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That railway shot does lool like it was fun! Like it a lot!
One born from a conversation on the Daz Slackers Discord about whether G8F has enough outfits already.
"Nothing to Wear":
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This one's been sitting unfinished on my hard-drive for ages, but now I've got a better graphics card, I took the time to sort out the lighting and render it up:
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Although I've done a lot of Emma renders recently, it's Pride Month and she's one of my story's LGBTQ characters, so she was probably owed at least one more render.
(It doesn't normally come up all that much, as I didn't want to write her as a walking stereotype and because she's single during the time frame of my main story, but her sexuality has been an established part of her character since the early drafts).
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I suspect mine may be the only contest entry Daz get featuring a diesel generator and two portapotties. It might well get thrown out early in the judging as a result, but it's an idea I'd been thinking about doing anyway, which was more important to me than working on some idea specifically for the contest.
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"Preparing for Adventure":
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An old technical test I decided to do a larger re-render of on my 3060.
Accidental Swim:
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Most of my "Fracturing Veil" setting is currently set in an alternative version of 2018, with occasional flashbacks to earlier events, but sometimes events merit a present-day render. Given Athena's backstory, it was hard to not address the recent developments in the Afghanistan conflict.
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Loss:
Athena was originally designed and built by the defence company PUE Systems in response to the British Army's equipment crisis in Afghanistan; the "dumb" drone systems, reliant on human oversight, were proving vulnerable to jamming or cyberattack, and had heavily delayed reaction times - problems that PUE thought could be solved by a fully sapient AI. As an emancipated individual, a true AI circumvented the terms of the 2001 Berlin Convention that had effectively outlawed autonomous combat drones.
Brought online in 2010, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2011, Athena would elect to remain in Afghanistan almost continually until the formal British withdrawal in October 2014, rather than the normal tours of duty she was entitled to (being legally a soldier rather than materiel). However, in spite of her superhuman capabilities, a number of the soldiers and support personnel she served alongside were killed in action.
People who had risked their lives believing they were bringing about a better world.
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Yeah, but you may score points for realism!
I love all the details.
Eww, I can feel her sneakers squish from where I'm sitting! That sensation of water swirling around your toes, getting a bit warmer with every step...
Poor Athena.
At least she's got Emma to support her.
Sorry, I managed to miss all those responses - I'm terrible at actually finishing renders, uploading them and thus, checking this thread.
They are, however, appreciated.
And, as poor as I am about getting renders finished, a new one!
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Forward Operation
While most major events of the Afghanistan conflict that Athena fought in would be familiar to people from our own timeline, the actual on-the-ground tactics and equipment were (unsurprisingly) very different.
Autonomous military drones had been involved in ground, aerial and naval operations in conflicts in the late 1990s, but the Afghanistan conflict was the first major conflict in the wake of the 2001 Berlin Convention and its effective outlawing of unaccountable autonomous weapons.
As the reintroduction of accountable operators in the loop was so recent, most NATO forces only had access to a limited number of relatively inexperienced drone operators during the early days of the conflict; naturally, this limited the number of operations where the drones could be deployed.
Consequently, the relatively small numbers of HUGV (Heavy Unmanned Ground Vehicle) drones in most NATO armouries saw disproportionate deployment during the early years of the conflict; originally intended as mid-weight support for drone deployments, the HUGV's battlefield role was most dissimilar to traditional infantry or tracked vehicles - carrying more firepower than the former, but remaining more mobile in urban environments than the latter - making them a logical choice to prioritise for the limited numbers of trained operators.
As more operators were trained, and the software interfaces better optimised to allow operators to handle more drones simultaneously, standard infantry drones were brought to the field to be deployed in greater numbers, frequently accompanying human deployments so that semi-autonomous drones could take hazardous positions in patrols. As significant upgrades were made to the equipment of traditional infantry at the same time, with many soldiers now being equipped with augmented reality hardware and exoskeleton assistance, these drones were much better able to operate alongside human soldiers than in previous conflicts. As such, casualties from improvised explosive devices were considerably reduced.
They also facilitated the more aggressive placement of NATO forward operating bases; with networked drones able to patrol a perimeter effectively at any time of day or night, bases could be situated closer to potentially hostile areas, improving reaction times and interfering with insurgent action.
However, in many ways, drones were ill-equipped for other counter-insurgency tactics; unable to engage without human oversight, they could be slow to react to unexpected attacks, as happened on several occasions when Afghan Army soldiers defected to the Taliban.
These shortcomings of semi-autonomous drones are what ultimately lead to experimentation with fully-sapient combat AIs, heralding a new paradigm in warfare that is yet to be fully understood...
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This particular image dates from mid-2012, near the start of Athena's second year of deployment. She's seen seated atop an Onager-type HUGV (likely under refit at the time, as evidenced by several empty weapon hard points).
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Climbing:
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This is suspiciously wholesome coming from you, Matt.
I love it! The characters are cute, and the perspective is great!
I can be wholesome if I want.
As is, I am planning a bit of a run with some of these characters, as and when I dig up/adapt the assets I need for it.
A relatively simple test of the centaur clothing aids I've just put out as a freebie - some morph sliders intended to assist with simulating dForce dresses, skirts and longer shirts on to the centaur geograft. (In this case, the dForce Attitude Dress).
(G8F for now, but G8M centaur support will be coming soon).
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... um, I think I might have found a bug in the spotlights.
