Inhabitants of the world. Any need for illustrations?

[12rounds]

Any tips on specifically which shaders you are using and any node tweaks?

For organic models - like humans and animals and monsters - my first choice nowadays is the tritone shader (textured variant; keeps the underlying texture). I simplify the settings negating reflection nodes, toning down or disengaging specularity and sometimes killing off displacements and bumps. On other occasions I specifically put noise on bump channel. I use coarse line values between 0.5 and 0.7 and fine line values between 0.5 and 0.7 as well. F.ex. the thief/rogue woman on page 13 was done with coarse line and fine line values of 0.68 (too much - I would lessen the shader impact if I was making the image now). One white infinite light with intensity values of 125-140% is usually adequate (since most of the lightning comes from ambient channels) for my needs, but sometimes I use a second light for more dramatic effect. Light placement has an impact as well. For the main body of my illustrations I go for placing the light close to main camera.

I have no fixed settings - the settings live between images and it is common to turn off shaders altogether sometimes or to do a final render with different shaders on certain material zones. A common trick is also to lessen the impact of texture by 25-45% and set a diffuse color close to a average tonal value of the texture.

When I'm done, I do the same thing with a dual-tone shader and select the low backlight variant of the black/white shader. It gets me the b/w outlines. That render doesn't actually need to be very good since it's pretty easy to just draw missing lines in postwork.

I almost exclusively use P4 renderer disabling bump maps and shadows. At times I also make a firefly render with high AO levels and then do a slight overlay of that render on top of other layers in postwork - it gives nice soft shadows on armpits, creases etc.


Then again, on architectural models Olivier's shaders don't really work that good. Same goes for organic items with lots of alpha-mapped planes (like trees with leaves). When doing those, I resort to other means.

If I could get close to your settings perhaps I could help you with at least providing you with 2d artwork to make all pretty and stuff.

That would actually be pretty nice since I mostly find myself liking the postwork part of the process best. At times the 3d part gets boring - especially when dealing with Poser quirks.




Here's an example of a scene from around a month ago. I'm still not happy with it (ie. this is not going to be final version), but this has a totally different approach than when making humans (shader-wise, that is).

[RPMiller]

Excellent info. I will have to get in there and play around them. I own Poser 4,5,6, and 7, but currently only have 7 installed so I'll have to look at the P4 renderer which I rarely use since moving to 7.

Over the next few weeks, I'll try to get a few sample renders banged out and you can help me get pointed in the right direction regarding the nodes. Their flexibility tends to be their most frustrating aspect and without a full understanding of some of them I tend to get hit or miss results especially where the math nodes are concerned.

[12rounds]

Sorta getting there.

Yup. But it's still missing the "human factor".

Just like in the music industry there exists separate (and also expensive!) software packages solely for the purpose of breaking the computer-generated sound. Adding a barely audible click, putting a hint of a dissonance on the middle-range of saxophone, doing delicate 1/128th tempo shifts on drums (making it sound like the drummer is actually playing very good, but not like a machine), tiny variations of volume levels within a short time period etc.

I believe the same applies to visual arts as well. Adding a ragged sketchy line here and another there are very powerful and underused means in digital visual arts. Also many digital artist purists want to show very complex textures in their full glory. I on the other hand believe that showing only a tiny fraction of a texture detail is enough to convey the viewer the idea that the whole thing in real life would have that same texture (like the shirt on Lord Weer's - the highlighted portions of the shirt's sleeves hint that the fabric has a nice and rich texturing, but to actually SHOW the whole shirt with that texture would make the image just look like a rendering).

[12rounds]

Excellent info. I will have to get in there and play around them. I own Poser 4,5,6, and 7, but currently only have 7 installed so I'll have to look at the P4 renderer which I rarely use since moving to 7.

Same as me. I too only have P7 installed anymore and use that exclusively. In practice I've found that for some reason the P4 renderer gives more clarity and crispiness compared to firefly especially when used with tone shader nodes. I'm not sure why, but I believe that firefly renderer somehow overcompensates the shader effects (ie. it applies too much anti-aliasing on black lines eventhough the user actually means to have those lines in the first place).

[Steel General]

For those of us who can't quite afford Poser, will those shaders work in DAZ Studio?

I suppose I could go look for myself, but I'm a bit lazy

[12rounds]

For those of us who can't quite afford Poser, will those shaders work in DAZ Studio?

No they wont. D|S has it's own shader system (but it costs mucho yens).

