Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 7

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    jakiblue said:

    oooo Polish is in the featured PA's today :D He did that oriental breeze pool that you like so much, Novica, didn't he?

    You betcha! I'll see what else I have and render some time today. And Tesla did indeed go off the featured stores (although there will be a catchup sale I'm sure, and also because the site was messing up so much.)  

    It's funny- I had already started rendering something, and then that prop was used in one of the promos today. Will post it next.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Have A Seat Poses and Prop @dragonfly3d  @PandyGirl is featured in Lazy Days today in a promo. BOTH ARE BY PANDYGIRL- a featured store, and I would scoop up Have A Seat. The poses are relaxed, and what a great, realistic prop!!! (That MORPHS!) It was so funny that I had already started doing Living Room 3 with that chair, and voila, that vendor is featured today.

    This wasn't exactly the pose, I changed the legs up a bit and moved the arm. And as mentioned, papasan prop is morphable and has the morphs right next to each pose. (I just impressed myself, how the heck did I know that was called a papasan?  I didn't read the product page, if it's there.)  Anyway,  it's quite lovely. I changed the frame, it was white, to red. Lazy Days will show you more materials for it.

    The character is Natsuko @DemonicaEvilius and @Silver wearing PJs for Genesis 3. Um, are you as surprised as I am that she doesn't look much like the promo, aka, a bit cartoonish/ porcelain doll type? Love the family friendly PJ's. And first time I've rendered Soleil Hair- it's cute! For both Genesis 2 and 3. 

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Polish Products- Previous Renders

    I've already showcased the Millionaire Private Office. This is the couch and pillow closeup, really like the sophisticated textures. And yeah, the sofa and coffee table lined up (a no-no) but I was focused on lighting tests. That stained glass can be removed. The third one wasn't done rendering at the time, but I wanted to see the render speed. (It does okay, with other walls and props turned off.) 

    Already did the cute Mini Car Nino when I took you on a tour of Mountain Valley. (Not Polish.) 

    I haven't done Urban Art Studio before and it's rendering now. I left all the props active, if you have a medium or slow computer, don't.   5% at 11 minutes with mine, which is relatively speedy. It did speed up after that.

    I will put the render in another post when it is "done" or "relatively done." I have included the previous Polish renders for your convenience (one showing the car, remember we took a complete tour of the town but this shows Nino the best.

    I also showed you the Astro Sports Car 

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    So here's Urban Art Studio by @Polish with just the default Iray lighting.

    Believe it or not, the same lighting- it just depends on which end of the room you're rendering.

     

     

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Ever wanted to own your own Luxury Private Jet? Polish has that for you!  It loads in sections and they are narrow, but the walls are separate- Yes!!! so it's easy to render.  I Diffused color the whites of the bed and pillow and made them gray so they wouldn't wash out. Didn't do the counter and you can see the difference.

    That's Eliza

     

     

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    The cockpit of Luxury Private Jet.  That detail boggles my mind. CLICK TO ENLARGE, large render.

    Getting off the computer, things to do. Happy shopping today. 

     

     

     

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Interesting. I've had PWToon for years and never tried it. Tested it on a previous render. It is for 3DL.  But what I found (rendering in 3DL)  for this particular character (Marina) and scene:

    1. Iray hair is awful, no surprise.      2. Iray skin is better at showing variation. Surprise. I didn't think it would work at all.    3. 3DL eyes are better. Expected.

    So I used Iray Skin, but 3DL hair and eyes.  I just used two test Spotlights, nothing fancy. Needs more lighting tweaking but I'm just testing various things and wanted to share. (no postwork such as brightening, midtones, shadows, etc.) The 3DL is much darker than the Iray skin.EDIT: I don't know which mouth I like better, after looking at both. Just a matter of preferences.

    So have you done/tested Iray in PWToon?

    EDIT: This was just one front spotlight, one side spotlight.

    3DL: Skin is creamier

    Iray: eyes lose the reflection, skin has more variation, mouth renders quite differently.

     

     

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  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    Novica said:

    So here's Urban Art Studio, just the default Iray lighting.

    Believe it or not, the same lighting- it just depends on which end of the room you're rendering.

     

     

    Wow this is a really good looking room.  I rarely do modern but i am putting this one on the wishlist for now.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    It's got a lot of pieces that could be kitbashed elsewhere. Cabinets, trash cans, containers, chairs, scrolls, paintings, couch, art supplies- and I love the "old" feel of the building. Easy to light too!

