Knittingmommy's Laboratory

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  • @dreamfarmer  I forgot to add, that, yes, I've noticed that same thing.  It never seems that dark while I'm working on it, but once uploaded, some of my images do seem darker.

  • Maybe add a bit more of a pastel tint to it? Though yeah, fresh eyes. You've done so much other great stuff, I'm sure you'll figure this out.

  • Hi Knittingmommy!

    In my opinion the original needs more light (ambient?), it´s a little dark for a sunny outdoor scene? Or maybe just add some light on the characters to make them pop?

    I kind of agree with dreamfarmer about the contrast thing, more ambient light may help. I´m sure you find a solution thoughsmiley!

  • Glad to hear you made it through the storm and everyone is safe! Hopefully the landlord will fix the fence it should be covered by his insurance. 

  • Hi Knittingmommy!

    In my opinion the original needs more light (ambient?), it´s a little dark for a sunny outdoor scene? Or maybe just add some light on the characters to make them pop?

    I kind of agree with dreamfarmer about the contrast thing, more ambient light may help. I´m sure you find a solution thoughsmiley!

    Thanks.  I'll try the suggestions.  And, welcome to my little corner of the world.  It's always nice to see new people.  smiley

     

    Glad to hear you made it through the storm and everyone is safe! Hopefully the landlord will fix the fence it should be covered by his insurance. 

    @Deathbycanon  Yes, they should have insurance so I hope the fence is fixed.  However, it's a corporation that has a lot of rental properties so I have no idea what they'll do.  I'm sure they have a lot of properties that received more damage than us so, even if they fix the fence and remove the tree, it could take some time before they get to us since we don't have any type of damage to the house itself.  For now, we just wait.

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited September 2017

    So, of course, I couldn't wait until morning to try to figure out where I went wrong with my postwork.  I tried it again and toned some things down and tried a little bit more restraint.  That's hard for me to do now that I'm learning all of these cool techniques.  Anyway, here is attempt number two at postwork.

    PreciousDeer04SecondAttempt.jpg
    2000 x 1600 - 3M
    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • So, of course, I couldn't wait until morning to try to figure out where I went wrong with my postwork.  I tried it again and toned some things down and tried a little bit more restraint.  That's hard for me to do now that I'm learning all of these cool techniques.  Anyway, here is attempt number two at postwork.

    Oh yes, that´s so much better imosmiley. You found some nice depth in it now.

    And I´ve been around here in the art studio for quite some time now, found DAZ in 2012 IIRC, been mostly into animation but find it very liberating to make some stills

    every now and then not having to worry about rendertimes hehe. I have learned so much from you and all the others hanging here so want to say a big Thank You!

    Keep them comingwink!

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited September 2017

    So, of course, I couldn't wait until morning to try to figure out where I went wrong with my postwork.  I tried it again and toned some things down and tried a little bit more restraint.  That's hard for me to do now that I'm learning all of these cool techniques.  Anyway, here is attempt number two at postwork.

    Oh yes, that´s so much better imosmiley. You found some nice depth in it now.

    And I´ve been around here in the art studio for quite some time now, found DAZ in 2012 IIRC, been mostly into animation but find it very liberating to make some stills

    every now and then not having to worry about rendertimes hehe. I have learned so much from you and all the others hanging here so want to say a big Thank You!

    Keep them comingwink!

    I love animation.  I'm doing my best to learn how to do it in DS.  Baby steps, though.  I have a lot of to learn.  So far, I only have two short animations completed.  And, I do mean short!  LOL.  I keep meaning to go back to my first one to fix the mistakes in it now that I know how to fix them, but I keep getting distracted.

    Edit:  Ooops.  Forgot to say thank you.  I think I like this version better, too.

    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • It looks very nice but sometimes postworking makes you lose the original clarity.  I suggest you layer the post worked version over the original, and reduce the opacity of the postworked to 50 percent (and then go up or down, to taste).  You could also vary the opacity in different areas using a mask.  In the post worked version, Star is almost invisible/indistinguishable from the background, so maybe her original form can be brought back.  I love the clouds to bits.

    Oooh - I just saw your reworked version - looks much better all around.  I think I'd love to see a bit more of Star still, but she is now visible.

  • Definitely the second postworked one!

