July 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Portrait Rendering

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  • HighElfHighElf Posts: 365

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

    Contest_Portrait_FullRender01.jpg
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  • Hi all, 

    This is just a W.I.P but wanted to get some feed back. I am thinking of giving this character 4 eyes, making him less human. The materials are not final.

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  • ItsCeoItsCeo Posts: 471

    Hi all, 

    This is just a W.I.P but wanted to get some feed back. I am thinking of giving this character 4 eyes, making him less human. The materials are not final.

    I like the determined look, and the matching top and greaves are cool.  The wings, of course, awesome.  Honestly tho, the first thing I saw was none of those, it was his hold on the war hammer.  The story in my mind is that he is about to wield the hammer... but his grip is way too high toward the head.  The reason for the long handle is to produce greater centripetal force to smash the foe with increased force.  The picture is defined, however, by only so much space, so I can see the need to scrunch things maybe.  Great pic, but I am a nerd and have to say that tactically your character probably would be holding the hammer differently if he was about to hit something/someone.

  • Shinji Ikari 9thShinji Ikari 9th Posts: 1,184
    edited July 2017

    Was hit by yet another idea for a render last night. I know it's on the darker side, but I've got to be getting ready to head out for work soon.

    Just noticed as I was posting that we got reflections of the fire that I used as my main light source. Like I said, I was hit by this last night, so I let it render in the background while I was trying to get some sleep to be rested for work today.

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    Post edited by Shinji Ikari 9th on
  • This is the first time I've posted anything for the competitions.  It's a fairly simple portrait study with a HDRI background and a large light plane with an IES profile for the softer key lighting. I'm pretty happy with it but I realise that there's something off with the eye shaders - I must have tweaked one setting too many at some point.

  • Marmalade BoyMarmalade Boy Posts: 103
    edited July 2017
    ItsCeo said:

    Hi all, 

    This is just a W.I.P but wanted to get some feed back. I am thinking of giving this character 4 eyes, making him less human. The materials are not final.

    I like the determined look, and the matching top and greaves are cool.  The wings, of course, awesome.  Honestly tho, the first thing I saw was none of those, it was his hold on the war hammer.  The story in my mind is that he is about to wield the hammer... but his grip is way too high toward the head.  The reason for the long handle is to produce greater centripetal force to smash the foe with increased force.  The picture is defined, however, by only so much space, so I can see the need to scrunch things maybe.  Great pic, but I am a nerd and have to say that tactically your character probably would be holding the hammer differently if he was about to hit something/someone.

    Thanks for your thoughts ItsCeo...I completely see what you are talking about with the hammer. I was actually trying to replicate the pose in the image below.  guess it looks off with a more realistic character. I adjusted the hammer...it looks better but not as comical as the image I based it on. 

     

    9d36eee42a42f596bc27c09615b31ec6.jpg
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    wip Big Hammer 2.png
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    Post edited by Marmalade Boy on
  • carmenaracarmenara Posts: 28
    HighElf said:

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

    Composition looks good. Just move the Exposure slider a little bit to the left in your render settings under Tone Mapping. 

  • carmenaracarmenara Posts: 28
    edited July 2017

    I am removing a few of my other images in this thread and updating 2 images that I intend to keep for the contest. 

    I have updated my first image "Daughter of the Wind" removing the Arabic text (it does not display correctly in Photoshop and is a known issue). 


    Title: Daughter of the Wind
    Software: Daz 3d Studio 4.9 Pro

    I created a new scene with action pose for the same character. This sunset backdrop is to illustrate that the character's unusual outfit (Austrani) appears to some utility in desert environments and sunset lighting. As I kept the background of the second image in focus, the character is slightly muted but that is by design.

    This scene is the first time I have manipulated the full set of lighting, environment, and tone mapping functions to achieve a desired result. Playing with the white balance to make the render require little to no post processing was fun! 


    Title: The Other Marik Gunfighter
    Software: Daz 3d Studio 4.9 Pro

    And a bit of background fluff I wrote today for her to use in my Battletech RPG Campaign. 

    Title: The Other Marik Gunfighter
    Background: 

    Carmen had a violent and tumultous upbringing on her homeworld of Alula Australis where her family was responsible for a modest but significant percentage of the world's agricultural exports. She was raised a rancher and fared poorly at it. She tells openly about being the victim of various targeted crimes for her religious beliefs until 'rescued' with the favor of a well to do relative who enrolled her into Princefield Military Academy's Aerofighter Program where in the second year she decided to switch to the MechWarrior track for undocumented reasons despite being naturally gifted for the then-experimental concept of electronics warfare and electronics intelligence; she offers a 'Mech unit the capability of passively observing enemy electronics emissions and calculating firing solutions for indirect fire with target motion analysis equations; a technique traditionally associated with maritime and space combat.

    Prevailing in the MechWarrior Program against nearly-impossible odds she graduated and enlisted in the FWLM where she was deployed to Les Halles on the Capellan border for several years before seeking her own fortune as a freelance mercenary on Galatea where she markets her 'Mech and herself as The Lady Feuerschwinge, a rare HER-2M variant that she refuses to explain how she obtained.

