October 2015 New User Contest (WIP-THREAD)

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Comments

  • I've stuck with the camo on his armor for now, and added a fallen friendly draped over the rail down in the lower left corner.

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  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited October 2015
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    Well it could be worse.  I remember my first serious attepmt at an atmospheric render, full of volumetric effects, took about 4 days I think to finally finish rendering it in Bryce.  Finished the render, only to have someone remark on the fact that the castle was floating in places. It was back in 2004, hopefully not a mistake I would make again. Can you see the not so deliberate mistake.

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    Post edited by Chohole on
  • Chohole said:
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    Well it could be worse.  I remember my first serious attepmt at an atmospheric render, full of volumetric effects, took about 4 days I think to finally finish rendering it in Bryce.  Finished the render, only to have someone remark on the fact that the castle was floating in places. It was back in 2004, hopefully not a mistake I would make again. Can you see the not so deliberate mistake.

    It is still beautiful, Chohole.  Blame it on tectonic shifts.  :)

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    Nice!

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    Linwelly said:
    Sonja11 said:
    Linwelly said:
    Sonja11 said:

    Ooops wrong one. this is the right one with the bubbles done

    very nicely done, I like the light on the girl, that from the jellyfish and that from above. What I noticed is that the causic effect is present all though the water, or as I guess that is your background plane. If you look at underwater images the caustic effect is seen only on surfaces, not in the water itself (well ok the water surface looking up in the water is all caustic itself). So you need to move your background out of reach for the caustic light or you can alter the angle away from it. I hope you find a solution.

    Yes this have been a source of frustration for many hours now lol. These are actually gel lights and nothing I do seems to fix the issue.  The caustics just werent working at all no matter what I did.  And since this is only my 4th render or so I know absoloutely nothing about how most of this stuff works.  although I will say that doing this contest and reading as much as I can in thr forums has made a huge difference in what i now know.  So many thanks to everyone who has been so helpful!

    I have been thinking about this for a little, well I don't own the gel lights and I made my water caustics myself but I guess your problem is with the distance of the  background panel ( I believe you are using one?). So if you can't move it any further away to avoid the effects from the gel lights, what you could try is to rotate it a little around the horizontal axis (could be x or z depending from where it startet out) so that the top part drops a little bit into the direction of your scene and hopefully shadows itself out from the gellight. Thats something you need to test (make a spot render on the backpanel to see if it had any effect, takes less time). I can't say that this will work but if it works you might then need to add another light (normal, from the side at a low intensity) so that your backpanel won't get too dark. I hope that gives you some ideas about what to to.

    I will give this a try as soon as I am able.  Going to be a long week at work and not sure I will be up the frustration level I may encounter lol.  I lost all of my poser content last night and have had to uninstall the entire program and reload everything.  I have all the Daz stuff up and all the poser stuff I had saved in files but still have about half the content I now need to track back down and load again.  Hopefully, the files that have this render in it are still where they are supposed to be. (they should still be on the computer but I've been a bit afraid to look lol)

     

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I've stuck with the camo on his armor for now, and added a fallen friendly draped over the rail down in the lower left corner.

    I like the camo and the dead body adds a nice touch of drama

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    Chohole said:
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    Well it could be worse.  I remember my first serious attepmt at an atmospheric render, full of volumetric effects, took about 4 days I think to finally finish rendering it in Bryce.  Finished the render, only to have someone remark on the fact that the castle was floating in places. It was back in 2004, hopefully not a mistake I would make again. Can you see the not so deliberate mistake.

    Of course, it could just be a floating castle.....

  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012
    Chohole said:
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    Well it could be worse.  I remember my first serious attepmt at an atmospheric render, full of volumetric effects, took about 4 days I think to finally finish rendering it in Bryce.  Finished the render, only to have someone remark on the fact that the castle was floating in places. It was back in 2004, hopefully not a mistake I would make again. Can you see the not so deliberate mistake.

