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Totally agree and I have to say I did think the special effects were incredibly well done. I rarely put any new movies on my must buy on the dvd release date, but this one made my list. And "ow" indeed lol.
You guys remember Paolo? (A character I created by combining Giovanni and Ollie…) Well Paolo has finally made his debut in my renders, as the wizard in Incantation, a render I did for my final It's Raining Men entry.
Here's the full width image I used to composite the rendered layers with the background and postwork.
Incantation 01
And you can the see the actual entry here, or the signed gallery version of the entry here.
There has been the usual debate with the latest male base figure, Christian 8, that he looks like a clone of another. In this case, Edward 8. Being a detail-oriented person, I noticed so many little differences, he didn't look hardly anything like Edward to me. But to prove the point, I did a number of renders using them both to create side-by-side comparisons of the shape morph. I used the default Genesis 8 Male materials to eliminate any resemblances caused by their materials.
I posted those comparisons in the Christian 8 thread here.
But I also did the same comparisons adding in both figure's HD morphs. Those I'm posting below. Edward is on the left, Christian 8 is on the right. (I can't believe Daz released a base figure with the same name as a previously released PA G8M character! That's not going to be confusing at all. Yeah, right!)
First, the full head-to-toe shot:
Second, the Half Shot from about the waist up:
Third, the standard Head Shot:
And finally, the angled Head Shot, (empahsizing the differences in their mouths, noses and eyes):
Personally, I don't even see a family resemblance. They're both middle aged, white males. Maybe a bit of cleft in both chins, but that's where the resemblance ends, to my eyes.
I didn't think they looked very much alike at all either. I quite like Christian 8 Whereas I was not terribly thrilled with Edward 8.
There are some similarities, although there are moments that I think Christian 8 looks more like Leo 7. But, have none of these complainers heard of morphs?
edited a typo, thrice
People were discussing the figure morphs, but then comparing the two without removing modifiers like the bump maps and normal maps. Even the skin materials of the figures could influence the renders. So I went as "vanilla" as I could get.
I like both. Christian's morph has more detail, and I think that's a good thing. I hope it becomes "a thing," that base figures don't rely so heavily on materials for their distinctiveness. Christian's profile reminds a bit of Fred Gwynn, and his face straight on reminds me of Vin Diesel, especially around the mouth. But I still like Edward. He just seems more "every man" to me.
Fantastical
This is Mika 8 and she's wearing the Fantastical Sprite Wings that came with the bundle, before Daz pulled them. I thought they might be broken beyond repair, but I couldn't find a thing wrong with them. As it was really to just test the wings, I didn't put a lot of effort into the image. Mika 8 is wearing her default skin, with one of her LIE makeups, except for the liips. The pose is from the Z Mischievous Sprite poses that also came with the bundle.
The Dewdrop Outfit is really cute, but as dForce goes, it's disappointing. The only part of the outfit that actually drapes is the skirt. The ribbons on either side of the skirt and dangling off of the ribbons on the right arm are not part of the respective objects. They attach via rigid follow nodes, and you have to move them manually. I hid the two from the wriist. They might have looked cool dForced, but as it is, they don't work with this pose. I moved the two camera-facing ribbons on the skirt. It was a real pain to do. The ribbons are "connected" to a ring at the belt of the skirt, but the origin is at the bottom of the ribbon. If you look at the full-size image, it's easy to see the straps of the dress are not against the skin. .
ETA: The skirt is a separate piece, with the flowers and ribbons attached. The dress, though a bit short for my tastes, would make a really nice "night out" dress by itself.
Hi, @Butch!
I failed to refresh the page and didn't see your post until now. Mea culpa.
I think the complainers are seeing one base figure after another, one pro bundle after another, and are feeling burned out. Daz rewards customers who buy lots of the current base figure pro bundles, so it puts pressure on customers to buy more now to get better deals later. I don't believe Daz released two base figures almost every month prior to G3. Then again, they didn't use to release so many male figures, either. I suspect we can blame/thank "It's Raining Men" on both counts.
I'm not complaining.
