The September Carrara Challenge : Just Say NO to Flat 3D - Spinning a Popular Theme

Roygee

Great progress being made, guys!

Here's the second WIP of Mike coming off his bike. Attaching the M4 skeleton to the clothing turned out to be a total disaster, so I went back to basics and re-made all the clothing for G2M. Clothed and posed in DS, exported as .obj. I'm finding this a great work-flow :)

Also modeled the terrain to get it more customised.

Trying to get some subtle sunbeams coming through the trees - subtle is not easy. It is either way overdone and the smallest change makes it non-existent. Will keep experimenting - if anyone has some advice, I'm in the market :)

Everything is still too new and shiny - I'm looking to bringing in some mud splatters, etc. to get it looking more like my own bike after a ride in the woods. Need to get the terrain more rugged and bring in some rocks and undergrowth.

The lighting setup: Main source is a studio HDRI, at 50% - this gives good light and a misty, neutral background. A 35% sunlight to bring out shadows, a 20% spot to fill in the shadows on the face, a dedicated spot for the tees and a spot for the sunbeams.

Hopefully someone can help with the settings for that spot. I've got it at 35%, with blinds set at 8 horizontal, 8 vertical, sizes 20. It has a light cone, 92% intensity, 3D shadows and light through transparency - no gel or turbulence. I have been trying out all sorts of settings, which either give seriously strong beams, or just a misty light.

evilproducer

Insert the spot and exclude literally everything from the light. The use a gel to force the shadows in the sunbeam. That's what I did in these scenes. I'll look to see if I still have them and see what I did for light intensity and cone settings.

If you want, feel free to use either of these two images as a gel. They're what I used.

evilproducer

I found the jungle encounter scene (with the dino and woman). I remembered it a bit wrong in that I didn't exclude everything. I excluded everything except the ruins.

You can see the light and cone settings in the screen shots.

Dievans

This contest is great! I'm learning so much about Carrara. Just one more tweak on mine I think - I bumped up the reflection and reduced the transparency in the goggles and added a background so she's not just floating in space. Not sure if it helps. I also changed the aspect ratio on the camera a bit to crop a little tighter.

Roygee

Thanks, EP - the beams in the ruins pic look great - just what I'm aiming for!

I've copied all your settings - will take a look in the morning. Just got back from a serious session at the sports club and not up to taking anything on right now :)

@devians - that is looking so good - great lighting and reality on the skin and goggles :)

Dievans

Roygee said:

Thanks, EP - the beams in the ruins pic look great - just what I'm aiming for!

I've copied all your settings - will take a look in the morning. Just got back from a serious session at the sports club and not up to taking anything on right now :)

@devians - that is looking so good - great lighting and reality on the skin and goggles :)

Thanks Roygee! Great idea with the mountain bike - I'm really curious to see how you get your mud-spatters and lighting sorted.

evilproducer

Very nice work dievans. Good work on the materials as well.

Bunyip02

evilproducer said:

One other suggestion for your scene, would be to either lower the amount of Ambient light or turn it off. If you use the Skylight or Indirect Light, then absolutely turn it off, as it was originally meant as a way to "fake" GI. If you use Skylight or IL, then you're using real GI, so no need to fake it.

If you decide to not use GI, and you need the ambient light, then try lowering it a bit, as the default is set fairly high. If you use a sky, there's an option to set the ambient light to use the sky's color, or you could just adjust the color by clicking on the color chip.

Evilproducer, many thanks for the feedback, I did a quick test render with the Ambient light down to 3, and the shadows picked up like how I wanted them. With the HDRI I was looking for a wide-angle look in the reflections of the shop windows. I don't know if it will work with the scene but there is only one way to find out. I had also considered an early night scene with the shop-lights blazing, will give it a try if I have enough time. Main thing I was trying to do was to learn as much as I could about Carrara, the Challenge has been great for doing just that !!!!!

Tim_A, my bank account is a little bit worse off, but very happy with the 3 items of Howie that I purchased. Was very tempted to use his shaders in the Provence scenery, but I have also purchased the Advance Pack by Inagoni so I am trying to learn how to properly use the Veloutte II & Deeper tools for shaders. Have already saved my first serious attempt at a footpath shader, just need to try it in my scene. Will be checking out Howie does his magical work as an excellent reference.

