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Thanks, ladies. I like her in white too, though red isn't too bad. That hair in the dragon pic is Jocelyn Hair with limits turned off. It looks pretty good long.
@icedragonart - Have you seen Xanthe? She's in the S8 Pro pack and looks really good. I haven't had a chance to render her yet. I really love what Isource is doing with his/her characters. Was hoping Phrynne would go on sale. She's a knockout, but so are quite a few of the others.
Coming soon: Patreon Tutorial- Beautiful Hair
I just finished a book cover for a dear friend and had a blast learning some new (to me) ways in DAZ and Photoshop for enhancing hair. I'll be exploring these in depth in an upcoming tutorial for my patrons on Patreon. I can't wait to reveal the entire cover. It really came out very well!
Morph3D
Um, wow. Apparently, Morph3D.com is getting an upgrade, and new software- Morph Studio and Ready Room. Looks like they're going in some interesting directions with gaming and online avatars. I took a survey last week and just got the notification. You can sign up for the beta of Morph Studio and can download a demo of Ready Room. Looks very interesting! I put up an article on my Patreon here.
Pretty cool!
Like the cover blurb, well done with the hair, there!
That dragon picture is fantastic. And thanks for the news on Morph3d.
Thank you all! I'm having fun with the dragons and the hair. Working up the tutorials and playing with some things, like Free Spirit Hair. The morphs and options are amazing, but it's a bit messy. I think it turned out pretty good here. That's said, today was one of those days that...
"I'd Rather Be a Mermaid"
Made with @Marshian 's wonderful Rim Light Rig for Iray!
And here are 17 more reasons that being a mermaid is better!
I adore the mermaid! :D Nicely done!
And you've totally sold me on being a mermaid. You had me at "no periods". lol Where do I sign up?
I want to make mermaids, darn it!
Lovely piece, Llynara!
Such a lovely mermaid. I love how your art style has evolved over the last year. :)
LOL, diva! Yeah, it does sound like a pretty good deal, doesn't it? Glad you all like the mermaid, she was fun. I really love that Laguna set. Not sure how I missed that when it came out, but it's gorgeous. I definitely want to do some more mermaids! Maybe Ren will jump into the fun too.
(That's Vanity from the 7 Deadly Sins, by the way.)
@knittingmommy Thank you so much, that means a lot. I feel like I am finally hitting my stride and getting to where I've wanted to be. I'm always learning and playing with stuff, but I'm getting more comfortable and having more fun with the art both in 3D and Photoshop. Those ShiftArt tutorials really help a lot.
"Sky People"
Here's a work in progress, a piece of inspiration art for a story idea. It's really rough, plenty to tweak. I just needed to get the image out of my head. Seeing or hearing it helps me pull the story out faster (I often keep playlists of music for each book and use them for prewriting.)
This is Nayat for G3F/G8F (Rendo). She's got an exotic look to her that's just stunning. Her promo pics got me thinking that I wanted to do something with native/indigenous peoples. Like Pocahontas but with a few twists. (Columbus Day is tomorrow, so many I've got that on the brain.)
The woman is looking up at invaders, but I'm not sure yet whether they're in spaceships or are winged creatures. It's a "first contact gone wrong" type of story, and I haven't decided if the sky people have technology or magic yet. Could be told either way, and it's from a young woman's point of view as she's torn between two very different cultures.
I googled and there's a very, very old sci-fi book called "The Sky People." That one is alternative history on Mars and Venus and was published before I was born. It's totally different than what I have in mind.
So I'll pull my notes together and let it cook at the back of my addled brain for a while. I did this with Black Kat two years ago when I was writing my Midwest series. I often get ideas for other stories when I'm working on my current one, and it's best just to get them down and give them a good home in Evernote, keeping the distractions out of the way.
G3 and G8 Character Versions
I don't know if anyone else has started doing this, but as I'm shopping lately, I'm more likely to buy a character if they have both G3 and G8 options. Not all PAs are doing that, but I wanted to give feedback because often it does affect my buying choice. I like G8 but still use G3 a lot. I simply have more tools for those- Wear Them All, Centaurs, Mermaids, Creature add-ons, etc.
I get a LOT of crashing lately trying to fit some of the G3 outfits to G8 with the built-in autofit. It's really frustrating. It's usually on one piece of a set, but I need to start taking notes and looking at the logs to see if I can isolate it (the latest one was the loin wrap on Arki's Fire Bride for G3F when I did the dragon pic.)
That said, I would rather just use the G3 version of the character if I don't need intricate posing and expressions. So please, PAs, keep making characters for both versions, at least until there are more tools out.
I love mermaids... She is lovely!
And the Sky People girl is gorgeous. Really lovely morphs and skin.
