Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Art Institute of Pittsburgh
And there is also something interesting. David Santoro believes that my work with 3D Art is professional. I showed him most of my work (except for my work at Renderotica, to my shame :( ), and he believes it's professional and well done. I came a long way from last January.
From ambling along, to learning lighting, better lighting, and doing what is right. Look below. A drow monk I did for Conroy.
Drow Monk by ~Atlantean6 on deviantART
A DAZ Studio render.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Paleo Art
I think it's time to focus less on the humans and start looking at paleo-art as an alternative. Humans are very fun, but even the muse needs a rest. ;)
Some good paleo-art include:
http://ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/images/uploads_img/wonderful_dinosaur_art_1.jpg
Oh, scratch that. Someone wanted me to do more fantasy art. Well, here's an opportunity to do paleo-fantasy art. ;)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Mastering DAZ Studio: Jungle Princess Pt. 4
Now we are going to use Mood Master to bring this altogether. Mood Master isn't, at all, compatible with DAZ Studio Advanced or Smith Micro's Poser 7. If you used DAZ Studio Advanced to render your jungle Queen, you have to stop with a low humidity picture. If you are still using DAZ Studio 2.3, then with Mood Master you can add humidity -- or jungle mist -- to your render to give it realism and form.
To do this, we are using a technique called "Post Production" where you overlay one image on top of another. Save your image and your combined scene. Call it Jungle Queen 1 or something like that. Now, open Mood Master and add it to your scene. As a result, all seven lights we've used to bring the picture together is removed.

You notice on your scene tab that Mood Master is added. If you press the plus on the side, you get several items. Click the one called Deep Fog and click on the eye to the far right. And you get a fog effect added to your scene. You can manipulate your fog effect on the parameters tab. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MOVE YOUR CAMERA!

