Aug 2015 New User Contest (WIP-THREAD)

12467

Comments

  • I can't decide which I like better.  Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner by Warren Zevon.

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    Roland.jpg
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  • GallowsGallows Posts: 95

    "Moondance" by Van Morrison

    Should add the Moon perhaps?

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  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,115

    I can't decide which I like better.  Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner by Warren Zevon.

    I like roland 1 best myself.I like the light comming from around the rocks.

  • Gallows said:

    "Moondance" by Van Morrison

    Should add the Moon perhaps?

    It looks like a daytime scene to me.  I can't tell you what to do about the lights (they happen to be my nemesis), but, I think you should definitely add the moon.

  • D.RobinsonD.Robinson Posts: 283
    edited August 2015
    Joe Webb said:

    Here is something I'm working on. I've only recently started figuring out how to work with Daz. This image is inspired by "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night, an old song most people call the Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog song.  It has Jeremiah, his friend, a jug of wine and three dogs.

    Among other issues is lighting. It supposed to be outside at night, but it looks like its indoors to me. The puppies look plastic, so I have to play with their material. The bug in a jar at the turtles feet just isn't coming out - but I'm having issues with Iray on an older machine. It seems to stop about 90% into a render.

    Any suggestions would be very helpful. I've found Sickleyield's tutorials and just going through one has really helped, so I'll be doing more of those.

    One thing i would look at as far as it supposed to be night is the light temp. you are using for the light i would move it more toward the 7500 mark so the light is a little colder. The bug in the jar...thats a toughy i would maybe play with putting a point light inside the jar at low lumen value.

    Post edited by D.Robinson on
  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854
    Joe Webb said:

    Here is something I'm working on. I've only recently started figuring out how to work with Daz. This image is inspired by "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night, an old song most people call the Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog song.  It has Jeremiah, his friend, a jug of wine and three dogs.

    Among other issues is lighting. It supposed to be outside at night, but it looks like its indoors to me. The puppies look plastic, so I have to play with their material. The bug in a jar at the turtles feet just isn't coming out - but I'm having issues with Iray on an older machine. It seems to stop about 90% into a render.

    Any suggestions would be very helpful. I've found Sickleyield's tutorials and just going through one has really helped, so I'll be doing more of those.

    Joe, where would you say, conceptually, the main lighting in your scene is coming from? Right now I would guess camp fire but the shadowing isn't quite right for a campfire. How did you create that light? My suggestion would be that you change a photometric light to a disk (any shape will work though I suspect) and leave it at 10x10 or even decrease the size a little bit. The smaller the harder the shadows and the larger the more diffuse the shadows. Once you have a "camp fire" set up you may want to lower the amount of light from it a teeny bit as well. In theory now your going to have fairly strong shadows one of which we hope will be case over your bug jar. I'd also make sure that the HDRI in the scene was a cool color to mimic the moon light. Depending on which one you use you may need to cut the environment intensity on it so that it is more like night lighting. That should give you a more moon light like ambient light for the scene. It may need some tinkering to get exactly what you want but this should be a start. Don't forget that you may need to make adjustments to the tone mapping for a night scene. I'd use the aux view port to get an idea of how the lighting is looking before you commit to a full on render.

    When you say that the the render is stopping at 90% do you mean its crashing or that it is ending and it isn't clear enough yet? If it is not clear enough you have several options. One is to render larger than you want your final image to be and shrink it down after in another program. Another is to increase the rendering converged ratio. It will increase render time however. Another option is to increase the max samples and max time so that the image is rendered longer before it believes it is finished. These options are all almost sure to increase the length of time the render takes and I know if your using an older computer it is already taking a vexing long time as is. I find that for renders that I am sure will take more than a couple of hours I run them while I sleep or have to be away from the computer. Other wise I just stare at it while it renders and get antsy.

  • GallowsGallows Posts: 95

    Khory, I really, really like your Avitar.  ...just say'n.

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    Thank you Gallows. I keep thinking I should do a new one but I still like this one to much to be really motivated to do it. I keep meaning to refit that hair for g3f and g3f (its not tough to do with a little scaling) because I always loved using it and I think that is what really makes the image.

