Hidden Treasures- Fun with Older Sets
Llynara
Posts: 4,770
So, we're having a blast in the Wear Them All thread digging up older clothing and converting them to newer generations as well as Iray. Along the way, we've discovered that the older sets also look pretty good. There have been a lot of fun surprises concerning what these older items look like in newer technology. Sometimes they look nothing like the ancient promos (which can be good or bad!)
Giselle3000 suggested we start a seperate thread for sets. So many oldies but goodies have been on sale lately. Let's see your renders!
This older set was on sale recently. The promos aren't bad, but they show their age. Many do. I took a chance and picked it up. DM stuff is usually good, and always comes with many poses as well.
Promo pic:
Here's what it looks like in Iray:
Notes: I did nothing but put Uber on it. I think it renders very well in Iray. The character is VYK Naeriss (Rendo) and she's wearing Optitex's Maiden Fair Dynamic Gown.
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Comments
Index
Sets that have been showcased, and links to those posts:
Confused on what this thread is about. the gown is a V4 dynamic outfit, so no connection to the wear them all product showcased in the other thread. Am I missing something?
It's just pointing out old clothing products that are good quality is all.
Thanks, I thought that is what the other thread was doing which is why I was a bit confused. I have used V3/M3 and v4/M4 items on all versions of genesis since day one, so I guess i am just used to it.
The thread is about old sets. As I've been digging through bargains, I've picked up quite a few older ones and was curious as to what they looked like. We've been posted a few on the Wear Them All thread and thought the sets needed their own place.
EDIT: Sorry, I reworded the first post to be clearer. A bit tired tonight. A good but exhausting day, mostly outside.
Sets, not clothing. The Gown was a bit of a 'red' herring... pun intended.
Here is a render I did well over a year ago, also using DM Gadomar. I put a bit more work into it, though.
This is from the gallery page: "My experience with older sets, like DM Gadomar, is they don't look that good close up in Iray. So I used Photoshop to size key images to 4096px and created normal maps. I think everything except the small stones on the floor turned out pretty good. The stones, on the other hand, seem too flat. Still, not bad overall."
The Long Kiss Goodbye
Llynara, I think this thread is a great idea. Thank you, to both you and Giselle3000.
Wow, L'Adair! That looks fabulous! And a perfect romantic setting for their kiss.
Thank you. There was a whole series of that kiss, from different angles... got quite a few comments about the "snogging!" lol
Here's one more oldie but goodie, I did just over a year ago: Via Serena, by Bitwelder. This is a simple Iray Uber Base conversion for the most part. The only things I put more work into were the skydome and the water. The skydome was modified per the instructions for "Yet Another Iray Skydome Technique." As for the water, this is from the gallery page: "The water was a little more difficult. I created a cube primitive and scaled it to encompass the entire pool area and applied one of Mec4d's volumetric water shaders. The surface uses my own texture and normal maps created from the original texture."
Via Serena: Simple Iray Conversion
I'm mimicking this promo image:
Paradise Pavilion
This is a really old set, on sale right now for .60, along with its textures. I wasn't sure how this one would render, but LaurieS and Moyra's stuff usually converts pretty well.
Promo Pics:
First test renders in Iray, straight out of the box (just Uber):
Palace of India texture (there's also a texture included for the Multiplane Cyclorama):
Needs some tweaking and definitely bump maps. But the designs are very beautiful. The lace curtains could probably be retextured, though I love the embroidery across the top. There are inner curtains as well that are more plain and easily reshaded (you can barely see them here.)
Via Serena really does convert well. Love your version! Someone had posted a night time one with the lights on the water, which was gorgeous. I adore Bitwelder's sets, they are romantic and beautiful. That reminds me, I converted Top of the World a while back, I'll go dig up that render.
Bitwelder's Top of the World
This is a 3Delight set that I love, but renders black in Iray. Getting it to work:
Here I combined the floor with Flipmode's First Light Skydome and HDRI:
Tha's really nice. I love that skydome!
Oh, wow. That floor will kit-bash really well. FM's First Light works really well with it, too.
Paradise Pavilion looks very good in Iray... 60¢ you say? I may have to buy-te.
Thanks! I learned that trick from someone in Val Cameron's DAZ FB group. I have notes about it here on my art thread.
Digivault's Stardomes
I used this technique to get Digivault's Stardomes working in Iray. I have missed that set so much!. I was so thrilled to get it back.
Here is one of the stardomes on my new website, Llynara.com as the main header (I'm still fighting with how the theme resizes it.)
..a submission I did for the Skin Builder Pro 3 challenge.
