Hi Divamakeup,

Since the DAZ users are spread all round the globe, can you please state all times in Universal Time.  UT = Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Thank you !

@angstyg Made a time chart: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3060566/#Comment_3060566

thank you for the hint.
But it only helps U.S. insiders. What is the shift of EST, Central, Mountain or Pacific vs. international standards?

How should the global community know, which timezone (international) the DAZ universe is ??
Please come out off your nutshell !

UTC-7 for Daz time.

Hi Divamakeup,

Since the DAZ users are spread all round the globe, can you please state all times in Universal Time.  UT = Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Thank you !

@angstyg Made a time chart: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3060566/#Comment_3060566

thank you for the hint.
But it only helps U.S. insiders. What is the shift of EST, Central, Mountain or Pacific vs. international standards?

How should the global community know, which timezone (international) the DAZ universe is ??
Please come out off your nutshell !

"Please come out off your nutshell !" lol Which is it? Am I on a nutshell or in one in this weird alternate nutshell universe of yours?

BTW, It's called Google and it's SUPER easy to use. 

Hi Divamakeup,

Since the DAZ users are spread all round the globe, can you please state all times in Universal Time.  UT = Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Thank you !

@angstyg Made a time chart: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3060566/#Comment_3060566

thank you for the hint.
But it only helps U.S. insiders. What is the shift of EST, Central, Mountain or Pacific vs. international standards?

How should the global community know, which timezone (international) the DAZ universe is ??
Please come out off your nutshell !

For those that are interested, the switchover times are as follows:

Mountain (DAZ) Time:  12pm, 4pm, 8pm, 12am, 4am, 8am

Central Time: 1pm, 5pm, 9pm, 1am, 5am, 9am

Eastern Time: 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2am, 6am, 10am

etc. - you should be able to use the foregoing to calculate at what time the changeovers occur for your local time if you are in a different time zone. So, you have four hours to take advantage of the offers beginning at each of those times before the freebies change.

There was a glitch at the beginning, and the first set of freebies did not go live until early this morning (the 23rd), with the intial five freebies remaining available until 8:00 am DAZ time. We are currently on the second bunch that will change at 12:00 noon DAZ time.

Just repeat the main blocks and it'll always be (for example) 2, 6, and 10 EST.

“Astronaut for Genesis 3 Male and Michael 7” is the long-awaited Astronaut suit from Midnight_stories. It an authentic Astronaut recreation based on the moon landing. It comes in a ten piece set. Both in Iray and 3Delight material sets. It has 2 main sub-set item for easy loading, these have specific limits and morphs applied to them, Plus a pose control group dedicated to controlling the suit, which make it even easier to work with. There’s a morph for expanding the suit, to get a more authentic look, Backpack is connected to the suit with tubes and can be posed without distortion. There’s Michael 7 shape support and various adjustment dials. The material come with Emission shaders for the light and I have included several color for the light inside the helmet. There 10 Hierarchical Poses plus a Zero pose to reset. The tubes do have adjustments to help with posing. It has highly detailed textures and wrinkle all in 4K. This is a must for all you space fans and be on the lookout for the “Moon 360” pack.

OK some notes:

Before you ask I’ll try and answer some question.

How's it work:

The easiest way I could think of was creating sub set, this allows me to put limit on the G3M figure so he doesn’t collide with other parts of the suit E.g. collars going into the helmet or chest bend tearing the backpack tubes apart. Also, it allows me to control multiple morphs in the one place, E.g. Suit expand will drive suit gloves boots cover packs all at once, so you don’t have to do it individually on each piece of clothing. See video for details.

What figure and shape support are there?

Basically Genesis 3 Male and Michael 7. Why only those well that’s all, I had time for it took 6 weeks to get it this far. The main problem are the tubes running from the suit to the backpack, they shear off when applying morphs and bends. I’m not saying all body types will do it, so of the standard morphs work fine E.g. Height. With just the suit on and not worrying about helmets covers and pack most will work fine. So just be aware of the backpack. Genesis 3 Female no I’m not doing to as I would have to rig from scratch. Genesis 8 Male I have a basic fit but I will see how many the Genesis 3 Male sells before I commit.

Why has it taken so long.

As some of you know me I do things pretty quick, so 6 weeks is a huge amount of time to do this. The main reason is developing strategies to get this to work at 4 weeks into this I still didn’t know if this would work or get pass QA. I bounce ideas of the DAZ Riggers and see if they work or if they have better ideas, the multiple weight mapping system came from those guys, no one knew if it was going to work but it did. Then making a central control for all morph was another one, tubes running from the suit to the backpack took the longest plus adding bones to move the tubes in and out. Researching and Astronaut suit was a lot of effort, now I know how they really work and it’s a marvel of engineering. So, it all adds up.  

Closing notes and tips:

I know some will be disappointed that there can’t a lot of shape support, but I only have so many hours in a day,

Hint: just apply head morphs and character materials and do a clear autogen morphs for Edit/Figures drop down then maybe use height morph to get different variations.

Is it authentic?

