Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 13
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Wow, let's talk about Lumina. I've only done the brief 4 minute intro tutorial, and here's what I can tell you.
In Edit, you have the tools. This includes a super easy AI (Artificial Intelligence) Enhance, for contrast, shadows, highlights. Easy sliders, nice results. The AI Structure goes from flat to dramatic, bringing out details. The Landscape Enhancer eliminnates fog/ haze. Foliage Enhancer is a saturation for the grass and foliage.
While still in Edit, going to the palette icon gets you into Creative Lab. I LOVE THIS- the AI Sky Replacement gives you oodles of skies to choose from, and they immediately replace your sky! You can click on the box above the viewport that is half black, half white, which gives you a slider. You slide it back and forth to see the before and after. Cool!
Here's one thing you will ADORE. The Sunrays! Yes, create rays and easily slide sliders for the ray length, the penetration, the sun radius to determine the halo/glow, and the sun warmth (adding yellows.) It's awesome! It automatically knows where the sunlight is in your render.
The face icon shows just how intuitive this program is. You can lighten up JUST THE FACE! and saturate just the lips, enlarge the eyes- and get this- whiten the teeth! (And much more.)
In the Professional section, one of my favorites is- you guessed it- Dodge and Burn. When you click on Start Painting, it becomes a brush.
I haven't even begun exploring all those other programs that come with it in that bundle. This is so much easier to use than Photoshop (the options are grouped with easy sliders. You don't have to go to different places.) I'm giving both my sons the money for each one to buy this, that's how much I like it so far. That sky replacement, sunrays, and portrait fixer are awesome!
Next up I'm reviewing Aurora HDR Although it's an HDR editor, you don't have to have a group of photos to make an HDR, you can edit one image. This has exposure, contrast, temperature, contrast, highlights, whites, blacks, vibrance, color contrast- and that's just the HDR Basic and Color sections.
HDR Enhance is where you'll find the sharpening, and LUT Mapping seems to be a combination of warm, cold, and other hues combined with varying levels of contrast. Just slide sliders and do whatever combinations you want from a lot of color options.
The Adjustable Gradient section is FUN! You can change the top and bottom separately- and this is SO NEAT- ROTATE it. It looks like dappling light moving around as you slide the slider. This is so cool for brightening one section of your background, foreground, or in-between!
There's a lot more to Aurora HDR, but it's a brief intro to what it can do.
I laughed so hard I cried, literally. I talk outloud to myself on occasion, and this was one of them. In that bundle, is PhotoLemur.
I opened it. Loaded up a render.
DING!
Done. My instant reaction spoken outloud:
"Whaddaya mean DING?"
What do I get to do as an artist????? There's just a smallish square, no side bars, just a small icon to click at the bottom for...wait for it....ONE slider to go light or dark.
If you're lucky enough to find the Settings, you can click on Face Enhancements to change only the face- but only lighter or darker. So DING it is.
So I went to Help. And it tells me clearly the program does it's thing without you assisting it, and "Isn't that easy?"
No kidding. DING.
I'm still giggling as I type this. I'll always remember my incredulous comment, reverberating through my living room.
This will save you an hour of experimenting/ researching. SIGH. WHY can't they include instructions?
For Luminar 4: The Sky Objects: Fascinating Clouds can be added to your C:/Program Files path to Skylum and Luminar 4, then go to Profiles, SkySFX and put in Alpha Blend. e :) The Sky Objects planets go down that path but after Profiles, it seems to be SkySFX then Screen. It works, I tested it.
Edit- here's a good video on how to add your own sky (or make some fun backgrounds like sci-fi) and put in the sky dropdown list.
It is fun seeing you reference Luminar and Aurora. The upcoming Luminar AI is controversial as it merges a bit of PhotoLemur (enormous amounts of AI to "improve" your image ) with the manual bits like a refined version of the current Luminar. An example of what wea re talking about is this rather poor render that started out as
and ended as I tried to recover from a badly thought out render:
@nemesis10 Your render does look much better :) Better than a Ding!
One thing I am getting frustrated with is the PDFs which are out of date. Took me an HOUR to find the forums which stated the workspaces are gone from Luminar 4, the last they had them was the 3. So for the Looks: Mega Black and White, the PDF which told me to go to the File-Show Workspace yada yada yada resulted in annoyance and wondering what I was doing wrong. So for all of you who got the bundle, and again PM me if you don't know what I'm talking about- you won't use the LMWS file at all in Mega Black and White.
For new users like myself, for that bundle, you don't load the textures anywhere, you will use them over in the Creative Lab (the palette) in Texture Overlay. DO make a layer before you add the effects, just like in Photoshop.
Okay, next, still in Luminar 4. The Creative Luts are in the Creative Lab section (the art palette) under Color Styles. These are .cube files. You'll get Blue Trace, Blue Velvet, Cool Blue, and Earth Tones. Here's a tip. If you don't put them in the C://Program Files path they will not be in the dropdown menu. You'd have to click each time to use the one you want. So after you extract the folder, go to the C://Program Files/Skylum/Luminar4/Data/LutFiles (or Lut Files, don't remember) and put those .cube files there. Voila! Now they're in the dropdown menu.
Folks, be sure and note- that $200 is the ORIGINAL price of the product. Not what you are SPENDING.
For the featured stores, Items are going to 68% with the code for today when you buy two new releases. That is CORRECT. 60% off for buying the two new releases is (price) x .40 (you are paying 40%) THEN another 20% off, so take that amount times .80 (you are paying 80% of what's left)
HOWEVER those two new releases HAVE to be those from today, not ANY new release. That doesn't say that in the promo.
So don't know if that's a mistake and ANY new release is supposed to work. It doesn't for me, had to be the ones from today.
The 20% off for PC+ members when that 200.00 is in the cart doesn't have to be the featured stores of course.
Want to show you how much fun I'm having with Luminar 4. This is one I'd already posted.
Click back and forth between these two. The first is the original after tweaking in Corel Photo Paint at the time (I've since lost that program, can't find the disc or key, and I refuse to pay subscription) and this is with Luminar 4 which I LOVE. Again, PM me about the bundle on sale with Aurora if you don't know about it. I used, among other things, the eye brighten, teeth brighten, AI (Artificial Intelligence) sky background, increasing details in small, medium, and large areas, and more. What a difference! Gave her a bit of a toony look with the stronger lines on the neck and outline.
Be sure and click back and forth. :)
It's funny you should be talking about Luminar 4. I've been thinking of getting that. I picked up Luminar 3 with a HumbleBundle deal and had some good results with it. I'm thinking of picking up Luminar 4 in a similar deal this week.
@knittingmommy That's the bundle I keep referring to :) Anyone getting the bundle may want to read my previous posts about where to install the planets and the clouds so they appear in dropdowns. It's very frustrating not to have any pdf's on the ones you need to have information about- aka the Sky Objects. So I tested and researched and found YouTube suggestions on how to get them in the dropdowns IN Luminar. Also, there's one regarding a workspace and those are NOT in Luminar 4 so I wasted ten minutes trying to find out that status. One thing about that bundle- that video only goes to a two minute introduction to the video we're supposed to get.
Here's a video to help get a feel for Luminar.
Thanks for the video link Novica will take a look at it. Heres an image I did with Luminar 4 used the sky replacement and the the Looks Essentials AI Image Enhancement.
@daventaki That's really pretty. I can't wait to try the sky replacement in a regular scene.
@Daventaki That's really striking! The luminar-swapped sky looks better than so many of the HDRI skies which are often soft, grainy and have color artifacts; that and not having to spend sooo much tedious time masking out the sky areas in regular photos or having to render out masks and layers to swap skies in renders is AWESOME! I'm totally getting that bundle. :)
~Gen
That bundle comes with AWESOME stormy skies too. (Which normally would have to be bought, not a default in Luminar 5.)
Aw, here's a little feel good story. Love the chipmunk dining area!
