Digital Art Zone

Thanks all

ooohhh… congrats perlk, take care of yourself, next generation on board.

Oom Fooyat - 16 July 2012 10:15 AM

Dollygirl - 16 July 2012 09:09 AM

Oom Fooyat - 14 July 2012 02:14 AM

The cell shader I made for my entry is now up for download if anyone wants a peek.
http://www.ShareCG.com/v/63572/view/7/Material-and-Shader/Cell-Shader-for-DAZ-Studio-4.0
You will have to use Shader Mixer to apply it, I don’t fully trust the other formats.

I would appreciate if someone tried to load it in DS3. It is hard to tell if if will work there.

Cheers! Oom

Oom, I tried your shader out in DAZStudio3. Works just fine.

Did you know that you could make a DAZ3 shader preset by just applying your shader to a surface and then going to the File->Save As->Shader Preset. When the box opens up I select custom and then expand the file list and click on product. Save it out as a dsa file and then both DAZ 4 and 3 can see the file.

Lots of options with your shader and so simple, two bricks. Now that is way cool. I always end up with all sorts of bricks in my shaders. You must have a good understanding of how Renderman manipulates surfaces. Thanks again for providing this shader.
Lonnie

Nice render! Good to hear it will work in DS3 . There are a few more bricks then two, about 30 more, If you click on the menu in the upper right corner of the brick there is a UnGroup option that will show all the bricks, I hope. I no nothing of Renderman and just a little of Shader Mixer.
Thank you for your help!
Oom

Your welcome Oom.
Well now it would seem that my Shader Mixer is broken. I only get two of the bricks. The shader works when applied but I can’t see it all. Nuts! I did a stupid thing and loaded DAZStudio2 without a serial number it would seem that it does not play nice with the other two. Going to have to re-install them both again. Hope I can remember all of the scripts I added to them

PERLK: That is fantastic news, Perl—congratulations! Get back soon, though!

Now then, at risk of refuelling the Great Debate ...

OOM FOOYAT: Music’s written rules are indeed “a bit strange at places”, but so is he. (He’s a musician, you know.)

OOM FOOYAT and others: The rules discussions seem to be boiling down to the difficulty some people are having finding enough freebies to qualify their entries. The debate would end if everyone would just use the stuff in their runtime that they ALREADY KNOW qualifies, rather than introducing other possiblities that might cause problems. I have roughly ONE BILLION freebies in my runtime that I have yet to use in the Challenge.

As to the specific issues ...

Models that come packaged with a 3D program like DAZ Studio, Poser and Bryce must be available to everyone for free during the Challenge month to be counted as freebies in an entry. Maybe people can still get the program for free, or get the models alone for free elsewhere if you have a link. Otherwise, they’re not freebies.

Think of a “paid-for item” as a model you bought, and a freebie as a model that’s available to everyone for free. Your entry should have one or the other or both. We need to lose this “no count” discussion. It’s unnecessary.

If your entry includes a model you made yourself and you want to count it as a freebie, package it and post it online somewhere with a link where everyone can get it for free.

Let Music and/or each month’s Challenge host decide (if necessary) whether a freebie is sufficiently visible in a render to be counted and abide by that ruling. But common sense can be your guide. If the freebie is lost in a flurry of colours, textures and shadows, find a way to make it stand out with lighting or shading—or else just put it in a more prominent position.

(I don’t think you were referring to my entry this month, but for the record, the cartoon rendering obliterated several of my freebies, as I noticed later. I haven’t gone back to revise the list because there are plenty of freebies to spare. I have BILLIONS of freebies. Did I mention that?)

Scorpio64dragon: The topic for this month’s Challenge has definitely smudged the rules on postwork, but it’s nice to get our slack cut once in a while.

Generally, though, no postwork allowed except for adding a signature AND rescaling your image to fit the DAZ forum specs. This was not one of the original rules, but was added later when people gifted at Photoshop and its effects began dominating the Challenge, shifting attention away from the intended purpose of spreading the word about available freebies in creative ways. The aim was to level the playing field for users of DAZ, Poser and Bryce by barring costly software like Photoshop.

