Novica, Serene Night, & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 3
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Ooh, some nice options there, Trish. LOL I'm not really a 'balls on boots' woman either, but I do like how they've been used to accessorize each different MAT option.
It looks to me as if that button adds displacement to the balls.
It would be great if someone made boots like this with lower heels. I think there are some gorgeous options there, but not so struck on the heel. She'll be slipping and sliding everywhere.
Welcome, Luci! Love that render, that nose does add a lot of personality and uniqueness. He wears that hair well too. I'm so glad you and Melanie have joined us, now we can definitely say this is where all the cool kids hang out. :)
Llola, yep fun not fur (the hair)! But it goes well with the furry outfits. Thanks for adding a link. I too had passed over that hair, but your girl makes it look so good that I'll maybe wishlist it after all.
Yep. It adds a nice little fuzzy displacement to the top. And if you don't want the balls, just select the balls, strap, and clip in the Surfaces pane and turn the Opacity to Zero.
Thanks for the invitation. Unlike Luci I'n no threat to you on RRRR - haven't been placed in any category yet! But it's such a fun competition to do that the taking part that is the real reward :)
Melanie- you wouldn't be on this thread unless I had to worry about you in RRRR :) People over there for this story competition are really rockin' !
Trish- thanks for showing the boots.
I agree about the heels- slippery sliding time. It might make a person taller in the snow, but down they go on the sidewalks. Fashion usually isn't practical, but another option would have been nice.
So far as cool kids, SereneNight and I have excellent preferences for art :) We're delighted with all of your product reviews and you're helping so many people have access to additional views for a product. Yep, definitely addictive! And remember Jaderail is going to contribute when he can, too. You're REALLY cool when you have a Drow. (I know you're reading this, oh purple one.)
One tip for the IGC's that I've found helpful- there will be times when you want to showcase an item quickly, say if it's on sale, so it's handy to have a set of lights that you've saved as a preset to use. I use the lights for soft busts/portraits for closeup details (let's say the top fuzz of those boots) and I have two or three light setups I know will do well for scenes no matter what they are (except underwater.) As you render for other threads/contests/doodling, it may help to label a few light presets just for the product showcasing.
The biggest plus side to using one light set for hair in particular is you can compare what that hair is doing with other hair. When I got a crumbly particle look for that hair, I knew it wasn't the lighting. (If you find a product isn't working, do really, really try and tweak it. And Trish did perfectly by admitting "I don't know what this does." Because if we hit that obstacle, so will others. Thanks for helping tjohn!)
So for what it's worth, perhaps be thinking about a couple light sets you really like for closeups/hair, a couple for scenes, and your best distant lighting for big scenes, as sooner or later you might want to share something quickly that is on sale. While we don't gear our thread to following sales, sometimes we do jump in and illustrate the goodies at the same time. (And it's fun to see more than one example of the same product.)
Say hello to another cool kid on the block!
Invited Guest Contributor
Sasje
Please check out Sasje's beautiful Art Studio thread here. Welcome Sasje- we're looking forward to reading about some of the products you like in your renders. Like the other IGC's, I know you're very busy so we appreciate you taking the time to help showcase the products you like.
Sasje's Art Studio thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/2939/
You folks made my Christmas. It's so exciting to have such talent helping us out! :) EDIT: See list below- have I forgotten anyone?
Cathie
Per our invitations, our current IGC's making up "The Product Showcase Team" are: (EDIT: Updated Dec 30th)
Bullit35744
Estroyer
Ivy
Jaderail
Jindi
KaribousBoutique
Kharma
Kyoto Kid
Llolalane
Luci45
MelanieL
Sasje
Scott-Livingston
Szark
Tarina Kivi
Tjohn
Totte
Ya know, who thinks of these sales? If you were stupid enough to buy yesterday (like me) then you could be getting 26% off those same items today. All I can say is DAZ took a big hit when those stores all went 40% off because of the Snowball discount stacking. DO read the fine print- the DAZ Originals at 40% do not stack with the 26%.
And as usual, the 26% does not include new releases. I don't think there's much left that was on my wishlist that wasn't in the group of stores that were 40%. So how is everyone's wish list doing with these sales? What's your guilty pleasure that you got? again, mine was the private jet.
