So... Should *I* Become a PA? Sample Render Included

mwokee

Oso3D said:

At least you're getting a taste of the PA experience wrt feedback. ;)

 

I dish it out so I should take it. :-) I actually have been a published artist for a good 45 years, I've heard it all. But in the world of art, you are always learning so you have to keep going growing and go into areas where you're not comfortable.

Quixotry

I can better visualize how your setup is different from an HDRI and how it would be useful with the image of the temple. The pyramid one looks oddly flat to me, but the temple does look like a 3D environment. The one thing that throws me off and that might discourage buyers (if that was a promo on the store page, for example) is that the lighting on the girl doesn't match the way the temple is lit. She still looks like she's been rendered alone and then kind of dropped into a differently lit scene, and I think that misrepresents the usefulness and purpose of your background elements. I'm only guessing, as I don't fully understand exactly what you've done in terms of how the backgrounds work and how much is 3D vs. 2D, but it looks as if the temple has the lights and shadows as part of the image, so different lighting in Daz Studio wouldn't change anything about the background. Therefore I would assume that the trick to getting a really well-integrated full scene using that background would be to use separate lights on your character or other scene elements to mimic the lighting of the background. If you can match the overall lighting of the scene to the lighting as it is shown in the backgrounds, I think it would be quite convincing and good looking. Have you considered combining your backgrounds with some basic lighting presets that could be sold with them, so that everything in the scene looks like it's being lit the same way?

I think you've got a really neat idea here.

mwokee

Quixotry said:

The one thing that throws me off and that might discourage buyers (if that was a promo on the store page, for example) is that the lighting on the girl doesn't match the way the temple is lit. She still looks like she's been rendered alone and then kind of dropped into a differently lit scene, and I think that misrepresents the usefulness and purpose of your background elements.

You are absolutely correct but there isn't much you can do with a 2D photograph as a background. I get the impression some are not familiar with this strategy despite a number of products in the store doing the same thing, this is not an original idea. It would be smarter to use the my photographs from the site to build a real 3D setting. But I'm not that smart, just being able to do this has been a challenge. These comments have been helpful in understanding what people want versus the limitations of the technology in delivering.

NGartplay

I recommend looking at how much you'll owe in taxes at the end of the year to your state and government and how much your tax preparer charges.  When I became a vendor my state taxes (joint filing) went from owing $256 a year to owing $1420 a year.  H & R Block will charge you a minimum of $600 to do your taxes if you are self employed so find a tax preparer who charges less.  You need to make quite a bit to make it worth your while.  Just saying.  I am in the USA so perhaps it's different in other countries.

barbult

I still don't understand exactly what your product is. It looks like a background plane with a photograph and a ground plane with another photograph. Both are completely flat. You say other people are selling things like this, but how many people are buying things like this these days? A dual plane setup sounds less sophisticated than Millennium Environment which was released 16 years ago. Perhaps I misunderstand what you are wanting to sell.

2D photographic backgrounds are only convincing if the Daz Studio camera angle and focal length match the camera used to take the photo. (And I don't think Daz camera settings match real world cameras, so that makes it more challenging.) The lighting must also match in intensity and angle. The character position and scale must be appropriate for the background. All these constraints leave very little compositional freedom for the artist, and without all these things set up correctly, the render doesn't look right. This is why I find HDRIs much more useful. HDRIs provide a scene background with matching lighting and freedom to position the camera at any angle the artist desires.

Silent Winter

While the temple one looks better, you'd need to include camera and lighting setups to match the background. As barbult says, that limits what you can do, but it might be useful for some people.

Have you looked into making HDRIs instead? Might not be too tricky for you with a photography background.

ArtAngel

mwokee said:

Quixotry said:

The one thing that throws me off and that might discourage buyers (if that was a promo on the store page, for example) is that the lighting on the girl doesn't match the way the temple is lit. She still looks like she's been rendered alone and then kind of dropped into a differently lit scene, and I think that misrepresents the usefulness and purpose of your background elements.

You are absolutely correct but there isn't much you can do with a 2D photograph as a background. I get the impression some are not familiar with this strategy despite a number of products in the store doing the same thing, this is not an original idea. It would be smarter to use the my photographs from the site to build a real 3D setting. But I'm not that smart, just being able to do this has been a challenge. These comments have been helpful in understanding what people want versus the limitations of the technology in delivering.

My first verion if photoshop was in 1994 3.0 and it is a tool I use on a regular basis, so I'm quite familiar with it. Try using curves in photshop to match the lighting on a layer basis, and render items seperately in png format. When rendering in Daz use canvass.

 

Edit to be blunt your scene looks "Fake". I am not a PA but photography (sanctioned -published in newspapers etc) is part of my background and I honestly don't feel your photography skills in this scene. Find the photos that excite you, the ones you love and deconstruct or reconstruct those. To be honest where your photo skills might come in handy is for promo images, but those have to grab you, suck you into buying, and as Keith Urban would say," I'm not feeling it" so do something more emotional. Talk to us. Make us feel the scene is alive, breathing ... real.

