NEW! Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 5

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Comments

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,583
    edited December 1969

    They've separated the backdrop for the Render and the background color in the viewport.

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647
    edited December 1969

    Those Oleander are quite lovely. Very articulated.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    They've separated the backdrop for the Render and the background color in the viewport.

    thanks Mike. DavidGB answered:
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48862/P510/#729087

    "If you want a transparent background in the render, just make sure in the Environment Pane, that backdrop is set to none. Then save the render as either png or tiff. Of course there will be a background color in the viewport (whatever you have set in the Windows>Style>Customize colors Viewport color setting), but that won’t show in the actual render. No backdrop in the Environment pane, and save the render as png or tiff, and the png or tiff will have a transparent background. (How that’s displayed depends on the graphic program you load it into - in the GIMP and Photoshop and the DS render window it’s the checkerboard pattern, but in Irfanview it’s black)."

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    I've noted in another thread that the punches are remaining until Dec 19th, and I am pretty sure the 5% was on gift cards and not punchable items. (which is what it says now.) So if you bought anything today be sure it took 5% off if you qualified (or 10%, 15%) I don't know when it changed over from gift certificates to punchables. I don't think I'm losing my mind because I remember thinking gift certificates was different than the other punchable promotions, that it was always the items that got the discounts. Am I right?

    5 Punches
    5% OFF any Punchable Items
    Additional 20% OFF featured PA stores
    40% OFF featured "best of 2014" items

    I got the two lightsets but won't have time to mess with them for a couple days. Busy busy! The morphs look interesting too, you get 50 of them. And ahem.. customers have to pay $10 for Michael but Victoria was free.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    As I said in the other thread, the only thing that is wrong on that page is the fact that the punch code bar hasn't been updated, As that has been reported it will be updated soon I would think. Every other detail on the page is in reference to this weeks Punches, so the rewards from last week have now ended, as was stated on last weeks bar they ended at midnight on the 12th, and you are now collecting a new set of punches towards this weeks rewards, which will be current until the 19th.

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,384
    edited December 1969

    Well it still says "Week 1" (presumably this should read "Week 2" now)
    And Novica: you're right about the GC discount in Week 1, but the %ages seem to have been improved this week - here's a screenshot of the start of Week 1 and the start of Week 2:

    DAZ_Store_-_Happy_Hollidaz_-_Day_8_Punches.jpg
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    DAZ_Store_-_Happy_Hollidaz_-_Day_1_Punches.jpg
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  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647
    edited December 1969

    LOL. I only have two punches. I'll never get anywhere at this rate, but half my budget is now blown with all those lights and male morphs today. =-)

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,384
    edited December 2014

    LOL. I only have two punches. I'll never get anywhere at this rate, but half my budget is now blown with all those lights and male morphs today. =-)

    I'm eyeing those lights and male morphs too - I haven't actually bought any punchables yet (though I've picked up quite a few back catalog items, fastgrabs and of course all the freebies) - and I'll need to grab another GC first as I only have $8 left now...
    Post edited by MelanieL on
  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647
    edited December 1969

    The male Morphs appear to have a nice variety. I haven't tried them yet though...

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    MelanieL said:
    Well it still says "Week 1" (presumably this should read "Week 2" now)
    And Novica: you're right about the GC discount in Week 1, but the %ages seem to have been improved this week - here's a screenshot of the start of Week 1 and the start of Week 2:

    Thanks for the screenshots!
    Heads up everyone- several of us have noted the Facebook code didn't work, even with over $20 in the cart.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    FWSA Gingersnap HD (FW Art / Sabby)
    Day At The Mall (DAZ3D / Nikisatez)
    Yu Hair For Genesis 2 Female(s) and Victoria 4 (DAZ3D / SWAM)
    Lake Village (Faveral)
    Everyday Snacks (Maclean)

    http://www.daz3d.com/fwsa-gingersnap-hd
    http://www.daz3d.com/day-at-the-mall-for-genesis-2-female-s
    http://www.daz3d.com/yu-hair-for-genesis-2-female-s-and-victoria-4
    http://www.daz3d.com/lake-village
    http://www.daz3d.com/everyday-snacks

    The Lake Village is a Faveral, so enough said so far as quality. :)

    When you load your figures, they are going to be going for a swim under a dock. I do wish vendors would put their products where people and props would load logically. The set loads as one thing, so the first action I would take is grouping items by location and saving it, so anytime you use this set you can easily turn off large chunks of it to speed up your renders.

