Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 11
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I almost also skipped the Hair Salon because of the promos but at only $3 I gave that a try also. Actually looks pretty good with the included lights, so I wonder why the promos look like that.
I also tested if the chairs would fit a character, there's been problems with that with other sets. The chair looks fine, but you need short lower legs to fit well into the couch.
Thought I'd throw in a little love for the Japanese Shinto Shrine (still $10-06 if you have a purple banner)
Lots of nooks and crannies but you have to find them yourself (no camera settings or render settings included).
These are 3Delight renders, plus the effects of playing with Nik Collection PS filters, just for fun. I didn't put the full-size sepias here as it would have made the post rather large - but I rather liked the "old photo" appearance.
I'm going to do a couple of Iray renders later. My lighting is from one of Flipmode's Easy Environment sets.
(click for bigger)
@taoz I really like the reclining positions and facilities, thanks for testing the fit of the character in the chairs and couch.
@melaniel That long stretch of paved stones really gives the artists opportunities to do crowds, fight scenes, many props/people. And I always like pagodas and lions!
OT: Have you folks seen the line of thunderstorms rolling east from Texas/Louisiana? Going to be a heckuva night here later in Pensacola if those suckers hold together. (For overseas folks, check out accuweather(dot)com or weather(dot)com to see radars quickly. It's on the front page.
Just an update on the Japanese Shinto Shrine - I tried it with Iray just a while ago after reading someone had a problem in another thread. Part of the ground surface is not working correctly (it's a fairly complicated custom shader) and renders out as black. So if you are Iray only you may need to wait for a fix, or use nature shaders (or whatever) for the earthen area..
is that 4.10.0.123 or 4.11.0.236? It was working for me in the earlier version but not the later.
It's in 4.11.0.236 Beta (I don't have 4.10 installed so I couldn't try it there).
Same here just checked
I bought a couple of new Vyktoria ladies in the MM, because they looked kind of different. Nice skin textures and not the usual DAZ beauties. Dorthie (left) was 70% off and Rachael (right) was in the MM sale too (liked her eye makeup, but it seems a bit thick, hope to fix that.) I especially like Dorthie; she has clown makeup in the promo.
Thanks, Novica, for keeping me on your messaging list.
...talking about products that pleasantly surprised--well, this is not a new/recent release but I don't recall anyone reviewing or discussing it in this thread and it IS ON SALE now in the MM artists catalogs: PINE GROVE by Andrey Pestryakov.
The trouble with densely vegetated realistic landscapes is all that messy green stuff is costly in resource-terms. And instancing is typically the antidote, but when people make these sets they don't always create the sets/presets in ways that are useful as might be to the user. Many sets let you turn off ALL of THIS TREE/PLANT or ALL of THAT TREE/PLANT or turn on/off all trees or all ground cover grasses or whatever-- but which diminishes the entire scene, when WHAT WOULD BE MOST USEFUL is the ability to turn off ONLY WHAT STUFF IS OUTSIDE YOUR CAMERA"s VIEW, or in quadrant x, say.
UGH, yes, you can delete ALL the instanced stuff and manually replant/instance the prop plants/trees that come with the product, or create scatter maps and use an instancing product if you have one of them, and then create your own presets. But hey, one of the points of buying a product is to not have to build --or rebuild--the environment yourself. :) I had a streak of landscape products I purchased that simply weren't useful for me for what I wanted to do without essentially stripping and rebuilding them-- so much time!-- so I was reluctant to buy Pine Grove until a while back when I really needed a pine-tree, scrubbly environment that I could emulate north east/central florida with. HAPPY I GAVE IN!
Andrey P 's PINE GROVE lets you toggle on/off 3 Levels of vegetation/trees, like some instancing-heavy sets do, to reduce preview lag and let you work in the scene easier with clear sightlines and more light, and then activate them again for rendertime. Andrey THOUGHTFULLY also added the instanced PINE TREES (and their costly needles, which can be separately toggled on/off!) in specific clusters grouped throughout the set. This means the dense and costly trees can be selected in small sets scattered through the landscapes and turned off or on-- instead of ALL ON or OFF. This made it possible to trim out a few trees in a scene I was working on to allow me to control the view, have space for other props, and manage my resources used by the scene, in just a few clicks, instead of having to remake the whole thing myself. That scene I was setting up was a night scene and the set looks beautiful at night with the reflections in the water....and I'll mention that the water seemed to hit a very nice balance in being rippled enough to make clear it is water, but not so rippled that it becomes obtrusive, and looks wonderful in my renders, day or night. So anyone needing a versatile landscape product with a river/stream feature, consider Pine Grove! EDITED TO ADD: PS: AP also added a meaningful detail in the set, answering one of my pet peeves with so many sets, in that the landscape on the paths and at shoreline becomes darker and muddy looking as it nears the water, like in real life.
~Gen
Here's a test render from a work-in-progress I mentioned that uses PINE GROVE. Bear in mind, this is a WIP, not a finished scene, and this test render (not postworked at all) wasn't fully cooked, but even so, I think you can get a sense of how the Pine Grove landscape bits look, and the water is especially lovely to me here.
~Gen
Looking good
@genaris
That's too funny, an hour ago I had just bought Pine Grove, Time Honoured Entrance, and Green Cave from Andrew's store. I used the $6 off from Platinum Club, and so they went to 64% off. Thanks for showing Pine Grove, I agree it looks really nice!