XpiderMan

So the products you would like to sell are more of backdrop images than HDRI? As long as you are clear about it in your product description and are in good quality, you should go for it. You'll never know what is going to happen until you try. And even if at the beginning it doesn't turn out as successful as you might expect, it could be the stepping stone to open your ability to more options and growth. Your products might not be well known at the beginning but that could change in a couple of months or years with experience. At least that's what I have seen here with other PAs.

I also would like to become a PA. So not sure if I'm sayng this to you or to myself. LOL!

Hylas

The temple picture is better; the division between ground and backplate is no longer visible, the ground texture seems of better quality, and the camera angles of figure and background match.

The lighting is still way off though, the ground needs much stronger bump (if it has any at all), and the stone wall is faintly mirrored on the ground which doesn't seem right.

(I'm still not convinced such a product really fills a need, but you're clearly not asking for advice on that front, so I'm gonna leave that one be. )

lilweep

Not to pile on yet again, but another thing is - Petra and the Great Pyramids are kind of cliche tourist-y locations.

Im not sure there are many people who would want to set their scenes in such well-known locales.

Most Daz users probably want a certain theme, but not for this to be ultra specific.  They want to have some freedom to make up a new location for their scene/story. 

Bamboozler

Silent Winter said:

While the temple one looks better, you'd need to include camera and lighting setups to match the background. As barbult says, that limits what you can do, but it might be useful for some people.

 

The temple one does look better, but I wonder why people would buy this product when most people who render use Photoshop for postwork. For images like these, I'd rather get the stock image myself and have it as its own layer, so I can manipulate it seperately to make sure everything matches. 

Since you're a photographer, you might be really good at 3D lighting solutions. I have lots of light sets, but they're often not much faster than just creating all the lights myself. The trouble is that with light setups, if you move the focal object, everything that's pre-set is now messed up and the effect is lost. Maybe you could create something that shifts an entire light set along with a focal figure, to that the lighting effect works no matter how the focal object is repositioned. 

barbult

Bamboozler said:

Silent Winter said:

While the temple one looks better, you'd need to include camera and lighting setups to match the background. As barbult says, that limits what you can do, but it might be useful for some people.

 

The temple one does look better, but I wonder why people would buy this product when most people who render use Photoshop for postwork. For images like these, I'd rather get the stock image myself and have it as its own layer, so I can manipulate it seperately to make sure everything matches. 

Since you're a photographer, you might be really good at 3D lighting solutions. I have lots of light sets, but they're often not much faster than just creating all the lights myself. The trouble is that with light setups, if you move the focal object, everything that's pre-set is now messed up and the effect is lost. Maybe you could create something that shifts an entire light set along with a focal figure, to that the lighting effect works no matter how the focal object is repositioned. 

@Bamboozler why don't you just create a new group (menu Create>New Group) with your light set and your focal figure in the group. Then move the group and everything moves together? Or you can parent both to a null. Or you can parent one to the other. 

Bamboozler

barbult said:

Bamboozler said:

Silent Winter said:

While the temple one looks better, you'd need to include camera and lighting setups to match the background. As barbult says, that limits what you can do, but it might be useful for some people.

 

The temple one does look better, but I wonder why people would buy this product when most people who render use Photoshop for postwork. For images like these, I'd rather get the stock image myself and have it as its own layer, so I can manipulate it seperately to make sure everything matches. 

Since you're a photographer, you might be really good at 3D lighting solutions. I have lots of light sets, but they're often not much faster than just creating all the lights myself. The trouble is that with light setups, if you move the focal object, everything that's pre-set is now messed up and the effect is lost. Maybe you could create something that shifts an entire light set along with a focal figure, to that the lighting effect works no matter how the focal object is repositioned. 

@Bamboozler why don't you just create a new group (menu Create>New Group) with your light set and your focal figure in the group. Then move the group and everything moves together? Or you can parent both to a null. Or you can parent one to the other. 

You're right. I should. :) Especially when I use the same setup multiple times. Thanks for the reminder! I tend to forget about things like that because I get caught up in placing and posing the actual figures. That's why I like out-of-the-box and one-click solutions. 

 

BandoriFan

You can go to Udemy and when they have a sale buy some Zbrush courses 

I don't know how to actually make settings yet but I feel like different plants and rocks might work in your pic. Since you have a pyramid I might look up Egyptian plants. Even if you want to make it the kind of desert without plants you can give it aesthetic by making dunes and wavy patterns in them 

I'm thinking of studying to make stuff too like inspired by different architectures

I'll link since I don't own the images 

Buildings like the ones on these pages 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/266486502936740091/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/590253094891333587/

If you believe in yourself and strive for improvement anything's possible