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This is starting to become a very lovely image. I think the work you have done on the lights is good!. The woman is working nicely, not too bright, which can happen with white. The man though is still blending into the background. His clothes either need to be lighter or darker, or the wall needs to be lighter or darker.
I think something that might help is simply darkening or lightening the ambient on his clothes, slightly. That's how lighting was done before we had the power to create realistic light effects, by changing the ambient on everything! Same could be done with the background.
Another option which might work, and create a cool effect too, is rotating the direction of the light a bit so that the dark shadow it created at the man's feet is turned so that it is directly between him an the wall where you need the contrast... the dark shadow climbing up the wall might be cool.
Something that I think would help the composition as a whole to make it more dramatic and dynamic is to bring the two figures closer together... have her leaning up towards him and the cup, and him being taller, almost bending a knee and raising the cup up to her, almost like an offering. Right now they seem somewhat L shaped and stiff in all their limbs, which is not helping there be a sense of tension and thus interest. And having them closer together would help the light from the cup to reach their faces, which are reading somewhat flat. Another thing that would build tension is to turn their feet and hips away from the camera, and then their waist back towards it so that their arms end up in the same place. This contraposto adds impact to the pose. The same reversing of direction can be done with the shoulders vs the head/neck. It creates a feeling of movement.
I think one of the best parts of this image is the unified color scheme, and over the course of your entries the last few months, color is one of the places you have improved dramatically. Well done and I look forward to seeing this blossom... though not too much, you've been beating the pants off me! ((*goes looking for her pants*)) :-) (Just teasing, I am very happy for your success, it is well deserved, especially because you show your heart and soul in how much you work and grow each month!)
Thank you for the feedback fiona, Yes, he is still too much in the shadows. The Idea of moving the shadow from his feet is neat, I will have to puzzle that one out. I will try to give them a less stiff pose, but i was anxious to not overdo their getting close, as I don't want it to get to cheesy, if you know what I mean :red:
Thanks for the comments & the info on tangents!
Here's a "quick" update for lunchtime... (not a fully resolved/converged image, but it's decent)
Pulled back the camera. I was worried about blood wick-ing up the dead guy's hair (how to do that, anyway)... so I moved the blood pool around, and added a spatter (from JoLab1985's liquids pack, which I just got since it's on sale).
Still messing with explosions, but I don't think I can do much more because the puffs of smoke really slow down Iray for me.
I don't want to use the skimpy minidress from the New Adventures set, but the bottoms of the pant legs are bothering me. I'll have to see what's causing the textures to work that way.
Tweaking lights. I'm trying to mute some of the previous lights (the torus emitter that I use around the main camera to brighten the space in front of the camera), and adding lights from guns/explosions off camera (basically primitive Cones, turned into emitters in Iray). I'm not getting enough light on the Sergeant's hand, grabbing the woman's arm, though.
I'm thinking about adding another casualty, leaning against the pillar in the background.
I definitely will do a depth of field thing for the next image.
This is getting impressive, I really like her shocked halfrise to get to the dead guy and the one in the back keeping her in their halfways safe place. The colours and the lights work well as much as I can say.
Here are some points that you could work on:
While the hitt-point explosions on the wall work nicely the one on the ground looks weird, its too material, for my liking, maybe you could dial up the opacity on that one and the fire cilour is better in the ones on the wall.
My guess on those guns is that they should be havier that what they seem in your render. I would think her hand would bend more downwards carrying the weight of the gun in only one hand. Overall the render is a bit grainy.
Sensitive persons may want to stop reading here.
Now comes the difficult part of making a dead man look dead. You did a nice job on the blood leaking out of the guy, its got the right colour and its not gory the way you made it. So your dead man is looking like a dead man in the films, if that what you wanted, your fine, otherwhise you need to keep in mind that once a person is dead, all muscles loose their tension or strain, so the eyeballs will turn sideway but to different directions, while the lids will close about halfways. The chin drops open while the tongue falls into the throat, meaning for your case that it won't be seen. I don't know how far it even possible with the daz figures but the back comes flat to the ground making the head roll further to the side.
Hope that helps
here is the next step for the swashbuckler.
I have given them a little clearer roles, she has become the captain of the guard and thus has good reasons chasing that crown stealing thief. I cluttered up the scene with the niet stuff dollygirl has found for me. I didn't get to work all of that and I kept my version of the curtain as the other one was unwilling to accept the flag that now has a good reason to be there showing who belongs.
