Quanon

So if folks are wondering on how I do this portrait rendering, here follows a quick and dirty run down:

Place to start, is a tutorial I made some time back, it was part of a lightmap tutorial. But this part deals about setting up the render engine and lighting:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kw7btvf80epzcyp/Lights%26Render.pdf

I'll now list a few extra tweaks, I found that improved the look of the portraits. Since the above mentioned tutorial deals more with lighting an area instead of a character.

A first note/ change, when reading the tutorial, the step where you switch 'on" Global Illumination. Step 2 on the screenshot ;-)

There is a small box called Multiplier, it has a value of 1,0. You can enter 5,0 in there.

Below that is Maximum Photons per sample; this is set to 500. Jack it up to 40.000.

Keep following the instructions about how to setup the lights and other bits. Nothing changes there.

Next use MDLops to compile your model to ASCII. Use NWmax to import.

Now to get a good shot of the character, first, make a big box that surrounds the model. Turn the box into a Edit Poly. Then Chamfer the back ceiling and floor edges.

Then delete front and sides. Select by Element, click on the box. Then use the Flip button. So that all faces, now, face inwards.

With all the faces still select, scroll down to smooting options. Click on autosmooth. Deselect the faces.

Open the Material editor ( M-key). Change any slot, from the Standard material to Arch&Design.

In the options of this material, there is a drop down list. Pick 'Pearl Finish'. Apply this material to the chamfer 'box' background.

Add in some lights. Three to 4 lights works best.

This is how my scene looks like:

View of the material thingy I talked about:

Select any viewport, just click on it. Hit P-key to change it to an Perspective 3D view. Move around the view. Untill you get the shot of the character you want.

Then hit Ctrl+C to create a camera. Next hit Shift+F. This will set the Safe Frame. The view port now has the same size and dimensions as what your rendered image will be.

If that is set at 800x600pix, the view will now look like that. If it is set at 1024x1024 the viewport will now be square. You can further tweak the camera, even move it around in the other viewports. You'll see the changes in the 3D viewport instantly.

For the skins of the character I just use the Standard material. I drop the skin into the Diffuse slot. But also into the Spec Color, Spec level; Glosiness and Bump slots.

I then play around with the specular values and the glosiness. For human skin I mostly go for Spec 55 and gloss 35. Bump I scale back to 15 or 5.

You can play around with the values, it just depends on what you want. Just experiment, do lots of little test renders. Best @ 512x512 for example. Quick to do and you get a good idea on how the end result looks like. 

This is just a very quick run down of things. I might create a more noob friendly tutorial later on.

What interests me is to spawn containers into an area, so people can find my created items.

I know the basics, but I'dd like to see more ways on doing it. So far I've only used dialogues.

I'd like to know any other posibilties of firing a script that doesn't break anybody elses game or the script not firing... :-s

Mainly so it's compatible with most of the other mods out there.

Lol, I was thinking of doing a stream session when I'm modelling
I'dd like to follow, but I fear the time zones will make it very hard for me.

Read it all Fair Strides.

I get the feeling that all the things that happened with your family, is catching up. You say you supress the feelings and emotions.

This takes a ton of energy. I'm not blaming you, what I get from your story is you had to grow up FAST. Decide major things that have a serious impact on your life.

It's far from odd you have these on and off periods. Feeling tired by it all. And not sure what to do about it. I think writing this out in a blog is a good step.

You can let it out, doesn't matter if it's a bit cluttered or rambling on. At least you let it out and it can give you some insight on what's going on in your head.

I admire it, it's brave to start digging in yourself. Though it does take time and you should take your time. Take time, but also take good care for yourself,

keep eating and drinking at the right times, you can feel very tired and worn out, by not eating enough and not drinking, causes headaches... ect, hold on to some structure.

Could write a whole lot more, but I got the feeling I would be talking to much about myself here; I've gone through difficult periods myself, about myself. Still fighting with it at times.

But I don't want to take away your "thunder".

Feel free to PM me anytime; I don't think I can help much, but you got my ear