If nothing else- it is a great way to see how many would purchase encrypted content if an entire release is made that way.  Not so good for vendors who suffer if people refuse, but it's a smart way to test it in marketing.  How will they know for sure if they don't test it out?

I often just add products without going into them; I'd got out of that habit, but I will have to change my shopping methods - but spending more time on shopping increases the cost to me; time is more valuable than a dollar or two here or there.

So I can't trust Daz; I'm not saying by this that Daz are untrustworthy - it's a personal thing, and I will change my style of shopping - one method is as shown in the image.

The one thing above all others that is in Daz's favour, is the returns policy, and when there are issues with something, there is a central point of contact.

DRM negates that. If I have to filter all the DRM products out, and remember to check, then that increase in hastle makes other places more appropriate.

I like the little pull on the material where the bits bulge is... makes a nice central point to wonder what's going on there!  What can I say, I have a dirty mind!  lmao

Yes you do

I must, too, because I love that little bit.  It really draws the eyes in.  :)

 

Just had to try out the new Iain from Darwin Mishap, he's amazing and I really love the LIE makeups.

Looks very nice! 

The Sinner

Fantastic image!

I think I am finally over my fear of men!  While it was fun hosting the contest for the It's Raining Men Again, I have to admit I had a few moments of "What did I get myself into?!" thinking.  I ended the contest on testosterone overload and didn't even want to look at another male render!  I'm happy to say that I'm currently working on a male render so I think I'm over that.  I'll post when I get the kinks all worked out.  

I have started looking at this thread again with anticipation. :)

Missed out a bit on this discussion (sorry, it's been a busy weekend!). My own technique, preference, habit maybe, is somewhere between Phil's and Diomede's. Let me illustrate with a render of what I'm working on right now. It's a little more complicated because the doorways are arches, but in principle it's the same.

You're looking at two rooms joined together by a shallow staircase. Each room has only three sides and each is a single vertex object. The ceiling is another vertex object. The rooms are symmetrical, so the facing walls mirror each other, although the front/back walls are different. Within the vertex model, the walls are separate meshes. I made one wall - three arches joined together. For this, I started with three cylinders rather than a cube. Set them next to each other and bridged between them, then knocked out the middles. Once I was happy, I duplicated the wall for the other side. The end wall just has the central arch enlarged.

The door frames were made by selecting the inside of the arch, duplicating, scaling and adding thickness. Separate cross-piece for the top, which is duplicated around. The doors are separate models, parented and constrained for axis rotation. There's a right side door and a left side door, mirrors of each other, hinges positioned at 0,0. Duplicated and fitted to each door frame. There's a revolving door in the middle, which is no more complicated really than the other doors (again, make one door segment, duplicate & rotate.)

BTW, if you're duplicating meshes, it's preferable to UV map them first (otherwise you'd need to UV map each duplicated part separately). If you're just punching holes in a grid, you probably won't even lose the mapping. That both saves time, and it helps the textures to line up between walls.

Right now, I haven't decided whether to keep the walls in a single vertex object (I can name them and bone them in DS, which allows them to be hidden for camera access etc), or split them into separate vertex objects so they can be moved apart. Generally, the smaller the room is, the more important it is to have walls that can be moved or hidden.

I'm making an effort to curb my spending here considerably this year. I had to take a good, long hard look at some of the things I've had in my cart (usually clothes and hair) and ask myself "Do I really need this?" Unless it's something substantial at a really deep discount. 

I thought the BYOB sale was rather ingenious (even including certain base characters for $5 extra), but if it ended up causing Daz to lose more money than it actually made, then I doubt we'll see anything like it again any time soon, especially since it could be activated with PC+ items that are typically dirt cheap for PC+ members. Same thing with the freebies from the Christmas sale last year... but a lot of those items were either PC+, textures, poses that are included in the pro bundles, or reeeeeeally old items (we're talking Vicki/Michael 3 era). I'm not sure if that makes a difference.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens with March Madness this year.

