Novica & Serene Night’s Renders, Tips, Tutorials & Product Reviews PART 2
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Novica and SereneNight, I love all your reviews of products and my wishlist has grown to 147, besides all the purchases I have made. I may have to stop reading your reviews...lol. One question I have is how did you do the water and mountains in your mantiraptor review ?...it looks fabulous and I never can create a decent background especially with water.
I think the water and mountains may be part of this set: http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-the-rock Correct me if I'm wrong Novica?
Oh yes I see taking a second look that it is part of the rock. I wonder if the water and /or sky can be used for a different scene together or separately? Will check it out further...another added to my wishlist :)
You two make a great double act and I'm in awe of the amount of information you pack (with some great renders) into each page of this ever-growing thread. Just wanted to say that as I'm usually reading silently.
Like Kharma, I'm in danger of my wishlist exploding. (Maybe not fair to name the products but some of your renders draw me in more than the original promos. You should be working on commission.) :)
I also love what you are doing with morguefile backgrounds, I've used the site in the past but never for this purpose so it's something I'm looking forward to trying.
Hi everyone :)
At this point I need to tell folks that if I am not responding as fast as usual, I have been at the hospital (NOT ME) since Sunday. A relative had surgery and it didn't go as great as expected. First of all, thanks for the comments, nice to be appreciated. Serene Night is a wonderful co-host and I know what you mean about the wishlist and buying things- it's totally her fault I got the Bot Shop and the dog and kid poses! Even though she specializes in SciFi I adore her other renders- that little girl is priceless and I still laugh at the Infiltrator snake carving the pumpkin.
That Easy Environments: The Rock is a gold mine so far as the water and background. It is so large that it wraps around most scenes. I am experimenting with the City Roads and will post this closeup- this is only part of the scene. You can load everything separately, aka, make the "rock" disappear. The skybox is nice too- remember to read up on that, it isn't a dome, it's a box. Really cool! Wishlist those Easy Environments as most, if not all, are skyboxes. There is a page to click and read up on them- it has images. The ocean, the entire background with rocks/shoreline/anything you see in the background, and the sky is all from Easy Environments: The Rock
I'm at the hospital, let me post this and I'll explain more in the next post. Think about getting that Family Car 1950- the doors open and close and the top is up or down with just a click. You can actually use the interior of the car without showing the front- so you can have the backseat of a convertible and it may not be quickly available it's a vintage car (unless you're thinking about it. Seats are plumpy. Plumpy? New word.)
Pay attention to the dog's eye- I'm going to show you how to put details in if the eyes are dark/completely in shadow. What this is- the car and a motorcycle (not shown) are parked on the street (City Roads) with Funland (not shown or not much, will be in a different render) in the background. You can put The Rock on top of the City Roads and drag it- and you have a gorgeous city block leading up the "bay." Look closely at the photos, did different angles so you can see the background. That is all (Easy Environments:) The Rock.
I want to say I posed the hands in action, which I like to do rather than having the hands in position all the time. She has the hand under the chin in place, the other is reaching for the dog. (Look at comic books, they have "in action" poses to convey the action happening.
Okay, so look at backgrounds and the dog's eye- it was totally dark in the originals before postwork. EDIT: Still working on this- have to sketch in her hair in the second one, goes through the shirt. :)
City Roads
Funland
Family Car 1950
Millennium Dog LE
Easy Environments: The Rock
http://www.daz3d.com/city-roads
http://www.daz3d.com/funland
http://www.daz3d.com/family-car-1950
http://www.daz3d.com/millennium-dog-le
http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-the-rock
I will gladly share what I did with lighting- I'm not sure if I used Skull Cove Island or the set that comes with it. I'll check and get back to you within 15 minutes. :)
Cathie
Hey thanks you both! You've made my day. It is very nice to be appreciated.!:)
Okay, meanwhile- look again at the last photo, the dog's eye.
If you have a dark eye and want to give it a natural looking glow, here's how to do it in postwork. Don't know if these will post in order.
1. Put a rim of light orange around the outer edge.
2. Take your eye color and make several indents / breaks into the orange rim, so you have uneven sections. This should be subtle.
