Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Beginner Challenge: Portrait Rendering (Expressions and Lighting)
Rendered in Daz Studio with Iray.
Title: Fragile
I wanted to render something simple. I am not entirely happy with the colours, but I really like how the DOF turned out with the bokeh achieved within DS.
You have a great expression on her. Makes me wonder what, or maybe who, she is angry with.
Those green eyes really draw my focus to her face but the shiny reflections on the fabric to our left is a bit distracting.
Nice use of those bold colours.
Every tool has it's limitations and LIE may not be the right one for what you are trying to achieve.
Night scenes can be a real challenge. Getting the shadows dark enough to be believeable and yet have the character lit up enough to be seen.
Keeping everything dark except your figure is a good choice. It helps to bring the focus to her. I learned in an art class that the eye is drawn to the intersection of where the darkest dark meets the lightest light. In your image that is your figure's hair where the hightlights are the brightest on her crown with a second one on her thumb.
That highlight on her thumb keeps drawing my eye in that direction and then I get distracted by the bench. Perhaps adjusting her hand and/or arm slightly to get rid of that bright highlight will keep the focus on her head and face.
Great start.
I wonder why your wife would call it that?
My first suggestion is to either bring the camera back a bit to give your guy some room in the image or go in tighter. You are in an in between state that is cutting of bits of your figure. I have used this guide a lot to figure out where to crop a figure. This is of a standing figure and your's is sitting but it still might help.
The other suggestion I have is to adjust your lighting slightly to try and remove the highlight on the back of your figure's right hand. It is drawing my eye away from his face.
You are certainly telling an interesting story with this image. I really like the gritty background and overcast skies. Looks like a perfect location for a fight club event.
Version C here adjusting the lighting, tweeking my friend's position changing where the light behind myself was aiming so it's pointed more at some papers on the desk, and added some scars to my friend and myself to show that we've been having a hard time in this new world.
Version C here adjusting the lighting, tweeking my friend's position changing where the light behind myself was aiming so it's pointed more at some papers on the desk, and added some scars to my friend and myself to show that we've been having a hard time in this new world.
Boy...you two have been having a hard time of it.
The image is a little grainy. Is that intentional or did it not bake long enough?
No worries, thanks for the pointers. Have had a few more plays with the figure. Had noticed the necklace after uploading! Tweaked that and the hair and then had a little go with trying to play with surface textures. I take your point about white - I have been playing with the lighting, as it seemed she was getting the light from behind. It seemed more natural for the shadow to fall behind the shoulder. I am hoping that t he tweaks and the light coming through the necklace break up that white, though I am going to keep tweaking.
Thanks for this. I have been trying to play with some of the bump settings. I took a look at the MDD figures. I really like the detail on them, so thanks for the tip!
Thanks. I've got too much time on my hands. The existing hair morphs won't allow that, but I can do more research to see if it's possible to figure out any other workarounds. In the full-size, i'm not sure that it's not so much intersecting with her chin, as a few strands are laying over it and the others are laying under it, and the ones going over have some harsh shadows- I can't find any spots where it's intersecting, although the composition itself would be neater if her hair was completely behind her chin. That detail bugged me too, since back in my stylist days, I'd have been fixing that on set there, too. I'm still pretty new to all this, so adding morphs to the hair to make that happen, not just working with existing morphs, would definitely be a very new endeavor. I've got time to look into it, since the deck's not gonna be ready for production any time soon. I've got maybe 10 cards out of the, what, 68 card spread done, or down to the final tweaks, assuming that the proofs yield corrections? It's gonna be so much easier doing all this stuff myself, so this is a good opportunity to learn the new skill. Think I'm gonna try to research what would be required to add new morphs to hair, as soon as my migraine lets up. I've barely been able to open my computer at all this week, they've been so blistering. Ah well, nature of the beast.
This is my second version - I have changed the background and moved the camera as recommended
I notice so many things after I either start the render or after the render has finished that has to be fixed. Those are usually the ones that take forever to render.
I am not sure I provided any tutorials on reflectors. Here is a YouTube video which explains it well. Reflectors can help to soften the light on your figure's face without having to add another light source or make the light source you have so strong it blows out the white top.
In 3D I use a primitive white plane. If using iray you do need to change the plane to an iray surface.
I am so sorry you are suffering through a migraine.
It is such a small area a deformer might work. The May, 2020 New User Challenge covered deformers and push modifiers.
Camera angles can be so frustrating. I cannot tell you the number of times I have looked through the camera, see something that looks off but when I check it is fine. Perspective at it's best...or worst
Much better. Your character has room and he stands out from the background much better.
What are you using for a light source? Do you use the 3Delight renderer?
Ooh, thank you for that. Very useful. I feel it will come in extremely handy, as I just started working on the friend she is laughing with to expand the scene. It's strangely addictive and satisfying...
The first 3 versions were run at the defalt settings in terms of time and itterations. Version D here was given 3 times the time and 6 times the itterations so hope that helped with the grainieness.
