Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 8

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Comments

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454
    edited April 2017
    Novica said:

    Congratulations to Deathbycanon for "One Last Breath" which is the featured render in the Platinum Club Plus newsletter! 

    BTW, I'm sure I'm the only one who didn't know this, I read someone's post (and I would name them if I remembered, sorry!) that you can click your wheel in the middle of your mouse to open new tabs. Really helps you surf faster, instead of hitting the back arrow all the time or having to right click to open a new window/tab. Takes a bit of practice though, I kept doing it the old way and closing the tab!

    Noah looks really good Llynara! 

    That's cool on the mouse wheel. I just started using chrome a month or two ago, and I've been doing RMB-menu>Open link in a new tab. Using the scroll wheel is SO much nicer. One more useful thing learned today! :) Thanks!!!

    Post edited by firewarden on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited April 2017
    Llynara said:

    Thanks and congrats @deathbycanon ! Great render! 

    I'll have to try the mouse wheel thingie, I don't do that either LOL

    EDIT: OMG, so simple and it works. And I'm a techie. I should've known this one. LOL

    Man, you and Firewarden are sure making me feel good!!! I really did assume I was the only one who didn't know. Oh wow, I've been doing it the more complicated way since 2012! ACCKKKH!

    Post edited by Novica on
  • deathbycanondeathbycanon Posts: 1,227

    Thanks for the congrats everyone, and reminding me that there's a new pc newsletter out!  

    I didn't know about the center click thing either until I read it in the "always another sale" thread - I didn't even know the scroll wheel could click!! lol  

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454

    I'm pretty much a techie also... Started back on mainframes writing computer manuals... Started just as punchcards were on their way out, thank goodness, because I'd've been dropping stacks everywhere and pulling my hair out because I'm such a klutz! I remember when we got line-editing - gosh, it was LIFE-CHANGING! And then Wylbur had us so high tech, man, lol... First emails I ever sent were from our university in Texas to one in Canada (Waterloo) getting support for a batch word-processing program (Script) that our grad students used for their theses and dissertations. Cutting edge, I tell ya. ;) Those were the days - playing Adventure on the mainframe... drawing out the maps on grid paper...  Is it weird that a text game was just as much fun as a full-fledged MMORPG like WoW?

  • FerretmaniaFerretmania Posts: 883
    edited April 2017
    Novica said:

    Congratulations to Deathbycanon for "One Last Breath" which is the featured render in the Platinum Club Plus newsletter! 

    BTW, I'm sure I'm the only one who didn't know this, I read someone's post (and I would name them if I remembered, sorry!) that you can click your wheel in the middle of your mouse to open new tabs. Really helps you surf faster, instead of hitting the back arrow all the time or having to right click to open a new window/tab. Takes a bit of practice though, I kept doing it the old way and closing the tab!

    Noah looks really good Llynara! 

     

    Thanks for the tip .

    I didn't know it either and I'm a techie LOL  Very easy in Chrome, Doesn't work for me in Opera though. Apparently my mousewheel is set to scroll either up or down depending on which way I move my mouse when I click the mousewheel. 

    Edit to add . Ahh it was clicking the mousewheel while holding your mouse over a link. LOL . I think I need to go to bed or possibly drink more coffee.

     

    Post edited by Ferretmania on
  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    I'm pretty much a techie also... Started back on mainframes writing computer manuals... Started just as punchcards were on their way out, thank goodness, because I'd've been dropping stacks everywhere and pulling my hair out because I'm such a klutz! I remember when we got line-editing - gosh, it was LIFE-CHANGING! And then Wylbur had us so high tech, man, lol... First emails I ever sent were from our university in Texas to one in Canada (Waterloo) getting support for a batch word-processing program (Script) that our grad students used for their theses and dissertations. Cutting edge, I tell ya. ;) Those were the days - playing Adventure on the mainframe... drawing out the maps on grid paper...  Is it weird that a text game was just as much fun as a full-fledged MMORPG like WoW?

    Yes! I loved the old text adventure games and the original Sierra games that were 16 bits (or maybe 8?) I played King's Quest over and over again. Loved all the Sierra games and then when I had kids made sure they played them too. We all still love them. Recently my son, who is a techie out in Silicon Valley, had the pleasure of working with Cori and Lori Ann Cole, who designed the Quest for Glory series. Still one of our all time favorites. My son was star struck! LOL

  • deathbycanondeathbycanon Posts: 1,227

    I'm pretty much a techie also... Started back on mainframes writing computer manuals... Started just as punchcards were on their way out, thank goodness, because I'd've been dropping stacks everywhere and pulling my hair out because I'm such a klutz! I remember when we got line-editing - gosh, it was LIFE-CHANGING! And then Wylbur had us so high tech, man, lol... First emails I ever sent were from our university in Texas to one in Canada (Waterloo) getting support for a batch word-processing program (Script) that our grad students used for their theses and dissertations. Cutting edge, I tell ya. ;) Those were the days - playing Adventure on the mainframe... drawing out the maps on grid paper...  Is it weird that a text game was just as much fun as a full-fledged MMORPG like WoW?

