Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 9
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@dreamfarmer - love those Legend renders. I am tryinng valiantly NOT to buy it as it will reduce my budget drastically (and I'm managing that with the Mega Fastgrab stuff quite well already thank you!) but it does look good. (Plus I'd be tempted to start on Aeon Soul's back catalog - I only have a couple of pieces so far)
One of my Mega Fastgrab PA purchases was Howie Farkes' Harpwood Trail Mallard Pond - I already had the trail itself. I like that it comes with both Iray and 3Delight versions. Here are two pics done in 3Delight - just quickies really as I did them last thing last night and didn't have the energy to add any wildlife or people. They are with the Autumn texture variants. I love his Carrara sets (to be honest I bought Carrara mostly to use them!) and now he does DS too I'm really happy.
Those look very good, are there light sets included for 3DL, or did you make the lightning yourself?
Distant+ UE2?
Oh, that's good! I have Harpwood Trail too, I'll have to get the pond to go with it. Thanks for showing it.
Another view of Iray Worlds-Plus, with the Wolf 2.0 by AM and my first try of The Flock Gulls and Crows. Rendered with LAMH 2 Iray Catalyzer. The birds are Crow05 and the IRW +3Skydome-Gr+Tr (so set 3 with grass and trees).
Ah, actually I used the skydome and light preset from the original Harpwood Trail set. It has a distant light set up as "Sun" for shadows, and two other light sources: as invisible sphere using omSimpleSurface shader and a plane to provide skylight using omUberAreaLight shader.
Well there are three things very much on my want list! I didn't pick up Iray Catalyser when new (lack of funds) so I'm waiting for it to reach sale-able age. The birds I liked the look of but will also have to wait, and I have the original Iray Worlds but not (yet) the addons. They do all look tempting....
Is anyone else having issues loading pictures today? I can't load anything, even stuff I've loaded before with no problem. Been trying for more than 8 hours now. Not having an issue anywhere else online. I did clear my cache etc etc.
I haven't tried loading pictures, been offline. That's always annoying!
@rgcincy I really like the Iray Worlds sky, I'll add the instructions to the Reference Post (I have to trim verbage, it's past it's allowed length)
Ok, thanks MelanieL!
RGcincy, or anyone who has the The Flock Gulls and Crows, do you get 16 presets of flock formations with this? Or 16 different wing poses? The description only says:
"16 Crows" and "16 Gulls "
It makes a huge difference to me as posing flocks of birds is very time consuming.
I have this and I loaded into a scene. You can hide the ceiling. If you do, I suppose you will want to hide the light otherwise they will just be hanging there with nothing supporting them. But I was able to hide them too, by just clicking on one item the scene list.
@kevinh Thanks for answering that for her.
Here's a thought for Skunkville Noir because it really goes dirt cheap at 75% off (with qualifying item)
It only works for 3DL and not Iray, so wouldn't it work to simply render your scene in Iray then apply that to the same sized background image (or do a plane) and then apply the Skunkville and do the 3DL? I think that would be cool. You'd get the details/input of Iray and also use 3DL, combining their results could be fun.
@luci45
Here's what comes with The Flock Gulls and Crows.
PROPS: 16 crow groups and 16 gull groups. Each group comes in 3DL and IRay. In a group, there are numerous birds with different positions and poses. You can not individually pose a bird. A quick count of a couple groups show 50 or so birds per group.
The prop loads at world center. The birds in a group all have the same surface but you can use the geometry tool to select a bird's polygons to change its material or hide its polygons if you wanted to.
Here's a screen capture of a prop group:
FLOCKS: one preset for crows and gulls, for both 3DL and Iray (so 4 total). Each flock is made up of all 16 props for that type of bird and render engine. The birds are distributed around 360 degrees. Here's a couple of viewport screen captures that show a flock.
Top View:
Side View:
Wow, thanks, RGcincy! Awesome! This is exactly what I wanted. It goes into the cart.
Dang it, if you folks aren't watching the nhc.noaa.gov hurricane center discussions, we're going to have ANOTHER major storm (Category 3 up) that will hit the islands and possibly impact the United States Florida East coast. Maria is tracking west-westnorthwest and spaghetti models show it going up the peninsula East Coast (past Jacksonville again, my sister replied to my text with "BOOM! I know, right? " Her husband's boss got two feet of water in the first story of his home.) Of course, tracks change, but the Euro and GFS are in agreement already on this one at least for now. (Irma, 5 days out, spaghetti models went both sides on Florida, some in the Gulf but most were East Coast (and wrong so far as going back to the East later, not right away.)
And the track for Jose is looking more encouraging for you New Englanders but it may shift west a tad.
Speaking of birds, the Eagle 2.0 has different birds of prey with Eagle 2 Expansion. As mentioned in another thread, Ken has eagles/birds of prey over at Hivewire, but this is a really good price if you get it for 75% off. You do need the Eagle 2.0 (Linked from the Expansion.) Goes to $7.49 at 75% off. It hasn't gone below that 66% off price (which the chart will only show the store price, not what discounts lower the price to)
@melaniel That looks SO pretty!
