Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 4
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Comments
short and simple. I like!
The brick-face looks really good, and the lighting. That Piratess Hair did ketch my eye. Interesting outfit set. I was thinking about Xiao, tho I lack scenes. tough decisions to make now.
well put together Novica.
(edit)
What is the Bump/displacement set to on the cloth of that hair set? That may be part of it. It dose look rather flat for leather and cloth.
I think your render has a beautiful softness to it, Novica. The combination of character and lights work well together.
Agree about Aave Nainen, her outfits are always well worth the price.
It's always the default unless otherwise stated. The purpose of the thread so far as what I do, is "out of the box" so people can see what tweaks they will want to make :) Unless I am doing a complicated scene render, then I wouldn't want to waste hours of render time on something that wouldn't look right.
And here's the overnight render using Hawthorn Hair. (no tweaks.) VERY large, 2000 pixels, click to enlarge.
I would change the glossy on the lips, or try another light. Those are kinda bugging me, for my personal preference.
EDIT: BTW, that wall is from Merlin's Infinite Garden. A lot of nice props in that set.
Well, OKAY...learn something new everyday.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44362/#652041
I'm adding it to the reference section under Morphs, so if you ever forget how to do this, it will be there.
(It tells you how to see what morphs you did to create the character.)
Well, I managed to find something I didn't have in the V4 sale. Shadow Dancer and the expansion were $31.90 and both of them together came to exactly $5.00
I like the belt, and the top looks like it might have different material zones. Top has lowered neckline, but definitely family friendly. Actually, there isn't anything about this outfit I don't like, and I'm not sure how it snuck by for so long. But for $5 for the outfit and expansion, it's MINE.
(And WOOT- you get weapons with it if you want to use them.)
http://www.daz3d.com/pa-v4-and-m4-sale/shadow-dancer-for-v4
http://www.daz3d.com/pa-v4-and-m4-sale/shadow-dancer-expansion
Our good friend and fellow ICG tjohn mentioned on the candle thread for Jaderail that two of his friends had passed away this month- and also his mother. I wanted to mention that here in case you had missed it. Thinking about you tjohn and so sorry this has happened. Hugs from Pensacola.
Edit: you can respond on my thread or on here:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44117/P45/#652132
Reminder from the PC+ thread-
It will be discontinued at 9am the last day of July, NOT midnight of the 1st of August, so if you have not used your two coupons you need to do so by 9am THURSDAY. I'm assuming that's DAZ time. Tip: if you are having a hard time keeping straight what you can use them on, in My Account Platinum Club section, each coupon is on that page and tells you what you can do. You CAN use that original DO one on new DO releases, which is nice. Happy shopping!
(I'm scooping up all the $1.99 new releases this past month immediately on Friday morning before they make any changes to the PClub.
EDIT Changed that to Thursday, which is the 31st.
Thank you,
John
Heh, I've not bought any PC items other than the freebies myself. (shame on us :) ) I suspect we won't be alone. :lol:
I think the Piratess Hair was released during this time, but that was my only purchase. Once they listed all the PAs stores at 30% and didn't do the stacking where it was specifically noted, it became too much of a hassle to try and see what PAs doubled over into what sales. Then the day the V4/M4 sale DID stack and wasn't supposed to, items were .30 to .70 on average so I spent $30 during that and shot my budget. (With the new truck and another car payment now, I'm only buying the new characters where I get great discounts due to owning another character And I still don't own Aiko 6. I got Lee and Xiao, obviously. I hate that spelling, too many vowels and I have to check it every time!)
BTW, with Aave's GirlfriendZ outfit- don't let the pants (leggings) fool you in the viewport. They look like this but that is NOT the pattern. They render solid with a nice subtle texture. I looked at that and went, "Hmmm. Doesn't really go with the tops..." Am rendering a full length one right now, with a different lightset with mine added too.
Funky looking, eh?
BTW, the links for thread 1 are up in the RENDERS only thread 1-4 (here in art studio) if you want to cruise through and go down memory lane. I'll get going on thread 2 sometime this week/weekend. That thread (of render links) will become thread 5 when this one ends in a week or two.