:) Thanks, RF! Taking a long time for me to get the settings just right for the atmosphere and the bloom filter though, it still isn't quite I am shooting for in that regard; the atmo/fogbox and the bloom filter affect each other so any change to one usually alters how the other results so it's sort of maddening ;)
~Gen
:) @Novica ... good timing you mentioned these buys; I apparently somehow missed ever seeing (or forgot about) Time-Honored Entrance by him - that looks interesting and different! I guess it can join the (waay too) many items in my cart to play Daz Cart Thunderdome over the next half hour or so before the Daz day (& MM sales!) expire. :)
~Gen
Well, those thunderstorms are getting ready to hit here. While we usually don't lose internet, thought I'd mention if I seem to go POOF, I may be offline due to the lightning and/or no internet. I can use my phone but I usually just render :) I have already bought for today, and downloaded, and installed. I picked up India HD, Spandex Shaders, the Radiathane HDRI Skydome by Orestes, and Body Chains 2 for my 4 items and $30 off giftcard (so got a $30 one, of course.) It's a bummer though that with a gift card in the cart, you can't use a gift card to pay for it. :) That's the way it should be, but I had quite a few things in the cart due to the extra 30% for buying 4 new things.
I picked up Saoirie , the Dutchess Dress and textures, Cowgirl Leather Boots , a bunch of the leg and body chains, (just pop into the store to see them, that's the link to one.) as I like the lit option. Bet it would look neat in the dark! Also got three of the Orestes HDRI Skydomes, including Winter Moon.
Okay, gotta go, it's going to storm shortly. I've fixed a box that is covered on my front porch, one of the strays is here and I've got to see if I can get him/her to get in it before this hits. It's already rumbling in the close distance. TTYL
I really like Saoirie and leg and body chains. Doing a render now, but headed out to exercise while it does its thing so it will be awhile before I post it. Saoirie's mouth poses with expressions very nicely and her teeth look natural to me. Thought I'd mention her while some of you are still shopping. I also like Caleela Hair. (Edit- however, it does have a bit more transparency out of the box than I like.)
Note- the chains went under the Modern Romantique Dress without ANY pokethrough, so take a look at that dress. With the low neckline, the chains make it quite exquisite- trust me it's a great low-hassle combination.
Wow! Thanks for this! I never knew this! Makes a huge difference! I’m always having to bump up details in post, had no idea you could render sharper!
Testing new stuff:
Sci-fi Quarterdeck, great Tango Alpha quality as always. Low in resources.
Fleet Commander Outfit - the usual dForce paper look, if it wasn't for the addon textures (which I don't have yet), which make it look better in that respect, I'd probably have returned it.
Leon Hair and Beards for G8M. Hair seems to work fine for G8F using Autofit, so you'll probably not need the G8F version if you have this one.
Does the Duchess dress drape properly for you? I was going to return it, but let myself be convinced to file a help call instead.
It didn't quite fit properly, and I had weird spikes in the arms and the train.
I'll test it later today, havent rendered Dutchess Dress yet. Thanks for mentioning it, I'll prioritize that one.
Sorry I haven't posted the render of Saoirie yet, I'm packing goody boxes for the troops and want to get all these out by today. I'll talk about that later :)
LOL those looked like tubes of lipstick to me when I first saw the scene!
Yeah, the paper look is literally wearing thin. (groan, had to say it, running for cover!)
+1 that one made me laugh out loud
I don't have time to mention all the great deals you can find, but I would STRONGLY recommend you put some new items from each sale in the cart (meaning the sales that each have a promo in the banner) then look at the discounts. If you have the purple banner that gives you an additional 20% off, that STACKS with the sales. THERE ARE NO EXCLUSIONS, so don't forget gift cards. I didn't get one because I used store credit to buy my cart.
If you get more of a discount by putting two of the new items in your cart from a particular sale, TEST THAT. With the additional 20%, it may make it worth your while. The banner requires one Dark Magic item in your cart. If you're not seeing the banner, check your Messages in your My Account.
Many items go 62%, 68%, 76% and several are 91%. BUT you must put new items in your cart to get those.
Edit- look in each sale, one sale has items at 75% to start with (not PC+ items, either!) so those go 91% when you buy from that sale, plus the banner.
Again, it paid to wait and not shop immediately. Marketing is really screwed up.
I'm seeing the deals, but right now I'm one of the people who can't check out with a cart error...
I wonder why they're there, they seem a bit out of context to me.
Ceremonial shell casings. You see them or similar in many military installations when the bigwigs come calling.
Of course they're just props, so you can easily take them out of the scene...
Fun Fact about Miss Costa who is having fun here in the Gulf Of Mexico. She's down by Big Bend but is swimming west, toward Navarre/Pensacola. She is a 12-foot, 1,668-pound great white shark who was originally tagged by OCEARCH Sept. 23, 2016, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. She has traveled nearly 12,400 miles in the last 103 days, according to OCEARCH's website.
It's funny that she has her own Twitter account and "she" makes comments about the places she visits!
meh, that's only 5mph . . .
(24/7 for over 3 solid months!)
Dude, you have too much time on your hands LOL! Get busy with more great products!
Well, I've had Nova's photo as my avatar since September, 2012. My forum name, Novica, is of course dedicated to Nova. I sometimes get sad when I look at him, and always have a pang of anger that someone didn't take care of my horse who was charged with his care. For those who don't remember, my son was in the hospital ten days, and Nova dropped weight (over a hundred pounds) and the person didn't call the vet. My son got out of the hospital on a Tuesday (late) and I saw Nova on Wednesday afternoon and immediately called the vet. Nova died that Friday morning, Friday the 13th, 2013.
So I really like real pictures for avatars, and love that TangoAlpha and Robert have their photos (I assume that's them!) and thought "Why not?" so I went out by the pool today and took a selfie. The wind was blowing and I have a very relaxed feeling regarding the photo, so I'm going to change from Nova's to mine as I like the photo. I'm going to be 63 years old in June!
Nova will always be remembered, even though I only had him about a year and a half.
So how about the rest of you - how long have you had your avatar photo and have you thought about changing it up just for fun?