November 2015 New User Contest "Materials" (WIP-THREAD)

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Comments

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    Sonja11 said:
    isidorn said:

    Greetings!  I need a ruling on the acceptability of the attached image.  If it is suitable, would love some feedback.  Thanks! smiley

     

    Hall of Stone, 18"x24"

    Others have already given good advice so I'll just give a personal opinion, so please feel free to ignore me. wink I really like the concept. Good work there. The things I noticed about the statues are that the left woman's left foot is in the air and the right woman's left leg also seems to be that. I would think that a statue would have these parts connect to the ground for more stabilty. Perhaps even make a base for them to stand on? Or even have them "melt" into it to give a feeling it's all cut out from one block of stone. Also, the left cat's pose looks to me like it's sharpening its claws on the statue, which I doubt it would try to do on stone.

     

    Sonja11, I like the concept you got going there. Looking forward to see how it shapes up.

     

    As for my own project... After finally picking up all the pieces of my exploded brain I made this. I've used the lights that comes with the set (DM's Stones of Graith) which is four spotlights with different colours and the AtmoCam for Iray for the background atmosphere. I've adjusted the skin according to step 2 in this guide but haven't applied the water layer as that is not the look I'm going for. I also applied the emissive shader to the wings of the Mystikoi but that didn't seem to do much.

    I need to do something about the hair, as it kind of looks like it's painted. Any other suggestions and tips are much appreciated. (Working in Iray)

    (Seems my original render file was too large to attach, so this is a scaled down version)

    Love the way the wings glow a bit.  I can't help with Iray as I haven't ventured very far into those waters.

    Isidorn...this is such a fast moving thread it is very easy to miss entries and replies.  Sonja11 did comment on your image but I will add my 2 cents worth as well.

     

    You indicated you wanted more glow on the wings of the Mystikoi.  In the Emissive settings in the shader what do you have the lumens set at?  Did you try changing the setting from k/m2 to k/cm2 (this may not be exactly right...I am going by memory...I am not at my rendering computer )  If you leave the setting at the default you have to increase the lumen intensity setting to a very high number...think 5 or 6 zeros.  If you change it to the cm2 setting you can use smaller numbers in the lumen light intesity setting.  You have 2 options for adjusting the light colour.  You can change the temperature or the diffuse colour.  I tend to change one or the other but you can experiment with them to get the exact look you want.  I think a nice glow from the wings will be great in this image.

     

    You have a lovely composition going and I like the muted colour palette. 

     

    If I have totally confused you just let me know what you do not understand and I will provide some images when I get home from work later.

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    isidorn said:

    Having won the October Contest I'm now tempted to follow the advice "Quit while you are on top"...  I really would, if DAZ wasn't so insanely fun to play with. So I'll continue to torture myself with trying to understand things. But this seriously just makes my head spin. It's like trying to read greek using an Arabic - Mandarine dictionary. On top of that, hair seems to have stopped wanting to work with me in DAZ. They all look silly.

    Attaching my second project that I started as I'm still waiting for advice on my first (or maybe I've managed to miss them?) and both have in common that the hair looks really off. In this one I used grime-inizer for daz studio and it worked well on the skin, not so well on the hat, and not at all on the hair.

    I wish I had a suggestion for you regarding the hair isidorn.

    Did you have to scale the hat up to get it to fit over the hair?  This product by SickleYield is usefull.  She includes a tutorial on how to use it and her store goes on sale fairly regularly.

    I like the composition.  The grime on the hat and skin works and you have nice movement with the hair and the tails on the hat.

  • lucasdestooplucasdestoop Posts: 97
    edited November 2015

    Brighter this time. Used blood brushes from KeRen-R in the Gimp on the basic genesis 2 female textures. Now for more detail I guess

     

     

    november2.jpg
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    Post edited by lucasdestoop on
  • isidornisidorn Posts: 1,601
    isidorn said:

    Having won the October Contest I'm now tempted to follow the advice "Quit while you are on top"...  I really would, if DAZ wasn't so insanely fun to play with. So I'll continue to torture myself with trying to understand things. But this seriously just makes my head spin. It's like trying to read greek using an Arabic - Mandarine dictionary. On top of that, hair seems to have stopped wanting to work with me in DAZ. They all look silly.