I wonder if they *can* lose more money than they make selling digital content. It seems at a certian point with digital titles delivered electronically, it becomes almost purely profit. I mean, you've got to pay the IT staff and the developers and the utilities and the equipment - but if you're selling something you've already recouped all your costs to CREATE on - it becomes an equation of, "would we make MORE charging more and selling less, or more charging less and selling more?"
​I'm inclined to believe the latter is generally the case, if you can scale up sales enough. Businesses can get caught up in seeing discounts as lost profits on money they *think* they should be able to make for an item, versus what the market is actually willing to pay. I think this argument applies to the monetary claims the software industry attributes to piracy. "We lost 20 bajillion dollars to piracy this year."
​No, you didn't. You put a price on what you think your product was worth, and then looked at the number of people who stole your stuff, and said, "that is how much we lost."
​But at the price you were charging, a huge majority of those pirates would have just skipped your product altogether, if paying had been the ONLY way to get it. You can't lose a sale you never would have made.
​Very rarely does a manufacturer underestimate the demand for their product and price it too low. The release of the Mazda Miata may have been the classic modern example of that. It is obvious when this happens, as demand outpaces supply. Most retail businesses have the other problem, they've got a whole lot of widgets to move and they can't seem to find as many consumers as they would like. :)
Not trying to justify piracy, here. Creators should get paid for their labor, and they've got to make enough to cover their costs *and* have a quality standard of living.
​The equation here would seem to be, "did the advertising campaigns and subsequent sales make more money than they cost?"
​If they did, I suspect we'll see similar sales in the future. My guess is that they know that there is a certain segment that will pay full price when they need content for a project, and there is another that will buy content they don't need when it isn't full price - and getting ALL the money possible from BOTH groups would be MY goal, if I were DAZ.  :)

In truth, the digital world rarely works that way..  The first point is that at least half of all businesses fail; we simply don't notice when a company has underpriced a product and, instead, just notice that the store on the corner that used to stock the thing you wanted is gone.  The second point is that the digital transition didn't eliminate the central cost to business which is people.  I endless hear people discussing that digital books should be cheaper since there is no physical printing.  Unfortunately, the physical component is the smallest portion of the equation.  It is all of that editing, the lawyers, etc... that is the bulk of the cost.   What you are paying for when you buy a product is the sweat of the creator and all the people who have to process it.  A practical example is the university I work at.  We normally buy things through vendor agreements which may or may not give a cheaper price. Every once in a while, someone wants something that must be purchased through Amazon.  The trick is voiding the vendor agreement and paying in a way that Amazon can accept adds another $30-40 Us to the cost so it is silly to buy a $5 object from Amazon.  What you are getting from having digital assets is the ability to have hundreds of thousands of products in your store and being able to manage them in a sane way; it doesn't mean that they will be any cheaper. 

I like the little pull on the material where the bits bulge is... makes a nice central point to wonder what's going on there!  What can I say, I have a dirty mind!  lmao

Yes you do

It's all good!  lmao

I like the little pull on the material where the bits bulge is... makes a nice central point to wonder what's going on there!  What can I say, I have a dirty mind!  lmao

Yes you do

I like the little pull on the material where the bits bulge is... makes a nice central point to wonder what's going on there!  What can I say, I have a dirty mind!  lmao

Thanks SO MUCH for the great tutorial. That was fantastic info. I really love your mock covers, and if I ever do a pulp-themed game, I'm either going to use your techniques or try to hire you! One thing I wanted to mention about your covers is that they work so well because you focus on storytelling. As I've read through this forum over the past few months, I keep coming across covers that work and that's almost always part of the reason: The cover tells a story. I'm definitely not positioning myself as an expert on cover design (I struggle with it each and every time), but I have published a few books (some for myself and some for others) and I always try to focus on composition and storytelling (the two usually go hand-in-hand). Looking at your covers, you can tell what's going to happen. Each of the three covers above have only a few elements (2 - 4) with a single central figure. These scenes are all existing in the pause of a single heartbeat right before all hell breaks loose. We know what's about to happen, and you make us want to read the book to find out what happens next. Even though these are mock covers (and based on a style that uses strong color blocking that isn't quite in line with modern tropes), you still nail the fundamentals of GREAT design.

