@Tynkere this looks like a cool start, I like the deformed car and the guy sitting on the floor( I think hes a bit too low sinking into the street atm) btu the story needs the description yet, why is the godess looking at the camera? is she the one talking? The size difference is there but I think it could be more obvious for the image to tell the story itself. Maybe as well place her a bit away from the car, so we see mor of the car and her better set apart by contrasting on the darker background, maybe let the guy still look a bit in awe at the godess (even while sitting on the floor and touching his neck)
LOL. Well if I have to explain a joke, best change the subject and talk about the weather! Good call on clipping, proportions & overall viewer confusion though. A case of “I can’t see the forest for the trees" sort of thing. Here's quick & dirty of what had in mind for finished product. Not worth it though if just not funny...
So here's another one. Been playing with 3Delight since all isn't IRay. Question here is how to add a bit of light to her idly scratching the cat’s ear without being too obvious about it.
@Tynkere this looks like a cool start, I like the deformed car and the guy sitting on the floor( I think hes a bit too low sinking into the street atm) btu the story needs the description yet, why is the godess looking at the camera? is she the one talking? The size difference is there but I think it could be more obvious for the image to tell the story itself. Maybe as well place her a bit away from the car, so we see mor of the car and her better set apart by contrasting on the darker background, maybe let the guy still look a bit in awe at the godess (even while sitting on the floor and touching his neck)
LOL. Well if I have to explain a joke, best change the subject and talk about the weather! Good call on clipping, proportions & overall viewer confusion though. A case of “I can’t see the forest for the trees" sort of thing. Here's quick & dirty of what had in mind for finished product. Not worth it though if just not funny...
So here's another one. Been playing with 3Delight since all isn't IRay. Question here is how to add a bit of light to her idly scratching the cat’s ear without being too obvious about it.
Suggestions welcome!
I find the car accident still funny and the attention signs made it even better. ( It reminds me a little to the humor in Fallout)
To your girl with the phone and the cat. It's definitely too dark, but I be always a loser it it comes to light a scene correctly.
If it was in Iray I would advise you to use a ghostlight. AndyS had made a simple freebie. http://www.sharecg.com/v/87021/browse/7/Material-and-Shader/Simple-iRay-GhostLights-Shader
and in the shop, there is a fine product to use it commercial. https://www.daz3d.com/iray-ghost-light-kit-2
But that will help you much, when you use 3Delight, what means that you have to do all the light manually. Maybe you could ask other members in the forum.
After I failed, to do good post work in Gimp, I tried in Daz to make changes.
It was really difficult to erase the harsh lights on the buildings, because I only light the scene with a primitive that I use as sun. (Enviroment intesity from dome is set to. 0.0097)
The buildings are from the www.daz3d.com/airport-island-city-center and have extreme shiny and reflecting surfaces. I tried so many things, to erase the shiny roof from the round tower, but get no succeed. So I dropped him out and replaced him with another building from the set.
After that, I reduced the DoF, Environment map/lighting resolution a little. I also canceled the bloom effect, but still miss him and maybe I tried another render. The rendertime is stil high (15h), but I like this set a much.
I think this has improved with that bright building gone, If you use a primitive as amin light source you could try to give it a slight tilt upwart so some rays can come around the face of the girl to rive this rim light (assuming you use the bottom of a cylinder that is, with a sphere its more complicated, you could squish it flat, use one axis scale, and then tilt)
Yes I use a sphere as lightsource and to be honest, I have no clue what you want me to do.
Ahem, sorry! Have one of my crappy drawings for explanation LOL.
What you want to achice is the rim light effect as the original had, right? So, with a sphere as light source the light is emitted equally in all directions, which is what thse sun does , true enough, but our real llife sun is far enough away and is the photo you used already low enough that our atmosphere bend the rays in a way that the rim light effect can happen.
with a sphere in a "normal seized" render setting that can not be simulated. so you can use something flat in my crappy draing a plane but it can be a bottom of a cylinder as well so you have the round thingy as sun. If you put that in a 90° relation to the figure the light can not come around, so you tilt it slightly upwart so some rays can hit from below the figure and there the rimlight should be. With the sphere already there you could try to flatten that enough in one direction that you get a disk and that again you can tilt ( should work in theory as well)
Ah, thank's for the explanation Linwelly. Sometimes a pic says more than thousend words. Now I know what you mean. I don't know if I start another try with the pic. (because of the horrible render time)
I think I put it in the drawer, until I have a new PC+Graphic card.
