Ravenswing

I claim no credit for the pose, it's from a set of hero poses. I usually have to tweak the pre-defined ones a bit because of variations in the models, but if I did anything to that one, it was very minor.

Right, following up from the cheerleader picture of yesterday, I actually did this one first and hadn't got aroun to posting it.

Liberty Girl

Hope Dan likes it.

I thought that was the whole point of cheerleaders...

I didn't actually get the cheerleader costumes for this, but I had to try them out and, well, this seemed like a funny idea.

Ni and Libby at cheerleader practice. Unity Vigil Rules! Oh yeah.

UV Cheerleader Practice

(Oh... they're recruiting...)

Well, I guess my out-of-game versions of my heroes are already on display. I've got Ni looking pretty much how I want her (must post up one of the latest images) and I'm working on Jason. Probably do War Crow at some point too.

And... excellent, btw.

I can safely assure you that that wasn't the case.

Some of those are very interesting, though probably not in the way you'd expect. I'll have a think...

Something silly...

Chibi-Ni

I haven't had anything particularly exciting I wanted to post for a while. I've been doing more fantasy/sci-fi stuff which doesn't really apply here.

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Nice pictures but my personal favorite is Annette at 13. You catch something in that one... too ordinary, so everyday looking. Really loved that picture. Also she looks really beautiful and fresh on this picture.

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I like it too, actually. Interestingly, Annette was quite sure she was a pudgy, ugly teenager. Possibly the comparison to her mother's looks messed her up. The looks in the family definately come from the mother's side.

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Only thing i noticed, smiling doesn't suit Ni much.

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Yup. She has a horrible smile. I'd noticed that myself. It's funny how this stuff just works out of the mechanics of the facial morphs.

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One thing....she has a sort of Inuit/Amerind look to her. Was that intentional or just luck of the draw?

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Now I come to look at it, yes, I see what you mean. She's supposed to be Irish/Italian (Italian on her mother's side, though a little removed). To be honest, when making faces, I fiddle with the controls until I have something like what I thought the character should look like. I wanted her to have a longish face, with a longish (Italian) nose, and wide cheeckbones.

I've been doing a few random renders over the past couple of weeks which I've grouped together as Nitoichi's Family Album. Annette has never been one for photographs, so there aren't many of them about.

Here's what I've put together so far:

Nitoichi's Family Album

I'm adding pictures as I can think of ideas for paces a camera-shy girl might end up in front of a camera, and so far, I'm stumped for something featuring teen-Annette and her father. If I can't think of anything clever, he'll be consigned to one of those dads who's never in the pictures because he was taking them.

So, anyway, if anyone can come up with any ideas for nice, family/press/school-type pictures that I can add to the album, please suggest away. I can't promise I'll use them all, but I'll try to build the best ones.

I have an arc planned, if I can be bothered to finish it.

So, you know how it's really hard not to pull a face at the end of those photobooth sessions, 'cos you never need all four of the pictures? Turns out, even superheroes have the same problem...

Photobooth

PS. Could have sworn I posted this before, but it's not here, so I must have messed up somehow. If it's a duplicate, you'll know why.

Guess it's worth a try, though I'll not be trying it right now. I've used up my enthusiasm for the day. :s

That does not get you an 'empty map for RPing' unless someone goes in and clears all the static mobs you can't avoid having. All that does is state which kinds of triggered spawns there are. If you don't want them, you just don't create them. Unless I missed the 'don't create any static mobs' option somewhere.

Technically she's, um, anatomically correct, as in, nothing is actually totally unnatural and a human could stand like that. Not sure what you've got against her eyes.

Getting more advanced...

Outnumbered

Well spotted hairy! There's actually two green lights, which is probably what causes the 'confusion.' The original light is at the bottom of the well and provides the underglow on the rungs and such. Unfortunately, it doesn't light Ni's face at all well, so I added a point light which makes her face glow green and incidentally provides that overspill you mentioned. It would have been better if I could have avoided the overspill, but I'm glad you like it.

And I'm going to redo that damn leg!

Correction: I have redone that leg. Now, I could get into that position without dislocating anything now. When I was 20 it would have probably been comfortable!

In game, I can't make her as muscled as I see her being in reality. She'd be a female version of Bruce Lee in reality. Comic-book wise, she's modelled after a lot of Image characters and the Scinciwitcz (I probably spelled that all wrong) version of Elektra from the Electra Assassin series. Very Hard Body.

