On Friday, September 26th, I hosted an Author Chat with R.Scot Johns on my Art Studio thread so people who were interested in ebooks could pose questions to an established author. This link takes to you the intro post, then just scroll through and you'll see where the session started.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44327/P300/#682919

We learned a lot and so next up, I'm doing Vendor Chat. This is your opportunity to get to know those wonderful folks behind the products you buy- what makes them tick? What advice would they give you when dabbling with modeling or texturing? Who ARE these folks?

The first Vendor Chat conversation will be live on my Art Studio thread next Friday, featuring Khory. It will start at 7pm Central time, and also Saturday morning when Khory will pop back in to see what questions the overseas folks (and people who were gone on a Friday night) have posted, and she will respond to comments. I have already posted some questions and Khory has been given them some thought so you'll get some valuable insight. I will be the "chat" moderator. (And as such- please note: Personal questions regarding finances are NOT going to allowed- it's none of our business how much a person makes, specifically how much they sell, etc. General questions such as "What's your best selling product?" are fine.)

In addition, in the Art Studio thread, my Invited Guest Contributors and I will be posting Khory renders this week and next, showcasing the products we own and use. So keep an eye on that :) But we want you to strut your stuff too- you're invited to participate by posting your Render The Vendor in this thread! (And it's quite alright to render a product that has already been done by someone else. Do what you like to do!)

Please note- ONLY the featured vendor should be posted- this is not a random render thread, it has a specific purpose. Thanks! Current vendor: KHORY.

Please show your support for the Published Artists- they spend a lot of time on their products and it will be nice for them to see how you've used them. This is designed to increase awareness of the products too so when you post your render, any tips or POSITIVE comments are welcome. You can also ask other artists what they used in the renders.

The format so it's easy to quickly identify the product(s): The artist(s) and name of the product goes in bold/blue with the product url link directly below it. You can see how it's done in the example below. To go bold and blue, highlight the text with your mouse, go up above the text box and click the < b > and it will go bold. Then you'll need to highlight the text again and click the color drop down- select Blue. Be careful not to get the [ from the word [strong

You'll be seeing Khory renders popping up all week/weekend/next week in the Art Studio. I'd like to thank Khory for making herself available next Friday so we can get to know her and ask about her experiences as a Published Artist, and her background.

Any other PA's that would be willing to participate in a Friday night Vendor Chat please PM me. I will reserve the second post and post the schedule if others are interested, and do links for the thread so people can jump to specific vendor sections.

This could be fun and I don't think it's been done before- I'm just seeing if everyone is interested as the other chat went extremely well.

EDIT: Please do not link to an image in your gallery, renders need to be posted here.

**********************************************************
Posting example for this thread:

Artists: Khory / OptiTex
Dynamic Circle Skirt
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-circle-skirt

This is a skirt product, but I love that Khory included shaders so you can change your shirt products to match the skirt- really nice! The material for the skirt comes in both silk and velvet. The skirt renders at a very good speed.

TIP: The Shadow Dancer top goes GREAT with Khory's Dynamic Circle Skirt. I love the fact the shirt has three material zones in the sleeves, and separate from the body of the shirt. (If you mention another product in the tips, PLEASE LINK TO IT.)
http://www.daz3d.com/shadow-dancer-for-v4

TIP: The red and green makes a great holiday dress- and velvet is certainly a wonderful material for that! Where's Santa?

(As I mentioned, mine will be posted on the other thread. This was a sample.The rest are here:)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44327/P780/#704264

Yup!

YouTube and Vimeo have good tutorials too.

YouTube quick search: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zbrush+tutorial

Vimeo quick search: http://vimeo.com/search?q=ZBrush+tutorials

Cris Palomino said:

You are at so much more of an advantage to learn Zbrush from free sources these days than some years ago. I really recommend the ZClassroom. Also start looking at ZBrush Central. The forums are packed with not only tutorials, but addons, brushes, mini-how-tos and more.

When you can, a tablet with a pressure sensitive brush is definitely going to take your work to a whole other level.

Announcement: Chat With A Published Artist: Khory

Khory's Store
http://www.daz3d.com/khory

Mark your calendars for next Friday, November 7th at 7pm (Central time) and also for Saturday (for those overseas to ask questions) because we're having a Published Artist chat and showcase. Khory will be joining us live at that time and I've provided her with this list of questions for an idea of what we would like to know. If you have any other questions, be sure to tune in Friday night / wee hours Saturday morning, Khory is a night owl- or even Saturday, and Khory will be popping in to see if anyone has other questions.

We had a marvelous response when author Scot Johns graciously donated his time to answer ebook questions, and thought it would be fun to get to know the Published Artists in the same manner. Several of us are doing Khory renders for the products we own and will be showcasing them, and if you other folks would like to show support for Khory and do some renders of her products, that would be fun too! It will be a Khory-a-thon of renders. She has 43 products. I am doing the Dynamic Circle Skirt and chess items first.

Khory will be addressing some of these/all of these-remember to jot down what you would like to ask and post next Friday!

What is your art background?
How long have you been a vendor at DAZ?
What was your motivation for becoming a PA?
What was your first product ever released? How did you decide to start with that one?
What is your favorite product that you have made?
What are your top five favorite products from others vendors here at DAZ?
Who are some of your favorite PAs here at DAZ?
What is one of the biggest challenges of being a PA?
What advice would you offer someone wanting to enter the PA business?
What surprised you / impressed you the most about being a PA?
When do you work on your products- how often/ how long at a time?
Do you have any hobbies other than art?
What are your goals regarding your catalog?
Do you sell on any other sites? Do you have your own website?
How do you get the ideas for your promo art?
What is your favorite promo art from your products?
What is your favorite promo art from other DAZ vendors?
Is there a favorite time of the year for being a PA- do you like spring, summer, fall, winter?

And just for fun:
Do you own any pets? If yes, what are they and their names?
With total immunity to harm, and only for a few days- If you could go back and observe any period of time in history, when would it be?
If you could vacation for a week at any location, where would you go?

Also, as I own several of her dynamic products:
For Khory: Can you describe what dynamic products are? What goes into making those as opposed to products that aren't dynamic?

You are at so much more of an advantage to learn Zbrush from free sources these days than some years ago. I really recommend the ZClassroom. Also start looking at ZBrush Central. The forums are packed with not only tutorials, but addons, brushes, mini-how-tos and more.

When you can, a tablet with a pressure sensitive brush is definitely going to take your work to a whole other level.

Kyoto Kid said:

ps1borg said:

There were more than 1000 lightning strikes last night, some of them took out heavy equipment and caused fires down the road from us. Haz rained today hooray :lol:

...sounds a lot like Central Florida which is known as "Lightning Alley".

Are storms like that common there?

Unusual because it was in the middle of the night and a mass of cold air was moving in at the same time, we got half of October's rainfall in thirty minutes was enough to overwhelm the stormwater drains and flood the inner city :)

ps1borg said:

There were more than 1000 lightning strikes last night, some of them took out heavy equipment and caused fires down the road from us. Haz rained today hooray :lol:

Are storms like that common there?

timothyeberry said:

evilproducer said:

What type of terrain is it supposed to be? What are you doing for the sky? Are adverse to compositing? Does the camera point at the plane and follow the movement from the ground as it would if it were mounted on a tripod, or does it move along as if it is carried or mounted on a vehicle or dolly?

At the moment I have no terrain. I hope to add some mountains later. I'm sorta learning as I go along. For now I am using the basic Caribbean sky with clouds with a touch of fog. The plane flies through the fog once in a while. Neat effect. I tried the realistic sky and it was beautiful but incredibly slow to render. Maybe I will use that in the final render. Not sure about what you mean by adverse to compositing. In the first few minutes I have the camera on a tripod and constantly pointing at the plane. Later in the same animation I plan to replicate the path of the plane but have the camera mounted from the pilot's seat and looking out. I've never had any luck with motion paths. It seems it would be perfect if I knew how to make it work. I can never get the object to always point forward in line with the path. Like with this plane, after a turn or so the plane is pointing way out of line. So for now I do it all in key frames. I'm just a 56 year old amateur trying to play with professional 3D software made for those that have brains.

Sounds like you have a brain to me. :) Plus patience if you keyframed the flight.

The reason why I asked if you were adverse to compositing is that Carrara can render with an alpha channel, so you could "layer" your renders in a video editor that supports it, rather than render the whole thing in one go. It is certainly possible to do it in one render if you wanted to, but depending on the complexity of the terrain and village, it could take awhile.

How far away are the mountains? Are they like the Rocky Mountains or the Alps, in that they are tall and dramatic, or are they more like the Ozarks or Smoky Mountains where the are lower and more rounded? My thoughts are that you could do a flat central area with the village and (I assume) air strip) surround by the more hilly or mountainous terrain. and for the extreme distance a simple Infinite Plane.

The terrains could be replicated using the replicator, or you could use one very large terrain with a flattened area in the middle. If you need any help or specifics on how to do it, we're more than willing to give a hand.

The other thing that may help is high resolution, spherical render applied as a shader to scene encompassing sphere, with the plane's flight animation within that sphere.

As an example, the little youtube test video utilizes this spherical render I made. The video only has two objects in it, the ship and the building it is flying towards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN6E8ji3oHA

Here is a full res render of my avatar, which also happens to be the central character of my next movie.

Ho Ho ho.

To celebrate an expected pre-christmas release of Episode 10 of Sci Fi Funk I've changed my avatar all over the place.

It's Steve Malore, the central character of the series in some dark place. (A cut out of a frame from Ep 10).

How about you Sir/Madam? A new Avatar for Christmas? Share here for all to enjoy / marvel at.

Here it is in full res.

Thank's Spit. I appreciate the helpful advice and feedback Some complained of motion sickness. Yes, I should probably have anchored the cameras to ground rather than following to the action. RE: Period and music - when I set up the scene with Urban Sprawl and Petipet's Zepplin I realized the vision of Macy's Day Parade in NYC so I took advantage of that, added snow in central part backgrounds and the "gotham" type lighting and after effects. Because its a single animated scene, it all plays out in the timeline at once so I used camera perspectives to capture the "sub-scene" events. The closeup of the face was needed on the two main characters to realize the "Dorian" morphing effect ~ and since they were in action shots the camera was tied into the movement. Not perfect, and with another week of rendering I could have avoided it. Compromises with the camera & scene ~ but one I will reconsider next time,

I went with the Pro bundle because of the hair options, additional character, and poses are always good- but I'm like many of you, I have more than I'll ever use already :) The nose doesn't bother me at all, I've already got my own nose morphs and there's already other morphs to address nose pinch. I'm not a botox lip fan and would like to see thinner ones, but again there's morphs.

I like the conservative outfits and will kitbash the others if they're easy enough to play around with. (Or just do bust shots.) While Mei Lin won't be the central character in any books I do, she will certainly fit in nicely. DO wish there had been some casual outfits- totally agree!

Tag: Totte#3

Totte said:

#515 Sci-Fi Crates 'n Containers (#2684)
#2228 Foreign Kisses Central District Subway Station (#14247)
#3220 Michael 3.0 Base (#1558)
#1416 Clown Textures (#15693)
(LB) #3044 M3 Vampyre Texture (#1702)

Also used:
Vampire: AoA SubSurface Scatter Shader + 19th Century Suit Pack for Michael 3.0
Clown: Genesis + Raw Clowns + Gen-X2 of Red and Raw Jester + M4 shape + Clown for Genesis
Subway Station + Subway car + Real Metals (shader) + Balloons from Carnival Midway Fun

Prank late evening commuters at the subway station
Handing out balloons filled with hydrogen sulphide, which when they go boom, not only makes a sound, but smells like something died nearby.

RCDeschene said:

cecilia.robinson said:

SereneNight said:

I confess I really hope the next figure is male. I've been waiting for Freak 6 for some time. While I will most likely buy Mei Linn, assuming she is an adult female, we've had a run on female characters lately.

I want Hiro 6... Desperately. Then David 6 and any kind of male they can come up with.
Honestly, I'm just surprised that after all this time, especially with almost a whopping 14 characters into this, that the ONLY reoccurring male we have is Michael. You would think we'd at the very least see either Freak or Hiro by now, especially where we need to start filling in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi and Stylized niches for G2M.

Although, with the all the Real World characters dominating the runway this generation, I'm just as surprised that we're not seeing anything on David yet, as well. Enough time has certainly passed for another version of him, and this is especially so where the poor guy got screwed-over last time coming out last minute at the end of G1's reign.

Agreed, agreed. But the characters that got released for him were awesome. Neo took over Benjamin's place.

Novica said:

Well, welcome to the new gal- she was posted at 1am Central time.

I've just noticed her too. Didn't have time to see the items, I will now. It is kind of funny: I mean, no previous announcements. We usually got "Take part in this sale to get X off the upcoming John Doe 6". This time there was nothing.

WOW. This is it ? The all new female Asian character ? This just looks like any western face morph with a little dial spun on the eyes, not the cute and/or distinctive realistic asian female I was hoping for after the very nice Lee 6 release. Sorry to say, but disappointed by this base.

I predict she's going to be very popular.

But I'm not as happy with her look as I was with Lee's.

I am trying to decide if the things that bug me are just personal preferences or something else (for example I have a personal preference against lipstick and eyeshadow - which is in all the promo images of her, and so that is making my "eye" more critical of the rest of the figure...). I also personally wish for a wider nose...

That said I can't imagine NOT buying the figure.

You know... I've just seen the base figure and I'm not happy with Mei Lin. She resembles a mix between Lilith and Lee. The body is fine, but not something extraordinary. Just my opinion.

Well now, this is something we haven't seen in quite a while, a major character release on a Thursday! :ohh:

I'll admit, she's pretty much what I expected her to be: an A6 Realistic with significant hint of Asian-pop. Though, I'll also admit that I do like what I'm seeing of her smooth body shape, and I am impressed to see that she has some interesting Martial Arts posesthat finally puts the females up to par with Lee and Hiro a bit. Though, what does surprise me is the fact that not one of the hairs in her Pro Bundle is from Valea!

Valea's missing? What could have happened?

Well, welcome to the new gal- she was posted at 1am Central time.

Dumorian #2 : What can I say, you are wacky master!
Morgan R. Lewis #1 : Nice one, she looks like she can bite ;-)

Pull #4
#515 Sci-Fi Crates 'n Containers (#2684)
#2228 Foreign Kisses Central District Subway Station (#14247)
#3220 Michael 3.0 Base (#1558)
#1416 Clown Textures (#15693)
(LB) #3044 M3 Vampyre Texture (#1702)

What are the odds of M3 Base and a M3 texture/morph? The rest, hmm. weird but doable,

Entry # 3

Artist:
 Pimpy

Title: 
The incredible experiment

WIPs:

laboratory and control panel
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P75/#690300
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P75/#690301
elements for generate lightning and lightning shader
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P90/#690504
rust shader (procedural shader Carrara pro 8)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P120/#691080
Text (Carrara text editor)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P135/#691248
New items (control panel and walls)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P135/#691889
Central scene - Gorilla and new texture
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P150/#692205
Postwork
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P180/#693165
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P285/#695830

Content Used:
Michael 4 (Carrara)
Gorilla LE (Carrara)
ModaCuts AtoE (http://www.daz3d.com/hair/modacuts-atoe) -
Knight Champion for M4 (only Arming Doublet) (http://www.daz3d.com/knight-champion-for-m4)

