2023 Big Picture

[Agent0013]

Fire Breath at the Ready (Story Based on the Series of books by Anne McCaffrey "Dragon Riders of Pern".)


This is a tribute to the book series Anne McCaffrey and her partners wrote the most books in; "Dragon Riders of Pern". Here we see a female rider on her dragon, at the ready for the coming threadfall. A distant cone shaped mountain seems to point at the red star that is visible even during the day, It is not a true star; rather it is a red planet that has drawn close to Pern, and is the source of the deadly thread. The rider and her dragon will burn as much of the thread as they possibly can before it can reach the ground. Other dragon riders are at the ready also. Together, they can usually prevent more than 70% of the thread from reaching the ground. Any thread that does reach the ground will destroy any crops or livestock it touches, so burning the thread in the air is the best way to minimize the damage.


There are people on the ground with flamethrowers who will burn any thread that makes it to the ground. Their job is light compared to that of the Dragon Riders, though the term "light" is used here lightly, for the job is definitely difficult on the ground as well. They must carry their fuel on their backs, and wade into the thickets and undergrowth where the thread seeks refuge. Some choose to just burn the vegetation along with the thread. Animals that are unfortunate enough to be entangled by thread should be put down immediately, or they will suffer greatly as they are consumed alive by the volatile chemicals in the thread.


Meanwhile in the sky above, Dragon riders must do all they can to burn thread before it reaches the ground, meanwhile dodging through the thread fall to avoid being touched by thread. Their dragons are even more vulnerable, because they are much larger than their human riders, and their wings are very large, being the most likely areas that could be touched. So planning a path through the thread fall is paramount in importance. A badly planned path will most likely result in getting touched. If the dragon or the rider is touched, immediate injury always occurs, and few riders can keep fighting when touched. Dragons will likely land and try to end their own lives to stop the excruciating pain.


Each dragon rider has a telepathic bond with their dragon. No other human can rider a dragon that is bonded in this way. Those who try will be killed by the dragon. Thus children are taught from an early age to respect the special bond between dragon and its rider. The rider must also be able to withstand going between. This is a special ability of the dragons and firelizzards that is how the dragons and their riders can get to where they are needed in seconds. By going between, they can jump through other space to a destination sent to the dragon's mind as a picture of where to go. Other space is an extradimensional plane of existence that can be used to shorten the distance between two locations. It is known that distances in other space are greater when travelling offworld to another world, and there is extreme cold in other space. So most dragon riders only travel between to reach other places on Pern, the planet they live on. The only other planet that gets close enough for a jump to it is the Red Planet that is the source of the thread. And there is only one dragon and its rider who has ever made such a jump through other space to that planet. They did make it back alive, but reported that it was far too dangerous to ever attempt again.


In this post I was able to use the 'Drago for Millennium Dragon for the first time ever, due to the following fix I finally found.
For several years I have had the 'Drago for Millennium Dragon product in my Runtime, and could not get the pieces of that armor outfit to conform correctly on the dragon. Whenever I thought I had a good idea about how to fix the problem, it wound up not working any better than my many tries before that. I had even done some searches for good information on how to use the product pack, but could find nothing that would help. This of course is admittedly due to my poor search skills; not knowing how to word my search.
Well I finally posted the problem at the DAZ Forums, and also at The Fantasies Attic, in the hope that by having it posted on more than one site, there would be someone with the right information on what to do. I was still afraid that I would not get any info that would help me fix the problem. Well I got the information I needed in just two days, and can happily say the problem is fixed!
It turns out that the Dragon loads into the scene at 250% scale, and so too does the 'Drago for Millennium Dragon armor! The trick to getting it to work correctly in DAZ Studio is as follows:
1. Load Millennium Dragon into the scene. It will be at the 250% scale mentioned above.
2. Either go to Edit/Figure/ Zero Figure, and click on it to reset the figure scale to 100%, or go to the Parameters Pane and reset the overall scale to 100%.
3. After each part of the product pack is loaded into the scene, reset the scale of that part to 100%, and then fit that part to Millennium Dragon. Fit each part one at a time, to ensure that each part is conforming correctly, before loading the next part. (Example: Load the Arms part, scale it to 100%, fit it to Millennium Dragon, then load the Neck Spikes part, scale it to 100%, and fit it to Millennium Dragon. This ensures that each part is conforming correctly before moving on to the next part.) Do this for each part. (If the part is not conforming, there is a step missing from the procedure. Go back through all steps and make sure you did not miss any step.
4. After all parts are fitted and conforming correctly, select Millennium Dragon, and scale it up to whatever scale you desire, including the scale it and the armor loaded in (250%). If the Armor parts all scale with the Millennium Dragon, they have conformed correctly to the figure.
5. For a final test, load a pose from Millennium Dragon's pose collections, or manually pose the figure yourself. Any part that does not follow the pose is not conformed correctly, and you must repeat the process for that part, making sure that you first Zero the Figure, before doing the steps for that part. If all parts are following the pose you choose or create, all parts are conformed correctly.
6. This one is a personal preference step, which I would recommend nonetheless. Save you work at this point in the zero pose to your Scene Subset folder in DAZ Studio. (Example: Go to File/Save As/Scene Subset. Name the file "MilDragon_in 'Drago" and click "Save".) This way, you at least have a file you can load, that has been correctly loaded, and all conforming parts of the 'Drago for Millennium Dragon' already conformed correctly. Then you don't have to go through the process of loading and conforming each part individually again.

