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Post by madmanmike on Apr 24, 2013 7:48:47 GMT -9
lol, if his registration didn't show as having been done 10 days prior, I'd think he joined just to cast that insult at my work..
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Post by Rhannon on Apr 24, 2013 8:37:54 GMT -9
lol, if his registration didn't show as having been done 10 days prior, I'd think he joined just to cast that insult at my work.. LoL here is the attachment for my usual talk, Mike. ;D Thanks. I do not think that this can be " just to cast that insult at your work". Imho it is an opinion. And I think I guess part of it. Maybe. But I'm not sure about this, and so I asked. Paper minis and CG figures are both, imho, paper figures products but they are also different products. That are constructed ( drawn ) with different methods and have different strengths and weaknesses. Obviously this is just my personal opinion. Life/personality ( I have called this author's "characterization" but perhaps it also includes a bit of dynamism ) is simple with hand-drawn figures ... ( Okumarts, Darkmook, Revaj ... ) but I don't understand what we might compare it with CG figures ... and this is a my limit. So I ask.
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Post by madmanmike on Apr 24, 2013 12:09:23 GMT -9
I get that. In drawing you have license to distort the features of a character beyond realism to create dynamic imagery. Bigger hands, disproportionate heads, enlarged features.. These are the trademarks of cartooning and I imagine many people expect these when they look at paper figures.. Add to that the 'Uncanny Valley' and there will be people who just won't like what I do..
But I'd rather hear him explain where he's coming from..
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2013 13:34:36 GMT -9
I get that. In drawing you have license to distort the features of a character beyond realism to create dynamic imagery. Bigger hands, disproportionate heads, enlarged features.. These are the trademarks of cartooning and I imagine many people expect these when they look at paper figures.. Add to that the 'Uncanny Valley...' Nah, c'mon... srlsly?
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 25, 2013 0:42:10 GMT -9
But I'd rather hear him explain where he's coming from.. I can't really speak for the guy, as he's as much a stranger to me as he is to the rest of you. I would like to offer some constructive criticism in a similar vein though. I get the impression that you, as an artist, strive for realism. I can't fault you on that one, as I strive for the same. In fact, I'd seriously recommend that you give consideration to taking some of your models and selling them on places like www.turbosquid.com/ and unity3d.com/asset-store/ where you are sure to get more than a few purchases with a nice profit on each sale. When tackling something like a gaming miniature however, whether it's made of paper or plastic or metal, you're dealing with something that's already really small, and something that's going to be sitting quite a distance from the eyes of the viewer. Realism actually begins to work against you in this setting, rather than helping you. Think of it more like theatre, and less like a video game. In a video game, the screen is big, and close to the viewer. The dynamic of the characters comes from a mobile camera, and ambient animations that give the characters the illusion of life. Realism in this environment is impressive and powerful. In theatre, the actors are far away from the audience. There are no close ups on the actor's faces to show off the subtle nuances in their facial expressions, so they don't bother with subtlely. Everything is loud and bombastic! The make-up is bold with lots of contrast, so much so that it looks terrible and ridiculous up close. A soft tear running down a cheek is not enough to show sadness, so the actor's whole body gets in on the act with arms flailing in despair and knees showing visible weakness. The actor who is seething with anger doesn't stand quietly with a grimace on his face... he throws his arms out defiantly, tensing every muscle in his body and screams furiously and loudly (even the characters standing right next to him are supposed to be oblivious to his rage). With hand-drawn cartoony figures, the dynamism is not added by the silly exaggeration, but instead, the simplicity of the figures makes them very expressive and the exaggeration only sharpens that effect. Make each piece tell a bit of a story. I can't think of a better way to illustrate my point than to give some direct advice on some of the figures you've presented here: This guy's an assassin? Instead of just making him a guy carrying lots of cool looking swords, give him some menacing presence. Make his pose more dramatic... Perhaps he's skulking in the shadows, hunched over observing his victim and waiting for the right moment. Perhaps he's sneaking up on his target, sword poised to deliver the death blow. This one has some story going