Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 12
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Thanks:)
I always like seeing what others do with the same starting points - love your card as well.
Love those cards- the math made me laugh (but glad I have NOTHING to do with math other than the everyday events LOL)
So anyone else in the holiday spirit, feel free to post your seasonal renders and have some fun! I remember years ago, when Let It Snow came out, and there was a flurry of posts. (Groan. Couldn't resist.)
I went a different direction with the Victorian Santa suit (which I actually bought specifically to make this image)
Santacles
I love both cards so much! I have done a few Christmas themed renders but no card yet. Must do...
Now that's just WRONG on sooooooooooooooo many levels.
For the current flash sale, I'm looking at The Park Way just to get the curved backdrop. (price is 83% off, so 3.69) I don't like flat leaves, so wouldn't use some of this, but the park bench and surround-like tree background are always useful. Also picking up the Steven bundle (great guy and leather jacket) in OOT for 83% off. What are you folks finding? EDIT- and that's without a new release. I just checked and those vendors are in the featured stores, so need to grab a new release to reduce that further.
Final cart. Went with featured stores, and one new release (the PC+) to get the price down. I'll tweak this to look pretty but I wanted you to NOTE:
Be careful, when going in and out of the cart, the code disappeared and it wasn't showing enough discount!
Also, I put SEVEN things in the cart, not six, and the six got the discount. I had assumed I could only have SIX TOTAL.
Shopping Cart
Steven Character, Clothing and Hair Bundle $42.95 $6.02 86%
Sledding Fun for Genesis 8new $14.95 $2.79 81% THIS IS THE PC+ item that is NEW to get the extra discount.
dForce Dallas Closet for Genesis 8 Female(s) $22.95 $3.20 86%
dForce Servant Dress for Genesis 8 Female(s) $21.95 $3.08 86%
Bluegrass Clothes for Genesis 8 Male(s) $21.95 $3.07 86%
Behemoth HD for Genesis 8 Male $24.95 $3.50 86%
Lancy Character with dForce Hair and Expressions for Genesis 8 Female I accidentally erased it, but looked in the email and she was $4.20
I tried to only get items that also were in the Loyalty Sale
For the first Blink sale I got some OOT items and bundles: Steven Character, Clothing and Hair Bundle, High Fantasy Adeline Clothing, Character and Hair Bundle, dForce High Fantasy Cloaks for Genesis 8 Female(s), Tessa Character, Hair & Clothing Bundle, and MEGA Updo Hair for Genesis 3 and 8 Female(s)
Just got two items in the second blink sale: Skyler for Genesis 2 Female(s) Bundle and Ravyn Bundle for Genesis 8 Female(s)
Grabbed a few Sickleyeild items in the third Blink Sale: SY Smoke and Water Chamber Set, SY A Big Mess for Genesis 8, SY dForce Towels for Genesis 8, SY Shackled! 2 Genesis 8, and Mythic Beasts for the DAZ Dragon 3.
I ran out of time trying to pick some Dreamlight items in the fourth Blink Sale and missed out.
And I cleared 6 items off my wishlist for the fifth (current) Blink sale: Z Combat Rifles and Poses for Genesis 3 and 8, Pilots Uniform of WWII, Japanese Tree Room, Koryan Top Braid Hair and Beard Set for Genesis 8 Male(s), Kindergarten Room, and Basketball Court.
Posey And Petunia Fawne Hair And Glasses (G8F) Dayana and Karina Bloom HD (G8F) Alphabet and Number Props (Lights)
Important note- Those girls (Dayana and Karina) INCLUDE CLOTHES. That isn't readily apparent in the title. There's TWO OUTFITS. So during these flash sales you might want to give them a second look. Only showing one of the outfits.
Notes: Man, Posey's mouth is hard to work with. Brynn and Amber smiles are a good starting point, with the mouth closed 14%.
