Novica, Serene Night, & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 3
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Thanks Luci and Tjohn :)
I have the products you used Luci, so it's good to know what those combinations look like. I read that dress has 55 material zones. Wow.
Scott-L-thank you also for the Luxus explanation. Can you give some idea what the render times are, compared to the studio? I had read that they could go "forever" but was wondering about the basic difference in getting a good render vs the studio time to do the same.
Hey, I like that Estroyer. And Love that skin on the V6. I admit I passed that skin up because the promo art did not appeal to me, but the way the face and brows look are excellent. I also love those faces. Now if there was something similar for M6.... =-)
I sure wish I could post the picture of the person I modeled this next render from- it is really REALLY close to what my niece looks like! (Instantly recognizable to people that know her.) I'll tell you the story... I'm surprising her with it tomorrow morning when they head back home. My niece has two boys, one who is very interested and talented in all things computer. So I took the laptop over and he did DAZ. Did I mention he is six years old?
So, after he did a few cartoons, my niece gave it a try. Quite proud of herself. I had to hold back the giggles because all I had to do was bide my time until she putzed around and made something. My plan all along was to put whatever she made in the scene with the figure that looks like HER.
I took my time and had the past couple months to make her figure because I knew they were coming for the holidays. So this is her Christmas gift. The only thing I changed was the hair, the new one that came out was very timely.
Imagine her surprise when she sees HER in the scene with what she made. To make it even better, she has not seen what the scenes look like when lit and rendered. Oh goody goody! :) It's rendering now. I'll post it in a few minutes.
It's really hard to give a general estimate, because in LuxRender the render doesn't actually finish...it just keeps on calculating until you tell it to stop. At the beginning, it'll get noticeably better-looking (less grainy) as you watch. Then the improvement becomes more gradual until after a while you can let it run for a few more hours and not be able to tell the difference.
But to give you a more specific answer, I usually leave them to run overnight, maybe longer. On the same system, my 3Delight renders usually finish within a couple of hours...often less.
BUT--the way that LuxRender works...you can usually get a pretty good sense of how things are going within the first few minutes, and it's possible to make changes during the render. So just comparing render times doesn't tell the whole story.
Btw, take a peek at the second render in this post. One of our Invited Guest Contributors did an awesome render in their Art Studio thread.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/12482/#438165
Toon Generations Base
Toon Generations Strange Pack
Charlize For Genesis 2 Female Character
Boardwalk Outfit For Genesis 2 Female(s)
End Of Summer Hair For Genesis And Genesis 2 Female(s)
Skull Cove Buildings
http://www.daz3d.com/toon-generations-base
http://www.daz3d.com/toon-generations-strange-pack
http://www.daz3d.com/charlize-for-genesis-2-female-character
http://www.daz3d.com/boardwalk-outfit-for-genesis-2-female-s
http://www.daz3d.com/end-of-summer-hair-for-genesis-and-genesis-2-female-s
http://www.daz3d.com/skull-cove-buildings
The Toon Generations Base is your starting point for the toons- you can have basketball players, football players, baseball players, pilgrims, soldiers, and even a man on the moon! The Tumbleweed Horse goes well with the soldiers, and there is a saddle for him. The base isn't exactly cheap ($25 full price) so if you're going to dive in, look at the bundle (which is definitely not cheap either. But it has a lot.) I'm doing some stuff for teachers so the toons are perfect. And they are a LOT of fun!
The set is one of the Skull Cove buildings, and you know Skull Cove is one of my favorite sets.
Not sure which jeans I used as I am rendering and can't check.
EDIT: I will come back and post what the floor is- it is DM's something.
That looks really nice Novica. That toon is quite interesting. I like the look of him. =-)
Doing a closeup of both of them (going to take awhile to render, due to her hair) and one thing I am noticing is the nice shadows from the eyebrows and mask. I didn't really think about it having 3d parts but of course it would. How's that shattered glass coming along? Seems like you mastered it.
Headed to bed, early morning tomorrow- gotta see the relatives off/ give my niece her "gift." If the closeup turns out, I will post that too. I can see why everyone likes this hair.
Invited Guest Contributor
Late as always, but I haven't even had time to start on my third RRRR series, too much IRL stuff taking all time.
I decided to do a take on my second render in my second RRRR story thread as it uses some techniques I've developed for making heavily postworked images that uses Ron's stuff.
First off, the scene is based around the Stonemasons Cryo Tube and Cryo Environment sets.
I then added the figures that had been setup for the previous render and added a few new. Nothing really special with them, kitbashed outfits as usual.
I used some of the different cyborgs I have from DzFire and some older ones to represent the enemy, the Robotarians.
The first images shows the base render and two overlay renders where I've hidden parts of the scene and saved the images as transparent .png.
Now I added the explosion and smoke cloud, cutting it so it would be behind the floor, using parts from the transparent overlays to repair things hidden when the smoke was added. As you can see the guy is cut in half, but that will be fixed in a second, with the figures cut from the over overlay renders, seen below on that image.
Next I just kept adding layers of smoke, fire and debris until the scene looked like a snap shot from an action movie.
And at last I added some muzzle flares to give the image the look of a raging fire fight.
I used the following of Ron's stuff:
Ron's Explosions
Ron's steam and smoke
And one that is not in the store right now, I think it was pulled for updating.
Catching up here and very glad to see this review. When I finally move on to the current generation, these are on my must-have list. They caught my eye immediately when they came out as they looked like real people (no surprise, given the attention to detail that Dogz always brings) as opposed to the stereotypical doll-like Asian females we see a lot of. Not knocking anyone here, I think it's more the influence of anime/manga plus the tendency towards doll-like features in general. However, Asia is a vast and diverse place and it's good to be able to create a more varied range of looks, so these morphs are exciting.
I love your renders here, Luci, and they are just one more pull towards generation 6 which I've tried so hard to resist.
I was very sorry to read elsewhere that these hadn't been a big seller for Dogz. Ethnic variety and just variety in general (especially for female characters) is always welcome. I have some fantastic male morphs but can always use more for the girls.
Beautiful work on Rani, tjohn! (yes, I'm a bit behind on everything here, but she was well worth scrolling back a few pages for)
I've had no time to comment here because of Christmas so I had a lot of catching up to do with the thread, it grew very quickly while I've been away. Several pages of great reviews... and a couple more products went to my wishlist...
@Szark
Great tutorial/review, it's so nice to have you here, your tips are always welcome. : )
@SereneNight
Gentelmen's wardrobe looks very realistic, as all Aave Nainen's stuff, unfortunately it's too pricey for me for now. : (The sci-fi banner you've made look awesome. Shattered looks really cool, I hope to pick it up someday.
@Trish
Lokks like an interesting character, thanks for posting.
@Estroyer
Deacon looks good and I like your Luxus renders very much. Also thank you for bringing Zev0's freebie to my attention. It certainly looks useful.
@Jaderail
I really like this set but haven't had the chance to render it yet. I agree it looks very versatile.
@MelanieL
Lovely image, I especially like those cats. Ethriel's Bower looks interesting too.
@Sasje
I really like your renders of children, very touching.
@tjohn
Very nice indian character. You've also certainly made that mohawk hair look better to me than in the promos, funny renders too. ; )
@Luci45
Those morphs look great, they've been on my wishlist since the release, I really like that dress too. Naoki and now also Taochi is on my wishlist as well.
@Novica
Fun idea for a gift Novica, very creative, I'm sure your niece will love it. : )
@Totte
That's an awesome looking image Totte, thank you for posting this, I wondered how you've achieved those effects the first time you posted it over at RRRR thread.
Today, I will finally post my first review since the last render for it is just finishing. ; )
Invited Guest Contributor
Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5
http://www.daz3d.com/caleb-for-m4-and-genesis-m5
By Phoenix1966
Other items used:
Figures in images #1 and #2 use default shader supplied with Caleb character whereas figures in #3-#5 use tweaked AoA SSS and Subsurface Toolbox by DimensionTheory; also check out laticis' page on deviantart, I've used his AoA SSS Preset for Victoria 6 as a starting point for Caleb's skin, the preset really helped since I find working with shaders rather difficult and laticis is a very talented artist. What I came up with is not perfect but it works for me.
Ligts: All images use a combination of Advanced Ambient Light by Age of Armour and standard DS distant lights (except for #6 which uses one AAL with light radius set to 0). Images #1-#4 additionally use a Tube Light Emitter Preset from Shadow Play DAZ Studio Lights by ForbiddenWhispers (a PC item - it's a great light set which can help you better understand DS lights and create your own light rigs)
Mesh: Images #1 and #2 use genesis, #3-#5 use genesis 2 male as base.
All images were rendered in DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro using 3Delight.
Image #1 (no postwork):
Skin: Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5 - scruff and "painted hair" preset
Morphs: Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5 - with the included "short hair" morph applied
Hair: included "painted hair" preset
Clothing: Barbarian Warlord for Genesis by Valandar
Background: arid rock texture from cgtextures
Image #2 (no postwork):
Skin: Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5 - face and torso and arm tattoos preset
Morphs: Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5 - with the included elf ears preset applied
Hair: Caleb Hair by AprilYSH
Clothing: Barbarian Warlord for Genesis by Valandar
Pose: "Pose 07" from the set that same with David 5
Background: arid rock texture from cgtextures
Image #3 (background added in postwork):
Skin: Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5 - scruff preset;
Morphs: 50% Michael 6, 100% Michael 6 HD Add-On with various other morphs dialed in
Hair: Caleb Hair by AprilYSH
Clothing: The Executioner for Genesis by Age of Armour
Pose: "Stand 03" from the Manly Poses for Michael 6 that came with Michael 6
Background: blurred and re-coloured arid rock texture from cgtextures added in postwork
Image #4 (no postwork):
Skin: Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5
Morphs: 5 year old preset from Growing Up for Genesis 2 Male(s) / M6 by Zev0 and Gabriel 5yr old Preset (the one that uses M6) from Brothers for Growing Up Genesis 2 Male(s) and M6 by Zev0, ForbiddenWhispers and JSGraphics
Hair: Zac Hair by SWAM
Clothing: Adventure Land Outfit by Mada and Sarsa
Background: arid rock texture from cgtextures
Image #5 (a bit of contrast added in postwork):
Skin: Caleb for M4 and Genesis M5
Morphs: 5 year old preset from Growing Up for Genesis 2 Male(s) / M6 by Zev0 and Gabriel 5yr old Preset (the one that uses M6) from Brothers for Growing Up Genesis 2 Male(s) and M6 by Zev0, ForbiddenWhispers and JSGraphics
Hair: Zac Hair by SWAM
Clothing: Medieval Male Peasant Clothing for Genesis by Cute3D
Pose: "Stand 07" from the Manly Poses for Michael 6 that came with Michael 6
Background: Medieval Docks by Faveral and sky dome from Skies of Economy by DimensionTheory
Review:
Caleb is a young male character by Phoenix1966. I bought it because I am always on lookout for freckled character textures. This one has very lovely freckles, pale skin, ginger coloured eyebrows and painted hair ad scruff which makes it ideal for the characters of nordic descent.
He comes with character presets for both M4 and Genesis, short hair morph and elf ears morph. There is a base texture, Tattoos Preset and Genitals Preset. It also contains presets for "painted hair" and scruff. Apparently there is no preset that enables one to use Hair Preset and Tattoos Preset both at the same time. There are also 6 realistic eye colours and two reflections to choose from as well as no-reflection preset (I really like it when vendors include those, makes it easier to get rid of the painted reflection maps if they are undesirable). I tried applying the included 5 mirrored poses for M4 to G2M and Genesis but unfortunately for some reason they turned out looking rather awkward.
Caleb uses M4 UV's so he can easily be used on G2M (if one has Michael 4 for Genesis 2 Male by Slosh). Recently I've been searching for skins that would look convincing on children. I consider Caleb to be one of them. It has no-face-hair option and no body hair. The skin is smooth enough to look good on children, however it has very subtle wrinkles on the forehead which might look strange on a child. They could either be covered by hair or, if one has skill, smoothed out in a graphics software. I also removed displacement when using it on a child (it adds veins).
One thing I do not like about this texture set is that it has a "painted" shadow under the chin (go to the next page to see how it looks in a render) I really hate it when vendors leave (or intentionally add) shadows onto skin textures. They usually look artificial and will look wrong if used with lights that would not cause that area to be shaded. In close-ups it looks as if the skin is dirty in that place, the texture is also very stretched there. Despite this I would still recommend this character. In other areas the skin is of very good quality, though the shader supplied makes it look slightly dated and unrealistic if not tweaked. The product description says that it comes with Standard, EHSS and SSS Versions but I think that in DS only the Standard one is available (at least I couldn't find any other presets - please correct me if I'm wrong). In the images where I used it on G2M I applied AoA SSS to it, it's far from perfect but still I like its look much more than the default one.
One other problem I encountered was when I tried to load the tattoo preset for torso and arm. It did not apply the correct texture to the neck and I had to manually change the map in the diffuse channel. I also noticed that it is not possible to apply tattoo and painted hair texture at the same time, there is no map for it (I suspect that it was unintentionally omitted by the vendor). The issue is only visible on the back of the head where the hair ends in a sharp edge where it meets the neck portion of the tattoo preset, so it shouldn't be a problem if you want a frontal render.
Overall I quite enjoyed working with this character and despite small aforementioned issues, I consider it well worth purchasing and look forward to buying more middle-aged and old characters from this vendor. His creations certainly look very unique and different, also more like ordinary people which is what I like about them. I would love to see her create a character for Genesis 2.
Sorry for the silence ><<br /> I was dog sitting (one of them a New Found Lander, omg so huge!) and the dogs gave me a bit more work than I had anticipated ><<br /> Guess I am more of a catperson!
Shattered is still in my cart as I haven't taken the effort to press checkout but I will buy it for sure.
I laughed out loud at the mad kitty in your render SereneNight, cats are always funny, even when they do try to be scary!
I love love LOVE Luxus! (did I mention I love it?)
With my new pc the render times aren't that bad and if I do have a big scene, I just let it render overnight which usually gives me a resolution over 1K.
There is a great thread where Slosh and others experimented with skin setting, which I can highly recommend:
Slosh Luxus Skin Settings
I have worked with Reality as well and the real-time update while rendering is an awesome feature but I'm waiting for the official release for Reality 3 for DAZ until I spend money.
The "painted shadow" on Caleb skin texture that I've talked about.
I am shocked to find he isn't already in my runtime ><<br /> I really like your review, you cover all aspects of the skin!
Thanks Estroyer! I tried to be as detailed as possible, I do hope people will find the review helpful. I really like this character and look forward to acquiring more from Phoenix1966 despite the fact that I find the "painted shadow" issue rather frustrating. I'm also curious if it's present on his other characters...
Phoenix1966 is one of my "must have it all" artists ;-)
Phoenix1966 is one of my "must have it all" artists ;-)
I only have Caleb but pretty much all of the other characters by Phoenix1966 are on my wishlist. ^^
Do the other characters also have shadows painted on the skin? This is one thing I do not like about Caleb and would like to know if the other characters have this issue as well...
Nice job with Caleb! I admit, the only reason I never picked him up was because he looked young and I like my dudes to look mature and I rarely render youngsters. But you covered the content perfectly. I would love to see more freckled guys in the store. While I admit putting moles on characters can make a character look too distinctive, we simply do not have a lot of characters (especially adult characters), with freckles. Would love to see more. Great work. =-)
Tell me who you want to see from Phoenix.
