Tag: daz studio

Using 3D to make comic books part 2

Using 3D to make comic books, for a beginner, DAZ Studio is a good one. It’s free, it’s not too difficult to handle until you start getting into the more advanced features, but for setting up and lighting a scene, it’s excellent for learning. Personally, I dove in with Poser 7.

Poser’s good, but I found myself often having trouble using it despite having a book to guide me. Other programs offer more heavy-duty features for making props, clothing, hair and other things, but as they get fancier, they get more expensive.

A leading complaint against using 3D I’ve often mentioned is that 3D figures and clothes look stiff and lifeless. You’ll be confronted by this, so be ready for it. I’ve begun to counteract it by making things more dynamic. Dynamic meaning realistic simulation of cloth in particular.

The other half of that complaint likely has to do with the lighting of the actor and its textures. That would mean it’s wise to pay close attention to the lighting of the scene when you do renders.

Just like pencil and paper, you need to pay close attention to even the smallest details in your renders as these are actually more noticeable in 3D unless you use depth of field to blur out the boo-boos in the background. What about the boo-boos of the character?

Some don’t like to be posed certain ways and can even poke through their clothes despite fixes. Well, post work is useful if you just can’t get the 3D to behave the way you want it to. The GIMP is an excellent freebie image editor that’s lightweight and easy on the computer.

One thing that’s been extremely handy for me is the ability to render scenes even on my little 2-in-1 Windows 10 tablet. Taking my library on the go and setting up characters, or even scenes has been a heavy-duty time saver, but it just doesn’t have the power of the computer.

That means I need programs that aren’t resource intense. DAZ and GIMP are a spectacular combination for this. Unless I setup a heavily complicated scene, my little tablet can render it. If I do setup a heavily complicated scene, I can save it to render on the computer.

 

 

Using 3D to make comic books Part 1

Using 3D to make comic books is a challenge in many ways, but don’t let that discourage you. If you love 3D and love the idea of making comic books, nothing should deter you from it.

Let’s look at some harsh realities to be sure you’re determined to follow this path. First of all, the comic book market is cut throat. These fans in general are hard core about how comics are written and drawn. Plenty of them just aren’t ready to accept comics rendered using 3D software.

If you’re like me, your hand drawings aren’t bad, but just not up to industry standards for some reason or another. My shortcomings include proportion and shading along with perspective and foreshortening. My drawings are good, but not impressive in the comic book world, yet I love making them. The solution to my problem became using 3D software to make up the artistic difference. This led to a whole new set of problems, though.

While characters, props and sets are consistent and look good, new problems arose. These included lighting, camera angle and composition like in the two images above. How then, to solve this problem? Study, practice, constantly scrounge around for tutorials to learn as much as possible. That’s still pretty much fumbling along in the dark, isn’t it? I’ve found that a good many movies have special features on the DVDs and frequently include featurettes talking about how the movie was made.

Using 3D is similar enough to making a movie that these lessons have been extremely valuable to me. They discuss lighting, camera angles and movement, ways to setup a scene for dramatic actions and all sorts of other related things.
Okay, it doesn’t have to worry about sewing costumes or anything along those lines, but making props, making up the actors, dressing actors, setting up a scene, placing the lights and cameras for the best effect and things like that? Definitely!

So, will it someday be accepted by the comic book industry? Probably. I’ve got a couple how to draw comics books that already discuss using these programs for background elements. I’ve seen others on the market and at the local library that use it for the cover or a photograph, even. It’s a slow transition so far and for 3D artists, it’s not going to be easy. Still want to make your own comics using these programs?

 

Techwarrior #7 soon to be released!

Hey, Techwarrior fans!

You’ll be happy to know Techwarrior #7 is soon to be released! Okay, so no date has been set yet, but rendering has finished and after some post production, it’ll be able to join the already large list of books available!

Think about it, there’s 25 books in the Dream Angel series and 6 for Techwarrior already available. That’s 31 books! Not counting the new editions of Dream Angel #1 or any of the collection books. An impressive roster, wouldn’t you agree?

