You can select the character in the scene Pane/Tab. You do not have to use the menu to open it. The Scene tab will be docked to a column on either the left or the right. (On the right if you are using the default layout.)

To move the character, select it in the scene. You should now see some sort of indication in the viewport that your character is selected. It's been a few years, but I think the Universal Tool is used by default. The image below shows a selected character, with the icon for the Universal Tool highlighted in the bar above the figure, and tool at the base of the figure. The Universal tool can Translate, Rotate and Scale. It might be a little easier to use the Translate tool for now.

Depending on your layout, all of the tools might be accessible via an icon in the Toolbar above the Viewport, however, all the tools are available via the Main Menu. Select Tools from the menu and you'll get a drop-down list which shows the icons to the left of the tool name and the keyboard shortcut to the right. Trust me, it won't be long before you don't need to use the Tools menu to find the tool you need. But it's still a handy reference from time to time.

The little white triangles of the tool will allow you to Translate on two axes at once. The arrows only move on one axis. The easiest way to move a figure with this tool is the traingle on the floor. It moves in the X and Z axes, (front, back, side-to-side.) The other two combine the Y axis with one other axis, and it's not always easy to see where you put the figure, unless your camera/view is perpendicular to the triangle you want to move. Anyway, using either the Translate tool, or the Universal tool is how you move anything around the scene.

Now for an "advanced user" tip: Many of us have found it better to move the environment to the central figure, rather than moving the figure to a point on the set. This is a virtual world, and the for whatever technical reason, (which I don't know,) we get better results when the object is at World Center, (X-, Y-, Z-Axes of 0, 0, 0.) Of course, for a very large, sweeping scene, it may not matter. It wasn't necessary in my last published render, (here,) but it was important in this render, because of the focus on the primary figure, who is in World Center.

Here's an image showing you what each of the Transform tools look like in the viewport. I added a black background so the colors and white areas will stand out more.

...Non-complaint:  Wheee... temperature outside is 50F.  It's "no jacket" weather.

 

...53° currently here  after a cold rainy sometimes rainy blustery day yesterday.  Might be pushing 70° by next week.

Meanwhile, in North Central Wisconsin (Stevens Point/Wausau area)

.

53 now, 70 next week--are you in Arkansas too? Oh wait...Arkansas is 70 one day, 50-odd two days later, 70 the third day, & 30s next week.

..nope, Oregon.

...Non-complaint:  Wheee... temperature outside is 50F.  It's "no jacket" weather.

 

...53° currently here  after a cold rainy sometimes rainy blustery day yesterday.  Might be pushing 70° by next week.

Meanwhile, in North Central Wisconsin (Stevens Point/Wausau area)

.

53 now, 70 next week--are you in Arkansas too? Oh wait...Arkansas is 70 one day, 50-odd two days later, 70 the third day, & 30s next week.

...Non-complaint:  Wheee... temperature outside is 50F.  It's "no jacket" weather.

 

...53° currently here  after a cold rainy sometimes rainy blustery day yesterday.  Might be pushing 70° by next week.

Meanwhile, in North Central Wisconsin (Stevens Point/Wausau area)

.

The Viweport, by default, takes up the central area that is not used for other panes. Collapsing pane groups (by clicking the tab of the active pane) will free up space. Or do you mean the area within the Viewport that renders? You can do that by adjusting the size or proportions in the Editor tab of Render Settings (after turning off the option to constrain proportions) but that will also, of course, chnage the shape of the render itself.

Wow, this does look amazing! I hope @Aurelio does Central Park with horse & Carriages, the Sunset Strip & Robertson Blvd (LA) next! I didn’t even know someone besides Stonemason could do something like this! 

Heh-heh, my initial reaction when seeing the small promo thumbnail on today's sale page was "Hey look, Stonemason has created Streets of New York".   It's that level of quality. So congrats to Aurelio !

Thanks to folks for reporting their rendering experiences, much appreciated. I guess it's time to abuse the ol' credit card once again.

Wow, this does look amazing! I hope @Aurelio does Central Park with horse & Carriages, the Sunset Strip & Robertson Blvd (LA) next! I didn’t even know someone besides Stonemason could do something like this! 

