#lazy background for render in blender

[wistfulpoltergeist]

Lazy Background for render in Blender

So I’ve been asked about my backgrounds for render in Blender. Do I create sky simulation or environment simulation for my renders? Although there’s a splendid tutorial on How to setup an hdri environment background:

I use the laziest way ever! :D

So here’s my blender scene form this post (my lovely siren fish-boy and his werewolf^^). 

As you can see the background is just a simple plane over there.

With even... simpler material :D it’s important for this material not to have any specular or other characteristics. 

So, for example, I want my picture under this angle. What should I do?

Well! Move and rotate of course! (Scale if needed :D)

Then add Depth of Field...

And. Tada! The picture is done:D

Thank you, @glammoose​ for appreciating my work ^^. I doubt you’ll discover something new here, but who knows!

[krembruleed]

alright, the other day i loosely implied that i would make a behind the scenes/tutorial type of thing. momma didn't raise no liar, so here goes nothing i guess!

step 1) rough sketch

honestly i skip this entirely if have a really concrete idea of what i want to do. sometimes compositions are just beamed into my brain from On High and a sketch is unnecessary.

step 2) 3d ref

this is where i refine the composition, lighting, camera angles, props, etc. i use DAZ studio for model posing and blender for almost everything else (props, horns, lighting, rendering).

here's a 10 minute video on how to pose models in DAZ if you're interested in doing something like this! it's not very hard! basic posing requires almost no technical know-how.

i've heard magicposer and virt-a-mate are also good for model posing, but i don't have any experience with either program.

after i'm done posing, i transfer the models to blender so i can work on props, environment, and lighting because doing it in DAZ is ass. you can see that i went overboard on the ref for the paladin i worked on last year by modelling armor.

step 3) lineart

at this stage i'm synthesizing my 3d models, reference images, and style choices into lines.

the 3d likeness of my models is poor because I don't have time for that shit, so this is where my humongous folder full of bg3 screenshots comes into play.

for example: looking at my screenshots, astarion's forehead tilts back towards the back of his skull, much more so than my reference model. his chin and jaw are sharper and longer, and the transition between his brow ridge and nose is almost a straight line. if i combine the information from my 3d model and astarion's face, i get something like this:

3d models aren't fleshy (ie, tummy rolls, wrinkles, muscle deformations, butt squish) unless one puts in A LOT of effort like absolute madman chris jones.

you guys know bernini, right? he has a couple great examples of this. see how hades' hands press in on persephone's leg?

this is what we want to add in the lineart because it's too much effort for 3d. laziness is king.

i guess i draw clothes at this stage too, but for some reason there aren't many in this image. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

step 4) base color

i have a little color picked palette that i use for everybody so i get their skintones right before i start messing with colored lighting. i'll use overlay and hard/soft light layers clipped to the base layer during the shading step later.

step 5) shading

if you thought we were done with the 3d part, guess again! i posterize my 3d reference so i can see the shapes of the shadows and highlights better. if i'm not feeling it, i can go back to 3d and change the lighting really easily.

could I make a cel shader for this? yes. am I going to? No. custom shaders are for people with intelligence and I am fresh out. posterization it is.

from there, i do a pretty standard cel shading deal that i usually blur and set to low opacity. (for this image i stuck to no blur because i had been looking at a lot of morebird's art and was really feeling the hard edges)

photoshop is what i use for final rendering because it has bangin tools. the brush customization alone make ps worth it, but i also particularly abuse puppet warp, noise generation, the camera raw filter, and layer styles.

step 6) background

i put the least effort possible into a background and then i blur it into oblivion so you can't fathom the depths of my ineptitude.

and then i have a finished image! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[mia-marshmellow]

My lazy little butt loves to draw but backgrounds aren't easy for me so I render them in blender for convenience and here is my fav, the coffee shop! ☕

(These are from last year but I still love em)

[worrysomegus]

Do you have any tips or good tutorial links for getting started using the hair tools in Blender? They seem intimidating, but your models look fantastic

sorry I uuuh don't watch tutorials (evil) I just fucked around for years until it suddenly clicked. So here's a few things, not sure if they'll be useful or not

also blenders particle system fur isn't being worked on anymore and is getting glitchier by the update so maybe look into geometry node fur (I haven't) (evil) also everything under the cut is assuming you know absolutely nothing about hair

this is based on blender 3.5 btw

create a particle system, put it to your desired length (short fur is usually longer than you expect) then set the number to 0, then you can use the add tool to get a symmetrical groom

the strands you add are just to guide all the fur, in areas that curve a lot add more to prevent clipping

puff brush is best girl

once you've finished your groom you can create a weight map to control the furs density (you can also make some for clumping and randomness and shit) (I usually don't) (mostly because I'm lazy) then go to children > interpolated and select your weight map in the density zoneland, if your computers beefy and/or you want a better idea of what it will look like you can change the viewport amount of particles to 100 (or whatever)

go render properties > curves and change it to strip (you don't need to do this using cycles) then back into particle properties under hair shape to change the diameter root length from 1 to whatever looks best (uber dependent on what size your model is, I usually go with 0.08)

oh fuck I forgot to mention you gotta do different systems for the head, neck, body, whatever. It makes it easier and is better for lag

roughness is pretty important for making animal-ish fur too, here's my settings I used for making this face fur, my settings for all my particle systems are pretty consistent but it's also pretty dependent on your models size

here;s some other things I forgot and can't be bothered to go back and add

selecting this thing will let you select groups

uuuuuh I think that's it on the groom itself onto shaders

so they're pretty important to making some nice looking fur, you can make it look fine in eevee but cycles will probably always look more realistic (not to imply eevee isn't best girl it's really good at most things)

