Post Your Renders - Happy New Year yall

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  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Awesome All!!! Loving seeing all of the great works!

    Here is a fun Kit-Bash of the Badlands Canyon base with a Woodlands terrain shader and two (with duplicates) Woodlands Objects elements from the Nature category. The enormous "Elven Temple", by Cornucopia 3D, fills most of the gorge in that base preset, and I lovehow the ground fog plays into all of that. On this tiny laptop, it was a guessing game as to how it would turn out. I've used some of the shader techniques that I've picked up from PhilW's Realism Rendering on the temple, but the shaders come in from the Poser Runtime pretty well set up, so it was a short and quick affair there. I also brought one of the volumetric clouds down onto the temple area, made some adjustments, and set it (as a new master) to be affected by all lights.

    Lovely atmospherics, and the elements work well together. Does it count as kit bashing if you built both sets in the first place? ;)

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Yet another landscape on the new mini-scene. I guess it's technically a kit-bash, since most of the elements were brought in from the old hill scene (although the fence did need customising). As before, the terrain is a vertex object, since I find that much easier to tweak than an actual terrain. Anyhow, replicators set to 11...

    Tip: When putting in a rutted track, put a vehicle on it to check for correct spacing!

    Oh, and this is rendered with fake GI.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited March 2015

    Here's the finished animated title sequence for the video project I'm working on.

    I should note that there are some lingering shots and angles that seem overly long. Those are intentional. I am going to overlay titles in those spots.

    The gag is that the window seat is a secret entrance to a secret room in a very deep cellar. Susan, the happy imbecile thinks it will be fun to send the cat through it. The cat is flung up and into the window seat, which when opened, has a false bottom, and when closed, swings out of the way, dropping the unlucky cat into an Escher-ish world of never ending stairways.

    The simulated rag-doll effect worked great in simple tests, but kind of fell apart for the more complex action of falling and bouncing down the steps. If I had more time, I would try and adjust the physics and limb constraints to get a better effect. Alas, time is my enemy on this project.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6XKMB5Cv8

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  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    Evil that's awesome! Made me laugh out loud several times. Not sure why Aiko gets such kicks out of tormenting the cat, poor fellow didn't look like he was harming anyone. Loved the expression of the cat praying feverishly, then the spinning down the drain.

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Rendered for the March 2015 PC Club contest. The theme is "Secret Places."

    The Secret Altar

    Modeled and rendered in Carrara 8.5 Pro. Some textures and post-work in FilterForge and Photoshop.

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    Yet another landscape on the new mini-scene. I guess it's technically a kit-bash, since most of the elements were brought in from the old hill scene (although the fence did need customising). As before, the terrain is a vertex object, since I find that much easier to tweak than an actual terrain. Anyhow, replicators set to 11...

    Tip: When putting in a rutted track, put a vehicle on it to check for correct spacing!

    Oh, and this is rendered with fake GI.
    Very, very cool. I really like what you're doing with all of this. You're definitely getting a great style going with a very natural feel, in my opinion.

    Lovely atmospherics, and the elements work well together. Does it count as kit bashing if you built both sets in the first place? ;)

    Thanks!
    ...and, of course it counts! :)

    I love kit-bashing my own kits. After all... I originally made them for me! :ahhh:

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Jonstark said:
    Evil that's awesome! Made me laugh out loud several times. Not sure why Aiko gets such kicks out of tormenting the cat, poor fellow didn't look like he was harming anyone. Loved the expression of the cat praying feverishly, then the spinning down the drain.
    Yeah, agreed! Wow... Susan sure is an a... well... a big jerk! I just want to slap her.
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    MDO2010 said:
    Rendered for the March 2015 PC Club contest. The theme is "Secret Places."

    The Secret Altar

    Modeled and rendered in Carrara 8.5 Pro. Some textures and post-work in FilterForge and Photoshop.

    Cool! Looks awesome - love the atmosphere and the glowing crystals and reflections... just has a nice feel to it-at least to this Star Wars Jedi fan! ;)
    Say, noticing the name on your signature... you don't live in Door County Wisconsin, do you? Did you just marry my pal, Princess Teegra? If not, I have a good friend whom shares your name - and he just married another friend of mine! :)
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited March 2015

    MDO2010 said:
    Rendered for the March 2015 PC Club contest. The theme is "Secret Places."