Cute
When I was a kid we vacationed and went deer hunting in Colorado during the bow season and the chipmunks were everywhere. They'd get in the tent, your sleeping bag, your shoes, and when it was mealtime they were gathered around where mom was cooking and if you didn't watch out they would steal the food right off your plate
I love feeding birds and chipmunks in winter and they go through a 40 lb bag a month but I have to draw the line at squirrels (as I can't afford that much feed), cats, dogs, raccoons, birds of prey, and so on (so I chase them off everytime I see them).
Here's an image from a project I'm working on. Lots and lots of kitbashing was involved in this, but I'm particularly pleased with her handbag.
The bag is one of the Cheyenne Accessories, originally intended to hang off a horse, but scaled down to fit. The strap is one of the smooth ropes from Sickleyield's Tied Up 2. I use it for all kinds of posable straps. The trick is to select all the individual bones of the rope and set all their Y scales to 20% (if you try scaling the overall rope object instead, it messes up the bending), then apply a leather shader and you have a posable leather strap to position and sling over her shoulder.
My family was enamored with chipmunks when we first went to Colorado as kids as we didn't have them where I lived. Now that I live in Cincinnati, I just walk outside to the front or back of our house and see many running about. We had a bumper crop this year so they were actually more of a nuisance than normal. Along with 3-4 squirrels per house, we live in rodent heaven I think.
THAT IS AMAZING!!!!! Thanks for the tip.
@novica I watched the chipmunk video - very cute with all the table props they made! Sent it to my daughter who use to have hamsters that have similar behaviors
The one thing I didn't like was the lady thinking it was funny the chipmunk stole the little goblet. That was probably hard plastic and could be a choking hazard. Chimpmunks put things in their mouth to eat, either then or later.
I have had Teddy Bear Hamsters and gerbils. Mine were Ping and Pong, then another set was Martini and Rossi. And I don't drink LOL! Man, the memories. I hadn't thought about those gerbils in forty five years!
Ya know, this could be fun. What are some of the names of your previous pets? (And state what they were.)
Rusty- Dog, when yawned sounded like a rusty hinge
Patches- Cat, white with black patches
Smudge- Stray cat with a smudge on face (not clearly defined patch, blended into fur)
Friskie- my first cat, lived 23 years. From 3rd grade to 2years outside of college- I was an Army Officer when she died!
Chableis- my golden Lhasa Apso I had to leave back home when I was an Army Officer. Mom and Dad wouldn't relenquish her anyway. :)
Hasty- black Arabian who won barrel racing championship, so I named him Hasty. (I didn't win that, by the way.) But the crowd loved the announcer saying, "Here's Hasty!"
Nitwit- neighbor's cat who would steal our badminton birdie. We had to get to him before he got to it. We loved him. He'd drop it a second later, ready to go again!
Tidbit- tiny bunny who got so tame it would let me hand feed it carrots. (A wild bunny.)
L'Oreal- Himalayan cat, because of the "I'm worth it" slogan. She knew she was!
Raleigh The Collie by golly. Enough said. Raleigh is SUCH a gorgeous name for a dog.
Kaiye- means dry snow, my first Samoyed. That fur is soft and fluffy (Pronounced Kye- a with long a sound)
Vengeance, aka Ginny- German Shepherd
Banky- red slider turtle. That was my sister's.
Ringo- typical tabby cat, the stripes make rings as they go around the body.
Priscilla- gorgeous tortie cat. Dark black with gorgeous blonde and light brown blended through. Named a prissy name as her hair looked like done in a salon.
Naragansett- Ancy Gancy the quarterhorse!
Deuvahlei- Doovy the horse.
Colorado Cabul- Paso Fino who already knew his name, so called him Raddie. Originally shipped in from Peru. I got him in Colorado.
Stryder- thoroughbred. 17 hands tall. Stryders are the name of good, fast racetrack horses. He wasn't but man could he RUN.
Camareigh- my favorite gray Arabian. Named for the Duke and Duchess of Camareigh who loved Arabians.
Sassafras- aka Sassy wh owas born on my ranch, she used to chase me behind trees, whirling and kicking up to play. Which is dangerous. Name fit.
Shima- her mom, I didn't name her.
Mike- my first dog, named by Mom and Dad. A stray, lived 14 years. A collie mix with long hair, Papilion type ears.
Geico- currently 15 years old. Save a bunch of money by getting a shelter dog LOL Currently have.
Duhvalei- aka Duvee my Pekingese Currently have.
Dibbs- looks like Benji. I got first, and only dibbs on him. 14 minutes before euthinization. Currently have.
Ci Pwff- you know him, the Samoyed Currently have.
Purina- the cat
Talker- Purina's mom. Took them both in after Hurricane Dennis, decided they were NOT going to be outdoor strays after that!
Tikki- calico cat
Tequila- golden/orange Persian
Patton- yellow striped tabby who I got from a shelter. He placed his paws on the dashboard of the car to see out as we rode home. Reminded me of Patton in a jeep.
Tivvi - fluffy gray cat
Tiaga- saw a truckline named Tiago and thought that would be pretty for a female cat, to change the end to an "a"
Zheffie- bearded collie
La Tiff- Tiff for short. Arabian I shipped from Idaho to Florida. Stunning. The Canadian Black Stallion (movie) was his grandpa.
Ferachi- Paso Fino from Iowa, I combined Ferrari with Mariachi (lively band) as he was smooth like the car and lively.
Esmerelda- tabby cat. Touch her rump and she did boinky butt.
O'Malley- gray cat. The love of my life. Was a stray, got in Maryland, to Texas, to Florida. Nicknamed THUD because he'd just plop down.
Tuxedo- stray cat.
Shadow- stray cat, going on 8 years. Currently have (outdoors)
Babei (prounounced Baby) Other outdoor male that I feed but have to break up fights with Shadow.
Tuxedo- stray cat, black and white
Lily- Seal Point Lynx Birmese (long haired Siamese) Currently own
Topaz and Dundee- Blue Tongue Skinks (2 feet long native to Australia) Currently have
Of course, Stetson, Black Morgan.
I hate it when vendors do full face makeups. If I can't select what eyeshadow (or none) goes with what lip color, I'm not buying it. Note that on VYK Ibbie. 16 presets, you get no choice with those. I buy gals who have choices of blushes, eyeshadow, eyeliner, lipstick- all independent of each other. Also, various eyebrow colors.
1) Daisy - an English Sheep dog someone abandoned on an Indian Highway that I saw on our way home to Chicago from Tennessee that I begged my mom & dad to pick up. There was a show on TV and a movie then called Don't Feed the Daisies and I seem to remember the English Sheep Dog was called Daisy so that was what I named the abandoned sheepdog that we took back to Chicago.
2) Tiger - an orange & black striped chihuahua I begged for and ultimately I borrowed from an Uncle for the summer after we moved to Indiana. It was missing the white stripes.
3) Snoopy - a beagle I begged for and got after Tiger was gone. Much to skinny a dog to really look like the cartoon Snoopy.
4) Sidney - A female cocktiel and was a very untame and hard biter when I got her and I tamed her using one of my mom's yellow rubber gloves I stuck on her perch and put in her cage. To my surprise that trick worked and I didn't have to continue to suffer bites trying to tame her. She would go happy with excitement every day when I got home from school at 3 opening her cage door in my bedroom and flying to the front door of the apartment to greet me. Sadly, Sidney the cockatiel died, I think of apolexy from the bird disease book I read afterwards but I'm not sure. I was heartbroken.
6) Sherry - A puppy given to us as a family in Kentucky named after the younger sister of my oldest brother's girlfriend that visited us in Florida from Minnesota.
7) About 30 tropical fish. Oddly, these are the pets that I kept the longest so far cause as luck would have it I didn't move until college and I brought them with me to college until graduation. The dogs always got given away whenever we moved but the fish I had for 4 years and my brother another 4 or 5 years after I moved to Texas. Not all of them lived the entire 8 or 9 years though but at least 2 of them did (bottom dwelling Leopard Catfish and another bottom dweller I forgot the name of ). LOL, my brother and his wife eventually grew tired of them and gave them away again. I've heard being cold blooded fish can actually live to be ancient so maybe some of those fish are still around! Didn't name them but they learn to recognize you because they learn that you feed them. At least some typers of fish do, like Angelfish. Love those fish.
8) Then no more pets for decades until I started adopting a few birds in Sep 2018. Since then I've adopted 4 budgies, 5 Indian Ringnecks, and 2 cockatiels and tamed them before adopting all but one Indian Ringneck back out to other people. As it is quite expensive to buy nice appropriate cages, pay adoption fees, buy food, and very time consuming to both tame the birds and clean up the huge messes they make (budgies & cocktiels excepted in the huge mess regard) I am only keeping the one Indian Ringneck. And yes, one Indian Ringneck still manages to make a huge mess. If I ever pair her up with a male (not to breed just as a social friend) such that she is truly content I may adopt her out too but won't adopt her out if she's alone as she is too skittish and scared even though I can finally get her to fly too me if I offer her a treat and she actually wants the treat (as opposed to flying to me because she actually likes me like my childhood cockatiel liked me
). The Indian Ringneck I kept is called Missy as a play on "Messy" (her old name was Lemondrop but obviously she didn't know that was her name. She speaks Spanish saying Papagayo which means parrot. She also wolf whistles and imitates other bird sounds. What species of birds she is imitating I have no ideal. The budgies called Jack & Jill then Bill & Bell. The Cockatiels already named were both male and one called Rio, the other called Baby. The other Ringnecks were Maddie (I renamed from name Apple Jack since she was actually a girl and didn't know her name anyway), Priestley, Wesley, & Sunshine. Generally parrots do not like 'leaving their flock' (their original care giver(s)) that they were lived in at a young age to live in another 'flock' (you as new care giver) when the original family decides to give them up. They really don't; so keep that in mine if you adopt older parrots, it's usually a thankless task that's expensive and a lot of hard work. Do yourself a favor and get a young budgie if you want pet bird(s). They are adapted via 200 years of human breeding selection as pets to tame easier and can be trained too while the other species are not nearly so much selected.
These are really cute names. Love Maude and Adolph the grandparent goldfish! Wow, having fish live 8 or 9 years is awesome. I forgot to mention mine, I had one named Picasso, can't recall what they're called but they are those huge sucker mouth fish, I think it's picastamus or something like that. He was so tame he'd come to the top of the tank and float belly up for the office employees to take turn dropping flakes in his mouth!
I also think Priestley is a cool name. Very dignified and it fits.
I rarely ever buy things when they come out but I did get Gunnar for G8M by DTHUREGRIF. It was mostly an impulse buy, plus he had a sweet introductory discount. I thought I might as well write a review.
I like Gunnar. He's a conventionally attractive young white guy with perhaps a bit of a "country boy" look. He looks a little awkward when you first load him; but once you give him a proper haircut, a bit of a facial expression, and a pose he starts revealing his charms.
Context suggests that the character was inspired by the TV series Vikings – his female counterpart is clearly inspired by Vikings actress Katheryn Winnick – but Gunnar really doesn't look anything like Travis Fimmel, Alexander Ludwig, Clive Standen, or any other actor from that series I can think of. Not a criticism, just an observation.
Gunnar's head morph – which extensively uses G8M Head Morphs – is attractive (to me) but not very detailed. You can see this in his promos, he's not a particularly photorealistic character. This does not bother me; I like working with non-photorealistic characters, I find that they are less prone to tumbling down the uncanny valley. But I can imagine that Gunnar's somewhat simplistic sculpt might not be to everybody's taste.
One aspect I don't like about his head morph is that it gives him imperfect teeth. It's still just about acceptable (to me), but only just. Artists can certainly give their character wonky/realistic teeth but I really think they should come as a separate dial.
Another aspect that could have been done better: Gunnar's head morph dial is located in Parameters but not in Shapes, which is irritating; and it's not linked to the G8M Head Morph dials the character uses. Which means Gunnar can't be dialled in partially, you have to apply him fully by using the one-click option.
His body morph is entirely made from G8M Body Morphs. It's... fine. It serves well enough but it's nothing special. I'll probably always refine it with some other body morphs.
His skin is fair but not overly pale, with a slightly "rough" quality to it. It's appropriate for a Viking warrior but I can also imagine it on a boy-next-door/surfer/jock type. I'd say the quality of his skin is good-not-great. It's not the kind of skin the bards will praise in songs for centuries (Hey there, Alistair! What's good, Tyrone!), but I do like it and will use it.
He has a baked-in five-o-clock shadow and baked-in hair on his legs, forearms, and armpits. I like it, although I can imagine it might bother some.
His face doesn't have a no-brow option, which is a little more annoying to me. His painted-on brows are quite prominent and very yellow, which is limiting. I wish I didn't have to deploy Photoshop or Brow Remover to make him anything other than wheat blond. A no-brow option would have been much appreciated.
Gunnar's skin loads in his matte preset, there's also a glossy option. To be honest I'm not entirely convinced by either preset but I found it very easy to slightly tweak the skin and make it look more to my personal liking (I mostly increased gloss and translucency.)
He comes with a number of material options such as muddy, covered in blood, drenched in sweat, stronger five-o-clock shadow, pubic hair, face tattoo, black eye, and others. All these option use LIE (with the exception of the sweat option which uses Top Coat.) This means they can be applied to other G8M and G3M characters, which is very cool.
The facial tattoos look cool but unfotunately, if you take a look at the maps you'll find that they are pixellated and not as high quality as they should be. Usable, but not great. Other maps don't seem to have this problem, only the two tattoo overlays.
All overlay maps are saved as PNGs with transparent backgrounds, yet dropping them into Diffuse Overlay doesn't work, for reasons that I haven't figured out.
One aspect of his skin that I absolutely have to call out: Gunnar comes with a set of Diffuse maps and a set of SSS maps... but if you compare the two you'll find that both sets are 100% identical.
I don't mind if artists use the same map in Diffuse and Translucency. In fact I prefer it because fewer maps make for smaller files and faster renders. But to save the exact same set of maps under two different names... it's stupid, it's nonsensical, it's a waste of space and resources, and it seems scammy. And none of it was necessary. Just use the same set of maps twice, many reputable artists do!
Even though this is easy to correct manually it's still my least favourite aspect of this character, just because it's so dumb and unnecessary.
Some more random skin facts: Gunnar comes with anatomical maps; aside from diffuse/SSS maps he also has normal, specular, and bump maps; all maps are JPGs except for the various overlay maps, which are PNGs as mentioned earlier; the artist included the option to turn on displacement but it's just the bump maps again and I wonder if that even makes sense for a non-photorealistic character.
So... there are definitely some minor (and arguably a few major) points that can be improved. But at the end of the day... I like Gunnar! He's cute, and I'm basic like that! I think his promos are a good representation of the character, what you see is what you get. So ultimately, take a look and judge for yourself. I hope my ramblings were useful to some!
Lastly, I'm attaching my first render with Gunnar. I tweaked his skin settings and body sculpt – there is some SWOLE in there – and made his face and head a bit wider. Also attaching a screenshot of his not-great teeth, with Mouth Realism HD at 0%.
Sandy - Cocker Spaniel (gift when Iwas a teenager)
Judy - Black Cockapoo (my first dog as an adult; rescued from dog pound with 100s of ticks and I never forgave the vet who told me I should return her)
Frisky - Irish Setter
Sandy - Blonde Lab Mix (another rescued dog)
Buddy - Blonde Cocker Spaniel (inherited from my daughter when she moved to a new apartment and couldn't keep him)
Smokey - Black Lab Chow mix (inherited from my grandson when they moved to a new apartment and couldn't keep him)
Tiger - Mixed cat (iFond as a tiny baby kitten who follomed my grandkids home - Lives up to her name bytearing the house up when she doesn't immediately get her way.
Shannon - Blonde English Cocker (adopted from a rescue organization; had her for about 7 years before she died at age 9 of lymphoma a year after starting chemo)
Katie - Blonde Cocker Spaniel (show dog and breeder who was adopted when the breeder retired her; my current avatar)
Only Tiger and Katie are still living