Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 4
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Zyanya V4 (DAZ3D)
http://www.daz3d.com/zyanya-v4
She's a DAZ Original, so if you've run out of ideas for using your monthly PC code, perhaps consider her. Renders VERY quickly (aka 2-3 minutes on .35 shading rate, just the character, no hair.)
Snake, leopard, and two tiger makeups. The eyes are also very, very nice. LOVE the irises. This are out of the box- I would suggest graying the diffuse with a bit of blue for ambient and perhaps specular, and also dulling down the lachrimals. You get several eye options.
And btw, her NAILS match her character. Really cool. You have tiger makeup, go for tiger nails!
A real hidden gem, I don't see her mentioned, but perhaps I just missed it. (But if I did, maybe you did.)
EDIT: And of course, I like the eyebrows. Not painted on, nice textures.
Here you go with the nails. I am changing up the eye color/makeup also. I wish there was a gold makeup option to go with the tiger, but there isn't. (And you'd probably consider dark eyes for the tiger and leopard, I just wanted to show you the blue.)
There are just lip options, which is extremely nice. I don't like gold nails and orangish lips, but that's easily changed by going into the NAILS- (always change the one with least resistance, aka, the gold is lighter and will take a diffuse change more easily.) Just make it more orange.
I show you the before and after. Change the diffuse of the nails to 193/81/28 and voila! (Wow, I am good- I did that on the first try without spot rendering! Oh, okay, I admit it. I just got lucky.)
Quite a few nice reflection options. You'll see one of them in the brown eye, and there are several more reflections you can choose from.
You also get to choose from glossy and non-glossy lips.
I really LOVE how you can do just the lips- gives you so much more variation for characters. Or just use the nails. Anyway, keep this gal and all her options in mind for some fun renders!
I'm doing one last one for you- I noticed you can have "wicked nails" which are longer. And again, it's nice to have the separate lip options because the makeup (cheeks, eyes) do NOT include the lips- so you can add the lip option or not. This is with the wicked nails, the makeup, and the lip option, with MY nail color. I changed the shading rate from .40 to .20 so you can see better detail. I'm really digging this chick, can you tell? It's playtime!
And heads up, she would go GREAT if you have
http://www.daz3d.com/cat-world-regenesis-hd-tiger
http://www.daz3d.com/cat-world-regenesis-hd-jaguar
(not a leopard, but close.)
These were just 60% off so I'd wishlist them and see if a sale comes up again. I had too much in my cart and am budgeting so I wishlisted too.
EDIT: Rendering her with Estal Hair. Will be about an hour as I left the shading rate at .20
Invited Guest Contributor
Great to see the Antelope Pack, Novica, really nice morphs and textures. I bought it in 2001, back when I was (unsuccessfully) trying to do stuff in Poser. I don't know if DAZ was around yet or if I got it from Zygote, their predecessor.
I bought a few of RawArt's creatures recently too, when they were in Fastgrab. These doen't look as cute as MelanieL's hairy beast, but I think they are pretty funny. (I also got the Elebeast and TyRex - couldn't resist.)
Greater and Lesser Goblin
Wow, those look really, really good. Hopefully you'll draw them for an RRRR contest, lol! Can you imagine if you, I, and Melanie all drew RawArt beasties at the same time? And wouldnt that have been interesting for the current whacky sport render? (We'd have to eliminate the obvious, such as bone-throwing.)
Your lighting looks really good as usual- really gets into the grunge! (Or whatever that is called. Looks like older lichen on trees.)
Richard: I'll try Progressive later tonight and we'll see. Thanks for the tip!
Luci- do you have time to do Elebeast sometime? Would like to see that one with your lighting.
Invited Guest Contributor
Someone mentioned in another thread that April 25th is World Penguin Day which started me off on a tangent. :)
Products used:
Easy Environments Eternal Sands
http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-eternal-sands
Penguin
http://www.daz3d.com/penguin
Rocketron Trike
http://www.daz3d.com/rocketron-trike
Also used:
Baby Penguin which came with Poser 9.
Photoshop Elements 11 for the border and text.
John
OMGosh, that looks so incredibly REAL!!!!!!!!
And here's the finished heroine. Be afraid SeaNautica, be very afraid! Morgan and Lilly are going to have backup against your evil plans!
Meet Tigrae :)
This is a very large render, so click to enlarge if you want to see really good facial details. It is Estal Hair.
Spotted this in the Gallery.....Brilliant; intelligent and well executed while still simple (it needs to be so that I understand it ;-) ). Well done indeed that man
Invited Guest Contributor
Haha, I love the Irrational Geographic, tjohn!