Poser is dirt cheap at the moment (P6 goes for $29,99 and P7 for $99,99).
http://www.contentparadise.com

[Steel General]

Wow! The price has really dropped, too bad I went broke buying my wife's Christmas presents.

[RPMiller]

Wow! The price has really dropped, too bad I went broke buying my wife's Christmas presents.

So tell her what you want for Christmas.

[12rounds]

William McCraig has been the harbormaster for 5 years now. His position is one of the most important ones in the city of Port Magalie. The harbor is at the heart of survival when it comes to maintaining the life-style that Port Magalie's citizens have adopted. Sure there are land-routes, but the ever threatening presence of orc and goblin tribes practically make steady land-bound trade routes commercially unviable. The sea routes on the other hand are quite the opposite. Hence Port Magalie's harbor forms the biggest and most bustling section of the city - and at the heart of all this is the harbormaster.

Nothing happens in the harbor without William knowing it. He does have 2 deputy harbormasters working evenings and nights, but even then William is usually kept in the loop as to what is happening. He knows all the captains , their vices and their loyalties, their cons and pros. He knows who owns which warehouse and he knows when ships are due to sail in and out.

William is not a sea-farer himself. In fact he has a tendency for sea-sickness and doesn't have the longing for open sea that drives many of the captains and ship crews out there. Should he have that yearning in his heart, it would be doubtful he'd still be land bound seeing the ships come in and go out on a daily basis. What he has, on the other hand, is an extraordinary gift for organising and multi-tasking several jobs simultaneously. This gift of his is a natural pre-requisite for anyone wishing to run a busy harbor so it can be reasonably argued that William is the right man for the job of harbormaster.

William McCraig is already pushing over 35 years, but surprisingly his face, demeanor and personality are in contradiction to his physical age. He is generally thought as a decade younger than what he actually is. Both a blessing and a curse really. At times newcomers express doubts that how come the port city's main function is run by a teenager. Once they see how well things are organised and maintained, they usually see the error in their attitude. William is also quite the busy bee when it comes to dealings with the opposite sex. He has not yet found his true love despite his efforts to find one.

William has been connected with several wealthy and powerful families via sexual adventures, but so far his important and visible position has protected him against the wrath of angered fathers (and a couple of husbands too!). He is physically in very good shape and strong as an ox. This is due to the fact that he actually still takes part of the heavier duties that the harbor has to offer it's workers. He is very well liked among the harbor workers, but less so by some civil servants who consider that a man in his position should not be so friendly with his employees. In fact there has been several instances when William's errors in running the harbor have been used against him in an effort to shove him out of his job. So far those efforts have failed miserably simply because he almost single-handedly keeps the harbor operational and everyone knows that replacing William would have an adverse effect on how the harbor operates.

### PIC ###

[12rounds]

Don Claudio Argnetti is one of the respected teachers in the University of Akron (situated in the city state of Akron). Don Argnetti is a chief judge in the city state and also holds numerous other vacancies within the judicial system in the nearby regions. Don Argnetti is one of the 12 high priests of The Holy Order of Justice and Don Argnetti's responsibilities cover the entire area of Akron and then some. The Holy Order of Justice is a loose counsil of respected followers of Aldamar and their purpose is to supervise and guide both secular rulers and Aldamar's servants in matters that concern dealing justice. In practice their opinion is asked first when new positions are being implemented within an existing judicial system or new persons are being proposed into important and visible positions. In theory secular rulers have no obligation to obey since there are no laws that give the high priests any official jurisdiction. However, their power is often entangled and entwined with the society at large and ignoring their opinions has proven to be a bad idea.

Don Argnetti's duties at the university includes regular lectures in different aspects of how laws are created and upheld. He also has about a dozen promising younger Aldamar's servants under his tutorage. This mentoring has proven a good practise because it gives Don Argnetti a good perspective of where the young generation is standing in his field of speciality. And of course it pays well. A two-year long tutoring program costs an average peasant's net income for 10 years.

Don Argnetti is a visible personality in Akron and he likes to bask in the spot lights. He is a very articulate and verbally acrobatic debater and has somewhat famous for setting logic traps when debating and then exploding them just at the right time in order to win debates. He likes mental challenges, but this is probably also a compensation for his weak body. Don Argnetti has suffered from ill health for most of his life and his bad back prevents from doing any kind of strenuous physical activities which in turn is making his body even worse. At the age of 55 years, Don Argnetti is still full of new ideas in his field of expertise and he still sees much need for improvement in the surrounding world. His liberal thinking and progressive attitude has gained him opposition over the years as well primarily from those who get benefits from a stagnated and stale society.

### PIC ###