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.

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.

What is the best way to go about creating your background, or is it a spherical environment map?

I have used just about anything to make backgrounds. For outdoor scenes *always* carry a point and shot digital camera say - small and compact, fits in any pocket just about and doesn't get in the way. File the pictures away in a folder marked "interesting clouds" or something similar.

Just about any web page -- the DAZ store, Renderosity, textures dot com, Turbosquid etc. will have backgrounds for sale or free. On Deviant art some people (not all) let you use their stock background images for free. I have no affiliation; just trying to be helpful and I've used each of these "sources" at one time or another.

I find that sizing and positioning background images is a bit hit and miss... sometimes you have to go away from your work for a while and come back to it with "fresh eyes". Sometimes you can "get away" with impossible stuff if you place interesting compositional elements in the foreground, to distract the viewer and/or draw attention away from the b.g.

In your mountain scene for example the "main" cumulus cloud above the central peak is a bit too large to be realistic, given the size of the mountain... in this case you may want to edit the graphic, adding lots of matching blue sky on the top and both sides so don't run out of background when you shrink the file, eg. you want to make the clouds a bit smaller, relative to the main foreground image imagery.

Example: In the attached picture of my dog's castle (really the "Blenworth" castle, available in the DAZ store) you can see the mountains are far off in the distance and the clouds over the mountains are very small... the sunlight is by Dreamlight and the background image was given to me by a guy who'd gone hiking in northern New York state.  For the picture of the dog *inside* the castle the furnishings, floor and doorway are all a DAZ model, the "Rural Chateau II" by Jack Tomalin. Now the contents of the doorway from about half-way up is a flat background image... note that it took a *long time* to properly fit and stretch and skew the background information into the "adjoining room", scaling the b.g. image and fuzzing the floor "just so", and matching the palette to the overall render.

In the DAZ 3D tutorial about the Environment tab on Youtube the narrator just says to get your free graphics and HDRI's "from anywhere".

The new update to the studio is already in DIM. (1:40am Central Time)

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.)

 

2 hours for me here in the central time zone USA. Happy New Year to all!

It's Raining Men Again Competition
Entry 1 and only -
Title: Ritual#Re-purposed

Re-purposed Historical Armor for V4 By DAZ Originals/Arien
http://www.daz3d.com/historical-armor-for-v4
Sword Sisterhood texture pack for Historical Armor
http://www.daz3d.com/sword-sisterhood
Fitted to M4

Rendered in DAZ Studio with 3Delight, no postwork.

I decided that if I was going to try to re-purpase a piece of female clothing to a male figure, I would

make it somewhat challenging. Since I always liked the Victoria 4 Historical armor, especially when used

in conjunction with the Swird Sisterhood texture pack, and the given the fact that it seemed like a

suitably difficult item given its form-fitting nature, I decided to try fitting it to Michael 4. Let me first say

this: Aarrgh!

It was a fairly long and tedious process, with many false starts. The most problematic parts would be

associated with the torso armor I guessed, particularly the chest/breast and waist areas. I pulled it into a

modelling program to see if I could make the necessary adjustments there, but discovered that the mesh

was more complex than it seemed, and would require far more work than a few simple deformations,

especially without breaking some of the movement/posing morphs. So back to DAZ Studio.

Long story short, after a great deal of trial-and-error, I ended up managing a passable fit as seen in the

central character in my render, through a combination of some of the built-in morphs in the armor, some

sizing/scaling, use of mesh smoothing and collision and finally a few deformers.

Unfortunately, the result did not allow the armor to self-adjust to changes in the figures morphs or poses,

and more tweaking was required each time I made a change to these. So certainly not a permanent fit

by any stretch of the imagination. Not having punished myself enough, I decided to go through it all

again with a second M4, crouched in the lower left of the render. The extreme pose here caused me

even more grief than with the first character, but I managed to beat it into shape in the end. I was

unpleasantly surprised when the extremities (arms and legs) caused me more difficulties here than with the torso.

There may be some outfits that can be re-purposed relatively easily, but this certainly isn't one of them.

To do it properly might leave one asking whether it wouldn't be easier to make a new outfit from scratch.

Ah well, I did say I wanted a challenge. :)

I included a V4 in the render wearing the armor for comparison purposes.

Good luck everyone, and Happy New Year to all!

It's New Year season and we all know the tune to Auld Lang Syne but did you realize all classical music is a variation of that theme? (not really but this is a lot of fun if you recognize any of the 152 classical themes in this "Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne")  As with much classical music, the end takes you for a ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ7VEXOWYUk

by Ernest Tomlinson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Tomlinson

I recognize a great many of them but they go by so quickly and naming them without hours of research or re-listening is beyond my old brain.  Any takers? 

Here's a starter:

What....................................................................................... Time

Dvorak's "New World Symphony" ---------------------------------------8:26

Offenbach's "Can Can" ----------------------------------------------------13:14

Kachaturian's "Sabre Dance" --------------------------------------------14:51

Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" ------------------------------------------16:03

Chopin's "Funeral March" --------------------------------------------------2:53

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ---------------------------------------------3:38

Waldenteufel's "Skater's Waltz" -------------------------------------------8:21

and on and on and on ......

