November 2019 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Materials

Gordig

Well, contrary to all the advice I received to retexture the buildings so they looked as cartoonish as the characters, I decided to focus on individual characters to make them appear more realistic. Here's the first of them:

Shinji Ikari 9th

Was hit with a possable new idea last night. Here's the set I'm thinking of using with some texure work done to convert it to IRay.

Coryllon

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Was hit with a possable new idea last night. Here's the set I'm thinking of using with some texure work done to convert it to IRay.

I approve. Should add some type of pubescent unnatural amphibian martial artists that specialize in steath and espionage.

Linwelly

Gordig said:

Well, contrary to all the advice I received to retexture the buildings so they looked as cartoonish as the characters, I decided to focus on individual characters to make them appear more realistic. Here's the first of them:

There is always more than one way to Rome :D

I think you did a good job on giving him a more realy feel (as far as superheroes goe, that its) the only thing I really don't know what to make of are thos "rays"?, they feel to substancial to be ray if that is what they are meant to be. I'm not sure as well if he's generating them or ehare they come from.

So if you want them to look like rays I suggest to crank up the emissive substancially, thake the map out of the base colour and reduce opacity. Maybe it would help as well to change his pose in a way that makes it clear that he's generating this.

Waiting for what you come up with!

Linwelly

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Was hit with a possable new idea last night. Here's the set I'm thinking of using with some texure work done to convert it to IRay.

nice one, I like how the green light hits the walls

Linwelly

bastian2560 said:

My first one. Still having some problems with the skin on my characters.
(While our heroes find a place to land. two young joyriders from the constellation G6759nyz find themselves in a spot of bother after hitting a flowerpot.
Big bro: dads gonna be P$#^@*, we hit a flower pot.
Lil bro: but we missed that whale and found this neat book.
Flowerpot: not again.)

 

 

 

 

@bastian2560 it would help if you post a bigger size of your image, at the moment its so small I can hardly see anything only that there seems to be soem interesting light settings. What is the problem with the skin you're having?

Linwelly

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Version F here, adding someone behind the bar checking on the character seated there. The new character's outfit has been retextured, and if you look closely you might see the extra set of ears that she has poking out of her hair.

I think this is coming along nicely, I like that you can see the characters in the mirror

Linwelly

 snip

L'Adair said:

...  If you're using 4.12, you can expand the character, Ctrl+Click on the Hip bone "eye" icon to hide all the bones. Then locate the neck, (Lower Neck or just Neck, depending on the character's generation,) and Ctrl+Click on that bone's "eye" icon to unhide the bones from the neck up. If you hide bones that can't be seen anyway, you'll lower the load on your computer, Nvidia card or not.

I am truly loving the direction you're taking this image.

toggle the "eye" icon to closed

I didn't know that new function, this will be so helpfull !

Linwelly

Daventaki said:

This will be my final I think for this picture.  Nearly every objects materials have been changed, anywhere from minor color adjustments to changing the material completely.  Some where shaders from the library and some where shaders I build from scratch.  I even created a little story to go with it!  This has been an interesting challenge for me I have learned a lot and had fun.

I want to thank all those involved in these challenges, they make me get into things I have difficulty with and get out of my little box and try new and different things.

Fairy Friends Abella and Loxy were captured in the wild by the witch Cassandra.  When Cassandra left for awhile Loxy was able to wiggle her stopper and free herself from the bottle but instead of stopping and helping Abella remove her stopper Loxy got curious and wanted to see what the witch was up too.  Abella looks on from her bottle annoyed at Loxy for getting distracted and worried that Cassandra could be back at any minute!

And whom might be the onlooker on the roof?

 

I didn't comment much on you image because you were doing so fine, but there is one last thing I'd like to suggest, and of course that is to try and use DOF (depth of field) so the window panels in the front don't take too much of the attention away from what is happening inside. You can use a rather large are to be still in focus so both your faries will be seen clear, but the big bars in the front are a bit distracting.

Linwelly

Coryllon said:

"... and as she gazed at the moon, begging the for life of her mate, knowing only death will part them, and begging to take his place, she had no way to know the god's answer would a single word, 'No.'..."

This render took me 4 days to final render; geometery editting the grass took me a week to get it to stop poking through her and the tree she is sitting against. The apparel was completely redone with silver shaders for the metal and a metalic blue silk for the lining, The shackles were for v4. I resized and custom fit them for the Gen 8 female as well as redid the shader, also to silver. Her skin, nails, eyes, eyebrows, and makeup are custom built materials, and the moonlight is also custom lighting. Also had to up the render quality to 4 just to get rid of the white dots from the reflection of the silver. The idea was to create something "in the air" without it being seen, only felt.