  • ScavengerScavenger Posts: 2,664
    edited August 2015

    Inspired by Alphaville's Big in Japan


    I'm still tweaking textures, tryng to decide on the power lines...I like the idea of them more than the execution....Debating if I should add "squishies"---people bystanders... and more deco...the eternal debate of iray vs 3delight, so figured I'd come for some outside perspectives:)

    big in japan proof.jpg
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    Post edited by Scavenger on
  • LyamLyam Posts: 137
    edited August 2015
    Scavenger said:

    Inspired by Alphaville's Big in Japan


    I'm still tweaking textures, tryng to decide on the power lines...I like the idea of them more than the execution....Debating if I should add "squishies"---people bystanders... and more deco...the eternal debate of iray vs 3delight, so figured I'd come for some outside perspectives:)

    Fun picture Scavenger.  Yeah, you should put some regular size humans on the street too - running away, screaming, and getting squashed.  That's always fun.  It would give it more of a scale comparison too.

    Post edited by Lyam on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,802
    edited August 2015

    joining in late this month, I had planned for a different song first but, that didn't work out as planned. So here is my WIP and it's inspired by "Brothers in arms" as performed by Dire Straits.

    Some really good ideas alredy around, I especially like the "big in Japan" idea. Some somgs I don't even know so I first have to go liten to them before commenting.

     

     

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    Post edited by Linwelly on
  • Joe WebbJoe Webb Posts: 837
    I love it!  a definitely unique take on things.  I understand about the lighting.  That's what I have the most trouble with.

    I'm going to try your suggestion on the lighting for mine too.

     

    Lighting is definitly the key to a good scene. That is, after you figure out all the placement controls and what figure takes which hair/wardrobe/prop/etc. But which light goes with what render engine is steep learning curve - after a few dumb mistakes I think I'm getting the hang of it. Don't give up on your lighting is all I can say.

  • Joe WebbJoe Webb Posts: 837
    Joe Webb said:
     

    One thing i would look at as far as it supposed to be night is the light temp. you are using for the light i would move it more toward the 7500 mark so the light is a little colder. The bug in the jar...thats a toughy i would maybe play with putting a point light inside the jar at low lumen value.

    Great suggestions, thanks! That bug jar is a huge pain but a point light in there should help a lot.

     

  • ScavengerScavenger Posts: 2,664

    I started toying with the idea of making it a night scene...not sure about it....

    big in japan night.jpg
    1800 x 1165 - 740K
  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 13,439
    Joe Webb said:

    Here is something I'm working on. I've only recently started figuring out how to work with Daz. This image is inspired by "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night, an old song most people call the Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog song.  It has Jeremiah, his friend, a jug of wine and three dogs.

    Among other issues is lighting. It supposed to be outside at night, but it looks like its indoors to me. The puppies look plastic, so I have to play with their material. The bug in a jar at the turtles feet just isn't coming out - but I'm having issues with Iray on an older machine. It seems to stop about 90% into a render.

    Any suggestions would be very helpful. I've found Sickleyield's tutorials and just going through one has really helped, so I'll be doing more of those.

    I'm really liking your work being done on this image. Nice lighting as well.

  • Joe WebbJoe Webb Posts: 837
    Khory said:
    Joe Webb said:
     

    Joe, where would you say, conceptually, the main lighting in your scene is coming from? Right now I would guess camp fire but the shadowing isn't quite right for a campfire. How did you create that light? My suggestion would be that you change a photometric light to a disk (any shape will work though I suspect) and leave it at 10x10 or even decrease the size a little bit. The smaller the harder the shadows and the larger the more diffuse the shadows. Once you have a "camp fire" set up you may want to lower the amount of light from it a teeny bit as well. In theory now your going to have fairly strong shadows one of which we hope will be case over your bug jar. I'd also make sure that the HDRI in the scene was a cool color to mimic the moon light. Depending on which one you use you may need to cut the environment intensity on it so that it is more like night lighting. That should give you a more moon light like ambient light for the scene. It may need some tinkering to get exactly what you want but this should be a start. Don't forget that you may need to make adjustments to the tone mapping for a night scene. I'd use the aux view port to get an idea of how the lighting is looking before you commit to a full on render.