    You can clearly see that is a result of the atmospheric pressure created by an extreme and mystical weather front which the magical order of monks have gathered together to "lift" the castle and levitate a few yards along the cliff to get clear of the worst of the storm..... No??
  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656

     

    Chohole said:

    Well it could be worse.  I remember my first serious attepmt at an atmospheric render, full of volumetric effects, took about 4 days I think to finally finish rendering it in Bryce.  Finished the render, only to have someone remark on the fact that the castle was floating in places. It was back in 2004, hopefully not a mistake I would make again. Can you see the not so deliberate mistake.

     

    Oh how I wish DAZ Studio could make those pretty clouds. Sigh!

  • Looking for any feedback on this.  I'm trying to go for a mood of gothic brooding.

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  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    Sonja11 said:
    Linwelly said:
    Sonja11 said:
    Linwelly said:
    Sonja11 said:

    Ooops wrong one. this is the right one with the bubbles done

    very nicely done, I like the light on the girl, that from the jellyfish and that from above. What I noticed is that the causic effect is present all though the water, or as I guess that is your background plane. If you look at underwater images the caustic effect is seen only on surfaces, not in the water itself (well ok the water surface looking up in the water is all caustic itself). So you need to move your background out of reach for the caustic light or you can alter the angle away from it. I hope you find a solution.

    Yes this have been a source of frustration for many hours now lol. These are actually gel lights and nothing I do seems to fix the issue.  The caustics just werent working at all no matter what I did.  And since this is only my 4th render or so I know absoloutely nothing about how most of this stuff works.  although I will say that doing this contest and reading as much as I can in thr forums has made a huge difference in what i now know.  So many thanks to everyone who has been so helpful!

    I have been thinking about this for a little, well I don't own the gel lights and I made my water caustics myself but I guess your problem is with the distance of the  background panel ( I believe you are using one?). So if you can't move it any further away to avoid the effects from the gel lights, what you could try is to rotate it a little around the horizontal axis (could be x or z depending from where it startet out) so that the top part drops a little bit into the direction of your scene and hopefully shadows itself out from the gellight. Thats something you need to test (make a spot render on the backpanel to see if it had any effect, takes less time). I can't say that this will work but if it works you might then need to add another light (normal, from the side at a low intensity) so that your backpanel won't get too dark. I hope that gives you some ideas about what to to.

    I will give this a try as soon as I am able.  Going to be a long week at work and not sure I will be up the frustration level I may encounter lol.  I lost all of my poser content last night and have had to uninstall the entire program and reload everything.  I have all the Daz stuff up and all the poser stuff I had saved in files but still have about half the content I now need to track back down and load again.  Hopefully, the files that have this render in it are still where they are supposed to be. (they should still be on the computer but I've been a bit afraid to look lol)

     

    good luck with that! Hope it works to reinstall and find everything again

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656

    Looking for any feedback on this.  I'm trying to go for a mood of gothic brooding.

    Welcome RoboHeadArt. I like your color pallet, smoky blue is such a good color for moodiness. I like too, the play of the red light with her red eyes. that is a good way to balance the image and is a nice technique to move the viewer's eye across the image. If I was working on this image I would see if I could get her face in one of the Rule of Thirds sweetspots and the red sign in the opposite sweetspot corner. There is an option in Studio to turn on the Rule of Thirds in the viewport. Look for the arrow and 4 lines in the upper right hand corner. Click on that and you will see the option. I would also try and keep a view of the street below. I would add a lone car. Might even play around with the idea of having the car waiting at a stoplight. I think I would try and get a more yellow tint to the office window lights and I would see if I could get some light cones going with the street lights to make the light bounce back from the sidewalk. I would also play around with adding a primative sphere around the lights. Make them pretty transparent and emissive to help with the tranaction between the matter of the fog with the light. I think I would add a moon into the mix. The moon is a symbol for melancholy so that would add to the brooding effect. I would try and see if this little guy from Autodesk could help reinforce the gothic part of the image. (The link, Below is a picture of him in Studio. You want the obj format) I would also see if I could introduce a one more gothic detail such as wrought iron, spires or something like that to give some subtle hints that the artist is going Goth.

