Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 12
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Hey, thread surfers- would you please vote in the OOPS! Because I Said So! Contest? The voting is here and it's confidential and easy. The Entries are here and there's 13. You pick your top 5 (which makes it easier when there's so many great renders LOL. I never can pick just three!) Even if you don't vote, go take a peek at what artists came up with when enthusiasm or ideas just aren't appreciated or just plain go wrong! Thanks to everyone who participated!
Note while shopping just now- I'm getting 66, 86, 73, and 89% off some items. I did do the new inn, then went to the different sections on that page. Note that the 15% offer is four OR MORE so it's unlimited, and so are the options in each section of the inn page. Be sure and check for the three blink vendors and test different approaches in the cart. I never believe what sales say, I play.
Usable once, so shop carefully. (Haven't tested to see if works for more than one order.)
I'm tempted to buy her just in the hopes that it would encourage Sabby and Seven to step outside their lane a little more often.
She was 70% off but isn't anymore. These sales are mostly 24 hours. Just wishlist her and wait :)
Best Buy's Deal of the Day is Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 which is $40 off ($60 instead of $100) I like that it's not subscription. Any history on this product? Is it a good deal? Watch the video on the product page, it's quite impressive and you could do a lot with your renders. I love the draw a marquee around the object and it masks it. No more click and magic wanding! It's for Mac / Windows
Edit- But trying to find difference in that and the Premiere Elements. Okay, that one is the video capabilities, which would be cool (Best Buy has one buyer who gives an in-depth review of the capabilities, worth scrolling into the reviews of the Premiere.) I'm going to wait on the Elements and get the bundle with the Premiere if that ever goes on sale. No rush.
re Photoshop Elemets, I don't know whether 60$ is a good deal or not, but I feel there's not really a reason to spend money on PS Elements if there's GIMP for free.
Now, PS proper is something else...
Photoshop Elements is consumer editing of photos and Premeire Elements is consumer editing of video. It's 90% - 100% of what 99% of consumers would ever use.
$60 is really just an OK discount. It's typical starting in November every year you can get both PS & Premeire Elements bundled for $80 - $90 together on Amazon. Occasionally out of Christmas season too. Checking the price now it is $148.88. That's with free shipping of discs. Personally I'd buy it downloadable from Amazon for $149.99 instead and save house space.
Yeah, as I already decided, I'm waiting. Thanks for the info on the sales. I would want both so the bundle is the way to go. If Best Buy ever has it on sale and I catch it for a really good price (I don't check every day) I'll mention it here.
When I posted earlier about the discounts, although I would love to PM folks, I didn't have time. My dog was headed for the vet as he needed surgery (not an emergency) and they were able to fit him in at the last minute so I was out the door. I was referring to Design Anvil And Lady Littlefox when I mentioned the Blink Sale and the other sale, as I believe they were in both. Here were some of the prices before it was mentioned in detail on the sales thread and it was fixed.
DA Blue Dragon HD for Daz Dragon 3 $21.95 $2.39 89%
Scamp The Fox - Plushies 2.0
$18.95 $2.57 86%
Ping the Ringtail - Plushies 2.0 $14.95 $2.04 86%
$5 o free stuff with the CJ 8 Pro bundle, before my loyalty discount? Seriously?
Pretty anemic.
I'm still sad that the Littlefox blink sale went off while I was sorting through stuff. Cleared my cart. Sure wish they would put set hours on these stupid sales.
Sorry you missed the blink sale. :(
And I've been offline or slept through a lot of the Blink sales these past few days, I'm just rather burned out from all the "not working" glitches we've had the past few weeks.
One thing I am being careful about- I'm thinking real hard before pulling the trigger on the Pro Bundle today, because it seems there's always better sales a day or two later. (or three, or four.) But then, the selection of DOs may change. So hmmm. I guess I'll just go ahead and get it today. What are your thoughts? Waiting or not?
The second thing is I am being VERY careful not to buy things in the free DO section, which are in Pro Bundles that I didn't buy previously. I did not get Jenny and almost bought the Mousson character for her until I saw it was in the Pro Bundle. I am guessing that next fall / winter sales Jenny's Pro Bundle (and others) will be deeply discounted. So perhaps remember not to pick up bits and pieces of those bundles because they don't "count" when banners are offered for owning X number of Pro Bundles (whatever that secret number is, only marketing knows.) IIRC you can contact the sales dept to work that out if you get messed up that way, but what a hassle. (and not to mention the huge backlog of tickets they're probably still plowing through. Anyone had a ticket resolved quickly lately?)
And newbies- you CAN buy more than what is allowed in the DO section, it will just charge the difference and spread it out between items. Like so: (these are what I am getting btw. I get more of free DOs due to banner options and buying three of the add ons with the pro bundle)
Kira HD for Genesis 8 Female $18.95 $3.27 83%
Melody for Genesis 8 Female $18.95 $3.27 83%
Okay, how long has that purple banner that offers $2.20 items been up? I just saw it today and it ends today. I'm wondering if it's been covered up by another banner or if it's new? Nice of them to do this since there were so many glitches. I don't have a lot to choose from as I own a lot, but still a nice gesture (and I'm not surprised.) If you got a banner for the Pro Bundle today, be sure to check your account messages to see what exclusive offers you've got, in case this is hidden. Again, I just saw it.
I clicked away the Pro Bundle offer quite soon after Daz midnight, and this wasn't there then. I think it appeared a few hours ago.
Wow, I hope people see it then.
It definately only showed up today. It is the same as the offer people get for buying the CJ bundle. I guess some of us get it also for having a lot of pro bundles?
I just hope it won't later turn into one of those buy 2 of the 2.20 items to get a discount for this and that....