on, so that's a good thing. The story's just not being told strongly enough. If his legs were bent more, so that he's half-crouching, and his shield was pushed forward while his body moves back it would add a lot of drama straight away. It would also help to position his sword in a way that made it look like he was actually about to use it, instead of just holding it, which is what he's doing now. This guy's also pretty good, but he could be a lot better. He's holding a massive hammer, that would certainly weigh more than 50 pounds with a chunky metal head like that, but he's holding like it's a bouquet of flowers that he's about to offer to his girlfriend. There's nothing about his posture that indicates the weight of that fearsome weapon, and nothing about his body language to reveal that he has any intention of using it to inflict horrible damage on the person he's facing. This guy's pose is awesome and the non-chalant look on his face is classic! The only real problem here is that most of the beauty here is completely lost in the translation. When printed out, you can barely see his swords at all, and all that beautiful detail on the face is little more than a smudge. This one might work a lot better in the same pose, but with the camera facing him from the side instead of head on, so that you can see the length of the sword and the threat it poses. This would definitely be helped by some indication of tension in his muscles, as if he's a tightly wound spring, with all of that potential kinetic energy just squeezed into him waiting for the slightest excuse to unleash it all in a frenetic ballet of death. Just some thoughts. I hope they're helpful.
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Post by gilius on Apr 25, 2013 3:20:34 GMT -9
Wow! Sir Kevin, thanks for the detailed analysis, I can say it has helped me.
As I am a newbie, I am left wondering about how one would represent muscle tension. Is it done mostly by the position of the limbs -- for instance, an arm drawn back as if getting ready to punch? Maybe play with the figure's balance, or rotation of hips and shoulders?
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Post by okumarts on Apr 25, 2013 3:55:07 GMT -9
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 25, 2013 5:59:45 GMT -9
Wow! Sir Kevin, thanks for the detailed analysis, I can say it has helped me. As I am a newbie, I am left wondering about how one would represent muscle tension. Is it done mostly by the position of the limbs -- for instance, an arm drawn back as if getting ready to punch? Maybe play with the figure's balance, or rotation of hips and shoulders? You're welcome! The position of limbs, the posture and all of that are very important for balance, but when it comes to muscle tension, it's all about light and shadow. Tensed muscles have dramatically more definition than relaxed ones. When drawing, you'd indicate this by deepening the detail around the tensed muscles, and by making the contracted muscles bulge visibly and making the extended muscles look like they're being pulled taut. On a particularly muscular character, you'd also emphasize the bulging of veins over the contracted muscles It's also very important to remember that the body is basically a machine, and the muscles are like a system of pistons that move the frame around... No muscle works on its own... it's part of an interconnected system. When you're raising a dumbell over your head with your right arm, it's not just the biceps doing work: The muscles of your forearm are contracted tightly to keep your fingers closed firmly around the bar. The triceps is flexed to keep your arm straight, and your biceps is stretched, but flexed to keep the triceps from bending your forearm too far backwards. Your deltoids and trapezius muscles are flexed to pull the arm up, and your lats and chest are pulled taut, tensed as they counter the pull of the trapezius. Your abs and back are firm and tight as they seek to keep your core stable, and if you're standing, your legs will be flexed tightly as they contribute to your balance too. The muscles of the left arm would be relatively relaxed however, as they don't really have anything to contribute. I'd also like the add that Mr Okum has the right of it. Silhouette is by far the most important thing. Definitely going to second his advice on learning from the masters. There's a lot of theory behind good character design, and we're pretty fortunate that some of the experts out there are willing to share their knowledge! I know I owe them a great debt for all they've taught me.
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Post by oldschooldm on Apr 25, 2013 6:58:58 GMT -9
As a customer only, with no art training or aesthetic sense whatsover - I must say that the graphic above makes the "personality" point in a very powerful way - especially at the scale we're talking about here. That image appears no more than 2" across on my screen, but I can make out every single character and their action/expression and/or personality!
