NEW! Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 6
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Thanks Serene Night
DAZ's new policy of having ONLY iray promos is driving me a bit nuts. I get that iray is the 'new shiny' thing, but I honestly don't understand why they can't have at least one 3delight promo in the products here. People ARE still using it, and 3delight is going to be in DS for a long time to come. It doesn't make sense. I don't do much with iray at all, only when I have to (promoing iray-specific products). It's a LONG render time for me - plus all my iray stuff looks just like my 3delight stuff anyway. I obviously suck at iray cos I've NEVER got anything in any way close to the 'photorealistic' that DAZ insists iray is for.
jaki, my apologies, I thought I hit quote and hit edit and for some reason can't restore the block quote you had.
There is, however, no Daz "Iray only" policy. It's up to the PA what they show.
Without this review and finding out it worked in 3dl, I would not have bought this product, since the product description really isn't clear what it works with... Iray/3dl. So thanks for posting the review!
jakiblue, it looks really nice! I haven't ever tried LIE, is there a link that explains it? I've seen people chat about it for the wounds, scars, etc- but I don't even know where it's located. (even though my studio isn't up and running, would be good to know.)
Cris, thanks for clearing that up. I had heard about the Iray only promos, but since I've seen a lot of 3DL in the past weeks, I figured something had changed. If they were going to do a directive it should have been to show both Iray and 3DL, unless it was an IRAY only product and then mark it as such.
Painted pottery all night, getting sleep now at 10am so I'll be offline a bit. If anyone asks questions over in the contest thread, would appreciate folks helping them out (such as new users asking render/composition questions, etc)
Jakiblue, the Highfashion Makeup looks fascinating but I don't think I would use it much. I would like LIE makeup with lots variety that is more ordinary. I would love to see what you come up with though.
Brian Hair for Genesis 2 Male(s)
Finally a normal looking men's short hair cut! It looks pretty good, but the strands are a little flat very close-up. It has a messy, a shorter, and a bangs-down variation. Comes with 3Dlight and Iray materials. My favorite is the hat morph, which works well with my my favorite hat - Dumor's Amazing Hat. Also has a general hat morph and special hat morphs for Eldritch Seeker Hat, Navy Hat Morph, Surf's Up Hat.
I used Painter's Lights for lighting, really nice and versatile Iray studio portrait lights.
I think the hair looks more toony than realistic because the hair strands are in larger sections. (And agree- flat.) That would be fine for distant shots, but I deal mostly with closeups so this one didn't really score with me. I do like the styling of it though, particularly with the bang options. With the hats, it looks much better (glad you mentioned Amazing Hat, I forgot about that one!)
I wanted to post a 3DL render I made using a set that I recently purchased, FirstBastion's Last Chance Gas Station. When I was in high school in Missouri, I use to see old gas stations like this all the time on back country roads. Makes me think of the '30's (and no, that's not when I was in high school!). I picked up some old-time vehicles for $0.79 in the vehicle sale that is still going on: Teardrop Camper and Delivery Sedan and Wagon 1930. Both of these were a little too perfect looking, so I added some stains and discrete hurt shaders I have from Advanced Metal Shaders (added by ctrl+clicking on the icon so they are added over the existing textures). Other than adding the vehicles and picking a camera angle, the lighting and textures of the station and ground is mostly what you get out of the box - I did reduce the ambient strength on the light bulbs so they didn't shine so much. Enter Novica's contest and you could win this or one of FirstBastion's other fine sets.
That's a really cool render, RGcincy! I love that set. I was lucky enough to win a copy in the October Because I Said So contest and hope to use it this month if I can think of something.
Very nice RGcincy- I too remember the old gas stations- and the small, individually owned motels that were all one story, shaped in an L with the modest pool out front (great advertising, they didn't want those hidden!)
