Raytraced Images

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Shauna" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

This scene was done mostly to test a gel I made to simulate water "caustics", i.e the pattern of light you get when the light is refracted by the waves in the water surface.

I had quite some trouble to get the distance fade-out effect I wanted, until I tested tilting the whole scene 45 degrees downward and adding a dark ground fog.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Poseable Jacket" prop model by DD.
"Miko" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Helena" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

This was done when I discovered symmetrical lattices, and what you can do with them - floating islands, for example.

I tinted the skin texture green before raytracing, to get an even more fantasy feeling to the picture.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Shauna" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

I wasn't that fond of the robots included with Poser - they felt much too cartoony for my taste. But I decided to try them anyway. And with this dark reddish metallic texture I think I got the robot to be menacing enough.

Adding a wide, but not necessarily strong, specular effect to cloth and skin textures work very well. And definitely no ambient component in the texture!

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Tina" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
Bayonet prop by H. L. Arledge

More experiments. This time: "How much retouch is needed for very bent joints?" The answer was: "A lot." But I think the retouch worked out very well.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Kassandra" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

Here I tried adding more lights to enhance the three-dimensionality of the figure. Previously, I've mostly used three lights: the main light, the shadow lightener (instead of an ambient texture component) and a very bright contrast light. Here I've used six instead.

The spaceship in the background is a symmetrical lattice, and its exhausts are cylinders with cloud textures. I admit that I cheated: the fadeout of the exhausts was airbrushed post-render.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Kassandra" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"ModHair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

I tried putting together a pistol just of basic building blocks (cylinders, cubes, cones) and boolean operators. When it worked out, I just had to test it in a scene.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.

The male figure available in the Poser program is often refered to as the "Poser Dork" in the Poser user community. Frankly, it is hard to rearrange his face into someone who does not look dorky, goofy, or plain vacous. This is a strongly contributing reason to why there are so few male subjects in the images on this page.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Tina" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Kassandra" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
"Short Floaty Dress" prop from www.poserworld.com

Yes, I am a fan of "Tenchi Muyo"...

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Shauna" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Elf Ear" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Tina" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Elf Ear" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Short Floaty Dress" prop from www.poserworld.com

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Vicki" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Elf Ear" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Vicki" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Elf Ear" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Vicki" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Posable Jacket with Lab Coat Morph" prop by Phil Hokusai.
Tank prop by Cacheforce.

Image © 1999 Mats Öhrman.
"Paulina" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Posable Jacket with Lab Coat Morph" prop by Phil Hokusai.
"Elf Ear" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Maria" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Elf Ear" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Morph Hair 5" prop from Morph World (E. VanDycke)

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
Texture map by Anton Kisiel.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Fantasy Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

Who remembers all the hoopla about Y2K now?

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Fantasy Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
"Maria" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Windblown Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

I tried to make a mermaid by combining the Poser female with the dolphin, just as I had done a centaur by combining her with the horse in "Crossing the Old Summer Terrace". Unfortunately I ran into some scaling problem that made the entire thing quite impossible: Whenever I tried to scale the dolphin into the proportions necessary to fit the hips of the woman, all surface vertices and normals went all over the scene, and I ended up with a cubistic porcupine. Extremely frustrating.

So I decided to keep her legs and turn the image into a kind of private joke image illustrating to me some of the limitations of poser. But I liked how the lighting, the skin tone and the hair turned out in the end so much that I couldn't keep it out of the gallery. And, of course, I like weird stuff.

Later, I found that Poser magnets worked much better than simple scaling. See "Victoria in Depth" down below. That's the image I really wanted this one originally to be.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
"Maria" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

Unfortunately, when I made this, I only had access to contemporary clothing for the Poser male. To me it is extremely noticeable in the cut of the victim's trousers and shoes.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
"Vicki" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Fantasy Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
Gun prop from Greylight (Edward Hall).
"Maria" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
Male texture map by George Deep.

