I agree with many posters, more European style with older buildings which can be used in renders from 1850 - present time.
And I like the central square idea, as most European cities still have the old hay market squares left, now used for trams or busses.

A central park area would be a real selling point for me... Of course, I'd prefer Chiba Park in Tokyo. ;) Or Akibahara. I've got tons of reference photos I could share if you want them.

A train station or subway station would be a great inclusion. My favorite is Harajuku, but any train station would be great!

Definitely store fronts, hopefully with a few usable interiors (we can furnish them ourselves).

But I would also really love to see a Victorian London neighborhood! Maybe a future project?

BrianP21361 said:

I would like to see more taller buildings. Something like the Chrysler building would be awesome!

Some very good suggestions here. Especially like the ideas of a park, a major landmark, construction site, and a seedy or "red light" district.

Would also love to see a city sprawl done in a more European style with a central market square like pictured below:

A few other common structures and sights to consider:

...municipal buildings like a public library, city hall, court house, and museum
...an intercity bus terminal
...a fire and a police station.
...a church and/or cathedral
...a couple cinemas
...a central roundabout or square that includes a statue or fountain and benches. Possibly make the fountain and statue interchangeable with each other,.
...a classic looking central train station
...tram tracks and overhead catenary.
...a sports/civic arena.
...those "street chimneys" like you see in pictures of New York City.
...suspended window washer scaffold that can be used on various buildings.

BTW, what ever happened to the Suburban Sprawl project?

monkeycloud said:

I'd love some more Art Deco skyscrapers.

Some more Neo-Gothic Gotham-esque structures... per Joe's earlier suggestion.

The New York central park type layout suggested earlier would be good.

A working manhole cover or two?

THAT !

I'm still puzzled that neither Stonemason nor Jack Tomalin ever released any Victorian England street environment. Stefan's Victorian street is quite old now and it's not like Jack would have a hard time finding references :)

Skiriki said:

Oh buggrit, the popcorn thread is dead. Sorry, kinda contributed to the death of it. :/ It is difficult to talk about stuff like that without it going to political territory.

Anyway. Wee coyotes prolly should skulk off to bed under the covers 'cause temperature just dropped to -15 C and central heating hasn't fully woken up to this fact. (Not feeling cold at the moment or anything like that, but it will get colder outside and faster I'm under covers, warming up the airspace within, less chances of feeling shivery.)

aww

oh noes, was about to make fresh popcorn.

I'd love some more Art Deco skyscrapers.

Some more Neo-Gothic Gotham-esque structures... per Joe's earlier suggestion.

The New York central park type layout suggested earlier would be good.

A working manhole cover or two?

Ideally any graffiti in the textures should be an optional layer, I think? Graffiti can restrict the historical period being depicted in a render, to maybe 70s / 80s at the very earliest... where the architecture could otherwise pass for a decade or two, or more, earlier, often?

Cheers

Oh buggrit, the popcorn thread is dead. Sorry, kinda contributed to the death of it. :/ It is difficult to talk about stuff like that without it going to political territory.

Anyway. Wee coyotes prolly should skulk off to bed under the covers 'cause temperature just dropped to -15 C and central heating hasn't fully woken up to this fact. (Not feeling cold at the moment or anything like that, but it will get colder outside and faster I'm under covers, warming up the airspace within, less chances of feeling shivery.)

Something like this, with better textures, would be really useful to me. Especially if it was modular, sort of like a cityscape play set. A modular approach would also facilitate some of the great ideas that other people have brought forward (especially the central park idea).

If Urban Sprawl was 1 retextured, Urban Sprawl 3 wouldnt need that much. Im in agreement of a "Central Park" kinda area in US3, or a decent sized Park District that offered things like: a baseball/softball diamond, outdoor swiming pool, full court basketball court, skate park, etc. Bridges and Overpasses is also something im in definite agreement to.

-MJ

Looking at how US2 is layed out and being a modeler also and for my personal preference in scenes, i would like to see something similar to a central park type setup. the larger sky scrapers more around the edges to provide a backdrop for ground scenes in the interior. a central park type area for more diverse scenes, ones with animals, dogs, cats, horses and carriages, etc. maybe a small lake area in the park for picnics (or the creature from the underground tar pits, LOL) then around the park area or across the street from it, small shops and outdoor cafe type areas. You could even leave out the small items like tables and chairs at the cafes and just have a believable area where the user can add any decor or furniture for the type scene they are working on. Maybe a long bridge on one edge of town with a hilly terrain on the far opposite side just to add a background. With a detailed area either viewing from the bridge or a location on the shore, kinda like looking at the golden gate bridge from the banks. Just my 2 cents.

TheWheelMan said:

If you just want an art gallery, why not use Photobucket? I generally like Rendo, but they have warned me a couple of times for what I felt was completely silly reasons, especially given the fact I almost never do anything remotely risque. DA is fine, but it's kind of "pervert art" central, which doesn't make me feel like my art fits in there.

You better read the terms of service at Photobucket - it's very clear that you are giving away your copyright to anything you post there which is linked to, or posted somewhere else, or made public - it even says others are allowed to take your images and make print-on-demand products and sell them.

TheWheelMan said:

If you just want an art gallery, why not use Photobucket? I generally like Rendo, but they have warned me a couple of times for what I felt was completely silly reasons, especially given the fact I almost never do anything remotely risque. DA is fine, but it's kind of "pervert art" central, which doesn't make me feel like my art fits in there.

DeviantArt is a social site and they have circles for all types of art. While you can find a lot of "pervert art" there are a lot of traditional artists there as well. It's really not possible for your art not to fit in, but if you simply want to post images on the net something like photobucket works.

