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I know you answered Daybird, but this actually makes some of my wall-building easier as well - much easier for my efforts to box-in rooms than having to create walls with defined size holes in Carrara (or other). Thank-you.
She has an SLR, and yes, it is becoming challenging - but I guess that is the intent of the Challenge. :-) I'm going to work on the lighting challenge aspect a bit more and also more of a story. I'm becoming intriqued with how to set up a completely separate story in the reflection than the still life scene, but have some connection between them. Something the photographer captures by mistake because of the mirror. Oh, and also learn lighting by having a really challenging project...
I have to travel for business so will be away from my render machine for a few days, so lots of time to review the links you provided (thank-you) and come up with new ideast to ponder and try when I get home.
Thank-you. As mentioned, I have a couple of days off from rendering, but there is a half-baked next step of this one waiting to render. I made the blinds in Carrara, with the [ambitious] intention that she can bend some to peer out the window...turns out that's a bit harder than bending a thin strip and duplicating it at automatically spaced intervals... It also needs more story, and I'm thinking of trying to tell it via lights outside that are obscured by the blinds (maybe police lights or something like that).
Mhh I have problem to follow your advices Linwelly. Can you please post a screenshot and show me, how I could select single polys inside the plane? Or do I understand something wrong?
You are asnwering your own question here, the differences you get on different monitors has nothing to do with gamma or the light setting withing the image . A certain gamma results in the same for all monitors, as long as they are calibrated to the same. What I believe is the it its mostly the brightness of your Labtop that needs upping. That tends to be on the low side with their original settings as that saves enery, makes the battery last longer. Otherwise there is a lot of different calibration tools out there ( some free others for pay) which tend to not calibrate all to the same result but at least closer to. I have to minitora and one tends a bit toward the red. I leave it like that because in the end not all users have calibrated screens and I try to make stuff look ok anyways.
Yeah, it's one of the reasons I love this thread, too. I still learn new things in it even though I've been around for awhile.
You could add a small point light to the led display to add a bit of a glow to his face. I was hoping Cheetah girl would show up! I'm not sure if I like the red or the blue better.
Are you going to be adding more to the left or right of the scene? If not you might consider cropping it in a bit closer. I agree with Linwelly, this is turning into quite the challenge!
I have a problem with the light in your picture. The color is ok, but do you use a distant light as source? I think, in a sever/tunnel you should use point or spot lights. This creates a better atmosphere in this setting and do generat shadows, which support the scene even more.
The pose is much better now and I like the changes that you made, although I did like the tentacles showing a bit more in the last incarnation
Love the contrast between the hot and the cold as well. You might try cropping the left (our left) out just a bit which will also help bring her out of the center of the image.
I very much like the shadow play in this as well (and great job on making the blinds!). I do find the shadow thrown by the weak spotlight to be a tiny bit distracting but I'm not sure what to recommend to do about it. Maybe move the spotlight a bit more so that the shadow gets more neutralized by the light coming from the blinds.
I really like the three dimensional quality of that butterfly and you do have a lovely mood going on here.
I'm not sure which shadow you mean. The only light in the scene is the sun node coming through the window, so the shadows are falling more or less naturally. I'm not sure how I can make adjustments when I can't add lights. The only thing I could do is vary the camera settings...ISO, f-stop, aperture setting, etc. I would like to fix the edges of several shadows since they seem rather hard, but I'm not sure how. I fixed the really bad edge in post.
I did like the way her face is lit (even though it is a bit dim) by the light reflected off her shoulder.
Thanks Kismet. I am looking forward to getting my new computer system, and letting the render run to completion. Then I will decide what to do with it.
Hi Sonja, and thanks. I followed a tutorial a while ago about adding tattoos, and really liked this one for that very reason. Amazingly, it does look 3 dimensional with the wings up and a shadow on one side. I deliberately posed everything the way it is so the sun could not possibly be casting that shadow, and viewers might notice that it's a tattoo without being told. (then I ruined it by telling everyone! Duh!)
I googled "butterfly tattoos", and found this one. It was a freebie. It might even have been the one the guy used on the Youtube tutorial I followed. Can't remember...it was a while ago.
