Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 9

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    Okay, I posted FWHP Eris HD for Genesis 8 Female  in the gallery  She can have a really soft look. I changed a lot of her skin settings, including translucency, reflectivity/glossiness, and even a small dash of metallicity was added. So this is not her default skin, just wanted you to know. I was in a play-around mode. I could not get the Sonia Hair to work on her. 

    This one doesn't enlarge, I did it at 600 px because I upped the render quality and didn't want to wait up more than an hour. Going to get some sleep and try and stay on schedule, so Monday I can be out at the barn for the eclipse. This is still the Mitchell filter, using the same settings as Gwenbleiz so far as the filters go. The Tone Mapping settings were tweaked due to skin tone.

    Edit- Perrin Hair, in case you wondered.

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  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,553

    Neftis hair has become sort of a casualty of fiber mesh lately. I used to love their  hair and the softness  but the latest releases haven't looked good to me especially around the scalp where the hairline meets the hair. It looks bad and stiff especially on the guys it has a hair plug quality. Sorry that doesn't fit. I'd return it and wait for it to be fixed and buy it in a big sale if you still want it.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

     

    Neftis hair has become sort of a casualty of fiber mesh lately. I used to love their  hair and the softness  but the latest releases haven't looked good to me especially around the scalp where the hairline meets the hair. It looks bad and stiff especially on the guys it has a hair plug quality. Sorry that doesn't fit. I'd return it and wait for it to be fixed and buy it in a big sale if you still want it.

    Totally agree about the stiffness, I haven't bought any of them. This one is weird in that it's only the one figure (so far) that it doesn't work with- tried it on a couple others and it was fine. I'll render it as soon as I do the Mei Lin HD. I'm multitasking doing things- house and computer- so won't be speedy today.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    FWSA Analia HD for Victoria 8 is the figure. More on her later, this is about the Cold Weather Outfit.

    Whether it's for V8 or G8F- In a kneeling pose, there's not many options for adjustments for the jeans on Cold Weather Outfit.  You only have Jeans Into Boots and the Expand All.  This outfit is designed for G8F, and it fit well, so it's not really an issue for those. But for Victoria 8 characters, read on.

    I don't like to Expand All to do just the bottom of the leg.   I tried to undo the Parameters to go negative with the Jeans Into Boots so they could be outside the boot, it didn't look good to me (which is why the vendor had the limit set. )  So if you get this outfit, be aware you have two options for the jeans. If you are using a Victoria 8 character, this may mean poke-through. I did not have any issues with the Genesis 8 characters.

    To be fair, although I do not like the lack of morphs (making everything bigger in the pants) the rest of the jeans fit nicely, even in the kneeling pose.

    Be aware the outfit is for Genesis 8, and this character is for Victoria 8.  I tried the slider for jeans in the boots, up to 143.9% and still have some poke-through. I tried a lot of intervals, and no matter what I did, there was still some poke-through for this pose on the V8 character. Then, to do jeans outside the boots, I had to undo the limits and go a whopping -174.6 and again, still a sliver of poke-through. (See image) And to me,  the jeans look too splayed out horizontally, whether it's V8 or Gen8F- but you might like it.

     So in my opinion, for a Victoria 8 character-  be prepared for some poke through if you're going for outside the boot. Inside the boot, you may be really cranking it up but it will go inside. No problems with the Genesis 8 gals, which is what the outfit is designed for.

    There's nice attention to detail, such as the stitching on the straps of the boot. 

    The chest folds- didn't do as well on the Victoria 8, compared to the Genesis 8 Female- the breast area seems a bit stiff in the way it outlines them. I like that to be more subtle.  She is bending forward so that influences it. But the number of folds in the jacket is really, really nice.

    If you're wondering on the fiber hair speed- this was only a 525 x 900 pixel, it took 30 minutes for 97%, and I have a fast computer. 
    Without the hair on the figure- 5 minutes and 32 seconds for 97%. 

    Left the poke-through of the boot deliberately.

