I need an opinion here.  I made two renders, one close up, and one full scene to include the cauldron and various props with a little post work to add the green magic and a little more luminescence to the candles.  The close up was rendered with Victoria 6's HD, and the full scale does not have it.  I didn't add the green magic to the close up, because without the cauldron, it would have been strange to give her a green glowing elbow.  Both files are close to 2 MB so you can zoom in if you open the thumbnails.

These are both rendered in 3Delight.  I'm pretty proud of the glass.  I used AoA's metalized glass shaders to achieve the realistic look that the Iray version of Perfect Potions had.

Which should I use for this contest?

Portrait:

Full Scene:

Hi guys,can someone explain how can i have the dynamic scarf for v4 (http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-scarf) assume that position (like in the product page picture) on a different figure than victoria 4?I'm afraid i'm not so good on dynamic clothing 

thanks

EDIT 2: I notice that the Dragonbraid and related stuff was showing as purchased for me, so I went into DIM and had it download for me. The Pose files ARE all there, at least when done as a DIM download. If you don't have them, something must have gone wrong with the download. What happens if you try a manual download, or try a DIM download if you went through Connect?

Previous post below:

Something got packaged incorrectly, I think. I bought the Dragonbraid stuff back when it was with RDNA, and it had PZ2 files, which work just fine in every version of Studio 4 to date.

No readme for the current Daz store version exists, so I've attached a zip file with the readme for the version I bought at RDNA, which contains a list of the files. You should definitely put in a ticket for this, because if you don't have PZ2 files, it's not all there. (EDIT: Zip file updated to include readme for the Addon, which seems to be included in the Daz bundle as well.)

According to the readme with the file, the Pose directory  with the Dragonbraid Bundle should contain the following:

..\Runtime\Libraries\Pose\AK DragonBraid\00- Utils\
   00 - Victoria.png
   00 - Victoria.pz2
   01 - V4 IK off.png
   01 - V4 IK off.pz2
   01 - V4 IK on.png
   01 - V4 IK on.pz2
   01 - V4 ZERO.png
   01 - V4 ZERO.pz2
   02 - Jewelry.png
   02 - Jewelry.pz2
   03 - Needle Coil L.png
   03 - Needle Coil L.pz2
   03 - Needle Coil R.png
   03 - Needle Coil R.pz2
   03a - Hide Clasp top.png
   03a - Hide Clasp top.pz2
   03a - Show Clasp top.png
   03a - Show Clasp top.pz2

..\Runtime\Libraries\Pose\AK DragonBraid\01 - Hair MATs\
   00 - Hairbase.png
   00 - Hairbase.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 01.png
   01 - Hairbase 01.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 02.png
   01 - Hairbase 02.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 03.png
   01 - Hairbase 03.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 04.png
   01 - Hairbase 04.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 05.png
   01 - Hairbase 05.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 06.png
   01 - Hairbase 06.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 07.png
   01 - Hairbase 07.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 08.png
   01 - Hairbase 08.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 09.png
   01 - Hairbase 09.pz2
   01 - Hairbase 10.png
   01 - Hairbase 10.pz2
   02 - Braid 1.png
   02 - Braid 1.pz2
   03 - Braid 01.png
   03 - Braid 01.pz2
   03 - Braid 02.png
   03 - Braid 02.pz2
   03 - Braid 03.png
   03 - Braid 03.pz2
   03 - Braid 04.png
   03 - Braid 04.pz2
   03 - Braid 05.png
   03 - Braid 05.pz2
   03 - Braid 06.png
   03 - Braid 06.pz2
   03 - Braid 07.png
   03 - Braid 07.pz2
   03 - Braid 08.png
   03 - Braid 08.pz2
   03 - Braid 09.png
   03 - Braid 09.pz2
   03 - Braid 10.png
   03 - Braid 10.pz2
   06 - Coilbraid.png
   06 - Coilbraid.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 01.png
   07 - Coilbraid 01.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 02.png
   07 - Coilbraid 02.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 03.png
   07 - Coilbraid 03.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 04.png
   07 - Coilbraid 04.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 05.png
   07 - Coilbraid 05.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 06.png
   07 - Coilbraid 06.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 07.png
   07 - Coilbraid 07.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 08.png
   07 - Coilbraid 08.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 09.png
   07 - Coilbraid 09.pz2
   07 - Coilbraid 10.png
   07 - Coilbraid 10.pz2

