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Nature's Wonders Sneak Peek Thread

Ken Gilliland

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
Jan said:
Ken, any tips to share on placing bees on plants etc. Being so small, just when you think you have put one on a flower, you find out that they are nowhere near, just look like it. I was using the camera preset in set. Maybe I just need more practice, no time today, but will try again later.

The bees are very real looking, excellent job on them.
Click to expand...

Small creatures aren't that easy to focus on... and yes, it does take some practice. Fortunately, I've had plenty after creating many different insects (ants probably the most challenging to capture). I use several cameras to make sure the positioning is right.

If I remember correctly you use Poser... One of the easier way is to focus on the bee is to use the Face Camera, but you will need to change one camera setting: hither. Hither controls the close focus... turning this dial closer to Zero will allow you to make the insect more the focus in the image. Using this camera, because it follow the head of the bee, you'll be able to more accurately position the bee in the scene with losing it.

Another technique which works on both Poser and DS is to parent the bee to the InsectCam. This makes sure that your bee is where you want it in the camera.
 
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DanaTA

DanaTA

Distinguished
Jan said:
Ken, any tips to share on placing bees on plants etc. Being so small, just when you think you have put one on a flower, you find out that they are nowhere near, just look like it. I was using the camera preset in set. Maybe I just need more practice, no time today, but will try again later.

The bees are very real looking, excellent job on them.
Click to expand...

What I do for positioning things is create a posing carmera, and move it around, very close, to see exactly how the object or figure is positioned. Sometimes I create two cameras to view it from two different angles. Sometimes you can get it just right from one angle, then look from another angle and it's way off. When I have it just right, I'll either hide or delete the pose cameras. This has helped me in seating figures, keeping feet or tires from sinking into the "ground", creating a grip pose, etc.

Dana
 
Ken Gilliland

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
something else I suggest is turning down x-y-z Trans tracking on small creatures. If you go to the parameter setting on a dial, by default the tracking is set to "1"... change that to "0.1" or less for smaller, more precise movements
 
DanaTA

DanaTA

Distinguished
Ken Gilliland said:
something else I suggest is turning down x-y-z Trans tracking on small creatures. If you go to the parameter setting on a dial, by default the tracking is set to "1"... change that to "0.1" or less for smaller, more precise movements
Click to expand...

Is this something just in Poser, or is it in DS as well? I never knew about this. And I only recently got Poser Pro 11 (not installed yet, though).

Dana
 
Miss B

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Ken Gilliland said:
something else I suggest is turning down x-y-z Trans tracking on small creatures. If you go to the parameter setting on a dial, by default the tracking is set to "1"... change that to "0.1" or less for smaller, more precise movements
Click to expand...
I'll make a note, as I thought this would be an issue for sure.
 
Ken Gilliland

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
In DAZ Studio... the setting you want to change is "Nudge" from 1.0 to 0.1 or less

Capture.JPG


...and in Poser, it's "Sensitivity"...

Capture2.JPG
 
DanaTA

DanaTA

Distinguished
Thank you, Ken! I hope I remember this when I get back into things...or remember about this post in this thread! :rolleyes:

Dana
 
Miss B

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
That's exactly why I keep notes, because I never know when I'll get to play with something.
 
Janet

Janet

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
I was confused and *derp* bought the same product twice. This is in my downloads: "Nature's Wonders Bee". This is the base product?
 
Ken Gilliland

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
The "Nature's Wonders Bee" is what I've been referring to as the "base" product. Maybe I've made a mistake by referring to it here as the "Bee Base", if so, I'm sorry for confusing anyone.

Again, for anybody still confused, look at the first line in the Product Description Tab of "Bees of the World Volume 1"... it says (and has since the store page when up)... Requires Nature's Wonders Bee

...also, my text directly after it reads "This volume is an add-on for the Nature's Wonders Bee Base set." This is the only set that requires the Nature's Wonder Bee right now. If I ever create more "Bees of the World" sets, those volumes will also require the Nature's Wonder Bee to work. The upcoming release of "Bee Swarms" is a standalone product and will not require the Nature's Wonder Bee.

The easiest way to think of my Nature's Wonders line is that there's a "base" product like Dawn or Dusk (but in my case, a bee/frog/lizard model) and the "...of the World" Volume sets are characters based on that model.

Thank-you Napalm and Stezza for sharing your renders and making my products look so good ;)
 
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Ken Gilliland

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
Ivory Elephant said:
Hey Ken are you planning any larger animals?
Click to expand...

Maybe eventually... it's pretty obvious that "Birds" are my thing. That's what I'm most passionate about in my 3D work, as well as my personal life. The Nature's Wonders line has been more about me creating species, environments to accompany of bird renders-- mostly because I got tried of waiting for another 3D art to create them. It's also been a fun diversion from the grueling work of updating my bird series.

So, to your question... I have no plans right now, but that doesn't mean someday I might. For instance, in upgrading my SBRM Africa set (and if the mood hits me to do additional Volume 2...), Oxpeckers are going to need a large mammal to do their pecking on. Chris has a numbers of great African mammal models already done which are in the rigging pipeline (Giraffe, zebra, warthog, elephant) so that I won't be doing those... but I might consider others.
 
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