2014 Holiday Season Carrara Challenge (#14) - WINNERS ANNOUNCED - WIP Thread

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited November 2014

    Jack Tomalin

    woohoo! Great sponsor.

    Seems like I have a ton of Jack's products, yet only a small percentage of all there is.

    Stop by and show your appreciation in the dedicated thread.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/26252/P1095

    Edit - quick check of the store showed Jack Tomalin with 171 products as of time of posting. Something there for everybody!

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    By the way, the thread is now

    OFFICIALLY OPEN FOR WIPs!

    I can't wait to see what everyone is cooking up for the theme! :)

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    By the way, the thread is now

    OFFICIALLY OPEN FOR WIPs!

    I can't wait to see what everyone is cooking up for the theme! :)

    Aaargh. I wanted to get one more set of winter-related inspirational pics. I will post them anyway.

    Any guesses?

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  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:
    Antara said:
    By the way, the thread is now

    OFFICIALLY OPEN FOR WIPs!

    I can't wait to see what everyone is cooking up for the theme! :)

    Aaargh. I wanted to get one more set of winter-related inspirational pics. I will post them anyway.

    Any guesses?

    Oooh! So cool! Milady de Winter is here!!! :) That's a great twist on the theme! :)

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    diomede64 said:
    Antara said:
    By the way, the thread is now

    OFFICIALLY OPEN FOR WIPs!

    I can't wait to see what everyone is cooking up for the theme! :)

    Aaargh. I wanted to get one more set of winter-related inspirational pics. I will post them anyway.

    Any guesses?

    Oooh! So cool! Milady de Winter is here!!! :) That's a great twist on the theme! :)

    Lana Turner is much more beautiful than the typical subway ad. Don't know about NYC, but most of the ads I've seen seem to be for accident lawyers. Ugh.

    Anyway, I am not doing anything related to the Three Musketeers or Napolean or the Titanic or George Washington but any of these could be a good subject for somebody.

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:
    Lana Turner is much more beautiful than the typical subway ad. Don't know about NYC, but most of the ads I've seen seem to be for accident lawyers. Ugh.

    Anyway, I am not doing anything related to the Three Musketeers or Napolean or the Titanic or George Washington but any of these could be a good subject for somebody.

    Well, see, the ugly subway posters is exactly the issue we are trying to solve here!!! :)

    So I think these are all great ideas and starting points, so thank you for the images!:)

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    One more inspirational post. This is a historical photograph in the Library of Congress. Dang that looks like it was cold!
    Lots more here. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Some inspiration from my neck of the woods. These are pictures I snapped of a beautiful hoar frost a few years ago. It lasted so long, because it got c-o-o-o-l-d right after it formed.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    One more hoar frost picture.

    Something else to consider is that lights can be replicated...

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  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:

    Yes, you are correct, even though it's a poster, it should have a horizontal orientation, because most windows for posters located on the subway platforms are for the wide (landscape oriented) posters. And the idea is to create posters for that specific public space :).

    Besides, we just had an all-vertical images challenge, so I think it's time to switch :).

    Thanks! That's very helpful; I had two different ideas and one would only have worked vertically, so your command decision has chosen which idea to spend my time on for me. :)

    Mark

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Something else to consider is that lights can be replicated...

    You took the words out of my mouth! :)

    Here's a quick test...

    I dropped in one of the default Carrara trees, removed the leaves, made a quick spiral in the Spline modeller, made a quick light bulb in the Vertex modeller, used a surface replicator to replicate the light on the spiral, made the Spiral invisible and... ta da!

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  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited November 2014

    MDO2010, Brilliant! And you killed both technical requirements in one go! :)

    Since different level branches sit on different shaders, I did a similar setup some tome ago, but used the shader-restricted surface replicator to place the light bulbs.

    evilproducer and diomede64, thank you for such great references and inspirational images!

    EP, those photographs are breathtaking. I so wish I could have been there to see it.

    Post edited by Antara on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    Great start, Mark. I like where you are going.

    I posted an announcement in the New User contests and events forum.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48744/

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:
    Great start, Mark. I like where you are going.

