A few different treatments of PhilW's excellent City Central Night scene using Carrara as an NPR machine.

They're all quite nice. The first is my favorite. Good composition and color treatment. The third one is a little too Twighlight Zonish dystopic for my taste! People without faces!!!

A few different treatments of PhilW's excellent City Central Night scene.

 

Terrific!  You should have saved this one for the next Challenge. (hint)

Then again, looking at your past masterworks, I'm sure that you will come up with something even better. :)

The canvas texture you used kind of looks like rain.  Some umbrellas would have looked cool.

A few different treatments of PhilW's excellent City Central Night scene using Carrara as an NPR machine.

Rendered out firstly as a Toon1Part111 render, then rendered out several different passes and combined with postwork in post.

It renders very fast as you don't need anti aliasing on :)

Much use of the index pass to help isolate the different scene objects.

A few different treatments of PhilW's excellent City Central Night scene.

Rendered out firstly as a Toon1Part111 render, then rendered out several different passes and combined with postwork in post.

It renders very fast as you don't need anti aliasing on :)

Much use of the index pass to help isolate the different scene objects.

Looking  forward to seeing more work people have done or ar doing with Carrara as an NPR machine.

OMG

Best day of the sale so far. I bought every new-mad product. Everything from every category - like exactly $50.

Yeah, um This sentiment, exactly.

BEST DAY OF MARCH MADNESS SO FAR>

Discounted enough for me to get somebody for a Michael 7-which I don't own (yet).

This is what I'm talking about. I did back flips when I saw those cart process....I was like...>WHAAAAAATTTTTTT yes, we will hit the CONTINUE SHOPPING BUTTON.....

I grabbed the hockey set because the gloves will do for 'space gloves' and the shorts are something a dude might wear during down time. Bright-Orangutan-hiney-red helmet might be a waste, but it's got a visor so maybe somebody from central control will be wearing it. lol

Awesome, awesome awesome

Maybe not the most clever of titles, but it should make searching for it a bit easier.

A few years ago, I offered a model based upon Albert Nozaki's manta ray inspired Martian war machines from George Pal's 1953 movie adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds".  Winchel D. Chung Jr. modeled it in Blender and granted me permission to convert it to a Poser friendly format and diistribute it with the 3D community.  Later, Thalek rigged the model, giving the cobra headed heat ray "EasyPose" parameters.

Now, I present the pilot of that vehicle, the Martian itself as envisioned by Charles Gemora, known throughout the 1940s as the "King of the apes suits".  If you have ever watched a film from the 40s that had a performer in a gorilla costume, odds are it was a suit Gemora built and was himself wearing.  By the 50s, gorillas as "monsters" were losing their appeal and Gemora started branching into other creatures.  Arguably his crowning achievement was the Martian that threatened Gene Barry and and Ann Robinson within the ruins of a farmhouse for the 1953 film.  Admittedly very different from the cephalopodic creatures wells described in his novel, the capped mushroom silhouette became one of the most iconic images of cinematic science fiction, still holding its own after 64 years.

According to his daughter who assisted him during the production, Gemora was still working upon the costume/puppet the night before it was to be filmed, the rubber still curing while on set.  Gemora's daughter queezed bladder that pumped air into "veins" of the costume, making them pulsate on camera.  To have the Martian flee the premises after Gene Barry struck it, Gemora balanced upon a dolly wearing the suit.  When the crew pulled a cable, making the dolly roll across the set, the forecwas so great as to make Gemora topple backwards!  Alas, the costume did not survive the production, so all that's left are images, footage from the movie itself and a few "behind the scenes" snapshots.

SsSandu_C is the talented fellow who made the model I now offer, sculpting it originally in ZBrush and converting the multi-million polygon mesh into a frugal .OBJ format, the detail preserved as various texture and bump maps.  I then presented a tweaked version of this mesh to Jim "Xaa" Farris who deftly rigged it for use in Poser giving it some "extended remore control" morphs to bend and sway the "trunk" as well as to bend the digits with a single dial.  He also supplied a collection of "starter" poses.  I created a displacement map to extrude the veins ans the lenses of the tri faceted eye.