If you see this rule being bent or ignored, please say so in the forum or in a PM to the month’s host. I haven’t seen this happening but I’d be interested to know if it is.

wwes - 16 July 2012 07:11 AM

Title: “I’ve Got This.”

BIG version here: https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pxCEqp3nsoV8KTY-LPyYq—kwPPmYwsdr0Lk1IPIcd-dI972wDgkpvPP3kBgwElmju-GNEuaeFue8y5ZfGxUeaA/snovabig.jpg?psid=1

 

Great!  You lead in with the story in progress and exit with a cliffhanger!  Nice work!

Dana

Congratulations, Perl!    You take care of yourself and the new addition, though.  That’s ultimately more important than updating the gallery!

Dana

Dorseyland - 16 July 2012 11:34 AM

OOM FOOYAT: Music’s written rules are indeed “a bit strange at places”, but so is he. (He’s a musician, you know.)

As I said, I can live with that.

OOM FOOYAT and others: The rules discussions seem to be boiling down to the difficulty some people are having finding enough freebies to qualify their entries. The debate would end if everyone would just use the stuff in their runtime that they ALREADY KNOW qualifies, rather than introducing other possiblities that might cause problems. I have roughly ONE BILLION freebies in my runtime that I have yet to use in the Challenge.

Eee…well…no. Getting enough freebies in a scene without making a clutter IS a problem or should I say challenge, but finding them? Seriously?

As to the specific issues ...

Models that come packaged with a 3D program like DAZ Studio, Poser and Bryce must be available to everyone for free during the Challenge month to be counted as freebies in an entry. Maybe people can still get the program for free, or get the models alone for free elsewhere if you have a link. Otherwise, they’re not freebies.

Think of a “paid-for item” as a model you bought, and a freebie as a model that’s available to everyone for free. Your entry should have one or the other or both. We need to lose this “no count” discussion. It’s unnecessary.

If your entry includes a model you made yourself and you want to count it as a freebie, package it and post it online somewhere with a link where everyone can get it for free.

That is seven lines, chohole used eight. I still don’t understand why it would be so hurtful to add it to the rule page.

Cheers! Oom

Have you checked the rules recently, I have left one part as needing clarification, but I hope I have made it a little clearer, subject to approval from the rest of the ETOs and Music.

scorpio64dragon - 16 July 2012 03:58 AM

To be honest I’m with Oom the lack of written rules means that for anyone new to the competetion its very confusing, I thought that their was a no post wiork rule but it seems that only applies to some post work, layering of images is ok in some instances but not in others. If I could layer images then I could do more, this is a restraint of my technology not neccassarily skill, layering images to get a particular ‘toon’ effect is ok though.
Sorry but the rules seem all over the place, followed by some but not by others, it leaves a sense of unfairness which is a shame as this looks like a fun competetion.

“restraint of my technology” is a bit familiar, I render on a 4-core machine with 2gig memory and XP. There are plenty of workarounds to stretch your restraints, most of them well documented in the old forum. I think I could pull off a five figure render in 3Delight with good looking shaders and decent lightning if I had to, but it would not be fast or easy.

Cheers! Oom

chohole - 16 July 2012 12:18 PM

Have you checked the rules recently, I have left one part as needing clarification, but I hope I have made it a little clearer, subject to approval from the rest of the ETOs and Music.

I have now That should take care of the most confused subject. Thank You!

Oom

OK a message to Music, the ETOs and all concerned others. We may be able to have temp thread to discuss the rules. We need to have a fast and furious discussion, not bad feelings, just pure simple discussion. We can keep it around for a while and if it is agreed that this needs to be done again then I can split the discussion posts out of this thread into that thread as well if Music and the ETOs agree. Then maybe we can get this thread back on topic, which is having fun and making renders.

Music and ETOs I need you to PM me to say yay or nay. Lets keep all this out of the contest thread please.

