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
Hmmm a very interesting effect, I must agree. I'll have to play with the concept a bit. Thanks again! :)
I am agreement with the recommendations made by Dolly.
Sometimes, it's the littlest things that pop out at you. The foreground figure has obviously seen something and she is readying to get out her weapon...perhaps. What you need to do is think keyframe. In animation, we have two types of animators, the lead animators who do the keyframes and the inbetweeners that do the frames between the keyframes. The keyframes are the main actions in an animation, the frames between get you from one keyframe to the next. So you want to always think in keyframes when you are doing your illustrations. What can you do to get your story across in one pivotal moment. What things will drive that action so the viewer gets it the moment they look at your image. Should her hand be flipping open the gun case, should her hand already be pulling the gun out, should her other hand clench to indicate her sudden tension, is she beginning to say something and is it to who/whatever is in front of her, or a warning to her compatriots with a slight cock of the chin down to indicate she's telling them to beware, but not taking her eyes off what perks her attention? What is your story here? As you tell it to me in words, remember, your viewer won't see any of what you describe unless it's already in the image...do you see what I mean?
Who knew you had so much to ponder when you decided to make a nice little image, eh? :)
We are storytellers without words...the scene is the book we are looking into, the body language, the placement of the figures within the scene, the way things are lit, the way we frame the scene, the way we lead our viewer through the image and tell the story. It's what I love most about illustration. My job is just to provide you with ideas and things to think about and hope they serve as a catalyst to help you create the best image you can.
Thanks for the long reply. I have to ask though, is my entry lacking that much in storytelling? I'm not sure what you mean.
Very discouraged.
I chose a lighting over a gradient, as for me the bottom right corner was too orange, plus I wanted a little white light to be visible to contrast the blue and orange-yellow. I think it helped bring out the child a bit in the background as well. I did use dodge in some areas to help enhance where the light would be hitting. Not sure if it was very effective though.
poetman75, I would add a torch to the left side wall and put a point light with a yellow orange cast to it. Remember balance. I think you will like that better. You have some wonderful color on the right side but there is none of that color on the left so just a pinch I think would bring back the balance in your image. This image is getting more interesting in every iteration. Love the creation of action through the poses, light and shadow effects and the use of color. You are doing a great job!
I am agreement with the recommendations made by Dolly.
Sometimes, it's the littlest things that pop out at you. The foreground figure has obviously seen something and she is readying to get out her weapon...perhaps. What you need to do is think keyframe. In animation, we have two types of animators, the lead animators who do the keyframes and the inbetweeners that do the frames between the keyframes. The keyframes are the main actions in an animation, the frames between get you from one keyframe to the next. So you want to always think in keyframes when you are doing your illustrations. What can you do to get your story across in one pivotal moment. What things will drive that action so the viewer gets it the moment they look at your image. Should her hand be flipping open the gun case, should her hand already be pulling the gun out, should her other hand clench to indicate her sudden tension, is she beginning to say something and is it to who/whatever is in front of her, or a warning to her compatriots with a slight cock of the chin down to indicate she's telling them to beware, but not taking her eyes off what perks her attention? What is your story here? As you tell it to me in words, remember, your viewer won't see any of what you describe unless it's already in the image...do you see what I mean?
Who knew you had so much to ponder when you decided to make a nice little image, eh? :)
We are storytellers without words...the scene is the book we are looking into, the body language, the placement of the figures within the scene, the way things are lit, the way we frame the scene, the way we lead our viewer through the image and tell the story. It's what I love most about illustration. My job is just to provide you with ideas and things to think about and hope they serve as a catalyst to help you create the best image you can.
Thanks for the long reply. I have to ask though, is my entry lacking that much in storytelling? I'm not sure what you mean.
Very discouraged.
