Oh, and I feel proud of myself...we just spent time outside washing my car, haha. We took it for a quick spin as my poor baby hasn't been started in over two months (she started right up without hesitation, yay!)(she's a verging on heavily modified '06 Mustang GT 'vert with abnoxious af exhaust, btw) and we were quite disturbed at what we saw. A local very popular deli that had been closed is now open and you could see through the open door how people were packed inside like sardines...not wearing masks. BAD. Then through the large, wooded park and people all over the place, most groups staying away from each other, but the included dog park was crawling with people all together. No masks. BAD. Seriously are people that stupid? We're in Central Connecticut. This thing is here. And we're at our peak. WHY, PEOPLE....OMG. I get it, it's gorgeous out today but STAY THE F AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. 

NYS has made masks in public a requirement, but I still see people everywhere without masks or gloves... getting gas the other day, I saw two dudes gassing up their tuners go over and give each other "bro hugs"... you see some people, you just gotta wonder what the hell is going on in their heads.

Probably not much... the little bear in there fell off his unicycle long ago and now it's just the out of tune circus music playing to his lifeless form laying there in the empty darkness.

That sounds sad...  now I feel bad for that metaphorical bear.

I have a not so sneaking suspicion I know why a lot of people are not taking this seriously, but that's an opinion best kept to myself.

Some days I kinda feel like we are living in the backstory to The Walking Dead or 28 Days Later.

Yeah, the CT gov pretty much follows what the NY gov does and we have the same mask order...stores are even called out as a MUST DO place but I didn't see any masks when we drove by. *sigh* 

And it seriously is like some crazy dystopian/apocalyptic movie stuff going on here...at least in the tri-state metro area. 

Oh, and I feel proud of myself...we just spent time outside washing my car, haha. We took it for a quick spin as my poor baby hasn't been started in over two months (she started right up without hesitation, yay!)(she's a verging on heavily modified '06 Mustang GT 'vert with abnoxious af exhaust, btw) and we were quite disturbed at what we saw. A local very popular deli that had been closed is now open and you could see through the open door how people were packed inside like sardines...not wearing masks. BAD. Then through the large, wooded park and people all over the place, most groups staying away from each other, but the included dog park was crawling with people all together. No masks. BAD. Seriously are people that stupid? We're in Central Connecticut. This thing is here. And we're at our peak. WHY, PEOPLE....OMG. I get it, it's gorgeous out today but STAY THE F AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. 

NYS has made masks in public a requirement, but I still see people everywhere without masks or gloves... getting gas the other day, I saw two dudes gassing up their tuners go over and give each other "bro hugs"... you see some people, you just gotta wonder what the hell is going on in their heads.

Probably not much... the little bear in there fell off his unicycle long ago and now it's just the out of tune circus music playing to his lifeless form laying there in the empty darkness.

That sounds sad...  now I feel bad for that metaphorical bear.

I have a not so sneaking suspicion I know why a lot of people are not taking this seriously, but that's an opinion best kept to myself.

Some days I kinda feel like we are living in the backstory to The Walking Dead or 28 Days Later.

Oh, and I feel proud of myself...we just spent time outside washing my car, haha. We took it for a quick spin as my poor baby hasn't been started in over two months (she started right up without hesitation, yay!)(she's a verging on heavily modified '06 Mustang GT 'vert with abnoxious af exhaust, btw) and we were quite disturbed at what we saw. A local very popular deli that had been closed is now open and you could see through the open door how people were packed inside like sardines...not wearing masks. BAD. Then through the large, wooded park and people all over the place, most groups staying away from each other, but the included dog park was crawling with people all together. No masks. BAD. Seriously are people that stupid? We're in Central Connecticut. This thing is here. And we're at our peak. WHY, PEOPLE....OMG. I get it, it's gorgeous out today but STAY THE F AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. 

I am running 1.0.5.4

I can't get it to analyse the file to create the Smart Content for the Hivewire Horse or Big Cats...

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): Clearing Working Directory...

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): ...FAILED!!! Make sure the zip file(s) is not corrupted AND that no file browser is open on the working directory contents, keeping the working directory from being deleted

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): Extracting files from E:\Matt\Downloads\temp\10471-hivewire-horse-ds_215154.zip...

11:11:19 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): ...Success

 

 

Without the more complete Daz log, it is hard to say what happened.  

If it was an unzipping error, what @Platnumk wrote would do it.

I am running 1.0.5.4

I can't get it to analyse the file to create the Smart Content for the Hivewire Horse or Big Cats...

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): Clearing Working Directory...

