Creative Cart Episode 002 - Pestryakov and the Dragon
Join us as hosts Paul Bussey and Dartanbeck showcase chosen assets that can serve as your building blocks for breathtaking digital art.
“Creative Cart” will provide you with a valuable resource for discovering tools that can bring your artistic ideas into reality. Through themed episodes, we’ll spotlight various genres and assets—be it characters, shaders, environments, scripts, clothing or props—ensuring every creator finds something that resonates with their personal artistic journey.
it’s also about interaction where we include a community section where you can share your favourite finds, and add to the conversation about how these assets have shaped your own creations; we’d love to get your insights and recommendations on assets that have made a difference to your artwork!
Andrey Pestryakov’s diverse work shows a broad range of environments and themes, from lush forests and mysterious caves to ancient ruins and tropical settings. He shows a great understanding of different landscapes, both natural and constructed. He provides a range of detailing products, such as intricate textures in the “Ivy Pack” or realistic materials in the “Liquid Decal Materials” and “Ground Decal Materials,”.
Andrey has a commitment to realism and immersion in digital scenes! Additionally, specialized packs like “Environment Pack for Unreal Engine” indicate a focus on utility for game development, offering assets that can be easily integrated into interactive media.
Seasonal and thematic packs, such as “Cozy Winter” and “Medieval Lands,” further demonstrate his ability to create versatile content that can adapt to different narrative and atmospheric needs. This blend of nature-focused, architectural, and character animation resources makes Pestryakov’s work invaluable to creators across genres, enhancing the visual storytelling of digital art, games, and animations
Highlighted Assets
Secluded in the Woods
These three kits give us an intimate touch with nature. Exquisite details and superb placement. Andrey helps us light them with presets for the Iray Sun/Sky dome specific to each of the included cameras. The exception being Stairs and the Rocks.
Each of these are truly fascinating areas that render really, Really well! Check out how not all of the flora is flush with green - full of life. Nope. Sometimes life gets spent. And until nature finishes processing it down... it lingers.
Wide Open and Vast Spaces
These three are Massive sets, uniquely designed with some pretty wonderful low-poly plant life. Valley and Hills and Medieval Lands each come with extra Higher Resolution or Higher Population presets that fill out the area where the camera is. This is really handy. Sometimes we want a lot of wooded details, other times we don't. Like when we want to plunk a castle kit down, for example.
Mountain Lakes and Forests is quite different and very cool! Like the others it's loaded with distant detailing that looks superb in a render. Where this one differs is that the thing separating us from the distant land is water!
Such a cool setup - if we want to be completely surrounded by land, and nothing but water in the middle, we load one of the three finely crafted Lakes presets. The other option still leaves us in the middle of water, but instead of being surrounded by land, we have an island. Or we have two or a few islands. There are preset bundles of islands and they also come individually for custom placement. Pretty darned cool!
Hardscapes of Mystery
These three kits are made of solid rock. This is where we just let our imaginations tell us what they do, where they are, and what we might find on the other side!
Without realizing it yet, Temple Cave was my first Andrey Pestryakov. I was still very new to rendering in Daz Studio as well as Iray. Temple Cave made it really easy. Like so many of Andrey's kits, these all come with a plethroa of cameras with specific, hand-designed lighting for each - and they come in a handy preset. Another cool thing that Andrey does is to include various presets to enable Iray to render the way he like to render - or just in parts. Example being setting the number of Max Samples, or let Andrey turn on Spectral rendering, and use those preferred settings - that sort of thing. I love it. Great way to learn new things!
Traversing in the Narrow
In filmmaking, narrow passageways are a great way to help sell the idea of speed and movement.
In still photography and art, they provide unique interpretations of light - especially when it's aging, falling-apart stone.
Here we get the extreme barren sun-beaten arches vs the humid heat caused by water vapors becoming trapped, causing a greenhouse effect from the heat of the sun. The shade keeps things from drying out - ever. So it's always moist and smells... well... green! :)
Stones, Stones, and... Oh Look... More Stones!!!
All six of these are fantastic!
The main products contain some very realistic stone structures that are So Useful for So Many Things!!! remember what I was just saying about Valley and Hills and Medieval Lands about coming with higher density presets? Well if you don't have those or if you'd prefer something solid over plant life, these things get the job done!
When I only had the one, I didn't think I'd really have a use for the others. Well there was this sale, you see....
After having all three plus their texture expansion packs, I was totally blown away!
For the record, these aren't just rocks, and not all of Andrey's plants are green and full of vigorous life. We've got the brown of spent plants, weeds, moss, even little flowers that like to grow on the shady side of moss-covered rocks! Serious! Plunk just one of these into the scene and it's just become a lot more interesting and fun to look at. Why? These sorts of shapes and texture are pleasing to the eyes - especially when they're done so well. I mean... these things look Real!