[sanbie]

So glad you got it working Agent...have you got a new computer...this is the second render I have seen of yours that looks crisp and clear...   awesome job!

[Agent0013]

Still the same computer, unfortunately. My renders are done in different sizes, most being on the long direction 2000px or more. Usually my renders are fairly sharp, but I think the sharpness can have something to do with the viewer being used also. Some viewers enlarge an image too far past the full sized image, making it look pixelated. My default viewer on my computer does this to images that are smaller than my screen size to make the image fit the width or height of the screen. If my image is larger than the screen size in pixels, when I set it to fit my screen, it will not enlarge to full size. The aspect ratio of my screen is 16 to 9, so a 1600px x 900px image will fit the screen perfectly without having to be full size. You may see the most of my images are done using that aspect ratio. Now you know why. It allows me to use my art pieces as wallpapers for my lock screen and my desktop screen. For my smartphone, I have not yet found what the aspect ratio is. That said, because that is a small screen by comparison. Almost all of my art will fill its screen with any excess cut off in the direction that is too large. This means most images will not be displayed fully when used as wallpapers on my smartphone. The reason I make my images as large as I do is because the more pixels an image has in size, the better the details will look.

[darkangel]

September images are ready to start in here so maybe we shall have more participants.

[darkangel]

I hope we get some images in here, LOL

[SimonJM]

A quick Wyvern ...

[Llola Lane]

YAY... I see it Simon :)  I'm sure Agent will be pleased too... Thanks for sharing.

[Agent0013]

This thread is hungry for some big images. As the first post in it states, your images can be up to 3000px either horizontally or vertically. the other direction can be any up to 3000px. At least for one direction the minimum is 2000px to qualify as a Big Picture.
Simon, your image qualifies because it is 2000px horizontally. The other direction is less than that, but since one direction is within the required pixel length, the image still qualifies.
If an image of qualifying size does not post due to memory size, a good fix is to open it in Windows Paint or whatever the equivalent is for Mac computers. Then re-save the image as a .jpg under the same name to the same folder. When a message pops up asking if you wish replace the existing one, click 'Yes'. Look at the file size to see if it is within the acceptable limit. If not, open the image again in the same program, reduce the pixel size by a small amount, and save it under the same name again, unless you wish to preserve the larger sized image, add (RI) to the title when you save it. This will reduce the file size further, and as long as it is still within the pixel size limits for one direction, it will still qualify for this thread.
Let's try working on getting more images in for this month. Last month only got 2 images here, and both were done by me. I cannot compete with myself, so no winning image was chosen. July did not get any images posted in this thread, so obviously no winner was chosen for that month either. I really want other artists to win the prize award in this thread for each month. So bring them on, and make this thread into a thriving success. And remember more detail can be seen when the image is larger than the norm. That is why this thread exists.

[Llola Lane]

Agent... just a note... I never render bigger than 1024x1024... They take too long to cook and I'm impatient.  I will however try... lol.

[Agent0013]

I know about the size you choose to do your renders in, Llola. As it is your personal choice, I'll not ask you to make changes in that. However, Any time you decide you want to do one of the size this thread requires, it will be happily accepted and appreciated. The choice remains yours to make, and I for one shall always respect that.