Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
is this class as landscape?
Okay, here is my new submission ("Moonlight Kiss") as I have abandoned the other for now. It still needs tweaks, but all suggestions are welcomed.
"I Want To Be Free"
If you head North, far North, from the Yukon into Alaska along the famous highway you are going in the right direction. Before you get to Tok, head north on the 'Top of the World Highway', still further North towards Dawson City. There, near 'Chicken' you will find yourself in one of the remotest places on the planet that you can get to by road.
Imagine, on the knife edge ridges followed by the road, you still want something more. More solitude, fewer people. The cold sculpted hills draw you with their sharp, dragon's tooth formations.
On the way, you pass the abandoned debris of human intervention, rusting hulks of gold dredgers, slowly collapsing cabins from the time this was the place to make yourself rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Now.. this is the graveyard of dreams. Possibly a real graveyard as you espy a broken fuselage of a windowless cargo plane perched over an abyss. Somehow the stripped fuselage makes the place seem even more remote, while intensifying the need to be part of the nature reclaiming the work of man for itself. You carefully work to the open end, and reach for an eagle passing so close you feel you can touch it. 'I Want To Be Free' is the overwhelming feeling.
This is the first trial of my June entry to show my thinking. The fuselage is a prop I have just got ready to be taken into DS. It was modelled in SolidWorks, exported in STL format as six parts (outer skin, floor, ribs, stringers, floor ribs & floor stringers). I then used a program I wrote to convert from STL to OBJ formats, texture mapped the individual components in 'UVMapper Classic' as my own texture mapping program seems to be having a grump with WIN7 * OBJ files at the moment. Then imported the components into DS and applied DS Iray textures to it just to see that the mapping worked before spending time doing skin & floor textures. I think I may leave the ribs & frames without maps, will have to see.
The figure will be in a more extreme stretch towards the Eagle (Adam Thwaites' freebie model).
In the background will be an image of either mountains visible below the figure, or possibly a cloud sheet and a coloured striated dusk skyline.
I think I have the camera with a too deep field of view, will tweak that. The lighting is currently 80 degrees north at local 22:00 on 21 Jun. The cross hair shadow on the figure's head is fortuitous, but I'll replicate it with the more extreme stretch pose I plan.
Regards,
Richard
Edited to remove the text from being in a code box.
Absolutely, looks quite interesting! Well done night scenery without getting too dark, only thing is to give the UFO a bit more attention, maybe through a light listening on the surface?
Though I wonder did you render this scenery like this or did you use postwork to put it together?
Sometimes the forums software has issues with saving and then letting the post free. Its sometimes easier to just copy all your text close the comment and open it again to past the text and then save.
Beisdes that, You got aninteresting scenery there. Try maybe to work with depth of fiels to separate the from from the back and I have the feeling that the light in the front is not fully in synch with the light of the background
After mucking about with a couple of copyright free background images for the mountainscape, I think I may use this one from Quang Nguyen Vinh obtained off Pexel. Have done a mockup in an image editor and very crudely fitted it behind the image above. It'll need a lighting change and light colour change, to get the image & 3D model lighting to be closer to each other, and I may have to move the Eagle to the right of the structure.
Regards,
Richard
Can you try and adjust the opacity map for those trees? For one, see if the opacyty map reaches out over the map of the leaves, second make sure that gloss maps are only actice where there are leaves and not where it should be just air (dump the opacity map into the glossy channel for that). The third idea is to maybe rotate those trees a tad on the y axis. I know that will be tricky as you want them to face the viewer.
Adding some sort of haze might help as well for the overall impression. This might be of interest to all of you:
Haze is an important aspect when dealing with long distance views and can be achieved though different means. One rather easy way with Iray is to aaply bloom an a very low brightness scale and a very large filter radius with a high Bloom filter threshold.
Another way is to add some fog (fog camera) on a low density
both ways are rather render intense
Third way is to create an overlarge plane and add some grey colours
Here is a way old mini tutorial how to do that, its for 3delight but works the same in iray:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1650751/#Comment_1650751
I want to add two more links to comments about landscape design from earlier challenges, as you don't need to have huge ready landscapes, you can easitly fake it using two or three smaller landscape props and then choosing the right angle for the camera.
