Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Halfling, the Moon ... and Salvador Dali strikes back!



Changing body geometry in DAZ 3D is a lot of fun, and you van do almost anything, from make a character's head shrink to the size of a peanut (don't you wish you could do that with some people in real life?!) to taking the feet and making them ... hobbit size. And adding the pointed ears of the halfling, and so on. You might have to see these renders at larger size (click on them) to see those pointed ears. They really are lovely!

The moon in the background is also a model: Moon Glow ... the effect is quite good but it's not perfect. It gives you a place to start rather than a final destination. The renders show a distinct "crop line" around the outside of the transparency planes, which had to be airbrushed out in post production. But that's okay, because the model itself is very cool.

Today's adventures in Bryce 5.5 are -- different, to say the least! I call this one "Salvador Dali Strikes Back" ...

The picture is deliberately off-balance, with a weird structure halfway out of the shot, and a hypnotic waterscape under an astonishing sky that disappears into the mist. These pictures were designed to throw you off balance, stop you, make you think. I hate to confess this, but in Bryce this was so easy I feel, um, guilty! The skies are the easy part. Then you make a ground plane and apply a picture-texture ... pebbles. Then you make a water plane and tell it to be very reflective and highly transparent. Then crank up a bit of mist. Make some simple objects and half-submerge them. Hit render and go for a cup of tea...!

The second Bryce render for today is intended to simulate an actual painting ... and it works! This looks like a watercolor! You'd lay the sky on as four or five washes, then do the trees as three or four layers of greens and blues ... the greens continue into the foreground, and you finish off with a partial yellow wash. Then, last of all, you hook up the airbrush and lay down a fine mist of Gauche white...

Either that, or you play with Bryce for half an hour! The sky ... easy. The trees are Foleypro Trees plus a couple of genuine 3D trees. The foreground is a small ground plane with a single diffuse-channel material added, so there's no detail and an "arty" feel, and then I cranked up the fog level. Yep ... I found the fog controls!

And now, back to work. I have two jobs to get through before I can call it a day, and for some reason I'm yawning my head off here! So, here goes nothing...

Jade, 27 March