    The Secret Altar

    Modeled and rendered in Carrara 8.5 Pro. Some textures and post-work in FilterForge and Photoshop.

    Cool! Looks awesome - love the atmosphere and the glowing crystals and reflections... just has a nice feel to it-at least to this Star Wars Jedi fan! ;)
    Say, noticing the name on your signature... you don't live in Door County Wisconsin, do you? Did you just marry my pal, Princess Teegra? If not, I have a good friend whom shares your name - and he just married another friend of mine! :)

    Hmmmm..... Olsen, spelled with an "e." Swedish heritage I'm guessing? Could be a lot in Dart's neck of the woods. If he lived closer to Eau Claire, it would be Norwegian, and spelled, Olson I think.

    By the way, great work for a dumb Swede, for a Lutefisk gobbling Norske. ;-P

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    MDO2010 said:
    Rendered for the March 2015 PC Club contest. The theme is "Secret Places."

    The Secret Altar

    Modeled and rendered in Carrara 8.5 Pro. Some textures and post-work in FilterForge and Photoshop.

    Did you put lights inside the crystals? Translucent objects with lights inside can make for some cool effects.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Jonstark said:
    Evil that's awesome! Made me laugh out loud several times. Not sure why Aiko gets such kicks out of tormenting the cat, poor fellow didn't look like he was harming anyone. Loved the expression of the cat praying feverishly, then the spinning down the drain.
    Yeah, agreed! Wow... Susan sure is an a... well... a big jerk! I just want to slap her.

    She's actually very sweet, but super stupid in a Pollyanna-ish way.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    It was all hand animated by the way, with the exception of the physics for the stair fall. I guess I also used target helpers and a couple modifiers. Maybe instead of saying it was all hand animated, maybe I should say, no Aniblocks or .bvh files. ;-)

  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    Jonstark said:
    Evil that's awesome! Made me laugh out loud several times. Not sure why Aiko gets such kicks out of tormenting the cat, poor fellow didn't look like he was harming anyone. Loved the expression of the cat praying feverishly, then the spinning down the drain.
    Yeah, agreed! Wow... Susan sure is an a... well... a big jerk! I just want to slap her.

    She's actually very sweet, but super stupid in a Pollyanna-ish way.

    Wonderful! That Aiko is a real sicko, she is. I really enjoyed the No-Yes back and forth between them. Very funny. Thanks for that. In episode two he has to get some retribution.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Jonstark said:
    Evil that's awesome! Made me laugh out loud several times. Not sure why Aiko gets such kicks out of tormenting the cat, poor fellow didn't look like he was harming anyone. Loved the expression of the cat praying feverishly, then the spinning down the drain.
    Yeah, agreed! Wow... Susan sure is an a... well... a big jerk! I just want to slap her.

    She's actually very sweet, but super stupid in a Pollyanna-ish way.

    Wonderful! That Aiko is a real sicko, she is. I really enjoyed the No-Yes back and forth between them. Very funny. Thanks for that. In episode two he has to get some retribution.
    Thanks Rashad.

    I really want to get that rag doll effect looking better. It looks pretty good dropping into a heap onto a floor, or going down a slide, but to get the cat down the stairs, I needed to up the bounce on the cat and the invisible balls that the the limbs were IK tracking.

  • CoolBreezeCoolBreeze Posts: 207
    edited December 1969

    Definately nice work everyone!

    That was a great dissertation Dartanbeck! Thanks for the info, I'll have to experiment with V.Clouds sometime.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Mohandai said:
    Definately nice work everyone!

    That was a great dissertation Dartanbeck! Thanks for the info, I'll have to experiment with V.Clouds sometime.

    Yeah - they can really add a lot to a scene, and get more and more beneficial to your workflow the more you get used to different ways of setting up their properties. After a while, it just all makes sense and becomes a blast, and really quick and easy to set up- even though we can always get more intense and difficult!