    I was a MUD addact but don't really like MMO's the RP was way better in MUD days. :) 

  • I'm pretty much a techie also... Started back on mainframes writing computer manuals... Started just as punchcards were on their way out, thank goodness, because I'd've been dropping stacks everywhere and pulling my hair out because I'm such a klutz! I remember when we got line-editing - gosh, it was LIFE-CHANGING! And then Wylbur had us so high tech, man, lol... First emails I ever sent were from our university in Texas to one in Canada (Waterloo) getting support for a batch word-processing program (Script) that our grad students used for their theses and dissertations. Cutting edge, I tell ya. ;) Those were the days - playing Adventure on the mainframe... drawing out the maps on grid paper...  Is it weird that a text game was just as much fun as a full-fledged MMORPG like WoW?

    I was a MUD addact but don't really like MMO's the RP was way better in MUD days. :) 

    I too was hooked on MUDs back in the day and I think that is why I liked the original Everquest (not the crap it has turned in to today) back when Smedley's "vision" ruled and Verant was the developer/owner.  It pretty much was a near direct translation from MUDs to a graphic interface.

  • cismiccismic Posts: 629

    You can pretty much right click on most links with center whell for new tab. When that's not doable most browsers have right click with option for new tab. 

    Just looked up operas http://help.opera.com/Linux/9.50/en/tabs.html ;

     

  • FerretmaniaFerretmania Posts: 883
    cismic said:

    You can pretty much right click on most links with center whell for new tab. When that's not doable most browsers have right click with option for new tab. 

    Just looked up operas http://help.opera.com/Linux/9.50/en/tabs.html ;

     

    LOL yeah I overlooked the part of holding your mouse over the link while clicking the wheel. Thanks.

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Playing around with the instances right now.  It isn't a bad idea - although even with instances, if I end up with 4 complex objects and a total of 40 or so instances - it starts to bog down my 2GB 760ti in the viewport window.

    ​But I'm also using DA's Let It Snow shaders with the scene I am composing - and that seems to add a lot of texture and shader overhead - and isn't turning out as great as I had hoped it would. I'm getting real mixed results with it. Fortunately, I got it as a freebie.

    Maybe I'll just have to stick to renders in spring, summer and fall. :)

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454
    Llynara said:

    I'm pretty much a techie also... Started back on mainframes writing computer manuals... Started just as punchcards were on their way out, thank goodness, because I'd've been dropping stacks everywhere and pulling my hair out because I'm such a klutz! I remember when we got line-editing - gosh, it was LIFE-CHANGING! And then Wylbur had us so high tech, man, lol... First emails I ever sent were from our university in Texas to one in Canada (Waterloo) getting support for a batch word-processing program (Script) that our grad students used for their theses and dissertations. Cutting edge, I tell ya. ;) Those were the days - playing Adventure on the mainframe... drawing out the maps on grid paper...  Is it weird that a text game was just as much fun as a full-fledged MMORPG like WoW?

    Yes! I loved the old text adventure games and the original Sierra games that were 16 bits (or maybe 8?) I played King's Quest over and over again. Loved all the Sierra games and then when I had kids made sure they played them too. We all still love them. Recently my son, who is a techie out in Silicon Valley, had the pleasure of working with Cori and Lori Ann Cole, who designed the Quest for Glory series. Still one of our all time favorites. My son was star struck! LOL

    I can only imagine. Hmm... They've got the Quest for Glory series on GoG, looks like 5 games for $9.99. I might have to point the child unit toward those.

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    LOL yeah I overlooked the part of holding your mouse over the link while clicking the wheel. Thanks.

    Me too. I'm not sure the instructions here were totally clear on that step. With your clarification - I got it working here too. :)

    ​I am also a techie. I tend to ignore shortcuts - because technology changes so quickly it is a lot of investment up front in learning something that is likely to be fairly transient. F5 to refresh? Something universal like that, sure... but weird Ctrl-Alt-Shift-FKey functions in a particular app? Not generally a great payoff for me. If I did one thing constantly, like Excel or Photoshop, for decades, professionally, I could see where it would be useful... but I've been at this since the Commodore 128... and professionally I've gone from Wordstar F-key templates to touch screen devices. Maybe that explains why so many of the folks here who are IT oriented skip learning shortcut keys... those are really designed for constant end-users, not the techie people who keep the machines running and the software updated.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    If you haven't thought about it, anything you bought yesterday from the stores (which are still featured today) are 20% cheaper with a newly mad release today. Do the math, it may actually pay for the new release today, to get 20% off what you bought yesterday. I got $21.00+ refunded. I bought several of the Stonemason sets and those alone were over $3 each difference. It took less than 2 hours for Support to credit my account. (Again, give the price you paid, the price in the cart today and do the math,  and do a screenshot of it in your cart today. That way you do NOT have to cancel your order(s) from yesterday and rebuy, they'll just credit the difference. Give the SKU for each item. Help them all you can.)