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I really like the old feeling of that brick wall and that beautiful floor.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    I'm testing all the PWToon shaders on it, will have those in a few minutes. Some are really interesting, some have subtle differences from one to another.

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    edited October 2016

    I wanted to show you guys the cosmic crew cabin that was one of the debut items today.  Its very compact (as crew quarters would be) but its actually quite versatile.  I have a shot of the bunks (there are 4 in the room 2 on each side) and also of the corridor portion that the crew quarters open onto.   Everything is hideable doors, walls etc so you can get it into all the spaces.  This is the default lighting, I did nothing to it.  The scenery outside the window is a simple plane with a jpg. on it non emissive.  I apologize for the grain, it is taking a fair amount of time to render these are 9% and 4 %.  The corridor was at 40 minutes when I stopped it.

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    I wanted to show you guys the cosmic crew cabin that was one of the debut items today. ............. I apologize for the grain, it is taking a fair amount of time to render these are 9% and 4 %.  The corridor was at 40 minutes when I stopped it.

     

     

    No need to apologize, this thread is a bit different than "show polished renders" or even WIPs (the typical Art Studio thread.)  This thread also has to be timely, so a great number of renders are "here's a quickie"  because people have to make buying decisions while products on sale.  Just post the percent of render finished on ones that are time sensitive, like you did.  I also do more "out of the box" without tweaking so people can see what they're going to work with. 

    Thanks for sharing it!

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Okay, pwToon, I DID adjust the render so far as intensity and contrast to show the effect at its best. I won't be using some of these but showing them anyway.

    If you can't see the difference, I would suggest downloading them then clicking back and forth. I'll do that (I have Corel Photo Paint open) and tell you what I'm seeing, that should make it easier for you. Some are pretty subtle. I'm adding more, keep checking back. I'm listing one at a time so I can make sure I've got them all.

    First is the PinUp Jeans. Note the funky windows- they filled in, and the floor and how the blue squares blend with the walls. This one is a lot more "faded" than Cartoon Classic and the two following it.

    Toon Noir   Much darker overall.

    Now, the real comparison begins with these next three. Cartoon Classic is going to keep the floor stabilized with one dark color, I find this shader less distracting, it evens out larger planes of shadows. The grout on the bricks is not as thick as the upcoming one, the midtones are darker so again, there's less recognition by the shader of tones. (the end of the table, keep an eye on that leg and the bar that goes across.)

    We'll compare 1. the chair seat by the window, you'll see big differences in how these shaders do shadows   2. the files/ books on the shelf by the window    3. The items on the floor and the floor itself.    The shadows will be very easy to see the difference.

    Clean Drawing hardened/compacted shadows (see chair seat) but Classic Cartoon (above) put bars of shadows on the books/files on the shelves- clearly differentiates light and dark, but Clean Drawing took away the shadows on the books/files on the shelves.  So your Classic is going to shadow more things in a bold way.

    Looking at the floor- what a difference!  The rags on the floor have more showing with the Clean Drawing (below) as again, less black shadows.

    Snazzy Toon is going to show more light areas. It put a bar of shadows back into the folders/books on the shelves, but the things on the floor really went more into squares (perhaps light from the window) so details got obliterated there. More of the wood floor is shown. Check out the chair seat by the window,  very little shadow left.

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Here's more of the effects. I don't care for the orange one at all (and that black stripe?) so not showing the large version. Some are rather interesting. Enjoy!  smiley

    This one is the Comic Book Dark, there's also a lighter version.

    Next, Striking Outline. I like this one!

    Technical Drawing. Which I disagree with- it's mostly just a blue filter applied. To me, the last one is more technical than this one, with the emphasis on the lines (more intensity.) 

    Distant Drawing- if it had the light blue color, this would be the better Technical Drawing IMO.

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  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,025

    Looks like a place for some forum members to hang out :)

    And Rest A Rant.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    Fishtales, you goof!!!! laughlaughlaugh  Yeah, particularly after what we've all been through the past week with the site issues. Keeping that in mind, poor Rawb and Jack would have to be invited in for a drink, and i imagine all the mods too. (and the vendors...) We appreciate all of you, we know it wasn't fun for anybody. So the Rest A Rant is open for business, come park your complaints inside!

