Benchmark Post - Thank you to Cowrara-ists
Diomede
Posts: 15,158
Hey, as I approach my 100th post on the Daz forums, surely some sort of benchmark, I wanted to express my gratitude to the folks here in the Carrara territory. Always very helpful. I especially want to thank Dart and Headwax, and 3DAge (please come back!), and Manstan (ditto), and Wendy, and Antara, and PhilW, and... well, the list is too long. Your generosity to myself as a newbie is in stark contrast to...
I can't get any constructive (or even destructive) criticism in the general newbie forum. Is it because I am a Cowrara-ist? The newbie forum said that you could use any program, not just Studio. No one has replied to two different posts I made seeking constructive criticism, even to the simple question of asking when a deadline is.
Hmmmm.
New users contest thread
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28360/P105/
diomede64 said:Still working on fireplace scene using Carrara. Replaced anything glows on flames with bulb lights in the fireplace. Also, although out of frame, there is a window on the righthand side. I used a spotlight on the other side of the side wall to mimic light coming through that window. And stupid question, but when is the entry deadline?
Suggestions welcome.
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Comments
Here is the WIP I was seeking advice on. Most things modeled in Carrara. There is a purchased buck over the fireplace, and a Poser bear morphed to be a bearskin rug. Anyway, can you picture a dog curled up on the couch?
I could see a dog on the couch for sure!
I was more active in the new members contest threads, but my summer has been pretty busy! I'll poke my head in there when I get a chance.
If I may, the lighting in the picture could use a little more work. I also know that you were thinking about using coals with replicated AG lights from your previous thread. I would say, add the coals and let the glow channel sell it. Don't worry about the AG. Whatever light is produced by the coals will be overwhelmed by the firelight. If you want to indicate a little light from the coals, you could stick a single, reddish/orange-sh, low intensity spot light with a short range and high falloff, pointed up at the fire grate (not the screen) to provide the effect.
I also think you may need to either lower the scene's ambient light intensity, or change the ambient light color to something more like reflected firelight.
Excellent suggestions! Now that is what I'm talking about. Lightning fast and piercingly accurate.
And it further demonstrates that the limitations on my Carrara-generated 3D art is not from my ability to use Carrara to execute the image that I have in my head, but that there are very important lighting concepts and composition principles that I do not have in my head. So I even want to thank a few (or one) poster who shall remain unnamed, but who harps on studying general art techniques.
Totally ditto! And it's simply impossible to list all of the people that I want to be sure get their name on the list because typing just... well... it's typing - and I suck at typing!
But I feel a family-oriented fondness and neighborly love (I've always been a hugging sort of neighbor - but you'd never guess that from knowing me here) toward this whole community. Dell started talking to me right away when I came in here talking about wanting to buy Carrara for my first time. He helped me get a deal of a lifetime, and gave me some great momentum - the sort that I try to return to the forums today. There were plenty more folks, too. Now diomede64 comes in and is teaching me all the time, as are Antara, Eyos, chiisuchianu, Fractal Dimensia and many others... And all of the people from before whom are now resurfacing... it's a welcome sight! So fun to learn!
Thanks a lot guys.
Diomede, please forgive me, but I forgot to mention that you're doing a great job on the modeling for this scene.
If you're interested, I may have a couple more ideas that may help if you want. If you don't like any of them, or they don't fit the idea for your scene, then that's perfectly cool! It is your vision after all.
One is to use dynamic hair on the bear rug. The light from the fire will catch it and make it look spectacular. I don't see any scene effects that would conflict with it such as a light cone or volumetric clouds. BTW, the hair works great in a scene with volumetric clouds so long as the figure or object with the hair is in front of the cloud. If you do use the hair for the rug, you could probably reduce the thickness of the torso part of the rug.