Changes involve adding some grime to our cloths, changing the color of my armor so said grime might show up better, and lowering myself a notch because it turned out I was hovoring a bit even though it wasn't visable.
Thank you Kismet. Will make the wall behind her less reflective to tone down those white blobs.
Made lots of changes, and like this one more. Still have to look at the LIE but not sure what I could do to enhance the image.
Any ideas would be welcome.
I wanna play!
Right, so this is undeniably a portrait, but I'm entering the intermediate challenge. I haven't attempted to make my own LIE graphic, because that probably wouldn't look so great. Maybe I'll do that for a funny picture, but for now I wanted to do something nice. So what you see here is the result of playing around with layering LIE make-up and trying to create a look that "came together."
The eye-shadow is four layers. The base is a very bright purple that's almost completely hidden. On top of that there's a metallic accent, which gives an eye-liner effect. The very intricate designs with flowers and vines are all one layer. I borrowed them from a GypsyAngel character. The final layer is a dark liner which you can see along the outer corners of the eyes. Her lipstick is a gold overlay over purple. She's also wearing a very subtle blush on her cheeks.
Her eyelashes are really something. Reminds me of doing makeup art, and some of the laser cut paper eyelashes that were just coming into vogue a few years back.
Hi all! this is my first entry into a DAZ contest, and I hope you like 'Bruiser'. My wife has called this piece "It hurts to smile"... Please, any constructive critisism would be fantastic. Great work from all you others in here too! I only used DAZ for this, just opened it in PS to crop it a bit.
Have an awesome day!
Kev
Thanks so much.. I will go back to the drawing screen and try some more. Thanks for the link to the guide. I did read a bunch of things you had posted here, and made sure I didn’t cut off hands or top of head, etc, but I guess the feet count too :) I think I’ll zoom in a bit, and the lighting has been tricky, but never thought about how it would draw your attention ‘away’ from his face. Great tips!!!! Wow.
Adding more time and iterations definitely helps. The graininess is gone.
Looking good Shinji.
This is a really strong image. My eyes are drawn to her face. Nice use of colours and lighting.
If you wanted to test out LIE on this image maybe you could add a logo or insignia to her armour? Something that might indicate rank or something?
Those gold tones you chose really compliment her skin tones.
@kismet2012 So, I looked at the light reflector video and then read a few articles on how to add that into Daz. That led me to making a whole raft of tweaks to lighting. (Basically, got over excited, so tried different things!) I changed the environment light to Sun-Sky and then rotated the image and changed the time of day/year so that the light streamed in through the pavillion "windows" onto the upper body of the character in more of a sunset light direction. This softened the glare of white slightly, but it was still too much. So, I then changed the spotlights to mesh lights to soften the shadows a little more. Finally, I started to play with volumetric lighting by adding a cube to refract and diffuse the light. I quite like the softer look as it takes away some of the brilliance of the white and removes a shine point or two that was annoying me (like her gum!) However, I am still not quite happy with it. Definitely a massive learning curve, as slight small setting changes make a very different image. I have never done anything like this before either with photography or modelling, so I appreciate all the comments, as they are really helping me to focus my efforts.
Lighting and all the different ways you can light a figure can be addictive and frustrating. But trial and error and experimenting is the best way to learn.
One suggestion I have with trial and error for anything is to make 1 change at a time and see what it does.
Another suggestion with lights is to turn them all off when you can and then turn them back on 1 at a time to see what each light is doing.
Your attached image is an icon and pixelates when I try to enlarge it but from what I can see you have some nice highlights in her hair.
Beginner entry. (I think) I have been doig Daz for a while, maybe a year? but I feeel like I know hardly anything in regards to Daz tips and tricks. I do however love to use photoshop, so the tattoo/marking you see in the below image are added via Photoshop as opposed to LIE. I'm not fantasic at doing portraits in fact I more than opften struggle with them, so I decided to just stick to trying to perfect that in stead of adding the LIE as well, I think that would result in a definate failure lmao.
Anyhow, here's my image, all comments/constructive critisism welcome :-)
Oops - yes, rookie mistake. Corrected that now! Thanks for that advice. I actually ran several test renders where I added a feature at a time. I have a little spare time, hence why I get to make the changes fairly quickly. Attached is the version just before this, before I tweaked diffusion as an example.
I used a distant light and an advanced spotLight. Yes I use 3 Delight.
Intermediate challenge here :)
I'm completly new to Daz studio but not 3D Software and digital art software in general.
Here is my creation, called The Jungle Queen
The "war paint" is inspired by the character of Octavia in the TV series "The 100" when she becomes The Red Queen.
I made the war paint with photoshop with the diffuse face map as reference and import the layer inside Daz with the LIE system.
I also "accidentally" edit the bump map, but it results in kind of a old scar/burn effect on the top/right corner of her face. I find cool so I let it ^^
Composed and rendered with Daz, color graded with photoshop.
I'll be happy to read your comment :)