    Attaching my second project that I started as I'm still waiting for advice on my first (or maybe I've managed to miss them?) and both have in common that the hair looks really off. In this one I used grime-inizer for daz studio and it worked well on the skin, not so well on the hat, and not at all on the hair.

    I wish I had a suggestion for you regarding the hair isidorn.

    Did you have to scale the hat up to get it to fit over the hair?  This product by SickleYield is usefull.  She includes a tutorial on how to use it and her store goes on sale fairly regularly.

    I like the composition.  The grime on the hat and skin works and you have nice movement with the hair and the tails on the hat.

    Much thanks for both your replies Kismet and thanks Sonja for the comment. smiley It is indeed a fast moving thread and going in several directions at the same time which also adds to my confusion. But it's great that it's such activity here and I can't really see any way to avoid that in this type of thread. I think my main source of confusion is problems sorting all the info given. I take in everything at once and mix things up with each other ending in total chaos... But there's still a lot of month left so hopefully I'll get something sorted before then. smiley (and I was tired and grumpy when I did my previous post. One should not post on forums when tired and grumpy, so I apologize for the whining) You veterans (and everyone else too) that pour your experience and know-how into these threads are an invaluable resource for a beginner and it's also totally free! I can't do anything but love this arrangement. yes

    I did indeed scale up the hat and it does look overly large, but I thought it kind of added a kind of quirkiness to the image so it didn't bother me much. But that Sickleyield product looks like a godsend for these occasions. Any idea if it would work on G3F and G3F hairs?

    I think I'll return and focus on my first one for now as it is mostly complete, if I only can get the quirks fixed. There's a lot I want to do on the second one. Right now that is just the character and a HDRI and I would like to make "real" environment for the character to be in. How much work that will take remains to be seen.

  • Hi all, just popping in.  I didn't get online after I posted my bear as real life threw in a couple of curves to be dealt with.  Last week ended up being family time.  I did manage to watch AM's tutorial with his wolf and have successfully exported the fur to .obj.  I have something rendering now and should have it up this evening.  It was actually easier than I thought it would be.  I'm doing a little more adjustments with the surface settings than he does in the tutorial, but the basic settings aren't too bad.  I'll post a before and after when I upload to see if anyone thinks my surface fiddlings actually did any good.  I still need to go through the posts to see what you guys have been up to, but, what little I saw, it looks like some really good renders in the making.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944

    Here's what I left running overnight.

     

    I like the fire and its glow on the floor very much, the stucture seem very palpable. But I have the feeling that you have a rather high tile number on your walls, the repetition is quite obvious. If you want that effect, that is ok not you might want to go down with the tile number. Alternatively you could try different surfaces on the walls or the ceiling. But these are just ideas The render over all looks really good!

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    isidorn said:
    isidorn said:

    Having won the October Contest I'm now tempted to follow the advice "Quit while you are on top"...  I really would, if DAZ wasn't so insanely fun to play with. So I'll continue to torture myself with trying to understand things. But this seriously just makes my head spin. It's like trying to read greek using an Arabic - Mandarine dictionary. On top of that, hair seems to have stopped wanting to work with me in DAZ. They all look silly.

    Attaching my second project that I started as I'm still waiting for advice on my first (or maybe I've managed to miss them?) and both have in common that the hair looks really off. In this one I used grime-inizer for daz studio and it worked well on the skin, not so well on the hat, and not at all on the hair.

    I wish I had a suggestion for you regarding the hair isidorn.

    Did you have to scale the hat up to get it to fit over the hair?  This product by SickleYield is usefull.  She includes a tutorial on how to use it and her store goes on sale fairly regularly.

    I like the composition.  The grime on the hat and skin works and you have nice movement with the hair and the tails on the hat.

