Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 13
Novica
Posts: 23,895
The previous threads / views are shown below, let's see how we're doing. (This is a community effort.) When you show others the products, those renders get seen and you help a lot of people. The threads EIGHT YEARS AGO are still being surfed. We consistently get over 42,400 new views a year from 10 of these threads, with only ten. Now that there are 12, it's estimated to be 44,000 easily. Daz screwed it up by discontinuing page views (freezing them) but I have all the statistics from each thread.
Bottom line- when you help showcase products, answer questions, or provide tips- you are helping a lot of people. Thank you!
As of March 25th, 800,800. There were 1,000 or more views during the time the page views were messed up, so I added 1,001 to be on the low side and round it from 799,799. (What a fun number!) Fun fact- you have to go back SEVENTY FIVE PAGES to get back to Thread One!
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3
Thread 4
Thread 5
Thread 6
Thread 7
Thread 8
Thread 9
Thread 10
Thread 11
Thread 12
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"I don't have to outrun him. I only have to outrun YOU!"
My "Because I Said So!" Contests / Other Contests
October Discussion Thread (2015)
October Entry Thread
October Winners
November Discussion Thread
November Entry Thread
November Winners
December 2015 Discussion Thread
December / Jan Entry Thread
December/Jan Winners (2015/2016)
Jan / Feb 2016 Discussion Thread
Jan / Feb 2016 Entry Thread
Jan / Feb Winners (2016)
The interactive "Not So Fast" gameplay where forum members stole products, switched products, and decided what the other players would render!
Half A Million Views Celebration Contest
Dec 2019 / Jan 2020 OOPS! Because I Said So Entries (Links to discussion thread and winners)
A few good links from previous threads:
*Boss Lights- I show you settings and how to get some nice portrait lights New Link
*XYZ Dome Orientation Lighting I showed the lighting when I tweaked the dome New Link
*Boo Presets for Ghost Light I did some light setups for Kindred Arts Ghost Lights
*If you want to back up your content, SereneNight gives you a step by step. It's in the second half of the post.
*RGcincy is the creator of Shape Magic, a very neat program and if you want to try modeling, take a look!
*To post your images in a thread and avoid attaching them below your post, here's where you can post them!
*Some threads I started which will help you:
ZBrush Silo Modeling Infinito How To Use GenX2 Applying Material Presets (Skin) for GenX2 Material Zones ~ Geometry Tool Tutorial
Free Portrait Backgrounds
Wanna Render? Iray Tutorial (one of my favorites, very detailed and goes step by step on setting up an Iray rendered scene.)
Some fun and useful threads:
Photoshop Playtime! Where we showed you some really neat plug-ins to get cartoon, oil, watercolor effects.
Scripts: A one click solution to put things on your ground plane, under things, etc
The References links have to be expanded to several pages, believe it or not there is a limit to a post size, and we passed it. I had to trim down descriptions of existing links to add new ones, so I am scattering the References to several pages because they are alphabetical and I can't just stick new ones at the end. Whenever I add a new Reference, I always mention it in the thread.
REFERENCES
**********References / Of Interest**********
Books, Digital: RScotJohns (Author) helped us with ebook (did a chat one evening)
Characters: I showcased Odelle, an older character from Rendo (that Daz rejected!):
Computer Research: What all those specifications mean, and what to look for in a computer
Expressions: Here's some with sliders that are really fluid and usable. And Poses (scroll for both of these, numerous posts)
Hair: One of the funniest things showcased- vendor's names in hair!
HDRIs: Fishtales showing you some HRDI's
Free Infinity Cove 3 sets
Mountain Valley: Take a tour of this product as we drive around town!
See Nath's Elegant Swan- the ACTUAL PHOTOS from the museum, and the render. This car spewed steam and pooped yogurt, and was banned from the streets due to being a nuisance. (Ya think?) Now at HiveWire.
Special Honor: Rabbicus fun with RGcincy. It all started with a cactus on a shelf and I said it looked like a rabbit.