3. Make one or two areas of light using a dim gold.
4. Bring in a reddish brown (if your eye is chocolate brown) on the inside of the orange rim you make in step one.
5. Put a dot of grayish white at the top, bottom, or middle- depending on where you want your eye to look
Okay, Here's tonight's fun product.
I promised it, and now you have it, It's PILL BUG by Antfarm.
http://www.daz3d.com/pill-bug
He may look cute and intsy-teensy, but pill bug is huge, and comes with some nice textures. If the texture is too shiny for you you can make him matte or skin-colored in the lighting tab. He has some great movements too including 'head up' and 'tail up' to make pillbug look as versatile as possible.
I personally like pill bug about football size, like I used in the Ryuu render but you can easily make him smaller as I'll show you in a few renders.
1. Pill bug larger than life in one of his color variations dead leaf Lights are just standard Junk Pile day lights.
2. Pill bug, with skin texture surface in Ocean Blue I like this better. Less oily looking. Same lights.
3. Pill bug explosion. Poor Sarge and Sarge, are fit to be tied. Lights are Predatron's (number 5 I think) with many points placed around to bring out highlights...
Love your Dog Novica! That is a wonderful pose and full of emotion! Looks good.
Thanks. Yeah, THOSE hands were a pain with that doggie. And trust me, they work from ALL angles, even from below. That's what took me so long- but it's the essence of the entire thing. She's absolutely dreamy, totally relaxed and in the moment, so part of the fingers had to be extended.
So here's the bigger one, which of course means that gal and her dog have to be changed (will save it as another scene so I don't lose it.) as they don't show up well enough. May put the dog on the trunk of the convertible, with her on the sidewalk with her hands on her hips. It has to be exaggerated to show up in a bigger scene, it gets lost here.
But want to show you The Rock background- the skies and water. Really versatile and this is still without depth of field. That is Lisa's Mighty Oak and of course doesnt do well if you want realistic (leaves just dangling) but I kinda went for "doing it my way." With the whimsical kids' set in the back, I went whimsy on the tree too. That tree behind the oak is a laurel. What I was doing (before I got interrupted with this hospital thingie) is putting shrubs all along that back wall (which I brought in, it's a prop in this set. You can do indiviual walls, really love this set.
Across the street, I put a well. May or may not stay. I am actually thinking of doing the Medieval buildings! This got me thinking it would be fun to go old fashioned (like a tourist attraction.)
I included three more distant lights, this is NOT the lighting that comes with any of these sets- I added to it. And btw, there is a spotlight shining up on the woman's hand from underneath.
I can see that took some work. It's tough to make mil dog look real but you succeeded. Hey and just noticed.. sarge and your character have the same tailor! A question about your postwork eye. I assume you are editing the eye itself not the texture on the eye?
FYI- this is SO cool. Skyboxes are amazing. The water and mountains go all the way around the entire scene of the city roads- and it isn't a small set! So think panoramic with any of these Easy Environments sets- be sure and see if they have the skyboxes, and if they do, I'd snatch them up as the skies and the backgrounds are amazing. SO easy to use, and you can use the sets apart from the skies, apart from the lights, etc.
Kharma- Okay, I checked- the raptor images were The Rock lighting, 100%. It uses 4 distant lights. I brought in three additional lights, all were spotlights and only on the raptor. So the water is how it will look without you having to do anything. (And the rock also. Only the raptor had different lighting.)
EDIT: Here's the lights with Easy Environments: The Rock. No adjustments.
SereneNight- That little pill bug by the cereal box, raising up- priceless! Curious little bug. Sarge looks like he's going to eat them just out of sheer mean-ness! I agree, I like the blue one the best. When I first saw the Pill Bug (which I have) it impressed me with the shape of the back- you can put a fairie stretched out on there, or someone or something riding it. Wonder what The Fabricator can do with that surface... I'm thinkin' bamboo!
Right- just doing quickie painting directly on the image. It's really teeny tiny so just giving the impression of lighting. I haven't a clue/done anything with PhotoShop yet, UV maps, nothing maps....have you?
