Playing With Clouds and Effects

It's the air dragon zooming through the clouds. This uses spectral atmospheres in Vue 6, some metaclouds, some low and high clouds with the camera between them. Turbulence effect is just a cylinder with the dragon on one end, textured with cloud textures and transparency. I might add some more models in this scene if I revisit this again, but for now I'm on to playing with other effects like water splashes or fireballs, and maybe make a dragon breathe fire. Air dragon is from DAZ3D, posed and textured in DAZ|Studio with elemental air textures.. and then imported to Vue 6 xStream for the effects and final render.

HD Render of Remember Pitch Black? A.K.A. Before Pitch Darkening

The high resolution, 4000x3000-pixel render with HDR lighting of Remember Pitch Black? also known as Before Pitch Darkening is now available in RAR archive format. See previous posts for more details about this download. Get It Here!

~-~-~-~~-~-~-~~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~-~
JLèé © 2008 All Rights Reserved
~-~-~-~~-~-~-~~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~-~

HDR Re-rendered In High Definition

I've revisited one of my works to apply some of the new techniques I have learned so far in Vue 6 xStream. The image known as Before Pitch Darkening in ArtZone, which is also known as Remember Pitch Black? in Renderosity has been retouched by HDRI lighting. I have also retextured the ground and the terrain to look good on the new sky light. And as a bonus, it is rendered in a high definition (hi-res) image with 90% quality to minimize the gigantic file size. The 4000x3000 pixel image will be uploaded shortly as a WinRAR archive in FileCrunch since blogger and other galleries resize or disallow uploading of images with this resolution. Please click on the image to view the full size (1600x1200 here in blogger) and compare it to my previous posting of the original image (April 2008 Archive) to see and spot the difference. License is unrestricted for commercial and non-commercial use (GPL).

Rendered by JLèé © 2008

Vue 6 HDRI Test

What's good in Vue is the ability to create and export HDRI for use with your scene's HDR lighting. You just have to export the sky in a UV Sphere with a resolution of at least 3000 pixels, save it as an image file and you got yourself a nice HDR light source.

This is my HDR test render wherein I added a sunlight source so I could have some soft shadows (at least 5% softness) and in the atmosphere editor under lights, I made sure that sunlight gives the scene just 10% of the total light in the scene. Soft shadows and HDR crystal clear lighting!

Final Daily Dragon

The seventh and last of my Daily Dragon Entries for DAZ's Daily Dragon Contest. This is called Before Pitch Darkening, and is based on the movie Pitch Black wherein a ringed planet covers one of it's two suns. The creatures featured here are DAZ's Wyverns with Raw Wyvern textures. They were posed and textured in DAZ|Studio 1.8, then imported to Vue 6 xStream for the final render of the scene.

Daily Dragon Update 04252008

The original entry for daily dragon no. 2 which is done in DAZ|Studio and postwork by GIMP. This is the water dragon and the wyvern or "Dragon&Wyvern".



Daily dragon no. 5 is the "Submerged Dungeon", with the sea dragon from DAZ swimming in the partially submerged dungeon which is Stonemason's "The Dark Corner of the Dungeon" product.


I have just submitted daily dragon no. 6 which is "Jaws of the Flipper". This is my test run of VUE 6 xStream, everything here is rendered in Vue except for the copyright watermark which was added later by GIMP. DAZ's sea dragon passing through a sunken ruin, stonemason's "City Ruin" product. Tagline: Is it the great white shark or the dolphin?

Dragon Elementals

Well, its time for my daily dragon and my fourth entry for Dragon World 2008 Daily Dragon Contest has four of them, each representing the four basic elements (water, earth, fire, and air). Rendered in Carrara for the best water reflections and realistic sky. Each of the dragons were imported from DAZ Studio where they were posed and textured. The columns are also textured according to the elemental alignment of the dragon standing (or hovering) over it. On the far right is the Air Dragon (blue), standing over the crystalline column. To it's right (next dragon, counter-clockwise) is the Water Dragon (lighter blue) standing over an icy column, followed by the brownish Earth Dragon standing over a stone column. The Fire Dragon (red) is standing over the column of a once molten lava.

