New Z Girl Render
Another amazing piece Rocket. Even though the background isn't a 3d cityscape as you mentioned in the caption, I think you made it work for you brilliantly.
Matching light to a photograph is really hard and almost never works. You could use fancy HDRI systems and make the background plate a light source, but Poser doesn't support that very well. As a general rule of thumb, the treatment of the figure should match the treatment of the background... in other words, make them both photos, both hand-drawn, or both 3D elements.
I think you're off to a good start. I'd recommend putting her against a digital backdrop though, for consistency. Having two different 'suspensions of disbelief' is working against you.
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Another amazing piece Rocket. Even though the background isn't a 3d cityscape as you mentioned in the caption, I think you made it work for you brilliantly.
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Thanks for the comment. Other than the things I pointed out in my description, I'm pretty happy with this. Not so much because I think it's a great image but really because I know what I started with and what my objective for a final image was. There's so many things that in past, I would not have addressed. Either because I didn't know how or didn't see it as something that needed to be addressed. Hell, I was just happy it rendered!
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Matching light to a photograph is really hard and almost never works. You could use fancy HDRI systems and make the background plate a light source, but Poser doesn't support that very well. As a general rule of thumb, the treatment of the figure should match the treatment of the background... in other words, make them both photos, both hand-drawn, or both 3D elements.
I think you're off to a good start. I'd recommend putting her against a digital backdrop though, for consistency. Having two different 'suspensions of disbelief' is working against you.
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True, light is not the only issue you run into. Focal length and perspective are problematic as well. I tried it against a 3D backdrop and honestly, I just didn't like it. The immenseness of the city was lost. Not really the hero in the megalopolis thing I was going for. As a rule, I've come to the position that in most cases no background is better than a photo. One there's the feeling of it being my complete work and two, the issues we mentioned. In this case, I felt it works better than what I was capable of as an alternative. Thanks for the crits. Always good to get input!
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"...I've come to the position that in most cases no background is better than a photo...
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No worries. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. IMO, there is no worse background than a photo.
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"...One there's the feeling of it being my complete work..."
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I didn't realize the photo was also yours. It's a nice one and that factor adds some credibility.
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"...I felt it works better than what I was capable of as an alternative..."
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Oh, I hear ya on that one. Every time I render a 3D character, I agonize over the background and usually spend more time trying to get the right setting than I do on the character. If you aren't comfortable with it yet, stick with what you know... but I would encourage you to break free of photos and expand your 3D. You can do it!
*wiggles into thread*...
are you using the newist girl or the old one?.. err.. and did she come with morph sets in the poses tab??
(* im stuck on trying to figure out morph sets, and how they work *)
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"...I've come to the position that in most cases no background is better than a photo...
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No worries. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. IMO, there is no worse background than a photo.
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"...One there's the feeling of it being my complete work..."
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I didn't realize the photo was also yours. It's a nice one and that factor adds some credibility.
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"...I felt it works better than what I was capable of as an alternative..."
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Oh, I hear ya on that one. Every time I render a 3D character, I agonize over the background and usually spend more time trying to get the right setting than I do on the character. If you aren't comfortable with it yet, stick with what you know... but I would encourage you to break free of photos and expand your 3D. You can do it!
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Not quite there on the backgrounds but I feel ya!
No, the photo is stock. Reworked, but still stock. I was saying when you "don't" use a stock photo and the background is my own 3D work, there's a better feeling of it being completely my own work.
Sometimes, I will spend a ton of time on details that I wonder if people ever see but I have to believe that paying attention to those details makes for a better overall image. Daz, imo, is weak on adding a sense of atmosphere which makes working with 3D backgrounds an added struggle. Getting better and I find myself going in that direction. Just wasn't in the cards for this round.
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*wiggles into thread*...
are you using the newist girl or the old one?.. err.. and did she come with morph sets in the poses tab??
(* im stuck on trying to figure out morph sets, and how they work *)
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Yeah, that's G4 or the "The Girl 4", the new one. You need V4.2 but not the V4.2 morphs to use G4. G4 does come with her own but honestly, no real body morphs, mainly expression type stuff. I have her morphed a little using the V4.2 morphs.
Not sure with Poser but you should just have to inject the morph using the pose and then adjust it in the parameters setting. For example, I would load G4, go to the poses and find Daz Victoria 4. In the directory, you will have morph poses for any Victoria based characters you have and have morphs for. In my case, I have Aiko 4, Victoria 4 base, Victoria 4++ and The Girl 4 morphs there. You can select which ones you want to load or load them all. After that, you should just have to select the figure and change the body settings in the parameters tab.
After my test render of Z Girl using the new 3D figure I just got, I decided to do something more complete. An image of Z Girl floating above the city.
Z Girl 2