Not about the number of base figures, anyway. I would really like to see an increase in quality male wardrobe and hair releases. Then again, the reason I got MD8 is so I can create the clothing I want for my guys, and not be dependent on what the market wants. (I'm just not into vampires, demons and zombies! lol)
But back to Ed and Chris… I also think seeing the differences between figures is influenced by one's interest in those figures. The female characters will undoubtedly always be more popular, and the folks who mainly want females are looking for the variety each new female brings to the runtime. Because that's what they are looking for, they see the differences, whether obvious or subtle. But when "some" of those same folks look at the guys, all they see are props for their ladies, someone to make the females look even better. If they want men in their renders at all. And that's okay. Each to his/her own.
I actually like the females, too. I just have more than I really need, (and will probably continue to buy more, so long as Mousso continues to release them!) But the world is full of both men and women, and I want the option of using both, without my scenes taking on a sameness because I'm all but forced to use the same male over and over again. And I feel like the G3 And G8 generations of male figures has done a wonderful job of giving me the variety I want.
So I think you and I, and many others, look at Edward and wonder how anyone can say Chistian looks like an Edward clone. Just as there are those who look at the two figures and wonder how we can say they are not!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Hugz.
For that one person who reads my thread but doesn't pay attention to the It's Raining Men contest threads… It's time to vote!
Maybe you didn't think your renders were good enough to enter,* but you can still be part of the fun by voting for your favorite images. And perhaps seeing the entries will inspire you to enter next year. The more the merrier.
Every year, when I enter this contest, or any other, I always push myself. And I always learn something new with Daz Studio. Usually many things. And everything I learn helps me to spend more time on the creative and less time on the technical. It's also why I participate in the Llola Lane challenges, even though there are no prizes involved.
I figure if I learn how to do one thing I didn't know before, or learn how to do something in an easier or better way, than I've already won. Actually winning a prize? That's just icing on the cake.
Another year, another theme for Llola Lane's monthly challenges: "A Year of Randomness." The criteria each month has no bearing on the criteria of the other months, unlike last year, for example, when each month's criteria was a specified shape.
This could be really interesting.
I try to participate in both the Daz thread and the PFDLives thread, (which gets harder to do by the end of the year with all the holiday craziness,) so this month, I have two renders. The first was posted to the PFLives thread:
Dolls
I was trying to give the large figure a great big eye looking through the curve of the dome. It didn't work. In the process, I chose a stylized figure, increased the eye size even more, and ended up really liking her with that hair! It's Mousso's Delaney skin materials on a P3D character for The Girl 8, (Hailey.) The scene was rendered without a background. The doll is one of the $1.95 PC+ for a Day products I picked up during the PC Anniversary sale last "October." (It was so generous of the PAs to participate!)
I used C3D's Long Island Mansion to create the room background separately. I had furniture in the room, but most of it was hidden by the foreground image, so I took it out for the final render. That's one amazing house, by the way. I wouldn't mind living in a house like it, though with several differences. For starters, as far away from the original as possible. I'm not a fan of the horror genre, so I've never watched any of the Amityville movies. But I can say I'd never want to live in that specific house! I have enough trouble with insomnia now…
The second image I did for the January "Little & large" challenge was posted in the Daz thread:
Uninvited
I knew when I started this scene I was using the Housefly from AM. The decision to use Faveral's medieval Banquet Hall came a few minutes into the actual creative process. Later I went looking for something less "angular" when the first render showed "all" the food was low poly and everything had sharp "points" where the corners met. I am amazed that with the many "food" sets I have, I could find nothing to fit the theme, so I ended up adding SubD to all the food objects in the scene. That was good enough for everything but the chicken in the foreground. I bumped up the level to 3 on the chicken. I must say, I do appreciate Faveral's use of seamless textures on the chicken. I was able to make the skin look a lot better by just upping the tiling from 1.0 to 2.0.
The wings of the flies didn't show up very well, but that turned out to be an easy fix. AM uses Refraction to get the delicate look of the thin wings. By lowering the Refraction Weight, and adding a bit more color with Diffuse Overlay, I was able to make the wings darker.