The Three Daily Dragons

These are my first three entries for DAZ3D's Dragon World - Daily Dragon Contest. Daily winners are chosen randomly and gets a DAZ voucher for the marketplace. A fun way to improve those rendering skills, plus a chance to get that bundle pack in DAZ for free.

This is the remake of my second entry in the daily dragon contest entitled "The Dragon and The Wyvern". In the original entry, the models (water dragon plus the wyvern) were rendered in DAZ|Studio; the backdrop was rendered in Carrara; and they were then put together with GIMP, my new favorite and free image processor aside from the commercial "Adobe Photoshop" and "Paint Shop Pro". This is rendered in Carrara 6 Pro where I added terrain, a realistic sky, and a lens flare.

This is called "Fire and Bone". The fire and bone dragons were posed and textured in D|S. They were then imported to Carrara so I can easily add the terrain, the realistic sky with the sun and moon, and add some fog.

My first entry was a render before I started playing with Carrara. This is called "The Dragon's Lair" A.K.A. "Fun With Millenium Dragon II". It was rendered in D|S and was my first work with the Millenium Dragon. The lair is the Dragon Cave which is a freebie.

Curling Eastern Dragon

JL Trish V4.2 Morphs++

For those of you who have V4.2 Base and V4.2 Morphs++ plus DAZ|Studio v1.8 or later.
This is my freebie character head morph for Victoria 4.2 and is available here.
A pz2 version is also available (for Poser, requires V4.2 base only) but I still have to make it perfect, sadly I don`t have the time.

Licensing: Unrestricted

Here`s some screens and renders (click to enlarge):

Movies <-this-> Week (Apr 08 3rd Quarter)

This week is crime movies week.. what I downloaded and watched for this week:

• The Bank Job (2008)
• Mad Money (2008)
• Flawless (2007)

Whoever said that crime does not pay is definitely not a criminal!

Aiko 4 - I Heart Aiko

Finally got my copy of the latest version of Aiko from DAZ3D. She is the most popular 3D Anime Model on the planet (Vicki is the most popular 3D non-anime model - :wink:). She is built from the body geometry of Victoria 4.2 so you'll need V4.2 Base for A4. And because of that, V4's clothes/hair/shoes/props will fit directly into A4.

Wait for my renders of A4 in my galleries on ArtZone. I love Vicki, but I heart Aiko! :LoL:

DAZ Glossary:
Vicki/Vicky - DAZ3D's Millenium Figure Victoria, nickname
V4 and V4.2 - Victoria 4 and Victoria 4.2 respectively
A4 - DAZ3D's (Anime) Millenium Figure Aiko 4

Darkstar One

Currently playing Darkstar One (wiki), released on June 16, 2006 by Ascaron.

It is another freeroam space combat/trading/bounty hunting sim just like Freelancer, Privateer, and X3: Reunion (or the X series). Unlike the other games, you only have one ship (you cannot buy another) but because of this, you can upgrade your ship from a high-end combat fighter/freighter to a super- or very-high-end and powerful ship. Confused? Well from the start of the game, your ship dubbed the "Darkstar One" is an experimental and 'already' powerful vessel (hence the high-end description above). This experimental state-of-the-art craft can collect artifacts scattered all over the game's space in order to gain the next level or level up.

I think I will be stuck in my room for a week or so for this. Off to my bounty!

New Amsterdam

You will not grow old.
You will not die.
Until you find 'the one'.

That's from the new series on Fox, New Amsterdam. The story revolves around a man who has been around for about 400 years, Johann van der Zee, who came to the new world and later became one of the pioneers of the Dutch Colony (New Amsterdam then, later called New York).

On the pilot episode you will discover how he became immortal and how he is to become mortal once more. Here you will also meet his soulmate, "the one".

Read more on Fox.

Virgle - The Mars Project

I've been watching the youtube videos of Virgle applicants, and I felt sorry for those who didn't know. Poor things. I think google should reward them for being good sports on this special day in April.

My internet surfing habits have saved me from the prank though. I always read the Terms of Agreement, F.A.Q.s, infos, forums/discussions, and go through all the links before joining anything on the net nowadays because of spam and hoaxes.

Happy April Fools Day. And don't throw all your hopes up, this is still to happen.. yet!