Diomede 64 and Dustrider, many thanks for the cheering on, I'm having lots of fun as well as learning !!!!!!

Once I get some new shaders in the scene and get Vicki6 as pretty as she should be I will post an updated WIP.
After that if I get time I would like to add a few details to turn the toon car into a concept car.

Regards, Bunyip

evilproducer

Bunyip02, I'm glad I could help with a couple suggestions. Keep up the good work, and if you get stuck on something, just ask!

Here's a potential second entry. This one uses the procedural skin shader again. I really wanted to show it off. This render is a rarity for me, in that I rendered using full GI. The apple may be a placeholder, but I think I like the color contrast, so I may have to add to it if I want to use it.

I still need to add hair, and that may dictate if I continue to use "real" GI or fake it. I can use this image as a reference for setting my lights. I can exclude hair froma fake GI light rig, but not real GI.

On the shader front, I tried making her brown eyed, but I see that I will need to darken the overall color gradient. I also experimented with SSS and didn't like the results. I may add a fake SSS, but that will mean adding a spec map or SSS map to the glow channel and multiplying it with the skin color.

d-j-o

Wow, all these entries look great. I hope to have time to create another one. I have a simple one, but I want to use Luxrender, so now I just need the time to start it.

evilproducer

I think I am going to add this cheesecake I made. I made the cheesecake some time ago, but I decided to make a cherry syrup for the top, and I added some mint leaves for garnish.

I modeled the syrup in the Assembly room and worked on a shader for it. The shader is not totally what I want, but it should be close enough, The mint is basically a vertex plane with an image of a mint leaf I found online and modified a bit. I then duplicated it a couple times.

d-j-o

I was thinking of a still life too. Sushi on a plate with a cell phone.
Originally I created a room somewhat furnished and then used a spherical camera and photoshop and created an HDRI image, but I just couldn't get the HDRI to come out bright enough. I'll have to practice with it more. See here http://www.markbremmer.com/3Bpages/darkarts.html

So I'm going Luxrender. All the shaders with textures have been edited, I had to convert them all to lux shaders. The table and chairs are straight lux shaders, that's why you can't see them in the WIP image.

I had to slightly edit the sushi objects to give it a beveled edge around the rim so it doesn't look like a hockey puck.

I have two area lights off to the sides and one bulb above the setting.

I used how diomede64 made a base to his bottle here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/648572/ and created the wine for the wine glass.

TangoAlpha

Some experiments with lighting - using techniques from PhilW's tutorial. Even so, getting enough outside light in through the tiny windows is proving a challenge...

evilproducer

kashyyyk said:

I was thinking of a still life too. Sushi on a plate with a cell phone.
Originally I created a room somewhat furnished and then used a spherical camera and photoshop and created an HDRI image, but I just couldn't get the HDRI to come out bright enough. I'll have to practice with it more. See here http://www.markbremmer.com/3Bpages/darkarts.html

So I'm going Luxrender. All the shaders with textures have been edited, I had to convert them all to lux shaders. The table and chairs are straight lux shaders, that's why you can't see them in the WIP image.

I had to slightly edit the sushi objects to give it a beveled edge around the rim so it doesn't look like a hockey puck.

I have two area lights off to the sides and one bulb above the setting.

I used how diomede64 made a base to his bottle here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/648572/ and created the wine for the wine glass.

Nice work kashyyyk.

I'm not doing a still life. I'm replacing the apple in my, Vicki in a Studio scene with the cheesecake. I wanted a bit more color to it, so I added some cherry syrup and some spearmint leaves.

First up is the cheesecake group. The plate is from Carrara's Native Content and is ripped off of the fruit cake object, either under Food, or Holiday directories. It is a spline object. The rest are vertex objects

Next is one of the "crumbs" and its shader.

Then the syrup and its shader.

evilproducer

Tim_A said:

Some experiments with lighting - using techniques from PhilW's tutorial. Even so, getting enough outside light in through the tiny windows is proving a challenge...

It's looking good.

This is where you need bounce lights. Put a spot light near the opposite walls from the windows and have them aiming back toward the windows. Use a light color similar to the surface the light is reflecting off of. You'll want to play around with the rnge, range falloff, angle and half angle of the light.