Now, I’ll agree it seems like making these books is so easy they can be made over night, but that’s far from the case. Matter of fact, there’s a very long process involved. Writing being among the hardest parts at times. Sure, almost anyone can write a story, but how good is that story? By good I mean does it keep a reader’s attention?

So, we have writing and editing, both very time consuming alone. When the script is finally settled, figuring out paneling and even layouts can be rough. Now, I’m not affiliated with it at all, but I use ComicLife for layouts. The plus for me is the fact that I can just drag and drop my final renders for each panel into that panel. Since it also has the script in a drag and drop setup for dialogue and narration, I’m able to adjust those to suit the layouts. Again, no images yet!

Well, what about all those awesome renders in the books? Surely, they took hours to draw, right? It would take a far more skilled artist than I am to hand draw those renders! Sure, I’m a skilled artist, but hand art isn’t my strong suit.

Technically, the computer draws the art, but I have to tell it what to draw and how. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Not by a long shot! Just like hand art, telling the computer what to draw in 3D takes a lot of time, study and practice! I’ve been at it about 10 years now and I still haven’t quite gotten all the basics figured out!

How then, do I make these fantastic images? Keep in mind I’m self-taught and this is a very steep learning curve. Add in constant improvements to the programs being released meaning new features need to be studied and learned. Makes it a lot more complicated than a simple pencil and paper. For those willing to take the time to study and practice, it can be a lot of fun and very rewarding, though.

Get the books from the store and you’ll see very quickly where updates to programs or a new skill had a direct impact on the art of the books.

Dream Angel #25 coming soon!

Dream Angel #25 coming soon! If you’ve kept up with the news in the Facebook group, you know the computer usually used for rendering, affectionately known as “Big Baby,” is suffering because of the latest Windows updates being incompatible.

A problem that happened to its smaller 2-in-1 counterpart known as “Pinkie.” Fixing the problem on Pinkie turned out to be much easier than the much older Big Baby. Instead of being able to easily fix it, it’s throwing a tantrum, refusing to work the way it ought to and barely being able to load Windows.

Well, with Big Baby down, rendering Dream Angel #25 came to a screeching halt because Pinkie can’t use DAZ Studio’s Iray (photo realistic) render engine. The upside is it can use Carrara, which is basically DAZ’s big sister program. Much more heavy-duty on the system for the most part, but Pinkie has been handling it well.

Luckily, Carrara can re-create the characters needed. This means the final renders for Dream Angel #25 can be done using Pinkie and Carrara! While a release date hasn’t been picked yet, just the fact that the book can be completed is wonderful news, don’t you think?

Scenes like this done using DAZ’s 3Delight render engine wouldn’t quite have the same impact, particularly with the lighting and that’s what render engine would have to be used if Pinkie couldn’t handle Carrara.

Okay, going on about it might be silly, but you have to admit, it’s worth being excited about, right?

These are wonderful, fun and funny books. Playful scenes like this:

Are always a delightful way to over dramatize a scene in a very funny way. Compared to the photo-realistic style, these scenes stand out in such a hilarious way that they help endear the books to readers. Compare this one to the one above and you’ll see the fun contrast.

In the meantime, while you wait for Dream Angel #25 to have a release date picked, you can visit the shop and pick up the first 24 books. Sounds like a daunting number, doesn’t it? Well, that’s where collection books come in handy. Mind you, the collection books aren’t available in print, but they are a good deal compared to buying each book individually, even digitally. A quick way to catch up is the 10 book collections: 1-10 and 11-20. From there, you’d simply need 21, 22, 23, and 24 to be completely caught up.

Well, if you’re looking forward to Dream Angel #25, it’s a good idea to grab those first 24 before the release date’s picked!

Techwarrior #6 is in production!