Also the quote is from a book I may actually write some day when I get enough thoughts down on paper.

well done! That grass must have been a pain ... Did you use instances for the grass? that is a good option to keep the poly count low for something like that

Shinji Ikari 9th

Linwelly said:

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Version F here, adding someone behind the bar checking on the character seated there. The new character's outfit has been retextured, and if you look closely you might see the extra set of ears that she has poking out of her hair.

I think this is coming along nicely, I like that you can see the characters in the mirror

 

Linwelly said:

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Was hit with a possable new idea last night. Here's the set I'm thinking of using with some texure work done to convert it to IRay.

nice one, I like how the green light hits the walls

Thanks on both Linwelly. The first is turning out as I was seeing as far as the mirror is concerned, and the second, down in the sewers was an idea that I decided to try and see where it would go.

Coryllon

@Linwelly I just added a TON of the grass props. it took a long time. is there another way cause that would have been nice. 

Shinji Ikari 9th

Speeking of my sewer scene, here's version B with some more texture work, and a pair of characters added.

Edit-somehow posted before I added the file as can be seen with my next post.

Shinji Ikari 9th

Speeking of my sewer scene, here's version B with some more texture work, and a pair of characters added.

Linwelly

Coryllon said:

@Linwelly I just added a TON of the grass props. it took a long time. is there another way cause that would have been nice. 

Yes there is.

The magic word is instances, and the way to it is to select the prop (in you case one of those grass props) in the scene tab

open the popup panel called Create and there go to "new node instance" if you want only one copy or select "new node instances" which will then ask you how many of those you want, and you can choose a lot. The tool will give you several rows of the copy all at an equal distance to each other, so you still have to move them around to make them fit the right places, so that work is still needed but the render time will be reduces substancially.

If you have like 5 different sorts grass props you want to use I would place them together and create a new group from them and then use the Node instances on the group, which simplifies the arrangement process.

Shout out to me if you need some screenshots with that

 

If you are willing to invest on a product there is Ultra scatter and Ultra scatter pro by HowieFarkes https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatter-advanced-instancing-for-daz-studio and

https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatterpro--upgrade-from-ultrascatter-advanced-instancing (there is a different product including both this one was for people who already have the other

version)

these allow you to scatter something over a landscape with highth differences and some more neat stuff, but as I said it can be done with what's in the program

BTW if its about grass you can use the strand based hair as well, which is a fun experiment but needs some work to look really good and I'm not sure if it would reduce the render time in any way ^^

 

 

Coryllon

I will keep that in mind for the future, for now, the scene seems perfect and I'm not going to risk messing with it :)

Daventaki

Linwelly said:

I didn't comment much on you image because you were doing so fine, but there is one last thing I'd like to suggest, and of course that is to try and use DOF (depth of field) so the window panels in the front don't take too much of the attention away from what is happening inside. You can use a rather large are to be still in focus so both your faries will be seen clear, but the big bars in the front are a bit distracting.

I will try that! I thought they were distracting too and couldn't come up with a good way to get rid of them without loosing the feel.  Don;t know why I didn't think of DOF, guess I was to focused on everything else.  Not very proficient with it and have never done from the front before so this should be interesting.  Off to find examples/tips!

Linwelly

Coryllon said:

I will keep that in mind for the future, for now, the scene seems perfect and I'm not going to risk messing with it :)

Hehe I can see why :D

Linwelly

Daventaki said:

Linwelly said:

I didn't comment much on you image because you were doing so fine, but there is one last thing I'd like to suggest, and of course that is to try and use DOF (depth of field) so the window panels in the front don't take too much of the attention away from what is happening inside. You can use a rather large are to be still in focus so both your faries will be seen clear, but the big bars in the front are a bit distracting.

I will try that! I thought they were distracting too and couldn't come up with a good way to get rid of them without loosing the feel.  Don;t know why I didn't think of DOF, guess I was to focused on everything else.  Not very proficient with it and have never done from the front before so this should be interesting.  Off to find examples/tips!

here is one https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3444206/#Comment_3444206

L'Adair

Linwelly said:

Daventaki said:

Linwelly said:

I didn't comment much on you image because you were doing so fine, but there is one last thing I'd like to suggest, and of course that is to try and use DOF (depth of field) so the window panels in the front don't take too much of the attention away from what is happening inside. You can use a rather large are to be still in focus so both your faries will be seen clear, but the big bars in the front are a bit distracting.