So sorry Teofa, that you are feeling discouraged, you should not be. You have easily told your story with simplicity and very succinctly. I would view Cris's observations and wise words to mean that she is seeing potential in your abilities at being a story teller. From your initial acknowledgment that your first render needed something and your correcting the camera angle to fix the distracting diagonal in your render tells us that. As mentors, it is in our nature, to provide all who ask for help, our insights, hard learned lessons and life experiences to help them become even more amazing artists then they currently are. You should not be discouraged but happy. You are not at the end of this marvelous experience but somewhere at the beginning. Doors have started to be opened for you and now it is the time to boldly go where Teofa has never gone before. I wish that I had had a Cris in the early parts of my journey but I am glad that she is here now because I have learned so much this month and I know that my art will be impacted significantly because of it.
poetman75, I would add a torch to the left side wall and put a point light with a yellow orange cast to it. Remember balance. I think you will like that better. You have some wonderful color on the right side but there is none of that color on the left so just a pinch I think would bring back the balance in your image. This image is getting more interesting in every iteration. Love the creation of action through the poses, light and shadow effects and the use of color. You are doing a great job!
heheh you and I thinking the same! I will just have to go searching for torches. Out of all my library, I don't have a single torch. It baffled me as well! LOL. Thank you for the compliments and the assistance they are greatly appreciated! :)
Maybe Dim the orange-yellow light a bit to bring back balance?
Scavenger, if you want less wrinkles then drop down the specularity on the dress. If you drop the specularity, you will reduce the detail of the folds and make the high points of the folds more the same value as the flat parts of the dress. This works for all of the dress and not just a certain area.
heheh you and I thinking the same! I will just have to go searching for torches. Out of all my library, I don't have a single torch. It baffled me as well! LOL. Thank you for the compliments and the assistance they are greatly appreciated! :)
Maybe Dim the orange-yellow light a bit to bring back balance?
Excellent! Well that depends on what you want to say. Correct? Where do you want focus? I like the focus the way it is so that is why I said just a smidge of color.
heheh you and I thinking the same! I will just have to go searching for torches. Out of all my library, I don't have a single torch. It baffled me as well! LOL. Thank you for the compliments and the assistance they are greatly appreciated! :)
Maybe Dim the orange-yellow light a bit to bring back balance?
Excellent! Well that depends on what you want to say. Correct? Where do you want focus? I like the focus the way it is so that is why I said just a smidge of color.
yeah i definitely do not want to change the focus. hmmm thinking... lol
OK, well I looked at my image harder and changed the 3rd figure to having his weapon in more of an unaware posture since he hasn't a clue yet and is staring at the offscreen pop machine. Or something.
So while the stonemason is working on that mountainside for the no-dragon-slaying render, I went back to my first WIP Mirror Image. I played around with the light and changed the leaves of the grass to a place that I believe makes the render better. As the contrast didn't come out as much as I wanted I added a bit of contrast using the gimp (yay, thats me doing postwork here ;-) ). It's not as fancy as Dollygirl's foggy framing (that is beyond me for now) but I like the render. This one ist actually a lower quality render that already took about one and a half hour. Right now I try to do a better quality render ( it's going on for three hours now :ohh: ). I guess that will be the one going into the the contest, then.
I agree with Dolly and Scott on the suggestions and I like what you've done with the image. It's got such a wonderfully cohesive palette and such nice lighting. Well done!
Thank you very much Chris.
Ok added a torch on the left back wall. Created the flames in Photoshop CC and added a dodge around the light source.
I think a smaller, less white flame would work better poetman75. You want there to be dark reds and orange colors. The bright red and white colors pull your eye to it. You can test this by closing your eyes then opening them in front of the image. What do you see first? My guess it will be the torch. If you go with a smaller darker flame it will also explain why there is blue light on the left side of image. You might even want to just go with some embers in the torch instead of flames. You just want a smidge of the yellow orange color something to pull the eye to the left but not to be first to be seen.
Linwelly, I like the changes you have made. The reed that was in front of the girl was a little distracting. I also like that you took care of some tangents, the girl's head and posterior. I like that you deepened the saturation of the underwater-girl's face. When you did this you improved the balance of your image through using the complementary colors of green and red. If you have some time I would look at the four images that you have submitted to the thread to see just how much you have improved this image. In fact I encourage all of you to review your work and see if you see a difference from the first image to the last. It should make you realize just how far you have come in understanding composition.
