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Post Your Renders - #4: A New Hope

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  • briandaz_3e696c2bd8briandaz_3e696c2bd8 Posts: 0
    edited February 2013

    Garstor said:
    Even directly entering values is hard -- it only goes out to 100ths of a foot.

    There's an option in the scene properties (Interface tab) to show more (or fewer) decimal digits. It can go from 0 to 5. If you type more digits than are displayed, it does save that precise value, even if it only shows 2 digits.
    You can also change the unit of measure there. Also, while Carrara doesn't "dynamically" change the unit depending on scale, you can still enter a value with any unit of measure you want. it will be converted to the scene unit automatically. Just type 3mm or 2.25in, or even 1.3mi.
    Post edited by briandaz_3e696c2bd8 on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck said:
    evilproducer said:
    I actually love the posing in Carrara. I usually at the minimum have the feet track target helpers. The last picture I posted used targets for the the hands and feet to aid in the posing. Helps with animating as well.Okay, somebody wrote a very simple guide on how to do this. I tried it and either didn't set it up right, use it right, or something else. Would you be willing to explain, in layman's terms, how to use targets on the hands and feet to help with animations, while telling me why they help? I always move and rotate the hip to where I think that should go, and rotate everything else to how they need to respond. This is actually very easy and gives fantastic results for me. But I'm seriously interested on how this works. I suppose it's not really as useful for simple walking, but when you have a bike with pedals, you might then be able to parent the helpers to the pedals to have the feet follow? Hmmm... think think think...


    I didn't mean to sound so whining. I do love the speed that I can setup a scene in Carrara.

    But the fine-tuning work can be aggravating. Even directly entering values is hard -- it only goes out to 100ths of a foot. If you see a change in position it is either way too little or way too much. One nice thing about LightWave (Garstor ducks the spinning roundhouse kick) is that the grid adaptively changes resolution as you zoom in and out...it easily scales from kilometers to micrometers.

    Don't worry, buddy. You've only just begun your long journey into the vast awesomeness that is called: Working with 3d! One day I want to buy Lightwave as well... so we can compare notes and model together.


    I don't have time at the moment to get too detailed, but I'll try and work on something soon. There may be others that can offer more advanced advice.


    I find targets helpful in that I can lock feet to the floor as an example. When you grab the hip without using target helpers the whole figure moves. If you set targets and have the feet track those, you can move the hip and the feet stay where the are. You can also keyframe the tracking and turn it on or off through the timeline.


    Your example of using targets parented to moving pedals on a bike and having the feet of a figure track the targets is a great example of how they could aid an animation. You could also parent one to the handle bars and have one hand track it and suddenly you can have your figure pedaling, steering and freely waving a hand.


    There can be some wonkiness with the IK sometimes. It's usually with the constraints (in my case at any rate) but that can be handled by customizing the limits.


    My Bikini Car Wash picture had a target helper parented to the V4's hand that was holding the hose. The end of the hose was then set to track the helper and the IK in the hose's rig allowed me to fairly simply pose the hose. I had locked constraints on the first couple of bones near the nozzle to keep the end behaving.

    Picture_2.png
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  • SockrateaseSockratease Posts: 813
    edited December 1969

    wendy♥catz said:
    I am surprised Sockratease has not posted one of these renders yet

    I haven't spent much time rendering. 'Puter's been busy video editing...

    But that's a nifty Cow in a Crystal!

    Here's my most recent render.

    Back in prehistoric times, Mountain Cows would lay their eggs up on hilltops to keep them safe from predators.

    This caused consternation amongst the prehistoric Birds and Bees, who came over to have "That Talk" with The Cows and hopefully put them on the right path.

    eggy.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 630K
  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    brianorca said:
    Garstor said:
    Even directly entering values is hard -- it only goes out to 100ths of a foot.
    There's an option in the scene properties (Interface tab) to show more (or fewer) decimal digits. It can go from 0 to 5. If you type more digits than are displayed, it does save that precise value, even if it only shows 2 digits.

    Thanks! I'll look for that. I really wish it would show the full precision though -- that'll be another thing to file under my UI annoyances. ;)

    You can also change the unit of measure there. Also, while Carrara doesn't "dynamically" change the unit depending on scale, you can still enter a value with any unit of measure you want. it will be converted to the scene unit automatically. Just type 3mm or 2.25in, or even 1.3mi.

