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I see you got the plaid shirt and saddle shoes! Good work. It looks like you've made good progress with that image already. Maybe that one is done and you can concentrate on the other image now, if you want to continue to perfect the materials in that one. I think it is looking pretty good, too.
I don't think the cat looks like plastic. If you want to make the cat look more like it has fur, you could always investigate LAMH (Look at my hair), but if you are using Iray, that can be pretty resource intensive. I'm not even sure that the fur would show up much with the cat being that small in the image. Have you tried a higher bump map setting or lower glossiness? Have you tried other millennium cat textures?
This is so much fun! Thanks everone for the feedback.
I made a new floor using filter forge to generate three maps diffuse, bump and normal. It looks amazing in close up, like you can get a splinter. I still want to add specular and metal maps for the little nail heads in the floor, but don't know if they will even show up.
The textures on the rats are just image maps with using 'emission' and 'opacity knock-out' to make them glow and also be semi-transparent.
@ricswika that floor texture you made with filter forge looks great. I like it better than the original. You've improved that pink rat a lot, too. I like the addition of the dead rat over by the glasses. I think it is harder to see the details of the dark cluseter of rats in the lower left corner, though.
For me definitely the first one. The second looks ok, but in the first one, you hit a nerve in me.
The expressions and poses from the people are very good, but the real clou is how you pose the cat. Even after a day it make me still smile, when I look at the picture.
To be honest, I dosen't have realised your problems with the shaders. The cat make the picture for me... contest or not.
Please don't feel shy. Only critism show me things I didn't see and give me the chance, to get better. How Chameo, I don't see me as an artist. For that I know to less about all the basic things. It's an hobby for me and I know that I far away from be good in it.
I also feel always a little unsure when I start to say, what I think about a posting. Maybe I'm totaly wrong, in my point of sight and it make it not easier, that english isn't my native language. I don't wana know, how often my words sounds rude or arrogant, but I think it's even more worst for someone, when he or she post something and get no reaction.
The first one was good and this is even better. Don't know, what I should say. You know much better how to use the shaders and all the settings. I found in material settings my next great challenge, because nothing works really how I want it to do. To many lever and things in Iray, who I don't understand.
I'm stunning about all the things you did in the surface presetes. That's something I'm not good in, because there are so many settings in the Iray shaders, that I have no clou what they all do and how they interact with each other.
She looks indeed nice, but how barbult said, it's a little distracting, how she seems to float. I try to imagine, if wings would make a different look, or maybe some glitter around her, to show us, that she is using magic... or floating hair and... ähh sorry, I was a little carrying away, with my ideas. ;)
Big improvement in this one. :)
The only thing, that I find a little bad is, how the front guy is posing. I know you want to tell us a story, so tell us. Think what the guy feels in this moment and than, do it.
I think his a real badass and you should give him the wolverin style and mimic. Let him look angry and put him in action. Maybe a hint from a victim beside him shows us, that he knows how to use his claws.
Sadly I couldn't use the planned frostshaders for the whole dress. They become too translucent and we want a family friendly picture. ;)
Also I couldn't bring the skin to a subtle glow, the shader behave inconsitent on different bodyparts, mainly facve, arms and torso. So I used a blue skinshader instead.
The ground is a groundshader I got my hands on last month. I like, that I can use it in this project. Literally no prop in this picture, uses on of it's own material or shader preset. XD
The wings have several surfaces, so I mixed some different frost and glass shaders. The same frost and glass shaders were used on the hair, the skirt and the shoes. The Eyes use some free Shaders I found on ShareCG this summer.
Hi Highelf,
I still got the shiver when I think about your loss of all duf files...
Nice camera angle and the ground have a great structure, but i find the gras(?) a little to big. In the attachment it looks much better to me, and I ask me if it would look better when you increasing the tile setting in the surface tab.
In her hair, the shader look amazing, but for her wings and skirt, I find him to flat and think he could use a little improvement.
I thought the same thing about the scale of the grass, but then I thought maybe it was intentional, to imply that the fairy was tiny.
Yepp the whole HDD was lost, but it does nothing to mourn over spilled milk, so here is a totally fresh start.
The scale of the gras is intentional, yes. A trick from old kaiju movies. ;) To be honest, at first I wanted to make the grass even bigger. XD
Yeah the wings, are a thing I'm not satisfied with right now. Maybe I make them emissive instead. I have four wing surfaces on each side and those tendrill thingys with the golden sparks on it. So a lot room to play with. With the frosted dress, the skirt looked so much cooler, b/c of the two different tints of those clothes. But now, I think yeah, maybe I could change the tint give it some oomph back. And I really like the effect of frosted surfaces. We will see, what the future brings.