********** Programs **********
Camtasia tip
dForce Start Here Thread
Special note: Script: David GB's G3 To G8 Pose Fixer To correct G3 Poses and get them to work with G8
Infinito: Infinito Experiments: If you have questions about Infinito, ask them here
iClone: iClone6 (I'll have to get back to it) Here's a nice video by Bigh and Bigh's thread on Iclone and Reallusions Thread The Path To iClone
Livebrush Pro (FREE) Livebrush Pro- link, it's now free
Mixamo How To Use (by Firewarden)
Motion Capture in general: Motion Capture products/ discussion linked from the Octane FaceShift question
Pattern Cooler (.com) for free seamless tiles
Senosoft: Convert .rsr file types to pngs (P3DO Explorer)
ShapeMagic 2 ShapeMagic 2 By our very own RGcincy
Silo: Silo Modeling
Zbrush For Beginners: Zbrush for Beginners
********** TIPS A-H **********
TIP: 360 degree Renders (RGcincy)
TIP: Adria How to do makeup, and see "Ears" for how to get rid of the fantasy ears. (Barbult)
TIP: Alexei Mouth Material fix (VWrangler)
Tip: Bloom Filter- Settings
Tip: Camera Lens How To Distort (Fishtales)
Tip: Categories / Products Options Missing From Content Library If you don't have these showing up at all, here's how to fix it.
Tip: Characters- Where To Load From Loading Characters- does it matter if you load it from icons, the Genesis figure + Character List, or the Figure (Aiko 7, Girl 7, etc) + the Character List? YES IT DOES.
Tip: Charlotte Hair Tweaks- Turn fluffy into sleek and modern!
Tip: Crashing / Clear Cache (Note: It will also show you where your temporary files are, slightly above that. Go to that folder and remove those also.)
Tip: Cursor- Turn Off Yellow Highlighting Default has it on, here's how to turn it off! EDIT: Here's how, it isn't explained in great detail in that post. Go up to top left in studio to Window>Panes>Draw Settings>Editor Tab>All>then Highlight Style will show up and you select Bounding Box Only.
Tip: Custom Categories for Sets Here's some suggestions and additions
Tip: DA Big Ocean How To Use
Tip: Delete Items in Scene: Grouped items giving you fits? How to delete those polygons!
Tip: Depth Canvas Adding Atmosphere (Such as a smoky room) (Tutorial by Chris-2599934)
Tip: dForce settings guide
Tip: DIM download problems? Try this. This works too. (when products will NOT install and stay in the "to be installed")
Tip: DIM downloading product to use with products from other sites
Tip: DIM Ready To Download nothing there- If you've checked and all paths are correct, it could be Google Chrome corruption or Chrome updates! Reinstall Chrome / updates and see if it shows up.
Tip: Dreamland Models in DS Learn how to work with Dreamland Models (Poser) in DS
Tip: Doors and windows that open, flat roof to add, pane of glass, good kit bashing items
Tip: Dome Orientation Results My experiments/settings for rotating the dome by changing the XYZ Dome Orientation. All settings given/ shown.
Tip: Downloading/Organizing Products With 23,000 products, here's how I downloaded and organized my products when I lost all my files. Yep ,starting all over again (and enjoying it!) It is easy and organized and you'll never have to sort through your content again because you'll categorize it IN YOUR FILE SYSTEM.
Tip: Ears: How To Remove Fantasy Ears Characters with fantasy ears may have them "built in." Here's how to dial them out. (Barbult)
Tip: FaceGen Tweaks
Tip: Fern Lake Instances and Water Instances in Fern Lake and Through The Woods And clearer water tip for it. My example.
Tip: Finding products in these threads, using Google
Tip: Finding Morphs/Products in a Scene Script
Tip: Focal Length
Tip: Free Fonts- Showing you those from Font Squirrel
Tip: Furries: How To Find Files and Pose (Llynara) And Capsces posted this for a few tips.
Tip: Gemology Shaders for Iray: Settings for best results, by vendor
Tip: Generation Tools: List of products which help you cross generations
Tip: GenX2 My tutorial (and the post after that tells you how to do the materials)
Tip: Greek Houses: Fixing the water, landscape, and stone edge materials. All settings provided!
