Twisted's collection of various images that could be considered some possible form of art.

[TwistedSilicon]

Really, this is just a place for me to collate most of my stuff in the case my computer ever deciedes to die.
It should be in chronological order. So if you're looking for new stuff, if I ever manage get round to do doing that, have fun scrolling.

Spoiler: Images

Early off. (Some of the more model focused work in Gmod, mainly using models and sandbox tools)

C17 Era. Starting to use PS alongside other websites in order to get better results, but I didn't mix the two until much later.

Basic screening functions and gradient layers.

Just being able to remove people's eyes with the spot healing brush is a fun power to have.
Also, another pattern layer to add noise with a gradient layer aswell.

Spoiler: Podium Collection.

Totally didn't just abandon the char bio after snipping the entire thing to this... yes... definately...

Made this for Warzone, the map ended up changing literally two days later and died :grinning: .

Degroot keep mapped orthographically. I had hoped to create more maps like this, but it appears Gmod wasn't designed to take orthographic pictures while TF2 was for some reason? Clipping issues arose anyways.

CONTINUES ON NEXT POST....​

 

[TwistedSilicon]

Spoiler: Blender Images

Spoiler: Avatars through the ages

The first, I can't remember where this even came from.

The second, I started getting used to using PS at this time.

Backgroundless version. Mainly used to experiment with: You guess it, removing backgrounds from images and selecting certain parts.

The dumbtruck phase. Though it was pretty funny to have a forum avatar smaller than the text. It looked strikingly different to everyone else due to just how small it was.

The Lime saga begins.

Christmas version.

Small ver. (For screwing around with Neb avatar limits)

I didn't like the empty background that Neb uses. It's an awful shade of purple so I replaced it with a gradient fill.

Shitposting

The swirl mask. Literally just made it while I was bored at College. Turned out good! Especially the simplistic use of black and white.

Spoiler: Custom Banners

COMMISSIONS:

FUCK IF I KNOW, ASK ME ON STEAM

Just make sure it's something in my field, similar to my work here. Even I'll be no good at stuff I've never touched before.

Most Recent Stuff:
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[MaXenzie]

i recommend using a humanoid model in a neutral pose to practice lighting techniques

i'd say over half of my SFM time has been spent fucking about with lights on a single subject

3 point lighting is a good place to start, but it's considered a jumping off point and not the end goal

 

[TwistedSilicon]

i recommend using a humanoid model in a neutral pose to practice lighting techniques

i'd say over half of my SFM time has been spent fucking about with lights on a single subject

3 point lighting is a good place to start, but it's considered a jumping off point and not the end goal

By 3 point, I assume you mean Fill Key and Back?, Or is there a different system for game lighting? Kinda new to this sorry.

Also.. yeah I'd probably be better of using more friendly human models. Thanks for the tip man, I appreciate it.

 

[MaXenzie]

By 3 point, I assume you mean Fill Key and Back?, Or is there a different system for game lighting? Kinda new to this sorry.

Also.. yeah I'd probably be better of using more friendly human models. Thanks for the tip man, I appreciate it.

yeah fill key rim, or however you want to call it

there's plenty of guides for it, if not on gmod then at least in SFM

 

[TwistedSilicon]

Spoiler: Yeeeesss

THIS
I LIKE

So, figuring out how to light turns out was pretty important. As you can see here, just using a combination of three lights made it infinitely better. This was a relatively easy render to do thanks to the fact I didn't have to do any facial posing. And only realled had to muck around with the left hand fingers to get them to actually grip the weapon. Next I'll probably try and do each of the lightings seperately, and them mesh them in photoshop so I have more control over it. Also I should probably start doing lightbounce with a distinct floor underneath to get a more detailed lighting rather than just "in the void"

Sidenote I have no idea why it seems to copy some of the model on the right. I should probably fix that.
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[TwistedSilicon]

Pain.