Here are the links
this one is from Dollygirl using Vue and Carraca but is possible the same way for DS, just impressively shows how to achieve the effect: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/832212/#Comment_832212
this second one is my attempt to reproduce a similar effect with DS plus some haze/cloud thrown in:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2497311/#Comment_2497311
remember you can make mountains from a rather simple landscape oversizing on the y scale
There's some really outstanding work being done so far! I'll have more thoughts on the works in progress soon, but first I wanted to provide some basic tips and suggestions for those who may be having trouble getting started. I'll talk mainly about ideas that I have some personal experience with; there are certainly plenty of additional ways to go about it (some of which have already been mentioned in this thread), but I'll leave those for others to explain. This post is mainly intended to list ideas; throughout the month I'll be posting more details to flesh out the steps for several of these processes.
I'll assume for the time being that you will be using DAZ Studio.*
Creating a landscape from scratch may seem like a big task, but I'll break it down for you. There are three main steps: creating the terrain element(s), assembling the scene, and applying materials. Let's talk about each in a bit more detail:
1. Creating the Terrain Elements
Here are a few suggestions for how to create terrain elements (like mountains, hills, planes, water, rocks, etc.). I'll start simple and get more complex as I go.
a. Start with a ground plane (a flat surface is very useful by iteslf, and later you'll learn some ways to give it some depth, if you want to)
b. Use primitives
c. Kitbash: borrow and repurpose props from sets that you own (purchased sets or freebies)
d. Use d-formers on primitives to make your own terrain items in Studio (see this thread for the basics of using d-formers)
e. Import terrains or props you made with other software
2. Assembling the Scene
Once you have two or three terrain elements (or maybe even just one), your next step is to build the scene by positioning these elements. I'd recommend that you decide on your camera angle at this time, so that you can look through the camera and make sure things look good from that perspective (depending on the tricks you use, the scene won't necessarily make sense from every other perspective, but you want to at least make sure that thngs are positioned in a way that will look good when you render it).
This doesn't mean only playing with the x, y, and z translation and rotational sliders. Don't forget to use scale, as well. Scale up a rock to make a craggy cliff, or vice versa. Use the y-scale to exaggerate peaks and valleys, or erode them by changing it in the opposite direction. If you have one good peak, make several copies of it (for instance, by creating a new node instance), and position, rotate, and scale in various ways, suddenly you have an entire mountain range (I've done this using Parkside Point Ground, but there are any number of sets with props that could be useful). Don't be afraid to experiment and try weird things to see what works. Have a bed prop with rumpled sheets in your library? Try scaling it up to see if it makes a passable terrain! Remember, you can always fix any materials issues in the next step.
One thing I struggled with when I was starting was how to break up awkward transitions. For instance, if I'm using a ground plane in the foreground, and a mountain range (as described above) in the background, what can I do in the middle distance so that it doesn't look like a flat plane is suddenly meeting some jagged mountains? Here are a few ideas:
a. Make some less rugged versions of your background terrain. For example, make a new node instance and decrease the y-scale (and/or change the overall scale). Position it in between your plane and the mountains to make some foothills.
b. Cover up unsighly transitions by using props (rocks, buildings, vegetation, walls, even large animals like dinosaurs)
c. If you have terrains that don't quite work well up close, they might be fine to use at a distance (maybe that rumpled bed mentioned above, for example)
d. Or just make the transition work for you...maybe the plane is a water plane and the mountains are a rocky island or continental shoreline?
3. Apply Materials
Whether you're using a premade terrain element, something you built yourself, or a primitive ground plane, you'll probably want to play around with the materials settings to make it look good in the scene you're trying to create. If you aren't familiar with the Surfaces pane, this is a good opportunity to learn (see the tips, advice, links, and examples from our November 2018 New User Challenge). This could be something simple like changing the diffuse color to make your rocks darker or give them a reddish tinge, or something more involved like using Shader Mixer or applying a texture image you made yourself. In many cases, you may be able to find the perfect Shader Preset in your library (and don't just look at the Iray shaders...often, a shader made for 3Delight will look good--or can easily be made to look good--in Iray).