I find the car accident still funny and the attention signs made it even better. ( It reminds me a little to the humor in Fallout)
To your girl with the phone and the cat. It's definitely too dark, but I be always a loser it it comes to light a scene correctly.
If it was in Iray I would advise you to use a ghostlight. AndyS had made a simple freebie. http://www.sharecg.com/v/87021/browse/7/Material-and-Shader/Simple-iRay-GhostLights-Shader
and in the shop, there is a fine product to use it commercial. https://www.daz3d.com/iray-ghost-light-kit-2
But that will help you much, when you use 3Delight, what means that you have to do all the light manually. Maybe you could ask other members in the forum.
Thanks about silly ad. Kind of you to say so. ; )
Any links to free stuff always appreciated!
That helps if you tell me 3Delight render is too dark. Most all the body shouold be in shadow-- mainly after just a small oval of her face-- maybe her other hand with the cat to convey she's relaxing.
Might have to do with color as well as intensity of the extra light.
But if everyone else tells me they can't see much of anything, might have to adjust sRBG & gamma on my desktop, or add more light to ceiling light in the render.
Probably my last render on little test. If don't see you on forums happy holidays!
Edit: Dec. 2018 - weeding out too many files at imgur. PM if find broken links.
@Tynkere your render is rather dark but I can see the lady with her phone and the cat on the floor. As you are using 3dlight I suggest you add an Uber environment light at maybe 30 with the setting on ... will look that up i got an iray render cooking now or is you have the AOA light use the environmental of those (renders faster than the UE and you can localize the effect
edit to say, the setting is called occlusion w/ soft shadows, intensity I suggest about 30%
@Tynkere and @daybird nooo, that not my intention to make you stop what you are doing. Your renders are both nice and worth to keep working on them, if I came off that harsh I'm very sorry.
Sometimes its difficult to give advice and put it in a good way I try to do better in the future
Don't worry Linwelly. I do not take your advice as a criticism.Such advices are highly welcome to improve my skills. It's just how I tell you. It took nearly 20min until I can see the first result of the render and even 20 more until I can realise if the render go in the right direction. So I really need a better system before I take another try.
That explains so much! Thank you for this! I've been doing most (almost all) of my meshlights as spheres because, hey, no rotation to worry about. Just plop it in the spot you want a light, and away you go! Definitely going to bring more planes into my renders now.
Spent a couple hours putting this together and adjusting. Really liked the stark silhouette of their faces.
Started using Daz in July, been getting really comfortable with it. :D
Edit: It took so long for this to show on the page so I could actually edit it to have the full picture, though. O_o
Dang, this month has got me crushed under paying work and leaving me almost no time to have fun! I do have a render running (it's like the 6th or 7th version and I'm starting to be happy with it. I'll have it up later tonight or tomorrow morning. In the meantime, a few reactions/comments and stuff...
If decide to pursue this one, eventually it will have cartoon captions. Suggestions on Greek style lace up sandals welcome (although fitting to Olympia might be a challenge!)
The following PSA:
--- Public Service Announcement from the Department of Highway Safety.
Motorists: Driving while Taking Photos of Giant Greek Goddesses Can Cause Accidents. "Don't Do it!"
---
Love the concept on this one! Check out these products - the Hellenic outfit has these
I love the PSA version of this a whole lot. In your second render, it IS dark, but a little less so full size. I don't do a lot of work with 3DL, but from a pure observational viewpoint - the light falling on your girl's hand just feels -off-. I'm not sure what you're using to light the other room, but I'd try fiddling with the angle on that - bring it up higher and back some and make it a little brighter, maybe? - so that it goes over her legs and falls on her hand. Aside from that, I like the mood of that a lot.
@ricswika - that's purely amazing, and the lighting change really makes a huge difference. There's so much going on in your render, but what strikes me the most is the posing of the paws holding the little ornaments.
@shaneseymourstudio - lovely reflection work! Whyever would you think about adding smoke to that?!
