Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 12
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I'm looking forward to the results of your test! I run Iray on CPU almost 100% of the time (I have a single video card with only 2 GB VRAM and it's driving the monitor, etc, so not much space for a scene). I currently have DS 4.11 installed and it seems slower than DS 4.10 - I've been nervous of going to DS 4.12 Beta in case that's even worse.
As I understand it from the discussion thread, NVIDIA made some engine improvements in iray for speed and these have been incorporated into the beta. Everyone should be seeing some nice speed improvements. I know I certainly have.
What is the feedback on 4.12? Have the kinks been aired out, I'm still 4.11
BTW Moutuihe (Tuey) and Tokelau (Toko) are COMING HOME TODAY! And yesterday, I got a call from the birdstore that they had two baby pied Kakarikis that they hadn't offered to the public yet, and they never took me off the waiting list so wanted to know if I'd like a pied. I headed right over and have added Takutea (Tah-koo-tay-uh) aka Taku (as in Ta-KOO) to my Kakariki family. Baby Takutea is one month, two weeks old (so a month and a half) and born July 12th (Tuey and Toko are May 24 and May 27) so Taku will be coming home in October. Right in the middle of hurricane season (the last two months are supposed to be very busy this year.)
Takutea is on the left, note the one green tail feather and compare that with the later ones. Taku is exactly 3 weeks, 2 days old. Man they feather in fast! The tail feathers will get longer and the red will fill in on the forehead. It's fun to see the yellow on the wingtips really come in, and he has yellow "bloomers" on his legs/lower chest. I wanted one with yellow accents but not really a splotchy body, I like the solid green wings and back, with a bit of yellow trim on the neck in back. He/she could change though :) DNA was already sent off but I think it's a boy due to beak size.
And this is Takutea Thursday, at 6 weeks old (a month and a half)
@changelingchick Hey, congrats on CC Rafael. I got him but haven't had time to render him yet.
Thanks :D Diego is my second favorite male base to come out. Nix was my favorite. I am *super* excited to see the Diego renders everyone does :D
I have used the 4.12 beta exclusively since it was released and noticed it's much faster render times too . At times I thought there was a bug because I'm still using the same 7 year old laptop with integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU to CPU render and renders that used to take 12+ hours were finishing in less than 4 hours. That's not to say that's true for all my old scenes. For one I haven't tried to re-render all my old scenes to know. Generally speaking, the biggest render speed gains I've seen if portrait style renders in dark places. Rendres that are outdoors in daylight are faster but not to the degree the dark, high contrast renders have been sped up. Adding things like lots of water and such things slows it down more but that was true in the old iRay render engines too.
These 4 render were all done with 4.12 beta CPU renders in less than 4 hours each if I remember correctly (and maybe I don't but well...)
I tend to do 1920x1920, set rendering quality to on, 1.00, converge ratio 0.95 (so those are defaults) and max samples to 2000 and max time to 0. Those setting tend to cause the render to converge before 2000 iterations are reached and that almost never used to be the case. So something has changed with 'convergence criteria'. They've improved the quality of the render to make it converge faster or or lowered the quality needed to be considered 'converged'. I doubt the 2nd was done so they've quickened the math somehow while keeping about the same or maybe improving quality.
@Novica,
I just let out an ‘ahhh’ when I saw the pics of Taku. So precious.
I also have CC Rafael but too busy getting ready for a trip to visit my son’s family. Very frustrating. Diego 8 is one of the best releases and I can’t play!
Mary
There is a problem with DS 4.12.0.60 and dForce Dynamic Surface Addons. Products like the new Poolside Oahu and Caballero outfits crash Daz Studio if you try to simulate. They work fine in DS 4.11. I've submitted a bug report, of course.
As someone already posted on the sales thread, if you buy two from the Ambassador sale, that gives you 20% off the cart, then that stacks with the gift card sale today. So $201 will get you 36% off, for example. $275 gift card for $176 so about $100 off.
Tempting as that looks, I'm going to resist.
My runtime external drive died last week - not really a shocker I guess, since it was the oldest of my external drives (something like four years old I think) - so replacing that is my 3D budget priority for next month. Prudence would probably suggest replacing the backup disk as well, since that is the second oldest of my external drives. So I'll be getting two new 4TB external disks rather than more content to put on them *g*
So yeah, at least I have a backup and don't need to reinstall everything from the install/zip files. It's also a good motivator to focus on Blender for a bit.
