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@rcbcgreenpanzer, I'm a little confused about the potion. Is it a love potion? A potion to turn a man into a woman for a day? Just wondering. The question and answer have nothing to do with challenge.
(I can totally relate about the ginormous, complicated scenes. The image I'm working on now had to be rendered in five layers!)
I'm looking forward to seeing how the full image looks. One thing that might help with rendering such a large set, depending on how dark you want the background, is to light everything normally and then use Tone-Mapping to darken the output. Iray likes light, so if the Great Hall is well lit, it will render faster. You can then set the Exposure Value to a higher number and the image will darken accordingly. You may need to use another light on your figures to keep them from going darker, (Unless you like the results, of course.)
@Cinus, I love everything about this image. The high contrast lighting on the fairy, the ominous, red set behind her, even the grain, (noise,) of the finished render feels like a film photo taken in a dark setting.
If I were to critque anything it would be the use of square dimensions. I don't recognize the background set, so I don't know if it would lend itself to a taller or wider image, but increasing the height of the image while keeping the floor and fairy where they are, would show more of the head at the top of the set. (Pyramid? Stairs? Both?)
Regardless, I think you've done a wonderful job here.
@TigerAnne, I like the changes. They are pretty subtle, but I think it works. I actually noticed there's water behind the stairs with the stronger DOF effect! Ryan closer to the front of the image, and his body language saying he's not so sure about what he's seeing definitely looks better to me, as does the additional blur of the trees in the background.
But what do you think? It's your vision, after all.
(I have a number of sets that treat multiple trees, and other props, as a single object. I'm not a fan of that "feature", now that I' have more experience with DS. There is a work around, though. I'll have to do a mini-tut in the Kitchen, one that's long overdue, I think. I'll let you know when I post it, if you'd like.)
The crop works rather well for the background and for the dragon wing IMO. The fact that a bit of her toe is cut bothers me a bit, but that has always been a pet peeve of mine ;)
Something looks off to me about the pose of her right leg though... Maybe it's because of the camera angle, but it seems to me that this would be rather painful.
This is just too funny
The pic works well, there's just a thing that bothers me with the soldier on the left: it that his arm/hand near his face? If yes, the wrist and shadows look a bit weird. If not, what is that supposed to be?
The potion was just an attempt at joking about the invisible hall. An accident involving an invisibility potion had the court in a bit of an uproar, but the vendor was very placating. Then next day he and his supplies were nowhere to be found, so the court is currently attempting to find someone to reverse it.
From the preliminary tests, the lighting in the Great Hall is a bit dim, so I experimented a bit with brighter and brighter camera settings. I'm probably going to bump up the lighting as I don't think the end result should be too dark. The foreground and background shouldn't need extensive effort to visually separate, as the focus is up on a catwalk, so there will be plenty of distance for DoF to do its thing. I should probably try to populate the court proceedings with blues and greens to contrast with the reds up here.
Buddies. This is Babina and the DAZ horse, with a standard background, then taken into Photoshop for color grading and a texture. I had a bit of difficulty getting the camera to do exactly what I wanted for DOF, but it turned out all right anyway. Still learning!!!
Sure. I didn't really do all that much in post. I fixed that annoying boxlike structure under the bush, that I couldn't figure out how to deal with in DAZ, and liquefied a weird bump in her hair and burned it a little, then added a texture after patching the top left corner of the sky that rendered too light. I had hoped to get better DOF, but maybe the multiplane cyclorama doesn't really do DOF all that well, or I just didn't get as much out of it as I could.
Shredz
Conquer your stage fright...by shredding its face off.
This is the image with the 1k lense thickness. The distancing of the arches is a lot better than I was expecting. I don't know if it's the lighting, the asset, the lense or just luck.
This image has no post work on it...yet. I do love to tinker! :)
Yay, I'm up for any useful tutorial, anytime! Oh and about the picture, I think I'mma say it's done now unless you have any additional suggestions.
So... here's something like the beginning of a second entry. I was just doing an "introduction" portrait of two of my characters brought to DS life, but I kind of like it. The next incarnation is probably going to be a group shot with their wives added to the scene, and in full lenght. Their fashion sense needs to be seen to be believed...
BTW, the Polybius break-dance render has been pulled, because it sucks it didn't come out like I intented.
Hi,
Do explain the the 'add texture' part if you don't mind.
@AZDigitalArtist, Thank you for sharing the raw render. I would never have guess you used the multiplane cyclorama if I hadn't seen the original. You did a really good job in post.
FYI only, for future projects… (I see no reason for you to redo your entry. It's really nice as is.)
