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So, I finally decided what I'm going attempt this month for materials. Turns out that a lot of the materials I have picked up for the Plushies, Pickles, Peaches, etc. have .mt5 extensions so I'll have to convert a lot of files. I'm in Linux which is case sensitive and I've discovered that I also have to make some changes in the .cr2 files to adjust where the .mt5 files are looking for the base textures. I'm working on a script so I can make changes to them in batches. It might take me awhile since I really don't do much scripting. I have picked up quite a lot of the RDNA stuff so I'm guessing I might have to do this with a lot of files in the near future. Windows doesn't care about case, but Linux does.
In the meantime, I have all of these cool characters and I thought this would be the perfect time to play around with materials in 3Delight. I do this all f the time with shaders and stuff in Iray, not quite so much in 3DL. I might even try playing around with the shader mixer while I'm trying to come up with my own textures for the two figures I've decided to use for this month's contest. I'm including both a front and a back view of what I'm starting out with because the back is doing weird things that I hope just goes away when I'm done creating my materials.
Lights: I'm using 3D Universe Toon Lights that I picked up with something and I'm not sure which set it goes with at the moment. No CMS working yet so I'm strictly going through the Poser folders with this project for the moment. This will probably change one I'm ready to actually start work on a set for my characters.
Wow lots of good stuff going on here this month. I have not had much time to even begin although I do have a couple of ideas that I want to try. Hoping to squeeze some time in this weekend.
I fixed all the problems with the walls, added bump and normal maps where needed and tweaked the bike paint a little.
Also learned a lesson the hard way. After an hour or so of tweaking one of the shaders and seeing no results I realized its the wrong surface I'm modifying :D
With the rest of surfaces I first changed the base color and checked in the preview window that this is the surface I want to change. Is there an easier way - like higlighting the surface somehow after choosing it?
I just spent the last 2 hours watching tutorial videos on shader Mixer and a new tutorial on how to do lacey full body skin type thing and going to try them out tomorrow.
Wish me luck and will show you all the results tomorrow once they are all done!!!
I am not sure if there is an easier way but changing the colour to be sure you have the right part to modify is I trick I have used before.
Good luck Saphirewild
there is a surface selection tool in your tools list and I have it as well in the topper list on my viewport. It looks like a hand of three cards in three tonal values. That helps a lot but its still tricky if you have layered surfaces. I keep on dialing up and down opacytiy to see if I'm in the right place as well
Play a little with the lights, but now i have unwanted light at the tree behind the guy and shadows where I don't want them.
The picture is still a little dark and the axe defies all attempts to let her shine. I want to attract the attention to her.
And several more versions later I am finally approaching satisfaction with the scene.
daybird you are working in 3delight or Iray? That would be good to know to give you useful advice as to what you can try
I admit this scene is a bit confusing to me rght now. I understand she steps down some stairs into something liquid? i really like the reflective thing you had in the previous render with the glowing dots stuff, but in this situation I#m kind of looking forthe origin of the glowing stuff
As I said before ( 2nd side I Think), I work with Iray.
One option I can think of would be a large moon as a source of light behind her but being a forest the light might not penetrate deep enough to make a difference.
Have you played with different camera angles? If you decide to try this load a new camera. Do not change the camera you already have. It is next to impossible to get that back if you have not recorded the settings.
I will try that tomorrow evening, it's now nearly 21.00h in my country and to late to start a new render.
Maybe this one is better? I just really didn't like the static pose in the previous one I posted.
Ah, I guess I wasn't clear, it was not my intention to take you away from what you were trying, and I can understand that you wanted to get more to tell a story than just give an interesting render and I believe that is a good direction to follow. Maybe you try the other one with a bit of a different camera angle (probably bad for the reflection?) or try to get more clear about where she is going, probably already would help when she is looking where she is going to, like its something unusual? In the moment she looks into the camera in that scene so it must be something rather normal for her to do but its not for us, viewer. I hope this makes it more clear as to what I wanted to say.
That's helpful. I'll work on it. Thanks.
meanwhile, here's another idea.
hi there,
when the new theme was started this month I had problems to find an good idea. I stoped 2 times and start with something new. Now I am happy with the story and how it looks. I changed surfaces that much that even a short render takes an hour and more. A low resolution render, which I made last night stopped at 91 % after 8h22min althought the scene is only 1350MB.
Unfortunately it is still far away from "perfect" AND ... you cannot see most of what I did. And more of that, ... I feel that it does not match the topic of the challange anymore. What a pitty.