Aha! They played that on a Radio 3 concert many years ago, and I haven't heard it since. I'd thought it was a one-off for the occasion. I haven't had time to listen through (and anyway Rachmaninov is Rhapsodising on Paganini) but somewhere in there there should be Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.

I'm glad you rediscovered it here. 

I have a piece like that that has eluded me for over 20 years.  One Christmas my other half and I were driving through a snowy Pennsylvania at night and on the car radio from some religious station (which is all there is in central Pennsylvania) was playing a series of Christmas carols.  What struck me about them was that it started out with a single instrument then as each new carol was played it either had a different instrument or a few more instruments.  No vocals at all throughout the whole thing.  The instrumental intensity kept building until at the end, the full orchestra was involved.  It was marvelous, wonderful, inspiring!  We listened carefully at the end to hear the announcer tell the name of the piece that was just played but they never did and just went full force into their dogmatic proselytizing which spoiled the whole mood that the music had given us.  Since then I've looked in music stores and bought many Christmas CDs and browsed on-line for anything that might be it for over 20 years but without luck.   And I've never heard it again.

I assume you've checked A Christmas Carol Symphony by Victor Hely Hutchinson?

Well 2 pieces of music I admit to never having heard before,   so Thank you both for opening my eyes (or should that be ears)

It's New Year season and we all know the tune to Auld Lang Syne but did you realize all classical music is a variation of that theme? (not really but this is a lot of fun if you recognize any of the 152 classical themes in this "Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne")  As with much classical music, the end takes you for a ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ7VEXOWYUk

by Ernest Tomlinson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Tomlinson

I recognize a great many of them but they go by so quickly and naming them without hours of research or re-listening is beyond my old brain.  Any takers? 

Here's a starter:

What....................................................................................... Time

Dvorak's "New World Symphony" ---------------------------------------8:26

Offenbach's "Can Can" ----------------------------------------------------13:14

Kachaturian's "Sabre Dance" --------------------------------------------14:51

Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" ------------------------------------------16:03

Chopin's "Funeral March" --------------------------------------------------2:53

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ---------------------------------------------3:38

Waldenteufel's "Skater's Waltz" -------------------------------------------8:21

and on and on and on ......

Aha! They played that on a Radio 3 concert many years ago, and I haven't heard it since. I'd thought it was a one-off for the occasion. I haven't had time to listen through (and anyway Rachmaninov is Rhapsodising on Paganini) but somewhere in there there should be Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.

I'm glad you rediscovered it here. 

I have a piece like that that has eluded me for over 20 years.  One Christmas my other half and I were driving through a snowy Pennsylvania at night and on the car radio from some religious station (which is all there is in central Pennsylvania) was playing a series of Christmas carols.  What struck me about them was that it started out with a single instrument then as each new carol was played it either had a different instrument or a few more instruments.  No vocals at all throughout the whole thing.  The instrumental intensity kept building until at the end, the full orchestra was involved.  It was marvelous, wonderful, inspiring!  We listened carefully at the end to hear the announcer tell the name of the piece that was just played but they never did and just went full force into their dogmatic proselytizing which spoiled the whole mood that the music had given us.  Since then I've looked in music stores and bought many Christmas CDs and browsed on-line for anything that might be it for over 20 years but without luck.   And I've never heard it again.

I assume you've checked A Christmas Carol Symphony by Victor Hely Hutchinson?

Yep, not the one.  Wunderbar, but no cigar!

It's New Year season and we all know the tune to Auld Lang Syne but did you realize all classical music is a variation of that theme? (not really but this is a lot of fun if you recognize any of the 152 classical themes in this "Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne")  As with much classical music, the end takes you for a ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ7VEXOWYUk

by Ernest Tomlinson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Tomlinson

I recognize a great many of them but they go by so quickly and naming them without hours of research or re-listening is beyond my old brain.  Any takers? 

Here's a starter:

What....................................................................................... Time

Dvorak's "New World Symphony" ---------------------------------------8:26

Offenbach's "Can Can" ----------------------------------------------------13:14

Kachaturian's "Sabre Dance" --------------------------------------------14:51

Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" ------------------------------------------16:03

Chopin's "Funeral March" --------------------------------------------------2:53

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ---------------------------------------------3:38

Waldenteufel's "Skater's Waltz" -------------------------------------------8:21

and on and on and on ......

Aha! They played that on a Radio 3 concert many years ago, and I haven't heard it since. I'd thought it was a one-off for the occasion. I haven't had time to listen through (and anyway Rachmaninov is Rhapsodising on Paganini) but somewhere in there there should be Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.

I'm glad you rediscovered it here. 