Speaking of the banner, can anyone who has DD Maia please render her without Gabriela dialed in?
Here you go, Gabriela 0%, Maia 100%:
Great, thanks! I was probably going to buy her today anyway, but that cinched it.
I'm glad I could help.
For 2.20 she looked like a nice enough char for me and even when I don't like the shape 100% I can always combine with some other shapes and the skin looks nice.
I almost always buy different skin tones and face types, like asians, latinas. Or the Alaska chick, she is so different from the norm, I had to have her.
I'm very much the same way. I'd be more interested in Alaska if she looked less.....Pocahontas-y, and more like an actual typical Alaska native. Eh, I'll probably grab her, anyway, and I'm also unreasonably tempted by the Victorian pram.
Not sure this will help anyone, but I had one of Ati's emails about a new DAZ promotion at 2:58pm MST this afternoon. I have not been looking at the Sales page, so not sure which one it might be for.
Mary
That would be the AM/Luthbel/Colm Jackson flash sale.
I got the pram as well :)). Maybe I'll need a stroller at some point.
For me she looks enough like an eschimo to use, maybe dial it down a little and use some morphs but close enough. Also the skin tones are really different from the 70% caucasians out there. I have enough of those :). I only get caucasian women if I really like the shape/resembles a celebrity I like.
That is an awesome sale with lots of great stuff. If only there was any other offer to combine it with. I have way too many unused items to be buying stuff at 70% discount.
Thanks, didn't see this right away. Gorgeous render! Glad you like her :)
If anyone wants Sue but hasn't pulled the trigger yet, you can get $10 worth of DOs along with her, which I'm combining with the superhero flash sale to get three items basically free.
That's a nice combo.
In comboed her with https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-hd-wet-and-dry-classic-dress-for-genesis-8-females with the 15% discount coupon and the 20% Iray discount and
Review of On the Farm
I was attracted to On the Farm by the promo images of a farm lane surrounded by a wooden fence, corn and woods around a farm house. Images of other crops (tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, pumpkins) and grass with and without flowers had a level of realism and detail that suggested what you would find along a country road. Besides being useful with this set, the props looked like they could be reapplied to many other farm scenes and products.
My biggest disappointment when first trying the product was there is no scene to load. This is a construction only set. If you want that opening promo, you’ll have to recreate it yourself. So I built a scene with the various elements as you see below.
There are several varieties and sizes of ground. Ground 1 and 2 are flat planes with grass tufts, the grass on #1 taller than on #2. Both are 650 x 650 in size. Ground 3 is grass tufts with small orange flowers. It is 440 x 440 in size. There are two Big Grounds, both flat planes, one with a grass texture and one with plain dirt. The only 3rd dimension to these is from bump. These are 2600 x 2600 in size, 4X the smaller ground 1 and 2. The smaller ground textures render well in Iray but the big grounds have a definite shine that is unrealistic as is the bump if doing closeups. The easiest solution is to change Base Mixing to Weighted and use one of the smaller grounds in the foreground to overcome the bump.
Ground Props As TheyLoad:
Ground Props After Texture Modification:
The reason I’m mentioning size is so you don’t have to measure them yourself. Because they are large, it’s faster to type a number like 440 or 2600 into X or Z translate to position them rather than dragging them into position.
The other ground elements are for the country lane. There’s a straight road section that is 400 x 400 and a curved section (about 60 degrees). The easiest way to create a long lane is to use UltrasScatterPro and do a matrix scatter. Set your desired number of road sections in the Z row and use a spacing of 400.
The sides of the lane have grass tufts with orange flowers. Individually they look nice but if you align them in a road you’ll see a repeating pattern:
The curved elements are strangely designed in that two give you a little less than 120 degrees (so you can’t do a right angle 90 degree road) and three is not quite 180 degrees (so you can’t get a full reverse turn). Fortunately you can overlap the curved sections to get the right angle as shown above.
The crop fields can be used to create a garden or large field. Cabbage, pumpkin, and potato plots are 440 x 350. Tomato plot is 440 x 100. Corn is 440 x 440. Use these values in UltraScatterPro matrix scatter to build larger fields (e.g., for corn use 3 x-rows and 10 z-rows, both at 440 spacing).
In addition to the ground and crops, there’s also a large forest prop that is 7880 x 1700 in size. There is no ground under the trees, so they need to rest them on something. You could use several of the big grounds but what I did was create one large primitive plane that was 10800 x 10800 to underlay the entire farm (you may need to move it down by -1 on Y-translate so it doesn’t interfere with the other ground textures). I copied and pasted the dirt big ground texture to it and reset the tiling to match up.
There’s also a fence section that is 440 long. You can use UltraScatterPro to create a long fence line as I did for the garden above.
In addition to the crop fields, there are individual crop plants and crates filled with the produce.
No farm would be complete without a house and barn. The house has window morphs so you can open each window as much as you want. The three doors can also be rotated open. The barn door can be moved to expose a big pile of hay inside. The house interior is not furnished but there are walls and a staircase inside.
Overall I like this product although you’ll have to create your own scene and do some fine tuning on textures. The best parts I think are the various crops and forest which can be reutilized in many other scenes.
The renders above only use what comes with the product other than the background hdri.
(Click on images for larger renders)
@rgcincy Thanks for the in-depth review Rich!
It is a shame it doesn't load as a complete set, I expect that to be included- particularly from larger, complicated sets.
The purple CJ banner isn't even in the exclusive offers, so I didn't close the purple bar. I just closed it now. Probably missed out on the 2.20 purple banner because of that. Wonder why purple banners aren't also listed in our messages anymore.
I love Sue!