Techwarrior #6 has been long anticipated and it’s finally started production. 2017 was pretty quiet book-wise, wasn’t it? Well, there were a lot of other things going on, starting with the wedding and cross country move. Though it’s taken a little longer than anticipated, 2018 is time to hit the ground running and get books moving more regularly than 2017. Not that last year was lax for learning new techniques or getting things done, it wasn’t! Learning to make custom HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) backgrounds has proven a valuable asset to production! These serve 3 purposes:

  1. Background that’s not really there
  2. Light source
  3. Speeding up render time

That’s definitely 3 points in favor of these special images, but there’s one heavy-duty downer: they take days to render! That’s right: days! Up to 4 days so far, to be exact. Once they’re rendered, they can be used repeatedly from any camera angle, so there’s ups and downs. In the long run, they’re worth the wait.

If you missed the party and fun, Dream Angel #24 came out in early December with its beautiful art. Just like Techwarrior #6, it was a long time in coming out. With its wonderful art and story, it was worth the wait and it’ll be the same for Techwarrior. Happily, the latter takes less time in production due to being 12 pages instead of 24. So, care to join the voting for the cover of Techwarrior #6?

First, we get this one:

Impressive, is it not? So far, it’s also the more popular choice, but voting’s still open for the time being.

The other choice is this one:

Really does a nice job of emphasizing her, doesn’t it? Then there’s the subtle glow of Sensei’s attack on her face showing just how close it is to hitting her. Even her expression is impressive in creating the mood. So, which do you think looks better? The long shot with all 3 characters or the close up? Cast your vote (politely!) in the comments below!

Calling all Techwarrior fans!

Calling all Techwarrior fans! The printed proof copies of Techwarrior #1-5 collection have been shipped! You know what that means, right? It means they’ll arrive in a couple days and if they look as good as they always have in the past, the book will go live on indyplanet soon after. Won’t that be exciting?

So, for printed book lovers, especially Techwarrior fans, that’s great news. Now, what about Dream Angel? That new version of Dream Angel #1? Well, that one’s coming along. Much slower than usual. As they say, “Good things come to those who wait!” right? This one’s going to be worth the wait.

It features all-new art and some strong story improvements. Of the three versions of the book, it’s definitely going to look the best. Now, that certainly doesn’t mean Dream Angel #1 and Dream Angel #1 2nd edition extended cut are no good. Quite the opposite. There might even be talk of a Dream Angel #1 collection for fans to be able to see the evolution in art and story between the three versions.

Now for the harder questions. “What about Techwarrior #6 and Dream Angel #24? Both books before were cliffhangers!” And you want to know what happens next, right? As I’ve announced on Facebook, I’m getting married at the end of June this year and moving across the country. Most of my focus is on that. While Techwarrior #6 and Dream Angel #24 are basically ready for production, finding the time to do so is harder than normal.

Yes, I could put the new Dream Angel #1 on hold and do Techwarrior #6 as quickly as I did Techwarrior #5, but what then? You’d want Techwarrior #7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 the same way. You will anyway, but right now that’s beside the point.

The point is that the new Dream Angel #1 is slower to render. Each panel has been taking a good amount of time to render. This means I can setup a render and walk away to pack boxes or organize things for packing or something else.

True, Techwarrior had his slow renders, but that book was also done much faster despite that. Dream Angel’s had a lot more slow renders, which have left me able to get other things done while it’s rendering. It’s in production, just slow production, so it makes progress despite the other things going on.

Hopefully, that made sense. The short of it is that there’s still a book in production even though I’m preparing for a wedding and a cross-country move. So, looking forward to the new book when it is finally finished?

Techwarrior fans will be delighted to hear things will return to normal after the wedding and move are done. Dream Angel and even Hillbilly Hoot fans should be equally delighted.

The ups and downs of HDRI

The ups and downs of HDRI might as well be a roller coaster. Permit me to share a story.

For the longest time, I thought I couldn’t use the fancy new render engine DAZ rolled out with 4.8: Iray. I longed to play with the photo realistic render engine, but having an AMD video card instead of the NVidia the specs called for, I thought I couldn’t.

