Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 12
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@Novica thanks for the shout out!
@nonesuch00 I was only in the alps once to ski. Sounds like a great place to live for a while.
+1
These double vision renders are quite interesting, not only two views of the same character but suggest there's a story behind the view.
That wasn't the intent but I think I will (once DAZ Studio has new & improved animation available such that even I can manage to make animations
) create an Adam-12 / Road Runner & Looney Tunes based fan cartoon where Adam-12 go about trying to stop some of those horrible things that goes on in Looney Tunes Land! 
I've been thinking about doing that for a while now.
I've never actually watched the show though until recently; when I was looking for cheap non-gory TV DVDs and found out Season One has Spanish (I want to learn Spanish better than the 2 semesters of College Spanish I had to take). It's pretty messed up when it's cheaper to buy a lot of old TV series DVD sets rather than subscribe to cable or satellite because of how expensive those subscriptions are!
+++++
Edit:
OK...so I updated my previous 'ad copy' to use the 2 opacity planes, the hinter one with a tiled pattern, and changed the head morph to a Adam-12 FaceGen morph I made last year for another render.
Note: A little mistake - I forgot to apply the Martin Milner morph to Cop 1 in the foreground so that cop is actually basic G2M (I knew he didn't look right but I wasn't sure
). I mainly wanted to show the effect of using 2 opacity planes for the background character so job done.
That font is EngraversGothic BT.
I've managed to stay awake until 2pm (should have headed to get some sleep at 10am) so won't be back online until 10pm or so. You kiddos have fun putzing in the meantime. And I, too, remember Adam 12- and CHIPS....
Rex G8M Terran Hair G3/8M Attitude Outfit G3M dforce Sanjay Hair G8M Symbiont Outfit G8M
I don't have EngraversGothic BT, so I had to compromise.
Here's my Promo rendition of GA's Rex for G8M:
Oh yummy! You do the doubles quite nicely! I like the use of different hair and outfit to give another look.
Another thing which would be fun is reversing with the paler one up front and the full strength one in the background. I may play around with that. And doing special effects- like watercolor, pen and ink etc on one or both. Photoshop plugins should make for an interesting combination, particularly if different ones are used on the characters.
@nonesuch00 I love that 55 repeating plane- really adds pizazz.
LOL- forgetting to do something major is a forte of mine. Once I rendered a character and forgot to turn back on the HAIR. I clicked render and left to go get something to eat, and from the kitchen I can see my computer. I about dropped my sandwich from laughing so hard. And oh yes, it was a WOMAN.
So begs the question- what is the stupidest faux paus any of you have done while rendering? The "I knew better than that" or "OOPS!"
I ran a long dForce simulation out to frame 59 and then rendered frame 0. Oops.
I always put hair on a character before dressing them, so I regularly end up fitting the clothes to the hair because I still have that selected...
Some of GA's promos have two different versions on the same image, like Dae for G8M or Ragnar, to show off makeup, facial hair, scars, etc. Rex doesn't have makeup or a scar, but he does have three facial hair options. I used the clean-shaven option to highlight how young the character can look, and the strongest beard option to show how rugged/bada$$ he can be.
I also added the products and links to the post.
I've done this too
- also often had a piece of clothing selected then loaded another one and couldn't understand why Autofit was coming up all the time!
Another thing that irks me is when I am SURE I have saved a scene, rename it with Save As, only to change it to totally destroy the lighting setup with a new one. Then of course, I go look for the scene and the first one was never saved. Arrrgh.
Dumbest thing I repeatedly do is mean to render one character but render another instead because I forget to change the sliders but worse then that is open an old scene that I really wanted to keep as a basis for a new scene and change it but then forget and save the changed scene over the old scene I wanted to save. It's worse when I wind up not even liking the new scene.
LOL we need a WARNING, SURE YOU WANT TO DO THAT? popup button which gets triggered when you choose the Save and the Save As.
If you have a scene you want kept then, in Windows, right click on the icon in Windows Explorer and set it to read only, no more overwriting. I do that when the window opens to Save As then save the second scene with a second name.
thanks
+1
Still do.
