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irony is my second name, ;) It's a wonderful product, I use it in most of my work!
thanks for being kind enough to sponsor us again!
I think that if you want this challenge to be about effective lighting, you need to allow shaders to be changed.
If you study 3D lighting, and this may hold more true to biased renderers than un-biased, but the lighting and shading are inextricably linked. If you are going to dramatically change the lighting in a scene, many times you also need to change shader parameters, colors, specular effects, etc. etc. I'll do a couple renders this weekend to illustrate what I'm talking about. Since it is a holiday weekend in the US, it may be more toward the end of the weekend.
evilproducer... I agree and will look forward to your illustrations.
Tweaking shaders to work with the changed lighting is perfectly fine - I understand why that needs to be done in the absence of a physically based shaders. I would prefer that the base shader not be changed to something completely different, like changing that primary color or pattern of an outfit or the eye color of a character for example. And as I said in reply to PhilW, even that is OK if you have a concept that requires it.
Working on one now.
Two very simple examples of light shining in two opposing directions creating different shadows. Both lights are distant lights with the 2nd one turned down a bit to create a darker ground and slightly darker shadow. Pay no attention to the ground shader nor the realistic sky... I just threw them into the scene to make it more interesting. The main thing is the rock arch which I created in the vertex model room. It uses the same shader as the earlier rock I created. Note I'm not finished with either rocks or the texture.
Rock arch creation... using the "ruled surface" tool half of the arch was made... duplicated/copied, rotated and welded in the center... I'd thought that both base lines were creased next filled the poly then tessellated to center. After noticing a problem with one side it looks like I forgot to crease the left one, darn it anyway. Smoothing it looked too good so I subdivided the entire object once. Next I'll fix my "no creasing" problem then move on to seeing what can be done with the "magnet" tool so that it will show more differences in each side.
Shame images must be new... Life may allow me to re-work this concept enough to count as new, and if it does there may not be much time for beating deadlines (like last time :( ) - so here's one I did recently playing around with lighting a lot.
It was a "Well, I have C8.5, and Genoc... Cwap. STILL can't call her that!! I mean I have C8.5 and Gender-Sis so may as well use the wretched human in at least one render just so she's not wasting hard drive space and never getting used at all" type moment.
First versions never did anything much for me :
But when I accidentally rotated the camera the wrong way...
I liked it! The glow in Toon Cow's eye made it for me.
It's been posted elsewhere, but it may get re-worked and this may count as a work in progress if it does.
Trying to be around more, but you know life - it can get in the way a lot.
Some nice stuffs here! I like this idea because most of my renders go through a lot of different lighting set-ups until I stop and say "pick one already you stoopy hippy!!" and just decide.
Sockratease, Looks interesting... appears that you rotated a bit to stage right or perhaps zoomed in a tiny bit.
Even thought it's a Toon Cow I don't like the tongue texture on the lighted version, it does not look that great compared to the rest of the cow... too red and too smooth... needs a bit of bump or perhaps tiny bit of of displacement might work?? Just my opinion... pay no attention to me if that is what you were going for.
Rainy day here today...
used one light only in each .. in 1st one light is L to R in 2nd one light is R to L
Stezza, quite a difference and yet subtle... nice job
To illustrate how different lighting will effect shaders, I am posting two identical shots of my River Dells scene. One scene I designed as a dawn scene and another as a night scene. During the development process for the night scene, I found the shaders weren't looking quite the way I wanted them to look. What I did, was to open each shader for each master object and tweak the colors, which meant desaturating a bit, and adding a slight blue gray tint.
The fern is a good example. The night version and day version are not that different, but the hue is slightly more green blue and also the color I used to drive the transclucency is different if you look at the shadows in the thumbnails.
To see the fullsized versions, click the the thumbnails below.
I also adjusted the shaders for the rocks and cliffs. The effect is subtle, but it helps.
The scenes are the same terrain, with the same replicators, but the replications won't all be the same, as some tweaking and shuffling did occur.
A diorama version:
I'd like anyone's opinion on the 2 pics of my revamped Arch. I made it not so arch looking and more into a walkway between it's bases. I also made each side to not look to much the same. Both pics have the same lighting. First pic is with smoothing at 1 and rendering level at 1. Second pick is with smoothing off of course. Each pic shows the full structure in the background and a closeup, scaled, version of each end in the foreground. I'm hoping to have time to create a terrain in the editor to use one or the other and then show just one with different lighting and show a horizon/sky.
Both look good,.
the un-smoothed version would work better in the distance,. and the smoothed version for close up,. perhaps adding some displacement to enhance the rocky / wind eroded surface.
Thanks Andy, I like them both for different reasons/situations. I did this quick an dirty... did half the structure the duplicated/rotated and welded the copy at center... I want to completey re-make the entire thing so when it's rotated it will be different... but for now it will do. Just started experimenting with displacement which is on but needs more tweeking than I messed with... perhaps try a mixer operator to add more variation... the possibilities are endless. Also want to create a few versions/types of rock shaders of my own to have on hand that will look, to me, better... but that may have to wait til after the Challenge. Pic below is my current rock shader settings.