(eevee)

(cycles)

in cycles you pretty much just need a principled hair bsdf shader with a few settings tweaked (here's mine for the model above) (also make sure the fur material is different to the skin material)

so for both cycles and eevee your best friend ever is the curves info node (hair info in older versions)

all of these can be pretty useful but the most usefulest ones for me are intercept into a colour ramp makes an ombre from the roots to the tip

and random which adds variation to the strand colour

here's a little breakdown of my cycles shader for her

and eevee, they're pretty similar tbh

BUT also for eevee you need to change a few more things to give your hair weight n shit

in render properties enable ambient occlusion and bloom, then in the settings of your lights enable contact shadows

and one more important thing for nice looking hair is lighting, I find it easier in cycles because it reacts more realistically and rim lighting my beloved, but in eevee it's suuper important to making it not look flat, if doing those settings edits didn't do much it's because of your lighting

1 make your background completely black so you can see what you're doing better

2 add ONE area light and position it, pay attention to how the size, distance, and power affect things and make sure you don't make your model look flat

then you can add a rim light (duplicate the area light and reposition) if you want to give your character some extra highlighting, although good fucking luck if you're using eevee it's probably not worth doing

then you can add an hdri (super good webbed site for them) to be the fill light

having it at full strength tends to flatten the model (especially in eevee)

(cringe mode)

(yaaay)

and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh I think that's it, I don't feel like reading all this back tbh

and please don't follow this like a loser follows the law this is just a guide and you should do whatever you find the most fun/gets the best result

ALSO ALSO don't feel upset if your first few attempts look like dogshit fur is super hard and only insane people make beautiful grooms first try

[veethe]

Hey! Your renders are an absolute delight, I love how you do them. I do have a question though, how do you manage to get such amazing lighting? Sometimes I get really ugly, blocky shadows in blender. ;-; Is there a trick to it or is it just having well-positioned light sources?

First... thank you! o((>ω< ))o

Second: Ohhh, I know exactly what kind of blocky shadows you mean! I recently tried making a new blender file to use (I usually use a default one with the lights + background already set up) and because I was lazy, I did a sloppy job with the lights. Result? Blocky sh*t.

So yeah, I think you need properly set up light sources, multiple, to avoid those! You can then still alter them in their brightness to get some shadows, but overall... light is the key :D

Also, try to not have them directly at the model but in the distance and instead, increase their power. It'll create a softer lighting :)

[verthu]

hey thu! i love your renders and i was just wondering where/how you get ur backgrounds? i love how it fits into the render perfectly, but i have no idea where to find these backgrounds...

thank you so much!

my background depends heavily on the concept/aesthetics of the render, therefore i do it differently for each one. for some, i make the background directly in blender by importing in-game cc/3d models into the scene. for others, i make the background in photoshop using textures, png files, etc... sometimes i combine both processes too: create a bg as best as i can in blender and then finish the job with photoshop. im a lazy person so i literally just grab whatever on google that has potential and then pray to buddha that i can make them work

hope this helps!

[mellowkitsune]

One summer day.... Because the brothers deserve some rest and some time together. Saving the world can wait for a while. 

Rendered in Blender. (c) Krafton.  And yes, I was lazy so I used a screenshot as the background in a Blender scene. Recreating all these elements would be a pain and I wanted to focus on Elleon and Leander. 

[melissagt]

Is daz studio difficult to use?

Hi there!

The answer is kind of “yes” and “no”. I know it’s not really an answer, but there are a number of factors that come into play.

1 - Level of Knowledge - I have a background in texture modding (Skyrim and Fallout 4), so this has helped greatly. Bump maps, normal maps, specularity, metalicity…it all comes in handy. Of course, you can use what is available out of the box without that working knowledge, but to truly bring figures home, you kind of need it. Which leads me to other programs, such as Photoshop (or GIMP…I use Photoshop). I regularly am reworking and tweaking textures to my liking, as well as creating things from scratch. Any of the tattoos I’ve posted were built there, as well as within another program to paint them directly onto the model - Mudbox. To take things even further, you will want to familiarize yourself with the concepts of 3D modeling. I came into it with a little (I guess?) knowledge, and am learning as I go. But, this requires learning other programs, such as zBrush and Blender. I decided to learn zBrush. Theron’s implants that I posted recently were done in zBrush…I literally took his SWTOR in-game model and sliced them off his head (I’m sorry, Theron! But it was worth it!). I have a long time to go before I can build my own models because I really am just a beginner when it comes to that stuff. Scourge’s dangly bits come next. I know you guys love hearing me say “dangly bits”. DANGLY BITS. DANGLY BITS. DANGLY BITS. 