Tip: Ground: How to soften / blend where feet interact with the HDRI background
Tip: Growing Up: Making Chest look good
Tip: Grungy Threads How To Make Neat Tears (Hylas)
Tip: Hair: Different Settings To Increase Shine Also here
Tip: Hair Transparency: How to thicken hair when it's too transparent: Go to number 2
Tip: Hair: Using Genesis 3 Hair On Genesis 8 Easy! (By L'Adair)
Tip: Harpsburg Night Lights Best way to apply them
Tip: Hiding Forums Don't worry, I tell you how to get them back! Read that post, and the one following it in the thread. :)
Tip: Hierarchial Poses L'Adair tests what hiding things in Scene Tab does and other options. Click here.
Tip: Hierarchial Presets for Materials- Applying Materials Only To One Item (By Aave Nainen)
*******TIPS I-W *********
Tip: Images, Gallery How to hide them to use in threads
Tip: Iray Organized References This thread links to the threads, but also categorized some of the topics within the thread so you can look things up quicker.
Tip: Iray Section Plane TabascoJack shows you how to use the Iray Section Plane
Tip: Lighting: When you have the end of the room open, and stuck with three walls, how to get even lighting with HDRI and avoid that obvious light pouring in from one end of the room.
Tip: Lighting: Lampshades TobascoJack shows you how to prevent losing detail when lighting lampshades
Tip: Madelyn Ears- How to remove those elf ears.
Tip: Manual Downloads in Product Library How to find them ultra-quick
Tip:/Info: Materials and Shaders: Difference in Materials and Shaders (from Commons)
Tip: Mermaid Top Family friendly suggestion.
Tip: Metallicity and Metallic Flakes Add More Sheen to your characters
Tip: Millenium Cat- Free Persian Head
Tip: Mocap Animations FREE Here (Mixamo)
Tip: MT5 to PZ2 Converter Script
Tip: Multiplane Cyclorama Use Modern Museum Lighting for realistic results!
Tip: Nobiax Free Iray Daz Textures
Tip: OOT Hair Steps
Tip: PBR Shader thread in Commons
Tip: Photoshop Postwork Postwork Photoshop Tips (Laticis) and my example
Tip: Photoshop Plugins From Thread 6: Examples
Tip: Photoshop Quick Fill Ins (Good for Plug Ins)
Tip: Portrait Lighting Novica's XYZ Dome Orientation Quick Guide (Portrait Tweaks)
Tip: Pose Converter (Genesis 2 to Genesis 3) Where to find files (Scroll for discussion)
Tip: Combining Poses by locking body parts
TIP: Poser CF and Studio CF Explained (Richard Haseltine)
Tip: Postwork The Postwork thread has a lot of good information!
Tip: Putting Prop On Top Of Prop (Align Pane)
Tip: Checking your available RAM
Tip: RDNA How to find your purchases
Tip: Render Settings In Script Menu at top of Studio (L'Adair)
Tip: Rigging How to import OBJ and rig in Daz Studio
Tip: Rigging Basic Rigging Preparation then Adding Bones for Rigging
Tip: Section Planes How To Use (by TabascoJack)
Tip: Signatures- how to put a banner and do a clickable link
Tip: Skies of iRadiance Which are for high / low altitudes? Answer
Tip: So Wet Bundle Examples
Tip: Spectural Rendering tests for the studio
Tip: Spotlights: (Iray) How to Hide Them and Still Emit Light
Tip: Studio Crashing: Script by Taoz to save last render
Tip: SubD: How To Add It (Darwins Mishap)
Tip: Texturing With DestinysGarden (DestinysGarden)
Tip: The Briefing Room Lighting with Iray (V3Digitimes)
Tip: Ultragenesis: Faces of G has a variety of older faces.