I just bought $290 of stuff for $100. (faints)
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-clothing-control
Does anyone have this? Some of the Optitex stuff is really neat- but I am assuming this plug in is needed. What's the reputation of this product?
LOL tjohn!
Yeah, I might be a bit busy shopping and doing a bit more on the wishlist. Do you know about that plug in?
WOW- watch this video. :) (It may be slow to start)
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-sheets
EDIT: Here's another one:
http://www.daz3d.com/basic-dress
yah Novica... The dynamic cloth follows the shape of an object... just gotta be quick to stop the action or the ends fall through the floor.. hum.. maybe i need to work on dynamics some more.. i must be missing something cause my ends go through the floor... hummm .. see my post below :)
Thank you Jundi.. mind you.. it does take a little longer for the hair to render... but it reminds me of my Aunt's hair when she gel's it up all spikey... Happy rendering!
Novica.. I've had it on my wish list since I started using DAZ a year ago... STILL am not sure what it can do... I'm waiting til I know more about DAZ... maybe the creator of the program could start a thread on how to use it??? That's one thing I find missing on products... instructions... creators seem to think we KNOW what to do with all this special effect stuff... It's been mostly trial and error for me... But I'm learning... slooooooooowly.
It will be nice to see if anyone knows about the Dynamic Clothing Control. I've uploaded Optitex stuff... not had much time to play with what I got.. maybe it's time.. I DID do a dynamic render this Christmas... (see below)... I used the Daz Dynamic Table Cloth http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-tablecloth It worked fine without the dynamic cloth control plug-in.. from what I can make out... the plug-in gives you more wind and gravity control... enjoy! Happy rendering!
also used the dynamic flag http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-american-flag-1 for this render (ps... they are both on sale for less than 3 bucks... get'em while they're hot... lol)....
oh boy....you guys may make me spend more money than usual....LOL
Flag is in the cart.....
tjohn: thanks so much for posting what the boots look like with the button pushed.....I need help sometimes....that is a neat trick also about the fuzzy balls....
I just popped in, gotta pop back out- but thanks for those- I remember when you did the flag one :)
I found when I went through optitex's store, I had already bought some of the items so that makes it kinda nice. I think I'll splurge and get the Dynamic Clothing Control and the clothes and then be persistent on getting help on how to use it if I can't figure it out. (which is going to be more than likely, lol.) Thanks again for showing what you've done. Headed out the door (again. Relatives in town, and I had to go unblanket the horse. All I do is come home and leave again the past two days! Thanks to everyone for helping out.)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/2893/
This is the thread I found when doing a search, and I asked about the "free plugin." They told me about the background of it too.
Invited Guest Contributor
Daz Studio comes with a Basic Dynamic Clothing Control so you can use Dynamic Clothing without the Advanced Plug-in as mentioned.
Image 1 shows the Basic Control included in a default Daz Studio
Image 2 shows the same flag selected but now with added adjustable panel control parameters. These Panel settings control how stiff or flexible the cloth is, how much bend resistance there is and how thick the cloth is etc. The Physics Tab is where you can adjust the effect of gravity and wind effects.
Image 3 The Preferences Tab has controls for collision tolerances and internal pressure. Internal pressure will blow out the cloth more. Also there are more advanced Animation controls to help refine draping making the drape smoother but taking longer. Just think the more iterations, the more refined the drape is the longer the drape. Iterations, meaning one Key Frame of animation is broken down to smaller increments of draping calculations.
I am not fully conversed with the Plug-in but all I can say it gives you more freedom and flexibility than the Basic controls.
Personally I love anything Dynamic, cloth, hair and fur. The implementation is another story. Many people think Dynamic clothing allows you to throw a piece of clothing on a figure, drape and be done with it. Sometimes that can be true if the pose isn’t that extreme. For extreme poses like sitting it takes time and learning to get good results, just like the hair plug-ins, you get out what you put it.
There has been a call for a Dynamic solution to be included in Daz Studio for some time now. The reasons are down to Poser having the ability to Dynamically Drape normal conforming and Poser Dynamic clothing alike, the cost of the Daz Studio compatible Dynamic Clothing and finally the limited choice of clothing.