Novica, Zyanya is pretty cool and Tigrae looks pretty formidable. I don't use Gen 4 figures so I would just be getting her for the cool textures, if I did, but so many things are still on my wish list..
Here are couple of [url= http://www.daz3d.com/elebeast]Elebeast renders. It is a pretty fun beastie. RawArt makes a lot of those!
A couple of things I don't like. One is the way the trunk is attached - not very elephant like, should come straight down from the forehead. I guess the face shape would change that way and be less humanoid. Another thing is the textures and bump maps, like so many of RawArts are odd, as they have intentional(?) blurry smooth areas on them. Maybe the skin is supposed to look that way, but it doesn't look good to me.
What fun!
I do see what you mean about some smooth areas, I honestly wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed them out though. I like the texture on the top of the head, it's very crisp. The thing I noticed was the repeated texture on the length of the nose, almost making a "V" over and over again. On the other hand, I like the folds over the eyes- they add nice depth.
And the colors add nice pizazz :)
Widening Your Camera Angle From Parameters Tab
A friendly reminder- if you get stuck doing something, be sure and check out my Reference Links (the first post of every thread has a link.) I use them all the time!
When doing the Mystery Cave, I knew there was a way to widen the camera angle, so I just went to "Camera" in the reference links and found this post by Spotted Kitty. So if you were unaware of this neat feature, have a look at my screenshots and the difference when I widened the camera angle. The Mystery Cave would be VERY frustrating without it, let's just say that from the get-go.
Read this post if you don't know how to widen the camera angle from the Parameters Tab!
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24552/P15/#427228
And the before and after of what I can render. Coming up, the renders from Mystery Cave.
Mystery Cave With Water
http://www.daz3d.com/mystery-cave-with-water
This might be an interesting set just for the light set- how about 24 ambients and 2 spots?
These renders will show you what can be done by just adjusting the intensity and brightness in postwork. No lights were actually changed.
These are the default camera settings, prior to widening the camera angle.
EDIT: The fourth image shows you the approach from the OUTSIDE of the tunnel. If you need a short (very short) corridor leading to a door, just go to the outside of the model.
And here's more. The first views are shown as if I were in front of the door with my back to it, shooting out to the platform surrounded by the water ditch. Again, default camera. Very narrow ability to get a shot, if you back up the walls interfere. All walls are ONE piece, can't select a section. (Hate that!!!!)
The last image is the one with the widened camera angle. :)
Luci45 gave me an idea. Anyone up for Wishlist Weekend for characters, hair, or sets? Tell me a few things on your wishlist, and I'll see about doing a render for you to showcase the product. ICG's are also welcome to jump in and render :) And even if I/we don't get to it this weekend, it will be a nice list to keep in mind so the items can get prioritized.
And I think it will help people find some interesting products they might have overlooked.
So what's on your wishlist, and if it applies, what in particular are you curious about? (so we can do closeups.)
I'll start with a few things on my wishlist. Please provide the links too. :)
Magnus Manor
http://www.daz3d.com/magnus-manor
Two things- the detail on the fireplace mantle as there are only distant shots, and the detail of the paneling by the stairs (the vertical slats.)
Beloved Hair
http://www.daz3d.com/beloved-hair
Gentleman's Wardrobe
http://www.daz3d.com/a-gentleman-s-wardrobe
Magical Shoes
http://www.daz3d.com/magical-shoes
Angel Poses
http://www.daz3d.com/angel-poses
Explosive Poses For V5 And Genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/explosive-poses-for-v5-and-genesis
Grimm The Toon Skeleton
http://www.daz3d.com/grimm-the-toon-skeleton
Not sure how I'd use him, but he looks like fun!
Modern Muses Meloncholi
http://www.daz3d.com/modern-muses-melancholi
Mademoiselle Vanite
http://www.daz3d.com/mademoiselle-vanite
Here are the first few things I don't think I've seen in the review thread which are on my wishlist.
Strange Cave
Martial Arts Poses-Volume #1-Genesis 2 Female(s)
Labyrinth Circle
Hands for Genesis 2 Female(s)
Xylia Double French Braids 2
Solar System Super Bundle
Persian Palace 1
Wicked Mod Fashion
The two above are the only ones I have. I'll install and see how they do :)
Your braids are going on this gal:
http://www.daz3d.com/yanmei-for-v6
And first of all, I like this hair! The hairline has several easy morphs, and when the hair loaded on Yanmei, some of the forehead poked through. The second hairline morph with just a teeny slide, took care of it. So nice!
Then, the braids load very stiff. Stuck "out" a bit, very unrealistic. I am rendering that default now so you can see how it loads. Then I'll "tweak and tell." Back in a bit. OMGosh, forget it- this hair loads INCREDIBLY FAST- it took about a minute to render at .20 shading rate- WOW.
