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I have been writing instead of rendering, since I write a lot with Google Docs (via the phone app, but I can also do my edits on the laptop's browser.) I also finally got around to converting SAV Alpha Male for M5's skin texture to base G8M. What I liked about this character was his baked-on tan lines. He has an extremely pale lower body. Except the Iray settings here somehow managed to even out his skin tone, which is unfortunate. But also, my fault since the only thing I converted was the Base Mat texture. I guess I might have to edit my own SSS for this skin to have more contrast. I also need to draw out the rest of his beard since I couldn't transfer it well because of the geografts.
This is my test result on Dain 8 = 75% and Kjaer 8 = 50%. Due to the geografts, I was unable to transfer his shaved head texture. (I also have no idea how to use the Clone Tool on any app I use, including GIMP. I always end up doing lots of my own painting by hand...specifically, by mousepad since I can never be bothered to use a mouse or a drawing tablet, despite having both.) His eyes are from Asher HD for G8M by Mousso.
(EDIT: IDK what happened to the original render. There was a square where it should've been, but then at the time, I was having trouble posting pics, so maybe that's what happened. Here's a redone one, except I added Aeon Soul's Everyday 2 for G8M shirt and then the back textures to the Basic Wear briefs. I picked this pink color to better match the HDRI.)
Another thing, is that this is my first render with DAZ 4.14. Unfortunately, I hate how the enviroment settings are moved around. I had hoped to render this with the default HDRI, but I always use this HDRI, so it's good, I guess. Also, I'm wary of rendering this all the way because there was some other rendering project, including the previous Lady Noir G8F render, that I had to attempt several times because DAZ 4.12 kept crashing. This is why I didn't even let this render all the way. :/
I almost forgot about this render. This was meant to be a half-orc character of mine with the same HDRI as Dain/Kjaer from my previous post. I remember that I had several crashes working on this character and I don't remember if it was while I was trying to do test renders for her shape or for her skin. This was my last render done with DAZ 4.12. Her hair is dForce Sea Salt by chevybabe25.
Finally got around to rendering Bebe High for G8F. This is her with Vilma Hair for G3F & G8F. The skin is from Aurore by Kayleyss.
This is something I would've loved to share in the DAZ Galleries. RIP
So I tweaked the materials on my Bebe Boop render. (I had different ones because I wanted them to look a certain way in B&W.) I love the color one more.
IDK if I did it right, but the updated DAZ Galleries now allow more than one pic per submission, so here is Color and B&W Bebe Boop [x].
I bit the bullet and bought Vicey3D's V3D Armine - G8F. (Too bad she was released after a 60% off sale, I think. but that's okay.) First render I decided to do was her and the Growing Up shaping preset 9 - 10. I used and EmmaAndJordi Nasolabial Crease Smooth morph (I can't recall the morph pack it's from right now) and applied this preset.
The hair is PhilW's dForce Longdrape Hair for Genesis 3 and 8 Female(s). (I need to figure out how to edit the hairline, if possible. It's too high for my tastes. I prefer it start about a nose's length above the nose. So in this case, it'll appear like it should be lowered about one inch.) The shirt and capris are from Aeon Soul's Everday 2. The staff is from Aery Mage for G3F and it's in her hand thanks to Mattymanx's The Universal Prop and Poses for G3 and G8. The shoes are from Kawaii Infused Outfit for G8F but with some shaders applied to make them green and yellow. That handheld gaming device is from Minto.
I might do more proper renders of Armine as her usual adult self. I like her skin and want to get another Vicey3D girl down the road. But as always, other hobbies have gotten my attention. Here's another more close up portrait.
Should've thinned the lips a bit, but she looks like a fairly believable kid. A lot of child characters who rely on the Growing Up Morphs have a very "samey" face. But it is likely that the adult shape that mixes with the Growing Up Morphs wasn't very distinct in the first place.
Popping in to say that I finally managed to replace that missing Dain/Kjaer mix with the transferred Alpha Male M5 textures. But also, DS keeps crashing a lot and it even crashed for this mix render. I had made this one and then a larger resolution one where my laptop shut down in the middle of it.
I'm thinking of making a G8F and G8M shaping preset of Dawn and Dusk (apparently, the first ones, "SR1"), like I did with La Femme. I picked both of them up for free a long time ago but never really did anything with them because Genesis 1 and G8F/G8M fill my 3D character rendering needs. I like their shape and don't think they're "ugly" at all. But I think it would be interesting to have a fascimile which has the better bends of G8. I wish to recreate L'Homme too, but I think it's stupid of me to buy a figure that's not usuable in DS. I had gotten La Femme free with a purchase of a G8F item which I wanted to use, so that was fair.