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Crunk 

    by @TheAntFarm

    Okay 'fess up. Who has Crunk and hasn't rendered this poor thing in awhile? We need a Crunkfest to celebrate most of the site issues being cleared up. Here's mine.  And if you don't have Crunk, you're missing out on a great personality bot. Also good as a child's toy, an on the shelf knick-knack, and just so you can say to your neighbor, "I've got Crunk." Which will immediately cause them to fabricate any excuse they can think of to leave and get inside their house so they don't catch whatever-it-is you've got.  

    Crunk does well in 3DL and Iray, love  Ceramics for Iray shaders (we've covered those several times.) by @Khory Sit back and enjoy Crunk as she (of course it's a girl, cause she's adorable!) struts her Ceramic stuff. 

     

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Just a heads up- I spent last night re-doing the first page of the thread, it is organized into tips, tutorials, threads on products such as Silo, Zbrush, Zbrush plug-ins, etc. So whenever you're trying to remember where the free background thread is (although it's linked in my sig, but that could change) or wondering about the tutorials in the thread (and a few elsewhere) then head to the first post.  wink  I am working in Zbrush again so this all started when I had to go back to page TWENTY to find that thread so I could post new info. 

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    BTW, the Photoshop Playtime was the thread where I showcased various plug-ins, you can see all different kinds of effects. It was about a year ago, so in case you missed it  here it is.  These are why I didn't keep the 9000 product, because I do have Photoshop and I can individually tweak each layer to get different effects within each one of the ones shown- those are only a small sample (the default so to speak) of the effects.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    Go Guardian! Go Supersuit!

    (Pats self on back)  I monitored some products  to see if they would go off New status, and  they just did,  (were the 16th of August releases) and are in a featured store. If you've got, or ever going to get, the Genesis 3 supersuits for the men and women (off New status), you really need to pick up the Guardian product. (off New status.)  Why? Who cares if you like the leather look, it has TONS OF ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SECTIONS. You can wait until the Supersuit is on sale, there is a bundle but you only get 10% more off  the discounted price as it's DO and not featured vendors.

    Let me point out something else you may have not noticed- in the bundle is the Add-On  and for that (and not in the bundle) the Cetus product has a couple interesting things- if you look at the black and tan outfit, those panty-type bottoms would be a great higher top bikini bottom (but it doesn't show the back.)  Second- the skirt also can be SHORTS for the bottom area. 

    It depends on what you want to get- I like the Secret Headquarters in the bundle, BUT it is a featured store and drops to $6.25 with a cheap PC+ new / debut item.

     The bundle goes down $4 (with the extra 10%) to $40.47, and if you haven't used your $6 code yet, (I already have, darn it) you would get all that for $34.47  (Not the Guardian outfits, not Cetus.)  But if you can wait on the Supersuit for better prices (it's a DO so you only get an additional 10% off your discounted price) take a look at this:

    Doing the math so you don't have to- For me, I'm just getting the Secret Headquarters($6.25)  and the Guardian Bundle ($12.59 so $6.29 apiece.) In the Supersuit bundle, at $40.47, products are  $8.09 apiece (divide price by number of items, there are 5. )  so that Secret Headquarters is actually $1.84 more in the bundle, instead of buying it separately. ($8.09-$6.25 if have new/debut item too.  If you use your PC code and pay $34.47 you are paying $6.89, so still 60 cents more apiece),  The rest of the items do go to $8.09 and are a good price if you want to spend that much money. (Contrary to belief, my last name isn't Hilton, lol. I'm a calculated buyer.) With your PC club discount, at $34.47 and at $6.89 apiece for the 5 products, I'd consider it more.) 

    So, for me, my strategy is I am waiting for a better deal on the Supersuit and to see if Mada/Arien get featured to pick up the Add-On and Cetus. (they did the Supersuit btw, but it's only a DO)  Which is a risk, but I'm not using the Supersuit at this time. The cape in the bundle will go on sale sooner or later.

    Bottom line- I pick up things when they're the best prices, and even though I don't have the Supersuit (and it's still not a steep discount, going to wait) I've been waiting on that Guardian Bundle and it's not new anymore, and is in a featured store. Yipeeeee!  And I wanted you to know about the Cetus outfit's versatility, but it does require an item from the Supersuit Bundle.  Just FYI. 

