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moonwolf-95 — First Hunt Aftermath
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Published: 2007-06-26 23:50:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 955; Favourites: 2; Downloads: 11
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Description
Marisa's first time hunting kainde amedha, hard meat xenos. Thousand yard stare or "Oh shit, did I just do that??"Made with Poser 6, Marisa figure is a Victoria with modifications, her Predator gear is from the Sixus Predator, the Predator is the AA Predator. Background is the alien wall from a freebie "Alien" set found on the web (which had the space jockey used in "Yautja Subtlety")
Took an afternoon, the Sixus predator gear isn't quit set for the Victoria figure (it's based on the H.I.M. figure originally).
Rendered in Poser 4 mode.
First time at really trying to hack together a real scene.
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Comments: 10
Excellent re-purposing of the predator gear, it must have been a pain to get it onto a modified Victoria (although I have to admit that Victoria is my favorite poser model for modding). The only problem I have with it is that the lighting seems a bit 'flat'. Both series have very moody "spotlight in a sea of darkness" type lighting, and this is lit like a modern office room.
Aside from the lighting though, it's very nice... maybe next time you can use anti-aliasing.
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Thank you!
One advantage is the quality of both the Sixus and AA Predator figures and objects. Although the former is designed for H.I.M. and the latter (as far as I can tell) is a stand-alone, they break apart well (Voluntary "Wheeeee!!!!" plug for both, since they're free and the creators deserve credit!!!)
I'm still learning Poser, and discovering just how deep it can go. When I rendered it, I wasn't "happy" with how both figures ended up - the Pred looks more like one of the plastic figures, and Marisa ended up more bug eyed than emotional 
The lighting is definitely a place I need to work on, I know that it can make or break a scene - some of the stuff on DA that I've seen is absolutely fantastic. One version I made had much more subdued lighting, but I think I fell into the "Light it all up!!!" trap.
Thanks for the suggestion about anti-aliasing, I'll give it a try! I need to work on post-render work as well (this one is as rendered). Other hints or tricks are greatly appreciated
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When creating expressions in ANY visual art, the expressive pose of the BODY is much more important that what is going on with the face (that was the hardest rule for me to learn). Make absolutely sure that the body expresses what you want the figure to 'say', THEN do the face. It will help immensely if you have access to a digital camera or digital handy-cam. Get good images (even bad images are better than none), showing the pose/expression you want. The best way to do it is to pose/express it yourself, because then you will know how it feels from the inside AND what it looks like on the outside. All the big animation houses (especially Pixar, it's part of what makes them the best) have their animators act out on film what they want the characters to do, then they use the film as a rough base for the character action. There is some very nice footage of the animators for Halo 3 acting out for character animation in the film "Et tu, Brute?" [link] at the 3 minute mark. Getting the pose right is even more important for a still image than for video, because a weak pose in video only lasts a moment, but in a still image it's all you have.
Once the body is posed, you can do the face. I don't have any great tricks for posing the face except 1: change EVERY expression-related parameter, even if it's just a little. Don't leave ANY of them at 0.000, this includes the rotation/side-side/bend of the head and neck. NOBODY (except nasty botox patients) holds one part of their face perfectly still while making any expression. Even tiny changes of 0.020 or so will make a face look more alive... unless you are doing dead people. Set the 'important' parameters that you know you need (eyes, mouth, brow, jaw) then go through all the other parameters and move them around a bit to see what happens. Sometimes you can stumble across really nice settings that you'll want to save as presets for later.
As for the models looking plastic, that's mostly the settings for specularity and bump-maps. There are big expensive books written every week about how to best use texture maps and material settings, and I don't have any easy answers for you there. If you set the specular colors 'darker' in the material settings you will have a less 'shiny' material that looks more like cloth, leather, or skin. I almost always cut back the specular, unless I want something to be metallic, then I make the specular highlights very sharp and bright.
I hope some of this helps.
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