Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 8
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FWSA Filia for Sunny 7
She's wearing Selena Hair (featured many times.) The eyebrows look better than in the promos, I thought they looked more painted on in those. She has the chubbier face and youthful look. Not sure if that line above the eyelid (on both eyes) is supposed to be there or not. I don't like it but it doesn't show up that much. See second image.
Edit- also note in the promo, where the eyebrows arch, it appears they are irregular, perhaps thinner in one small spot. Not when I rendered her! Brows are filled in and that isn't as pronounced. (Which I like better.)
This is just a tiny slice of the Medieval Tavern from Faveral. Its huge with a TON of stuff- 3 basic areas - the bar, the commons area and the kitchens. I have another render almost done, and once that one is done I will do a couple renders that show the tavern more completely. Should be able to get those done and posted tonight. In the meantime, more of DarwinsMishaps LIE make up, this one with the anagennessis presets.
FWSA Danny HD for The Guy 7 The Bard Outfit (Gen3M) Mathew Hair(Gen2/3M)
TIP: Dark sleeves/tops against dark pants when posing? Bring in a point light or linear point light. Greatly reduce the Y scale so it is long and narrow, running the length of the sleeve. Make sure the beginning of the light is on the same side as your light source, having it end where the light is fading from all other pieces of clothing. Note the light on his sleeve starts on the left and ends before the elbow, because the right side doesn't have the strong lighting on the rest of the clothes. You want it to blend, not stand out. Had I not told you a point light was on his arm, you wouldn't first look at the image and say "Aha! Light was added there." (BTW, those specks on the sleeve is the material, the render was done.)
So there's no reason to have dark clothing showing up as black blobs without definition when arms, chest, and legs with dark clothing overlap greatly. This was just the arm, I left the legs alone. You may want to do that anyway, to keep the emphasis on the top half.
TIP: Put your light as a bright pink/purple so you can tell where it is hitting. This affected the sleeve, and barely touched the face or hand. Then put your light to the color you want. Also notice the lower chest is slightly lit, but the dark shadow under the arm which was created by the light was used to clearly define and separate it from the slightly lit chest. Use your shadows!
The smirk is from Michael 7 Expressive, called Side Smiling. I love it! Didn't tweak it at all. This dude's a spoiled rich prince, a player and he knows it.
EDIT: CLICK TO ENLARGE, these are looking quite dark compared to the original because the original is 1200px and these are 600. You'll really see the difference with the arm. (and knee, which is fine to have a sharper cutoff because the hand is also blocking the light naturally.)
To create the shadow, the point light must be slightly above the arm and far enough away to make the shadow longer (aka, more vertical showing.)
Oooh, he looks really good in the tavern! The mood is really set too, with the lighting. I love the bar woman in the background. (She's going to get a surprise when he turns around, that's for sure. Nice touch!)
Thanks! I did another with DOF to set the mood a bit more but didn't want to clutter your thread up lol.
So here are three more of the tavern and there's a bit more still. Its a really really nice set. A note thought, the lights provided only work in 3Delight NOT in Iray. My first one above is in Iray using the Ghost Lights by Kindred Arts and one Linear Point Light and that's all. So, if you don't have those lights you should get them lol.
Overall it looks good, but is it just me or do the round tables look cartoony in the first render? Almost look like industrial or plastic tables, and not wood. Maybe more bump is needed or something? Is the ghost light shining right on it? I was wondering if UberBasing it might help, if you're rendering in Iray. (Not trying to be critical, I just want to be honest about my first impression.)
This is a grim Danny in Biker Bandit (Gen3M). I'm having to do a bit of postwork to get skin tones I like (hued with magento and yellow combination) so I think before I ever use him, I'll change his skin to have more ruddiness. I also increased his waist size 72% because based on Guy 7, he was waifer thin and seemed shoulder heavy to me.
Biker Bandit has nice materials and details.
Okay, if this hasn't been noted before, Lexi, for Rune 7, when you load her onto Rune (because she doesn't have an avatar/character when you click on Characters in Content Library) and click on the HEAD morph, it changes the body too. Not supposed to do that is it? It flattens the chest. Then when you click to add the body, the chest inflates again! @fredwinklerart @sabby
Sorry I should have been more clear. The original render with the Dark Mage in it is the Ghost Lights.
The other three are all straight out of the box, 3delight renders which is why it may look more toony that the Iray one. I didn't do anything with the three plain example renders except turn the intensity of the lights down as they were very bright.
Take a look at your surfaces specular settings. Are they coming in at 100%? I've noticed the last several 3DL sets I've loaded (even new ones with Iray and 3DL materials) are loading with 100% specular turned on which totally blows the lights out. I have to edit all the materials to a low value. I'm starting to wonder if there's a bug in the current DS version that loads the materials wrong (I don't have an older version to check)?
Honestly, there are hundreds of props in this I have zero desire to mess with it. I will be using it with Iray and doing my own lighting. I just wanted to show how big the set was and what it looked like out of the box with the default lighting. The lights that come with it seem to be 3Delight only.
I will try and remember to check it out on my laptop, I'm still running 4.8 on it, although I don't have it in front of me right now. Will check the specular settings on what I have loaded now and let you know.