    Much thanks for both your replies Kismet and thanks Sonja for the comment. smiley It is indeed a fast moving thread and going in several directions at the same time which also adds to my confusion. But it's great that it's such activity here and I can't really see any way to avoid that in this type of thread. I think my main source of confusion is problems sorting all the info given. I take in everything at once and mix things up with each other ending in total chaos... But there's still a lot of month left so hopefully I'll get something sorted before then. smiley (and I was tired and grumpy when I did my previous post. One should not post on forums when tired and grumpy, so I apologize for the whining) You veterans (and everyone else too) that pour your experience and know-how into these threads are an invaluable resource for a beginner and it's also totally free! I can't do anything but love this arrangement. yes

    I did indeed scale up the hat and it does look overly large, but I thought it kind of added a kind of quirkiness to the image so it didn't bother me much. But that Sickleyield product looks like a godsend for these occasions. Any idea if it would work on G3F and G3F hairs?

    I think I'll return and focus on my first one for now as it is mostly complete, if I only can get the quirks fixed. There's a lot I want to do on the second one. Right now that is just the character and a HDRI and I would like to make "real" environment for the character to be in. How much work that will take remains to be seen.

    Isi, I'm sorry I totally missed your first entry, I have my troubles keeping up as well with this thread, so maybe just post it once more or give a link.

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    dHandle said:
    DollyGirl said:

    You don't need Victoria just the MilGirls model. What you do get is all of the free or paid for textures and poses for Victoria you have or can find will also work with this little girl. Even the M2 poses will work. I am using the Bishonen for Michael 2.0 pose for her in the example.

    Ok..here's my baseline render  Lights are right out of the box..no changes.  3Dlight render to start.  I have done a bit with Iray.  May try to do both at the same time...but not tonight.

    She is lovely dHandle and I am honored and pleased you named her after me. She is much prettier then I will ever be. I like the layout of this image as well. I like all that negative space, the uncomplicated background. With this image you can really showcase your skill in texturing.

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656

    As I mentioned before the Suki model has issues with the mapping or maybe a lack there of. Along the seams is some major distortion so when you apply the texture map you will find that things are stretched. For this reason and because I did not want to remap the object I approached the issue by using a shader preset and chose a texture that would not emphasize this issue.
    For the dress these are the shaderes that I used.
    http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=73388
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/59005/gallery/7/Material-and-Shader/KerWar-Fancies-01
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/36035/browse/6/Texture/Universal-Lace-ENGAGED-for-Rhis-Hatz

    I picked them because there are some interesting things to learn from these shaders. The first one listed uses a gradient texture file that works really well when you have stretching because your eye can't see a set pattern so misses the areas of stretching. That took care of the stretch issue but there is not much of a change in texture or bumpiness in this shader. So I applied the second shader's bump and specularity presets to get my bumps and shinny spots. To keep the stretching from showing on this I had to go into the Shader Mixer and add an additional tiling model to the displacement path of the shader. You can see what I added in the image below. To hide the stretch on this I went with 10 tiles in the Horizontal and Vertical directions. The KerWar shader is a nice shader to learn about bump and specularity. Lots of presets so that you can play with these parameters to see what 3Delight does with the values. I added the lace shader to the cuffs of the sleeves. The belt and collar I used the leather shader contained in this package of shaders.
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/27568/gallery/7/Material-and-Shader/Ultimate-Shader-Pack-for-DAZ-Studio-UPDATED_2011
    This is the shader I used on the boot leathers and the pants. I used the lace shader on the cuffs of the pants. And I used the same shader on the cuffs of the boots as I did on the shirt.
    For the bear I used, Fisty's shaders http://www.daz3d.com/sparkles-for-studio from the store. She has a set of velvet shaders that work really well with Uber lights.
    I tried to use a different shader on her hair but when I did that her hair line did not work so I left Koz's texturing alone. For her skin I applied the subsurface scattering shader that comes with Studio. Something to be aware of is that the MilGirl model has two layers of mesh for her eyebrows. You can get yourself all messed up and confused if you don't remember that the surface EyeBrows is the bottom layer and needs the face texture applied to it with no transmap applied and the UpperEyeBrows is the top mesh and needs to have the transmap applied. I use the tutorial by Age of Armour http://www.daz3d.com/subsurface-shader-basics to work this shader. It is a complex shader and AOA just makes it more simple to get a handle on how to get that lovely looking skin. After I had applied the SSS shader I noticed that Nelly's face was washed out a bit so I added some color to her cheeks. If you want this look then I can upload the rouge layer so that you can apply it to her face to give her that bit of rosy cheek look children get.
    Next I will talk about the IRay render.

