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You think so? Thanks, I'll work on fixing the shirt and the post width too
You mentioned an "arch leading to the head", but I can't identify that in the composition.
You have a lot of interesting elements in your image to make it a "lived in" room. I think that is unusually perceptive for a beginner, so good work! There are a couple distracting elements along the edges that are pulling my eye away, though. On the left is something reddish, that I think might be a surf board???. Since that character is watching surfing on the computer screen, that might be a significant element of the story, but the framing of the image is cutting it off, and I'm not even sure that is what it is. Perhaps a change of render aspect ratio or camera angle would clarify how it fits into the theme of the image. In the top right corner is something that looks like wood and white. That is also drawing my eye away from the main scene. Perhaps removing it would help, if it is not an important part of the story.
When creating your art, be mindful of copyrights and usage restrictions. Take care that you have a legal right to use any elements that you add to your scene. I'm concerned about the image the appears on your character's computer screen in this case.
I really like where this one is going!
I'm using Victoria 7 Iray materials. No conversion from 3DL. No makeup anywhere except eyes. Rendered with saturation at 0.0 (i.e no colour). Lighting used 2 spots, one from high above left to light the side of the figure's face, a softer fill from the front and slightly to the right, another spot from behind. I doubt the spot from behind has anything to do with it as it wouldn't be lighting the face. I might try a render for each light on its own to see if that identifies a possible culprit.
I also used 'Translucency Medium' on the Victoria 7 Iray skin, but I don't know what that actually does or how it affects the final render. It was an option to click on so I clicked, without knowing, which is a bit daft, but sometimes I try renders with some things on or off to see the change in effect. I can't recall if I've tried that with this option. If anyone could explain it that would be great :-)
It's the window he is sitting in. The sides come up to an arch, instead of squaring off like a normal window.
Thanks for taking the time to explain!
I really like this! I do think a rim light behind him would help him stand out from the background. Not too strong but something. You could do it in a pale blue or something like that to help reduce the impact as well.
This is a really great start. I wonder if we could see her face better if that strong light on (my) left was moved to shine on her face from the other side.
Ummm...yes? Lol. That's why you come here, to learn about these kinds of things lol. I wouldn't know a quarter of what I know now if I hadn't spent some serious time in this particular forum.
Thank you! and Yeah I thought that I should put a bit of light on her face..thanks for the feedback
If you go to the "Surfaces (Color)" tab (ignoring the mispelling of "Colour") of the "Actors, Wardrobe and Props" view you'll find "Lips" under "Surfaces" of "Skin-Lips-Nails" for Victoria 7. Lots of things to mess with in there that might help...
Ah, but abs, legs and magnetic boots are insignifant next to the power of the force... :P
Thank you (and everyone) for the feeedback - very helpful. I'll just let the picture talk to it, but at least I'm happier with the results. I've re-framed, re-posed, re-lit, some postwork in GIMP, so... Playing Off the Rails 2.0. Feedback always appreciated.
OK, me and Photoshop had a heart to heart, and I think this is improved over the last one. More of the background is visible, and the figure is a bit more vibrant, I think. :D
(I'll edit in the picture after the message loads)
OK, me and Photoshop had a heart to heart, and I think this is improved over the last one. More of the background is visible, and the figure is a bit more vibrant, I think. :D
That's a big improvement!
You can see a lot more of the figure's environment now and he's seperated well from the background. You might want to try playing with the DOF to help that seperation even more by making the background slightly out of focus.
Thank you for that, I'll look into those settings and experiment :-)
( How dare they spell colour like that :-p )
I really like the change in the position of her foot. Looks good. :)
Nice improvement.
I loaded up Victoria 7 and tried to see if I could replicate that lip problems. I could even though my lights were a little different than yours. The specular noise was a little bit different and changing the lights only made the noise on the lips move position so that wasn't any help. I did a little experimentation with some surface settings. The first image (VictoriaLips01) is what I was getting with the default surface settings. The second (VictoriaLip04) saw a little bit of improvement. What I did was select just the lips in the Surface Tab. I changed the Refraction Index to 2 and the Glossy Reflectivity to 0. I think the Glossy Reflectivity had more of an impact than the Refraction Index did. Finally, I played with the Crushed Blacks and the Burn Highlights in the Tone Mapping under the Render Settings Tab. I'm a big proponent for playing with Tone Mapping. It can really make a huge difference in the final image. I upped the Burn Highlights to .35 and the Crush Blacks to .30. I think if I played with it more I might have been able to get rid of it completely. You'll have to play with those settings and see if they help you out at all.
Frankly, I'm not that crazy about Victoria 7's skin enough to go further. If it was me, I would change the skin completely for some other characters skin. Most of them are pretty interchangeable within the same generation. So, that's what I did in the third image (Victoria705). I just changed skins and all of the lighting and tone mapping is the same as the second image. The noise is still there but different and looks more blended in and natural. I don't know if anyone else will have any further suggestions. My best advice is to just play with it.