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    Testing the jacket on a G8F to see if the breast area is more fluid / how the rumples look. On Eris, which is a Genesis 8 figure. I do not like the sharp edge under the chest/mid abdomen. Parts of the jacket in that area are seriously concaving (going in.)  I do appreciate the extra time and work it took to create all these morphs in the jacket, along the sleeves is awesome- but....

    the jacket, for adjustments....has only expand all. Broken down in Scene, no additional morphs there either.

    I bought this mainly for the jacket, and I can't really say I recommend it with the lack of morphs and the sharp lines/ caving in when posed. You may like it with other poses or get better results with straight/standing poses, but I need clothes to work for more of a variety of poses. This is on the figure it was designed for, Genesis 8 Female. I don't take it lightly when I can't particularly recommend a product, particularly when it's evident a lot of work went into it- I just don't think it works smoothly with poses and there's no adjustments.  (not to mention, that area caving in, due to gravity, would be pulled down, the other way.) 

     

     

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    This is out of the box, using someone else's poses, just to be sure it wasn't the pose set (even though I knew it wasn't, I do double check. These are from vendors I use all the time, such as Capsces. This is a Genesis 8 gal, Eris, not Victoria 8.

    Too much crumpling for a simple twisting pose, so I did a standing one. In that one, while the sides are okay, you can see the outlines for the breasts emphasized and that's not the problem. To me, the lines for the breasts are forced, if that's what those are supposed to be?  It doesn't seem to be naturally fitting the breast area.

    Overall, it seems like too much wrinkling/morphing- which shows extra effort by the vendor- but there's no built in adjustments for the user to fix it the way they want it. If those were present, this would be a versatile jacket.

     

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  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,553
    edited August 2017

    The outfit has giant visible breast bags  which I bet if you dialed Vicky some double d's would fill out. What a shame. One of the few winter outfits in the store and it looks really odd like she's smuggling something in there.  

    I might have bought it to use on men but the sacks don't look great.

    Post edited by Serene Night on
  • jakibluejakiblue Posts: 7,281

    I don't understand why an outfit for Genesis 8 Female wouldn't fit Victoria 8 properly - V8 is a character for G8F, there shouldn't be a difference. 

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    Well, Victoria 8 isn't exactly the same figure as Genesis 8 Female, is she? Different curves, etc?  I'm just guessing that's may the issue with the boots. 

     

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,553

    The boots should fit. Did smoothing adjust anything?

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    Sorry, on a chat with Adobe. We have two copies of the Photoshop 6 hardcopies/licenses, so I'm having my sons use one and send me the other one. Unless it's special effects, I don't use Photoshop anyway. Which brings me to the question in the meantime- which other graphics programs can do Ron's brushes?

    The boots should work with a smidgeon of smoothing for jeans inside the boots if you use the slider for it too. Outside the boots, smoothing isn't going to help that horizontal morphing. 

  • jakibluejakiblue Posts: 7,281

    apparently the free GIMP will read ron's brushes - it reads the photoshop abr format. There are a few tuts on the web if you google. (not sure if i can link one) 

    Novica said:

    Sorry, on a chat with Adobe. We have two copies of the Photoshop 6 hardcopies/licenses, so I'm having my sons use one and send me the other one. Unless it's special effects, I don't use Photoshop anyway. Which brings me to the question in the meantime- which other graphics programs can do Ron's brushes?

    The boots should work with a smidgeon of smoothing for jeans inside the boots if you use the slider for it too. Outside the boots, smoothing isn't going to help that horizontal morphing. 

     

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    @jakiblue   Thanks! Will give it a look.

    Here's FWSA Analia for Victoria 8 in Perrin Hair and Lethal Rogue Outfit for Genesis 8 Female(s)    The skin is tweaked a bit with more reflectivity, a touch of metallicity, more saturation (due to the lights.)  The lips have more gloss. 

    This is interesting- did you notice the sleeves have a mini green streak in the middle of the forearm? And it's not just me. Look at the promos. You have to go to the thumbnails and click and click again to enlarge. I was looking at mine going "What the heck is poking through? There's no green under there." So get this- when you hide the character, the green disappears. I was going to render a closeup of it, and turned off everything not needed in the scene, and when the figure is hidden, POOF goes the green. Is this what's called a firefly?

