Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 4
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I've heard of Steampunk, but not Cyberpunk. That is a new word for me. I'll go read about Cyberpunk now.
Here's a thread about other cheap bundles with newish content.
Interesting. Yeah. No doubt sci-fi warrior contains swimwear, but the rest of the content is quite nice. =)
Wondering how the rest of you are categorizing buildings like this:
http://www.daz3d.com/the-secret-cloister-by-merlin
I created a category: Doorway Cathedral Medieval
which seems to do the trick. In all likelihood, it probably isn't historically correct, but I know what's in my mind and that's what matters. :) By stating doorway, I remember the stairs leading up to it also.
If you are pulling props, I used the following additional categories for The Secret Cloister:
Ivy, Fence, Potted Vegetation. Note this set has a wonderful "knocked over" flower pot, which is somewhat unusual, and an individual fallen leaf.
So anyway, what category would you put it in? Just curious.
Categorize? You you mean in the database for Daz Studio? I forgot about the database. I just rename/organize the actual folder in \runtime\libraries\ligts, pose, character
:red: I think SereneNight made a comment about categorizing / cataloging / organizing big runtime libraries too.
Just simply continuing with "create a category." :) In Content Library>Categories.
My mind is too disorderly to be able to categorize. :lol:
I just bash my brain against the Content Library until something begins to gel.
Well, it works well for you!
Folks who own Secret Garden benefit from getting butterflies and birds- very nice!
And Secret Cloister has moths.
Yeah, that's about what I do. I think it's more efficient for me to just learn to deal with the chaos than to spend a lot of time trying (probably in vain) to reorganize it.
I'm actually very, very glad I'm doing it. I am discovering neat props when breaking down the components of the products. I'm only able to do about two to six products a day on average because I'm really making the effort to separate out the props I'll use a lot.
Here's testing the lights from Secret Garden. Secret Garden has a lot of neat options for the columns. There are about four different toppers, including a planter, birdbath, oblisk, and moondial.
Yeah, that's about what I do. I think it's more efficient for me to just learn to deal with the chaos than to spend a lot of time trying (probably in vain) to reorganize it.
And pop over to the contest Scott-L held (see his signature) because there were lovely entries.
Love the bird in The Secret Garden- and he also comes in a flying pose. What a cutie. (Goldfinch.)
I totally agree, same way I feel :-)
Really like render #522, very cool. Yeah the bird is a cutie, but the gal the bird is sitting on, is more cute :-P Bird does have lovely colors.
Thanks- that's Gwen with Micah Hair.
The Secret Graveyard (Merlin Studios)
http://www.daz3d.com/the-secret-graveyard-by-merlin
The Secret Graveyard has many, many interesting angles from which to shoot. This is using one of the three light presets. You can't see very well from this angle, but there is a butterfly flitting around in the scene. It took an hour 15 minutes to render on .40 shading rate, due to the number of props. Add characters and you're probably looking at a couple hours.
The Secret Garden Gateway ( DAZ 3D / FWDesign / ForbiddenWhispers)
http://www.daz3d.com/the-secret-garden-gateway
RENDER COMING SHORTLY.
Just testing out the textures with a quickie light setup. (4 ambients, two spots) as I am categorizing gates, ground planes, ivy, etc and selecting the better ones. Also checking and comparing the render times.
Also frankly noting how the vendors group things, and if I'm correct, when vendors group things you can't ungroup them? I know that Old Cemetery is one group and when you remove from scene one item, they all go. I've unparented, and I've use the x next to the item in the Scene tab instead of the checkmark. I assume that means you can't mess with it in the scene? I've ever used it before. I'd like to use Old Cemetery ground (I've showcased it before) but the only way to do that is to hide all the tombstones, etc.
Which is something else I want clarified- if you hide items in Scene, when you are rendering, does the render engine still have to sort through those to ignore them? Does it slow down the rendering? Because I can't "remove from scene" the stupid tombstones with Old Cemetery as everything goes POOF.
Render time on Secret Garden Gateway:
OMGosh, the shading rate got set to .010 (Don't ask me HOW.) Anyway, with all really good/ excellent settings-
it is a 450 x 720 pixel, no UE2, just the 4 distant and 2 spotlights, four do have shadows (all raytraced.)
66% at 30 minutes
92% at 35 minutes (once it gets past the ivy it speeds up a lot.)
Done at 42 minutes.
Also shown are the rusty materials for the gate, they come without it and this is an option. I missed some of the branches (was doing that haphazardly, to be honest, as I thought this would be a quickie test render) so that white is branches. You can go white, brown, or green.
I tested the autumn leaves and two types of green leaves. I like mixing the darker green with the regular green because it makes the clumps more interesting. It also somewhat looks like part of it might be older/dying. More true to life than perfect ivy every time IMO.
I definitely like this ground plane, very interesting.
So what are some of your favorite ground planes?
EDIT: Changed the title, should be Secret Garden Gateway
The STEPPES - Rock Outcrops (FirstBastion)
http://www.daz3d.com/the-steppes-rock-outcrops
Nice rocks and terrain. This is the lighting which comes with it. The third one is the back, the fourth is swung around to the front.
And this renders FAST- these were .20 shading rate and took a minute and a half to two and a half minutes. Actually, a MUST have if you want rocky backgrounds quickly!
Have to put the last one here due to file size attachments :)
Invited Guest Contributor
Ribbits The Frog: "Well, that just made it worse. Now what?"