I can link you to this great post of Sickleyield's on her DA page which has a breakdown of the Iray settings and what each of them does. I refer to it all of the time when I'm not sure what a particular setting in Iray does.
@Aloreea :Or maybe bring in a spotlight on the opposite angle at maybe 40 or 60%? Just enough to fill in the shadows? Lighting is something I have been really focusing on myself. Dreamlight3D on Youtube says lighting is 90% of a good image, and he's got videos on Daz's youtube as well as his own channel talking about lighting, which are fantastic. He can explain the '3-point light setup' better than I can. I also checked out a lot of lighting tutorials for photographers, since we are basically doing the same thing. :)
I like the dramatic side light angle you have going, so I wouldn't want to overpower that, just fill in the details with the second, less powerful light so you keep the drama of the shandows, and I think you'll like the results. :)
I like the drama of the composition, too.
Very good improvement I like it!
@Shortcut I posted my pictures along with a link to your pictures here on my laboratory thread. This is the advice that I got for you from one of the vendors, @DarwinsMishap.
So, give that a try and see how it goes. DarwinsMishap does amazing figure creation and texturing so I would highly recommend following DM's advice. Good luck.
edit: I forgot to put the link to the post in my laboratory thread. Added that now.
Now I can see the window.
Just did a quick test render (so a bit grainy) - wanted to get feedback for letting it cook all the way.
This started out much differently. I worked on it for a week or so before finally realizing what i didn't like about it. Changed that and everything else fell into place (which of course meant changing everything else).
Tried to incorporate a little of everything compositio-wise - a bit of rule of thirds, a hint of leading lines, a pinch of dramtic lighting, a dash of accent color, a dab of DoF - but didn't follow any rules to a T.
Please delet this entry
I like this work a lot. Expression, pose and light works perfect with the DoF and background color.
First of all, thank you for the suggestions and tips.
I try to do it as best as possible, but much does not work quite as I would, because I lack the necessary experience and the knowledge.
I have reduced the light of the lamp. (I did not want to omit them.)
Also, I tried to fill the empty space on the top left, without distracting from the main figure.
In addition, I have inserted various small things to give the picture more life and dynamics.
I am still testing various light and camera settings and I am looking for a perfect relationship between light and dark.
I'm really envious of people who can eliminate all the annoying things with postwork.
Since I am not at all aware of this, I try to create many things in DAZ and fail, because of lack of knowledge, often miserable.
@Knittingmommy
Thank you for all those suggestions! I'm definitely going to check out your laboratory thread.
Attached below in order are outcomes of the different things I tried:
Playing with the surfaces settings (glossy reflectivity, refraction index etc) managed to reduce the noisy effect but it was a bit hit and miss with all the different settings without knowing exactly what they do. Thanks for the link to sickleyield, there’s some interesting and very useful information there. I think if I had experimented more I could have better reduced the effect but I wasn’t satisfied with the progress I was making. The good thing about this approach was that it was localised to the specific body part where the problem was occurring.
Then I applied Summer for Vic7 skin materials, which eliminated the problem entirely, but also changed the look of the image somewhat because it was applied to the whole figure/face. The skin was paler in the render, less flawed, but also introduced some other aspects which I didn’t like. It’s completely subjective and neither version is more ‘correct’ than the other, but as I started with the Victoria 7 skin on this figure I’ve become accustomed to its look. In using the Summer skin a lot of definition in the ear and the hand was lost, and some strange roughness was introduced on the neck which was noticeable in the final image. I simply used the out of the box settings and as I am discovering, each time I try something there are many ways to tweak and change things. My goal here though was to eliminate those noisy highlights in the lips, which it did perfectly.
The last tip suggested swapping the surface properties on the lips from another part of the face. This was a great tip and produced a very noticeable result, mostly eliminating the distracting noisiness from the lips, so thank you to @DarwinsMishap for that.
I’ve posted the new WIP image, including postwork as previously, from this render. An additional change includes placement of a leaf in the bottom left corner to bring down the brightness in that area and help keep the eye from wandering out of the frame.
That looks SO much better. I'm glad you found some of the tips useful. I'll have to let DarwinsMishap know that the last tip helped you out.
If you happen on my thread, be sure to check out the list of tutorials that have others and myself have posted to it to see if there is anything that would be of help to you. I'm trying to keep them organized with an index on the first page about the 3rd post down. We're adding more all of the time.
Great progress on this! It is looking nice!
Well, I went back to the outside view, and fixed a few things, some minor tweaks, swapped the uncarved block for the ship (like I had done in the other view). I also spent waaay too much time creating my own sailing ship to put in a bottle. Now to crawl back inside the bottle...