How challenge requirements met:
Mechanical Element: Control Panel and all the other items modeled in the Carrara vertex modeler.
Rusty Shader: Created in Carrara8 pro ( Carrara procedural shader) and applied to all the pipes of the scene
Two items (in addition to application of the rusty metal shader) must be either created in or significantly enhanced in Carrara:
Walls, floors and ceilings ( primitives - created material shaders)
Dividing wall (modeled in vertex modeler, created multi shader and material shaders)
Control Panel, buttons and levers (modeled in vertex modeler, created UV map and material shaders)
Electrical panels (modeled in vertex modeler, created multi shader and material shaders)
Tubes (primitives and created material shaders )
Elements for generate lightning and lightning (modeled in vertex modeler and and material shaders)
Arming Doublet (Knight Champion for M4) (edited collar shirt in vertex modeler)
ModaCuts AtoE ( edited original shader)
Gorilla skin ( edited original shader - http://carraracafe.com/tutorials/complex-lighting-tutorial-by-mark-bremmer/ )
Text (created in Carrara text editor - color edited in Gimp)

Underused Carrra feature
It was the first time I used Carrara text editor to create complex texts.
My first step was to create the text on a different file, and then paste it on the image but when i made the final render the result gave me subdued colors. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P135/#691248 http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P180/#693165
Then I created different layers using Carrara (alpha channel) and enhanced the color in post in Gimp I think that could be this the “Underuse of Carrara”. The first step, I'm sure was correct but the render I made was wrong... http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P180/#693165

Postwork:

I decided to enhance and change color to some components of my scene (only text and gorilla figure) using Gimp I rendered separate layers using the option in in the “Render Room” file format : Photoshop and “Render alpha Channel”
I created in this way some images of the text and the gorilla figure.
After that in Gimp I assembled all the transparent images, using as background image the scene with no text ( - comic effect – w.i.p http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47148/P180/#693165 ) and I changed to each layer, color, contrast and intensity.

Comments:
My idea for the cover was to create a scene that reflected with objects, materials, and crazy ideas, the historical period in those years.
So I created the character of the mad scientist who uses electricity for an impossible experiment.
(The first Frankenstein movie's was in 1931)

...and it doesn't even need to be an HDRI, either. Any spherical background can help with this.
Here's an example of how to make your own spherical background using Carrara, fairly quickly:

Create or load in one of the presets of a realistic sky. Play around with the cloud settings as they will provide excellent additions to your reflections. Alternately, Tim Payne has some excellent sky presets that include clouds.
Try to NOT use lens flares on a spherical background image. Effects like that belong in the final render, if used at all.

It can often help to turn off ground in the realistic sky, perhaps even change the horizon elevation... that is left to each individual's tastes.

Pick a terrain preset and drag it into the scene. I prefer to simply make my own (Insert > Terrain)
Use a preset terrain shader, if you need something other than what's on there. These can be fun to tweak as well! ;)

Pull that terrain away from the center of the scene and away from the camera. It is not a focal point, just some background information. We want the atmosphere of the Realistic Sky to add depth, so a hundred feet or so is nice.

Select the terrain and Ctrl + D to duplicate it.

Move and rotate the new duplicate to give a whole new look, then Ctrl + D again. The new duplicate will then move and rotate automatically, as long as Undo (Ctrl + z) was not used. This can quickly surround the scene with terrain all the way around.

Remember, we're not looking for anything special for our eyes to focus on, we're making a simply image that can be used to assist in our scene's reflections.

Rotate your main camera around. It can help to drop in a Target Helper Object for this, so that you have something in the scene center to select and rotate around. We're not looking for interest here, we're looking for gaps that can draw the eye away from whatever final object this BG image will be used behind.

Do a few low resolution test renders.

Once you're happy with the surroundings, drop in a spherical camera, Rotate it 90 degrees so that it faces the horizon rather than the ground. I often also lift the camera six feet or so off the ground, even if I'm not using a ground - but on that note, I almost always include some sort of ground plane, and lower it way down for this sort of spherical image, but this might not be necessary.

