http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/ ocpstudios's gallery of images en-us 120 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/663369

I'm so drawn to science fiction and fantasy images every now and then I try to create an image with contemporary visuals. I worked on this image off and on for about eighteen months. There were over 130 lights used in the scene, spectral atmosphere, plenty of volumetrics, and the final image took over 69 hours to render using two G5 towers.]]> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:45:52 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/663367

Alien landscape created using Vue 6 Infinite. The image was created for the 2008 Vue 3D Environment Competition. Had the idea of a methane sea burning with the revolution of the planet's sun. In my head I was thinking the plant life was somehow dependent on the rotational burn for the H2O and CO2 byproducts. ]]> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:39:25 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/663366

This was created as a quick "Lara Croft" trading card image using Vue 6 Infinite. A little postwork was added to the final render to adjust color and depth. ]]> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:33:43 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459691

So many others deserve credit for the models I used, Stonemason, Moebius, Sanctum Art--to name a few. Please forgive my lazyness for not putting together a full list of credits. For a very comprehensive list of products used in this image, visit the Daz galleries at: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/galleries/0/-/?id=25345&sec=1 You'll find direct links to virtually all of the items used.

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I began this piece shortly after the release of Vue 6 Infinite, and it feels as though I have spent months working toward the final image you see here. The new feature within Vue 6 Infinite which I was most excited about is most definitely Vue's ability to convert meshes into multi-shape area lights. (I'll get around to be excited about all the other new features eventually...) There are only about twelve conventional lights in this scene, whereas, there are hundreds of meshes which have been converted into multi-shape area lights. I started with several interior models created by Stonemason, and set the textures and lighting for the scene.

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I de-saturated the actual textures of the interior a great deal. Most surfaces are actually very neutral grays. I wanted to create color with light. I was also experimenting with the dimensional aspects of color. Since cool colors have a tendency to recede, and warm colors will advance in composition, I wanted to reverse this conventional approach to color space. I used the multitude of lights to create a blend of colored light. Blue, green, yellow, orange, and red were used front to back to define an opposing recession of color. The actual physical space is fairly short, so I adjusted the focal length of the camera to try and balance any advancement of the warm hues used in the background. I also tried to reinforce the figure ground by using darker values in the foreground, and regressing tones and tints of color into the background. In addition, I used several volumetric effects on these lights in order to create a bit of atmospheric perspective.

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Early on I defined an atmosphere using Global Illumination settings sans a sun or directional light. I "faked" my own radiosity settings by making most of my surfaces subtly reflective--often times between 3% to 9% reflection was added to most of the interior surfaces. This really helped amplify the collection of color taken from the lights on each of the neutral gray surfaces. I also used liberal amounts of color transmitted light and color reflected light settings within the materials settings.

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It took me about three weeks and countless test renders just to define the interior sans any of the figures you see in the final version. I took a break from this piece for about a month in order to brainstorm a few ideas of how to populate it. First, I knew I wanted to crowd the interior with many figures. I think there are thirty-eight figures in total. I also wanted to use the color scheme to indicate action. Figures in the cool foreground are more relaxed. As the figures regress into the warmer color space, they become more active. Eye contact of each of the figures played a strong role in the overall composition. I wanted to create a theme of suspicion. Someone's about to do something awful.

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I had two perplexing issues to overcome. First, I continued to use a great deal of reflection in my textures. I knew this was going to greatly increase my render time. I triaged the reflections by introducing them less and less on each figure the further from the camera they were positioned. Although all the figures, clothing items, etc. were imported from Poser files and generated from product found at Daz 3D, I did edit all of the materials individually within individual Vue files. I would then export the final figures as Vue objects to my objects libraries (my old standby method), and later began using Vue 6 Infinite's "merge" feature to import or merge my separate files into the main setting. On average I was able to create between two to four figures a day.