Anyway, now that I read this, I think I'm coming off as a pompus know-it-all. But... we're all here to learn, so I'm going to take off my guest-lecturer's cap and make one final suggestion. If you want to study storytelling in illustrations, do a google search for the works of Norman Rockwell. That man was a MASTER storyteller. From each of his single illustrated covers, you can get the tale he's telling. Note how he uses body language and object placement to set a scene and give us a clue about how the people are reacting. I know that his images are quaint by today's standards, and he worked in a larger space than most of us have (he did full-size magazines and most of us work on smaller, paperback-sized covers), but the basics are there and definitely worth spending an hour or more exploring.

Flash sale- Flipmode and Stonemason. While I would love to get the Winter Castle, Mayan Ruins, etc, I just don't need them anytime soon. How long do the Flash Sales last compared to the Blink Sales- when did these get put on the scrolling banner? It's 10:30ish right now and I just saw them, how long have they been up?  A couple hours I presume. IIRC, most of the time Flash pop up around 8pm (Central) or a bit earlier. Never got the hang of the Blink sales, they came and went and I saw comments about them but didn't see several of the vendors referenced as they'd already been changed.

Vehicles - Pickup Trucks

Pick-up trucks are common for work and every day use. This scene shows several products. Four trucks use the model from Pick 'em Up Truck. This set give you the basic truck with a few solid color schemes, a camouflage color, and one prop you can add (called commando grill). The far red truck and the yellow truck illustrate this set. The yellow truck also shows you can open a few things up but you won't find the controls on the top level, you have to drill down to the actual item to find the open-close parameter dial. You can open the doors and the back gate as shown. You can also steer the front wheels and adjust the back suspension.

On the Job for Pick 'em Up Truck is an add-on that gives some more complex color schemes (border patrol, construction, police, search & rescue) to the basic truck. Each of these color schemes come in a clean and dirty version (the white truck shows the dirty construction livery). The set also allows you to add several props, some of which are shown on the white and black trucks (antenna, clearance lights, light bar, rack, rails, roll bars). Even though this was a Daz product, it wasn't loaded correctly by DIM. I found the materials in both the smart content and the content library but none of the props. I had to go to the readme to find where they were. Instead of trying to manage getting it right myself, I uninstalled in DIM and reinstalled a fresh copy and the props appeared correctly.

There's another add-on for this set that I don't have. It's the Ole' Horse Trailer. It adds the trailer AND some truck parts: rear fenders, headache  rack, toolbox, moon visor, hitch balls, push bumpers, and wheels). Additional materials for these are on the On the Job add-on.

The final truck (the central truck in between the outer four) is a Rendo product called Silverado Truck 2007. It loads white and the different paint schemes do not work in Daz Studio (as they are Poser materials) but you can use shaders to change the color. I added a white and a red shader from Real Paint for DAZ Studio. There are some poses to change the license plate and they do work (I find it odd to go to poses to change textures). You can turn the plate on and off and choose from 5 different plates (or roll your own if you'd like by putting in a license plate image in the Diffuse Color channel).

Click on image for larger version.

Go to Main Menu

Having been a big fan of Neelzonline's works over the years, I've become infatuated with massive multi-figure compositions. I decided to start work on another one and leave it perpetual wip. Each time I add a new figure or figures, I'll come back to this thread and update the image. Reccommendations, comments and feedback appreciated as always. The image is created at 2000 px wide so please expand for a better view. In some case the figures may be very small and in unexpected placed.