Spoiler: All the layers unstacked

Stacked Final Versions

So, turns out my computer may not be happy with... doing a lot of things related to Gmod on high performance. It's been an on and off experience with making these. As much as I'd like so say I've been keeping it simple so I can used to the basics, the reality is that anytime I try to do a more detailed build Gmod has run out of memory or crashed so.... :shrug:... But I am happy with what I've made so far. The lightbounce really adds to the scene and makes it just look that bit more realistic. And I've found it much easier to do each lighting individually to create the image this time, rather than stacking them and only taking one photo. Overall, looking good. But I'm not sure how much further I'll be able to take them without needing a simply better computer.
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[MaXenzie]

Pain.

Spoiler: All the layers unstacked

Stacked Final Versions

So, turns out my computer may not be happy with... doing a lot of things related to Gmod on high performance. It's been an on and off experience with making these. As much as I'd like so say I've been keeping it simple so I can used to the basics, the reality is that anytime I try to do a more detailed build Gmod has run out of memory or crashed so.... :shrug:... But I am happy with what I've made so far. The lightbounce really adds to the scene and makes it just look that bit more realistic. And I've found it much easier to do each lighting individually to create the image this time, rather than stacking them and only taking one photo. Overall, looking good. But I'm not sure how much further I'll be able to take them without needing a simply better computer.
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are you using those modded lights that drop your fps to 2

 

[TwistedSilicon]

are you using those modded lights that drop your fps to 2

Yeah, it's soft lamps / vtools and It does go to 2FPS whenever you need to render a scene. BUT despite my winging about FPS and computer death,I'm trying tomodel, set up the scene, pose etc. without needing to have the game on super duper graphics extreme setting. I tend to build first, save the build, and then kill my computer with the renders only once everything is already in place.

 

[TwistedSilicon]

A quick render before I sleep.

Again, another image to mainly test my capabilities with more complex enviroments. So far I seem to manage to avoid bottle-necking my computer when it has large workloads. I'm getting comfortable creating the images using the lighting now. So I'm now looking to stretch out a bit further into unkown territory. I've got some other ideas on the back for now, but I'm generally happy with how these are coming out. (Apart from the enlongated ground texture. Not sure what's up with that.) But for now I tredge the creative section for insprition.

I do hope to get something in for the weekly art review.​

 

[MaXenzie]

A quick render before I sleep.

Again, another image to mainly test my capabilities with more complex enviroments. So far I seem to manage to avoid bottle-necking my computer when it has large workloads. I'm getting comfortable creating the images using the lighting now. So I'm now looking to stretch out a bit further into unkown territory. I've got some other ideas on the back for now, but I'm generally happy with how these are coming out. (Apart from the enlongated ground texture. Not sure what's up with that.) But for now I tredge the creative section for insprition.

I do hope to get something in for the weekly art review.​

for further improvement i'd recommend moving onto camerawork, specifically lowering field of view and messing with the rule of thirds

 

[TwistedSilicon]

Tender Render

Spoiler: All the layers unstacked. [Large]

Yes. I know the MP7 lighting is fucked. I managed to material it when I was trying to create masks and never changed it back during rendering so... : /

Review:

Trying to work in a lower FOV really helped create this. And while I did manage to put one of the characters in the thirds. (The glasses one). But I still think I need more pratise and understanding of how and when to use it. It seems to be much more used for close up shots of people in frame rather than big scenic shots, but if I can use it in my scenic shots: I don't think it would detract from them. So more practise is definitely needed with this. Maybe some dynamic close up face pics? I'll see what I can manage to put together.

What I am happy about this is the fact I'm now sucessfully combining the lighting layers into something silky smooth lighting wise. Especially if you look at the enviroment on the pictures, the cracks and textures are really crisp. The characters... Not so much... Turns out putting a light skintone behind an evenly light texture was a bad idea. (It's really hard to make out 2nd from left head.)

Also using a sky texture in post really helps to contrast the yellowish sand texture below so yay!
If I'm feeling up to it, I may do some corrections on this later and possibily submit it for Art of the Week? At the moment it's missing a few layers and things.​

 

[TwistedSilicon]

Help I'm addicted to scenic builds.

Spoiler: All the layers unstacked

Spoiler: Self-Reflection for Mountain.Jpg

This one took considerably longer than expected. Playing on a new server and some exams coming up haven't left me with much time for this. But thankfully I had already created most of the scene by the time things got hectic for me. So I didn't need to do much to get this finished.

