Easy Environments: Wuxia Mountains (Daz Studio) [Commercial]

Flipmode

Dartanbeck said:

...It truly feels like it fights you every step of the way. Remembering those Content Creation Tools, I developed my own way to obliterate the need for common animation tools and build my joint adjustment parameters directly onto the figure. Bam! Epiphany!!! 

Now I don't even want to animate my characters in anything else!

...The car and animated Rosie are actually not moving through the scene - I have the scene moving underneath them! The cliffs being part of the HDR Dome... hmmm... how do I... aha!!!

I used the good ol' Dolly Zoom! Zoom the camera while changing the focal length of the camera to maintain the aspect... BAM! It's a pretty cool effect! :)

 

...These sets remind me of how a movie director/producer might work for scenes like this. ...Awesome - especially for someone who needs to work without tons of system resources. 

So I truly hope that my small contributions help to inspire you toward your next great thing

God, quoting on this forum is ... an art of it´s own, or I am just silly. ;)

Animating ... tbh. I never used anything but what´s built-in with Daz Studio, so keyframes and aniblocks.
Keyframe anim worked well for me, until you need very specific positions at a specific frame, e.g. to interact with objects. Then the otherwise helpful smoothing starts to "fight you" as you called it.

Car Anim > Neat trick indeed, didn´t know that. I would probably have slightly rotated the HDRI (does that even animate?). Anyway, I was wondering how you did it when watching the clip, so, good to know. ;)

My sets ... I think part of how they are built comes from me starting as Level Designer for games. I always want a scene "complete", that´s basicly why I started the Easy Environment series with skyboxes before HDRIs were a thing in Daz Studio. Also, I still don´t like to waste polygons lol.

Thanks again for your kind feedback. It´s not the most easy time to be a Daz Artist, the motivation and of course purchases are much appreciated. :)

Dartanbeck

Funny that you mention Rosie and Winter.

We're both February born, living in Wosconsin. It will be -10F outside and Rosie still opens the window. We almost never turn our heat on.

She can take it!

She can take it, and she loves it! :)

Flipmode

Hi!
Sorry, I am a bit late with the usual release info. Well, Winter Bridge just released two days ago. ;)
Hope you like it!

richardandtracy

Looks really lovely. The HDRI's look just right, winter crispness and no white to be seen in the evening ones. Very impressive. And not a single bikini clad model to show it off - I definitely think that's breaking with DAZ tradition, in a good way. Impressed. Regards, Richard.

Dartanbeck

So Good!!!

Flipmode

Thanks guys, glad you like the new set. :)

 

Peter Wade

This is a really good set. And you get both Iray and 3Delight versions. I've tried test renders with both rendering engines and they both look great.

Flipmode

Peter Wade said:

This is a really good set. And you get both Iray and 3Delight versions. I've tried test renders with both rendering engines and they both look great.

Thanks, glad you like it!
Happy to read you used the 3Delight version as well, I am never sure if those are still a worthy feature.
(Personally I think both Renderers have their pros and cons)

Elor

richardandtracy said:

And not a single bikini clad model to show it off.

I would not go outside without a warm jacket, a scarf and a hat if I was talking a walk in the nice snowy landscape depicted on the various promos :P

Flipmode

Elor said:

I would not go outside without a warm jacket, a scarf and a hat if I was talking a walk in the nice snowy landscape depicted on the various promos :P

Agreed ... I just didn´t have an appropriate jacket in my library, this the the warmest outfit I had available. ;)

Dartanbeck

I was born in and for cold weather. I cannot wear a jacket when I shovel snow. I overheat.

Wow, Flipmode... it sure is FUN attempting to buy out your entire store. Every new offering just adds So many more possibilities to the entire collection!!! Great Work and I truly Love the support pages you provide us. So Cool. So FUN!!!

AgitatedRiot

Flipmode said:

Hi guys! We are going vertical! ;)

The next set is a bit uncommon for the Easy Environments Series by being rather industrial, but it shares the same traits known from other EE sets.
"Vertigo Tower" features a huge rusty Radio Tower, with three different main platforms to place characters on.
The set includes position poses which can be used to bring those platforms to a zero position ... which is more convenient to work with than having to move your characters 400 meters up. ;)
Two of the ladders leading up to platforms can be switched out for broken versions.
 

 

Movie Fall wonderful work.

Flipmode

Dartanbeck said:

I was born in and for cold weather. I cannot wear a jacket when I shovel snow. I overheat.

Wow, Flipmode... it sure is FUN attempting to buy out your entire store. Every new offering just adds So many more possibilities to the entire collection!!! Great Work and I truly Love the support pages you provide us. So Cool. So FUN!!!

Thanks, glad you enjoy the sets! Also glad the support pages are of use to you, even though I am contemplating shutting the website down, it´s quite costly.

AgitatedRiot said:

Movie Fall wonderful work.

Thanks!
Yes, that was the inspiration. ;)

Dartanbeck

Flipmode said:

Dartanbeck said:

I was born in and for cold weather. I cannot wear a jacket when I shovel snow. I overheat.

Wow, Flipmode... it sure is FUN attempting to buy out your entire store. Every new offering just adds So many more possibilities to the entire collection!!! Great Work and I truly Love the support pages you provide us. So Cool. So FUN!!!

Thanks, glad you enjoy the sets! Also glad the support pages are of use to you, even though I am contemplating shutting the website down, it´s quite costly.

Maybe I could format all of that info and host it at Dartanbeck.com for you? I'm no web designer. I just plunk stuff in according to my mood ;)

Perhaps even figuring out how to redirect the original links?