    You have a good start. Now it is just the fine details to worry about. As always these are suggestions. More to make you think about just what you want to do then how to do it. Looking forward to seeing what you do.

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  • Okay, so here is my vampire all fogged up.  I ended up using Jepe's Steam because I just wasn't happy with my attempts to put my overlays onto a plane.  I'll have to keep trying to improve that skill in the future.  It took a lot of fidgeting with settings, but I finally got the fog to show up in Iray.  Once the Iray Uber shader was applied, Jepe's Steam was either too light so that you couldn't see the fog or it was too dark and looked like a dust cloud instead of fog. I had to play with the emissions setting a lot.

    So, after 18 hours rendering time and no postwork, my vampire is again up for comments and suggestions.

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  • Chohole said:
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    Well it could be worse.  I remember my first serious attepmt at an atmospheric render, full of volumetric effects, took about 4 days I think to finally finish rendering it in Bryce.  Finished the render, only to have someone remark on the fact that the castle was floating in places. It was back in 2004, hopefully not a mistake I would make again. Can you see the not so deliberate mistake.

    Despite the bit with the castle, this is still a beautiful render Chohole.  I love it.

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 654

    Mhh first try with new setting after the crash.

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  • XangthXangth Posts: 127

    Here is my next render up on my WIP for this months contest. Thank you for the suggestions! I added more things to make it more cluttered and worked  on the textures and the lighting a bit. The image file size is now about at it's max for Bryce. Suggestions and comments are always welcome. This was built, textured and rendered in Bryce. There is no post work.

    Title change

    Title: "Is someone there?" 

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  • ewcarmanewcarman Posts: 180
    Xangth said:

    Here is my next render up on my WIP for this months contest. Thank you for the suggestions! I added more things to make it more cluttered and worked  on the textures and the lighting a bit. The image file size is now about at it's max for Bryce. Suggestions and comments are always welcome. This was built, textured and rendered in Bryce. There is no post work.

    Title change

    Title: "Is someone there?" 

    Nice ghost.

    Couple things I'd like to suggest. The right arm of the male actor needs to be more involved in the scene - it seems to be just hanging there when there is otherwise the appearance of tension. The female actor is behind him and in that pose you will often find the male pushing their arm back some to keep the person more solidly behind and protected. Perhaps opening the palm up more to the female and reaching a little more to the right and back will better engage the two and really sell the tension a little.

    I like the spider webs too, but I'm not sure about the light that is hitting the lower one on the rocking chair. The moonbeams seem to fall short of it and the spill from the candle doesn't seem to make it there. Not sure what to do about it - perhaps soften the spider web a bit. 

  • ewcarmanewcarman Posts: 180
    edited October 2015
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    @KA1 - First: Holy crap! I admire your determination for sticking with the render for so long. Second: Really nice image. Love the flashlight and the way it just adds a little light right where you want it. Cool effect with the fireflies/pixies in the background (little point lights with highlighted spheres).

    Post edited by ewcarman on
  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    daybird said:

    Mhh first try with new setting after the crash.

    daybird so sorry about your mishap. So I think you need to decide where your focus is going to be. You have two faces and viewers will be drawen to both of them. I think I would blur Michael more because you have a great expression on Victoria's face. I would also try and see if I could get a glow on the energy beam from the gun. Maybe drop her right arm just a bit to move the focus to the gun in the left hand. Good start. I see you have used the rule of three to set up your subjects.

    Looking forward to seeing what you do.