Materials settings also include channels for bump, displacement, and/or normal maps, which can go a long way to make your props look more interesting or realistic. You can tweak these settings or even learn to make and apply your own displacement maps.
*Although, if you have access to a program like Bryce and want to give it a try, I highly recommend it--with Bryce, a complete novice should be able to create an interesting landscape almost immediately, without any paid add-ons. Tutorials for beginners are available here in the forum, on YouTube, and elsewhere.
I have created a second scene for this challenge to go along with the Moonlight Kiss. I call this one Surf's Up, as it looks like the crew might have stumbled upon some waves as they are grabbing their boards, but we don't know what really is over the horizon.
Here's version 2 of my image. I managed to improve the rider's pose and display the mane and tail correctly. I also rotated the trees and added more flowers.
I also widened the angle of the spotlight.
oh well can't clear the response box.
here is a change of lighting the depth of field has horrible results on this particular set up
It's getting much better
the saddle and tack can be manipulated the stirup can be moved and twisted to fit onto the foot the same for the reigns which can also be moved independantly of the parts on the horses head.
I have a scene i was doing of two girls riding I'll post it as an example of how much the saddle parts can be manouvered as well as the reigns probably tommorow since i don't have it in Jpeg and its already pretty late here
@sueya here is an example of how the tack can be manipulated
That looks like a different saddle. The one @sueya is using has metal stirrups and not leather ones.
alright so I finally came up with an idea that doesn't crash half the time I try to render, I'm using the ruined city (forgot it's name) temporarly until I can figure out something that looks a bit better
I used Greeble City Blocks, 2, 3, and 4 almost exclusively to create this image. It is my first dedicated landscape in 3d, and the first cityscape I have ever done.
With the exception of two primitives set as emissives to help bring up the stack flares, this is lit entirely by the lights in the image. I basically set the emissive shaders on each object when first placed in the scene.
This was rendered in Daz Studio at 10k width for about 5 hours then reduced during post work with Gimp.
@sueya here is an example of how the tack can be manipulated
her saddle is the english saddle mine are thye western each has the exact same manipulations. you can select the stirrup seperately from the saddle body and make it move away from the horse twist and scale so they can fit the character and the pose you decide to do
@dragoneyes002
I have used the Western and know you can do that but I haven't used the English, or even looked at it, so I wasn't sure.
Oh very nice! I love greeble cities but I still didn't buy into greebles. This looks like a lot of detail work to make it all fit and get the lights up. Very nice work with the dust in the distnce as wel. You might have a chance to reduce the render times by reducing subdevision. The only addition I would suggest is something moving in the foreground helicopter or something of that sort, might be blurred out with DOF or movement.
@dtrscbrutal - Was the lightning bolt in your scene added in post or did you create it in Gimp and use the image as an emissive plane in Daz? I really like the overall scale of your scene and all the effects look great. One area you may want to look at is the water in the canal. I don't know if you added this as a plane (water shader, with normal map) or if it is part of the prop, but the tiling looks a bit odd. I would expect the water to not have that much of a wave look to it, but it looks like it is tiled only in one direction. If there is a normal map associated with it, you may want to take down the strength to a really low value such as 0.1 or so and see how that looks.
The primary lighting on this one is an hdr image, and everything in the sky is part of the image. Thanks for commenting though, and if you're wondering about the set, I used Planet X-1, with some changes done for IRAY.
@dtrscbrutal
This is some really impressive looking work, starting with the composition which pulled me in immediately. The atmosphere and glow from the fire light looks really fantastic. What I like most I think is the mixed lighting that illuminates all the different sections and architecture individuallly to really give it a realistic cityscape feel. I haven’t worked with the Greebles packages, so did you have to set up the light/colors for each of those sources/buildings individually? Wish I had something more to critique about it, but it looks so good as is, I can't come up with anything to suggest at the moment.