Flipmode

Dartanbeck said:

Maybe I could format all of that info and host it at Dartanbeck.com for you? I'm no web designer. I just plunk stuff in according to my mood ;)

Perhaps even figuring out how to redirect the original links?

Thanks for the kind offer mate! 
I´ll keep it in mind. Right now I don´t know what I´ll do, there is a lot tied to the website, first and foremost my email.
I am no webdisigner either btw., I miraculously got this thing working once and since then I just fill it up with content. ;)

Dartanbeck

Flipmode said:

Dartanbeck said:

Maybe I could format all of that info and host it at Dartanbeck.com for you? I'm no web designer. I just plunk stuff in according to my mood ;)

Perhaps even figuring out how to redirect the original links?

Thanks for the kind offer mate! 
I´ll keep it in mind. Right now I don´t know what I´ll do, there is a lot tied to the website, first and foremost my email.
I am no webdisigner either btw., I miraculously got this thing working once and since then I just fill it up with content. ;)

As long as we have a place to organize and share our thoughts, right? :)

Flipmode

Hi guys!

The next Easy Environment should be released later this week: Wuxia Mountains.
It comes with dusk and noon presets.
As always, I hope you´ll like it. :)

Due to 3Delight not being supported in Daz Studio anymore, this is the first Iray-only Easy Environment. 
 

 

Leana

Looking great! 
I'm sad to see 3DL support go, but that's understandable.

Dartanbeck

Agreed! This will make a fine addition to my collection!

Thanks for making this!

Oso3D

Maybe consider expanding into FilaToon?

Great work as always!

Flipmode

Thanks guys, glad you like it. :)

Ye, I am quite sad 3Delight is gone too.
I used to build up my sets there first. Since I don´t follow the news much, I was quite ...surprised... I didn´t find it in the render settings anymore.

@Oso3D
I am not familiar with it. Is it a toon shoader or is there more to it?

-
Adding quick background info, just for fun, for those who follow the EE series:
Compressed HDRIs (which "broke" a few years ago) seem to be working again.
So for this set I switched back to it, which keeps the file size a lot smaller.
Let´s hope Nvidia sticks with it.
That said, the new set may need a recent version of Daz Studio, I am not sure which version fixed it. I am on 4.24. 

Leana

Filatoon is a toon/cell shading shader for Filament engine. You can find more informations about it in these threads: 

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/704951/anime-toons-and-filatoon-shader-q-a/p1

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/704931/filatoon-cell-shaded-rendering-with-filament/p1

Oso3D

Here's an example, Autumn Woods in Iray and FilaToon.

There are a number of weird elements to FilaToon and it would require a bit of work to learn to use it. And I'm not sure it's worthwhile for Flipmode to bother... ... but it'd be neat. ;)

(Among other things, shadows are a bit fussy, and cutout doesn't work with them)

jmucchiello

Always happy to say "yes, support filatoon."

Dartanbeck

Flipmode said:

Thanks guys, glad you like it. :)

Ye, I am quite sad 3Delight is gone too.
I used to build up my sets there first. Since I don´t follow the news much, I was quite ...surprised... I didn´t find it in the render settings anymore.

@Oso3D
I am not familiar with it. Is it a toon shoader or is there more to it?

-
Adding quick background info, just for fun, for those who follow the EE series:
Compressed HDRIs (which "broke" a few years ago) seem to be working again.
So for this set I switched back to it, which keeps the file size a lot smaller.
Let´s hope Nvidia sticks with it.
That said, the new set may need a recent version of Daz Studio, I am not sure which version fixed it. I am on 4.24. 

FilaToon ROCKS!

Flipmode

Thanks for all the info everyone. ;)
I have to admit, Filament and subsequently Filatoon haven´t been on my radar so far.

Dartanbeck

OMG!!! I am So Looking Forward to Payday so I can start using this!!!

I love collecting these! I use them from the wonderful presets all the time - but then I also love to mix their elements with other sets.

So Cool! So Flexible!!!

I love the collection of gorgeously rendered HDRI that come with these sets and those offered up as add-ons. 

 

In animation, I am usually not that into rendering HDR backdrops with my scenes, but render them separately and add them in Post (Fusion).

These are different and look wonderful any time I need background scenery. Thanks for continuing these awesome kits, Flipmode! You're reading my mind! :)

Easy Environments: Wuxia Mountains

Dartanbeck

I guess the huge difference with these is that they're truly designed to be used with a central scene made using geometry - or anything other than the HDR background - and they magically make that whole environment look So Good and very interesting should the viewer want to scope out the entire frame. Such a treat!

Flipmode

Godsdamnit! 
I just wrote a lengthy post, but the forum decided to time out on me. :(

So, short version:
Thanks @Dartanbeck for doing the "set released" post, much appreciated!
Your praise makes me blush a bit, but it´s always great to read that you enjoy those sets! :)

Dartanbeck

Flipmode said:

Godsdamnit! 
I just wrote a lengthy post, but the forum decided to time out on me. :(

So, short version:
Thanks @Dartanbeck for doing the "set released" post, much appreciated!
Your praise makes me blush a bit, but it´s always great to read that you enjoy those sets! :)

Well... I don't mean it lightly or underserved. 

 

You know how it is when you need a service to be done and somebody is consistently doing such a beautiful job of fulfilling their end? You want to let them know that they're doing the right thing, so they know 

I love how cool looking these are, and how efficiently they render - not to mention the fact that they're So Easy (just like the name) to work with!!!

 

Truly, Flipmode - no need to respond... but Thank You!!!