    When you say that the the render is stopping at 90% do you mean its crashing or that it is ending and it isn't clear enough yet? If it is not clear enough you have several options. One is to render larger than you want your final image to be and shrink it down after in another program. Another is to increase the rendering converged ratio. It will increase render time however. Another option is to increase the max samples and max time so that the image is rendered longer before it believes it is finished. These options are all almost sure to increase the length of time the render takes and I know if your using an older computer it is already taking a vexing long time as is. I find that for renders that I am sure will take more than a couple of hours I run them while I sleep or have to be away from the computer. Other wise I just stare at it while it renders and get antsy.

    Wow, this really helped a lot.

    Conceptionally I want the main light to be from a campfire/barrel fire, fill light to be moonlight. I'm trying to imply a Shanty town with a couple of old friends talking. I'm finding there is a fine balance between setting up an ambient light source and getting localized lights strong enough to cast relief shadows without overpowering the scene.

    I started with a 1m square and an environment dome. I learned that the dome and Iray don't play well together, getting rid of the dome significantly decreased render time - which was my problem with the render not completing. It wasn't crashing just hitting the max time. So even if the variations in intensity and the multiple lights caused the render to slow down it was still faster than before.

    This tutorial helped fill in some gaps, and this link from that tutorial lead me to some great environment maps. I've gone with a star map at normal intensity. I tried a few dusk or dawn images with intensity cut down but the scene would go too flat. Moonlight is hard to get to. I've played with intensity all afternoon.

    So here is the update scene, no postwork. It looks to me like an electric light is hanging over them, emphasised by the glistening on the walls.

     

     

     

     

    Joy4.JPG
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  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,802
    Scavenger said:

    I started toying with the idea of making it a night scene...not sure about it....

    Generally I think the night scene works better, the light sabres are better seen and their glow has a better effect. on the background I like the Idea to have the outlines of the oldstyle house shining in neon but in your last render it looks like painted on in turquoise after the render, lacking the glow. I guess it would help to get the feeling for the size of your figures right if you add some scared people or a smashed car or two. The way it is now the old style house could as well be seen as a toy or model.

    For the beam weapon I would suggest you tone the opacity down an dial the ambient up... I just noticed I don't know if you used Iray or 3dlight, so f for Iray I don't know the way to deal with the light effect, I still stick to 3dlight for card reasons

  • ScavengerScavenger Posts: 2,664

    Thanks for the comments.

    Yeah, the night scene is more a proof of concept for doing a night scene..the weapon effects weren't changed from the day yet, the neon was just applied as ambient rather than doing something more yet.

    For now, I'm using 3Delight.  Because Iray is soooo crashy, I generaly build my scene in 3Delight, and then do an Iray conversion if I think it's worth trying it.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,802
    edited August 2015

    I cropped the view, adjusted some poses and changesd some other details. I like the new camera position and I guess I will go for some postwork and then submit this.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/uploads/FileUpload/d6/24f482fd64ef9a4934ccfbad82eaf6.jpg

     

    Brothers-in-arms2.jpg
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    Post edited by Chohole on
  • D.RobinsonD.Robinson Posts: 283
    Joe Webb said:
    Khory said:
    Joe Webb said:
     

    Joe, where would you say, conceptually, the main lighting in your scene is coming from? Right now I would guess camp fire but the shadowing isn't quite right for a campfire. How did you create that light? My suggestion would be that you change a photometric light to a disk (any shape will work though I suspect) and leave it at 10x10 or even decrease the size a little bit. The smaller the harder the shadows and the larger the more diffuse the shadows. Once you have a "camp fire" set up you may want to lower the amount of light from it a teeny bit as well. In theory now your going to have fairly strong shadows one of which we hope will be case over your bug jar. I'd also make sure that the HDRI in the scene was a cool color to mimic the moon light. Depending on which one you use you may need to cut the environment intensity on it so that it is more like night lighting. That should give you a more moon light like ambient light for the scene. It may need some tinkering to get exactly what you want but this should be a start. Don't forget that you may need to make adjustments to the tone mapping for a night scene. I'd use the aux view port to get an idea of how the lighting is looking before you commit to a full on render.

    When you say that the the render is stopping at 90% do you mean its crashing or that it is ending and it isn't clear enough yet? If it is not clear enough you have several options. One is to render larger than you want your final image to be and shrink it down after in another program. Another is to increase the rendering converged ratio. It will increase render time however. Another option is to increase the max samples and max time so that the image is rendered longer before it believes it is finished. These options are all almost sure to increase the length of time the render takes and I know if your using an older computer it is already taking a vexing long time as is. I find that for renders that I am sure will take more than a couple of hours I run them while I sleep or have to be away from the computer. Other wise I just stare at it while it renders and get antsy.

