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Oh I really like version 2. Now we can see what's going on. The light color choice keeps the dark and dangerous feel without sacrificing the details.
`Novbre
Thx fisherman and Novbre for that feedback. :)
I'm still not sure if I have make a good choice. ;)
The scene is nearly empty and I run in my first big problem. The planet is a free HDRI map from Anders Lejczak ( ? ) 4000x4000
I tried to make a new layer with some star maps, but since I found no free starfield in this format, all maps looking blurry when I stretch them, to fit in.
I used Gimp for that, but I'm a totally beginner with this program.
Then I had the Idea to cut the black area away and render it only with the planet, but that seems not possible, when I do that in a background image for the environment?
When I render the scene, the cutout area is black again. So any ideas or suggestions?
@daybird
At the moment there isn't much wrong with the image.
On a personal note I would :-
1) Move the distant light round until it was coming from the general direction of the planet. It looks as if it is nearly there as it is though.
2) Lower the Lumen on it a bit until you can see the lights on the ship but still getting reflections from the metal.
3) Increase the Lumen on the ship lights so they are lighting up the areas they are shining from.
4) I wouldn't bother with stars as that close to such a bright object would wash them out anyway and they wouldn't be visible.
5) As to what else to be put in then you will have to decide if it is protecting the planet; attacking it; or is it just bringing in much needed supplies with an escort?
I don't know Gimp, but I saw on their documentation website that it has layer blend modes like Photoshop. When you have 2 or more layers, you can set a blend mode for each layer, and a percentage of opacity. If you want to merge only the bright areas (= stars) of the second image into the first image, you can play with the "Lighten only" mode and perhaps opacity. This should work well with a starfield image. If you don't find a free image with good resolution, you can create a new blank image with the desired resolution (of your render, or twice as big and scale down once your done) and do several copy & rotate & scale operations from the smaller starfield image to create a high res space image with stars without noticable tiling.
In General, to be able to edit certain objects in an image editing program, you can use canvasses and nodes in the "Advanced" section of DS render settings. In your case you need only a simple alpha canvas without nodes to get a mask of the spacecraft because there is only one object. When you load this mask in Gimp, you can expand it if needed,by adding a white area for the planet, either by drawing on the mask or using mask tools like the wand (guess thats what it is called in Gimp). You can use brushes with different shape and hardness to allow for blending of backgrounds / foregrounds. I did a quick example of such a mask (left part is the render, right part is the mask created by a canvas)
@daybird
@Fishtales
I hate to do a drive by as I won't be back online until later.
What I see in daybirds hdri is a planet in a state of full disk illumination by the sun, but no sunlight is lighting the model. Shouldn't the sun be the pimary light, not the planet? If something is blocking the sun then imho that should be in the image. More later.
Your totally right with that and in my first try I lighted the scene from behind the battleship, but that destroyed the whole scene and you see nearly nothing from the ship and his engines ,only bright white areas. Maybe I do another try with that, but for now, I post the new render.
I have tested some of Fishtales advices and it looks not bad at all. The new light angle creates some nice shadows (even when they are not correct ;) ) and the higher illumination from the windows helps to show a slight silhouette on the dark side of the ship.
PS:I realised a bright empty area on the planet in my render, don't know what exactly where it comes from, but I think it have something to do with my distant light. I must take a closer look at that.
@daybird
The bright spot is the Distant light showing in the render. Try moving it to the left and out of shot.
Version C here, with Blake's partner Yang added.
I can't exactly say what I miss in the picture...there is a missing of depth.
The people and the background seem to be one plane.
Maybe you should lower the setting a little, to get some shadows back, or add some DoF, but I'm not expertet enough in such things.
@daybird
I will have some links for you later tonight but in the mean time, check out the NASA hubble picture gallary. TONS of really awesome images there you can put on a plane primative and place behind the ship so there's no cut out issues. also I will get link for you on how to feather the image in gimp so you you can blend the space image with the planet.
~Novbre
Hello all,
I went through all the linked tutorials and info. It's stuff I learned at uni, but I guess it didn't pay enough attention. It all seems to make so much more sense seeing images transform from first drafts in this forum through all the input and comments to what they come out as at the end of the month. It's amazing how much just moving something a little, or tweaking tiny details and settings can impact the overall end product.
Here's the first iteration of my submission for the month:
(Part of it is I'm testing the progress on the ACH(Helmet) I'm trying to recreate virtually from the real one that's been sitting in my closet for 11 years, but it sure helps to learn about composition while setting up test renders... especially since the artistic side of things is definately one of my weaker areas.)
Areas for improvement I can see already:
She is way too clean... but I haven't gotten much into the overlay painting/UVs side of things yet, mb I'll be learning that this month. yay.
The foreground sand doesn't quite match the background sand, should be minor to correct.