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): ...FAILED!!! Make sure the zip file(s) is not corrupted AND that no file browser is open on the working directory contents, keeping the working directory from being deleted

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): Extracting files from E:\Matt\Downloads\temp\10471-hivewire-horse-ds_215154.zip...

11:11:19 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): ...Success

 

 

I've came across that error,  what fixed it for me was to unzip the file & re-zip it using a different filename

I am running 1.0.5.4

I can't get it to analyse the file to create the Smart Content for the Hivewire Horse or Big Cats...

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): Clearing Working Directory...

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): ...FAILED!!! Make sure the zip file(s) is not corrupted AND that no file browser is open on the working directory contents, keeping the working directory from being deleted

11:11:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): Extracting files from E:\Matt\Downloads\temp\10471-hivewire-horse-ds_215154.zip...

11:11:19 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time): ...Success

The problem with old locomotives, especially steam powered, is the same problem as military uniforms...What era, what location or even country, what road line? For instance, a 4-8-4 from Union Pacific is different looking than a 4-8-4 from Ney York Central.

Each railroad company had different varieties of a wheel arragement and even a different variety within the same wheel arrangement.  For example, look at New York Centrals Hudson class locomotives (4-6-4), a J-1e is slightly different than a J-3 non-streamlined, then you got streamlined locomotives. What about the accessories that usually went on a locomotive, such as feed water heaters
Also, what about the articulated locomotives, like the cab forward types or big-boy/challenger types? I would imagine those are hard to model, as the front road wheel swiveled on a pin under the firebox and the rear road wheels were rigid (unless it's a Pennsylvania Railroad Duplex type locomotive)
Diesels, on the other hand are a lot easier, but again, you got all the road lines and types

Patreon è il top!
No, non lo trovo per niente più complesso di una qualsiasi altra piattaforma.
Certo, se non lo ottimizzi guadagni di meno, ma non è che perdi qualcosa.
Mi piace molto la filosofia: l'artista non sta vendendo niente, sta lavorando per sè e per la community, e la ricompensa è che continui a fare ciò che lo diverte, senza doversi preoccupare di trovare altre entrate.
Tra l'altro, ho appena aggiornato cover, tier, biografia e goal, vi piace? L'avreste settato meglio? https://www.patreon.com/LenioTG
Qualche settimana fa sono stato l'intera settimana con un'app in mano a vedere quanto tempo mi prendessero le varie fasi, e la scrittura dei dialoghi + il setting delle scene in Daz regnano sovrani. Il resto, come la gestione delle piattaforme, richiede un tempo tutto sommato marginale.
Il mio non è ottimizzato al meglio, perché do poche esclusive. Sostanzialmente, se uno non paga riceve le stesse cose.
Ma ciò mi consente di avere più contenuti da distribuire sul web, in questa fase della mia crescita online, attirando così più persone.
Visto che il traffico è almeno quadruplicato nell'ultimo anno, penso stia funzionando. Osservando invece creator che hanno aperto il Patreon nel mio stesso periodo, in percentuale stanno crescendo molto di meno.

YouTube non è morto per niente. E' ancora il secondo social del mondo, ed è sempre stato in crescita, senza prospettive di rallentamento.
Non mi sono nemmeno preso la briga di attivare la monetizzazione, ma di fatto ho semplicemente pubblicato uno slideshow dei fumetti che avevo già, e mi ha portato 1400 iscritti e 400mila view con soli 16 video, e praticamente nessun push dalle altre piattaforme su cui sono.

Il bello di Reddit è poter entrare su gruppi con migliaia di persone della tua nicchia, e spammare come se non ci fosse un domani, venendo addirittura apprezzato se il contenuto è buono. Non so come funzioni Twitter, ma penso sia più difficile farsi notare là.

Sugli sconti non saprei!
E' vero che la Daz ha bisogno di soldi, ma c'è anche da considerare che il loro lavoro è completamente online, quindi avranno risentito meno delle altre aziende.
Come per qualsiasi attività, però, le persone spendono di meno.
Ma questo vuol anche dire che i PA guadagnano di meno, e qua giunge il problema: se un PA non guadagna abbastanza, guarderà a opportunità diverse, abbandonando la piattaforma.
E' nell'interesse della Daz far sì che i PA si sentano appagati.
Può farlo dando soldi a pioggia, prendendosi margini minori, ma è molto più semplice e meritocratico dare coupon: i PA riceveranno più soldi gratis, e gli utenti si affezioneranno.
Un po' come la ECB (European Central Bank, non vedo perché dobbiamo chiamare le cose internazionali coi nomi italiani) che compra titoli di stato a sbafo, ma sul mercato secondario.