I could softener her up, she starts out that way and I tone up the muscle tone a fair bit. It doesn't 'help' that she's got great long legs and a very narrow waist. Probably a matter of taste, but I like it. She's just soft enough and just hard enough. Course, I modelled her that way, so it's reasonable I like it.

Oh, and the pose doesn't help with the muscles. When I saw the back view in the mirror, it reminded me of a body builder pose, even though it's not supposed to be.

So, Nitoichi has decided that she needs a new outfit and just can't think of anything. She could have gone to Ellie Stoneberg like a sane girl, but no, she goes to Steel Canyon and gets Serge to design something for her.

We join our heroine as she tries on his first attempt...

Mirror, Mirror

Nitoichi: "Um, Serge, I know brief is supposed to be the fashion this season, but I'm just not sure it's me."

Please be warned, while this picture features no nudity at all, they almost do, hence the warning on the dA page and me saying this is NSFW.

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First one i can't really see her ><

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That would be the one I figured you wouldn't like.

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Did she dislocate the leg for that pose?

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She's very flexible. Ask Libby.

Two new shots. One Sapphy won't like ( ) and one Sapphy might like.

That Can't Be Good
YANR (Yet Another Nitoichi Render)

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The skin in particular looks amazing (and if you have any tutorials/tips/step by step walkthroughs on how to get it that good, I'll be very happy )


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The tip is: Get the Elite Human Skin Shaders pack.

There are also some special lights you can get which give far more options for shadow generation and such.

It was on sale recently and I picked it up. It gives massive amounts more control over how the skin looks, has more detailed bump maps, sub-surface specular layers, yadda. Loads of stuff I haven't figured out yet, but it just makes everything look a bit more natural. I'm working on making it look even better and I'll post yet another version when I'm happy with it, and then I might be able to make suggestions about how to tweak the defaults.

I've got another render with the bump variance on the face reduced (to about half, as Sapphy suggested ). The body texture actually has bump-mapping turned off, the 'orange skin' effect appears to stem from the reflection effects. I've tweaked those and have a new version which shines less, but I still want to work on it a little more. The new shaders give so many options it's a matter of playing with them until the look exactly how you want them.

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I'll do my usual at this point and say I'm not really a fan of the hair! I love how it looks, but the colour seems a bit too vibrant. Not sure why, probably just me!

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The hair is now sufferring from not being as good as the body textures, I think. I really like the style, so I may be able to do something about adding new shaders to the hair surfaces, or something and see if I can improve things. Guess that'll be the next 'project' after getting the skin the way I want it.

It's a horribly time consuming hobby, especially when working around the eyes, which really require a lot of rendering time. I tend to start working, lose track of time, and suddenly it's midnight. My entire weekend vanished into this, but I think I'm getting to the point where it's worth it.

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Oh it's your call, just giving some feedback. Personally i think it's a shame you hide so much of the character with the shadows but it's entierly up to you.

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I just happen to love this pose and scene, so I keep re-rendering it whenever I can improve it. I am working on some other shots which are a bit better lit (in a 'brighter' sense).

PS. The bump mapping business is fascinating. I'm going over her anatomy with a fine tooth comb (I know, lucky me ), tweaking settings and finding out what they do. So far, I've turned her lips from "I've been in a desert for six weeks" to something a bit less like a mummy. We shall see what else can be twiddled to give good results.

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Shadows - I can understand you wanted that look, but sadly the darkness removes much of her appearances. A trick is to use some softer lights at distance, so that you still get shadows but they won't be so sharp and hard.

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Sorry, Sapphy, I disagree. I do want her heavily shadowed and (this could because I get to see the image in glorious HugeRenderScope-o-Vision) I don't find that she loses too much because of it. I've actually specifically altered the shadow bias to harden some of the shadows.

I'm afraid that's a matter of your taste differring from mine, or my view on artistic whatsit being different from yours.

Skin... yes, I may have a play with some of the mapping there. I've used the defaults on the new skin maps, but I seem to remember seeing that the bump strength with quite high.

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Your every picture getting better and better.

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Looks ace your stuffs really leaping forward

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I'd just like to point out that this is not entirely true. I've produced some really horrible things recently which I've not posted anywhere because they really do look that bad, or I just can't get the stupid software to do what I want.

However, thanks for the compliments.

I have to stop spending money on this stuff, however, when this came out, I decided it was worth it. I wish you could see the desktop background this was rendered for, because it's bigger and better, but the reduced size version on dA still looks good, I think.

Nitoichi

The main differences between this version and the original version on dA are new lights and skin shaders, but Ni also has a new pair of eyes.