    So I was curious- using the 24% off gift card from a few days ago, AND the 20% off today, and 50% for buying two newly mads (doesn't have to be newly mads though) plus the 10% Bonus Buyer discount- look at $100 for what that translates to as a percentage- 

    100.00 x .80 (spend 80% and get 20% off) due to buying 2 new qualifying items = 80.00
    80.00 x .76 (spend 76% and get 24% off because using gift card) = 60.80
    60.80 x .90 (spend 90% and get 10% off due to Bonus Buyer) = 54.72
    54.72 x .50 (get 50% off when buying 2 new releases/still mad, catalogs, etc) = 27.36% so getting 72.64% off.  Bless March Madness!

    So I focused on Stonemason's Mayan Ruins and Jungle Construction Set  and got Emma and Jordi's hairs Manhattan Hair and Newsboy Cap, and Sharonda Hair and Street Fashion Beanie. Both the cap and hat are removable.  I picked up Theo as I don't have any characters from that vendor and will give him a try. Gals were Rane LY Cayenne, and FW Hillary.  

    I did pick up the i13 Library Environment (remember we talked about libraries?) just to get the front desk, book cart, entrance area, etc. I really like that area. At only 27%, couldn't pass it up. I got more hairs, characters, and sets, and I'll be showing those in April and May and sitting out on most of the upcoming sales. I can't justify buying the upcoming newer stuff when I can get the new releases now and wishlisted Genesis 3 stuff and sets at only 27%. So I'll showcase what I got during MM for you the rest of April. I guess MM ends this week.

    DO put in a support ticket and get your additional 20% off if you bought yesterday! (as long as you buy a newly mad)

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548

    Small test render of the Greek God outfit with the "spikes" hidden.

    Dante7Test.png
    401 x 681 - 439K
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    I like it without the spikes. 

  • cismiccismic Posts: 629

    Well, not really a reivew. But a new item recently bought "Mad" with descriptions of what I bought. 

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Did anyone buy this? 

    https://www.daz3d.com/tiler-shader-for-daz-studio

    It sounds like it has some powerful features, but there is little or no documentation... just some props to "help you understand how it works." 

  • cismiccismic Posts: 629

    Did anyone buy this? 

    https://www.daz3d.com/tiler-shader-for-daz-studio

    It sounds like it has some powerful features, but there is little or no documentation... just some props to "help you understand how it works." 

    Yeah, I bought it awhile ago used it twice. Good for distance as up close at least to me wasn't as real as I'd like it.  But it was only .60 then. :-)

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    @cismic   Your image isn't showing- at least not to me.

    BTW, I'm assuming you don't know how to fix your signature so here's a suggestion-  you need to click your name, then the cog across from your name, then the Edit Profile, and Signature Settings. I think you pasted whatever you wanted using "Source"  Be sure that's not selected. Hope this helps!

  • TabascoJackTabascoJack Posts: 865

    I'm pretty much a techie also... Started back on mainframes writing computer manuals... Started just as punchcards were on their way out, thank goodness, because I'd've been dropping stacks everywhere and pulling my hair out because I'm such a klutz! I remember when we got line-editing - gosh, it was LIFE-CHANGING! And then Wylbur had us so high tech, man, lol... First emails I ever sent were from our university in Texas to one in Canada (Waterloo) getting support for a batch word-processing program (Script) that our grad students used for their theses and dissertations. Cutting edge, I tell ya. ;) Those were the days - playing Adventure on the mainframe... drawing out the maps on grid paper...  Is it weird that a text game was just as much fun as a full-fledged MMORPG like WoW?

    hack on the Vax systems....and Zork on the PC.  Those were the days.

  • jakibluejakiblue Posts: 7,281

    :D I know I mentioned it in a thread here quite recently - I kinda thought everyone knew to do it as I've done it forever. It's total instinct for me, even when I don't necessarily WANT to open a new tab.  

    Novica said:

    Congratulations to Deathbycanon for "One Last Breath" which is the featured render in the Platinum Club Plus newsletter! 

    BTW, I'm sure I'm the only one who didn't know this, I read someone's post (and I would name them if I remembered, sorry!) that you can click your wheel in the middle of your mouse to open new tabs. Really helps you surf faster, instead of hitting the back arrow all the time or having to right click to open a new window/tab. Takes a bit of practice though, I kept doing it the old way and closing the tab!

