Llynara's Loony Bin (WIP Thread)

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  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017

    Can't go wrong with Luthbel and Uzilite! And here's another good one- Xurge. They're having a half off sale through Easter on their items, and some of the older ones are really cheap. Here's Darwin's new Evan for G3M with his elf ears and Creature Creator presets. He's wearing Xurge's Necromancer for M4. Still need to fiddle with the materials a bit. The metal doesn't look right. That's Luthbel's Dragonsbane sword he's wielding. Surprisingly, this scene was under 3 GB with no tweaking. Terradome 3 was taking forever  to render with Atmos on, so I took it out and had fun playing with postwork options instead.

    "To Arms"

    DarwinsMishap's latest character Evan isn't happy. Maybe someone took his cup of coffee. He's grabbed his sword and is ready for battle! 

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  • DarwinsMishapDarwinsMishap Posts: 4,072

    Love this, seriously.  Thank you for using him in it!

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017

    Thanks! Here's the TD3 Atmos version that tied up my computer all day. OMG, that takes forever to render. The first version took 20 minutes. This one was over 12 hours. I'm not sure the difference was worth the wait. Too much snow, especially on his face. I wasn't sure where to turn that down. Still learning TD3.

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  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    Llynara said:

    Can't go wrong with Luthbel and Uzilite! And here's another good one- Xurge. They're having a half off sale through Easter on their items, and some of the older ones are really cheap. Here's Darwin's new Evan for G3M with his elf ears and Creature Creator presets. He's wearing Xurge's Necromancer for M4. Still need to fiddle with the materials a bit. The metal doesn't look right. That's Luthbel's Dragonsbane sword he's wielding. Surprisingly, this scene was under 3 GB with no tweaking. Terradome 3 was taking forever  to render with Atmos on, so I took it out and had fun playing with postwork options instead.

    "To Arms"

    DarwinsMishap's latest character Evan isn't happy. Maybe someone took his cup of coffee. He's grabbed his sword and is ready for battle! 

    Ugh, I spelled Uzilite's name wrong.  I'm always doing that.  I fixed it in my other post.  The outfit looks good on Evan.  I like TD3, but it definitely has a learning curve when it comes to getting good renders using it.  I haven't tried the winter stuff yet.

     

     

  • dracorndracorn Posts: 2,333
    Llynara said:

    Can't go wrong with Luthbel and Uzilite! And here's another good one- Xurge. They're having a half off sale through Easter on their items, and some of the older ones are really cheap. Here's Darwin's new Evan for G3M with his elf ears and Creature Creator presets. He's wearing Xurge's Necromancer for M4. Still need to fiddle with the materials a bit. The metal doesn't look right. That's Luthbel's Dragonsbane sword he's wielding. Surprisingly, this scene was under 3 GB with no tweaking. Terradome 3 was taking forever  to render with Atmos on, so I took it out and had fun playing with postwork options instead.

    I really like this.  Great atmosphere.  I would recommend bringing in a little more detail on his face - it's gettting a little lost and I want to see the intensity of his expression. 

    I've always loved Xurge's clothes, by the way.  I will have to check out this sale. 

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I have a lot of Xurge's stuff but I;m not happy with them at the moment.  I lost more than half my files in the transfer to the external drive, i've emailed my reciepts etc several times with no respons.  NOT a happy camper. So if you buy from them make sure you back it up

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017

    Sorry to hear that,  Sonja. Thanks for the warning! 

    Here's a quick look at Ingenue Vickie for V3 and her bikini. I finally caught a good deal on the bundle, which is normally $100. It was in fast grab the other day at 70% off and stacked with the Wear Them All sale. It's a nice set, but she comes with no textures at all. Seems like all of the Gen 3s are like this. I'm not sure what texture she's wearing in the promos, but here she is with Skin 1 from the International Beauties set. Her bundle didn't come with hair either. In the promos, she's wearing the Las Vegas hair, but that's not in any of her sets. So here she is in Geneva Hair for G3F. Not a perfect fit, but she is petite and many hairstyles seem to overwhelm her. I also picked up Glamorous Vickie and Glamourous Aiko.

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  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    dracorn said:
    Llynara said:

    Can't go wrong with Luthbel and Uzilite! And here's another good one- Xurge. They're having a half off sale through Easter on their items, and some of the older ones are really cheap. Here's Darwin's new Evan for G3M with his elf ears and Creature Creator presets. He's wearing Xurge's Necromancer for M4. Still need to fiddle with the materials a bit. The metal doesn't look right. That's Luthbel's Dragonsbane sword he's wielding. Surprisingly, this scene was under 3 GB with no tweaking. Terradome 3 was taking forever  to render with Atmos on, so I took it out and had fun playing with postwork options instead.

     

    I really like this.  Great atmosphere.  I would recommend bringing in a little more detail on his face - it's gettting a little lost and I want to see the intensity of his expression. 

    I've always loved Xurge's clothes, by the way.  I will have to check out this sale. 

    Thanks, I'll play with maybe a close up and different angle. That might help. 

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    Llynara said:

    Sorry to hear that,  Sonja. Thanks for the warning! 