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  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Novica said:

    Sorry, on a chat with Adobe. We have two copies of the Photoshop 6 hardcopies/licenses, so I'm having my sons use one and send me the other one. Unless it's special effects, I don't use Photoshop anyway. Which brings me to the question in the meantime- which other graphics programs can do Ron's brushes?

    The boots should work with a smidgeon of smoothing for jeans inside the boots if you use the slider for it too. Outside the boots, smoothing isn't going to help that horizontal morphing. 

    I know we shouldn't have to do this, but you could try selecting each shin bone of the jeans and use X Scale to reduce the horizontal morphing. Or use less morph and Z Scale to increase the depth. Or any combination of morph and scale that gets the look you're going for.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    We had storm clouds roll in from the bay, which actually was a good thing as I headed out at 12:10pm. (Peak was 1:35, but it started at 12:30)  I figured since the storm was coming in from the South and headed North, if it were going to clear, it would pass over the barn first then head towards my house. It worked out, the rain passed and we had overcast- but PARTING clouds so I got a quick shot as the clouds started to break up briefly. All horses except four were in, and there really wasn't any need to- (better to err on the side of caution) as it just seemed like any other storm/overcast day.  The sun peaked out before it was over, but not enough to catch the slivers/crescents in the tree dapples on the ground. In the eclipse thread, I posted a photo of the tree shadow vs the full eclipse sun's strength.

    It was so nice I put Stetson back out (he's normally in from 11am on as too hot) because of the overcast conditions, and it had started sprinkling so it was nice and cool. All and all, a relaxing day for the barn owner and I to just sit out in chairs and watch it grow a dimmer. So hope everyone got to see a bit of it, the clouds worked in my favor to get a shot (it will burn out the sensor in your phone at full strength.)  The images on CNN and the weather stations are amazing! 

     

     

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    edited August 2017

    Here's a picture from Brevard County, Florida at 3:04 pm, about 10 minutes after peak. This is a view of my dirty driveway with the sun crescent showing through the cucoloris of oak tree leaves.  I didn't notice it getting any darker outside. We only got about 85%, I think. I checked the eclipse multiple times from start to end with my eclipse glasses, but I only took pictures of the ground. We had clear views the whole time.

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    That is SOOOOO cool. I didn't check, but hope you posted that on the eclipse thread. Awesome!!!!

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    edited August 2017

    Where is that thread?

    Edit: I found it.

    Post edited by barbult on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    Heads up- flash sales on a lot of stores- SWAM, Arki, Fred Winkler, AntFarm, Zeddicuss

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    A few tidbits of interest- over at Rendo, OOT has a nice material set for the Sci- Fi Lieutenant Outfit sold here, and it is 60 percent off  (as is her store.) (Woot, I had just gotten/mentioned that outfit!)

    Also materials for Deliciously Evil Queen (that turns it into a gorgeous outfit for good gals too!)  For the guys, she has materials for Chevalier Armor. She has a shirt for Gen8F that is also dirt cheap. 

    From our Flash sale, I picked up a lot of the FWSA gals to get their materials for the eyebrows, there's some nice, thicker ones. I like Ana-Sofia's eyebrows and rich skin tones.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    Novica said:

    A few tidbits of interest- over at Rendo, OOT has a nice material set for the Sci- Fi Lieutenant Outfit sold here, and it is 60 percent off  (as is her store.) (Woot, I had just gotten/mentioned that outfit!)

    Also materials for Deliciously Evil Queen (that turns it into a gorgeous outfit for good gals too!)  For the guys, she has materials for Chevalier Armor. She has a shirt for Gen8F that is also dirt cheap. 

    From our Flash sale, I picked up a lot of the FWSA gals to get their materials for the eyebrows, there's some nice, thicker ones. I like Ana-Sofia's eyebrows and rich skin tones.

    Thank you. I finally got the OOT Iray hair shaders.

  • jakibluejakiblue Posts: 7,281

    i've been wanting those oot iray hair shaders forever, but you can't use any of the rendo coupons on it, and i never saw it go on sale....so i nabbed them yesterday at $8 so quick, i gave them whiplash.  

    barbult said:
    Novica said:

     

    Thank you. I finally got the OOT Iray hair shaders.

