Things To Fear In The Dark [WIP] by Revelation-23
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Description
Okay, the title leaves something to be desired, but I'm holding on to the title I saved the scene as for a while until I decide what to do next.
I wasn't planning on doing any more Vicky based renders for a while, but after reading through some notes for an AD&D campaign I had started to work on years ago (back when I still actually playing), along with some recent 3.5 D&D stuff I picked up, I've decided to try to finish what I started, although I don't know what form it'll take in the end (module for NWN/NWN2, possible submission to WotC, online comic of sorts) of how long it'll take to get there.
While some of the darker skinned elves (usually with strong hints of blue or purple) I've seen in various galleries are quite good, they don't seem to be the Drow that I see in my head (no offense meant, sorry guys), so I decided to make my own version. I started playing around in the Materials room to see what I could come up with. After several hours and a couple dozen test renders, I've reached a point where I think it looks pretty good. Sure, it needs a lot of work yet, but I'd like to think I'm on the right track - or somewhere close.
Unfortunately, this isn't as good as it gets. The sample Firefly renders make the skin look considerably better, but Poser simply doesn't want to render when I change from Draft to Production. While I don't expect my computer to be a speed demon, I would hope that it won't take forever either. Sometimes I don't have a lot of patience, but I even gave it some time to chug through the scene and after three hours it hadn't even moved past an Adding Objects dialog. I even tried rebooting, closing everything I could to get a boost (including Explorer, Avast, my internet and anything else foolish enough to get in Task Manager's way) and got the same results; a few hours of waiting for Poser to just sit there, twiddling its runtimes. I also tried this in Carrara 3D Basics 2, but couldn't get things to look right, although that's probably more my lack of experience at play there.
Upgrading my versions of Poser and Cararra are out of the question at this point. I've already sunk quite a bit of money (for me) into the new computer and I can't really find much space in my slim budget to shell out a couple hundred or more for more recent software. Plus, I'm gonna have to buy a couple other parts anyway at some point, not to mention possibly switching over to a dual core (or quad core, depending on the money at the time).
The dark skin may make her hard to make out under some lighting, but in all honesty, that's how the Drow would like to have it. They thrive in the darkness. But so far, with the settings I have, you can still tell where she is, see most of her features and see where her arms and legs are. Again, something that I'll need to tweak some more to get better and more consistent results. This isn't too far in, yet.
What I did get out of Draft looked pretty promising. I just don't know if it's worth pursuing right now or if I should shelve it and come back at a later date.
Comments (9)
Tracesl
Excellent! wonderful pose, light and atmosphere
PapaSkip
Great work! Hope you figure out a way past your problems ... this really looks good. Keep at it!
thecytron
Very good composition!
Askare
nice work
magnus073
I think she looks great and I am glad your going to put out some more Ad&d style renders because I love them. As for your problems I know you've probably been asked this a dozen times but does tweaking the settings speed it up at all for you ?
Revelation-23
magnus, nope. No matter what I try, I can't seem to get it to render in Firefly if I have it on Production. I don't know, maybe I need to reinstall Poser (again!) and redo my runtimes; I don't know if I really like having more than one. I haven't tried a render in D|S yet, but I want to get more done in Poser first before I work on a Studio version, plus I want to also do something with some of the plugins (pwSurface comes to mind, though I haven't bought it yet). My computer's not a l337 killer rig, but it does pretty good at just about anything I throw at it (Hl2 and Doom 3 maxed out with no slowdown, I'm pretty happy with that), so maybe Poser 6 or 7 needs to be higher on the list of stuff to get when I have the spare cash. Plus, I get a 'there is no disk in the drive' message (or something like that) when I launch Poser at times. Maybe I need to reformat the hard drive Poser's installed on then and start everything over. Or maybe it's just Poser being stupid again... Keep an eye out for some more D&D type stuff. Eventually I'll get enough done on them to at least show off.
CrownPrince
I think this is an excellent render or attempt as you say.. I look at the colors that you see in the various images as skin tones that are visable due brighter lighting. In the darkness i would think this is right on the money... Look at some of the renders in my gallery and Svdl's(wonder hows he's doing?) And others the scene is lit moreso than yours..
chimera46
Overall I'd say it's a superb scene, too bad she's not purple :P Love the outfit, and the scene composition, though I didn't catch the spiders until my third look at it. Making them a little glossy or something might help. Also, if you want the dark skin to show up better you may want to try making an "edge blend" node and plugging it into the ambient slot and the alternate diffuse slot. As for the rendering, working with p5? Yes that version is a little temperamental and lacking on the memory management. If it helps, here's some p5 tips: 1.If you've been experimenting with different textures and props in this session of p5 save and restart poser (or even reboot) to clear things out. It helps a bit. 2.Ctrl-alt-del to open task manager to watch your system processes while you render. This will give you an idea of when a scene is "too heavy" and you'll need to dump some stuff/scale it down. 3.Render parts at a time. Render without clothes, a few body parts invisible, and some scene props invisible too, then alternate what's visible and render again. Layer the renders together in photoshop or something. It's tedious but it works. 4.use the advanced render settings and read up on what you can jack up or leave low to make a good image. It's been a while but if you send a screenshot of the advanced render settings I could tell ya what to do. 5.BUY RAMM. it helps...
DukeNukem2005
This is a very beautiful image! This is an excellent work of art! Five stars!