Best use the settings shown in the above screen capture, and RENDER! :)
After a few hours (it may take a few hours), you will get a render that looks like this:
Jungle Mist WIP by ~Atlantean6 on deviantART
Not very cool edge wise, but that's what we use our image editor for. :D
Now Open Photoshop (or your prefered image editor) and load both your Jungle Queen and the Mist picture you made before.
In photoshop according to the Mood Master manual:
1- Open a new picture that has the same dimensions as your Jungle Queen pic and your Mist pic, and fill it with Black. This is the Mix Layer.
2- Select your Jungle Queen pic and do Ctrl-A, and then Ctrl-C (on my Mac it's cmd-A, and cmd-C). Do Ctrl-V on the mix layer, this overlays your Jungle Queen on the Mix Layer. The new layer is Jungle Queen original.
3- Select your Jungle Mist picture and do the exact same thing, overlaying it on your Jungle Queen original. Call this top layer "Jungle Mist." Set the Jungle Mist layer to "Screen."
4- You can adjust the top layer as needed. I suggest an Opacity of 29% for our Jungle Mist layer to simulate humidity. Flatten the image and output it as a high quality .JPG file (or TIFF).
And the final result:
Jungle Princess by ~Atlantean6 on deviantART
Thursday, May 21, 2009
ATLANTIS solved!
For those who are waiting for PART 4 on my series on creating great art, the jungle mist is rendering now (expect this to be a two day project, everyone). I promise, it will pay off. Want to see the results of the work so far?
Jungle Princess WIP by ~Atlantean6 on deviantART
Mastering DAZ Studio: Jungle Princess pt. 3
Step 9. Posing V4. At last, we can pose our morphed V4! After saving your jungle scene, clear the scene and reload V4. Although this time, we are going to apply our saved character preset. This is done by going to file > Merge. Then choose your saved character preset. Once again, we need a Reference for posing our character.
Look up your favorite jungle beauty pics on the web and choose a picture with a particular pose you like. Oh, and don't forget to add your favorite hair. After finding your favorite jungle beauty (maybe a scene from Sheena). After posing V4, merge your jungle scene and then make some adjustments around V4 as necessary. Then add another prop if necessary (I added a Wakishashi).
After this adjustment is done, we add the rest of the life. For myself, I added some flowers, extra grass, and a few vines to balance out the composition.
Step 10. LIGHTING!!
Throw away your dummy light. You've used it, now it's time to throw it away (or use it again under a different name). We are going to set up 3 to 6 lights. A studio scatter light, a ground light, a few spotlights, and a golden reflecting light.
Ground Ambient. The ground lighting represents the light reflecting from the ground. The ground light should be set perpendicular from your model at 180 degrees. Set the intensity to about 50% to 25%. Make sure it's white.
To set your light, your light acts like a camera, so click on the button "Default Camera" and select Ground Lighting or something similar (ground scatter?).
Studio Ambient. This distant lighting represents the light scatter in your studio. The light from the ceiling and the windows fill the space. We use white light for this too. The scatter light is another distant light. Intensity should be set at 30%. The Studio Ambient should provide enough light to represent light scattered in all directions.
Jungle Ambience. Now we are going to set up two more distant lights. One green and one white, to represent light filtering down the Canopy. The Green should be close to white as much as possible, and intensity should be set at about 27%. Our source of our ambience should come close to overhead, but not directly overhead. The white ambience should be set to 30%. Already, the lighting is dramatic. And that is with four lights.
Spot Lighting. The purpose of spotlighting is to usually destroy shadows. But we are going to use Spotlighting to enhance shadows where we need them, and to destroy them where we don't need them. Spotlights are usually white, but you can use colors such as red, blue, and green to produce some interesting effects. We are setting up three spotlights.
A yellow spotlight from the back, and two spotlights from the front. The back spotlight represents the gold foil used by pro-photographers. Next two spotlights should be white and pointing at Noriel. Set your intensity on these spotlights as you desire.
Shadows: The most intense light should cast your shadows. For me, this would be my first White Light spotlight. Set shadows to ray tracing on your most intense light. Finally, for using many lights, shadow softness should be about 20% to 22%.
However, you're not quite ready to render. You still need to set up your cameras.
Step 11. Setting up your cameras. This isn't so hard. Heart of the Jungle came with its own camera sets. Since we did most of our posing with the default camera, we don't need to set up our cameras manually. Go to content > Cameras > Environment and click on HoJ_Cyc. This will preload our camera set. Make sure the main camera is selected and move it to where you think you will get the best render.
Then you set up what you want to render to. Click on Render > Render Settings and choose an approprate rendering picture size for what you want to do. Be sure to adjust the camera where needed. When you are done, you're free to make any necessary adjustments or additions you want. Like clothing Victoria in what ever clothing you wish her to wear as you desire. For me, since this is a hot jungle, I will render her naked.
As it renders, it may take a long time. But we aren't done yet. We still need to add jungle mist. ;)
Mastering DAZ Studio: Jungle Princess pt. 2
Yesterday (last night) I showed you how you morph your jungle beauty. Now we get to the fun part, composing the scene!
Step 6. Open DAZ Studio again. This time, we are going to work with the DAZ Cyclorama. If you got the Heart of the Jungle set, go to Content > Figures > Environment (2nd) and pick the Heart of the Jungle 2 (LS_HoJ2Cyc). You should have something like this:

This background is the background we are working with. If you notice, there's a lot going on in this Heart of the Jungle background. Its packed to the brim with jungle wildlife. And that's just the plants! Unlike Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo, the background is well detailed and stands out. Such as the nature of working with 3D (I've got Vue 7 Espirit, so I could create a new background myself. But I need time to learn it).
Step 7: In this next step, we are creating a dummy light. The light shows us all of the background and helps us compose the picture. The dummy light is meant to make the ground show up so we know how to compose the grass. It's just a Distant Light, default settings, make sure you angle it to show the ground and the backdrop.

This is so we can place our plants.
Step 8: Adding some Life. In this step, we add plant life from Lisa's Botanicals. We add the back plant life first before adding our first animal. This makes composing the scene much easier. Like using the Rembrandt method in painting, only we are applying it to 3D. I suggest three grasses from Lisa's Botanicals Jungle Mist collection on either side.
After adding the grasses, we add our first animal. A Millenium Cat. I choose a leopard skin, you may have any millenium cat skin you desire. After adding the cat, add some more plant life before the cat so it looks like he's stepping on some grass. You should have something like this:

The leopard in my version is more to the right. After this is composed, if you have some jungle vines, it's a good time to add them in (notice they weren't on our purchase list, making them entirely optional). When you are satisfied with how you arranged the plant and animal life, its time to add our lady. Save the scene as a DAZ Studio scene. Our lady must be posed. ;)
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Mastering DAZ Studio: Jungle Princess
Monday, May 18, 2009
A Special Report!
If you are British, you still have 300 million fellow loyal subjects all still loyal to the British Monarch. We aren't really free, but we are conned to thinking we are. All our taxes go to support the British Crown. This treaty was actually signed in 1783 that America will continue to operate as a Corporation for the British Monarch and all of his heirs.
"In monarchical governments, by subject is meant one who owes
permanent allegiance to the monarch." Bouvier's Law Dictionary,
1914.
"Constitutional Law. One that owes allegiance to a sovereign
and is governed by his laws. The natives of Great Britain are
subjects of the British government. Men in free governments are
subjects as well as citizens; as citizens they enjoy rights and
franchises; as subjects they are bound to obey the laws. The term
is little used, in this sense, in countries enjoying a republican
form of government." Swiss Nat. Ins. Co. v. Miller, 267 U.S. 42,
45 S. Ct. 213, 214, 69 L.Ed. 504. Blacks fifth Ed.
By these definitions we are still subject to the British Crown. I.e. Queen Elizabeth is still our Queen, whether we recognize her or not. As Americans, we believe we are Citizens according to the definition applied by Rome:
"The term citizen was used in Rome to indicate the possession
of private civil rights, including those accruing under the Roman
family and inheritance law and the Roman contract and property law.
All other subjects were peregrines. But in the beginning of the 3d
century the distinction was abolished and all subjects were
citizens; 1 sel. Essays in Anglo-Amer. L. H. 578." Bouvier's Law
Dictionary, 1914.
Next post: the Treaty of Paris 1783. Why America is still a Crown Colony and a Corporation that owes it's financial allegiance to the Queen.
Name this Sith Lord
Sunday, May 17, 2009
ROLEMASTERing The Forgotten Realms
The Gods of Politics
One of the best things about making FR your own is that you get to delve into ideas on how the world works around worshipping it's gods. Take the Gods Tyr, Lathander, Helm, Cyric, Bane, and Tiamat for instance. The worship of these 6 gods has a direct impact on politics in FR nations. Breaking it down:
CYRIC: Reading about the activities of Senator Palpatine in the Star Wars prequels had, for once, brought the activities of what Cyric represents to light. Cyric is a god of Government corruption and socialist reform. What is happening to our government right now, the activities are a spirit of corruption and transformation of a once good government into a dictatorial one. Cyric is a God of encroaching evil. His followers seek to subvert governments and transform them into dictatorships. Cyric is worshiped by the Secret Combinations in the world -- including the Zhentarim (i.e. the Black Network).
BANE: Bane represents overt, conquering evil. Bane is known as the ultimate tyrant (a role that is overlapped with Tiamat). Bane controls tyranny, and uses War and Fear to overtly conquer. Bane is imperialist expansionism. Bane is empire building -- the Spirit of Bane is felt through creating and expanding an empire. Bane's activities in the Real World is documented through Alexander the Great's conquests, Sargon II's conquests, and especially Rome's conquests. Bane is worshipped by those who want to conquer and rule through Force. At the present time, Sembia and Thay are the only nations concerned with expanding their influence (with the possible exception of Mulhorand).
TYR: Tyr is the Spirit of Justice in the realms. He represents good, just laws that support the people and keep a nation running smoothly. Nations that worship Tyr typically include Cormyr and the Moonshae Isles.
LATHANDER: Lathander is the spirit of the Morning and of Youth. He also affects politics by representing good laws that support Freedom for a people. Lathander's most well known church is in Shadowdale.
TIAMAT: Tiamat is largely worshiped by evil rulers who put their populace under their heel. Unjust laws, laws which benefit the power of the monarch or the state; are all done in the spirit of Tiamat.
HELM: Finally, Helm represents how government actually works. A smoothly working government in the Realms is guided by Helm.
HELM: Represents the neutrality of
Saturday, May 16, 2009
*frown*
I should be happy, but I'm not. This result is unacceptable. So, what am I going to do? I'm going to sit down and do nothing about it, that's what I'm going to do. There's enough damage done, I don't want to add to it. So, I'm going to change my whole style, my whole way of doing things. I'm going to do what is best for my Best Friend, instead of what I think is best.