You're probably wondering why there are no lower appendages.  When SsSandu_C accepted the modeling challenge,  I provided a few resources, noting probably the best was a vinyl model kit released a few years ago by "Pegasus Models".  The makers of that kit had a dilemma.  The movie only revealed part of a central torso and the unusual shoulder structure with the 3 lens eye.  the fact was, there was no "bottom".  What we saw in the movie was just a fraction less than what Gemora sculpted.  Since then, fans have envisioned all sorts of lower extremeties, everything from 2 conventional, but spindly, legs, to 3 legs, to a mass of writhing tentacles.  Rather than playing favorites and thus frustrating a sizeable percentage of fans, the kit designers took a cue from Gemora's efforts and gave the Martian nothing more than the "trunk" we saw in the movie, merely flairing it at the base, suggesting something akin to the "foot" of a snail or a slug.  Now, I can't imagine such a locomotibe addendage could have allowed it to race from the room as fast as depicted in the movie, but it was a "neutral" and safe choice by the kit designers.  SsSandu_C decided  to take that approach.  JimFarris was kind enough to add control points to the for points of the base so they can be twisted and shifted.  In theory, one might animate these points to have the Martian "slither" and undulate across a scene.

Silly me, I nearly forgot; you can find the model upon ShareCG.

http://www.sharecg.com/v/87706/gallery/11/Poser/Pal-Martian-1953-Design

Yes, both SsSandu_C and Jim Farris have granted me permission to share this model with the 3D community.

I's like to see what one does with this famous monster of filmland.

Sincerely,

Bill

this looks amazing...i'm starting to lose track of the number of times your products have kinda blown my mind.  :)

a couple of random thoughts: 

it looks like the shader-based colors carry through very well even at close-up range, but the wing edges look a little soft in your close-up example.  don't reckon that'd be noticeable when the butterflies are in motion, but it might be nice to have the option to use a butterfly with crisper wing edges in static renders--something that'd really pop in the extreme foreground, say.

the flightpath patterns are wonderful...incredibly realistic! but i do have a suggestion for a flocking pattern that's not.  a flock spiralling up or down in a funnelcloud shape around a central point or zone. converging upon or ascending from.

notions aside--wow.  beautiful work!  this is going straight in the cart when it comes out. 

Hey @jardine,

Thanks for the notes. I like your idea about the coordinated flight paths, especially the spiralling funnel. That should be easy enough to do. But it may be late in the game to make that change. I'll have to see about that...there's always the possiblity of an add-on...  

Regarding the edges of the wings, that promo shot is actually an older version of the butterfly, before I fixed a UV problem I was having. So the wings should look better in final production. But thanks for pointing that out. I didn't even notice it because I am so used to seeing that promo. I should probably re-render a new promo with the updated butterfly instead.

this looks amazing...i'm starting to lose track of the number of times your products have kinda blown my mind.  :)

a couple of random thoughts: 

it looks like the shader-based colors carry through very well even at close-up range, but the wing edges look a little soft in your close-up example.  don't reckon that'd be noticeable when the butterflies are in motion, but it might be nice to have the option to use a butterfly with crisper wing edges in static renders--something that'd really pop in the extreme foreground, say.

the flightpath patterns are wonderful...incredibly realistic! but i do have a suggestion for a flocking pattern that's not.  a flock spiralling up or down in a funnelcloud shape around a central point or zone. converging upon or ascending from.

notions aside--wow.  beautiful work!  this is going straight in the cart when it comes out. 

:)

j

And todays (March 25th) is a 404 page error and not able to add to the cart from the promo page. Give them a few hours to fix it though (or 8am Daz time when they come in to work. Although someone should be there fixing all this stuff now. The main page has several spinning black images instead of the products.) It's 1:40 am Central time, so they haven't had much time to fix things yet.)

Business Hallway is the new freebie. Right now though it's a 404 error. (1:30am Central time)  March 25th  

That's using the https secure link that is up right now.  Can not add it to cart from the promo page either.

waiting for the central plains warm front to chase away canadian cold front.  poor squirrels and bunny wabbits had to retreat to theie winter digs

poor canadian goosie, saw one flying all by his lonesomes

 

What about the froggies?  Every Spring we here them wake up and start chirping in the pond right across the street from my house.  Well, a few nights ago I heard a lot of them.  Then the deep freeze came...single digit temperatures and negative wind chills!  Poor things.  They got very quiet.  Probably went back to hibernation sleep.

Dana

waiting for the central plains warm front to chase away canadian cold front.  poor squirrels and bunny wabbits had to retreat to theie winter digs

poor canadian goosie, saw one flying all by his lonesomes

playing with new stuff   the central, the venice, the girl

I'm sorry for the ignorance Richard but I don't know what "central content location or single master content system" means :(

I use one account to download the content to the pcs. The content is the same. The currently used are:

Brow Squeeze

Cheek Crease

Cheek Eyes

Jaw Side

Fear

Eyelids

Eyes Squint

Mouth Narrow

S

But I use a pre-made expression from """i13 100 Essential Expressions for Victoria 7""" on Olympia 7

Are all three using the same central content location? Or copies of a single master content system? If reinstalling Victoria 7 doesn't help that suggests that some other property is driving the Victoria 7 shape - what is listed under Currently Used with the base figure selected?