  • I'll try what you suggested and see how that goes.  I was trying to give Star and kind of glowy fairy type ethereal feel, but I think I kind of missed that mark on that.  One of the problems I had is that each layer of postwork I added seemed to wash her out even more.  In the second version, I ended up kind of erasing some of the layers around Star to help bring her out more.  I'm still working on it.  I'll play around with it more tomorrow.

  • ChameoChameo Posts: 306

    Oh, yes! The original rework struck me as less dreamy and more washed-out. I've used Words_Edge's technique successfully before, sometimes stacking two or three layers and selectively erasing around figures while using the eraser transparency to control how much detail is obsured or returned. Star still looks a little dark - maybe a little glow around her, or a touch of a light filter focused selectively on her in one layer? On a side note, I really love the background sky!

  • In photography portrait work to make our main subject stand out we use our depth of field. Making the background blurry and our main subject in focus helps them to stand out from the background. They do this in animation also, often putting less detail into the backgrounds so that the main subject stands out. 

  • Duplicate a layer, blur the heck out of it and make it a 'soft light' style overlay for a more ethereal glowy effect? Though you'll need to adjust the brightness again after.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947

    hehe nice to see you're back to rendering toony things, I always like that when you do it. I think the shadows are still a bit too much in that last version, there a so mayn details gettign lost

  • Linwelly said:

    hehe nice to see you're back to rendering toony things, I always like that when you do it. I think the shadows are still a bit too much in that last version, there a so mayn details gettign lost

    @Linwelly  It is nice to be doing toony things again.  It's been a little while.  I think I've decided to start from scratch and render this again.  I'm not changing any of the scene setup, but I'm going to change some of my render settings before rendering again.  We'll see what happens.

  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035

    Glad you are doing ok after the hurricane. Trying to catch-up on things people have been doing. Great work so far. I really liked the deer too and got it myself. :)

  • Liana said:

    Glad you are doing ok after the hurricane. Trying to catch-up on things people have been doing. Great work so far. I really liked the deer too and got it myself. :)

    @Liana  Yeah, we're doing okay.  People from the main office in NY came to see the damage of all of their properties.  We're still waiting for the insurance agent to come see the damage.  That should happen sometime this week. 

  • Some of you know that I like to try learning animation inside DS.  While I've been learning lots, I haven't actually uploaded that many videos.  Frankly, my animation skills are NOT that great yet.  However, I am very happy with what I've learned so far.  I'm getting ready to create my own walk cycle for the Genesis 8 Male which I will be hand keying.  In preparation for that, I've been playing with using stock poses from my library and adding a connecting pose to see if I understand the concept that I've been learning about creating walk cycles.

    I created this video using Jackson on Genesis 8 by @DarwinsMishap.  It's not the greatest video, but I definitely learned some new techniques.  The only reason I'm sharing is because DM wanted to see it when he heard that I was using Jackson.  Otherwise, I might have just left it on my hard drive and not shared it.  Don't expect greatness.  It's very short and I still have a LOT to learn.  It took a looooong time to render because I didn't do anything to optimize the renders to make my render times shorter.  Anyway, I hope you like it.

  • Some of you know that I like to try learning animation inside DS.  While I've been learning lots, I haven't actually uploaded that many videos.  Frankly, my animation skills are NOT that great yet.  However, I am very happy with what I've learned so far.  I'm getting ready to create my own walk cycle for the Genesis 8 Male which I will be hand keying.  In preparation for that, I've been playing with using stock poses from my library and adding a connecting pose to see if I understand the concept that I've been learning about creating walk cycles.

    I created this video using Jackson on Genesis 8 by @DarwinsMishap.  It's not the greatest video, but I definitely learned some new techniques.  The only reason I'm sharing is because DM wanted to see it when he heard that I was using Jackson.  Otherwise, I might have just left it on my hard drive and not shared it.  Don't expect greatness.  It's very short and I still have a LOT to learn.  It took a looooong time to render because I didn't do anything to optimize the renders to make my render times shorter.  Anyway, I hope you like it.

    Hi Knittingmommy, nice one! Is that rendered in Iray? It would probably have taken days on my mac lol.

    Looks goodyes

  • Good kick!  You could loop it so the first kick is fast, the second one slower.  Looks really good.

