First Renders since break

ProtegeArts

Hello everyone,

I would like feedback on these renders. I've been practicing on lighting/popsing/and camera positioning. Any help to improve on hese would be great!

thank you in advance

dtrscbrutal

 It can be a bit difficult to give feedback if we don't know what it is you are trying to acheve with your imagey. This looks like it might be sequential art such as a comic/graphic novel. I also get an anime vibe from it. 
  I like the image of the woman in the vehicle best. The posing of the character is good but a little blank on expression. I like how the light falls on the character but suspect it would improve with more light, brighter on her face and all those cool textures on her clothes without loosing the shadows. Perhaps light from the vehicles instrument displays and/or ambient light from outside. Try colors. To my eye this scene calls out for a cityscape background, with enough light to create a subtle back/rim light on the character. Something that would make her pop from the background. I wonder how that image would look in a 16:9 aspect ratio, that might not work for a comic panel though. That image has a lot of potential.

ProtegeArts

Sorry, I've been the type to over share and have been limiting myself to that. So i apologize if i didn't give a lot a detail. I'll give them now(sorry for this late reply as well)

The girl with the gun was a test scene. learning how to aim light in a colourful scene. Giving her more of a harley quinn-esque vibe. Happy to eliminate someone just for the fun of it. Which is why she is smiling while aiming the gun down. I had other angles but i never saved them. Its a scene that will be added later on. Not in the same way. In more in a serious manner. So learning and postioning the camera where I can get some emotion from both models is what i was going for in that scene.

The second one, was me messing around with the lighting in a dark enviroment. in that scene, the woman is fed up chasing after a woman who is key to taking down a corrupt police force. She was hired by a high political figure in a different country to take down the corruption and put in thier own people so they can smuggle in contraban without the police force intervening. She gets a call for an update, which is why she has a blank expression. She's tired. She's been chasing the woman for a few months and nothing has came of it.

As for the suit I didn't find anything I liked until i checked my assets and found that Vic 8 pro came with it and used it. Her suit blending in the background is so she could do her assignments unnoticed. I didn't think of it until i started putting it together. I enjoyed putting the scene and story together and that was the finished product. The scene is basically expressing her own inner doubt about the overall mission with the colour scheme. The scene screams "boring" but that was the effect i was going for. why does whe look bored, why is it so dark, where is she going, what is she doing, where is she. that was the question I was aiming for. It does need a bit of more colour looking at it now, at the moment it felt right.

I didn't continue this or added more since I had to head to work. I didn't save the scene in my DAZ folder, just the image after it was done rendering. So i wouldn't be able to tell you what would've been since it was in the moment. I hope this clears up somethings within these renders and hope to get a bit more feedback. The novel im working on(which i haven't started, still want to learn more before starting.) sorta refelcts what I'm trying to do within these renders. Fun and sorta choatic but with some backstory hidden by using subtle expressions that with blends in with the background while using the camera fade effect on the background using certain colours. I know it sounds complicated but I love a challenge. I love psychology and mixing both in a scene makes a person feel a certain way. I still have ways to learn about using light probe/light effects within DAZ and with my limited time I have now, I can only do this for so long before I need to rest for work and test new ways to improve in random renders.

 

edit: as for the third image, its just me messing around and seeing what is my limit when it comes to how many charactrers can i fit before crashing as well as clothing, hair styles/colours before crashing.

edit 2: third image, I  meant the third set of renders with the 2 women entering the building.

dtrscbrutal

 I think it really helps to have a clear idea of what the final image is going to look like when you start working. Knowing what your goal is will guide how you light and compose your image. You might want to create a mood board/inspiration board to help with that. A Sin City inspired image will be setup very different than a Boris Vallejo style poster. I suggest you spend some time looking at imagery, art, book covers, movie scenes, etc. and really study the ones you like and understand how they are put together. How are these images lit? How are they composed? What do the expressions look like? What are the backgrounds, the colors used? Then use this information to start building your images and scenes.
 Lighting is the most important thing, when rendering with Iray, IMHO. I would say that should be your primary focus until you are consistently getting the results you want. For me good lighting means getting linear with the lights, emissive cylinders, rows of lights, large reflectors, things like that. But that is me, you might be better served by using HDRIs. This is why it is key to narrow in on what you want your imagery to look like, then pursue it. I encourage you to experiment with the lights as much as you can.
 In visual media details accumulate very quickly, and these details either work for you, or against you in what you are trying to present. My opinion, there is no middle ground with details, they work, or they don't. An artist builds the world they are trying to show with details. Details are traditionally layered in from background to foreground. If your render is in a city, then show it. The buildings, the lights, the vehicles, the people, architecture, trash, the graffiti. Build your world so that a person looking at your image will know instantly what it is. 
 I hope you find this helpful.

ProtegeArts

This really helps. I have an idea after thinking about it. The best way to describe it is "Harry Potter" from Ch 1-2 vibrant to a darker tone as the story progesses. While hiding the way they feel using that. Hard to describe it when I can see it. Being descriptive is something i was good at, i will test a new render with what I'm trying to describe within the next few days. I have today and tomrrow afternoon free so it will give me some time(i will be working on it after i send this response). Using a bright/vibrant background and changing it up as if the stroy was advancing in the renders. Not my story but a whole new one.

One thing i did was doing everything at the same time. Posing/lighting and did the background last. The best way to say it; not setting up the scene and just winging it as I went along. As shown in my post. So that is what I will be working at. My story has progressed; writing form. As for the renders, its more difficult than i imagined. So much to learn and so much that goes into this that i wasn't prepared. I love it! I pushes me to get better and thats what i like.

Again, I will post series of renders to get the feel im feeling and hope what i took from your comments, I improved.

ProtegeArts

Here's a small update.

I was working on the first image but got a little motivated and ended up adding 7 more characters, just the model walking towards the edge of the steps and getting ready to call someone(using the girl in the car as a motivation for that scene) before the call.

The first and second image is me trying to fix the textures on the clothes and don't know how to fix it.

the last set is me messing with the colour scheme and trying to see which one look better. The lighting in the fourth image is the yellow tint i used in the third image to give it more of a natural look in the night as night lights on the house(using spotlights.) The firth is me changing the light to match the other 2(used 3 spotlights.) The last one, somehow the spotlights decided to stop aiming the lights down and it look good. As the scene takes place at night time.

edit: Deleted the fifth image due to forgetting the model cheeks showed. These 2 scenes crashed DAZ plenty of times throughtout the evening and throughout the night. Crashed a few times this afternoon while posing/rendering. Reuploaded what would've been image 5