I think the eye looks good. I do a some photoshop... I am fond of diviney brushes, and add special effects, blurring and some detail like sarge' s cigar, smoke and the like.
And sometimes alter textures of the characters such as removing lip shine etc.
Yeah love the little one by the box. I originally wanted a few more people in the scene but nine bugs plus sarge and sarge and my computer said no thank you. I was really wanting some eating and utensil holding poses so I could pose a bug on the end of a k for or fork but couldn't find any in my runtime.
WOW!! what a wealth of information you have here this will help me a lot Thanks sooooo much....Trish
We're happy to share our ideas :)
Speaking of which...
There are birds that don't do as well eating from feeders, they scavenge on the ground, and there are dedicated ground feeders who never eat from anything BUT the ground. To give those birds a "boost up" from predators, many back-yard-bird-watchers put the seed in a birdbath.
I'm working on a fun scene for you called The Bird Barn. I'm incorporating birds throughout the barn scene. The props used are from Perching Places, which is no longer sold here. However, what I am also trying to do is give you a tip / show you a technique, as you know I love to think outside the box. And you can most likely find these items in other sets. So here's the tip for newbies:
TIP: MERGE ITEMS USING OPACITY!
We're going to take the bird food from the tall post bird feeder, and deposit it into the low shallow one. How? Easy smeezy. (Because the fantastic vendor made different surface areas. The bird food is it's own separate material setting. Here we go:
Photo 1
You can see the seed in the pole bird feeder on the left. The fountain on the left will BECOME a bird feeder.
Photo 2
Using the coordinates from the fountain, (you betcha- why work harder than you have to!) bring a pole feeder on top of the fountain.
Photo 3
Lower the bird seed from the top part of the feeder directly onto the surface (the fountain) and exactly where you want it.
Photo 4
HIDE THE FOUNTAIN. Go to Scene and close the eye of the fountain. You are NOT removing it from the scene, just hiding it.
Photo 5
Select all the surfaces EXCEPT THE SEED with the Surface Selection tool (the three black sheets of paper by the Universal Tool, above the viewport) and in the Surface Tab, turn the opacity to zero. POOF, everything except the seed disappears.
Photo 6
Shows you the items selected and the Opacity at zero.
Photo 7
Our bird fountain-turned-bird-feeder!
Have some fun- see what you can combine!
Cathie
Oh and yes, those are the front GATES coming out the side of the barn. (Think outside the box, my mantra.) And unfortunately, they are in one piece- two sections, but one blasted piece. So?
The barn was widened, and the other half of the gate is hidden inside the barn. :) There is one set of gates on both sides of the barn. You'll see it later, but I wanted to point it out now as you can easily see the gate behind the pole bird feeder in the Photo 1, above.
Today's review is Moon lander 2 , shown here with Eternal Sands and accompanying lights as the backdrop
Moon lander 2
http://www.daz3d.com/moon-lander-2
Eternal Sands
http://www.daz3d.com/easy-environments-eternal-sands
I like most of Petipet's work and this is no exception. This is a nice little spacecraft with two textures (I prefer gray), lots of moving parts, and three accompanying poses. It looks good in most environments, is easy to light and has a nice look.
I did find posing moonlander 2 on an uneven surface to be challenging. While the landing gear pistons move up and down and the disks rotate partially getting all four feet to sit perfectly on an uneven surface takes some talent and patience. I usually could get a few of it's little disks to sit correctly, but there was usually one that looked bad. I originally tried to pose it on the Rock on top of the world, heh and the Rock defeated me! I settled on Eternal Sands where there would likely be some sinking into the sand taking place down there. So be warned, if you try to use it on a tilted or rocky ground that you'll have to fuss with the landing gear.
Other issue, is in daz, when initially loading the default texture cannot be found. I had to locate the texture file for it in order to get it to load properly.
1. Image: Moon Lander 2 in the sky, some of the options
2. Moon Lander 2 on the planet surface
Heads up!
Sad Clown Theo
http://www.daz3d.com/sad-clown-theo
is on sale today.
It includes a really nice older male texture, which applies well to genesis, and when combined with a few old age morphs can look really good to make a nice older male figure which in my opinion is sorely needed!
