Novica said:

Laticis said:

So...where are all the entries?

Well, it's 4:25am here (Central time) which means it's 2:25am July 16th- so the contest is closed. A lot of great entries! Thanks again for being the main sponsor Laticis!

No problems at all Novica :)

Okay...will make some time tomorrow to start going through the entries.

Well done Scott, your feedback throughout the entire comp was awesome.

Laticis said:

So...where are all the entries?

Here is the Thread that Phil is referring to and is some great info - easy to learn - for utter realism in your renders getting closer to a Lux result, I think(?) in less time (?) I think.
Carrara EnvironKits - Woodlands, as well as others in the series generally render in a fraction of the time using the base system included.
Just know that the base system is only an example of several ways to get great renders from Carrara - and are included as I felt it made the preset a complete solution - whether making a still shot or animation. I make animations, mostly - so I need to rely on speed while making all attempts to maintain quality of the look.

EnvironKits are all made so that they can be the subject of the render - if you chose... but are intended as a complete and easy to use solution towards finishing off everything that surrounds what you want to focus on.
If you use the EnvironKit for its fast rendering and complete light rigging and atmosphere, you'll want to load it first. They are designed so that when you bring in your focal point object(s), they will come in at or near where you will want them in your render. I designed the rest of the preset around that space - giving your models free reign to inhabit the focusing central portion of the scene - move around using aniblocks, sprawl out as a building complex, whatever. That all takes place at their default, load in positions - making EnvironKits very fast to work with. If you want to highlight your focal point objects - no matter what they are, drag them into the Focal Group and the Highlighting light rig will highlight them with four additional lights that match the rest of that preset - yet the rig is easily tweaked to how you want it. Though I think many users will just leave it the way it's set.

Each kit is set up to give you an easy place to store new base scene that you've set up the way your tastes inspire you. Add, remove, tweak, rotate... save to your own, new name! Fast!

Want to render an animation? Load a preset. Bring in your character(s). Add it (them) to the Focal group to give them a special highlighting light rig to enhance them to the preset scene. Load in their aniBlocks or pose files. Set the camera in motion. Save. Render.
That simple... that fast.

I like to keep my animation frame renders down to manageable times. Hence the fast form of rendering. This method that Phil brings up for us provides a noticeable - very noticeable(!) difference in render quality. Patience is very good for a really good render. Although Woodlands (and other EnvironKits to come) are purposely set to render quickly, this is due to them being an all inclusive preset that should have wonderful results for everybody. But stepping up your renders, while time consuming, is amazingly rewarding - and Phil Wilkes is a true hero of mine - especially when it comes to Carrara! His experiment that he urges in that thread is not only great fun, but an excellent exercise in learning a lot about a whole new aspect of Carrara rendering. Although the method is easy to implement, you'll see how in order to perfect the look you'll need to be keen and stubborn. Be picky... be the director. It is going to take a lot of time before you see the end result - so take your time - get the positioning and rotation the way you know it will work for your vision and let it snap! And while these renders take a lot more time that the presets, like Phil says... you may still use them for animations as they are still very fast compared to alternative apps and methods for achieving these higher standards. Give it a go - and have fun!

I will say more when I see the progress on this but I am liking the street lighting though maybe a bit bright for setting a mood but I don't know what your intent is so that isn't a critque more of a presonal preference. :- ) I also like the plants in the central (central reservation as well them over here) part of the road. Nice touch that.

Cheers, Mermaid and Bullit...love the Atlantis skyscape also - that central building with the torusus (torii???) on it looks very futuristic (those Atlantians were way ahead of us).

Cheers, Savage, too for the 'influence' add-info...didn't know that - learning all the time.

Jay

..re: Forsaken Daughter is Watching You.

Thank you everyone. As I mentioned that scene was more than a year in the making. Even preliminary test renders on my old system would crash and that was just with the "Daddy" and "Kelly" figures. This is an important scene in her story where she eventually confronts the man that abandoned her in Portland eight years before because she threatened his personal ambitions due to what she was.

A little (right...) explanation, of the setting and background:

In the world of Shadworun the old races return though into a world of sociopolitical and corporate intrigue but also with incredible tech and mystical power. North America fractiionalises into a continent of smaller nations, including those run by the original native tribes west of the Rockies. In the Pacific Northwest Seattle is like a "Hong Kong" for the UCAS (United Canadian - American States which is comprised of the remaining states in the east above teh old Mason Dixon line and eastern Canadian Provinces (save of course for Quebec which finally goes independent).

To the immediate south of the Salish lands is the Tir Taringire, (Formerly Oregon and a sliver of Northern California to Shasta). This land was founded as a haven for what became known as "Metahumans" (elves, dwarves etc.) which were persecuted by racist "Pure Humanity" groups that sprung up. At first it was a great idea however the elven factions (corruption knows no bounds) eventually seize control of the new nation even practising discrimination against other metas. In retaliation for the atrocities that perpetrated by the racist organisations (some which reasonable amount of political clout), humass were regarded as the "enemy" by the council of princes an never to be trusted. Border crossings were limited and non elf citizens were basically herded into Portland which was separated from the rest of the nation by a ten meter high wall with high tech surveillance and security measures. Travel from outside the nation was tightly restricted The bridges across the Columbia River closed off and the main way to enter the nation was to fly in. The only means of land entry/exit was the old I-5 bridge which had numerous physical and electronic security countermeasures as well as a station manned by the Tir military affectionately called "Checkpoint Charlie").

Sound familiar?

Outside of Portland, the population was primarily elves with humans making up but a fraction of one percent. Little Kelly was one of those. One of a pair of twins born to a fairly prominent couple in the Capital of Salem. Her father, Sean (the man who is the central focus of the picture) was an eminent geneticist, and when he learned one of his daughters was to be human, began genetic treatment to try and transform her appearance (genetics in the world is that advanced) before she was born. Well it sort of worked but not totally. Her parents at first did their best to get her accepted, using their social standing as leverage. Sean's pioneering work in genetics had caught the attention of not just the council but the High Prince himself and he was put on the fast track to Tir Nobility (one could rise in social standing by making significant contributions to the quality of life of Tir citizens [read elves] and to the nation). His wife was a senior matrix engineer at onw fo the Tir's major firms as well as a consultant to the university

The one potential stumbling block to his success was Kelly.

As the child grew towards her teen years it was seen she was not going to fit in. her grades at the academy were poor to mediocre, she was shunned by those who once were friends, and soon became the scapegoat for things that went wrong in school by both her classmates and faculty alike. Meanwhile her father' was being pressured by his closest associates to"deal" with the issue of his human daughter. Eventually political ambition would win over family bond.

One of the side effects of the prenatal treatments manifested itself in a learning disability which contributed to her poor academic performance. Where she shined was in physical and athletic pursuits being an ace gymnast and very adept with martial arts (which she took a strong liking to). That however was not enough. For young people to become full citizens of the Tir they had to undergo a battery of tests both physical and academic on reaching the age of 18. It was the latter which she would never succeed at. In fact no human had ever completed the regimen (of course the tests were often rigged to discriminate). Kelly was finally was expelled form the academy for her poor academic performance and "frequently disruptive" behaviour. In the eyes of her father and his associated, she had become an embarrassment.

She was restricted to home, and rarely allowed to go out with the family in public. Her father had taken to alcohol to deal with the mounting stress of living up to his peers' expectations. He began mistreating her, frequently blaming her for anything that went wrong. After one of his closest confidants finally laid it on the line that the human girl was in the way of his future, he decided to act. Kelly couldn't understand why her father was had become so angry with her and tried everything to please him but seemingly to no avail.

Before she was born he had the option of euthanisation, but at the time couldn't bring himself to it. Now he was faced with living in humiliation or freeing himself of his burden. Even though humans were the lowest "caste" in Tir society, outright murder was still murder. Just dumping her off in Portland however wasn't, well if she was an adult. Eventually he came up with a plan (with the help of associates) that Kelly was to go to a boarding school in Portland. once there he would just abandon her then make up a story that she ran off when they made a stop for food.

After farewells to her mother and twin sister (who were totally unaware of the plot) she was taken to the Lloyd district in Portland (once one of the city's finest shopping centres but now a haven for "squatters" and gangs). Unawares twelve year old Kelly got out to wait for him to get the "paperwork" but then shut the door and sped off to leave her to her fate.

The report of her running away was filed and a search commenced, however carefully directed by a couple of associates, Several weeks later a badly mutilated body of a young girl about her age was "discovered" in the Eastgate District (a major gang activity area) which tested "positive" for her genetic signature. There was a funeral and the case was closed.

...sort of (but that is another story as it was difficult enough to condense the above from the 110 page novella that her back story grew into).

Flash forward:

In the scene, her father is meeting with a member of a Seattle elven gang after hearing stories this mysterious small young white hared woman who "haunted' the shadows there. What caught his attention were reports of increasing attacks on members of the local elven gangs there by this elusive modern day "Ronin". What Sean failed to take into account when he abandoned her was his daughter was an "awakened" individual known as an adept, basically a specially gifted individual (as she was human she was never tested for the trait after birth as all elven children are).

In the scene, she is "masking" her presence while her father and the elf wireboy discuss the most recent sighting and his goons keep watch.

He may not have found her yet, but she found him.

Kelly was my longest surviving character I had from the Shadowrun RPG (actually any RPG I played), with a career that spanned four revisions of the rules, both Harelquin campaign arcs, and over ten years (even making an appearance in a D&D 3rd ed campaign - sans her six guns). Her story is like I mentioned above, literally a story itself which unfortunately resides on an HD of an old notebook that died. I have to find a way to hook it up to extract the file as it is an old IDE rather than SATA drive.

...a ghost who moves about the shadows like the evening mists.

GussNemo said:

@Pam: That is a nice looking place. Is it mostly farming in the area?

Actually nowadays it is mostly a dormitory town for the People who moved into Dublin during what they called the "Celtic Tiger" years.

You know the sort, work in the city live out in the rural areas and commute.

The Central Statistical Office notes that 62% of all private dwellings in Lusk were built in the five years between 2001 and 2006

There are still a few farms, but mostly just residential nowadays, sadly.

And here is a link to a thread with a larger view of the central characters:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/23239/

Novica said:

Has anyone ever recorded the actual start and end time on those 8 hour things? For instance, it's already been an hour (came up around 1:15 central time I think.) So it should be ending around 9:15am this morning. Won't be home to see if it does.

Time stamp for 4 hour sale which is still going on.

...well some good news and some bad news.

May as well get the bad news out of the way first. Connectivity ills have been getting worse, Last night spent nearly an hour trying to get a good connection. Today after ninety minutes (out of two and a half hours) of incredibly slow page loads, lots of resets, timeouts, Server Not Found errors, and "dormant" connection status, shut down grabbed the modem and headed down to the central ISP's store.

Had him scan the back of the modem to get the details and yes it is nearly 4 years old (two of the 4 signal strength meter lights went out on it recently). So first, I press the question again about a replacement as I have been paying a monthly insurance surcharge just in case such a situation occurred. He told me that they would have to make a custom version of this particular device (an A600EDVO) since it isn't sold or supported by them anymore. The other choice he gave me was getting the next up the line which was 69$ telling me I would get a 50% discount because of my insurance policy. OK 35$ I could handle (well sort of considering I already plunked down 126$ for a new monitor this weekend). Well, when I inquired further I learned that 69$ price tag was with the 50% discount which also would change my plan giving me only 2.5G of download per month. I told him I work in 3D CG and given the size of some downloads (particularly if it is an application update) I could chew through that in a week or so (heck a 1.99$ Jack Tomalin prop can easily top 100MB).

He then tells me if it doesn't work I can return it but I would only get a refund of 45$, so basically I would be paying them 24$ (which is about half of my monthly connection fee) on my extremely tight budget for nothing.

Next I inquired if there was any sort of tech support I could contact concerning the possibility of a bad node in my neighbourhood. I explained that twice per day (about 10:30 - 12:30 and again 21:30 - 00:30) connectivity goes down the loo completely. I gave him my address and after he checked (I guess their personnel are privy to this info but we the paying customers are not) and then told me that my area of town was a "low connectivity" area. I thought, "excuse me" this is a middle class to slightly affluent area not more than a fifteen minute bike ride (at my leisurely pace) from Downtown Portland, not some place out in the boonies. When I brought up the question about them upgrading the signal in our area he mentioned something like it would cost 1$ million for them to do that.

OK so now I see where this is going. Apparently part of my woes also have been due to their technology and policy. They have no other CS contact other than a nationwide 800 phone number. He told me there is a chat option available, but in all the times I've been on their site I've never seen it (again most likely just for their business offices).

OK it gets even better. for after a bit more inquiring I learned they are basically abandoning straight wireless broadband and going completely over to being a smartphone retail store and service provider. So then I ask why (after everything I told him) would I pay nearly 70$ for a device that maybe 6 months or so from now would no longer be supported? No answer.

So much for their "innovative" customer friendly philosophy.

So y'all may not see me around as much for a while until I can find another solution. Most likely it will involve that long transit odyssey I have been trying to avoid to get to the Comcast/Xfinity CS office.

....OK so now the good news.

Just received an email not long ago from UPS that says my new monitor is on the way and is scheduled to arrive by the end of business day tomorrow (it's already at the Roseburg OR hub just to the south of Portland). So the beast will be back up and running before the holiday.

In light of what I dealt with earlier today, that IS what I call "Customer Service".

I checked the GPU again, and yes it does have DVI port as well as HDMI so I will be in good shape for incredibly crisp clean images. Already shifted things around on the desk in preparation.

Novica said:

Has anyone ever recorded the actual start and end time on those 8 hour things? For instance, it's already been an hour (came up around 1:15 central time I think.) So it should be ending around 9:15am this morning. Won't be home to see if it does.

Some have only lasted a few hours, and there have been a few that have stayed up for several days. My personal guess is that 1.)there's either a a minimum or maximum $$$ figure attached to them somehow that acts as a secondary trigger, or, more likely 2.) it's all done manually by someone at DAZ, and sometimes they don't get the timing right. Or a combination of both.

The one thing that's certain is that if you buy quickly, it'll sit up there through the next day, and if you put it off for an hour, that's when they'll pull it.

Has anyone ever recorded the actual start and end time on those 8 hour things? For instance, it's already been an hour (came up around 1:15 central time I think.) So it should be ending around 9:15am this morning. Won't be home to see if it does.

The nice thing about this render is the incoming figures are stealthy and calculating. The poses show a menacing deliberation and yet the central figure is quite calm, something we would expect from a ninja. Well done!

Coming-
The Defiant For Genesis outfit, with the Medieval Barn ladder with matching settings for the barn. Also darkened the barn "post" that looks like marble- change your diffuse to 183's (blue gray.)

Will be hours. (render started at 7:15pm Central time. Available later tonight.

It looks like I'm getting into the "ruckus" a little late. Leave it to me to sleep through everything around here...As a long time participant in the Challenge Forum (since 2009, if memory serves...probably not...) I can see all of the different points of view from everybody. Unfortunately, I don't have a quick and simple answer. I guess what I'm wondering about, is the point of the Challenge to show off cool freebies you've found or to meet the challenge of fitting the theme of the month using freebies? My problem is that I'm a slave to my ideas. Somebody presents a theme and it's up to me to bring that theme to life using whatever I have at my disposal or what I can find. I can't tell you the hundreds of ideas I've had to discard because I couldn't find something, a prop, a morph or a texture that is central to the idea. Or maybe I can, and it's the only one of it's kind and I can't use it because using it would put me over my limit. So, I have to discard that idea and settle for a lesser one. Since I use Bryce as a final render engine I can import any number of files from different formats that Poser and Studio can't (Studio seems to have more restrictions in that regard). I can use a easily available conversion program for some things, but that often opens up a whole 'nuther can of worms. Dose that put me at an "advantage" over other people? I dunno...

Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe I shouldn't be so concerned about trying to tell a story with my renders, or to make people think...or laugh. Like I said, I don't have any answers....wish I did. I don't even have a good cow joke...

Sisca said:

So the sale is for 8 hours only. When did it start? Was that midnight and if so what time zone? Does it start when the Daz office opens (Mountain Time if I'm not mistaken) or when the offices where the Magento servers are located (Central time from what I can see)?

Is the sale valid as long as the banner is up? I've seen some of the 4 hour flash sales have the banner up for 12 hours or more.

This is my problem with Flash Sales, they give a time limit but I never know when they started or when they're likely to end.

So the sale is for 8 hours only. When did it start? Was that midnight and if so what time zone? Does it start when the Daz office opens (Mountain Time if I'm not mistaken) or when the offices where the Magento servers are located (Central time from what I can see)?

Is the sale valid as long as the banner is up? I've seen some of the 4 hour flash sales have the banner up for 12 hours or more.

This is my problem with Flash Sales, they give a time limit but I never know when they started or when they're likely to end.

Pure Hair: Space For Genesis

Rendering NOW
http://www.daz3d.com/pure-hair-space

See Cassini (V5) and Chiara (V6) side by side for the first time- both wearing Pure Hair Space! This was designed for Cassini, V5, and she will be the gal on your right. Chiara got in on the action and does so with class. We'll see what the render looks like though- this was not spot rendered! (But that gives you a better idea of what it's like out of the box.)

"A cool, futuristic look for the boys....." according to the product description. Well, move over guys- the girls are ROCKIN' it!
Easy to plop on, and as we are TRYING to do "out of the box" I only increased the volume, winged up the bangs and extended them- but did no skull cap corrections. So what we'll see is exactly how it came on when it entered the scene! This might take awhile, with both gals in the render.

EDIT: 8:35pm central time: It's stuck in a loop- not going past 12% and it's been 50 minutes- with 15 of those stuck on 12%. Going to start over. Will be hours.

Update: 3:30am- the hair is a KILLER on render time. It will stay at 4% for HOURS. I've been on another thread- and I retested the Opus Magnum set (which you know, those bookcases are loaded, and had V5 in the scene with hair and pajamas) and so it's not the computer- it's the HAIR. It's still rendering at 4% as I started all over again to troubleshoot. We'll see if this is doable.

Gedd said:

Not just gender specific, think of a base fantasy figure like Troll, Elf, Dwarf, where the base mesh is optimized for that character and the morphs off of that are all from that optimized base mesh. The amount of detail in various versions of that character style could be amazing.

The idea of taking the concepts of Genesis into individual specific Mesh forms is powerful, and a separate one from keeping a central base mesh that can cross genres. This concept is at the heart of the two branches I've been writing about, the next step I believe in the revolution in character creation.

Gedd said:

Not just gender specific, think of a base fantasy figure like Troll, Elf, Dwarf, where the base mesh is optimized for that character and the morphs off of that are all from that optimized base mesh. The amount of detail in various versions of that character style could be amazing.

The idea of taking the concepts of Genesis into individual specific Mesh forms is powerful, and a separate one from keeping a central base mesh that can cross genres. This concept is at the heart of the two branches I've been writing about, the next step I believe in the revolution in character creation.

"Oh, you want to make a female dwarf? I'm sorry, I haven't yet made the mesh for that."