@rcbcgreenpanzer - Nothing wrong with your fashion sense - the texture change smooths right in perfectly. I agree with Linwelly that she looks more ready to fight than to dance - though I love her facial expression. A little bit of trepidation, maybe a little nervous.. the tension in her pose isn't just in her fisted hands. If you want to relax her a little, consider starting at her core - roll her shoulders, move the collar back and forward, twist a little back and forth until you get a look that feels more relaxed. Once you have her arms in position, then play with her hands.
My long day is catching up with me - I'll catch up with some of the other comments when I get up in a few hours! Nice, nice work here this month, everyone!
@ricswika - that's purely amazing, and the lighting change really makes a huge difference. There's so much going on in your render, but what strikes me the most is the posing of the paws holding the little ornaments.
I tried to make the cats look like my pets Bunny, on the left, and Newton on the right. :)
Thank-you and everyuone for the feedback and kind words.
Nice. The floor, reflections and mirror are fantastic. I think the red lights are not as realistic as the other parts of the scene and that sort of ruins the upper right of the image. They seem too cartoony or maybe just a little too bright. They are very close to great, but something is off.
I like the way the model comes out of the shadows, but the miror seems to be more important. I'll wait to see what you do with it, but looks very moody and interesting so far.
The more I look at that Deco Christmas Cats entry, the more I like it. The only slight criticism I have is that in the closeups the cats' eyes look slightly too deepset in their eyesockets. Not really noticeable in the main pic though.
I notied that too about the eyes. I ended up turning the head to reduce that effect. I think the eyes need more IR or something.I converted them to Iray from Daz Studio and never figured out how to fix that exactly.
@Tynkere and @daybird nooo, that not my intention to make you stop what you are doing. Your renders are both nice and worth to keep working on them, if I came off that harsh I'm very sorry.
Sometimes its difficult to give advice and put it in a good way I try to do better in the future
No need to apologize for expressing your opinions and wanting to help others.
If we go down that road, “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
Peace!
If my not submitting any ‘formal’ entries to the contest caused you stress or worry, then I apologize too.
You didn’t chase me away though. Just the way I do things. In satirical cartoons or underground comics, a joke either works, or it bombs. No improving it-- just sharpen the pencils and draw something else!
So I have a similar approach to learning DS I guess. If a bit of fun doesn’t work, or once I’ve figured something out, I tend to ditch projects and make new ones that’s all.
That said, I think such an unexpected and public apology like yours took courage and humility. That inspired me. So much of what’s on the net today is a bunch of meanspirited (poopoo) if you ask me, and you didn’t!
So meet Hope who is pictured here looking forward to a brighter tomorrow. A tomorrow where people treat one another with dignity, civility, and respect. Only we don’t have to gaze off into some distant horizon like my virtual model here. We have a real person-- yourself-- who leads by example.
With respect then,
I ‘hope’ you like my ‘peace’ offering I made for you.
Happy holidays!
--Bruce
---
Edit: Dec. 2018 - weeding out too many files at imgur. PM if find broken links.
Nice natural pose & faces look realistic. Interesting how you raised the camera up a bit & went shallow on DoF to get their feet slightly blurred? Have to try it!
@ Chameo
You manage to find, or know about everything! How many is that now? 50s oxfords, 50s hairdoo, and now Greek sandals. From the RRRR my 'pull' list is a huge 263. Bet yours is in thousands!
As for 3Delight, it's either how it renders, or a new (used) video card since an older one went out. Have to rethink that one-- assuming I still have it. If not I'll just make another one. : )
@ Ricswika
I haven't the slightest idea what a *.exr file is, but am going to find out! Has a warm pleasing tone to it. Soft ambient light & gentle shadows beyond me at the moment.
Destroyed Rover courtesy of d-form tool. Some people are good at lighting, maybe others at posing hands or facial expressions. I like smushing stuff.
@ ShaneSeymour
I just now noticed extra figure in the mirror. Bet that was a pain to set up. Looks like they don't exactly get along, or could be mistaken. Very small on a 4k monitor.
---
Happy Holidays & newyear everyone. Or who knows... I'm on vacation, and picked up some 3Delight shaders. Maybe I'll play around with them and post if solve the gamma problem.
Nice natural pose & faces look realistic. Interesting how you raised the camera up a bit & went shallow on DoF to get their feet slightly blurred? Have to try it!
...
