Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 9
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That was just a test to see if anyone was using the links. (LOL, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) Fixed it, thanks so much!
InaneGlory still not fixed, items in my cart haven't changed prices.
They removed InaneGlory from the MegaFastGrab (wasn't giving the right discounts anyway, so you didn't lose out.) Any that they partner with DestinysGarden still are 60% off due to DG being in the featured stores.
I don't know- it looks like almost all the vendors who have been in MFG are in it today. I'm wondering if they'll start PC+ sale tomorrow. Friday the 13th would be a heck of a way to kick it off! Guess we'll see in a few hours.
Going to have a KindredArts render-fest in this post. Vehicle, background, lighting. Wheeeeeeee! (And no flying fish required to get that feeling.)
Orion Dynamics: Vulture Iray HDR Space Iray Ghost Light Kit
First of all, it's on auto pilot. I didn't put anyone in it as I was just doing a quickie to see about the aircraft. I didn't add any engine lighting/special effects, just going with the basic model. It comes with poses and has a nice interior. I put an enlarged Ghost light on our right, above the aircraft and tilted down. I put it more to the rear so there would be uneven lighting, with the front more dramatic. Also showing you the inside of the cockpit, using the same lighting.
Hi L'Adair... (and or anyone else who has him and knows for certain) I see that you talked about KIERON and his options. QUESTION: Is the chest hair shown in ALL the promos actually on the BASE SKIN or is that an optional layer or a fiber-mesh add-on? I really don't like how it looks and don't want to buy this guy if there is no "smooth/bare" skin for him. By this time I have so many body-hair add-on products, if I want hair on a guy, I'll add it myself, but when it is in the base skin.... not much option there! It's strange I'm even interested in this product as the FW guys just aren't a style I often want; they are all very uniformly colored with mannequin-like ears and arms and hands that just don't appeal to my wants/needs for 3d characters that can "pass" or at least come close, but there are very subtle but visible blue veins visible in this guy's skin in the promo showing his collarbone area and it looks great. One of the things I don't love about M8 is that he and V8 look more like silicone dolls and their flesh seems so weirdly translucent and orange but also appears as if, were you to cut into them, they'd be just undifferentiated tinted silicone..... there's no sense of anything below the skin surface in their textures and no blue veins anywhere, despite their light coloring. The KIERON character at least has visible veins in the skin texturing; i figure that's a good base to start with maybe, then adjust the translucency, color tone, and other stuff like eyes, lashes, brows etc with other products to get a good result for a more realistic type character for a very close up shot.
~Gen
Eyebrows, (anatomy,) whiskers and chest hair are all fiber mesh. The skin materials have no hair baked in. Even the gens are hair free!
I thought you folks might like to see what was happening a year ago when the PC+ sale got going. I'm going through my emails so here's a trip down memory lane. And I've been keeping the emails (some of them) from this sale so next year we can hop back and get a reminder. I'll look at order emails next and we can see what discounts were going on. So here's some of the deals/ what was released last year.
So far as prices, here's some examples from orders. But there were two other items which were 50% off, so I assume these prices may have been buy 2 get X off. And those 50% weren't cheapies. They were $11-$12 but huge sets. I calculated the discount on the other items and they easily made up for it. (One of those expensive ones is $8.38 right now that I paid around $11 for, but the discounts on this other stuff still made it worthwhile IMO) So it's still the spend money to save money approach. I remember Daz was nice in doing the BYOB and had nice freebies, so this only represents one section of the multi-part sales.
This was an October 10th order:
THESE ARE THE CURRENT PA PRICES. Compare to the PC+ sale prices in the chart. Edit- however, they may be in Mega FastGrab or qualify for additional discounts. The only thing we know for sure is what the prices are for the PC+ last year, unless you look these all up to see if they're in MFGrab or a featured store.
Absolution $32.95 right now is 76% off and 7.99
Precious Model Poses (Eva 7) On The Floor $16.95 $7.12
Vampyres Bane $16.95 $4.99
Miss Kitty's Interior $9.95 $1.99
Miss Kitty's $9.95 $1.99
Walden Mill $16.95 $4.99 IS CHEAPER BY 50 CENTS
Was kind of disappointed in the sale...Not enough male things for me and genesis 8 male was kind of weakly represented
I'm looking at other orders, so let's compare to PA sale prices.
What I'm seeing is Tesla rooms were $6.46 and $6.83 last year during the PC+ sale.
On the second one for example: Tesla Living Room 3 right now is 11.37 and 40% off, but in the featured stores so you'd get 60% off with new debut, but would only drop the price to $7.58 compared to $6.46. There's no guarantee that vendor will be in the PC+ sale though.
Andrey's Stairs and the Rocks was 8.98 last year in the PC+ sale, is currently 14.97 / 40% off and also goes to 60% which is $9.98 So you're paying a dollar more right now. Again, the vendor may not be in the PC+ sale.
