Wallpaper Wips

[RavenX]

Quite a bit of work to do on this one yet, from work on a box wrapped in Pandora wrapping paper as a prezzie in the foreground to placing the scene within an environment (probably a room rather than a snowy field, but who knows?) to improving her skin and creating some better lighting...

but here's WIP #1 of "All I Want For Christmas":

Wow, I love this one already. This is a great idea! If I can't have my Pandora for Christmas, I would settle for a completed version of this render (I run my screens at 1680x1050 ;-). My only suggestion, apart from what you have already mentioned, is to maybe put some Pandora logo ornaments on the tree.

I also had the idea of having a pair of these wallpapers that go together. One dark, much like this, with the Santa or elf (pointed ears?) chick and the Pandora in it's box (in a living room lit by a fireplace would be nice) which would be like the Night Before Christmas.
And a second, similar scene, but with a different girl in the same pose holding her Pandora in front of her playing it for the first time on Christmas morning wearing her nightie fresh out of bed with the light of a sunrise streaming in through a window which would, of course, be the Morning After Christmas.

OK, so maybe that is a little much detail, but that is the vision in my head.
So, what do you think?

 

[Monk]

Didn't see any snapping, just responses to my comments.

Excellent - it can be tricky judging "tone" online at the best of times, doubly so when you're low on pain meds, and I got this sudden impression last night that I'd been snippy rathre than grateful.

I haven't messed much with composting, though I kinda get how it works from your explanations - basically merging the two images, or using parts of 1 of the renders in the other. I like the above image of aquarium. I think this latest version melds most the suggestions for it nicely.

There's a whole raft of ways to use it, but if I can use the Dragon 1 image as the easiest example, in THIS animation I'm using 2 versions of the scene - one gloriously dark, one blindingly bright.

The animation shows a few degrees of blend - rather corsely - and here is the blend I've chosen in the hopes it is bright enough for everyone without being too bright for me

Sadly, I got a couple of the aquarium render setups wrong last night, so they need to render again this morning with the RIGHT settings. Fortunately they are in Poser Pro not DS, so they not only have the attention of my quad core PC but also - if they wanted it - a small (though not very powerful) renderfarm. Those two images should be done in a matter of very few hours, while I work on other things - like "All I Want For Christmas!"

No worries on poor jar brain. It works as it is, and you only have so many computing resources to use at one time. If you do get the chance to tweak it, I'd be interested to see the results.

cheers

1 other thought I had on Jar Brain and forgot to mention. Thought control is all of the magazine text you can really see when scaled to fit the table. That can imply either that the jar brain is controlling the Pandora, or that there's something controlling the jar brain. I love the full sized magazine heading just as it is, but you can't see that clearly when it's scaled and lying on the table. Maybe have something in there about telekinesis? Again, that's only if/when you have time, and if it can be done elegantly. If not, it works the way it is.

My 8yo son sat down with me the day I'd done "New Mad Scientist" and, in front of my wife, explained in perfect "art-critic" style exactly what each element of the image meant, and how it impacted the rest of the image. I really wish I'd taped it, now, but hindsight is 20/20. I figure if he can work it out the second he sits in front of it, it's good enough - and of course it's always nice to leave a LITTLE ambiguity (even if I did take that a little too far in Dragon #1) for the viewer to fill in the blanks in their own way. Sure, the artist/author always has what THEY believe the meaning is, but who is to say that they are right?

Breakfast! Drugs!

 

[Monk]

Wow, I love this one already. This is a great idea! If I can't have my Pandora for Christmas, I would settle for a completed version of this render (I run my screens at 1680x1050 ;-). My only suggestion, apart from what you have already mentioned, is to maybe put some Pandora logo ornaments on the tree.

At last - someone would like a higher res version! LOL. This is a very quick-n-dirty scene at present, renders in next-to-no-time... however it's the kind of scene that you can just add and add to. The current work-in-progress has a hard wooden floor and wallpapered walls, and future versions should have vastly improved lighting and probably some serious tweaks to her skin to make her look softer, warmer, less plastic... all of which will slow the render down horribly! It's one of those images you can just keep tinkering with... and I probably will, adjusting this here, adding to that there, until it gets locked by circumstances (Pandora ships) or it gets lost among other things I'm doing (Dragon #9 etc.).