I also tried render the image using Depth of Field. I don't think it turned out very well, due mostly to how close the camera is to the flies. There was very little room to work with. I had to move the closer fly to the same plane as the one on the chicken, too. In the end, that image got a big "thumbs down" from me. Here it is, if you're curious:
Uninvited 2 (DOF, rejected as an entry.)
I like "construction set" types of products, though they can sometimes require a lot more work than a prebuilt set. (The jungle in my first It's Raining Men entry is a perfect example of that.) But the MICK series from Faveral gives us the best of both worlds, with everything you need to construct your own environment, as well as full scene presets to get you up and running in a flash.
I used the Iray preset from the Medieval Banquet to set up the scene with the flies. But the entire scene held a lot of props that weren't going to be in the camera frame. so I deleted them. I also didn't like the cheese platter that was just on the other side of the chicken, so I removed it and used the fish platter instead. Overhead candle chandeliers were replaced with Ghost Lights, as was the contents of the fireplace. And there is a ghost light in each of the five windows of the building to augment the light from the default HDRI. (The scene loaded with the Sun Dial Set, but I deleted that as well.) Here's what the set looks like from overhead, in the viewport, with the ceiling hidden:
It's really hard to see anything from this distance, but the fact the room is nearly empty is readily apparent. That white square in the fireplace is a Ghost Light with the Cutout Opacity set to 1. That added some specularity to the scene. The other ghost lights are not visible, but besides those in the windows, there are three above the two food tables, and three more, with the same spacing in a line over the other table.
Closer in, here's the camera in relation to the food and flies. You can't see the flies, though. The chcken looks a bit bright because I added a small amount of luminance to it in desperation to get that juicy, roasted skin look.
And here is a Hidden Line view of the camera, chicken and flies. Hidden Line was the only Draw Mode where the flies were easy to see!
And finally, here's a viewport draw where you can really see the distance between the food, the figure and the armor. They all look much closer in the final render.
February was a busy month for me in real life. I'm happy to report my tax returns are completed, and wonder of wonder, we're getting refunds from both state and federal! I managed to get one image done for Llola Lane's challenge, too. I posted it in the challenge thread here at Daz. I was working on an iimage for the PFDLives edition when we were hit with a snow storm and lost power. Snow storms here are unusual, losing power for days in this house is even more so. The power was restored four days later, on March 1st. When I posted the problem in PFDLives thread, both Llola and DeeLeeLaw57 encouraged me to finish the image and post anyway.
So I did.
The challenge for February was "Abstract & Odd," which really opened the door for having fun with no need to make sense! LOL And boy did I have fun. I worked backwards from my usual process and went looking for an environment to play in. Smart Content->Products->Environments->Landscape. Looking at the product thumbnails, I spotted Muelsfell Hagswood. I bought it on sale over a year ago, but still hadn't used it. What really drew my attention was the pattern the terrain made as it dipped into the pond. The grumpy face in the tree was a bonus. Here's the final image:
Isle Of Fae
After deciding on the set, and rearranged a couple of props, I played with different HDRIs to get the color and shadows to enhance the pattern. There are a lot of clouds in this HDRI, but on the horizon, it was just blue sky, so I added the distant prop from TerraDome 3 and morphed it into some low hills. By this time, I'm thinking the pattern on the ground just isn't abstract enough, so I decide to see what I can do using Linday's dForce Long Hair.
It took a couple of tries, but I was able to get the cap in the pond and the hair strands to look as if they are growing up the rock. I applied the ombre colors from Hinky's Hair Salon Shaders, so the hair would really stand out. For the pond, I hid the water materials of the terrain prop, and replaced it with a cube primitive, raised the water line up several "inches," and applied a water preset from the Easy Liquid shaders.