 

BTW, I have a blonde blue eyed friend who married an Asian man and they don’t have kids but I bet they’d look amazing! In DS, we can create all sorts of fascinating ethnicities that may or may not yet exist, and that again, adds to the creativity...

I lived in Singapore for 13 years, and all of the white people were married to Asians. Their children? They could go to any nation in Central Asia or South America---where these mixtures took place hundreds or thousands of years ago---and be taken for locals.

Only Daz knows what percentage of their sales comes from what time zones. Without this information, I don’t see how one could determine whether or not it’s worthwhile to have 24 hour customer service.

In any event, adding a second and third shift for 24 hour coverage would surely jack up the prices of content, don’t you think?

- Greg

Time Zones don't really even factor into it as long as DAZ releases all new product at midnight every single night. I'm in the Central Time Zone and check on the new sales every night.  So do a lot of people.  But I rarely BUY then because the sales are so frequently not working right.  Has there been a single day of March Madness that hasn't had at least one issue?  That alone would go a good ways to covering the cost of covering the late shift, and then there's the reduction of the costs to customer service. 

Here's my start. Once I'm closer to the referance, I'll think about environment for him.

edit- I found the referance here.

Shinji nice pic, firefighters deserve respect. I think you would help yourself if you resize the plane with your original to normal , he looks a bit sqished there so it gets harder for you to get the details.

You're already getting close, with your figure but note that the firefighter looks exactly where his hose points at, so the head needs to get nore down and the body is bet sideways and twisted as well. His left arm is far more behind the body leading the hose around. I think the central difference is that your guy shows "I'm alert, ready to shoot" while the firefighter is concentrated, taking care. I would like to see that in your figure as well, I know you can do that ;)

Only a couple of weeks until spring but ...

Wintry mix of precipitation expected Monday night into Tuesday.
A low pressure system will approach Newfoundland on Monday. Snow and blowing snow will begin in the southwest late in the day on Monday, and then spread elsewhere by overnight. Snow will change to rain over most areas of the Island by Tuesday morning as temperatures begin to rise, with a period of freezing rain or ice pellets during the transition. 
In central and western parts of the Island and over the Great Northern Peninsula, 15 to 25 cm of snow is possible. Over southern and northeastern Newfoundland, we are generally expecting 10 to 15 cm. In the southeast, 5 to 10 cm of snow will fall, with potential for a period of 4 to 6 hours of freezing rain afterwards. 
Conditions are forecast to improve throughout the day on Tuesday as the system moves away. However, strong westerly winds developing behind the system may continue through into Tuesday night, generating blowing snow and reduced visibilities over some areas, especially over the west coast where persistent flurries and snow squalls are likely to develop.
Please continue to monitor future updates for this system, as details will become more clear as the event approaches.

... is what I'm looking forward to at the moment. 

On NYC.. I'd like to see the West Village, the Meatpacking district with the High-Line.  The rocks in Central Park.  For crime and action scenes rooftops with the classic old wooden water tanks.  There are so many good places.  

Not sure of the legality but I’d love NYC icons like the Plaza Hotel and the big fountain in front of it, Central Park, the horse and carts, hot dog and pretzel carts (assuming they are still there, it’s been a while since I’ve been back...) those brown walls around the park, benches with pigeons, Rockefeller Center skating rink and huge Christmas tree, actually all of Central Park & NYC lol, it’s where I grew up.

Just found an actual hiccup in the materials. The Booster Engines .obj doesn't have a .mtl file, and the .mtl for the Central Section has all materials light grey with no named texture file.

Ah well, it all works — got all the bits converted to .duf, applied all the textures, and did a quick test render. I think I like it.

...hmm, but will you get any 3D work done then?

Part of the reason I don't deal with computer games.  The other part is most are just "shoot/slice/cast magic at em ups" which get's boring after a while. 

Would love X-Plane (which is an aircraft simulator) but I'd have to be pulling in a lot more than I do to get the large screen triple display system, up to date GPUs, and the actual aircraft flight control interfaces (control yoke, central console [with throttles and flaps controls for transport aircraft], axillary throttles, mixture control, and carburetor heat for vintage light aircraft, rudder pedals, etc, etc, etc...) as well as one of those expensive gamer chairs. Just doesn't give one the proper "feel" and experience doing it with a game controller or using the keyboard, particularly after flying a real plane.