You could also try Indirect Light, so that you don't have to place lights to fake it.

evilproducer

So, here's my "fake" GI light set up for Cheesecake in a Studio with a nearly Nekikid Vicki.

I used a color gradient in the scene's Background and a plane with a shadow catcher.

I used a sphere with a single distant light replicated over 100 times. I excluded the hair objects except for the eyebrows and eyelashes.

The shadows were pretty deep, so I used a distant light pointing straight down and set to a low intensity with a blue-gray color, and had that only light the plane. This lightened the shadows nicely.

I had a high intensity spot light that lit only the hair provide a rim light for the hair.

My key light was a distant light that was duplicated so that one light lit everything except the hair and used raytraced soft shadows, and the duplicate lit only the hair and used hard shadows.

I placed a shape light below the plane and excluded the plane from the light. I set it up with a low intensity and high falloff to simulate reflected light from the "floor."

evilproducer

Screen shots continued, and the results.

I think it came out pretty nice.

The second has some levels adjustment.

d-j-o

Here is what I'm coming up with, I left the bump map on the table cloth but don't like it, I'm going to remove it, add a tighter fabric bump and if it looks good, I'll finish the final render.

TangoAlpha

evilproducer said:

Tim_A said:

Some experiments with lighting - using techniques from PhilW's tutorial. Even so, getting enough outside light in through the tiny windows is proving a challenge...

It's looking good.

This is where you need bounce lights. Put a spot light near the opposite walls from the windows and have them aiming back toward the windows. Use a light color similar to the surface the light is reflecting off of. You'll want to play around with the rnge, range falloff, angle and half angle of the light.

You could also try Indirect Light, so that you don't have to place lights to fake it.

Thanks for the comment. I'm already using full indirect light and gamma correction. Currently there's only one light in the entire scene - and that's the sunlight outside. Everything else is done through glow. The wall lights each have an oversize glowing ball over them. Each window (and the doorway) is covered by a glowing plane pointed directly in. (there is no glass in the windows, so I don't have to worry about transparency)

Adding extra interior light is probably the next thing to try...

evilproducer

kashyyyk said:

Here is what I'm coming up with, I left the bump map on the table cloth but don't like it, I'm going to remove it, add a tighter fabric bump and if it looks good, I'll finish the final render.

The sides of the sushi roll look good, but the top needs something to add a bit of dimensionality to it.

evilproducer

Tim_A said:

evilproducer said:

Tim_A said:

Some experiments with lighting - using techniques from PhilW's tutorial. Even so, getting enough outside light in through the tiny windows is proving a challenge...

It's looking good.

This is where you need bounce lights. Put a spot light near the opposite walls from the windows and have them aiming back toward the windows. Use a light color similar to the surface the light is reflecting off of. You'll want to play around with the rnge, range falloff, angle and half angle of the light.

You could also try Indirect Light, so that you don't have to place lights to fake it.

Thanks for the comment. I'm already using full indirect light and gamma correction. Currently there's only one light in the entire scene - and that's the sunlight outside. Everything else is done through glow. The wall lights each have an oversize glowing ball over them. Each window (and the doorway) is covered by a glowing plane pointed directly in. (there is no glass in the windows, so I don't have to worry about transparency)

Adding extra interior light is probably the next thing to try...

Great info. Thanks for sharing your lighting method!

That scene keeps looking better and better.

TangoAlpha

There are 23 light sources in that scene, of which 22 are glowing objects (12 wall-mounted lights, 9 glowing planes at the windows, 1 glowing plane at the door. These glows come from just 3 shaders - one for the lamps, 1 for the windows and 1 for the door. When it comes to adjusting the lights, it's simply a matter of tweaking the master shader for that lighting group, and all the lights change together. That's something I haven't been able to achieve with Carrara Lights - it seems every light must be set and adjusted individually. You can imagine the extra time it would take to tweak 23 separate bulbs...