@ Ricswika
Destroyed Rover courtesy of d-form tool. Some people are good at lighting, maybe others at posing hands or facial expressions. I like smushing stuff.
Yep, that's what I did, except in the full size render (4k in portrait orientation), it's more apparent the blurring starts around the waist. Also a lot more detail. Worth the click, I think. ;)
I've done a lot of photography in the past so I've grown really fond of DoF effects. They're much narrower in DS than you'd get with a real lens - what I did there was with an f stop around 11 which would only blur the background or a little of the midground at best on a real camera. A 3.5 which you'd use for a mild DoF effect on a camera gave an extremely narrow focus band in DS more like a 1.8 lens or maybe even a 1.4, which is a little crazy. Between the extremely narrow field and the fact that DS tends not to blend the edges of the field of focus very well when it's narrow, I wouldn't recommend going below that 11-ish f-stop. That's about the point where I could get enough of the shot in focus to be worthwhile and where the blend was a bit more realistic.
Remember to use perspective view from the side to adjust your focus. Makes it much faster being able to see exactly how wide the field is and where the edges are.
Also, the d-formers... I really need to start messing with those. I only just realized they were a thing yesterday. I have so much to learn about using them.
Finally - I've been playing with this for a while now, and spent a whole lot of time working with things that I ended up pulling out of the final render. I did a little bit of retexturing, but put a lot of time into posing, lighting and camera angles to capture a mood of wonder - Happy Holidays, all (though strictly speaking, this isn't a holiday render). The only postwork was a touch with the healing brush in GIMP to fix a tiny bit of pokethrough on the little boy's sleeve.
Title: Watching the Stars Fall
Inspired by the Gemnids asteroid showers this past weekend. This year especially, there was something especially wonderful in knowing that the starfall was an experienced shared with people all over the world.
I decided to forgo the original entry I made this month. I tweaked and tweaked and messed around with it until I realized that I was not happy with it overall. I then imagined a more traditional setting for a dragon and ended up with this image that I find more appealing and want to use it for a second entry instead of the first submission.
Missed your latest. Must have been on-line at the same time. What are the odds?
Anyway what is it? ! Kind of looks like cute bug except those could be gun turrets not eyes. : 0 !
@ Guitardrifter
A fellow shutterbug. Canon or Nikon? ; ) Could type very long OT about photography but better not.
Agree about f-stop in DS though. "f-stop" for 3Delight render in 52! Not up on latest. Wonder high can latest camera body & primo glass go nowadays? Think mine will only go a little past 32 if remember right. 52... Wonder what for... Astronomy?
To topic. One thing I see that's pretty minor-- you probably already know it. White on his shoes still pops out at me even if out of focus. You've tried an off white/biege or something? Looks burned in or deliberately messing with color? Think that's about the only thing can find about it.
Oh, and d-form tool. It's a lot of fun. I try to use it in stages and have found 'spline editor' to be useful. It's similar to how you'd edit curves in PS.
@ Chameo
Really good FX, posing & expressions. Just me, or kiddo looks to have just had a little fright? "What are those things!" But she’s with Dad and feels safe. Really good body language.
Two spotlights to bring their eyes/teeth out? That’s what’s causing shadows at lower right side? One kind of reminds me of christmas stocking shape or something. : )
@ Shane
I think the one with the mirror is going to be hard to beat.
On this one, pan the camera to the right & get in the rest of dragon’s wing? Or you've thought of that & would mess up something else up? You’re a quick study, so like Guitardrifter-- am sure you know what you’re doing. Sometimes a different set of eyes though. : )
----
As for me, progress slow in 3Delight, but better than none at all! I followed Daybird's advice & asked the experts. Useful tips about basic render settings, shading methods, settings-- information overload but it's a fun project.
Anyway, hopefully everyone can see Stephie 8 & Millie Cat now. Turns out gamma correction is disabled by default for some reason.
I changed the ceiling light & spot to her face. Hopefully it looks more like incanscent lighting on a 35mm file print. Not sure about how a phone would photograph since haven't used color film in a long time. The knob on the table is not a special effect! Some of the textures may not load correctly... What else? Added DoF now that (hopefully) the lighting problem is well on its way to being solved.
What I don't know is (since I'm showing this image at 3Delight topic as well) can this one be an 'official' entry?