Sorta DS-related, but I decided to try out Google Camera's "Photo Sphere" from my Google Pixel 4a. For it to work, you must take several composite photos of the environment and the app stitches them up for you. Like FaceGen and the other similar apps, your results are as good as the photos you take. Here, I tried to take a photo of my living room and as you can see, I didn't take a good photo because that couch got butchered. That's why I placed Dog 8 over it.
I also am having trouble rendering, but the Iray Preview is okay. Even though my computer slows down because it's not powerful-enough to handle it. Apparently, the best way to make such HDRIs is with Photoshop, which I don't have, so I gotta experiment and make due. I still need to figure out how to properly line up the ground. I will most-likely re-rake the photo. I already tried and my second photo wasn't anywhere as good as this one.
Here is another render with a much better HDRI created by someone who knows what they're doing. This one is called "Adams Place Bridge" from HDRI Haven. I also wanted to test how BadKittehCo's Exoline Boots and Accesories for G8F paired up with Aeon Soul's Everyday 2 (particularly the capris and boots). The model is my G8F avatar, with Osuine for G8F's "Osuine Scale" because I'm short like that. I added the Dog 8 Great Dane for size comparison.
I had actually taken a screenshot of the Iray preview, just as I had done in my previous post because I worried that DS would crash like it has been doing. Fortunately, nothing happened, so I managed to do a proper render of the scene.
I was trying to look through my installed G8F shapes to see if there was one that was "close" to Jim Burton's Glamorous Vicki Set for Victoria 3. The two "closest" shapes I had were Mousso's Fan Ling for G8F and DAZ3D's own Mei Lin 8. Both needed "Torso Length" and "Legs Length" adjustment morphs from the DO Body Morphs, and the "Youth Posture" from Zev0's Growing Up morphs, to get close. Since this is a PA shape, it doesn't seem right for me to share my recipe. (But you could try it out yourself with the aforementioned shapes.)
Unfortunately, DS crashed again (less often than 4.14) and my laptop shut down. Fortunately, I saved the scene, so I could try again tomorrow. Kinda late for me anyway.
Interestingly, while making this scene, I discovered that Penny 8's head morph is very, very similar to Victoria 3's head shape. I was considering transferring the V3 shape over to G8F, but I don't have to. All I have to do is dial Penny 8's Head at 100%, and then "Neck Length" at 75%, to get a very close to V3.
EDIT: I was finally able to adjust the crop on the thumbnail, so I went ahead and finally posted this one to the DAZ Galleries [x].
Today, I tried a different HDRI and lights, to render my attempt at recreating Glamorous Vicki with G8F (G8.1F, specifically.) This particular shape used Mei Lin 8 as a base. I think she was a bit bustier than the V3 character, but it was close-enough. The outfit was originally supposed to be from dForce LavieByCk Summer Essentials, but I wasn't happy with how the bikini bottoms looked. So I used the ones from Twilight Sorceress. Then I used two random scarves (Rocabillly Outfit for G8F and dForce Salwar Kameez) and shoes from Slinky Dress for G8F, with the Summer Essentials "shader" which was just me copying materials and placing it on the other outfits so they'd match.
I don't like Penny 8's skin. It is my least favorite skin. So I mostly unistalled it with DIM by manually copy-pasted the head and body shapes elsewhere and then moving back to the correct folder after the unistallation was finished. (I got her because her Starter Bundle was free or deeply discounted once and I liked the items in it.) I like her shape a lot, so it wasn't much of a big loss. Here, I used Mousso's Chanel's skin. I think she looks a bit like Nicole Kidman here and that wasn't my intention.
These were Chanel's skin + 4.15 PBR Iray skin shaders. I don't think I used them right but it's understandable, because I don't know what I'm doing. (I still don't understand Filament.) But it doesn't matter as long as the results look nice to me.
Hair is Fane Hair for G8F. I just decided to move it back so y'all could see her face better.
This was actually my first attempt at using G8.1F, nearly forgot about this render. It was with Pretty 3D's Pretty Base character for G8F. I also decided to try the PBR Shader, but had even less of a clue about what was going on. I don't even know what's going on in this render either. She's...free-falling indoors. XD
Since those 8.1 one threads are super active and get buried quickly. I'll share my thoughts here. After all, I'm talking about my own personal rendering. I'll list it in bullets so it would be easier to read.
