CARRARA CHALLENGE #63: There be Dragons..... WIP

Bunyip02

UnifiedBrain said:

Yes, sorry for the delay.  I am taking a cue from Diomede and doing a series on a single theme.  All will be done at close to the same time, hopefully.

No worries - looking forward to your renders !!!

Bunyip02

Entry thread started - if anyone needs more time let me know !!!

Headwax

UnifiedBrain said:

Headwax said:

Finally had achance to sit down with carrara

Dragonfolk - had to use the daz studio plugin to get them into carrara , a character called grim, the spheres on the ground qwere replicated then turned into reall instances so I could move them, lots of lighting via caustics,

two fogs and some background gemoetry made with an online programe by Andrew Marsh Polyhedra Generator (andrewmarsh.com) - he has a few things worth looking at

the big sphere behind the two grims is reflecting the sky 

 

 

Another great image to add to your long catalog of great images. 

Not sure why you needed DS to load Dragonfolk.  I think it is basically uses Millennium Dragon 1?

I'm also impressed that you got the dorky flame prop to look so artistic. :)  Awesome overall lighting, reflections, esthetics, and a very creative use of the Polyhedra plugin you mentioned.

Thanks for reminding us what happens when you use your full power as an artist.  I am way more inspired by this than I am inspired by push-button AI.

 

thank you UB :) _ Ah for the flames thing I inverted the alph  map on a hunch and addede the texture map to the glow channel - I like cuatics because they often give you unecpected results - also tone mapping in post brings out the darks that are too darl sometines - I used the normal map and took it into Affinity photo and used that to play with the lighting

Headwax

UnifiedBrain said:

Headwax said:

Finally had achance to sit down with carrara

Dragonfolk - had to use the daz studio plugin to get them into carrara , a character called grim, the spheres on the ground qwere replicated then turned into reall instances so I could move them, lots of lighting via caustics,

two fogs and some background gemoetry made with an online programe by Andrew Marsh Polyhedra Generator (andrewmarsh.com) - he has a few things worth looking at

the big sphere behind the two grims is reflecting the sky 

 

 

Another great image to add to your long catalog of great images. 

Not sure why you needed DS to load Dragonfolk.  I think it is basically uses Millennium Dragon 1?

I'm also impressed that you got the dorky flame prop to look so artistic. :)  Awesome overall lighting, reflections, esthetics, and a very creative use of the Polyhedra plugin you mentioned.

Thanks for reminding us what happens when you use your full power as an artist.  I am way more inspired by this than I am inspired by push-button AI.

 

thank you UB :) _ Ah for the flames thing I inverted the alph  map on a hunch and addede the texture map to the glow channel - I like cuatics because they often give you unecpected results - also tone mapping in post brings out the darks that are too darl sometines - I used the normal map and took it into Affinity photo and used that to play with the lighting

Headwax

edit: not sur whay the dragon folk didn't work in Carrara out of the box for me :(

WendyLuvsCatz

Headwax said:

edit: not sur whay the dragon folk didn't work in Carrara out of the box for me :(

I have used them but you may need to uncheck limits before  loading  

Bunyip02

Headwax said:

edit: not sur whay the dragon folk didn't work in Carrara out of the box for me :(

Will check them out - have not used them in Carrara before ...

Headwax

Thanks !

Headwax

here's two I worked on last week and  yesterday - not happy with either

First one I decided to make a dragon vase so I took Dragonfolk into 3d builder and for some reason did a boolean using a cut sphere then brought it back into Carrara and hit it with random metallic shaders

rendered with HDR and caustic, the patterned backgroind is from AgeOfArmour's tremendous art studio, you can also see it in the reflections as well

 

The adulterated one 

 

and the unadulterated one

 

 

 

Headwax

one from last week, had trouble making the knight chap pop from the background

adulterated and wip, in that order, put reflection on the ground so I could use caustics once again

 

and whip

 

 

 

Headwax

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Headwax said:

edit: not sur whay the dragon folk didn't work in Carrara out of the box for me :(

I have used them but you may need to uncheck limits before  loading  

thank you @WendyLuvsCats - sorry didnt see your comment

Bunyip02

Bunyip02 said:

Headwax said:

edit: not sur whay the dragon folk didn't work in Carrara out of the box for me :(

Will check them out - have not used them in Carrara before ...

Worked fine for me !

Bunyip02

Headwax said:

here's two I worked on last week and  yesterday - not happy with either

First one I decided to make a dragon vase so I took Dragonfolk into 3d builder and for some reason did a boolean using a cut sphere then brought it back into Carrara and hit it with random metallic shaders

rendered with HDR and caustic, the patterned backgroind is from AgeOfArmour's tremendous art studio, you can also see it in the reflections as well

 

The adulterated one 

 

and the unadulterated one

I like it, suspect that your internal critic is giving you a hard time about it though.

