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That's freakin' awesome Dustrider! The pic is well worth spending the time to zoom in and admire various details. Makes me want to break out Octane again for my next project, lately I've been mainly using Carrara native, but Octane is truly a wonder.
I admit I had to google to figure out the Ruby Rod reference, although I guess in the film the character was actually named Rubi Rhod. I remember going to the theatres to see 5th element excited by the previews, but ended up not much caring for the movie. I did enjoy the jokes/sense of humor, and I think that was the first time I remember seeing Chris Tucker chewing scenery and being generally hilarious. Also Gary Oldman is magnificent in anything he appears in, so the film gets an extra +20 points for that. But I could never get over the 'care bears' plot ("the fifth element is love" ending) which made be cringe a bit. I haven't yet seen 'Valyrian and the City of a Thousand Planets' yet but it's also directed by Luc Besson and gives a similar vibe, at least from the previews, and it's on my list to see.
Here's where I am on my 2nd entry so far, haven't done any postwork yet. Added some gemstones to the treasure pile to try to 'sell' it more as a treasure chest. I have all these morphs to make Genesis1 a dwarf that I had never used before, so I wanted to give that a try but from the angle of the shot and without another character standing nearby it's kind of hard to get the scale of the character or that he's a dwarf, looks more like a normal human who's a little broad is all, but generally I'm ok with it (though I have the nagging feeling I could do better). The dracolich is an oldie product from the Daz store titled Dragon Skeleton (Articulate Vertebrae), and man they aren't kidding, each bone of that vertebrae has it's own rigging, which means it's technically a pretty great character as you can pose every bone, but also it's like this long long list of bones going down the instance tray and running off to the side where you can't even see them all, had to pull the instance tray way out into the middle of my screen just to be able to manage and see all the different bones. I'm actually really impressed with that product considering how old it is, and it was only $2 as it's a PC+ item. I again used the aura effect (I seem to be doing that a lot lately) which I always forget depends on having a little glow channel set in the shaders (if you don't have at least a little percentage of glow set, the aura does nothing no matter how high you set it). I experimented with blue and red, settled on red I think. Oh and put 2 bulb lights in its eye sockets, which illuminate nothing in the scene, but just so I could enable the 'stars' effect to get the red 'eye stars'.
Thematically both of my entries so far could have the same title: 'Beware of Treasure' lol.
Coming into the final week to polish off entries and submit them, so I thought it might be fun to highlight some of the great work some of our esteemed Carrarists have done in prior challenges which woud fit right in with this theme. So here's some of my favorite 'dungeon-ish' scenes you guys have done in the past.
I know I already mentioned Dustrider's awesome 'dungeon scene in a bottle' entry upthread (that's not the actual title lol, but how I think of it), but it bears re-posting as it's one of my all time favorite Carrara renders of any genre:
Headwax recently blew my mind with this one (just freakin' amazing, in my mind I think of this as 'magic blue cave heaven'):
Here's one I've always thought was great from Evilproducer, showing how an exterior shot of a 'dungeon' can be just as visually entrancing:
Ironically I was just commenting on the film 5th element, and that made me think of our own resident Carrarist genius going by the same name. I also loved the movie Oblivion, and thought it was one of the best sci-fi films of the past decade, and I don't know if this scene was inspired from that or not, but I do know it's wonderful:
Dart has a signature style which just naturally lends itself to 'dungeon' greatness:
I've got a bunch more cool examples pulled from prior challenges to share, I figure it might be fun to spool out some great examples from our resident Carrarists day by day as we approach the closing of this challenge :)
Jon, thank you for the nice comment on my postcard!
Your plan to repost past "darker" works from the Challenge is excellent. I agree with all of your choices.
My main thought on your past two render entries - great ideas btw - is that they are too dark. If you look at all the previous Challenge examples you just posted above, notice that there is a huge amount of light in each. I'm sure that you know this already, but the trick is to put the light in the right places to enhance the drama, and by contrast make the darkness even more forbidding. For example, I'd like to see the texture in the dwarves face (neat character), basking in the glow of the treasure, and a brighter dragon skeleton.