Very cool
Well, I was leaving room for a small ship-in-a-bottle :-P
Cropping is a good idea - let me look at that when I get home. It certainly isn't strong as a composition - I need to go back to last months lessons now that I have enough props and lighting.
Thank-you. The next version of this has the weak spot moved (I'm trying for just a hint of rim light so she doesn't blend too completely into the shadows) - I'll be more aware of avoiding distracting shadows when I get back to that.
Thank-you Delirius. I suspect she'd much rather be sitting by the fire with a glass of wine :-) Your render looks much more relaxing and comfortable, and I fear for this young lady as she comprehends what is on the other side of the blinds (um, once I figure out what's on the other side of the blinds).
In an ideal world when we are doing these challenges we would all be viewing with calibrated monitors and embedded image colour profiles set to sRGB so that what each of us sees on our monitor will look the same on someone else's monitor. Not all monitors are created equal though and most people probably won't be using colour critical devices with hardware level calibration. We can approximate, but because you are seeing the same image with different tonal values on two different machines means that there is a difference in how those monitors are displaying the same colour values, and it can be simply, albeit very roughly, adjusted with the contrast and brightness controls most screens have. However, without true colour calibration and using profiles for our images it's hit and miss whether anyone's monitor will display colour values exactly how they are displayed on someone else's. It's a huge topic and it becomes even more complicated once you add printing to the workflow.
As for my image, thank you! I think I will get rid of the window altogether with a rethink on composition.
Try making the light source a lot larger to create softer shadows.
And bravo on the hardware upgrade :-)
So I've done a rethink on the composition and light setup.
The lights won't stay this way, I was experimenting on the effect an emissive sphere would have on the scene, so it is rather flat looking. I'm mainly trying to get the concept right at this point.
This version of the scene is more surreal than the previous and I think more like what I had in mind. I may combine it with elements of the previous render. The mirror needs to be repositioned so it reflects the figure insteead of the giant book, and I think I'd like the legs to be less prominant than they are, but that's the fault of the pose and camera viewpoint.
I have one question about the cloth that is flapping in the wind above the mirror. I used the dynamic clothing plugin on a dynamic sheet to create the look, but if I move the sheet it resets itself to a flat object. Has anyone ever used this tool and is there a way of locking the sheet after the effect has been applied?
Thanks Shortcut. Interesting idea. I haven't looked at that possibility yet.
Anyone know how the sun could be made larger in the sun-sky only render setting to soften shadows?
In the same way a cloud cover creates a huge light source (and softer shadows) out of the Sun (which is effectively a point source), is there a way to do the same in the software? Would adding a huge primitive plane between the light source and the window to act as a diffuser work or is that nonsense? I’m curious to know myself if that would work. I don’t know what kind of surface settings you would have to apply to it though to behave as a translucent object.
To soften the shadow you could go into your Render settings, on the Environment tab lower the Environment Intensity setting. I rarely have it set above .30. If the overall scene is too dark after that, go to the Tone Mapping tab and lower the Exposure Value by 1 or 2 points.
Thanks soc_stig.
Yeah, I knew about that. Just wasn't sure about changing the size of the sun.
I do want the background about the way it is, almost completely black. And I want the face in deep shadows, but enough to make out facial features. I just need to get rid of that jagged edge on the shoulder (in the original image) without having to resort to post.
hmmm..good question. I am (im)patiently awaiting the arrival of my new system so I can try some of these ideas out. 4-7 days to go!
Feels like Christmas...
Just so you all know, the Spotlighted Artists have been announced in last months thread here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2096096/#Comment_2096096
Another way to soften shadows is to move the light source farther away, so you could try shifting the environment dome up and/or out.
Another revision playing around with things. I got more light on the tablecloth to make it look whiter, got the front of the character's shirt to have white highlights, and I lowered the temperature of the light from the fire--which had the effect of making the foreground less orange and more red. I am thinking of experimenting with putting multiple emissives in the fireplace and setting them at different temperatures to see if I can produce a kind of "flickering" effect in the light from the fireplace. As it is now I don't think it looks like light from a fire. Any ideas or suggestions?