I haven't figured out how to get the computer to read my mind, yet. I'll have an item selected, see that I need to make changes to another item, move or some such, and start sliding dials, only to find I'm moving the wrong object. I know what object I'm trying to change, but my computer doesn't. It hasn't read my mind, and I didn't select the object I was thinking about.
Most annoying. Dumb computer!
As I have an older computer and render only CPU (have a 1GB old N'vidia GPU) and only 16Gb Ram (that the max my Alienware can handle) I have to make sure the scene doesn't need too much memory and that I render with 5 cores out of 6 so it doesn't lock up my comp.
BUT sometimes I still forget and lock up my comp
or at least it takes a long long time to get responsive.
I also forget every now and then to save before rendering.
I used the Daz Originals PC+ coupon of $6 and picked up Dark Elf's Faunia for $2.80 I may render her today. It's 4:20am and I'm not sure if I'm headed to the barn or not, it's really, really humid.
Speaking of weather, if you folks in Florida along the top of the state (including Jacksonville), Alabama and Mississippi Gulf Coast areas don't know this yet, some models are showing the front coming down as pushing a low over the Gulf (right by Pensacola to over to the Big Bend area- for folks who don't know what that is, it's where Florida curves and attaches the Panhandle to the peninsula)
Then the front keeps that low there and it may start up into a tropical storm. If it lifts straight up, it will bring it back onshore here to Big Bend. Some models show the front going more diagonally and taking it right over through Jacksonville, exiting, and becoming stronger- possibly a hurricane going UP THE EAST COAST. This starts up anywhere from Wednesday and Thursday and goes through the weekend. Another model has it forming and heading west out into the Gulf and probably not affecting anyone. So as usual, models all over the place, and this probably won't do a darned thing, but just wanted you to be aware.
So keep a heads up. Here's how to find these hidden nuggets (note the Weather Channel and Accuweather, etc are NOT giving information, just vague statements.) First is Wunderground.com, then go to News and Blogs, Category 6, and go to the BOTTOM of the articles and there you will see the PhD meteorologists and hobbyists who know where to find the hidden jewels of information. A lot of it is conjecture but they do show the models from all over the internet, and so you have them in one place. So just click on the latest article and scroll down.
Tropical Tidbits is the one Floridians in my area watch, I know because anytime I'm in Walmart buying for an upcoming storm, it's what people are talking about- particularly when something spins up. Levi is AMAZING. Go and look to the right at his Twitter feed, and you'll see the loop showing what I am talking about forming up. That model shows it going west through the Gulf and kaput. The models are all over the place, as usual.
So I decided to use both my PC+ coupons so next I put all three new items in my cart and they are going to 71% with the extra 20% off, then put two old items from the featured artists in, and with that extra $6 off, they went 71%. I went for one bigger ticket item (subway) then paired it with a cheaper item (Character) So five things for $31.47. Today is a good day to use your PC+ code on the old things that must total $18 that are 50% off, because that $6 can really whack it down. Or look at your more expensive wishlist items and see if they're included and now 50% off and take another $6 off
Edit- take a look at that character below- her eyebrows would be great for younger kids/infants as they are sparse but not patchy sparse. It's uniform and would look great IMO on youngsters. Nice colors. Light brown, blonde, and red- three colors.
H&C Trench Coat Outfit for Genesis 8 Female(s)new $21.95 $6.46 71%
Gregory HD for Genesis 8 Malenew $18.95 $5.57 71%
Eleanor HD For Genesis 8 Femalenew $19.95 $5.87 71%
Modern Commuter Carriage $29.95 $8.31 72%
Sandy for Teen Josie 8 $18.95 $5.26 72%
Platinum Club is saving you $13.67 on this order<
71%
Okay, I got off on a tangent this morning and got to wondering, how fast does an average person run at their fastest? Well, that never really got answered but then I found a fun video. BEFORE you watch it, test your concept of speed. Write down how fast you think these animals run, and then PUT THEM IN ORDER on a piece of paper. See how you did.
These are alphabetically. First put them in order, from slowest to fastest.
Elephant
Jack Russell Terrier (dog)
Pig
Roadrunner (bird)
Squirrel
Now put down how many mph they run at their fastest.