    Here's a quick look at Ingenue Vickie for V3 and her bikini. I finally caught a good deal on the bundle, which is normally $100. It was in fast grab the other day at 70% off and stacked with the Wear Them All sale. It's a nice set, but she comes with no textures at all. Seems like all of the Gen 3s are like this. I'm not sure what texture she's wearing in the promos, but here she is with Skin 1 from the International Beauties set. Her bundle didn't come with hair either. In the promos, she's wearing the Las Vegas hair, but that's not in any of her sets. So here she is in Geneva Hair for G3F. Not a perfect fit, but she is petite and many hairstyles seem to overwhelm her. I also picked up Glamorous Vickie and Glamourous Aiko.

    Looks good!  I wondered why that was so cheap to start with.  I didn't realize it was also in FG.  I picked it up, too.  It was kind of hard to resist picking up a bundle that cheap when it is normally that expensive.  I don't think any of the original figures came with textures back then.  Everything was separate which boggles the mind consider the price of everything.  There is no way I could have afforded to do this hobby back when DAZ was first starting.  Prices and what you get with a figure are so much better these days.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017

    An attempt at V3 Vega in Blue Moods...in Poser 11 Pro and Superfly. OMG, I am so awful at this program. I haven't used it for a year and only kind of knew where things were. I can't remember anything and have no clue what I'm doing. LOL

    Interestingly, the gold on the Blue Moods dress shows up in Superfly, even though I haven't shaded the dress at all. I did use EZskin3 on Vega and her hair.

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  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    I haven't posted much on here lately. I lost my job last week and just not feeling very inspired at the moment. Everything I render just looks BLAH. Same with the writing. Nothing seems good enough to share at the moment. I'm hoping to get out of my funk soon. It's been a very rough month so far. I'm spending a lot of time cleaning and gardening as I wait for the dust to settle on a few things that are still up in the air. I have Patreon sites for both my writing and art that I'll be updating soon, along with my websites. I finally have the time. 

    I did just pick up the Centaur 7 Pro bundle cheap the other day. Maybe I'll go play with the stallions and come up with something.

  • cismiccismic Posts: 629
    edited April 2017
    Llynara said:

    I haven't posted much on here lately. I lost my job last week and just not feeling very inspired at the moment. Everything I render just looks BLAH. Same with the writing. Nothing seems good enough to share at the moment. I'm hoping to get out of my funk soon. It's been a very rough month so far. I'm spending a lot of time cleaning and gardening as I wait for the dust to settle on a few things that are still up in the air. I have Patreon sites for both my writing and art that I'll be updating soon, along with my websites. I finally have the time. 

    I did just pick up the Centaur 7 Pro bundle cheap the other day. Maybe I'll go play with the stallions and come up with something.

    @Llynara Sorry you lost the gig. Is happening too lots of folks. And, as automation rares the ugly head, more on the horizon. I do like your posts and art work. So, create some funky dark fun stuff to help brighten up the mood. 
    Joseph

    Post edited by cismic on
  • cismiccismic Posts: 629
    Llynara said:

    Thanks, @cismic for your great suggestion. The words are still bugging me, but I think we're almost there. 

    @knittingmommy I agree, I'll keep playing with it. I added a glow behind the letters and did lighten the color. May take me a day or two, but I'll figure it out.

    EDIT: In the meantime, I picked up Filter Forge and am trying to figure that out (there was a giveaway for version 5 and a heavy discount on version 6 recently.) I was delighted to see our own @IgnisSerpentus over there with all kinds of awesome filters. Can't wait to play with these!

    @llynara did you finish this image?  

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017
    cismic said:
    Llynara said:

    I haven't posted much on here lately. I lost my job last week and just not feeling very inspired at the moment. Everything I render just looks BLAH. Same with the writing. Nothing seems good enough to share at the moment. I'm hoping to get out of my funk soon. It's been a very rough month so far. I'm spending a lot of time cleaning and gardening as I wait for the dust to settle on a few things that are still up in the air. I have Patreon sites for both my writing and art that I'll be updating soon, along with my websites. I finally have the time. 

    I did just pick up the Centaur 7 Pro bundle cheap the other day. Maybe I'll go play with the stallions and come up with something.

    @Llynara Sorry you lost the gig. Is happening too lots of folks. And, as automation rares the ugly head, more on the horizon. I do like your posts and art work. So, create some funky dark fun stuff to help brighten up the mood. 
    Joseph

    Thanks, Joseph! It's probably a blessing in disguise. The job was slowing killing me. It just doesn't feel like a blessing at the moment, though I do love being home. I'm happier here. More time for family and creative pursuits. Just keeping my fingers crossed that it works out financially.

    Here's something I played with today, between chasing kids. Darwin's Diesel for Elijah 7 makes a very good centaur! I had fun "horsing" around in Photoshop a bit too. Har har! (click for much larger pic)

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  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    cismic said:
    Llynara said:

    Thanks, @cismic for your great suggestion. The words are still bugging me, but I think we're almost there. 