In the render room, set the Spherical camera as the film cam, and change the resolution to 8,000 x 4,000 for a start. Now just put a check in the 'retain aspect ratio' box, so that you can change resolution without changing our 2:1 ratio
Now switch it to something smaller, like 1000 x 500 and do a test render. You'll see a small version of your spherical map. Even at this low resolution, you can add this image into the "Background"> Image Map of Carrara, and Carrara will read the spherical information and give you a full surrounding of colors according to your image. It can take a while to render a higher resolution background image. In some cases, you may not even need it to be very high. 8,000 x 4,000 is not considered 'high' but it often provides plenty of surrounding detail to eliminate the need to go higher, unless you also want to rely on the central ground as part of the final render. Moral of the story... forget making spherical maps for the ground. It will be much more efficient and versatile to instead make a ground plane of some sort that matches your spherical background.

Anyways... I gotta go.

pimpy said:

sukyL said:

pimpy said:

Easy tips for apply a single texture without export your model in obj format (in this way you can move and change pose at your model how do you prefere)

Central scene – How I made it...

I added M4 in the center of my scene and Gorilla LE ( preset in Carrara)
Applied the same pose to each model ( M4 position works well with Gorilla) and adjust it to have one inside the other (M4 disappare into Gorilla)
Select the Gorilla and select on “model”.
In model room select your model and on “shading domain” create a new texture (see image 1 – I let the “texure 16” ). Now Gorilla have only one texture!

Click on texture room ( now if you want is possible delete all the other Gorilla texture) and select “texture 16”. Apply the new texture and Gorilla appare with only one texture.

pimpy I'm losing sanity points on your shader it's so complex. I love it! Question, where do you apply the parametric mapping and what does it do?

Hi sukyl,
...exatly I don't know how it works but I love it too! Btw you dont must change parametric mapping. When you create a new texture in model room Carrara convert c all the old texture into the new one.
in this case I changed the original shader founded some times ago on CarraraCafe in the Mark Bremmer's tutorial. Here you can found the fantastic tutorial and the free scene .car file
http://carraracafe.com/tutorials/complex-lighting-tutorial-by-mark-bremmer/

pimpy Thanks for the explanation and lighting tutorial link. That's a hugely informative tutorial!

sukyL said:

pimpy said:

Easy tips for apply a single texture without export your model in obj format (in this way you can move and change pose at your model how do you prefere)

Central scene – How I made it...

I added M4 in the center of my scene and Gorilla LE ( preset in Carrara)
Applied the same pose to each model ( M4 position works well with Gorilla) and adjust it to have one inside the other (M4 disappare into Gorilla)
Select the Gorilla and select on “model”.
In model room select your model and on “shading domain” create a new texture (see image 1 – I let the “texure 16” ). Now Gorilla have only one texture!

Click on texture room ( now if you want is possible delete all the other Gorilla texture) and select “texture 16”. Apply the new texture and Gorilla appare with only one texture.

pimpy I'm losing sanity points on your shader it's so complex. I love it! Question, where do you apply the parametric mapping and what does it do?

Hi sukyl,
...exatly I don't know how it works but I love it too! Btw you dont must change parametric mapping. When you create a new texture in model room Carrara convert c all the old texture into the new one.
in this case I changed the original shader founded some times ago on CarraraCafe in the Mark Bremmer's tutorial. Here you can found the fantastic tutorial and the free scene .car file
http://carraracafe.com/tutorials/complex-lighting-tutorial-by-mark-bremmer/

pimpy said:

Easy tips for apply a single texture without export your model in obj format (in this way you can move and change pose at your model how do you prefere)

Central scene – How I made it...

I added M4 in the center of my scene and Gorilla LE ( preset in Carrara)
Applied the same pose to each model ( M4 position works well with Gorilla) and adjust it to have one inside the other (M4 disappare into Gorilla)
Select the Gorilla and select on “model”.
In model room select your model and on “shading domain” create a new texture (see image 1 – I let the “texure 16” ). Now Gorilla have only one texture!

Click on texture room ( now if you want is possible delete all the other Gorilla texture) and select “texture 16”. Apply the new texture and Gorilla appare with only one texture.

pimpy I'm losing sanity points on your shader it's so complex. I love it! Question, where do you apply the parametric mapping and what does it do?