Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 10
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Thanks for adding those other pictures. That poor tree, it's sad to see that limb laying there, obviously a mature one too. During the ice storm that lasted three days a couple years ago, I lost a 15 foot palm tree that I had planted as a "baby." So sad to see it brown and die, I had gone out and knocked the ice of it every few hours, all night long! The weight was snapping the fronds otherwise I would have left it alone, as ice can protect it from the extreme cold. (That's why orange trees are sprayed and coated with ice at 32 degrees, if it's going into the single digits, etc. At least I think that's the reasoning.)
I have an orange banner for Seder stores discounts. When I add items to my cart in additional items from new release it reduces the price for a few bucks of the overall cart.
Ah, just saw that banner. What are you adding- from where? to get the price to drop?
The undeserving tree I mentioned a few hours ago. Stupid neighbor. Right now it's still only 23. Real feel 7 degrees. Look out Tallahassee, the sleet and ice is almost right on top of you, coming your way. The sun is starting to shine here but windy. Shadow is not in his tent. :( I was hoping even though it was daylight, that he would stay. I'm leaving the heating pad on all day.
I was harsh one year. I had a relative that was leaving their dog out in the snowstorms... well, left out in all weather 24/7/365, quit grooming it (cocker spaniel), etc., because they didn't like her anymore. This happened over a few months. They hardly ever let her in, and she was originally an inside dog. They said her personality had changed after it had puppies. People. Ugh... The dog would not stay in its little doghouse, which was not adequate anyway, and it simply hunkered down against their house in whatever drifts would form. My SIL gave me a heads-up during one blizzard. (She was kinda sneaky, as she wouldn't do anything personally about it, but she told me that the dog had been left outside again.) I went and got the dog out of their yard, called my relative and told them I took their dog, kept it overnight, took it the groomer, got its shots, bought it a bag of dog food, toys, collar, etc. That poor dog was so ecstatic with being with me that she wouldn't quit wiggling and licking and loving on me. She was so desperate for human contact. It was so sad. I found her a home with some people that were thrilled to have her, as I couldn't keep her myself. I felt bad later and apologized to my relative, but they said they were glad I took her. Who knows? I've felt guilty off and on for just going in their yard and taking their dog, but knowing that she was basically suddenly abandoned outside all year round and slept nights against their house, buried in snowdrifts... It just made me SO angry I could have spit. If you don't like your dog, train it or find it a new home, or something...
The dog comes first when it's being neglected IMO. Kudos to you for being "Harsh" aka responsible!
I'm at 29 here in Harlingen,Tex no snow like a while back but I do have a sheath of ice on my plants
My dog Emerald went out and was trying to figure out where the crackling noise when she walked was coming from
She made it a quick trip
I picked up the Now Crowd Billboards. Be warned 15 files! Most are over a gig.
Resort Pool House
Sci-fi Explosives
Star Crossed Lovers Pose Set
Imelda (for my freebie)
Had that happen to us but from snow. Back in the late 80's the house we were at had a 60 foot tall silver maple (with a trunk about 2 feet in diameter). They are fast growing trees so brittle. That year we had a late fall so almost all the leaves were still on the tree when a 10 inch wet snow fell Oct 28 (early for us). In the morning, we looked out and our back deck was full of tree limbs. The 60 foot tree was now only 40 feet, as silver maple limbs branch every 20 feet, so they snap off at the last branching point. What a mess. I was cutting and hauling branches into our woods for days. The tree survived but you could always see where every branch had broken off.
In my part of the Midwest, they do like what Pensacola did - close early and often on the day before. Our grandsons' school has already been called for bad weather three days since they returned from the Christmas break. With a holiday and a teacher in-service day, they've been having 4 day weekends a lot. Last Friday, the school was closed because the weather was predicted to strike at 3 PM when the school buses would be out returning kids to their homes. It rained all day so I was thinking they could have gone, but right around 3 it turned to ice and snow so it was good they were off. They are so much better predicting these days.
I agree. First thing I did for the BOGO was look at wishlist items and I only had 1. Then I looked at the figures tab and saw Genesis was the most recent figure. There's nothing I really want from the list, I'll get something if I happen to buy something new, but not because of the BOGO offer.