    Yep - as a Canadian I should Carrara in metric mode...I cannot recall why I set it back to the abyssmal confusion of feet and inches. I didn't know about the on-the-fly conversion though -- that's neat (I know LightWave does that).

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    I find targets helpful in that I can lock feet to the floor as an example. When you grab the hip without using target helpers the whole figure moves. If you set targets and have the feet track those, you can move the hip and the feet stay where the are.

    YES! Praise the Flying Spahgetti Monster! THIS is what I need when posing. Must seek this information out today (while pretending to work).

    My Bikini Car Wash picture had a target helper parented to the V4's hand that was holding the hose. The end of the hose was then set to track the helper and the IK in the hose's rig allowed me to fairly simply pose the hose. I had locked constraints on the first couple of bones near the nozzle to keep the end behaving.

    Those little triangles along the hose are bones for rigging I believe? I really need to learn that for the velvet ropes that I want to put into my gallery scene...what I came up with last night is vomitously ugly...

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Ew! I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit...

    Alright, I surrender. I definitely need to use bones on this velvet rope. Clearly, I need a much better texture for it too. I used the "bend" transformation in LightWave but it just doesn't seem to have the fine-grained control that I need and that I am pretty sure bones would give me.

    I probably need to do a much better job with modeling the rings for attaching the ropes to the queuing pole. Live and learn as they say!

    More on that awful texture: I started with the built-in "moss" texture since I thought it would give me the fuzzy velvet look I needed...maybe it does when you are up-close. Being a green texture map I tried using the Add and Multiply operators to change it to a red colour. Ugh! I'll definitely need to come up with something myself.

    test_8.png
    1000 x 640 - 821K
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Garstor, the hose was rigged.


    It will be a trade off with the mesh for the ropes. The higher poly the mesh, the better the mesh will bend with rigging. Just don't get too high of a mesh or it becomes difficult to work with. At least on my older system. I made my hose 30 virtual feet, but I extruded it out so I had a polygon every six inches. My rig does have quite a few bones, around forty or fifty. It was almost too unwieldy. I probably could have got away with a shorter hose. maybe I'll stick that up on ShareCG as well.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Garstor, I almost forgot, for the velvet look, have you considered hair? Maybe one or two segments per guide and about 1/8" long (or less)? Stu used it on a Fedora hat in one of his pictures. Looked awesome.

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    brianorca said:
    There's an option in the scene properties (Interface tab) to show more (or fewer) decimal digits. It can go from 0 to 5. If you type more digits than are displayed, it does save that precise value, even if it only shows 2 digits.

    I poked around in the properties, but alas, I just couldn't find it! I'm pretty sure that I looked at every property page. I must be missing something.

    I did switch back to metric at least! :)

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    Garstor, the hose was rigged.

    It will be a trade off with the mesh for the ropes. The higher poly the mesh, the better the mesh will bend with rigging. Just don't get too high of a mesh or it becomes difficult to work with. At least on my older system. I made my hose 30 virtual feet, but I extruded it out so I had a polygon every six inches. My rig does have quite a few bones, around forty or fifty. It was almost too unwieldy. I probably could have got away with a shorter hose. maybe I'll stick that up on ShareCG as well.

    I'll have to go back and find the talk in PhilW's training on bones and rigging. I know he didn't get complex; but I don't need complex.

    As for the velvet and using hair...like rigging, I've never used the hair feature...it scares me! :lol: Seriously, those are two things that I really do need to learn. I think I'll redo that velvet rope in Carrara.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Sockratease said:
    wendy♥catz said:
    I am surprised Sockratease has not posted one of these renders yet

    I haven't spent much time rendering. 'Puter's been busy video editing...

    But that's a nifty Cow in a Crystal!

    Here's my most recent render.

    Back in prehistoric times, Mountain Cows would lay their eggs up on hilltops to keep them safe from predators.

    This caused consternation amongst the prehistoric Birds and Bees, who came over to have "That Talk" with The Cows and hopefully put them on the right path.


    Great Bovinosaurus!