Morgan For V4
Vendor: Mutedbanshee
Thistledown For V4 A4
http://www.daz3d.com/morgan-for-v4
http://www.daz3d.com/mutedbanshee
http://www.daz3d.com/thistledown-for-v4-a4
Working with Victoria 4- am very impressed with this vendor (Mutedbanshee) and rarely see them mentioned. (Did the Kids 4 Base!) C'mon DAZ- get them on sale... they have really nice characters! If everyone has time, take a peek at these products. I like Dane for M4 too. Can't believe I don't have him yet!!! You have to check out the product description, I've never seen one like that before. You'll know what I mean when you see it.
http://www.daz3d.com/mutedbanshee
I will showcase Morgan for you. This is without doing any morphing, straight out of the box.
About the background: it is a photograph done in Corel Photo Paint, with Elephant Skin and Linen textures, then Smoked Fog applied over it, with Elephant Skin applied again. It's colorful fall trees.
The outfit is Thistledown for V4 A4, and you get a character with it too (Not used. I used Morgan.) Other materials are also available. I took off the pointed fantasy shoes. The other product is here: http://www.daz3d.com/winter-and-autumn-for-thistledown
I think you'll see just how beautiful Morgan is!
Morphing Fantasy Dress Unimesh Fits
http://www.daz3d.com/morphing-fantasy-dress-unimesh-fits
I wanted to test expressions with Morgan- and am very pleased. What I found best, if you want to do "surprised"- put the mouth into a simple smile slightly (mouth not open) then do a tiny bit of surprise.
This product works with so many figures, thought I'd just paste the relevant parts of the description-
...the Morphing Fantasy Dress Unimesh Fits for the Girl 4, Aiko 4, Victoria Elite and She Freak V4 ...
Now includes the Morphing Fantasy Dresses for Genesis and Stephanie 4!
These MFDs are compatible with all textures for the V4, V3, Aiko 3 or Laura Morphing Fantasy Dresses, so you'll have a multitude of texture options already available.
And take note-this dress has morphs for sitting down! It has hem adjustments, striding, swing left or right, shorten the hem, etc. It was easy to fix poke through, many sliders to choose from. I don't think you'll be disappointed with this one :)
That is Nordic Hair, went on without any adjustments.
EDIT: BE SURE TO CLICK TO ENLARGE, then click again. Her eyes are gorgeous. They are the best, moist eyes I've worked with. Absolutely stunning.
"She's Wearing The Same Dress!"
At 2am: If you've got Bright Loft, it's worth your while to get the new one. Particularly since you get 50% off the 30% price right now. Don't know if that was the intention. It's $21.95, and 30% is $15.37. You can get it right now for $7.68. It was the only thing in my cart. You do not have to buy 3 things to get the discount, it states that in bold on the product page- that previous owners will get 50% off. I just don't know if you are supposed to get 50% off the special price- but that's what the current deal is doing.
http://www.daz3d.com/a-bright-loft
I got the Generation 4 Statues thing and all the Fairytale Furniture sets- should be fun. (Spencer store) http://www.daz3d.com/spencer
Happy shopping!
Coming up- I just downloaded quite a few characters for Victoria 4. I will be doing those so you can compare them. If you have any you are curious about, let me know (PM me.) That way, I'll know what to showcase for you if I have them.
I haven't spent too much time with V4, so I am curious to see what you can do with her. =-)
I know this is a product that is talked about a lot, but it does deserve another mention. It's
SPEX
http://www.daz3d.com/spex-for-genesis by Slosh
I've had my eye on SPEX for a while, and I was so glad to have the opportunity to pick this neat little accessory up during the pa sale. It has a variety of cool styles and textures, and a number of great tints for the perfect look for your glasses-wearing figure. The set includes premade glass morphs, sliding morphs so you can make your own changes, and lens textures, and frame colors. Basically everything you need to customize your glasses.
Here are two examples of fun things you can do with your SPEX.Lights are from the Jordan Hair set. With an additional pink spot.
