Joe Quick has a package that has starter suits for Gen4 Genesis and another for G2 M & F for free on sharecg. He includes other figures as well.

On a side note, the past couple years I have gone out of my way to do images with a central male figure, instead of the female, just to get the guys into the contests I enter.  The most recent was at Fantasy Attic Halloween Contest theme Pinups and did a male monster relaxing in his den.  I make a point of including males for images, whether just to show off on a thread or in a contest.  Lack of clothes is an issue, but I love morphs and adjustments and use them to their full extent to get things to fit properly.  I also love dynamics which make fitting so much easier in Daz.

It was an ad with V7 in a bikini (or possibly underwear) that made me find DAZ a few months ago and I vastly prefer the female forms over male. So I don't really have a problem with the abundance of "female products" in the store or that they are recieving most of the promoting. So DAZ's current marketing strategy at least worked on me...

With that said, I recognise the demand for male products. I'm still new and haven't done a lot of renders but even so there's already a couple times I've had to exclude a male from a render because I didn't have anything apropriate to put him in, or simply skip the render completely for the same reason when the male was going to be a central part of it.

What can be done about the male content shortage has already been said several times here so I won't go into that.

I'm now expecting to see that male only render contest appear in the near future, and why not with the catchy name "It IS raining men"? And in the spirit of crowdfunding I am more than willing to contribute with $10 to the prize pool.

.

I fail to understand why DAZ keeps announcing a path to go but then takes actions that seem in direct conflict to those announcements.

Old genesis generation products with outdated metadata categories from 2011, 2012 and 2013 should not have been added to DAZ Connect.

Those products are NOT READY for the cloud. All the outdated duplicate categories are now forced on everyones system.

One thing you'll see throughout the beta is the metadata syncing. Basically, if you connect (or if you're connected already) Studio will be informed of, and automatically download, updated metadata. This is marked vendor data so it won't conflict or overwrite changes or user created data you make. 

How does this help? We understand that there were lots of reasons Smart Content originally left a bad taste in peoples' mouths: unstable and self-corrupting database (no longer an issue with it being replaced with Postgres), some saw it as harder or clunky to organize (streamlined and better / more developed tools for it), and even if all those things are good, lots of bad and inconsistent meta data. That is why we have what we are calling our "Librarian". She is on a super beefy machine with every product in the store that works with Studio, and going through and cleaning up metadata for every product. We have over 3000 products with updated metadata ready to go and more fixed daily. Why is this not already pushed up? Its beta and one of the many things we need to test and see how it does, so you'll start to see those older or messed up metadata products magically fix themselves as you use the beta. This also means new products with messed up meta data can get fixed quickly and those changes propogated out as soon as they are done from the central database. I don't know how long it will all take to reach our goal of every product having good and correct metadata, but it is something we have already done a massive dent into, and you'll be seeing that come down the pipeline in the coming weeks.

Greetings,

Okay, I'm looking at the "edit preference" window and I see a tab for cms settings, could someone explain what it is, plus what is cluster directory and port. How does this affect Studio and the content library, and computer.

Hold my hand ....

You don't want to edit that.  That's information about where their database will store its data, and unless you're running your own instance of PostgreSQL (I've done that a few times with DAZ Studio, to try stuff out), you really don't want to edit that.

CMS is Content Management System.  The 'cluster directory' is essentially where the internal database will store its highly optimized index of information that lets DAZ Studio provide Smart Content and a ton of related features.  Content Library uses the database for categories, and some other features IIRC.  The only effect on your computer is that the database server will start up when you run a program (DAZ Studio, Install Manager) that talks to it, and it will shut down when the last program closes.

I think they put it in the UI 'cause there were a few nutcases like me who wanted to put it all in a central PostgreSQL server... :blush:

--  Morgan

Thanks for holding my hand, CypherFox, I was just worried of loose data adding to my bandwidth use. Off to bed. I havn't used the Connect to download anything, yet. Trying to figure out where to tell it to download.

Greetings,

Okay, I'm looking at the "edit preference" window and I see a tab for cms settings, could someone explain what it is, plus what is cluster directory and port. How does this affect Studio and the content library, and computer.

Hold my hand ....

You don't want to edit that.  That's information about where their database will store its data, and unless you're running your own instance of PostgreSQL (I've done that a few times with DAZ Studio, to try stuff out), you really don't want to edit that.

CMS is Content Management System.  The 'cluster directory' is essentially where the internal database will store its highly optimized index of information that lets DAZ Studio provide Smart Content and a ton of related features.  Content Library uses the database for categories, and some other features IIRC.  The only effect on your computer is that the database server will start up when you run a program (DAZ Studio, Install Manager) that talks to it, and it will shut down when the last program closes.

I think they put it in the UI 'cause there were a few nutcases like me who wanted to put it all in a central PostgreSQL server... :blush:

--  Morgan

 

Hello , I have problems with rotation of pivo . Is there any way to rotate with exact angle setting the pivot equal in the image. I used the area properties but turns every object using its center and not with reference to the fixed point. 

Any way to change this point of pivo ( in green) central objects ?

"You want me to do WHAT?" Entry #1

The Central District Subway Station

Crocodilia 1 Alligator and Caiman

Police Officer

"You grab the tail and I'll jump on its head."
"What kind of a plan is that? YOU grab the tail. Jerk!"

I learned something new today. When you said "I'm Florida, and on Central time" I think - WHAT? Florida is Eastern time zone. But sure enough, it stretches into the Central zone. I just always think of Florida as being south and east of where I'm at (SW Ohio), not south and west too.

And, I'm having fun with your contest!

Well, I'm in Pensacola, so in the far West- the time changes over around Tallahassee as folks head east. I have a sister over on the east coast and I always have to remember she is an hour ahead of me. I don't know why we switch times now, I think that happens October 31st where we "fall back." 

I have really gotten some chuckles with the renders. And want to thank Totte, who generously has been answering my questions behind the scenes on setting up the voting. Thank you Totte, and hope you get an entry in, yours are always fun!  Going on 11pm here (10pm Daz time) so you folks have two more hours.

I learned something new today. When you said "I'm Florida, and on Central time" I think - WHAT? Florida is Eastern time zone. But sure enough, it stretches into the Central zone. I just always think of Florida as being south and east of where I'm at (SW Ohio), not south and west too.

And, I'm having fun with your contest!

Heads up folks, we're ONE DAY AWAY from the first contest ending- tomorrow night at midnight, Daz time. (They're in Utah, so that's Mountain Time. That site will let you know what time it is.  (I'm Florida, and on Central time, so I know they are an hour behind me. It's 5:30pm here and they are 4:30pm)  

The renders have been AWESOME!

Also, heads up- put on your thinking caps and have some fun- when you vote, you get the opportunity (optional) to suggest a statement for the next contest. Yes, I'm definitely running this again for November!  Don't put your statements on this thread, WAIT and do it when you vote please. I'm having fun, I hope everyone participating and viewing the renders are too!

Two methods you could use, first is a point light positioned central to the flame, the second is turning the actual flame into an emissive if it's separate to the candle. For this you can iRay uber base the flame then place the flame image in the emissive colour channel in the surfaces tab, reduce the temperature to 0 so it doesn't affect the colour of the emission and play with the lumen settings.

I'm still working on the Dynamic Clothes tutorials, hopefully I can get the kilt fixed soon, but

Would love a link sounds like fun to watch!

Sorry for the delay, my laptop had a bout with what I thought was a virus, but I uninstalled my anti-virus software because it wasn't stopping anything, when I did that the crap tried to re-write my registery big time. Looks like I'm going to be on the phone to Webroot and giving them a piece of my mind and getting my money back.

But now is the time to jump into HowReRoll on Twitch.tv, they just finished their last campaign on Monday and are starting a brand new one tonight. Any past episodes can be viewed on their YouTube channel. They have all the info on their Twitch page. You can watch without signing up for a free account but to take part in the audience text chat that goes on while they're streaming live you have to have an account. If you have any questions PM me. As long as the laptop cooperates I'll be off and on during the day. Here's the link http://www.twitch.tv/howreroll They start at 7:30 Central time tonight but if you log on early the chat is usually going. I pop in for a few on chat but my son watches it through his Xbox so we have it on the big screen so I usually watch with him on that. Anyway, let me know.

Now I have been working on fun stuff. First I'm really having a hell of a time with the Heart's War cover. I'm trying to apply the suggestions - first Rose's pose and softening her back. It's tougher than I expected plus the render times have suddenly shot through the roof and I'm not sure why. I've tried rendering each element separately but that doesn't help much, and I've tried making the image smaller, that hasn't helped much either. I've checked all of my surfaces and everything is set for Iray and there's plenty of light ( I know low lighting can slow down Iray a lot). The only thing I changed was her pose, I didn't alter the materials or nothing. Anyway, here's a solo render of Bryn by himself, it took forever but I let it complete the render.

Here's a partial render of everything. After an 1 hour and 45 min stuck at 5% I got tired of waiting.

There's other stuff to fix but I'm just concentrating on the pose right now - does her back look better?

And then there's Ronan, I tried a couple of things with him. Here's one that I like except the shadows screwed it up so I cancelled the render.

 

But I like how the skin was turning out.

I did another one then did some post on it so you could see where I was going with it all.

I hand painted the kilt, and his hair adding some light highlights - not much since the intent is to use atmosphere which is why the background is blue.

 

So whatchya think so far?

 

Cheers,

Kath

Is the skydome for iRay just a HDR?

Not sure what you mean but it looks like this:

Are you sure that is for iRay and not 3DL? Just that normally sky domes like the one you pictured will not work in iRay because the light from the sun can not pass through the dome. Or is there something I am missing, eg the dome is a half dome?

It is IRay, there are two render options, the one is without skydome but the dome is still there if you choose without. Don't ask me how it works.

Thanks for the info, in the renders I think the skies look really good, which is not always the case with HDR skies, so clearly I am curious as to how it works. Maybe it is using that central light that you pointed out in your second post.

Thanks for the Quinty link jakiblue!

LOL, I'm watching the President's Cup and Phil Mickelson's first golf shot of the day went into a lady's upturned umbrella! She had the tip down into the ground and the ball whooshed right in, between the spokes!    (He got a free drop as obviously, it was unplayable.) 

This is Greta For Genesis 2 Female(s). Expressions do quite nicely on her. I like the eyebrows, these have a very nice arch and are different from many characters. I do like her natural makeup option.

Casual Wear Overall For Genesis 2 Female(s)   I had to go into Scene and the collarbones to get the straps to lower, and you'll probably have to use the cog and uncheck to use the limits so you can put it from -0.50 to -1.46 ish. I fiddled with it some more after this render, as they aren't quite down on the shoulders. If you can't get them on the shoulder, when you get to the collarbones in Scene, scale the straps to 98% and that will help, with Twist of -12.27  I looked at this a couple times and don't think I missed any options. I didnt see a midriff fix either, only "expand all" which is a pain frankly. 

First hair is Honey Hair which has been featured before.I did not apply the Iray Uber base- the hair seems a bit shiny- almost like a gel sheen. The second hair is Charlie Hair  (Genesis 2 Female) which I really like on her. It is a really fun, modern style. (RENDERING NOW. )

The background uses  Mayan 2012 disc, and you can choose gold, silver, bronze. 

Using the Longitude & Latitude Lighting and Render Presets for DS Iray. This one is out of the box, Tropic of Cancer/Central America, Wet Season. 

 

I notice reflections a lot more than I used to, and especially when I frist started back when using raytraced reflections made your renders take a day to complete instead of an hour.  I remember riding along the Baltimore–Washington Parkway and marveling at the reflections in the chrome bumper on the car in front of us.. something I'd never paided any attention to before.

