Learning Dark Arts

Come learn the art of 3D computer generated art and animation. This blog deals with the lessons learned and the art created by Robert G. Male using DazStudio from Daz3D. Also covered are the ancillary software, tools, techniques, and processes needed both before and after rending in the 3D software.

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Spell casting woman.


R.M.T.P. Co.


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August 9, 2010

Postproduction and the Lighting Wish

I do not know about anyone else creating art with Daz3D and other similar programs, but I do a lot of post-production work in my images. There are things I see even while putting together the initial parts of the image that I know I will want to change after the fact. Most of them cannot be changed in the render, and others are just easier to tweak later. A lot of the time I will use PaintShop's clone brush, or cut and paste, to replace bits of clothes or figures with parts of the background. Even more frequently than that I render scenes twice: once with some parts invisible. What may be not visible in one version could be clothes so I make items or body parts transparent so that clothes fit without rescaling or bulging them--but parts of the limb need to extend past the clothes. Other times lights are turned off so that different parts have different amounts or colours of lights.

When creating covers, some of the issues with a render can be hidden behind titles or other graphics layered over the image. This can make the post-production work a lot easier, but it requires thinking about where those overlays will be and angling your camera to put the part to be hidden behind them.

One of the functions I would love to see in DazStudio is a switch to turn off lights affecting an object. This would work just like turning shadows on or off. When rendering the scene the software would essentially render two different ways, parts with the lights on as usual, and other parts with the specified objects rendered as if the default lighting scheme/unlighted scheme was in effect--like it renders before you add lights. I can meld images such as overlaying a foreground over a background to work with two lighting schemes, but making the transparency/cut-out overlay is a tonne of work when there are a lot of scattered differences.

Music: Broken by Bruce Dickinson.

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Robert G. Male

Name: Robert G. Male
Location: Ontario, Canada

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Suggested Reading:

This scary book

available at Battered Spleen Productions™.


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Learning Dark Arts is a presentation of

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