Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
"Greetings, your majesty. It's been a while. Remember me?"
I did a photomanipulation a while back (following a tutorial), and used that as inspiration for this Iray render.
This is really entertaining. Great work. I'd like yo see more. Do you have a gallery?
This may be the final version...although the green sword was a lot more vibrant in Photoshop before being exported as a jpg. I may bump it up a bit. Or not...the subdued, sickly green may actually be more menacing...
I am pretty new to this. I had two entries in the April contest, but I was more focused on the shaders and the postwork than than the scene.
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone, it is very encouraging.
After I post the comment with the attachment, I click on the picture, copy the url, edit the post. Click the "Image" icon, past the URL, delete the pixel size numbers so that it autoscales, and save.
I love the scene composition. The sky and ground look great. The surfacing of the lion is also spot on. I'm not as sure about the pose. Something about the lion is a little awkward. The right front paw feels like its floating, but I can't tell if the cat is walking, or pawing the ground, injured, etc. It just isn't clear. The scene is also great with tension, but not so much action. I would expect to see the cat in a pounce or the warrior in a swing. The grip on the axe handle is very interesting. It looks like there is a huge amount of torque on the grip which looks nice, but the axe itself doesn't look heavy enough to cause that torque.
If the ground is not a model and the shadows are not strong enough (or not enough contrast between the shadow and the background), then that can happen with the Iray floor. It also looks as if the character's left foot is affected, too.
I think with the attacker seen this has much improved, the lights work nice as well. Only nitpick is that I would like to see her left arm in some balance move. Like this it looks almost as if not there.
Her left hand is supposed to be clutching her side....guess I should try to make that more obvious.
Thanks Bungle and mcj1016. Yes, I agree, the lion's pose needs work. I did have trouble matching the pose up with the Iray ground level, as mcj said. The shadows were mostly added or darkened in post. A little more attention to ambient occlusion between paws/feet and ground would help with that, I hope.
And now that you mention it, the axe in the hand does look a little awkward, I was hoping to give the sense that the warrior was trying to be non-threatening by hiding the axe behind his body. Does it miss the mark?
The caption was meant to suggest that these two know each other, and have a bit of history. If all goes well, it won't end in bloodshed.
Thanks, guys. I will work on improvements.
Here's version i. Added a character in the background, though wether they're friend or foe, even I don't know. I also added a round that may be hard to see coming from the machine gun.
As in screenwriting, you can't count too much on explanations. The storytelling should in be in the scene, not in the title. If I can't see what's happening, an explanation isn't going to end the confusion. Also in written form, your title doesn't have tone or voice. I can't tell which one is the king, whether they're married, or mortal enemies, etc. Did the lion murder the queen and princess? Do they want to annihilate each other? Is this a wild beast, that the man is calling "majesty" as a joke? Who could guess? On the other hand, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Showing not telling is where visual media truly separates itself from writing. In a movie or comic, you have only imagery, motion, and dialogue to tell the story. In a one-frame render or drawing, you have only still imagery. This limits how much story you can tell. You have to pick a particular moment in a story and capture the backstory with visual cues. Normal Rockwell was a master of this sort of storytelling. Also, greats like Hieronymous Bosch did this by use of symbolic images.
People will always pay most attention to how the render looks, but a title is a fun place to make an inside joke, illuminate something hidden, or even challenge the viewers assumptions about what they see.
I couldn't locate the machine gun round. Also, I'm pretty sure the casings on the machine gun are pointing the wrong way. The bullet fires out of the narrow end of the casing, and it looks like they are backwards.
Well, I started awfully late, but here's my first draft.....be gentle
I tried to position characters so, that viewers' would first focus on the archers hand holding the bow. Then hopefully next they see the arrow and finally that weird shadow ( that's supposed to be a monster's hand ) on the tree, and realize that there's a monster running towards the duo. Anyways, my very first public "masterpiece" is called "Ambush"
Definitely a nice looking render. The monster hand isn't translating. The plants and DOF looks great. I am disappointed by Iray's lack of motion blur, but there are fairly reasonable ways to add motion blur in post. I think motion blur on the bow string and arrow would really add to it. Also, the viewing angle on the Archer's right foot is unattractive.
I haven't tried this myself, since my computer and Iray don't get along too well (a.k.a., 4+ days for each render...), but wouldn't it be true that by slowing down the shutter speed in Iray, and then adding motion in the timeline, you could achieve motion blur just like in real life? Or is that too much to hope for...? E.g., if the shutter speed is set to 1/15, move figure a bit on the second frame of the timeline, and theoretically, you should get motion blur, because the camera shutter speed is set to cover 2 frames of the animation and you're only rendering a still image. The only downside I could see with this approach is that you would have to adjust the lighting so that your image doesn't get over-saturated from the long exposure... Either that, or increase shutter speed and make the motion more drastic. Or just have your timeline set to a gazillion frames per second. Just some ideas for people with super-computers to play around with...
