Novica, Serene Night, & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 3
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I put the doggie in there just for you!
TEEN JAYDEN HAS ARRIVED!
Okay, tested the cart. If you buy the Josie add on and the Pro Jayden, Josie add-on goes to $14.10 from $19.58 and the Pro Bundle goes to $44.08 from $61.23 (51%) for a total of $58.18. I like the Josie stuff at first glance, the peach dress is such a nice refreshing, family friendly outfit. Suitable for a teen.
Reminder, two things:
1. you can use your monthly code if you are PC because Jayden is a DAZ product. You get the other discounts without using a code.
2. Wait to see if there is going to be a coupon anytime today. There's no rush, these products will be here all day. :)
Hmm. This cements my viewpoint that clothing and hair for men seems priced higher than the female counterpart.
Items added ala carte are in the 10-13 range. This was not true with content for Olympia which was often cheaper.
I'm wishlisting the hair and clothing and will wait for a more affordable deal on them.
I'm picking up the Pro Bundle due to the amount of items in it, but sitting out on the other stuff. If it were individually for sale, I would pass on Gabriel, way too splotchy for my tastes. These were my first impressions-
Smart Hair- looks like fun, fluid strands is my impression from thumbnails
Cargo Shorts and T- I think the shorts end high enough up that hopefully won't have to deal with a lot of poke through from more muscular guys.
Internship Outfit- looks a bit stiff, starched. Sleeves look somewhat painted on because there is hardly any cuffs. (Or so it appears.)
Day by Day- very nice, has wrinkles and looks like it is being WORN on the top. Bottom- I like looser pants.
Basic Cool Poses- a lot of fun ones, really like. The other pose set I probably won't use much.
FW Ash- I like him. Not a stud, more of a normal guy. Sensitive. I like the nose in particular.
Colin- a bit too much of the sprinkles on the face to suit me. Would have liked more moderation
Skate Park Outfit- love the wrinkles, longer sleeves and pants legs. Looks practical and in style
Trendy College- am a bit surprised based on who made it, but the end of the sweater, the morphs look stiff, not blended- that's what happens when you do the bones/weight mapping and don't use the smoothing brush/tools. I'll have to try the sweater and see, but look at the thumbnails, third one, the man on the right. Look at the sweater on the lower right, that seems to be a sharp morph bend. On the main promo, the sweater looks fine, but it's not being bent either. That sweater just isn't doing it for me I guess, but I haven't tried it yet.
Parkour West- note the pockets! Nice and long. At least I think those are pockets!
Brit Hair- love love love!
Surfer Hair- don't brush this off (groan, no pun intended) as another long hair style- look at the top at the 5 sections that poof from the crown. Really neat!
So for me, at first glance and not trying any of these, Surfer Hair, Brit Hair, Parkour West, Skate Park Outfit, FW Ash, Basic Cool Poses, Day By Day, Cargo Shorts and T, and Smart Hair are things I will actually use. Top three picks would be the Brit Hair, FW Ash, Parkour West (with close tie to the Basic Cool Poses.)
But these are just first impressions. For under $45 I'll be using most of it. But agree that prices appear to be up. Not buying anything else. Picking up the free boots!
Coloring Dog's Eyes/Deer Eyes / Brown Eyes
Occasionally I'll revisit something from thread 1, as it's about 3,000 posts ago. (whew.) I just colored in Tagalong's eye and will talk you folks who don't do a lot of art touchups through it. I specialized in wildlife/animal art (freelancer, national magazines) so here's a simple way to add some eye pizazz when they take a hit if you have to adjust intensity, contrast, etc to get the rest of the render looking better.
I kept it simple, lining up areas which are easy to describe. You can look at the numbered areas and get the gist, but read this for the fine tuning, several important notes are mentioned. Nothing was "by accident."
Set your brush to 96% transparent, you can add to, it's harder to take away. Softness 100%
1. Color: A medium pumpkin, you are going to curve it around the outer rim of the iris. To be technical and ensure you know what I'm talking about, remember the PUPIL is the dark spot in the middle of the eye, the iris is the colored part around that. If you leave a dark strip of the iris next to the pupil, with the colored strip on the outside curve of the iris, that will make this strip you are making pop even more.
(If A=pupil, B=colored pumpkin strip, and C is the outer rim of the iris closest to your cheek, it would look like this:)
A .....(space where darker iris is, untouched) ....... B (touching C).......... C
After your strip of colored pumpkin, at the top of your strip, pull down a dash of gold into the pumpkin BUT NO MORE THAN 1/2 of the way. Do not color up the pumpkin. Remember, this should be following the curve of the eye.
2. Following that same curve along the bottom of the eye, attach a dark rust and take it to where it would line up with the middle of the pupil if you were to drop a line straight down (from the middle of the pupil.) Only go past that SLIGHTLY (see my rust) as you want to leave some of the darker iris between number 2 and number 3.
3. Now we are on the left side of the eye, curving around and up. Find number 3- it is just SLIGHTLY below the halfway diameter of the black pupil. Use your pumpkin again and curve up and around on the iris, going slightly past the middle of the pupil.
4. Connect to area 3 with your gold and continue to curve around but do NOT go to the top of the eye. You need to leave some dark iris for contrast.
5. Put a very light gray dot where numbers 3 and 4 meet. Don't make it too big. Subtle!
6. If you had a band of the white of the eye showing, touch it up and brighten it. Put a white / gray dot in the middle.
7. Put a white dot on area 1, at the very top. Again, subtle.
8. Done. Bookmark this if you don't normally do this kind of art. Now you can. :)
EDIT: Added 3rd image: I increased the dpi and enlarged it, then shrank it down to 2000 pixels so you'd have a bigger one, it's a bit more blurry than the second one but you can see the eye colors better.
Wow!! Thanks -- that makes an incredible difference. I'll have to try this!
I like Jayden's hair. But sadly only 30 percent off seems just the regular pc price. Considering it is also more expensive to begin with not a good deal ala carte. Bundles are a better value. Clothing is not overly imaginative and I'm not paying 13.95 bucks for shorts t-shirt and flipflops. You wouldnt pay that much for a similar outfit for a female character. I can wait a couple months for the clothing and hair to be further discounted than 30 percent.
Invited Guest Contributor
Gabriel by: DAZ 3D, Countess, Silver
http://www.daz3d.com/gabriel
I purchased Gabriel as a part of the Teen Jayden 6 Pro Bundle
http://www.daz3d.com/new-releases/teen-jayden-6-pro-bundle
Latin characters have been mostly neglected, so I was happy to find this one.
The promo shots tend to make the character's skin tone look lighter than it really is, and there is a "splotchy" look to the skin in the promos as Novica mentioned. I don't know if this was due to the lighting choices or post-work on the part of the promo artist, but I'm getting a different result with my usual lighting setup.
I like Gabriel; he has that Latino teen version of a "peach fuzz" moustache which gives him an extra bit of authenticity, as well.
Also used:
Skate Park Outfit for Genesis 2 Male(s)
http://www.daz3d.com/skate-park-outfit-for-genesis-2-male-s
Pure Hair: Classic for Genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/pure-hair-classic
Behind the Neighborhood
http://www.daz3d.com/behind-the-neighborhood
John
Those facial materials look nothing like the promo. What a difference! Can you tell us the specular setting out of the box- it seems a bit shiny, and isn't that the specular?
I'm in the middle of something but may try this dude tomorrow with my lighting. Thanks for the heads up about the lack of splotchiness- that promo is way off the results you're showing. I'm surprised he's that dark.
I'm in the habit of using the Subsurface Toolbox on skin that doesn't have SS already. I'll try one "out of the box" for you.
BBL.
I'll be honest Tjohn, I think Gabriel looks a bit dark and shiny, he seems to be standing in shade, although the background doesn't suggest it.
I don't see the splotchy aspect of the skin... Am I missing something?
I like your tutorial on dog eyes Novica. For some reason the eyeballs of millennium puppy look a bit too toony. They lack the spark of life. This adds to it. Plus your render of Jaime is also awesome. nice job.
Jaime just got thrown in there to hold Tagalong- If I had time I'd fine tune him and reduce the lighting on the cheek by about 20% or more. You're very nice to say he looks okay, but he's not my, uh, usual lighting. :) I spent a lot of time on the Ancient Prophecies one and this was a quickie. Poor Jaime.