Her weapon holding pose irks me, mostly because the way she's holding the gun she can't readily operate the fire selector switch, which is nit-picky but one of those things.
All critiques and input welcome.
Thanks!
(You guys rock!)
@daybird Sounds like you are way ahead of me. Lots to like in your scene so far, that is an awesome model. All those shadows are a playground for lighting.
Novbre is right on about the Nasa images, great for inspiration too.
@Shinji Ikari 9th Coming together nicely but I agree with daybird. The muzzle flash as a light source is a golden opportunity to add depth and highlight / backlight the models.
Another fine entry from you.
I'm far away from creating my own stuff, but your helmet looks nice, Only his position seems not right to me. The lower side rim who angles outside, is designed to protect the ears from direkt hard sound waves and should cover the ears.
You are right with the pose, even when I see no major mistake in here, does it seems, that something looks not right. The armposition is right, maybe the shoulders ?
Your problem with the thumb who can't reach the fire selector can be a little tricky. First of all move her wrist more to her body, that should give you some more inches. If thats not enough you could scale the weapon a little down.
Sorry when I bother you with this, but I'm one of this persons who spend hours, to search for better poses and change minor things, who nobody ever will notice.
This so called simple entry, gets more and more complicated for me.
I tried again, to apply the main light source behind the ship, it maybe not es bright as it should be, but so I come not in danger to lost this fine engine emisions.
The light from the HDRI background was to much and so I took it out for the render. This meand, that I must put the final render together from serveral different renders. (panic)
On the other hand, That may be a good way to apply the starfield easier.
I like the new shadows , but what did you all think? A improvement or did it get worse?
Sorry if I spam the thread with all my entrys.
Version D here, adding the last member of the team, and adding some DoF. The reason I didn't mess with the flash from Weiss' gun was I ran the render before reading the comment so I'll try to remember to take that into consideration when I get back to things.
I think that's the right idea, the weapon (looks like a light assault rifle comparable to the M4) appears to be too big - perhaps because we usually see such a weapon in a man's hands. The light reflections on the gun could be less sharp to make it look more realistic.
@tycide You already covered most of what I see here. I like your use of DOF.
) Great start!
Good start on the ACH, is the texture oriented vertically?
In my opinion the carbine is just a little too large. I am not sure what figure you are using, but on G8 you can scale the indivisual parts of the hands. Being that most of her hand is behind the grip that might get you where you want to go. I would place the thumb then work the rest of the hand from there. Just don't go too nuts with it.
I can't say the lighting is bad at all. but I wonder if it could be better. ( I know WIP
@daybird Real complicated real fast!
The new lighting is more realistic. That can not of been easy. I would try to get the shadow off the upper left of the tall superstructue if possible.
If you choose to not use the hdri I advise you to seriously consider going single light sourse. (the sun) That would simplify things a lot imho.
@Fisherman_B Thx for the info posted last page.
Just FYI;
Layer modes in gimp
Normal
Dissolve
Lighten Only
Screen
Dodge
Addition
Darken Only
Multiply
Burn
Overlay
Soft Light
Hard Light
Difference
Subtract
Grain Extract
Grain Merge
Divide
Hue
Saturation
Color
Value
@daybird
I am the odd man out on the lighting. I think the reflected light from the planet would be much more dominate then th light from behind, even if it is the sun. The planet light is much closer and is HUGE, to me the lighting looks right. Even the angle it since the center mass the reflected light is coming in from is from the top left. Again, whatver light is coming from the sun would be lost against the light from the burners so having the blue burner light light up like they are looks right to me.
Did you find some star gaphics you like or should I dig up those links I mentioned. I am having a hard time thinking of a subject for my own project this month so I have the time lol!!!
~ Novbre
@tycide
Lovely image!
For her being too clean, I am a big fan of the DAZ dirt shaders for situations like that. LIE and other methods bog up my system and don't look as good as the shaders. You can always do it post work as well. What detracts from the image for me isn't that she's clean, it's that her make-up obvious and her eyebrows are perfectly manicured lol!
The pose is really good too! I like it as is, but you said you felt it was off. Perhaps moving her right elbow down on the arm that's holding the stock so it's up tight against her body instead of way out to the side? I believe that is the correct way to fire a rifle, but I don't really know for sure.
~ Novbre
I don't thinks so!
When you take a closer look to the picture that fisherman has postet, you see, that the main light source is the sun.
All things in our system only reflecting light, that comes from her, so no object can be brighter than her.
But I think for this project I don't take it too serious. I will still try, to tweak the light a little, but the main focus will be to light the scene in a way that nothing get lost.
For the stars...mhh the hubble pictures are to much, I search more a nearly empty map with some little pointlights, but once again, look at the picture above...no star to see, it's to bright! *gg*
Been distracted by Holiday and family visiting but I have started working on this. Right now the scene is still giving me fits with lighting, DOF doesn't seem to work for me without turning it all blurry but thought I'd get the first draft out for some advice.