Fast forward to just before Christmas 2016 and DAZ 4.9. I made a curious discovery about the list of installed stuff in the install manager: a public beta build of DAZ 4.9. So, I tracked it down among my programs and opened it. Played with it some and got curious about the render settings. What should my curiosity behold, but that NVidia Iray was available to play with!

So, I explored, dabbled and started tracking down tutorials. Fast forward again to about mid March 2017. After multiple not-so-good attempts at making my own HDRIs with Carrara. I still have trouble with the lighting in that one. I was exploring a favorite group for 3D artists on Facebook and stumbled across an image that could be rotated 360 degrees. To go with it, a youtube tutorial video on how the trick was done!

Well, again, I dabbled and played. Made a neat city 360 followed by a scene from Techwarrior #5 and put them on Facebook to a very receptive reaction. I realized I could convert that city 360 to an HDRI and use it as a background for renders. Well, you won’t catch me using 3Delight anymore! Scenes with an HDRI background render very quickly even on my older computer and they look amazing!

HDRIs are wonderful as both light and background, but – and this is the downside – they take a long time to render! Smaller size and resolution just won’t work with these bad boys. The ratio suggested in that tutorial was 2 to 1 with a size of about 4000 by 2000 pixels. Be ready for a long wait unless you’re able to despeckle and sharpen effectively in Photoshop. Here’s what I mean:

Not the greatest picture I’ll admit, but this one’s been at it 14 hours and it’s still pretty grainy.

Personally, I set the render time to 24 hours so it would have plenty of time to render as cleanly as possible. Know how many seconds that is? 86,400 seconds! Now, as I’ve pointed out on Facebook, once this is rendered, it can be used time and again as a background and light source without bogging down the scene I’m trying to render. So, when it comes down to brass tacks, the occasional 24 hour render like this isn’t too horrible, right?

The trick is a simple one, but only available in Iray. Setup a scene with lights but without characters if you want it to be a background HDRI – the one in that picture is a dungeon lit only by fire – and add a camera in the center of it. Go into the camera’s parameters and pick on the lens type. Set it to spherical. Then go into render settings and set the size ratio to 2 to 1 and the pixels to 4000 by 2000. For my 4-year-old laptop, there’s no acceleration from the video card, so I setup the render time at 24 hours or the 86,400 seconds I mentioned before. From there, hit render and walk away for the duration of the render.

It’ll take its time rendering considering the size and and how complicated the scene is, but when it’s done finally, it can be converted to an HDRI and used as a background/light source without being so slow with characters. So, it balances out, wouldn’t you say?

A new Dream Angel #1?

A new Dream Angel #1 is in progress for rendering, yes. Don’t get me wrong: Dream Angel #1 – both currently available versions – look good, there’s no denying that. So, why make a new Dream Angel #1? Well, the reaction to Techwarrior #5 was good and a couple discoveries recently contributed to the decision. One was a lighting trick, the other a 360 degree render that had just the right rooftop to go with the lighting trick. Between the two, they set the idea in motion.

Okay, the idea’s been around for a while. Even before discovering the ability to use Iray in December. We’ll simply say a few things set off the idea machine and got this new version in motion. No, it’s not a reboot, it’s more of an update. An artistic “facelift” with some minor story changes to help it make more sense.

Along the way, the scripts for Dream Angel #24-31 might be finished, or at least finalized. Dream Angel #1-6 at the very least will see the updated art while these are being worked on.

Are any other books going to be updated? Others might see story corrections so the story makes better sense, but the art is more likely to be left alone. Dream Angel #1-6 were rendered using Poser with a lot more Photoshop work than the ones that followed, so those in particular are ones to update so they’re artistically consistent with the rest. It’s almost a shock between #6 and #7 when the art changes from Poser to DAZ.

One thought for the time being is if the new Dream Angel #1 attracts new readers, then #2-6 will see art and story updates. If those get a good reception, #7 on can see story updates. Along the way, Dream Angel #24, Techwarrior #6 and possibly other later books can be mixed in or even rendered at the same time. In this way, all the books will finally have artistic consistency.

