@ Divamakeup Thank you :)

So to understand this thread.....

Daznites are supposed to take the letters/acronym 

NVITWS

and create a render that follows the letters' meaning as a theme.

This is a serious challenge.

Narcissistic Vicky in a teacup with spoon

The model Vicky- is always a central character.

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-7-starter-bundle

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-7-for-victoria-8

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-8-starter-bundle

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-2-complete

Yes, but we shouldn't exclude Victoria 5 and 6 

WOW!!!! You are doing promos????? Super hint there.

That means you have something coming soon?!!!

Where's your commercial thread breaking the news? Another hint. lol

--------------------------

So to understand this thread.....

Daznites are supposed to take the letters/acronym 

NVITWS

and create a render that follows the letters' meaning as a theme.

This is a serious challenge.

Narcissistic Vicky in a teacup with spoon

The model Vicky- is always a central character.

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-7-starter-bundle

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-7-for-victoria-8

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-8-starter-bundle

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-2-complete

For me the postwork/no-powerwork debate always seems like gatekeeping.

It comes down to what you think the purpose of the challenge is.

For me postwork is fine because it's about having fun and showing off how Carrara can be a central part of the "art" making process. Restricting images to no-postwork makes it a more purely "technical" Carrara challenge: what do you know how to do in Carrara that your machine can handle in the time you have available?

Making something within artificial restrictions can inspire creativity, but it can also kill it because some people simply don't have the time to do endless rerenders making tweaks to shaders and poses and pokethrough when that can all be done in postwork in seconds or minutes.

A perfect example is the "foggy day" scenario - I know about six different ways to do that in Carrara and all of them slow my render times so much that most months I would not be able to use them because I don't have time. Or I can create a couple render passes from Carrara in no extra time at all and add that same fog effect in postwork in 10-15 minutes and do it much more precisely than I could reasonably do it in Carrara (Carrara is capable of it, but again, I don't have time for all the rerenders needed to tweak effects like that "in scene.").

I think that your way of looking at things is perfectly reasonable.  For me, I don't see how it differentiates Carrara from any other software platform, if a lot of the final result is done in postwork.  For that reason, in a Challenge I prefer doing everything in Carrara if possible, and showing its capabilities to the nth degree..  And yes, that sometimes means laboriously tweaking things that could be done in postwork much faster.  If I was doing renders for something other than the Carrara Challenge - for example, a paying customer deadline - I wouldn't hesitate to do it quicker in postwork. 

I find postwork in general to be awesome.  For my witch render in the last Challenge, the postworked cigarette smoke really helped a bunch.  There are solutions for cigarette smoke in Carrara, but nothing that looks so realistic.

As for fog, I've tried a lot of different fog effects in postwork, but the Carrara fog often looks more authentic and consistent.  So, it is worth the extra trouble.  Than again, you are probably more skilled at postwork than me. :)

For me the postwork/no-powerwork debate always seems like gatekeeping.

It comes down to what you think the purpose of the challenge is.

For me postwork is fine because it's about having fun and showing off how Carrara can be a central part of the "art" making process. Restricting images to no-postwork makes it a more purely "technical" Carrara challenge: what do you know how to do in Carrara that your machine can handle in the time you have available?

Making something within artificial restrictions can inspire creativity, but it can also kill it because some people simply don't have the time to do endless rerenders making tweaks to shaders and poses and pokethrough when that can all be done in postwork in seconds or minutes.

A perfect example is the "foggy day" scenario - I know about six different ways to do that in Carrara and all of them slow my render times so much that most months I would not be able to use them because I don't have time. Or I can create a couple render passes from Carrara in no extra time at all and add that same fog effect in postwork in 10-15 minutes and do it much more precisely than I could reasonably do it in Carrara (Carrara is capable of it, but again, I don't have time for all the rerenders needed to tweak effects like that "in scene.").

Central Europe here, and it was a bit slow a while ago, but not slower than it gets some other times. Now it seems to be okay.

