said:

Yes, I already looked at the texture maps and there is a black and white map for the runes. And I did click delete all lights because I wanted the only lights to be emissive, I wonder if that screwed things up but I didn't see any lights being used originally except the headlamps but I added a coloful light at first but when it rendered so bright, I deleted all lights which may have turned off the runes lights? I may have to contact tech support about where the controls are on a Mac... Do you know if it's possible to save a scene in DS and open it in Poser? All the products used have Poser versions (which may be different) but it would be easier just to switch out some things in Poser than start from scratch. I created the alien with Genesis 1, is there a way to save that character and make it usable in Poser?  Thanks and sorry for all the questions, I feel like a toddler asking Mommy why is the grass green, why is the sky blue, where do babies come from?  LOL

It is "sort of" possible to save a DS file and re-open in Poser; if you have the DSON plug-in for Poser.  That is something that allows Poser to read the native DS formats for some more recent figures.  It is here at the DAZ Store; I don't know if it is free or not; I got it at some point when it was.  You save character presets, poses, etc., in DS, and then the plugin allows you to create "Poser Companion Files" that Poser can read.  It's touch and go; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I haven't had very good luck exporting entire scenes...

 

  The other option (not as streamlined) is to export the DS scene as OBJ and then load that into Poser.  I do that with Genesis 3 when I want to use Poser's cloth room, because Genesis 3 isn't compatible with Poser.  If you check all the right boxes in the export dialogue, the maps are still there when you load the files in Poser.

 

That being said, to work on the scene in DS... 

In case you can't figure out which is the magic button to hold down to load the Iray base shader, there is a work-around, which does work, but requires a fairly good memory.  Before clicking the button, look at the surfaces of your arch.  You will need to remember (or write down) the name of the image for the diffuse map, bump map (if there is one) and any other maps that the arch uses.  After selecting the surfaces in the surfaces tab, apply the iray base shader -- no extra buttons this time -- to the surfaces.  You will notice radically different parameters show up.  The Diffuse map goes into the "base color" slot, ignore most of the others, find the "base bump" slot if your original texture had a bump map, if there's an transparency map, that goes in the "cutout opacity" slot.

The black/white rune map is not technically a light.  It wouldn't render as glowing in Poser either, unless you have the "use indirect lighting" box checked in the Poser render settings.  What I would recommend in your scene is to "hide" your emitting pillars for now (in the scene tab, click on the eyeball).  Add the black/white rune map to the emission color channel in the arch's material.  Set the emission temperature to 3200 (for a reddish glow) or 6500 (for a blueish glow), and set the "luminance" to about 3 million.  Set the luminance units to cd/m2.  Try a scene render with all the lights off and the emissive pillars hidden.  If your runes are as bright as the sun on a clear day, dial down the luminance value. 

 

If you can't see anything in your scene still, go to render settings.  Make sure you have "Nvidia Iray" selected instead of "3Delight" (just in case-- if it is set to 3Delight, Iray shaders WILL NOT WORK).  If you're in Iray mode, you will have an "environment" parameter.  The first parameter in this box is Environment mode.  Make sure that this is set to "Dome and scene" or "scene only"  If it is set to "dome only", your scene lights are turned OFF.  For now, set the dome mode to  "infinite sphere", and the draw dome to "off".  Try rendering again.

If you want a soft glow surrounding the emission surfaces, you can turn on the "bloom filter" in the filtering menu of the iray render settings tab.  This can help, but sometimes you end up with glow that you don't want; every light colored surface with light bouncing off of it starts glowing to a certain extent...

 

In case you really do want answers to some of your other questions, I'm pretty sure babies are brought to the front door in slings by storks...  I'm still working on the grass one.