Only thing that looked odd to me was the Dragonfolks tail sticking out of nowhere.

Bunyip02

Headwax said:

one from last week, had trouble making the knight chap pop from the background

adulterated and wip, in that order, put reflection on the ground so I could use caustics once again

 

and whip

Nice action scene, although the Dragon's wing sticking through the building bothered me a bit ....

Bunyip02

Just for Fun - Not an Entry

Dragon head morph Genesis

Steve K

Bunyip02 said:

Steve K said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I consider DAZ studio a useful Carrara plugin and it really doesn't take up much space.

I finally broke down and installed Daz Studio Pro 4.2.  Not (yet) to get DUF files into Carrara, but just to render a product that comes in DS and Poser format.  Neither Poser nor Carrara gave the great quality of renders in the product samples, e.g. the "ELITE" glass sign above the revolving door (see attached).  As always, I floundered around in DS, new to me, but finally got it to do some great renders.  The bad news is it took Iray to do it, about 60 to 90 minutes for a 1280x720 image.  (!)  Not gonna do any animations at that rate, but backgrounds for Carrara animations look promising. 

Thanks Wendy et al.

As a Carrara plugin it does have it's uses !!!

Two things: I'm learning that you have to make sure a DS/Poser product comes with Iray textures, some are added only later.  Also, for some products (not all), I think I can get pretty close to the Iray render using a Poser format in Carrara.  Takes some work in the Texture Room using Carrara's great library, and some lighting work (as always with Poser products in Carrara), but pretty good.  And probably feasible for animations.  Even if you use the Iray render as a still image establishing shot.  Following all that?  There will be a quiz.

Headwax

Ha ha Bunyip02, thanks for the comments - yes you are very observant!!

Headwax

Bunyip02 said:

Just for Fun - Not an Entry

Dragon head morph Genesis

 

love how this one makes you think - reflections are so good!

Bunyip02

Headwax said:

Ha ha Bunyip02, thanks for the comments - yes you are very observant!!

What's seen can't be unseen !!!

Lovely renders apart from that !

Bunyip02

Headwax said:

Bunyip02 said:

Just for Fun - Not an Entry

Dragon head morph Genesis

 

love how this one makes you think - reflections are so good!

Thanks !!!

UnifiedBrain

Part 1 - The Saga

 

This is a tip of the hat to Planet of the Apes - without the time travel twist.  Instead, there was just boring old evolution.  Lizards were slow to evolve, but 66 million years is a long time. :)  They eventually developed language and technology.  No, they don't breathe fire, but they can shoot fire weapons.

Lizards developed a natural caste system based on species variations, much like the apes did in POTA.

Humans (Sapiens) came along just about when lizards realized that killing each other for food was going to insure mutual destruction.  As creepy as those warm-blooded Sapiens were, they made a tasty stew!

Characters include M3, F3, G1 and G2M, and some morphs like Dragonfolk that I have not used before.  Fire effects are Jepe billboards.  The building is from an old Stonemason set.  The flying lizards are the Moorland Dragon.  The flame weapon is actually called the Steam Dragon, and it is available on Rendo.

Carrara processes include Text and Surface Replicator.  At this point, GMIC is always part of my initial setup.

No postwork, as usual.

Edit - I added a new version in the attachments below, but kept the old so that following posts would not be empty.

Stezza

have you seen them snapdragon seed pods!..... freaky stuff that.. imagine if........ 

When the local Nuclear Physicist has the weekend off, he gets down and dirty in the garden. This weekend however he never imagined what would happen when he accidently mixed some blood & bone with some gamma radiated snapdragon pods and inhaled the seeds 

his green thumb hobby was about to take a nasty turn

The SnapDragon Scientist

modelled the garden and ornaments and props ( dragon, owl and dragon's breath plant ) modelled the snapdragon head and used it on Pumpkin Jack along with some Carrara fur, used some free plants from some PA here at Daz3d and then did a little postwork in PSE2022.

snapdragon head with some morphs

Bunyip02

UnifiedBrain said:

Part 1 - The Saga

 

This is a tip of the hat to Planet of the Apes - without the time travel twist.  Instead, there was just boring old evolution.  Lizards were slow to evolve, but 66 million years is a long time. :)  They eventually developed language and technology.  No, they don't breathe fire, but they can shoot fire weapons.

Lizards developed a natural caste system based on species variations, much like the apes did in POTA.