    @knittingmommy I agree, I'll keep playing with it. I added a glow behind the letters and did lighten the color. May take me a day or two, but I'll figure it out.

    EDIT: In the meantime, I picked up Filter Forge and am trying to figure that out (there was a giveaway for version 5 and a heavy discount on version 6 recently.) I was delighted to see our own @IgnisSerpentus over there with all kinds of awesome filters. Can't wait to play with these!

    @llynara did you finish this image?  

    Not yet. I need to finish that one. The colors of the words were bugging me. I need to fiddle with it more. 

  • DarwinsMishapDarwinsMishap Posts: 4,072

    He looks awesome as a Centaur, Llynara!  Thank you for using him in your experiment, well done. :)  You're right though- horse have is a tad too shiny.  Wonder if upping the bump and lowering the glossy/spec would work better?

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    Thanks, Darwin! I tried lowering glossy, but I'll play with the bump maps too. I'm sure there's a combo that will work better than the default. Anagenessis taught me the power of fiddling with those skin settings. Amazing what can be done (both good and bad, LOL)

  • DarwinsMishapDarwinsMishap Posts: 4,072

    Oh, I know!  I remember some really BAD, bad things that came out of my experiments when I started trying to do my own characters years ago.  Some of those BAD I turned into useable. 

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017

    Making GKDantas' Iray Machina Materials Emissive

    I confess. I've been a sci fi junkie most of my life. And even though I don't write much sci fi at the moment, I can't seem to resist picking it up in the store. Lots of shiny objects and coolness to explore. GKDantas' Iray Machina Materials was no exception. You get a character as well as skins and materials to play with, making all your G3Fs into robots. Not sure if there's a G3M version in the works, but maybe with UV swap products he can have them too. 

    There are a few different options in the set. You can apply Machina as a suit or a skin, using your favorite G3Fs and shaders. You can also load a premade figure with all robot materials. I liked the idea of applying the materials over an existing skin, but wanted them to be emissive.

    Here's how I did that (note: these are grainy because they seem to take forever to render):

    1. In the surfaces tab, find the Machina material maps in the "metallacity" settings, noting their names. (You'll need to do this for the torso, arms and legs.)
    2. Scroll down to Emissive Color, and add the same maps there.
    3. Pick the color you want them to emit.
    4. Adjust the lumens value, the default is too small to show up. I boosted it to 10,000.

    Problem: The hands glowed because they're part of the arm texture.

    Resolutions: 

    1. Stick gloves on the hands:

    2. Photoshop the original map to work with the skin in the Emission Channel.

    Here's how I did it: 

    1. I took the map (MachSCSkinMetalArm.jpg) into Photoshop, saved it as MachSCSkinMetalArms_NoHands.jpg.
    2. I painted over the hands with a black brush, erasing them.
    3. I added this map just to the emission color channel. 
    4. For fun, I set the nails to emit the same color and amount of light as the Machina materials on the armls, legs and torso. (Make sure to add the nail maps into the emissive channel or they look weird.)
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  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017

    "Alien Emissive"

    I think this came out pretty good! I lowered the lights to show off the emissives. I did a little postwork near the wrist and just a few color corrections/glows/style tweaks. No lights were used. This is all lit with emissives.

    Items Used: 

    In color: 

    In black and white: 

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  • Worlds_EdgeWorlds_Edge Posts: 2,142

    They look great.  The b&w one is particularly striking.

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I picked this up as well and am looking forward to trying it.  From what i gather from the promos you can do all kind of neat things with it too.  Will have to read the read me and see what's what lol.  She looks great!  I really like the last one in particular

  • SaphirewildSaphirewild Posts: 6,648

    I am so loving watching you do your experimentation Llynara!!!

    You turn out so many amazing renders out of them!!!!

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    Aww, thanks you all. Some days I feel like I'm talking to myself. I'm glad to know you're enjoying these. angel

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I feel that way sometimes too lol.  I visit everyone's thread every day even if I don't always say hello.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    I definitely need to do a better job of visiting my Art Forum neighbors. At least now I have the time, LOL

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I'm not sure you gained any time given your active boys lol!  Still, nice to be home with them I'm sure even given the circumstances.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    Yeah, I'm dreading the summer. All boys all the time. But it will be fun too. Our first summer together. They've been in daycare all their little lives, which makes me sad. I want to make it up to them this summer and give them one to really remember. I'm loving being home with them. heart

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited April 2017

    Sassy Centaur

    It turns out that Damen makes a wonderful and very sassy centaur! The Leather Warrior kilt took some fiddling in DAZ and Photoshop to look decent. My postwork skills are still developing. I learned quite a bit on this one. Not perfect, but certainly fun.

    Damen: Yes, I'm anatomically correct. (rolls eyes) No, I don't wear pants. Ever.

     

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  • mori_mannmori_mann Posts: 1,152

    I feel that way sometimes too lol.  I visit everyone's thread every day even if I don't always say hello.

     

    I very much know that feeling. Too many peopel around at work during the day, so when I'm here, it's like jsut mingling with the crowds without having to actively interact and just silently admire.

    Still not convinced about the centaur, but this guy does look like an interesting piece of work :D

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