  • SockrateaseSockratease Posts: 813
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    Sockratease said:
    wendy♥catz said:
    I am surprised Sockratease has not posted one of these renders yet

    I haven't spent much time rendering. 'Puter's been busy video editing...

    But that's a nifty Cow in a Crystal!

    Here's my most recent render.

    Back in prehistoric times, Mountain Cows would lay their eggs up on hilltops to keep them safe from predators.

    This caused consternation amongst the prehistoric Birds and Bees, who came over to have "That Talk" with The Cows and hopefully put them on the right path.


    Great Bovinosaurus!

    Thanks Evil One!

    The original design had a series of udders on it's back, like a Stegosaurus, but it looked funnier in my imagination and when I actually did it, I thought it looked better as it is.

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Okay...here is my rigging setup for the "velvet ropes" after watching PhilW's training segment. I hope that I have enough polys in the model and enough bones in the skeleton...

    I didn't completely finish the model though...I don't have rings or hooks to attach the ropes to the queuing poles. I won't lose sleep over that just yet.

    Next up...learn about hair so that I can try to produce a red velvet shader.

    Thanks for the suggestions evilproducer!

    rigging.png
    1920 x 1080 - 233K
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,580
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    Dartanbeck said:
    evilproducer said:
    I actually love the posing in Carrara. I usually at the minimum have the feet track target helpers. The last picture I posted used targets for the the hands and feet to aid in the posing. Helps with animating as well.Okay, somebody wrote a very simple guide on how to do this. I tried it and either didn't set it up right, use it right, or something else. Would you be willing to explain, in layman's terms, how to use targets on the hands and feet to help with animations, while telling me why they help? I always move and rotate the hip to where I think that should go, and rotate everything else to how they need to respond. This is actually very easy and gives fantastic results for me. But I'm seriously interested on how this works. I suppose it's not really as useful for simple walking, but when you have a bike with pedals, you might then be able to parent the helpers to the pedals to have the feet follow? Hmmm... think think think...


    I didn't mean to sound so whining. I do love the speed that I can setup a scene in Carrara.

    But the fine-tuning work can be aggravating. Even directly entering values is hard -- it only goes out to 100ths of a foot. If you see a change in position it is either way too little or way too much. One nice thing about LightWave (Garstor ducks the spinning roundhouse kick) is that the grid adaptively changes resolution as you zoom in and out...it easily scales from kilometers to micrometers.

    Don't worry, buddy. You've only just begun your long journey into the vast awesomeness that is called: Working with 3d! One day I want to buy Lightwave as well... so we can compare notes and model together.


    I don't have time at the moment to get too detailed, but I'll try and work on something soon. There may be others that can offer more advanced advice.


    I find targets helpful in that I can lock feet to the floor as an example. When you grab the hip without using target helpers the whole figure moves. If you set targets and have the feet track those, you can move the hip and the feet stay where the are. You can also keyframe the tracking and turn it on or off through the timeline.


    Your example of using targets parented to moving pedals on a bike and having the feet of a figure track the targets is a great example of how they could aid an animation. You could also parent one to the handle bars and have one hand track it and suddenly you can have your figure pedaling, steering and freely waving a hand.


    There can be some wonkiness with the IK sometimes. It's usually with the constraints (in my case at any rate) but that can be handled by customizing the limits.


    My Bikini Car Wash picture had a target helper parented to the V4's hand that was holding the hose. The end of the hose was then set to track the helper and the IK in the hose's rig allowed me to fairly simply pose the hose. I had locked constraints on the first couple of bones near the nozzle to keep the end behaving.No further explanation necessary! Cool! So, to lock the feet, you paerent the helpers to the floor! Silly me... why didn't I see that before! Slap my face silly, am I ever embarrassed now!

  • briandaz_3e696c2bd8briandaz_3e696c2bd8 Posts: 0
    edited February 2013

    Garstor said:
    brianorca said:
    There's an option in the scene properties (Interface tab) to show more (or fewer) decimal digits. It can go from 0 to 5. If you type more digits than are displayed, it does save that precise value, even if it only shows 2 digits.

    I poked around in the properties, but alas, I just couldn't find it! I'm pretty sure that I looked at every property page. I must be missing something.