  • Thanks, guys.  Yes, rendered in Iray.  It took one day and several hours to render just 2 seconds of animation.  I should have taken the time to trim my Iray settings down for a more manageable render time.  As for looping another kick, I might try that.  I was trying out a different video editing software available in Linux and I am still learning how to use it.  It seems fairly simple, but there is still a lot to figure out.  So, I was pretty happy that I actually managed to produce what I did.  Not bad for the first time using this particular software.  I definitely have to work on the splash screens and credits and stuff like that, too.

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited September 2017

    Thanks, guys.  Yes, rendered in Iray.  It took one day and several hours to render just 2 seconds of animation.  I should have taken the time to trim my Iray settings down for a more manageable render time.  As for looping another kick, I might try that.  I was trying out a different video editing software available in Linux and I am still learning how to use it.  It seems fairly simple, but there is still a lot to figure out.  So, I was pretty happy that I actually managed to produce what I did.  Not bad for the first time using this particular software.  I definitely have to work on the splash screens and credits and stuff like that, too.

    Oh wow, in 3DL I try to keep rendertimes to max 1,5 min/frame. It can be hard, you have to leave out occlusion sometimes and find other solutions,

    AoA lightswink, could not live without them!

    But your clip sure looked good!

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Great work- something I never could do really.  I like!

  • Thanks, guys.  Yes, rendered in Iray.  It took one day and several hours to render just 2 seconds of animation.  I should have taken the time to trim my Iray settings down for a more manageable render time.  As for looping another kick, I might try that.  I was trying out a different video editing software available in Linux and I am still learning how to use it.  It seems fairly simple, but there is still a lot to figure out.  So, I was pretty happy that I actually managed to produce what I did.  Not bad for the first time using this particular software.  I definitely have to work on the splash screens and credits and stuff like that, too.

    Oh wow, in 3DL I try to keep rendertimes to max 1,5 min/frame. It can be hard, you have to leave out occlusion sometimes and find other solutions,

    AoA lightswink, could not live without them!

    But your clip sure looked good!

    Yeah, I definitely need to work on keeping my render times down to the bare minimum.  Iray looks really good in renders, but doing it in 3DL would have probably been much quicker.  Unfortunately, I'm still not that good with 3DL yet.

     

    Great work- something I never could do really.  I like!

    I'm glad you like it.  :)

  • Nice job on the video!  Animation is just a teensy tiny speck on the horizon for me at the moment lol.

  • LianaLiana Posts: 1,035

    Nice animation! SHort and sweet, which is a good start. :)

  • Nice job on the video!  Animation is just a teensy tiny speck on the horizon for me at the moment lol.

    Thanks.  Animation is one of the reasons I got into DS.  After book covers, the idea of being able to do my own book trailers someday appealed to me.  I am a loooooong way from being able to do that, but maybe someday.

     

    Liana said:

    Nice animation! SHort and sweet, which is a good start. :)

    Thank you.  Short is about all I can manage at this point.  However, a lot of the animations I've seen seem to connect a bunch of smaller scenes together so at least I've got the small part down.  I'd like to be able to do more complicated stuff at some point.  Baby steps. :)

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119

    What I generally do for animating in Iray is turn the Max Samples down to 100 and do a one frame test render and look at the quality. If it looks good I will try a lower setting; if it looks to grainy I raise it. I keep doing test renders until I get a compromise between quality and speed and then go from there to rendering the sequence. The renders don't have to be perfect for video as it does for print 

    This was a test to see if I could get two figures to interact but it is too dark.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

    Just popping in, glad your damage in Irma was minimal and hope we can keep Maria away from Florida too. They said this season was going to be nutso for us in Florida and the Gulf Coast, they were right. An interesting thing, when Ivan and Dennis hit us in Pensacola 9 months apart, both times, the people in the neighborhood that had the alternate slatting boards (to let the wind pass through) had more damage than those of us with the regular 6 foot privacy fences. Some of ours went down, but ALL the slatted fences did. So much for "letting wind pass through." All you do is lose your privacy with those, after 2/2 hurricanes made those fences respond the same way, no one in our neighborhood uses those anymore. 

    One thing you might try is turning down Saturation in Tone Mapping if your results are too vibrant. I haven't played much with that though, I normally am turning it up , not down. I like your animation, it looks very smooth!

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