Mr. Turtle: "We're gonna need a bigger hammer."
Products used:
Ribbits for Genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/ribbits-for-genesis
Mr. Turtle and the Conspicuous Interloper
http://www.daz3d.com/mr-turtle-and-the-conspicuous-interloper
Dark Places: Industrial 2k9
http://www.daz3d.com/dark-places-industrial-2k9
Rigged Water
http://www.daz3d.com/rigged-water
Construction Tools Collection (hammer)
http://www.daz3d.com/construction-tools-collection
Advanced Light Presets for AoA's Lights
http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-light-presets-for-aoa-s-lights
I love Joe Quick's animal-people. :)
John
Fantastic tjohn! JoeQuick does make amazing creatures, and you have a way with bringing them to life.
Those First Bastion terrains look useful, Novica, and I love all the realistic detail in that Secret Graveyard scene. I regret not having been able to spend much time here lately but wanted to stop by and catch up a little. It's always a pleasure to see what everyone has been buying/working on, not to mention the ingenious combinations you always seem to come up with.
Tjohn that turtle cracks me up! Delightful lighting on him, really brings out his details.
Hey Jindi :)
You'll being seeing mostly sets for awhile as that's what I am looking into for the near future. I just hadn't ever had time to really examine them in detail so far as individual props. I'm prioritizing doing that for the month of May and June, this past month was RRRR focus because it was just too much fun to pass up. But I have to get these other things done now and start on some e-books for my sister (a teacher.) I've had Toon characters sitting there going, "Hey, what about ME?"
The rock textures look really nice. I guess I'm used to looking at medium quality rock textures in the computer games. I even set the texture quality to high in the games. I know, I shouldn't compare the images rendered from 3Delight with Directx 9/10.
edit: forgot to mention that the Steppes have 4096 x 4096 textures. I think most games use similar sized textures textures but I am not sure.
Yes, I'm definitely finding different quality throughout the products regarding the rocks and ground planes. :)
Warzone (The DigiVault)
http://www.daz3d.com/warzone
Warzone's ground plane can look like dirt or disturbed concrete. I'm not very thrilled with it in the second render- when you look at it with the bricks, the bricks are sharp and the ground looks very fake. I think the cracks just look a tad bit painted on, not much depth. I would suggest playing with the bump and displacement a bit. I am testing different angles to see if it's just the camera view.
Also, it's either the mortar or my imagination running wild, but some of these bricks appear to be floating and not attached. I think it 's the cream or gray wall behind the bricks, but these just seem to lack depth to me- the bricks should have an edge sticking out of at least 1/4" where they are inset into the mortar. I think this set is more for distant shots than closeups, depending on what angle you get.
I do like that it comes in many different sections so you can choose exactly what you want. :) Very thoughtful. It's a big set and you'll have a lot of options to pose your characters.
This also renders extremely quickly. About two minutes for 1900 x 1500 pixels. (.20 shading rate, and has UE2 lighting) CLICK TO ENLARGE AND CLICK AGAIN, large renders.
There aren't any lights included, or cameras.
FYI: For this set, try this for lights. Brighten them up a bit, take them off the orange and use golds and blues, and voila.
http://www.daz3d.com/alisha-for-v4-and-genesis
Wow, Novica, you never run out of stuff. You must buy more than I do, or did. I have slowed down some recently. Some nice stuff and nice renders!
tjohn, I love the turtle and frog. That rigged water looks pretty cool - I might have to put it on my wishlist.
Invited Guest Contributor
I bought RawArt's new Bear Clan - Regenesis today. Couldn't(?) resist. It comes with LAMH otional, which looks pretty good. DS crashed a few times just while the model was open, and not during a render. He uses AoA SSS surface, which I turned off as it was just too slow and I didn't think it did much. The textures look pretty even without LAMH, like short fur. Here is polar bear guy, with LAMH, and panda guy, with and w/o. It comes with brown and black bears too and females of each.
The polar bear guy is in The AntFarm's Crow's Watch.
Luci- thanks SO much for sharing that- I like the Panda, the teeth glisten and look pretty real! I haven't used LAMH for awhile, I'd have to go back and see how to do it. If I recall, I had a studio crash then went to the free player and it did fine, and I haven't kept up with what's been going on lately (they were doing improvements?) Please feel free to share anything else you have that you really like :) Doesn't have to be a scene, I'm doing quite a few sets and will also be doing bits and pieces of them as I test out the props.
I'm like you, scaling back a bit, because so many of the characters look the same, as does the clothing type (skimpy), and I just won't use more stuff anytime soon. I'm backlogged exploring what I've got now.
In case anyone's interested, what I'm currently categorizing in my studio is Winter Kingdom: Castle Ruins, Rocky Outcrop, Palantiliths, Greeble City Blocks, Ultimo Paradiso (not featuring that one, set too big, takes too long), Neitherhenge, BeachCorner. So some of these will be featured shortly. Rending Winter Kingdom: Castle Ruins right now.
Winter Kingdom: Castle Ruins (Stonemason)
http://www.daz3d.com/winter-kingdom-castle-ruins
According to the description: "Each surface has a material dial to adjust the amount of snow." I see snowfall and can turn it off and on, but I am not seeing the material dials for amount of snow. Where are those? This is shown without it snowing, and without the adjustments. Really love the lighting. Has a very nice skydome and this is all "out of the box."
It will look plain when you load it, there are shaders so the snow really won't look right until rendered.
Rendering: 52 percent at 4 minutes.