@Linwelly Thank you very much! I was inspired to do this by the opening scene of the first Blade Runner movie so I had originally planned to put in some skycars. I will see what I can come up with. I appreciate your input!
@sisyphus1977xx The lightning is a prop from Iray Storm. https://www.daz3d.com/iray-storm It is in essence a emissive billboard. I had to up the values to achieve the effect I wanted but it is "stock" other that that. The prop in my image is viewed through quite a few fog/dust planes so the actual one is not so fuzzy.
I was never entirely happy with the water, and yes, just a primitive, shader, normal map. Now that you mentioned it, I just recalled I have a set that has a flowing water prop, so I will definitely look into that as well. Thanks for that, and for your input!
@Shinji_Ikari_9th Thanks for the info, very cool stuff!
@testingtesterson35 Thank you so much! When I decided to use the Greeble City assets I only had the first three, and if I recall correctly all of those use simulated light. I was very uncertain how I would light it since I wanted to do a night scene. When I saw how the material zones were set up, I knew I had the option to light it as realistically as possible by making all the lights function as real lights using the emissive shader and reapplying the window textures if needed. That worked better than I hoped and I was well into the project when a flash sale put Greeble City 4 within reach. 4 is actually lit with emissives, but I ended up having to match the output levels to what I had already done, so yes, each original building and block had something done to the lights. It was just a matter of duplication and placement after that. With a few changes here and there to add randomness.
Lot's of RL work pulling me away so I can afford this addiction but I did get back to my image.
Sunset Cove - Dawn Departure
PW to put in the birds but otherwise all Daz render.
Lit by one of the awesome free HDRI's at HDRI Haven.
And, as mentioned before, the terrain. is just 2 planes with displacement mapping and shaders.
This render gave me an excuse to buy a very nice sailboat that I will have much fun with in the future :D
And a special thanks to @rcbcgreenpanzer for inspiring me to crush some blacks....it makes so much difference in the colors!
Decided to give this a bash, going for a planetary harvester type monolith thing
still lots to be done, including make the monolith look like something more than a slightly textured pillar and fix the tiling on the lava.
Terrain is a plane sent over to hexagon, displaced and then sent back as a morph.
burt out 'trees' are using the daz 4.11 strand based hair stuff.
Lava is a plane with a texture and displacement map.
monolith is currently just a cube, I'm thinking of splitting it and having some blobs of molten something being levitated from bottom half into the top
as well as adding some pipes or anchor chains/bridges.
.....Interesting thread
@dtrscbrutal - I really look forward to your entries. I have the greebles and I've played with them a bit but you really took it to level I didn't see. In terms of critique I think the second stack flame could use some mist volumetrics (but remember I'm stuck with CPU renders and volumetrics totally destroyed me last time I played with them). I do agree with others that playing with the repeat tiling on the water might help give it a more realistic wave pattern. I'm not convinced that any foreground dominant object of interest would improve it, but...(alway a butt in a world of butheads)...finding a way to put some people or cars on the streets below might help breathe some life into it.
@sueya - She looks really nervous on that thar horse. She seems to be riding up in the saddle so definitely need to try to get her feet in stirrups. I also think a slight rotation of the angle so she is quarter face on to us would let you you give us more expression from her and I think you could really do a lot with that. You have this amazing spotlight above her that I think really wants to catch her face more.
@skinlizzard - I can't wait to see how you develop this. The composition is really good. Finding a way to do a gradient emissive so the bottom of the monolith seems to be extracting power from the lava would be pretty awesome. I would also consider playing with a highighlith from the side and/ or the back (depending on the strength of added emmisives) to pull out surface details on the monolith. It will really need to dominate the scene for what I think you're after.
Sorry I'm slow to get feedback out but I really only get weekends and stolen moments for this.
Such a great start for this challenge.
@ linwelly. no post work all done in daz.
all right, very cool, I'm very impressed by the use of the fog (thats what made me think of postwork) keep it coming :D