Later tonight (headed out the door to run errands) I will be posting my experiments with the Iray Smart Converter and Smart Skin Managers for Genesis 2.   Here is the ReadMe.  I thought it would be rather fun for you, the viewers, to suggest what you'd like to try on a character, given screenshots of your options with the product. Want to know what the translucency does? We'll check those. Scattering effect? Glossy layered weight? We'll click and see. 

This product is excellent for quickly twiddling the skin, instead of going to Surfaces constantly and scrolling down through the sliders. Make it a custom category and have it at your fingertips! (I have Slosh's hair product, the Uber Base, and the optimized Genesis 2 skin all right there handy.)

I'm just exploring this product, so join the fun. If you have suggestions for a character you'd like to test it on (doing Genesis 2) just let me know. I'll be starting around 7pm Central. Anyone else who has this product, feel free to  help showcase it. (You can also do for Genesis, Genesis 3. I have all three of these, I like it that much.) 

Very curious, I bought this at releas but did not find the time to really test it.

Later tonight (headed out the door to run errands) I will be posting my experiments with the Iray Smart Converter and Smart Skin Managers for Genesis 2.   Here is the ReadMe.  I thought it would be rather fun for you, the viewers, to suggest what you'd like to try on a character, given screenshots of your options with the product. Want to know what the translucency does? We'll check those. Scattering effect? Glossy layered weight? We'll click and see. 

This product is excellent for quickly twiddling the skin, instead of going to Surfaces constantly and scrolling down through the sliders. Make it a custom category and have it at your fingertips! (I have Slosh's hair product, the Uber Base, and the optimized Genesis 2 skin all right there handy.)

I'm just exploring this product, so join the fun. If you have suggestions for a character you'd like to test it on (doing Genesis 2) just let me know. I'll be starting around 7pm Central. Anyone else who has this product, feel free to  help showcase it. (You can also do for Genesis, Genesis 3. I have all three of these, I like it that much.) 

For anyone who wants a look at it, I tried to convert the first of the cyber interface to 3delight. first I converted everything to DS standert material. All the glowing parts are there as a map and so I put them up in the ambient (change colour to white) , the specular and the trans map into the opacity slider. for the metal parts I use the metal shaders from the ultimate shader pack (share cg http://www.sharecg.com/v/27568/material-and-shader/Ultimate-Shader-Pack-for-DAZ-Studio) with the Ingore option. Normal maps come with it but need to be put back into use( that's for the metal parts as well). I still would like the orange on the central rings to be more glowing but its a good start.

You will ALWAYS have the textures copied into the temp folder (that's probably the folder you are seeing in 'roaming').   That is perfectly normal, they are being optimized for rendering and kept in a central loaction accessed by the renderer, along with any other temporary render files. 

If you put the textures in your content library Runtime/Texture/name/product folder and loaded them from there, that is where they will ALWAYS be loaded from (or any other folder, really...but that is the expected default location, it makes things easier to start there).  For consistency and compatiblity  purposes, they are NOT saved in the same folder as the duf preset file (of course, if you put them there to begin with and load them onto the surfaces from there, then that is where they will stay).

To be 'portable' you need the files in the /data, <whatever preset> and /Runtime/Texture (or where you loaded them from) folders.  Ideally, the /data files will be in Daz/figure/your name/morphs.  The preset should be in either People/Figure/Character/your name or /Preset/your name.  Textures were listed above.  <Your Name> will be what you listed in the Author info when you installed Studio (it also appears on the General tab of the Preferences...along with an Edit button).

yoo'd be safe from daleks in the foothills, daleks prefer flat terrain

 

...good I moved out of Central Wisconsin then, flat as a board there.

Glad you got it working, I know fixmypcmike was assisting you. Interesting that you aren't using any V4s- not even for the materials? There's some really good materials in those, and with the Iray skin optimization (and even without) some look really good IMO. I like the variety of eyebrows from generation 4, as everyone knows. Anyway, expecting to see some great showcase renders as you explore your newfound toys!  I'm working on one now.