BTW, if you folks are buying the 79 cent vehicles- and have two new items from the featured section- remember you can get up to 5 PC items at a further discount- and some of those vehicles are in that sale too.(and go to about 48 cents) Which is good and bad- if there are 5 things in the PC section you like, take the vehicles OUT of your cart and buy them in another order. They do NOT rely on having 2 new items in the cart, but the other section DOES. l went for all the $4.99 and $3.99 PC items (of course) that I wanted first. Time is running out, about an hour before site changes over! To speed you up:
Have to buy 2 from here
Here's what I bought:
Ground Shaders (both Iray and 3DL) went to $2.39
Wild Wolf King (any $2.99 go to $1.80)
Vintage Noir (another $2.99, went to $1.79. Got to love the penny difference)
Rosemill Astrometry ($4.99 goes to $3.00)
Vivienne for Ninive 6 (4.99 to $3.00)
*in best Max Smart voice*
Missed it by THAT much.
Thanks luci45 and Novica!
"..and the small, individually owned motels that were all one story, shaped in an L with the modest pool out front (great advertising, they didn't want those hidden!) "
And guess which set I picked from winning one of FirstBastion's products in your contest? 1950's Era Motel Doesn't have a pool but I'm planning to put it together with the gas station and the Moonshine Diner. Need to find a drive-in movie set too.
Did another 3DL render of Last Chance Gas Station. I combined it with Above the Fog for Iray and 3Delight, but instead of fog, I used the prop to make sand. There's two copies of the prop: a lower one with a sand shader from Pimp My Prop and an upper one with a medium density brown fog from Above the Fog. Both were moved mostly underground so only the tips of the fog appear above ground.
I added another vehicle I got from the sale, Pickup Truck 1930 with added rust shaders from Advanced Metal Shaders. And I changed the trailer material to one from Camp Out. After a trial render, I thought the green and brown hills from Last Chance Gas Station looked too green, so I added a brown grunge top shader from Antique Grunge Shaders for DAZ Studio to make them look dusty. I was trying for the look of dust bowl-era Oklahoma.
I like the last couple of FirstBastion's sets I've gotten as they have great looking textures and render very fast in 3DL. The lights that come with the set also work well for 3DL. Since I have a lot of 3DL shaders, it's a good way for me to add other props and match their look to the set..
Another nice render RGcincy. It's fun to use those shaders. Pretty cool using the fog with another shader to make sand. I am too hooked on Iray to use 3Delight much any more, even bought a new computer for it which renders fairly fast - I would never use it if it were slow. I don't have the patience.
A heads up - I bought Bethany base really cheap tonight - 75% off I think. All the Blink Sale Raiya and AprilSH DAZ stuff is 60% off X 40% off for PC members.
Too funny, A Tomlin Jack was put in the bench product. Jack must be laughing! (For you newbies, he does the Platinum Club)
To quote another person... (payback, I guess, lol)
*in best Max Smart voice*
Missed it by THAT much.
I'm off schedule and slept most the evening so I missed the Blink sales. While my kiln is firing, I need to monitor it (nothing like having something over 1800 degrees in your garage firing up!) and I fire it while it's cooler (late evenings) so I slept right through those. Although, and it ticks me off- the banners were still up while the discounts had already changed. Many people have commented how the cart changes over on them during purchasing, and how you never know when it will end so it's a bit risky. I think they should give those two hours, four hours, whatever and have a countdown timer showing the time left. DAZ, is it do-able?
LMAO!!!!!!!!!! I did NOT notice
that!
You have very good eyes! I didn't notice that at all.
Here's a 3DL render of the 1950's Era Motel by FirstBastion. I chose this set as my prize from Novica's October contest. I thought it looked like it would go together with the Last Chance Gas Station. The only things I did was pick the camera angle and add the vehicles, the rest is what you get when you load the set. That's one thing I like about FirstBastion's products - it's easy to make good renders without a lot of fuss.
The vehicles I used were: 2 copies of Family Car 1950, Luxury Car 1950, Pickup Truck 1930, and Delivery Sedan and Wagon 1930. For the family car turning off the road, I used paint shaders from Real Paint for DAZ Studio.
(Click image to see twice as large)
That really does look like it goes with the gas station and rendered beautifully!
BTW, Fast Grab changed, not sure when (you may have already seen it.)
