First post - Voodoo Castle (WIP)

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First, this is a work in progress. It is a personal project.
This is not the final character, based on my angry photon guy but with a body. To be changed out with a friendlier looking head, but this is the basic look. It will expand as I get more ideas.

Still working on colors, will be richer and more texture along with more contrast of course.

GoncaloP and everyone else, thanks for putting up with some of my questions and answering some twice when I forget after a couple weeks (or days) :smile: . Vlado kicks @ss, period.

Mapping is crap on the character, am still feeling it out (color and matertial).
Displacement Grass, shrubs and wall texture
HDRI w/2 weak spot lights, VRay Area shadows cranked up
AA 0,2 Mitchell Netrivalli
1st: 1.0 2nd: .5
Secondary: Direct Comp @ 10sub and 5depth
50 Rays
120 IntSamp
High preset
DoF (do not know much about it so I am sure there are some tweaks)
@800x800 it took about 6h15min with the above settings.

Cant remember if I tried photon mapping (see there I go forgetting, usually work on personal stuff at night until 3am after 10-12 hours at the office, cut me some slack) - seems like I did and there was some issue, will try it tonight (if I can remember :smile: )

Wanted that miniature model look and the DoF seemed to do it.
I like the way the grass looks like model turf.

Now a question since I do not fully understand it. Why does DoF take so much longer to render :? ? Is there a fast and rough method without going to post?

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it really look like it’s a small model :smile: great work. rendering out a Zdepth then using Afx or combustion to do DOF is quicker but no way near as good.

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thanks! I will try the Z-Depth trick, I am only doing stills for a story book that I came up with so I guess doing it that way would save a ton-o-time.
Will post more updates as I get them done, usually work till I collapse in the small hours. Trying photon mapping now.

So much to do, will revisit the characters head once I get the lighting worked out. Really hard to get the best from the HDRI with other objects in the scene, worked with a grey-white for awhile so the look went out the window when I added the displacement grass. Will keep at it, I hope.

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Well still working on it, so it may be awhile before there is an update

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if you doing stills then postprocessing is the way to go for faster dof.

there are plugis for max that do DOF as effect :

http://www.evs3d.com/xdof\_intro.html
http://www.mootools.com/plugins/us/defocus/main.asp

or you can do it with photoshop\after effects and a plugin like lenscare:

http://www.frischluft.com/Lenscare/Border/index.html

lenscares quality is very good.
look on the gallery they compare lenscare with brazil´s DOF.

the good (beside the speed gain) thing with a plugin like lenscare is that you can change the DOF over and over again after your render is finished.

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Thanks! I will have a look.
I am stalled for the moment, pesky job interfering with my fun time.
Working on the actual character concept for the moment, when time permits.

Thanks all for the comments and tips.

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I really need to go back to this, nah I will wait until the interiors are done. :wink: