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| LuxRender: Roald, lost in thought |
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| DAZ Studtio 3: The Forest God, 2014 version |
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| Bryce 7 Pro: atmospherics over a misty fjord |
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| The raw render, right out of LuxRender, waiting for post work... |
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| Background sky: a sunset about a year ago, from the driveway! |
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| Post work: loads of painting in Photoshop. |
Just a quick post today. Have been experimenting, but don't have a lot of time to do a looong post, and the way things are going, if I don't just get down to this and
do it, it'll slither on another week before I can get it together. So -- I was really fascinated to work some more with the
DAZ Studio raytrace you saw last time: the big question was, would the same set of lights work in Lux? Answer: yes,
but. The picture would have been utterly different, though the physical elements (guy, chair, brazier, column, stairs...) were the same. Yes, I could have hammered it into a decent image, but inspiration struck.
I deleted everything except the guy and the chair, then imported a new set -- the
Cloisters set, from the DAZ marketplace -- and shipped it into LuxRender, with just
one light set, representing the sun at a low angle. Then began a fiddle of epic proportions. I couldn't get the lighting right, within Lux. This one fought me, fang and claw -- it's a long time since I've had a render stand up and fight this way, but eventually I got it. The beauty of LuxRender is, you can let the image "cook" overnight and then come back and fiddle with it in the morning.
Then ... choose a sky to match the brooding flavor of the image, as well as the low sun angle. Eureka! A sunset I photographed from the end of the driveway last year. Perfect. (Now you know why I never go anywhere without at least one camera in the bag or pocket.) Lastly, the part I've really come to enjoy. Post work used to be a chore, but I've started to enjoy painting for its own sake; and there's no dispute about it ... the raw render and the painted version are in different worlds.
The second picture for today is The Forest God, a new version done late last year -- a spin on
the original idea which was uploaded in Feb, 2013. (See
the original, for comparison.) Once again, loads of painting on this ... and it's a simple raytrace in good ole DAZ Studio 3. I'd love to render this in Lux -- it has a few inherent problems that have put the job on the back burner, pending solutions.
The third image is a deceptively simple seascape in Bryce 7 Pro. The terrain and the water were dead easy. Then I turned on the atmospherics, and started fiddling about with clouds and haze and mist and sea fog. It's the atmosphere that takes
forever to render in any of these landscape programs, and Bryce is no different. Mind you, the final result is well worth it! It ain't Vue, but it's not bad...
One day, I swear, I'll get into Vue. Have you SEEN what people are doing in Vue?! I could show you about a thousand images that have been posted to various galleries and so on, but I'll just show you one. See
this. That's typical of what you can do ... and I long to get into it. Drool, drool.