Of course, still wouldn't mind that pipe organ simulator I posted pics of a while back either

Since we have a few options for giving figures orthodonic braces, as well as shapes for children, teens and adults wouldn't it make sense to give artists options for the "before" stage of that dental work? For that matter what about people who haven't had that kind of dental work are are now adults? For that matter what about having visible amalgam fillings? (I was a patient at a dental schol who would use amalgam on buccal fillings for bicubids on back.)

I can find plenty of "snaggle teeth" and a gap in the central incisors but not like for someone like myself or my sister who had an overbite or the underbite common to someone with a weak chin.

What set this thinking off is I'm working on an image for a character from a novel who grew up with a major mental illness and I can't imagine her staying put in a dentist's chair for even a simple exam, much less put up with braces.

I cannot see why we cannot have a Japanese werewolf or an African Vampire either, I have seen both in movies and no werewolves or vampires in real life.

Zephyr, who was an add-on accompanying the recent Tasha 8 release, is a vampire character with African features. Jiang Shi seems to be an Asian demon (although her features look a bit Caucasian to my eye); I can't remember if she was included as an add-on with one of DAZ's figure releases, or if she came later.

Some PAs have created non-Caucasian figures with monstrous variants. For example, EJ Hiroshi includes a 'vampire' option (material only; no fangs, as far as I can see). EJ Tamako is an interesting one; her Ghost Moriko variant seems to be an effort to create a specifically Asian-looking ghost/demon character.

I think the problem is that DAZ's marketing efforts mostly involve archetypes (heroic fantasy is strongly associated with quasi-medieval European settings, for example, so naturally when you put out Heroic Fantasy Guy with all his accessories, he's soda-cracker white) or stereotypes (anyone with African features comes with hip-hop gear or voodoo trappings, all Asians are Chinese or Japanese and wear karate gis, kimonos or ninja outfits, etc.), or just with the fact that, in the US and Europe, white people are seen as 'the default' (meaning that Heroic Spaceman Spliff with all his accessories is also always shiny white). And I have a nasty suspicion that there may be good commercial reasons for this failure of the imagination: if DAZ were to do something more imaginative, releasing, say, a dark-skinned character with African features alongside a bunch of steampunk clothing, or an Asian heroic fantasy bundle, then a certain number of people would say "That's just wrong. Everyone knows steampunk people are white Victorian British dudes with mutton-chop whiskers. I'm not buying that."

It would be great if DAZ were more adventurous. I'd love to see South and Central Asian, indigenous American or Australian figures (and indigenous American can go far beyond one tiny slice of North America, to include Inuit, South and Central Americans as well), Arabs and North Africans, maybe bundled with historically or culturally-appropriate clothing that goes beyond the stereotypes, or with fantasy/sci-fi/steampunk/whatever outfits of any kind. But I understand why they haven't done so yet, and it may have more to do with us than them.

The saving grace, of course, is that the mix'n'match nature of what my partner refers to as 'your paper dolls' means that there's nothing to stop us putting Darius 8 into a tailcoat, clockwork top-hat and monocle, or dressing Mei-Lin 8 up to ride dragons or whatever. Moreover, some PAs are starting to fill the gaps with figures from a broader range of cultures and ethnicities. So even if the offerings in the form of DAZ's own bundles are disappointing, we don't have to limit ourselves when deciding what to put in our renders. (We might, however, have to live on fifty-cent instant ramen for the rest of our lives to be able to afford all the content we want, but that's another matter).

 ...heard the other day one of Portland OR's Icons the Bridgeport Brewery, will be closing it's doors next month.  Bridgeport launched became the era of craft brewing 35 years ago with their Blue Heron Pale Ale (no longer made) and IPA which started Portland on the way to becoming what many refer to as "Beervana", the new "beer capital" of the nation (apologies, old hometown of Milwaukee WI). They were one of the first to brew handcrafted British style ales like IPAs, Pales, and Porters here in the states. Their location (not far from where i live) was once an old rope making factory which is is on the Historic Register, which between it and what was the company's warehouse the alleyway is a trestle about three floors up for shuttling product between the buildings.  When I used to work in the area years ago, Bridgeport was the place to get a couple slices pizza or a sandwich for lunch, and return to after work for a couple pints of their famous ales served in traditional imperial pint glasses.  Bridgeport was also the first to introduce cask conditioned ales that were hand drawn using traditional beer engines instead of CO₂. as well as using NO₂ taps for their stouts, porters, and creme ales.   Sadly what they started sort of became their demise as so many new breweries and brew pubs have sprung up to the point they are threatening Starbucks for the most locations (well not really but it sort of feels that way). Even breweries from other towns like Rogue, Pyramid, and Deschutes have opened ale houses and brewing operations in Portland.