Now watch this video. BUT DO NOT WATCH THE NEXT ONE, the World's Fastest Animals. When you see the car in the video, END IT so the graphic for this next one doesn't come up. See how you do on this next group before you see the fastest animals. These are alphabetical, put them in order from slowest to fastest THEN guess their fastest mph. If there's a group, they are all the same speed.
Albatross (bird), Gyrfalcon (bird), Black Marlin (fish)
Cheetah
Frigatebird
Golden Eagle
Hobby and Swift (birds)
Horsefly
Lion
Mexican Free-tailed Bat
Ostrich, Swordfish, and Hummingbird
Peregrine Falcon
Pidgeon
Pronghorn and Springbok (Antelopes)
Sailfish
Spur-Winged Goose
Now, prepare to be amazed! And don't discuss your results yet, it will ruin it for other people.
@ Novica: HU -- Check 'Tropical Tidbits' at 120 through 168 hours from 0000Z today. Not a hurricane but could be some tropical development and rough weather in your area coming up later this week.
Playing around with @Lyoness's Jennica, I think that it's really cool that this PA is doing characters that are both G3 and G8. There are a couple of newer purchases in the pic as well: Bast Hair for G3F and Lighting Designer. For Lighting Designer, I strongly advise anyone using it to look at the included instruction manual (there's a link that will bring it up in the main folder) and to try outdoor lighting options if the indoor options don't seem to yield the results you're looking for. For Bast Hair, you need to apply the hair texture of your choice both to the scalp component and the hair component, and then apply the separategold beads material to the main hair. (I managed to overlook the bead option when I was setting this up, so the beads here are a mix of the base Uber Iray options and @IgnisSerpentis's Gemology I set.
...nevermind...it wasn't a bug...it just went quiet for a while...maybe to let computer cool off? It's back to rendering now
Yep, sitting at 40% chance, up from 20%. @odaa That looks really nice! I like the Bast Hair. The lighting seems very softly diffused.
Yep, sitting at 40% chance, up from 20%. @odaa That looks really nice! I like the Bast Hair. The lighting seems very softly diffused.
I hope this is the right place for it, but I wanted to call out SickleYield and Fuseling's Beautiful Skin Iray products since they're the absolute best tool I've found for doing non-photorealistic paintover effects on renders. It took me a lot of trial and error before I made this part of my workflow so my hope is that it can be helpful to other folks who are trying to use DAZ to do 2D-style character portraits/visual novel sprites/comics/etc.!
A consistency problem I ran into when trying to do this kind of postwork is that it frequently came out looking like a stock photo with art filters on it rather than something created with intent. The very very short version of the conclusion I came to after months of noodling around: When you're doing 2D art or comics, you lay down basic flat colors before you start to render details on top of them, and then stop when you've added enough details to make a cool picture. By starting out with super photorealistic character renders, I was trying to subtract enough details to get close to something like flatting, and then add back in the things that would make it look like a digital painting.
I want the images for my project to be stylized but not cartoony, so the available toon and graphic novel shaders wouldn't work. I also needed a uniform solution for a cast of characters with a variety of skin tones, ages, and appearances, so I couldn't count on using skin textures from toon characters. I also didn't want to lose details like blemishes, scars, or freckles.
I'm a huge fan of SickleYield and Fuseling's work so I feel bad that I passed over the Beautiful Skin products until recently. In most lighting--and especially dramatic lighting--the raw renders already look like they've been painted over, and act like an underpainting. It's basically the DAZ equivalent of stage makeup, and because it's highly reflective it's easy to work with in dimmer light and pulls out a lot of interesting light and shadow.
Some notes:
Wow, I was sort of ignoring 'Beautiful Skin' but the results I like best.
Welcome to the thread, yep, this is where you can showcase products, tips, techniques. Thanks for being so precise with your explanation! The only thing I would ask is to make the Beautiful Skin a clickable link so people don't have to look it up. You linked the other products but not the main one. :)
I can spot immediately what I think the main difference is- and it's the metallicity and reflectivity (emphasis on the metallicity). It's what gives it the sheen without an overly wet look.