Used Stonemason's Green Dragon Dojo (no longer available), Oriental Prosperity (with two sides removed), Blondie9999's Yukimi and one of the floating candles from the Via Serena bundle.
The fireflies are the Sveva's & Propschick's Fantasy Glow Flies (Rendo).
All textures were optimised for Iray.
(cick for full size)
Here's an Iray render I did using Shaded Haven. No adjustments to the materials, just added the table and chair for the scene.
Quiet Reflection Vignette The only thing I changed was adding a water shader onto the water.
These are beautiful! Please keep them coming.
@kyoto kid Your alibino character really turned out great. I remember you working on her in one of the threads. Very cool kit bashing on that set.
@JamesJAB Those sets really provide nice backdrops for your renders. Great job!
This looks AMAZING in Iray! I have this on my wishlist hoping it'll go on sale at some point!
Here I'm using the Future Quiet PC Iray add-on that came out recently for GIS Sigma.
Used Degeneration for this one with only an uber base thrown in:
For this one I used BRC-The Cloister with only an uberbase thrown in.
Those are absolutely beautiful renders, Giselle! I was wondering what you had used on the sorceress one. Didn't realize it was part of GIS. Very cool!
Here we have DM Legends. It didn't look bad converted directly to Iray Uber Base, but I did some additional things to it:
-glass shaders on the pots, retaining original maps.
-Copper shaders on the lamps, retaining original maps (but see a better way of working with DM metal props, below).
-bump cranked up to 8.00, same maps used for bump added to displacement channel and set to 1.0 or 2.0. These settings work for most DM architectural surfaces.
-Flames set to Emissive, two-sided, kcd/m^2, default lumens, color and warmth.
-For a handful of weathered metal surfaces, like the disc behind the throne, I used the lray leather base preset, set the diffuse color back to white, maxed out bump and displacement (it will only go up to 2.00 for those channel with the leather preset), and raised glossy roughness to 0.70-0.90. These settings also work well on the wood/pottery surfaces on other DM sets.
-Not used here, but useful for other DM products: control-clicking the Iron shader into place (plus some bump adjustment) works for most of their weapons, but for other shiny metal objects, like the chalice or candleholders from Kapelle, you're better off using Brushed Aluminum (control-clicking to retain original maps) plus increased bump/displacement plus increased glossy roughness plus metallic flake with a weight of 0.5 in a color that matches what you have in mind. Metallic flake at that weight in a dull orange-tinted color can also work well for some of their weathered bronze surfaces.
-Note: these are more important for M4/V4-era content. I don't own any Genesis 1 content from DM that I know of, but their Genesis 2 stuff seems to only need Iray Base Shader for the architectural stuff, and water/emissive shaders where needed.
One of my favorite activities is to upconvert some old set to IRay and make a modern looking Iray render. I think I paid under a buck for this outfit and environment altogether.
There's hope... I got the bundle on sale a year ago May for a ridiculously low price. Everything in that order was cheap, except for one obvious new release. Also, there's no way to tell from the order email if I applied a coupon, but I may have.
This uses the old Marsh Ruins. Fast becoming one of my favorite sets actually. This is pretty much straight out of the box I didn't bother converting anything, I added the foliage in the front and added Terradome 3 for the mountain backgrounds and the extra water. An Iray skydome was used, this doesn't come with a sky.
And here it is without anything added to it.
This is DM's Instances. I added the vegetation but the rest of the set hasn't been altered in any way, no manual conversion at any point as far as Iray goes. This one has been run through a filter but all the filter did was lighten the scene, it didn't change much else.
Nice thread, I like some of the old sets very much, like the Cloister, during this sale I got some of DM as well for little money so I probabyl have to post something as well soon.
Sonia, I just wanted to point out, when you don't first apply the Iray Uber Base to an object with 3Delight materials, DS will apply them as part of the overhead before the first iteration of rendering. It's not a big deal if you have a fast computer and/or an Nvidia card capable of fitting the entire scene. But for those who are still rendering CPU Only, converting the objects first can save on render time.
My biggest problem with older stuff is that they often will fall apart if you use SubD, which makes other tweaks more difficult.
Though now that I have substance painter, I should see what changes I can make; if I can increase the poly count in, say, Carrara and then give it a new surface with some displacement... could be interesting!
@Timmins.william, I'm unfamiliar still with a lot of things when it comes to 3D. So I'm wondering... what does SubD actually do?
Wow! Lynara! This is spectacular! I'm wishlisting that stardome because of this render!
Wishlisting Marsh Ruins as well, thanks for sharing @IceDragonArt !