I started out wanting to do something Heinlein-esque, while simultaneously reversing the old movie poster stereotype of the proudly standing hero brandishing a large weapon while the lissome heroine clings to his feet.

The end result become something rather frightfully similar to old 1930s propaganda. It gives me the shivers sometimes.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Wind-blown Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
"Bob-cut Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.

I liked the rivets in "Propaganda Heroes" above so much that I had to use them in another image, so I quickly whipped up this one.

If you can see the reflections in the water below the "diving board", you've got a good monitor.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
"Maria" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

This is one of my personal favorites.

The tricky bit in making this image was getting the light just right. The scene was lit by weak dark green lights from both above and below, together a set of overlapping yellow spotlights with "dapple gels" - very similar to what I've done before in "Going to the Bottom" above.

I did several renders with slight variations in lighting, and then merged these renders in the final image so that each part of the image was taken from the render in which it looked the best.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Maria" texture map by Anton Kisiel.

The vehicle in the background was entirely made with Bryce's geometric primitives: cubes, spheres, cylinders, etc, combined with boolean operations.

Ovilis is, I was told by a aquintance of mine, the latin word for an enclosure for cattle. And omega kappa are, of course, the greek letters corresponding to O and K.

And yes, it is supposed to be ketchup and mustard.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
Victoria model by Zygote (www.zygote.com).

When I got the new "Victoria" model from Zygote, I wanted to do a quick render as fast as possible to see what she was like, especially as there had been some ugly rumours circulating. So I took the setup from "Amphibious Mermaid" above, adapted the dolphin into a mermaid's tail with some magnets, and rendered this.

Working more with Victoria, I've found that the rumours were unfounded. It really is an excellent model.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Exotic Eyes" morph target from Morph World (E. VanDycke)
"Maria" texture map by Anton Kisiel.
Clothes from Zygote's Costume CD.
Rubber duck prop from Chemical Studios.

In an Earthdawn game, in which I was a player, we came across some skeletons drowned in large water-filled troughs. After the game, I came home and looked at this image I was working on, and got struck by the likness between the sarcophagus and a bathtub. So I filled the sarcophagus with virtual water, and went looking on the 'net for a model of a rubber duck...

Also worth noting is the fact that with the purchase of Zygote's Costume CD, I could at last find some male clothes that looked "fantasy"-ish, and not extremly contemporary.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
"Demon Tail" prop from Bushi3D.

This image really is an experiment. In making it, I tried a few techniques new to me for post-render touch-up work. A full description of these techniques are available in a tutorial I've written, which is available from my Poser page.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
"Omni-Hair" prop by Jeff Howarts.
Boots from Zygote's Costume CD.

One of the nice things about the new "Victoria" figure from Zygote is that you can bend the joints much more without strange things happening to the surfaces in and around them (Note, for example, the shoulder of the male figure in this image). Hopefully, this will make it easier to make images with greater sense of motion and stronger dynamics.

In lighting this scene, both subjects were given five - six spotlights each, with stronger white light from the left and weaker orange from the right.

No image textures were used for the characters' clothes or skins, just Bryce materials with special attention to the specularity settings. Images were only used for bump and transparency maps.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.

The first image in a series I made for Zygote's calendar competition.

Yes, I did reuse the centauress from "Crossing the Old Summer Terrace" above.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.

The second image made for the calendar competition.

A troll and a cybered elf celebrates a lonely New Year's Eve in an abandoned bar. As you can see, I've used the legs from the "Brainstem" robot in the same manner as in "The Infamous Shootout on Omega Kappa Ovilis IV" above.

And no, it is not a coincidence that this might remind some of you of the Shadowrun RPG.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.

The third image made for the calendar competition.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.
Earth textures by Truearth.

Just a quickie I made one evening after a frustrating day at the office. I've always found that concentrating on a piece of artwork is a great stress reliever, as long as there isn't any kind of deadline involved.