    I posted an announcement in the New User contests and events forum.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48744/

    I am not sure we have a permission to do so yet!!! I am talking to Ann about it! Let's wait for her response, first, please!

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited November 2014

    Antara said:
    diomede64 said:
    Great start, Mark. I like where you are going.

    I posted an announcement in the New User contests and events forum.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48744/

    I am not sure we have a permission to do so yet!!! I am talking to Ann about it! Let's wait for her response, first, please!

    OOps. My Bad! I'll quick try to undo.

    Edit - OK - limited the damage by editing my post, but the thread is there as a placeholder for the moment if it turns out to be OK to announce there.

    :red:

    Edit 2: Permission? What happened to it being better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission? Just kidding. Sorry for jumping the gun. I'm not going to get hit with the big stick, am I? I think this is my second strike.

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:

    I am not sure we have a permission to do so yet!!! I am talking to Ann about it! Let's wait for her response, first, please!

    OOps. My Bad! I'll quick try to undo.

    Edit - OK - limited the damage by editing my post, but the thread is there as a placeholder for the moment if it turns out to be OK to announce there.

    :red:

    Edit 2: Permission? What happened to it being better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission? Just kidding. Sorry for jumping the gun. I'm not going to get hit with the big stick, am I? I think this is my second strike.

    Thank you for the edit! :)

    Well, I am a big believer in giving people a choice and letting them make informed decisions. I know, it's a flaw. :)

    If we get the permission, I'll ask you to edit your post again.

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Antara said:
    MDO2010, Brilliant! And you killed both technical requirements in one go! :)

    Since different level branches sit on different shaders, I did a similar setup some tome ago, but used the shader-restricted surface replicator to place the light bulbs.
    Thanks. I did not know the shaders were set up that way - this is the first time I ever used one of Carrara's trees.


    Great start, Mark. I like where you are going.


    Thank you.

    One more quick image then I am going to call it a night. I added another spiral to the bottom then converted both to vertex objects so I could "fit" them to the tree a little better. Also shrunk the lights a little bit.

    Over the weekend I will try to build a park to put these trees in. :)

    Mark

    LightTest_2.jpg
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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    MDO2010 said:
    Antara said:
    MDO2010, Brilliant! And you killed both technical requirements in one go! :)

    Since different level branches sit on different shaders, I did a similar setup some tome ago, but used the shader-restricted surface replicator to place the light bulbs.
    Thanks. I did not know the shaders were set up that way - this is the first time I ever used one of Carrara's trees.


    Great start, Mark. I like where you are going.


    Thank you.

    One more quick image then I am going to call it a night. I added another spiral to the bottom then converted both to vertex objects so I could "fit" them to the tree a little better. Also shrunk the lights a little bit.

    Over the weekend I will try to build a park to put these trees in. :)

    Mark

    Great work! If you want, try making the "bulb" part of the light translucent by putting a color of your choice in the translucency channel, and then placing and parenting a Carrara bulb light inside the light model (the default hotpoint corresponds to the light emitter). Leave the light color white, set the range to around 2 feet or whatever you wish, and the range falloff to 20% to start.

    If you are using a glow in the glow channel, then remove it.

    Antara's idea about restricting the replication to a shading domain is a great one. I did it with these holiday lights to keep the light assemblies on the cord part of the model. Check them out if you want.
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/73481/view/5/3D-Model/Carrara-rigged-Holiday-Light-String

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    Love that render, EP.

    Maybe I can make up a little bit for my oops. This is for people who are relatively new to Carrara.

    There should be a sample snow layout in your browser tray under the scene tab in the misc folder. It is called Christmas card. If you start with an empty scene, you can click and drag the Christmas card scene to your working box. It will bring the terrain, trees, ornaments, lights, and a camera to your working box. You will have to add a realistic sky.

    Also, I have an explanation of how to use Genesis and some 3rd generation stuff (Michael 3 is 3rd generation) to make a Santa Claus figure. The explanation starts here.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/P15/#682680

    You can explore the sample scene and the adapted genesis tutorial to get some ideas.

    santa_render_with_christmas_card.jpg
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  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    diomede64, thank you for the links and the scene explanation. Those scenes are great starting points for anybody who's new to the program! (And you don't need to have an empty file/scene opened. You can just start Carrara and instead of creating a new file, go straight to the browser's Scene tab and double-click on any the scene file to load it - complete with the Reaslistic Sky, Render options and anything else that was saved with that scene.)