@Luci #3  With those high ceilings and central air the utility bills in those towers are going to be astronomical.  Not that demons ever lack for the cash to exorcise their whims.  Now we know how the other half lives....  Nice one!

No VRM's do not inherently make noise at all.

Yeah, that's what I thought too until I built a zero fan noise open air system and plopped a Titan RTX into it. What I discovered is that these things generate audible (when you don't have a traditional case surrounding them to deflect primary reflections) levels of noise any time they are powered on. And I'm not talking about coil whine - at least not in the form it traditionally manifests (as, well, a noticeable whining sound coming from poorly constructed inductors whose frequency/volume is linked to workload intensity.) I'm talking about the fixed high frequency chirping (for lack of a better term) that these cards generate even at idle, that comes as a result of even a healthy SMPS-based VRM doing its job. This is a type/level of electronics noise that even the cheapest of closed cases easily masks, but that an open test bench/case design in a properly sound dampened room immediately makes clear.

 

 

If you're running audio capture system next to a computer you're always going to pick up sound.

Not with this particular case design/cooling combination. For all intents and purposes under low to moderate workloads specifically this system is sub-audible (both in terms of decibal level AND spectral frequency signature) at 18 inches. Watercooling and all.

 

Why you have studio level audio gear right next to a PC

This PC IS a piece of studio level audio gear. It serves as the central realtime sound engine for a room's worth of MIDI based acoustical instrument modeling controllers like this one (hence the need for proximity) while simultaneously serving as the recording hub for acoustical instruments/voices also being captured in that space in realtime. Hence the hyperfocus in design on mitigating baseline electronics noise.

 

 

The Thermaltake case has grommets from the back of the case, and the PSU, to the front. Those pass sound and air very well as well as allowing cable pass through.

Depending on how well you set it up internally and place it in your room (tempered glass windows at waist height, backside facing a wall) the Tower 900 has no direct paths for sound from internal components to travel into the room perpendicular to it (ie. the most common zone for microphone placement.) Which is actually all the sound isolation you need to effectively eliminate the electronics noises I'm talking about (again, this is only regarding the inherent levels of noise for low to moderate intensity workloads. Eg. rendering a scene in Iray is a whole different mattter.)

 

While I find the idea of canceling the noise of opne pump with another interesting in practice

I have no idea what you're talking about here. When I said "pumps set to harmonically unsympathetic RPMs" I was talking about whatever speed generates the least amount of sympathetic vibration noise audible from outside the case that also exhibits sufficient waterflow for effective cooling (which in this case happened to be a PWM dutycycle of 25%.) Not somehow magically canceling noise by tuning the pumps against each other.

 

It is also a very bad idea to build a WC system and set any fan curves to zero.

All fans/pump speeds in this machine are temperature controlled via multiple Corsair Commander Pros and are set to go to minimum/zero RPMs whenever possible. Which with this design is pretty much any time you aren't actively rendering something. That's how effective a system built around two 560mm radiator waterloops can be.

 

The loop will eventually saturate and with no airflow over the rad fins it will catastrophically over heat resulting, if you're lucky, in a shutdown.

For kicks, after completing the full build I decided to see what the worst case scenario for cooling would be while running an intensive GPU workload (in this case Furmark) in a poorly cooled room (ambient temp: 30c) over an extended period of time with cooling set to absolute minimum (fans: 0 RPM, pump: 1200 RPM - the lowest setting possible.) My Titan RTX reached a peak steadystate of 49c (19c above ambient) with zero system instability​. Even with no directed airflow, a big enough radiator exposed to open air will dissipate enough heat to keep a component at a steadystae temperature via convection.

I have no idea what sound you're detecting but It isn't coming from the VRM's. That almost sounds like cap noise. A capacitor vibrates very slightly with each cycle. If the cycle frequency was inside the audible range I guess you'd hear it but. Since every VRM has a cap and they should be switching pretty fast I'm guessing that is the actual source of the sound but I've never actually heard it. But that shouldn't be a reason to WC a system but just have a closed case. I have open benches for testing system setups but they really aren't good for daily use.