Even so, seeing the discount in cart and emptying it was still almost physically painful.
My WD Passport just filled up last night LOL. I'm having to put stuff on the 8TB one. Is there a reason you are getting two 4TB instead of one 8TB? There's usually really good deals on the 8TB at Best Buy. I think I got mine at 60% off (or more. Can't remember, but I posted about it at the time) @nath
And what I did- I got the gift card first, THEN shopped the Bogo and got one item, one free, but the savings from the gift card made the bought one free (one way to look at it.)
I'm getting two fours and use one of them as a full backup of the other. I don't need 8TB for my runtime. Yet.
I think shipping costs and import duty would cancel out any advantage from Best Buy - will have to shop a lot more locally than that...
When FlowScape came out I posted a link to it. Just wanted to point out another thread where @6r is posting some very creative work using Daz content imported into FS. I especially like the ones where he uses the Daz objects as the "landscape" for adding various FS items. Another good way to make use of what you've purchased.
There's some nice jewelry in fast grab today. I got the one with flowers (Floral Bliss).
I'm buying a 5TB Seagate USB drive in October to rip all DVDs and BRs I've bought since autumn 1999. They'll all fit on one 5TB drive with room to spare. If at all possible I'd like for my Android TV (Android version 7) box that I'll be attaching this 5TB drive with all the DVDs/BRs to to play the DVDs/BRs with all the original menus that went with the DVDs/BRs. I'm on Windows 10 and I just want to rip (aka backup) to the 5TB drive my DVDs/BRs not re-encode them and them attach to my Android TV Box and play them like there were original DVDs/BRs. What is the DVD/BR ripping SW that can do this on Windows 10? What is ripped DVD/BR playback SW on Android TV Box that can play those back on the 5TB drive? Will Kodi play those back as if they had the original menus?
The first one or two I bought was at a Migros MMM Shopping Center I remember. Not as sure but I thing the DVDs were The Bridges of Madison County and Good Will Hunting. Despite having the Good Will Hunting DVD 20 years I've still not watched Good Will Hunting. Odd the things you remember sometimes.
Trying to think of a scene to create & render...
Just a reminder, because I forgot. Your August PC+ codes need to be used before the end of the month. You have $12 worth to use, use them in conjunction with the increase in percentages when you buy two (or more) products, and you get some sweet deals.
So not sure about how this works, because I'm testing and getting different results. For the one where your total must be $18 or more- IS THAT IS THE TOTAL OF THE PRODUCTS BEFORE DISCOUNTS, NOT THE TOTAL IN YOUR CART? Because the total in my cart was 17.96 and I missed the $18 by 4 lousy cents. I got the $6 off when I applied the coupon. So I thought, "Well, it must be the original prices that total $18 or more....????"
BUT each product by itself was over $18, and when I took one out and only had one (where the original price was over $18) it didn't work. So huh?
I am shopping the featured artists today and if you buy two it's 50% off. Not a great deal. However, the two items going 50% off then the $6 off went to 77% and 67% off. So if you haven't used your $6 off, give it a go, even if your total isn't $18. I don't know how this is supposed to work now?
dForce Toga Outfit for Genesis 8 Male(s)
$19.95 $4.65 77%
Arabic Anteroom
$21.95 $7.31 67%
Another reminder, you can use that code 2019-FEST to get an extra 20% off (4 items or less) so use it for any Fast Grab you might want. They go 76%
Well, when when you look under the coupons it is very clear what's included/excluded.
08-19PlatClub
$6 off Daz Originals. Excludes Platinum Club items, gift cards, FastGrab, and memberships.
08-19Save6
$6 off $18 on Daz, PC, and PA items. Excludes new releases, gift cards, FastGrab, and memberships.
but thanks for the reminder.
I think the answer to this question is, "the combined total of the products before additional discounts are applied."
So if you have three products on sale with a price of $6.23 on the details page, their total would be $18.69, if no further discounts applied. I suspect this is a variation of the problem with having free products in the cart; The coupon appears to be applied before the addtional discounts.
Okay. To be clear (for the what-if situation) I didn't have any free items in the cart. I only had those two, which were two from the featured artists for today. There were no other variables, except buying two reduced them to 50%. THAT total was $17.96 after the 50%. So it should NOT have qualified for the $6 off which required $18.00 (unless it is based on ORIGINAL prices.)