I did get the wishlist item yesterday: Armory - Stands Volume 1. The new release was Northern Winter Village since it reminds me of several ski villages I've been to and Mely3D makes good products. I also happened to have Fantasia Hair for Genesis 3 Female from FastGrab in the cart and it dropped to 80% off (surprise!).
This for sure. I am full up on V4/M4 and Genesis items and characters. I just don't need anymore. I did pick up some stuff from Sedor, but I hadn't used my coupons yet this month so I got it all for $12
I picked up the Fantasia Hair because its different enough from what I have and it was under $5 and got the Dragon Bridge for free, The Dragon Bridge has been on my wishlist for a long time.
+1
The links all go to your product library...
@L'Adair
I only bought the Fantasia Hair for GF3 and the Millenium Dragon 2.0 on the BOGO.
Sealife was on my radar, for the same reason. Didn't buy, couldn't find a cheap featured item I wanted that justified the freebie.
@donovancolbert If you put a ' in the @ it won't work. Doesn't recognize special characters. I've caught myself doing that with her forum name too! Also, no spaces, if there's ever a two word name.
I've been testing/ fine tuning Metallicity and here's what I've added to that post: (will show you the experiments LATE tonight. We need to move some furniture and that's going to take the rest of the night. BTW, Shadow the stray cat came to be fed again and stayed in his tent at 4am this morning (real feel 8 degrees, SO happy to see him) and I was worried because he didn't come at 3:30-5pm tonight. I called him and he just showed up at 6:45pm and was in his tent. :) Even if he leaves (which he will) he will be back. Made it through the worst night so far.
Okay, try these- (In addition to the settings from the Metallicity post.
The metallic additions will probably darken your skins and make them a bit blue. Here's more fine tuning to add even more realism-
1. Look at the Tranlucency Weight setting. Whatever it is, lower it and se how you like it. This offsets the darkening of the metallicity. The translucency is .45 on many characters, lower it to .34
2. Next, the Dual Lobe Specular is usually 0. Try .010
3. The Dual Lobe Specular Weight, try .010 with the Reflectivity- from .50 (depending on other settings the vendor uses) to .77 (I start high and then go lower, but the one's I've tried do great at .77 IMO)
4. The metallicity / translucency / dual lobe may darken / change skin tones to more blue, so in the SSS Reflectance Tint, do MINISCULE color changes. Try 255 / 242 / 239 to correct blue skin tones. It's a really, really light whitish pink, barely noticeable but makes a big difference.
5. Make sure Glossy Reflectivity is at 1.00 Turn down your Glossy Roughness a couple tenths. (Many are .50 so turn that down to .48)
Last, increase your Saturation 1.15 to 1.28 to bring color back into your person. (Saturation is in the Render pane, in Tone Mapping.)
I've decided this year I need to render stuff I buy and not just stockpile it. I picked up Northern Winter Village yesterday. I like what I'm seeing. It comes with a 3DL or Iray scene with five buildings and a mountain surround. The village has pine trees, steps, a central square, street lamps, and paths through snow mounds. It reminds me of some of the skiing villages I've been at. It renders with a light that's similar to late afternoon at northern latitudes - the sky is still blue but the lights have come on and are casting a glow on the snow. There is no sky with the set, so I used one from Eternal White Skydome and HDRI which is a fitting companion.
I wanted to also use winter clothes I've picked up the past 6 months. Karen 7 has on Autumn Jackets for Genesis 3 Male(s) and Female(s), JeanZ for Genesis 3, Comfeez Boots for Genesis 3 Female(s), gloves from Nomad for Genesis 3 Male(s) and Female(s), and a knit cap from City Dweller Outfit for Genesis 3 Female(s). The hair is Fantasia Hair for Genesis 3 Female(s). I had to play around with the hair and cap morphs to mostly hide the hair sticking through the cap. The same for the boots and jeans as I wanted the tuck in look (easier if you stick with the jeans outside the boots). The gloves also needed attention as they widen to an extra large cuff - I used the geometry editor to select the parts of the gloves covered by the coat sleeves and hid the polygons. All in all it went together well.
Mely3D is one of the PA's and I have their French Ski Resort. I plan to put the two together although I'll probably have to use the scene optimizer (mostly because I know the ski resort is memory intensive). For just the winter village, it did drop me to CPU rendering but the times were not bad - about an hour for 1200 by 960.