And really ticked off. We had a 30% chance of rain according to Weather Channel. "Gonna stay off the coast, drift to central peninsula, then SUNDAY drift back and up to the Panhandle." (me) Well at 5:30am there was a loud BOOM! of thunder, and I thought what the heck was that? And you should look at the FLorida radar- been POURING down rain since then (and it's after 10am now.)  I am so annoyed because I could have gone and let my horse out of his stall and walked him around before all this started- now we're in a flash flood warning with 2-4 inches. Really? First 30% then 2-4" and 80%. (AHem, it was covering the entire Panhandle, but they still couldn't bring themselves to say 100%...)  

Sonja, I hear ya. I don't know why they put Stonemason's at the end of the month. They knew it was going to be a blockbuster, the details are amazing, so doing it at the beginning made more sense. 

First to explain the question. I got 2 PCs at each of 2 locations because I work away from home during the week. If I buy a Daz product I install it on one PC and update my content directory. Then when I go away I copy 'My Library' directory and the Postgre SQL 'CMS' directory onto a back-up drive. At the other end I copy these 2 directories onto my 2 different PCs. This has worked fine for years and with Valentina it worked OK too. Is a similar arrangement possible A) With DS 4.9 without connect system or B) With DS 4.9 with connect system. I'm only interested for now in A) but other people would be interested in B).

As a central point of Connect was DRM it may be that Connect is not copyable but I'm hoping something is still possible with DS 4.9. I don't want to install everything 4 times over.

 

I'm thinking that for contemporary municipal buildings (including police stations, high schools, boards of ed, post offices, etc) an enterprising vendor might be better off designing a generic gov't building with a set of different signs and props for customization, kind of like how the old Central Subway set had a different texture set to change the country the subway and the nearby stores belonged to. The main exception would be firehouses, which have to have distinctive exterior qualities almost by default.

Yeah.  Someplace relatively large with a large parking lot - possibly two (one for visitors, one for municiple vehicles).  Our board of education building is an old school (also fairly close to me.  The only thing I'm missing in easy walking distance is the post office and city hall - and City hall is still within what I call walking distance - just the "I'm going to complain about having to walk this far" kind).  And of course, in Chicago, you wouldn't know that the court house or City Hall are any different from any of the other various corporate offices.  (The court house/county jail at California and 26 is fairly distinct, though.)
Hospital exteriors would be, at least on the Emergency side, a little different (and a lot bigger.)  And as you said, Firehouses.  Especially as around here there's the "main" fire house and then a handfull of auxillary houses some of which are just about literally that.  A 2 or 2-1/2 story house with a garage big enough for a fire truck and an ambulance (or 2 fire trucks, depending.  The one by me has an ambulance, probably to help out the hospital) attached.

Well, there's this one

http://www.daz3d.com/gothic-city

Which doesn't come up under searches for "Police" (part of the problem with the stations being part of a city block)
And is a bit too techno-noir for my purposes anyway.  Not what I'd call a "contemporary" station.

Yes, Gothic City is done as an homage to the Tim Burton-era Batman sets.

I'm thinking that for contemporary municipal buildings (including police stations, high schools, boards of ed, post offices, etc) an enterprising vendor might be better off designing a generic gov't building with a set of different signs and props for customization, kind of like how the old Central Subway set had a different texture set to change the country the subway and the nearby stores belonged to. The main exception would be firehouses, which have to have distinctive exterior qualities almost by default.

I almost missed out on this contest, working on "stuff" for the hubby. Phew! Made it just in time. I hope my entry won't be disqualified as it is a revamp of an earlier render. When Dragon Queen for G3F came out, I "quickly" slapped together a tongue-in-cheek render with M7 wearing the outfit. I had to use Wyvern 2.0 because I didn't have Dragon 3.0. I think this is a much better image, and pretty much only the pose of M7 and DQ outfit is the same.