     

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    jakiblue said:

    i've been wanting those oot iray hair shaders forever, but you can't use any of the rendo coupons on it, and i never saw it go on sale....so i nabbed them yesterday at $8 so quick, i gave them whiplash.  

    barbult said:
    Novica said:

     

    Thank you. I finally got the OOT Iray hair shaders.

     

    They probably hadn't recovered before I whiplashed them again.
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    Hello Michael 8. SereneNight and I were chatting a bit and we speculated that he'd be released today because of all the recent sales and it being a Tuesday (which seems to be the day for big character releases.)  Let the fun begin.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • jakibluejakiblue Posts: 7,281
    edited August 2017

    I'm waiting for @SereneNight opinion of him. I'm not a guy user really, but M8's body looks a bit off in places and I can't put a finger on it so I'm waiting for her opinion. Oh and also to find out if he looks as orange as Olympia under different lights. 

    Post edited by jakiblue on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited August 2017

    Edit- LOL hadn't read your comment about the orange, but here's a nice seque-

    The orange banner isn't up yet but go to My Account and check Messages>Exclusive Offers. Based on the number of previous Michael Pro Bundles, you'll get different percentages (just like they did with the female version.) 

    SereneNight probably won't be back online till morning. She was signing off about half an hour before the site changed over.

    What's with that muscle popping up on the arm in the Starter Bundle main promo page? (the image on the right.) It's the page where the Pro and Starter bundles are both show, with the products horizontally below each. 

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NathNath Posts: 2,713

    I think Michael and the other characters look a bit on the boringbland side straight out of the box, but here's Michael 8 wearing Kimo 7's skin. He does scrub up nice and I'm looking forward to add more variety in shape to him.

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  • jakibluejakiblue Posts: 7,281

    that "pointy" muscle shows in a few promos. You could put someone's eye out with that! one of the reasons I'm not keen on him at all.  

    Novica said:

    Edit- LOL hadn't read your comment about the orange, but here's a nice seque-

    The orange banner isn't up yet but go to My Account and check Messages>Exclusive Offers. Based on the number of previous Michael Pro Bundles, you'll get different percentages (just like they did with the female version.) 

    SereneNight probably won't be back online till morning. She was signing off about half an hour before the site changed over.

    What's with that muscle popping up on the arm in the Starter Bundle main promo page? (the image on the right.) It's the page where the Pro and Starter bundles are both show, with the products horizontally below each. 

     

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Novica said:

    The orange banner isn't up yet but go to My Account and check Messages>Exclusive Offers. Based on the number of previous Michael Pro Bundles, you'll get different percentages (just like they did with the female version.)

    And just like they did with the female version, you're not getting credit for buying Michael 5 Pro with the purchase of Carrara! Maybe it won't take as long to get that added in as it did for V8... I don't know if I'll get M8, but I wouldn't mind the 30% off "featured related content," (instead of only 20%.)

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,553

    I haven't purchased M8 yet....The price of everything in my cart went up just a few seconds ago so I have to retabulate. But I confess his head really bugs me. It is out of proportion and It looks like it doesn't fit his body. Most has to do I think with the position of his mouth and the narrowness of the head. 

    The lips sit too low on his jaw and face and the red and glossy chapped female lip texture does not help.  The head itself is also narrower which is a complaint that people had about V8 and something I didn't like about M6.  If you look at the expressions he has, his mouth dominates the lower half of his face but his jaws doesn't seem to work with the big mouth, and low set lips.

    There also isn't any body head morphs like the release with Gen 8 female.

    There is something odd about his expressions as well. When he smiles he looks like a grimace or like he's gritting his mouth. Instead of being cute and sexy when he smiles he looks like his grinning and bearing something terrible happening to him.

    Its not bad by any means... The body I haven't scrutinized fully, but I'm disappointed we are back to the M6 narrow head, and that low set lip-look.

    I will buy him, but I can't say he looks great in the face.

This discussion has been closed.