Taking a tip from Novica, I used a ground brick decorative step for the background tilted to make a wall with a black backdrop to hide the peek through. You can achieve a nice sci-fi look and feel by customizing your glasses to be as wild as you want to be!
1. Female render
2. Male render
Both sets are lit up using the lights from Jordan Hair with a pink spot added
I like that idea of using black backdrop to blend the peek through- cool! The glasses look really modern and sophisticated, and there are a lot of different styles in the pack. Who is your female based from? Nice eyebrows (among other things.)
Today's PA sale features DimensionTheory- so I can see everyone's wallet taking a bit hit. Fortunately, the only lighting products I didn't have were Skies of Reality Volume Two, and Cloud Nine For DAZ Studio. (One of Jaderail's favorites, if I recall. Jaderail, if I'm right, care to comment?) I also picked up Atmospheric Clouds HDRI Pack One and Pack Two. I'm not sure from reading the description if those are repeats from other sets?
AND THE BIGGEST ITEM IMO- MILLENNIUM SUBDRAGON IS FINALLY ON SALE!!!
http://www.daz3d.com/sales-promotions/millennium-subdragon
This is the one that I used in all my dragon renders- and I can't say enough about it. It poses easily, has SO much character, the skin is glossy and leaps out at you like you can touch it- so detailed!
Remember these renders?
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/19756/P825/#391073
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/19756/P825/#391120 (no bump used. I think I'd up that a tad.)
Check out all the stuff you can get for this dude!!!! First, bookmark this one: http://www.daz3d.com/subdragon-textures as the red is just fantastic! (Haven't used the others yet)
http://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=millennium+subdragon&x=-1109&y=-43
Description:
Over 12 head morphs give you the most expressive, emotive dragon in the world of beasts. Over thirty head and body morphs give you the most expressive, emotive dragon in the world of beasts. A fully posable mouth, eyes, mouth and tongue make creating a wide range of expressions a reality. The dragon's body has many styling morphs built-in, controlling size, spines, and many other body styles - so you can create the dragon of your dreams.
The dragon's body and limbs are also fully posable, with a multi-segmented tail, to wings that can fold up and rest on his back. Owning a dragon and making him do your wishes has never been so easy. Two sets of high-resolution body textures are included, so you can get started with your dragon right away. Five scaling poses let you control the size and shape of your dragon, so you can create baby hatchlings to gigantic mammoth dragons with ease. Twenty-six poses are also included, along with morph INJ and REM poses. Full support for Poser and DAZ Studio is included.
Wow. Cool. I do love those dragons.
I've been spending my free time Messing around with the Yamaki bike. Has anyone got a render to share using the Yamaki? I admit, I just couldn't come up with anything I liked so far. But I always like a challenge, so not giving up just yet!
Also trying to learn a new skill:
Morphing Genesis with DAZ Studio and Hexagon
http://www.daz3d.com/morphing-genesis-with-daz-studio-and-hexagon
This is quite interesting and easy to follow tutorial for such a complicated topic. So far I've made one morph already which looks fairly decent. It is tough to grasp all at once, I've only read about half the manual so I'll keep you updated on what else I learn.
You can see in image 1. That I am attempting to come up with a solution to the tentacle issue mentioned in thread 1. I hope I have the skills to persevere! This tutorial is wonderful, and if there is another sale I recommend picking it up if you want to learn hexagon morphing.
Here are a few renders, that I've been playing with. Poses are not final, just having fun testing lights seeing what I like.
I like to see what different effects can be achieved using different types of lights and I know Novica likes this too, since she did all those great test renders in thread 1.
Because Novica asked, I chose to use Ariadne, who is in the center as the blonde. Daphne is the red head in the front with some increased muscularity. Both ladies have their breasts dialed down. The background is: http://www.daz3d.com/a-deck A-Deck, which so is proving to be a wonderful sci-fi environment
Scene 1
Core Lighting 10. Lights lowered to 100 distance to avoid the ceiling. Nice blue atmospheric look.
Scene 2
Moodlights 13, Lights lowered to 100 distance, and 1 distant light set at pale yellow at 35 strength
Scene 3
Core Lights 8- Lights lowered to 100 distance