FWIW- Here's where I tested the PW Toon. I'm still thinking on the Skunksville. I'm wondering about doing what I said, but perhaps do a PW Toon render, then use it as a background or on a plane, and applying the Skunksville. Edit: and now I'm reading this thread on outlines. I have to check out before the next hour, when the store changes over.
To me the https://www.daz3d.com/iray-worlds-plus colours look well..strange - like you get when the sun is fairly low on the horizon and everything gets this sort-of-yellow glow cast over it. It's a beautiful effect in RL, but it makes the set look otherworldy. Has anyone done renders with other lights?
I had a similar impression. All the greens look way oversaturated and unnatural to me in the promos.It just doesn't look real to me at all. I think maybe people are liking it for toon renders?????
@nath
Here's a version using a different sky mat, brighter sky intensity, more white sun color and higher sun intensity. Same scene I posted previously which had used the scene's default sky and sun.
Thanks! That does look better for more realistic scenes.
Hey guys... quick review... it isn't a nice one at all... so, forgive the tone... but here we go...
This content:
https://www.daz3d.com/mastering-daz-studio-content
Is terrible. The guy rambles, loses himself, has a terrible monotone delivery style that makes me want to fall asleep and so far I'm an hour into the "tutorial" which is just a video of a live web session... and he hasn't told me anything I didn't already know. The price, even discounted, is too high. I don't generally like to trash any content - but at this price, this is as terrible as Headshop OneClick - which is the only other piece of content I've bought in over a year that I felt this strongly about. It feels like he is figuring out how to do it as the video goes along, with a lot of points where he is talking to himself more to the audience and then suddenly, Eureka, "Oh, there you go! That is how you do it!"
He also doesn't understand basic things about PC technology - which is why he can't figure out why DAZ won't install directly to his NAS (my guess, he never mapped his NAS folder as a shared drive with a letter on his PC...)
Avoid this content at any price, but especially at the price being asked for it.
I bought it a couple of weeks ago and just got around to watching it now. I tried to give it a chance, but an hour into it, I was going, "this is a waste of my time and was more or less theft of my money..."
He is asked by the audience if the NAS is a PC or just a hard drive, and responds "just a hard drive," but he has a Synology 5 disk NAS - so, it isn't just a hard drive... it is a PC. A headless PC with an Atom or ARM CPU... but it isn't just the same as an external USB hard drive.
There are LOTS of things about this he just doesn't get, lots of questions asked where he goes, "I'm going to have to get back to you," or where he is asked a question and he tries to figure it out while he is answering.
It is legitimately annoying. It makes me wish I had been in the original live webcast so I could have sent him "Questions" correcting his terribly wrong "answers".
Some of the topics looked like they might be interesting. It's too bad it didn't turn out to be useful. Ask for a refund. Customer Service will honor the 30 day guarantee.
I can't remember who it was, but I saw someone else on here complaining about the Mastering Daz Studio Content tutorial too. The poster said that it was just a webinar advertising a Facebook group, and I think s/he was going to ask for a refund.
It's a shame, really. I've given lots of Digital Art Live tutorials a miss, either because I wasn't interested in the subject or because I wasn't interested enough to pay someone else to gather info I could get myself in the same way - by surfing the net, by experimenting or by stacking up plenty of trial and error-ridden experience. I've bought a few of them though (none at full price, admittedly, and not the Mastering Daz Studio Content one) and thought they were all worth the money to me. It's a pity that this one will probably tarnish future prospects of purchase for the rest. Even to me, who has been happy with what I've bought in the past, it hints at a possible lowering of standards and I'll think twice and be more diligent than usual before buying. Those things are still pretty expensive, even at sales prices.
Here's another example of The Flock Gulls and Crows. This uses one of the 3DL gull props (01) and is combined with Ridge Walk Mountains. The camera is one of the fog cameras that come with RWM.
Another view:
This is about as close as you want to get to the birds. You can go closer but the low poly nature becomes more and more obvious.
I must get that gulls flock! it looks fantastic. Nice work RGcincy!
OMGosh Rich, I was so afraid I was going to have to disagree with you strongly- but it's a FLAG, not a bird, in your first render! I was thinking "How on earth can he recommend this????" Because it's gray and fluttering, it looked like a squashed bird!
@donovancolbert Well, it is like it is, if something is decidedly not up to par, it just isn't. I don't buy those tutorials because I was in the training field, and I prefer courses which are NOT participant driven. You should have a clear plan, know exactly what information you want to disseminate, and not have the time period reliant on what the participants ask. That could be a bonus video, but I personally don't like the Q&A types where things may digress from the subject. (Not saying this one does, but it can happen.) So I'm more of a "give it to me in a structured way" type gal.
Heads up, this is important and OT: (I haven't checked to see if it's in Commons, I am just getting back online)
AMAZON EMAIL SCAM My sister sent me a link to a very nice television anchor who was reporting that if you order something from Amazon (or even if you haven't, we'll all forgotten if we order things) and it looks extremely official. It will say there is a problem processing your order, and you click on a link that sends you to an EXTREMELY official looking Amazon page. Name, address, credit card. You know the drill. But here's what scary- after you input that, it takes you to the REAL Amazon site.
Amazon is asking everyone to go to the official site and view recent orders only through your account. Please pass this along.