So you have the 27 artists' top picks (although they were limited to 8.)  Here's the comments! In progress, . Status: 22 artists done
 May 16th :)

Comments on:

Aslan Court Series
1. expansions, textures, palatial, Iray.
2. stunning architecture.
3. Striking lighting in a complete and coherent scene.

Aslan Theatre 

Bar Interior 2018
dramatic lighting that I don't have to stress about, and it's great for period/character pieces

Baroque Grandeur Series
gorgeous, historical, add ons and textures, grand windows, palatial.

Borgia's Opulent Hall
just gorgeous.

Boxing Arena
Striking lighting in a complete and coherent scene. 

Central Pump Station

ColdWar Lab
The Anfarm has great forms and textures and fairly fast renders.

Collective3d Create A Room Series  (look for XPack 1,2,3)
1. Collective3D Create-A-Room Base (&ExpansPacks): very useful, with the numerous walls, moldings, windows, switches & outlets, ceilings, floors etc to create wide variety of style of interiors to user's specific needs. They all look a bit sterile (so do many real-world tract houses and McMansions) but most users do have libraries of shaders, textures and grunger/weathering add-ons to add nuance if wanted. But very useful stuff. (How many naughty interiors have NO OUTLETS or Switches visible!? This product has them for you to add to other sets that lack!)

2. versatility and comprehensive solution to creating indoor rooms

These are the favorite indoor sets by the DPD group. (Still adding!)

Aslan Court Series

Aslan Theatre 

Bar Interior 2018

Baroque Grandeur Series

Borgia's Opulent Hall

Boxing Arena

Central Pump Station

ColdWar Lab

Collective3d Create A Room Series  (look for XPack 1,2,3)

Collective3d Long Island Mansion

Collective3d Neighborhood Series (Block 1, Part A linked. Visit the vendor's page.) 

Collective3d Portrait Vignettes Contemporary 4

Collective3d Portrait Vignettes Horror 2

College Girl Dorm

County Crime Lab

Creepy Old Attic

Crypta Sepultus

Cyberpunk Subway Station

Deep Underground Command Center

DM's Queen's Chamber

Downtown Loft: Living Area

Dream Home Series (Great Room linked, go from there)

Enchanted Ballroom

European Style Apartment

Explorer's Den

Fantasy Tavern

FE Decoration Background Vol 1

FG Gamer Room

FG Pirate Cabin

FG University

Fleet Ops Series (Admiral's Ready Room, Bridge, Cabin)

Gallerie Bastion Spacious Interior

GIS Orion  (I noticed the lights and poses were not listed as additional products on the page, they're in my Product Library) 

GIS Sigma

Harwood House

High School Classroom Interior

i13 Bowling Alley Environment with Poses

i13 Coffee Shop Environment With Poses

i13 Daydream

i13 Modern Barn Environment (Several people mentioned the i13 "Environment Series" and others were specific.)

i13 Newsroom with Poses

i13 Steakhouse Environment

i13 Theatre With Poses

Indoor Skate Park

Industrial Sci-Fi Construction Kit

Interiors The Classroom

Interiors The Diner

Kelly Lodge

KillZones The Apartment

KillZones The Bath

KillZones The Pipe

Knights Pavilion

Lagoon Living

Le Village Bundle  ("the French Village?") 

Level 19

Medieval Dinner Hall Bundle

Medieval Interior Construction Kit  (MICK) 

Medieval Merchants House Bundle

MICK Bundle

MICK 2 Gothic Pack

Militia Outpost

Miranda's Ice Cream Parlor

Modern House 2 Bundle

Moonshine's Diner Series, Interiors, Accessories, etc

New Brooklyn Apartment

Old Garage Interior

Old Industrial Interior

Open Office And Props

Operation Theater

Opus Magnum

Oxford Library

Rave Cave

Rec Room

Reflections Victorian Series  (Add-ons and related products are not listed on product page, aka Vanity Set, Victorian Desk) 

ROG Medieval Fantasy Bedroom

ROG Red Crow Inn      THE OVERWHELMING #1 PICK

Rural Chateau Bundle

Russian Bedroom

Sacrament

Santa's Toy Workshop

With all the SciFi, Sci Fi, Sci-Fi's it is utterly ridiculous. So I treated Sci Fi the same and alphabetized after that word.

