Dreamfarmer's Top 3 For March

DA Blue Bell Woods: I keep reaching for this when I need a bit of framing for a render, and then it urges me toward making it into a scene. I was a bit taken aback by the HDRI backdrop the first time I saw it and I still tend not to use it, but I've always loved bluebell woods and this one is just so.... friendly. Example.
Realistic Grass Evolution: So I bought the Poplars almost by accident, to get one of those 'buy two' discounts one day. And I kind of liked them, but the preset scenes kept annoying me because I didn't have the required grass. So I bought the grass another day when it was on sale. Reader, I loved it. The high-poly grass is ridiculously heavyweight, even for my brand-new computer, but fortunately, the low-poly grass seems just as good for most purposes. I am often driven into nail-biting anxiety by how... awful natural ground textures are in IRay and this is just lovely stuff. I even stuck it under Andrey Pestryakov's The Forest and it made the whole thing look nicer. Example. Example.
LIE Make Up Presets for Genesis 3 Male: I can't lie: eyeliner makes the man. (Except The Guy, who, in his native skin, prefers to wear it as football makeup on his cheeks. It figures.) But it's more than just stark eye-delineation in a world of mechanized line-art filters: the whole set brings characters to life. Example.

I have two new releases in my cart from today, and a couple of Stonemason items. The Stonemason items do not seem to get the extra 20% discount. When I put items from, say Andrey Pestryakov in the cart, those get the extra 20%.

Another combo. This is two products I got in December: another set by Andrey Pestryakov/Peanterra called Water Spring combined with EcoManiac3D's Formations for Rock Collection. ... I put a 100K ghost light inside the cave to provide reflected light and avoid a black hole. 

That ghost light in the cave made a difference, it does show the details. Very smart! Nice combination! 

Another combo. This is two products I got in December: another set by Andrey Pestryakov/Peanterra called Water Spring combined with EcoManiac3D's Formations for Rock Collection. This scene shows about how they load, with Water Spring moved slightly and the rock formation lowered in Y scale and expanded in X scale (the original opening was too round for my liking). I used the DeepCaveC5K prop as it had a stone color similar to Water Spring's. The 5K is the low resolution version; there's also a higher resolution 50K prop which really slowed movement in the viewport. Sky is from Skies of iRadiance. I put a 100K ghost light inside the cave to provide reflected light and avoid a black hole. 

Just a few vendors I have checked, to get a better orientation about the items with SKU numbers lower than 16000. Listed the last item with a SKU lower than 16000. Items earlier released have pretty sure even lower SKU numbers.

3D Universe - Skull Cove Complete - SKU:15958

Age of Armour - Metalized Glass Shaders for DAZ Studio - SKU:15595
Alessandro_AM - INFINITO 1.1.0.1 - SKU:13700 ( Look At My Hair - SKU:15548 )
Andrey Pestryakov - Forest Winter - SKU:15837
AprilYSH - Reinoa Hair - SKU:15860

Cute3D - Female Business Suit - SKU:15735

Danie - DMs Aramonk - SKU:15359
DestinysGarden - InaneGlory's Photo Studio 3 - SKU:14906
deviney - Ron's Apocalypse - SKU:15850
DimensionTheory - Project EYEris - SKU:15922
DraagonStorm - Sheer Greatness! - SKU:15900
Dreamlight - 3D Space Battle Master - SKU:15643

E-Arkham - EArkham's ZWorld The Hallways - SKU:15472
Elliandra - Fantasy Poses for Aiko 5 - SKU:15778
Esha - Precious Princess - SKU:15858

Faveral - Le Faubourg - SKU:15525
FirstBastion - Land of the Ice Cold Sun - SKU:15912
Flipmode - Easy Environments Top of the World - SKU:15821
ForbiddenWhispers - Sheerly Great for the Sheer Greatness Pantyhose - SKU:15993

Goldtassel - Swim Cap Hair - SKU:15951
Gypsyangel - 50 Lips For Genesis - SKU:15949

IgnisSerpentus - Guardians of the Dead for Serpent Goddess - SKU:15811
InaneGlory - Ring of Light - Environment Lighting - SKU:15836

Jack Tomalin - Bridge of Cheirocrates - SKU:15795

Kibarreto - Shuttlestar Extra Textures Package - SKU:15823
KindredArts - none less than 16000