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Post by Rhannon on Apr 26, 2013 1:23:00 GMT -9
As a customer only, with no art training or aesthetic sense whatsover - I must say that the graphic above makes the "personality" point in a very powerful way - especially at the scale we're talking about here. That image appears no more than 2" across on my screen, but I can make out every single character and their action/expression and/or personality! Also I'm just a customer, without specific skills, oldschooldm. Personally I also prefer, if I had to choose, hand-drawn paper figures. But, luckily for me, I do not have to choose, because the range of products is huge and different. But, to me, is precisely the word "different" that makes the difference. ;D Hand-drawn paper minis ( which often try to bring back some of the metal minis' characteristics - eg as maby Darkmook minis have few oversized elements, perfect imho, so Okumarts' minis have typically comics characteristics, while Permes' minis have proper anatomical proportions because descended from his paper soldiers ... and so on ... and these are all "characteristic" details ) and CG standies are different between them. So how different is, in a very substantial way, the creative process of these. Imho. A too close comparison between the two types and their creative process is likely to be inaccurate and unfair to one of the two products ( depending on your own personal preferences ). Personal preferences that are important to us but they are not always the only indicator of a product's quality. I also know all the David's black silhouettes, and of course they all have a characteristic strong power. But because they all have their own details ( more or less distorted from reality ) that allow us to recognize them. And these details are typical of comic and cartoon characters. But probably the CG products' production process is different. CG tries to reproduce reality or pseudo-reality (sci-fi, fantasy, horror ...) most really possible ( sorry for the pun ). This kind of "characterization" is not an index expected in CG. I don't want to be the defense attorney for CG standies ;D . As said before I personally prefer a bit hand-drawn paper minis. But for the more choice I'm also a regular buyer of CG standies' products. And my personal impression is that the two products are very different from each other. Products that can have the same use but remain very different in many ways. From their creative and production process. I consider interesting too Kevin's observations, but in this case, since I haven't any skills that allow me to evaluate, I don't know what to say. And I prefer to leave the answer to others rather than saying "I do not like" or "I love you" without explaining ( while I'm trying to make a speech about an interesting topic ) So I haven't fully ( or well ) understood what the topic's author meant. And I asked him a few examples ( with same type's products ) to try to better understand ... Now I try to explain my point of view with some pictures. Arion GamesDakkar UnlimitedDramascapeFinger & ToePS: Their last product, adobe fort, is wonderful Two Hour WargamesImperium GroupFox Forrester's productions... They are all excellent producers and offer really good CG standies. Imho. So if I compare the paper figures, object of this topic, with these I can't see major lack of vitality or characterization. Indeed I see some other positive aspects that have not (brightness, more dynamism ...). But I'm just a buyer.
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Post by madmanmike on Apr 26, 2013 3:37:20 GMT -9
Thank you all for the feedback, especially the strong detailed analysis. I completely understand where you are coming from, and from a self-improvement angle can say I agree with you about the poses, I could certainly use more dynamism..
As Rhannon has pointed out, I am not trying to compete with hand drawn products. I see the other CG work out there and as a CG artist I cringe and am ashamed that these are what represent CG in this realm.
I do not make models that I can sell online. Like all of the other CG mini creators out there, I use a library of purchase products to create unique variations. CG artists are often looked down upon by traditional artists because they don't understand the work that goes into CG; we are often accused of just pressing the 'make art' button on our computers.
When I look at the examples Rhannon has showed I can say that those are all as close to fitting that insult as they can be. You go to your library and load a base figure with the click of a button. You then go to the library and click on the accessories you want them to have; hair, shirt, pants, weapon, armor, etc, each is just a click and they conform to the base figure. Then you pick a stock pose you want them to have, click on it, and then click the render button. That's what a majority of the CG minis take to make.
I go through the same process, but before i click the render button, I create a unique pose, add morphs to the figure to make them more or less muscular and give them unique faces and expressions, and then add lighting to give the figure more depth (a few of the examples Rhannon showed have attempted to do unique lighting, but none have done facial expressions or custom body morphs, just stock figures). When I've done the renders, I then take them into PhotoshopCS2 and run a custom set of filters to give them less of the standard CG look (moving them away from that mystical Uncanny Valley), and since your feed back, adding the black outlines.