If not, I'll make up something else.
Until I hear from CV or Mod, though, not attaching larger render.
Thanks for reading!
---
Edit: Dec. 2018 - weeding out too many files at imgur. PM if find broken links.
I made some changes that I think improve the Dragon Tower image tremendously. I am going to work on the color of the tower but otherwise I feel much more happy with the wide aspect view and dragon towering over the figures as well as the color tone.
I also made a change to the pose of the figure on right so that it didn't look quite as pin-up in nature and adjusted her bangs so that it was not covering her forehead and right eye like it was.
A fellow shutterbug. Canon or Nikon? ; ) Could type very long OT about photography but better not.
Agree about f-stop in DS though. "f-stop" for 3Delight render in 52! Not up on latest. Wonder high can latest camera body & primo glass go nowadays? Think mine will only go a little past 32 if remember right. 52... Wonder what for... Astronomy?
To topic. One thing I see that's pretty minor-- you probably already know it. White on his shoes still pops out at me even if out of focus. You've tried an off white/biege or something? Looks burned in or deliberately messing with color? Think that's about the only thing can find about it.
Nikon all the way for me. It's all I've ever used. :)
A 52 aperture seems like it would be extremely difficult to use for astronomy because of how little light capture it would offer. Seems like you'd have to use extremely high ISO settings to make up for a high aperture, which would give you lots of image noise. One reason why most telescopes measure their aperture in centimeters rather than an f-stop.
High f-stops are usually on the cheap end, too - I bought an f/32 lens for about $5 brand new before, mostly only valued for a weird effect it offers because of the low quality glass (plastic, really) messing with the colors. The widest aperture I've seen for a lens is a 1.2, which I don't even want to touch because it's hard enough to focus a 1.8, and can generally only be found in a Prime lens. Very few modern versions of a 1.2 lens are manufactured because they're expensive, bulky, and overly difficult to use. (Nikon isn't even directly selling anything wider than f/1.4 prime anymore.)
On the other hand, the f/64 club came to be because of Ansel Adams and the mantra that everything must be in focus, with which I clearly disagree. :)
(Edit: I misunderstood what you said about the shoes at first. Rewriting my response.)
The shoes do seem pretty bright compared to everything else around them. I don't think I'll change it, though. Might seem a little off, but I like to have things simply show up however they happen to outside of the main focus of an image. Sometimes it's a negative, sometimes it's a positive, but it keeps things more interesting for me.
Comments
Here is the final version. Rendered to.exr via Iray canvas and tone mapped using Affinity photo. I softened the specular highlights on the floor.
Wow! So much difference in the lighting, it has alot more depth! Very good job:) Canvases are the way to go imho.
LOL. Well if I have to explain a joke, best change the subject and talk about the weather! Good call on clipping, proportions & overall viewer confusion though. A case of “I can’t see the forest for the trees" sort of thing. Here's quick & dirty of what had in mind for finished product. Not worth it though if just not funny...
So here's another one. Been playing with 3Delight since all isn't IRay. Question here is how to add a bit of light to her idly scratching the cat’s ear without being too obvious about it.
Suggestions welcome!
Love it. Great work on this.
The mass of details is incredible.
I find the car accident still funny and the attention signs made it even better. ( It reminds me a little to the humor in Fallout)
To your girl with the phone and the cat. It's definitely too dark, but I be always a loser it it comes to light a scene correctly.
If it was in Iray I would advise you to use a ghostlight. AndyS had made a simple freebie.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/87021/browse/7/Material-and-Shader/Simple-iRay-GhostLights-Shader
and in the shop, there is a fine product to use it commercial.
https://www.daz3d.com/iray-ghost-light-kit-2
But that will help you much, when you use 3Delight, what means that you have to do all the light manually. Maybe you could ask other members in the forum.
Ah, thank's for the explanation Linwelly. Sometimes a pic says more than thousend words. Now I know what you mean. I don't know if I start another try with the pic. (because of the horrible render time)
I think I put it in the drawer, until I have a new PC+Graphic card.
Thanks about silly ad. Kind of you to say so. ; )
Any links to free stuff always appreciated!
That helps if you tell me 3Delight render is too dark. Most all the body shouold be in shadow-- mainly after just a small oval of her face-- maybe her other hand with the cat to convey she's relaxing.
