Anyone buy any of those new Jepe products like Special Z
Kev914
Posts: 1,130
in The Commons
Just wondered if they take a long time to render.
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Unfortunately I can't say much to the render speed, because it depends on various options (and because I have a NVidia Titan X for half a year now): Your Iray hardware, your (additional) light in the scene and the material settings i.e. light emitting value. But as every (simple) 2D billboard props they usually only need seconds, in 3Delight and Poser they are even faster because they don't have translucency and emit light there.
Btw, Stonemason's latest Iray clouds are and work the same way.
I don't understand these products, haven't used billboards before. You say they don't have translucency- I may be confusing things (not the first time) but does that mean the opacity can not be changed? With billboards, they do or don't emit lights? In other words, how do these work, they look like fun!
Hehe, sounds a bit confusing, but it isn't actually. It all depends on in what application do you render these in, for Poser and DAZ Studio 3Delight there are the usual pp2s with diffuse texture and transparency, they are easy to handle and render in the speed of light, even with various effects in the scene. Only things you have to care for, it's better to not cross effects and they render best facing the camera in the final view.
Iray is a bit different because all effects emit light like fire shines on the floor or beams actually lighten objects when they are behind or in front of them. Every option of the effect can be adjusted of course, and there are a few more option than those for Poser 3Delight, the outcome in the render depends on what additional light or if no additional light at all is in your scene and how much light they are emitting, which can be adjusted with easy to use utility Material Presets I provided for every effects pack. :)
Oh, sorry- I should have identified for you that it's Daz Studio and Iray! Okay, sounds like these have a great amount of versatility, thanks so much for answering my questions!
Just for the better understanding, the image below is maybe better showing what I tried to explain. You can see Victoria 7 down below with 3 effect planes behind and in front of her. This scene is rendered inside a cube (a primitive with simple plastic Iray material applied). There's no additional light in this scene, only the light emitting from the effects. Those effects are on a HQ 2D plane that can be morphed with those 16 options you see above right. You could for instance even apply a Smoothing Modifyer to it and let it collide with any object or figure in the scene. Applying one of the Material Presets with the sun in the tumb preview changes the light emitting value of that effect, it gets darker or lighter.
Thanks. I bought two of them. I was tempted to buy the bundle, but I buy too much so I decided on two. I also bought your bedsheets. Didn't have the bed, but it was only $1.99, so....
It's really nice to hear that, Kevin. Thank you for your support and I hope you will have fun and feel inspired for some great new renders! - And when you have questions or suggestions, you can always contact me here or at DeviantArt or Facebook. :)
I really like these. Haven't tried the iray version yet. I'm going back to 3delight for now, since I like more involved scenes. And these are right up my alley!
Glad to hear that. Although I prefer Iray renderer now (mostly because I like the shadowing more and that almost everything can emit lights - yay), keep in mind that the props don't emit light in Poser or 3Delight, that's why they are rendering very fast, but you maybe need additional spot or point lights for your scene to make it more believable. :)
Love your stuff! I have one already and just picked up another. and the rest are on the whishlist. Great products!
Love your effects, Jepe! Here's a 3Delight render I did a while back.
I got the 3 new ones and thank you jepe for the updates on the 2 older products. I hope you will update your other products as well, as I do own some others.
I've been noticing the updates appearing in my Product Library page; all of the ones I've bought now have the Iray settings apart from the very old original ThrowZ set, and the FlameZ III which came out (I think) a short time before D|S4.8 and the first appearance of Iray. Any chance of these being updated as well?
Thank you Sonja. :) - Wonderful render, Dracorn, love the mood.
And yes, except ThrowZ (DAZ culled the merchant who was my partner in this project), all of my effect packs got an update, but not all are life in store yet - only Z-Bundle I and II - Z-Bundle III and IV will follow. All effect packs now have bigger textures (usually twice the size they were before - means clearer rendering when scaled), all packs now have HQ morphing props - also the very "old" ones from Z-Bundle (FlameZ, SteamZ, DragonFire and ElementZ, means you can morph/deform an effect with 16 different shape morphs now) and additional DS Iray light emitting props with emitting adjustment presets to control how dark or light the effect is (means how much light the effect emits - depends also a bit how much additional light you have in your scene).