You are too hard on yourself. I mean it I like the lighting. =-) He has chiseled features and I like the way it shows it off. In fact, i thought it was one of your better light jobs.
Thanks :)
I am animating Hudson (remember, with the gorgeous Marielle Hair) and I will bring Gabriel in and use Hudson's lighting and let's see what good ole Gabe looks like. Might be awhile.
OK first let me apologize. The buildings in the set I was using were blocking much of the light from reaching the character, making the skin appear much darker: mea culpa.
After removing the set, I made three renders. Gabriel actually comes with two full body material sets: one that doesn't use the DS SSS, and one that does. These can be seen in the first two renders below. Although the skin is lighter than in my previous examples, it still appears darker to me than in the promos. The last one is my preferred SSS settings. I realize that for some, the skin might appear excessively shiny with the way I use specularity, but for me, it makes a character appear more three-dimensional, and less flat.
And it may be the fault of the way these old eyes perceive colors, but skin looks ashen-grey to me without a tad more redness to the Subsurface color.
In the end, we all must go with what looks right to us.
I still think the splotchiness in the promos is less evident in these renders.
John
No need to apologize. =) I've had this happen with SSS renders in shade. The skin just doesn't render well for some reason in dark areas with buildings shade which makes lighting problematic.
Got him loaded, doing Day By Day and Brit Hair.
LOL Tjohn- you should have been on the thread when I changed the sharp corners/sharp edges to soft and had the V5 ponytail results as a SKULL CAP. Folks were kind.
I am doing the render now, did not test the lights. For the reason that if Hudson behaved with these lights, I want to see how this character does. So far as the hair, I will update here to tell you the render time and speed. It is at .30 shading rate with other settings on very good/excellent.
Render will be 895 x 950, hair and face are fairly closeup so once it scoots past those areas, it will speed up. Check back.
2 minutes: 8%
4 minutes: 8% (if doesn't budge after 8 minutes, I am restarting studio.)
Restarted right when it went to 9%, lol
10 minutes: 15%
19 minutes 60%- and doing screenshot and canceling. Will see if lights can be changed to bright white or soft yellow, etc. Not going to spend much time on this dude.
22 minutes, he was done so will post render. Splotchy is there. Don't like this character.
@Tjohn! You know we love your art work! And you are not old. =-)
I agree about the ashen quality. I've noticed that in some of the darker skinned characters. Sometimes I counter with a different pinker diffuse.
Invited Guest Contributor
I thought I'd put together a quick render with the current fastgrabs. I've had all of these for eons, and they really do work together nicely. I also used Frankie, who I just picked up for a song during the "Deck out Your Genesis" sale.
Used:
Helen
Textures for Helen
Garden Escape Porch
Frankie Von Stein
Aoife Hair 2 (Also available for V4)
Rendered in DS 4.6. Clothing was auto-fit to Genesis.
Nice one Karibou's boutique and beautifully composed. I also love the little rose petals floating down. =-)
Well, you actually managed to find a character I don't have, lol! Wishlisted and it's all your fault. I love the lighting. The hair is what, if you don't mind me asking?
Isn't that Aoife hair?
I have to say... I picked up Scifi renegade this weekend in the big sale. And it renders pretty well. Even better, Duarte hair! The promos do not do it justice.
Thanks! The hair is Aoife Hair2 by AprilYSH. (It also is available for V4) The petals were dredged up from somewhere deep in my library... can't remember where I got them, but they've been in there a while!
I had Frankie on my wishlist forever but couldn't ever justify buying her -- I don't do a lot of "halloween-y" renders. In the last sale, however, I couldn't pass it up -- I got the Frankie Bundle for under $12. Still itching to use that corset! :)
The more I looked at my Gabe render, the more the specular looked too strong for his skin tone. I tried cutting it in half, and I think the results are much more natural (note to self).
Didn't that product with the two huge roses for the hair have rose petals? I'll have to check that one out (curious) It's a "new" product from the past couple months, about Christmas time. I have that Aoife Hair. Do me a favor? Can you edit the post and put that with the other products so when I get the Products page updated I will remember to link to that post for Aoife Hair?
Here's Gabriel without doing postwork, and with. Gotta hurry, site going down as usual anytime now.