Oh don’t get me wrong: the Poser rendered books are good. There’s no denying that. There’s always room for improvement, though and this is an improvement.

So, what do you think of this? Are you going to get the new books when they come out?

Expect bugs and glitches…

This site’s had something – nobody knows exactly what – go wrong recently and while it’s being fixed, expect some bugs and glitches. No, there’s no problems with security and the store still works, the problem has been largely related to updating things on the management side and uploading images.

Explains why Techwarrior #5 and Techwarrior #1-5 don’t have product images yet, doesn’t it? Not to worry, Techwarrior and Dream Angel are teamed up to squash the bugs and glitches as quickly as possible, but if you should find yourself having trouble with the site – i.e. error messages appear instead of the page you want, simply wait a minute or so and refresh the page. It simply means something’s not quite working just yet.

On to better news now! Techwarrior #1-5 will soon be in print! The proof copies are expected to arrive April 7th. So, for fans of printed books, you’ll be happy when the link to this one’s announced. It’s a 60 page full color collection of all 5 books together. The price? Well, preliminary estimates seem to put it at about $5-6. Not bad, huh?

Even Dream Angel might be getting some collection books. Early price estimates there are higher, but that goes with the higher page count, too. Hers would be trade paperback size and much thicker. However, first her artwork and story need… updating.

There’s nothing wrong with the currently released Dream Angel books, so don’t get me wrong there at all. The simple fact is that Techwarrior #5 was greeted with more interest for its Iray rendering style. It’s also been mentioned that there’s some holes in the early parts of Dream Angel’s story that could be filled. Nothing too major, but some additional details would be beneficial. So, the script is seeing some updating and the artwork is soon to follow.

What’s that mean for newer books? Well, it means the series is getting a light reboot. Not a complete one, just enough to fill in those holes. So, 23 books are going to see new art, giving books that are still being written plenty of time to be completed.

The most difficult books to update might be Dream Angel #1-6, as these were initially done in Poser with a lot more Photoshop work than recent books. Dream Angel #1 2nd edition has some complete DAZ Studio scenes, but only some as it, too, had more Photoshop work as well. For some scenes, also, starting from scratch might also be better.

First thing’s first, however, will be bringing this site back to 100% and that means manually uploading necessary files. So, be patient and look forward to more excitement once it’s back to normal.

Using 3D to make comic books part 3

STOP! Before you read part 3 of Using 3D to make comic books, you should read part 1 and part 2! If you’ve read them already, do feel free to continue reading!

Using 3D to make comics scenes rendered on my tablet while still out and about means I can pull the render into GIMP if I need to do post work, too. Literally, my work can go with me anywhere. Sure, the tablet can’t do everything the computer can, but it does a nice job of getting things started for the computer, which saves some time. Then I’m able to open the file in the computer and pick up where I left off while I was out.

Okay, that’s putting together the scene and making sure it’s a real eye pleaser, what about making it into a comic book? I wouldn’t doubt there’s other programs out there, but Manga Studio served me well for a long time before I discovered Comic Life. Now, you’ll notice all these programs have no links attached. I’m not affiliated with them, merely recommending them.

For my purposes, I wish I could combine the two into one program, but that seems quite unlikely. Manga Studio is indeed meant for hand-drawn comics and especially manga with a staggering array of tools and goodies for that purpose. I especially loved its layers palette, but it had its shortcomings for me, as well.

When I found Comic Life, I was struggling to create extended dialogue balloons in particular with Manga Studio. I didn’t have the expensive version of the program and couldn’t afford to get it anyway. I’d found a trial version of it and thought I might be able to setup my 3D scenes inside it, but found nothing for importing my own 3D models and accessories and its library limited to what it came with.

Comic Life offered the dialogue balloons I wanted and a nice assortment of other tools. It’s proven to be more intended for importing images and even fixing them in the program, which suited me far better as a 3D artist. I could just drag and drop my renders into the panel frames and if they needed fixing, I could do it right there without any headaches.