Tip: Weight Maps: How To Remove or Change (Thomas Windar)
Tip: White Point Changing it- Examples
Tip: Walls- Sets Which Are Easier To Use- or Not. Sets that don't have separate walls and handy notes on a few sets
********** TUTORIALS**********
Tutorial: Bus, Noggins- Converting from Bryce to Daz Studio (RGcincy) Here
Tutorial: Breast Gone- In Hexagon (Smoothing Zev0s Grow Up product even more)
Tutorial: Clothing, Making in Blender SickleYield's tutorial on Deviant Art.
Tutorial: Content Package Assist
Tutorial: Converting G3 and G8 Clothing by SickleYield on Deviant Art
Tutorial: Create Categories Using Gen2F, I showed how to Create Categories and Export to save your custom categories. (Here's WHY you may want to do that with your characters.)
Tutorial: Custom Actions In Toolbar How to Create Custom Actions In Toolbar
Tutorial: Customizing Morphs Using Morph Loader Pro
Tutorial: D Former D Former Tutorial D Former tutorial and links
Tutorial: Depth of Field Flipmode provides a good depth of field tutorial for you.
Tutorial: Expressions: How To Make Them As A Dial
Tutorial: Face Control (Knittingmommy) Use on cartoon characters
Tutorial: Fisty's Shaders & Getting Rid of Gooey Lips This one shows you Fisty's shaders. Get rid of the overly gooey lips.
Tutorial: Fur Brushes Download and Video (Kathryn Loch)
Tutorial: Garibaldi Hair Doing a cat with Garibaldi Hair- Tutorial
Tutorial: GenX links on "how to use."
Tutorial: Generation 4 Materials on Genesis 2 This one put Generation 4 materials on Genesis 2 using Victoria 4 for Genesis 2 Female.
Tutorial: Geometry Shells How to do Geometry Shells (video tutorial the3dwizard) and doing makeup for different characters
Tutorial: Hair Shaders (Slosh, his product) explaining how to use them.
Tutorial: Hay Bales Take a freebie and make the hay straws thicker. Here's what you get.
Tutorial: Iclone Iclone videos
Tutorial: Images- How To Put Them In Forum Posts Here's Putting Images in Posts
Tutorial: Instances: Using Ultrascatter
***** Tutorials Iray- S *******
Iray Canvases- How To Do Lighting
Iray Ghost Lights 2: Portrait Setup in 13 Steps, All Settings Given
Tutorial: Iray Light Manager Pro Step by step screenshots
Tutorial: Iray For Beginners- Do A Scene Step By Step The Wanna Render? Iray tutorial walks you through Iray lighting for total newbies- including Crush Blacks, Burn Highlights, how the sliders work together and why in Tone Mapping, and Environment Intensity.
Tutorial: Iray Lighting- A Night Lantern Doing a night time lantern with Emissive Lighting.
Tutorial: Iray- Portrait Light Setup With Point Lights Portrait Lights: 3 Point Lights and a Spotlight- Settings Provided
Tutorial: Iray Skydome Super Pak The Explanation to use (magix101)
Tutorial: Iray Worlds Skydome Explanation on using it (rgcincy)
Tutorial: Maps for Iray and 3DL / Albedo Explanation Texture Maps: (Saba Taru) ALBEDO explanation, and where to put the maps for Iray and 3DL
Tutorial: Material Zones
Tutorial: Metadata- How To Make It Video Here (Slosh) and Here (3D Almanc)
Tutorial: Rigging and Weight Mapping- Beginners Through Advanced
Tutorial: Rigging Static Doors So They Open (RGcincy) How To Rig A Prop
Tutorial: Shaders- Mec4D's PBR Shaders Mec4D's PBR shaders: How to use
***** Tutorials T through W ******
Tutorial: Tears by SereneNight
Tutorial: Teeth, Getting Realistic Shapes Getting realistic teeth shapes was here and slight tweaks here.
Tutorial: Texturing Texturing With DestinysGarden is a good thread- let a pro show you how!
Tutorial: UltraScatter Advanced Instancing UltraScatter Advanced Instancing: RGcincy's handy notes, how-to.
Tutorial: UltraScenery Experiments (barbult)
Victoria 4 for Genesis 2 Female: How to use the product.