My strategy today is picking up unique items. Example (thanks to my post, see, you're not the only one who gets sucked in!) I'm picking up Tesla's Abandoned House at 60% off, but regular living rooms/ rooms, no. Have enough. If they go 70% or more in the PC+ sale then yes- only because I have so many living room/dining room/bedroom sets. The market on those is saturated, not saying we can't use more, but if you own so many, it has to be something different to get your attention. And doors, windows, and blinds definitely have to be able to open/close/raise/lower or I won't buy them.
Here's a few more from the PC+ sale, and these were in the order with Tesla. In contrast to the first order, this one didn't have anything over $7.18 (bless Woody! And love him) so you could get deals without those $11 sets. And look at EJ Agata!
EJ Adora (7.58 at 60% if you get a qualifying item vs $6.82, giving you the link so you can get to the store and shop the vendor from there)
EJ Agata (a DO, currently 58% and 7.54 but she drops to 5.02 right now. Still cheaper during last years PC+ sale at 3.87)
Selvana Hair (7.18 at 60% off with qualifying item vs 6.47)
EJ Eloise (Same as Adora)
@serenenight Can understand that. From looking at these first two flashbacks, I picked up women characters and sets (as usual.)
FW Jolina HD For Victoria 8 Sebela Hair for Genesis 8 Females FWSA LightsFX Neutral Environment
Blooming Outfit for Genesis 8 Females
This Neutral Environment light set would be a good addition, even if you have other light sets. It's got three clickable options- Bright, Brighter, Brightest which makes it easy (I still tweak the Exposure Value in Tonemapping, but this is SO easy) and I LOVE the rotating dome. Click, done. There's many different angles. What I will show you is ONE light, just moving the dome with a click. Enjoy!
Click each one then click back and forth between the windows, you'll see the lighting changes more easily. This is light 12, the first was dome 225, then 45, then 135 (If you post renders here, please remember images in this thread should ALWAYS open in new windows.)
Full length rendering now. It's a fun outfit, and I like the hair, was easy to move off the chest. Didn't play around with it much. I like the tousled strands.
FW Jolina HD For Victoria 8 Sebela Hair for Genesis 8 Females Blooming Outfit for Genesis 8 Females
This is with that last light dome setting, settings brightened with Exposure Value.
THANK YOU for the info, L'Adair!
I'm happy to here hear this!
Here's more PC+ orders. Obviously I don't have time to compare current prices, but this gives newbies who haven't been through a PC+ sale an idea of the sales. These all assume you had a qualifying item in the cart, sometimes it was cheapies like PC+ items. I combined two orders for this first one: (if you ever do this, go to source, above, and change the html. Take out the coding for the table width/border)
Love this order:
Had another Tesla room to get these prices. It was about $7. And of course, with most of these orders, I've yet to render them. Free is free though!
Aha, next order- that's when all the Legacy UVs either came out or were on sale. They were 7.90 apiece. (for Genesis 3: Genesis Pack, for Michael 4, for Victoria 5, Victoria 6, Genesis 2 Male and Michael 6.
Here's more prices, always with a qualifying item or two. P3D was in the sale, obviously. I bought the Airport Island products to get the discounts.
So with one or two qualifying items, you can see the pricing. After doing this for five years, there's not a whole lot left to pick up that I want. I do wish to point out the outfit textures for Genesis 3 in this list- if you are waiting to grab those, hopefully there will be some in this upcoming sale too.
Edit: Scroll down to read about the gift card sale during the PC+ sale.
I felt that way too, although the MFG and discounted FACatalogs ensured that I nonetheless shopped myself blind and broke vacuuming up lots of existing content, waay more than buying new content much of which seemed "meh" or just not in my interest area.
I wish Daz had stuck to the (heretofore) typical plan of waiting 5 or 6 months (or more) between dropping VIC and Mike so the manufacturers could have had more time to make more and better clothes, skins and accessories. I almost didn't buy the Mike Pro bundle this year because the items in the bundle were just so tired, I figured this would be the year I'd not give in to the hostage-taken situation Daz has created with the "junk", that I'd just get the M8 base and buy him 3rd-party junk-- but when the little pop up offered the reward deal for having bought the earlier models, I gave in but still felt a bit grudging because of how uninspired or embarassing the content was this year.
Versus how interesting and nice looking the stuff was with the M7 bundle: the sword of time outfit, the crimson seas pirate thing and the good hair-dos etc. Vic 7 dropped in summer, june 23, 2015, and Mike7 dropped much later, november 17, 2015, and that generation saw a solid wave of male content that kept coming after the debut in a way I didn't recall seeing before with the previous generations; it seemed like m7 was the male that sort of broke through, or at least, was the generation when male content sort of became more visible. But the g8 m8 generation so far, the content hasn't been very inspriring, with so many awkward, ridiculous or just poor items and not that many male items generally. I hate to think that purchase-data will tell makers to not make male items because they sell poorly, but don't want to buy lame things just to counter that idea. Hopefully, if something really great gets made for the males, we will all be buying it forcefully enough to telegraph the best message: that we want male items, but we want fresh, good items!
~Gen
I'm going back through and looking to see if there were any gift card sales. So far I'm not seeing any. I had a gift card coming in to the sale, so all these orders were discounted even more than what's shown. I bought the 20% one last week. So what do you folks think about starting the PC+ sale so late in the month? It's midmonth! Good for people with midmonth paychecks I suppose.