    Wow, this really helped a lot.

    Conceptionally I want the main light to be from a campfire/barrel fire, fill light to be moonlight. I'm trying to imply a Shanty town with a couple of old friends talking. I'm finding there is a fine balance between setting up an ambient light source and getting localized lights strong enough to cast relief shadows without overpowering the scene.

    I started with a 1m square and an environment dome. I learned that the dome and Iray don't play well together, getting rid of the dome significantly decreased render time - which was my problem with the render not completing. It wasn't crashing just hitting the max time. So even if the variations in intensity and the multiple lights caused the render to slow down it was still faster than before.

    This tutorial helped fill in some gaps, and this link from that tutorial lead me to some great environment maps. I've gone with a star map at normal intensity. I tried a few dusk or dawn images with intensity cut down but the scene would go too flat. Moonlight is hard to get to. I've played with intensity all afternoon.

    So here is the update scene, no postwork. It looks to me like an electric light is hanging over them, emphasised by the glistening on the walls.

     

     

     

     

    Are you using a sphere with an emmision shader for overhead...i am guessing you are since i see the reflection in the jug. What i would try to play around with is a spotlight overhead. Change the area of the light to something other than a point light like a rectangle or disc, also change the width and height of the light to something on the extreme like 25x25 for example and play around with the spread angle of the spot light so the light and shadows are softer.

  • Joe WebbJoe Webb Posts: 837
    Joe Webb said:
     

    Are you using a sphere with an emmision shader for overhead...i am guessing you are since i see the reflection in the jug. What i would try to play around with is a spotlight overhead. Change the area of the light to something other than a point light like a rectangle or disc, also change the width and height of the light to something on the extreme like 25x25 for example and play around with the spread angle of the spot light so the light and shadows are softer.

    I tried a spotlight but I guess I didn't go extreme enough - it just wasn't adding anything to the scene that I could see. I did add a disk in the barrel and cranked that up to suggest fire. Just this morning I found out about the spread angle on the spotlight, using it to concentrate the light (with sharp shadows for another scene I did).

  • D.RobinsonD.Robinson Posts: 283
    edited August 2015
    Joe Webb said:
    Joe Webb said:
     

    Are you using a sphere with an emmision shader for overhead...i am guessing you are since i see the reflection in the jug. What i would try to play around with is a spotlight overhead. Change the area of the light to something other than a point light like a rectangle or disc, also change the width and height of the light to something on the extreme like 25x25 for example and play around with the spread angle of the spot light so the light and shadows are softer.

    I tried a spotlight but I guess I didn't go extreme enough - it just wasn't adding anything to the scene that I could see. I did add a disk in the barrel and cranked that up to suggest fire. Just this morning I found out about the spread angle on the spotlight, using it to concentrate the light (with sharp shadows for another scene I did).

    The other option is use the supplied HDRI for the ambient but crank the intensity way down. I have done that on a couple of my renders. Here is an example i think i turned the intensity down to like .15 and changed the time of day so it was in the proper angle then it was just a matter of tweaking shutter speed until the scene was lit enough for my taste

     

    Moonbathing 3.jpg
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    Post edited by D.Robinson on
  • Joe WebbJoe Webb Posts: 837
    edited August 2015
    Joe Webb said:
     

    The other option is use the supplied HDRI for the ambient but crank the intensity way down. I have done that on a couple of my renders. Here is an example i think i turned the intensity down to like .15 and changed the time of day so it was in the proper angle then it was just a matter of tweaking shutter speed until the scene was lit enough for my taste

     

    Aaaah - shutter speed. I'm barely figuring out how to get the lights to work. I was turning down the ambient but everything was too dark and/or flat. That is a great tip, thanks!

    Great pic btw :)

     

    Post edited by Joe Webb on
  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012

    So I've been busting my brain for a second entry, done several renders inspired by various songs ("Taylor Swift - Everything has changed" example earlier in this thread) and I think I've finally settled on the song for my second entry. I've played on the whole "fastest Milkman in the West" and converted to the wild west (which I always imagined when I was younger and heard the song, researching now showed me a different story with the music video!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e1xvyTdBZI 

    So here's my take on Benny Hill's "Ernie (the fastest Milkman in the West)"

    ErnieJPG.jpg
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  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,802

    Some minor changes and some postwork, this will be my entry

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  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,115

    wow,,those are some nice renders.I've started working on a new one.The one I had been working on for my second try just wasn't working out for me.I decided that I want to make a "this is how far I've gotten since I started" type of render.I've got one baking now that has a lot more of the elements I've learned here on the forums incorporated into it.