    Some folks around here don't care for Carrara Fog. I am not in that club. I love the fog! A friend and mentor taught me an important lesson: when using Carrara effects, subtlety can be much more effective than overdoing the effect. This can be especially true with the fog. I use it in many ways, but almost always use a very large edge falloff and also crank up some of the dispersion all to help make the whole thing much more subtle right off the bat. Oooops... babbling again!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,983
    edited December 1969

    Time, MDO2010 and evil. All wonderful work.
    I especially like evils' video. He heh. She is a woman after my own heart.

    Maybe you could try adjusting the vertex model of the stairs to be where the cat bounces rather than the oppoiste
    ?

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    MDO2010 said:
    Rendered for the March 2015 PC Club contest. The theme is "Secret Places."

    The Secret Altar

    Modeled and rendered in Carrara 8.5 Pro. Some textures and post-work in FilterForge and Photoshop.

    Beautiful, MDO2010! Mysterious, evocative, excellent.

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    The overnight render from last night, and alas, it's an epic fail. Something is totally screwed up in my water shader - gonna have to sit down and pull it apart, I think. Suggestions welcome on what it could be.

    Can't wait for Rashad's comments on outdoor Fake GI - this was a 10 hour render with 8 hours just on the water! (I know cos it had just reached the water when I went to bed!)

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  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    The overnight render from last night, and alas, it's an epic fail. Something is totally screwed up in my water shader - gonna have to sit down and pull it apart, I think. Suggestions welcome on what it could be.

    Can't wait for Rashad's comments on outdoor Fake GI - this was a 10 hour render with 8 hours just on the water! (I know cos it had just reached the water when I went to bed!)

    Wow, dude, 10 hours? That's like WAY too long for something like that.

    Looks like the water shader is like 95% reflection, which is probably appropriate for a dark water and a shallow viewing angle like that. Which makes me wonder why it took so long...did you use anything fancy? Like absorption and stuff? Or SSS? What about your ray depth?

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Actually... I did play about with absorption and in-scattering (without really understanding what I was doing), but i thought that was on a copy. Maybe it wasn't. I'll note down my settings at lunchtime, when I can look at it.

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited March 2015

    Cool! Looks awesome - love the atmosphere and the glowing crystals and reflections... just has a nice feel to it-at least to this Star Wars Jedi fan! ;)

    Thanks! I actually didn't think of Star Wars at all when making it, but now that you point it out, the influence is obvious.

    Say, noticing the name on your signature... you don't live in Door County Wisconsin, do you? Did you just marry my pal, Princess Teegra? If not, I have a good friend whom shares your name - and he just married another friend of mine! :)

    No - sorry, I live in Illinois. :I've been to Door County though. ;)

    Hmmmm..... Olsen, spelled with an "e." Swedish heritage I'm guessing? Could be a lot in Dart's neck of the woods. If he lived closer to Eau Claire, it would be Norwegian, and spelled, Olson I think.

    By the way, great work for a dumb Swede, for a Lutefisk gobbling Norske. ;-P

    Bite your tongue! Spelled with an "e" is the proper Danish way! :) It's a pretty common name throughout Scandinavia though.

    Did you put lights inside the crystals? Translucent objects with lights inside can make for some cool effects.

    Not inside them - the effect on them is mostly from a texture in the glow channel. Each of them does have a low intensity light bulb parented to it, but not affecting it, but the bulb is just above and outside each set of crystals.

    Beautiful, MDO2010! Mysterious, evocative, excellent.

    Thanks Jonstark!

    Post edited by MarkIsSleepy on
  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    The overnight render from last night, and alas, it's an epic fail. Something is totally screwed up in my water shader - gonna have to sit down and pull it apart, I think. Suggestions welcome on what it could be.

    Can't wait for Rashad's comments on outdoor Fake GI - this was a 10 hour render with 8 hours just on the water! (I know cos it had just reached the water when I went to bed!)

    It almost looks like we are seeing the polys of the water. Just a wild guess, but is there displacement on it? If so, do you have Subdivision enabled in the shader? Complex displacement might explain why it slowed down there too.

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    MDO2010 said:
    Tim_A said:
    The overnight render from last night, and alas, it's an epic fail. Something is totally screwed up in my water shader - gonna have to sit down and pull it apart, I think. Suggestions welcome on what it could be.