    ModifyingaShaderandNelly.jpg
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  • isidornisidorn Posts: 1,601

    Reposting the first render of my first  project here. Thanks to Kismet I now got the wings of the Mystikoi glowing and I got that render cooking now. It's taking about 1 hour per 1% converged so I'll let it render over night and then stop it as I feel I'm not finished with it. For example, not sure I want the colour those glowing wings have now (very yellow). And of course, no improvement on the hair. I'll return later with the new version.

     

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Brighter this time. Used blood brushes from KeRen-R in the Gimp on the basic genesis 2 female textures. Now for more detail I guess

     

     

    The blood looks great!  (I can't believe I just typed that lol).  I really like the way this is put together.  Her skin and the whispy see through layers on her clothes look good.  The only thing that really caught my eye was the weapon (mace or hammer) that she has raised over her head blends into the background a bit.  Maybe a slightly lighter color for that might bring it more into focus.  I am sure other, wiser eyes than mine can help with the technical stuff. 

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    You have a good start on this one.  Lots of action with the hair and the lightening.

     

    One suggestion is to adjust the camera back slightly so that the toes of his left foot are not cut off.

     

    I agree the textures on the rocks need work.  Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next. 

    If I may add to Kismet's fine suggestions...

    They are, of course, only suggestions and the visual suggestions were quickly done to try to bring across the points.  I did have a hard time working with him with the background...somehow it's fighting him.  :)  I look forward to seeing what more you do.

    Thank you both for some really fantastic suggestions!

    I realized that for this render I didn't have the Depth of Field turned on with the camera! WHOOPS! I fixed that in this render and adjusted the settings so it looks a bit better I think and I didn't cut anything off.

    Cris - you're right about the background, I've tried changing up the angle but I might have to dump it all together. Because of my textures I've had to start rending my elements separately, so I've removed the background for now. I just put up a black background in Photoshop so y'all can see details easier.

    I am in the process of changing the shaders on his pants - the texture of the leather is too large and reminds me of the '70's nogahide craze. lol! - plus I got some new boots in the Medieval sale yesterday. I'm still having problems with poke through on his left calf and even reduced the size of his calf muscles. I think I got it small enough that I can fix that in post. 

    Now I really like how the lightning is turning out. In order to get the glow, I read up on Sickle Yield's atmosphere tutorial and another tut on changing the Bloom render settings. But that was changing the entire image - not what I wanted. So instead of using 3 materials which the lightning is set up to do, I knocked the outmost one down to almost nothing (I set them all up as Iray emitters they're just different colors - inner is white, middle is purple, and outer is blue) so I knocked the outer, blue, down to nothing as an emitter but it's still there. Now that I knocked that down, I see I need to boost the blue reflection on his skin - I have a plane emitter off camera that I was using to boost that, so I need to bump it a little more I think.

    Back to the lightning. I boosted the purple then taking a page from the above tuts zeroed out or turned off everything Glossy. I then started experimenting with various scatter settings usually finding a better result with scatter and transmit. I also boosted roughness on various settings which seems to add a bit of "noise" to the emission and gives it that glowy feel. If anyone wants to now the specifics of what I changed, just let me know and I'll post the details.

    So here's how he looks now.

    Now the one thing I don't like is the light cutting across his leg, so I'm turning the lightning just a little to get rid of that. I also fixed the hair in his eyes, and his foot that's kinda embedded in the rock.