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The second issue was one of polygons. Almost all of my figures were averaging around half a million polygons each. I really really wanted to try and preserve the figures without resorting to decimating the objects. Early on I discovered the size of my files, the amount of object-based polygons, and the hundreds of high rez texture image-based materials were becoming an issue. I installed an additional 2 GB of RAM in my G5 Power PC tower, but I still found my primary file was too large to manage and render. First I tried removing as many of the backfacing polygons and hidden wireframes as possible without harming lighting, reflections, or shadows. This helped only a fraction. So I split the file into five separate documents. I did decimate objects according to position in the figure ground. I created a certain amount of overlap in each of the files, and was very dependent on that aforementioned "merge" feature in order to make additional elements, figures, and lights consistent in each of the five files. Since I had so many reflective textures, I paid close attention to the position of each figure in each of these files in order to maintain the most consistent aspects of light and color.

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Ultimately I was also VERY dependent on the creation of rendered alpha maps for each of my five files. I rendered many of these alpha maps separately from my final renders by using the "render only selected objects" render setting with my lighting turned off by deselecting the "always render lights" function. These alpha maps were then easily copied and pasted into alpha channels and masks for each of the five final renders thereby making the final image a breeze to fit together. A little post work was done to hide the seams and balance the color, and you can see the end result. I wanted to try the multi-pass render features, but decided the overall piece had too many elements to consider during the render process.

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I tried to maximize the quality settings on my lights, shadows, and volumetrics to 100% throughout. I used my own user-based render settings created to be a bit more than the "Superior" preset, and just under the "Ultra" preset. The final render was also created at an overall resolution of 1600 by 1093 pixels. In total it took over four days to render each of the five pieces.

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By splitting the file into five pieces, this presented an opportunity to pack in more detail than I had originally planned. For example, the figures in the immediate foreground are affected by a complete environment behind the camera POV. There is a detailed hallway complete with about thirty wireframes which have been converted into area-based lights. Although the effect is subtle, if you look at the bald male figure's armor in the foreground, you should be able to see a soft reflection of this hallway in the material surface of the left side of his back.

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I also played around a bit with the hanging "holographic" signs and the four monitors found in the middle ground. Originally I tried each of these objects as area-based lights. Although the effect was compelling, I found it to be unnecessary. I opted to use luminous light settings and ample amounts of color transmitted light within the textures for each of these objects. Since I was using the prerelease of Vue 6 Infinite, I decided to avoid the use of glow within the materials settings, and added the same effect using an alpha map in post. I was able to duplicate any actual illumination from these glowing surfaces with the use of a couple of well-placed spotlights.

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There's another technique I've added to my arsenal. I found I could tweak the perfect volumetric setting for an individual light to suit my own aesthetic. In some circumstances (the doors in the left middle ground, for example), I wouldn't be able to generate enough illumination without drastically increasing the amount of volumetric particles in said light. I solved the issue by creating the volumetric light I liked and then created a duplicate light with no volumetrics. I could then control the illumination via the second non-volumetric light.

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I also discovered it is far better to create your material or gel on an object prior to converting it into an area-based light. I would also keep back-up copies of my original wireframes in a hidden layer prior to creating any area-based light conversions. I found too many edits to the material or gel settings for an object after it had been converted to an area-based light was sometimes problematic. By keeping the duplicate on standby, I was able to delete the edited light and start over from scratch.

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]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 17:27:37 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459695

This is an early render of the Lirful Station: In the Throe of a Seditious Event scene also seen in this gallery. As the scene was being built, I would make various renders at low resolution to check for light, color, placement, etc. After the entire interior was laid out as such, I rendered this high resolution sample. ]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 17:38:29 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459549

This scene was rendered using Vue 5 Infinite. I used global illumination within a volumetric world. There are three lights: the sun, a volumetric quadratic point light aligned with the sun in close proximity to the foreground Urban Ruins, and a bluish-purple quadratic spot light left and rear of the camera. There are hundreds of buildings receding into the background--way more than necessary since most aren't even visible. I credit Stefan Morrell (Stonemason) for the Urban Ruins and the Warehouse models I used. Crow/Raven model created by Noggin.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:19:04 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459553