These are the ones I have
http://www.daz3d.com/caleb-for-m4-and-genesis-m5 (obviously you covered this one)
http://www.daz3d.com/stolz-for-m4-and-genesis-m5
http://www.daz3d.com/stolz-the-younger
http://www.daz3d.com/livia-for-v4-and-genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/thomas-for-m4-and-genesis-m5
http://www.daz3d.com/stefan-for-m4-and-genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/ulrich THIS DUDE LOOKS AWESOME! Anyone rendered before????
http://www.daz3d.com/shaw-for-m4
How could I have missed these Oo
My wishlist just got a tat bit longer :)
I'll do Ulrich and use the light set I just used for the toon. I need to test it anyway (on other characters.) Back in awhile, the shading rate will be .20 when I get it set up so don't know how long will take.
EDIT- for pete's sake, although my michael 4 is installed per DIM, it's not showing up. In Products, its in the list, nothing happens when I click on it, no products. Shows installed on the DIM. Am having to uninstall, etc- so give me some time to get this stupid thing working in the studio. Not in Smart Content either, or the Content Library. GRRRRRR.
Is your management service working?
Mine sometimes stops and I notice it when my content goes missing.
Well, I'm confused as usual. Loaded Michael 4. There's a mapless option, which turns him mapless of course. Just a gray. Now what is the difference in mapless.ds and mapless.mc6.....I don't know what mc6 IS. There is also mapless pz2 Pz is poser, what's with the 2 designation?
And dont they have skin maps without the stupid briefs? (Wondered about that with Victoria 4)
I'm not good with files, and this is getting confusing. I have learned to click on cr2's but that's just hit or miss. You folks are lucky to see anything from me, lol.
Yeah, first thing I checked :) It was only THAT figure, everything else was fine. Don't know why he disappeared, but I switched to version 4.6 and had problems when I tried to catalog things, I've left it alone and no problems. I just use "Products" and zip right to what I want. Works for me. But thanks for the suggestion. I'm putzing along here.
I would really like to see Stefan when you get time....
Okay, will do him with this same light set up while I'm at it. (I gotta do some RRRR one of these days...) This was my light setup, new. Didn't use the other one.
Ulrich
M5 Photographic Poses
M4 Expressions
Boudoir Photo Studio and Lights
http://www.daz3d.com/ulrich
http://www.daz3d.com/m5-photographic-poses
http://www.daz3d.com/boudoir-photo-studio-and-lights
First, those M5 poses worked just fine on M4. I didn't have to tweak the three I tested at all. The M4 Expressions were funny- came across as very exaggerated on some of them. Any with the mouth open, the mouth was REALLY open. Like, dentist visit open. Didn't find a link- is it essentials again?
Ulrich is a wish lister for sure. Hate to tick him off! But when he smiles, those eye crinkles are adorable too. I did not add any veins or change anything, this is out of the box Ulrich. There are a lot of different options (hair, no hair, mat files.)
Grab the Boudoir photo studio lights for the backdrops (but similar to the rocks and drops one) The lights were okay, but my studio gave an error that I didn't have the sphere? (Has UE2) So if anyone has the boudoir product, will you see if you get any error messages with the "3pt w env" file?
I help newbies with lighting so want to share this fast setup- (and could tweak all day but I have to get going here...) If anyone wants to try these lights, Michael is at World Center (put your figure at 0 / 0 / 0) Depending on your pose, you'll have to tweak these coordinates, but give this a shot-
These are going to be your X/Y/Z coordinates to plop your light. I lit Ulrich with only 3 lights. Use these to add to, tweak, change the colors. These are mostly mauve and darker.
Distant Light:
Coordinates: .46 / 231.28 / 99.84
Intensity: 75.5% (your main light, coming from the front. A very simple setup.)
Color: 255 / 249 / 233.
No shadows. (play with that)
Spotlight 1:
Coordinates: 47.55 / 180.20 / -5.79
Intensity: 43.8% Is on YOUR right, hitting the lower cheek
Color: 228 /217 / 211 is a dull mauve.
No Shadows. (play with that)
Spotlight 2: (a little tip- always test a spotlight shooting up. Really puts OOMPH in it. The neck and chin are important!)
Coordinates: -47.60 / 80.67 / 59.17
Intensity: 27.9% Is on our left, shooting UP onto the neck/ side of face
Color: 188 / 175 / 166 Dark gray/mauve
Shadows: Raytraced, 83.4%
Have fun!