Nevermind Friday, I managed to do a quick test of G8.1M. I chose a character I'm trying to make. His skin is like a mix of Changeling Chick's Foster and Nix 8? He's supposed to have the look of a fairy boy.
(I think this character was supposed to have the Growing Up "Teen" morph applied to him afterwards, to age him down further, because he's supposed to be the identical son of another character I made. In this render, this is like the "adult" version of the son, which can also be seen as the younger version of the dad.)
I still need to work on him, something feels "off" but IDK what. I know this shaping preset looks fine, but not really for me.
Thank you. I try to explain what I do, since I often see the opposite happen in this hobby -- nobody wants to talk about what assets they used to create their renders.
I tried to make my own pug with Baxter. This is my recipe:
This first render was with the French Bulldog's materials. The coat colors aren't "correct" but this is the closest skin I have in my Runtime.
This second render is with Baxter the English Bulldog HD's "Fawn" coat and dForce fur. I wanted to apply the fur with the French Bulldog skin, but it never worked out.
It would've been more believable with the proper coat color and to have a morph which curls the tail.
Looks great, thanks for sharing the recipie :)
I see that the DAZ Galleries are back, but the links are all broken on mobile. In fact, it seems the galleries are difficult to use in mobile unless you flip your phone landscape. It was the same problem with the store, the site is easier to access on landscape than on portrait.
I will have to go back and update links again. (Not a problem for me, since I'm constantly posting links to wikis on my AO3 fics' Author's Notes.) I want to try out the option to post two renders in the same upload with my Bebe Boop pic. But I'll hold off on it since it sounds like people are having trouble with uploading their pics.
I was trying to upload this render of Josh Crockett's Frost Maiden HD for G8F to the DAZ Galleries, but I kept getting an error. I tried again and was successful. [x]
First of all, I like this character. She has a nice lithe shape. (Something that I don't really like in other characters, because their shapes don't play well with others. Too "detailed" like a lot of muscular/fit shapes.) I like her eyes too, big and wide. What I didn't like was that her eyebrows were located in an Anatomy folder that was outside of G8F's folder. It says it's not in the G8F folder on the Daz Docs too, so I had to manually move them myself, because I'll forget to look in its default placement. Interestingly, her name was Ice Queen HD but it got changed.
I've been wanting a character like this for a long time. I did try to do something with upgrading RM Nieves, but wasn't successful because I had visible seams on the arms. Plus, I couldn't figure out good settings for the skin. I'll try to see if I can combine Nieves' makeups onto Frost Maiden, since I never have problems with seams in face makeups.
I attempted to combine RM Nieves' face with Frost Maiden HD's and got carried away. [x]
I'm also getting better at calculating that automatic thumbnail, so it'll look good. I can't post my Glamorous Penny render until I can actually fix it. :/
My favorite thing about this DAZ Galleries update is that now I don't feel guilty about posting renders of the "same thing" and can put several pics in the same photoset.
Anyway, I decided to redo RM Nieves G8F with Frost Maiden HD and I redid the head shaping preset. I feel like I improved. [x]
I plan on revisiting other older renders I have there and redoing them. I'll probably post this on dA too, but I forget after I upload stuff to Sta.sh. XD
I hope I can render this further but I worry that DS will crash again. The render itself is supposed to be a joke that the female figure comes with more expressions than the male one. (Thanks to PAs.) But I think the joke will be missed when seen in its entirety.
This is supposed to be 60/60 Mei Lin 8 and Olympia 8 with 60/60 Ashan 8 and Dain 8. I wanted to make a render of two of my favorite/most used female characters with the male mix.
Also, I know I shouldn't complain, but I want to buy RareStone's Kayla 2.0 Remake character, except that her entry in the DAZ Docs page, specifically the ones with included files, is missing. That character has lost its new status, which is why I'm trying to buy her.
Here is the full render where I mess up my jokes and then gotta make up some other excuse for it. DAZ Galleries link [x].
This pic also reminds me of the time, I was trying to write a romance scene between two lovers and decided to forgo all the mushy lovey-dovey stuff, and describe their feelings for each other in a serious way. I wanted to explain why two cold-hearted people would feel such intense love for one another. Needless to say, that romantic scene became something of a suspence. Rather than redo it, I just left it like that because it was so funny to me. XD
I might play around with DS some more today, but I wanted to make a male version (on G8M) of RareStone's Kayla. So I did stuff and imported the shape onto G8M (used the Cross-Figure thing.)