..\Runtime\Libraries\Pose\AK DragonBraid\02 - Accessories MATs\
   00 - Hairbase Clasps.png
   00 - Hairbase Clasps.pz2
   01 - Hairbase clasp 1.png
   01 - Hairbase clasp 1.pz2
   01 - Hairbase clasp 2.png
   01 - Hairbase clasp 2.pz2
   02 - Braid Amulets & Clasps.png
   02 - Braid Amulets & Clasps.pz2
   03 - Braid clasp amulets 1.png
   03 - Braid clasp amulets 1.pz2
   03 - Braid clasp amulets 2.png
   03 - Braid clasp amulets 2.pz2
   03 - Coilbraid amulet 1.png
   03 - Coilbraid amulet 1.pz2
   03 - Coilbraid amulet 2.png
   03 - Coilbraid amulet 2.pz2
   04 - Jewelry.png
   04 - Jewelry.pz2
   05 - Braidamulets 1.png
   05 - Braidamulets 1.pz2
   05 - Braidamulets 2.png
   05 - Braidamulets 2.pz2
   05 - Circlet 1.png
   05 - Circlet 1.pz2
   05 - Circlet 2.png
   05 - Circlet 2.pz2
   05 - Hairneedle 1.png
   05 - Hairneedle 1.pz2
   05 - Hairneedle 2.png
   05 - Hairneedle 2.pz2
   05 - Hangers 1.png
   05 - Hangers 1.pz2
   05 - Hangers 2.png
   05 - Hangers 2.pz2

So it was pretty inexpensive actually ... the regular total is $692.45
 

No, you won't get better render quality with the G3 characters. 

Genesis 1-3 are the base characters, each with different "skills". Victoria and all the other characters are morphs and additional skins.

You can create your 'own' characters by usining the morphs that the Genesis characters come with, though for better result, buying a morph is recommended. Also, you can make your own skins, but it might not give you the result you are looking for.

This zhread might be interesting to you: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24257/daz-3d-human-figures-a-history/p1

I just discovered the Daz world a few days ago.

I understand that Genesis 3 is the latest female figure. Before was Genesis 2, and before again Genesis. I have read in some posts people advising to stick to Genesis 2 instead of Genesis 3, esp to find much more materials available.

I would like to understand the Pros and Cons of using Genesis 3: will I get better rendering quality than when using Genesis 2, or is the quality related to the skin materials anyway? Well, what are the pros of Genesis 3?

I also read names like Victoria and others. What are they? Just illustrations of what you can do with Genesis 2 and 3? Or completely different models coming from the Poser world? If so, again, what are the pros and cons of using them?

How would you compare Genesis 3 Vs Victoria 7 Vs Genesis 2?

Related question: whatever the model I use, can I use them to create black or Asian characters, or do I need to download special characters being already from that "ethny/race"?

Sorry for my naive questions but I guess your answers will help many people at the same time.

I can't remember, but do you have to select Victoria 4's Head in the Scene pane to see the Head morphs?

Oddly enough, I can see thumbnails for all the head morphs in the Content Library Victoria 4.2 Base pulldown folder. So, they are loaded. They're just not working, nor are they available in the Parameters tab (but all the other Morphs++ are).

Yes, sir. I do have F:/My DAZ 3D Library/Runtime/Libraries/!DAZ/Victoria 4.

It is only the head morphs that are not visible/active. This is also true for Michael 4. I have not checked Kids 4. Have you ever seen such a sight in your life?

So you have F:/My DAZ 3D Library/Runtime/Libraries/!DAZ/Victoria 4? Having multiple content directories isn't an issue.

Are you sure there is only one \Runtime\Libraries\!DAZ\Victoria 4 folder on the system? Where is it, and what are your content directories?

Staci is a unique custom figure, and not a Genesis morph which is why the outfit won't work. It is still conforming clothing, but it only works on the figure it was designed for, in the same way outfits for Cookie or Victoria 3 won't generally work.

Daz do offer a refund policy if you buy something in error, but I thought it was best to mention why this particular product didn't work so that you don't repeat the mistake. Always check the compatible figures when you buy an item.

Well I got off the fence and made my first ever Genesis3 purchase, picking up the Kenji starter bundle.  I also picked up the Gen X2 latest plugins for Genesis3, but I must be doing something wrong, since I keep trying to transfer the shape to Genesis1 but the only thing that seems to actually transfer is the belly button.  I've been studying the documentation for GenX2 but not sure where I'm going wrong (I already had GenX2 and the plugin for Genesis2, so I should have all I need in the tool to make this work),  I'll keep tinkering, and may end up having to post a query for help on the GenX2 thread.  But I'm stoked to have Kenji in my possession, even if I haven't quite figured how to get him onto my Genesis1 yet.

Congratulations on the move to G3! I think you'll be happy. I've enjoyed the small out of G3 content I have and definitely see myself moving forward with using more and more G3 content. I've been insanely happy with Victoria 7 and hope to get some of the G3F and G3M morphs as soon as they go on sale (assuming I have the money at the time lol). :)

As for the GenX2, from what I've read about the product, in order to go to G3 you need all three of these products:

http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-generation-x2

http://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-2

http://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-3

Sadly I can't afford to go that route unless these go on a deep deep sale some day. 

Problem is me and Jon work in Carrara that is not able to use G3 yet.

Indeed  :)  But not really so much of a problem though since til Kenji I wasn't very keen on G3.  But I do really like Kenji quite a bit, he became 'must have'.  We'll see how he looks in Carrara Octane, if I can just get the base shape to transfer.

I do have all three of those gen X2 products/addons, so I should have everything I need.  And I can easily put Sasori (a Kenji character morph) onto my Genesis1, ironically, but haven't yet been able how to put the base Kenji7 shape on my Gen1 yet.  I'm surely doing something knuckleheaded...

Well I got off the fence and made my first ever Genesis3 purchase, picking up the Kenji starter bundle.  I also picked up the Gen X2 latest plugins for Genesis3, but I must be doing something wrong, since I keep trying to transfer the shape to Genesis1 but the only thing that seems to actually transfer is the belly button.  I've been studying the documentation for GenX2 but not sure where I'm going wrong (I already had GenX2 and the plugin for Genesis2, so I should have all I need in the tool to make this work),  I'll keep tinkering, and may end up having to post a query for help on the GenX2 thread.  But I'm stoked to have Kenji in my possession, even if I haven't quite figured how to get him onto my Genesis1 yet.

Congratulations on the move to G3! I think you'll be happy. I've enjoyed the small out of G3 content I have and definitely see myself moving forward with using more and more G3 content. I've been insanely happy with Victoria 7 and hope to get some of the G3F and G3M morphs as soon as they go on sale (assuming I have the money at the time lol). :)

As for the GenX2, from what I've read about the product, in order to go to G3 you need all three of these products:

http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-generation-x2

http://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-2

http://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-3

Sadly I can't afford to go that route unless these go on a deep deep sale some day. 

Problem is me and Jon work in Carrara that is not able to use G3 yet.

Well I got off the fence and made my first ever Genesis3 purchase, picking up the Kenji starter bundle.  I also picked up the Gen X2 latest plugins for Genesis3, but I must be doing something wrong, since I keep trying to transfer the shape to Genesis1 but the only thing that seems to actually transfer is the belly button.  I've been studying the documentation for GenX2 but not sure where I'm going wrong (I already had GenX2 and the plugin for Genesis2, so I should have all I need in the tool to make this work),  I'll keep tinkering, and may end up having to post a query for help on the GenX2 thread.  But I'm stoked to have Kenji in my possession, even if I haven't quite figured how to get him onto my Genesis1 yet.

Congratulations on the move to G3! I think you'll be happy. I've enjoyed the small out of G3 content I have and definitely see myself moving forward with using more and more G3 content. I've been insanely happy with Victoria 7 and hope to get some of the G3F and G3M morphs as soon as they go on sale (assuming I have the money at the time lol). :)

As for the GenX2, from what I've read about the product, in order to go to G3 you need all three of these products:

http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-generation-x2

http://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-2

http://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-3

Sadly I can't afford to go that route unless these go on a deep deep sale some day. 

Metamotion, a new DAZ Studio user (but not new to 3D), had a bunch of product specific questions for me, along with one about FBX export (which I'm not sure about). So I thought I should post my reply here incase it is useful to others and also so that someone who has worked with FBX might chime in with suggestions.

First I have to say that I'm a little mystified as to how new users find out that Readme files exist. It seems like they often are under the impression that there is no documentation for products, and that's a shame. While a Readme doesn't always have the information that new users are looking for, it often does and it is the official place for product documentation. Check out this very short thread for two methods to find the readme for a product:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/33721/how-to-find-the-readme-files

Ok next: Metamotion said "My Max guy says UV maps missing on the face upon export (FBX)? Not sure what that's about, I'm not strong on UVs. I did notice that Genesis 2's face texture sort of disappears when I add the HotRod sunshine material, for instance."

Partial Answer: Having not used FBX export, I'm not sure but this could be an issue with either the FBX exporter or Max import of FBX, or it could be related to Geografts and FBX. Hopefully someone else here knows more, but be sure your Max guy knows that standard DAZ Studio figures use multiple UVs (one for the head, one for the torso, and one for the limbs). Additionally, Bot Genesis and Bot Armor are Geografts (which means that when you load them, they sort of replace some of the base figure's geometry with their own), so they have some UVs that match the base figure (the "human" parts in my Promos) and additional UVs for mechanical parts. Lastly, when you apply one of my Material Presets to the base figure, it automatically applies a robot like texture to the face and head. You can then select the face and other surfaces (those that are meant to be human) in the Surface tab and apply your prefered character material presets to that. Step by step instructions can be found in the Readme's for these products.