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited November 2014

    And now I come bearing even more great news for Newcomers and New Users!!!

    The Newcomers/New Users Honourable Mention prize just got another amazing donation:
    in addition to the gift certificate and a product by Jack Tomalin, the winner of this Honourable Mention will also receive a copy of PD Howler 9.5 generously donated by its creator, Philip Staiger(staigerman).

    Thank you, Philip!!!

    There has never been a better time to be a Carrara newbie! :)

    Post edited by Antara on
  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,049
    edited December 1969

    wow antara..

    how cool is that....

    well done :-)

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    I had opened a challenge on Carrarators last year (for the fun) with a very similar subject, it's still open this year and your WIP' s for this challenge can be useful for both !
    Here is my entry:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkUOpDxK5As&list=UU2ad-B9kftJzKv_0HyekV3g

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited December 1969

    I had opened a challenge on Carrarators last year (for the fun) with a very similar subject, it's still open this year and your WIP' s for this challenge can be useful for both !
    Here is my entry:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkUOpDxK5As&list=UU2ad-B9kftJzKv_0HyekV3g

    Thank you, Dudu. Great news. Loved your animation.

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    Thank you Diomède, you are welcome !

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Great work! If you want, try making the "bulb" part of the light translucent by putting a color of your choice in the translucency channel, and then placing and parenting a Carrara bulb light inside the light model (the default hotpoint corresponds to the light emitter). Leave the light color white, set the range to around 2 feet or whatever you wish, and the range falloff to 20% to start.

    If you are using a glow in the glow channel, then remove it.

    Antara's idea about restricting the replication to a shading domain is a great one. I did it with these holiday lights to keep the light assemblies on the cord part of the model. Check them out if you want.
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/73481/view/5/3D-Model/Carrara-rigged-Holiday-Light-String

    Thanks evilproducer. I downloaded your lights and will definitely take a look at them - that's an effect I've tried to create before unsuccessfully and I can't wait to take yours apart. ;)

    I'm not sure about doing the same thing here though. I am planning on having some fog in the scene and was thinking about using volumetric clouds for it. After I set up a few more trees and duplicate them a few times, there will end up being something like 3,000 replicated lights in the scene and I don't know how that will play with the cloud-fog in terms of render times. I have a feeling not well. I was going to just leave the lights as a color in the glow channel and fake their actual light with a couple light bulbs hovering around each tree.

    Mark

  • AntaraAntara Posts: 444
    edited December 1969

    I had opened a challenge on Carrarators last year (for the fun) with a very similar subject, it's still open this year and your WIP' s for this challenge can be useful for both !
    Here is my entry:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkUOpDxK5As&list=UU2ad-B9kftJzKv_0HyekV3g

    Wow! That animation is beyond cool! Is that a metaball particle generator at work?

    Thanks evilproducer. I downloaded your lights and will definitely take a look at them - that's an effect I've tried to create before unsuccessfully and I can't wait to take yours apart. ;)

    I'm not sure about doing the same thing here though. I am planning on having some fog in the scene and was thinking about using volumetric clouds for it. After I set up a few more trees and duplicate them a few times, there will end up being something like 3,000 replicated lights in the scene and I don't know how that will play with the cloud-fog in terms of render times. I have a feeling not well. I was going to just leave the lights as a color in the glow channel and fake their actual light with a couple light bulbs hovering around each tree.

    Mark

    Ooh, Mark, that sounds like a very cool setup idea! Please let us know how it works (even if you end up scraping it for some reason, as it would be great to know why it didn't work if ends up not working).

    I wonder whether glow aura post effect gets obscured by the volumetric clouds. Because if you want it to look like those bulbs are lighting the fog, without having them actually do so computationally, adding the post effect seems like a good way to go, but I know that if you have, say, a transparent glass pane, between your camera and the glowing object, the post effect does not get created. (At least in my experience, but maybe I did it wrong?)