FWSA Lexi HD for Rune 7
I like that vendors are making eyebrows asymmetrical and not "perfect" as I have been mentioning it for years in these threads (as have others) but I don't particularly care for this sketchy look where large chunks are missing or so thin in stripes that they appear to be gone. Again, some of you probably love the look, (or need it actually) but if you don't then do not pass this character up because of it- tweaking the eyebrows will take you a few minutes at most. This was less than seven minutes, just a quickie, and I left them a bit asymmetrical. (Yep, I put on a timer.)
EDIT: Coming now- doing Rune without Lexi materials, using Lexi morphs.
Tweaked.
Yup you are right they are coming in at 100% on the specular on the latest version of 4.9. Doesn't seem to effect the Iray render I did but I had to crank the lights way down when I loaded it and ran it on 3Delight.
I actually like her with both eyebrows...
Changing the eyecolor shouldn't apply the eyebrows, and it does on Lexi. You get forced to use Lexi's materials when you use Rune with Lexi morphs, and try to apply Lexi's eye color. When switching eye colors using different characters, it doesn't usually apply the face skin/eyebrow materials!
Edit- it's the makeup, aka the eyeliner option, not the eye color.
Now that's very strange.
This is Rune with Lexi morphs, but not her skin. You can't change her EDIT: makeup, stuck with the basic one, or it will change the eyebrows.
I edited it- it's not the eye color, it's the makeup. I guess that does change the entire face materials.
Yes, it wouldn't affect Iray. Think I'll dig in a little more to be sure I'm not imagining it, but it doesn't seem right.
I like that rune has sort of straight across eyebrows. Daz characters have almost diabolical arching eyebrows at times which I really don't like. Just wish runes were thicker.
As you can already guess, +1 on the thicker! I tested Ginger to see if applying the makeups changed the eyebrows/entire face makeups, and of course they do. I knew I already knew that, but just tired I think. One of those "I knew that!" moments.
Rich, if that hasn't been reported, once you test it, I hope you do if you have time.
Here is FWSA Sushmita HD for Victoria 7 and her Jewelry with some of her makeup and jewelry.
Thought I'd show an Iray render from On the Shore since it's in Fast Grab right now (where I got it the other day). Lots of vegetation, nice buildings and docks, good sky and water, surrounding mountains (not visible in this render but you can see it in 360 here). It actually renders fairly quickly and the movement in the viewport wasn't bad at all. Only thing I don't care for is the water where it matches up to the mountains - looks too smooth and circular rather than the nooks and crannies you find in a real lake or sea shore.
I was planning to if it's true. Just noticed it this past week but it's a pain on big sets.
Sushmita is beautiful in that lighting. Rich- looking at that 360, that water really is bad with the straight line, totally agree. I love how the shoreline is jammed packed with vegetation, really get a lot there. Couldn't believe it was in Fast Grab! (which I just checked, hasn't changed. Keeping an eye on it now every day!)
Not sure about Aria from the promos. Skin seems a bit like a doll's skin, not sure how realistic it really is. Doesn't appear to have any bump so anyone who buys her, I would love to see different renders. I know I've been surprised (shocked) at how some of the characters render compared to their promos. And lighting can really change the looks, so she may be quite different under another set of lights.
Hm I took a look at Medieval Tavern in DS4.6 (which I still have installed because it was the last time I had full support for AoA lights,etc) and the benches which I tested come in at different spec, gloss and bump settins depending on whether you load the P4/P6 of PP versions of the props. P4/P6 versionscome in at spec 100%, glossy 57.2%, bump 100%. PP version comes in at spec 60%, glossy 75%, bump 24%. The ReadMe for the set says to use PP version in DAZ Studio, though that means the bump is way too low. Funny thing is, I file-compared the P4 and PP .pp2 files for the bench and there is no difference except that the bump texture is a .jpg for PP and a .bum for P4. Looks like DS4.6 somehow interpreted the files differently. In DS4.9 (I run the Beta so I can hang onto DS4.6 easily) the P4/P6 and PP versions all load at 100% specular strength.
Novica - great tip on using point lights - I didn't realise you could deform the shape of a point-light in that way! (This thread is a great learning experience)
I'll put my hand up and admit that I'm one who quite likes Lexi's brows: they remind me of my own (sketchy and a bit patchy in places!) and I think it's nice to have a variety (I love the extra-thick ones on some characters too), especially now we have the tools to remove un-loved brows and replace with alternatives (thank you Zev0, the late-lamented draagonstorm, Lyoness and iWave)
The Y scale for a sleeve is usually only going to be 16-22% high for a portrait shot- I'm still trying to figure out what "width" does in the section where the luminance and intensity are set. Not sure how that varies from the x scale or z scale, whichever "width" is referring to. Is it front/back so z, or side to side so x? And when should we use width instead of the scales? (lol, thread is a learning experience for me too!)
I agree about the variety of eyebrows and real-life representation. Would sure be boring if all these characters were cookie cutter. Speaking of variety, the Amisi update was in DIM several days ago.
BTW, I've been reading through some of the posts and youtube tutorials, but haven't had any luck getting the studio to save what I do with the geometry editor. I do the Create Surface From Selected, it's named, and it shows up in Surfaces, but if I close studio and come back in, it's gone, even when I saved it as a scene subset. Before I spend time doing the real thing and not just a test section, how do you save what you do?
This is where it mentioned saving as a scene subset.