 

VortigensBane

An afterthought...  in Iray, actual "lights" are not necessary.  Not to brag, but this scene doesn't have a single light; everything is done using light emitting surfaces  http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/108406/  It is possible, but it's a little hard to see when setting up your scene.  Usually I leave the camera headlamp on while setting up the scene, and then turn it off for the render.

dracorn

VortigensBane said:

dracorn said:

 

I did some test renders of my fish - the models are old and plastic-looking and I wasn't happy with them.  The orca and the sea turtle look good. I do have Garden's of Poseidon and am mulling that one over.  

I am toying with the idea of the black background, as this is a design rather than the ocean.  I want everything in the pattern, sort of a posed kaleidoscope.  However, your idea about splashes intrigues me.  I have Ron's Water brushes and can experiment with them. 

These are great ideas, and I need to experiment to see what looks good. 

If you're rendering in Iray (which I seem to recall), try adding a geometry shell to the fishies and setting the texture to one of the default Iray water shaders...

Nope!  I'm rendering in 3Delight.  Any suggestions for that?  I tried adding some scales from Super Shaders, but the fish texture disappears.  Maybe I should try to manually reload it after the applying the scale shader?  I even tried leather texture, which looked funny.

I think the angelfish, butterflyfish and triggerfish are meant to be seen from a distance and/or a small scale.  Now the ocra, dolphin, sea turtle, lionfish and manta ray look pretty good. 

VortigensBane

Nope, sorry.  In 3Delight I don't know what would work.  I suppose you could still add a geometry shell, add a scale like displacement map, and then set the index of refraction to 1.333 (water) and see what happens...

Wonderland

VortigensBane said:

Wonderland said:

VortigensBane said:

Wonderland said:

Yes, I already looked at the texture maps and there is a black and white map for the runes. And I did click delete all lights because I wanted the only lights to be emissive, I wonder if that screwed things up but I didn't see any lights being used originally except the headlamps but I added a coloful light at first but when it rendered so bright, I deleted all lights which may have turned off the runes lights? I may have to contact tech support about where the controls are on a Mac... Do you know if it's possible to save a scene in DS and open it in Poser? All the products used have Poser versions (which may be different) but it would be easier just to switch out some things in Poser than start from scratch. I created the alien with Genesis 1, is there a way to save that character and make it usable in Poser?  Thanks and sorry for all the questions, I feel like a toddler asking Mommy why is the grass green, why is the sky blue, where do babies come from?  LOL

It is "sort of" possible to save a DS file and re-open in Poser; if you have the DSON plug-in for Poser.  That is something that allows Poser to read the native DS formats for some more recent figures.  It is here at the DAZ Store; I don't know if it is free or not; I got it at some point when it was.  You save character presets, poses, etc., in DS, and then the plugin allows you to create "Poser Companion Files" that Poser can read.  It's touch and go; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I haven't had very good luck exporting entire scenes...

 

  The other option (not as streamlined) is to export the DS scene as OBJ and then load that into Poser.  I do that with Genesis 3 when I want to use Poser's cloth room, because Genesis 3 isn't compatible with Poser.  If you check all the right boxes in the export dialogue, the maps are still there when you load the files in Poser.

 

That being said, to work on the scene in DS... 

In case you can't figure out which is the magic button to hold down to load the Iray base shader, there is a work-around, which does work, but requires a fairly good memory.  Before clicking the button, look at the surfaces of your arch.  You will need to remember (or write down) the name of the image for the diffuse map, bump map (if there is one) and any other maps that the arch uses.  After selecting the surfaces in the surfaces tab, apply the iray base shader -- no extra buttons this time -- to the surfaces.  You will notice radically different parameters show up.  The Diffuse map goes into the "base color" slot, ignore most of the others, find the "base bump" slot if your original texture had a bump map, if there's an transparency map, that goes in the "cutout opacity" slot.