Andrey's Forest Bundle
These are fascinating as they are fun and easy!
I'll show you a couple of methods for getting Iray shader onto them, but it's crazy how great they look just as they are!
This bundle is a whopper of a package. Each of the Forest packs are complete forests - ready to be stomped around in.
The latest one - Forest Elements, is a massive upgrade to the previous four in the series and therefore requires them. Both new and old versions have their benefits.
Elements takes an approach of each tree and bush being their own separate props unlike the whole group of each type we see in the earlier sets - and many of those individual props have really nice morphs that can be used for shaping as well as animating.
Some are for trunk size, trunk deformity - shaping stuff, while some of the trees have a wind dial and others have two! Works great for animating as well as shaping.
You'll see. I'll show you around a bit!
Special Shout Out To DimensionTheory!!!
So many of these productions are greatly enhanced by the incredible Iray work of my good friend, DimensionTheory that I wanted to make a special Thanks You to him for creating the amazing, well-thought-out products that he makes to bring So Much of our DAZ Studio experiences to Life!
Thanks DimensionTheory!!! :)
Check out DimensionTheory's incredible skies, VDBs, and other wonderful Iray Products that just make life Better!!!
Daz 3d Original Figure:
Daz 3d's very first SubD figure, the Millennium SubDragon!!!
Like all of Daz 3d's dragons, this thing is Really Cool!!!
I was having so much fun prepping myself on this beastie for the webinar - optimizing materials, trying any of the 537 bazillion combinations for shaping it, and adding Life with MysticShard/Simon WM's aniBlock collection... I ended up making some of the custom dials for going even further!
So I just performed a cool custom animation and I think I can work in a special demonstration of how I made it during the Animation Corner. It's pretty cool!
The SubDragon is cruisin' along on all fours, and Rosie's on its back, laughing her ass off!!! So SubDragon starts laughing too! LOL
The hair simulated beautifully and just watching it really brightens the mood - making me chuckle 'till I drop!!!
I'll show you folks how I worked out the materials. There are many ways to bring legacy figures to life with Iray and Octane, among others, but I'll show you my down-and-dirty workflow that works nice, it's fast, and then we can really change things up if we want to.
- by Mystic Shard & Simon WM -
This is Really Cool!!! No lungering mammoths here - this dragon can Move! I mean... this is one agile set of motions - which can really add a lot of fearsomeness to this crazy-awesome creature!
The creativity that Mystic Shard put into these is really cool! There are 16 animations from a snappy growl to walking and flying looping cycles, to getting shot out of the air to what happens next. Claw Attacks, Hovering, landing from a hover...
Something I really like as well is that there's a walk cycle on two legs and another on four. That's Cool!!!
Something to be aware of - There is also an LE version of the SubDragon that is really, really inexpensive and cool. However, due to the different rigging of the LE, it won't take the neck, tail or wing motions.
In other words, you need the full-blown Millennium SubDragon. I mean... one can always animate the neck, tail and wings by hand, I suppose. I would, had I no other choice.
I'm a dragon fan, so I get them while they're still hot off the presses!
Speaking of which, I have a Dragons Page if you're interested. It's pretty cool! :)
Hurry!!! On Sale for a Limited Time!!!
At the time of this writing, SubDragon Textures Expansion Pack is On Sale!!
Make the popular Millennium SubDragon everything you wanted it to be. This texture pack features three new texture sets including Gold, Red, and Green, as well as 21 High Resolution Textures.
In case you hadn't heard, the Millennium SubDragon was crafted with DAZ Studio's advanced subdivision technology in mind, the Millennium SubDragon scales to meet your needs.
Work in lower polygon resolution, while rendering in higher resolution, so you can have top quality output without sacrificing work speed!
...and Where Does that Fire Come From???
I don't do subscription plans, but AVFX+ is much different - if you cancel, you keep what you got! But they also offer non-subscription sales as well - which is Brilliant! Check them out!
Need some of the Industry's Best VFX Elements for your movies at exceptionally great deals?
Look No Further!
What a Fantastic place to learn, share and absorb anything and everything Art!
Led by Paul Bussey, this fantastic place has a beautiful forum with an endless supply of topics - and we can join courses and training, or just hang out with the group and discuss and enjoy art!
Ongoing FREE Digital Art Live Events
Keep an eye out for upcoming events - each is Free and will include a special sub forum at the Digital Art Live Studio forum as well as a dedicated page here, at Dartanbeck.com where you'll find links and information pertaining to each episode!
This is going to be a Blast!!!