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I'll have to see what I can do with the iterations the next version, because I was at defalt max limit. Thanks for your feadback though.
Click the little cogwheel icon on the slider and you get to the settings where you can turn the limit off. I've been finding myself needing to do that more often than not lately.
This particular tutorial is about adding grunge to a geoshell but you can use a geoshell for just about anything.
A friend just created a geoshell of a terrain, applied deformers to it and turned it into a fog prop.
This is not a tutorial on geometry shells per se, but point 3 describes how to use one and I think it could be useful for other purposes too and not only for what that article is about. (there's probably better to be found, but this is what I could think of right away)
http://thinkdrawart.com/how-to-get-wet-skin-in-iray
And the render looks nice :)
This makes it look like a completely new image. I like this setup better.
And thank you for the tutorials I am off to check those out.
Hmm I can see how the geometry shell can be very useful thank you! Will have to do some experimenting with that.
Hey guys, sorry I bailed on you all this month. This bear cub just wiped me out. No matter what I did, I couldn't figure out how to fix those white specks on his coat. I finally reread the entire LAMH thread for the fourth time and rewatched AM's tutorials. I finally figured out a step that I hadn't tried that actually made all the difference. Under surface settings, make sure the fur is set to matte as the light type. Plastic is apparently the default for the bear cub THEN hit the bear with the uber iray shader. After that, play with whatever surface settings you want to make the fur behave under Iray the way you want. I didn't have that problem when I followed the wolf tutorial, but when AM did the koala tutorial, he pointed that out. That was actually needed for the bear. Anyway, I actually managed to get a pretty good render after I played with all of my surface settings.
I added some color to the diffuse channel which added some depth to the fur templates. I found that the eyes actually did have their own channel so I made sure to leave that one alone and that fixed the problem with the white of his eyes. I had to dial down the translucency weight and dial up the diffuse roughness on some parts like the fur and pads of the feet and dial up the translucency weight and leave the diffuse roughness down at zero on the teeth and claws. I played with the surface of the leaves a little, but mostly I found I didn't have time to play with them. So, they are mostly how they are when loading other than being hit with the uber iray shader.
I played with my final render in Gimp just briefly. Adjust brightness/contrast and added some lense flare and added a touch of lighting around the fur in spots for highlights. I have three attachments: my raw render as it came out of DAZ, my render after brightness/contrast, saturation and highlighting, and then my final attachment, I just played with the hue and saturation some ( I may have gotten some leaves a little too pink) and added the lense flare. I honestly don't know which one I like better although I'm leaning to the second one. I'm thinking of just uploading both of my final pics and let whatever happen sort of happen. I'm leaving for Texas tomorrow and I just don't have time to do any more work on my bear cub. He is as good as he is going to get until after I get back which won't be until after the contest is over.
I do feel bad that I didn't manage to give much input on anyone else's renders this go round. When I started this bear, I actually didn't think he would be this hard and I thought might actually get two totally different renders in like last month. That just isn't going to happen. I have seen some really good renders and you guys are doing an awesome job. Sonja confused me, though, because when I first started getting caught up on the posts, I thought Sonja and Ice Dragon Art were two different people then I figured out she just changed her username on me.
Sonja, I love the render. If you aren't done, you might want to see if you can lower your ground prop (I find it is sometimes easier to do that than raise everything else) jsut a smidge to get the claws out of the ground and fix the sleeping roll. It is barely noticable, so if you are done and don't want to rerender, you are probably fine. I love the dirt. She actually looks like she has been out camping. I liked your first render, too, btw, with the girl in the doorway.
Kathryn!!! Wow! I love what you managed to do with your hero. Very good job.
Shinji - I think you went a little too cool on the colors there. I liked the other version that just needed the lighting toned down like other mentioned. Not sure what you did to get those colors, Is that just a change in color?
I'll check back in when I get back from Texas. I have no idea what kind of internet service I'll be getting so probably won't get on the forum while I'm gone. I'll probably post my renders to the contest before I hit the sack tonight after I see if anyone has any comments. At this point, I can't render anything else so any changes will have to be strictly postwork in Gimp. This last render took over 20 hours to render.
I like the middle one Knittingmommy, I agree with you the third one, the leaves are too pink. Super cute! And sorry I confused you lol. I figured I should start out the way I mean to go early enough that it isn't so painful later. I am pretty much done I think. If I mess with it again I am going to have to redo all the post work and between work and Thanksgiving at our house, that's probably not going to happen.