    Noah looks really good Llynara! 

     

  • cismiccismic Posts: 629
    Novica said:

    @cismic   Your image isn't showing- at least not to me.

    BTW, I'm assuming you don't know how to fix your signature so here's a suggestion-  you need to click your name, then the cog across from your name, then the Edit Profile, and Signature Settings. I think you pasted whatever you wanted using "Source"  Be sure that's not selected. Hope this helps!

    I didn't really look into to it too much. posted some html should have worked. Not a big deal at least right now. :-)

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Distance is OK... I'm looking at wide angle scenes... and the problem I am running into with my ground shaders on primitive planes is that you get noticable patterns. I bet Will Timmins could tell me how to introduce the right amount of noise into my shaders to get around that. It looked like this might be the answer too. Anyone here have any advice on how to disrupt patterns using ground shaders, say - a fallen leaf shader? I tried adding a couple of Dformers and creating some valleys and little rolling hills... but I'm still not totally happy with the results I am getting. 

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454
    edited April 2017

    I'm pretty much a techie also... Started back on mainframes writing computer manuals... Started just as punchcards were on their way out, thank goodness, because I'd've been dropping stacks everywhere and pulling my hair out because I'm such a klutz! I remember when we got line-editing - gosh, it was LIFE-CHANGING! And then Wylbur had us so high tech, man, lol... First emails I ever sent were from our university in Texas to one in Canada (Waterloo) getting support for a batch word-processing program (Script) that our grad students used for their theses and dissertations. Cutting edge, I tell ya. ;) Those were the days - playing Adventure on the mainframe... drawing out the maps on grid paper...  Is it weird that a text game was just as much fun as a full-fledged MMORPG like WoW?

    hack on the Vax systems....and Zork on the PC.  Those were the days.

    Played Zork; sometimes contacting freinds to ask did you figure this part out yet? (maybe that was Adventure; it's been too long.) Skipped the rest, I think, but played Return to Zork, although it was pretty hard and somewhat annoying. I played with the spousal unit (mainframe systems programmer) and friends, and no one ever wanted to hear "Want some rye? Of course you do!" one more time. And some of the puzzles were killers.  Didn't play hack, tho. Although I did some work on VAX/VMS machines and then on VAX workstations. Those were nice machines. Wish Digital had done better. Those were incredibly fun times! 

    Pardon the off-topic... Will stop rambling and get back to rendering. ;)

    Post edited by firewarden on
  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    It aggravates me that so much DAZ content is so poorly documented. Spent all day playing with ground shaders and scenery and I feel like I didn't get very far. Finally just turned off the machine in disgust. I don't even feel like doing the research necessary to describe the issues I am encountering so I can post some questions in the forums and maybe get some answers. 

    I can't figure out this Tile Shader thing. The example it comes with work... it takes two panes and one kind of bleeds through the other and both have different shaders, and bump and displacement, and the mixed effect is good. But I can't figure out how to apply it to any OTHER shaders - at least not as effectively as the examples. The product really needs a several page tutorial that shows you how to CREATE the example tiles. It might be an awesome product, but without any supporting documentation - it is worth exactly what I paid for it. 

    Bah... I'm done for the day. I'm sure in a few months once I've leared whatever it is I don't know about shaders, bump, displacement and opacity cutouts - this will all make sense and I'll be having a love affair with all the wonderful new limits I can push my content to using these techniques... but right now... I just wanna find the author of this content and scream obscenities at him or her. 

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    And then this one... no documentation... but the PROMO pics are actually pretty much the PDF file that *should* be included with the install package AS documentation. 

    https://www.daz3d.com/da-let-it-snow


    angry

  • ArtAngelArtAngel Posts: 1,484
    edited April 2017
    oops my mistake
    Post edited by ArtAngel on
  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943

    I knew about the mouse wheel (even when it does not work for my online mail - when I mousewheelclick on the links in mails, I am ending at an error-code: 403 page - sniff).

    What I learned yesterday: to open the Windows task manager you don't have to hit ctrl+alt+del and choose the Task Manager - you can hit ctrl+shift+esc and the Task Manager opens at once. Yay!

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Yikes! I own it.  But only since mid-march.

    The promo pics are enough to get you on the right track. After reading the example workflow image, I was able to get a good enough grasp on the product to overcome the challenges that led me to trying to render it as a summer/fall scene with a leaf ground cover instead. Now it is actually turning out pretty good - in fact, I had a couple of freebie props (trees) in there that weren't rendering really well, even with custom bark shaders... they looked very CGI. Now with a dusting of the Let It Snow geoshell on it, it looks a thousand times better. It just would have made sense to make a small PDF with the promo shots and include it in the package. As far as I can see, neither of these products even include a readme.txt file. 

This discussion has been closed.