I will try that! I thought they were distracting too and couldn't come up with a good way to get rid of them without loosing the feel.  Don;t know why I didn't think of DOF, guess I was to focused on everything else.  Not very proficient with it and have never done from the front before so this should be interesting.  Off to find examples/tips!

here is one https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3444206/#Comment_3444206

@Daventaki, I did the above linked tutorial almost two years ago. I've learned a lot since then. I recommend reading that tutorial, because you will learn what various settings like Frame Width (mm) and Focal Length (mm) actually do. (Those two Camera settings work whether or not Depth of Field is on, too, and can really come in handy at times.)

However, once you've read through the tutorial, and perhaps watched the two videos I link to at the end, I recommend you go read a post I did a couple months back in the DOF challenge. It outlines a relatively simple way to apply DOF to any image. You'll find it here.

(You can skip the tutorial post and just follow the outline; You'll still get a decent DOF effect. But I do hope you'll take a few minutes for the tutorial because understanding how one thing works in Daz Studio can lead to understanding how other things work in Daz Studio.)

Luftsturmregiment40

entry two - titanium containers

Shinji Ikari 9th

Version C of my second idea here. Did some more texture work, added a third character, and gave my lizard guy a cybernetic eye lens/hud.

Daventaki

L'Adair said:

Linwelly said:

Daventaki said:

 

here is one https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3444206/#Comment_3444206

@Daventaki, I did the above linked tutorial almost two years ago. I've learned a lot since then. I recommend reading that tutorial, because you will learn what various settings like Frame Width (mm) and Focal Length (mm) actually do. (Those two Camera settings work whether or not Depth of Field is on, too, and can really come in handy at times.)

However, once you've read through the tutorial, and perhaps watched the two videos I link to at the end, I recommend you go read a post I did a couple months back in the DOF challenge. It outlines a relatively simple way to apply DOF to any image. You'll find it here.

(You can skip the tutorial post and just follow the outline; You'll still get a decent DOF effect. But I do hope you'll take a few minutes for the tutorial because understanding how one thing works in Daz Studio can lead to understanding how other things work in Daz Studio.)

I will definately do both!  Thank you for providing those links. I had started by looking through the DOF challenge previously.

Daventaki

To much?

Linwelly

@Daventaki

no not too much, I think it works fine this way

Luftsturmregiment40

Daventaki said:

To much?

looks great with DOF - it has a certain mysterious touch to it 

I like it

sueya

I have had to upload a partially rendered version of my image. My PC can only cope wih 4 figures in a scene and even then it takes ages to render.

I have added two more figures. The girl uses a V4 texture which I converted with the legacy converter. I have added pink and green lights which reflect on the floor. Please give me feedback and I will try to post a fully rendered version soon.

Luftsturmregiment40

sueya said:

I have had to upload a partially rendered version of my image. My PC can only cope wih 4 figures in a scene and even then it takes ages to render.

I have added two more figures. The girl uses a V4 texture which I converted with the legacy converter. I have added pink and green lights which reflect on the floor. Please give me feedback ad I will try to post a fully redered version soon.

interresting ambient

Shinji Ikari 9th

sueya said:

I have had to upload a partially rendered version of my image. My PC can only cope wih 4 figures in a scene and even then it takes ages to render.

I have added two more figures. The girl uses a V4 texture which I converted with the legacy converter. I have added pink and green lights which reflect on the floor. Please give me feedback and I will try to post a fully rendered version soon.

Not bad with the lighting. And don't feel bad about the limit on the number of figures that your computer can handle, I've had scenes that were so complex that my laptop couldn't handle them all at once and I had to break them up into layers and then bring it togeather in photoshop which can be a problem if I have to try and do layer masking in the process.

Sisyphus1977

Here is my first entry.  I changed the skin textures on two of the characters (middle and scene right girls at the bar).  The middle girl actually has a rock texture for her skin and the scene right girl has a rubber texture that was colored blue shade.  The scene left girl, I applied an emissive to her hair and shaded the emissive slightly pink.  The middle girl's outfit has a red car paint shader applied to it. The back wall of the bar with the TV is shaded with a denim fabric.  The bar surface, I used the geometry editor to make a new surface and applied an emissive to it.  The bar front, I did the same and created an emissive to give a slight blue under light.  The bar tap was shaded with a new color.

At the Bar