    I did switch back to metric at least! :)
    Right here on the Scene properties:

    Untitled-1.jpg
    367 x 308 - 45K
    Post edited by briandaz_3e696c2bd8 on
  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck said:
    No further explanation necessary! Cool! So, to lock the feet, you paerent the helpers to the floor! Silly me... why didn't I see that before! Slap my face silly, am I ever embarrassed now!

    Well, perhaps an animating genius like yourself gets it...I remain perplexed. :)

    Oh, and the velvet ropes definitely need more polys -- but I do have a bit more of an understanding about bones now. I think IK is next on the agenda too...that's what pulls connected bones along right?

  • EyosEyos Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    Hi,
    I'm fond of realistic renders. I've played with lighting, figure pose and render options.
    The human eye seems to catch minute details, like how the feet of the an animal touches the ground.
    I've tried to pay attention to details to make it believable. Hope you'll like it.
    Eyos

    Lizard.jpg
    1000 x 750 - 221K
  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Eyos said:
    I've tried to pay attention to details to make it believable. Hope you'll like it.

    Aside from the turquoise head (is the lizard really coloured like that?) it is incredibly believable! I like it a lot!

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    Eyos - great lighting and texturing, and I like the subject too! The lizard's pose looks a little "square" to me, but a very minor point. Great work!

  • EyosEyos Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    Garstor said:
    Eyos said:
    I've tried to pay attention to details to make it believable. Hope you'll like it.

    Aside from the turquoise head (is the lizard really coloured like that?) it is incredibly believable! I like it a lot!

    Thanks! :-)
    Well, I don't think the head is turquoise in a real lizard.
    However, I love this turquoise color as it makes the render more interesting and graphically attractive.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,580
    edited December 1969

    Eyos said:
    Hi,
    I'm fond of realistic renders. I've played with lighting, figure pose and render options.
    The human eye seems to catch minute details, like how the feet of the an animal touches the ground.
    I've tried to pay attention to details to make it believable. Hope you'll like it.
    Eyos
    What's not to like? I love it! Those shadows...
    I grew up catching lizards and snakes, bugs and spiders... this is quite the real-looking picture. Very believable.
    I also grew up paying close attention to things like the details of the human eye, a man's cool side burns (talkin' about the 70's here), etc., amazing how that stuff can fascinate.
  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    edited December 1969

    Maybe it's doing the camouflage thing to trick the bug. Nice job!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,580
    edited December 1969

    Both are very cool models

  • BrianP21361BrianP21361 Posts: 808
    edited December 1969

    Great render Eyos!

    What is your lighting like?

  • EyosEyos Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    Eyos - great lighting and texturing, and I like the subject too! The lizard's pose looks a little "square" to me, but a very minor point. Great work!

    Hi PhilW, thanks!!
    I do feel that you are right about the pose.

  • EyosEyos Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    BrianP21361 said:
    Great render Eyos!

    What is your lighting like?

    Thanks!!
    I've used a light dome. It gives more realistic look to things.
    There is also 20% ambient light.

  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    Really great render - did you do the model?

    The blue-headed lizard is pretty common here in South Africa - the male is brightly coloured and the female a dull brown:)

    2149138637_3b3c3f63ca_z.jpg
    640 x 502 - 188K
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Garstor said:
    Eyos said:
    I've tried to pay attention to details to make it believable. Hope you'll like it.

    Aside from the turquoise head (is the lizard really coloured like that?) it is incredibly believable! I like it a lot!


    Great render!

  • EyosEyos Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    Roygee said:
    Really great render - did you do the model?

    The blue-headed lizard is pretty common here in South Africa - the male is brightly coloured and the female a dull brown:)

    What a beautiful lizard picture - amazing colors. Reality is surprising many times.
    About my rendering: I bought the lizard model and the fly from DAZ.

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Eyos said:
    Roygee said:
    Really great render - did you do the model?

    The blue-headed lizard is pretty common here in South Africa - the male is brightly coloured and the female a dull brown:)

    What a beautiful lizard picture - amazing colors. Reality is surprising many times.
    About my rendering: I bought the lizard model and the fly from DAZ.

    Sweet picture (and, again, render). I don't have a lot of animals in my runtime. I may have to start building that up...unfortunately, too many shiney things keep distracting me.

    Eyos, I'd love to see another lizard render -- perhaps on a tree branch like Roygee's picture.

This discussion has been closed.