I added a light fot the guys face and I changes perspective an format, oh and he is even more on the edge than before.
So thanks for all the suggestions and ideas.
I really like the concept behind this image. Perhaps having a chess piece or two running away will help?
Thank you.... Looks like I misread the rules and I do need to add another character or two. You are right about the pieces running away. I need to get more of the story out of my mind and into the image.
Very nice for a first attempt!
First nit... I think this contest calls for a minimum of 2 figures. So you'll need another something or somebody in the scene. I could suggest, but I think that would interfere too much in your process.
What light are you using now? The reflections on the floor look good.
Speaking of reflectivity, however, the swords seem really non-metallic. You're in 4.8... so can you throw some Iray shaders on the blades? Go to the Surfaces Tab, select the blade part of your props, find the Shaders in your product list, Control-Click on one of the Metal shaders (Metal - Iron, maybe), and IGNORE when it asks about replacing textures. (You could even use the Metal Flakes layer if you want to simulate rust.) This should amp up your weapon props, in any case.
The background is cool, but really muted. I guess I'd expect the stars/clusters to pop more. It sticks out the most on the sides, where the dragon isn't. The background looks like it's in shadow almost. Maybe stick some spotlights directly on those parts of the background?
The pose on the dragon is interesting, but something seems off. It almost looks submissive IMO. It's sunk back a lot where I expect it to be all pushed out & forward. Take a look at animals who are posturing. Any kind of image, from dogs to frilled lizards to lions.
Thank you for your advice.
1. You are right about the rules. For some reason I read that as two renders not two figures in a render. I blame old age....
2. Lights. Right now I have three. I'm using the iray world light (I forget what it is called) and another spot as a fill light - pointed at the dragon from above and to the right. I love the reflections. The third light is a distant light. This was an attempt to reduce the shadows against the backdrop. It doesn't have a huge impact and I will likely be adjusting it/removing it/something.
3. Swords. The props I used are very dark and rusty and really don't stand out as you suggest. I've read about shaders in passing, but haven't quite got to the point where I knew enough to use them. I'm playing with them now and it's really cool. I don't have the flake one you mentioned. I'm going to have to play with them a bit because they don't look very good yet.
4. The background was picking up shadows that I was having trouble getting rid of. I change the diffuse strength and dropped the glossiness down to nothing and that helped. I'd like to map it to the iray dome, but then it doesn't seem visible at design time and it's a pain to place. More work here is in order.
5. I based the dragons movement, in part, on my cats. His backend is turning hard left, hence his left leg underneath and his right out to the side. then he sees us and begins to turn right (his front half) so his left front leg is pushing out and back and just about ready to come forward like his right leg. His motion is a little snake-like as well. I tried to make most of his body transitioning from one motion to finally coming after us - the viewers. That was the plan anyways. Based on your notes, I've modified the neck a little and opened his mouth more to hopefully increase his ferocity. I'm keeping him low to the ground for now because of the turns he's making he would likely keep his center of gravity low (in theory). That was my thought pattern at least. I will revisit my execution. Some of the work I did isn't really visible at this angle and that might be part of the issue too.
I really appreciate you taking the time to comment. Hopefully this weekend I'll have time to get this ready to enter into the contest.
Best Regards,
Eric
I appreciate the feedback. Changed a bunch of things over lunch time & let it render for a while.
Here's another early, not completely converged render. Plenty of graininess to resolve, but it's good enough to look at.
I added the Depth of Field effect. There's a lot of ground to keep in focus between the dead guy & his two living comrades. The man & woman in the center get in better focus if I cut down the focus area to their space, but then the dead guy gets very out of focus. I don't think I want to lose focus on him, as challenging as he is to get right. Anyway, I'd say what I feel about the Depth of Field effect, but I don't want to bias my feedback here.
I adjusted the dead guy, although I'm not yet satisfied. The eyes are not right yet. I shifted his color towards blue, but he could look more ashen, I think. Since I used Genesis 1 Male, I don't have tongue controls for the dead guy... unlike the Darius 6 figure who doesn't need to stick his tongue out. Oh well.
I took out the odd explosion in the front & threw up some projectiles from an Asari shotgun blast (there's an Asari commando in the background now). Eh, again, editing my own commentary on this.
Adjusted most hand positions.
Oh, and I fixed the issue with the woman's pant legs. Apparently, I loaded the boot separates in addition to the outfit... which comes with boots. (I guess you use the separate boots for the miniskirt.) The pant legs should be fine now.