Go Ahead. Ham It Up, Draco.
 

I finally figured out how to use the geometry tool and tool settings, and created a "bodysuit" for Michael 7 The bodysuit, the ties in his hair, and the wing membranes all use Leather Worn Green. On the Dragon Queen outfit, the bracers and vambraces of the arms and the thighs and greaves of the boots use Tarpauline Dark Green, as does all of the skin on the dragon. (It looks a lot like scales!) I think that's Latex Green on his fingernails. And finally, the stairs, (from one of the pieces of Fantasy Castle 2011 Castle Keep,) and the cube primative landing platform use Mossy Stone. (The photo in the background is one of mine, taken in 2007 somewhere in Central Oregon, near the small town of Shaniko.)

Normally I wouldn't comment on something that is quite obvious, but let's for a moment suppose  you own a business in Germany are you going to run your business and sales by local time or by say Pacific coast time zone.in the US. A business runs by the local time and not by people who are in completely different times zones  Part of the year I live in Kiev Ukraine  and other half in Central time zone of the US do a time conversion like I do how difficult is it to google time.conversion. Just isnn't feasiblte to accomodate every time zone..

Anyone seen the dead horse?

I dang near tripped over it

Converting a time zone from one to another is NOT the issue. The issue is about keeping track of DST changes for folks who are not accustomed to DST. For example, in my country we are very lucky to follow a single timezone without any DST settings throughout the year. So when we see a different timezone we mentally note the difference in hours from our timezone. Subsequently, we do not have to rely on Google or timeanddate.com or any phone app to do the conversion everytime. We just add/subtract the hours .... mentally.

The DST changes breaks this pattern.

Moreover, Daz 3D is no longer doing business only locally. The bakery near my street corner has the luxury to follow only local timezone but a merchant who sells internationally always runs the risk of confusing and alienating its global customers if they follow the same practices back at home.  I am not expecting a company like Daz to deal with multiple languages or multiple currencies (which would have been great BTW) but at least address the DST change issue which is not standardized across the world. Neither, I am expecting Daz to run business as per my local timezone. I am only expecting Daz to follow some of established industry practices while dealing with international customers.

 

 

Normally I wouldn't comment on something that is quite obvious, but let's for a moment suppose  you own a business in Germany are you going to run your business and sales by local time or by say Pacific coast time zone.in the US. A business runs by the local time and not by people who are in completely different times zones  Part of the year I live in Kiev Ukraine  and other half in Central time zone of the US do a time conversion like I do how difficult is it to google time.conversion. Just isnn't feasiblte to accomodate every time zone..

Anyone seen the dead horse?

I dang near tripped over it

Huh. Looks like the artists here at DAZ had it right all along!

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/central-mexican-state-disbands-all-female-sexiest-police-force-world-1549151

"A Mexican all-female police squad known as the "sexiest force in the world" – whose uniform came complete with tight trousers, cleavage, and knee-high boots – has been disbanded. A senior official made the decision after deciding that it was damaging to the force's image and made the officers feel uncomfortable."

But of course, it's been disbanded. I am sad now.

This one has me pulling my hair out. I had this apartment scene in P/DS format but I can't find it anywhere in my runtimes. I've been over and over the places I put scenes, but it isn't there. So I'm thinking I either imported it from a pz3 or something, or it's installed in a really strange place. I'm trying to find out what product it was so I can hunt it down with a file search. Long shot, I know. Anyway, it was a sort of fancy penthouse type thing. A big open central room. It was fairly modern, and had a lot of grey tones, IIRC. By Poser apartment standards, it was huge. I want to say there was an odd sort of raised area near the center of the room, maybe with a couch or something. Vague, I know, but I've looked everywhere and I can't find it. Also open to hearing suggested alternatives. Need a power suite type thing, something a Bond villain would look good in, like the suite a casino puts the ultimate high-roller in (the product I'm trying to hunt down didn't exactly fit the description, but it was closer than anything else I had). PS, yes, I use paragraphs. Yes, the forum software ate them.