The "boxlike structure" under the bush is the bottom of the plane used to add the bush to the prop. The multiplane cyclorama predates Iray by a considerable chunk of time. In 3Delight, you had control over which things cast shadows and which did not, and the planes used to add trees and such to the scene blended perfectly without shadows. Iray is like the real world, in that if there is light, there is shadow, and it's the shadow of the plane with the bush that is causing the "box" effect. When I use that prop for a background now, I hide those extra planes and add other props for trees, bushes, etc.
It really helps to convert the cyclorama props using the Iray Uber Base, and then turning off any parameter that would make it glossy and reflective. That glossiness is probably why the upper corner is so white. Another trick I use is to make the cyclorama slightly emissive, to bring out the details:
I haven't tested this in low light conditions, but I'd expect it not work well. But in "daylight conditions" such as your Buddies image, it might solve an issue or two. (If you're interested, I used the above technique with this image, and also with this image, though I replaced the ground on the second one with a shader from DesignAnvil.)
@L'Adair: I was so excited to finally get the pose right that I didn't think about completing the scene. I was pretty disappointed with my lighting as well so a complete revamp on this. The previkous 'scene was an HDRI so I tossed that and put in one a little less blue and built a real set with a backdrop and crowd image (it's blurred out but I made sure it was Creative Commons licensed), Unfortunately the expression on her face had vanished when I reopened the file so...TIL (Today I learned) to save an expression. I revamped the lighting, gave her a little sheen of perspiration, and put a competitor between her and the crowd to build a little more depth. DOF is much better tightened up as you suggested. I do think my first try was pretty sloppy...mea culpa.
Resized and despeckled in PS to kill some annoying fireflies but no other post.
The Gymnast
@L'ADair, Thanks for the kind words and excellent suggestion! I redid the image with a different aspect ratio and I think it works much better like this.
The background is the "Mayan Temple" https://www.daz3d.com/mayan-temple. It's a large environment with a lot of lights. The lights are fairly complex emissive meshes, so the scene took a little over 4 hours to render to 80% convergence on my RTX 2070.
Full size here : https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/861106/
Very nice improvements on all accounts here! The only tiny bit of criticism I have is the the transition from blurry to sharp is a bit too abrupt on the wood, this looks a bit overdone, what are your settings on the camera for this? You could probably move the camera a tad out and then adjust the frame to the original by increasing the focal length setting.
That expression is pure gold :D
With large environments of which you see only part, it sometimeas works to make parts of it invisible (closing the eye in the scene tab) this is a bit of experimenting what whill be seen in the camera angle you have or what will influence the light and shadow, and it depends if the set offers some modules/ parts that work without the rest, some do some don't
As L'Adair mentioned the light and colours are very nice here and the frame is much imporved. To give the DOF a bit more impact you could think of something that reaches forward or backward with parts in and parts out of focus. Just a raw idea, something like a mage staff she holds, some particles floating in the air (which will increase render times again, ups) whatever you think fitting
"Burn."
Feel free to send away in a message, that way we dont clog the thread up :)
I'm a bit behind on comments which I'll try to get to today. There is a bit of distraction, though: It's my wedding anniversary, and I think the hubby may have plans for later today. But I do promise to catch up soon.
In the meantime, I was working on an image yesterday for a render challenge I participate in, (Llola Lane's monthly challenge. No prizes, just a way to stretch my abilites with DS.) After my post on the multiplane cyclorama, I decided to use one for the background and create a scene using DOF. I used two cameras and captured two very different angles. It took a bit of work to integrate the DAZ Rose with one of the old rose bush props I own, (sadly, no longer in the store.) I also extracted a rose bud from another set and integrated it as well. However, the simplicity of a single flower/bush/shrub with strong DOF does show how it's possible to take a single prop and make it dramatic using depth of field.
This image is in the Daz Galleries, here, if you want to view the larger image:
(If you're interested in the companion image, I posted it on Deviant Art here.)
This thread is really about your art, but you guys inspired me, so I wanted to share this with you… Perhaps inspire one of you in return.
@Gordig, I think your work is always interesting, this image is no exception.
I'm wondering if the lighting and it's effect on the lead guitarist are post work. I think it's a cool effect. My only thought, though, is it's hard to tell what supposed to be in focus. Her right hand appears to be, but little else. Was her face in focus then obscured with the lighting? I'd like to see stronger focus on either her face or her hand, depending on your intent. If it was the hand, you may need to move the camera down and rotate up increase the distance between the camera and her face. If her face was the intent, you may need to make the DOF shallower to compensate for the color lights.
If DOF wasn't the "focus" of the challenge, I wouldn't say anything. The image is quite striking as it is. Lovely work.
The focus was supposed to be her face, so I'll pull the scene up again and see how the DOF is set up. I had some trouble striking the right balance between the "house lights" and the spotlights (if you follow my thread, you know how hardcore I am on realistic lighting), and could maybe dial the spotlights back a little bit. The only postwork was mCasual's denoiser, which might be why her face is out of focus. Take a look at the original, undenoised version to see if you have the same criticisms. I had to scale it down a little bit because the forums kept rejecting it as is.