Edit: Added lights that I am testing. I will have to adjust these so the face doesn't have so much color compared to the arms. Not bad for the first test batch though.
Xiao, shee'ou
Agreed, would you like to buy another vowel, lol.
(edit; that's what happens with some translations, no offense intended to any one, it's the English language were laughing at)
So I don't have to feel guilty about seeing all these great sails, and not having the "Play Funds" in the budget to toss around till Friday. Admittedly, there are items in my wish list that were on sail, and now are the full price. It's the new-guy in combo with limited funds that binds me.
Jokingly, if funds were not a factor (nor heard drive space). What would the price tag be if I got EVERYTHING set, light, scene wise that Daz3D sells, Plus Every single G2F and G2M figure outfit and hair that daz sells. Probably more then I get a year before basic bills, lol.
Just because I put something in my wish list dose not imply I'm getting it today, it's just something that I absolutely do want and eventually will get.
No more spending for the both of us, lol.
To answer a PM, lights are from Dark Matter. It was either 05 or 06. Plus a distant from the front at 59% and a light blue, distant from my right and a mauve, also at 59%, and a spotlight almost white from above and MY right, at 31%.
EDIT: Looking at it, it had to be light 06, as I chose the one with the stronger side lighting.
Here's Shadow Dancer, using Mina (V4) and Luna Hair. She is posed with the Haunted Mansion poses. Still using my lights, in addition to the sky box from Road To Hell, also is the set.
I will put all the links in tomorrow, very tired needing some sleep. I turned off the three spikes in the scene (opacity zero) and added some trees, and put the large one in the rocky pavement as it is a fantasy / barren type scene. The skydome has the darkened skies, or the fiery ones. G'nite for now, and enjoy the M4/V4 Predatron sale.
EDIT: The leggings are two pieces, and shoes separate. I left off the belt and gun. This is a great set to kit bash with skimpwear I think- put the pants under it. There are quite a few morphs to adjust the thighs, top, etc.
Okay, NINE HOURS to render. Wanted you to see this gorgeous face closeup, because it was very hard to tell from the promos about the eyebrows. I don't like painted on eyebrows that are wafer thin, and so this character has become one of my favorites. It's Mina, she ROCKS as a V4 material and character. (No adjustments, out of the box.)
Again, if you like this lighting, it's Eruanna plus mine. If you want to try it, I am going to tell you how to get this lighting. If you want more dramatic lighting (aka, from one side) you can tweak from here.
Again, with respect to the vendor, I am only going to tell you from the vendor's set the lights used, and I don't always use their lights as provided. I change the colors, use only some, and put mine in. That's pretty typical, I think of their lights as a starting point, like poses, unless the lights are exactly like I want them. The lights' colors will change depending on your character's skin materials anyway.
For Eruanna, use only spotlights lights 1,4,6,7,8,9,12,13. They are labeled spotlights, but only one of them is actually a spotlight. I also used Light 1, Light 2. If there were any tweaks, it was minimal.
From mine, as mentioned earlier, I have a distant light directly in front of her. Here's the coordinates: (xyz)
Distant Center
-70.51/132.33/376.57 with rotation -7.01/-12.15/0
Color 228 /252 / 255 (a light blue)
Intensity 59.2 Shadow none. *I turned on several shadows in the vendor's lights. I usually go 30%-50%, put bias at 0.25
Shadows None
Distant/ Our Right
264.82 / 83.94 / 275.02 with rotation 0.21 / 43.20 / 0
Color 214 / 204 / 192 (dull mauve)
Intensity 59.2 Shadows Raytraced 51.1 Bias 0.25
Spotlight / Above / Our Right
117.86 / 373.03 / 68.04 with rotation -64.99 / 65.89 / 0
Color white (I often use white on dark hair, from above)
Intensity 30.9 Shadows Raytraced 45.5 Bias 0.25
EDIT: DO click to enlarge, click again. Huge render, 2000 pixels.