Also I think of bringing some DoF into the picture. As anyone can see, it is the first attemp on the theme so it is somewhat of concept art. ;)
Was slammed with a few new ideas these last few days. Figured that I'd share them to see what people think.
I'd say that first one already looks pretty good already. It will probably take a lot of work to make it just a little bit better. The second one, on the ohter hand, has 'low hanging fruit' you could make progress with fairly easily.
Nice. Execellent ground.Keep working on the skin. Turn up the power on the skin emission to see more of a glow.
Thanks. A fast GPU really helps.
I'd suggest checking out youtube for videos on whatever you are figuring out. I try everything out myself in Daz while pausing youtube and doing the step myself in Daz. I can't just watch the video and remember what to do. Once I've done it myself I retain it it lot better and can think back to the video and usually remember what to do.
Wow, it's been busy in here! Lemme see..
@ everyone - thanks for the comments on Shyra so far. I think she's a cutie, too, and it's nice to know that others like her.
@ricswika That tail looks much, much better, and the floor is very well done. I know what you mean about wanting to do the nailheads, but I agree with you that they probably won't even be noticeable in this render. On the other hand, if you reuse the texture... I didn't mention it before, I don't think, but I love the interaction between the pterodactyl in the cage and the ratster outside it. Also, is that a retextured milk can tucked away behind the counter?
@Shinji Ikari 9th I really like the third one of your "new ideas" - he just strikes my fancy. Is the flame aligned properly with his missile gun? I also like the addition of the grunge-dirt to your main render.
@daybird For what it's worth, you don't come across as rude or arrogant at all - and there's nothing wrong with having opinions or ideas about how you'd like to see something develop. Your comments about light direction, etc., pushed me to dig deeper and add things to my moonlight dancer render a couple of months back, and in the end, learn more and get a better end product. As for your English - it's certainly better than I could do in Italian or French, my two "second" languages (I actually grew up speaking Italian but it's been decades since I had a reason to use it regularly!)
@barbult Context coming on Shyra.. thanks for the "color-coordinated" comment
- I actually wasn't sure if the blue/sparkly pink contrast might not be a little overdone!
@HighElf Fairy!! *cough* I may like those little critters... The grass/ground looks great as is. Likewise her hair - incredible job on the layering and arranging of shaders on the different sections. The skin can be tricky - more than once, I've accidentally changed the diffuse texture or neglected to change another map when fiddling around with it. If I use a shader, I apply it to one surface first, then go through and compare all of the settings to a skin surface I haven't changed to make sure all of the necessary maps are still in place. You can also play with the diffuse weight a little to see how it changes the effect. Likewise on the wings - before applying the shaders, check the diffuse setting to see if there's a texture map there. The map helps give the wings their "membrane". After you apply the shader, check again and fiddle with the diffuse weight to see how it changes things.
@Tynkere Hey, you snuck in another figure in your car render! I almost missed her on my first look. Millenium Cat drove me crazy in the one render I used her in, but I agree with everyone else. The curious kitty is eye catching, but she's small enough that the texture isn't really that far off. Happy I was able to help you find the wardrobe items you were looking for. One of the things I most like about Miss Gen8 is that she really does play nicely with lots of older gen clothing. Sometimes you have to fiddle about with them to adjust them, and some pieces just don't work - especially if you're using something with extreme morphs (I find I frequently have to flatten booties or only view from the front!) Also, I just discovered Sickleyield's Ultra Templates for various generations and they're magical. As to your question - I like both of your projects - which one would you have more fun with?
Sorry for being so gabby... I've been stuck with only a 4-year-old to talk to all day!
@ everyone!
Am a bit under the weather, so hopefully I can offer individual replies when not zonked out on decongestants. : /
Hopefully this will make sense.
(In no particular order)
@ Shinji, didn't you have an Orc? Liked him because it reminded me of role playing. Everyone likes monster slaying orcs! For new ones, like the action/adventure guy with twin plasma guns.
@ Highelf, glad you got your files back. Last month weren't you having techical difficulties? I'm still learning names. : )
@ Ricwika, lots of detail in there. Just now noticed a baby dragon or something in cage. I'd assumed it was a bird of course..
@ Chameo, thanks for link. And yes, finding a place to put "Monique 7" where not in the shadows will be next step. Glad you noticed though. : )
@ Barbult, sound advice (along with others) to go with "Darius 7" project since it has more to do with learning textures and how to use DS. "Darius" project it is then!