Sonja - I understand completely. Sometimes, you just have to say I'm done. Hope you have fun over Thanksgiving. It sounds like you'll have a houseful.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Stay safe.
You too! Enjoy your trip!
Don't feel bad, I did the same thing! lol!
Thank you very much!
I'm in Texas! Where abouts if you don't mind me asking. I'm about two hours east of Houston.
Unfortunately, my dad passed earlier this week so I'm in the middle of making arrangments. The only day we can have the memorial at his church before Thanksgiving is Tuesday, so I've got last minute stuff to do on Monday. Then I gotta clean out his place and find a home for his cat (I have 3 otherwise I'd take it).
So I think I'll call mine done and go ahead and enter it. I don't want to get caught up in everything and forget after all this work. lol!
Cheers,
Kath
Hi, Knitting Mommy,
Hope things all work out. I've a few things to think about.
When using some of the alpha leaf and other props made from planes, they can sometimes unnatural because they don't alway have the dimension that some curvature provides the renderer to shade; the shape can end up looking to cut out. At these times, a little hand editing, if not possible in the render setup, then in something like Photoshop. I know Gimp has many features similar to those in PS, but I'm just not familiar with Gimp, so I'll just explain what I did and maybe it's something that you can do in the scene setup and/or Gimp.
The first that I noticed was the shape position of the leaves. I chose what I felt were key leaves to further support what you had set-up. One thing was the upper leaves were enclosed within the top boundary of the image. You cand see you have leaves cutting off on the sides and bottom telling us the leaves are in the process of falling, which is good. :) If you look at the line of sight on your cub, he's presently not looking at anything we can see. So moved a leaf into that sight-line. I also cut it off to give it more movement as if just coming into the camera as we take the shot. All the leaves go across the top of the cub's head in an almost perfect horizontal and mainly the leaves all vertical. So I also rotated the sight-line leaf and moved one of the others down to break that horizontal emphasis. I curved a couple more leaves and used the burn brush to darken and curve the orange leaf to make it 1) less prominent and 2) make it more natural. Now the leaves cascade in a more or less triangular way that points to the same leaf that the cub is looking at.
Note: If Gimp can't cut out and fill in the holes where the leaves were, perhaps you can render the leaves separately. Compositing can be made easier if you render some things more than once: 1. with everything, 2. with no leaves, 3. just the leaves. This gives you a way to cut and paste things with more ease.
Do you see what the changes provided?
I like the use of the lens flare. I like the scene. Hope this helps and gives you a few things to think over. :)
Kath, saw your final render in the contest thread. Very good!!!. Love all of the work you did on him. I'm headed to Garrison, TX. I looked it up after I read this and it looks like it is about 2 1/2 hours from Houston. We are going to visit friends of my husband's that we haven't seen since we were first married. NY to TX was just too far to travel very often. They haven't even met my boys. Now that we are in FL, we wanted to go visit and this week seemed like a good time. Sorry to hear about your dad. That is rough. I'll be thinking of you while I travel. If it is anything like when my dad passed away, clearning out your dad's stuff will be quite a job. I found out mine was a closet pack rat who loved QVC. I hope you have an easier time of it. Just remember all of the happy times and you'll get through it. It is funny to think about it now, but we ended up with my dad's cat, too. That was not an easy transition for the poor cat.
Sorry to read about your father Kath, I wish your family well in these times.
I myself lost my father going on 12 years ago, and I still miss him to this day.
Oh, Kath, I'm so sorry for your loss. My mom passed away on Thanksgiving Day in 1999. My grandmother a month later two days before Christmas (at 99 years old), so I know how stressfull these things can be especially when it's during a big holiday as well. Take care of yourself and pace yourself to give yourself space to grieve in your own way.
Going offline folks. I submited my favorite of the bear renders. Talk to everyone when I get back in a week or so.
Aw Kath I am so sorry!
ty ty ty ty soooo much. This was so easy to understand and got it done just now,
I am trying a whole new concept for the contest scrapped the other one as it started giving my lappy fits
Couldn't resist popping in one more time before I shut down the computer for the night. Chris, this is a lot of good info and I appreciate you showing me what you did. I wish I had time to play around with this, but I don't. Even though the contest will be over when I get back, I'm going to give this a try. Postwork is not my strong suit yet. I'm learning. I get better at it with each render. Thanks for the comments. It was actually the first time I used the lens flare effect in Gimp. The hard part was figuring out where I wanted it.
