Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 12
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Hugz.
@ladair But that also means two years of not finding a dead one like her on the road, either. She was SO loveable I'm sure someone took her in, just like I take care of Tux and Shadow every night.
Cold front coming through, high will be in the SEVENTIES tomorrow! What about that SIXTY FOUR DEGREE DROP in 24 hours in Denver? WOW. From the 70's to the 20's. Bet the horses are downright confused! NONE of them would have their winter coats. Hope the owners blanketed them, even if they normally don't blanket their critters. There's just no way for a mammal without a winter coat to NOT be absolutely freezing in the 20's.
Leda HD won't DIM install for me, keeps download failing while everything else is no problem. Anyone else experience this?
There is a thread on this subject.
@barbult Thanks. Can't manually download her, I just tried.
I always loved autumn as a kid. Seeing the Indian corn, pumpkins, various harvests, autumn leaves which teachers would have us collect and press between two sheets of wax paper & iron for class, Halloween, and all the other sorts of hobby type things we'd do with the start of a new school year.
Cabin In The Snow Iray Blizzard DA Let it Snow
I picked up Cabin in the Snow during the PA Festival.This is a large set with terrain, trees, cabin, and a large number of props, great for kit-bashing. The snow in the set uses a custom shader and gives really great results, I think. The cabin is very rustic. If you put a light inside, you'll see the light seeping out between the boards. All the windows have curtains with a coarse weave but no transparency, but there is glass in all the windows, including the attached leanto shed. There's a door on the front of the cabin and one on the leanto, but neither door open. However, this is an "exterior" set. Inside the cabin, there are no floors, and no walls dividing it into rooms. On the other hand, the rock is finished inside as well as out, as is the wood and the thatch. It would be possible to add a floor and other props if you wanted an interior shot.
The ground is one object consisting of the terrain, water, ice and wood dock. You can hide the ice and apply a different shader to the terrain for a non-snowy scene. The snow on the rocks and the roof of the cabin are also separate material zones that can be hidden. Other details of the terrain are grouped into one object of like items; the sparse grass, the small rocks, the large rocks, and the trees. Removing or hiding part of these "groups" requires the help of the Geometry Editor. On the other hand, it's real easy to remove any of these and replace them with other products; As they intersect the terrain, removing them does not leave holes in the ground mesh.
You will need to supply the distance background. The set does not include any sort of background prop or HDRI.
The set also does not include snow on the many props, or trees. To add snow, I used DA's Let it Snow product. I bought Let it Snow when it first came out, at the end of 2015. But I couldn't make heads or tails of it back then. I kept it because I knew the issue was me, and that I learned more, I'd be able to use it. The product uses Geometry Shells and custom snow shaders. I used it to add snow to the branches of the included trees, the water wheel on the cabin, the dock in the water, the fence sections around the cabin, and the various props visible in the scene. (Any prop that wasn't visible was removed.) I added some trees to the scene from other sets, (Predatron's Fir Trees and AM's Winterland Trees.) I used Let it Snow to add snow to the fir trees, and I used the shaders on the snow of the spruce trees, (after converting them to Iray.)
For the falling snow, I used Iray Blizzard. With the scene being so wide, I used the original and an instance side-by-side. The prop consists of a grid of planes broken into three sections. These are "bones" which you can hide from the Scene tab. The only fault I can find with these weather sets from KA is the three sections share material zones. You can hide one or two in the scene, but you can't apply different materials based on the sections. (Unless you use the Geometry Editor and create your own, as I did in this image, using the dense snow for the two sections furthest from the camera and a lighter snowfall for the close section.) Mind you, in most cases, this isn't going to be an issue, but the heavy snowfall obscured too much of the scene in the foreground.
(The chimney does not come with the set. That's kitbashed from the Modular Medieval Village. I modified the curtains to add transparency and created a "lightbox" for each window, to prevent the light from shining through other than the windows. I also lowered the luminance on the flames in the lanterns around the cabin and created ghost light cubes for the light, so the flames are visible, if you look at the full-size image. Postwork included decreasing the size of "snowflakes" close to the camera, adding the churned snow and hoof prints for the deer, and two overall layers of snow, one of tiny flakes and another of larger but blurred and semi-transparent flakes.)
This image is in the Gallery here, where you can view it larger with one click or full-size, 4700 x 2000 pixels, with two clicks. All products used are also listed there.
Here are some viewport shots of the cabin set. First, an overview of the set from the left:
And an overview from the Top:
And here's a view inside the cabin, with the roof hidden:
And finally, here's view of the Blizzard prop over the set. The Camera lines are also visible.
To make the prop and instance more visible, I changed the materials and then set it to 25% opacity. When using the prop, I had Visible in Viewport set to Off. Even though it only displayed the snow, I suspect moving around the scene was easier with it hidden.
Be forewarned. If you use a lot of geometry shells with the snow shader, it will impact your render times. With my GTX 1080, the scene above rendered at about 112 samples per hour. I let it render for two and a half days. Although without the water, I could have stopped it much sooner. I also created and rendered this scene in DS 4.12. Iray changed a lot between 4.11 and 4.12. Test renders with 4.11 rendered about twice the samples per hour, though I believe from what I've read in the forums that newer Iray renders a lot more information per sample.