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Strong Hands:
Android touch doesn't permit the same density of nerve endings as in human hands, and requires different methods (often several in unison). One of these approaches involves what are effectively microphones embedded in the hands and other key areas, allowing the system to hear the surfaces rubbing.
AIs however usually exploit this to a far greater degree than automata, combining it with active sonar, effectively giving them ultrasonic imaging devices in their hands. Combined with the strength and precision of a robotic chassis, AIs can provide an amazing massage.
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Changing Room:
Because in a slightly different world, the gym is for all sorts of people.
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"It's not a sink for dwarves":
Given a wide range of body shapes and types, toileting arrangements in Veil are often extensive and elaborate. Not everyone is completely familiar with all the plumbing there is to be found.
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Apparently I've been going a bit nuts recently, managing to get way more stuff actually finished than I have in a while.
This one started out as a test of Hamster's recent dForce Breasts V2 product, in order to get the collisions with the guitar. It took me a while to really get started with it, as the process seems more complex than the V1 version of the product, and it's quite easy to mess it up, but in the end my verdict is that the actual results are better than the original product. I'll advise that it's not for those timid about dForce, but I can see there's times it's going to be useful to have.
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Ocean:
Culturally, Veil's elves place a great deal of value on artistic pursuits; even those who don't choose to make it a profession are likely to have it as a passionate hobby.
Over a lifespan that can span hundreds of years, these talents can become astonishing to behold.
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A♭m7♭5 is a bold choice.
Yeah, it's a weird chord, but I wanted something distinctly non-standard, and while I'll admit my own playing is pretty mediocre (and my barre chord technique shoddy for all but the simplest chords - I have oddly proportioned hands with a comparatively very long first finger and a very short little finger, which makes many chord shapes very hard without actually carefully placing my fingers one by one), it sounded plausible as a chord someone might actually use (although admittedly more so if the high E string was missed out).
That's the hassle with having characters who are supposed to be better at something than you yourself are...
To Battle:
Because they are superhumanly fast and precise coders in an increasingly digital age, Artificial Intelligences usually quickly become extremely wealthy individuals (at least in the countries where they are considered emancipated citizens).
Although originally engineered as combat AI, Athena Lovelace is no different. She would end up invested a sizeable sum of this buying a large property, somewhere around 50 km north-west of London, close to her retiring squadmate Mark Baldwin and his family.
Of course, a property that size feels pretty empty if you're the only one there, so invitations are regularly extended to friends, and friends of friends...
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I think you are one very twisted but talented artist I have ver seen Matt!!!
I am so loving the renders of different characters like the half spider.......etc......
@SaphireWild - Well, I suppose I take "twisted but talented" as a complement overall...
For the most part, my motivation/inspiration is "Is this everyday activity funny/surreal/cute if I get some fantasy creature to do it?". Quite how twisted that makes me... well, I guess the verdict is with the audience...
I love how you are all over the place with your art. Some of it is just normal people, doing normal stuff. Most of your other renders are just fantastical (is that a word?). Good stuff.
A follow up to a previous render after someone asked what would happen if Athena got involved in the Nerf war. The lesson to be learned is that if you're going to bait your parents into a Nerf war, first make sure the AI supersoldier hosting the party doesn't think it'd be funny to join their side.
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They're all normal people, just some of them have a tail, or a different number of legs, or bulletproof composite armour for skin. :P
People sometimes ask me if all my renders are stupid jokes.
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Centaur Claus
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*Santaur
Wow I just love this render it looks like something I would do up!!!
There's been a lot of fuss about these Nun Fungible People recently, and I don't really understand it, so I thought I'd give it a try...
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... nope, still doesn't make a lick of sense to me.
You can blame Oso for this one. He's the one who posted about "Santaur" on the 'Daz Slackers' Discord and I have a bit too much of a reputation for centaurs to not pick up the ball on that one.
It was a bit of a technical challenge, as while I've now developed the morphs to help fit dForce dresses to centaurs, the dress is Genesis-era and needed its fur hem separated off in order to be able to simulate. (However, that simulation could then be converted to a morph, which the hem could use auto-follow to match).
Fun though.
A couple of new ones from me. First, having some fun depicting younger versions of some of my elf characters back in the 1970s.
Vintage:
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And, also, because I've done entirely too much wholesome stuff lately, a Christmassy succubus.
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Naughty List:
Jennifer making quite a persuasive case for being naughty.
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Two today!
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Training:
Although Police Constable Robert Owen survived an attack by a trio of vampires, almost entirely due to the timely intervention of the semi-retired combat AI Athena Lovelace, he was nonetheless infected, and the Cerberus organisation enacted its powers in order to take him into custody for assessment/acclimatisation.
He would later end up volunteering to join "Omega Division" - Cerberus's specialist team, trained and equipped for the containment of particularly dangerous supernatural creatures should they pose a threat (either to Veil or Mundus).
Although his prior policing experience and newly gained physical abilities made him a strong candidate for the role, it nonetheless necessitated considerable additional combat and weapons training not normally given to British Police officers. He is seen here receiving tuition from the London unit's second in command Jinx Harris, on the use of one of the standard issue weapons in the Omega arsenal.
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Night Mare:
In contrast to classical mythology often depicting many creatures in the nude, most creatures in Veil end up being held to similar standards of modesty to humans or elves, necessitating an industry to either modify or create clothing for those of a non-humanoid frame.
As such, most of these races are familar with a lot of the societal norms and concepts associated with clothing - including those weird anxiety dreams where for some reason you've forgotten to wear any when you're teaching class.
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