I know that were I a capable cartoonist these would be dramatically different, but I'm not. I have a tablet for my computer and in the three years since I have bought it have used it one time; I just can't draw and the practice it would take to make my drawing marginally good would consume time I just don't have.
So I am not trying to compete with the hand drawn products out there any more than someone manufacturing a motorcycle is trying to compete with someone manufacturing a pickup truck. Yes they are both vehicles, but they also appeal to a different set of criteria/niche market.
On a personal note, my insurance settlement is done and has arrived, so this afternoon I will be purchasing a new computer with about eight times the power of the one I have now. My software will go through an upgrade as well so I have a new learning curve to tackle before I can proceed further with this project. Thank you all for your continued interest in my progress.
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Post by cowboyleland on Apr 26, 2013 4:45:38 GMT -9
Hello Mike (or should I call you "Madman"?) Anyway, great news on your insurance. I'm glad it didn't have to drag on through the courts. I hope your computer and software upgrade help you. It doesn't often work that way for me To the point: I like your motorcycle/pick-up truck analogy and I thought I was just a pick-up truck sort of guy but Rhannon properly points out that your figs are already a cut (or three) above the rest and Sir Kev's analysis (and as a theatre artist I take small exception to his use of "bombastic" . . . but I digress ) made me think about what I feel is missing from CG figs. I think the realism of models makes the detail hard to see at gaming scale and distance. I wonder if when you have the fig in photoshop you could use the "curves" and "unsharp mask" feature as explained to me in the later parts of this thread ( cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cowboyleland&action=display&thread=4529 ) to pick out the details and let them pop a bit? I don't know, but you could try and see if you like the effect. To paraphrase Jim Hartman: when designing a fig to "hold it out at arms length and squint" If it still looks good, it is a good fig. Cheers Cowboy
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Post by glennwilliams on Apr 26, 2013 5:28:21 GMT -9
There are a few things I've observed about CG standees as I produced them.
First, it's d___d hard to get the feet and arms right. My prejudice (generally) is both feet on the ground (it's a prejudice and therefore irrational, I know, I know). Pose them beautifully from the front, rotate 180 degrees, and you can guarantee one of them will be off and not align for cutting. The problem, of course, is perspective view. You solved my prejudice with the thick black in the bottom half of the figure.
Second, I absolutely hate that purple pink cast to the skin my figures had, so . . . helmets with faceplates and gloves. You've solved that problem for the most part.
Third, there's a lot more pre- and post-production than people realize. Your lighting shows that. For example before starting, I re-textured the humans to get a camouflage that fit my other products. (Still not happy about that tight body-paint butt look)
And last, there's what Mel Ebbles (Chris Rowe) called "tablevision" and Jim's arm's length. Minis are usually far enough away that details get lost, but every mini painter wants someone to pick up a figure, hold it up to his eye and go, "Wow!" I like your facial expressions, but it's true both the expressions and details like that assassin's blade will get lost (can you rotate the hand slightly?). It's a compromise.
There's only one real test, and it's terrifying: the market. If people like it, as Heinlein said about writing, you're spoiled for honest work. Release and pray. (Although, I've found a good Chablis helps the post-release panic).
In short, keep it up.
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Post by madmanmike on Apr 26, 2013 5:56:51 GMT -9
Hello Mike (or should I call you "Madman"?) Anyway, great news on your insurance. I'm glad it didn't have to drag on through the courts. I hope your computer and software upgrade help you. It doesn't often work that way for me To the point: I like your motorcycle/pick-up truck analogy and I thought I was just a pick-up truck sort of guy but Rhannon properly points out that your figs are already a cut (or three) above the rest and Sir Kev's analysis (and as a theatre artist I take small exception to his use of "bombastic" . . . but I digress ) made me think about what I feel is missing from CG figs. I think the realism of models makes the detail hard to see at gaming scale and distance. I wonder if when you have the fig in photoshop you could use the "curves" and "unsharp mask" feature as explained to me in the later parts of this thread ( cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cowboyleland&action=display&thread=4529 ) to pick out the details and let them pop a bit? I don't know, but you could try and see if you like the effect. To paraphrase Jim Hartman: when designing a fig to "hold it out at arms length and squint" If it still looks good, it is a good fig. Cheers Cowboy Hey, thanks for pointing that out! Here's an example before (left) and after (right).. I think I'll add that to my process; What does everyone else say?