Thanks, Sonja, and hey, you changed your avatar! Looks great and so in keeping with your username!
Thanks!
I really like the mermaid and the Sky people image. :)
I picked up the mermaid products too and now, having seen your render, I can't wait to play with them. Your character truly looks weightless, like she's floating through the water, Great work!
I wish there were merman products too. I'm not good at mixing and matching across genders and character versions, but I wonder if the tail could somehow be paired with a G3M.
Thank you both! I'm really loving the mermaids.
@Worlds_Edge I was wondering about mermen too. I'm going to try it on Ren. I want to do an underwater render with him and Vanity (shown above.) I'm not sure it will work, but I'll post my notes here when I do.
I can't wait to see if you can make it work!
Did you notice the info regarding the new dForce that will make clothing drape automatically? I hope that it will work on hair too, that would be great for underwater scenes and such, although from the comments in that thread, I don't think hair will be an option at least at first. The thread is here - I thought you might be interested because you use lots of flowing gowns and such (and the morphing sheets) in your renders.
I just got back from an all-day trip and found out about it. I looked at the beta video, but my heart sank when they said something about the outfit must be "dforce compatible." I really don't want to invest in another closed system like Optitex. I hope I'm wrong. I totally love dynamics, but I want them to work on any outfit I buy, not just a handful of special, overpriced ones. I guess I have some reading to do!
I've been following the thread and it appears it will work on most or a lot of clothing and there is no need to buy particular clothing for it. "Add dForce modifier" apparently makes clothing compliant. However there are some "buts" - such as if the clothing is not originally compliant, and there are separate parts (such as pockets unattached to the mesh), there may be issues such as pockets/buttons flying off - as well as work arounds.
Ah, then it means- more cool toys to play with! YAY!!!! You know I'll be all over that! I love dynamics but totally cringe at the thought of another Optitex system (though I do have most of the outfits and they are good.) Happy to hear that some of the thousands of things in my Product Library might actually work with it. I saw Aave said most of his (or her?) stuff will work, and I do love that PA's products. So many cool morphs already built into them. Good to see many of our best PA clothing designers chiming in and showing how things work. Excited!
As I'm waiting an eternity for DAZ Studio 4.10 Beta to download over my slow satellite internet connection, I went ahead and tried making Ren into a merman. I don't know much about geoshells, but this was a fail. The program tries to autofit the tail and bra onto him and I got this:
I even put the G3F UVs on him. And it was a whole lotta nope. Not sure how to use a geoshell on a model it's not intended for. Further research needed.
I wouldn't know where to start so I'm happy you are paving the way! I'm sorry I'm not much help on technical stuff using DAZ. However, perhaps one could cheat by rendering a mermaid in the same position as the merman (sans tail), then photoshop the tail from the mermaid onto the merman. Obviously not as good an option as being able to do it all in DAZ, but a potential work around. Anyway, I'll watch this spot to see if you find a solution.
Thanks, @worlds_edge . I'll keep trying.
And here are my first attempts at dforce last night. My brain was pretty fried last night, maybe today I can make better sense of the settings:
No luck yet with doing any conversions, but the Bardot Outfit really looks good with Free Spirit Hair, which has morphs to match this Classical Dance pose. Since they're morphs, they're not lost in autofit either, which is nice.
No postwork on this:
The Geometry Shell just handles the blending of tail and skin by using a mask - so the UVs need to match those used on the female version. However the main issue is geting the tail model to fit, and of course you are losing the Geometry Grafting (welding to the edges of the human and hiding all the leg geometry).
Thanks, Richard. I'm not sure how to rectify that. I've tried putting Ren's skin on a G3F, but getting his morphs over is confusing. I'll figure it out eventually.
Heads up- if anyone is looking to buy the Laguna Mermaid Props or Hair, they are super cheap today in the DSON sale. I put in a ticket for the difference in price, since it was significant, and I just bought these items a couple of days ago.
Iridescent Shaders for Iray
Congrats to Will finally becoming a PA. His shader set is amazing. I'm just playing with the presets now, but looking at the what it does in the surfaces tab, the possibilities seem endless. They render fast too. I stopped this early because I was too excited to share, so it's a little grainy.
Here's the Aqua Lame preset on Jepe's Wondersheetz II and the Iridescent Hair Preset on Free Spirit Hair. No postwork. I used Fabiana's Theory of Zen Moods HDR and Lights (Rendo). The soft light really compliments his shiny shaders well. (Click for much bigger pic.)
One more before bedtime. I used the Aqua Lame Preset, just changed the colors in the surfaces tab to an array of pinks. The glass floor has the whiskey preset on it. The feathers in V4's hair have salmon roe preset. I added a metal preset to her nails and changed the color to match the dress (click and zoom in for more detail.) No postwork. Lots of possibilities!