As to passive airflow and your loops. I doubt you ever staurated the loop. A 560mm rad plus res plus your long tube runs means a lot of thermal mass. It would take a long time to satuarte the loops (and it would happen at different times for the two loops. The Titan would downclock as its heat increase and should only shutdown in a situation where the pump stops moving water at all. It's the CPU where this could be a problem and Furmark is a GPU power virus. It puts essentially no load on the CPU.

 The actual cost and labor efficient way to solve your issue is simply longer cable runs to the PC. Not spending a couple of grand on WC and a show room case.

No VRM's do not inherently make noise at all.

Yeah, that's what I thought too until I built a zero fan noise open air system and plopped a Titan RTX into it. What I discovered is that these things generate audible (when you don't have a traditional case surrounding them to deflect primary reflections) levels of noise any time they are powered on. And I'm not talking about coil whine - at least not in the form it traditionally manifests (as, well, a noticeable whining sound coming from poorly constructed inductors whose frequency/volume is linked to workload intensity.) I'm talking about the fixed high frequency chirping (for lack of a better term) that these cards generate even at idle, that comes as a result of even a healthy SMPS-based VRM doing its job. This is a type/level of electronics noise that even the cheapest of closed cases easily masks, but that an open test bench/case design in a properly sound dampened room immediately makes clear.

If you're running audio capture system next to a computer you're always going to pick up sound.

Not with this particular case design/cooling combination. For all intents and purposes under low to moderate workloads specifically this system is sub-audible (both in terms of decibal level AND spectral frequency signature) at 18 inches. Watercooling and all.

Why you have studio level audio gear right next to a PC

This PC IS a piece of studio level audio gear. It serves as the central realtime sound engine for a room's worth of MIDI based acoustical instrument modeling controllers like this one (hence the need for proximity) while simultaneously serving as the recording hub for acoustical instruments/voices also being captured in that space in realtime. Hence the hyperfocus in design on mitigating baseline electronics noise.

The Thermaltake case has grommets from the back of the case, and the PSU, to the front. Those pass sound and air very well as well as allowing cable pass through.

Depending on how well you set it up internally and place it in your room (tempered glass windows at waist height, backside facing a wall) the Tower 900 has no direct paths for sound from internal components to travel into the room perpendicular to it (ie. the most common zone for microphone placement.) Which is actually all the sound isolation you need to effectively eliminate the electronics noises I'm talking about (again, this is only regarding the inherent levels of noise for low to moderate intensity workloads. Eg. rendering a scene in Iray is a whole different mattter.)

While I find the idea of canceling the noise of opne pump with another interesting in practice

I have no idea what you're talking about here. When I said "pumps set to harmonically unsympathetic RPMs" I was talking about whatever speed generates the least amount of sympathetic vibration noise audible from outside the case that also exhibits sufficient waterflow for effective cooling (which in this case happened to be a PWM dutycycle of 25%.) Not somehow magically canceling noise by tuning the pumps against each other.

It is also a very bad idea to build a WC system and set any fan curves to zero.

All fans/pump speeds in this machine are temperature controlled via multiple Corsair Commander Pros and are set to go to minimum/zero RPMs whenever possible. Which with this design is pretty much any time you aren't actively rendering something. That's how effective a system built around two 560mm radiator waterloops can be.

The loop will eventually saturate and with no airflow over the rad fins it will catastrophically over heat resulting, if you're lucky, in a shutdown.

For kicks, after completing the full build I decided to see what the worst case scenario for cooling would be while running an intensive GPU workload (in this case Furmark) in a poorly cooled room (ambient temp: 30c) over an extended period of time with cooling set to absolute minimum (fans: 0 RPM, pump: 1200 RPM - the lowest setting possible.) My Titan RTX reached a peak steadystate of 49c (19c above ambient) with zero system instability​. Even with no directed airflow, a big enough radiator exposed to open air will dissipate enough heat to keep a component at a steadystae temperature via convection.