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Post by madmanmike on Apr 26, 2013 6:03:18 GMT -9
Last month's Marquest Clan with that unsharp mask...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2013 6:12:17 GMT -9
I think that Mike is missing one thing, as jjms313 wrote: I wish they had more life/personality... BTW in my opinion he wasn't insulting or criticizing your work at all - on contrary, he wrote that your figurines are not bad but he'd expect/like something more. In fact I'd treat it like incentive and encouragement rather. So you've just received honest feedback from one of your's potential customers (which is always good, although in this specific case some more explanation and samples would be very helpfull and wellcomed perhaps - but then there is a lot of useful advices and samples from forum's users). Your reply was: I get that. In drawing you have license to distort the features of a character beyond realism to create dynamic imagery. Bigger hands, disproportionate heads, enlarged features. And that's NOT what the guy was talking about! Moreover, that's kinda quite common misunderstanding and mistake. The point is that you DO NOT need comic or cartoonish stylistic, enlargent heads and this kind of tricks to put some dynamic, life and personality into your CG's!In fact most of CG software gives you a big toolkit and broad possibilities to easily change posing, perspective, distance, light effects etc. Described by you postprocessing (Photoshop filters) just additionally enhance your models adding some more personal touch'n'style and making them looking more as artworks (which is good/advantage IMO and I like it in your work) not right-from-the-box typical CG's. As I understood you are using DAZ (very decent free package) and/or Poser or similar software? If so, there is a LOT of samples even on DAZ homepage with very DYNAMIC, full of life poses created with this software. Some links with samples *:=>> www.daz3d.com/animations-poses/fighting/dragon-poses-for-hiro-5=>> www.daz3d.com/m5-poses-03-sword*) Please make sure you've seen also (or rather especially) these small panels below the "covers" - really a lot of fancy poses using the same model! So, there are many possibilities! Having already sound experience with CG's all you need is to use your imagination, then experiment, play with posing in order to make them more vivid/dynamic - and most important - exactly as SirKevin told: let them tell some sort of a story. Just to throw another cent on the pile... hope that helps a bit.
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Post by Rhannon on Apr 26, 2013 6:13:46 GMT -9
... When I look at the examples Rhannon has showed I can say that those are all as close to fitting that insult as they can be. ... Just a clarification about previous my examples ... If there are any problems ( visualization problems, about image quality ...) it's only my fault. I don't have skills and to post the pictures I zoomed in to 200% these commercial sets, then I took a picture with ctrl + alt + stamp ( prt ), put it in paint, saved it as a jpg file, put it in imageshack and resized it for forum. ;D ;D ;D So the graphic quality has been lost in the various steps. I suppose. But I assure you that all these products are good. And the first four are excellent, more than good. But even in CG products then each author also maintains its own characteristics. Ciao
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Post by Rhannon on Apr 26, 2013 6:18:36 GMT -9
OT - The third figure of Marquest Clan. There is something odd ( strange ... I can't understand ) about the swords on the left. Are they two?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2013 7:10:17 GMT -9
Just for some laugh... There are still some of us using very oldschool version of "POSER" Here are some photos of one of my own (it's in fact my "traditional" working place on attic - actually rather rarely used nowadays, as for obvious reasons I prefer Wacom tablet instead of pencil and ink as well as software version of poser:) However sometimes I still find this wooden figurine useful! ;D
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Post by madmanmike on Apr 26, 2013 9:31:28 GMT -9
Thanks. I always appreciate the feedback. There's no better way to achieve personal growth.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, my experience with minis/standees is very limited. My observation of drawn products is that they use a cartoony style to exagerate the features (very much like most sculpted minis I've seen). So when someone doesn't elaborate as to what they don't like about my CG mini, it's easy to assume they like the drawn types better.