No it wasn’t practical to do certain things and they couldn’t be rigged, I did use a lot for reference from nasa photo’s and the movie Gravity was a great inspiration. I didn’t put logo’s on because of copyrights.

Is the rig perfect?

No, nothing is perfect, I had to strike a balance between usability and mobility. E.g. Astronaut helmet don’t bend or twist the head moves inside them and arms and legs have restricted movement, so keep that in mind when posing.

Will I be doing this again ?

No! We choose to go to moon because it’s hard, I choose it because it’s interesting and challenges me. This project stretched me to the limit of what I can do.

Well hope you enjoy it I did the best I could with what I had!

Please look at Utube video for more detailed run through.

Some WIP shots as it developed

.

Mother and daughter at Grand Central Station: V3 Teresa (character and hair) from Daz store, V3 Bernadette from Rendo (I think?), wearing Periwinkle Blue and Riki Blue textures, respectively (by Thorne). In background: Hiro 3, showing his approval, Rikishi is leaving, and M3 is checking his watch.

Nice one. Is the pants and shirt the daughter is wearing available anywhere?

The attachment is a promo pic from Mec4D's https://www.daz3d.com/mec4d-hdri-norman-castle-megapack. I don't own the pack (yet), but I do own a number of other HDRIs and none of them allow me to hide a figure behind an integral scene element. There's a similar pic in Mec4D's Central Park collection--of a woman sitting on a bench--but that one's easy to figure out: the bench is simply a prop and not integral to the HDRI.

However this one was done, I'd sure like to know the trick of it! No wonder the guy is grinning.

Thanks!

Jeremy Birn does explain the math and how Pro Photographer/Cinematographers work it out to get the results they're after, he also brings it hoem to easy-to-understand terms as far as setting up the affect/effect in our 3d software. So while I might not understand it all well enough to explain it, I at least am getting my head wrapped around how to go after certain, popular ways of shooting a scene now.

As for the lens angle thing, in Carrara we have the two lenses, wide (25mm) and normal (50mm) and then the zoom lens, which goes from 1mm to I don't know how high.

Lower #mm = wider lens = more of the background will be visible in the same aspect ratio - so the central foreground subject will now appear farther away unless we bring the camera closer. It's the opposite of Zooming.

50 - 60mm or so is considered 'normal' visual range. Kind of What-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of thing - as if we were loking with our own eyes. 

While higher number mm will Zoom in on the figure from a greater distance, it will also bring the background closer - even great distances can look like they're directly behind the subject. Useful for many things - A popular one in cinema is to keep the focus above the feet (so we can't make out the illusion) and zoom in on the peoplle, who are acting naturally even though something amazing is happening right behind them - like tidal waves, massive explosions, trains flying by, etc.,   While it might appear like they're right next to something dangerous, they might be 50 yards or even more away.

We do have to be careful when using number higher or lower than normal range. Both extremes will distort the subject matter in the middle - the main subject matter. 

An example that's still fresh to me is when Kylo Ren is telling his evil master that the scavenger has untrained power. The lens and camera placement exaggerates is facial features - makes them bigger in the center of his face, giving him the appearance of a whining underling trying to save his ass. Very well done camera work, I thought.

Which brings up those dizzying dolly zoom effect. We can actually change the (apparent) distance between the figure and the background by changing the zoom as we dolly the camera closer to or away from the figure. To do so we alter the zoom (in mm) of the camera as we move the camera to keep the figure taking up the exact same space in the frame. In doing so, going wide from a narrower aperture will make the background expand. We'll start without see a whole lot of the background spacially to being able to see a lot more of it as we widen the aperture (lower the mm). As we widen the aperture, we need to get closer to the subject to keep it the same size, etc.,

That's a little bit of it. He gets into how to properly set up and use motion blur and a ton of other stuff.

When I just tried Luxus for Carrara again, I couldn't help but notice that all of the things he talks about are available as settings for full, true photography mimicing... even the common lens distortions, aberations and the like. Very cool!

...LeatherGryphon, Happy 69th trip around our central main sequence stellar primary and the galactic core. 

 

WIth galactic motion added the total distance travelled is approximately 846,878,400,000 miles

Closing in on the trillion mile club.

I doubt very much we've made a trip around the galactic core in one year.  We'd have to be very close to it to make such good time.

Dana

...LeatherGryphon, Happy 69th trip around our central main sequence stellar primary and the galactic core. 

 

WIth galactic motion added the total distance travelled is approximately 846,878,400,000 miles

Closing in on the trillion mile club.

Should I put it on my bucket list?  How long?

...13 more years.

...LeatherGryphon, Happy 69th trip around our central main sequence stellar primary and the galactic core. 

 

WIth galactic motion added the total distance travelled is approximately 846,878,400,000 miles

Closing in on the trillion mile club.

Should I put it on my bucket list?  How long?

...LeatherGryphon, Happy 69th trip around our central main sequence stellar primary and the galactic core. 

WIth galactic motion added the total distance travelled is approximately 846,878,400,000 miles

Closing in on the trillion mile club.

