Andrey Pestryakov said:

8 0513, 8 0513 - good, atmospheric images.

thank you for your comment :-)

Andrey Pestryakov said:

spider58 said:

2000 samples, Path Tracing, GTX680 2GB, 38 minutes.

No postwork, will work on the textures a bit and add a character.

Good and fast rendering for large image! On the wall roughness felt good, but planar of the road and the grass.

Thanks Andrey, have just downloaded Nvidia Texture Tools and will learn how to make normal maps to try and fix that. ;-)

I just bought Forest by Andrey Pestryakov (awesome model btw) and it has UberEnvironment lighting. All was fine until I added characters to the scene - they render with a skin pattern that resembles freckles (See attached image).
How do I fix this?

I have not used UE lighting before, and I don't want to spend a week figuring out how to get a decent render.
Much as I love DAZ Studio I want to get on with my creative work.
Thanks for your help.

PS - Link to my comic page The Golden Android

Andrey Pestryakov said:

bigh said:

7 2213

An interesting render. This is Bryce?

thank you - no not Bryce - but could be done using it .

Kyoto Kid said:

...shhh, don't let chohole hear that. She wields quite the mean cudgel.

Actually I still like Bryce for environment generation. Daz Studio is woefully inadequate in that department and requires premade environments.. Unfortunately the bigger and more detailed, (like Andrey Pestryakov's Forest) the more load it places on system resources during rendering.

Bryce also has a lot of other nice tools that would be helpful in 4.6 such as replication and instancing. While there is a plugin that gives Daz instancing capability (Alessandro_AM's Infinito)it can quickly overload one's system resources.

If Daz updated Bryce to 64 bit, it would become a tremendous application as it could use a system's full memory resources to for rendering.

As to Hexagon, even on my new system it keeps freezing up forcing me to abort the app though Windows Task Manager. Most likely this is a memory allocation issue that could possibly be solved if it too were updated to 64 bit. I know that I constantly get warnings when trying to use any smoothing that it will make the application unstable. Makes little sense to have the feature if it rarely can be used.

...shhh, don't let chohole hear that. She wields quite the mean cudgel.

Actually I still like Bryce for environment generation. Daz Studio is woefully inadequate in that department and requires premade environments.. Unfortunately the bigger and more detailed, (like Andrey Pestryakov's Forest) the more load it places on system resources during rendering.

Bryce also has a lot of other nice tools that would be helpful in 4.6 such as replication and instancing. While there is a plugin that gives Daz instancing capability (Alessandro_AM's Infinito)it can quickly overload one's system resources.

If Daz updated Bryce to 64 bit, it would become a tremendous application as it could use a system's full memory resources to for rendering.

As to Hexagon, even on my new system it keeps freezing up forcing me to abort the app though Windows Task Manager. Most likely this is a memory allocation issue that could possibly be solved if it too were updated to 64 bit. I know that I constantly get warnings when trying to use any smoothing that it will make the application unstable. Makes little sense to have the feature if it rarely can be used.

This isn't an entry, but it's in the creature fest spirit of things. Genesis golem, Pestryakov's forest superior and Noggins Hare with LAMH preset by Belovedalia.

Andrey Pestryakov said:

For DAZ Studio is the bonus scenes that go along with the Forest Elements, in these scenes, you can turn off any tree.

Andrei Pestryakov's stuff is on sale with the buy two get 40% off here: http://www.daz3d.com/spring-into-summer His store is already on sale, instead of getting an additional 10% off it's stacking with some of the items making the discount 30% plus a further 40%. Which works out at around 58%. This only seems to be working on some of the items, not all. Primarily the forest items. I bought forest hut and a large ash tree for $13.40.

Andrey Pestryakov said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Glad to help - I've been enjoying the Forest sets.

Richard, can you shell out .DUF scene with light settings, that you render before?

I'm not sure how much traffic Google Drive will take, but for what it's worth here's the scene I used and a screenshot of the render settings (which are the defaults aside from Shading rate .5 and turning Gamma Correction on).