Thanks for your comments.
@Gordig, The denoiser definitely affects the sharpness of her face.
There were a lot of tricks floating around the forums to get renders completed faster back when Iray was new and many of us were rendering CPU Only. (Myself included.) Two of those tricks that might help you are:
Here are some more general tips:
I'd love to know if any of these tips work for you, even if you choose not to try rerendering Shredz.
I used the 1k lens thickness on the rose image I shared above. To be honest, I didn't see any effect. However, I did use the multiplane cyclorama for a backdrop, where you used actual objects and that may make a difference. I'm going to give that a try next.
I like this image. Was it an entry, or just showing the effect of the 1k lens thickness. Regardless, I think you could add a bit of suspense/danger to the scene by adding a humanoid shadow, part of shadow, to the wall on the other side of that arch.
Okay, here's my second entry. I want to redo it, and adjust the direction of the light so the background will be darker. Any other suggestions, anyone? More greenery? Put a parked scooter next to the wall? Get rid of the barely visible vending machine?
I don't understand the expression of the guy on the right. Also, the way it's framed, it's a little unclear if the men are jointly carrying that bag, and thus holding each other's hands as well, or if one hand simply obscures the other. If the former, I'd recommend just getting rid of the bag; if the latter, reposition their hands slightly.
LOL
I think we've all moments like that. And those that haven't, will at some point. I take such victories as they come.
This image is coming along quite nicely.
I bemoan the loss of the original expression. I'm of two minds on the current one. On the one hand, it's a great expression, showing both the exertion and the determination of performing that difficult pose on the balance beam. A lot of extreme expressions come off comical and unnatural. This one does not. It looks very real. On the other hand, I can't imagine a gymnast at her age telegraphing to the judges how difficult this move is for her. She's performing, and she needs to make it look easy. And that's what I loved about the first expression. Close in, you could sense the determination, but the smile was more prominent and would be more clearly seen at a distant, by the judges and audience alike.
When you changed the camera angle, you also moved the gymnast up in the camera frame. I like that the feet are no longer at the same height in the frame from this point of view, it makes the image more interesting. But I feel like her upper foot is too close the top of the picture, especially as there is so much of the beam in front of her. I also think this image would benefit from a wider format and use of the rule of thirds. With a wider format, you could move that competitor a bit more to the left. (Or a lot more.)
Ultimately, this is your vision. What appeals to my version of "image sensabilities" doesn't make it right for you. Sometimes, the best results come from "breaking the rules." However, I did a mockup using your image, to show you what I mean. I hope you don't mind.
I used copies and sections of copies to fill in addtional area, as well as fading those so they are obvious. Then I added an overlay showing the thirds and where I would place the gymnast in the frame. As you can see there is plenty of room to move the competitor to break up the additional floor showing on the left of the image. And while I was at it, I tried to incorporate my interpretation of @Linwelly's comment on the blur of the beam.
Overall, your rework of the scene is really good. I like the camera angle on the gymnast better, showing more of her contorted body and visually separating the feet. The addition of the competitor does what you asked of her. And the little details you added with better lighting and the sheen of sweat really make this a compelling image.
Oh, there are no emissives in that scene. The only lights are a bank of wide-angle spotlights above the stage, and the two tight spotlights sitting on the stage. Like I said, I am HARDCORE about realistic lighting, in this case lighting the stage the way a real stage would be lit, and adjusting render settings to accomodate. I suppose I could allow myself a headlamp or other approximation of camera flash.
I will give your suggestions a try, though. I'm currently more committed to a series of Batgirl renders I'm working on, so I may not get to really dig into this scene again before the end of the month. Thanks again.
You're welcome.
That's just how his face looks.
He's a recreation of a rather unfortunate-looking Sim born in a very aestethically disadvantaged family. Voilá his grandfather.
Orca's carrying the bag by himself, and Buck's hand is just out of view. I'll see if I can tweak Buck's pose a bit.
all the renders are amazing.
Hi; these are my submissions. I don’t think I have my head around this DOF thing and I don’t think I ever will.
My first render “sparrow”, I had to build a camera lens [plane] which I then add a glass shader, working in conjunction with DOF to get the background effect I wonted.
My second render Lora, is a combination of three renders foreground midrange and background with some post work.
Thanks for all the fish...
Seems today's offer and the new, 4.12 release of Daz Studio are wreaking havoc on the website today; Forums, Galleries, and Store have been down and back up several times. Don't let that deter you. If you have trouble posting here today, things should have settled down by tomorrow. There are still five more days 'til the end of the month. Keep those wonderful images rolling in!