The Golden Rules camera attachment was really helpful in setting up the scene.
Hi ari, nice start so far, I see you brought the chars in the right position. I think it will also help to do the same with the horizont line. Don't know what will work better... move the horizont to the red upper or bottom line.
For the DOF, I have a simple adive. Activate it in the camera setting and than change the sight to perspective view in the viewport.
When you see the camera there are two white squares. All between this squares will be sharp, the more they stand together the more blurry gets the things who are fare away from this area.
If you widen the area between this two, the less blurry are the things outside.
Really nice job so far everyone
I really like all of them posted so far 
and special thanks to those who have participated previously and are being so helpful to everyone 
The main challenge for me of this picture, was creating a composition where the main focal point is also one that is hiding from view within the image, so to speak. I had to draw attention to the main character from the viewer, while making sure she remains well hidden and out of site from the Borg that is hunting her down. It's 2 very rough copies, not final renders...I left all the figure's and environment's sub-d, HD, and hair turned off just trying to get the main composition down.
There's some things I need to improve, maybe with the water to make more realistic. I also was debating whether to use a darker sky, heavier haze and weaker light setting overall (so I made this 2nd version so far but it looks too dull). Along with considering adjusting the terrain's texture a bit maybe. I was having trouble deciding if it was too empty and needed more elements, like if I should do gray rock/grass/plants/trees instead of dry rock/desert or if the scenery was enough as is.
Sorry for this lengthy post but here's an explanation of all the compositional elements I worked on doing this render after reading all the material/links provided here:
Posing the main character's body in her hiding spot behind the rocky terrain and arranging the main character's position so she aligns exactly on the left thirds-line. I continued making adjustments to the shape of the terrain and water levels, etc. until I had a good spot for her to remain hidden from Borg's view while still pulling the viewer's attention to her. The direction and color contrast of clouds/sky in combination with the merging terrain slopes from each side direct the eye to the area of the main character. (The terrain slopes downward from each side of the picture forming a merge point that aims right at the focal point.) Body and face of the main character is receiving the most amount of light in the picture which will naturally draw the viewer's attention. Color contrast of character and clothing against background attracts the eye's attention while other elements of the image, while still relatively brightly lit, blend together more to minimize the level that they will distract the viewer. The tone mapping adjustments were mainly for the same reason of making the character stand out more, but it needs some further adjustment.
The water's displacement and sub-division levels were adjusted to create the rippling effect that draws lines pointed at the area of focus. The character is placed right where the river bends and widens and changes shape which pulls attention to that spot. The refraction and reflection adjustments made to the water's surface are made to blend it more with the background rather than distract and deter attention away from the main focal point of the picture (I improved this for the 2nd render).
Atmospheric haze and a lighter tone is used to dull the background terrain and sky somewhat, giving the impression of further distance and to differentiate it from the foreground where the attention is wanted. Body angle of the Borg character (legs, feet, hip, arms and head) draws a visual line pointed at the main character's head. The eyes of the Borg are not directly aimed at the main character because it has not spotted where she is hiding and does not see her yet.
Any constructive criticism/feedback that could help me would be greatly appreciated.
You've got a good start in my opinion, but you might want to check the left arm of the main character. It looks like it might be sinking into the rock next to her, but that might just be me.
I wish I could offer more but other than the minor details it's looking good...lined up and framed nicely. Even if you scale the gun down though like others suggested, will her thumb rotate far enough to reach the switch. I may be wrong but the way the gun is leaning inwards towards her face may have to be slightly adjusted too, to get the hand positioning right. It's the problem i had with a female aiming pose... had to lean the rifle slightly out, with the head/neck leaning more sideways.
I will say you can at least be happy your gun has the selector switch on the correct side. The one I got came with it on the opposite...see here. But then again, there isn't much realistic in this render I did a little while back...just wanted to practice some face painting and skyburning haha.
It does looks that way so I may adjust it, but it's actually a small bit of rock edge that is sticking out like a ledge that her arm is resting on and it creates that illusion.
Thanks for the feedback and btw your renders since i started on this thread keep getting progressively better imo. The last one you posted looks great with the 4 characters. Your activity and progressive adjustments on your renders are helpful for my learning too.
@testingtesterson
This may not work at all, but something to try...
save a copy of the scene, pan the camera left so the hiding girl is at the lower right 3rds intersection. Move the borg back to the left thirds line and have him looking in the direction of the girl, mb a little above her. Add another borg back in the distance near the upper right 3rds intersection and have him looking at the first borg.
the river bend should still hide her from both, but this will put 3 primary objects in the scene and possibly add balance.
Just a suggestion.
PS: the gun you got must just be configured for left-handed shooters :p (southpaw shooters are very useful for firing from cover 50% of the time or storming/defending right-hand turn stairwells.) :)