Several standard and global illumination renders of each "ground" were then composited together in Photoshop. Another noteworthy aspect of this piece is the amount of lights used. Each light depicted in the environment (Stonemason's the Dark Star) as an object with glowing textures was aligned with a quadratic spot light. In total there are over seventy lights in the final image. Although it's harder to see in this resolution, there is an entire environment (Stonemason's The Display Room) hidden out of view behind the camera. This portion of the environment was set for the purpose of reflection details in the foreground objects--the helmet on the crates in the lower left foreground, as an example. The floor texture also has a bit of reflection. As with most textures in this piece, the floor texture is a blend of image maps and procedural textures embedded as transparency variables. In this instance, the floor texture has five levels of texturing.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:34:25 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459552

I started building the setting using the Palace of Leaves. Using various pieces from this setting, I built the main garden bath house enclosed in a box canyon. Then I pulled various items like the grate and chains from The Dark Corner of the Dungeon, pillows from the Antique Furniture Collection, the bench and pillows from Summer Siesta, statues and leaves from The Temple Ruins, vases from Visions of Fantasy, etc. to flesh out the structure and decor. Hanging plants on the chains, roses between the columns, waterlilies in the pool, and potted plants in the rear were added to build the garden aspect. The bathing figure is a V3 model with the Anne-Marie Goddard Digital Clone textures and morphs, as well as, the V3 and International Beauties morphs. I ended up using the M2 figure (with non-Daz texture maps--sorry...) because I had a non-Daz Hoplite clothing set to suit his figure, and it fit the bill. There are seventeen lights in this scene. The lighting effect over the pool was acheived with a quadratic volumetric spot light placed above the grate (taken from the Dungeon and placed in the boolean roof elements created to top off the Palace of Leaves. The reflected light in the pool is created with two quadratic volumetric point lights--each having its own caustic gel. Also, I ended up using the waterlillies in the pool/bath because they really broke up the light and shadow of the reflected pool light. Two infinite point lights were placed between the canyon walls and the Palace on either side to bring up more reflected light, and give a little depth beyond the Palace columns. Then there are actually six burners in the hall--four behind the camera and two in front. Each of these fires is lit with a combination of a quadratic spot light and a quadratic point light. It took for freakin' ever to get to this final image--so much tweaking, so much time... Anyway, it's rendered using Vue infinite, and this version has a little post work to adjust depth and color. It's made on a Mac, so PC users may see it really dark due to the difference in gamma.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:30:19 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459560

Odd little abstract created with Organica and Bryce 3.0 circa 1999. Sepia tone color added in Photoshop as post. Originally started out as a cityscape. Feeling uninspired by the geometric booleans, I started to go the organic route. Thus the end result.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:50:41 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459554

This piece was rendered in Vue 5 Infinite using global illumination and volumetric world settings. In addition the smoke/haze was created using vast cubes of volumetric white & grey smoke textures and volumetric quadratic point lights placed behind the figures coming up the stairs. No postwork. Credit goes to Sefan Morrell (Stonemason) for the Level 19 interior and the Sci Fi Crates, Containers, and Consoles.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:39:02 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459569

First of a series of short-lived one page comic strips created for 303--a magazine based out of Denver, CO. Story is real. Spaceship is not. Figures were rendered in Poser. Page was composited in Photoshop, and lettering was created in Illustrator. Never got to explain about my uncle...]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:04:21 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459205

I have to give credit to Stefan Morrell (Stonemason) for his Ministry interior and to Sanctum Art for the Grim Armor model. Other models were purchased from Daz 3D, set up in Poser, and exported into Vue 5 Infinite. I'm not much of a modeler, so I do rely on the creativity of others. I seem to be using a lot of shadow in my compositions lately. I know this is a dark piece. You may not be able to see everything, but if you stare at it long enough...]]> Sat, 03 Feb 2007 02:23:54 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459567