Tutorial: Weight Mapping: How To Smooth All Face Groups At Once (By SickleYield)
Tutorial: Weight Mapping: Creating One by Chris-2599934
Tutorial: Windows, Making Them From Planes And Cubes Realistically Making Windows using planes and cubes, with glass panes and images!
Thread is now open. :)
I'd like to start this new thread with the challenge of asking you to render a character you haven't ever done. Let's see who we can showcase. And welcome to the thread!
Very interesting morphs. I didn't buy Latonya yet but Khepri looks nice and it combines very interesting with a lot of characters.
About the shapes and textures, I would say that no character morph by itself is worth buying alone. Especially when there are so many wonderful face morphs packaged together (like those 5 face morphs from P3D packs and others) at the same price.
I have to admit I sometimes forget that and do buy character only for their shape but that is only if they are around 80% discounted and than it kind of seems ok to me.
I had some renders to do for my project these last couple of days and couldn't start the mixing process but it looks so fun that I think I will make some time for it tomorrow.
I already have some nice base characters I want to give a try.
Do you mean a character that we've not posted? I do a lot of renders for practice and never post anywhere.
FWSA Khepri for Latonya 8 Vicky Hair (G8F) Asteris Outfit (G8F)
This post from the old thread shows those combinations. I want to show Khepri full body, and the outfit.
Yep, you can do that too :)
@Novica, I held back on the end of the last thread, but I wanted to say how much I enjoyed Khepri. She is very interesting and the mixes were fascinating.
On the one PA, maybe those were the older characters that were brought over from the other store, with added Genesis 8 versions? I have noticed the recent characters from them are more distinct. But I had backed off on some purchases due to the sameness, like some other PAs that have been at Daz.
That is a nice outfit, is it from Rendo?
Mary
LOL just answered that with a render. :)
I am so brain dead with this headache! Link right there. Wishlisted.
Thanks.
HP Kinsley (G8F) Cute Bob Hair (G3F / G8F) Body Pop Outfit (G8F) Shown without hat
Here's the composite, then each individual component. Kinsley's mouth was easy to pose, I used the Paramenters posing and under Expressions the BJ Amira 50%, Inaru 23%
The Body Pop Outfit has a lot of fun materials.
I decided to try different shapes for Aurore from Kayleyss. She is a very attractive newly bought character and I thought I'll see how she looks mixed with different other characters.
I used the new Lynna hair on her as I didn't get a chance to give it a try yet and as an outfit Wet and Dry Classic Dress. I wanted to try her wet at first but I couldn't give a nice wet look on the skin as well (the dress looks great with the wet preset applied) and I dind't want to consume more time for that as combining characters will be my focus.
I will be posting the combinations soon, I just want to ask you guys and gals if I should focus on the face more or increase the resolution so the face is clearer or is this ok.
Need bust shots. The face is the focus :)
Here is an image I was rendering last night when you posted the new thread information. It still could use some work or a little bit longer render.
This is actually the G2 character Bijou https://www.daz3d.com/bijou-for-genesis-2-female-s converted using
Https://www.daz3d.com/legacy-uvs-for-genesis-8-genesis-2-female
https://www.daz3d.com/neko-hair-for-genesis-3-and-8-females
And a couple of other items. I had created a black highres.jpg image for my dome that I use often for various renders.
The conversion tool doesn't seem to work with all G2's. There were a lot of free bundles with g2 character's the past year, that I had taken advantage of.
All, in all I think the conversion does a good job of pulling in the shape and skin materials from the G2's.
Interesting. I have that converter but haven't done it yet. I really like the eyebrows from early Gen8, Gen3, and even Gen2 more than the lawn mowered, stiff, most hairs the same length that we have been getting the past year. Wish there were more brow products, we need more of a variety than what's offered. (even at Rendo.)
Ok, so here is my first try at this.
The before mentioned Aurore combined with some of my less used and less known morphs.
I tried first all the morph packs and special morphs and afterwards stopped after the A letter as I had already seen so many faces that I couldn't decide which would be interesting and which could not anymore.
I chose mostly faces that I thought looked really good or were really different from the rest.
