Rosie and the Winter Wolf
Okay, let's have some fun!
In my PC+ Experiences this year (2021), I've been treated to some Amazing content that has really and truly driven a whole new side quest in my story, addressing a hole that I was eagerly looking to fill.
In the February PC+ Members Sales, I was gearing up for making more versions of Rosie to be able to cross generations with the character and see how well that concept evolves. Not entirely related to this article per se, but actually is - in a 'behind the scenes' sense, so I decided to include it.
In the Memorial Day PC+ Sale Event I started upgrading and adding to many environmental concepts and stages, as well as to become more inspired through Howler Animation techniques, a really cool new vehicle and some handgun poses that really work great with my Hybrid aniMation techniques - but it was Alessandro's Dire Wolf for Daz Dog 8 that really made the imagination soar!
That Dire Wolf is such an incredible package - so easy and fun to work with and looks fantastic, I've already written him in to many aspects of the story, after just a few very successful tests using him in scene animations.
Then came the June PC+ Semi-Annual Sale Event. Oh My!!!
This event brought So Many things that helped fit the Dire Wolf into the plans in multitudes of ways, but getting closer to the point - content acquired during this event inspired the whole Rosie and the Winter Wolf portion of the story - and I Love it!!!
Just yesterday (as of this writing) Daz 3d had yet another wonderful sale that fed directly into my hands while I was in the middle of working on this whole saga - How is it that they always seem to read my mind, and give me access to exactly what I need when I need it without breaking the bank? I don't know, but it certainly helps with this whole content-driven story thing!
Let's take this to bits and have a look at what I'm talking about - but keeping it directly related to Rosie and the Winter Wolf.
This incredible animal by Alessandro_AM is remarkably realistic, including two options for dynamic fur along with three colors of coat, plus granting the option to play as a Timber Wolf or the Dire Wolf simply by dialing up a single slider.
I chose to use the dForce fur and, it worked so well that this is what I'll be sticking with - at least for now.
It was this Dire Wolf that started all of this. I initially and immediately put him into a different world altogether with Rosie and Dart, and that's still in the works but is also still very much a secret.
Doing the whole Winter Wolf side trek didn't come until I started getting treated to the perfect support assets - driving the story into my mind - from the June PC+ Semi-Annual Sale Event., so let's look at that next.
Between Sickle Yield's Sky System Iray and all of Andrey Pestryokov's environment kits, I've learned an entirely new way of lighting and rendering with Iray, making my workflow between Carrara and Daz Studio even more seamless, versatile and fun!
In fact, with my new RTX 2060, I find that Andrey's Render Settings that are included in Temple Cave and some of the other kits are quite fast and gorgeous for use with animating environmental scenes.
Andrey's vast environment kits along with the fact that I was able to get so many of them during that event started a whole new wave of inspirational thinking - as well as (along with SickleYield) a much greater understanding and appreciation for working with large scenes within Daz Studio.
While this beautiful landscape is meant to be an alien world, taking away the alien elements leaves behind a really nice snow scene with Petipet's usual high-standards excellence.
When I saw this planet in the sale event, I immediately got the vision of Rosie in her tiny Platina Armor walking through a snowstorm with a Dire Wolf at her side, which is what inspired that image seen above.
That image is of Rosie 8, while Rosie 5.2 is the one currently animating herself through the wintery wilderness.
While SickleYield's Sky System and Andrey Pestryokov's scenes were inspiring the lighting and backdrops, shortly after the sale event was over, Magix101 put his Iray Worlds SkyDome and Iray SkyDome Super PAK into the Flash Sale arena.
After reading through the descriptions of both products I could not resist the urge to grab them up - and I'm glad I did.
Whichever of the two products are used to load in a preset sky dome solution, both products can be used together to further tweak the results.
For example, the original Iray Worlds SkyDome product contains vital controls for the custom sun item within the system including positioning, color, temperature and luminosity.
The Super PAK contains the new surface presets for the sky, land/water and horizon along with a slew of other options. I find myself using both products together every time I use either of them.
For this, I'm almost always using the Snow scene from the original, and then changing the ice to the new Frozen preset from the Super PAK. In the shot I'm rendering now, I really thought that the sky that loaded with the original snow scene was perfect, so that's what I'm using. But the Super PAK contains a really nice collection of amazing skies and options that i find myself using often!
I'd like to point out that I also really enjoy using Sickle Yield's Sky System Iray, so I let the needs of the particular scene I'm working on determine which is used - often going back and forth between them to decide.
Just within the Last Couple of Days
Just as I'm working on an animation for this whole snowy adventure that was inspired by Rosie and the Winter Wolf, Daz 3d had a "Christmas in July" sale and I was again presented with the perfect gift - Snowy texture expansions for some of Andrey's cool scenery pieces.
I could only get two, so I decided upon Overgrown Peaks and Stones HR, as they would work perfectly with what is going on in my head Right Now.
Andrey didn't just put snow on the rocks - but if that's all you want to do you can. No, there are also materials to winterize the foliage as well and we can also pick between four new textures for the underlying stones to be.
Another treat was the icing on the wintery cake. The centerpiece to all that is about to happen. The true destination. The end of the blizzardy road - Stonemason's Winter Castle!
This gorgeous product is actually a construction kit for building extraordinary castles - as well as being able to condense the amount of content to only what is needed for the current render.
But it also comes with a full preset as seen in these promo shots - and the preset scene is nothing short of Breathtaking!!!
It's wonderful to be in full production of this fun side journey and it really adds the perfect situation at a place where the story really needs it.
There's more to what we find during this sequence of events but it's just a bit too early to talk about publicly - don't want to spoil everything. So we'll be revisiting this in the near future.
Until then, I truly hope that these Content-Driven Story articles are inspirational and/or enjoyable and thank each of you for your interest in my endeavors. It's a Lot of Fun for me - so I hope it also helps you to find all the joy you need in this fantastic CG land to tell your stories!
Happy Rendering, my Friends!
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I love to help others as best I can. This is a rather broad topic: CG Filmmaking, so my articles on any particular topic may not answer your specific question.
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