    After reading Cris's suggestion about the hips, I'm thinking that they're still turned a little too much, so I'll try fixing that for the next render. Maybe if I rotate both the hip and toe inward a little and have the hips facing in the same direction that his right toe is pointing it will help with the balance of the character?

    Thanks for the help everyone!

    Cheers,

    Kath

    The darker background on this makes everything really jump off the page.  Maybe when you add the rocks back in you could darken them quite a bit so that he really jumps off the page like he does now.

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    edited November 2015

    Okay.  Moved the fire over, moved things slightly so it lined up more with my rule of thirds grid.  Upped the intensity of the fire light and removed the tripod and the pot because I couldn't move the tripod without getting some odd shadows that just interfered badly with the whole look of the thing.  Haven't had a chance to play with the grunge textures (working all week so it may be a couple of days on that) My biggest issue now is the background shadows.  The background is a simple plane with a .jpg background so the shadows are not right because there is no depth to the background its casting the shadows on the plane.  Which looks wrong because in real life those shadows and the light against the backdrop would not look like this.

    Dragon and Warrior at Rest 2.jpg
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    Post edited by IceDragonArt on
  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Of course. the easy fix for the shadows is to go in and put a real prop there lol.

  • SaphirewildSaphirewild Posts: 6,668

    I am in the mists of Rendering my WIP I retextured the rocks and recolored them both and also retextured the mushroom to make it look more dark (DO NOT TOUCH THE MUSROOM) look. Also added a nice shader to the apron to change it up from the dull white it once was laugh As soon as it finishes I will post it for all advices and comments.

  • SaphirewildSaphirewild Posts: 6,668
    edited November 2015

    As Promised the render even though it didn't get beyong 47% in IRay. So I would like to have any and all comments and advice on this WIP plz n ty.

    Plz May I Pass The Bridge.png
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  • Sonja11 said:

    What are the rules on postwork for this contest? How much is going to be acceptable.

    Aha... I didn't know there were rules on postwork!  surprise

  •  

    TreeDee said:
    Sonja11 said:
    mjc1016 said:
    Sonja11 said:

    I would like to add a bit of grunge to the womans clothing as well as to the dragons armour but not sure how to accomplish this without doing post work.  I don't have any grunge shaders. And even if I did I dont' know how to selectively apply it to only patches of skin and clothing.  (Is that even possible).  I do however have a vast array of textures that I use in photo shop and could add that in postwork if its allowed.

    There's a couple of ways of going about that...

    One, postwork, you are already familiar with and that one doesn't really need much mention, except that it isn't partuclarly 'materials and surface' related.

    Another is to use some general overlays and apply them with the LIE (Layered Image Editor).  This can do well for a general effect and with a bit of effort, even a targetted/localized on.  But you are somewhat limited in what you can do...there only a couple of ways of blending those layers and multiple masks and such are difficult to impossible to pull off.

    Then there is using the texture templates and building a completely new texture set...this can be as simple as just redoing the diffuse map or going all the way and redoing all the maps (diffuse, specular, bump/displacement and any others in the set).  This route can aslo provide you with a 'final' overlay that can be used in the LIE. 

     

    Hmm redoing the maps sounds rather interesting if time consuming.  I want to learn to do really good texturing anyway so may give this a go. Thank you!

    If you're using photoshop why not edit the materials in photoshop and then bring them into Daz? I've found this really handy... Photoshop bridge isn't working for me at the moment so I export the model as a .obj then open it in Photoshop, paint and play with the materials then export the files from PS and attach them through surfaces in Daz... there is probably an easier way to do it but I found that a really effective way to get good results.

    That sounds an interesting technique in PS!  I will have to try that!  Wow, there is soooo much to learn this month... I have never used the Texture Editor or LIE plus tons more stuff to try and experiment with!

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

     

    TreeDee said:
    Sonja11 said:
    mjc1016 said:
    Sonja11 said:

    I would like to add a bit of grunge to the womans clothing as well as to the dragons armour but not sure how to accomplish this without doing post work.  I don't have any grunge shaders. And even if I did I dont' know how to selectively apply it to only patches of skin and clothing.  (Is that even possible).  I do however have a vast array of textures that I use in photo shop and could add that in postwork if its allowed.