@genaris I particularly relate to that last statement- The customers will be interested if the products are well made and also unique. Some folks may like characters that look the same, as it is the "style" of characters and what they want for whatever they're doing, so I think we need to allow for personal preferences.
Aha, yes, found one. A biggie. They had a gift card sale about three and a half weeks into the PC+ sale. IT WAS 20% !!!!! (October 27th. Sale started on the 2nd. So 25 days later. No good for the sale!) I don't know if there were any sooner, this is the only one I got. There may have been lesser discounts, but usually I get those if I already have a qualifying item in the cart. I mean, might as well.
I really like genesis 8 male... However, I don't like the way older clothing fits on him... Especially collars, suits and ties. I really need stuff that looks realistic and everyday, plus a few nice sci-fi outfits. I think genesis 8 female has a dozen by now, and Genesis 8 male has one that looks like chaps.
The sale started on October 10th last year and there was a gift card offer on 13th - it was supposed to be 10% off DOs for members less 10% off the whole order (i.e. a net 19% off), but the maths was a bit off that day and I actually got just over 21% off. The same offer was repeated on October 27th but that time it did give 19%.
If you haven't checked out @crispalomino store, the Metamorphosis for Genesis 3 Female(s) looks neat! Mix these with other bodies to get realism. We're not all skinny minnies!
@collective3d has added some nice touches to the interior set- take a look at what they included for the OUTSIDE so you get great look-out-the-window shots. Collective3d Movie Sets Home Interior $7.59 at 60% off (qualifying item needed)
Here's an interesting question. Instances to Objects from @code66 says it converts instances to objects. You export, then import, and can apply textures. Okay, have to ask. I have several of the products of instances. So I can I turn those into objects? Or does this HAVE to be objects in my scene for the program to do it? And no, from what I can tell, doesn't violate the TOS as it's not to distribute the mesh, it's to use in renders, just like everything else. But this way, those instances turned objects are 3d and can cast shadows!
If so, this is neat! Anyone have it?
I think it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. I was delighted Daz didn't make us wait until the middle of November to bring us G8M. But you are right about the bundled content. I bought it anyway, (in spite of insisting I'm not going to jump on the G8 offers.) If Daz is willing to listen to us and start releasing the male soon after the female, I don't want them looking at lackluster sales and coming to the conculsion, again, that male products don't sale. But I suspect because the male was released so much sooner than in the past, many PAs were caught off guard. And hence, I think, why Daz didn't have more and "better" male products to choose from when putting together the bundle. Notice we still haven't seen a second "8" male figure release.
Personally, I'd like to see the male and female new generations released the same month. But I'd also like to see the PAs well informed ahead of time, so we have supporting products coming out about the same time. (Did you know Zev0 said he was taken by surprise when G8F/V8 was released? How many other vendors were caught by surprise...?)
I do not have it. Based on both the product description and what I remember back when it came out, the purpose of converting instances to objects includes using the scene in another product—for example, Poser—and being able to add things to the new objects; The example in the description is adding ivy to a tree in another program. The description doesn't mention shadows at all.
Actually the biggest Gift Card sale ever was last year on 9/30/16 near the home stretch on last year's PA sale, 40% off. I maxed out on that one. The only other GC deal close to that was on 3/7/2017 for 37% off.
Here's what I'm doing that in past years worked well for me. Since there is a 30 day price guarantee, I am going back to September 15th (which is exactly 30 days tomorrow, if the sale starts. It should start Monday though) and in Product Library, writing down the vendors for that day. I edited the post because I took a look, I forgot the order dates are on the product page blurb. Easy! I write this down using about four pages of notebook paper, A,B,C, etc and then just write the vendor name and the date (Like Noggins 25, 28, 1 meaning Sept 25th, 28th, 1st of October)
If / when a vendor comes on sale, I check that vendor in my chart. Then I go to the order date in my EMAILS which show the exact price. If it's lower, bingo. The farther out you do it, the better, so I'm doing the entire 30 day period. So, for example:
If the sale starts, I check the stores quickly with my chart. I go straight to the vendors' names as they're alphabetical in my chart. Let's say Noggins is on sale, I look at his name and it says 15 (For Sept 15) so I go to my email and check the price. And if I have other dates by Noggins that are LATER, I can get those items cheaper too.
Efficient system, fairly fast to do. And it really adds up. So that's what I am doing tonight. (Hope this didn't bore you!)
Interesting. I bought Skunkville Noir on September 17th and it's already gone from the store? There's no link on the product page. Didn't get it in the search.
Okay, did a vendor leave? The Mephistopolis Noir Shader is gone too, and I think that's the same vendor.
It was Eustace Scrubb, his store got removed for inactivity or something along with a lot of other vendors.
Is something going on with the product library? Eagle 2 Expansion doesn't have a page link either in the blurb. But it's not coming up in search either. Did they just purge a lot of products?
Thanks @agentunawares I thought I was going nuts. So I'm glad I got those!