Metamotion asked: "1. How do I create this hair, this face and these eyes"

Answer: The hair is http://www.daz3d.com/fashion-hair . The face texture is Belle which comes with Victoria 6 . The eyes come from the Chrome4Face material preset in People > Genesis 2 Female > Clothing > Bot Armor > Materials.

Metamotion Asked: "2. How do I create this hair, face and eyes and the ear thingies?"

Answer: Hair is http://www.daz3d.com/ricardi-hairstyle.Face and eyes are from http://www.daz3d.com/v4-elite-texture-lana . Ears thingies are from Bot Genesis. Specifically, make sure you have Genesis selected in the Scene tab, then navigate on the Content Library tab to My Library > People > Genesis > Clothing > Bot Genesis > and choose (double-click) BotGen_All or BotGen_Head.

Metamotion asked: "3. Having trouble figuring out what to load to get the basic female robot shown here (ultimately with human face)."

Answer: The fastest way is to make sure you have Genesis selected in the Scene tab, then navigate on the Content Library tab to My Library > People > Genesis > Clothing > Bot Genesis > and  double-click  BotGen_All. Then, on the Scene tab, click the arrow to expand Genesis, select the Bot_Gen_torso figure and delete it. Next, make sure you have Genesis selected again, then double-click Bot_Torso_b (for human head) in the Content Library tab to load it. Finally, to get human skin texture on just the face and head see the Readme for Step-by-step instructions on how to apply partial mats.

Metamotion asked: "4. How do I create the fishnet (criss-cross) texture shown here?"

Answer: You need either http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-female-bot-armor-bundle , or http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-texture-for-bot-armor and http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-female-bot-armor or http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-female-bot-armor-set-2 . Then select Genesis 2 Female in the Scene tab and on the Content Library tab, navigate to My Library > People > Genesis 2 Female > Materials > Bot Armor and double click Hotrod_Sunrise or one of the other material presets. The metalic fishnet look is created by a displacement map on the shader. Please note this was made for 3Delight. Converting to iray is a bit tricky.

That's all for now. I hope this helps!

FWSA Paloma HD for Victoria 7

Thanks. I'll make a note of it and keep working on it.

Yes, I've done some research on this. When I did a fresh install of Poser 10, I found no !DAZ folder in runtime:libraries and had to create one. I haven't run V4V3.bat yet. I ran the other one in Poser 6, didn't work, ran it in Poser 10 as well.

I don't like multiple runtimes at all, but I'm stuck with loads of old content from Poser 6 that I needed to import into libraries.

I'm too afraid to delete the old V4 morphs from Poser 6, because I'm afraid I will be left with nothing.

New Poser 10 downloads from Install Manager seem to be running off of zip files in Public Documents/My DAZ 3D Libraries.

Special DAZ morphs like Creature Creator and Stephanie 4 are to hard to install by hand because they contain a Victoria 4 folder with a list of body parts a mile long.

Well my Tonal Mapping was already turned on & I set the settings as suggested but no luck. I also set the F-Stop directly on the camera to 5.6 but I could find no where on the 'camera 1' settings to set the ISO to 400 which I found a bit wierd.  I think maybe because the light preset I use gets stuck outside the Victorian Shoppes and not inside. So I need to zoom out I suppose, knowing my luck with DAZ, way, way, way out and then click & drag, click & drag, click & drag until I get the lights inside the Victoria Shoppe that I actually am using.

Now when I turned the Tonal Settings off then I began to get a very dark render that had the more reflective surfaces showing, mainly the native iRay surfaces on the characters. In this case no ISO to set on 'camera 1'. The surfaces on the Victorian Shoppes were mostly black. No big surprise the light preset was outside the room. I am going through with DAZ3D's and MecD's PBR presets and converting the shoppes to real PBR which should help make the 'camera' work more like a camera I guess. DAZ Studio can be a lot of work.

OK, 2nd attempt. All I really have left that I want to try to improve is silk for the dress, metalicise the green on the building, make the wood in the windows look better, amd maybe improve the glass in the windows to look better.

I wonder if putting a bit of furniture in the room with him would help move him more toward the background of the scene.  The girl's space would be uncluttered and might draw the eye more toward her. 

That would then leave a mystery as to her shocked reaction but I agree as a still it is not working. To convey those old Victoria sensibilities to those that weren't raised strictly (lol, there are some) or as an historical curiosity needs a short animation which is out of the scope of this contest. I will finish the picture and save if so animation a scene later but not enter it into the contest. Instead I will try a couple of more portrait like rendering into a picture in a couple of other ways and see if those work.

Thanks. I am learning.