Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 12
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Thanks, good to know.
@genaris, I use a Private gallery for images like that. Just go to your Gallery link, (from your account,) create a folder for the topic and in the settings for the folder, mark it Private. Now all the images you upload to this folder will not be in the public area. Keep the file size below 2MB and the gallery software won't resize the images. (I use Irfanview for this. There's an option I can set to limit the file size. Very handy!)
To embed these images in your thread/post, open your private gallery folder, open the gallery image page, highlight the image on the page, copy, place your cursor in your post, and paste. That should embed the image with half the work. You still should edit the image properties to open in a new window, but the image in the post will be 730 pixels wide, while the image it links to will be full-size.
Yes, my order went through on October 21, 2019 at 12:55:28 AM MDT. They were still $1.99 at that time. I don't know when they were pulled. You are right that they should have been removed from the banner if they didn't belong in the sale.
@barbult But on the sales thread didn't Jack say it was intentional that they were in the sale? (as people were saying they'd feel guilty if they took advantage of that) I wonder if they'll show up at 1.99 at some point. I already had both of them. It pays to shop early on those 1.99 ones.
Okay, I had to laugh at the name: https://www.daz3d.com/impractical-adventure-girl-for-genesis-8-female-s. That outfit is heaps more practical than 90% of female 'adventuring' outfits - for a start, low-heeled boots.
He said it was intentional, but I thought it was a bit ambiguous whether it was intentional that they were in the sale of that they were removed from the sale. He was asked for clarification, but I didn't see a reply.
Well, it's the front of the top. And those wingnut looking things at the top of the boots perhaps? I do agree about the boots though.
Ditto
On another site, I do have a question- is there only a female version of The Baby? She's a great price right now, scooping her up, but looked for the male and didn't see one. If you get her, note the other featured stores have clothes for her. I really like the onesie and Christmas options.
Are talking about the Sixus one? Yes it is only for G8F, if need be it should be easy to transfer to G8M but I didn't try.
Good catch on the boot thing! I had scrolled past it thinking it would probably have high heels. But the boots + the belt made it an easy buy.
I figure it's all in the clothing as to whether one thinks it's boy or girl. Make that onesie blue and name the baby Robbie, and no one would know the difference. Just guessing, but I'd think that's why there's only the one.
I haven't tried it yet, but I'm assuming the pose sets for Caryn and Tobyn will work on The Baby, too. The biggest problem I suspect is getting the conforming male baby clothes here to fit.
I doubt they were supposed to be in the $1.99 sale, as they are brand new items, and went back to normal price later.
I've only picked up a few minor things from the sale. I like quick rendering backgrounds that you can make your own in a image.
This is my entry for the pcrendercontest2019 using the enchanted jungle backgrounds. I've used several of the @dreamlight backgrounds with good success.
The sets load up a little dark, so, I use a camera up and to the side to help with placement of additional items.
Description
Lots of cool stuff this sale. :-) Added the new backgrounds for fun.
Made with...
Very very nice
@Robert Freise Thank you!
@cismic That background goes so well with that scene! I love the palms framing the foreground.
@novica thank you!
I used Singular Blues morph transfer script to copy People of Earth faces of Africa genesis 3 female morphs to G8 female for the girl on the left and used Musoke's skin on her. I also successfully converted V4 Cuore di Moda to fit G8 female using the RSSY Clothing converter
That looks good
Oooh, okay. Wasn't sure until I tested it. At the top of the sales page for today it says get 15% when buying two or more, then right above the items, it says 10%. BOTH apply. Then another 10% if PC+ member. The fast way to check the price is PRICE X .85 (paying 85%) X .90 (paying 90%) then if PC+ X .90 = Price. I'm getting 52% for the Non DOs. I LOVE those realistic trees, so tired of the flat pancake leaves on many sets.
Well, after today's items I'm out for the rest of this sale - given a choice between tickets for Nick Cave next year and more 3d stuff to max my credit card on, it was an easy choice *g*
It's a pleasure to work with. It's possible to re-run the script on any tree, so you can make small changes.
I'd suggest that it could do with a few more species (oak, willow, birch, to name a few) - maybe something for an expansion pack? Even with the random parameters on the branchlets/leaves, trees within a species are still very similar, which is a minus if you're making a forest, but rotating and scaling should help in minimizing that.
Some autumn elms and a kind of eucalyptus/elm/spruce hybrid:
@nath I really like those!
Thanks for mentioning the trees, Novica. I did a quick glance at the New Releases and it didn't catch my eye. In truth, I have so many trees/plants that it didn't occur to me to look at it closer than the small preview on my Kindle screen.
I love realistic trees too! I am rendering a Thanksgiving scene with Merlin's Great Oak and it looks super even though it is an old product by 3D product standards.
Also, get this, it has 3 sets of oak leaves used to populate the tree branches. Any one that knows about oak trees knows they aren't much for fall color, mostly turning from green to brown and keeping many of their brown leaves until spring. Unfortunately only green leaves are included but since there are 3 sets of oak leaves you can simply set the diffuse texture to none and then choose the diffuse base color to 3 different shades of brown for the 3 sets of oak leaves and you have then an awesome autumn/winter ready oak tree.
