Posing, Lighting and Rendering

TraditionalGames. (2013) SpearFighter. Available at: https://warosu.org/tg/thread/26805016?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=15c4ad857bfc7061b4e9743720d229465be99e77-1590324023-0-AUS_XNl6QsJ4JQznoVdEZQNfFLWYw0_OVlZEjEiACeAqUEbmTaUkX5XQIljxYVHXTQfs3LdS8JYozaJJDf4WLGmnoh1JROcJuq6gGaOXgkzgcXCt7P9WxmmXOH02aoU-tc9gBC51tMmcZWNPMPa5IeoLN17q4rHpTyqwokiCOAtvGU7hecC9d_oASatprCbcwaQfiprrScavcnp9HtscWRfBVTyPACGTCWklmTMcNVAeYNPrNrBl4sKN5SbHdHfYhdpRhcNyamHRfpjfhRmm9KEROHg7Y6sp_n63jrRCeL4A (accessed on: 03/05/2020)

Onineko. (2013) FKEY #1541450. Available at: https://www.zerochan.net/1541450 (accessed on: 03/05/2020)

Archonia. (2020) Final Fantasy XV Play Arts Kai Action Figure – Aranea Highwind. Available at: https://www.archonia.us/en-us/product/36779/final-fantasy-xv-play-arts-kai-action-figure-aranea-highwind (accessed on: 03/05/2020)

SquareEnix. (2020) Final Fantasy XIV Bring Arts Estinien [Action Figure]. Available at: https://store.na.square-enix-games.com/en_US/product/481451/final-fantasy-xiv-bring-arts-estinien-action-figure (accessed on: 03/05/2020)

I did some quick searches on the internet to see how fantasy spear wielders hold their spears and what sort of poses they assume. It would appear that a lot of the images I saw on the internet have the spear wielder either in a neutral pose standing upright with the spear in one hand. The spear usually rest on the ground and helps to balance the character. When it comes to more dynamic poses, the characters body is usually low to the ground, arched back and bent legs in a wide stance to help with balance. With this in mind, I came up with some quick concepts for poses. Some of them wouldn't help with my characters balance and the character wouldn't balance if they were to be printed out in 3D. The 3rd pose wouldn't be doable without bending the spear which I'm not too keen on doing as that wouldn't be physically possible. I wouldn't like to have a dynamic pose however with the way my computer was handling the texturing, I'm not too sure how much I will be able to pose my character without my work crashing on me. If I have to, I will pose my character in a less dynamic pose more similar to the fourth pose.

POSING MY CHARACTER

Using the pose tools weren't all that difficult. The easiest way to do so is to select the body of my character and take the subdivision levels down to the lowest value and select transpose master within the plugin menu. By doing this, the mesh of the body will be low poly so when I manipulate the mesh, the strain on the computer won't be quite as high and when I do move the body into a different pose, the software will automatically move clothes attached to that part of the body to the same position as the body e.g. when the arms move, the clothing on the arms change to that position too.

www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/introducing-the-transpose-master?u=57075897

Bird, R. (2015) Sculpting a Creature with ZBrush and Photoshop - Introducing the Transpose Master. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/introducing-the-transpose-master?u=57075897 (accessed on: 06/05/2020)

The easiest way to manipulate the body was within transpose master. Once the plugin was active, I use the lasoo tool in the masking tools. This allows me to select the areas of the body I want to mask much easier than if I were painting the mask on and allows me to make sure I select all the geometry of the area I want to move.

I found posing to be somewhat challenging due to my machine not wanting to cooperate with me. No matter how much I tried to reduce the strain on the machine I was using but no matter how much of my character's clothing I hid, the application kept running incredibly slowly and crashed often. This meant that I was severely limited with the amount of work I could do to pose my character.

I decided to opt for a very simple stance, to make sure my character would balance if they were to be standing. I did some experimentation on different poses that were more unique and action packed however when I tried to pose my character in some of these poses, my laptop almost completely refused. In order to ensure my character won't fall over I moved the legs slightly further apart and then placed one at the front and another further back. A wide stance helps provide greater balance. I wanted to have the spear in a more dynamic position however as explained above, I couldn't so having the spear pointing down was doable and feels more battle ready.

The left arm caused me some trouble too. The wrist wouldn't bend properly and caused some major issues with the hand so I can't have my characters hand flat in front of her as if to say stop or as if she were reaching ahead of her to prevent people getting too close before swinging her spear.

I have included screenshots of the pose before and after using the basic PBR setup to see how the lights that are currently in there would impact the pose and how the shadows and lights bounce off the character.

Setting Up 3 Point Lighting

www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/lighting-terminology-and-purpose?u=57075897

Bird, R. (2015) Sculpting a Creature with ZBrush and Photoshop - Lighting terminology and purpose. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/lighting-terminology-and-purpose?u=57075897 (accessed on: 08/05/2020)

I had no idea where to start when it came to setting up the lighting for my character. There's a lot of intricacies within Zbrush and lighting isn't quite as simple as placing a light in position and adjusting the strength and hue like it is within game engines like unity or modelling software like maya. Zbrush has it's own interface where you can edit hoe a light behaves and it updates in real time to show the effects on the model.