Humans (Sapiens) came along just about when lizards realized that killing each other for food was going to insure mutual destruction.  As creepy as those warm-blooded Sapiens were, they made a tasty stew!

Characters include M3, F3, G1 and G2M, and some morphs like Dragonfolk that I have not used before.  Fire effects are Jepe billboards.  The building is from an old Stonemason set.  The flying lizards are the Moorland Dragon.  The flame weapon is actually called the Steam Dragon, and it is available on Rendo.

Carrara processes include Text and Surface Replicator.  At this point, GMIC is always part of my initial setup.

No postwork, as usual.

Very nice, like the flame-thrower !!! How many sequels will there be ?!!

Bunyip02

Syezza said:

have you seen them snapdragon seed pods!..... freaky stuff that.. imagine if........ 

When the local Nuclear Physicist has the weekend off, he gets down and dirty in the garden. This weekend however he never imagined what would happen when he accidently mixed some blood & bone with some gamma radiated snapdragon pods and inhaled the seeds 

his green thumb hobby was about to take a nasty turn

The SnapDragon Scientist

modelled the garden and ornaments and props ( dragon, owl and dragon's breath plant ) modelled the snapdragon head and used it on Pumpkin Jack along with some Carrara fur, used some free plants from some PA here at Daz3d and then did a little postwork in PSE2022.

snapdragon head with some morphs

Now thats thinking out of the box !!! Awesome modelling of the head - including plenty of morphs !

Bunyip02

DesertDude said:

Here is my first WIP, a dragon made of paper plates.

I had several bad starts on how to apprach those uniquitous ridges on paper plates. My first attempts involved dispalcement mapping and it looked...awful. So I modeled them creating a high poly plate. I started with only one quarter of the plate and fussed around until I got the grooves to look passable. I then dupliacted with symmetry, welded the two halves together, then duplicated with symmetry again to finish the plate. The result is not a perfect circle. I'm sure there was a more sane approach, but anyways, then I created a normal map from the high poly plate and applied that to a low poly disc.

I then used a regular Replicator and dialed in a single row along one axis, then gently tweaked the position and rotation% so they aren't perfectly aligned.

Experimenting creating the feathers using info from this thread: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/493341/can-i-create-feathers-with-the-hair-tool

He'll be much more decorated later. Right now I need to create his environment.

DesertDude - how is this one travelling ? If more time needed let me know !

Bunyip02

shlomi laszlo said:

with forest primeEVIL plants

and just the carrara stuff for the landscape

Shlomi make sure you enter this one !

Bunyip02

Diomede said:

False start.

RE: Dragon Helm of Dor Lomin.  I had started modeling something in Carrara and got this far.  But I plan to start over.  Seems like a good project to use as a tutorial for a sculpting program and painting program.  So even though I am posting this Work in Progress, and I could finish the modeling project in Carrara, I prefer to use this as a learning opportunity.  Sculpting programs can make normal maps from two versions of a mesh.  So here is a false start Carrara WIP using Carrara's vertex modeler. 

Diomede, any progress on this one ?

Bunyip02

Diomede said:

Final Dragon modeling WIP, I promise.  Added some simple wings.

These are not the final textures or whatever.  This is still with no UVMapping.  And so far I have only used procedural shaders.  There is a forked tongue inside the mouth, if anyone was worried about it.

Another one needing some love !

UnifiedBrain

Bunyip02 said:

Very nice, like the flame-thrower !!! How many sequels will there be ?!!

Thank you, Bunyip.  Since I already have 2 entries, there will be two more on this theme - hopefully.  One is about 80% done, and the other about 40%.

Headwax

UnifiedBrain said:

Part 1 - The Saga

 

This is a tip of the hat to Planet of the Apes - without the time travel twist.  Instead, there was just boring old evolution.  Lizards were slow to evolve, but 66 million years is a long time. :)  They eventually developed language and technology.  No, they don't breathe fire, but they can shoot fire weapons.

Lizards developed a natural caste system based on species variations, much like the apes did in POTA.

Humans (Sapiens) came along just about when lizards realized that killing each other for food was going to insure mutual destruction.  As creepy as those warm-blooded Sapiens were, they made a tasty stew!

Characters include M3, F3, G1 and G2M, and some morphs like Dragonfolk that I have not used before.  Fire effects are Jepe billboards.  The building is from an old Stonemason set.  The flying lizards are the Moorland Dragon.  The flame weapon is actually called the Steam Dragon, and it is available on Rendo.

Carrara processes include Text and Surface Replicator.  At this point, GMIC is always part of my initial setup.

No postwork, as usual.

 

great back story and poster design - I can see yoiu in Cinema's soon!