If my suggestions discourage you, I am truly sorry. It was not my intention. Your work and staging does not lack storytelling; there is certainly a story there. When we suggest in this thread, we focus on a specific piece, to help you personally, but I am also keenly aware that others are reading as well. As such, I touch on things that we, as artists, can ask ourselves when we do our artwork in general.
As artists, we tell stories differently than writers. Writers can explain much with their many words. We 3D illustrators have an image.
To give you an example:
When I was working at Disney, for a time, I worked in the Disney Comics division. Disney was doing a live action movie of Jack London's "White Fang" who is half wolf-half dog and we were doing a comic book adaptation of it. In the story, there is the part where White Fang's mother dies when he is a pup and he looks for and finally finds her body. The writers had a long narrative written for what was taking place. This was a comic book, however, and I suggested that there be no words, just simple images on a single page, where the pup is seen looking for his mother, howling to try to have her hear, all the while it is beginning to snow...in the last few panels, we see he finds her, lies down next to her and the passage of time the pup is by her body, is marked by the snow which covers them more and more...all without words, just quiet images that allow the viewer to participate and let their own emotions tie to the imagery before them. That is the power of what we do.
Now, in comic books, we have more images on a page. So more than a single illustration, but far fewer than an animated or live action film. That is what I was hoping to relay to you. To take the time to really look at not just this piece, but any piece you do. As well as all of the artists who come to read this page.
What I hope people take away from this month's contest is first, that it was fun. Second, that they pushed themselves to really look at their work to see how they can make it better. This has nothing to do with saying any piece in this thread doesn't already have merit. Everyone here is doing great. It is more that these WIP threads are about learning what you and I, as artists, can do to take our work to the next level as a lifelong goal.
I hope that when you look back on the work you are doing now, in a year's time, and see pieces you did then and what you are doing in a year and can see how much you have grown as an artist. It takes perseverance, it takes patience. And I will say, as artists, we too often can be anxious or fearful that people will not understand what we have put out is a bit of our soul for the world to see on a canvas, digital or otherwise.
In this venue, know that, especially with Dolly and Scott and myself, who volunteer to oversee this New User forum, that we only hope to encourage you and give you things to think in some specific ways about your entered WIP piece, but also for all future work as you move ahead as an artist.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to my long-winded responses. I hope it helps explain where I was coming from.
Cris
Well, after a long debate on the name, it's posted! thanks for the words of advice and encouragment, especially to Scott and Dolly!
It kinda of looks like you all are submitting your images. I want to thank each and everyone of you for participating and making this month a very fun and busy one. I know I have learned a lot.
Last night I was trying to learn how to make a backlit sign give off light, have it glow at the same time and not fade out the lettering. I came up with this render. All of this work was to get ready for next month's contest. Got any idea what it might be? I just know that one of you will be asking how to do this. So in this render there are 2 uber-area lights, one is the Keep Clear sign that is giving off all the red light. The other is the white step light at the bottom of the image. There is a one Uber-environment light for ambient lighting (with no map in the color channel) and there are three spot lights, one specular only, one regular spot light both of which are on G2F's face and the third which is just diffuse for backlight on G2F.
Any and all critiques are welcome, questions too. Looking forward to seeing you all next month. Good luck!
Okay, I lighted the torch quite a bit, made it more small flame/embers, added some smoke and added some dodge near the characters and in some select places to bring out the characters a bit more.
That works better poetman.
hey all, I've been tooling around with daz for about 9 months on n off and had wanted to enter something in this composition contest. Well I had a lot more time in the beginning of the month but something called work came up and ruined my chances of getting as much time as I wanted. But these are the two projects I started earlier but had no time to get feedback in wip. I could still use help if anyone would like to tell me which would be a better submission for the topic of this contest. If either. That would be much appreciated.
First one is Daz 7 with slight adjustments from ps for fountain water and second is straight Daz (or the other way around depending on how they display).
After reading and using good tips for awhile from the people of this forum, I'm glad to finally join in the fold.
That works better poetman.
Thanks, Dolly! You have been a tremendous help along with Cris and Scott!