The black/white rune map is not technically a light.  It wouldn't render as glowing in Poser either, unless you have the "use indirect lighting" box checked in the Poser render settings.  What I would recommend in your scene is to "hide" your emitting pillars for now (in the scene tab, click on the eyeball).  Add the black/white rune map to the emission color channel in the arch's material.  Set the emission temperature to 3200 (for a reddish glow) or 6500 (for a blueish glow), and set the "luminance" to about 3 million.  Set the luminance units to cd/m2.  Try a scene render with all the lights off and the emissive pillars hidden.  If your runes are as bright as the sun on a clear day, dial down the luminance value. 

 

If you can't see anything in your scene still, go to render settings.  Make sure you have "Nvidia Iray" selected instead of "3Delight" (just in case-- if it is set to 3Delight, Iray shaders WILL NOT WORK).  If you're in Iray mode, you will have an "environment" parameter.  The first parameter in this box is Environment mode.  Make sure that this is set to "Dome and scene" or "scene only"  If it is set to "dome only", your scene lights are turned OFF.  For now, set the dome mode to  "infinite sphere", and the draw dome to "off".  Try rendering again.

If you want a soft glow surrounding the emission surfaces, you can turn on the "bloom filter" in the filtering menu of the iray render settings tab.  This can help, but sometimes you end up with glow that you don't want; every light colored surface with light bouncing off of it starts glowing to a certain extent...

 

In case you really do want answers to some of your other questions, I'm pretty sure babies are brought to the front door in slings by storks...  I'm still working on the grass one.

 

Wow, thanks, will try that tomorrow. Now rendering probably the worse render in my life and I was going to try to resurrect it in Photoshop, which I'm MUCH better at, but will try your technique tomorrow. I'm going to remove all of Jepe's stuff and re-add it later. It is supposed to be for lRay and should work out of the box so will have to contact him if it still doesn't work... Thanks again, I'm hoping to get out of my rut of doing pure pinups and portraits and be able to do some cool full scenes... Oh and I do have DSON, already have G2 in Poser. Renderosity has a free vendor created utility to get G3 to work in Poser but I haven't tried it yet. Hopefully I can get the little grey alien I made with Genesis 1 in Poser too. I've been all Poser up till now, but I think I'm going bi LOL...

mjc1016

Wonderland said:

I'm going to remove all of Jepe's stuff and re-add it later. It is supposed to be for lRay and should work out of the box so will have to contact him if it still doesn't work...

If they already have the Iray materials, then it is simply a matter of cutting back the luminence values...nothing ever really 'works' right out of the box.

h_habash

This new Iray Emissive Material tutorial video just released, check it out it's so helpful for everyone having defeculty in applying emmissive to their render

And here's other tutorials you can look at

http://www.daz3d.com/04-14-Hoard-of-Iray

dracorn

h_habash said:

dracorn said:

Saphirewild said:

dracorn said:

Here are the mermaids with their arms in position. 

Now I need to figure out what to add to the picture!

 

 

Beautifully done Dracorn, I would suggest having them under water with some bubbles rising to the surface maybe even a ripple or 2 as well.

 

VortigensBane said:

Saphirewild said:

dracorn said:

Here are the mermaids with their arms in position. 

Now I need to figure out what to add to the picture!

 

I would try to decide whether to make them facing up from the ocean floor, or facing down towards it.  If the first, perhaps an sea-bed scene, coral, kelp, starfish, sea turtles, fish, octopi, sharks, dolphins, lionfish, etc.  If shot is from below looking up, could do some serious caustics, dappled light patterns, schools of fishies, etc.    Or they could be floating on the top of the water, and you could do lots and lots of splashes and waves around them...

I did some test renders of my fish - the models are old and plastic-looking and I wasn't happy with them.  The orca and the sea turtle look good. I do have Garden's of Poseidon and am mulling that one over.  

I am toying with the idea of the black background, as this is a design rather than the ocean.  I want everything in the pattern, sort of a posed kaleidoscope.  However, your idea about splashes intrigues me.  I have Ron's Water brushes and can experiment with them. 

These are great ideas, and I need to experiment to see what looks good. 