    Can't wait for Rashad's comments on outdoor Fake GI - this was a 10 hour render with 8 hours just on the water! (I know cos it had just reached the water when I went to bed!)

    It almost looks like we are seeing the polys of the water. Just a wild guess, but is there displacement on it? If so, do you have Subdivision enabled in the shader? Complex displacement might explain why it slowed down there too.

    That was something I didn't even spot until the big render (which proves you can't do all your image checking in thumbnails) - the other thing was the munged car reg (anyone else with Petipet's Ranger model, you need to go into the vertex modeller UV editor and turn off "Wrap U values" in the model tab for the "plate" shading domain. Only then will it render correctly.)

    I don't have any displacement set. The bump is set to cellular, maybe that's the trouble (it actually looks pretty good in the shader preview, bit on the render it's more like shattered glass! What I'm after really is just light ripples, so perhaps some other function will be better. There's a pond a few streets away, I'll see if I can sneak out and get some reference pics this avo.

    Going back to earlier, I did have some absorption and in-scattering set. I'll take those off. Ray depth was set to 2 on Reflections and 4 on Transparency. I guess they should both be 2. I don't have any Fresnel set, would that be beneficial?

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited March 2015

    Tim_A said:
    What I'm after really is just light ripples, so perhaps some other function will be better. There's a pond a few streets away, I'll see if I can sneak out and get some reference pics this avo.

    I know most of the water presets have noise in the bump channel, and that seems to be what a lot of people go with, but Carrara does have Water:Ripples and Water:Waves under the Natural shader functions. I've had a lot of luck with those.

    Here's a quick render with the muddy water preset with the bump replaced by the waves function using it's default settings.

    EDIT: I just realized that might be a little hard to see. Adding a render of the same thing with the transparency turned off on the water.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    The overnight render from last night, and alas, it's an epic fail. Something is totally screwed up in my water shader - gonna have to sit down and pull it apart, I think. Suggestions welcome on what it could be.

    Can't wait for Rashad's comments on outdoor Fake GI - this was a 10 hour render with 8 hours just on the water! (I know cos it had just reached the water when I went to bed!)

    You're not using soft shadows on any lights are you?

    Refraction and Fresnel will also cause long render times.

    If you have Pro, there is also the ability to use the ocean primitive which can also look good- then you don't need the bumps. If you stick it in a replicator (not the surface replicator), use grid, set the grid size to the same dimensions as the primitive, and then enable the tile seamlessly option, you can get a very large body of water without a huge hit on scene overhead.

    I used refraction, absorption and in-scattering on the water shader for these scenes, but I disabled Fresnel.

    I also did a little light linking. On a couple images I used soft shadows on the sunlight, and excluded the ocean primitive from that light. I then duplicated the light, which placed it in the exact same position and orientation as the original. For the duplicate light, I disable soft shadows and had the light set to only light the ocean primitive.

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  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    The overnight render from last night, and alas, it's an epic fail. Something is totally screwed up in my water shader - gonna have to sit down and pull it apart, I think. Suggestions welcome on what it could be.

    Can't wait for Rashad's comments on outdoor Fake GI - this was a 10 hour render with 8 hours just on the water! (I know cos it had just reached the water when I went to bed!)

    You're not using soft shadows on any lights are you?

    Refraction and Fresnel will also cause long render times.

    If you have Pro, there is also the ability to use the ocean primitive which can also look good- then you don't need the bumps. If you stick it in a replicator (not the surface replicator), use grid, set the grid size to the same dimensions as the primitive, and then enable the tile seamlessly option, you can get a very large body of water without a huge hit on scene overhead.

    I used refraction, absorption and in-scattering on the water shader for these scenes, but I disabled Fresnel.

    I also did a little light linking. On a couple images I used soft shadows on the sunlight, and excluded the ocean primitive from that light. I then duplicated the light, which placed it in the exact same position and orientation as the original. For the duplicate light, I disable soft shadows and had the light set to only light the ocean primitive.

    Yes, I have soft shadows on the sun light, but not on the replicated Fake GI lights. Interesting idea to use the ocean primitive - hadn't thought of that.

    Refraction is set to "Water", there's no fresnel.