So good luck to all of you and soc_stick ... your character is beautyfull
Thanks for the encouragement.
Going with the space port suggestion, I added a ship. I also roughed up many of the textures and changed the sky to a sunset (which really changed the lighting for the upper parts).
Nice work so far, but I think, the area under the space ship is to dark and empty. Maybe you can insert some glowing primitives, to simulate drive engines. So you have an eye catcher.
You beat me to it @daybird. I was going to suggest that.
It is looking great @kanegs. You have some wonderful contrasts betweent he sunset light on the upper parts of the station and the light and shadow from the electric lights.
SIGH! I thought I had this thread bookmarked, but then I thought it was weird no one had posted... and lo and behold >.>
Got lakeside folly over the weekend, loved it so much I had to stick it somewhere in a render :D I changed to landscape and made the umbrella frame more worn looking + tried a new fabric shader since turquise was a bit out of place to me. Making it at dusk at least removes the too bright part...
I worry the lanterns are too busy, and I couldn't get the water to look dark and dramatic like I wanted. Rotating the env dome didn't seem to help, even though the sunset is currently directly behind her.
(only 50% converged to save time)
My entry is a variation on my Platinum Club Render contest entry - hope that is ok.
I used wood shaders and stone shaders on the furniture and the floor.
I used a tiling texture on the girl's top and headband and an Iray shader on the boy's clothes which looks ok in 3Delight.
I also changed the boys skin to Gabriel texture.
You can certainly use that to work on it for the NU. Seeing as there are no shadows in your scene I assume you are using 3delight as a renderer (?) and would suggest you check your light settings if the shadows are turned to raytraced. In 3delight they are usually turned off, so you need to manually switch that.
I suggests as well to rework the Iray shader for the boys clothes to a 3delight shader, so you can understand the way they work differently. Select the surface you want to change to 3delight and find in your shaders shader Presets/DS Defaults -> DzDefault and apply that to your surfaces. This will transform your surface to a 3delight readable surface but ususally needs some tweaking afterwards with Bumb/ displacement Diffuse specular etc.
Regarding the lanterns it is really where you want to lead someone's eye. Right now I find my eyes drawn to the lantern hanging from the underside of the umbrella. Since you retextured the umbrella this may be what you want.
This is a wonderful image with lots of interesting shadows. The lanterns help lead the eyes (mine anyway) away from the bright door on the right to the rest of the image.
Thanks for the suggestions @daybird & @kismet2012. I think this is a step in the right direction, but it's not quite "there" yet.
Nice progress! I lieke the steam, the flashlights of that shuttle are a bit strange, too "material" if that makes sense. As well the lights of the pit are a bit sidtracting from the action right now.
But gosh that is going to be a crash if they don't stear clear of that beam overhead...;-)
Been away for a few months but thought I would try my hand at changing and adjusting materials. Always a labor of love, trial and error, patience etc.
I watched the latest X-men movie on Redbox over the weekend, and had an idea for Storm.
Not what I envisioned but it will do for a start.
It's great to see the ways in which everyone's renders are evolving, and I really appreciate the variety of genre's being explored.
@Knittingmommy - I'm looking forward to see what you create for your characters. Do you usually work with your characters first before you create the set, or is it just dependent on what aspect of your modeling and rendering is most important at the time? I'm also trying to work up to working with the shader mixer but it seems pretty daunting. Would you be able to share a little bit of how you are using it?
@IcedragonArt - I appreciate you playing the 'hostess', and I hope you get a chance to work on some renders for this months contest.
@Kismet - Thanks for the suggestions.
@Soc_stig - I'm digging you renders, and while I think the tattooed girl is a nice direction to go in, I'm more interested in seeing what you do with the green girl. Just my 2 cents.
@Saphirewild - What's the difference between the shader mixer and the shader editor? It seems like there's a large number of ways to modify the surfaces of the models, and I can't seem to wrap my head around it all. Can I ask you to explain a little about what you learned from the tutorials on the shader mixer?
@Kanegs - Your render really creates a window into that world you're creating. Nice angles, lighting, and set construction. The steam is a nice addition too. @Linwelly - Great observations. The position change of the ship from the render without the exhaust plumes, spotlight, and underbody 'drive' glow has the ship in a much 'safer' and 'natural' position. The new position looks good, but it does seem like a tight fit for a ship of that size attempting to take-off in that environment.
@Nattsmooth - Nice setup with the street front and bike. Babe on a bike is a classic! I really like that bike model btw. I have it too, but haven't worked with it at all yet.