# [3D art] Dark Sun - Pyramid



## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 6, 2008)

> Lost, alone, an escaped mul slave finds shelter in the ruins of some ancient city, where a spring keeps him alive...but something else as well!






Done with Vue6 Infinite, Poser and postwork in PaintShopPro 

*EDIT*
added "simple version",  no mul, snake, Radiosity render or postwork 

[sblock="Dark Sun - Pyramid Blue Sky version"]






[/sblock]


[sblock="Dark Sun - Pyramid Orange Sky version"]





[/sblock]


[sblock="Dark Sun - simple version version"]





[/sblock]


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## Angel Tarragon (Sep 6, 2008)

Fantastic! Looks like you've been pretty busy with your art of late. I'm loving it.

I take it from this that the temple existed in the Blue Age as well?


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 6, 2008)

Thank you!  *bows*

Well, artis all about I can do anymore. So, enjoying doign it while I can 


Lol, sorry I hate the offical history 
I just like Dark Sun as a strange, mysterious, barbaric world.

In my version, it was the mind flayers who tried to put the Sun out, causing all the hevoc destorying conectiosn t the Astral Plane, connections to the gods etc by accident, but, IMHO, the history of Athas should be entirely personal to each DM, left a as a mystery to enjoy!

Hate the way Dark Sun was driven by TSR's silly novel demands etc, sigh.
Sorceror Kings should be foes for the PCs, not gank half of them in a few novels and within a couple of years of the settings release, eek!!

Anyway, er, let's stick to loving Dark Sun's art?


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## Fenes (Sep 6, 2008)

Nice pic!


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## frankthedm (Sep 6, 2008)

By any chance is the pic available without the human or the wyrm? Maybe even without the giant crystal skulls? 

I like the wyrm, but art is always more useful when you can use it to show the gaming group "This is what your see". The orange sky will work well for Dark*Sun, while the blue sky version looks perfect for a temple in the "Weird West" genre.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 7, 2008)

Fenes,
thanks! 

Frankthedm,
hm, yes but, it wouldn't look as good, and I'd need ot email you it as I wouldn't want to host the bare picture on my site (not my intent for my site).

It wouldn't have the same dramatic look or at least, not exactly, because I used "post work" to get the startling look, which is not reproducible exactly.
Also, I don't want ot waste my PC's time, takes 3+hours to render that scene on my art rig (which is a beastie, quad core, 64 bit 8 gig RAM etc), so wouldn't use the finer render settings (no radiosity).

But can do if wish


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## Fenes (Sep 7, 2008)

3 hours? Oh my god. I rarely make renders that take more than a few minutes to render (composing is another thing though).


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## frankthedm (Sep 7, 2008)

Silverblade The Ench said:
			
		

> Frankthedm,
> hm, yes but, it wouldn't look as good, and I'd need to email you it as I wouldn't want to host the bare picture on my site (not my intent for my site).



sure!

frankthedm  is my gmail name


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 7, 2008)

Fenes,
Well, the Poser's a pretty poor renderer, with Vue and other apps you can use Radiosity and other settings which give better realism...but, they take a lot more time to render, also I'm rendering out at 1680x1050 size, which is pretty big.

This is a "Radiosity" render, mostly a test actually, to see what Radiosity does to an image:
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/wildspace/characters/characters1realism.jpg

The character, creature, weapons, statues, pyramid are all Poser items (bought form DAZ), Vue can directly import them. But then I tweak them to get materials a lot better.
Poser still rules, far as I'm concerned, for *setting up and posing* characters.

Here's a test pic I did in Poser as I was building the parts for the scene:
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/darksun/darksunpyramid.jpg

You cna see there's a VAST difference between Poser and Vue (though, I did use postwork on the Vue pic in PaintSHopPro, so it's much warmer/contrasting than original)

Most of the really good Poser artists use a lot of postwork to overcome Poser's limitations and to create a much better final image, often massively altering it from the original.

There's quite a lot of apps, But I'd suggest trying Vue (or Bryce or Carrara), and seeing the difference.
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/try/vue_6_ple/
That's the Perosnal Leanring Edition of Vue Infinite.

Note that my art rig is a *beast*. Quad core, 8 gig RAM, 64 bit system etc, I got it built to boost render speeds, or it would take a LOT longer than 3 hours ot render high quality scenes 
It renders ten times faster than old Pentium4 3GHz rig.

