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How to vary your render styles?

RobertDyRobertDy Posts: 270
edited March 2019 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I'm a 3Delight user but this also is true for Iray: for any given scene, how do you make one render of it so different from another? I'm trying to create several distinct styles but no matter what I do, the renders always point out to a uniquely 'me' style. This is mind boggling. I know lighting changes things a lot, I use AoA's lights but well most other 3DL users do, and their renders look so different from mine. What gives? Tips welcome!

Post edited by RobertDy on

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,730
    edited March 2019

    It's not which lights you use, but where you place them - and what colour. Tone-mapping also plays a big part, whether you try to keep an even spread of tones or let darker shades fade to black or lighter blow out to white. There's also camera placement, whether you are close-in or more distant, and how you zoom (dolly the camera vs focal length).

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • RobertDyRobertDy Posts: 270

    Thanks, I guess I need to try varying the colours. I tried the tones but the renders still look 'me'. I've attached two images here, both using AOA lights and you can see a huge difference here. What do you think is the main contributor of the difference? The tones for one, anything else?

    blue_by_laspe_d9j6z0e-pre.jpg
    1186 x 674 - 99K
    leah_transformation___do_you_want_me_to_blow_______by_darkhound1_d7oaz9s-pre.jpg
    730 x 1095 - 136K
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,730

    I'm not sure how much is due to lighting - the football one has lighter shadows, perhaps due to a diffuse fill light (such as uber Environment) or perhaps simply a lighter shdow setting, and the lights are angled to give less down-cast shadows. It looks as if the tone has been warmed too, via light colour or in post-work. However, I think the big diffrences ins tyle are framing and composition, and the content used (the football one has fewer distinct items in the background).

  • RobertDyRobertDy Posts: 270
    Richard Haseltine said:

    I'm not sure how much is due to lighting - the football one has lighter shadows, perhaps due to a diffuse fill light (such as uber Environment) or perhaps simply a lighter shdow setting, and the lights are angled to give less down-cast shadows. It looks as if the tone has been warmed too, via light colour or in post-work. However, I think the big diffrences ins tyle are framing and composition, and the content used (the football one has fewer distinct items in the background).

    Actually the main striking difference to me is that old rustic look that the classic lady has. Is this mainly a toning thing like you mentioned? Might the textures used also create a large difference?

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,796

    My advise is to search in the web for movie lighting and composition. It's a start to develope your own style. But if you want to go really artistic then a NPR engine such as Freestyle will suit you better than Iray or 3DL.

  • guilledcfguilledcf Posts: 75

    Edit your cams too. I like to rotate them on Z axis to make em tilt a bit. Thus your composition goes from boring horizontal lines to quirky diagonals.

  • srieschsriesch Posts: 4,241

    With only 2 renders it is very difficult to identify a pattern.  It would be of value to spend some time browsing through other people's galleries that you feel are signfiicantly different from yours, and look at most of the pictures in that single artist's gallery, then move on to another that is different from the first.  Ensure you can see a bunch of thumbnails for the gallery all together on one page.  Sometimes there's a very obvious pattern, and you can identify what made that artist's style different from another, then you can start to pick apart the common elements that you noticed that applied to many things in the gallery.  It could be lighting, it could be use of color, it could be camera angles, it could be postwork, it could be poses, it could be the number of elements in the scene, it could be the type of elements in the scene, etc.  Then repeat with your own gallery. Once you do this, the patterns will emerge, and you can find the things that you never or often do, and decide what if anything you wish to change.

  • JonnyRayJonnyRay Posts: 1,744

    One item that is easily overlooked is in your Render Settings on the filter tab you can adjust the pixel filter. By default Studio creates a very crisp render (striving for "pixel perfect"), but by playing around with the Pixel Filter type (Box, Triangle, Gaussian, Mitchell, Lanczos) and the Pixel Filter Radius, you can create renders that have a bit of a softer focus to them. Minor changes here can actually make your images look less computer rendered and more like a photograph (if that is your goal).

    If you'd really like to go "outside the box" on this, there are also some products that provide alternative cameras for your renders. These can create VERY different looking renders. A few examples include:

    You can also create some very interesting looks by replacing surfaces with basic shaders. For instance use Jen's Pliable Plastic shaders to make everything look plastic or like balloon figures. :)

    The great thing about 3D art is that it is easy to change a few parameters here and there and come out with an entirely different look and feel to your image.

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