Composition-wise, it's not there yet. Need to dial the whole thing in a lot better.
Hi, first I'd like to thank all of you for your feedback and help, without it I wouldn't achieve any progress in learning DAZ Studio in my own as you can compare between my first post and this one. :)
I've completed my scene finally, I've changed the back ground completely and adjusted the posture of the man and the boy and their clothes, changed and adjusted the surroundings to match the figures, ..... In another word, I've started the scene from beginning and that what I did :cheese:.
I hope I've done it right this time because I'm thinking of calling it a final render.
I've used DAZ Studio 48 with Iray Render setting, adjusted the time to 11:00 AM and Gamma to 2.2, and environment light exposure to 1000, I've played with other setting slightly... rendered the scene 4 times to accomplish this sight of my Horses.
I can see the improvements. There's a lot more things in the scene, and they make the standoff between the guard and the thief more interesting.
The symbols on the curtain & the matching symbol on the guard are a very good bit of storytelling.
I'm not sure if I like the new angle or not. It provides some opportunities to heighten the danger of the situation. Could you add a person who fell down to the bottom?
Or maybe someone in the top right of the image? There's an awful lot of empty space there. If you had another guard there, then the bottom left doesn't need a dead body/person who fell off. The bottom left becomes more of an escape route if you amplify the risk to your thief by adding more guards.
More of the smashed stuff should be on the ground below, I guess. Mainly to make the height seem more of a danger.
I think I like the crown, but the lighting on it is strange. It's almost like the crown is photoshopped onto the image because there's so little shadow on it.
It's still a bit difficult to see his face due to the lighting.
Do you have some fire props? Some fire would be good for light & to make the scene more dangerous, as well as fitting the swashbuckler genre (since something needs to be on fire).
Very nice. It was fun to watch the evolution of this scene.
Hello everyone. Holy moly the artwork everyone is putting up is fantastic. I decided to ditch the image with the flying bikes because this was a continuation of last month with posing. So I came up with something yet again different. Suggestions are most welcome as I become stuck at times. I am still working on the intruders image trying to get lower background parts to be clearer.
The mace and sickle weapons are from Daz 3D http://www.daz3d.com/more-deadly-edges
Another look. Thanks for the help.
Updated :)
I forgot how much movement just tilting the camera can add.
Thought about adding Godrays to the vehicle lights, but have not learned how to do that in Iray yet.
Second try, hope it is better.
What do you think.
Changes: Light to be not so hard/bright - Pose and Camera after the tips form the forum.
Much better. I would play with the pose of woman on the right. It looks like she is leaning back at an odd angle and I think you were wanting them to be friends.
I like the composition much better! You've framed the action much better this time.
I didn't really care for the background in the previous picture... you've fixed that with your Depth of Field & keeping the background soft. Good job.
What is going on with that pink shirt? It's crumpling in very odd ways.
I'd echo Dollygirl's comment on the pose for the woman on the right.
Yes, I like this tighter shot much more than the longer one.
The dagger is looking more fierce!
The next comments are very much my opinion, and I'm not sure they'll help you get what you want across... but I know how I'd take the scene. I don't want to interfere with your process, so take all the following with a grain of salt.
I'd amp up the sexy. A little extra bulge in the trousers for the man (if you have such capability in your morphs), and less clothing on top for the woman. This is just my opinion for sure.
Have you considered implying some adultery? It's something I was going to ask someone to do earlier this month, but I didn't feel like interfering so much back then. The ring finger is a marvelous thing to show in a scene!
Something about the man's clothing is bothering me now, though. The shirt is rather peasant-y, and clashes with the room. Can the man be bare-chested? At least to help entertain the women in the audience! Also, that will allow you to throw some more jewelry on him to imply more wealth. The shirt is just way too concealing of his arms, and he's very clothed for intimacy.
Less clothing in the scene, I say! And more blingy jewelry.
Looking good! The camera is in a much better spot now.
I haven't had success with this (due to my CPU rendering in Iray being very slow), but Sickleyield has a tutorial here...
http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Tutorial-Creating-Dust-And-Atmosphere-in-Iray-522291773
(I think she left out a step about the Primitive - Cube, and using the Dispersive Water shader on the Primitive.)
Doing this method in small scale is how I did my smoke/explosions, however. So I guess it does work. I just increased the SSS amount to simulate more particles in the smoke clouds. (The smoke puffs also illuminate nicely when you throw a little Emitter inside.)