    I've attached some reference photos that I took this afternoon at the pond down the street. They pretty much show what I'd like to achieve in terms of ripples, reflection, water clarity, colour etc. The water itself is quite muddy - you can barely see to the bottom of the ducks' feet in the middle pic.

    My "shattered" effect is a long way from that!

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  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,983
    edited March 2015

    for your water shader I'd mix some of your water textures from your images together with a water bump map in the operator channel

    https://www.google.com.au/search?q=water+bump+map&biw=1366&bih=651&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=4Zb3VJXVCILpmAXhxIH4DQ&sqi=2&ved=0CBwQsAQ

    or there's a caustics generator somewhere (free) trhat will make similar water like images,

    edit here it is http://www.klitetools.com/comments.php?shownews=4130&catid=68

    then I'd dump everything in the water shader except transparency, reflection, highlight shininess and bump and work from that.

    a low spotlight position to reflect off the water and into the camera will also work wonders in faking it , you could even put a sky pic/forest picture in the texture gel of the spotlight

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Tim_A said:
    Tim_A said:
    The overnight render from last night, and alas, it's an epic fail. Something is totally screwed up in my water shader - gonna have to sit down and pull it apart, I think. Suggestions welcome on what it could be.

    Can't wait for Rashad's comments on outdoor Fake GI - this was a 10 hour render with 8 hours just on the water! (I know cos it had just reached the water when I went to bed!)

    You're not using soft shadows on any lights are you?

    Refraction and Fresnel will also cause long render times.

    If you have Pro, there is also the ability to use the ocean primitive which can also look good- then you don't need the bumps. If you stick it in a replicator (not the surface replicator), use grid, set the grid size to the same dimensions as the primitive, and then enable the tile seamlessly option, you can get a very large body of water without a huge hit on scene overhead.

    I used refraction, absorption and in-scattering on the water shader for these scenes, but I disabled Fresnel.

    I also did a little light linking. On a couple images I used soft shadows on the sunlight, and excluded the ocean primitive from that light. I then duplicated the light, which placed it in the exact same position and orientation as the original. For the duplicate light, I disable soft shadows and had the light set to only light the ocean primitive.

    Yes, I have soft shadows on the sun light, but not on the replicated Fake GI lights. Interesting idea to use the ocean primitive - hadn't thought of that.

    Refraction is set to "Water", there's no fresnel.

    I've attached some reference photos that I took this afternoon at the pond down the street. They pretty much show what I'd like to achieve in terms of ripples, reflection, water clarity, colour etc. The water itself is quite muddy - you can barely see to the bottom of the ducks' feet in the middle pic.

    My "shattered" effect is a long way from that!

    So, in your image, I would say to use the water ripple function in the bump, and maybe even the highlight if you need help forcing the effect. You could also use the ocean along with the ripples in the bump channel.

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited March 2015

    Nice photos...

    One of the myriad of reasons I, and others, find a huge benefit in using photos as reference is kind of the "inverse" of what Headwax refers to. He seems to think that photos are somewhat limiting in forcing the imagination into a strict "realism" box. While that may be true to some extent, they also, along with personal observation of the world around you, serve to remind you of why things are so beautiful and breathtaking.

    Here is an example that clearly shows the sorts of things that are constantly missed by those whose sole input into what they render is what faded, distant memories and visions are floating in their minds.

    One image shows a Carrara render of some ducks. The other shows a real life photo of some ducks.

    Now, what's the difference? For many, the difference would never be evident until they are shown their renders side by side with a real photo. That is just one benefit of using photos.

    In the real photo, the mallard duck seems to glow. In the render, the ducks are barely visible.

    Now, for someone who wants to learn how to make better renders, just one learning exercise could be to figure out why the real ducks looks so much nicer. Is it lighting? Is it surfaces? What about the real ducks makes the mallard look so brilliant and gorgeous? And to allay any fears that those like Headwax might have, once you learn the reasons for the difference, there is no law that says you need to change your render. You can choose to ignore the difference and leave your dark ducks alone because it's what you want. But gaining knowledge might be useful for a future render.

    Again, this is not an exercise for the majority of experts here who don't need photo references, just for those few who want to learn the basics.

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