I went for a more rocky and mountainous look this time. Picking costal cliffs to try and create the sense that there's almost no life in this area. Which came across pretty good by the astounding lack of my favourite colour here. (Yes Green is my favourite have you seen my forum avatar).
Far out. (Creating a scene that isn't just confined to one area)

For thisi build, I did end up choosing to fill up the right hand side space with some mountains to try and focus the viewer's attention onto the right hand third a bit more. Which I think worked here?, Not sure if the distance these props were caused any problems as of now. But so far it seems alright.
I did the thing!

Thirds! Yay! I installed an overlay in Gmod to help with this. And yeah, I can definately see how a person's view would go towards that. Lowered the FOV and I gotta say, it's not a dealbreaker but it's just one of those small details which help.

 

[jb]

Help I'm addicted to Scenic builds.

Spoiler: All the layers unstacked

Spoiler: Self-Reflection for Mountain.Jpg

This one took considerably longer than expected. Playing on a new server and some exams coming up haven't left me with much time for this. But thankfully I had already created most of the scene by the time things got hectic for me. So I didn't need to do much to get this finished.

I went for a more rocky and mountainous look this time. Picking costal cliffs to try and create the sense that there's almost no life in this area. Which came across pretty good by the astounding lack of my favourite colour here. (Yes Green is my favourite have you seen my forum avatar).
Far out. (Creating a scene that isn't just confined to one area)

For thisi build, I did end up choosing to fill up the right hand side space with some mountains to try and focus the viewer's attention onto the right hand third a bit more. Which I think worked here?, Not sure if the distance these props were caused any problems as of now. But so far it seems alright.
I did the thing!

Thirds! Yay! I installed an overlay in Gmod to help with this. And yeah, I can definately see how a person's view would go towards that. Lowered the FOV and I gotta say, it's not a dealbreaker but it's just one of those small details which help.

dam this kinda looks good doe

 

[MaXenzie]

Help I'm addicted to scenic builds.

Spoiler: All the layers unstacked

Spoiler: Self-Reflection for Mountain.Jpg

This one took considerably longer than expected. Playing on a new server and some exams coming up haven't left me with much time for this. But thankfully I had already created most of the scene by the time things got hectic for me. So I didn't need to do much to get this finished.

I went for a more rocky and mountainous look this time. Picking costal cliffs to try and create the sense that there's almost no life in this area. Which came across pretty good by the astounding lack of my favourite colour here. (Yes Green is my favourite have you seen my forum avatar).
Far out. (Creating a scene that isn't just confined to one area)

For thisi build, I did end up choosing to fill up the right hand side space with some mountains to try and focus the viewer's attention onto the right hand third a bit more. Which I think worked here?, Not sure if the distance these props were caused any problems as of now. But so far it seems alright.
I did the thing!

Thirds! Yay! I installed an overlay in Gmod to help with this. And yeah, I can definately see how a person's view would go towards that. Lowered the FOV and I gotta say, it's not a dealbreaker but it's just one of those small details which help.

that's a sudden fucking jump in quality

 

[TwistedSilicon]

Doing some experimention.

Hello again. Doing some more abstract stuff this time to try and pry myself away from the four man sceneic because I have so many of those half-complete and I kinda need to differentiate into other fields at the moment to go any further with those.
So, have some duds! They're not top quality but they're not supposed to be, they're expirments with Photoshop and Z-depth, which is only a concept I recently used on the mountain to make it clear that the cliffs behind were infact- quite a distance behind.

Poster.
I've tried to do things like this before, and I think adding the distinct folded paper texture helped. (I did steal this teqnique from Ovxy, go give his posters some love if you're reading this.) Though the dashed outline does kinda converge in the corners? Not suere where to go with this apart from adding more logos to kind make it seem more authentic as a poster? It's not something I specialize in, but I like to go through it anyways.