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5LdAsR9g-jaFRISXFOdlNJeDA/edit?usp=sharing

peter.schelfhout said:

Just looking for some purchase ideas :

What is your favourite / most used content you bought from DAZ? Certain figures, buildings, environments, skins, morphs, utilities?

I only use DS for something over a month, so it's interesting to know which items have impressed you most and are certainly worth their price.

I'm most impressed with Valerie (elite skin for V5), Project Eyeris, PointAt Fixer script and Skies of the Economy.

Peter.

Well, the content I like most is probably Genesis, especially K4 (though they are also avalaible separately), Young Teens 5, King Kong and Anubis. I also love Raiya's characters, Andrei Pestryakov's Tropical Quest and Forest items. With much patience I managed to get the whole series of Tropical Quest and 3/5 of Forest (Forest, Forest Superior and Forest Autumn). See the products yourself: http://www.daz3d.com/tropical-bundle and http://www.daz3d.com/forest-bundle. Another great prop provider is Stonemason: I have both Worlds of Fantasy items, Enchanted Forest and Return to Enchanted Forest, Modular Ruins and Streets of Asia 1-2. The third installment looks stunning, but is so expensive now that I'll probably have to wait a bunch, so you had better ask somebody who has it. Generally, Stonemason specialises in urban props, but what I like from him is everything he makes with outdoors in mind, so ruins, forests, ancient dwellings and so.

Raiya makes wonderful, realistic characters. From Neo, Sean and Dean for D5, through Jesse and Deborah for YT5, Candance and Keira for S5, Esmeralda, Priestess, Cherry and Liu for V4, Xiao Wen, Olivia, Leah and Leyla for V5, Theo, Raphael, Cesar, Noah and Josh for M4, Benjamin and James for M5, Jules for S4 and morph resources: Manly Men, Feminine Touch and Look At Me.

Valea has a similar style to Raiya's, but this time there are more fantasy products. You can find nice packages with different stuff inside, for instance hair and clothes, hair and a character or something similar. Some samples of those deals are Bijou, Gisele, Coco, Alysa, Eve, Candy, Jaime, Cat, Anjali and Summer (hair and a character deal) as well as Keeper of Dreams or Dragon Princess (hair and clothes deal). Valea offers some fine outfits like Faerie Queen, Pretty Basics Flat Mary Janes or Pretty Basics Ballerina Flats. But this vendor is most famous for the avalaible hairstyles. The line Pure Hair is very popular: Nightlife, Catwalk, Messy, Classic, Candy, Darling, Casual and Bubblegum. Wet Hair for either V4 or M4 suits all marine renders. Other iconic hairstyles from this vendor include Sea Nymph, Misty Veil, Woodland Dream, Loreley, Moonsong, Autumn Winds, Fairytale, Midnight Dream, Tequila, Beach, Snow White, Midsummer Night Dream, Spring Princess, Windsong, Gypsy, Salsa or Rose Curls. SWAM's style resembles Valea's, but this vendor specialises in hairstyles. Although you can get very nice Chicari Dress, Little Melody, De Roca, Martine, Taylor, Romana, Pixie, Daria, Super Sleek, Little Demi and Zac hairstyles require strong recommendation.

Esha has beautiful antique-like dresses - Kassandra Dress, Iolanthe Dress and Delira Dress. They have texture expansions too. AprilYSH makes many cool hairstyles. My favourite are Gia, Jordan and Gabriel, though I have only the first one. I plan to get them somewhere in the undetailed future ;). When I filter AprilYSH's shop, I also like the look of Osean, Glyn and, most notably, Xylia Double Braids hairstyles. Gia morphs well and it's important, in my humble opinion, if you start gathering your collection (Mellany, Aryelle and Elleth hairstyles by PropsChick as well as Denver Hair by 3DCelebrity have similar virtues). DAZ Studio is a brilliant tool, but requires some time to gain the content before you can really start. My suggestion is to check Freepozitory, where you can find links to various freebies. Most notably, to say only a few nicknames, Wilmap, Eblank, Chacornac, Gendragon and Arah3D have great collections on ShareCG to get you started. However, getting back to DAZ stuff worth suggesting... I fell in love with Smay's Water Nymph for V4 (http://www.daz3d.com/water-nymph-for-v4) - it's a conforming mermaid tail, which looks far more realistic like more popular Lost Realms. They are good too, of course, but to get freshwater species, you need to buy several texture expansions. Smay also made cool Stalker Girl Pants (they work perfectly for me) and has three more items that I find interesting: Leafy Suit for Genesis, Stalker Girl Boots and Fire and Smoke for DS. I don't have them, sadly, so ask somebody who has them for a decent opinion.