Luthbel - Jack of Hearts for Genesis - SKU:15985
Luthbellina - none less than 16000
Lyoness - none less than 16000

maclean - Everyday Morphing Primitives - SKU:15892
Marforno - DMs Aramonk - SKU:15359
Mattymanx - Braces - SKU:15967
Marshian - none less than 16000
Mec4D - none less than 16000
Merlin Studios - Infinite Gardens - SKU:15981
midnight_stories - Pale Shadows - SKU:15708
Morris - Anastasiya for A5 - SKU:15920

Neftis3D - Momotsuki (Pink Moon) Hair - SKU:15826 
Nightshift3D - Odysseon Station Observation Deck - SKU:15973
noggin - Ghoul Girl Poses - SKU:11936

Orion1167 - Alice Redemption - SKU:15381
OziChick - none less than 16000

PandyGirl - none less than 16000

Phoenix1966 - Ibrahim for M4 and Genesis M5 - SKU:15947
Porsimo - Age of Steel - SKU:15874
Predatron - LoREZ Daffodils - SKU:15871

Raiya - Olivia for V5 - SKU:15926
Ravenhair - Night Guard for Genesis Male - SKU:15953
RawArt - The Igigi - SKU:15986

Shox-Design - ShoXoloR for Wild Orchid Hair - SKU:12890
SimonWM - Dynamic Supersuit Set 2 Cosmic Gods - SKU:14959
Silver - ToXic Pure Hair: Sweet - SKU:15974
SKAmotion - Midnight Moves Animation for Victoria 4 - SKU:14473
SloshWerks - none less than 16000
smay - Stalker Girl Hair - SKU:15884
SoulessEmpathy - SciFi Interior - SKU:14231
Stonemason - CryoEnvironment - SKU: 15992
Surreality - Modern Muses Summer - SKU:14999
SWAM - Yunko Hair - SKU:15933

The AntFarm - HS PowerUp - SKU:15691

Valandar - Adventure Outfit - SKU:15889
Valea - Pepper Hair - SKU:15832

Xena - Retro Party Wear - SKU:15767

Yura - none less than 16000

~Wolfie~ - none less than 16000

Feel free to post more vendors and the last item in the shop with an SKU lower than 16000. Your help is appreciated and the list will be expanded.

When these stores go on sale during MM (IF) keep an eye out for these sets and cute props in the SKUs under 16000   These are from the 15000-15999 list, I'm not indexing anything older than these.  You can go through the list here:  You'll get an extra 30% on top of the other discounts if you've received the MM banner. These were chosen because they have either been reviewed, used, OR are a set/prop, are unique (such as Ducky.)  A few family friendly outfits are noted.  Can't possibly list all of them.

Note if you are still doing 3DL, Barn Yard has fantastic lighting. Focusing on sets and props, but several outfits which have been previously reviewed with great reviews are listed.

D's done.  E's done. I edited and put the vendors' names first, Daz Original second, so you'd be able to see whose stores were involved more easily.  F's done. G's done   H's done. That's all for now.

26Fahrenheit      City Signs
26 Fahrenheit / Daz Originals  Cargo Units 1   and  2
3DLust    Ghost Hoodie (8 material zones, you can "ghost" out the hoodie. SereneNight did a cool render of this years ago! And I remember!) 
3djoji     Doctor Cab
Andrey Pestryakov   Forest Autumn    Forest Elements   Forest Winter
ARTCollab     Barn Yard     Candle Collection   Horse Accessories (also DO) 
Billy home / Deci6el / Moebius87    Dystopian Worker Drone
Blondie9999 / Daz Originals   Diner Food 1   and all the Diner Foods, also the Tableware
Bluebird 3d      A Cozy Studio    Chamber dAmore
Danie /  Marfono / Daz Originals    DMs Aramonk
Daz Originals    Daz Horse 2 (and its bundles, items released at that time. Too many to list)
DimensionTheory   HDR BaseSets Monterey  and Pro Set
Draagonstorm   Geishas for Aiko 5  (In honor of Draagonstorm, and because they're downright cool!) 
Dreamlight       Cottage House    Dream Lounge   Earthquake  
E-Arkham    ZWorld The Hallways    ZWorld The Basement
FirstBastion    High Cliff Crossing   Farm Fencing  Horse Show Jumping Props
Flipmode     The Easy Environments:   Eternal Sands   Greenlands   Mountain Trail   Road To Hell   Top of the World   Winter
Handspun Studios / Thorne   Genesis Body Morph Resource Kit:2    Head Morph Resource Kit 4
Jack Tomalin / Daz Originals   Bridge of Cheirocrates    Dubious series-  Bank   Pub   School House
JoeQuick    Ducky for Genesis  (Unique, so here's a character) 
Karth      Horse ShoePack
Maclean     Everyday Morphing Primitives
Mada / Daz Originals     Daydream   (outfit-Genesis, family friendly)
Merlin Studios      The Church Props
Midnight_Stories  Genesis Sabbatic Goat  (just because.) 
Moebius87 / Tyger Purr    Dystopia Coriolus
Nathy / Daz Originals  Dragon's Tower
Parris         Bot Genesis
Petipet / Daz Originals   City Roads
Porsimo     Fantasy Weapons Collection
Powerage    House on the Hill
Predatron       Aradior Point   Dranik's Cellar  Giant Fantasy Spider (low resolution)
Sarsa / Daz Originals    Val3dart    Clown  (outfit-Genesis, we loved it when reviewed it)  and Textures
Stonemason   Derelict Corners Urban
Sugatek    Fujiian Tulou Fortress    
The AntFarm   AB3K     Archimedes Prime  (not a set, but fun)  and Buddy Bot    Heros Stand
The DigiVault    Destroyed City
Valandar / Daz Originals    Board Games   Bumper Cars   Classroom Furniture   Equestrian Props
WillDupre / Daz Originals   English Saddle  and Textures (by Arien) 