Now, a bit of Doctor Who production trivia.  You remember the so called "wooden" control room, the one with the rather unassuming "writing podium" type console introduced just two stories before Sarah Jane Smith left.  Well, having recently joined the TARDIS Builders' forum, I discovered a concept was, sadly, not used because of costs and time.  What have all the various consoles possessed this one didn't?  Right, some sort of central column.  Not all have "bobbed"; not all were enclosed by glass; but all have "something" to imply the craft was traveling.  All but the "Newberry" console.

Well, production memos reveal it would have had one.  Now, admittedly a full on column would have overpowered the otherwise compact design, but that was not the plan.  Instead, when the TARDIS was in "flight", an "iris" would open atop the podium and a transparent "dome' would emerge, one filled with "instruments" the Doctor would examine as the space/time machine traveled.  Now, the exact look of this apparatus is unknown.  we don't know if the dome was shallow, like a convex lens, a true hemisphere, or something more akin to a bell jar, like the ones that cover ornate brass clocks.  Neither were the "instruments" described in detail.  Fans have speculated they may have resembled some sort of Ptolemaic armillary, a collection of differently sized rings or gear wheels turning upon a common center.  Alas, an arrangement like that would have made the assembly even more vulnerable to malfunction than the simply bobbing column it was meant to replace.  So the idea was nixed, but not before a hole was made where the dome would have emerged.  Certain shots of the podium reveal a thin disc that rests atop the podium, corresponding with the place where an iris mechanism would have been mounted.

It's a shame because I think the Newberry room might have been better liked (though it certainly does have its fans).  Shoot, they could have compromised.  the dome could have been "fixed", simply standing there, neither emerging or retracting.  It need not have possessed moving parts.  Instead, randomly flashing lights could have glittered within an unmoving collection of gearworks during the 'flight" scenes.  When the TARDIS was at rest, the bulbs would not be illuminated.  Certainly that kind of assembly would be less prone to failure.

Anyway, having read about this rejected feature inspired me to add it to Grinch's set.  I found a Poser ready astrolabe model.  I removed the stand and loaded two copies, shrinking one a bit and rotating it upon the vertical axis, centering it within the first.  I added a flattened torus to serve as a framr for the "hole" and I used a capsule primitive for the glass dome housing.  Admittedly, it's pretty much guesswork, but this is how the "Newberry" wooden console might have looked if the production went "all out" as originally planned.

Sincerely,

Bill

That looks great, Bill. Nice work! Really does add just a pinch of Gallifrey without breaking the theme of the room.  And I've said it before, your Baker morph is fantastic, I know it's a combo of barious things but you put them together perfectly.

Hi, I think I'm using a similar setup to you - I have two cameras parented to a central one, with lens mode set to spherical and a relative stereo offset for each 'eye'.  The main issue I find with this approach (as opposed to physically moving the cameras apart, which has the problem of stereo only being correct in one direction), is that you get extreme distortion to straight vertical lines when looking upwards (e.g. in a city scene, the edges of buildings look wobbly) -- I've not experimented with different IPD values though.  The other problem I've run into is that, because you're rendering a 360 degree scene, you have to render each frame at a very high resolution in order to get an acceptable result, which makes animation expensive to do.  In many respects, what I'd prefer is to be able to render a 180 scene, as for me that would offer a better a trade off between image quality and resolution, but I haven't found a way to do so with the lens distortion settings.

This set has curves
https://www.daz3d.com/circular-command-post

Isn't that a different-enough-to-be-©-friendly version of the Discovery's habitat carousel from 2001? Very nice, I must have missed that when it came out.

I like that the central gap in the tiles is just a bit wider to allow the rail holding the camera to slip through. Brilliant enginering.

I live less than 40 miles from the Central Time Zone / Eastern Time Zone line and it's is frustrating at times.

Hmm, my sister just sent me an email. Taco Bell is giving away free tacos today from 2pm to 6pm in their Steal A Base World Series promotion. Not sure if that's just Florida, and if that's Central or Eastern Time (Florida has both. She is Jacksonville and I'm Pensacola, two different time zones. Drives me NUTS)  So if you want a free taco you may want to check it out! 