I found the lighting in Zbrush to be incredibly over complicated, with all these different settings to tweak the lighting however this also means that there is a lot of scope to be able to achieve some striking lighting.

I decided to use a rim light to illuminate the back of my character so the details and the shape of the body aren't lost against a dark background. The directional light is meant to highlight my characters main features and should use a contrasting colour to the rim light to really emphasise the the different areas of the light and shadows. The fill lights purpose is to give a low ambient colour to the model that will act as a base for the other lights.

Using the bone and gold materials has seemed to caused a little issue with the model as they remain strongly illuminated without any strong lights in the scene however I can fix these in photoshop when compositing my character.

Fill Light Only

Fill light and Directional/Main Light

Rim Light On

3 Point Lighting Full setup

FINISHED RENDERS IN ZBRUSH

I used warm hues for the directional light and blue hues for the rim light as I wanted the viewer to be attracted to the more detailed areas of the character and I feel that orange hues help to draw the eye, especially against lighter colours like the white of the clothes, it helps them to glow. I made sure to keep the hues using very desaturated colours so that the materials and poly paint that I have applied to my model don't get washed out by horrible bright coloured lights. Ideally I should've decided on a background before selecting a colour for the lighting as this could ultimately impact the final composition of my piece and I could've instead used a neutral white light which would mean that the colours wouldn't be too strong and overwrite any of the work I have done with the materials or I could reduce the strength of the light itself to prevent this. Overall, I am very happy with how this turned out, especially considering this is my first time creating a character, never mind going through the entire process of colouring them and rendering them too. I decided I was quite fond of the angled front facing view (image 1 on the carousel) as this shows a lot of the model and highlights a lot of the work I have put into the different areas of the model. The front facing view hides a lot of the model and the side view hides the face. The back view is there so you can see the details on the back however that also hides a lot of the model so I'm not too keen on that either.

COMPOSITING IN PHOTOSHOP

Render01 Fill Light

Render01 Rim Light

Render01 Ambient Occlusion

Render01 Shadows

Render01 Maskmap

Render01 Depth

When compositing in Photoshop, I need to take PBR renders each of the lights I set up in Zbrush and then also take renders of the shadows and and ambient occlusion that will all be stacked on top of each other within Photoshop. By keeping each element of my characters renders as separate layers, I can manually adjust them based on the background I have for my character and make for example the shadows darker or the main point light brighter. I can also adjust the AO by giving it a little hint of a coloured hue as the shadows of an object or character will be influenced by the scene and I would want to change them to a contrasting colour and perhaps adjust the contrast to add to the stylised look of my character. I've posted the layers I used for the composition except the point light.

www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/renders-and-blending-modes?u=57075897

Bird, R. (2015) Sculpting a Creature with ZBrush and Photoshop – Renders and blending modes. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/renders-and-blending-modes?u=57075897 (accessed on: 09/05/2020)

www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/adjusting-layers-and-intensities?u=57075897

Bird, R. (2015) Sculpting a Creature with ZBrush and Photoshop – Adjusting layers and intensities. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/sculpting-a-creature-with-zbrush-and-photoshop/adjusting-layers-and-intensities?u=57075897 (accessed on: 09/05/2020)

I used the video guides on Lynda.com to learn how I should be stacking the layers up within Photoshop and how to remove the background from the layers used the maskmap layer without destroying any of my work. By doing so I was able to create a very crisp and high quality composition of my character. I made sure to follow a non destructive workflow by using adjustment layers and masking layers to prevent myself from making changes that I couldn't undo at any point.

Here is the character without the background but with the layers stacked. I kept them organised by ensuring I kept the layers stacked in a group. This ensures that when I use the maskmap layer, I can affect all the layers within the group and mask them all in the same way to prevent any discrepancies.

My character is looking beautiful and I'm very happy with how this is turning out. Honestly I;m a little apprehensive about adding a background for her since I'd rather just have a simple greyscale background with a plane but I will persevere onward and create something that will try to add a sense of storytelling and help place her in a world.

BACKGROUND SELECTION

Wallpapersmug. Wallpaper forest, anime girl, outdoor. Available at: https://wallpapersmug.com/ (accessed on: 10/05/2020)

Bitterraven. (2015) Studio Ghibli Wallpapers. Available at: https://imgur.com/gallery/a0KX2/comment/434443383 (accessed on: 10/05/2020)

Monkeypaw. (2020) Pixiv Id 41736171 HD Wallpaper. Available at: https://www.zerochan.net/2809349 (accessed on: 10/05/2020)

myjapanbox. (2019) Shrine deep iin Japanesse Cedar Forest. Available at: https://twitter.com/myjapanboxcom/status/1141506740112023553 (accessed on: 10/05/2020)

Portofsoft. (2020) Dark Forest. Available at: https://portofsoft.at.ua/publ/rabochij_stol/animirovannye_oboi/dark_forest/24-1-0-402 (accessed on: 10/05/2020)