4BlueEyes put up for sale a nice art noveau-styled outfit that bears a charm of Orient and is called Modern Muses (http://www.daz3d.com/modern-muses-for-victoria-4-2-elite-aiko-4). SickleYield's Classic Swimwear for Genesis (http://www.daz3d.com/classic-swimwear-genesis) is very nice, in my humble opinion, and also conforms well for tweaked K4 characters, for instance with morphs++ applied to the base figure. If you need any plants, see Lisa's Botanicals, I recommend Heart of the Matter, Palms, Tropicals, Lilies and Wisteria, but in general, all or nearly all of her flora elements work fine for me. When it comes to Lady LittleFox, I definitely go for Lady of the Lake for Genesis(http://www.daz3d.com/lady-of-the-lake-for-genesis). You can buy V4-only version too, but what's the point? Genesis version costs the same amount of money, but has many possibilities V4-only lacks. Lady LittleFox also has things like V4 Fairy Gown, Medusa Dress and deWinter. A friend of mine got herself deWinter and rendered great tubes out of it.

Powerage, on the other hand, provides fine props like Lumberjack's Hut (http://www.daz3d.com/lumberjack-house) or Mandagfor City. MerlinStudios has such high-quality things like the Church duo (http://www.daz3d.com/the-church-bundle), I'm waiting for a chance to get it and Summer Trees (http://www.daz3d.com/summer-trees-by-merlin). I've already got The Secret series bundle (http://www.daz3d.com/the-secret-series-bundle) and Japanese Tea House set (http://www.daz3d.com/japanese-tea-garden-tea-house-bundle), the garden is breath-taking. InaneGlory is said to offer beautiful and useful light sets, but I don't have anything from this vendor. Not yet :). Noggin has some animals like the classic Noggin's Super Croc. If you need anything cartoony, 3D-Universe is the place to search first. I'm happy with their Skull Cove products, Kimberly for Genesis stuff and Old Man Rex clothing. I'd probably enjoy Sam and Sadie stuff too if I had the chance to try it, but ask somebody who knows how they work. Nerd3D and FirstBastion can offer photorealistic landscapes, while Neftis3D caters for photorealistic, high-poly hairstyles. Vykhtoria has various dresses, most notably the beautiful Dress of Your Dreams (http://www.daz3d.com/dress-of-your-dreams).

Val3DArt seems to specialise in clothes: you can grab such fine stuff like Slicer, Athlantya or Liberte Dress. Faveral creates very good medieval props (I managed to get Fairytale Places bundle during the recent Platinum Club sale and I love it). Predatron offers fine animals (I have his pigs and they are uber-adorable) as well as realistic props - plants and landscapes. Danie and Marforno have a sample of what they sell on Rendo here - I like my Zahirs Palace, Fantasy Bath and Druid Valley due to their versatility. They have poses included to get you started and so on. I heard that Ryverthorn released a gorgeous set called Ryverwood Cottage (http://www.daz3d.com/ryverwood-cottage), it looks nice.