Maybe some Primitive cones in front of the headlights to "contain" the God Rays? Sickleyield's tutorial says NOT to show the edges of the Primitive to the camera... but it works for little explosions. So I don't know. Maybe you need something more bumpy than a Primitive? I might try that in my scene, anyway.
EDIT: The thing about smay's fire/smoke effects is that there's often 3 different Surfaces. So that gives you three colored options & three different potential SSS volumes to play with in the same general space, though not necessarily overlapping space.
Regardless, if you were to do a similar thing with Primitives in front of a headlight (or a gun/tactical light in my case), maybe you could overlap the main cone with other primitives (another shape of cone, most likely) and throw in a different shade and/or different SSS levels? That might also help make it more interesting.
Here is the newest render on the latest I started. I don't have a title for it yet. The end of the month is coming up fast. Suggestions and comments are always welcome.
That's a fantastic setting. It reminds me of the old computer game Karateka.
Alright... let's pick some nits!
I guess I don't quite understand the strategy of the lighting. The man is 1/4 in darkness. I feel like the lighting scheme is backwards. If anyone should be shrouded, it's the monster. And I think of it like Ridley Scott's Alien (show as little of the monster as possible)... use shadow to heighten the fear of the unknown, in my amateur opinion. There's almost too much light on the monster IMO.
The weapons need to look more metallic. The blade of the katana almost looks rusty. The monster's weapons just look like plastic. If need be, hit the katana's blade with a spot light. That needs some bling.
The monster seems to be leaking or something :-) There's some odd patches of reflection on him or something. Is that intended, or is it just a partial render?
The right foot on the swordsman is rolled a little strangely. It could be more flush with the floor.
Thinking of my own (limited) training with the sword, he's very much on his back leg. While that can be okay, it's a very passive posture. A more centered body mass would be preferable.
One thing I like to look at, of course, is the Duel of the Fates in Star Wars Episode 1.
https://youtu.be/Oh4l39Lo194
Watch Ray Park (Darth Maul), and how he's virtually always centered and ready to move (either backwards or forwards). He his balance is amazing. Look at the middle of his body/center of mass, and watch the feet. The footwork is amazing in itself. Comparing it to Ewan McGregor, who has far less training (but is still admirable for where he is)... Ewan is just all over the place by comparison. He just doesn't have years of Wu Shu like Ray Park.
Hay thanks for the fast feed back "The Blurst of Times" when I started posing the figure I was thinking of a star wars type of pose obiwan had a particular stance at the beginning of a fight with general Grievous. I could not find an image of his full body stance so I searched google for photos of martial arts sword fighting to look for where the stance may have come from and I fond a similar taiwan style but the person has a far deeper stance than the star wars figure even though I can't see it all so I tried settling for something in-between. The monster guy reminds me somehow of Piccalo but has four arms. I made him using two genesis 2 male models and hide everything but the arms and put that inside of the other character. I'll play around with the light on the monster type guy. Thanks
New view, but not sure it's works?
This is a very interesting image. I like the sphere thing in the middle, how it's casting red light on the towers, and the way it's framed by the details of the backdrop. I'd like to see some stronger shadows...it almost seems like the humanoid figures are floating there...they don't seem to be casting shadows on the floor at all. And the overall composition, while I like it, probably has some room for improvement. It might look better if it were less symmetrical (see "rule of thirds" and the other tips from the January contest on composition).
Keep up the good work!
I think I like the lighting of this variant the best. I'd think about making her expression a little more subtle (which I think is maybe what you did in the next version). I don't like the alternate angle as much, to be honest, though it might have potential if you change the poses a bit.
In terms of composition, it might be stronger if you move the male character towards the center of the frame, so that the "sweet spots" of the image are at or near the woman's face and knife. I did a rough mock-up of this, see attached image. (You might even tilt the camera to get the sweet spots exactly on her face and knife...a tilted camera angle, or Dutch angle, might work really well for this image, as it often lends a sense of things being off-balance, disjointed, or distorted within the scene).
The view from the front is looking very good, though I still prefer the other angle conceptually. I don't have much in the way of recommendations for the front angle, though I liked what Linwelly had to say about it.
The view from the back is getting closer. I'd tighten the composition even more, though...maybe putting the troll right on the edge of the frame so that only part of his body is visible. And I think this view would require some lighting changes in order to provide the best-looking illumination for your characters (maybe even consider a different sort of sky, like sunrise/sunset).