Answering two parts in one, the CG images that Rhannon posted to me as a CG artist are representative of very little effort. In Poser I could duplicate any of them in a matter of minutes, and that is what traditional artists think CG is about, letting the program do all the work.
To that end, I don't buy sets of poses, I make my own. Many of the Arion sets for example don't even use bought pose sets, they use pose sets that are readily available for free from sites such as ShareCG.
Yes, I use DAZStudio, having started with Poser 4, then Poser 6 before switching over. Once I got used to the interface I found D|S much more user friendly; when I'm posing a figure, I move the legs to the basic pose I want, then zero the camera's y axis so I can make the feet line up with the floor evenly. When I started and was giving them all shadows, I had a white plane on the floor that would hide part of the feet if I didn't adjust them this way; looking at the examples of the others, one of the common details missed in the free pose sets is the position of the feet.
So I realize that my figures don't have the most dynamic poses, but compared to what I've seen of the other CG product out there, my poses are physically realistic and I've actually taken the time to put some effort into them. The shape of the standee, the number I can fit on a page to keep document size down, and the proportions of the figures are the limiting factors in their pose; they are all to scale with eachother; for example, the wolfen with the hammer? That wolfen is squating somewhat on his digitigrade haunches, so it doesn't show that standing tall, he's about 10 feet high; so that Hammer is actually about six feet long and surely weighs many times 50lbs. His culture is a clone of ancient Rome (hence the legionaire armor), so he's in a loose marching pose.
I've considered larger designs (wider and taller) in order to do the leap kick poses or mid lunge poses, but in the end I opted for a bit more sedentary poses to provide more standees per package. I can produce them faster (takes much less time to pose), provide a better close up of the details (all of the renders are done at 300dpi and 9x11.5 inches, so I can include full sized images in the package), and I can maximize how much space is used on each page (very little scrap when you cut them out).
Look at the sample image in my initial post; there is a variety of poses there, and that's only 14 of the 110 in the first two sets.. Every figure is posed individually before I render, so no two are alike; that's not going to happen with bought poses or free poses.. those get a level of repetition I wouldn't want to buy, so I don't put it into my product.
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Post by cowboyleland on Apr 26, 2013 9:59:10 GMT -9
Hello again,
I agree with you on not wanting to waste paper. It runs deep in me environmentally. Economically I think most of the cost in paper figure producton is in the ink. It would take more time in layout, but probably a clever arangement of some combination of tall and shorter/wider figures would fit nearly as many figs on a page.
I think your "after" picture of the dog soldier looks much better than the "before." On the other hand the unsharpened Marquest clan seem to have too much "glow" on the white. At least, that is how it looks on my monitor, maybe later I will try to print them to scale and see what happens.
BTW I went back an looked at the start of this thread and I really need a bunch of figures like the "Collector" in the first montage. How soon are thes going to be available?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2013 10:39:29 GMT -9
Last but not least - most important thing is that you are doing what you like, enjoying your hobby! After all - these are your figurines. So if you feel that they should be more static or whatever - it's fine! Anyway, by posting your projects you are sharing personal vision, adding some flavor and thus enhancing our hobby - which is good for all of us here (as well as this and similar discussion is a part of fun and brings something new)!
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Post by spaceranger42 on May 7, 2013 12:56:29 GMT -9
Wow, glad to see someone is showing some M2 and M3 love. Keep in mind when you are using M3 that you have a pose set in his morphs to make his hands larger or smaller without having to rescale the mesh using the dials. This can give your 3D renders a more heroic look and they will read better at a small scale. Also, and I know it is a pain, but you can get some really good results by rendering several images and compositing them in your image editing software. That will also let you exaggerate some of the proportions without making the final render look too weird. As to the hue and saturation of color as seen on screen and from a printer, don't forget to change your final values to CMYK if you can, especially if you are going PDF. I make that mistake all the time myself. Good job all around, I don't recall if DazStudio can handle procedural maps but I think the latest version does. I don't use it because I don't like how it loads my runtimes but a specular map will help you keep some of those shadows when you go with a more "flat" style render.
