HOME | DD
AntaraNN — Golden Cage
Published: 2011-10-30 20:02:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 20875; Favourites: 275; Downloads: 326
Redirect to original
Description
Created for "The house that Jack built" ([link] ) contest at DazCreativeContests: [link]I love telling stories and indexed images can provide an excellent way to tell a story in an understated, yet powerful way, without too much action and over-the-top drama.
I'd love to hear critique and narrative interpretations from all viewers. Please feel free to express your thoughts and opinions.
Credits:
Jack Tomalin's models (some are from RHS):
-- Dwell ([link] )
this set is really the inspiration for the whole image, I got the idea the moment I saw this set, even before I found out about the contest.
-- Baroque Grandeur ([link] )
The rug and the round table with table cloth are from this set. I think the rug from this set is my favorite rug ever. I've been using it in most of my interior images.
-- The Kings Chamber Expansion Pack 1 ([link] )
from this set I took the tapestry and the table under the embroidery stand. however, i replaced the tapestry texture from for the one that came with a texture set for the Holiday Nook (The Now and Then set).
-- House of Mog Ruith - Interior ([link] ) -- the 2 large metal candelabras.
-- A Curious Hallway ([link] ) -- the curtain (the curtain rod is the same as the one for the tapestry)
-- Senescence for the Guildhall ([link] )
I took the candles from this set, although not all of them are clearly visible in the final frame, they are the ones on a litle table next to the embroidery stand.
-- Flight of the Swan([link] ) -- the chair pillow.
Other items:
-- Embroidery set and accessories by Ness's Period Productions. (The site does not allow linking, so I can't post a link here.)
-- Shelf case and chair by the window are from the Medieval Furniture Pack by Serrge ([link] )
-- Books in the alcove are from the The Wizards Attic by LukeA ([link] )
-- The stool under the candles is from Mage Tower Accessory Pack 1by LaurieS ([link] )
-- The chair in the foreground (by the table) is from DMs Anardhaus ([link] )
-- All dishes and food items are from Faveral's Kelly Lodge ([link] ) and Medieval Tavern ([link] )
Related content
Comments: 78
Hey, Binxie!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That's the one! `¬) looks like lots of useful props in it too!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yay!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you!
And best of luck with your image. Hopefully I'll see the result, as I am curious about what you come up with. I think the lighting you created in your forest image might give a similar atmospheric look in a more shallow enclosed environment such as a room interior.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Love all the details you placed into this and above all lighting that just binds everything together perfectly. One could spend some minutes admiring the lighting alone. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you very much for your comment!
I love Carrara for its lighting. Some things can be left to render for actual physically accurate realistic lighting, and sometimes the lighting could just be faked (which is what I often do), for a much faster render time.
If you ever get stuck trying to achieve something in Carrara, send me a note and I'll be happy if I could help.
Best of luck experimenting!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
The lighting here is nothing short of magical and really brings the piece to life. I also love the design of the room - not too shabby to live in, I imagine... I totally suck at embroidery, though.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you very much! And sorry for the lateness of my response. I missed a bunch of notifications.
I don't have patience for embroidery either 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Of the 300 million pic here on 
Wonderful!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you. I am hoping you are joking, though, as I keep finding more and more unreachable levels of mastership shown here all over DA, some of your own images included. I envy how brave you are with use of colour; I usually tend to shy away from it. 3D made it better, but I still have to fight myself over it all the time, while it looks so natural and fun when you do it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hi Antara,
This is fantastic! Great lighting & details make this image a visual delight! I am so much reminded of classical paintings & you seem to have a great amount of chiaroscuro going in here!
Love this image because it makes me want to get in there!
Kudos!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
This is truly beautiful - I love the lighting!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
What do you use to render you scenes, Poser, DAZ, or something different? It looks amazing! I like it a lot.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you very much! But for the quality of the render I'm not sure I'm the one receiving the compliment, since it's mostly Carrara's doing. Carrara is my software of choice, primarily for it's render engine and lighting/shading system, which makes these types of renders really easy. The tough part for people who come from Poser or DS background is that most pre-made shaders/materials need some adjustments and that most out of the box lighting setups that come with Poser or DS products don't really work well. But the upside it that once you familiarize yourself with Carrara's lighting and shading systems, you'd probably never want to see another pre-made light setup again, because creating lighting from scratch in Carrara is both easy and fast, giving you great control over the scene. And it's just plain fun
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
I was going to ask the same thing as the lighting is truly magical! Carrara isn't something I've tried myself but a friend of mine prefers it (although he's nowhere near your standard which is why I've not thought twice about Carrara in the past - but after seeing this, it's time I had that second thought).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you! And thank you for watching and for your comment above.
I do wholeheartedly recommend Carrara. Very often when people like my images and ask me how I did them, I feel very embarrassed about how little work it actually took and how much of it was done instead by Carrara. I recently uploaded one of my first images, which was done back in the first couple of months of me discovering Carrara. Come to look at it, I'm not sure I'm showing too much progress over the years, but aside from that, I think the image(~s: they are 2 in one with the second being done a few weeks after the first) is a good indication of what a newbie can do in a very short learning time. (The image is "Artistic Tribute 1)
If you do decide to check Carrara out and have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'd be happy to help.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Don't sell yourself short - you created the scene, posed the actors, created the lighting and composed the camera. You don't see lighting technicians not take credit because it was the bulbs doing the work or photographers or film makers not take credit because it was the camera doing the work etc.
The Artistic Tribute 1 look similar to a Vue render (and of some Reality renders I've seen) but my friend tells me that Carrara is much more integrated with Daz/Poser content than Vue is. Given the price tag of Carrara though, it'll be a while before I give it a go - although Daz seems to have wild discounts all the time so there maybe hope and thank you you so much for the offer!