[sport]

...yeah, there has been little joy in "Cheeseville" for a while either. Brewers choked in the last series of the season against Colorado (who was going nowhere) while Chicago took two games out of three from St Louis leaving the door open for Milwaukee to take NL Central had the Brewers kept up the torrid pace they had all September.  For the last couple seasons, the Packers have been abysmal in spite of having one of the best players in the league in Rodgers.  The Badgers who had the best defence and running game last year were terrible, and apparently are taking a nosedive this season to fall into mediocrity.  

Not a lot to cheer about here either unless the Packers continue playing like they have.  However with a porous front line, no veteran deep threat targets for Rodgers to throw to (management let two walk in previous seasons), no pass rush, and a defence as soft as warm Wisconsin butter, every game is a reason to have a bottle of nitroglycerin pills on the desk.

[/sport]

Heh, I'm thinking a hooded robe with tentacles coming out of the hood and arms and open question as to whether there is a central body or if it's all tentacles inside...

This month's challenged proved to be quite a challenge indeed... at least for me.  Finally worked out something I am pleased with... Sorry to say Winter is on the way here in Ohio... It will be here all too soon for me.  ENJOY...

"SNOW STORM"

 

 

Well done @Llola Lane,I can feel the cold already BRRR  and I sure don' envy the man having to shovel all that snow ..really great work :)

WOW.. Thank you Ivy... yes... part of Ohio weather... the snow drifts... ughh.... One year hubby shoveled the drive and he made a 4 foot wall on either side!!!!   We get lots of snow.

we only get a few inches snow most years where we live now,. when i lived in central Maine it was awful every time it snowed it was like 3 feet a storm..lol one winter back in the late 80's we had 30 foot snow drifts from the roof the house to the driveway my husband dug a tunnel from the front porch to the garage.  I have a bunch of old pictures I need to scan of my time living up there its just amazing , We would get these storms called northeasters that would just bury us .   I like Tennessee weather better were we live now. we still get the 4 seasons of the year.  but winter is a lot more milder mostly rain. and living in the mountains the summers are not as hot so it was a happy medium.

That all sounds lovely about Tennessee... We've been there in our travels.. wonderful country... Also been to Maine in the summer... Wouldn't want to spend a winter there though.. as you said... the Noreasters are horrendeous.  We live on the WEST side of Cleveland... those that live on the EAST side get waaaaaaaaaaay more snow then we do.  The winters seem to be getting calmer for us (watch.. now that I said that this year will be a record snow fall season. lol)  Think we'll stay here though.. we like snow for Christmas!

This month's challenged proved to be quite a challenge indeed... at least for me.  Finally worked out something I am pleased with... Sorry to say Winter is on the way here in Ohio... It will be here all too soon for me.  ENJOY...

"SNOW STORM"

 

 

Well done @Llola Lane,I can feel the cold already BRRR  and I sure don' envy the man having to shovel all that snow ..really great work :)

WOW.. Thank you Ivy... yes... part of Ohio weather... the snow drifts... ughh.... One year hubby shoveled the drive and he made a 4 foot wall on either side!!!!   We get lots of snow.

we only get a few inches snow most years where we live now,. when i lived in central Maine it was awful every time it snowed it was like 3 feet a storm..lol one winter back in the late 80's we had 30 foot snow drifts from the roof the house to the driveway my husband dug a tunnel from the front porch to the garage.  I have a bunch of old pictures I need to scan of my time living up there its just amazing , We would get these storms called northeasters that would just bury us .   I like Tennessee weather better were we live now. we still get the 4 seasons of the year.  but winter is a lot more milder mostly rain. and living in the mountains the summers are not as hot so it was a happy medium.