    Here is my WIP.

    I've replaced most of the DS shaders with iray shaders.I added emissive shaders to the lights.I still need to finish the stuff on the counter top and G2F's pose needs a bit of work.

    song_WIP_2.jpg
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  • ScavengerScavenger Posts: 2,664

    I decided to take a break from the Alphavllle piece and make another inspired by a song.

    "Blinded by the Light" came on my iPod, and that started a thought train that led to this one....  It's NOT based on "Blinded by the Light"

     

    It's pretty much how I want it, though the moon is looking too blurry..so DOF might need more work.....and some fresh eyes won't hurt :D

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  • isidornisidorn Posts: 1,601
    edited August 2015

    Hello all!

    I've been dabbling with Daz for about two months now and have just realized my mistake with not looking into this forum section earlier. I actually did a couple of music inspired renders early on but when my "you can leave your hat on" tribute to Joe Cocker got removed from my gallery it kind of put a damp cloth over my inspiration. Although far from perfect that's still the render I'm most proud of. Oh well.

    Throwing myself into this now as I still have many images based on songs that I would like to do. Starting with Aerosmith's "Janie's got a gun".

    This is a first concept render. I'm mostly thinking the spotlight on her back is too bright and could probably be positioned a bit different to light up more of the inner room. Also noticed the girl's grip on the gun needs adjusting. Comments and suggestions are more than welcome. Please go gentle on me though. I barely understand a thing of the tips and suggestion given here...

    janiesgotagun.jpg
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    Post edited by isidorn on
  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012
    edited August 2015
    isidorn said:

     

    Throwing myself into this now as I still have many images based on songs that I would like to do. Starting with Aerosmith's "Janie's got a gun".

    This is a first concept render. I'm mostly thinking the spotlight on her back is too bright and could probably be positioned a bit different to light up more of the inner room. Also noticed the girl's grip on the gun needs adjusting. Comments and suggestions are more than welcome. Please go gentle on me though. I barely understand a thing of the tips and suggestion given here...

    Hi isidorn, I'm still pretty much a newbie myself (starting back in March this year) and you look like you have got further than I did in 2 months! From feedback I've received in the past though what I would ask is where is the light coming from for that scene? I love the render you have there, particularly the way the shadow is cast into the room, for the lighting to make sense to me though I'm thinking there must be a lamp on a low table out of shot behind your character? One thing I'm currently learning is positioning lights logically - a render I have been working on has a front room light casting light into a corridor which makes sense, however my figure that's walking up the stairs is lit by a mesh light at the top - I'v scrutinized this over the last few days and although I like the render as it currently is, the meshlight isn't actually working, I need to position a light at the top of the stairs (out of shot) for the stair landing light to get the light falling correctly on the figure walking up the stairs as you can see here:

    *EDIT - I removed the image as, even though it's a horror scene I'm not entirely sure whether it breaches the violence depiction in the T&C so went better safe than sorry

    Post edited by KA1 on
  • isidornisidorn Posts: 1,601

    Thanks for the feedback KA1! I couldn't help but laugh when I saw your picture also had a girl with murder in mind. (I saw it before you removed it). Great minds think alike? wink I understand what you're saying about the light in your picture and it's something I also struggle with in most of what I do and usually I just give up trying to get it right... So I'm afraid I can't offer any advice on the matter.

    I honestly had no thought about where the light would come from in my picture and just added the spotlight for a dramatic effect light. But it's a good advice to have the light make sense. I've made a new version where the spotlight is replaced by two lights, one on each side of the girl, that could be regular ceiling lights in a corridor. I think the shadow into the bedroom looked better in the first version. I'll have to try with just one "ceiling light", centered over the girl and see how that turns out.

    I'm also trying to make it possible to see a bit more of the bedroom. Currently it's too dark to really make anything out of it.

    janiesgotagun2.jpg
    949 x 1536 - 793K
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