Alas Poser cannot take real use of it though as only Poser Pro (which I don't have or want) can use a 64 bit system, meh.

Poser is fine for your illustration of campaign, if you used Vue it would take longer ot set up. But for fine art, if that's what you wish, Vue etc are totally out of Poser's league as renderers.
THough, in the end, it's always about the *artist*, not the apps, as beautiful work is most certianly done with Poser.



Frankthedm,
so:
frankthedm (-AT-) gmail.com
that right?? 
I put the @ in text to stop spam miners


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## frankthedm (Sep 7, 2008)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> frankthedm (-AT-) gmail.com
> that right??
> I put the @ in text to stop spam miners



yep


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## Fenes (Sep 7, 2008)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> Poser is fine for your illustration of campaign, if you used Vue it would take longer ot set up. But for fine art, if that's what you wish, Vue etc are totally out of Poser's league as renderers.
> THough, in the end, it's always about the *artist*, not the apps, as beautiful work is most certianly done with Poser.




I use DAZ Studio, not poser. I like How it shows the scene much closer to the render while posing, unlike poser. But I'd not have time to use Vue even if I had the rpogram - I need about half a dozen pictures per week just for the curretn sessions, and more to catch up with past sessions.


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## Whitemouse (Sep 8, 2008)

Oh my. This is absolutely gorgeous. I keep a folio of my favorite art pieces.

Would you mind if I had this printed out and and added it to my three ring binder?


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 8, 2008)

Fenes,
well without Radiosity, and taking out the mul and snake for Frankthedm, that pic took 10 minutes to render, FYI 

but yes, it's more complexity. If you ever go for art renders rather than a journal, try Vue 


Whitemouse,
thank you! 
Fine by me, long as folk don't use 'em for commercial work or try to take credit, I don't mind, art's to be _enjoyed_!

hence I make em at desktop wall paper size (I stick 'em on my own PCs background, hehe)


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## Whitemouse (Sep 8, 2008)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> Fine by me, long as folk don't use 'em for commercial work or try to take credit, I don't mind, art's to be _enjoyed_!



Oh no, I'd never do anything like that. Alternately if you have an online gallery where prints can be ordered, I'd be more than happy to oblige you that way.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 8, 2008)

No worries, print and enjoy 
nah, don't have such a thing, besides, the Spelljammer/Dark Sun stuff does kind of fall under WOTC copyright 

that pic althuogh I regard it as Dark Sun, doesn't have any _iconic _DS stuff per se, but my Spelljammerstuff sure does have SJ based items, I built the ships off the deck plans!!


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## Studio69 (Sep 9, 2008)

These are great! Absolutely wonderful! 



frankthedm said:


> By any chance is the pic available without the human or the wyrm? Maybe even without the giant crystal skulls?






Silverblade The Ench said:


> Frankthedm,
> hm, yes but, it wouldn't look as good, and I'd need ot email you it as I wouldn't want to host the bare picture on my site (not my intent for my site).




I wouldn't mind seeing that either. email me please


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 9, 2008)

Studio69,
ta! *bows* 

hm, ok if there's interest I'll host it, gimem a bit...*runs off to use Dreamweaver n' stuff* 

Frankthedm,
did you get the email? sent it couple of days ago.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 9, 2008)

k, "simple" version added, in the pics up top


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## Whitemouse (Sep 9, 2008)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> k, "simple" version added, in the pics up top



Very neat. I like it lots. Do you have with the blue sky too? That one would be desktop worthy for me.


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## frankthedm (Sep 9, 2008)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> Frankthedm,
> did you get the email? sent it couple of days ago.



Yep. I like the pic a lot. Thank you.

The ram statues add a nice touch. Might use it as a depiction of a temple for the Goat with a Thousand Young. 

Now is it me or are the murals of the headdressed humanoids smirking?



			
				Whitemouse said:
			
		

> Do you have with the blue sky too? That one would be desktop worthy for me.



The blue did seem to have bolder contrasts.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 9, 2008)

Whitemouse,
Oi! Do you go around asking DaVinci for "alternates", eh? *poke*
lol 

Frankthedm,
_FTANG!! _
Hm, Cthulhu _and _Dark Sun...nah that's just too evil! 

yeah the blue looks great, IMHO


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## frankthedm (Jul 26, 2012)

[MENTION=76881]Whitemouse[/MENTION] isn't the only one who would have liked to see the blue version without the humaniod or snake critter.


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