Another absract created circa 1999. This piece was rendered using Bryce 3.0 with a little postwork in Photoshop. The actual tubes are nothing more than a few knotted toruses. The texture is a modified procedural Earth-like surface. Postwork consisted of a little color and levels adjustment.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:59:06 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459556

This version has a little post work to adjust color. Started the process by taking apart the Alchemy Chasm and attaching it to Serenity. Then dropped in torches from the Greater House of Healing onto all the major exterior columns. Tried dozens of different tentacles--various props and homemade objects--but ended up taking tails from the Millenium Dragon to make the six tentacles. The rest of the crypt is filled with about a dozen posed V3/M3 skeletons (look toward the rear of the crypt), plenty of skulls, lots of mushrooms from the Woodland Props set, hanging moss and a lot of ivy on the exterior walls. Most of the mushrooms (the white ones) are generated as eco system textures within Vue Infinite, as well as, plenty of lichen-like scrub. Nine hundred plus objects and 144 million polygons later...]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:45:17 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459555

An exercise in the use of global radiosity as well as an effort towards photo-realism. I was really trying to work towards real skin texture, as well as, create a little unity beween the dappled textures in the painting and the freckles on the figure's skin. The painting is an altered photo of my garden gate used as an alpha plane with bump mapping, and the matte and frame are made of boolean cubes. Only two lights--an overhead quadratic spot, and a soft quadratic point light above the camera.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:41:49 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459580

This was the first piece I rendered after purchasing Vue d'Esprit 4 circa 2002. No postwork. I really went to town with figures and plants. Lots of little details are hidden in the shadows. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the higher resolution copy. This JPEG is sized as is. Some of the detail has been lost at this resolution. And of course it's dark. Really dark...]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:34:24 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459584

Once I upgraded to Vue 5 Infinite, this was the first render using the upgraded program. Went straight to the EcoSystems and mapped them to everything. The fire was created with lights and alpha planes. Textures on the ruins exist as a blend of two procedural textures, the original texture map, and an EcoSystem of basic shrubs.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:40:07 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459571

Composite of two renders using Daz Studio. I downloaded the free Daz Studio from www.daz3d.com and dabbled a bit to try it out. The effect was achieved by rendering a regular skin texture map, and then swapping it for a muscle texture map for the second render. The two were then composited in Photoshop.]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:16:00 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459587

he V3 figure is wearing both ArtemisX and Kyouran clothing items. Bits and pieces of each outfit are either removed, or made invisible through the use of transparency maps in order to get the results seen here. The textures on these clothes use a variety of transparency maps, variable reflection maps, and bump maps. I was shooting for a mix of chain mail and complex reflective latex--complex due to the fading from a smokey blue/black to transparent. I intially made the exterior molten planetscape in great detail, using lots of high-rez procedural terrains, then adding in the Landing Pad and Wasp Ship. The interior window ended up obscurring some of the detail via the interior reflections, and more detail was lost when a second plane of exterior glass was used to create the heat distortion. Although not much of it is seen, the Generic Sci Fi Corridor has attached to the foreground structure to add more depth to the physical space. Within the corridor the M3 figure is decked out in the Marauder armor and M3 boots. His skin texture is actually the M3 Millenium Muscle map texture--again, not that much can be seen. Although you can see the two Drone troopers, there are actually 18 more behind the camera. I filled the room behind the camera with more Sci Fi Crates, Troopers, Level 19 Bay Doors, The Regenerator, and various contructs in order to give more detail to the reflections in the windows, the reflective Shard Armor texture on the forground figure of David, and the potential reflections cast on the V3 figure's latex-esque clothing. I also placed all this extra stuff behind the camera to set up for later panoramic or Quicktime VR renders. The render is fresh from Vue with no post work. ]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:49:39 +0000 http://ocpstudios.cgsociety.org/gallery/459586

The foreground was originally rendered in Vue 5 Infinite with global illumination settings. I never liked the original cityscape viewed through the windows. This version has been fixed with an older Bryce cityscape created with boolean objects. The image was originally designed to be a cover for a science fiction short story, although it was never used. ]]> Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:45:54 +0000