I'll mention a couple things, since you are short of time and want feedback. I like the first image, I like how you used DOF on the shutter/gates and softly framed the main scene. I, personally, would crop the right side to both pull the main figure a bit more to the right and also remove the bit of conflicting hard light angle at the bottom of the right gate post.
Personally, for me the weapon prop in the center is just distraction. I like your main figures pose but perhaps change the head angle and give him some sort of visible focus item.(in my opinion). I would have to fiddle with it, his focus on something unseen is fine actually. I noticed your title on the jpg, and understand a soldier wounded would drop his weapon, but (in my opinion) the placement of it and the shiny, glowing textures have it trying hard to be the main focus, instead of your figure.
I cropped your image to show what I meant. Anyhow, I think the first image is worth entering, any changes are up to you.
IMO.. the rule of thirds is a 'rule of thumb".. not a 'RULE". You've done it well enough, (although I would toss the weapons prop). I'll leave it to others to expound on the "rule".
Good Luck.
I dont know what is happening in your 2nd image with the odd bump effects.
And here is what I think will be my final render for the "no dragonslaying today" scene. I sent the sonemason home as he tried to cut a heart into the stone. I gave a different colour to the tunic of my assailant, I hope that will stop confusing him with the mountainside ;-)
And I tweaked the lights, I hope that gives a better impression.
Thanks to Cris, Scott and Dollygirl for yout advice, and time, I really learned a lot and enjoyed this very much, and good luck to everyone.
I finally realized what was bothering me about your dragon.. the eye. Perhaps try a little color on it?
Also, I do like your other entry quite a lot. Just wanted to mention that.
On the second image, check your shading rate...I think either the overall shading rate or the UberEnvironment2 shading rate (assuming you're using UberEnvironment2 lighting) needs to be lowered.
Here's how you find these settings:
- UE2 shading rate can be found by selecting UberEnvironment2 in the Scene pane and then going to either the Parameters pane or Lighting pane
- overall shading rate can be found on the Render Settings pane
For UE2, I generally use a shading rate of anywhere between 8.00 and 2.00 (lower is better, but takes longer to render), depending on the scene, what other lights I am using, etc.
For overall shading rate, I use anywhere from 0.1 to 1.00...most of the time I use 0.20. Again, lower is better quality.
If you have the time, I'd like to see this re-rendered. :)
So yes it's done, submitted my second entry, just now. I'm sure there ist always more that one could do, but then time is becoming a factor, and real life has it's claims. So I might come back to these scenes one day an work again with them.
For now I'm glad I had the possibiliy to participate and looking forward to next month challenge, figure it's going to be light.
@ Teofa, thanks for your comment, I can see that the pale eyecolour of the dragon is somewhat unusual, but then, heh, he's not the most usual dragon around. :-/
Good luck to everyone and see you around next month.
One last question: Entries can be publishe by the artist in the galleries here or eg DA after the contest has endet?
I like the tips for both projects I was working on.
On the wounded guy, I decided to go with an earlier version to submit which actually had the cropping you were talking about Teofa. I'm not totally happy with the overall results and wish I had more time to put in, but at least I got something submitted after all the work.
As for the young couple picture... Excellent advice about the shading rates Scott. I tried it and it helped some but I think because they are in the shade created from the uber-e light source, it never came out the way I wanted. So I tried other lighting ideas and well, you can see what a mess it became. I'll have to experiment some more with the shade rates (among other things) for my next try.
Yes, in some ways it looks much better now...but I think the main problem with this one is that the shadows cast upon the background give away the fact that it's a flat image rather than objects in the distance.
Keep experimenting, but be sure to post your render to the entries thread before the end of the day, if you want to enter the contest! :)
Final day!
If you haven't done so yet, don't forget to post your render to the entries thread (and include title and software used).
In my opinion this has been a fantastic contest, and I'm so impressed with how all of your renders have developed and improved. I for one will be bookmarking this thread, so that I can incorporate some of Cris's and Dollygirl's tips, and those offered by others, in my own work. :)
Best of luck, everybody!