If anyone wants the present Rock Shader I made they are welcome to it for a starting point. I'll be changing it for myself and the Challenge.
wgdjohn, don't forget that you can use terrain shaders on vertex objects as well. You can get some nice effects using elevation, slope, etc.
For the scenes I posted above, I used many terrain layers to define specific effects. For instance, I used a layer with a distribution map to define the waterline on the cliffs and outcrops. I used slope to define where grass would grow, etc.
evilproducer, Oh I know you can and won't forget until my mind starts to go. :)
You did a very nice job on "River Dells" itself and the illustrations. Is'nt that the same one use used with V4 in the water to giver here hair/swimsuit a wet look?
Yep. The same. I have three versions. A night scene, a full daylight scene and a dawn scene.
I keep meaning to package it up and stick it on ShareCG, but this past winter and spring has been extremely busy for me outside of internet related stuff. I've been doing lots of work with Carrara, but for other folks, so I haven't had time to hang out here as much as I would like.
Brain Freeze. :( A few ideas but am currently messing around in the Terrain Editor. Luckily had first successful trip after reading Dartenbeck's Building Carrara Terrains Intro which I used in the last Challenge. Still fiddling on settings/tools there to come up with what I want that looks nice. At the same time I'm wanting to go back and create more rocks/textures, brush, undergrowth and trees... so much to do. Not a day gone by that I've not cranked up Carrara at least once.
I'm not sure if I want to use this as an entry, because I'm not sure how I would want to light it differently.
I have been working on this set for quite awhile now. I'm still working on it. Mostly the textures, but some geometry as well.
Had a bit of an "oops" with the full resolution image I was rendering. The third image in my previous post showing the VM view of the temple structure has the ceiling support/lattice hidden so I could do some work on other parts of the model. I forgot to reveal them when I went to render.
Sweet set EP, and lovely atmospheric render.
Just wondering, how do you get the grid on the top of the column? My cylinder end caps always end up as 'spokes' and I can forsee times when a grid would be more useful.
I extruded a simple filled circle and when I got to the top, I manually bridged and linked the vertices. It was a few minute's work, but I only had to do it once.
Here's the version with the ceiling lattice visible. I'm including the raw version as well as the postworked version using render passes.
I'll explain my lighting in a later post even if I decide not to continue with it as an entry. Most of it is surprisingly simple.
At least I was on the right road... first thought was linking vertices... when that didn't work tried bridge on then but had no luck. Will have to try again in reverse order.
Very good scene/objs/renders. I'll not be dissapointed if you continue on with it.
Been a lot of great activity since I last checked in. First, thank you everyone who offered me suggestions. And thank you PhilW for the generous sponsorship. Second, I am trying to come to grips with a Sockratease render with a human in it, challenges my understanding of the universe. But it is a fun render and I especially like the glow channel for the eye. Third, that is an excellent tutorial, Evilproducer. Great example of why I always try to follow the challenge WIP threads.
OK, I haven't had a chance to make many adjustments to my WIP. However, I wanted to give a hat tip to Headwax for noticing that my human was a custom figure. It is just a placeholder, my Brash Lonergan character. You can confirm by looking closely and seeing that the belt is on the outside of his jacket and his shoes are pointing down into the sidewalk. I did a quick test with using Michael 6 with a Daz PA suit but the shoulders were just as stiff. However, I agree that the clothes are too close fitting and the shoulders are awful. Plan to adjust.
This is a great challenge theme. I hope more people dive in just in case I can't get mine finished before my computer dies.
I was inspired by the “Light and Shadow” theme, and if the challenge was only to tell a story using light and shadow, this would be my entry. However, it doesn't conform to the additional rules.
Since I’d rather create art than follow rules, I decided to do this as my non-entry.
Please click the picture to embiggen:
Setup screen shots below:
Hey all. Amazing contributions so far! What a great contest idea. Heres my entry.
I used actual digital elevation map data from the Lunar Reconisance Orbiter publised by NASA as elevation data into the terrain modeller. This was a huge model, 20m per pixel data over +/- 20 degrees of curvature at the south pole. The generated surface is a little over two million polygons. That surface was then wrapped to match a sphere of the correct radius to represent the lunar curvature. Earth and sun are added at the correct positions and sizes as you would see if you were at the south pole. If you look closely, the Earth has north pole pointed up. In animation form, the Earth rises and sets on the horizon realistically.
These are two shots in time, from an identical camera position, looking over a crater towards the lunar south pole as the moon rotates around the earth in a lunar cycle.
Very cool, pnewhook. I've only dabbled once or twice with actual elevation data. Great effects! And de3an, that is excellent, so glad you posted it.
Here is an update by me. I am going to go ahead and post the basic entry info just in case I don't get a chance later in the month. I may not have computer access.
Title: Georgetown Visitor A and B
Artist: Diomede
Requirements: Two lighting arrangements.
Items used: Everything custom modeled in Carrara
Back story: Intriguing house! I should grab my leather physician's bag and visit. Note, the basic layout was inspired by the exorcist. One image is supposd to convey something ominous coming from one particular room with the figure feeling like a target. The other image is supposed to have the house relatively active and warm but a relatively severe/dark figure approaching.
WIP link - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1211531/#Comment_1211531