Hmmm... I'm worried that Pandora ornaments might be overdoing it when I'm already planning to put a prezzie in front of the lady which is to be wrapped in Pandora wrapping paper. Since we don't know the size or shape that the Pandora box will be, I'm just going to use a fairly generic-sized toon style box with a ribbon on it (actually already mostly done, just need to work on the UV Mapping and paint the paper). Besides - I alreayd have a plan for something in the tree

I also had the idea of having a pair of these wallpapers that go together. One dark, much like this, with the Santa or elf (pointed ears?) chick and the Pandora in it's box (in a living room lit by a fireplace would be nice) which would be like the Night Before Christmas.

I'd wondered about making her ears pointed, actually... but so far I have shied away from it for fear of making people go "PHWOOAR...UGH? YUK!". We shall see! As you're the second voice on the topic, you seem to be backing me up so I may well give it a shot!

And a second, similar scene, but with a different girl in the same pose holding her Pandora in front of her playing it for the first time on Christmas morning wearing her nightie fresh out of bed with the light of a sunrise streaming in through a window which would, of course, be the Morning After Christmas.

OK, so maybe that is a little much detail, but that is the vision in my head.
So, what do you think?

A little bit specific for me! The closest I have planned is already done - the second girlie image on the first page of this thread, with the young lady playing with her Pandora, is probably the closest I'm likely to come to fulfilling your "Morning" concept right now. If you picked up DAZ Studio (free) I might have some competition in this arena tho!

Ta,

 

[Vorporeal]

Is the dragon... transparent?

 

[Monk]

Is the dragon... transparent?

Yes. It's not actually a dragon at all - more a cloud of gas or smoke in the shape of a dragon. It's Puff, the magic dragon!



Meanwhile - Santa Girl AKA "All I Want For Christmas" was getting too busy - too cluttered and complicated, with me using things like walls and a floor and so on to try and fill the image to the edges. I like my wallpaper edges to be uncluttered and the render times were shooting up while the quality IMHO was sinking, so I've simplified it again.

Now, instead of trying to bring more into the scene to fill it up, I've zoomed in to the present to make what was already in the scene simply take up more pixels. I hope this direction meets with general approval

though of course I'm still honing the lighting and minor scene elements.

Ta

 

[Phawx]

@monk


Why is the box not perfectly square? If she was leaning on it, I'd imagine the box would bend different. Unless the box is squishy?

Edit: How hard would it be to edit, to make her look concerned/surprised she crushed the box a little?

Edit 2: Not to say I mind the inviting glare she is giving me and me alone.

 

[Monk]

@Monk


Why is the box not perfectly square? If she was leaning on it, I'd imagine the box would bend different.

Because it's a zany, toony non-square box (actually like the other boxes in the distance). CRAZEEE!

Here's the composited aquarium - I've brightened it from 3 different perspectives just about as much as I can without - I hope - ruining the effect. the only adjustment I can see now would be to paint a Pandora logo on the treasure chest - but as each render takes a few hours, I'm going to leave that for the moment.

I AM trying a JarBrain render with a darker mottled texture. My gut says pure white because it's a lab table, but maybe a kitchen work surface top would be good for mad scientists to do their work on... 24 hour render, so won't be ready for me to look at until tomorrow, unless I cancel the render to play worms (or something) with my son.

All I Want For Christmas tweaking continues... the teddy bear is a panda now, for example

 

[Monk]

Edit: How hard would it be to edit, to make her look concerned/surprised she crushed the box a little?

Fairly easy, though expression can be tricky - and trying to get across WHY a person has a given expression...

Ever bought your lady a box of roses chocolates? Over here they sometimes come in non-square boxes not ENTIRELY unlike this one (not entirely like it either, just - not everything is 90 degree angles).

 

[Monk]

Well, obviously I can't speak for anyone else - but I think this is about done:

Time, I reckon, to do a higher quality render... and lie backa nd watch some telly!