I thought the sales ads changed at midnight my time (central) Is the Flash sale the new daily sale or just one that is going to only last a few hours??? 

honestly, I don't think much of anything here at DAZ changes at midnight central. And flash sales seem to be changing late morning or early afternoon central time (I'm on central too, and most flash stuff is still available before I go into work). But, flash sales don't always last for 24 hours. I think sometimes, they disappear after being purchased a certin number of times. So, I think it's a good idea to treat flash sales as very short lived. That said, they can even last several days, so it's very hard to know. 

I thought the sales ads changed at midnight my time (central) Is the Flash sale the new daily sale or just one that is going to only last a few hours??? 

Flash sales generally last a few hours (but it can be completely random.) They are different to the daily sales page.

I thought the sales ads changed at midnight my time (central) Is the Flash sale the new daily sale or just one that is going to only last a few hours??? 

Nice and also currently there is a sale going on so good time to buy, just checking if it is permissible to use Central Business District for Carrara and Night and Day City  in Game Engines like Unity?  Dowe need a licnese of some sort?

I am pretty sure that the Daz terms do not allow use in published games. If you are thinking of using it in Unity for your own private purposes, that would be fine, but for something commercial you would need a game licence - there are quite a few game licences from vendors on the Daz Store if you search for it. Let me know if this is your intention and maybe we can discuss offline if this is the case.  Also note the discussion above with avxp - it would be a non-trivial matter to get these products working in Unity.

Thanks Phil. It is still great to use them in animations, vidoes etc.

I think probably it will be good to have game license options available for all DAZ store models etc.

Here, about 60 miles south of Buffalo, we had about 2" snow last night.  It was late coming, it had been expected the day before.  It almost waited until I was done with my Tuesday driving chores but Noooo, it had to force me to yet again dig out the car.  However, it was light fluffy stuff so it brushed off easily, and it's still coming down heavily.  Much more expected over the next couple of days.  I cut short my typical Tuesday driving chores because the roads were getting quite slippery.  I did, however, get my car to the mechanic to give me an estimate for critically needed frame repairs.  He showed me what was wrong.  ARGH, it looks like somebody threw acid under there.  Some areas are as soft as cardboard and there are gaping holes in critical support members!!!!   BUT..., he says as bad as it looks, he's fixed worse.  It does need new metal cut, shaped, and welded into place but the floor panel is OK and all the wheel mounts are OK.  The rear axle assembly has to be dropped to get at some places, and he has to remove the carpeting and rear seats to avoid burns during the welding process, but the total cost isn't too far outside my budget.  He pointed out that the car was never undercoated, probably because it began life in central Florida where neither road salt nor sea salt is a problem.  The repair cost includes undercoating (I get this image of closing the barn door after the horse escapes) but that should help slow further decay.  I need this car to outlast me.  New car $20,000.  Decent used car $10,000.  Current repair estimate $1,200.  This is a no brainer.  The car is 14 years old but is low milage, excellent body exterior and interior, motor has been well maintained, it gets reasonable milage (21 city, 30 on interstate), big, luxurious, and everything works.  Yeah, it will need things done now and then but there's life in the old gal yet.

...road salt is a real killer for cars as well as for shoes.  I remember living in Wisconsin and seeing rust on the lower fender panels behind the wheel well and bottom of the doors of cars that were only a few years old.  Another undesireable feature is it tends to turn snow into gloppy cold slush that if you don't have rubber boots (which of course offer no traction on hard pack snow or ice) makes walking difficult without getting an icy cold "soaker" and getting splashed by a passing car, one of the most miserable experiences one can endure.  What is worse if it gets very cold, the slush freezes creating an uneven surface of ice.where geting footing can be difficult (especially for older artrhitic folks such as myself which is why I put up with the rain and high rents here).  

Speaking of sea salt, it does have a corrosive effect.  I've seen cars on the Washington coast (the beach there at Ledbetter point is actually a state highway) which were pretty much rust buckets as people often drive on the wet sand kicking up salt spray. 

Then there was that 737 in Hawai'i back in the 80s that blew it's top.  A combination of metal fatigue brought about by the salt air and aggravated by frequent pressurisation cycles (most flights in the islands last about 30 - 40 min so a plane can go though pressurisation cycle two to three times as much in one day as one here on the mainland) was the cause.  Amazing that there was only one fatality and that the front section didn't break off due to stresses from the catastrophic failure.  Actually saw it sitting off to the side on the tarmac with a big white tarp over the front fuselage when I landed in Maui several week later.