Oh my gosh, what work you put into this!!!! Thanks for the writeup, did you put it on your thread too?
I've never used Let It Snow and now I'm thinking "If Anita didn't get it at first, I'm DOOMED."
Everyone needs to go Like this in your gallery and get it noticed!
I didn't put it in the Kitchen, but I'd posted a screencap of the deer while it was rendering in the WIPs thread, so I posted the finished render in there.
Don't let my confusion of four years ago stop you. I just didn't know enough about the program, or to use the Content Library instead of Smart Content, to figure these out. It's simple. You apply the GeoShell preset to create the shell, you apply one of several modifiers to the shell, based on the item you're adding snow to, and then you apply the materials to the shell. Biggest stumbler is forgetting to select the shell before appying additional presets.
I was just totally clueless about geometry shells. That was then. Today, I understand GeoShells and I found the product very easy to use.
And thank you for your kind words. I'm glad you like the image. And I hope you never see anything like this IRL where you currently live!
You linked to your purchased library listings and not the DAZ 3D Store listings for those products. At least for the 1st 2 products, which I don't have, but not the 3rd, which I do have.
(by the way even though you link to your personal library of purchases when followed the links will go to the personal purchased library of the person clicking the link so no security issues with your mistake).
Just wanted to mention- be sure to add a new release to your order (any new release) if you are buying in the Flash sale. It drops the price even further.
Oops. I thought I'd edited those. Fixed now.
Can you do me a favor and edit your post to remove the quote? That way only the corrected links will show.
Thank you.
Just curious as I am not online much- when did the Flash Sale start, and has it been rotating or is the Hellboy one the first tonight/today?
The Digital Art Live / Hellboy flash sale is the second one today and started about 1:15 pm DAZ time (MDT). The first one was Lyoness and Crocodile Liu and it started about 6:15 AM DAZ time.
Welp, I missed that first one then. I have a lot of Lyoness though. So seven hours on that one, it's past due for this one to change over but if it did, it would be a four hour sale.
Note- even though Fulcrum University is showing full price, it IS PC+ price in the cart (both products.)
And no, you can only get one gift card at the 19% at a time, haven't tried it twice.
Wow. Some nice deals, and not glitches. But of course, the other day you had to spend 200.00 to get to that 19% off gift card, and today some folks have the banner (if you are PC+) and the gift cards are 10% for everyone, so PC+ members who spent 201.00 up the other day could have waited. (again. And no, learned my lesson, I didn't nibble.)
Again, don't forget Fast Grab if you are getting that extra 10% off.
Ohhhh yes. It's 67 cool degrees here in Pensacola, Florida at 3am. LOVE IT! How is it where you are, and give a general idea of where you are at. I was actually a bit cold walking in the back yard, as there's a breeze too.
Netherlands, 15 Celsius, rainy
It is 8ºC/46ºF here at 09:00, misty and damp
There is a band of cloud/mist across the hill between the shore and the summit with low cloud on the higher summits and drifting mist/cloud above the fir trees.
Where are you Sandy?
15.8C/60F here in Sydney's outer western suburbs, at 1930 (7:30 pm) local time. And it's our Spring season.
And in the last hour or so Fastgrab has changed a few times. If you're quick you might get some nice bargains, like T-Rex 3 or ATLAS suits for G8: https://www.daz3d.com/fast-grab-3d-models/
Scotland just west of Glasgow at the moment.
I was so puzzled by this post. I later learned from another thread that apparently there is a purple banner. However, not all PC+ members received it. I did not and am not a new, just for the sale member. The purple banners in the last couple of months have been quite illusive. I haven't been receiving them, despite the remarkable spending.
@gitika1 Oh, so sorry. It was a banner that I read quickly, I stupidly assumed PC+ members got it. But going back to it- It says "long term PC+" and I think it means without taking a break from the Club?
I am PMing you.
I've been a member non-stop for five years, and I did not get said banner. Apparently "long term PC+" is more than five years, if that helps anyone…
I got a banner for 10% off for being a loyal member although I haven't been. I've been a member quite a while but have and will let it lapse. Most of my DAZ products I've bought though have been PC+ items so maybe that's why I got the 10% banner.
Weather here in SE Kentucky is 66F with 37F as the low. The low is somewhat lower than average for this time of year actually.
Huh, Ati on the sale thread said five years- but "close to" so maybe it's a combination of length of time PLUS buying habits. The banner makes it clear it's focus is length of time, but that can't be all there is to it, or the five year folks would be in on it. SIGH.
Yikes, BLink sale. When did the Colm one start? It says four hours.
Ati's email is time-marked 2:02pm MST for me.
I have the banner, and joined PC+ three months (June 2016) after downloading DAZ Studio. But I have made purchases everyday of the PC+ sale. All with my store credit.
In Denver, we were down to the teens on Thursday and had about 4 inches of snow where I live here. Broke a record for coldest morning on Friday. Now, at nearly 70F. Still very cold in mornings.
Mary