Name: Mutantville Central 2017

squireel nomms = timtams 

leetl water towers

Congrats to the winner in the Carrrara section... not sure who it was as I couldn't find it..

Great job though  

whoever it was 

Complaint:  This up & down, freeze/thaw weather is hell on the road surfaces but I suspect that when the bus ahead of you disappears it's time to put on the brakes.  

And right outside my house is a huge hole getting bigger by the hour.  My windows rattle when a big truck hits it square on.   I think I could easily hide a basketball in it now.

...here it's been slight thawing then freezing which with foot and vehicle traffic over the last couple days has left the walkways that were not cleared driveways, and sidestreets covered in snow that was compacted down to 3' -  4" of uneven ice making it very easy to slip and fall. Still getting freezing rain here in the central neighbourhoods while in most of the rest of the city it is just rain now.

Today we had a brief bit of snow before it turned to freezing rain and then just rain.  Even though it is slowly warming with the persistent rain, the 14" of snow we got last week isn't going away easy especially the hard frozen stuff I mentioned of above. It will probably take until Thursday for the area to be safely walkable again.

@daybird

I think it would help if you cropped in and removed the light sources at the top right. Have a look at the suggested crop attached. Notice how the dark areas don't seem quite as dark anymore? It also removes that large and empty black space at top left and takes the figure away from a completely central position. A nice triangle of light leading the eye to and from her face and hands is formed by the figure's bright face and the guns blazing. With the bright street lamp above and the huge area of light from the window included, the eye is taken away from the action and wanders out of the image. Some brighter ambient light streaming down from this same area above but out of the image's frame might also help seperate your main figure from the background and improve the depth of the image. The foreground is looking good with the out-of-focus guard caught in mid-pose falling down, but the middle and background look flat. Perhaps you could even try rotating the image slightly to pull your main figure over to the left more? I like that your figure is looking up and out of the image, suggesting that there is a lot more going on that we can't see, creating tension and inviting us to imagine. Keep going with this!

So, here's a WIP of the new Multi-Figure project, Mutantville Central 2017. This is using IRay and DOF which frankly has proven challenging. I feel like it's about halfway there. I thought about making this work the subject of a tutorial video on the technique used. I guess I better see if I can make it turn out well first.

You do need that stuff; I have a bit of fine art and some gross anatomy but without a cow nearby I'd never have known about the feet... here in Canada (brrr!!) I've actually encountered more MOOSE hooves than cow feet, many too close for comfort!  Now that would make a nice DAZ model... (moose)

About the eyes, sometimes I bail out and just do postwork... this here was done back when I didn't know what the plastic and matte surfaces were but I could do a glossy sphere with a matching environment map... the mane on the Millenium Horse remains an issue; I think Allesandro has only done the mane preset for the second generation horse so it will be "postwork time again" at some point.

It helps sometimes knowing those kind of things :)

Eyes are tricky and worse if the map sucks. I am still learning lighting and the surfaces/textures/shaders type tabs and drives me crazy. Cute dog! :) Cold in Canada too right now. We are just starting to come out of the deep freeze. LOL

There is no moose? Maybe that was not a moose I seen. hmmm... Northern MN has moose, but not the central part. I have seen one up close. That would be a tricky one to create. lol

Heheh. I love the dog riding the horse. 

Allesandro seems to be the only PA at Daz these days who does anything animal related. Noggin has disappeared. I haven't seen him around in a couple of years, which is too bad, 'cause I wanted to bug him about updating his chicken. 

Oh, I should also mention JoeQuick does animals, but mainly as morphs for Genesis 1/2/3. Which isn't the same, but still worth a mention. I love his animal characters. 

I think a moose would be a nice addition to the Daz stable. Although I think Alessandro already did one...or am I mistaken? *runs and takes a look in the store*.

