Spartan Sentries

“Two battle hardened, female warriors, from the ancient Greek city state
of Sparta, given the task of sentry; guarding a sacred building and the
precious items inside. They are witnessing a sunset as they await the
chill of the coming night.”

For my next render I used DAZ Studio 3 Advanced, although the free DAZ Studio would have worked just as well, and went all out and used several plug-in products to get the desired look.

What started me on the road to this render is the following problem I see often online.

One of the biggest problems a lot of people who start rendering, or have been rendering for years, never seem to grasp or understand, or even are aware of, is that a scene requires more than just throwing a model or objects in the scene and firing off that render. This is why the majority of the 3D image renders on the Internet look so canned, even when the lighting is superb!

Take, for example, the Spartana for V4 hoplite uniform I used. If you look at the promos you will see a shinny new outfit. It works for promos, but what happens to a uniform after a day of use? Do you see where I am going with this?

I am going to show you how easy it is to get “real life” into a 3D rendered image—even if you are portraying a fantasy scene or a scene from ancient times.

To start this scene I went looking for a building made for DAZ Studio and not just Poser; i.e., that it comes with DAZ Studio specific material files. This way I don't loose time messing with it trying to get it to look right in DAZ Studio as is usually the case with models that don't bring their own. And I found the perfect building, this one even comes with a courtyard surrounded by a wall. It is the The Guildhall by Redhouse Studios.

For the figures I used the ever popular Victoria V4 with the Darcie for V4/G4 morphs. I left the Victoria V4 face on the Spartan warrior with the spear over her back and used texture mats from another morph figure on the other; due to the lighting, I may have just as well used the Darcie mats on both. I then used the Distinctive Features V4 morph set to apply facial features; like a longer nose and a slender face. I think she turned out looking like one of today's supermodels! (According to accounts, Spartan women were the most beautiful women of ancient Greece, so I am not complaining.)

For the Spartan warrior on the right I added injuries to her face using this freebie injury morph package. I gave her a swollen right eye and a fat lip. I didn't just stop there, I used the LIE Wound Pack in combination with the Multi-Layered Image Editor (so that I could move the injuries around to where I wanted them). I made sure the skin around the eye looked injured. I, also, gave them wounds and bruises on other areas of their bodies. So far the warriors look like they have been in a battle or two.

I then moved on to the Spartana for V4 uniforms. Here I used the shader Grime-Inizer for DAZ Studio (Grime-Inizer for Poser) to apply dirt on the uniforms. This alone was a huge improvement for the scene. I applied them to the helmets and shields, as well. I also used the Rag-Erator for DAZ Studio (Rag-Erator for Poser) shaders on the shields. This made the shields look like they have actually been used in battle. Just applying these shaders and utilizing the other plug-ins on the figures did the trick, and they were easy to apply. Although, the Multi-Layered Image Editor did take some time to work out as it was the first time I had used it.

For this scene I didn't use the spear that comes with the Spartana set. I used the Spear and my own modified poses from the Santuario set by Danie & marforno. The lighting was done with, my ever favorite, Light Dome Pro 2.0 from Dreamlight.

I like the way this image came out. So much so, that it is now my desktop wallpaper image on my render computer.