One thing I wanted to try out was whether the capes from Zygote's Costume CD could be used to make a "standard fantasy-illustration style" loincloth. I combined them with two simple torus props, and painted on the straps in the post-process step. The top is the "Polo Shirt" from Zygote's Victoria Clothing Pack with simple transparency and bump maps applied.

After getting some input over at the Poser Forum on the first version, I redid the texture on the planet, and the pose and texture of the creature, arriving at the version you can see here.

Image © 2000 Mats Öhrman.

Another image made for after-work-relaxation. This one was also gradually improved from input provided by the people at the Poser Forum.

Image © 2001 Mats Öhrman.

This image was made to wind down from and stop thinking of an overdue piece of documentation on how to use automatic testing to help debug a rather complex Java system. I didn't succeed completely, as it kind of seeped into the title of the piece.

I've been asked how long it takes to make these images. I think I'd estimate an image like this, which is not really of any high degree of complexity, to:

	3-4 hours of setting up the main figure.
	6-9 hours doing the scene: background, lighting, textures.
	3-4 times 1-4 hours of leaving the computer alone to do the renders.
	3-4 hours of post-render touch-up.

Image © 2001 Mats Öhrman.
"Morph Hair" prop by Kozaburo.

Partially inspired by playing in a Shadowrun RPG group, although this particular image is not in any way related to any of the characters or events in that particular campaign.

The clothes seem to have ended up more like something out of the old British TV-show "The Avengers", though.

Image © 2001 Mats Öhrman.
"Morph Hair" prop by Kozaburo.
Longsword prop by Dedicated Digital.

Image © 2001 Mats Öhrman.
"Syringe" prop by Thrallord@www.3dcommune.com.
"Rei Hair" prop by Kozaburo.

My entry for a competition called "Reboot Your Brain".

Image © 2001 Mats Öhrman.

Not having done any Poser images for a few months, this was kind of a warm-up exercise.

The flight-pack was made with Bryce booleans and metaballs. This was my first attempt at using the new metaballs primitive, and I must say they were much harder to use than I had expected.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.
"Demon Tail" prop from Bushi3D.

Yet another long delay between making pictures, so I tried to start again with a simple lighting excercise.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.

This image was submitted to the PFO forum as a Heavy Metal magazine pastiche when the recurring render challenge called for images in the style of magazine covers.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.

Just trying to twist the Poser figure into pose different from the ones I usually use. Not a total success.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.

Another "quick and simple" image inspired by the Shadowrun role-playing game.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.

Another simple relaxation piece.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.
"K Sword" by McFly

I was given this sword model from a fellow user of the PFO (Poser Forum Online) forum, and wanted to try using it as soon as possible in an image. This is the result.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.

Another attempt to see if minor tweaks in the pose can soften up the stiffness of my normal poses. A difficult task...

The background was added as an afterthought.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.

Another posing excercise, as the one above.

Image © 2002 Mats Öhrman.
"Space Ship Seat" by Algaroba (Renderosity),
"Rei Hair" by Kozaburo,
"Mechanical Spider" by William Christjaener (3D Café),
"Aliens APC" by Steve Gehrke (3D Café).

Cpl. Coralyne Britesky Landfall, 2nd platoon, alpha company, 1st batallion, 7th imperial marine corps. ComTech, DemTech, ReconOp and halfling rogue. Soon to be based on the imperial corvette Orca.

RPG character intended for an campaign that will be using the Dragonstar add-on to Dungeons & Dragons. Thus, it's going to be a mix of D&D (elfs, halflings, orcs, character classes, magic) with technology matching the "Aliens" move (spacecraft, dropship, pulse rifles), and with a smattering of Warhammer 40k thrown in for good measure (drow commissars!). As one of the GMs put it: "Yes, you can use magic armor, provided it is magic M90 Medium Infantry Combat Armor."