HW and Stezza changed my life regarding the use of layers in PSE. Layers are magical and a great option. But light bulbs in Carrara are also plentiful.
Thanks UB, I completely agree. In fact it's funny that I didn't notice it as much when building the render in Carrara, but it was immediately apparent to me when I posted in the thread that it's just way too dark. Going to have a try at enhancing in postwork first (because I really need to get better at postwork and layering) and see how that goes, but probably will end up going back to add some more lighting to the scene and re-rendering. :)
think i broke the sky. rs sky color changes back to black no matter what color i pick. the swatch color shows the color i select for half a second, then goes black again.
not seeing a hair styling pallette, just a few properties tabs
Take the check tick out of the box next to "Night"?
is this fits the subject of this challenge?
sounds reasonable lol
Did that turn out to be it?
Changed the lighting slightly, re-rendered both in Ocane and Carrara (the base render is Octane, but added the post effect aura glows from the Carrara render) then took it into Gimp to play with levels to make things less dark. It's perhaps too bright now lol.
night isnt checked
if i mess with global brightnes can make sky shades of gray, but no colors
baffled
theres a reset button
Is your Sun Light enabled and visible? Does it have a brightness to it?
If all else fails, set the atmosphere to None and delete the sun light. Insert a new sun light and set the atmosphere to Realistic sky and start over.
Another option would be to save the scene, then open a new empty scene of the same size (Large, meduim, small) and set the sky up in that scene, then drag your saved Carrara file into that. Those atmosphere, background, backdrop, etc., settings will not come along for the ride. Just make sure to NOT keep the Sun from the saved scene - keep the new one instead.
I agree with Dart, those sound like solid suggstions. You could also drag and drop an atmosphere preset into the realistic sky editor to see what happens too. I rely pretty heavily on Tim Payne's sky presets, as well as Dimension Theory's stuff, but even if you don't have any PA products for Carrara skies, there are some standard presets that come with Carrara too.
In the spirit of the theme, wanted to share a few more of my personal favorites from prior challenges which have a 'dungeon-y' feel. I'm constantly amazed by how brilliant my fellow forum members (you guys) are. :)
The lighting and composition of this one from shlomi is just (distubingly) terrific. Shhh!
Anyone remember Planescape? Many years ago I actually won a national short story contest in that setting, which is neither here nor there, but I still have a fondness for the theme of adventuring in the outer planes. Here's one from Bytescapes which I thought was pretty great. Who says all dungeons have to be in the material plane? I think there are plenty of dungeon opportunites in the depths of the Abyss, or within the cursed princedoms of the 7 Hells. :)
How about exploring the cold murky depths that man was never meant to see? This is one of Stezza's (many) brilliant renders:
Only the bravest adventurers dare venture into the forbidden forest after nightfall. It's not easy making a good nighttime scene, but Diomede does it masterfully on this one:
You know what's worse than running into a Beholder? Running into 2 of them. :) MDO2010 titled this one 'Against the Temple of Evil'. Immediately the D&D fanboy in me can't help but thinking of one of the first adventure modules I ever played, the Temple of Elemental Evil. Absolutely mesmerizing scene!
wip: Djinnie in a bottle
this challenge taught me how to make a grow region
course doing something with new knowledge is another thing, lol
the hairy blanket is sprouting from a cucumber, collision against his hand and thighs.
learned pulling on a point on the lathed spline can change the shape
plate of french toast
in the rara native content
ladybug from the old creeper collection.
g3m
Here's the final version of my second entry. I added some hands sticking out of the floor grate, stairs and some lorez rats.
Final Scene Setup:
Final Render:
Final With Postwork:
still time, thinkin Dungeons Deep could have a sexier interpretation
Thanks Dart!