I read about your move from computer programming a couple of years ago in your blog's artist statement - what's the latest in your endeavour? (I hope it's going well)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I bought Carrara 7 on one of the very steep sales and then spent around $100 on the subsequent upgrade. So I guess I'm not feeling it's real cost that much. Vue seems too expensive to me in comparison
I'm not trying to sell myself short, it's just in my experience with traditional art and film production, creative endeavours usually require a lot more hard work compared to the effort I spend on my images here. So I always feel like I am cheating or doing it wrong somehow. Also partially confirmed by the widespread disdain towards all content users like myself. But there the programmer in me flat out refuses to abide by the inefficiency of "pure 3D" which decrees reinventing the wheel every time and modelling everything from scratch. If I can find and adopt what others have done before me, I'll do it. If not, I'll make my own. And, bonus, Carrara lets me make my own content, and makes it relatively easy, too. Although modelling and UV-mapping are the least enjoyable tasks for me. But such "if nots' are becoming more and more rare as more content becomes widely and often very cheaply available.
I never quit programming, I am still doing it. But I spent all of my vacation time last year doing production design for film projects and I spend a lot of my free time either creating 3D images or learning and experimenting with 3D or 2D graphics software. This year started with a lot changes for me, so I couldn't devote much time to my artistic projects, but I am hoping to find another production design or creative design project closer to the end of summer or in the fall. As to it going well, I'm not really sure. So far I haven't found enough solid ground in it to be able to switch to it completely. It would be interesting to get some freelance commissions, but I haven't found a good venue for it yet.
Sorry, this probably is too much information...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
On the contrary, I want to know more.
Vue is expensive - if you're only getting it to render out Poser scenes but it is unparalleled in terrain generation (and is the reason why I'm not able to afford Carrara for some time).
There is widespread distain towards content users and to a point, it's justified. There are too many people who simply use a purchased figure, apply a purchased outfit, apply a purchased pose, usually leave it on the default lighting and render settings, hit render and say they did all the work when in reality, they clicked the mouse a dozen times. I'm not in that category and neither are you.
If Carrara lets you create content as well, that's another reason for me to add it to my wish list. There are more outfits available every day but I have a hell of a time trying to find those that aren't slut-wear or those outfits that look great with lots of detail until you realise the entire front is open showing their knickers and why do most of the outfits (even the more suitable to my needs outfits) always have high heels!!!
(I have nothing against slut-wear itself 
I used to love texturing when I was using other 3D apps but it did take a while in Photoshop setting up all the different groups for the material nodes (diffuse, bump, spec, displace, ambient etc). Dealing with an unwrapped UV template can leave you scratching your head over some of the bizarre shapes it's made though.
I'm glad you haven't quit the programming job, there's something to be said for financial stability. Obviously you don't enjoy it as much as creating your art, but do you enjoy programming?
And now I've rambled too much!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Vue's atmospheric effects and terrain generation is truly unparalleled, but for my terrain needs I so far never regretted having Carrara instead of Vue. Carrara has surface replicators with randomizing parameters and the ability to 3d-paint distribution maps for it, or use any procedural shading for distribution mapping, which allows for creation of environments similar to EcoSystem. Carara has dynamic hair, which can be used to fake grass, if you don't want to use replicated grass. Carrara has volumetric clouds and replicators independent of surfaces. Plus fog, haze and a few atmospheric parameter system, which can be set up for any scene. And there is also black-and-white terrain generator with a bunch of settings, which you can use to generate terrains, paint terrains, or import elevation maps (the black and white ones, not the cartography ones). And then you can convert a terrain into a vertex object and finish tweaking it using regular modelling tools.
Clarification about content creation: I don't think you can rig content to be sold in Poserverse using Carara. But for your own needs, you can definitely model content, UV-map and rig it, and there is even a way to apply rigging systems from other Poser-intended objects for your new model, so that you don't have to figure out all the constrains every time. Or you can model and UV-map in Carrara and use Poser or DS to rig for Poser/DS, then it becomes Poserverse content (and can be sold if you so wish).
I understand your frustration with available content. (As you can probably guess from my gallery
Yes, I do enjoy programming and in many ways I think like a programmer even in completely unrelated areas of my life. Although I'm not sure I enjoy it enough to spend my free time writing plug-ins instead of creating images
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I was half way through a reply and I thought I'd best not fill up your comments section with loads more unrelated text so I thought I’d note you instead!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I played a little with Carrara before. I liked it a lot back then (about 2 years ago). I have a really good idea how the lights and shaders work. I've started using 3ds Max back then, as well, and I also use 3ds Max for its rendering engine and just all the other capabilities I get from it. Absolutely none of the DAZ/Poser pre-made content works with 3ds Max, because I export everything as a .obj, then in 3ds Max I change all the shaders myself and obviously I have to setup my own lights, as well. I prefer it like that much more, because it gives you a lot more control over how the end result will look, instead of relying on someone else's creative flow and vision.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well then you know how I feel
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you! And thank you for watching.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you very much! 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Beautiful work! I see you utilize different packages, what was the main one on this one? Carrara or one of the others? Again beautiful
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you. This was Carrara, as is most usual for me. I use many content packs, but Carrara is my main software.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I want to be there! This is so nice! The light just fills the room.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you! And thank you for all your kind comments.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
this is just beautiful!!!!! I love the soft light and the bright lens flare. very magical.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you! I'm very glad my lighting setup worked out. But I did not use lens flare here at all...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
you did not? wow! this is incredibly beautiful !
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
| Next =>