2 - Photography - I am an amateur photographer (I guess I’d say I have the knowledge to be pro, I just don’t get paid to do it, lol). These skills come into play with designing scenes. Posing characters fluidly. Lighting. Shadow. Overall composition. Then there is the post-processing done in Photoshop. Something I do even with photography. Sadly, it isn’t as simple as just dropping bodies in and hitting “go”. I mean…you can do that, but all of the above comes into play to really make a scene flow. 

3 - Cost - This is a big one. Big. DAZ is free. Well. Not really. Yes, the program is free. But everything else is not. So is not. A single base model alone will set you back about $100, if you want them to be anatomically correct. I’ve had to purchase several. Then there’s clothes. Hair. Skin. Lights. Props. OMG just everything. I’m not trying to brag here…it’s just a huge shock to perspective. I’m probably in the hole about $4,000 already getting my base started with everything (and I am so mad at myself for doing it). That’s not including the cost of secondary software. Photoshop is $10/mo. Okay, that’s not so bad and I use it constantly for other stuff too. zBrush will run you about $900. There are free alternatives (Blender), but I’ve heard it’s a nightmare to work with and there are things it can’t do that zBrush can. Mudbox is $10/mo, but can easily be gotten free by checking the “student” box. I’ve also purchased some other add-ons, such as Lazy Nazumi, to help smooth out my mouse brush strokes (I refuse/cannot use a wacom tablet…I try…then I just want to throw it at the wall). That was $30. The Nik collection (something I use for all of my post-processing) (and haha, Nik…*giggles*) was I think $60. 

4 - Horsepower - This could probably be looped into #3. Last August I went overboard on building a custom computer. Like…creepy overboard. I had to question why I’d ever need it, but now I’m glad I did, because I use it. My current computer specs are as follows - AMD RYZEN 7 1800X Octa-Core processor w/ NZXT Kraken X62 AIO CoolerMSI ProCarbon Gaming Mobo32 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 RAM (16 x 2)EVGA GTX 1080TI FTW3 11GB GPUEVGA SuperNOVA 850 PU Platinum PSUCorsair Crystal 570x Tempered Glass Case (all fans replaced with Corsair HD series)Samsung EVO 960 M.2 250GB (OS)Samsung EVO 960 M.2 1TB (games and DAZ)Samsung EVO 850 2.5 500GB (games)WD Black 3.5 4TB (storage)WD Black 2.5 3TB (storage)

Ok, so why the horsepower? If you want to beat the crap out of your system (and not by overclocking), try 3D. The more cores, the better (and to be honest, I wish I had an AMD Threadripper chip, but they hadn’t been released at the time). And even with all those crazy specs, my computer gets brought to its knees easily. A single render can take hours, depending on the lighting complexity. The piece pictured below took just over four hours to render at 3840 x 2160. 

So, I’m sorry if I didn’t answer your question. Or perhaps I did! Yeah, DAZ is fun. But it’s expensive. And excessively time consuming. And you do still need to have artsy fartsy tendencies, just of a different sort. I can’t look at someone’s gorgeous digital painting and say “yup, I can do that” because I can’t. It’s enough for me to just scream bloody murder at my damned wacom tablet that sits on top of my computer and stares at me like a creepy owl. Judgy bastard. Once upon a time, I could draw…but I missed the boat on that digital wave. But art is hard. Any artist would be the first to tell you it’s fucking hard…even if it looks easy. And even though it might not look it, rendering is hard too.

I hope that helps!

[lpfanprojects-blog]

Lazy Wheatley Model

Okay folks,

After watching Portal 2: the (un)authorized musical I was sucked back into Portal hell. (And read Blue Sky…) So, to deal with my feelings and get back into 3D animation (haven’t used Blender since I started studying) I created a little (kinda low poly) Wheatley! Check him out!

Okay, he isn’t really build according to his ingame model, but, hey – you get the Idea! He was real fun to make, but I have no idea what to do with him now.

And sorry for this really bad animation, I just wanted to get back into Blender and the gif killed some of the timings… You may have noticed the texture glitch. I’ve already fixed it, but because the animation was really…lazy to begin with, I didn’t feel the need to render the whole thing again. (Issue was that I mapped it according to view, not UV Map)

I also learned that I should set the background to greenscreen to edit the animation later.

Well then, enjoy a smol Wheatley and have a nice day!

I’m out!

[mellowkitsune]

Elleon: “Really, Leander? Really? THAT face?” 

Once again I was lazy with the background and used a screenshot...because it’s not the background that’s important here. And I know it’s still a few months till the next Halloween but who cares? :D I enjoyed doing that one.

Posed with Xnalara, rendered in Blender Cycles. 

(c) Krafton