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blinded-dinosaur — Poolside
Published: 2014-06-06 08:24:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 4011; Favourites: 73; Downloads: 262
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Description
A little taste of summer. Hope you like it.Edit:
I watched a Render Settings tutorial, so I thought I would re-render this image (it took several hours). I like the image much better, so I thought I would replace it. Hopefully some of you like it better as well. But these different render settings exposed a few other flaws in the image, which I tried to clean-up with my virtually non-existant post-work skills. Still, if I left it as-is, the image would have looked worse.
Rendered in Poser Pro 2014 with some post-work (I attempted corrections to her hair).
Short-cut to previous version: sta.sh/020y07r90btf
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Comments: 20
She shouldn't leave home without them!
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Beautiful work, excellent lighting here, a huge improvement over the original.
Here are my suggestions. The brightest light should match the light hitting the clouds. Your highlights are coming from the right, and the clouds are lit from the left. You can have a kicker/rim light coming from the right, but not as strong as the primary light source. Beautiful sky though.
I would love to see some eye contact with the camera! Either the front or back girl. Someone looking at you grabs attention. Eye contact is difficult, try pointing eyes directly at the camera and then adjusting the poses and expressions to match. Remember how a person's eyes track (up/down match, left/right towards a center point), they will always be focusing on a point, and almost never focusing down parallel lines.
The girl in the back seems lost in shadow. I would love to see her moved up into the light, or put a lighting rig on her to make her pop. The water is beautiful, I wish we could see more! Also, the plants, I would love to see the same lighting hit those and the green color set on fire with the same intensity and glow that her skin has. The rocks too seem flat, maybe get your light to highlight the bumps and shadows.
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I had to open the file to consider your remarks. I appreciate the feedback, though. Though I wonder if some of it is beyond my skill level.
1. I used Flinks Sky. I understand what you're getting at, but I couldn't quite see where the light was hitting the clouds. Unless the light is coming from the opposite side of the main model (I just noticed the clouds look the whitest near the waterfall). But then I should have rotated the model 180 degrees so she's still basking in the sun. I have tried rim lights (in the light presets that I have purchased) but they never really seem to do much. But I also don't know much about doing lighting on my own; I have one or two tutorials to help me with that topic. I have also purchased a couple of photography books (more so if or when I want to use the Reality plugin).
2. I do eye contact quite frequently, actually. But there are times I like the off-camera look as well. If anything, this was a conscious decision on my part. But I appreciate the feedback.
3. I can see what you mean about the girl in the back. I think her skin is a little darker in the first place, but with her back to the sunlight, her body can be more in shadow. I could have tried a reflector that is invisible to the camera right in front of her (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't).
4. For the sun, I used a Poser infinite light (probably a preset I purchased from someone else, though I would have likely changed the position and perhaps the brightness). I had it positioned basically right over top of the main model. Given what you said about the rocks looking flat, this light should have been shining on those rocks (I looked to see if they were cast in shadow), so what would you have done to bring out their details? Would you have used a specular light? I have seen references to them but I never really knew how to adjust the settings properly to do it. I assume another infinite light would be used, since a spot light or a point light would not provide even lighting.
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Yeah, here are my thoughts:
1. The white highlights on the clouds are on the left sides of them, so the sun is coming from the left. On the figure, the light is hitting her from the right. This could be solved by flipping the background image so both light sources appear to be coming from the same direction.
2. no prob
3. Yeah, her entire tone (squint and you can see this easier) matches the background.
4. If it were me? Pull a movie cheat and hit them with a spotlight along the surface so we get beautiful texture and shadows. Don't make it look like a round spot, just like natural light hitting it. It is a very tricky thing to do, and I did it in one of my recent images below. The entire cliff behind the UFO? Lit by a spotlight just off camera running along the surface, just touching it and creating that beautiful texture. There's no natural light there, nor should there be, but the "director" thought the scene was too dark, so up we put a light, and "he" was right. You have to be subtle with these tricks, but they work in Hollywood, and they work in 3d.
thehakdragon.deviantart.com/ar…
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1. That's fair. Now that you mention it, I can see other white spots as well. And by flipping the image, I assume you mean through an image editing software program. I'm not sure how I would do that in the materials room (I can't even try right now, since I have something rendering).
4. Paolo at Pret-a-3D has talked extensively about lighting as well. I will definitely admit I've been taking it for granted. I will usually load a preset, wait a few minutes to render a low-setting image and then try again since I will not like it (I rarely ever find the right light right away). It's such a terrible and time consuming process. One of these days, maybe I should just bite the bullet and watch those lighting tutorials. Maybe they won't even help. When you talk about shining a spotlight in a certain way or (as I mentioned) using a reflector, that requires special insight. Did you also study photography as a hobby?
As for the cliff in your UFO image, why wouldn't there be any natural light hitting it? Based on the light on your subject, I would expect the light source to come from the front and off a bit to my right. Or am I wrong about that and it's more to the right and behind the cliffs? But if that's the case, the cliffs should be casting a shadow. Or was that the "director's" doing? Did that extra light source cancel out the shadows?
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If I showed you the light for that scene, you would not believe it. I have something like seven spotlights simulating natural light in there, since my natural light on my "moon" set didn't give me the look I wanted. She is 100% lit like she is on a movie set.
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LOL. Seven mini-suns....
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...um...excuse me...can I come swim in your pool too?
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Wouldn't you be a little embarrassed swimming in public with your water wings?
No insult intended; I just wanted to come up with a somewhat clever reply (and this an example of my style of humour).
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Awww, come on! I was hoping if the ladies saw my water wings they might take pity on me and give me swim lessons...Heck, maybe I could even "drown" so they could give me mouth to mouth!
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Now that's a brilliant idea!!! Just make sure there are no guys around....
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I like the way her nipples seem so eager and happy, pushing against the fabric like that - very cool pic!
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She's enjoying her time in the sun.
Thanks!
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