Wallpapermaiden. (2020) Download 3840x2160 Anime Landscape, Torii, Shrine, Scenic, Trees, Statue Wallpapers. Available at: https://www.wallpapermaiden.com/wallpaper/37166/anime-landscape-torii-shrine-scenic-trees-statue/download/3840x2160 (accessed on: 10/05/2020)

DesktopBackground. (2016) Cute Anime Background. Available at: https://www.desktopbackground.org/wallpaper/cute-anime-backgrounds-wallpapers-11190 (accessed on: 10/05/2020)

I had two initial ideas for the colour palettes that would work for my character. I could use a dark scene to give the sense of my character being more evil and intimidating however with the pose that my character is in, they are assuming a more heroic and strong pose. Dark and more evil scenes wouldn't fit too well with the background I want for my character. I posed her specially to lean towards the more heroic and protector kind f side story, that they defeat creatures and foes to protect something or someone they care for. I don't want to lean towards the dark route.

The first image adds a sense of magic however there are strange artefacts surrounding a character already in the scene so that can pose an issue. The colour palette uses a lot of bright colours that have been somewhat washed out so that won't fit too well with my character.
Image two could work quite well. The colours contrast well with my characters however there is one issue I'd find it difficult to work around and the angle the stairs are travelling up through the scene. Due to my characters pose and the angle I've rendered her out at, I believe it would be difficult to work with the two different angles therefore I shall try to potentially find something similar. A pose I would consider for this however would be a sitting pose and have my character sit on the bottom steps in the foreground.
This image is a more landscape and picturesque scene. There are a lot of bright colours here however once again my characters pose wouldn't work too well here. I would need to have the lights hit the front of her and have some strong shadows on her back. I'd need to have a view of my character rendered
This image wasn't quite right either. It's too realistic for my character, since I'm going for an anime style/stylised look I believable the background should fit with that too.
The fifth image with the pink ground and dark trees should be ruled out as the pinks and blacks blend in a little too much with my characters colour scheme.
This image seems a little more fitting. The art style is more stylised, the colours fit within a green and darkish hue but I can always alter all that to make it contrast a little more with my character if needed and the angle seems just about right for my renders to work. I can now take this background into photoshop and alter both my character and said background to make the two fit together better.
This background is a little like number 3, it uses bright colours which blend together nicely and I can manipulate my renders to have a hue that would somewhat match the background however for the background to work I need to make sure that I have a render from a different view other than the front.

Here is my character in the scene. I flipped her Y axis so that she was facing out from the village, as if she was standing by guarding the place. I think this position is ideal for her as the lines that follow from the surrounding area all point inwards towards the torii. Since she is positioned in front of the torii, then the lines lead the viewer towards her. The background is a bit too bright so I will need to adjust the backgrounds contrast, hue and saturation to bring it more in line with my character however I will also adjust the AO of my character to have a more green hue to blend with the background just a little bit. I'm quite happy with how this looks however there is still work that needs to be done to call this a finished piece.

FINISHED COMPOSITION

This is what I ended up with one I had made adjustments and added my own flair to the piece. I decided to make the entire background considerably darker and decided to play with the lighting that was being dispersed through the trees, making that stronger to help highlight key areas of the piece. By making he piece darker, the viewer is made to focus on the lighter areas of the image that being my character and the area behind her however I kept majority of the scene visible so you can still gain a sense of atmosphere from the surrounding environment. I added a god ray to light my character so as to help blend her colours in with the scene as she was a little too bright and making all the shadows stronger on her made her blend too much with the background, considering shes the centrepiece here, I didn't want to lose all the work I put in due her not being visible enough. I figured since she is based within a forest, I could get away with adding a little atmospheric fog to add a sense of mystery and fantasy to the scene since she could be protecting a long forgotten shrine here, the fog will help to deter people due to fear of the unseen. Since I'd made the background darker, I could use the Photoshop soft light layer feature to add in the lights without overwhelming the scene. I used a soft brush with a yellow/white hue to add some light to the lantern in the background as well as add so lights dotted around the scene to create fireflies. I feel as though they help to tie the scene together by helping to blend some lighter and darker hues into the scene.

I also followed this piece up and made a second and third composition using the background 3 and 7 and renders that are from different views of my characters. Having already done all this before and with the guides from Rayce Bird, it wasn't all that difficult to repeat the process. I brightened up some of the brighter areas of the background, especially in the centre where the sunset is highlighting the piece. I figured that by placing my character in the centre, the curved horizon line would point the viewer inwards and helps to frame my character. I made sure to add highlights to the areas that are being hit by the sunsets light and added darker shadows to the back of the character to make sure that the shadows contrast drastically with the highlights.

Overall I am very satisfied of my results and the work I have produced here. The work is high quality and really captures all the details of my model from different angles. I wish I could have done some extra work on the different poses however my PC struggled with that part of the process. The lighting on my model works very well with the backgrounds I have and with some slight adjustments I was able to make it all work much more cohesively. Each of the three finished compositions use different backgrounds and give very different finished results and help to highlight different important areas of the same model in different light. I probably could've made sure that all the texturing and painting I'd done on my model was crisp and more accurate however this is more noticeable up close and I'd make sure to do this for my next model.

References