Why don't you GOOGLE for kaleidoscope images for the background, I did a quick search and looked at many nice images which can be used in your scene, and brought some example for you, try to pick one matches your mermaids (if you liked this idea).

That's an interesting idea. I was thinking to make my own background in Photoshop with color in a radius. At this point I can't say whether I want a busy or simple background yet. I'm still thinking about the other items to add. I just picked up some more underwater flora from the new Runtime items. I'm letting ideas float in my mind's eye.

Llynara

Renderosity has a free vendor created utility to get G3 to work in Poser but I haven't tried it yet. Hopefully I can get the little grey alien I made with Genesis 1 in Poser too. I've been all Poser up till now, but I think I'm going bi LOL...

I haven't had a chance to try that either. Still learning my way around Poser. Hoping to figure it out eventually!

SGTGhost777

Scott Livingston said:

bungle said:

SGTGhost777 said:

I call this "The Briefing"

I am using DAZ Studio with postowork done in Adobe Lightroom

That is an amazingly really good render. I have a couple of comments:

1) I don't know if its intended, but the devilish stare on the underling's face looks like he's holding himself back from ripping the general's clothes off. (Maybe this is because I'm always looking for the story in the artwork.)

2) The way the light plays off the general's arm looks fantastic and highlights all the definition and veins, but I can't tell what the general is doing with his arm. The general's body language doesn't carry a message. I can't tell if they lost or won, if they're preparing an attack, planning to run for office, or conspiring to stick McElliot with latrine duty. Maybe something as simple as pointing to a location on the table or the screen, or sticking a knife into the table would give it that extra bit of story.

SGTGhost777: I'll second (most of) bungle's comment here. The lighting looks great (though with some room for further improvement)...the characters' expressions and body language are the things that are really going to sell this one. Along with any other ways to provide additional hints as to the story.

Thanks Scott Livingston.

SGTGhost777

Wonderland said:

SGTGhost777 said:

Wonderland said:

SGTGhost777 said:

Wonderland said:

SGTGhost777 said:

I call this "The Briefing"

I am using DAZ Studio with postowork done in Adobe Lightroom

I love this! Wish I could figure out how to do that kind of lighting...

Wonderland, thank you very much for the compliment.  There is a lot of lighting in this render; more than I usually use, and more than is recomended for most scenes.  Everything that would produce light in reality is emitting light in this render; the screens, the scifi console with the digital 3D map, and there are four lights with the building that I used as a prop.   

I'm a sci-fi geek and what you did is exactly what I'm trying to do with lighting, just have everything emitting different colored lights, but unfortunately I'm failing miserably.... Is there a tutorial on that, or how did you learn, or are you wiling to share settings?  I REALLY love your render, right up my alley, reminds me of Stargate or Battlestar Galactica or something...  Also, I like the guy with the gun, it feels like there's a story there. He seems like security for a top secret mission and is carefully watching his superior and if anyone tried to enter, he would have the right to shoot them. And the other guy looks a bit confused, like he's trying to figure out some major strategy and is frustrated or is watching a hologram of something bad happening in real time and has to stop it...  OK, I watch too much sci-fi TV, but I love it...

Wonderland, sharing the settings with you wouldn't help, because I converted each surface to an Iray emissive surface; lots of manual tweaking.  I learned most through experimentation and watching tutorials that I purchased on the DAZ Studio website from the vendor Dreamlight. http://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-iray-pro-lighting.  

When I want to make a surface, that would be a light source in the real world, an emissive surface I first check the names of any texture maps that the item uses in the surfaces tab; hover over the maps icon and it will reveal the file location of the map.  Once you've made note of the base map and any opacity maps, then turn the surface into an Iray emissive surface by going to the Surfaces, Presets then select shaders, Iray emissives and then the emissive shader.  After you complete this step go back to the editor tab and change the following maps to the base texture map; base color, emission color, luminance and cut out opacity for the opacity map, if there is one.