     

    Post edited by Novica on
  • dawnbladedawnblade Posts: 1,723
    Novica said:

    Just a heads up- I spent last night re-doing the first page of the thread, it is organized into tips, tutorials, threads on products such as Silo, Zbrush, Zbrush plug-ins, etc. So whenever you're trying to remember where the free background thread is (although it's linked in my sig, but that could change) or wondering about the tutorials in the thread (and a few elsewhere) then head to the first post.  wink  I am working in Zbrush again so this all started when I had to go back to page TWENTY to find that thread so I could post new info. 

    Just went back to the first page (I usually start there then zip over to the latest comment). It is a nice reference page. Thank you for your hard work here in this thread. The Photoshop Playtime actions are also very cool, as I'm just getting started in PS.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858

    I'm sure you've seen this, but just in case- in the four dollar section, this tutorial for hair texturing apparently will also tell you how to create brushes in Photoshop, among other things. For $2.70 it's a great deal (about 40 pages.)  

    I found a neat set, that will go well in Mountain Valley, so I am getting that instead of the Guardian Supersuit items.  Parthenon Club has a dining area, a bar, and a bathroom, and the outside exterior is an entire building. Take a peek at it if you haven't. Normally around $30 marked to $18 but $10.77 if you have a new release/debut.  And as usual, picture it with different wall and floor shaders, you can really change it up.

    Also look at Zofia Hair- it's got wavy and straight versions, a lot of combinations with those bangs that come over. They can come down too and are nicely feathered.

    I also like Modern Kitchen, not sure if it has separate walls but I love the seating at the island.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    dawnblade said:

    Just went back to the first page (I usually start there then zip over to the latest comment). It is a nice reference page. Thank you for your hard work here in this thread. The Photoshop Playtime actions are also very cool, as I'm just getting started in PS.

    Hi dawnblade!

    One suggestion on the Photoshop plug-ins- they FREQUENTLY get discontinued, don't ask me why- so if you see one you like in the Playtime thread, I would get it as soon as possible. Those plug-ins are so awesome, you won't want to stop working with them, that's why the thread is called playtime!  

  • anikadanikad Posts: 1,919
    Novica said:

    I'm sure you've seen this, but just in case- in the four dollar section, this tutorial for hair texturing apparently will also tell you how to create brushes in Photoshop, among other things. For $2.70 it's a great deal (about 40 pages.)  

    The hair tutorial is a manual download and currently is not there. I'm about submit a ticket. btw does anyone know how to find all the manual downloads in the product library? I'm sure there is a simple way but can't remember it for the life of me.

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,563

    dim::false

    (must be lower case)

    It will also show most bundles, since those generally have separate DIM zips for each product in the bundle but no zip for the bundle itself.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    I'll add your post/solution to the first post of this thread in TIPS,(Tips: Manual Downloads in Product Library)   in case you need to know again in the future. I know I won't remember! Thanks Fixmypcmike. 

    Post edited by Novica on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,804
    edited October 2016

    For anyone who uses Daz Studio and was wondering how well the poser-only Dreamland Products work in DS (seven of which are Catch Up new releases), I have a thread in art studio that shows how to use them. I'm really liking them myself. Here's a recent render I did using River Front and the Low Poly blocks (not on sale as they are too new, being released at the start of the PA sale) along with some other props. 

     

     

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,858
    edited October 2016

    I saw that thread about ten minutes ago (and it's already in tips, first post- I'm quick LOL!) You put a lot of work into that, it's a very detailed and clear explanation. Love all the screenshots, it's very easy to understand. Nice job! I also put your ShapeMagic in the products part, I still think you should sell your vases that you showed us.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,804
    Novica said:

    I found a neat set, that will go well in Mountain Valley, so I am getting that instead of the Guardian Supersuit items.  Parthenon Club has a dining area, a bar, and a bathroom, and the outside exterior is an entire building. Take a peek at it if you haven't. Normally around $30 marked to $18 but $10.77 if you have a new release/debut.  And as usual, picture it with different wall and floor shaders, you can really change it up.

    Thanks for the tip! I have it in my wish list, and as you say, it's at a good price with a new release. I'm using the West Park Nursery Clinical textures ($2.99) which I didn't buy yesterday as I heard today was going to be a catch up sale.

This discussion has been closed.