NEW! Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 6
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looking at the jpg textures in the Texture folder, they look like just photos/images. Approx 3800 long by the look of them.
I think most of the textures are in Runtime/Textures/DAZ/Environment
Hmm, I need a bit of an explanation. If you go to the Folders section (top part) of Content Library and to the Products>M for multiplane cyclorama, I am confused as to what the "materials" for the beach does. It's right next to the prop, which is the ocean background/cyclorama. It says MPCycBeach.duf and labeled Materials. What does that apply to?
I load up the cyclorama Prop, under it in Scene is Plane 1,2,3 and each one has a material. But they don't match the cyclorama, at least not for me.
Ugh, that curved part is tricky. So, will leave this to other people to figure out! (I keep getting distracted. Need to keep installing/converting.)
I hate it that the old tutorials lost their pictures: http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/tutorials/dazcontent/dazcontent-gen04
You have to put part of the texture on the ground and part on the backdrop - as far as I remember there is some stretching involved too. The Template is here: https://www.daz3d.com/downloader/customer/files#prod_651
Might try it when I get some free time- thanks!
Well, The Girl by herself is $44.95. Let's all hop on that! And buying The Girl without seeing The Guy first, to get a discount on him- nah. He might be a dork or he might be okay, but since I don't need The Girl style, I am assuming I don't need The Guy either. So no buys for me today.
Frankly, the recent experience has heightened my insistence on looking to see which bundle outfits don't have what I consider to be reasonable morphs. The Derby Girl outfit in my opinion seems to be lacking the needed morphs. Once again, there's minimal morphs and you'd only get "widen" again for the chest area on the top. (Remember on the other outfits by this vendor, how I tried to scale everything, the straps/shoulders are part of the chest, so if you try to fix/enlarge the chest, the shoulders do too, etc. Nothing in Scene to help you either.) There is a variety of supported shapes but I still insist that there should be bust/chest adjustments. The skirt has no swing left or right options, I don't know if that can be done wtih Twist in Scene or not. It seems flexible in the main promo. As usual, the material options are cute. The morphs for the Derby Girl skirt are:
Skirt
I will say the above product has more to the skirt so far as length than this next one. Let's compare that with Roller Derby for Genesis 3 Females.
Skirt
The first one (Derby Girl) had the morphs for the top whereas it is unknown for the top on the second one (Roller Derby.) There is Top and there is Shirt, and I'm only seeing one thing for the upper body.
So comparing helmets- the first one (Derby Girl) has "widen head" and the second one (Roller Derby) has hair with the helmet ( or you can turn it off) and has straps. So both appear to assume the head gear is going to fit without much tweaking. Again, as with cloaks, IMO there should be both a widen and a shrink/vertical option though. Scale would do the entire thing, and sometimes I only need to reduce the Poof of the crown. However, Autofit must do a good job if both products don't address it.
Alrighty then! Gonna review the Sheridan Hair by AprilYSH. Although honestly, her hairs are such consistantly excellent quality, I probably don't need to review it cos an AprilYSH hair is a no-brainer! (hmmm that'd make a cool tagline for her store LOL )
I'm loving how April is including some preset poses with her hairs lately - there are times when you really don't feel like faffing around playing with movement morphs and sometimes those preset poses are EXACTLY what you want. Also, the flowers on the hair are separate props so you don't need to use them at all if you don't want to - not applying them doesn't mean the hair has a bald gap or anything like that (that's happened with a few hairs in the past I've found...NOT april's tho)
Plus, as a little added bonus, April includes some iray render settings - she claims they are just basic settings, but to tell hte truth, i REALLY like the look of them. They use the hdr 'ruins' that is included with DS, and the resulting lighting is pretty damn good.
In the pic, I used Olympia 7 with her default iray skin.
With the Sheridan Hair, i used the "no rolls" to flatten the top and just one of the presets that has the hair curling over her shoulders. The lighting is the iray settings that are included with the hair. A bit of postwork, but not much at all. See those little "flare of lights" on the outfit? That is a result of the included iray settings - I really like that effect.
VERY nice! Looks like we can reach out and touch it. BTW, if you do find those hair products where you can't remove the flowers/props without having hair there, let us know. I think folks would want to have that information before they buy. I know I always assume the pieces can be hidden without problem.
I love her expression- it's like "You MUST be kiddin'." I like the sheen on the skin too. Thanks so much for sharing!
Here's the last one of Naisa (Rendo) as I wanted to show that rainbow makeup (and note, she also has the pink eyes, and there's pink and purple eyes) with a closeup of that Dragontech Ninja outfit. You couldn't see the front very well and I wanted to be sure you could. Also, the lips have the geisha-type option, with the center part painted a red or upper lip red, lower purple- but only in the center. The rest of the lip would be pale.
Pensacola and surrounding areas got hit with three (at least) tornadoes (can be spelled tornados or tornadoes, drives me nuts) The Walmart had trees turned over on cars, the shopping center next to it had people huddled in the middle of stores and thank goodness weren't hurt. Century has 30 damaged homes, many shredded to pieces. The Pensacola tornado was about 15 minutes away. This spring is gonna be rough!
I Really like the makeup on that character, will have a look over at Rendo and check it out. I don't have my new system up and running yet, real life has been keeping me from having enough time to install my operating system, but I am setting aside time this week to get at it as I am very anxious to really be able to render a full scene, my poor laptop just can't handle too much. Please stay safe with all those terrible tornadoes going on down there.
She's a Sabby.
Working on converting Topaz right now.
The situation in Century, whose town got clobbered, is sad. (Go to northescambia(dot)com it's the newspaper, or pnj(dot)com for Pensacola's) Because it's not a wealthy town, the damage doesn't add up to enough to get any assistance from the state or FEMA. Pensacola and surrounding areas are leaping in to help of course, but apparently FEMA doesn't have some guidelines about city populations/level of income so that when half a town of respectable size gets demolished/damaged, they can get aid. We're going through our closets tonight to get them some nice clothes, it's winter/spring so they can use long sleeves and short sleeves.
For anyone who bought the Helper Robot (I did, what a cutie) there is a free cover so you can cover up the word Helper. It was in the Commercial Thread.
I like those woods! I also like your ninja's pose - very balanced yet dynamic.
Talking about ninja's, my 4 year old grandson came to our house last halloween in his new ninja costume. I asked him why he picked that one and he was quick to reply "because it had the most weapons!". A sword, 2 knives, 2 throwing stars and a nunchuck. And of course, he wanted to use all of them on me.
Thanks Kerya, that's a good resource to have.
Seems tornadoes come any time of the year anymore. You should be able to get help no matter how wealthy you are. They can be quite devastating to a small town or neighborhood.
LOL, well obviously you survived Rich! (Your grandson's play-attacks)
Yeah, the woods surprised me. If you look to the left of the big rock, you can see the ground plane and how detailed it is. Lots of leaves, grass, twigs, and of course, the hidden mushrooms. The bright red made it look too cartoony, but by going into Surfaces and doing Diffuse to brown, they wouldn't show up as much. Problem is, even with two groups, thre's too many mushrooms in each group. Not realistic IMO. So I think the woods are better without them if you want realism.
I had to laugh though- the trees ARE figures, and while turning one around, I had what looked suspiciously like a hiney cheek. I thought, "Hmmm...better keep rotating!"
Ratings: Recommend Dishy Delight Poses (G2F), Thalia Hair, Crazy Locks Hair, Corvidae Dress, Aslaug, Dokkafar. Corvidae has a wonderful neckline for adding Iray shaders to the beading on the neckline, and the skirt has wonderful pose morphs.
I've only got a few minutes but wanted to post Topaz (Rendo, Sabby) materials (still on Destiny for Olympia) and I am showing her with Thalia Hair and Crazy Locks Hair, (Genesis/V6/G2F) both with Slosh's Iray hair shader. For the Corvidae Dress, these are Aslaug and Dokkafar, and each one of those have several variations. I didn't feature this one or Nocturne, (only one I don't have. I have enough dresses) but it seems all the textures sets for Corvidae are really pretty. I don't think the promos for any of them do them justice, Corvidae dress looks rather blah frankly, and it's a lovely dress!
This dress has really nice morphs for moving the skirt. I also used several Dishy Delight Poses. (Gen2F)
BTW, I changed the lip color when I changed the eye makeup, you can pick whatever lip color you want to go with it, they are independent of each other.
One last one. This one (and only this one) I use an Iray shader on the beads, in the studio it said PC Metal and the two colors were Cloudy Gold and Brass. Note, the dress itself did not have the UberBase Iray shader applied, all of these were out of the box.
Those are beautiful!
Regal Cordivae is another texture set for Corvidae Dress. Note that the name of the dress is misspelled in the product name of this texture set. No wonder I have such a hard time spelling it correctly!
In this render I fit the dress to a dialed morph of Genesis 3 Female. It fits quite well, but the nifty dress poses that Novica described don't work when the dress is fit to Genesis 3 Female. I selected all surfaces of the dress and applied the Iray Uber Shader. She is wearing Christina Hair, which has nice morphs and Iray textures. The skin texture is Olympia 7.
Don't forget to use PD Iray Shader Kit 1 to make your own Corvidae textures. Here I retextured every surface of the dress, wrap, and beads. I also switched to a different Christina Hair color and different Olympia 7 makeup.
Very nice- I was spelling the dress wrong too (in my notes) so I guess I'll have to agree that dress is easy to spell wrong lol. The sheen on the skin is really nice and your lighting sets the mood- soft, delicate.
Thanks for the reminder on the PD shader product. I have it and forgot about it, I think I played with it once or twice months ago. I love your combinations. So it's like Fabricator for Iray, really neat! Wonder if there'll be a Kit 2- I'd definitely buy it!
Christina Hair has a beautiful flow. The only strand I don't like (which definitely looks like a brush stroke) is on our right going over the second blue bead on the right. The ends are just too square and the strand doesn't have any bend at all. (Edit- shows up on the darker hair a LOT more. The lighter colored one is quite fine.)
Lovely renders Novica and barbult! I have that dress but not the texture add-ons, so now they are in my wishlist. The PD Iray Shader Kit was already in it. Changing the beads textures was a great idea too.
Well, there are lots of morphs in Christina hair. I didn't even try to adjust that area. (I didn't even notice it.) I did think it was pretty easy to adjust the bangs on our left so they flowed out around her hand instead of through it.
You should definitely go back and play with the shader kit some more. It is one of my favorite Iray toys. PD Iray Shader Kit 1, Slosh's UHT hair shader, and Mec4D's PBR shaders are products I use over and over. I'm always on the lookout for more shader products from these three vendors in the store.
I wondered how your system was working for you- I can't imagine how much work goes into putting that together. Being non-technical, it would boggle my mind to look at part A, B, C...and I'd be totally lost at that point. Hopefully you can get some time to sit down and tinker with it. Then you won't have time to eat or sleep because you'll be amazed at the speed. The ones I did of Topaz took under four minutes each. (My laptop would have taken 30 minutes or more probably.)
When you get the PD Iray Shader Kit someday, be sure to go through the nice PDF User Guide. There are a lot of neat things you can do that aren't necessarity obvious until you read about it. There is an old thread about it somewhere in the forum, so if you have questions, you can find some people to help you there.
Thanks for the tip! Looking over the store page, it looks to be very versatile.
Um, have you folks tried the links in your signatures? I tested my Light Tutorial one and it's now taking me to the biplane image. So I clicked on the post again, checked the link, it is correct, but did it again anyway. And again, it's taking me to the biplane instead of my lighting which is several posts down. What gives? I'm posting it here to click on it and test it. (It's the EXACT same thing I copied/pasted in the signature link.)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1003069/#Comment_1003069
EDIT: Well funky dunky. It definitely is the right link, and definitely now not working in the signature. (And it was when I did it a week or two ago. I always- ALWAYS test them.) So everyone test your signature links I guess!