If you want to see more combos of Aurore, I will continue the series after I cleanse my eyes of seeing her face so I can start fresh.
So here it goes:
Aurore 100%:
Aurore 75%:
Aurore 50% HFS Shapes Elf 50%. I thought I'll give a try with some fantasy shapes as well. The elf combo ended looking really good in my mind so I thought I'll share it here.
Aurore 50% Yuka 50%:
Aurore 50% Kensington 50%:
Aurore 50% Sybill 50%:
Aurore 50% Face no4 from MCH:
Aurore 50% Face no2 from Variety Character Morphs:
Aurore 50% Noomi Rapace 50%. This is a free face morph from Tritium. He does very good celebrity face morphs. I have them all downloaded but only had 2 of them installed and this one looked good for me. I encourage you to take a look at what he does. Especially since they are free.
Now comes a series from https://www.daz3d.com/sy-beautiful-faces-genesis-8-female:
Aurore 50% Tegan 50%:
Aurore 50% Madeline 50%:
Aurore 50% Laura 75%:
Aurore 50% Jaclyn 50%:
Now the A morphs start:
Aurore 50% Akira 50%:
Aurore 50% Anissa 50%:
Aurore 50% Audrey 50%:
@alex86fire and others-
FYI, To get these to open in new windows, once you open the image tab, you'll see a LINK tab. Fill in the URL again. Click on Target and select New Window (_Blank)
That way, folks can click on your images in the post and a separate window will open up. Then they can click back and forth easily to compare the images. (Of course, they can always right click too. This just ensures it's a 100% separate window option.)
Otherwise, people out of habit may just X out and leave your post / this thread completely :) Since most of us do the separate window, it's just a habit to X out of an image for many of us.
I like Kensington with the plumper nose, and the ones with the pronounced septum/philtrum. They're good but not too chiseled. Thanks for showing all these, it was interesting seeing the noses (which is what I think changed the most on a lot of them.)
I initially read that as "plumber nose", and wondered what that might mean.
Hmm...
Good to know :), I enhanced the links to open in new windows. I always middle mouse click the images to open in new window automatically so I didn't even question what left click does :).
I think some faces changed the shape as well but I didn't choose the best hair for this because it kind of hides the sides of the face. I will choose a more revealing hair next time.
For me, the Noomi one is the most attractive. Akira is close second and a very interesting asian feel to her, needing a different skin texture as well. Annissa I really like for the Native American vibe.
There were some shapes that I think accentuated what is already there for Aurore and looked oddly dissproportionate.
LOL @Gordig so did I! Glad I wasn't the only one!!
Very nice @alex86fire I agree with the face shapes it was hard to tell but some did give her more of a heart shape, I really liked the all but Anissa combo caught my eye, giving her a more sultry look to me. No to go check some of these girls out cause I haven't seen them before.
@Novica, the conversion process, I am not sure, but when I did a character based on a core character, I did the core character first, then the desired character (Destiny for Olympia 6). It may not be required, but it seemed reasonable since some of her morphs were based on Olympia 6.
@cismic. Thank you for posting Bijou. She is lovely. I had always wondered what the deal was about her and after her price was brought down, I didn't buy her, the promos didn't do her justice. Your render really shows her to advantage.
@alex86fire. I don't have Aurore but your various versions of her mixes are making me rethink. I think the PA will get a sale fairly soon. You did some interesting work.
Mary
I think I got carried away! Character I have never done
Alondra for Monique 8 dForce DeNile for Genesis 8 Female African Headwear for Genesis 3 Female Scintillant Portrait Lights for Iray
I haven't rendered any of these before, so thought now is as good a time as any. Congratulations on thread number 13 Novica!
Here is another conversion character. using the tool Https://www.daz3d.com/legacy-uvs-for-genesis-8-genesis-2-female
https://www.daz3d.com/cassia-for-olympia
https://www.daz3d.com/classic-long-curly-hair-with-dforce-for-genesis-8-females
I've started rendering cassia images with percentages of a few other characters. At a smaller size then this image to save rendering time.