Wishing everyone good luck on the contest. I expect to see lots of renders in there when I get back.
Sorry for your loss kathryn, Please accept my condolences.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the thread but thank you EVERYONE for your wishes and sympathies, I really appreciate it. Things had been going downhill for my dad this past year and honestly that was the toughest part, to see the mental faculties going, it was just getting tougher and tougher for him to do anything and tougher and tougher for us to keep up. Honestly, the only reason why I moved to Texas was because of him and that it was cheaper than southern California. My parents are divorced with my mom still living in So. Cal, and spending some summer months in Arizona, I'd love to move back to be with her, but honestly, I like living in Texas and I definitely don't want to go back to So. Cal - too expensive! I just wish I could be closer. Texas is a big state!
Thank you again everyone. I'm going to be running like crazy later today getting last minute stuff nailed down. But we're doing okay over here, all things considered.
Cheers,
Kath
I am so sorry for your loss Kath. My condolences to you and your family.
Thank you so much, Kismet! You guys are all absolutely awesome! But I really didn't mean to get everything sidetracked. So let's get everything going the right direction. I must admit I am second guessing myself on my entry here. I threw it up there but this morning figured out how to fix that funky shadow on his chest. So now I'm in a bit of a quandary - I like both renders but for different reasons and I'm thinking I should reupload the corrected one as I like it the best.
Here's the initial one where I turned him slightly to get rid of the shadow.
But this is the one with the funky shadow that I was able to fix and I like this one the best - I think.
GAH! I can't decide! Which one do y'all like?
Cheers,
Kath
I seem to be a bit late but I wish to add my condoleances too. I'm sorry for your loss Kathryn. My mother died after long illness and my father died suddenly, so I know that no matter how someone passes on we're never fully prepared for it when it happens. Family and friends are invaluable at those times though.
As for your renders, I like the background colours more in the second one but I think I'd still pick the first one. It's brighter and you can better see the sash. It doesn't half disappear into shadows. The second one also seems to be cropped a little too close, cutting off more of the magic effect in his hand and leaving barely any room above his head. Just my opinion though. Feel free to ignore it. ;)
Thank you, Isidorn.
On the renders I agree with you - I'm practially listing pros and cons on each one. The first one I like for all the reasons you mentioned but the second one I like for not only the background color but the general skin tone and hair color as well, not to mention the camera angle and that his eyes are more vivid. The drawbacks as you mentioned are the close crop and the dark sash and pants. I changed my DAZ file to the camera angle that's the first image, I wonder if I can move it back and see if I can render a new image more like the second but not as dark. Hrmmmmm things to think about.
Thank you again!
Cheers,
Kath
I've been busy for the past week, but I FINALLY got around to redoing this scene last night since the original one was bugged somehow. DS still crashes every time I try to open this scene. So...I started from scratch since I had all the assets, tried a slightly different pose, and saved the scene last night planning to work on it tonight.
Would you believe it!? When I tried to open the new scene today, IT CRASHED DS, TOO!!
Now I have 2 different saved files of basically the same scene, and both crash DS when I try to load them. I swear, I must not be meant to learn anything this month!!
I didn't render out the new scene, but below is the first one.
Anyone have a clue what's going on, or what can be done from here?
Oh one thing I just remembered, I had a scene giving me the same problem. What antivirus software are you running? Do you have anything like EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit or Hitman Pro Alert? These and others like them are a mitigation software that prevents hackers taking advantage of crashing programs to get in your system.
When a scene gets to a certain point with memory resources, DAZ has trouble with memory overruns which will activate the mitigation software and shut it down. And with your "fog" in the background - I'm thinking that might be the case. Check your antivirus logs if possible. If you do have something like that pull DAZ out of it completely. If you're running DAZ 4.8 you can also try downloading the latest public beta build and see if that will get the file to open. They've improved the memory usage with 4.9 a bit.
If that's not it - do you remember everything you have in the scene? I'm wondering if someone with the same elements could try opening one of the files - if you zipped it and emailed it. You can try rebuilding the scene one item at a time and see if its something specific causing it to crash. Or last, but not least, contact support and see if they can help you figure it out.