Sarsa, RavenHair, Thorne and Mada often work together, so you can find various things in their shops, from characters (especially for A3, A4 and K4), clothes and hairstyles to props. I have some outfits from them. The whole section of clothing items called Dragon Queen, Elven Dress, Lion Queen and Priestess are fantastic and I use them very frequently. They have several texture expansions too, just as their male counterpart series, Night Guard, Wolf King, Buccaneer Basic and Elven Warrior. Casual Afternoon and Casual Male work for my everyday renders and Battle-Ready Bundle is used as fancy dress party stuff. Tavern Maid and Tavern Keeper are fitted for medieval works and can be used for fantasy as well. I know Fairytale Dress is cool, but I don't have any experiences with it, sadly. Alchemist is great, too; recently, I bought Daydream Dress, I haven't worked with it yet, but a friend's renders show its potential. Other wonderful items from the team include MerBabies, WinterBerry, Calliope for V4, Lily Nymph, Essence, Florabelle, Seasons, Town and Country, Kenzi, AntsPants 1-2 and the whole Lost Realms series. They also create characters, so remember to check out Hollie, Jade, Twinkel Bundle, Elfin Princess Bundle and Teagan and Nymph Dress Bundle; finally, they have resource kits!

These are nice stuff if you need recommendation for products in general. However, if you are asking for items that are most versatile, meaning most other things use them - then there are some pieces of advice from people much wiser and experienced than me :D:
- try to get as many morph packages (V4/V5/A3/A4/A5/M4/M5/H3/H4/H5/K4/S4/S5/D3/D5/YT5 or even G4/F4/F5) as possible - they allow you to create your own characters, meaning you don't end up with identical renders;
- while working on Genesis, remember than most characters (and clothes or hair too, though they can be fitted) need morphs of the most popular figures listed above - a shape for Genesis is not enough; for instance, I want to use an A4 character - I have A4/H4 shapes, but I still must get A4 PACKAGE to have the character working (by the way, A4 REQUIRES V4 and morphs++);
- realistic lights are of most importance.
And here a bunch of my suggestions:
- Check out Fast Grab and Value - especially Value - categories frequently. Expensive items are sometimes thrown there and discounted. I waited for several items for months and grabbed for instance Cheyenne Bundle for $2,99 instead of $59,95, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Hippo, Donkey and Bison) for $8,37 instead of $11,95 and Monster Pack 1 for 1,99 instead of $85,70. It DOES make a difference.
- Check out bundles. They can even be cheaper than... a single item included! This is how Cheyenne Bundle works. It's in Valu category alongside with Cheyenne V4, Cheyenne M4, Cheyenne Village and Cheyenne Accessories. But EACH of the products is $6,99. The bundle too (but it contains all the rest AND unimeshes for the clothes). Strange, but good to take advantage of.
- If there's a freebie, get it. You don't have to download it straightaway - and you never know what will come in handy ;).
- Invest into DAZ Multiplane Cyclorama, Morphing Fantasy Dress for Genesis and Morphing Hooded Cloak for Genesis. Getting Genesis items usually saves you the cost of the item's counterparts that have morphs for other figures. Yes, they conform well. You actually CAN put Anubis into Kenzi's tutu. He looks kind of cute. Kind of.

How about the landforms from Boot Hill, Nerd's tropical cove set (not a hill, but it has slopes) or some of the Tropical Quest sets with the plants from Andrey Pestryakov's Forest sets (that last gets a bit complex as I think you need one of the big sets for textures, then the smaller set of props for the separate trees)

Ivy said:

Andrey Pestryakov said:

Average time to render - 35 minutes. Resolution 1920x1080. GTX Titan, DirectLighting 600.

That looks marvelous Andrey

+1

I would love to take a break at this place and relax in the forest some more!

Hard for me to stand waiting render in 24 hours. :) You are very patient. ;)
I usually use 600 maxsamples (rare 1200) for rendering.

I only realized after rendering that I might have triggered a bug in Octane that is supposed to be fixed in the next update:

It seems when saving a scene with lights set to "No Enviroment" for some reason the HDR mode is loaded along when opening up the scene again.
I made a post about this on the Octane Forum and it was confirmed.

In my last images two light solutions may have calculated at the same time. That might have been the reason why render times sky rocketed. PMC is supposed to be slower and more realistic but not that slow. ;-)

Well we will see after the next update...

Andrey Pestryakov said:

Average time to render - 35 minutes. Resolution 1920x1080. GTX Titan, DirectLighting 600.

That looks marvelous Andrey

K T Ong said:

Flipmode said:

I really understand the longing for good forest scenes, but I fear there is nothing "easy" about it. Difficult to create for Poser/DS, and likely incredibly slow to render due to all the transparency.