I have a piece like that that has eluded me for over 20 years.  One Christmas my other half and I were driving through a snowy Pennsylvania at night and on the car radio from some religious station (which is all there is in central Pennsylvania) was playing a series of Christmas carols.  What struck me about them was that it started out with a single instrument then as each new carol was played it either had a different instrument or a few more instruments.  No vocals at all throughout the whole thing.  The instrumental intensity kept building until at the end, the full orchestra was involved.  It was marvelous, wonderful, inspiring!  We listened carefully at the end to hear the announcer tell the name of the piece that was just played but they never did and just went full force into their dogmatic proselytizing which spoiled the whole mood that the music had given us.  Since then I've looked in music stores and bought many Christmas CDs and browsed on-line for anything that might be it for over 20 years but without luck.   And I've never heard it again.

I assume you've checked A Christmas Carol Symphony by Victor Hely Hutchinson?

It's New Year season and we all know the tune to Auld Lang Syne but did you realize all classical music is a variation of that theme? (not really but this is a lot of fun if you recognize any of the 152 classical themes in this "Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne")  As with much classical music, the end takes you for a ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ7VEXOWYUk

by Ernest Tomlinson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Tomlinson

I recognize a great many of them but they go by so quickly and naming them without hours of research or re-listening is beyond my old brain.  Any takers? 

Here's a starter:

What....................................................................................... Time

Dvorak's "New World Symphony" ---------------------------------------8:26

Offenbach's "Can Can" ----------------------------------------------------13:14

Kachaturian's "Sabre Dance" --------------------------------------------14:51

Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" ------------------------------------------16:03

Chopin's "Funeral March" --------------------------------------------------2:53

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ---------------------------------------------3:38

Waldenteufel's "Skater's Waltz" -------------------------------------------8:21

and on and on and on ......

Aha! They played that on a Radio 3 concert many years ago, and I haven't heard it since. I'd thought it was a one-off for the occasion. I haven't had time to listen through (and anyway Rachmaninov is Rhapsodising on Paganini) but somewhere in there there should be Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.

I'm glad you rediscovered it here. 

I have a piece like that that has eluded me for over 20 years.  One Christmas my other half and I were driving through a snowy Pennsylvania at night and on the car radio from some religious station (which is about all there is in central Pennsylvania) was playing a series of Christmas carols.  What struck me about them was that it started out with a single instrument.  Then as each new carol was played it either had a different instrument or a few more instruments.  No vocals at all throughout the whole thing.  The instrumental intensity kept building until at the end, the full orchestra was involved.  It was marvelous, wonderful, inspiring!  We listened carefully at the end to hear the announcer tell the name of the piece that was just played but they never did and just went full force into their dogmatic proselytizing which spoiled the whole mood that the music had given us.  Since then I've looked in music stores and bought many Christmas CDs and browsed on-line for anything that might be it for over 20 years but without luck.   And I've never heard it again.

We hit 36 F today - north central Indiana; the 8 inches of snow that we got locally the last 10 days or so is just about gone and they're talking high 40s or low 50s tomorrow, with a possiblity of rain.

Merry Christmas everyone!  

A chilly -24C here in North Central British Columbia, Canada this morning, has warmed up to an almost "balmy" -17C tonight.  Hardly any snow yet this winter,  I'm sure it will come sooner or later though!

It is understandable why smithmicro does no support Genesis 3 officially.

From a business stand point it would be foolish..quite foolish!!
to choose a third party figure that is NOT your IP 
that you have no control over its development cycle
 you have no QC authority over  the standards that are imposed on independent content and Addon producers

and Make that the central Figure for your "Figure design & animation program.

This has nothing to do with  any childish or bitter grudge  between the companies or spite.

it is not just about the rigging of G3.  
SM would have to completely renovate  its content library system to fully support Genesis 3
The flash based system they are using now will have to be scrapped.

And lets face it... the future of Daz content is Iray
 
who will make the PA's start to include 
"Superfly"shaders when you cannot convince many to continue supporting 3Delight Materials.

Who would bear the cost of all of this upgrading of poser?

Only to have to likely update again when G4 arrives.

Poser users need to learn to be happy with the poser content market ...such as it is.or migrate to another market.  

If not,  be prepared for a long Westerose winter.

We are central California coastal and our temps have gone into the 30s in winter. We are close to the pacific and that can bring cold air. I prefer temps in the 60s. 

It is 43 now.

Yes, however... the GPU will probably still be much faster rendering then the CPUs so the dual CPUs will mostly come in handy when doing things like physics simulations. The processing of physics using the GPU is something that is currently being implemented so you may be able to get the GPU to do physics calculations or it might blow up as it is for the most part still experimental.

One thing I have been explaining to people over the last year is that the GPU is not a graphical proccessor unit really but a floating point processor vs the CPU which is optimized for integer math. As we move more into technology where floating point math is a significant factor (computer graphics, physics, etc...) vs integer math (databases, text or logic processing, etc...) the GPU continues to take on a more central role. The terms CPU and GPU are really not valid anymore, they just continue to hold on due to momentum as we have one foot in the old concept of computing and one foot in the new.