Well that was a lot easier than I thought. But I'm not sure if it works for this scene...
I like it...I think it adds to the sense of movement and dynamism. Overall this is looking really good. I think you've got the right balance of natural and artificial lights. I'm not completely sold on the way the vehicles' surfaces look yet. I know they've gone through several different variations in your earlier renders. Personally I'd go with darker and/or more reflective for both of them...I think that might lend a slicker, speedier feeling to the scene. But that might be personal preference...do what feels right to you.
This is a very interesting image. I like the sphere thing in the middle, how it's casting red light on the towers, and the way it's framed by the details of the backdrop. I'd like to see some stronger shadows...it almost seems like the humanoid figures are floating there...they don't seem to be casting shadows on the floor at all. And the overall composition, while I like it, probably has some room for improvement. It might look better if it were less symmetrical (see "rule of thirds" and the other tips from the January contest on composition).
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the feedback. I certainly agree about the lack of shadows, will work on that to help "anchor" the characters. :-)
I appreciate the feedback. Changed a bunch of things over lunch time & let it render for a while.
Here's another early, not completely converged render. Plenty of graininess to resolve, but it's good enough to look at.
I added the Depth of Field effect. There's a lot of ground to keep in focus between the dead guy & his two living comrades. The man & woman in the center get in better focus if I cut down the focus area to their space, but then the dead guy gets very out of focus. I don't think I want to lose focus on him, as challenging as he is to get right. Anyway, I'd say what I feel about the Depth of Field effect, but I don't want to bias my feedback here.
I adjusted the dead guy, although I'm not yet satisfied. The eyes are not right yet. I shifted his color towards blue, but he could look more ashen, I think. Since I used Genesis 1 Male, I don't have tongue controls for the dead guy... unlike the Darius 6 figure who doesn't need to stick his tongue out. Oh well.
I took out the odd explosion in the front & threw up some projectiles from an Asari shotgun blast (there's an Asari commando in the background now). Eh, again, editing my own commentary on this.
Adjusted most hand positions.
Oh, and I fixed the issue with the woman's pant legs. Apparently, I loaded the boot separates in addition to the outfit... which comes with boots. (I guess you use the separate boots for the miniskirt.) The pant legs should be fine now.
Composition-wise, it's not there yet. Need to dial the whole thing in a lot better.
I feel like a heretic saying this, but I actually like it with a bit of noise. Like a grainy photograph, or possibly a screenshot from a slightly distorted video feed. Kind of lends a sense of realism, I think.
The depth of field effect I think is too strong. Because of the various subjects, I think you want to go subtle here. The woman should be in focus, and the dead guy in the foreground and the man in the background should be perhaps slightly out of focus, at most.
The way the foreground character's eyes are turned towards the camera makes him seem not quite dead...if you want him to really appear dead, I'd have his eyes either staring straight ahead, or up, as if they've rolled back a bit. Aside from that, all of the poses and expressions are very impressive, perfect for this scene.
I think the lighting is pretty good, but it might be a bit too strong, and the orange color might be a little too intense. Try turning it down a bit and see how that looks.
Overall, though, I would say that this is looking great!
I'm still working on it all here are the latest renders on the two images I'm working with the first intruders I an trying to clear up the lower quarter of the image as it seems jaggy. The set is build in a curved hallway that was made from a quarter of a torus hollowed out to make a tube the floor a disk so getting textures to appear rounded and clear without jags has been a challenge. The pose is somewhat satirical in the female as I was copying a boris vallejo image pose but this had to be at a different angle to work. The second new image I think I'll title " duel with the guardian". Both are WIP comments and suggestions are always welcome.
I worked on my swashbuckler, thanks for the feedback Blurst of Times. I wasn't so sure about the camera anlge in the last render, I wanted to try it as it seemed a good idea, now I stole that idea of tilting the camera to show some action and mixed the two things together I got this one. Now with showing how far the way down is I have a tradeoff of not being able to show all the details on his face like I wanted. So I'm still not fully convinced on this camera positiion.
I added the second guard, I had thought about adding one since some time but never did until now, so thank you for mentioning that.
For now I decided against a fire as I fear the light of a fire will draw the attention away from the main action.
I'm not sure if I shoud give the second guard more llight but as he is there just for adding danger I guess he has to stay a bit dim.