I'm posting this image for two reasons. One, it illustrates my suggestion about the animal hide rug. It uses dynamic hair (as well as the two figures, and one of the figure's costume), and two, the brazier on the right has a red glow applied to the bottom because of the heat of the fire, but if you look closely, I also put a spot light aiming at the ground to simulate light from the glowing brazier. As an added bonus, there's a volumetric cloud in the background not interfering with the hair! ;-)
BTW, I faked SSS by copying the skin image maps from the figure's color channel and pasting them in the glow channel, and then using the brightness slider below the image map thumbnail to adjust the brightness down to around 10-12%. Although it could also work to maybe multiply the color map by the specular map.
Edited to add the non-postworked image straight from Carrara, except for the conversion to .jpg.
Yes, Evil, I am very interested. Thanks for the suggestions. I will try to use the hair function on the bear skin rug - now that you mention it, it seems obvious. Why didn't I think of that? And your glow channel example is exactly what I am looking for. After my initial ember glow replication failed to create glowing replicated objects, I initially tried to create a base glowing ember dome with anything glows, and then replicated some "ember chips" on the anything glows ember dome. I tried using translucency and transparency on the ember chips to get the effect i wanted. I didn't like the results at all, so i abandoned the embers all together. I see now that what you are doing is much better, and I agree that the fire light will swamp the ember light, in any case.
And your images are freakin fantastic
Dart
Well said. And I am embarrassed that I didn't have EP on the initial list - and so many others.
greetings diomede64, pleasure to be of service, it's great that you are a fellow Carrara addict :)
ah so I read everyone's great advice but I may be repeating it so apologies
firstly , great scene! the rug on the floor made me laugh, and I love how you have turned the poser bear into a rug
I guess as everyone has said, it's just a matter of tweaking the lighting. I always spend 30 percent of my time tweaking lighting for a scene
so say I was building your scene?
I would look at the light sources which are 1) fire 2) reflected light
a good idea is to turn off all the lights and do a render, - that way you can see how much damage the ambient light, if still on is doing to your scene
then turn them on one by one and watch what happens.
for this scene I would grab a picture of some flames and put it in the gel channel of a light bulb dropped in the middle of the fire (don't forget to turn off shadows for the fire?) then do a render and see what happens,
then see that lovely light falling on the couch? well I would position a spot light in the fire and aim it so that ity just skims the top of the bears features and set it to light the bear only, make it yellow and then do a render,
then I would look at the walls etc and see which ones will be reflecting light and drop in a few light bulbs set at a range of eg 3 feet with a quick falloff and use those to vary the lighting that is hitting the walls, make them warm colours perhaps?
finally I would add a fill light if necessary to my Camera using anything glows and the camera as the source.
One final note: when adding spots that just highlight an object turn them up to the max so you can see exactly what they are hitting, then turn them down as necessary
with the anything glows on the camera light, make it bright orange or similar and turn it up max and play with the distance, that way you can see what objects it is hitting etc, then once that is sorted you can fine tune the shadows and brightness etc
I guess lastly for your image maybe you could add a sparkle in the bears's eyes - by changing the reflection pon the cornea etc?
I always add sparkle in post as I get more control
that said Philw's bright eyes product is really magnificent for human eyesd
hope this 'elps :)
Ps love the idea of the dog snuggled up
Well said. And I am embarrassed that I didn't have EP on the initial list - and so many others.Soooo many others.... I know...
One thing is that I notice that many people never account for 'other' light sources. Not to say, you... per se, since it's you who has all the information and control. But you can have that AG light on the camera, since it is a fill light, to be something entirely contrasting to the illumination from the fire. Say... a subtle unsaturated dark blue coming in from the night sky through the ginormous picture window behind you? Just food for example thoughts and other directions.
That aside,
Wow Head Wax and ep! Talk about some excellent advice and suggestions! I've learned quite a bit about how both of you achieve such excellent lighting already - just from this thread!
HW - sparkle in post:
I've always prided myself in how I can get a cool sparkle without post in Carrara using just the right accent lighting with twinlky shaders.
But now, even with (especially with) my animations, I'm loving Howler!!! :)
Well said. And I am embarrassed that I didn't have EP on the initial list - and so many others.
There's so many helpful people that it's difficult to name them all. I myself feel bad when I omit someone when I'm giving general thanks for help solving an issue.