    She does not currently have a piloting assignment but avails herself in the darker areas of town for personal contracts; wetwork and social escort duties do pass the time and keep the bills settled until such time potential employers overlooked her poor 'Mech Gunnery score...

    The Other Marik Gunfighter v2.jpg
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    Daughter of the Wind v5s.jpg
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    Post edited by carmenara on
  • 17-7-mk0-portrait:

    portrait render mk0

    I got a catchlight working! It took some doing to get that bright reflection in her eyes without washing out the whole scene. (Part of that may have been forgetting to switch the headlight from 'Auto' to 'Off'.)

    Also, I made a setup that should keep eyes pointed at the camera without any strangeness from getting too close!

    Problems, though:

    • That fuzzyness near the top of the image. DoF problem, or does it just need longer baking? I didn't notice it in preliminary rendering.
    • Should I move the camera up to focus in on her face (+ shoulders?)? (Yes, that's a question inside a question.)
    • I'm trying to get better at lighting, so I should nix that background and add another glowy thing or two.
    • I want to tweak the posing more. Not sure entirely how, but my eventual hope is to express a bit of laughter. Going to need to dive into the finer controls, get into stuff like eye crinkling. (It may be a little daunting.)

     

  • Celes1138Celes1138 Posts: 16
    edited July 2017

    So I have two renders I can't decide between now. The first is the first one I made and I'm done fiddling with it for now until I figure out what else I want to do to it. The other is one I made and showed to my DeviantArt first because I couldn't decide if I wanted to enter it or not. Finally decided I'll just post both and see which one looks best here. Did some custom texture work for a birthmark on the new one to make my friend's description of her character:

    Care for a Drink?

     

    Shadowed Killer

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    Post edited by Celes1138 on
  • jigiteeljigiteel Posts: 6
    HighElf said:

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

     

  • jigiteeljigiteel Posts: 6
    HighElf said:

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

     

  • jigiteeljigiteel Posts: 6

    My first attempt at a portrait. Done with DAZ Anastasiya for Rune 7.

  • HighElfHighElf Posts: 365

    After some Changes on the Fill Light. I've got this.:) The Exposure Value turns out, to be a little bit too bright for my taste. But it worked nice in other projects.

    Contest_Portrait_FullRender03.jpg
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  • mal3Imagerymal3Imagery Posts: 712

    Not new to the 3D world, but never used Daz for any of my rendering.  So tried out Daz render for the first time :)

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,054

    Pretty good for a first time user or Daz Studio. What do you think of it? Was it an enjoyable experience?

  • jigiteeljigiteel Posts: 6

    My first attempt at a portrait. Done with DAZ Anastasiya for Rune 7.

    jigiteel said:

    My first attempt at a portrait. Done with DAZ Anastasiya for Rune 7.

     

    jigiteel said:
    HighElf said:

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

     

     

    jigiteel said:
    HighElf said:

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

     

     

  • daybirddaybird Posts: 654
    edited July 2017

     

    Not new to the 3D world, but never used Daz for any of my rendering.  So tried out Daz render for the first time :)

    surprise.... and the winner is... 

     

    Post edited by daybird on
  • Marmalade BoyMarmalade Boy Posts: 103
    edited July 2017

    Update...I am trying the 4eyes look..see second image. I am rendering in Keyshot so have to fix that annoying green texture border line once completed. I might change the hammer to all metal but I like the wood (will have to work on the final texture). the only major thing left to do is light this bad boy up.

    As always, your thoughts are welcomed.

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    Post edited by Marmalade Boy on
  • fuceyefuceye Posts: 45
    edited July 2017

     

    simple can be very complicated...

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    Post edited by fuceye on
  • Shinji Ikari 9thShinji Ikari 9th Posts: 1,184
    edited July 2017

    Here we are with version f of my primary project this month.  Added some DoF, and did a little twiking on the textures of the maps.

    july2017f.png
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    Post edited by Shinji Ikari 9th on
  • Shinji Ikari 9thShinji Ikari 9th Posts: 1,184
    edited July 2017

    Here's yet a 5th idea for this month. The character is a morph for g3f that I grabbed here.

    july2017-5a.png
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    Post edited by Shinji Ikari 9th on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947

    Starting from the last I'll try to give some feedback on the many portrait works presented here

     

    Here's yet a 5th idea for this month. The character is a morph for g3f that I grabbed here.

    Shinji I think the emphasis is too much on the muzzle flare in this one, the brightness of it catches all the attention. you know, its portrait this time, not action ;) the goggels look a bit strange to me as well, probably take a look at those.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947

    Here we are with version f of my primary project this month.  Added some DoF, and did a little twiking on the textures of the maps.

    I like this one very much and as well the developement you made with it. The brightness of some parts in the front and in the back through the window is a bit much and distracts from the character. Maybe you can as well reduce the refelctivity on the glasses as the left eye is not visible at all right now.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947
    fuceye said:

     

    simple can be very complicated...

