3/5/2017
Have you ever gone back and reviewed some of your older work to see how you’ve improved and changed your approach to your craft? I thought it would be interesting to compare work from when I started in 3D around 2007 to now. In some cases, I’ve improved, but mostly, I think 3D software has improved to the point it’s easier for users like me to realize a decent image.

First up is one of my first images I posted. It’s of my character, Green Radiance

This is interesting because there’s only a 2 year difference between the 2 images and probably shows the leaps and bounds in improvement you make as you begin to understand the program. Yes, the 2007 Green Radiance is hideous. At this point, I knew nothing of lighting, creating textures, shading, render settings, in fact very little about the program DazStudio. I knew even less about postwork and using an image editing program. By 2009, I was getting the hang of it and you can see a remarkable improvement and a character more in line of what I created to use in the game “City of Heroes”. Still, at this point, I couldn’t grasp the 3delight render engine and lighting was my nemesis. The 2009 image lacks the dramatic lowlight effect I was looking for.

Green Radiance and Rocket Boy

2 of my characters I used in “City of Heroes”. In the first image, you can see “flat” the surfaces are. The 3delight render engine lacked the ability to do IBL lighting and could not do reflections well without adding an image in the surface shader to create the reflection. Most of my scenes around this time looked light this. Flat and lacking depth or shading. 8 years later, Daz is a much improved program with IBL lighting, improved shaders, Iray rendering and other goodies. The main thing is I understand the program much better and am able to take advantage of the tools it offers. Still, a lot to learn. Again, lighting is a problem. I was going for a lowlight feel and this is just dark with no punch.

Luke Cage

Again, flat with no depth. I do like the action I was going for though. Luke is a little contorted but this is one I wish I had the original file. I’d love to go back and improve the original.

Maids

Lastly, Maids. I chose this one because they all use the Aiko3 figure wearing the same maid outfit. The first 2 are from 2007, early and late. You can see the fast improvement you can make as learn your way around a program.  The 2012 image was rendered with Reality/Luxrender instead of the standard 3delight render engine. I had a much easier time with Reality and wish I could still use it. For some reason, since version 4, I have not been able to get it to run right. The last of course is 2017