I will also give you the coordinates for the figure, as she is may not be world center (0,0,0) That will make a difference with your lights.
Okay, I checked the coordinates for the figure-
x translate is -28.31
y rotation -38.80
Otherwise, the coordinates are 0.
Also, note the background. The hills and the moss from those trees make an AWESOME background, without depth of field! Keep it in mind for portraits. Okay, going back and posting the links/titles for those posts.
Okay, to answer some other questions, the render settings. No, I don't mind giving those. Just don't ask me why I use what I use, it's some of Adam's settings from his render thread but on higher quality than usual, and some things I've picked up from other threads. And because sometimes I use DOF, I use settings that will address that. My shading rate is always .20 to .30. I've learned to use shading rate of 28 so I avoid shadow grunge. Many people use gamma correction of 2 so that's what I use. But one thing that annoys me is when the render settings reset- is there a way to get these suckers permanently fixed so they don't change when you open up the studio and do a new render?
Anyway, for this render of Mina, bucket size is 24, ray trace depth 2, pixel samples 10, shadow samples 28, gain 1, gamma correction 2.07, shading rate .30, pixel filter sinc, pixel filter width 10.67.
What exactly is Pixel filter sinc? Never noticed that before!
Exceptional!!
Thanks :) I think I would increase the spotlight overhead to about 40% since the hair is so dark. But that's why I used white. Would be pretty with a light blue too, for a moon glow effect.
TIP: to get to lights faster, I often save my lights as a scene and do a merge. It's less clicks than going to light presets. For example, I would label this one lightsMeEruannaMina, then when I want to use it, I just File>Merge and voila. Doesn't replace existing lights either. The lights come in exactly as they were.
There is a nifty little render settings script somewhere around the forum, I have yet to play with it, much. I like what I did try.
The different settings can be changed, the script language is almost in plain language, for each setting. Just use notepad to open the script, to edit the values.
It will not keep a Scene save, from changing the render settings to the ones last used for that scene. It will make a few buttons in the Scripts menu, so it will be easy to put things back to a base starting point.
Yes, the other dancing cat (adamr001), or grooving to the toons, lol.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/16085/
Hmm, was reading the thread about geo shells. I haven't done that in a long time, and am very guilty of not tweaking hair very much. So this is what I am reading. Not saying I am going to do it, but I'm like, "Oh YEAH. That." It does explain why I put that render setting for shadows at 28, it helps with trans maps shadows. (Don't ask me, it's in one of the threads.)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/4949/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/17656/#259838
http://www.daz3d.com/uberhair-shader-upgrade-for-ubersurface
Basically, I might test that UberHair/UberSurface on this one, since I like the lighting.
EDIT: Hmm, well hit a snag already. Scott says
7.2 Uberhair and UberSurface settings
Select the hair, go to the Surfaces pane, select all hair surfaces, and change the shader to UberSurface, which you can find in Smart Content under Presets>Shader.
Well, it isn't there. I have the hair selected in Surfaces like he said. So I googled UberSurface and came up with this other thread of Scotts which tells you where it is. Will keep going. Just sharing what I am doing, in case you are trying it, or know more about it. I do have the UberHair product, I'll get to that later. In case someone is following that tutorial, I am going step by step and just showing what you would encounter. So I went to this after the Google search:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/30047/
" Find the icon for !UberSurface Base.duf
- On my computer, I see it in the following locations (your results may differ, depending on your installation):
- Smart Content: Shaders>Other (I DONT HAVE AT ALL)
- Surfaces pane, Presets: Shaders>Other BINGO
- Content Library: DAZ Studio Formats>My (DAZ 3D) Library>Shader Presets>omnifreaker>UberSurface BINGO
EDIT:
NOTE: Where he says change map settings to ignore, that word on the popup is "Images"
I turned off Raytrace and Occlusion, left Accept Shadows On.
Link to UberHair: http://www.omnifreaker.com/index.php?title=UberHair
Next, ReadMe is USELESS.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/10164/start
and the file list from that page goes nowhere. USELESS.