This sounds more complicated than it is, but if you purchase the tutorial, that I pasted a link to, it will help your skills with DAZ studio improve.

Thanks SGTGhost777, I'll look into it. Right now I'm having problems rendering two products that were supposed to work right out of the box with emissive lights and neither product is working correctly. They both have Poser versions so I'm hoping they will work there. I guess I may have to contact the PAs if I have continued problems.... I really want to give DS a chance, but for me Poser is so intuitive and I can't even get premade emissive lighting products to work in DS and it seems like such a huge learning curve.... But I guess learning challenging new things is a good workout for your brain and one day in the distant future, I will thank DAZ for preventing me from getting Alzheimer's LOL...

Wonderland, you're welcome.

TabascoJack

Been busy, traveling for work and other stuff, but finally had enough time to work on my latest render.  It got more complex than I originally planned, but I think it's a good start.

Aphrodite's Angels

(with apologies to Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and Jaclyn Smith)

 

Daz Studio 4.9, Iray

Postwork in Photoshop

Credits:

Arcane Images and Lightning Brushes - ObsidianDawn

Clouds - http://almudena-stock.deviantart.com/

 

mosjeschwartzman

Hi – I'm fairly new to this all. I downloaded Dazstudio just three weeks ago but I like it. Made some renders, browsed these forums up and down and came across the New User contest here.

I'm thinking of entering in April's contest one of the two renders attached. I guess they cover the requirements; posing, lighting, composition and.... spring!
Curious to what you guys here think; you're way more experienced than I am that's for sure!

Thanks, –M

h_habash

mosjeschwartzman said:

Hi – I'm fairly new to this all. I downloaded Dazstudio just three weeks ago but I like it. Made some renders, browsed these forums up and down and came across the New User contest here.

I'm thinking of entering in April's contest one of the two renders attached. I guess they cover the requirements; posing, lighting, composition and.... spring!
Curious to what you guys here think; you're way more experienced than I am that's for sure!

Thanks, –M

Good start Mosjeschwartzman, in my opinion the dark dressed lady scene looks better in that the red one, you need to do some extra work in your scene, first you need to lower slightly on the seat, and second the bunch of flowers on the left side need sand ground or maybe if you have planter fence around to hide the flowers base. or maybe you can keep the small flower pot on the lady lap and remove all other flowers, zoom in to the lady, Third I suggest to give some color or texture to the wall.

This is just my opinion, maybe other experienced artist can give better suggestion.

Llynara

So, I was messing around with render settings and accidentally Irayed! I had no idea I could do Iray on this computer, because it certainly didn't work in DAZ 4.8 (thought it was going to blow up!) Something must have changed in 4.9, because I've actually done a few Iray renders and though none of them were great, they didn't take any longer than some of the 3DLs, Reality and Superfly renders. I've even played with the blender cycles script that someone here made to port the scenes from DAZ. Fun, very cool,learning a lot. 

I've attached a draft of something I'm playing with for my second entry this month. It's not fully rendered yet, just messing around at the moment. My five year old, who helped me create this, tells me it's missing a campfire and a teeter totter. LOL!

------------------

"Feeling Sluggish"

Poor Sheriff George. Recent budget cuts have forced him to find alternative modes of transportation! 

PS. Welcome, mosjeschwartzman! You're off to a great start!

h_habash

TabascoJack said:

Been busy, traveling for work and other stuff, but finally had enough time to work on my latest render.  It got more complex than I originally planned, but I think it's a good start.

Aphrodite's Angels

(with apologies to Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and Jaclyn Smith)

 

Daz Studio 4.9, Iray

Postwork in Photoshop

Credits:

Arcane Images and Lightning Brushes - ObsidianDawn

Clouds - http://almudena-stock.deviantart.com/

 

Great work TabascoJack, I suggest to change the Black Leathered Lady to look at the same direction as others, and if possible to remove her Sword/Katana Scabbard.

lucasdestoop

A idea for a second entry. I'm going to try on my own but I'm going to post a WIP anyway :).