Rating: Recommend Cross Halter Bikini, Coleraine Hair- wonderful morphs, abundant options to change temple, move side to side, separate section movements.
Here's a hair I was pleasantly surprised with- SO MANY MORPHS! If you need a versatile hair (including length, section movement, windblown hair) then check out Coleraine Hair. There's SIX adjustments just for the temple! And yes, you can lower the top if you don't want it so poofy. This has the scraggly ends which I like, but there's a few of the "hair brush" strands too. With the morphs though, they can be moved so as not too obvious. Coleraine Hair has Iray materials too (in addition to 3DL.) It has different streaked options with bold colors too.
This is Sabby Kaylie and Kyleigh for Dolly (Rendo) showing you Kaylie. She is on Genesis 2 Female though, not Dolly. I wanted to show you the skin materials- I really like the soft blush used.
She's wearing Cross Halter Bikini with UberBase applied. The swimsuit isn't as skimpy as some of the others, but the top isn't practical of course! Unless you're shooting from the side, it actually covers more of the breast than the other bikinis. The back has fairly decent coverage of the booty too. With the right camera angle, this could be a family friendly swimsuit.
Another product I see I own is Fabric Basics Mix and Match for Iray. I'll have to render some of those. Anyone got some examples handy? (I'm going back through the thread to see if I've used this, it looks familiar.)
No, I don't have it, but I'd love to see some rendered examples. It doesn't look familiar. I must have missed it when it came out. Maybe it will go on the wish list.
I'll do some now.
BTW, I HATE it when you use the Iray rendering in the viewport and it looks fine, then there is SEVERE pokethrough when it renders. Watch out for Edwardian Suit. I'm ditching it for now but wanted to show you. (Particularly those of you who would get the render started and walk off and leave it, or let it render overnight, etc. You may get get a nasty surprise.)
Rating: Zen Garden grass portion of ground plane: not impressed at all out of the box. I like Zen for its spacious set, the walls can be easily tiled with architectural shaders, and you can put in a new shader for the ground plane. Full set not tested.
Suzan Hair- recommend, no problems, went on and didn't tweak it at all. Arthurian Outfit- morphs made it easy to tweak. Cape has very nice morphs, allows you to hang it away from the character so the overskirt doesn't poke through. However, the material groups are disappointing for the sleeves if I am correct. Those white striped areas weren't customizable. You'll see when I do the shaders that the entire top is one zone. There are only slivers of a different zone down by the arm bands. Unless I missed them, which is possible, I did not find material zones for the trim either. Let me know if you find zones for any of those- sleeves and trim.
So here's what we're changing up. First of all, the ground on the Zen Garden is NOT it's best feature, putting it mildly. It looks really bad IMO if you have a person standing near those grassy sidelines. I used DOF to blend the background with it, but the foreground is NOT DOF'd. Yep, it's that way out of the box.
This is Summer (Rendo, for G2F and Dolly, on G2F) wearing Suzan Hair (Genesis, G2F) and Arthurian Outfit. It had a good amount of morphs, I didn't need to use them as I kept the pose simple, so don't know how this would work for more active poses. Neither have had Iray materials applied.
The main review is for a shader which I haven't done for the thread. I've had it since last November though, was really excited when I read what it involved. But, you know non-technical me, could I really combine so many options? I've stayed up all night to screenshot and show you step by step what I did, not knowing what the final result would be. (In other words, I may have been screenshotting my "Uh-ohs." But such was NOT the case. Let's go! (I do have questions for Fisty, done in bold.)
So, my first impression of Fabric Basics Mix and Match for Iray when I clicked on it in the studio was "nice instructions." It's always good to have the vendor guide you along. I'm really not kidding when I say I'm not technical- AT ALL. So if I can do this, so can you. But on things like shaders or scripts, I usually check out the ReadMe.
So, first image, out of the box Arthurian Outfit with that un-appealling ground plane. Second image is the nice instructions to get you going. It tells me to apply the base. Okay, I can do that. Third is before I applied that Base, then after. Note the bodice and bottom of the dress changed, we are doing the overcoat next. This was only the "dress."
So I applied the Base, then it says I can apply from folders 1-8 in any order. It tells me to pick one and then go to (2) colors and (6) tiling to change the pattern. But I want to play so first I went to EASY PREMADE with T shirt to keep the material "lightweight." (See below.) Then I went into (2) and picked a gorgous Teal. THERE ARE SO MANY COLORS!!!!!! (See below.) Then I diverged and didn't go to Tiling because frankly my T shirt didn't have a pattern. So off I went to TEXTURE.
So first, applied the Base. Second, went to Easy Premade to pick up my material type, which was T Shirt. Then to Colors and made it teal. Now I'm in Textures. This is easy!
So then in Textures, I tried Geometric (EDIT) Knit V. There's also H. So obviously, it's Vertical and Horizontal, but I need the vendor to explain to me what the difference is- is it the shadows the material will cast? I ended up going with the Geometric Rough. Second question- I assume that will affect my sheen, since it's rough?
On to the next post!
So after going to Texture (1) and applying my texture of Geometric Rough, I went to (3) Shine and applied Gloss Type High. The reason I asked about the rough texture impacting the shine is because it isn't a glaring type shine, but I also don't have ultra bright lights shining on the material either. I could see the sheen though and it was quite nice.
Then I went to Metallic and found the Metallic Medium High did a nice job of increasing that shine. (Had I gone with a satin to begin with, which looks like where I headed with the sheen, I could have skipped all this I think. But I wanted to play and it's fun. Just keep Satin in mind, and if you don't have enough shine, then the Shine and Metallic sections will zip you to where you want to be.)
I tested several of the (6) Tiling options but liked the default. You can choose from many different sizes.
Then I played with (7) Bumpiness. I went with Medium Normal. Transparency (8) and Dirt (9) I left alone. Transparency would have cut out all the dark lines in the pattern, and I think my gal is a bit modest to have a peek-a-boo-everywhere dress. So done with the dress.
Next: The mid section (Bodice) was (1) Easy Premade: Suede (2) Color: 12 Teal 6 (7) Bumpiness 06 Normal High (6) Tiling 15 x 15 (Does tiling have much effect on Suede?)
The Overskirt was (1) Easy Premade: Netting (2) Color: 12 Teal 8 (much darker) (8) Transparency: Netting.
For the Forearm Cuffs, Belt, and Cape (1) Easy Premade: Leather Question: In (2) Texture there is Leather. I applied it just in case, but is this the exact same thing as the Premade? Color: 12 Teal 7 (7) Bumpiness was 6 Normal High (6) Tiling x 4
Here's a tip: If you use Metal Abounds #42 on a small rim surrounding a gemstone, it's crinkly appearance gives the illusion of tiny diamonds instead of a dull round rim! (See her choker.) I used Metal Abounds for the studs on the outfit, and her chocker. I used another Iray metal (PC Metal- used Warped Metal, a silver) on the buckle.
So there you have it. Yes, I did it! See next post for results on my very first try. (Can you hear me patting myself on the back, hurting myself?)
Let's change up the rest of the setting, the wall and ground, just for fun.
Ground: Well, when I surfed to Iray grounds in Content Library, there's quite a few to choose from. This is the one that says Ground Shaders. It's got Clover, Dirt, Dry Grass, etc. Went to the file location and no vendor, but found it in Google. Store search USELESS. This vegetation, after tiled, looks like you could reach out and pull up a strand of it! GET THIS GROUND SHADER!
Displacement strength from .83 to 1.11 and both the horizontal and vertical tiles to 11.16 And Voila!
For the wall, I used one of the shaders that says Irender Architecture in Content Library and set the tiling to 36. Each stone initially came in like King Kongs, with two taking up the entire background!
So you can see how wonderful this rendered, you can always reduce the amount of roughness of the leather (I like it this way but for extreme closeups may reduce it a bit) and you can see the roughness of the "t shirt" material up close that I chose. So, wishlist this product or start playing if you have it, SO many opportunities with this. Can't wait for more of these. (Hint hint? Pleeeeease?)
So....drumroll....next page!