I was really on the fence between getting Kayla and Fredda, but I liked Kayla's shape, hair, and HD details more. I'm usually hesitant to pick up RS products, simply because most of them have very large download sizes for some reason. (Exceptions were the face morphs and Sakura 8.) I still haven't downloaded Pei or used Kayla's hair as of this post. Right now, I'm a bit iffy about Kayla's skin. I might just save her morphs, and "unistall" her. (I did this with Penny 8 because I don't like her skin at all but I love her shape.) I want to try Pei because she looks like an anime Mona Lisa, and I like her robot boots.
lol In my previous post, I was transferring Kayla to G8M, but I was also transferring Fane too and got carried away with my result. Daz Galleries link [x].
To me, he looks like a mix of Cillian Murphy and Tom Welling. I was gonna use a different hair, but this was where I realized that the only male AprilYSH hair I have currently installed on this laptop is Orson Hair. Not that it mattered, since it actually fit whatever I was going for.
I know y'all are probably curious about how I transferred him. But what I did was using the Cross-Figure kit, I shaped G8M like G8F and exported that as an .obj file. Then, I loaded G8F and the G8F-shaped G8M .obj on G8F as if it were a bodysuit. I then dialed in Fane's head, and used the Cross-Figure kit to shape G8F like G8M. This helped masculinize the head a bit. But I used other shaping morphs I had to tweak it further. I made G8F invisible, and exported the G8M bodysuit as an .obj file. Finally, I used Morph Loader Pro and imported the male!Fane file as if it were just another head shape. With this setup, I personally don't need any converter system because I can, more or less, do it myself.
For most other "genderbends", I have enough morphs where I could just line up the models and then shape whichever one to the opposite gender version. But Fane Guy and Kayla Boy, have unique shapes, so I decided to go about it this way.
Me: I'm gonna make adorable male!Fane G8M mixes!
The Render: ... (DAZ Gallery link [x])
Maybe his personality is adorable, IDK. This is one of those renders where I try to match the colors of the figures and props. I'm not exactly thinking about the "story" that's being told whenever I do these.
EDIT: I just noticed that most uploads in my Pin-Up folder in these Galleries contain more male characters than female characters. I'm sure there's a straight answer for that. Perhaps I should make a dedicated male character Pin-Up folder?
Back at it again, with this scene. This time, I decided to pose them standing next to each other. And I have updated the DAZ Galleries post with it, so it's now a photoset. Here is a link [x]. If you're on mobile, tap on the image and you'll be able to scroll through the photoset.
This render isn't as good quality as the original, simply because I had rendered it for a bit and saved it, before rendering again. It was done as a precaution, because I've lost too many renders when DS decides to randomly crash. Which is what it did here, but I was fortunate to have saved this earlier attempt, so not all was lost. I will revisit this scene again, some time later. With being able to post photosets, I feel more comfortable experimenting like this without the shame of spamming. (It's one reason I leave much of my work "untagged." I don't want it to be in anyone's way since the majority, doesn't like what I like, so have no desire to see it.)
Went back and re-rendered another old scene (from 2018!) that I still had saved on my laptop. DAZ Galleries link [x].
It's so weird to actually see improvement with rendering. Especially since I do a lot of "set up and render". I don't even do much tweaking, like some of the other artists do. This is with the BOSS Lights set. Somehow, she looks slimmer with a more rounded face, but the shape is exactly the same as the original. Only material changed I made were the skin, hair, and dress fabric. (No GIMP edit, I left the tears as they were.) The nails and jewlry are the exact same as the previous one.
I know I have a lot of older renders up there too, but a lot of those were "the best" I could do at the time. So I'm satisfied with them and not in a hurry to remake them. This one though, it never looked right since I had the hardest time, trying to recreate this character after I moved to G8F from G1.
I can't believe I made 3DCoat crash and shut down my computer, the same way it does when for some of my renders. I was trying to make a custom hair texture for OOT's Eleanor Hair for G3F. Before this crash, I was constantly saving. A few times, 3DCoat would stop responding. The hair I have in mind was meant to be pink with a gradient of browish horizontal stripes. I guess I'll have to just eyeball the rest with GIMP before I apply this texture in DS. I think the main reason 3DCoat didn't like this hair was because of the overlapping UVs.
(Also more reason, I can't just simply model something myself. My PC/laptop can barely handle me trying to paint in 3D. And yes I tried to paint this with Blender but Blender didn't even recognize my texture.)
A big chunk of my enjoyment with DS and 3D art in general is random experiments like this. Often way too messy to share publicly.