 

h_habash

Llynara said:

So, I was messing around with render settings and accidentally Irayed! I had no idea I could do Iray on this computer, because it certainly didn't work in DAZ 4.8 (thought it was going to blow up!) Something must have changed in 4.9, because I've actually done a few Iray renders and though none of them were great, they didn't take any longer than some of the 3DLs, Reality and Superfly renders. I've even played with the blender cycles script that someone here made to port the scenes from DAZ. Fun, very cool,learning a lot. 

I've attached a draft of something I'm playing with for my second entry this month. It's not fully rendered yet, just messing around at the moment. My five year old, who helped me create this, tells me it's missing a campfire and a teeter totter. LOL!

------------------

"Feeling Sluggish"

Poor Sheriff George. Recent budget cuts have forced him to find alternative modes of transportation! 

PS. Welcome, mosjeschwartzman! You're off to a great start!

Cool, I've been looking at it for some time, I had the feeling of missing something somewhere (Don't miss understand me please), and finally I've figured out what's missing, It's the Slug slime trail as we usually see in most similar cartoon situation scenes. and as usual It all depends on how you look at your art and the way you want it to be.

Llynara

I agree, Habash. It's actually missing quite a few things. I just slapped that together to see how it would look. The desert probably isn't the best place to ride a ginormous slug, LOL. But it looks dramatic and interesting. I could put a big ole slimy trail in there somehow. The slug needs retexturing. the pose and camera angle need tweaking. The lighting is awful. I'm totally new to Iray. But I'm having fun, and there's time, so why not go for it? Woohoo!

dracorn

Llynara said:

I agree, Habash. It's actually missing quite a few things. I just slapped that together to see how it would look. The desert probably isn't the best place to ride a ginormous slug, LOL. But it looks dramatic and interesting. I could put a big ole slimy trail in there somehow. The slug needs retexturing. the pose and camera angle need tweaking. The lighting is awful. I'm totally new to Iray. But I'm having fun, and there's time, so why not go for it? Woohoo!

What charm!  This one is great!

I find myself wondering what his right elbow is resting on.  I'm not sure if there are difficulties posing such a large figure as George, but I think his legs/feet would be more natural if one knee was higher than the other, and his knees were apart.  I have very heavy relative, and there is one thing he can't do is put his knees together.  The belly is just too big for that. 

The way George is leaning back and his causal, nothing bothers me expression is perfect. 

This is definitely a render to have fun with. 

dracorn

I've been a little busy, and am now returning to the mermaids.  It took a little while for me to figure out what I wanted to do, but it's starting to come together. 

These fish are driving me crazy!  Their pivot point is far below the center of the figure, and I can't mathematically position them.  I had to eyeball it, so I hope it looks right.

Saphirewild

dracorn said:

I've been a little busy, and am now returning to the mermaids.  It took a little while for me to figure out what I wanted to do, but it's starting to come together. 

These fish are driving me crazy!  Their pivot point is far below the center of the figure, and I can't mathematically position them.  I had to eyeball it, so I hope it looks right.

They look perfectly positioned to me Dracorn!!! This is turning out to be an amazing render!!!

dracorn

Thanks, Saphirewild.  It's both fun and a challenge to make designs out of sea critters.

h_habash

Saphirewild said:

dracorn said:

I've been a little busy, and am now returning to the mermaids.  It took a little while for me to figure out what I wanted to do, but it's starting to come together. 

These fish are driving me crazy!  Their pivot point is far below the center of the figure, and I can't mathematically position them.  I had to eyeball it, so I hope it looks right.

They look perfectly positioned to me Dracorn!!! This is turning out to be an amazing render!!!

Yes the are positioned right, the kaleidoscope fishes and shells looks wonderful, but I'd suggest to raise it slightly upward, it looks to me it's more closer to bottom.