Sunday!  And SUNday is right, it's too freaking bright outside!  I don't need sunglasses, I need welding goggles, I swear.  And they predicted rain.. welcome to Central Texas.

In pain today, as expected.  Hooray for aspirin and coffee!  But almost everything is set up and tested, so I'm just waiting for some parts from Amazon that arrive tomorrow and both the computer lab and music studio will be operational.  Once it's all done, I'll make a video tour of my room and post it on YouTube, but I'll need to make the bed (feh).

Breakfast was a warmed-up bbq steak omg so good, next it's fresh red leaf lettuce!!  I'm going to try to eat healthier and cook more as packaged genoa salami costs as much as a pack of chicken thighs!!  It's crazy, even cheese is stupid expensive.  Back to low-sodium corn chips and salsa for snacks.

Other than that, about to cook up sweet Italian sausage and spinach in Alfredo sauce in the air fryer, will make 2 meals worth.  I still have a can of baby carrots I need to do something with...

Had my first beer in 3 months last night - Arrogant Bastard Ale, 2 bottles.  I have 4 left so I'm in good shape.   Was a nice, tasty sip. :)

at least in Carrara you can make an undead monkey 

if you want to

Friday and it's 6:12am!  Going to bed at 9PM has a nasty side-effect of making me wake up early unless I'm dead tired exhausted.

Complaints!

- Neck and back sore

- Tummy angry with me

- Alka-Seltzer for breakfast :|

- Humid and warm outdoors

- Tons of random cables to clean up

- Floor needs Swiffering again

Non-complaints!

- Southern Pecan coffee

- Weekend is coming!

- Today is Payday!

- Not in the hospital (yes, this is a big deal for me)

Super busy weekend planned moving the computer lab and setting up the music studio again.  I need to assemble the kitchen mini-table but it can wait, it's going to be slow and painful as I have to use a magnifying glass to read the directions and see parts details, ugh. Other than that, should cool off over the weekend and have highs in the low to mid 70s, brrrr! Maybe some rain, but I don't believe weather predictions in Central Texas any more. :|

 

...highs in the low to mid 70s? For here that would be downright tropical this time of year.

Breakkie for me was rolled oats smothered in butter and Maple Syrple with a side of sausage

Not being in the hospital is a very good thing.

yeah have a pretty full weekend ahead as well installing new hardware as well as clean installs W7 Pro and of all my programmes.

Will keep track of the Wisconsin - Michigan game on the ESPN mobile app while backing stuff up for the teardown and upgrade.  Even though Michigan is pretty much out of the picture for the National Playoffs as well as the Big Ten Championship (Wisconsin already punched their ticket to the B1G Championship game with last week's win), they are still a dangerous well balanced team.  This could be a close one.

Complaint: My b-day was on Monday.

...happy belated recent annual trip around our central stellar primary.

I am having prostate surgery on the 27th (1st day of deer gun season, so there goes another yr with no  meat). I will have a 1-3 day hospital stay. I will be down of 6-8 weeks. Full recover isn't for 2 yrs

Ugh that doesn't sound enjoyable at all.  Used to remember that season back in Wisconsin. The only trouble, there is many of the other hunters include a case of beer and/or bottle of  whiskey with their hunting gear.  Even wearing day glow orange doesn't make you necessarily safe.

Tell me about it. I once hunted on public game land and had a shot hit the tree just above my head once. That was the last time I hunted on public land. Thank god my buddy owns a farm so we hunt there and some other properties that we have permission to hunt.

Friday and it's 6:12am!  Going to bed at 9PM has a nasty side-effect of making me wake up early unless I'm dead tired exhausted.

Complaints!

- Neck and back sore

- Tummy angry with me

- Alka-Seltzer for breakfast :|

- Humid and warm outdoors

- Tons of random cables to clean up

- Floor needs Swiffering again

Non-complaints!

- Southern Pecan coffee

- Weekend is coming!

- Today is Payday!

- Not in the hospital (yes, this is a big deal for me)

Super busy weekend planned moving the computer lab and setting up the music studio again.  I need to assemble the kitchen mini-table but it can wait, it's going to be slow and painful as I have to use a magnifying glass to read the directions and see parts details, ugh. Other than that, should cool off over the weekend and have highs in the low to mid 70s, brrrr! Maybe some rain, but I don't believe weather predictions in Central Texas any more. :|

Complaint: My b-day was on Monday.

...happy belated recent annual trip around our central stellar primary.

I am having prostate surgery on the 27th (1st day of deer gun season, so there goes another yr with no  meat). I will have a 1-3 day hospital stay. I will be down of 6-8 weeks. Full recover isn't for 2 yrs

Ugh that doesn't sound enjoyable at all.  Used to remember that season back in Wisconsin. The only trouble, there is many of the other hunters include a case of beer and/or bottle of  whiskey with their hunting gear.  Even wearing day glow orange doesn't make you necessarily safe.

The stuff in the new Fantasy category sale still isn't properly discounting (not adding the extra discount when adding a debut/still new) - I've been checking since the morning central europe time - is this planned to be fixed today, as I know Jack called it in this morning?

Let me give them another nudge

Thanks Jack!