I have some 4000+ products in my runtime and when I do a thematic scene like this, I constantly find out how much I'm missing. If it was summer time, I'd have no problem, but cold weather has fewer offerings.
Here's two different Iray renders (click on images for larger versions).
That nomad outfit is one of my favorites- I used it in the Because I Said So! contest, where the dragon was leaning down toward the two people in the temple. It's got nice detail and looks comfortable to wear.
I like your choice of Eternal White Skydome sky. It really does go well with it. Your character looks good, easy going and the posing looks natural. I really like the camera angle in the second shot where the yellow building on the left is higher and the woman is lower. It really makes the set more expansive.
The snow banks are fine, except I don't really care for the flawless edges where they meet the sidewalks.There's not a hint of crumbling snow on the walks. (People in the North and Midwest need to hire that crew!) There's good variation (ups and downs) in the snowbanks, but those refined edges could use a bit of disintegration/ mussing up. I do like the trees, the snow on the roofs, the lights on the buildings, and the overall feel of it. One other thing though- the building boards- are those separate so they can be bumped/ displaced? The yellow building seems slightly flat to me. Overall though, the vendor did a really good job of capturing the essence of the village retreat.
So it brings up the question- are there any sets which have snow as a separate prop, that can be put on the sidewalks? Not a tool to do it, actual props.
Iray Snow, Ice and Ash has a snowdrift prop. But it also has ice and snow shaders. One could get real creative with other props and those shaders... then's there's DA's Let It Snow, that uses geoshells. That might work.
ETA: Fixed typo, turned the sow back into snow...
LOL- there's a pig with the Ice and Ash? Man, those suckers really do eat anything. (Get some sleep, gal!) I'm running my hubby to the airport, he has a 6a.m. flight so has to be there by 5a.m at the latest. It's 4:20am and we're headed out the door.
The https://www.daz3d.com/victorian-winter-house has icicles that can be used as well.
The window ledge drifts and the ones at the door can be used too. I've used them a few times in renders.
Actually that is a texture set. The icicles themselves are part of Winter Snow: https://www.daz3d.com/winter-snow
Around here, I think it was that they weren't sure what the weather would be like until in the morning, and didn't want to cancel classes if it didn't get as bad as predicted.You're going to LOVE this. Hubby got to the airport. "Oh, we ran out of de-icer YESTERDAY. We have to turn the plane and face the sun and WAIT FOR THE ICE TO MELT."
I couldn't make this stuff up!
Three hours later, they took off. Of course he missed his connection. He was supposed to fly in to Rhode Island. Nope, he's headed to Detroit because there's some issues in Rhode Island. Instead of arriving at 5pm, now it's 2am. Considering he had to get up at 4am this morning, that's almost 24 hours.
Pensacola KNEW that icy mix was coming (that we had the day before) so there's no excuse not to have de-icer. They knew several days in advance, I started reading about it four days prior. AND IT'S NOT LIKE THEY DON'T FLY PLACES AND COULD PICK SOME UP!
Just be glad he's safe, and they didn't do something stupid like take off on time in unsafe conditions.
Good thing the sun was shining or he might still be sitting on the taxiway!
I used the Walking 1 pose from Beach Front Promenade Poses. I too thought it looks very natural.
I had the same reaction to the smooth edges of the pathways and thought of modifying them, but then I wanted to show what you got out of the box. You see the same flawless edges next to the buildings. I added a push modifier to the ground and made some variation along the foundation. I also used the DA Let It Snow shell and medium snow 1 shader. The geo shell shader makes for an older snow look than the original. Here's a render with the push modifier in use:
And without:
Regarding the building walls - they have a plaster shader to them with a normal map - but the texture is hard to spot even if close as in the renders above. You can select the surface and change it as I did in the following image (I used one from Architectural Iray Shaders):
(I made the last two variations by spot rendering and saving a png and using it as a layer in Gimp. Much faster than doing the whole scene which takes about 1.5 hours.)
@RGcincy Those changes look AWESOME!
Oh ya, I wasn't actually trying to link them it was just quicker to copy and paste the link from my library lol. I've been pretty short on time lately.
FWIW, Ctrl+Shift+V will paste any text without formatting, including links.
And I can understand being busy. I remember what it's like. Thankfully, it doesn't happen so much anymore. (Of course, change is inevitable, so it may get that way again...)