Fun little insight post: when do I keep a render, and when do I discard it?

When I release a set, it never includes everything I've rendered. Sometimes the pacing of a set is off, and I remove certain shots even though they're good renders by themselves. In other cases, certain renders have an error in them that I didn't spot during production, and I have to bite the bullet. But in other cases, I spot something during production itself and can still course-adjust ahead of rendering more.

This post is about that last group of renders, and give you a little insight into my decision making. So let's go through each pair of renders above, and then at the very end of the gallery there's a standalone shot that isn't part of a pair which I just felt like rendering, so you get that as a bonus ;)

1) Tatiana's heel: do they meet my standards?

The first shot in each pair will be the one in the final release. The second one is the discarded shot. So in this case, the reason as to why I decided to change Tati's heels is fairly obvious. In the original shot, I felt like the viewer couldn't infer anything about the material of the heels themselves. What are the straps even made of? Sure it's a stiletto heel so that's super sexy, but also I use this model a lot and Yelena is already wearing these too.

The pair I ended up choosing aren't heels I've used a lot in my renders. The shader is also improved in this case: I made conscious effort to make it look like a leather shader, and the scale pattern enhances that effect. They're not stiletto's, but this heel design is super extra and I kinda love it. Especially for a shot that gives you a closeup of her shoes, this is an obvious improvement.

Plus, see that little black glitch near the toes in the original shot? Couldn't fix it. Massive eyesore.

2) 400mm voyeur cam shot: visual glitch.

Since these sets all contain an element of exhibitionism, I loved the idea of including the voyeur cam this time around from the yacht that's off in the distance. I also toyed with this idea in ONS/ACE, where I wanted a drone to hover around Kayla's loft. I didn't end up showing that drone but I did retain some of those renders in the final set.

In the case of this render, the physical distance of the camera made it hard for me to judge whether all the ladies made contact with the floor. It was only when inspecting the final render in detail that the photographer girl was hovering above the deck. I figured I could keep it since who would notice, but then I hate the idea that those people who do notice might get their sense of immersion broken if they spot it. It's just sloppy. So I fixed it.

3) Yelena & Tati posing: am I building a consistent world?

The answer was no. My original thought was that it would be a shot taken by the photographer herself, but the shot didn't really feel wide angle enough to convince the viewer that there was still room for a third person holding a camera on that deck. As a result, it just felt like the photographer had just despawned. I also realised that I didn't really want the shot to be wide angle anyway.

Little bit of photography nerd talk: I set all my render cameras to match my real life camera sensor. That is to say, I own a Fujifilm XT-4 which has an APS-C sensor, which has a diagonal span of 23.8mm. For this camera I have a set of lenses, a 10-24mm zoom, a 56mm prime (my favourite lens), and a 70-300mm zoom. So I prefer to set my render camera when render to match my real life 56mm APS-C setup. I like the intimacy it conveys. When rendering wide-angle, while it can be great for a dynamic action shot (the teaser bundle I release a week ago contains a few wide angle shots), I never quite like it for a posing shot like this.

Which meant, in other words, that if I wanted the camera at roughly the distance it was, with roughly the dimensions it already had, the photographer girl herself had to be in the picture. There was nowhere else to put her. Which I kinda ended up liking better anyway!

So yeah that's it. Just a little insight into how I work, how I think, and maybe if some of you are into photography IRL found that little part of the post interesting also. Also a good chance to show off some more of the set :D

Hope you guys enjoyed!