If you just want an art gallery, why not use Photobucket? I generally like Rendo, but they have warned me a couple of times for what I felt was completely silly reasons, especially given the fact I almost never do anything remotely risque. DA is fine, but it's kind of "pervert art" central, which doesn't make me feel like my art fits in there.

And now confession time :red:

The reason why I'm learning rendering is because I wanted to do Les Mis fan art. Seriously :red: ;-P

It's also why my wife isn't giving me grief when I do this :lol: Of course, she gets to vet my designs :zip:

When looking up Javert, I came across [url+http://thecomposites.tumblr.com/post/24885125012/javert-les-miserables-victor-hugo-certain-police]this :

Certain police officers have a peculiar physiognomy, which is complicated with an air of baseness mingled with an air of authority…The human face of Javert consisted of a flat nose, with two deep nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One felt ill at ease when he saw these two forests and these two caverns for the first time. When Javert laughed,—and his laugh was rare and terrible,—his thin lips parted and revealed to view not only his teeth, but his gums, and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage fold, as on the muzzle of a wild beast. Javert, serious, was a watchdog; when he laughed, he was a tiger. As for the rest, he had very little skull and a great deal of jaw…Between his eyes there was a permanent, central frown, like an imprint of wrath; his gaze was obscure; his mouth pursed up and terrible; his air that of ferocious command…This singular composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the corporal.

As luck would also have it, all these sales enabled me to buy characters and period clothes at a great discount; I may have to eat Ramen for lunch till next year but it's so worth it :lol:

Mesdames et messieurs, j'ai l'honneur de la présentation : Inspecteur Javert de Sûreté Nationale. (sorry for the bad French, I did the best I could with Babylon :red: )

Well there is a fundamental problem with this. Procedurals are like many things that are in flux level of development. The way different packages implement them are both fundamentally different and constantly being tweaked. The first issue means that things don't translate directly, just like in languages. The second issue means that even if one does try to create a translation program they are shooting at a moving target. That's not to say it can't be done, just that it's not simple. This feature is exactly one of the main features Paolo provides with Reality for Lux (translating 3Dlight shaders, lights and cameras to LUX,) and he does a good job from what I understand. But it takes a bit of work and some things just don't translate. But... yes, that is ofc the holy grail many of us wish for ;)

Eventually they will get shaders (and lighting as these are wed at the hip to some extent) to translate much better but then the focus of incompatibilities will simply shift to rigging, physics, etc...

The best chance though of tackling these issues would be to have some central program that became standard for routing different things through, that allowed various companies (or interested individuals/parties) to write their own translation layer.. a 'print manager' for 3d objects of sorts... DAZ Studio in an optimistic perspective could become that app theoretically if the company positioned itself well, but then it would be a gamble to some extent that they could pull it off.

I came across these body jewels at Rendo but they are very old (for V2) and no longer available.

Does anyone know of anything that might look even vaguely like them. I am wanting them to be suitable for both male and female.

I like them because they have got a vaguely central American look to them although they don't have to but it would be a change from Egyptian which are the only chunky ones I have come across so far.

The laptop thing has been covered before...but I believe it was on the old forums, so it isn't readily accessible

Basically it boils down to this...is it yours and in your contro?. If you aren't leasing/lending it when it's 'outside', then things are fine.

As to the 'online'/multiple buildings...I assume you are talking about an in-house network or something that requires logging in to the company's central servers...I'm not sure if it has been covered...but if the buildings are on the same plot, sharing the same 'network' it's probably fine...but if it's an office in Toledo, Ohio and one in Sante Fe...probably not.

I have to admit I couldn't see the speckling you were referring to, so I can't help you there. But I can give you some general feedback.

I love your character. The pose is dynamic and doesn't look stiff, like so many do at first glance, and the facial expression is subtle while doing the job. Also, the way the hair is blowing back just a bit gives action and implies something powerful is going on.

I like the lightning effect, and the yellow lighting on the hair which makes it seem very "there." One small thing to consider with the lightning is moving the central nexus point up a bit. Right now it looks like the lightning is coming from the wrist instead of his palm. Unless that's the look you're going for, of course. :)

Something else is that the necklace isn't laying flat against his chest, so the shadow underneath it can be seen. This gives the impression of movement in the opposite direction of the movement implied by the hair, so that's something to think about.

And I really like the textures on the clothes that you've added. I'm very impressed. The high realism of the clothes contrasts with the flatter textures of the room, which made me wonder if this character is posed against a backdrop instead of in a 3D environment.. Perhaps tweaking the amount of bump and displacement textures on the room will bring that into balance. Or perhaps choosing a different section of the room (such as having a column in the foreground) would help. I like the position of the character in relation to the camera though.

These are just some ideas from someone fairly new to this, so take them with a grain of salt. I'm sure others will have great ideas, as well.

(On a side note, have you heard of the Fabricator, which allows you to change the textures on clothes in DS4.5 easily? I love it, and the rest of its add on packs. I don't know how hard it was to change the textures in gimp, but you may find the Fabricator easier in some circumstances.:) )

LycanthropeX said:

. . . As for the amount of blood and gore in the image, i see more blood and gore when making steaks for my lunch.
Human blood and gore? :gulp:
.
(i) the semiotics of the image are not, so to speak, worth shedding blood over (ii) the TOS referred to are the forum TOS - the store is DAZ central's to police and rule on.

(i) the semiotics of the image are not, so to speak, worth shedding blood over

(ii) the TOS referred to are the forum TOS - the store is DAZ central's to police and rule on.