As for weather...  I did my time in northern California - two seasons: raining all the damn time, and dead and brown.  Hated it.  Now I'm in upstate New York and I love it here.  I did really like central Texas though, but that also has the 4 normal seasons.

Unfortunately, the last version of Kai's plugins... output what by then was low resolution textures.

I figured as much, Gedd. Thanks just the same. Seems I've inadvertently taken a few people back a bit!

To try to reply to nicstt's question of what exactly KTE did, my understanding was there was a little central window that would do something, eg. apply some math to make fractals or 2D distortions to a simple base pattern of stripes or random dots or what have you. I think clicking on the central window gave it a different random "seed" value, but clicking on any one of several "variation effects" or patterns that surrounded the central window would initiate a sort of change or deformation process... this "jumping around" selection process was infinite but you could stop and save to disk whenever you wanted. I don't *exactly* remember what a good result might have been but strange woodgrains, rainbow hues and metal bubbles were common.

Like I said I'm not really surprised that the output back then probably wouldn't make the grade for people who are used to 4096 x 4096 textures... but I was interested as to whether anyone was using a similar technique to generate big stuff in 2D, or if there was any multi-layer 2D action or actual 3-D "texture" or space-filler constructions going on.

ok,,this is what my WIP looks like after around 3 hours of rendering.The windows are now a more central part , so I'll look to see if I can find an image or hdri to put in the background to fix that.

I put a spotlight in the backroom and I can't seem to get any light from it.I've set the luminous Flux values ranging from 5k to 200 million so far with no difference in result.So something is blocking the light in that empty room.I'll solve that mystery tomorrow.

I spent a few hours on google looking for poses, but I mostly found page after page of  smiling black and white close up face portraits (some where in color) that had nothing to do with full body poses, so I've not made much ground on that yet.Would someone be so kind as to link a few poses that would work for me? Thank you in advance :)

Nice progress icecrmn. So I noticed that I can use Gen 4 poses fairly safely on G2F and thought maybe this set might have something you could use: https://redeyecat.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/halloween-treat-04-haunted-house-poses-m4v4/ I also found this google search to be of interest. Hope this helps.

Waiting for the next WIP.

ok,,this is what my WIP looks like after around 3 hours of rendering.The windows are now a more central part , so I'll look to see if I can find an image or hdri to put in the background to fix that.

I put a spotlight in the backroom and I can't seem to get any light from it.I've set the luminous Flux values ranging from 5k to 200 million so far with no difference in result.So something is blocking the light in that empty room.I'll solve that mystery tomorrow.

I spent a few hours on google looking for poses, but I mostly found page after page of  smiling black and white close up face portraits (some where in color) that had nothing to do with full body poses, so I've not made much ground on that yet.Would someone be so kind as to link a few poses that would work for me? Thank you in advance :)

Back in my wilder days, not really that long ago ... (brief pause for sighs of nostalgia)... I attended a gathering of like minded aging gay leather/motorcycle men many of whom were approaching retirement age.  This gathering was in the forests of Pennsylvania.  It was a proper camp with cabins and a swimming pool and a central covered but open air gathering place where the beer kegs had been set up.  This gathering was an annual event and usually took place in the early fall, (about now actually).  As we stood around the beer kegs chatting up and hitting on each other, some of us noticed that the beer spilled on the ground had attracted numerous bees or hornets who seemed to be appreciating the libations as much as we were.  Somebody complained about the bees and tried to chase them away but one wise soul spoke up and pointed out that it was fall, the flowers were dead, the bees were out of work and would also soon be dead and were all eunuchs condemmed to a life devoid of sex, so they had every right to share our beer.

That render is cool. Reminds me of my recent trip up to Laura dance festival. Your tree props are very central/western desert. Love the textures on the gum trees. Love the colours in the bark. They look like that all over the country. I am quietly hoping that they have the bits of peeling bark up close. Your job on the gunya (hut) looks great also.