    The Day At The Mall outfit is so nice and casual! There is also Cozy Fashion for textures, and Mallrats. Some interesting patterns there.
    http://www.daz3d.com/cozy-fashion
    http://www.daz3d.com/mallrats-for-day-at-the-mall

    lakevillageGingersnapDayMall.png
    600 x 900 - 1M
  • FaveralFaveral Posts: 415
    edited December 1969

    Hi Novica. Thank you for the compliment! :).... The set does load as one big chunk, it's true, but it's actually made of 16 "chunks", which you can hide/delete, or even move around to customize the village the way you want. Other than that, there are 25 or so props, which you can also move around delete/hide, or simply zero them, save them as props and reuse them with other environments.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    I have every set you make I think! :)

    Yes, I love the props being "scootable!" I moved bench 2 closer to the wall as I was originally going to have my character leaning back. The orange tree is funny- folks need to get their Vitamin C!

    I tweaked the lights a bit and my water doesn't look right- want everyone to know it's ME and not the product. I started the renders then left them to do their thing so didn't notice the water. I'm using the UE2 and Sunlight but had to increase/lower settings for the shadow grunge when I did the figure. I'll try re-rending with the original settings, but here's some shots of the buildings and ignore the water for now. Love this set, so many nooks and crannies! (I even "wandered" into the rooms.)

    lakevillage5.jpg
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    lakevillage4.jpg
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    lakevillage3.jpg
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    lakevillage2.jpg
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  • FaveralFaveral Posts: 415
    edited December 1969

    To get a good looking water in studio, you need to up the render settings almost to the max. I strongly suggest using progressive rendering as well, it seems to speed up the rendering.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Okay, had already loaded with your default lighting and my settings were: (aka, what would you tweak, please?)

    Progressive Off (will change that)
    Bucket Size: 30
    Max Ray Trace Depth 2 (should that be 1 or 0- would it make a difference?)
    Pixel Samples 8
    Shadow Samples 30
    Gain 1.0 Gamma Off
    Shading Rate .20
    Pixel Filter Width 8

    lake_village_fav.jpg
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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Oh WOW. I turned on progressive, and changed the UE2 settings- I think it was the occlusion samples to 128 and the shading rate to 8, will verify when it's done rendering. It's GORGEOUS!

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 2014

    Wheeeee!
    In UE2, Occlusion Samples to 128, shading rate 8.13
    Progressive turned on in Render settings. That's all.
    Love it Faveral! :)

    EDIT: Adding more to this post.

    lake_village_fav4.jpg
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    lake_village_fav3.jpg
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    lake_village_fav2.jpg
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    Post edited by Novica on
  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647
    edited December 1969

    Nicely done Novica. Water looks great now. Thanks for showing us that set. I get a mad max waterworld-medieval vibe from that. =-)

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    LOL!
    I'm eventually going to try the water with other sets too, put them on the water or switch out the water with this one. It renders at a nice speed.

    Sitting out on all the minotaur stuff as I wouldn't use it, ever. Saving a lot of money. The cactus for .99 looks like fun. Otherwise, I only have three punches- those two light sets and the Lake Village.

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647
    edited December 1969

    3 punches for me too.

    Minotaur is well executed but I just don't do fantasy renders and even though HD is optional- I can't really use the HD stuff, so I'd only get it for Minotaur distance work of which my needs are non-existant.

    I bought the Minos outfit. The shackles and loin cloth look useful for other products, and WOW. An update to Ron's brushes is coming down right now? That's a lot of updates... =-)

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,384
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the look at the Lake Village, Novica - I'm SOOO tempted by that.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 2014

    MelanieL said:
    Thanks for the look at the Lake Village, Novica - I'm SOOO tempted by that.

    :) It's one of the bigger ticket items but worth it. Get $4 off too! Be sure it takes- it worked for me but for another individual it showed $4 off but it did NOT take it off on their products. We both did the math and all they got was the 30% of the products, yet it showed -$4.00. And yes, this works on new items, I got the Medieval Interiors and the Ghost of Macbeth morphs today. Both for $17.93

    https://www.facebook.com/DAZ3D.FanPage

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Doing some renders of Medieval Interior.
    Since Faveral mentioned having Progressive On, I'm trying that with these renders. For some reason, I remember a version of the studio having trouble with Progressive or something that caused many of us to turn it off. Anyone remember what it was? I think it was version 4.5
    Anyway, turning Progressive On is interesting- it's cool to see more of the image come in and then begin fine tuning. Really neat.

    There is a quality control issue that DAZ didn't fix with this one frankly. A picture in a frame laying against the bed goes THROUGH the bed. All I did was load the scene, I didn't change anything. Will show you when it renders.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 2014

    Medieval Interior (Dexsoft-Games)
    http://www.daz3d.com/medieval-interior

    I like the lighting, it's got nice variations in the light and shadow patterns. I think I would increase the bump/displacement a bit on the walls to make them pop a bit more (Newbies- you do that in the Surface tab. Select what you want to affect in the Scene tab, then select the surface tool which looks like three sheets of paper, it's above the viewport)

    In the first render you can see the picture frame going through the bed.

    One thing vendors need to watch for is a repeating pattern that may be obvious. Look at the wood in the third render that is on the window trim and the two beams on either side of it- in other words, all vertical boards. That woody knot with the design around it, really stands out. And is obviously the same texture pattern over and over again.

    medInterior3.jpg
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    medInterior2.jpg
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    medInterior1.jpg
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    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 2014

    Coming up, I am going to continue to swing around the room so your view will shift toward your left. There is a chimney to the left of the table you saw, and this next render will show the edge of the door leading to the next room and a sliver of the room. Will post the fourth render here in about 15 minutes (I am working in the garage and running back and forth. Need to use the daylight while it's still here, and will be in the 30's tonight so not working out there later. Doing two things at once.)

    Edit- and then I went to the left of the door, staying in the first room.

    Next, I've shown you the next room, the blank wall on your left as you walk in. It gives you plenty of room to place furniture. I will shoot over to the right next.

    medInterior8.jpg
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    medInterior7.jpg
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    medInterior6.jpg
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    medInterior5.jpg
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    medInterior4.jpg
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    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    A couple more to wrap it up. :) The painting is nice with the little figures in it.

    medInterior11.jpg
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    medInterior10.jpg
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    medInterior9.jpg
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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    FW Jason (FWArt / Fisty)
    Kung Fu Hair For Genesis 2 Male(s) (DAZ3D / Goldtassel)
    Asgard Cleric For Genesis 2 Male(s) (DAZ3D / Sarsa / Mada
    )

    http://www.daz3d.com/fw-jason
    http://www.daz3d.com/kung-fu-hair-for-genesis-2-male-s
    http://www.daz3d.com/asgard-cleric-for-genesis-2-male-s

    Jason is relaxing with a brew, and wondering how much of it he has already had. :) I wanted to see how the lights (default) with Medieval Interior worked on people.

    This is all out of the box.

    medInteriorason.jpg
    1200 x 1400 - 2M
  • IndigoJansonIndigoJanson Posts: 1,100
    edited December 1969

    Nice warm glow from those lights, Novica. I think they worked well with Jason. I especially like the windows and rugs. Thanks for such a detailed look at this interior and the new Faveral set too, which looks amazing as always.

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647
    edited December 1969

    WOW. Like those interior renders Novica. I also like the shot of Jason enjoying his grog! Nicely done.

    I did pick up Jepe's Orso today and those Christmas Cacti. Looks good.

  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214
    edited December 1969

    Novica, absolutely love your renders of the Lake Village, the adjustments you made to the settings really made them pop! I was so tempted to throw it in my cart but I am on a hiatus from buying anything right now, haven't purchased one thing this month yet and will only do so to use my monthly coupons. I have so much that I haven't even rendered yet, I will wait until the March Madness sale and hopefully there will be some good flash sales on some of these stores who are putting out these great items right now :)

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