Something old, something new, something surprising!

CG character design ... just a raytrace; Photoshop finishing.
Old fashioned DAZ Studio 3.

Not LuxRender: just a raytrace

If you have a long, long memory -- or a good eye! -- you'll recognize this character. I designed him in 2010 and couldn't resist him ... gave him a name: Leon. Lately, I've been going back through the early renders and thinking, "Dang, if only I'd been doing this stuff now, with the greater skills I have now." And then I thought, "Hang on, why not revisit the old characters and see how they render up when you really, REALLY know how to drive this software, instead of it taking you for a ride.

Here's a new render of the old subject:

Best deep dhadow map you can get. Interesting, no?

And to be perfectly fair, in the new render I used the old deep shadow map technique. Uh huh, this isn't even a raytrace. Just every trick in the book pulled with surfaces, lights, DOF, what have you. Compare the 2010 raytrace:

Flat as the proverbial tack. It's not a bad picture, but it's ... FLAT. Yet I swear on a stack of copies of Lord of the Rings, this, below, is "just" a deep shadow map render:

Also been playing in Bryce 7 Pro ... remembering a lot of stuff I've forgotten in the forty or so months since I've touched it -- but there is a LOT more to remember. Ain't quite got the hang of it back yet, but we're getting there (again):

And just for fun -- since the terrain I'm working with here is very, very unrealistic -- I took the first of these two try-outs and processed it through as a old b&w snapshot:

Now, that's ... interesting! Kind of has a King Kong feel about it. Anybody out there seen the original RKO Radio picture? Mmm, that. Next assignment to self: Remember how to make realistic terrains!!! I used to know how ... I just have to jog my own memory. Trying.