Actually, I tried Kazai, but with her extreme leg bends at the hips it got a bit too distorted, so I found a kit-bash compromise with a similar look. In case you, or anyone else is interested in what I used (unfortunately much of it isn't available anymore), here is the figures outfit. The "bikini" (top and bottom) is from Bladerune for V4, the belt is from Ranger for V4, the gloves and the quiver are from Ranger for Genesis 2, the leggings are from Callidora for G2F, the sword is from Elven Weapon Archer, the bow is from Horizon Redux for V4, the arrow is from Ranger for Genesis 2, and the hair is Chrome Hair for G2F. It's amazing how I keep going back to a some of my old V4 stuff. There just haven't been a lot of new "replacements" for a lot of my V4 stuff
Hi shlomi laszlo,
I'm no expert, and not "in charge", but I think your idea for the challenge look/sounds fine. I know I'd like to see the finished version of it
Thanks Jonstark!
Yep, you definitely need to zoom in the see the details. I really like how the dragon's skin came out. I wanted a bit more scale definition, but with the lighting setup I needed, I think it came out pretty good. I also like how the horns and claws came out (and the leather on the belt is pretty good too). I see you started working with Octane again, sorry I missed you post until after you figured out the answer to your own
. It's a bit of a learning curve, but I really love the results I get from Octane!!
TY
i ended up hitting the reset button, so i didnt learn what the culprit setting was
Perhaps you might recognize "Anna's Theme", by Mark Morgan (from the soundtrack of Planescape)? I love the game... never finished it. Maybe I will. I bought the game a second time from GOG (also have the original CD ROM) and BeamDog is making or already has made a new version of it for modern machines/OS, also available at GOG
I also have the AD&D 2nd Edition Planescape boxed set, which is an excellent read. I love the whole idea and am even using some of those concepts in my (yet entirely unseen) movies - kinda. Won't be recognizeable as Planescape during the show, but the material of the setting helped me to wrap my mind around how to pull off such a crazy story.
In that case, I'm guessing it was the Haze setting. Probably brought all values to 0.
LOL!!! I realized that when I was going through my character stuff just now. I ran across my Bladerune stuff and laughed to myself! ;) Yeah, I like an awful lot of the V4 stuff.
Too bad Genesis 2 had such a short run before Genesis 3 came out. I finally see some cool variety in costumes coming out and they're all for 3 or 8! Argh!!! So now I just stopped looking.
Here's a few more of my personal favs to add some more 'dungeon flavor'
Bunyip gives a masterful NPR render showing how effective that approach can be at making a scene with the Boogeyman even more disturbing:
Oh man, those eyes, those creepy, creepy eyes! Great atmospheric forbidding ambience in the lighting and scene setup, but how chilling would it be to have some... thing... that was just close enough to human-looking to be utterly inhuman come stalking toward you with those creepy eyes? This one is from Vysur:
Gettin' ready to raid some tombs! PhilW gives an excellent render (does he do any other kind?) showcasing an exterior shot that still feels very, very dungeon-y. (Side note: it's amazing how many of the entries in the 'Carrara 9' challenge are dungeon-y in flavor).
I've always loved the whimsical feeling of this one from UnifiedBrain. Who says dungeons can't also be whimsical and fun?
I love the vibrant play of color on this one by Stringtheory, you can really feel the energy. If this were the old days of D&D, this would make terrific cover art for an adventure module.
I've seen that vid before but never made the connection, lol, that's too cool. Now you got me thinking about Planescape (and Spelljammer, and Ravenloft, and Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk, and Dragonlance, and Mystara, and all my favorite rpg manuals I used the spend hours and hours poring over, just reading the various histories of mythical fantasy realms. I had to go dig up the old link where I used to post my novels and short stories online to find out if it's still out there somewhere, and to reassure myself I haven't lost all my old work. Sheesh, the internet browsers were formatted differently back then, now everything looks weird when viewing it in a modern browser. Main site is still up though (http://madmartigen.tripod.com/Sebastian.html) and had to peek at the short story that won me the Planescape contest way back back when (http://madmartigen.tripod.com/Avenging.htm) but it looks strange with the sentences running all the way to right side of the page, makes me want to try to remember my passwords so I can get back in and reformat it all. I think I won a free accessory, a manual about the war in Sigil? Can't remember the name now. Also... sheesh, not updated since 2001. I know I was just a kid when I wrote that, but that's so long ago, I'm much older than I thought I was 10 minutes ago. Younger me is wondering what happened to my aspirations of becoming a real live writer lol.