5 Dirty Secrets To Hot b/w Female 3D Renders
When it comes to creating stunning, gorgeous and beautiful black & white female renders, there’s a few things that will either make or break your 3D art. With my background as a professional camera man for 15+ years, travelling California and Europe, capturing hundreds of real female models and then teaching 3D art another 12 years, I found there is really 5 keys to getting your ladies on the screen to look absolutely amazing. While some of the keys will seem obvious, some are in fact little known secrets, that once applied, will make it so much easier… and so much more fun.
1. The Right Kind Of Female 3D Models
Yes, you need to use high quality females. The higher the quality, the better your renders. If your computer can handle the extra polygons, and textures, I recommend you use the HD female models over at DAZ3D. These models just look a lot more realistic, especially when you get close with your camera. One of my favorites it Cathy HD, by Raiya. Sure, you can use any 3D female model, and you might get lucky… But trust me on this, what you put in front of the camera as far as quality goes, will directly trasnfer to the quality of your render.
A good 3D model is not only meant to look good, she’ll bend nautrally, and let you pose her body in mysterious ways. Frankly, you’ll need that more than you think, since posing, that is, moving the arms, legs and body parts into position, is an important aspect of getting your female renders to look great. You can take a gorgeous model, and make her look really ugly, with the wrong kind of pose. It’s all about the angles. There is only one rule when it comes to posing… Keep the legs together. I mean it, it’s more professional, and more feminine. I always use ready to use poses, and then tweak them to suit my renders…
2. The Right Kind Of Lighting
Lighting is a whole chapter that I’ve specialized in, and we can spend hours talking about my cool invention the 7-point light set up, advanced shadows and all that… But really, when it comes to female renders, we’re talking about FEMALES. What do women want? To look smooth and beautiful. Well, there’s only one way to get it… SOFT lighting. That’s right, make the lighting super soft. So soft, that you’ll hardly see no shadows. HDRI maps that surround your character will do a good job, but they need to be soft, and not include a sharp sun light or similar bright light. Evenly distributed light is what the female body loves the most.
3. The Right Kind Of Contrast
When you light with soft lighting, you’ll naturally lack strong contrast in your renders. Since contrast is what makes an image interesting, you’ll have to use other means to achieve it. A strong make up is one example. A dark outfit against a pale skin, or vice versa, will also do the trick. Especially when you do your renders in b/w, you’ll want to really think about contrast a little more than usual. Suddenly, color is no longer creating shifts and illusions in conrast, and you need to use shapes and patterns instead. Of course, you can also use no make up, and go for an all natural look. In those cases, you can play with camera angles, or use dark hair to create additional contrast.
4. The Right Kind Of Speed
Professional photographers will tell you they need to take a hundred shots, to get a few really good ones. Well, it’s the same in 3D. You can point your 3D camera at your perfect looking model, and yet, capture her from an ugly angle. When you have lighting arranged, so that you can walk around your model from any angle, you’ll spend some time finding that perfect framing. Therefore, it’s important that you can immediately see the image right in front of you, and not spend 3 hours waiting for it. A white virtual studio setting, optimized Iray settings and using HDR lighting will do the trick, and let you have fun and go wild with the 3D camera and your model. Since you no longer need to render the background, you’ll naturally speed up the rendering.
5. The Right Kind Of Software
You can use any 3D software and get great renders, but what I’ve found, is that the free DAZ Studio from DAZ 3D, actually punches advanced and expensive 3D applications right in the face. With its built in Iray render engine from Nvidia, it just outperforms any other software out there. It’s just that fast and easy to use. Having been using DAZ Studio since 2005, along side with Lightwave, Carrara, Poser, Vue and other applications, it just out-shines any other software out there. It’s the speed of creation, the amazing and easy user interface, all the top quality models and tools… They speak for themselves. And when Hollywood likes something (and they love DAZ Studio), chances are high you’ll love it too… Read more about DAZ Studio HERE.
And that’s pretty much it!
With all that in place, you’ll be able to just point and shoot. As close to a real photoshoot you can get, without all the fuzz of real life models. If you want to learn more about this, then I’ve got my new “Private Photoshoot” program and special light set ready for you, that will make the whole process quick, stunning and FUN. Check it out HERE.
Keep tweaking!
– Val
Happily sharing how to create great 3D & 2D art in DAZ Studio, Lightwave and Photoshop, Val Cameron, CEO and founder of Dreamlight, has been coaching and mentoring hundreds of thousands of artists since 2005. Bestselling DAZ 3D vendor with over 230+ video tutorials, plug ins and light sets.
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