After my first experience making a puzzle I decided to update the artwork before printing another test puzzle.  I always thought the sky was a little plain in this piece especially since the sky reflected in the chrome sphere has a planet and clouds.  The plain blue at the top was also more difficult to piece together as a puzzle.  To give it some detail I decided to put a grid across the entire sky.  I think thematically this new grid shows that the image reflected in the sphere is actually a future dream.  The actual metaverse environment isn’t built yet.

I actually went all the way back into DAZ Studio to place the grid in 3D space and re-render the entire scene from the beginning.  I also took the chance to re-adjust the camera slightly to give more room around the edge of the frame for print bleed.  Final color correction is also slightly different.  If you’re re-doing it anyway, why not fix the things that bug you?

I also took the opportunity to fix another problem that I previously didn’t know how to fix and which has driven me insane since I first rendered the image.  In the original you’ll notice that the left armpit of her “space samurai” outfit is screwed up.

That’s because the clothing mesh is getting confused between the arm and the torso which are colliding.  I was able to grab the clothing mesh with a DAZ Studio plugin and pull it back toward the torso.  I actually had to stretch it quite a ways into the center of the character like a rubber band to get this small area to look better.

These changes were relatively small but I think they make a big difference.  Can’t wait to see this new version printed out.

Created in DAZ Studio 4.22
Rendered with Iray
Color Correction in Capture One

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 generated 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