This is not the pin oak or live oak type trees that Novica and other USA southeasters are more used to but the 'original' oak species with the multi-lobed leaves. However, the shape of the trunk & branches are definitely usable as an adult pin or live oak one just need to make three or more sets of pin / live oak leaves.
I suppose you could also make material presets for maple, and other more colorful autumn species of trees but they have different typical trunk and branch shapes and arrangement and bark so the results won't be as good.
When my Thanksgiving render finishes I will edit this post and turn it into a review of the 2 new products (one is a Wilma P Pusey Design freebie) used in my render.
OK, so my Thanksgiving render is done. I've already talked about the Merlin's Oak, Plants, and Props Set but I want to add it is 3DL format, has nettles and dandelions, campfile, and various lighting scenarios as shown by the product ad copy. A surprising thing it doesn't have are presets to reapply the 3DL material to the various product surfaces should you edit them & what to reset the materials how they were originally.
For that shortcoming I have the product Merlin's Oak, Plants, and Props Set a Grade B, whether on sale or at full price.
The other new product used is Pusey Design's Pilgrim Outfit for Genesis 2 Male. Despite the cartoonish Popeye proportions the Genesis 8 Male character has been given the pilgrim outfit autofit quite well the the fellow. I don't know about you but when I see that character wearing that Pilgrim outfit I immediately think of Thanksgiving. So for that, the cost, and the ease of use I give the Pilgrim Outfit by Pusey Designs (WilmaP) a Grade A.
I should mention that the Pilgrim Outfit didn't have shoes & socks, or I couldn't find them at least so I used the shoes & socks from the earlier reviewed Knickerbocker Clothing Set I review prior in the 'Helping on Halloween' render.
Oh, I nearly forgot about reviewing the 3D Universe Toon Turkey. He is 3DL but as a toon converts well to iRay and comes with several poses. I've been attacked as a boy by one of my Granny's Tom Turkeys so note that birds, especially tame birds, aren't afraid of creatures much bigger than themselves and those beaks can hurt. I have the product a Grade B and a Grade a on sale at 50% off or more. It's not part of the 3DU On the Farm Bundle either unfortunately.
I'm doing 12 renders of monthly avatars but I'm not going to review the products used in those renders here and I've a lot of other things to do by Christmas.
To see a complete listing of the products used in this render please see the link on the thumbnail above.
Thanks so much for mentioning this. I had skipped over it as most of the trees are diappointing for any closeup work.. these look like they'll be great.
Yes, thanks for the tree reference. BTW, here's the link: https://www.daz3d.com/ultratrees--realistic-tree-system. I didn't realize it was a new product. I looked right over it somehow. Anybody know if you can save off the tree you created or do you need to go through the create process each time for each scene? I would expect 'yes' but I don't know a lot about the instancing feature.
Stumbled across something I found useful for postworking renders & thought others might be interested: a video demo by a guy retouching his fashion photography with intent of adjusting his model's makeup and editing blemishes WHILE RETAINING ALL ORIGINAL SKIN TEXTURE. The technique: FREQUENCY SEPARATION. It does nothing to improve your image in itself, it is just a method to split the COLOR INFORMATION apart from the TEXTURE/STRUCTURE INFORMATION in an image so that you can fix COLOR issues (like jpg & color artifacts etc) without affecting/degrading TEXTURE/STRUCTURE (ie, shapes, edges and surface details) and vice-versa.
He was doing a beauty makeover, but it occured to me that this would be useful to fix issues that often bug me with HDRIs (and other photographically-based items) in 3d work. HDRIs often have so much grain and color artifacting etc that they really have a distinctly different visual texture than the 3d-rendered bits, like people, cars, houses etc, but cleaning that "noise" via filtering the usual ways means the treated areas end up blurrier or painterly-looking, sometimes long before you get the artifact patterns and grain all removed. Of course, this would be useful to adjust makeup of models in 3d renders just as he demonstrated in his video, since sometimes we need/want to adjust eyebrows, blush, etc in a render during post, but not lose the texture and clarity due to clonestamping, brushing etc, so there's probably lot of use for this method.
This technique is demonstrated in Photoshop, and he has an ACTION which can be downloaded (free!) that automates it, if you like, but he shows how to do it yourself manually and it is simple, quick. This technique can easily be done the same way manually in most modern layered image editors like Corel PaintShop, gimp etc, so this isn't just photoshop only technique.
Once you do the FREQ SEP, you have 2 new layers in your image, one of which affects COLOR, the other, TEXTURE. On the appropriate layer, you remove noise, despeckle, clone stamp, sharpen, paint or whatever edits you want to perform on either COLOR or TEXTURE. When done, you can flatten and save per usual, and yaaY!
I watched the vid, crunk photoshop and did a quick experiment with a render of a lovely-but-messy sky HDRI and was pretty happy with the first try of the technique! EXAMPLE IMAGE with notes and BEFORE & AFTER views attached.
Link to video tutorial: https://phlearn.com/tutorial/perfect-skin-action/
Link to download the .ATN action file for photoshop users convenience: https://phlearn.com/tutorial/perfect-skin-action/
Click through to full size image for best detail viewing...
Get your FREQ ON, Dazzers! :)
~Gen
PS: THANK YOU, @L'Adair for your helpful and spot-on response to how to post the image for this correctly. :)
Yes, you can save out a tree (in this case as a scene subset) and reuse it. It's even still editable if you select it and run the script.