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Post by madmanmike on May 8, 2013 6:23:11 GMT -9
Yeah, I'm not too fond of the way D|S 4 is mapping runtimes either; for some reason none of the morphs would load and I ended up using the DIM to download about 85GB of DAZ products to install them the way it wanted.. and then the files in my regular hierarchy of runtimes started working...
I end up using four primary layers in my final images, all post worked in Photoshop; unfortunately my copy of PS is too old to go on my new MacBook Pro, so I'm stuck using the old one for post.. But the new computer will render an image at one tenth the time the old did, so production should be back on schedule after I get settled in my new job.
Oh, and a good portion of the male figures I do are based on David 3, then M3 and a few M4; the M2 ones are actually the M3 to M2 model to retain the better head geometry.
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Post by spaceranger42 on May 8, 2013 8:11:34 GMT -9
I like David too and I am a huge fan of Hiro. I would consider moving to the new Genisis figures but hoenstly it is re donkulous to replace existing mesh everytime DAZ comes up with a new idea, even if it is a good idea. And they are so proprietary these days that buying new content is frustrating.
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Post by madmanmike on May 8, 2013 15:00:20 GMT -9
The clear advantage to Genesis is the better bending of the joints, but to actually use the morphs from the existing characters requires about $60 worth of morph translators; I bought the base shapes, but I don't use the base shapes, I morph them. (and the base shapes don't actually show up in the runtimes.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2013 15:39:33 GMT -9
As to the hue and saturation of color as seen on screen and from a printer, don't forget to change your final values to CMYK if you can, especially if you are going PDF. I make that mistake all the time myself. Hmm... Care to elaborate this? I'd say that (assuming that you are addressing hobby and SOHO market, not pro-printing/magazines/publishing industry) it's much more convenient to: A) work in CMYK (some colour range limitations but strict control) - or from the scratch in one of RGB's (SRGB / Adobe RGB etc. ) B) convert working/source file into an RGB before generating PDF (still you might save specific/preferred colour profiles within final pdf file)
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Post by spaceranger42 on May 8, 2013 16:52:09 GMT -9
Mesper, I work primarily with 3D mesh have a tendency to spend a lot of time in RGB and web safe colors and some process' and filters in Photoshop (I use CS3) don't actually work correctly in CMYK. It's just a workflow thing. I have been creating art for web display and digital galleries and game assets for a while and have not done any print work since 2008 so I personally tend to forget to flip the color switch and pre-flight my own work. I figured a reminder would not hurt since 9 times out of 10 if something looks great on screen but muddy in print it is either color mode or DPI mistake.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2013 18:48:22 GMT -9
@spaceranger I'm sorry, not sure if we are on the same page? Probably that's due to my bad English I'm afraid... IMO - once again - if your user/target is an *average/home RGB* then converting to CMYK before generating PDF I'd consider as a rather risky approach. RGB is acknowledged as much *wider* colour space compared to CMYK so after direct conversion RGB=>CMYK most probably there will be some problems with gradients, shadows etc which will result with unpredictable blurred/mudded colours (there is even a special function in Photoshop which shows potentially awkward areas). Then vice versa - convering from CMYK into RGB is considered usually much more safe, although of course results might be sometime surprising or far from original artist expectations... Anyway in most cases RGB gives the best results on most HOME PRINTERS (as well as screens - but we are talking here about paper minis which are supposed to be printed) => so low and mid-price ink/laser with none or very limited colour profile management, not even mentioning calibration => Therefore in case of cardboard minis I'd strongly recommend to provide (good) RGB as a final format and definitely not direct convert RGB into CMYK in last stage.
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Post by spaceranger42 on May 8, 2013 19:01:42 GMT -9
Mesper, I don't know about you but my home printer is an inkjet that uses two cartridges, one for the CMY and one for Black. I know maybe two people that own a laser printer. If I print color at home I always have better luck with CMYK settings that is the only reason I recommended it.
Addendum: After a little research it looks like with the native print drivers for Epson and Canon, RGB is a better bet, I will have to check on HP. So you are right and my info is out of date ;D
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