Martin the maker of the Dynamic Clothing Control enlisted a few more people to make new clothing which saw an increase in choice but that seems to have waned recently.
Over the years the various Daz Studio software updates has caused some functions of the Dynamic Clothing Control to break. But a fix has always arrived, just not as quickly as we would like but at least it does get fixed and updated.
Yes as noted above by Novica you can use Dynamics for all sorts of things it just takes some thinking outside the box. Dynamic cloth is great of draping over props like beds, chairs, the floor etc etc.
TIP: You cannot scale Dynamic Clothing until it is Frozen so scale the props to suit, then drape, freeze and rescale everything including the cloth.
Great for sitting poses where you want the dress to drape naturally as shown in the images below.
I don’t do animations at all and in the early days I was put off with Animating a Drape but trust me it is so easy once you understand how to use the Timeline Pane which is very simple in itself.
The trick is to use Animating Drapes and move the figure and prop (a seat for example) together further on in the animation
So frame 0 would have the figure in the tee pose and the Dynamic Dress set up and a seat low down.
Frame 20 the figure and seat would be in the final positions and the figure in the final pose. So as the Animation goes forward the seat starts to rise and collide with the cloth at the same time the figure is moving lower. The end result at Frame 20 should see the seat sitting on the ground and the figure in the sitting pose, just stopping above the seat to allow some room for the cloth to move. Nothing worse than pinching the cloth and getting deformed results. I often use three deformers to flatten the glute and thighs of the figure so it sits lower on the seat before Draping. Also this is a good time to inject body morphs or characters. When using genesis I give it V4 or M4 shape first at frame 0, if I am using older Gen 4 clothing that is. This gives a good base to start with. At frame 20 you can remove these shapes and inject more.
We could then Freeze the Drape turning the clothing into an OBJ static prop and in DS4.6 use the Collision and Smoothing mod for the final touches. Which I did in the image titled “The Box”, setting the Cloth to collide with the chair.
Frame 20 to 30 would be spare for an extra static type of draping, to refine the drape.
Here is the official User Guide http://www.optitex-dynamiccloth.com/Yourfirstdrapeandbeyond.pdf
Here is a good thread about Animating a Drape http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/20673/#303671
And a little one about using V and M4 Dynamic clothing on Genesis http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15554 I have no idea about Genesis 2 yet sorry.
OMGosh, did you just do all that writeup?????
yeah about 2 hours worth of work. Well it is boxing day. :)
He is my first ever animated drape.
Oh and I forgot to mention the dress in both images above is Queen of Ages using MFD to QoA so I could use different Morphing Fantasy Dress textures on Queen of Ages. Very handy piece of kit and it works in DS4.6, well it did a few weeks back. Sorry can't show the image as it is under self imposed NDA.
Invited Guest Contributor
First review will be Deacon for Michael 5 by vyktohria
For those who know me a little, know I have a preference for rendering male figures.
With this review I want to examine a middle-aged looking male skin and morph.
Also, I'll have a look on how the outcome will be when used on Michael 6.
No postwork, other than adding a logo and some cropping, all renders done with Luxus.
Items used in first render
Skin: Deacon for Michael 5 with the tatoo skin option
Morphs: Michael 6 with my own dialed-in morphs
Figure: Michael 6
Hair: Deacon for Michael 5 buzzed
Earrings: His Earstuff Christmas 2013 freebie from Karth
Items used in second render
Skin: Deacon for Michael 5
Morphs: dialed by myself
Figure: Michael 5
Hair: Mitchell Hair for Genesis by StudioArtVartanian
Clothing: Effortless Cool for Genesis Male with the Mellow texture
Background: DAZ environment without textures converted into a light
Items used in third render
Skin: Deacon for Michael 5
Morphs: Deacon for Michael 5 with the dark eyes make-up
Figure: Michael 5
Hair: Cuffed Tail 2 by AprilYSH
Clothing: Jack of Hearts for Genesis
Background: Curator Aquarum by Jack Tomalin
Items used in fourth render
Skin: Deacon for Michael 5 with the tatoo skin option
Morphs: Michael 6 with my own dialed-in morphs
Figure: Michael 6
Hair: Micah Hair
Clothing: Warrior Outfit
Background:
The face is very detailed with little blotches, molds and wrinkles, giving it a quite realistic feel.