77. Puffy Sleeves. You can use one of the methods we used on socks to add looseness and puffiness to clothing by using influence maps and Contraction-Expansion Ratio.

a. Choose a shirt. I used one from Trading Floor Outfit for Genesis 3 Males.

b. Add a dForce dynamic modifier. Select all surfaces and set Bend Stiffness to 0.2. This minimizes the possibility of explosions on many older clothing items. Select the buttons, collar, and cuffs surfaces and set Dynamic Strength to 0. These will move with the shirt but not be part of the simulation. This helps reduce explosions too. You can always go back and change these later if you want to tailor the look.

c. Save the scene in case dForce crashes. Run an animated simulation to verify the shirt deforms without exploding or crashing. It’s always a good idea to test out the ability of older clothing to dForce before investing a lot of time working with it.

d. Add a dForce Modifier Weight Node to the shirt (see step h in section 76 Socks for details). Right click in the viewport and choose Geometry Selection/Select All. Right click in the viewport and choose Weight Editing/Fill Selected and set a value of 0%. This clears all the weight.

e. Select only the sleeves surface. Using the weight node brush, paint influence along the sleeve especially in the central section. Have little to no influence by the cuffs and shoulder seam.

f. On the Surfaces pane, set Contraction-Expansion Ratio to 130% and Buckling Ratio to 20% for the sleeves.

g. Set Contraction-Expansion Ratio to 120% for the shirt surface. That will loosen the fit and give some additional play for posing.

h. Set up an animated timeline with a dancing pose at frame 8. Run the simulation to frame 10.

i. This render shows two identical figures. The shirt on the left underwent dForce simulation. The one on the right is simply conforming. I think the puffier sleeves and shirts gives a more romantic look to this basic office shirt, useful for a dancer. (Click on image to see larger version.)

Now, a bit of Doctor Who production trivia.  You remember the so called "wooden" control room, the one with the rather unassuming "writing podium" type console introduced just two stories before Sarah Jane Smith left.  Well, having recently joined the TARDIS Builders' forum, I discovered a concept was, sadly, not used because of costs and time.  What have all the various consoles possessed this one didn't?  Right, some sort of central column.  Not all have "bobbed"; not all were enclosed by glass; but all have "something" to imply the craft was traveling.  All but the "Newberry" console.

Well, production memos reveal it would have had one.  Now, admittedly a full on column would have overpowered the otherwise compact design, but that was not the plan.  Instead, when the TARDIS was in "flight", an "iris" would open atop the podium and a transparent "dome' would emerge, one filled with "instruments" the Doctor would examine as the space/time machine traveled.  Now, the exact look of this apparatus is unknown.  we don't know if the dome was shallow, like a convex lens, a true hemisphere, or something more akin to a bell jar, like the ones that cover ornate brass clocks.  Neither were the "instruments" described in detail.  Fans have speculated they may have resembled some sort of Ptolemaic armillary, a collection of differently sized rings or gear wheels turning upon a common center.  Alas, an arrangement like that would have made the assembly even more vulnerable to malfunction than the simply bobbing column it was meant to replace.  So the idea was nixed, but not before a hole was made where the dome would have emerged.  Certain shots of the podium reveal a thin disc that rests atop the podium, corresponding with the place where an iris mechanism would have been mounted.

It's a shame because I think the Newberry room might have been better liked (though it certainly does have its fans).  Shoot, they could have compromised.  the dome could have been "fixed", simply standing there, neither emerging or retracting.  It need not have possessed moving parts.  Instead, randomly flashing lights could have glittered within an unmoving collection of gearworks during the 'flight" scenes.  When the TARDIS was at rest, the bulbs would not be illuminated.  Certainly that kind of assembly would be less prone to failure.

Anyway, having read about this rejected feature inspired me to add it to Grinch's set.  I found a Poser ready astrolabe model.  I removed the stand and loaded two copies, shrinking one a bit and rotating it upon the vertical axis, centering it within the first.  I added a flattened torus to serve as a framr for the "hole" and I used a capsule primitive for the glass dome housing.  Admittedly, it's pretty much guesswork, but this is how the "Newberry" wooden console might have looked if the production went "all out" as originally planned.

Sincerely,

Bill

got off my butt - well I got off the tread mill actually - here's old faithful freak in his old faithful tutu "Ladies Night."

Up to the viewer to decide the narrative.

attached also unpostworked 

apart from the usual I used PhilW's portrait pack for the central freak - then adjusted his arms

 

 

chez freak, en pointe