I was thinking I had seen a moose. lol

Add: The Moose  http://www.daz3d.com/the-moose

So...today's going to be a bit of a cluster post. The other day I created AN AWARD WINNING RENDER!!!! To be fair, everyone who entered was declared a winner! Anywho, I made this one.

The prize was the chance to pick a single product from the awesome 1st Bastion Daz store. I chose this one which I'd been eyeballing mightily for some time. It occured to my almost immediately how similar the layout was to one of the sets that comes with Poser. I think it was called, "Spy Headquarters" or some such. Only the Atrium is much nicer and optimized for IRay. I then though that perhaps I should totally redo this abandoned multi-figure composition from way back in the day.

Remaking Mutantville Central sounds like a fun challenge. 

Tried a little experiment and named it "The Experiment".  DazStudio 3DL render

Very, very good composition. That little tilt gives it energy. It looks like a comic book cover. Good character design and strong expressions & body language tell the story. The one area where it needs work is the central figure is blending into the giant's loincloth. Ways to combat this would be:

• Make the giant's left leg (to our right) darker -- stronger shadows will provide more contrast.
• Put a point or key light on the hero so there is a rim light effect to make him pop out from the other figure (the light should be coming from our right).
• Consider different colors on the hero -- some reds and greens would still be barbarian-like, but offer contrast to the monster (or make the monster green).
• Raise the monster's axe so he's more menacing -- go look at some of Jack Kirby's monster comics (easy to find online) or even some Herb Trimpe Hulk comics for ideas on poses.

Good start! This is a nice illustration and thanks so much for sharing it with us.

an 1130, that takes me back, we never had one of those, but when I started out we had a 1401, two 360/40's and a 7080...(as well as a metric boatload of the required peripherals.. as far as staic goes, we had one weird episode with one of the 360's - it woudl hard crash on weekdays always at the same time.. Turned out that as it was the one closest to the central walkway in the datacentre, that everytime one of the office girls would come by dropping of schedules, etc, the static charge that built up on her skirt and nylons would jump to the side panel of the 360 and hard crash it.. Turns out there were some broken ground straps on the inside of that side panel..  strange but true..

Back in the late 60s or very early 70s I was in college and worked in the computer center and had access to the IBM1130 computer they had.  The memory was core memory (teeny-tiny magnetic donuts woven into a mesh of wires) but much of the rest of the computer was made up of many many individual circuit cards plugged into the backplane of the computer on one end of the card and then linked together in specific order via special flat cables across the other ends of the cards.  One jackass who thought he was a bright bulb also had access to the computer center and took it upon himself one night when the computer wasn't needed, to remove all the circuit cards and examine them.  All fine and well, he didn't break a single one and satisfied his curiosity about what they looked like.  Later that night I and a couple other night computer operators came in to do our jobs and found him sitting on the floor behind the computer with the circuit cards spread in piles all around him.  Incredulously we questioned him if he knew what he was doing and if he could get the computer back up again.  He said: (famous last words) "Don't worry it will only take a couple minutes to put them back in".  Unfortunately, he hadn't noted which slots the cards came from and admitted it, but in his cocky naivete decided it didn't matter.  After he'd reinserted the cards and the numerous flat cables were attached where he thought they should go, he pranced around to the front and made a big show of pushing the big green power button on the console while singing "ta-da", and we all watched the blue smoke come from the ventilation holes in the computer cabinet.  I don't know what happened the rest of that night because the rest of us immediately left the building.  The next day a swarm of IBM technicians were there to fix the machine.  I don't know how much it cost but the jackass never worked there again.  (Hmmm..., in fact, I don't remember seeing him around at all after that.)

 

 

Kids are probably the most dangerous in a computer room.  The 4341, with it's low profile, had the big red switch located right at waist level on the end of the processor cabinet.  Eye level for the average 6 year old.  Old 3330 and 3350 strings too, with their nearby controllers.  One 6 year old could (and did) shut down an entire computer room in the time it takes an operator to enter any console command. 

Always followed soon by strict "no kids" rules.