    There's a couple of ways of going about that...

    One, postwork, you are already familiar with and that one doesn't really need much mention, except that it isn't partuclarly 'materials and surface' related.

    Another is to use some general overlays and apply them with the LIE (Layered Image Editor).  This can do well for a general effect and with a bit of effort, even a targetted/localized on.  But you are somewhat limited in what you can do...there only a couple of ways of blending those layers and multiple masks and such are difficult to impossible to pull off.

    Then there is using the texture templates and building a completely new texture set...this can be as simple as just redoing the diffuse map or going all the way and redoing all the maps (diffuse, specular, bump/displacement and any others in the set).  This route can aslo provide you with a 'final' overlay that can be used in the LIE. 

     

    Hmm redoing the maps sounds rather interesting if time consuming.  I want to learn to do really good texturing anyway so may give this a go. Thank you!

    If you're using photoshop why not edit the materials in photoshop and then bring them into Daz? I've found this really handy... Photoshop bridge isn't working for me at the moment so I export the model as a .obj then open it in Photoshop, paint and play with the materials then export the files from PS and attach them through surfaces in Daz... there is probably an easier way to do it but I found that a really effective way to get good results.

    That sounds an interesting technique in PS!  I will have to try that!  Wow, there is soooo much to learn this month... I have never used the Texture Editor or LIE plus tons more stuff to try and experiment with!

    Me neither.  Learning  LOT this month lol

  • White RabbitWhite Rabbit Posts: 231
    edited November 2015

    Thank you DollyGirl for this set of tutorials for this month.  

    Attached are my renders for (1) 3Delight  (2) Iray  (3) Lux

    I re-created best I could.  I have some issues on the clothing, the top and pants and especially the shoes with pokethrough.  These renders are from the initial, first part of you tutorial, the installation of the content.

    :-)

    nelly_3delight_small_v01.jpg
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    jpg
    jpg
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    Post edited by White Rabbit on
  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656

    Thank you DollyGirl for this set of tutorials for this month.  

    Attached are my renders for (1) 3Delight  (2) Iray  (3) Lux

    I re-created best I could.  I have some issues on the clothing, the top and pants and especially the shoes with pokethrough.  These renders are from the initial, first part of you tutorial, the installation of the content.

    :-)

    Apply the default smoothing function to all of the clothing, You will fix most of the issues. There will be some on the belt and top (dress) that will have to be dealt with with deformers.

  • Thank you DollyGirl for this set of tutorials for this month.  

    Attached are my renders for (1) 3Delight  (2) Iray  (3) Lux

    I re-created best I could.  I have some issues on the clothing, the top and pants and especially the shoes with pokethrough.  These renders are from the initial, first part of you tutorial, the installation of the content.

    :-)

    nelly_3delight_small_v01.jpg
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    nelly_iray_basic_small_v01.jpg
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    nelly_lux_basic_small_v01.jpg
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  • White RabbitWhite Rabbit Posts: 231
    edited November 2015

    I have been thinking, and what I would really like to do is use my scenes from last month and fix them using all the knowledge I am gaining this month.  I would create another scene modified based on a thought I had a few days ago.

    Would that be okay?  angel

     

    Post edited by White Rabbit on
  • dHandledHandle Posts: 617
    DollyGirl said:
    dHandle said:
    DollyGirl said:

     

    She is lovely dHandle and I am honored and pleased you named her after me. She is much prettier then I will ever be. I like the layout of this image as well. I like all that negative space, the uncomplicated background. With this image you can really showcase your skill in texturing.

    HA!  I don't think I have a lot of skill in texturing yet.  I'm hoping this tutorial helps remedy that...

    Here's the latest base render...no texturing yet.  Trying to fix minor things.  I got the bear finally.  Fixed some posing issues.  I'm having trouble with poke through too...especially on the shoes.  I think I got almost everything else fixed, except those shoes!  (notice I didn't show them in the render...)