The hands are way too big in my opinion. I put one in front to be clearly seen. That is with a 73.2% setting, so that's a 27% reduction and I think it could still be more. Hair was a pain to put on Posey, Fawne Hair works like a breeze- but Fawne Hair has eleven total morphs and several are for the glasses. You can only move ONE section of bangs, you can make them shorter. You can increase the crown and the buns, and curve the bangs more. I would like to see more bang options, there's no wind options or doing more sections. The colors are nice. The chunks hanging down the back add a bit of realism, I think some of it is a bit stiff so I showed you the hair from the back with the strands hanging where you could see them.
TIP: Since we had some Christmas cards shown, I wanted to point out these lit lights which would be pretty on cards. There's a lot of options for materials, and there's an inner and outer material zone for each one. Well done!
TIP: The floor below is one of the Uber Base options- it's wax. Has some shine but not too reflective, and works great with those lights in the letters.
Hair at nape of neck seems stiff, particularly on our left.
Going back to the Posey hair, what hair products have you found which work well on her without having to unparent or fiddle with? I went through at least five before finding the one I used.
And here's Iris Doll for Posey. Love the tan! When you do Iris, you need to select the eyebrows (which you have to load) then do the materials. Be sure and remember WHICH eyebrow number you chose, because the colors are listed like color A for eyebrow 1, color B for eyebrow 1, etc.
I did tweak the bangs a bit, I noticed there was a line running through them on Posey. That is not the hair's fault, I increased the curve of the bangs.
I used the exact same lighting as Posey. Love the eyes.
I like only the coat. The circle prop is pretty cool. Thanks for pointing that out. :-)
I'm working through my hairs alphabetically. Arwen hair distorted really bad on the side wisps, but Channen works perfectly out of the box.
So, so wrong...
I love it.
Something that may be of interest
My3DContent
My3DContent is a free program for Windows to help you organize your 3D content library for DAZ Studio and Poser.
available at kabsoftware com
If anyone is interested SnowSultan has started two threads for characters for G8F, G8M, G3F and G3M. It shows the faces of each character all in the same light setup. I have found it very useful to decide what characters I use in renders and also characters that I might be interested in to purchase.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/371426/genesis-3-and-8-male-example-and-improvement-discussion/p1
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/371716/genesis-8-female-example-and-improvement-discussion#latest
This is my 3rd entry into the "It's Raining Men 2019" contest. Been trying something different in rendering.
The https://www.daz3d.com/forest-autumn set has good textures and are easily converted to IRAY and has many locations for still imagary.
Description
Is that you Benjamin? Come on over for this apple.
Made with...
Merry Christmas and Peace for all! Decided to use genesis 2 figures of Beau and Bijou after adjusting for IRAY.
Description
Thought I'd wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Peace for all.
Made with...
@cismic LOVE the angels, that is simply gorgeous. Happy Holidays to you too. I am working on my annual Christmas render, it's taking a LONG time. I'm trying to get a lot of products into it (which I did) and now seeing which lighting I want to use.
I've noticed some lighting makes things appear not to be resting on each other, while other lights give just the right shadows. A bit tricky with all the stuff in the render. Should have it ready soon.
Question- that Mesh Grabber looks fantastic. Anyone tried it yet?
I have. Easy to use - select a polygon(s), adjust the falloff radius and gain (sensitivity) and move things around. I think it will be a good addition along with the current tools of dFormers and dForce. Some commentators have questioned whether it does anything better than dFormers and I think it does as you can pick individual and non-adjacent polygons. I tried some hard things first but then backed down to simple primitives to get the hang of it. I also tried it on some hair to move the ends around, and for a skirt that stuck up too high when sitting, was able to smooth it down over the thighs. As with any tool, practice will make perfect but I like it so far. And I have not read the readme yet as it is fairly intuitive.
ETA: it does have one oddity in that the control sphere can be distant from the object it's attached too and you have to zoom out to find it. Haven't figured out what causes that.
@novica, Thank you!. I look forward to seeing the Christmas Image. I Use 3 point lighting system most cases sometimes with linear point lights as well. Iray lighting is fun to play with. I looked at the Mesh Grabber and think it would be great to create some cool plains, swimming pools, etc. But, have decided to buy yet.