I was really liking the scene at this point, but it lacked a focal point. That's when I decided on adding the fairy and the large water sphere. Originally, the sphere was nearly touching her hands and she was turned so we saw only her side and profile. But the wings didn't get enough light. I tried making them emissive, but that didn't look right. (I loved the effect though…) I tried rotating the HDRI, but then I lost the shadows. In the end, I turned the fairy, moved the sphere above her head and moved her to the other side of the image. I then decided to try some instances of the sphere and like the result.
But moving her made the black maw of the hollow log too prominent. I wanted the interior to be somewhat visible, so I tried a ghost light. I liked the effect, but there was no reason for the light. That's when I decided to add the tiny fairy, use the same wings, and add the emissive effect that didn't work on the larger fairy's wings. The mushroom she's sitting on is from one of several mushroom products I have, undoubtedly from Traveler. I actually created her in a new scene, resized her to fit the mushroom, used MattyManx's Resource Saver Shaders to replace her maps, and merged the result with the environment scene. She is both bald and nude. I saw no need to use the resources for something that is barely more than a silhouette. As the large fairy is also reduced in size, I used Map Manager to reduce the size of maps for her and her clothing, (and her hair, if I remember correctly.)
There isn't a story to go along with this image, but I do I think of the fairy as harvesting the water. It is her magic that is bringing up the spheres.
And as much time as I put into the dForce hair, it amuses me that no one has, as yet, mentioned it.
The second "Abstract & Odd" image I created was inspired by the first one. While positioning the cube to replace the pond, with Draw Mode in Nvidia Iray to see the effect of the water on the bottom and plants covered by water, I unintentionally moved the cube too high. The resulting reflections of the sky on the sides of the cube, as well as the top, had their own abstract look.
Before the power went out, I had spent a significant amount of time creating an HDRI to provide the reflections. It was a hybrid image of a purchased HDRI and a spherical render of KIngdom of Marrakesh. Not only did I end up having to layer images in Photoshop, but the resulting HDRI didn't produce the look I was going for. I did learn, however, how to create a custom HDRI for future use.
Anyway, after the power came on, and finding I couldn't get the effect I was trying for, I went back to the first image. In spite of using the same set, I wanted to make the second image look as different from the first as possible. I hid anything I didn't think I wanted to use in the new image, so all that was showing was the terrain props from Muelsfell Hagswood and the cube I'd used for the pond. I added a bright red to the Base Color of all the vegetation and I moved the cube up, resized it and changed the proportions. I also tweaked the tiling of the water shader.
And of course, the result was lacking something. So I decided to add a tree, one with a lot of leaves, and ended up with the Willow tree. That left the right side looking a bit unbalanced. I immediately thought of the tall base from Jepe's statuette series. I found it in volume 3. I tried creating several instances and spreading those out, but in the end, I like the single "monument" better. It's both taller and much larger than the default load. I positioned the prop at the very edge of the terrain, intersecting slightly in the front, but there was still a very unnaturally straight line, so I used the weed prop to soften that line.
Happy with the scene, I tried numerous HDRIs for lighting and color. I settled on the a sunset image from the Skies of iRadiance products, because I loved what it did to the leaves of the willow tree, and the red glow it gave the image overall, as well as the contrast with the blue-black sky. But once again, I was left with large area of a single color. I made the TerraDome prop visible and tinkered with the morphs to create a completely, more rugged distant terrain than in the first image, with empahsis on how the light hit and highlighted the peaks.
Here's the final image:
The Willow
And finally, I decided it needed a little something in the water. I thought about using the new goldfish product and filling the pond with Koi, but decided to use only one fish, the salmon prop from AM's Brown Bear. It adds a bit of interest where the large stone is light behind it, without interferring with the reflections where the pond is darker.
I think you did a great job on the giant eye. The Amityville Horror gave me nightmares for years lol.
I love the hair growing up the rock and the overall color of that image gives it a very otherworldly feel
I absolutely love the last one, the cube of water standing alone is awesome! I love those happy accidents.
That lady preparing the feast would freak if she saw those flies!
Nah... looks like Europe - they are much more sanguine about such things. I still have nightmares from a visit to a British butcher's shop from when I was a kid... brains!
@IceDragonArt, Thank you, Sonja. You made my day!