Might have to do with color as well as intensity of the extra light.
But if everyone else tells me they can't see much of anything, might have to adjust sRBG & gamma on my desktop, or add more light to ceiling light in the render.
Probably my last render on little test. If don't see you on forums happy holidays!
Edit: Dec. 2018 - weeding out too many files at imgur. PM if find broken links.
@Tynkere your render is rather dark but I can see the lady with her phone and the cat on the floor. As you are using 3dlight I suggest you add an Uber environment light at maybe 30 with the setting on ... will look that up i got an iray render cooking now or is you have the AOA light use the environmental of those (renders faster than the UE and you can localize the effect
edit to say, the setting is called occlusion w/ soft shadows, intensity I suggest about 30%
@Tynkere and @daybird nooo, that not my intention to make you stop what you are doing. Your renders are both nice and worth to keep working on them, if I came off that harsh I'm very sorry.
Sometimes its difficult to give advice and put it in a good way I try to do better in the future
Very seasonal! You have a nice variety.
Don't worry Linwelly. I do not take your advice as a criticism.Such advices are highly welcome to improve my skills. It's just how I tell you. It took nearly 20min until I can see the first result of the render and even 20 more until I can realise if the render go in the right direction. So I really need a better system before I take another try.
That explains so much! Thank you for this! I've been doing most (almost all) of my meshlights as spheres because, hey, no rotation to worry about. Just plop it in the spot you want a light, and away you go! Definitely going to bring more planes into my renders now.
Spent a couple hours putting this together and adjusting. Really liked the stark silhouette of their faces.
Started using Daz in July, been getting really comfortable with it. :D
Edit: It took so long for this to show on the page so I could actually edit it to have the full picture, though. O_o
Dang, this month has got me crushed under paying work and leaving me almost no time to have fun! I do have a render running (it's like the 6th or 7th version and I'm starting to be happy with it. I'll have it up later tonight or tomorrow morning. In the meantime, a few reactions/comments and stuff...
Love the concept on this one! Check out these products - the Hellenic outfit has these
I love the PSA version of this a whole lot. In your second render, it IS dark, but a little less so full size. I don't do a lot of work with 3DL, but from a pure observational viewpoint - the light falling on your girl's hand just feels -off-. I'm not sure what you're using to light the other room, but I'd try fiddling with the angle on that - bring it up higher and back some and make it a little brighter, maybe? - so that it goes over her legs and falls on her hand. Aside from that, I like the mood of that a lot.
@ricswika - that's purely amazing, and the lighting change really makes a huge difference. There's so much going on in your render, but what strikes me the most is the posing of the paws holding the little ornaments.
@shaneseymourstudio - lovely reflection work! Whyever would you think about adding smoke to that?!
@rcbcgreenpanzer - Nothing wrong with your fashion sense - the texture change smooths right in perfectly. I agree with Linwelly that she looks more ready to fight than to dance - though I love her facial expression. A little bit of trepidation, maybe a little nervous.. the tension in her pose isn't just in her fisted hands. If you want to relax her a little, consider starting at her core - roll her shoulders, move the collar back and forward, twist a little back and forth until you get a look that feels more relaxed. Once you have her arms in position, then play with her hands.
My long day is catching up with me - I'll catch up with some of the other comments when I get up in a few hours! Nice, nice work here this month, everyone!
I tried to make the cats look like my pets Bunny, on the left, and Newton on the right. :)
Thank-you and everyuone for the feedback and kind words.
Yes, too dark on my laptop where there isn't a lot of dynamic range in the dark areas.
Nice. The floor, reflections and mirror are fantastic. I think the red lights are not as realistic as the other parts of the scene and that sort of ruins the upper right of the image. They seem too cartoony or maybe just a little too bright. They are very close to great, but something is off.
I like the way the model comes out of the shadows, but the miror seems to be more important. I'll wait to see what you do with it, but looks very moody and interesting so far.
Now that is funny. How to heck did you smash up that car?
I notied that too about the eyes. I ended up turning the head to reduce that effect. I think the eyes need more IR or something.I converted them to Iray from Daz Studio and never figured out how to fix that exactly.
And ricswika, I shared your final version with my mother, and thought you should know, her reply was quote "Love it!!"