    I'm hoping to start on the texturing part soon...maybe tomorrow.

    Dolly_02.jpg
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  • Linwelly said:

    Here's what I left running overnight.

     

    I like the fire and its glow on the floor very much, the stucture seem very palpable. But I have the feeling that you have a rather high tile number on your walls, the repetition is quite obvious. If you want that effect, that is ok not you might want to go down with the tile number. Alternatively you could try different surfaces on the walls or the ceiling. But these are just ideas The render over all looks really good!

    Thanks for your input. The entire tunnel that he is in is one surface, so what I did was reduce the tiling from 4*4 to 1*1.

    nov2015e.jpg
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  • kathrynlochkathrynloch Posts: 378
    edited November 2015

    Okay I have two new renders with a slight change in pose and camera angle (still working on the pants) but added laces to the boots.

     

     

     

    Cheers,

    Kath

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    lathan 7.JPG
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    Post edited by kathrynloch on
  •  

    TreeDee said:

    If you're using photoshop why not edit the materials in photoshop and then bring them into Daz? I've found this really handy... Photoshop bridge isn't working for me at the moment so I export the model as a .obj then open it in Photoshop, paint and play with the materials then export the files from PS and attach them through surfaces in Daz... there is probably an easier way to do it but I found that a really effective way to get good results.

    That sounds an interesting technique in PS!  I will have to try that!  Wow, there is soooo much to learn this month... I have never used the Texture Editor or LIE plus tons more stuff to try and experiment with!

    You can also use photoshop to generate the bump and normal mats for your new texture. Look under the Filter/3D menu. 

    Copying over the original texture for personal use is fine but if you're going to do something more with it then you have to change up the UV's to stay clear of copyright issues. You can also do that in Photoshop quite easily.

    At least the personal use is my understanding. If I'm wrong hopefully a mod will let us know. 

    I just find the original texture file, right click, and create a shortcut and move it to the desktop. When I'm ready to dive into Photoshop, I go to File/Open and navigate to the shortcut, which opens the actual texture file. I have my own folder set up for the textures I create so I don't accidentally save over the original file.

     

    Cheers,

    Kath

  • Sonja11 said:
    The darker background on this makes everything really jump off the page.  Maybe when you add the rocks back in you could darken them quite a bit so that he really jumps off the page like he does now.

     

    Interesting idea, Sonja! I'll see what I can do with that. Thanks!

    Cheers,

    Kath

  • isidornisidorn Posts: 1,601

    12½ hours rendering and 50% converged. Original image is 2,1 mb so this is a downscaled version to be able to attach it.

    Things I'm thinking about:

    Change the colour on the mystikoi's wings. They're too yellow now and I want them more red/orange. Possibly also reduce the glow. It might have been a it too much now.

    Go easier on the bloom filter. As it is now the woman's hand looks like it's glowing. Though it might get better by reducing the glow from the mystikoi.

    The skin on the woman's hand looks old and wrinkly compared to the skin on her arm. Need to do something about that difference.

    Should I use DoF? And if I do, what should I put in focus? The woman's face and the mystikoi on her finger are the two things I feel are most important. Perhaps change camera angle and/or pose to get face and hand at the same distance from the camera?

    She's got a weird rectangular shaped shadow on her forehead. Need to find what's causing that and eliminate it.

    Lastly, the hair... It doesn't look as bad on the top of her that has more light on it. Perhaps more light on the hair can make it look better?

     

    I will poke about with this and see what I come up with. But I can't help also thinking, what does this have to do with this month's theme? Other than the emissive shader on the mystikoi wings there's not much tampering with materials.

    NaturalMagic2 (1024x819).jpg
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  • I have been working on this scene but have been concentrating on trying to create fur from scratch for the millenium cat rather than buy some to try and understand how the maps work but still confused. Is there any good tutorials out on fur? Is there a way to get the direction the fur sits to go in a particular way?

    Cat01.jpg
    800 x 640 - 392K
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