Here's a neat Yaoi fantasy -- or mystery! -- for you: prisoner or prince? Captive or king? Dressed (and I use that term loosely) like this, he could be either. He could be the heir to the throne, heart-sore and weary because the love of his life, also the general of his armies, just sailed to war, and he's being compelled to marry someone he never even met, in the interests of duty and the bloodine. Or he could be the prince who was captured on the battlefield and just became the plaything of the victors in that conflict. You call it!
These are very complex and very nice renders, but they're quite what I was after. Here's the detail from the leader shot:
...and you can see the level of detail that went into this! very map of every description, every lightning trick (right up to the multiple dim colored lights technique I've been talking about lately) is employed; and then the image was split into several layers of different colors in Photoshop and re-composited. This one, the leader shot, is the best in terms of the "response" I've been able to coax out of the render engine ...
Have a look at the other two, full size. They're pretty good ... but the nuance and luminosity and so forth that you're dying to achieve ... nope. Nothing would make the skintones come to life. Now, it could be a trick of this particular skinmap, and before I throw up my hands and admit defeat, I'm going to set up a similar scene, change to another skinmap and try again. Don't get me wrong ... these are very, very nice images! Yet I'm a bit bummed that the skintones continue to look flat and dull, no matter what I did with them.
Let me think a while, and give this another shot. In fact, a couple of ideas just occurred to me even as I type this, so I have at least two experiments to run before I admit defeat. In the meantime...
Smuggler's Cove ... done in Bryce 7 Pro, using IBL lighting and the skydone and additional lights. Nice.
...and some CG doodling. Another render of the gunfighter; and the cute guys you saw the other day, and a "nebula rise over an alien ocean," which you might assume was done in Bryce, but in fact the whole thing was done n DAZ Studio, using primitives and mapping. The fog on the skyline was the only thing added in later, in Photoshop.
Now, I have to run -- literally! As I sign out, I'll be grabbing my bag and heading out the door...
Jade, February 29 (yep, it's a leap year)