@ Daybird, as others have probably said, wouldn't worry about your English. Able to get your point across and that's whole idea isn't it? As for being an "artist" -- I'm not one either! Only met one person I'd call an actual "artist" and I guess it comes down to what we think of as an "artist." I met a woman who could get out sketch pad & pencils, and not very long before she'd have what looked like a B&W photograph! For me, that's an artist! I just scribble cartoons & play around with DSLR cameras. Oh, and thanks for giving me green light to offer critique. Will do so when not on 'Day-Quil.' : )
@ itsCeo, yes I've noticed Victoria 8 seems very tall & maybe exaggerated length on thigh/shins? That's what distracts? Shoe does seem at an odd angle. Plenty to tweak in that one too if I have the time.
I hope that's everyone who has been kind enough to reply or has entered this month's challenge. If left anyone out, my mistake & not intentional.
Now it's off to bed. Thanks for reading!
--Bruce
@Chameo Thanks, it is very nice to have feedback.I am waiting to see what you do with your elf cutie. I noticed the images in the gallery with the most likes usually have a full setting, not just a backdrop or solid background <nudge nudge>.
In my image, there is still one empty cage. Maybe it needs a small dragon or witch.
Yeah, I don't know about that 'milk can'. It is supposed to be a caldron. I was going to put some bubbling brew and steam on it, but that might not really fit there...might just ditch it.
Oh, when I change the materials on one of those rats in the cluster on the left and ALL of the rats change, not just that one rat. I don't know how I got them all tied together like that. I think they are parented, but I didn't think it would work like that. I'm not at my workstation now but will have to check that out some more and see what is going on.
I'll finish the image maps and post a link for the group.
All righty then! More fun with materials! I just used regular preset materials on all of the hair in this scene. Likewise, the two kids are wearing the same costume with two different preset materials - no tinkering. Herr Goblar is wearing his own skin, but I tuned it up by making it emissive so he'd glow just a bit. The irises of his eyes also got a bit of an emissive brightening - and then I hid all his body parts below the upper chest, but left his cloak alone so he seems to fade in out of the darkness. The sorceress in the opposite corner is holding a scrying bowl that started life with a pretty country ceramic pattern. I hit it with a cast iron metal shader, but didn't mess too much with it since I knew it would be rather dim. I actually created a flat circular plane and applied a water shader to it, then gave it a surface that was an image from an earlier render - but the lighting made it too dim to see, so I touched that up in GIMP to make it more visible. I want to go in and soften the shadows of Shyra's hand acoss her younger ward, and possibly add a ground plane with a sparkly path winding back into the darkness. As always, feedback and suggestions are much appreciated.
Very sweet. I like the green kids. It still looks kind of dark on my laptop. I can't really see Herr Goblar or the other one in the back.The highlights on the main elf's face are sort of strong, like a flash bulb picture. Maybe it is just a tad over exposed there and under exposed in the background. I like the materials changes.
Here is the link for anyone interested in trying the texture maps I made from my old wooden plank floor: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G91eK1AgyudWwBfhjVAUidXYLtCsBZkb
I couldn't figure out how to use all of them. In fact when I use both bump and normal maps at the same time, they seem to cancel each other out. I guess you just use one or the other.
Does anyone know a good video tutorial for the shader mixer? This thing is driving me crazy.
There are two different standards for normal maps - OpenGL and DirectX. Studio uses OpenGL. It sounds like maybe you have the wrong type for Daz Studio. Try inverting the green channel of the normal map and see if that works better. Normal and bump shouldn't cancel.
Odd, I made them with Filter Forge. Maybe there is a setting somewhere I missed for the normal map standard. The normal map seems inversed or something as you said, beause it makes the surface get goofy.
Why would you need BOTH? Don't they do basically the same thing. I thought the were interrchangable, just two different ways to get the same resuts, in faking the surface normals.
I could see how a bump map would work in place of a height map or displacement map, or could be converted into a normal map.
I know. You are correct. There is a setting in Filter Forge 6 for the normal map that came set to DirectX. I didn't know it had to be changed to OpenGL for Iray, but it makes perfect sense. This is a great discovery, so thanks, that is what I call a 'curve ball' some geneius threw at us. Great assist.
As far as what happens when you use BOTH at the same time, certainly they should add. .With the normal map using the wrong orientation, the calculations were messed up.
I changed the setting to OpenGL and regenerated the normal map. It works much better now. I put both normal maps in the zip file in here:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G91eK1AgyudWwBfhjVAUidXYLtCsBZkb
Question: I am not a new user... I am more of a returning oldy who is relearning Daz 4.. is it still ok to participate? I think I might be a bit overqualified, maybe. Not sure, though
We leave it up to you to decide whether you are a new user. If you haven't been using Daz Studio for a few years, I bet you are new to Iray materials at least.