@rgcincy So, when pulling the mesh, it doesn't distort the materials? Say, a skirt with a pattern. Would tiling help with that, if the pattern was made smaller?
I just purchased it and haven't really had a chance to use it yet. I did however, open DS to test and play for a minute and was able to easily deform the handles of a bag to look the way it should when swung backwards. This looks like it will be a very useful product in so many ways from depressing a mattress to correcting poke through.
@ Cismic: Beautiful image.
@CharlieJudge Thank you!
I just installed it (despite all the dire warnings McAffee was giving me). It looks pretty nice but, and it's a really big but, you have to enter all the information about your 3D products manually. If it had some way of importing information from DIM - even if it didn't get everything that it's capable of storing about an item - then it would be a winner. As it is, it only suits those with not much content or a helluva lot of free time. Still, can't complain at the price.
Good to know
I hadn't installed yet due to a hard drive failure
@Novica It looks fine to me - maybe a bit of stretching. Here are before and after renders using Mesh Grabber plus a screen capture showing the tool in use. The white sphere is the size of the influence zone and you can make it larger or smaller to change which polygons are affected. So although I was only selecting one polygon, many more were pulled.
After:
Before:
Tool:
ETA: Of course you can get pattern distortion if you set the influence zone to it's lowest level and do a sharp pull (one of the options). See below. User skill will have influence on the results you get.
Yes, strange that it doesn't have a general import option, that would be an obvious feature. It's easy to make CSV or XML import. If you want a catalog over your DAZ products I've just released one (commercial though, but free for up to 250 products), it imports all data from your DAZ library as well as complete product page info and promo pictures automatically. Click my signature link.
Alt Kala 8 Nesena Hair (G3 /G8F) Before Midnight Dress (G8F) Curtis HD (G8M) dForce Sanjay Hair And Beard (G8M) dForce H&C Polo Shirts Outfit (G8M)
Victorian Garden Decor (Potted Plant Outside Window) Christmas Living Room (for the wall with the wreaths and curtains. Also the candles on the table.)
Architectural Iray Shaders (wall with gray stones.) *Christmas Poinsettia Plants The Poinsettia on the table. (Freebie 2018. Go to Props>Plants>Poinsettias)
*The Night Before Christmas (Props-Merlin) Then while there, go down to the Victorian Christmas Trees for the Happy Holidays materials.It makes it a silver/blue Victorian style tree. The presents and the Merry Christmas plate are all from both of these. You grab the props from The Night Before Christmas, then can change them to the blue colors with Happy Holidays.
A Little Table-Merry Christmas (Table and tablecloth, 2018 Freebie)
*For the potted Boston Fern outside the window, Props>Plants> Victorian Gardens.
*For the Christmas tablecloth and table, it's A Little Table-Merry Christmas. Another 2018 freebie. Look in Props>Muscleman>Little Table
To make an outside wall, a 12 foot plane then the Architectural Iray Shaders Increased the tiling to 5 both horizontally and vertically. This is my go-to product for making walls quickly.
Take a look at all the Alt series. You get a wide variety of character morphs. (LOL there's an Alt Robyn 8 today but I don't have her.)
The light is Click 'N Render and used number 23. However, the light to your left is my linear point light (shining on him for rim lighting.) You definitely want to watch which light sets cause hands to appear to "float." Note the way her hand is shadowed so it's obvious it is resting on his arm. You don't want lights coming from our left, as that removes the shadows. Coming from the front, it casts a shadow. Also make sure the objects in front don't end up with tree ornaments touching them so they appear to be "in" the hands!
TIP: To avoid glare, use Surfaces and darken them. That back wall with the blinds- the blinds going all across the top were a very light gray. Those were darkened. They don't call attention to themselves, they fit in now. The Christmas plate was also darkened!
I wanted the render to show the clutter of the holidays (in a positive way) and also to get viewers wondering-
What are they looking at? Why is he dressed casual and she is all dressed up- is she ready to go, or just got home? Is he not ready, or didn't go?
@Novica, very nice card and render!