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,158
    edited November 2014

    Making a mountain sprinkled with snow for the background. I started with a large scene size, realistic sky with the alpine preset.

    Doing some simple tests of sprinkled snow. I know I could try to use a terrain shader based on slope for snow, but I am doing some tests of combining two terrain objects with slightly different settings.

    So I inserted a default terrain, applied a zero edge filter, and a rain erosion filter, then duplicated.
    - for the ground terrain, I increased the preview and render quality to 1025. I also reduced the percentage for the rain erosion filter.
    - for the snow terrain, I set the preview and render quality to 513. I left the percentage for the rain erosion higher.
    These settings keep the terrains in similar shape but the snow terrain is much smoother.
    - I also increased the vertical scale of the snow terrain slightly, and moved it on the x-axis and z-axis very slightly.
    These changes have some snow appear on top of some of the surfaces of the ground terrain and on some of its north face. Furthermore, the vertical scaling results in more snow appearing higher up on the ground terrain.

    For now, I used a simple white color for snow and mixed two default terrain shaders for the ground. The shaders need to be improved but I think I like the concept.

    - need to add detail to the shaders
    - need to adjust the sky editor
    - need to insert some volumetric clouds, probably replicated on a vertex dome

    ** - need to have a concept for the midground and foreground :roll: **

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

    MDO2010 said:
    Great work! If you want, try making the "bulb" part of the light translucent by putting a color of your choice in the translucency channel, and then placing and parenting a Carrara bulb light inside the light model (the default hotpoint corresponds to the light emitter). Leave the light color white, set the range to around 2 feet or whatever you wish, and the range falloff to 20% to start.

    If you are using a glow in the glow channel, then remove it.

    Antara's idea about restricting the replication to a shading domain is a great one. I did it with these holiday lights to keep the light assemblies on the cord part of the model. Check them out if you want.
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/73481/view/5/3D-Model/Carrara-rigged-Holiday-Light-String

    Thanks evilproducer. I downloaded your lights and will definitely take a look at them - that's an effect I've tried to create before unsuccessfully and I can't wait to take yours apart. ;)

    I'm not sure about doing the same thing here though. I am planning on having some fog in the scene and was thinking about using volumetric clouds for it. After I set up a few more trees and duplicate them a few times, there will end up being something like 3,000 replicated lights in the scene and I don't know how that will play with the cloud-fog in terms of render times. I have a feeling not well. I was going to just leave the lights as a color in the glow channel and fake their actual light with a couple light bulbs hovering around each tree.

    Mark

    Using a reduced number of lights would definitely be faster. What I used for the glowing leaves in the Pandora image from the last challenge was shape lights set to the ring shape. I expanded them to encircle the trees. Something like that may work for the lights as well.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:
    Making a mountain sprinkled with snow for the background. I started with a large scene size, realistic sky with the alpine preset.

    Doing some simple tests of sprinkled snow. I know I could try to use a terrain shader based on slope for snow, but I am doing some tests of combining two terrain objects with slightly different settings.

    So I inserted a default terrain, applied a zero edge filter, and a rain erosion filter, then duplicated.
    - for the ground terrain, I increased the preview and render quality to 1025. I also reduced the percentage for the rain erosion filter.
    - for the snow terrain, I set the preview and render quality to 513. I left the percentage for the rain erosion higher.
    These settings keep the terrains in similar shape but the snow terrain is much smoother.
    - I also increased the vertical scale of the snow terrain slightly, and moved it on the x-axis and z-axis very slightly.
    These changes have some snow appear on top of some of the surfaces of the ground terrain and on some of its north face. Furthermore, the vertical scaling results in more snow appearing higher up on the ground terrain.

    For now, I used a simple white color for snow and mixed two default terrain shaders for the ground. The shaders need to be improved but I think I like the concept.

    - need to add detail to the shaders
    - need to adjust the sky editor
    - need to insert some volumetric clouds, probably replicated on a vertex dome

    ** - need to have a concept for the midground and foreground :roll: **

    Very nice effect diomede!

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