No need to apologize for expressing your opinions and wanting to help others.
If we go down that road, “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
Peace!
If my not submitting any ‘formal’ entries to the contest caused you stress or worry, then I apologize too.
You didn’t chase me away though. Just the way I do things. In satirical cartoons or underground comics, a joke either works, or it bombs. No improving it-- just sharpen the pencils and draw something else!
So I have a similar approach to learning DS I guess. If a bit of fun doesn’t work, or once I’ve figured something out, I tend to ditch projects and make new ones that’s all.
That said, I think such an unexpected and public apology like yours took courage and humility. That inspired me. So much of what’s on the net today is a bunch of meanspirited (poopoo) if you ask me, and you didn’t!
So meet Hope who is pictured here looking forward to a brighter tomorrow. A tomorrow where people treat one another with dignity, civility, and respect. Only we don’t have to gaze off into some distant horizon like my virtual model here. We have a real person-- yourself-- who leads by example.
With respect then,
I ‘hope’ you like my ‘peace’ offering I made for you.
Happy holidays!
--Bruce
---
Edit: Dec. 2018 - weeding out too many files at imgur. PM if find broken links.
Say the item in the background, over at sharecg, and I just had to do this one.
@ GuitarDrifter
Nice natural pose & faces look realistic. Interesting how you raised the camera up a bit & went shallow on DoF to get their feet slightly blurred? Have to try it!
@ Chameo
You manage to find, or know about everything! How many is that now? 50s oxfords, 50s hairdoo, and now Greek sandals. From the RRRR my 'pull' list is a huge 263. Bet yours is in thousands!
As for 3Delight, it's either how it renders, or a new (used) video card since an older one went out. Have to rethink that one-- assuming I still have it. If not I'll just make another one. : )
@ Ricswika
I haven't the slightest idea what a *.exr file is, but am going to find out! Has a warm pleasing tone to it. Soft ambient light & gentle shadows beyond me at the moment.
Destroyed Rover courtesy of d-form tool. Some people are good at lighting, maybe others at posing hands or facial expressions. I like smushing stuff.
@ ShaneSeymour
I just now noticed extra figure in the mirror. Bet that was a pain to set up. Looks like they don't exactly get along, or could be mistaken. Very small on a 4k monitor.
---
Happy Holidays & newyear everyone. Or who knows... I'm on vacation, and picked up some 3Delight shaders. Maybe I'll play around with them and post if solve the gamma problem.
Yep, that's what I did, except in the full size render (4k in portrait orientation), it's more apparent the blurring starts around the waist. Also a lot more detail. Worth the click, I think. ;)
I've done a lot of photography in the past so I've grown really fond of DoF effects. They're much narrower in DS than you'd get with a real lens - what I did there was with an f stop around 11 which would only blur the background or a little of the midground at best on a real camera. A 3.5 which you'd use for a mild DoF effect on a camera gave an extremely narrow focus band in DS more like a 1.8 lens or maybe even a 1.4, which is a little crazy. Between the extremely narrow field and the fact that DS tends not to blend the edges of the field of focus very well when it's narrow, I wouldn't recommend going below that 11-ish f-stop. That's about the point where I could get enough of the shot in focus to be worthwhile and where the blend was a bit more realistic.
Remember to use perspective view from the side to adjust your focus. Makes it much faster being able to see exactly how wide the field is and where the edges are.
Also, the d-formers... I really need to start messing with those. I only just realized they were a thing yesterday. I have so much to learn about using them.
Finally - I've been playing with this for a while now, and spent a whole lot of time working with things that I ended up pulling out of the final render. I did a little bit of retexturing, but put a lot of time into posing, lighting and camera angles to capture a mood of wonder - Happy Holidays, all (though strictly speaking, this isn't a holiday render). The only postwork was a touch with the healing brush in GIMP to fix a tiny bit of pokethrough on the little boy's sleeve.
Title: Watching the Stars Fall
Inspired by the Gemnids asteroid showers this past weekend. This year especially, there was something especially wonderful in knowing that the starfall was an experienced shared with people all over the world.
I decided to forgo the original entry I made this month. I tweaked and tweaked and messed around with it until I realized that I was not happy with it overall. I then imagined a more traditional setting for a dragon and ended up with this image that I find more appealing and want to use it for a second entry instead of the first submission.