Sci-Fi Bedroom

Sci-Fi Corridor Level 51

Sci Fi Crew Quarters

Sci-Fi Kit 2016

SciFi Living Bedroom

Sci-Fi Living Quarters

SF Bedroom

Shabby Chic Kitchen

Silence

Space Station Living Quarters

Stylish Attic

Sugatek's Japanese Models (Link is example)

Sun Hall

The Church Bundle

The Gothic Library

The Library

The Loading Dock

The Mad Lab

The Ministry

The Pool House

The Private Garden

The Private Library

The Sylph Pavilion

The Underside

The Venezia Suite

Triple Moon Cottage

Urban Art Studio

Victorian Iron Conservatory

Victorian Parlor

Vintage Changing Room And Props

Voodoo Hut

West Park Series

Winterblack Halls /Sets

Woodman House: The Bathroom

 

Because he has an inherantly rugged chin, I reasoned Michael 2 would work well for Ash Williams, the central character of the "Evil Dead" franchise.

Hopefully what "sells" the pieces is the authentic "stump" mounted chainsaw, an XNALara model extracted from a video game I founf at Deviant Art.  Because the "blades" are a series of texture maps rather than geometry, I was able to use PaintShop Pro to create a "blur" effect, both to the texture and the transparency map.  When rendered, it gives the illusion the chain mounted blades are whipping around the length of the blade.

Sincerely,

Bill

Scary!!!!!!!!

Because he has an inherantly rugged chin, I reasoned Michael 2 would work well for Ash Williams, the central character of the "Evil Dead" franchise.

Hopefully what "sells" the pieces is the authentic "stump" mounted chainsaw, an XNALara model extracted from a video game I founf at Deviant Art.  Because the "blades" are a series of texture maps rather than geometry, I was able to use PaintShop Pro to create a "blur" effect, both to the texture and the transparency map.  When rendered, it gives the illusion the chain mounted blades are whipping around the length of the blade.

Sincerely,

Bill

It has been a while since I added to the Sci-Fi wall world so I I thought took my extra indoor time and put it to good use. The Sci-Fi hub has a central... hub, that units can be added to creating your own unique skyline. The hubs can be stacked for high rise towers while the glassed in water cooling plain will except grass or lava or whatever texture you feel your world runs on. See you in the future. 

I believe Daz Central's approval of new products - especially complex ones like this - have slowed due to the pandemic.

But I CANNOT WAIT for this, or the mixamo addition.

Hey folks, big heads up. If you're in the United States, and are frustrated with trying to use Walmart's pickup service, just keep checking by refreshing the page that shows what slots are available- you know, the one that usually says the two days are not available. If you check right about now (3:45am Central time) you might see a couple slots open up or at least one. I just did it again and sure enough, two slots (9-10am and 10-11am) were available for Monday (three days from now, not bad at all!!!!)  Walmart is limited it to only two days at a time, so they can offer you more things. The more people they let shop and schedule, the fewer items are available.

So don't get discouraged, just try 3:45am and slots do seem to open up. It worked for my sister over in Jacksonville too. (Was slightly after 4am for her.)  DON'T wait until they open (7am) Logically, it would see slots wouldn't open up until folks picked up their groceries at 8:30am, but apparently Walmart's scheduling program is set for waaaaaay earlier. Hope this helps! 

Okay, here's a model I put together for a project I'm working on. It's a Mr. Gutsy made out of parts from this kit. The eyes were a bit of a puzzler, as were the waist arms, which not only pivot, but rotate about the axis on a rail. Had to learn about nuls to pull that off. Actually, there are quite a few nulls in this thing. Each arm is on one, as is each eyeball, and a central one for the eyestalks.

This method definitely works, it's just that the light intensity can have some issues.

One solution is to reduce the light intensity in your original scene, which you're turning into a HDRI. (The sweetspot is around 0.0002 if I remember correctly) The advantage of this is, that you won't need to adjust the light intensity everytime you use that HDRI later. However, it also has a drawback: if the HDRI you used for the original scene doesn't provide enough light, then the HDRI you create will not only be very dark, but it will also be extremely grainy. In those cases, revert to the second solution:
Not reducing the light intensity in your original scene. The resulting HDRI will be more crisp, but will also have the drawback of being extremely overlighted, so you will need to dial down the light intensity every time you use it.

Some general pointers:
Don't raise the camera in your original scene too high, or you'll end up with the horizon of your "source" HDRI above the horizon of your scene (like, higher than the buildings and whatnots surrounding your camera). The result just won't be a pretty HDRI anymore, though it will still look very decent when used for top-down images, where the horizon is out of the picture anyway. So, in general, try to have your source-scene obscure the horizon of the source-HDRI. This can be somewhat mitigated by adding more "blocks" around your central area, and slightly raising them, the further they are away from you. Don't overdo it, because things will start to look odd.
High-res beauty canvasses give massive files. An 8000x8000 pixel beauty canvas easily results in a 1 gigabyte .exr file.

