Tag Archives: grid

Music in the Metaverse

I think my CGI images tend to look better when I have something in closeup.  It avoids the “medium shot of a character just standing there” that I struggle with.  For this piece I started with an extreme close up and added cool robot eyes and dramatic flowing hair.

I also wanted a graphic background, something flat, technical.  I have an ongoing issue with backgrounds.  I get creatively stuck and I don’t know what to put back there.  I end up trying scores of different things and nothing works.

What I ended up using here was actually a huge Tron like cityscape.  The shapes and lines are actually building size structures seen from the top.  This is what the cityscape looks like normally.

The entire environment is standing on it’s side waaaaaay far away.  I turned on and off different elements depending on what looked good.  It ended up being a real hassle having the background so far away though.  Making adjustments took a long time.  (I went back and figured it out.  it’s 1.8 miles away!  …or 3 kilometers)  I should have scaled down the whole thing and moved it closer.

I named it Music in the Metaverse because the graphic lines in the background ended up looking similar to a music staff.

Created in DAZ Studio 4.20
Rendered with Iray
Color Correction in Capture One

We Are the Dreamers of the Dream

Building the Metaverse to match the real world.

I made this CGI image about a year ago when the Metaverse was the shiny new tech thing.  Most people probably won’t get what it’s about so I’ll explain it, even though David Lynch would probably scold me for doing that.

The grey and chrome sphere are tools that special effects artists use to match 3D computer graphics to real world photography.  If you are shooting a film for example, and part of the scene will be CGI, you shoot a few extra feet of the environment with someone holding a grey and chrome sphere.  The chrome sphere reflects the entire environment and that reflected image can be “unwrapped” and placed as a dome over the CGI so the same light and colors shine on the computer generated elements as in the real scene.  (The chrome ball is actually an old fashioned “poor man’s” way of doing this.  There are 360 degree cameras now that can actually just take a picture of the entire environment right on the set.)

The grey sphere shows the quality of light shining on a specific place in the shot.

This image is about building a computer generate Metaverse that people can walk around in, just like real life.  It’s the dream of constructing a Metaverse as well as the Metaverse as a dreamscape… the birth of a new alternate world.

OK, enough of that…

The main difficulty I had in creating this image stems from the fact that the reflection in the chrome ball is actually the real reflection of the CGI environment.  It’s not a composite.  The mountains actually go all the way around the environment.  The grid floor goes out in all directions.  The “planet” and the “sun” seen in the ball are on the HRDI dome over the scene that is creating the ambient light.  The dome had to be lined up so the “planet” reflected in the sphere correctly.  The mountains had to be rotated in such a way that the peaks behind her and the ones in the chrome ball both looked good.  The main light in the scene is the keylight on the character which can be seen in the chrome sphere as a bright rectangle in the upper left of the sphere.  I could have removed that in post but I left it in because that’s the point.

The metaverse was supposed to be the future of everything.  Facebook even changed their name to Meta.  Now AI is the new thing.  Will the metaverse be created?  Will AI create the metaverse for us?  Who knows…

Created in DAZ Studio 4.20
Rendered with Iray
Color Correction in Capture One

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Set the Controls for the Heart of the SunI’ve been wanting to do an abstract piece for some time.  I love the way this came out.  I’ll definitely be doing more art like this in the future.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun BTS wireframeThere’s not much to say about this piece. It’s pretty straight forward.  The light is from the HDMI which is essentially a gradient with a bright spot that becomes the “sun.”  The gradient did create a very slight banding across the sky and I had to bring the piece into photoshop to add some noise to try and smooth it out.  That was the only postwork I did in Photoshop.  You can still see the banding a bit but it’s much better than it was.  You can see the grain actual size behind the mountain in the color correction image if you click to embiggen it.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun BTS ccI tried to make the ground look like ice by playing with the Metallic Flakes Weight setting in the Surfaces tab.  All in all I’m very happy with this one.

Created in DAZ Studio 4.9
Rendered with Iray
Minor post in Photoshop
Color Correction in Lightroom

Figures used:
Blank Boi
Planet X-3
Mec4d PBS Shaders vol.2 for Iray
Wireframe and Hologram Shaders

 

Trembling on the Brink of Infinity

Trapped in a space time loop with no escape.Most of my work is dark, film-noir like with tiny spotlights in a black void.  It was time for something different.  I wanted something bright with lots of negative space, hard graphic lines, and very little color.  Something that looked like Space:1999, or THX-1138, or any other SciFi that has a number in it.  (2001: A Space Odyssey?)

A line in the egg

Creating this piece was pretty straightforward.  The only trouble I had technically was a strange shadow line on the egg ship.  The front of the ship was significantly darker even though that’s where the light was coming from.

trembling on the brink of infinity BTS 2eggsI finally realized the line was a reflection of the edge of the huge white background.  The environment was simply two planes.

trembling on the brink of infinity BTS gridI had to put a huge side and top on it to solve the reflection problem.

trembling on the brink of infinity BTS worldIt probably would have been easier to create a white dome over the whole scene but I was worried the horizon would be curved and ruin the grid line effect.

My constant conundrum

When I’m building a scene I usually drop cameras here and there when I find a new perspective that looks good.  It’s the filmmaker in me I guess, shooting from multiple angles.  When I’m finished setting the scene and lighting it’s always hard for me to decide which angle is best.  My original perspective for this piece was a full body wide shot that featured the expanse of the void.

I finally settled on the medium shot because it was easier to see she was crying and I think it conveys more emotion from the character.  Of course I also came up with this crazy extreme close-up which I totally love.

It was a difficult for me to pick only one.  Which is your favorite?  Wide, medium, or close?

Prints are available on my Deviant Art profile.  CLICK HERE

Created in DAZ Studio 4.8
Rendered with 3Delight
Color Correction in Lightroom

Models used (from DAZ3D.com):
Teen Josie 6
Letizia for Lilith 6
Awesome Fantasy Eyes
Stalker Girl Hair
Sci-Fi Body Suit SF-001
Actual Tears
Nomad Module 2