Just a stab in the dark, but since you had both installed, is it possible that 4.9 corrupted the content database? Even if you don't use the smart content, it's still there. One trick may be to run a refresh utility on the content database (not at my DS computer so I can't give specifics. I usually run the reinstall metadata regularly. That seems to keep the DB running smoothly. Reinstalling 4.8 works too
I am not kidding when I say that at my first glance, I thought that was a photo! I thought you were putting it up for reference, like "this is what they used to look like - First Bastion's product is SO true to life" LOL. That road is brilliant! Awesome job! LOVED the car just turning in - little things like that turn art from static into a dynamic piece :)
Totally agree- the car turning in was clever!
BTW, out of curiosity I looked at what I ordered a year ago today. Can't beat having an $80 order and getting $70 off. Sales were much better last year. Look at all that for $10!!!! Walk down memory lane- what did you scoop up a year ago?
(I always do screen shots so if a product doesn't work and I happen to test it out before 30 days, I know exactly what it was. And if I used my discounts. But I rarely test within 30 days...)
BTW, in case you're not a member of the Platinum Club and can't see the forum, Totte informed us there are other funny things in the bench product. I bought it but haven't rendered it yet. Anyone spot other things?
Wow great stash you have there.
Yeah, but that was a year ago. I haven't gotten any of the PC Bundles because it's older stuff- but it's good for the newbies. I do like the variety they're offering, with vehicles, animals, sci-fi, and some male items. The Blink sales, I've missed quite a few but have a lot of it anyway.
Improvised Benches Construction Kit
This one is a real bargain if you have a use for it. I didn't think I did but bought it anyway because it is so cool looking. I was not disappointed and will put them to good use. Lots of great props, well-modeled with great textures. You get two or three textures for most of the items - so you don't have to have a mint green microwave (I don't think we had those in the U.S., did we?) Some have humorous labels, not suprisingly from Totte. You can but your own benches together or there are a bunch of presets. Best yet there are modern props and universal ones for more historical type renders.
The promo pics are good, really show what you get. This review is just to say that they really are that good, and you really need these!
I admit a lot of new stuff is tempting me, but I'm trying to hold out until whenever Michael 7 is released.
Thanks Novica and jakiblue for your kind comments. I added the turning car at the last minute, glad I did.
Luci, thanks for sharing the bench renders. I wouldn't have thought to need benches like that, but once you see them you realize it's actually a good idea. Small props like that are a big help making a better scene.
I didn't want to overdo the renders of Last Chance Gas Station and 1950's Era Motel but I did successfully combine the two. When you merge them together, you have to reposition one of them, which was relatively easy to do since they load facing each other. You then need to hide one of the roads, one of the skydomes, and also hide a couple of the hills. I also popped in Moonlit Moonshine's Diner and a woman wearing clothes from Casual 1950 for Genesis Female.
Studio update- I had already reimported the metadata (and it was still crashing) and reinstalled 4.8, and had restarted the studio several times, then I reloaded the character, using other lights and a different outfit and hair, and managed without it crashing. I then went back to the other hair, and no crashing. I tested two other sets of lights, and went back to the original one, and no crashing, so I seem to be all set. I don't know what fixed it though. (And I don't care!)
I did some renders while painting my pottery, I've only got about 10 days to get everything painted and fired before I sell the kiln, so that's why I'm basically testing light sets (which I do on the same figure/hair/clothes so I can compare.) For the first ones, I used a black background so I could easily see where the lights are impacting the hair (aka, top of the head, sides) and shoulders.
Character is Vyria for Arabella 7, the outfit which is one of the few family friendly fairy clothes sets, is Rose Outfit (Genesis 3 Females) and the hair is ZippityDo Hair
The first one, I did not change settings to make the light look better, this was to show me out of the box so when I go to choose lights, I know what I am starting with.
First, the default light that loads with Iray. Then 2-4 are Dimension Theory's iRadiance HDRI Variety Pack One (2 is Room B, 3 is Mountain B, and 4 is Night Time B.) The second one does have a background, I didn't test with it as I wanted to compare it with a dark background to the previous one.
These were the Laguna: Underwater Lights for Iray and I renamed them in my Studio because they are called Under The Sea Lights for Iray there. So if you bought this set, be aware that's what you'll look for under the Content Library's Light Presets. These are the In Pool 02, 03 and then 05. Then Shark 05.
Wow, RGcincy, I like those! I thought of using the motel with the gas station but haven't yet. The diner looks good there too. I especailly like the first one because the muddy parking lot looks awesome.