Some shots with a HDRI I made a few months back. The second image was actually one of those HDRI's with the camera raised "too high", but as you see, it's still neat for top-down renders.

That's a good point.  You'll want to have your camera approximately the height your camera will be in the final render.  In the office scene, I rendered with my camera 1500 thingies above vertical because that was the view I was after, but then I had to raise my office set to the same height so that the perspective wouldn't be off.   These aren't really general use HDRIs, like Orestes skies, rather their purpose is to provide a background that doesn't already exist for specific scenes.

This method definitely works, it's just that the light intensity can have some issues.

One solution is to reduce the light intensity in your original scene, which you're turning into a HDRI. (The sweetspot is around 0.0002 if I remember correctly) The advantage of this is, that you won't need to adjust the light intensity everytime you use that HDRI later. However, it also has a drawback: if the HDRI you used for the original scene doesn't provide enough light, then the HDRI you create will not only be very dark, but it will also be extremely grainy. In those cases, revert to the second solution:
Not reducing the light intensity in your original scene. The resulting HDRI will be more crisp, but will also have the drawback of being extremely overlighted, so you will need to dial down the light intensity every time you use it.

Some general pointers:
Don't raise the camera in your original scene too high, or you'll end up with the horizon of your "source" HDRI above the horizon of your scene (like, higher than the buildings and whatnots surrounding your camera). The result just won't be a pretty HDRI anymore, though it will still look very decent when used for top-down images, where the horizon is out of the picture anyway. So, in general, try to have your source-scene obscure the horizon of the source-HDRI. This can be somewhat mitigated by adding more "blocks" around your central area, and slightly raising them, the further they are away from you. Don't overdo it, because things will start to look odd.
High-res beauty canvasses give massive files. An 8000x8000 pixel beauty canvas easily results in a 1 gigabyte .exr file.

Some shots with a HDRI I made a few months back. The second image was actually one of those HDRI's with the camera raised "too high", but as you see, it's still neat for top-down renders.

This is a complete list (I think) of the products used to construct my Big City (other views). Those products with links are to items currently in the Daz Store. Products without links were either previously in the Daz store (e.g., many of the Dreamland Model products) or were obtained from another site.

1. 1950's Era Motel
2. 20 Lo-Rez Vehicles
3. BBQ At the Park
4. Building Site Buildings
5. Central Pump Station
6. Children Outdoor Playground
7. Collective3d Baseball Field
8. Cottage House - Iray Neighbourhood Edition
9. County Crime Lab
10. Department Store
11. Divided Highway (sometimes)
12. Dubious Townhall
13. Faded Industry
14. Grain Elevator
15. i13 Theatre with Poses
16. i13 Warehouse and Offices
17. 1stBastion's Buildings Hospital Emergency
18. 1stBastions Neighbours: Front Drive
19. 1stBastion Buildings: Police Station
20. Kids Play Area
21. Le Village Church
22. Monto Varchi Convention Center for DS
23. Mountain Valley
24. Movie Sets: City Block 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
25. Movie Sets: Fishers Warehousing
26. Movie Sets: Low Poly Blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
27. Movie Sets: Riverfront
28. New York Brownstones
29. New York Stores
30. Night and Day City for Daz Studio
31. Packratt Storage Units
32. Parthenon Bank
33. Picnic Area Exterior
34. Polygon City, Industrial Zone
35. Powerage The Factory
36. Prison Yard
37. Public Outdoor Pool
38. PX Rooftop
39. Rubble in the Bronx: Alleyway
40. Sawmill
41. Single Homes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
42. Small Sports Hall
43. Steamworks
44. Steel Town Blast Furnace
45. Steel Town Refinery Bundle
46. The Backstreets
47. The Church
48. The Construction Site
49. The Neighbour's Yard
50. The Tower
51. Urban Living
52. Urban Playground
53. Urban Sprawl 2 The Big City
54. Urban Sprawl 3
55. Warehouse Building with Items
56. Workshop

Sad. At 4am United States had143,055 and at 4:30pm just 12 1/2 hours later, 160,020.  So 16,965 new cases in about 12 hours. Only half a day. The CDC reports in at 4pm but I don't know if that's Eastern, Central, etc. The rest of this evening will be the states reporting. (Again, Florida is 5pm/6pm and 11pm.) 

While the rate is alarming it is actually a good thing.

It is clear that there are a lot more people infected than we know. Numbers increasing means a lot more testing is being done. I believe testing properly is the first step in combating this.