Ta

 

[Monk]

Eastern Promise WIP 2

 

[mali]

Looking good
[Off Topic]
I watched Kill Bill yesterday(again) and just love the Quentin Tarantino style.
I'm just combining things in my head right now.
The "smirk" girl with a samurai sword in her hand with some blood dripping to the ground from the point of the sword into a small pool of blood, would be quite nice
(I know I'm a freak :lol: )

 

[wardred]

Now that was a heck of a lot of work!

Just got home from work a bit ago, and saw all the posts. I like where you're going with the dragon. I'm a bit out of it, work gets going at 5am for me and I was up a wee bit later than I should've been last night working on Colonel Blender. Gotta be careful where one puts polygons or edges - a lot of the tools in Blender work better with quads then with triangles.

Cheers, I'll check back with you tomorrow, but it all looks great!

 

[Monk]

Now that was a heck of a lot of work!

Just got home from work a bit ago, and saw all the posts. I like where you're going with the dragon. I'm a bit out of it, work gets going at 5am for me and I was up a wee bit later than I should've been last night working on Colonel Blender. Gotta be careful where one puts polygons or edges - a lot of the tools in Blender work better with quads then with triangles.

Cheers, I'll check back with you tomorrow, but it all looks great!

Possibly too much - I have managed to "prove" that my main 3d computer isn't actually fixed (so for 2 years it has been crashing and losing me work, and warranty is about to expire). I hate computers built by other people

That ramps my stress up, which combines with my other ailments to make recovery from surgery go less smoothly - so, taking into account the excellent news from craig, I'm going to try and slow down a bit. I know I've been excited to work on some potential wallpaper renders, and I don't intend to stop cold turkey, but I want to refine "All I Want For Christmas" slowly and carefully. I am currently rendering two versions at 1600 * 960 before combining them in post (not, alas, quite as simple as an automateable merge - I need to do some "proper" postwork to tart it up)... and that may be my image for the day.

The latest JarBrain render is, alas, only 74% complete. That'll teach me to tweak simple things like a table top - when they take up so much of the scene! We'll see if it's any better than the previous render, though when we will see that is currently anybody's guess.

I may have figured out why THIS PC I'm sat at works brilliantly but doesn't play well as a render station for Poser - it MAY have been a simple workgroup name setting that was wrong...

We shall see. Oh - a render has finished. Off to do some postwork!

 

[Monk]

So - a couple of renders finished, here's the first - a darker table for JarBrain. How do we like this? Better or worse than the pure white table? (I'm thinking of this as a kitchen worktop - ideal for mad scientists on a tight budget as it saves all the costs associated with labs and underground lairs).

 

[Vorporeal]

The intensity of the table looks good, but it might be better with a less noisy texture? You could make it ironic and use a nice granite countertop...

 

[Monk]

And the latest "All I Want For Christmas":

plus extra large version (only 1600 by 960, though it should paste nicely onto a larger screen IMHO):

http://i50.tinypic.com/v58zuq.png

Time for a break - not to mention, some supper!

Ta

 

[Monk]

The intensity of the table looks good, but it might be better with a less noisy texture? You could make it ironic and use a nice granite countertop...

Those renders (JarBrain) now take over 24 hours to do, unless I do a lower quality preview, of course

 

[hells_dark]

Nice renders.
But the black (or unicolor…) background is a bit hard for the eyes.

 

[Vlynndar]

LOL! Excellent video - but even better IMHO is that fish in your sigline. Monstrous!

Monstrous fish, you say?

Spoiler

And you know: It's called a Monkfish. Perfect for you!

Oh, and this one is not quite real, but rather neat as well.

Spoiler

EDIT: I knew I was late with that, but I seem to have missed additional pages

 

[Monk]

Most excellent! (and I know that second one's not real - monkfish can't breathe air!). I'd forgotten about the Monkfish - though it's a rather apt beastie!

Lost pages? That seems to happen a lot from time to time. Whoosh - another half dozen pages with WIPs on 'em!

Ta