The planes outside the windows, particularly top & left are set to invisible, so we can still see the grass (they still glow). Phil recommended setting the alpha to 0, but I found that didn't give as good results.

evilproducer

Tim_A said:

There are 23 light sources in that scene, of which 22 are glowing objects (12 wall-mounted lights, 9 glowing planes at the windows, 1 glowing plane at the door. These glows come from just 3 shaders - one for the lamps, 1 for the windows and 1 for the door. When it comes to adjusting the lights, it's simply a matter of tweaking the master shader for that lighting group, and all the lights change together. That's something I haven't been able to achieve with Carrara Lights - it seems every light must be set and adjusted individually. You can imagine the extra time it would take to tweak 23 separate bulbs...

The planes outside the windows, particularly top & left are set to invisible, so we can still see the grass (they still glow). Phil recommended setting the alpha to 0, but I found that didn't give as good results.

Ahhh... You may want to know about the Master Light under the edit menu then!

You could literally select all the lights in the scene, no matter the type, and then select Master light and adjust them in one fell swoop. If you have lights in a group, you can just select the group of lights and then Master Light. If you have a mixture of lights in the group, such as spots, bulbs and distant lights, you could add checks to only the lights you wish to adjust. You can also choose the specific function you wish to adjust by enabling or disabling the appropriate checkbox.

evilproducer

I think that this will be my iteration for this entry. I'll probably stick it in the entry thread tomorrow unless I come up with a better idea when I'm sleeping tonight.

Roygee

EP - your cheesecake is looking really tasty :) Great lighting on the lady, too!

Thank you for the tips on the sunbeams - I'm using your gel and settings, without turbulance and think it got the look I'm trying for.

Got some mud splatters going on mine - think I've overdone it and will tone that down. The dirt on the clothing was done by making a mud splatter transmap and mixing with the original shader, using spots as a blender.

For the bike, I found a "moss on chrome" shader among Weebly's great shader set - http://shaders3d.weebly.com/ - changed the moss to shades of brown for mud on the chromed parts, as well as changed the reflection colour for the blue parts.

evilproducer

Thanks for the nice words Roygee. I'm glad I could help with the light cone and gels.

I have a question about those shaders that you linked to. Do you know what the usage rights are? Am I restricted to using those shaders in non-commercial renders? I couldn't see anything on the site.

Bunyip02

Title:- Vicki6 in Provence with Nightstorm (ConceptCar)

Not quite mud-splatters.
I have tried to redo Vicki6 with another pose and a change of colours for her clothes.
Is there another way to get the correct fit other than updating via the Model room ?

Seems the more I do the worse it gets.
Have followed the Learning Carrara tutorials but not having much joy on this part.

Footpath shader worked out well once I resized it.

evilproducer

Bunyip02 said:

Title:- Vicki6 in Provence with Nightstorm (ConceptCar)

Not quite mud-splatters.
I have tried to redo Vicki6 with another pose and a change of colours for her clothes.
Is there another way to get the correct fit other than updating via the Model room ?

Seems the more I do the worse it gets.
Have followed the Learning Carrara tutorials but not having much joy on this part.

Footpath shader worked out well once I resized it.

I feel for you.

I can't help with Genesis I'm afraid as I'm using C7.2 Pro. Maybe this thread will help?
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/

Bunyip02

evilproducer said:

Thanks for the nice words Roygee. I'm glad I could help with the light cone and gels.

I have a question about those shaders that you linked to. Do you know what the usage rights are? Am I restricted to using those shaders in non-commercial renders? I couldn't see anything on the site.

Hello Evilproducer

If you look about 4/5ths down the writing on the intro page you will see the following paragraph:-

Quote "Yes, all our Carrara shaders are FREE and may be used in personal and commercial use. All we ask is credit be given to Kirk Saavedra if used in a commercial project." UnQuote

Very generous offer, and much appreciated by Noobies like me !!!!!!! :)

evilproducer

Bunyip02 said:

evilproducer said:

Thanks for the nice words Roygee. I'm glad I could help with the light cone and gels.

I have a question about those shaders that you linked to. Do you know what the usage rights are? Am I restricted to using those shaders in non-commercial renders? I couldn't see anything on the site.

Hello Evilproducer

If you look about 4/5ths down the writing on the intro page you will see the following paragraph:-

Quote "Yes, all our Carrara shaders are FREE and may be used in personal and commercial use. All we ask is credit be given to Kirk Saavedra if used in a commercial project." UnQuote

Very generous offer, and much appreciated by Noobies like me !!!!!!! :)

That's what you get for skimming. D'oh! :red: