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You've been busy! I'm so far behind keeping caught up on everyone's threads. Some nice work here. I really like the SAV Lynn render, he does look very real. And I like the Sakuro 8 render as well, although I tend to agree with you, she just looks odd when people make her too realistic. She IS a toon and I think my subconscious expects her to be a toon so when I see her as more realistic, it feels like something is off. I also really like the textures you used for the space mother outfit.
@IceDragonArt Thank you.
As for Sakura 8, why it looks odd to me is that there's CGI characters, particularly the more stylized ones, that are supposed to be toons. Their exaggerated features mixed with the realistic textures makes them look creepy and unnerving instead of cute. Take Star 2.0 dialed in and with the default Jeanne textures. She looks gangly and her big veiny bulging eyes...it's wrong unless Star dialed in at small amounts to make her a bit slim and cute.
For the Space Mother Outfit, it's a mix of applying the "Sunburst" texture and editing the base, gloss and top coat colors. (Mostly because sparkles look more sci-fi to me.) Then doing back and reapplying any missing diffuse maps that got overwritten. I think my mistake was looking at fanart drawings of Lotus, instead of screenshots of the game (which looked dull but also everything is dark/shadowy and hard to see.) The drawings made her look a bit more reddish-purple, than blueish-purple.
You know, I thought I was finally going to move on from Genesis 1, (and focus back and forth with G3 and G8) but then Cayman Studios just released Genesis 3 UVs for Genesis, so now I gotta go back and see how these new 4K textures look with characters. More specifically how Damien Demon's textures would look on a monstrous character based on Mr. Hyde...or other fun combinations like that. But I have to wait until I get home from work and all my other errands that I have to run.
Darn those jobs anyway lol! I'm at work too and trying to calculate the shortest distance and time to finish my errands after work this afternoon lol.
I had made a full scene but I ran out of time for the evening and didn't have time to render the other characters individually. However, I did make a monster character based on Mr. Hyde for Genesis and DAZ Monstrosities: Undead Fiend with Damien Demon for Genesis 3 Male(s)' texture. Here he is!
Hopefully, I'll able to render the other two characters individually tomorrow afternoon.
Here was the completed render I did yesterday. I know it's a bit odd for something "fantasy" to be set in something modern like the Toxic Dumping Exterior, but I don't care. The yellows complement each other well and besides, fantasy set in purely medieval times is boring IMHO. The skies are from the IBL Skies - Christmas Gift. I think the one I used was IBL Skies - Scattered Clouds.
I know this needed post work, but it was just me playing around. XD
The guy with the big club is a random mix of Tyrese for M5 and others but with the Darius 8 textures. And somehow the texture makes him look like Darius. The club and the outfit are from Heracles for Genesis. But I added different shaders to the club. However, in this separate portait pic I took off the helmet and gave him Terran Hair for Genesis 3 and 8 Male(s).
I don't even remember what shapes I used for the female character. When it comes to Genesis 1, I just go for it and make something random on the go. Her skin texture is Monique 8, which has quickly become my favorite Genesis 8 texture. So it makes me happy that I can use it on Genesis 1. X3 Hair is from Cat Character and Hair, and the outfit is Loissandra Fantasy Outfit for Genesis 2 Female(s), which sadly didn't autofit well with this character. (It's why I used the String Bikini for Victoria 6 for the bottoms in the main render.) Her bracers and boots are from Journeyer Scout for Genesis.
I finally downloaded the FaceGen free demo, available at their site. I admit, I was skeptical at first, especially since the selfies I took were not in such good lighting. (And to cheat, I mirrored the side-facing selfies, since no matter how I turned the lighting was always bad.) But it more or less generated my face accurately. Then all I had to do was tweak it a bit and then exported it to Genesis 1 and G2F (the demo doesn't do G3F but that's not going to stop me because I have GenX.) Because this is the free demo, it has the logo on the texture and sculpted into the shape of the face. This why I made my digital double as G2F look upset and for aesthetic purposes, her hair is the Victoria 5 Elite Ponytail, autofitted.
I did try to convert the textures to Iray, so I have no idea why it made the double's eyes so gray/hazel. My eyes are brown. Also, my nose is crooked to the right so that's why the textures generated from my selfie have that weird line going across. I re-rendered the double but with the default G2F textures for comparison. (Changed the hair color and eyelash colors too to better match the brows.) The FG indentation is much more noticeable here. I also don't know why it made it look like I have heterochromia. I tried changing the eye colors and it all looked like this that I gave up.
The only thing that is keeping me from purchasing FaceGen Pro is the fact that it's not something I'd regularly use. The only character I was most interested in recreating was myself and I did it just fine with the demo. I would still need to import the shape into Hexagon or something, to fix it/remove the watermark so I could use my likeness for my renders. If it were something I'd use on a regular basis or to generate bases for other custom characters then I'd definitely purchase this without hesitation.
Not sure if you care but I'm Hispanic/Latina of Salvadoran descent. It's obvious in my features but not so much in my skin which turned out more pale/washed out than it should be. And I'm not that old either, so there's that.
More FaceGen Demo fun. This time I attempted to recreate Pharah from Overwatch, because she's one of my friends's favorite characters from that game.
Originally, I had tried to do it with the game model, but she was too stylized in design and it just looked very bad. Then, I decided to try using actual people, in this case a profile pic of Kim Kardashian and two side pictures of Gal Gadot, just to see if I could attain a closer likeness to the character. After the generated result, I tweaked it a bit (mostly the nose and mouth) and exported it. Here's my results rendered in 3Delight.
My only complaint with these two shapes I made is that the faces are too narrow than what I'd like, so she doesn't quite look like the character as I'd hope. So I could either correct this with other head morphs or I can import this shape into Sculptris and attempt to edit it without symmetry. (From other posts, adding symmetry messes up the .OBJ's vertices and anything edited can't be imported as a morph. And yes, I know this is true because I tried to make another shape with Sculptris and it didn't let me import it.)
Here are the FaceGen edits. I was having trouble with the earlier post. Original, FaceGen result with the pics I used.
Final result with tweaking just so it could look more like the character. Obviously, I added her tattoo in the previous render with MS Paint.
I forgot to say that I did, in fact, edit these photos in GIMP before running them with FaceGen. I may end up completely doing a manip/edit of a random face just to see what I can get. It makes this seem more exciting to me. I was thinking of generating a face with a drawing, but I don't know anymore if FaceGen didn't like the 3D toon. If you're wondering why I chose Kim, it was just a moment of realization in the early morning hours that they looked similar. XD
I imported the morph of my face I made previously into Sculptris and removed the indentation. Obviously, because this morph is of myself I've got no plans to redistribute it.
Anyway, here is the morph GenX'd to G3F. I need to find a suitable skin texture, but I think Joanna for Genesis 3 and 8 female is suitable, specifically the yellow tone. The hair is the Leyton Hair for Genesis 3 Female(s) and Genesis 2 Female(s) which comes in the Victoria 7 Pro Bundle. However, I also wanted to take the time to render another character I've been meaning to make a better render for and that's Divamakeup's Karli for G8F, a freebie character.
My morph is dial spun to an approximation of my build. However, I'm not scaled to what my height would be (I am 5'1", so less than 100%.) Karli also has Joanna's texture but the default pale tone. Both characters are wearing the basic wear of their perspective figures. (Hopefully, I'll get around to posting Karli. I like her because she reminds me a bit of V4, with the rounded face.)
Next, I decided to make a more toon version of myself, which means the morph has to be cutified somehow. Since I don't have The Girl 7, I used a GenX'd Girl 6 shape on G3F to mix with my morph. I think it was like 25% or so that I used because The Girl's shape is quite strong that even in small amounts it is noticable. (Please understand that this is not a problem IMHO. In fact, The Girl is my favorite DAZ Original toon and I like her a bit more than Aiko.) In this toon self portrait, I'm wearing Effortless Cool for Genesis Male, the necklace from Aven Clothing for Genesis and the hair is SAV's Aphrodite hair from Renderosity. (This hair does not autofit well, but I love it.)