The thing is, as long as the overall trend is for sales to go up overall, it's not a problem for DAZ to exclude a large portion of their market.  Flash sales, by their very nature, are designed to reward those who visit a site most frequently, and use the tick-tock of the clock against an unknown expiration time as an incentive to make customers buy immediately.  It's not meant to be fair, and for all that this site clearly has a number of customers around the world, DAZ clearly perceives that the percentages break down in such a manner that they rarely deem it necessary to have actual humans physically available to troubleshoot when problems occur in the middle of the night, DAZ-time. 

Frankly, I'm amazed that they run the DAZ store on Rocky Mountain time, as it's pretty inconvenient for just under 80 percent of the population of the United States.   (Seriously.  47% of the U.S.population lives in the Eastern time zone alone, 32.9% in the Central zone, a piddling 5.4% in the Mountain zone where DAZ is, 14.1% in the Pacific zone with the remaining 0.6 percent in Hawaii and Alaska.)  So, if you feel like DAZ is snubbing you, personally, they're not.  They snub pretty much everyone.       

Here couple of my Urban parking HDRI maps for Iray I made in January, at end of April I am going to  capture most great places in Manhattan and behind scenes including Central Park NY

The group decided to attack the central tower, but the discussion was long and rather heated, but Ater’s argument that no one wants a Red Wizard running around without knowing where he is was the winning one. Better to go for the person whose loyalties are uncertain, than to force him to become a sworn enemy by attacking his hosts.
Merisiel and Ameiko went first with Ulfnaar right behind. As a gentleman, he always honored ladies first. Behind the big door lied a grand hallway, and several doors. The was light coming out from under one of the doors, and a shadow was seen moving. Merisiel slowly and carefully opened the door, but it made a soft sound, enough for the character inside to react. Merisiel was even faster, she jumped in with her rapier and said “Move and you die!”. It was Azbara Jos, and he said “I was expecting you, come in, have some hot wine”. He talks and the other moves into the room, but suddenly he picks something up from his sleeve, and the room instantly is filled with a thick fog.

z

The group started to look at the chest, while Ulfnaar was watching the end of the corridor. Suddenly he saw a short little figure coming. He hushed the others, and then the figure came a little closer he stepped out and said: “You there, sit down, don’t move, and don’t make a sound”.  The short fellow was a dwarf, and his name was Tharmod, and he worked as a cook at the castle. Ulfnaar asked him: “How many servings do you cook for each meal?”, and the cook replied about 20. Good, we have about 20 Dragon cultists here then Ulfnaar said.

He tells Ulfnaar that he saw a note that someone wanted to hire a cook and he took the job. He has been here somewhere between two and three moons. Rezmir and Dralmorren Borninggrey, the elf is here. Rezmir lives in the big tower. Dralmorren and a guest lives in the central tower with a guest. The guest is no one else than Ashbara Jos, which made Ater raise a brow. We told the cook to keep quiet and go back to his room. This is none of his business, and as he is an innocent bystander, he should keep out of the way when it starts to heat up, as it will do.

my first render with this character shows a series of folds in the central chest area. Has anyone else found this?

hey Tim

is this hdri only ?

i know how this looks without the lighting and shaders

can you tell a bit

looks nice

Glad you like it.

There's only one light other than the HDRI. That's a small, blue point light above the central platform. (Since doing this render, I've learned how to use the geometry editor to create new surfaces. The new version now uses emission surfaces to accomplish the same thing.)

The metal shader comes from Mec4D's wonderful PBS shaders. I use these all the time and highly recommend them.

Feel free to ask any further questions.

-- Tim.

 

Edit: The HDRI map is called AlienRoom.hdr.