This is default lights. Look at that shine!
I'm going to put her in one of the Miss Fisher's dresses, and in the Persian Palace. Back in awhile.
EDIT: Added another quickie since it took about 45 seconds to render. I'm not focusing on the lighting like I normally do, this is just to give you a feel of how the hair loads.
Nice hair. Very realistic. Not bouffant or overly styled. Would look okay on kids/teens/seniors too.
I'm thinking it would look better in softer light. I remember our battle with another hair that had braids, and this one is better. You can fairly easily swing the braids from front to back, lengthen them, thicken them. Here's a couple different views.
Yanmei For V6 (Raiya)
Aslan Court 1 (DAZ3D / Jack Tomalin)
Persian Palace 1 (DAZ 3D / Moyra)
Miss Fisher's Wardrobe: Fabulous Dress For Genesis 2 Female(s) (Aave Nainen)
Xyia Double French Braids (AprilYSH)
http://www.daz3d.com/yanmei-for-v6
http://www.daz3d.com/aslan-court-1
http://www.daz3d.com/persian-palace-1
http://www.daz3d.com/formal-clothing/miss-fisher-s-wardrobe-fabulous-dress-for-genesis-2-female-s
http://www.daz3d.com/xylia-double-french-braids-2
The Aslan Court 1 is required for Persian Palace 1. One thing I noticed is the floor seemed black- I didn't think I had loaded it- until I tipped it a bit. I had to put an overhead distant light for the floor to really be noticeable.
With such busy walls, you certainly should consider plain or simple patterns for the clothing. You can see how having a solid color helps the figure stand out. I'm more of a rough stone appreciator, so the busywork doesn't appeal too much to me, and seems blurry when it's not supposed to be (no depth of field used.) I don't think I did anything wrong, it was just a one click, load the set deal.
I think it would look much better WITH depth of field. The floor is quite reflective.
And of course, Aave did a wonderful job with the wardrobe, as usual.
Edit- don't know the pose set but the hand on hip would need adjusting for a good render. Since I'm showing mostly the hair and background walls, I'm not re-doing it.
I'm rendering with the lights that come with it, and it seems to have corrected the blur you'll get if using spotlights and distant lights- aka, your own creation. Please note the scene will look extremely- EXTREMELY bright when you click the light presets but it renders fine.
Coming in and looking quite impressive!
Deep Space For DAZ Studio
http://www.daz3d.com/deep-space-for-daz-studio
I'll come back to Aslan, I need to reload it as the textures aren't turning out correctly. Meanwhile, as I don't have the other space product on Serene Night's wishlist, I got curious as to what I currently have. This is easy, fun, and the description says it best:
"Easy to use. More planets can be loaded in and rotated, scaled and moved. The stars are Studio lights so they can be moved and changed. You can change the color of the Volume Haze, if you want to experiment with the ambience of your scene."
For example, there are 20 pointlights in the "Over The Moon" setup that you can move, change the colors, etc. All these are default and only took about 8 minutes each (shading rate .20 !!!!) to render.
Yes, I would suggest using at least a dual-core computer to render the scene. lol Nice renders. I still haven't tried deep space on the other computer. *whistles innocently*
Planet Alpine(Skydome)
http://www.daz3d.com/planet-alpine
It's really slow going on the customizing the studio as I am taking props out and categorizing them too (aka, bricks, buckets, lumber, etc) Here's a nice skydome/scene that I'm saving as a scene subset so I can just load it right up (there's a lot of the expanded selections you have to take out, so this is fast as a scene subset.)
EDIT: The background comes in very very very dark- simply center your camera and make one spotlight with a gray/blue of 168/168/171 and 75% intensity.
Here's Planet Alpine with just the default load/lights. No lights were added, the camera was just rotated around.
One thing to note- if you see the promos and think it would take forever to load, the first one went ONE PERCENT PER SECOND for the first 30 seconds, then was at 50% at one minute, and 75% by three minutes, and done by 4 minutes.
The second one is 65% at 3 and a half minutes, 68% at 4 minutes, 85% at five and a half minutes, 90% at 6 minutes, and done by 7 minutes 20 seconds. :)
Planet Lava (Stonemason)
http://www.daz3d.com/planet-lava
Another fast rendering set :) Again, just the default lights.
And in case you didn't catch this related product:
http://www.daz3d.com/outpost-17-for-planet-lava-and-enchanted-forest
The old thread didn't really do FW Cassie justice so ... here's my version of her :red:
I like the eyes in particular- nice and glistening. They go well with the lipstick too :) Nice job on Cassie!