I suspect in medieval times, flies were merely a nuisance people didn't think too much about; Just a fact of daily life. Flies can be beneficial in many ways, just not on the dinner table! If you don't want to be nauseated, don't read up on flies in Wikipedia, or any where else…!
For a "WIPs" thread, I've sure put up a lot of finished renders, haven't I? That's due in large part to entering contests and challenges. But I think it's high time I posted some stuff I'm working on. At any given time, I usually have several scenes in progress. Some to test out a new product, some intended to become part of a scene I'm thinking about, and some that end up "on the cutting room floor," so to speak.
Here's Warg HD for Daz Dog 8 from GhostofMacbeth. I spent the better part of a day on the pose and expression. The few pose packs I have for Dog 8 are "friendly pup" not "eat your arse dangerous," so I had to do my own. Design Anvil to the rescue. Sort of. I have his DA Wolf 2 Expansion Set with 20 poses for Wolf 2.0. I sized Warg down to dog size and loaded the wolf to one side. I then applied the pose I wanted to the wolf and used him as a general reference, The expression is a combination of expression dials and direct bone/joint transforms. After I finished the pose, I applied the "Medium" size preset, which I believe is the default. (He still stands nearly as tall as G8M!)
The side view of the pose, and…
a front view of the head and expression.
Head on like this, especially with the white background, it's hard to tell if he's being ferocious or laughing at you. I kind of think it's both. He's laughing because he's about to turn you into his next meal, and he knows there's not a thing you can do to stop him! (You, me, anyone foolish enough to get that close!)
The materials are 100% presets from the product, except for the nose. It looked a little dry to me, so I tried to make it look moist.
And here's something a bit more nostalgic and a lot less frightening…
I think the Goldfish and Props is a really special product, and quite the endeavor for a PA's first product! As I'm just playing with a new toy, there is no set. The lighting is from Painter's Lights, which sadly is no longer in the store. This was rendered with Draw Dome off, and a transparent background. The blue of the HDRI was too strong otherwise. I added the white background in post.
There were several carnival booths at the county fair each year, that had goldfish in small glass bowls. A dime would get you three ping-pong balls to toss, (or was it three for a quarter?) and a ball staying in the bowl won the goldfish. Poor Mama. We won the fish, but she always ended up taking care of them. I don't remember how many goldfish the four of us brought home over the course of 12-15 years. Goldfish and ashtrays. lol
Great job on Warg's expression, he looks fierce indeed! Love the Fantastical render - wonderful colors all around (hair, clothing, background - all complimenting each other).
Thank you, @Worlds_Edge.
Now that the Warg is ready to pounce, I need to come up with a scene for him to star in.
With "Fantastical," I was just trying to see if the wings were pulled from the store because of product problems. I didn't expect to find any and I didn't. The color scheme of the scene was based on the default material of the dress. I just ran with it. And in spite of the fact it was only to test the wings, I think she turned out pretty nice, too. Thanks for noticing.
Haha love your commentary on the Warg. The expression and pose look great
I have those wings too. Why do you think they were pulled?
Warg might be a great fit for a Little Red Ridinghood type scene. Can't wait to see what you actually do with him..
@IceDragonArt, Thank you, Sonja.
@Worlds_Edge, We'll never know why Daz pulled those wings. It seems really strange when Daz owns them. and all three PAs who worked on them are still active here. One would think if there was something that needed to be fixed, mesh or texture, a simple update would be sufficient. It is a mystery.
I have no idea when Warg will get his shining moment. I created Paolo shortly after Ollie was released, and didn't use him until late December, in the It's Raining Men contest. That was about nine months. I will try to use him sooner than that, though! LOL
Baldric WIP
I'm working on one of those big scenes I love to do, with lots of stuff in it. The primary focus will be on Baldric. He won't be looking at the camera like he is here,though. I'm using Jepe's Bodyhair Project 78. You can even see the hair on his legs, though the rips in his jeans, if you look closely. Love this product. I still haven't decided whether or not to use facial hair. On the one hand, I hate to hide such a wonderful face. On the other, he looks a bit young for the role.