    I like the way you use a spotlight on your character and leave the rest in the dark, all this looks very professional. I do feel the need to remind you that we're doing portraits here though and the focus here does not really seem to be the face, or the person as a whole

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947

    Update...I am trying the 4eyes look..see second image. I am rendering in Keyshot so have to fix that annoying green texture border line once completed. I might change the hammer to all metal but I like the wood (will have to work on the final texture). the only major thing left to do is light this bad boy up.

    As always, your thoughts are welcomed.

    You've put yourself to quite the challenge with that 4 eye look and I'm not really sure if I can give you good advice on that, I feel like you could move the second pair down a bit further probabaly try to reduce the brow of the original head with morphs or d-formers ( or the equivalent for that program you use which I don't know anything about). The lights sure need to get some more key light but as you said you still need to adjust that, lets see what you come up with. About the hammer, you need to take care that is doesn't steal the show. I believe the size belongs to the character idea so probably try some depth of field for that.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947
    jigiteel said:

    My first attempt at a portrait. Done with DAZ Anastasiya for Rune 7.

    jigiteel said:

    My first attempt at a portrait. Done with DAZ Anastasiya for Rune 7.

     

    jigiteel said:
    HighElf said:

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

     

     

    jigiteel said:
    HighElf said:

    My first try to do smth that isn't a Tutorial Project. ;)

    Scene in DAZ with a 3P lighting setup and rendered with IRay. I don't know why it doesn't come out as bright as I hoped for.

    Additionally Ive done a little bit GIMP Postwork to brighten the scene somewhat up. And again it didn't come out as bright as expected. But for a first go, I like it and I've decided to keep it as a reminder.

     

     

    did you upload an image? Probably try again

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947

    Not new to the 3D world, but never used Daz for any of my rendering.  So tried out Daz render for the first time :)

    I hope you enjoyed your experience Mal! As you know how to do your protraits, let me do some nitpicking, just for the fun of it ;) I think the light/dof combination you used looses some of the interesting details on his forehead, looks a bit to softened out for the guy you present here. The other thing I found is that the lips seem a bit light coloured especially on the seams like the subsurface scattering is a bit high (SSS).

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947

    So I have two renders I can't decide between now. The first is the first one I made and I'm done fiddling with it for now until I figure out what else I want to do to it. The other is one I made and showed to my DeviantArt first because I couldn't decide if I wanted to enter it or not. Finally decided I'll just post both and see which one looks best here. Did some custom texture work for a birthmark on the new one to make my friend's description of her character:

    Care for a Drink?

     

    Shadowed Killer

    I like both works you present here and I like how different you approachd the topic with them.

    Let me start with the dark one. Nice use of a spot in darkness theme and it suits the character. Still I think your character would win with a touch of backlight pushin his putlines a bit

    With the other one you went a bit too monochrome with the tones and the light. You have a niceh use of DOF and thw overall lighting on the character seems nice, but I would like to see him set off the backwall a bit more ( darken the backwall / reduce the light hitting the backwall there are always several options)

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,947

    17-7-mk0-portrait:

    portrait render mk0

    I got a catchlight working! It took some doing to get that bright reflection in her eyes without washing out the whole scene. (Part of that may have been forgetting to switch the headlight from 'Auto' to 'Off'.)

    Also, I made a setup that should keep eyes pointed at the camera without any strangeness from getting too close!

    Problems, though:

    • That fuzzyness near the top of the image. DoF problem, or does it just need longer baking? I didn't notice it in preliminary rendering.
    • Should I move the camera up to focus in on her face (+ shoulders?)? (Yes, that's a question inside a question.)
    • I'm trying to get better at lighting, so I should nix that background and add another glowy thing or two.
    • I want to tweak the posing more. Not sure entirely how, but my eventual hope is to express a bit of laughter. Going to need to dive into the finer controls, get into stuff like eye crinkling. (It may be a little daunting.)

     

    unfortunately you render link doesn't work for me so I cant look at it in large, so for some things I'm unable to geve a good feedback, like about fuzzyness at the top.

    Where you point your camera and how to compose you render is mostly a question of what you want to show. you can always set up a second camera and tes different frames and angles with that. generally there is a tool in the viewoport (show thirds guide) that helps you to position the parts you want the viewe to notice mosts at the points where the lines are crossing, often that would be the head or the eyes in a closer version. The girl in your render is doing a yoga pose, its about balance, you placed her to one side which tilts the balance. You can do that kind of things but you should do them consiously, you could support your tilt in the balance with a colour gradient in the background, or an opponent (eg a butterfly). or you want to present perfect balance then place her in the middle facing front. Probabyl it would help you to look up the links from the composition challenge earlier this year. This would as well influence the way you put your lights, so no easy answer there.

    I cant say much about the expression as it is, its mostly a question of dialing and spot render to see how much different it looks.

     

     

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