TITLE: Dragon Tower
RENDERED IN: Daz3d using iRay
@ Shinji
Missed your latest. Must have been on-line at the same time. What are the odds?
Anyway what is it? ! Kind of looks like cute bug except those could be gun turrets not eyes. : 0 !
@ Guitardrifter
A fellow shutterbug. Canon or Nikon? ; ) Could type very long OT about photography but better not.
Agree about f-stop in DS though. "f-stop" for 3Delight render in 52! Not up on latest. Wonder high can latest camera body & primo glass go nowadays? Think mine will only go a little past 32 if remember right. 52... Wonder what for... Astronomy?
To topic. One thing I see that's pretty minor-- you probably already know it. White on his shoes still pops out at me even if out of focus. You've tried an off white/biege or something? Looks burned in or deliberately messing with color? Think that's about the only thing can find about it.
Oh, and d-form tool. It's a lot of fun. I try to use it in stages and have found 'spline editor' to be useful. It's similar to how you'd edit curves in PS.
@ Chameo
Really good FX, posing & expressions. Just me, or kiddo looks to have just had a little fright? "What are those things!" But she’s with Dad and feels safe. Really good body language.
Two spotlights to bring their eyes/teeth out? That’s what’s causing shadows at lower right side? One kind of reminds me of christmas stocking shape or something. : )
@ Shane
I think the one with the mirror is going to be hard to beat.
On this one, pan the camera to the right & get in the rest of dragon’s wing? Or you've thought of that & would mess up something else up? You’re a quick study, so like Guitardrifter-- am sure you know what you’re doing. Sometimes a different set of eyes though. : )
----
As for me, progress slow in 3Delight, but better than none at all! I followed Daybird's advice & asked the experts. Useful tips about basic render settings, shading methods, settings-- information overload but it's a fun project.
Anyway, hopefully everyone can see Stephie 8 & Millie Cat now. Turns out gamma correction is disabled by default for some reason.
I changed the ceiling light & spot to her face. Hopefully it looks more like incanscent lighting on a 35mm file print. Not sure about how a phone would photograph since haven't used color film in a long time. The knob on the table is not a special effect! Some of the textures may not load correctly... What else? Added DoF now that (hopefully) the lighting problem is well on its way to being solved.
What I don't know is (since I'm showing this image at 3Delight topic as well) can this one be an 'official' entry?
If not, I'll make up something else.
Until I hear from CV or Mod, though, not attaching larger render.
Thanks for reading!
---
Edit: Dec. 2018 - weeding out too many files at imgur. PM if find broken links.
I made some changes that I think improve the Dragon Tower image tremendously. I am going to work on the color of the tower but otherwise I feel much more happy with the wide aspect view and dragon towering over the figures as well as the color tone.
I also made a change to the pose of the figure on right so that it didn't look quite as pin-up in nature and adjusted her bangs so that it was not covering her forehead and right eye like it was.
Nikon all the way for me. It's all I've ever used. :)
A 52 aperture seems like it would be extremely difficult to use for astronomy because of how little light capture it would offer. Seems like you'd have to use extremely high ISO settings to make up for a high aperture, which would give you lots of image noise. One reason why most telescopes measure their aperture in centimeters rather than an f-stop.
High f-stops are usually on the cheap end, too - I bought an f/32 lens for about $5 brand new before, mostly only valued for a weird effect it offers because of the low quality glass (plastic, really) messing with the colors. The widest aperture I've seen for a lens is a 1.2, which I don't even want to touch because it's hard enough to focus a 1.8, and can generally only be found in a Prime lens. Very few modern versions of a 1.2 lens are manufactured because they're expensive, bulky, and overly difficult to use. (Nikon isn't even directly selling anything wider than f/1.4 prime anymore.)
On the other hand, the f/64 club came to be because of Ansel Adams and the mantra that everything must be in focus, with which I clearly disagree. :)
(Edit: I misunderstood what you said about the shoes at first. Rewriting my response.)
The shoes do seem pretty bright compared to everything else around them. I don't think I'll change it, though. Might seem a little off, but I like to have things simply show up however they happen to outside of the main focus of an image. Sometimes it's a negative, sometimes it's a positive, but it keeps things more interesting for me.