@spacevagabond Neither were a new release or a Fast Grab, BOTH qualified for the $6 off (obviously.) The confusion is why a $17.96 total allowed me to take $6 off, unless it was that the ORIGINAL prices qualified. But since BOTH the original prices were over 18.00 then only ONE should have been able to get the $6 off if we are saying the coupon is based on original prices. It rejected BOTH individually because I tested it before I did the two together and checked out.
Edit- so @ladair then ONE of them should have worked. The prices were over $18
I think I've had that happened once, that time was also Really close to the 18 dollars but not quite there, still took it off to my happy surprise. I didn't thought more about it, just thanked my luck for once :)
Hmmmm Bears testing next month then!
I think only DAZ knows and even they're not sure
Okay so the toga was 8.38 and 40% off before the discounts were applied, then the Arabic Anteroom was 13.17 at 40% off, so I see what you're saying @ladair Those two sale prices were used (and were over $18) BEFORE the additional 10% (buying two got them to 50% off while currently at 40%) so the PC+ coupon kicked in
So everyone is clear, if a product is on sale, the sale price is used before any MORE sale gimmicks are applied. (aka if it is 40% off but buying 2 will raise that to 50% off, the PC+ coupon recognizes those 40% off prices.) You're right as usual @ladair
WHEW.
It seems odd to me the Diego promo only lasted four days- did I count that right? I was surprised to see it POOF. There were 3 weeks between Kanade and Gabriela- instead of the usual two weeks. Had they kept to that two week schedule, then Diego could have been released on the 13th and been live for 12 days before pulling it for the PA Festival. We're getting disadvantaged with the male releases IMO.
Well, it's really just a theory. So far, it appears to be correct, but it could be coincidence.
(And don't let my husband hear you say I'm right, "as usual." He keeps referring me to "Rule #1: Husband is always right." Of course, it leaves me speechless, more or less. It's really hard to talk when I'm laughing that hard!)
+1
One good thing about skipping a sale like this one is that I just bookmark the items I want and don't have to bother puzzling out all the other offers/discounts/etc. Of course I'm using the time saved to look at external harddisks and comparing offers there, so I guess it's six of one and half a dozen of the other
Well, that's the self fulfilling prophecy of daz3D. Men's stuff doesn't sell, so hamstring male sales, so men's stuff doesn't sell.....And on and on and on. Frankly i'm getting tired of it. If they want to be a female content only site they need to just do it already so that I can quit wasting my time here. IMHO.
I've posted this image elsewhere, but I wanted say more about the products, so here's a review to go along with the image…
Jepe's Roderick for Diego 8 | dForce My Guy Jeans and Shirt for G8M | Collective3d Portrait Vignettes Contemporary 5 | Alpha Male Poses for The Brute 8 and G8M
While the product description calls Roderick a "a youthful hot South American male," I see him as older, perhaps in his 30s. Remove the body hair and make that beard finer and scraggly, though, and I think he'd pass for youthful. I really like his body shape, too: Fit, but not over-the-top muscular. As much as I like the character, I have to say the biggest value in the package is the included hair. Jepe includes a dozen SBH presets for hair from head-to-toe. (I use the term preset because that's how they are listed on the product promo.)
Roderick has two figure presets. The first preset loads the character with materials that include eyebrows. The second preset loads the character with no-brow materials, anatomical elements and all of the SBH objects, the only way to access the SBH objects. Once loaded, you can hide or delete them like any other wearable. And because they are SBH, you can edit them in the SBH Editor. (Read more about it here.)
The My Guy outfit is really nice. The buttons use Rigid Follow Nodes, so they move with the drape, but don't distort. I needed a solid color for the shirt, so the intersecting hair would stand out in my before renders, and while working with the materials, I discovered the stitching and button holes are in the Diffuse Overlay. that made it easy to use just a solid color for the shirt and another for the overlay. Had they been part of the texture, I'd have lost those details. I defintely like look and fit of these pants, (and how the crotch of the pants looks realistic.)
I made only slight changes to the pose on the upper half, and a bit more on the lower half. I didn't like the way the toes bent under and I had to compensate for my changes to the foot.
I've used this set a number of times. It's much like a movie set; Those doors don't lead anywhere. But they look good.
Rodrigo
Here's a close up of Roderick's face:
The lighting here is simple, a ghost light in the hallway for backlight, a ghost light on either side in front, (though I've set the Cutout Opacity to 1 on both, for specular hightlights.)