During their three and a half decades in business, Bridgeport expanded their operations taking over the entire block and remodelling the interior of their central location to a more "upscale" look (somewhat to the dismay of those who loved the old  wood beam "warehouse" interior [such as myself]) and opening an alehouse on Hawthorne in inner Southeast Portland (which closed after only a few years due to low sales). Apparently the reasoning given by the owners is that younger people are drawn more to the smaller boutique breweries which have sprung up around the city rather than the larger older ones, which some see are not much different than the big national breweries (even though they still produce a much superior product).  Another reason that I see is simple over saturation (pun not intended) of the local market (within a 5 mile radius there are something like two dozen breweries, many clustered in the inner environs of the city some only a few blocks from others)  A few others have come and gone with time, but Bridgeport being an icon in the city if not the state, a pioneer in craft brewing, made the announcement something of a surprise.  Disappointing, as they also had an incredible happy hour where you could get a hand tossed crust 12" sausage and onion pizza for 6$.(pretty much the cost for a "frozen cardboard biscuit" pizza for the in the store today).

So on March 10th, the place where the brewing revolution all began thirty five years ago, will be no more. Need to stop by there beforehand maybe get a couple bottles of their "infamous" Old Knucklehead (a barelywine aged in wine casks that is around 10%).  They will be sadly missed when they are gone.

Yeah, the murals usually painted him with squared off ears and a snoot like a tapir.  That would make sense except for the fact that tapirs are found in Central and South America and southeast Asia, but not in Africalet alone anywhere the Nile Valley where the ancient Egyptians might have taken inspiration.  As such, the "experts" have debated for decade what Set's animal visage is suppose to resemble, if any particular creature.

Actually I was hoping you or anyone else might catch my "reference".

Sincerely,

Bill

Alien cloning centre

 

 

Moved Mike forward

I think this concept with its dramatic  lighting is shaping up superbly 

Oh, I wish I had time to enter this one!  I would be following a theme that a British author has taken in a first book in her series.  If you are interested in post apocolyptic sagas where 'we' have 'kililed' the earth, it's an interesting concept that re-engineered humans, who are smarter and stronger, take over running the world and bring back extinct species and people. But they have their faults, too! On Amazon.

  Silene 

Hey Silene, no excuses! I think  with your interest in Neanderthals etc that the topic fits like a glove on you. Thanks for the reference ;)

Interesting how people are doing different takes on theme.  I'd have never come up with post apocolyptic but makes sense if we don't do anything about CO2...

Been looking for a good read and hate picking out a book only to find it's #3 in a series.  Start at beginning on this one!

Anyway to topic:

Concept art for now.  (Obviously needs *lots* work.) 

Hill country in central Texas is only nesting habitat in the world for a handsome little fellow called the Golden Cheeked Warbler.

 

Conservation groups won a court victory just last week against State of Texas.  Our esteemed attorney general  wanted to open up its protected habitat for developers.  (The state had argued the endangered species act was government overreach, species no longer endangered, etc.)

https://travisaudubon.org/uncategorized/texas-judge-upholds-endangered-species-act-protections-for-golden-cheeked-warbler

Don’t have bulldozer prop, so used “road roller.”  For some reason, it reminded me of an old Joni Mitchell song.

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot... ”

So I’m calling it “Big Yellow Taxi”

Joni released that 49 years ago and still holds true in my opinion.

Thankfully not for our fine feathered friends here in central Texas. 

----

--Bruce

Nice, I think the metaphor adds a different level, makes us think because it is alluding to something outside the image (The song.). It's like adding a quote from Shakespeare to the preface of a novel - it adds gravitas or comedy = depending on what you a re quoting of course!