Made some adjustments to the casings and the round from the machine gun. version j.
There is always the option to use 3delight as renderer which is not as dependent on the grafic card as Iray and you can do motion blurr rather easy.
There is always the option to use 3delight as renderer which is not as dependent on the grafic card as Iray and you can do motion blurr rather easy.
How do you do motion blurr in 3Delight?I prefer Iray because the shaders are more realistic and easy to adjust. Before Iray, I would always export to Poser and render in Firefly. Not to mention, I never could get an atmosphere in 3Delight...
How do you do motion blurr in 3Delight?
Go to Render Settings Tab, select 3Delight as render engine, then click on "Advanced" tab, and select "Motion Blur" checkbox. Fiddle with settings to desired effect, and make sure that there is some actual motion in your scene for camera to blur...
How do you do motion blurr in 3Delight?
You set up scene as you want it for the starting point of the motion, within the Window / Panes you find the timeline. Its often set to 30 motion steps, I reduce it to 3 . Select everything that is supposed to change with motion blurr and add a Key frame (its a little key sign with a plus in it. Move the yellow triangle to the end of the line change all the things you want in motion with the parameters when you are done select again everything that is supposed to move and add another keyframe. Another little black marker should appear. You can as well add one by one but that gets confusing easily. As a control you can push the play button and the movement should be seen like an animation. Now change to the render viewport select advanced, tick the motionblurr checkbox. You can leave the motion samples to 2. On the timeline I select the second frame as the first and the last are the start and the end point and will show no motion. Now hit render. Don't get frustrated when the motion blurr does not seem to show up at the beginning, if you are rendering in progressive mode the motion blurr will only be added during the last cycle.
hope that helps
Thanks Bungle. But, what did you use to make your URL? I see photobucket and some other apps that can do it but I don't want to upload my stuff to their site. Any way to do it on my computer?
Attach the image form your computer using the attachment button below the type panel, and post that comment.
Now click on the attachment to bring the image up to full size and right click on it to "Copy Image Location"
Now clcik to edit the post and select the image tool
Paste the image location that you copied from the previous screen.
Limit the width of your image to 800 width here. As long as teh padlock is showing the image format will be preserved.
We say 800 width as people browse the forums on a variety of devices and the auto resize does not always work well on some.
If you now click on the 2nd tab that says link you can paste the same URL on the screen, and then select target as new window so anyone clicking on your 800 pixel displayed image can bring it up to full size, and the images are now stored on Daz' servers.
Here is my entry #1
Hi everyone!
Mendoman, nice render! I wasn't able to see the monster's hand either. Might be hard to pull off with that area being out of focus.
VortigensBane, When I was working with motion blur I tried to use Iray and the camera settings you refered to and I didn't have any luck. Not to say it doesn't work, because I am really new to this and could have missed something, but it could be that DAZ Studio's implementation of Iray doesn't allow for it yet.
Wonderland, I agree with what you said. I tried to mess around in Photoshop but came to the sad conclusion that my photshop skills are pretty lacking. Eventually I would like to start using postwork to enhance my renders but for now I am just going to focus on learning more about DAZ studio.
As far as my entry for this month. I have decided to go with my volleyball scene because it seems to have received a more positive response from everyone here. Linwelly, I ajusted the spiker's hips to show a little more of the back leg. Is this enough? Bungle, I tried to make the pose on the spiker's left hand look more natural. Also, I changed the position of the other player's legs to make it look less like she is falling. Her pose is designed to help fill in the dead space under the net so I don't have too many options here. I changed the lighting to try to show off the poses but the shadows are still not very dramatic. This weekend I'm going to mess with the light some more and see if back lighting the scene would be more dramatic. Lastly, I adjusted the surface parameters of the spiker's skin to try to get a little gloss from sweat. Any suggestions would be welcome! I have some time this weekend to work on it before the deadline.
I'm already looking forward to next month's challenge!
Well, I got the impression I could use ANYTHNG as a prop ... aaaaaand here's where my brain went ...
Lighting, clothing, and surfacing are not my concerns just yet ... I'll take care of those soon. My primary focus atm is the posing and composition - that is, does the story come across well, how convincing are the reactions and does the eye go where it needs to.
Regardless of what I'm focusing on, any advice/comments are welcome. As always, thanks so much!
Another angle (and some pose updates).....
Finally got some time to touch up the shadows so the feet don't look like they're floating. Still need to find time to work on the lion's pose.
Thank you bungle, that was good feedback. Firstly I tried to correct archer's right leg a little bit, and I think it's a little bit better now. I also moved the archer a little down, so she's not walking on water anymore. Then I added very subtle motion blur with gimp. I can't really say I'm entirely happy, but with my limited gimp skills that's about as good as I can get it for now. Moster hand on the hand I think I improved a lot, and now it should be much more recognizable. So here's my version 2.
Some comments from the entry thread have been moved into this thread, in order to keep the entry thread clear of comments.