Novica, Serene Night, & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 3
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I like to make the flames into a lightsource, I have a render somewhere but I really have to dig that one out.
On my tip about running DS as a "below normal" priority.
I just realized you can do this automatically on starting the program, without having to use the task manager. Go to the Daz Studio shortcut on your desktop. Right-click, then properties. In the "shortcut" tab, change the "Target" to this:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "DAZ Studio" /belownormal "C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\DAZStudio.exe"
Obviously, you'd have to change the blue part if you have DS installed anywhere else. After doing this, DS will ALWAYS start at below-normal priority when you use that shortcut to open it.
And don't worry about the \system32\ part, even if you're running a 64-bit OS. The command prompt, which loads the program below priority (and will flash as a little black box on your screen before DS starts) is in the 32-bit windows file folder.
K.B- how much does this slow down your render time- or does it?
Normally I am just piddling while waiting for things to finish rendering, so I don't want to do that any longer than necessary :)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/19756/P720/#384854
Okay, I am adding the links to the products from thread one and two- here's a question for the Showcase Team. Can you make this hair look good? Have you used it? Read the discussion Tramp Graphics and I had- (very helpful I might add- thanks again!) I never could get satisfactory results, as SereneNight so tactfully said of my efforts- "That looks problematic." (LOL- what a diplomat!) Mine always looked like a tangled mess (and I take full responsibility.) The discussion covers suggestions for smoothing and collision, so it's not a bad "read" regardless of whether you have the hair or not.
While I'm at it, keep looking at the third post, you'll see a bunch of products being added with * at the end. That's so the team can quickly click and see what has been done. Kinda fun to quickly flip through, too. I'm rather enjoying it!
So Alanna Hair- anyone got good results with that?
Invited Guest Contributor
Okay, here's a little bit of fluff I was working on after purchasing Torianna Hair. I really have to finish my RRRR "grinch" poem, but I wanted to throw this out there first.
Background:
Floor is from Aslan Court 1 (Jack Tomalin), and the wall is from Dimocrates (Jack Tomalin). Lighting is one Advanced Ambient Light (Age of Armour) with alternate occlusion samples for the hair, plus one linear point light to highlight her face.
Character: Ariadne for V6 by Raiya
I've had this lovely lady in my runtime for a while now, but I haven't really taken her out of the box, lol. I'm so very glad that I did. Not only are her features lovely, her SSS texture is absolutely gorgeous. After setting her up, I applied the "Ariadne Skin SSS 75" preset in her material folder. She rendered just as you see her with absolutely no tweaking. The only thing I did to her was to add a dark grey color to the diffuse map of her irises, simply because all her eye colors are so light and they looked weird with the black hair I'd selected.
Hair: Torianna Hair by Neftis3D
I used this Genesis hair on a Gen2 Female with Autofit. The initial fit was perfect. After a few renders, I had the urge to smooth out the curls a bit, so I added a smoothing modifier and cranked up smoothing iterations. When I did, the curls looked amazing, but Ariadne began to exhibit some male-pattern/receeding-hairline baldness, lol. Certainly not any fault of the product -- just a DS thing. I fixed my problem by rendering twice -- once with the smoothing modifier and once without. The magic of photoshop allowed me to blend out the bald spot.
Tattoo: Inked Vol. 1 for Genesis 2 by [url=http://www.daz3d.com/shanassoulmate]ShanasSoulmate
First, I want to say that I'm so very, very happy to see Shana's legacy being carried on by her amazingly talented Soulmate, Nuno. I have been a huge fan of all her products, and I can see that I won't be disappointed in Nuno's work at all. The "Inked" series has always made me a little giddy when they'd appear. Because, really, nothing goes better with skimpwear than a tattoo. :-) The product worked flawlessly -- one click and done. Perfect!
Clothing: Rose Thorn for Genesis 2 Female(s) by 4blueyes and Briar for Rose Thorn by bucketload3D
This outfit was one of those little gems that came with the Olympia pro bundle. It fits like a dream, bends beautifully, and was very fun to render. Due to the camera angle I chose, I had to add some panties from another clothing set. Thankfully, however, the gorgeous Briar textures were not UV-specific, so I was able to copy and paste the shader onto the undies and they blend flawlessly. I was very impressed with the smooth, reflective textures. Again, the outfit and texture were completely without any need for tweaking. Perfect right out of the box.
So, that's her! I love it when products are so nicely put together that they practically render themselves!
I reviewed let it snow shader in thread 2 I believe. You can make some really cool things with it. What are you having troubles with?
Here is something I used the shader on a while ago, when I was more of a newbie. In hindsight the front step is a bit over-exposed but you can see what you can do with it, using moongate.
Beautiful! :)
I know, tonight is dedicated to RRRR. I've been at this since 8am this morning with the links. I'll put yours as the main Ariadne and mine as the second/third reviews. LOVE this one!
BTW, if there are any big tips they will be marked in red in the posts with the product links. Aldora Hair is one. Make sure you get the right one!
Oh I see, it was a limited time offering. Got it. =-)
I reviewed let it snow shader in thread 2 I believe. You can make some really cool things with it. What are you having troubles with?
Here is something I used the shader on last year In hindsight the front step is a bit over-exposed but you can see what you can do with it, using moongate.
Yep, that's the one I remembered. Gorgeous. Thanks for jumpin' in.
http://www.daz3d.com/millennium-cat-bundle
http://www.daz3d.com/millennium-cat
http://www.daz3d.com/classic-cats-combo
They're either back or this is the LE but it didn't SAY it was LE. I know one time when I was looking for them, they were NOT there.
EDIT: Nope, that's the full kitty. The LE is listed separately. http://www.daz3d.com/downloader/customer/files/#prod_3743
I have only done two. Ironically the same scene twice, since I lost the original files. I used points on the fire, and the fireplace prop from the Western Bric Brac, and points up under the hands. I believe I also used that uberpoint shader. Then I postworked in some flames, and used Ron's PSD's for the sparks.
You're probably asking the wrong person, lol, because when I render, it's a bit like swatting a fly with a buick. I just built myself (under 6 months ago) a brand new PC ... i7-3770K @3.5 GHz, 16 GB of the fastest RAM made for it, SSD boot disk and a separate data HDD (WD, 2TB, 7200 RPM/6.0Gb/s), plus an NVIDIA GTX660 GPU. I notice NO reduction in my render speeds at "below normal" priority (unless I'm really adventurous and am rendering in Poser and DS at the same time, lol.) Truthfully, if you are doing anything that requires little processor power -- email, casual internet browsing, word processing -- you shouldn't notice much, if any slow-down.
Oh, and another thing -- regardless of your priority setting -- if your machine doesn't have a crap-ton of memory, you can experience slow-down just by having other "memory hog" programs open in the background while rendering. Photoshop (say CS3 or above) uses between 2-6 GB just sitting there!! (Older versions use much less memory than newer ones.) Memory is usually not the limiting factor in renders unless you have very little of it. Usually, it's your processor that determines render times. If you want to know which one (memory or processor) you're maxing out while rendering, have the task manager open when you render. If you are looking at the process tab, click the top of the column called "Memory (Private Working Set)." This will show you what your PC is working on from highest-memory-usage to lowest. At the bottom of the screen, it also shows your CPU usage and Physical Memory usage. One of these will likely be 100% when rendering. If your MEMORY is at 100%, seriously consider buying more RAM. It's generally not terribly expensive (especially for desktops.) If your CPU is maxing out, then you're pretty much at max render speed for your machine.
Anyway... resident computer geek at your service. :-D
And, here's my PC specs... 7.7 out of 7.9 on the Windows Experience. I'm so proud of my baby, lol...
I don't think this is you. I think hair should work out of the box, without major tweaking. Thats what you are paying for.
This hair appears to illustrate so much that is wrong with 3d hair. It has a nice smooth top and looks good down to the shoulders, then becomes a tangled mess where it looks odd around the shoulder area.
I would love it if there were options to hide that and keep it a nice manageable smooth hair, and hide the lower tangled part.
Looks great. Love what you did with the hair, I admit Torianna hair's curls really bug me in the promo art. Look fake, but your smoothing made them look good. =-) Great job. =-)
Hey it's great to have a geek around. We should get you one of those Best Buy Geek Squad tacky volkswagens to drive around. You could wear one of those DAZ shirts- did you folks see that thread? I haven't checked in on that lately. Someone used the logo for CafePress I think it was, and Richard (I think, or Jared) were checking on it to see if it was an authorized shirt.
I am at full RAM, my hubby installed 8 more whatevers. (LOL, just kidding. I am NOT technical, I would be the one changing the tires on YOUR Geek Squad car, and having an instruction manual open and totally stumped.) I have all the gigabytes I can have (8GM memory) as I am on a laptop.
I like the task manager. I don't see the column labeled Memory (Private Working Set). My memory usage is not at 100%. Thanks for the tips though.
It is my bad. I was typing one 'n' for millennium cat. For some reason the store's search engine only shows mil cat le when you mistype it, not the full version. Totally my bad.
Lol... My fiance is an electrical engineer, so I usually feel like the "geek squad tire changer" around him. Instead of pulling the shades, he once blocked the light in my office by propping an 11x17 electrical schematic in the window. Ah, engineers. (No offense to engineers -- my heart belongs to one -- but... they live in their own, happy, little engineering worlds.)
And with 8GB RAM, you won't be maxing your memory when rendering, so no problems there. :)
EDIT: You have the correct column... You're just running a different version of windows, so it's called something else.
:) And your commit charge (2009/4701) is just the fraction representation of % memory used, which is 42%. :-)
Intel Core i7 Processor EXTREME EDITION i7-3970X 3.5GHz 15MB SIX CORE
ANTEC KÜHLER H2O 920 ENCLOSED LIQUID COOLING SYSTEM
ZEROtherm Advanced ZT100 Thermal Grease
PROFESSIONAL WIRING
Asus P9X79-E WS LGA2011/ Intel X79/ DDR3/ 4-Way CrossFireX & 4-Way
SLI/SATA3e&SATA3;&USB3;.0/ A2GbE/CEB Motherboad
64GB (8 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600MHz (PC3 12800) Quad Channel (HIGH PERFORMANCE)
(8X) MEMORY HEAT SPREADERS
CORSAIR 360GB Solid State Drive SATA III (READ/WRITE 550MB/515MB)
2TB 7200 RPM 64MB CACHE SATA 6.0Gb/s
VANTEC ULTRA HIGH PERFORMANCE HDD COOLING FAN
ASUS 14X BLU-RAY DISK BURNER DVD-RW COMBO DRIVE
nVidia GeForce GTX690 4GB DDR5 3DVI/MINI-DISPLAY PCI-Express Video Card
REALTEK 8-CHANNEL DIGITAL SOUND ONBOARD
REALTEK 10/100/1000 Gigabit Network Card (onboard)
CoolerMaster HAF XM RC-922XM-KKN1 ATX Mid Tower Case
GOLD COOLING PACKAGE
VANTEC DELUXE CASE COOLING SYSTEM
THERMALTAKE 1475 WATT HIGH PERFORMANCE SLI/CROSSFIRE POWER SUPPLY
INTERNAL ALL IN ONE DIGITAL CARD READER/WRITER
And her rating...
Oooooohhhh... Jealous!! Extreme edition! I've always wanted 6 cores, but I just can't justify the expense, lol. I had a very good friend with a very bad experience with liquid cooling, so I've been leery. Therefore, I just have enormous fans everywhere (and I live in Wisconsin and am too cheap to turn the heat over 63, so bonus cooling there!!)
Very, very nice machine.
Okay, I am adding the links to the products from thread one and two- here's a question for the Showcase Team. Can you make this hair look good? Have you used it? Read the discussion Tramp Graphics and I had- (very helpful I might add- thanks again!) I never could get satisfactory results, as SereneNight so tactfully said of my efforts- "That looks problematic." (LOL- what a diplomat!) Mine always looked like a tangled mess (and I take full responsibility.) The discussion covers suggestions for smoothing and collision, so it's not a bad "read" regardless of whether you have the hair or not.
While I'm at it, keep looking at the third post, you'll see a bunch of products being added with * at the end. That's so the team can quickly click and see what has been done. Kinda fun to quickly flip through, too. I'm rather enjoying it!
So Alanna Hair- anyone got good results with that?
After fiddling with collision, smoothing, and the morphs that came with the hair, I didn't do very well, either.
First render shows high smothing. Second shows high collision. Still areas where the hair collides with itself. Was able to pretty much eliminate hair-to-genesis collisions by turning off the limits on the included morphs, though there's this weird area near her armpit that really didn't want to cooperate.
I agree about Liquid cooling but I researched the one I had installed. The Fully closed systems are far better as they are sealed permanently before installation. The cooling is needed for Hyperthreaded Cores (6 looks like 12) because heat in the CPU slowes the CPU down to allow all 12 cores to run without over heating them. With liquid cooling I'm getting about 80% full output speed from all 12 cores.
It's just too bad a Great PC does not improve our Art skills... ;-P I built this one for Animation. Stands up well.
Well, you did better than I did. It looks better in darker light too! I just don't think it's that usable when you have bright light, or that large mass at the end closest to the viewer. I remember trying to also tweak the sharp corners/edges and that was a no-go too. Thanks for sharing :)
Jaderail- I'm glad all that means something to someone, I looked at it and saw a trigonometry equation.
VH Bo-Ann For Victoria 4
By Godin
http://www.daz3d.com/vh-bo-ann-for-victoria-4
Eliza Hair
By DAZ3D / Swam
http://www.daz3d.com/eliza-hair
Tears Hair
By DAZ3D / GoldTassel
http://www.daz3d.com/tears-hair
The Songstress
By: DAZ 3D / Anna Benjamin / Sarsa /Bobbie25 /Umblefugly
http://www.daz3d.com/the-songstress
Bo-Ann has a lot of makeup options, seemed like more than usual. You have nice natural options, and some more noticeable makeup. I liked having the option of shiny, glossy lipstick, didn't have to mess with the Surfaces tab. Now about the hair-
Do NOT let the promo image for Eliza Hair put you off. You can shrink it down nicely, and wow, it has SO many morphs! Almost every single strand in front has it's very own. You can lower the volume of sections, move the hair out of the face, really change it up. This is out of the box with only a couple tweaks. I BROUGHT IN THE SIDE ON YOUR LEFT- that was the only tweak. It looks like a "normal" hair that isn't so fluffy.
NOTE: The Eliza Hair is another one for underseas- it would do quite nicely I think.
The second hair is Tears Hair (the one for V4)
I really, really like this hair. This was "out of the box" NO TWEAKING. I like the hairline, very good details there. It is a classy, elegant hairstyle but I think in the right setting, it could go daily. Women with wavy hair look elegant no matter where they are :)
If you haven't gotten either of these hairstyles, I think you'd like the flexibility with Tears and the elegance and/or ease of Tears.
Now for the top: just look at the team that worked on it, that says it all. This outfit has so many kit bashing opportunities! For closeup portraits, the top has great details. It has good morphs too- I didn't have enough time to totally tweak the top edge of the bodice, but there are enough sliders that you won't have that terribly awkward ridge sticking out due to trying to cover breast poke-through.
The Songstress comes with this top, cape, boots, dress, gloves, jacket, pants...AND THOSE PANTS ARE THE SHORTS MY RRRR CHARACTER IS WEARING. (The one reading the newspaper, that will be at Bistro Miami.) If you take away the boots, those pants are the length of modern day SHORTS. Keep an eye on Lilly's outfit if I ever get the RRRR renders done!
So thumbs up to Bo-Ann, The Songstress and both of the hair products. I put more of a yellowish/ fall colored lightset on these renders to experiment with the russet hair and the rustic background. (again, from Rocks N Drops. I moved the dark side over to be directly behind her face in the second one. Little tweaks.)
Let me answer your question about the campfire before I forget again.
I use one point light set to 200% intensity. I set the light above the campfire. I also use one distant light as an ambient light source so that the background won't look very dark.
A question for KaribousBoutique and/Jaderail and any other computer geeks out there. I just found my Windows rating and it isn't too bad for a 3-year-old low-end gaming computer. What I wondered about is the one lower score - the 5.9 on the hard drive - does that affect render speed at all? And if so, is there a way to improve it other than a new hard drive?
It will have a very small impact on render speeds as most of what is going on happens 'on chip' - either in memory or CPU. A temporary image file is created and updated as the render proceeds, and you may get some swapping if the scene data (objects. textures, etc.) puts stress on RAM utilisation.
Your Biggest impact will be the Write to File time. That really you should not notice on anything rated above a 3.
EDIT: That does include Files swaps for read write as noted above.
By the way a 5.9 was the top Score not all that long ago. Very respectable, and still considered a POWER PC.
Thanks, Jaderail and SimonJM. I am still pretty happy with it - it renders pretty quickly as long as I don't try to do something too ridiculous. (I am not interested for example in super high quality render settings for most things.)
Novica, nice hair. I like the Tears too. The other one I never would have looked at because of the promo renders. I want some long hair that is ultra-controllable and can fly around - I will keep that one in mind. I have the Songstress too, bought it not too long ago because it is so beautiful, even though I don't use V4 anymore. The Alchemist for M4 is awesome too, same beautiful rich textures. The same "team" too I think.
Invited Guest Contributor
Unshaven Beard for Genesis
This is one of my favorites - I probably use it more than anything else. The beard has a bunch of morphs (see below and on the product page) It renders really fast even though it appears to be fibermesh. It comes in black but the diffuse and specular colors can be changed. Someone did a tiled shader for it called salt and pepper that was available free from Rendorosity, but I can't find there now, which gives it a little extra sparkle. It fits the Genesis 2 male as well with autofit, only problem being that the "Groom Room" with pictures of morphs doesn't show up in the Shaping parameters but it does in the Posing parameters. This was made by Mec4D who is no longer a DAZ PA. She made some pretty nice stuff and some of them are still available here at DAZ.
Phoenix66 textures on three of the models, Horatio, Doyle, and Yago. The darker skinned guy is Sliman. All the characters use dialed morphs.
Style Morphs:
!StubbleRemove
AmishBeard
Brett
Chevron
ChinStrap
CircleBeard
Circus
Curly
English
FriendlyMuttonChops
FullBeard
FuManchu
FuManchuBeard
Garibaldi
Goatee
Handlebar
Hollywoodian
HorseShoe
Imperial
MuttonChops
Pencil
PetitHandelbar
Pirate
SideburnLong
SideburnShort
SoulPatch
Stubble
Styler
ToothBrush
VanDyck
Walrus