Fine to hear the updates are free for all that have bought the packs before. :) Even if you buy a not updated pack today, you will get the update soon, all packs were/are in Q/A. :)
So I seen the bundle and am so tempted to buy them all, but have to try to restrain myself lol
As I get more and more experience, I'm realizing what older hands have said -- stuff like this often works far better/easier than trying to do it 'realistically' with volumes.
The only problem I've run into with 2d stuff in Iray is being careful of where the shadows fall, and there are a number of ways to handle that.
Hi Jepe....if you read this. I ended up buying all of your special effects. I knew I should have bought the bundle, but at the time I only could find 2 new releases that I wanted and you had to buy three to get all the discounts. Later I discovered there WAS another product that I did indeed want, so I COULD have bought the bundle. Anyway, I made the following picture using some of your special effects. And I also have a question...how to you use the special effects so the figure is in the middle but he is not entirely faded by the fog so to speak. Like there are effects all around him but parts of him are not partially obsurced by the fog. Like the fog (or effect) is has holes in it. I think you can do this, as you had that promo picture where the guy is behind the flood lights but the top half of his clear. Hope I explained this in a way that you understand what I am asking.
In this picture I had an effect behind him and one in front of him. There was a morph to bend the front effect back, so that's I did he wasn't all hazy.
Ya I just said to heck with it and bought the bundle lol Now I just need to find time to actually use them
oh man :( I thought these looked pretty neat, but I passed on putting them in my wishlist because it's so dang long already...
after going through this thread, now I MUST add them.
*edit spelling*
I'm not sure what you wanted to achieve, to be honest. But if it was to get such an effect that he stands in the middle of fog with his upper body is not covered, you need a little strategic placement of the effects. Remember that that camera doesn't see everything. Especially in your case when you only have a torso shot, move the effect planes up or down and scale them. But you need effects without a sharp border. Some of the effects are meant to be back- or foregrounds with sharp cut edges, most effects are within the edges of the plane and fade to the edges. Such effects you need for this kind of scene, from the left, from the right, from above, in front or beneath.
And in Iray, please use the adjustment presets to get the effects stronger, that needs a bit of switching between Textured Preview and Iray Preview to not overdo them though.
Here's the first scene I made with SteamZ and how it actually looks in DAZ Studio viewport.
Here are two more scenes with viewport - you see, all effects are always parralel to the camera and only were set off in x, y and ztran. Maret was rendered with camera DOF to have the fore and background flowers blurred while the ones right beside her are sharp. Xenon also has only effects in front or behind him.
Thanks for the info about what is live and what isn't. Apparently the store pages for the prods in bundle III have been updated a little ahead of the fact. I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out why I couldn't get the new versions of GrapchicZ, etc. And I have no hair to spare! :)
Oh yeah: MASSIVE thanks for updating the existing products and not making me buy new iray versions. I wish all PAs would do that with iray versions!
So just to confirm, FlameZ III will be updated to Iray emissives? Right now, it's not updated in the store and neither are the PlateZ bundles. Will all these eventually be updated or do I need to purchase the new ones?
There isn't a platez bundle is there?
I have been doing more composting work in PS,and 2.5D/billboards fit into that workflow, so I am looking forward to getting some mileage out of the bundle. Thanks for the Iray release, really looking forward to getting some use out of these!
To erostew: Sorry for the confusion, but updating the store pages doesn't automatically mean the product is updated. But one fact is always granted, you will get what you see, if not immediately (probably still the old zip file will show up in DIM), but very very soon all new updated zips will be available. And my tester also has a few hairs less now for sure, since updating 22 products is a lot of work, not only for me, but especiallly for the tester and zip builder and webpage builder and so on. :)
To lucidghost and dkgoose: FlameZ III DF is also updated (for Iray) and will be part of the fourth Z-Bundle together with PlateZ I, II, and III. :)
Argel1200 - thank you very much for your nice words, hope you will have fun and feel inspired! :)
Thanks for the tips, Jepe.
I have many of your products and they are some of my favorites.
I've bought most of Jepes' superb effects sets over the years and they work fantastic and render beautifully
Thank you, Jepe! Looking forward to the updates and love these effects bundles :)