Let's have some 'Difficult Environments', then. LOL. :lol:

There's actually already a great Forest set by Andrey Pestryakov, but it's very large and somewhat unwieldy. I was hoping for something smaller and easier to work with.

Anyway, keep up the good work, willya?

@Cosmo: It's terrible seeing the poor girl plunge to her death... 8-/

plunge to her death???? No :) it is Dixie and Dixie will not die :) The Death fears Dixie :)

Flipmode said:

I really understand the longing for good forest scenes, but I fear there is nothing "easy" about it. Difficult to create for Poser/DS, and likely incredibly slow to render due to all the transparency.

Let's have some 'Difficult Environments', then. LOL. :lol:

There's actually already a great Forest set by Andrey Pestryakov, but it's very large and somewhat unwieldy. I was hoping for something smaller and easier to work with.

Anyway, keep up the good work, willya?

@Cosmo: It's terrible seeing the poor girl plunge to her death... 8-/

I have a new pic i made for the sheer greatness contest with pieces from at least 5 of Jack's sets, so I'll post it here too, hope no one minds. :) here it is, using the beautiful Marrakesh Souks, Carnival Midway & Interiors (for the tent and rifle), Moon Gate (for one of the two ivy props here), Jannah (in distance, and sofas in low foreground), Dubious Pub (for barrel tables). Was going to say the hanging lanterns too cause they are for dream home, but I see now Propschick did Poolside.

Some other credits include Stonemason's Walled City for the other buildings, Mada & Thorne's Aussie Girl shirt with my own rip map, smay's stalker girl shorts & Mavka skin on baby, serrge's Jeep, Luthbel's War Dog on the guards, Valea's pure hair: wild, Bobbie25's Tre hoodie as the baby wrap, dzfire's maximum destruction luggage rack doubling as window bars, andrey pestryakov's topical palm trees, age of armour's atmosphere camera, and of course zev0's sheer greatness and leggings on both baby and momma. Happy almost Mother's Day. ;)

(please click to see bigger)

Andrey Pestryakov said:

Ivy said:

Andrey Pestryakov said:

Tropical Bundle. Average time to render - 25 minutes. Resolution 2311x1300. Titan, PMC 1000.

Hi Andrey I'm just wondering have you tried to use octane render in animation yet?
if so how are you key-framing the sequences in the time line :)?

Yes, I tried to do the animation, but not with such heavy scenes like the forest or the tropics.
The method is simple, the animation is done as usual in DAZ Studio, and the renderer do c OctaneRender. But now OctaneRender there is an bug, it stoped render of animation after a few frames. I hope it will be corrected.

the reason I asked was because I was testing octane-render in poser . I haven't been using DS much lately
But feezing is a bug then in the render engine and not something I've been doing wrong. I tried a test render of a 100 keyframe animation and rendered 39 key-frames and then it stopped or froze on key-frame 40. the error log said GPU failed to respond to .ID-x86. win32.ocx.dll
I sent them the log file and a request for help . thats why i asked if you have tried to render animation yet.
Its nice to know I was not the only one that had a stopped error mid-way through the timeline sequence.

Andrey Pestryakov said:

Tropical Bundle. Average time to render - 25 minutes. Resolution 2311x1300. Titan, PMC 1000.

You really have found some great water settings with a suberb mix between waves and reflections!

Especially adoring the sunset image!! Might as well be a promo photograph.

Makes me to want to take some holidays and relax on the beach. ;-P

Ivy said:

Andrey Pestryakov said:

Tropical Bundle. Average time to render - 25 minutes. Resolution 2311x1300. Titan, PMC 1000.

Hi Andrey I'm just wondering have you tried to use octane render in animation yet?
if so how are you key-framing the sequences in the time line :)?

Yes, I tried to do the animation, but not with such heavy scenes like the forest or the tropics.
The method is simple, the animation is done as usual in DAZ Studio, and the renderer do c OctaneRender. But now OctaneRender there is an bug, it stoped render of animation after a few frames. I hope it will be corrected.