Zee Depth.
So I didn't really go through what I added to the last poster. This was the Z-depth, if you already know what this is: Feel free to skip whatever I'm typing here, but it's something real artists use to try and help make it clear how far away something is. As even in non-foggy enviroments unless you have completely crisp and clean air, objects further away will tend to be slightly lighter and grey-er in complexion. This is acheived in Gmod by adding an aritifical fog layer and using that as an overlay to clearly demonstrate that the difference. Both pictures are good in their own respects. The harsh outlines of the first one creates a clear imprint of how disconnected the subject is from reality. While the second works more to obsure it, (You can just slightly tell the difference in depth, but it's best used when objects are different distances away.) and gives off a more moody but less harsh tone, possibly to portray a sense of unkown or uncertainty in the future. Anyways, I'll be using this in sceneic displays much more in the future!

They also work great in Photoshop as masks! (Of course you have to invert them first but you get the idea.)

Possible other areas of making more realistic images:

• Blurring! (Fuzzy)
• Colour Balance
• Hue and Saturation
• More scene building. I seem to have accidentally done good with Mountain, so I'll probably need to research this in order to avoid regressing in quality.
• More paper poster stuff.

 

[TwistedSilicon]

Ego: Boosted
Photoshop: Open
Time for stuff!
Image one: Siberia or something

Spoiler: Layers seperated for your conveience and art viewing experience

How it came out (What's good and what's not so good)
In all honesty I didn't really put too much effort into this one. It was more of a test to see how a more arctic and snowy enviroment could look. And see how it looks when using my normal proccesses on it. Turns out having to work with primarily white textures and using fullbright for lighting murders your eyes. So... Yeah - I think the main area it's lacking is the background texture I used for the sky. I tried to make it foggy looking but it seems too bright considering the actual landscape shown. And the sun just seems in the wrong direction aswell. Overall not one of my best, but hopefully next time I'll have a better idea of where the sun should be. (Again - this was a smaller project that I didn't put a great deal of time into)
Image 2: Dark alleyway

Spoiler: Layers seperated for your conveience and art viewing experience

How it came out (What's good and what's not so good)
This is the start of my attempts to stop going for such outside and land-scapish shots and move more towards inside and close-up shots (Ironically the camera is still some distance away from the subject so I guess that didn't exactly end up happening). By creating in a more relatively confined space with the walls on each side. It helped be put the focus solely on the centre instead of the sides like what I tend to do in other posters. Also - for future reference if I need a scene to be dark, and light damp lightbounce / highlights aren't needed, especially since they almost seem to exlusively brighten the image with white light which when using the yellow-ish lamps in this picture, stood out not only as the wrong colour but way too bright even on low opacities.

Other images I happened to make (Inspired by others)

I modelled this after someone put realistic human eyes on a vort.
I tried the same thing with a cop.
I have more cursed versions. But they're edited to the point where it's obvious where they've been edited. ( Need to get better at covering my edits up to match the subject )
Just messing around in photoshop gave me this.

I was inspired by Tyrone and what he posted on the art of the week thread. I asked him if I could try and recreate it and he said yeah. So this is what happened after. Yes that is Ronald Reagan. I'm not too bothered with the resulsts. But I did get some experience on using masks in photoshop and how to use them to blend two images into one other.

Go give him a neb if you feel like it.​

 

[Deleted member 4609]

Based Cry of Fear poster

 

[TwistedSilicon]

Shitpost time!
In all honesty, there were more just experiments rather than actual attempts to create something decent. And were mainly just used to show off in an app (I wonder if you could possibly figure out which faction it was for).
Though, it was interesting to use text in photoshop for subtitles. I also tried the 3 light source thing from the beginging again just to see if I've gotten any better at using it. It turned out alright in my opinion.

Spoiler

 

[TwistedSilicon]

ShipWreck.

Thoughts and comments:
Again - While I tried to select models taht would tend to stand out more against hte background I chose. I still found myself not being able to dinstict the the models from the background as much as I would like to... Something to definately investigate if I'd be able to fix in the future. Possibly by having masks to select them would be helpfull. Not great considering for some reason the save of this build didn't persist and now I only have access to an unfinished version...
Again- a part of the costal series. I found some shipwreck models on the workshop that I thought would be interesting to adapt. They came out good enough but the chain proved hard to work with and I found it hard to make it bend naturally towards the anchor.
Also no idea what's up with the lines on the ship- I've tried messing around with the layers but I can't seem to get rid of them.
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