​

That depends on what you mean by create - you could make a large plane primitive with many divisions (from the Create menu), apply one or more DForms to it and use the weight mapping tols to "paint" relief onto it - though texturing might be an issue. However, most people would use add-ons such as TerraDome 3 or sets from people like Andrey Pestryakov FirstBastion

I used to do the movie awards prediction game but it's been years since I've been up on current movies. But predicting stuff is fun all the same. So... I'm guessing we have.... about a day until March Madness starts. But possibly half a week! What sort of spotlight items are you expecting/hoping for?

I'm expecting something amazing from Stonemason! Probably outdoorsy!

And a tropical nature scene from Andrey Pestryakov!

And LAMH 2!

This all sounds good to me.  I'd like to see a few more sets in the Streets of Tuscany / Village Courtyard series.  Anything from Andrey involving large amount of  vegitation is a good thing. LAMH 2 has been promised for a while now. 

Cheers,

Alex.

I used to do the movie awards prediction game but it's been years since I've been up on current movies. But predicting stuff is fun all the same. So... I'm guessing we have.... about a day until March Madness starts. But possibly half a week! What sort of spotlight items are you expecting/hoping for?

I'm expecting something amazing from Stonemason! Probably outdoorsy!

And a tropical nature scene from Andrey Pestryakov!

And LAMH 2!

And Star's brother/boyfriend! (hey I can dream) 

....or some other anime-style couple....

and DT's Sketchy!
And some new animals!

And another interior decorating shader set from Khory!
And also, a cafe, a loft apartment and 4 expression pose sets.

 

RGcincy very good work! Today came the update for "On the Shore", and other products, that eliminates problems with the white and black spots in the DAZ Studio 4.9.3.166.

thanks, it helps when you have good products to work with. I really like the variety of vegetation you have in On the Shore.

Recently purchased Forest by Andrey Pestryakov. The first 3Delight render using the latest version of Daz Studio is the SR preload, through camera 7, DS Light 1 set that comes with the product. There are strange artifacts in the scene that I can't find in the Scene tab. They don't look like flowers, and flowers aren't among the props.

The second render is the same scene through the same camera 7, using DS Light 3 set. No artifacts.

Also, no matter which light set I use, they always consist of 2 spotlights named Light 2 and Light 3, and 24 distant lights named Ambient1-Ambient24. Is this by design? None of the lights have colors matching the artifact colors.

Also got a bunch of severity zero messages like this, if it helps: "3Delight message #43 (Severity 0): R2093: object 'shapematerial_matBranch1_1307_4db' (displacement 'DAZ/Uber/displacement/omDispStandard', surface 'DAZ/Uber/surface/omShadowSurface') used only 12% of its displacement bound"

Any ideas? Thanks in advance for your help!

Ka-ching! Novica cost me money - she must be evil (or maybe just  a good saleswoman). I had Demon Barber on my wishlist for a long time and couldn't pass up the price. I got the Wezor Hair as the trigger since it was by EmmaAndJordi. Total cost of both was only $9.24.