Re: geoshells...I am reading this with interest as I was just reading about them also and wondered how to do them and what they did. Actually I think it was in the info about AoA grass shader and using a shell
Trying to find the Uber hair product and here's some more info
http://www.art-collab.com/DAZ/Ubersurfacepart2.pdf
and skimming this.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/8694/
Okay, so found UberHair in Content Library (Daz Studio Formats>Daz>Shaders>Uber Hair
However, I am not good with hair files/types, I assume this Uber Hair doesn't work on baked on specular (is that the right term?) and how do you tell what the hair is that you're working on? I need a bit of explanation so far as trans maps (transparency maps.) What exactly do those do, particularly for hair? Are they a good or bad thing for Uber Hair, geometry shells? (Which I did a couple a year ago, like I said, I am re-learning. Sigh. Too many things to do. I'll get back to GenX shortly.)
Btw, while we're waiting on that render, Stonemason is culling his store. Check this post. I really like Jungle Ruins, that's the one I did with the Phoenix bird, remember?
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44429/
Here's UberHair shiny. Not sure if I see a difference. Mina still looking pretty. :)
Thanks Tramp :) EDIT: Found this in Scott's thread, "Think of transmapped hair as a series of ribbons attached to a skullcap. The ribbons are textured to look like locks of hair, with transparent stripes and sections for the gaps between hair strands."
Luna hair is a .daz, and the materials are .ds
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/tech_articles/file_extensions/start
explains file extensions.
.daz is daz studio scene, which means nada to me. And .ds is Daz Script 1Ascii. Well, so glad I found THAT out. Deprecated. (Not me, the whatever.)
***************************************
Okay, so from Scott, here's my notes for myself. (think of it as Cliff Notes from Cathie) These are notes from this thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/17656/
.dsf, .duf, and .cr2 are conforming hair The cr2 will be in the Figures folder
.pp2 and .hr2 are hair props.
pp2 is found in the Content Library/Poser Formats/Props
hr2 is in the Content Library / Poser Formats/ Hair
Prop hair for other generations can be used with Genesis. You basically load the hair without having Genesis selected, lower the hair and fit it, then parent it to the HEAD under Scenes.
short hair more likely to be a prop (think: it just plops on head) and PARENTED
long hair probably conforming and FIT TO.
Hair for Genesis (DAZ Studio) .dsf or .duf for DAZ Studio 4.5
Then there's transparency mapped (transmapped) or fibermesh. See first line for transparency mapped. Fibermesh has each strand like real hair but thicker and not as dense. (takes more memory/longer to render.)
(continuing, will add to it as I go.)
Well, it used to be in Presets>Shaders. :-P I think that's not the only thing that's changed...that tutorial is due for an update.
Scott- Yep, it's definitely not there now. But I showed you where it was :)
Can you answer a few questions, was hoping you'd pop in?
1. For the UberHair, can that be used on painted hair? Is there any type hair it can't be used on?
2. How can you tell if the highlights are baked on hair?
3. When people say baked on highlights, is that Specular highlights?
4. Is there a difference in UberSurface/UberHair with transmapped vs fiber mesh hair?
5. I see where you mention with Geometry Shell you do the UberSurface first. Can Uber Hair be used with a Geometry Shelled hair?
1. I don't own UberHair, but it's basically an expansion for UberSurface. So it would have to be applied to a material zone like any shader. Don't think it would work well with painted hair.
2. Best way would be to look at the image maps. If they have shiny sections, those are baked-in highlights.
3. Yes. Or at least that's usually the case, and I would assume that's what the person was talking about.
4. Not sure--more study needed! My expectation is that you could do the same things with
transmappedfibermesh hair, but might not see as much of a jump in render speed. And not sure how much improvement in quality one might see either.5. I think so...but again I don't own UberHair...
Thanks! I might try a different hair (one that has a lot more on the sides) and do a Geometry Shell, then the Uber Hair Shiny and see if I can see a difference. Playtime! If I experiment, I'll let you know so you can continue being the Hair Guru.