There is a stubble beard that comes with the skin and can't be removed, but the tatoo is optional.
Tatoo is covering the right arm, left leg and back.
For the head there are three different hair choices with hair, without hair and a buzzed (stubbled) option.
It fits onto M6 quite nicely, with no apparent problems.
The legs seem to be brighter than the torso, arms and face (I call it English legs lol) and it seems to be a conscious choice from the artist.
Six eyecolors are included and they also have a natural, realistic look.
For the eyes there is a dark make-up option for each hair texture.
I can recommend Deacon for everyone's runtime because of his more mature look and he can now be purchased now with the 26% christmas discount!
Where's the newspaper from?
VERY nice review Estroyer! BTW, don't feel like you have to link to the main figures, it'll save you some time (like the Victoria 5, Victoria 6, etc) but I like your format very much though and it does make it easy for folks to zoom to the main figure. Appreciate all the time it took to write this up, you're making me look bad lol! (And keep it up. I like looking bad with all these excellent reviews.)
The character looks like it will be quite versatile. The facial hair looks good too, that's one thing I know I'll be picky about when I start doing the men more often.
Invited Guest Contributor
I finally pestered him enough that he's agreed to help out- it will be occasionally and off and on, but just HAD to keep after Pete until he said yes. (Wasn't hard, as you all know he's always so helpful. It's just some other commitments at the moment.) EDIT: And just so you know, I asked him a day or two ago. It wasn't because of the FANTASTIC job he just did in the previous posts- he's always fantastic so that's why I was "gunning for him." (evil cackle.)
So welcome to the cool kids on the block:
Szark
Only one person left and I'll be contacting them shortly.
Aww thanks for cheer ^^
Putting the links in isn't really a lot of work (copy/past yay!)
And I am picky with details ;)
Now I need some omnoms...chocolate milk it is!
Where's the newspaper from?http://www.most-digital-creations.com/free_poser_poses_textures_morphs_props_18.htm bottom of the page. I made the texture you see myself. Not hard to do given it is just a big rectangle. :)
Thanks! Looks useful :)
Yeah, that is Sarge. =-) I think you'll like simple veins. It is a neat, and easy to use product which can create a nice distinctive look for your male figures.
I picked up a pose set AnimeMe, A Gentleman's wardrobe., and Genesis 2 Male Clone.
Dream Home: The Study
Dream Home: The Study Furniture
Baby For Genesis
Barn Yard (AOIBL Lights)
http://www.daz3d.com/dream-home-the-study
http://www.daz3d.com/dream-home-the-study-furniture
http://www.daz3d.com/baby-for-genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/barn-yard
Look out Chuckie, Baby For Genesis is on the scene! Seriously, you will laugh SO hard when you see Genesis zip down to a baby! I said, 'Oh my goodness!" when it transformed. I want to point out something that may not be obvious at first- yes, there are programs to transform figures down to younger ages- but you get a diaper with this dude/dudette. And it fits. And you don't have to mess (no pun intended) with it. And it's kinda cute.
I want to remind people about Barn Yard lights, as those references are buried somewhere in our other threads. Barn Yard lights do great no matter WHAT you're lighting. I added one dim spotlight for the cheek closest to us, tweaked the distant light up by about 10%, increased shadow softness for a few of them, and that was all. If you have good snowball savings, plus the 26%, you get a really good barn (have showcased it before, with Cassini against the ladder if you'll recall) plus a good light set. It does have UE2 (UberEnvironmeent 2) as you can tell from the pretty bluish glow around the edges.
Need someone to tell me the difference in AOIBL (which I used) and IBL. You get both light options with Barn Yard.
One other thing which I mentioned back in the previous threads- really like the ground options with Barn Yard. If you ever need a straw/hay ground plane, I like this one. Increase the bump slightly, and it's even better.
I did not use depth of field so you could see The Study walls. The rug comes with The Study: Furniture product. Looks good in the hall :)
I like the fat in the crook of the arm! This is straight out of the box baby, you can change the head to suit your preferences. LOVE the poses that come with this kid! I did not pose him/her at all.