We've been doing a lot of portraits, so now it's time for scenery.

So I'm issuing myself a little challenge. I'm going to combine two more sets, and they both have to be within the last ten sets that I've bought. Let's see what I come up with. Using two that are bought back to back or really close in sequence, the better it is. I need to use most of the set, and the entire set if possible. (I think I'm setting myself up for failure here LOL) Play along if you like!   Back in a few, I'm going to look over my sets.

Since scenery is mostly what I do, I can't resist the challenge. Here's a scene combining Mountain Trail and Ancient Ruins. These are made by the same PAs (Andrey Pestryakov and Peanterra) who made On the Shore. I got all three on the same day last week from Fast Grab. This is pretty much how they loaded, one on top of the other. I rotated the ruins slightly to bring more of the stonework into view. Turned out to go together pretty well I think. I used High Peaks Skydome and HDRI for the sky and lighting. Lot's of vegetation in this. Click on image for larger view. 

A couple of renders of 1stBastions Mid Forest Vale.This new set reminds me a lot of 1stBastion's Wilderness: Two Creeks which I also have and use a lot. One big difference between the sets is the greater amount of foliage in Mid Forest Vale.

The set comes with 3DL and Iray materials. Below is a 3DL render using the lights and Camera 1 that come with the set. 

I have a lot of exploration left to do, but my first impression is that it's another good product from one of my favorite PA's.

 

My first thought was it slightly resembled  Andrey's foliage. Those two vendors would go well together I think. I like it overall, but I think I'd put a bit of bump in the road to give it some added ooomph. Or perhaps add some stones, to make it more like a path in a forest vale. But it could be the lighting direction (I don't see any stones though.)  I really like the lighting variety you showed us, and except for (perhaps)the somewhat flat path, it's a lovely set. He always does a very nice job with the foliage and rocks.

Some people, however, like the "ego" folders as it makes it easier to find matching styles, and because a real split by type would either enmd up with a single product spread across many different folders or would end up with disparate items lumped together under the "main" item's type. This is precisely the type of issue that categorisation was added to address.

Yeah, maybe I'm just used to the system after almost 20 years as a Poser/Daz user, but I prefer the "ego" folders. It's a breeze for me to go to Andrey Pestryakov, Gypsyangel, Sveva, or Stonemason, etc. since I know what those products consist of. Others like Bitwelder, seem to catagorize his or her products by the products name under 'Props'. Obviously, a simple thing to find. But for me at least, I like finding products under the creator/artist name.

I was tempted by some of those elaborate outdoor scenes like The Neighbour's Yard or any of the Andrey Pestryakov scenes but I doubt that even the 8GB in my 1070 would be enough to render them, especially with a couple of G3 figures/clothes included.

I love this PA's stuff. It's crucial to my work. But sometimes it comes off a little too.... brightly colored for my needs. I've played around with shaders (3dl uber-converted to Iray) but I just can't figure out how to produce a more... sober look.  Any tips. 

Same.  I have 2 new releases in my cart and am not getting any discount at all for Aurelio, Valendar, Digital Art Live, _manne_, Propschick, ZKuro, Andrey Pestryakov, or Peanterra.

It says that Andrey Pestryakov store is included in the 40% off for featured artists, but when I click on the store from the advertisement page there is no discount as shown in the below images.
http://www.daz3d.com/andrey-pestryakov#&filter_new=0&filter_platClub=0&filtered=1

Thanks KK. yeah I used a fair bit of instancing. The ground plane is from Andrey Pestryakov with 4 types of grass objects parented to it. Then I instanced 11 more versions of it. The trees are .OBJs with 3 varieties and those instanced 3 times each. I combined and posed the horses and the riders together in max and exported each as .OBJs with 4 types with one type being instanced 5 times. Then added the mountains from the Dry Mud Flats addon with an HDRI for the sky. And then converted the textures to IRAY

Yeah, the store's messed up again, as usual. They have to fix the loyalty bonus, not doing 60%.

 

The way the coupon reads I think the 60% off replaces the 30% loyalty reward and only applies to the featured artists and new releases the were on yesterday's sale page. That seems to be working for me.

Since Andrey Pestryakov is one of today's featured artists I wish the 60% discount did apply to them; But it doesn't.

ETA: Also, while my store credit is low I have been wishing for a gift card sale but the price of admission on this one is too high.

So altogether I think this may be a much needed rest day from purchasing.