So near, yet so far...

The Brig

Then again, so far, so good.  Had to run this through in one sitting because Bryce is being difficult and refuses to save or open files, but here's what I got so far.

I really dislike the way the figure and costume were rendered by Bryce; the DS version was better so I'll try dinking around with this in DS later.  At least there's an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish.  Perhaps a slightly more overcast sky, a little mist like you see in a properly spooky swamp...  Maybe next time I'll just darken everything so it's lit by just the camera lights and all we see of Spot back there are his glowing eyes.  Kind of a Blair Witch image. 

There was minor work in GIMP to try to soften the contrast between the figure and the background, but I couldn't quite blend things like I wanted them to be.  I guess I have to go find my own alien planet, then.

dodgerrecords

Hey its looking really good, I definitely think Iray would do better results on this. I also think the water could use a fresnel effect, so that it will look a little bit transparent at the surface level of the water.

The Brig

You're right: Iray did do better.  I initially did render it in Iray, but when I sent it to Bryce everything got lost in the translation.  I'm trying to figure out how to do it all in Daz so I get the proper textures.  The water's going to be a major work in progress: I'm trying to figure out how to add ripples to it as well as giving it the effect you said.  And maybe some of that Snell effect that distorts the view of things underwater.

That should keep me busy for some time...!  Thanks for stopping by!

dodgerrecords

If I can give a suggestion for the ripples, you might want to look for a ripple displacement map on google images, then you can apply it to your plane and should be able to position it  where you need it, I included a quick render of an example using a displacement map, as well as the displacement map I used.

The Brig

Working on playing with the ripple textures...also contemplating putting a small wake around Spot's snout to show he's moving.

I went ahead and did a nighttime render.  Did the sky and trees in Bryce, using the sky as a background .jpg and bringing the trees in as .obj files.  Set up a water texture I liked in Bryce and used it as a map for a primitive plane in DS. In the daylight version I added a green diffuse to the water to make it look murkier.  With the opacity dialed down a bit I do get a bit of that fading effect but I need to make the plane a volume rather than a flat surface so the objects fade away the deeper they get.  Meh.  Work in progress, as always!

I couldn't get the lights the way I wanted them: I wanted a sunset effect but the render settings didn't cooperate so there's a dim cylindrical primitive off to the left.  I hit it with the emissives shader then a dose of Real Lights for Iray to shade it like a campfire.  Not perfect, but a starting point.  Getting there!

XaatXuun

ahh there is a awesome tutorial in DS Creative Issue 15 , Page 21/66 for water ripples

The Brig

XaatXuun said:

ahh there is a awesome tutorial in DS Creative Issue 15 , Page 21/66 for water ripples

Coupled with dodgerrecord's help and yours, I should have this figured out   Thank you!