Maybe just a little goatee... :-D The chiselled structure of his face demands manly decoration!
Ended up using Baldric without facial hair…
Enemy Of My Enemy
I just want to say, I gave Baldric that tattoo long before I set up the final scene. It's just a happy accident I added the Dragon Raptor later. When I decided on the tat, I was just looking for something "cool." Though by the time I shared the WIP of Baldric, I did know I was using the bones and this set.
My most recent render. Family, was for Llola's challenge. The theme for May is "Living" Landscapes, with living defined essentially as human or wildlife. In my experience, that is much easier done in 3D than in real life.
I entered this image in the Daz Edition of the challenge:
Family
(It was a pleasant surprise to wake up yesterday and find the image had made the scrolling banner in the galleries. I have fans! lol Thank you all.)
The original render is the Techniscope setting (47:20) with the height set to 2000px. I did all my postwork in the larger image, then sized it by half to upload to the Galleries.
The downside to rendering in such a high resolution is it takes a lot longer to render. But there is an upside, too. I was also able to "zoom in" and save some more familiar sizes simply by cropping the postworked image. Here is a close up in HD, (1920 x 1080):
And here is a closeup "Portrait" of the deer family, (1000 x 1033):
I didn't apply any effects, nor change the lighting, levels, contrast, etc., in photoshop. I did fix a few places in the foreground where the grass intersected itself and the tree trunk. And I softened the transition between light and shadow on the buck and the doe. (No postwork on fawns.) I'll go into more detail in the next comment.
There were definitely some challenges to creating the "Family" image. For starters, I used the Hivewire Mule Deer Buck, with the White Tail Deer textures and antlers, (addons for the base,) but the doe and fawn are not yet released. To get a doe, I used dForms to create two morphs, one to round out the forehead, and one to smooth out the underbelly. (In other words, to remove the male anatomy!) The second morph is far from perfect, but with a Mule Deer Doe to be released at some point, (and a fawn, too,) I only needed it for this scene.
The fawns in this render are the SilverKey 3d Fawn, a product so old, it has four-digit SKU! I made some minor changes in Hexagon, but had to convert the weight on the Fawn to create the morphs. I chose Triax weight. (I've no idea if that was the best choice.) The poses still work, but they're a bit blocky. Not knowing how to fix that, (yet,) I used the grass and positioning to hide the flaws.
The duck family uses Noggin's Duck- Mallard, also an older product. Aside from tweaking the pose for the ducklings, (I used instances to create so many from three,) these are out-of-the-box. With both the ducks and the fawns, I simply applied the Iray Uber Base to the materials.
The real challenge was actually the set, The Harpwood Trail with the Mallard Pond addon. This set is amazing, and really looks like a real world environment. It does so by using a lot of instancing over a large area. And to compensate for the quantities, some of the props use lower polygon counts. When you look at the far bank, in any of the images in the previous post, can you tell the grass is relatively low-poly? Neither can I. But the grass doesn't do well close up.
Below is a comparison of the lower half of the scene before and after making changes:
In the after half, the grass instancing no longer includes the area between the camera and the pond. I substituted a single prop from the Hemlock Folly set, converted it to SubD, and set the SubD level to 2. This scene at the high resolution I was using rendered at around 180 samples per hour with a GTX 1080. It made more sense to me to convert a different prop to high resolution, as I didn't want to slow the rendering down any further by converting the original grass object to use SubD.
I used Ultrascatter to redistribute the grass clumps. First, I used the Geometry Editor to create a Selection Set on the ground prop. I needed to remove the grass from a small area, but I figured it would help with rendering if I actually constrained the scatter to the area in the line of sight of the camera. The Selection Set covers about 1/4 of the area, so I also reduced instancing count to about 25%. Here's a viewport draw showing the camera location, line of sight, and the Selection Set:
I didn't change anything else in the Ultrascatter settings, and the resulting grass is very close to the original, though not identical. Here is another comparison image, zooming in a bit on the water line. The differences may be most apparent around the feet of the doe.