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    Xangth said:

    Here is my next render up on my WIP for this months contest. Thank you for the suggestions! I added more things to make it more cluttered and worked  on the textures and the lighting a bit. The image file size is now about at it's max for Bryce. Suggestions and comments are always welcome. This was built, textured and rendered in Bryce. There is no post work.

    Title change

    Title: "Is someone there?" 

    Xangth. I do like the composition of this image. I agree with ewcarman about adding a bit more tension to the man. I think I would try and see if I could add just a bit more diffuse light in the room. That will help with the spider web but also allow the viewer to see your clutter in the room.

    Looking forward to seeing what you do.

  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012
    ewcarman said:
    KA1 said:

    Okay, after rendering for 2days 23hrs and 18mins....

    @KA1 - First: Holy crap! I admire your determination for sticking with the render for so long. Second: Really nice image. Love the flashlight and the way it just adds a little light right where you want it. Cool effect with the fireflies/pixies in the background (little point lights with highlighted spheres).

    Thank you ewcarman, I was struggling with that background element and after several 10hr test renders I was ready to give up on the image, the following morning saw the release of Khorys iRay Sprites which were exactly what I needed to finish it off!
  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012

    @Sonja11 You inspired me to attempt an underwater scene (not for this competition, just to see if I could actually get some sort of decent caustic effect etc) I'm quite pleased with the results I got after a little playing around for just a "learning things" render, so even though it's not a competition entry I thought I'd share it here as it was you that inspired me to attempt it!

    Title - "Little Mermaids"

    iRay render - PNG converted to JPEG with photoshop - No postwork

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  • daybirddaybird Posts: 654

    Wow Ka1, one cool pic after the other. yes

    You are to good for the beginner thread. When i see such cool pics, i have no hope to gain a price.frown

     

    DollyGirl said:

    daybird so sorry about your mishap. So I think you need to decide where your focus is going to be. You have two faces and viewers will be drawen to both of them. I think I would blur Michael more because you have a great expression on Victoria's face. I would also try and see if I could get a glow on the energy beam from the gun. Maybe drop her right arm just a bit to move the focus to the gun in the left hand. Good start. I see you have used the rule of three to set up your subjects.

    Looking forward to seeing what you do.

    Thx for the tips DollyGirl. There are many things in the pic i'm not happy with. One off them is this damned beam. I try so many things, but this stupid beam won't glow in iray render. angry

    But i look what i can do with that. Hope i have enough time this weekend. frown

  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012
    daybird said:

    Wow Ka1, one cool pic after the other. yes

    You are to good for the beginner thread. When i see such cool pics, i have no hope to gain a price.frown

     

    DollyGirl said:

    daybird so sorry about your mishap. So I think you need to decide where your focus is going to be. You have two faces and viewers will be drawen to both of them. I think I would blur Michael more because you have a great expression on Victoria's face. I would also try and see if I could get a glow on the energy beam from the gun. Maybe drop her right arm just a bit to move the focus to the gun in the left hand. Good start. I see you have used the rule of three to set up your subjects.

    Looking forward to seeing what you do.

    Thx for the tips DollyGirl. There are many things in the pic i'm not happy with. One off them is this damned beam. I try so many things, but this stupid beam won't glow in iray render. angry

    But i look what i can do with that. Hope i have enough time this weekend. frown

    What have you used for the beam daybird? Is there a jpg image for it in the surfaces tab?

  • isidornisidorn Posts: 1,601
    daybird said:

    Wow Ka1, one cool pic after the other. yes

    You are to good for the beginner thread. When i see such cool pics, i have no hope to gain a price.frown

     

    I know the feeling, but remember we are all winners here with all the advice and everything new we learn here. wink 

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656

    I agree with isidorn. The prize is not the end result. At least not in my book. I participated in the NU contest a couple of years ago and I have a bag of tools now that are worth more to me then what I won. Not to say that prizes aren't valuable. They are. Winning is a wonderful feeling but I did not realize just how important having Szark reminding me about composition would be. I learn too from this thread. You all make me look at each of the renders with a better trained eye because I just can't say oh I don't care for this image and I like this image. Every image has it's strengths and its weaknesses, you all make me look and "see" them. It makes me a better artist, and hopefully master of this craft.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    DollyGirl said:

    I agree with isidorn. The prize is not the end result. At least not in my book. I participated in the NU contest a couple of years ago and I have a bag of tools now that are worth more to me then what I won. Not to say that prizes aren't valuable. They are. Winning is a wonderful feeling but I did not realize just how important having Szark reminding me about composition would be. I learn too from this thread. You all make me look at each of the renders with a better trained eye because I just can't say oh I don't care for this image and I like this image. Every image has it's strengths and its weaknesses, you all make me look and "see" them. It makes me a better artist, and hopefully master of this craft.

    I so agree with you there. I learned far more from forum discussions and help than I have ever learned by reading manuals.

  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,129
    daybird said:

    Wow Ka1, one cool pic after the other. yes

    You are to good for the beginner thread. When i see such cool pics, i have no hope to gain a price.frown

     

    DollyGirl said:

    daybird so sorry about your mishap. So I think you need to decide where your focus is going to be. You have two faces and viewers will be drawen to both of them. I think I would blur Michael more because you have a great expression on Victoria's face. I would also try and see if I could get a glow on the energy beam from the gun. Maybe drop her right arm just a bit to move the focus to the gun in the left hand. Good start. I see you have used the rule of three to set up your subjects.

    Looking forward to seeing what you do.

    Thx for the tips DollyGirl. There are many things in the pic i'm not happy with. One off them is this damned beam. I try so many things, but this stupid beam won't glow in iray render. angry

    But i look what i can do with that. Hope i have enough time this weekend. frown

    If that beam is a prop you can apply an emissive shader to it to make it glow.

    Apply the emissive shader to the beam

    On the "Surface" pane scroll down to "Luminance Units" and switch it to "kcd/m^2"

    Set "luminance" to 400  (this is where we will start, you might need to make it higher or lower depending on how it looks in the render)

    Set "Emission Temperature"  to 4800 ( this will make it slightly red)

    Set "Emission Color" to the color you want the beam to be.

    :) hope this helps

     

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    edited October 2015
    Chohole said:
    DollyGirl said:

    I agree with isidorn. The prize is not the end result. At least not in my book. I participated in the NU contest a couple of years ago and I have a bag of tools now that are worth more to me then what I won. Not to say that prizes aren't valuable. They are. Winning is a wonderful feeling but I did not realize just how important having Szark reminding me about composition would be. I learn too from this thread. You all make me look at each of the renders with a better trained eye because I just can't say oh I don't care for this image and I like this image. Every image has it's strengths and its weaknesses, you all make me look and "see" them. It makes me a better artist, and hopefully master of this craft.

    I so agree with you there. I learned far more from forum discussions and help than I have ever learned by reading manuals.

     

    Ditto what the others said.  I have learned, and continue to learn, much more from others discussing techniques, issues, etc than I ever could have on my own.  

    Post edited by Kismet2012 on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    Chohole said:
    DollyGirl said:

    I agree with isidorn. The prize is not the end result. At least not in my book. I participated in the NU contest a couple of years ago and I have a bag of tools now that are worth more to me then what I won. Not to say that prizes aren't valuable. They are. Winning is a wonderful feeling but I did not realize just how important having Szark reminding me about composition would be. I learn too from this thread. You all make me look at each of the renders with a better trained eye because I just can't say oh I don't care for this image and I like this image. Every image has it's strengths and its weaknesses, you all make me look and "see" them. It makes me a better artist, and hopefully master of this craft.

    I so agree with you there. I learned far more from forum discussions and help than I have ever learned by reading manuals.

     

    Ditto what the others said.  I have learned, and continue to learn, much more from others discussing techniques, issues, etc than I ever could have on my own.  

    So very true!

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