Ironically, the toon version looks more accurate to how I look like than the "realistic" one. I think the problem was the depth of field in the selfie but then basic head morphs easily corrected this issue.
FWHP Eris HD for Genesis 8 Female was that one character I would've gotten sooner but I wasn't using G8F at the time. She has a nice face, though her breasts are a little odd (the nipples are too far to the sides). The package size is about 349.40 MB but most of that comes from the textures. The makeup is on both the brow and no-brow options, and quite frankly I may end up having to delete the brow options just to save some space.
At the same time, I decided to do some map transfers, mainly use the makeups of some V4 skins on G3F characters, so I only had to transfer the face maps. (I did this on Genesis 1, since I have G3F UVs on it.) Unfortunately, the donor skin I had on hand was too light and I think that's probably why the makeup looks so washed out. The makeup is from Rainsong [for V4] by Freja at Renderosity. I tried it out on Eris. Hair is Pure Hair: Sweet. Originally, this was meant to be an Iray render but I couldn't get this edited skin to appear, so I opted for 3Delight because it was easier to use. For comparison, the regular Eris skin, post worked with GIMP, and with Candy for Genesis 8 Female's LIE makeup.
The reason Eris' skin was edited was because I couldn't change the SSS settings like I did with the Rainsong texture. She rendered pretty dark in 3Delight, as opposed to how paper white she looks like in Iray (like in the product pics). So here's how it looks unedited. The reason why I used Candy's makeup was because her make up was just too dark, and mader her look raccoon-eyed. And I didn't want that much contrast between the Rainsong texture and Eris' skin for the comparison. They used the same lights, so I don't know what happened.
Well, you are a beautiful girl despite the large purple FG in the first one lol.
I really like the juxtaposition of the fantasy characters with sci fi, I also like that extreme contrast between genres.
I'm kind of glad I've held off on FaceGen for the time being because I heard about FaceGen 2.0 in the Commons. So likely no more FG watermarks. Thank you for your kind words.
As for sci-fi and fantasy, they're not that different to me. Perhaps it's because I grew up watching reruns of He-Man: Masters of the Universe and Thundercats, but those two shows left quite an impression on me, which was sci-fi and fantasy coexisting together. (I say this because most sci-fi or fantasy I try to write ends up with the same mix. Like some fantasy RPs I've done have science as a main plot element or it is set in modern times, but electronics are powered by magically-created electricity in plants.) I agree the render itself is extreme, the characters could've been more "modern" looking. And yes, I don't count the Harry Potter series as fantasy mixed with modern times. But that's because the wizards of that series were mostly rejecting non-magical/muggle technology instead of embracing it and advancing even further.
Sorry for the ramble.
Ramble away lol. One of my favorite rpg's to play is a mix of Steampunk and magic called Arcanum. And while my first love will probably always be iconic high fantasy, I think that the mix of sci fi and fantasy actually offers a much broader range of things that you can do with it. It expands the horizons of both generations when its it melded together. And I totally remember He Man and the Thundercats. They were great shows!
This was a spontaneous render I did for another thread. There was this V4/M4 blowout sale and I decided to get this set that was available instead because all the Genesis characters could use it. It's the Dystopia Lab Pack. I used one of the pre-loaded tables with equipment. Modeling it is Elijah 7 with Brendan Hair for Genesis 3 Male(s) and Effortless cool. His chair, his pose, and the room are from Zeddicuss' Z Doctor's Room And Poses available at Renderosity. (There is also an older version with V4 poses with a similar name. "Z Doctor's Room + Poses".)
Zoomed out view which was the initial one I did to see how everything looked. I know this needs tweaking for it to look even better with Iray. I'm happy with this purchase. I just feel I need more modern, semi-futuristic tech for the characters to use. XD
I took advantage of the [somewhat] lackluster March Madness sales and got me the EJ Universal FX Shaders for Genesis 8 Female(s) and Male(s), among other things. Let me just say, I love the presets that come in this product (doesn't have textures and that's good because less memory).
Anyway, the first experiment I did was applying this to a Olympia 8/Sakura 8 mix (91.7% Oly8 head, 14.7% Sak8 head, and other shaping morphs.) Her eyebrows were from AprilYSH's Christmas 2017 freebie, OnFleek Eyebrows for G8F. Honestly, the shape itself is what I like in my semi-toon character. Her eyes are Monique 8's but that's because I though she'd look better with darker sclera. In fact, I think she is perfect. I don't remember the shader combo I used for her. Hair is Pure Hair: Fantasy and outfit is the Basic Wear. The glitter makes her look a bit sweaty, IDK
Also wearing Basic Wear is this Orc lady made with the HFS Ultimate Shapes for Genesis 8 Female shapes and a Fred Winkler female character but I can't remember which one. Maybe Eris, IDK with a bit of Mousso's Joanna too. She was actually supposed to be green but I used purple/pink reflections and glitter which made her look somewhat gray. Her hair is Charm Hair for G2F. The eyebrows are the Olympia 8 eyebrows.
And finally, an alien girl, also made with HFS Ultimate Shapes for Genesis 8 Females. For her, I deleted the eyelashes and tried to make her more flat-chested but it doesn't really show. I also changed the diffuse/base texture of her mouth and made it more gray. My intent was that she doesn't exactly have iron in her blood. She needs like spines on her back in my opinion but I don't have that type of shape in the G8F gene pool. :/
More experiments, but this time with G8M!
The first one is a "custom" Darius 8/Owen 8 mix, with added shapes from the DAZ Original G8M shapes (mostly for the lips). His skin texture is from FW Aran HD for Genesis 3 Male but I used the Olive complected preset and other golden ones too for his skin. His eyes are from Darius 8. Hair is Brendan Hair for G3M. Honestly, this is the type of "cute" male character I would buy but unfortunately I don't see a lot of them like this and besides I have already blended my own, so it doesn't matter anymore. Top is from the Basic Wear.
Next is another random G8M mix made with HFS Utimate Shapes for Genesis 8 Male. (Which I strongly recommend getting the Male and Female bundle, which I have). The skin is from Damien Demon 7 for G3M. But at the same time, I decided to apply the red shader base to him to make him more red like a tomato.
And finally, I decided to try one more mix but this time, I wanted a more slender guy and I decided to use Kenji 7's textures on him. (With the Genesis 3 Character UVs for Genesis 8 Male.) I appled a blue preset to him, but it made him look like a blueberry. So I manually adjusted the tint and now he just looks cyanotic. What's the default male hair called? Armani Hair? Well, that's what I used on him but flattened the pompadour a bit. Now that I posted it, his resemblance to Keanu Reeves is coincidental.
And yes, all have the exact same expression and pose. It's just that the first guy has such thicker lips his mouth looks closed and the others' looks open. XD
Apparently, the Daz Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments were added to my account. So the first thing I tried to do was a simple render with Miriam HD and Signature Smile HD Expression for Genesis 8 Female. Wearing Hongyu's V5 bikini and the Pure Hair Casual. I don't know what happened, perhaps it's because it's St. Patrick's Day, that the beach HDR came out looking too green. Since I didn't know what had happened, I ended up making her use a green bikini and then added a slight yellow-green tint to her skin with GIMP so she could better match the environment.
While some people were wondering about Vini's body hair, I was wondering about his right arm tattoo. This was the only promo pic that showed it but it didn't show it well at all. It's all blurred.
But since I got him for like $3 due to the March Madness buyer's promo, it didn't matter. There's other characters with tattoos options that I never use, so for him it wouldn't matter because I'll just use his plain skin and his beard options and that's it. Anyway, here was a quick render of him using some freebie Iray lights, which I don't quite like because they washed out the skin. I was fiddling with the skin settings, so he'd look good in the lights but I was in a hurry which explains the arm seam. But yeah, that tattoo looks no different than the promo. It's like a weird bruise.
I still like him. His distinct shape is great to have in the Genesis 8 Male genepool!
I tried to make Pharah again, but this time I took a different approach. I ended up downloading one of those SFM models that had been converted to a Blender file and pretty much dial-spun her into an exact approximation.
However, I decided to keep the face as generic as possible since like most of the other female characters from that game, they all pretty much have the same face but with slight differences. For my own convenience, I followed these instructions to "bake" the morphs so that the shaping preset can be applied as a dial to varying strengths. And yes, the "white" model is from the Blender file. I hurriedly deleted parts of it and exported it as an .OBJ just to do this shaping preset.
While I was at it, I played around with the Map Transfer and made a crude makeup which went from V4 UV to G3F UVs. And then, I struggled to figure out how to do diffuse overlay makeups with this being the final result.
And because I can, I tried to render a quick scene with the G8F Pharah and the one I downloaded.
Not sure if any of you all are interested but here is the dial preset for this character's head. Just unzip the contents and save it to wherever you have your shaping data saved on your computer. (In my case, it's in C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library and then you should merge with "data".)
This preset requires Aiko 8, Genesis 8 Female Head Morphs, and "DieTrying Morphs for G8 F(Fixed)" from ShareCG. The last two are the most critical, as for A8, I'm not sure how'd she look without it since Aiko's head is dailed at 73%. I might try tomorrow, since I'll be busy this evening.
A screenshot to where the shaping dial is found. I don't know why it saved to "General" but it did.
Thanks for sharing! Wow, that beach really is green.
I really like what you did with the glitter options on the skin as well and the dial spun monster/devil looks awesome!
Hi! What I like about your thread is the combination of your artistic vision and insights into products like the future space mother and FG, both products I've debated getting. Thanks for sharing. Please keep going.
My only regret with those skin shaders is not buying them sooner. Thank you. :)
Thank you. Yeah, this was supposed to be a more "artsy" thread but I haven't been able to make anything proper (both with DAZ Studio and drawing) lately. Since I didn't want this thread to die, I ended up talking about some of the products I've purchased or plan to buy. From experience, the best positive reviews come from people who have enjoyed whatever is being reviewed. I'm happy you've found it helpful.
Because of the free bundle incentive, (where you get one of them free if you buy a new release and a still new release), I caved in and got Minto and Ronen. All because I wanted the Cuban Diabolo for Genesis shoes that only come in the Classics Bundle for Genesis...which I have downloaded but not rendered anything with them yet. I've wanted these shoes for so long..
Anyway, I decided to render Ronen first. Obviously, the first thought that came to mind, upon seeing this well-built G8M who is perfectly at home in all sorts of fantasies, was "How would Ronen look like wearing that big baggy sweater that comes with Minto?" So I decided to do just that. And since I owe y'all a nice completed render, I decided to have Minto join him.
I still don't know why this outdoor HDR renders green. Originally they were going to wear matching yellow sweaters but it looked too bright in the lights and it was easier to go with green. The ground prop is from an item that is unavailable for sale anywhere as far as I know. And yes, this render was edited in GIMP, I played around with the colors and tried to make them pop out some more. I'm actually really pleased with this Iray render. I think it looks nice and I accomplished what I wanted to do and that was making Ronan look like a regular guy. I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons that no one suspects Clark Kent of being Superman. He looks like some big awkward cute nerd. XD
*EDIT: DAZ Galleries link [x]!
I didn't want to make the previous post so long, but this was also my first time using dForce. I wanted to play with it and see if it could correct the autofit cling on Ronen's body, so the shirt would look like it was made for him. I still don't know what I'm doing. And I learned first hand, while making this, that it would be prudent to have them simulate far apart or else I'd end up with a tangled mess.
I assumed hair and the glasses would be affected, so I never bothered to run a simulation with everything loaded on the scene. I just did the clothing simulation and then added stuff and put Minto on top of the ground prop so she could be as tall as Ronen.