I believe the “layering” rule was meant as follows:
You may not enter an image in which some freebies/elements are rendered separately from others and the composition requires two or more distinct scenes to be spliced together.  Thus, if the “A/C Hero” scene was first rendered with the ladies staring at the empty wall, then rendered with LG’s “Da Real Man” in the doorway watching the repairman (adding the AC and repairman, adding LG, and removing the gals), before replacing the render of Da Real Man with the rendered gals and the blank wall from their shot with the A/C unit and repairman, it would not count.  The images are different.  Ditto for including “freebies” that are only visible on a television screen or in another applied texture.  (Applied textures can have any number of sales items depicted, but none of the items seen can count.)

The “layering” rule does NOT apply to effects made by overlaying multiple renders of the same scene (counts as a multi-pass render, I suppose, this month only).  It would normally count as “postwork”, however, unless executed in Render Library or some similar plug-in.

I don’t often get involved in these rule questions. However, what I find confusing is someone will ask a rules question and several well meaning participants that are not the host, ETO or music will jump in with there answer. I have seen several different well meaning answers to the same question. And when the host, ETO or music do answer the question they are all too often challenged with a what if, how come or why not.

The problem I have is with the opening post by the host ( the post only, not the host whom I think does a wonderful job). After the intro to the challenge the next heading should be

“R U L E S”

The first and only comment should be in a cookie cutter BOLD FACE MEDIUM SIZE note

Please read the RULES FOR THE MONTHLY FREEBIE CHALLENGE located on the first page of the General Freepozitory 5th sticky down.

The next heading should be an addendum to the rules as the host feels necessary for the particular challenge.

I have read the, RULES FOR THE MONTHLY FREEBIE CHALLENGE located on the first page of the General Freepozitory 5th sticky down, several times. I am an old man that many have said has lost most of his marbles but these rules seem very clear and easy to follow.

I like the second line above the smiley face at the bottom of the page.

“Those are the rules. If you have any questions about a certain month, please pm the host or me (Music) for help.”

This could help lower the page count to these challenges. Although it won’t help your post count.

So Dollygirl please forgive my interruption to your challenge. I am going off to have more fun with more NAE, maybe an entry. and hopefully more Hershey’s Chocolate Cream Pie.

NAE

Title: Please be Seated

thanks dleelaw57.

Now can everyone please read the post I made 2 posts above his as well.  I am not only a moderator,  I am still one of Music’s ETOs, and am really trying to help Music keep this challenge alive and well. It is not happening all the time we end up with this sort of discussion within the challenge thread.

Please can everyone remember this is an official challenge. It is accepted, and sometimes sponsored by Daz3D, and we do have rules, despite some people thoughts to the contrary.

We also normally have fun, and this discussion is killing the fun, and upsetting Music and the ETO team.

We all owe a lot to Music, he has kept this challenge going for several years now, and it is one of the longest running challenges on the Daz3d forums.

So please help us to help Music and keep the discussion out of the challenge thread.

THis is something that has never happened before, during the lifetime of the Freebie challenge, and I am not cettain why it is happening now.

Eustace Scrubb - 16 July 2012 01:07 PM

I believe the “layering” rule was meant as follows:
You may not enter an image in which some freebies/elements are rendered separately from others and the composition requires two or more distinct scenes to be spliced together.  Thus, if the “A/C Hero” scene was first rendered with the ladies staring at the empty wall, then rendered with LG’s “Da Real Man” in the doorway watching the repairman (adding the AC and repairman, adding LG, and removing the gals), before replacing the render of Da Real Man with the rendered gals and the blank wall from their shot with the A/C unit and repairman, it would not count.  The images are different.  Ditto for including “freebies” that are only visible on a television screen or in another applied texture.  (Applied textures can have any number of sales items depicted, but none of the items seen can count.)

The “layering” rule does NOT apply to effects made by overlaying multiple renders of the same scene (counts as a multi-pass render, I suppose, this month only).  It would normally count as “postwork”, however, unless executed in Render Library or some similar plug-in.

added note to Eustace, layering is usually done in postwork and that is a definite NO NO. If you can do it in the program you are rendering with, then it’s ok, but if you have to use another program (especially a paid one) then it is not accepted. what you can do is make a render and use that render to put in say a picture frame, like I did in June, as long as you don’t exceed the limit on paid items it is acceptable. thanks for the help in trying to clear things up around here