Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 13

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Comments

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,131
    Novica said:

    Sandy that is so neat! I love the changing perspective, going through the actual blades of grass. Kudos! 

    Thank you. A fair bit of that was the 'Bob Ross' method as I keep forgetting if you move the camera it translates to the animation which means I sometimes have to restart from the beginning or, if it works, leave it smiley

  • DaventakiDaventaki Posts: 1,624

    Love it Sandy!

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,131
    Daventaki said:

    Love it Sandy!

    Thank you.

  • memcneil70memcneil70 Posts: 4,196
    edited May 2020

    @Fishtales, loved 'Warg'!

    I am headed to Target in about an hour to do my shopping. Some minor stuff we have ran out of, or will at the rate I am using (Kleenix for my hayfever). 

    When I was making my mask, I got the urge to make a quilt again. So have been off the computer a bit.

    I did one render of Monet for Aubrey 8, and I found she has a skin option with scales. It was listed on the promo page, but I had totally ignored it. When the render was past 97% converged, my computerd crashed. But for the first time, I was able to find the render in the C:... files. Someone suggested using 'Memory' on render optimization, so I wonder if that is what saved it? (I was kicking myself for not saving the scene before the render.) I believe I used: 1st Bastion's Rock Crevice Shore, which I picked so she could sit on the rocks, but I kept getting her under the water level, but I decided to go with it; her swimsuit was picked to show off the scales, yet keep her modest (I liked this one because there were adjustment morphs for the bust area); OOT's Caprice Hair with a texture from the add-on; and I couldn't resist adding a fish from Ocean Wonders (no clue if correct but I love the guy.) And the pose is from my favorite sitting pose set.

    Mary

    Monet with Scale Skin.png
    1600 x 1600 - 5M
    Post edited by memcneil70 on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895

     

    Mary

    What a neat perspective!  Oh, and you're not the only one who forgets to save a scene and then have it crash- or if you do what I do, move on to another thing and then you look up and see you never named the last one you did, it's the name from two or three renders ago. ARRRRGH. 

    Which brings me to the question- isn't it a 35 undo limit? I think I remember that somewhere. Can that be set somewhere?

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,835

    Great animation fishtales! I too like the ground level view. How long did the rendering take?

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,131
    RGcincy said:

    Great animation fishtales! I too like the ground level view. How long did the rendering take?

    Thank you.

    Hard to say as I did it in sequences. Head on at normal speed which took two days I think, Head on in slow motion which took about thirteen hours as I started it from approx. the frame I wanted to insert it and then the rear view set which took twenty hours. These aren't accurate times as they are mostly done overnight or I am off doing something else and don't notice the times. I may be able to go back through the log and find the actual times at some point, I usually do that at the end of sequences but omitted to do it this time frown

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895

    Well, the GFS and European are both hinting at a Gulf of Mexico development for the West Gulf Coast states but it's of course varying by runs. This would be for this next week or the following week. That gyre is similar to the one which spun Category 5 Michael, simply meaning storms break off from the gyre. (Not that the one possibly breaking off will be a Cat 5.) Half the other models agree and have the tropical system varying landfall along the Gulf Coast. So folks in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida will possibly see a storm/hurricane within the next two weeks.  I always check wunderground's Cat6 blog, it's Jeff Masters. Levi does tropical tidbits (.com) but only posts when there's an active storm. He is the BEST in depth coverage once that happens IMO. That link is to the article.

     

  • cismiccismic Posts: 629

    @novica & @daventaki, Thank you.  Both char's are fun to render.

    @fishtales. Nice animation !

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895
    edited May 2020

    Speaking of characters, @nonesuch00 did a remarkable job of a self portrait over in that thread. Kudos Andy!

    BTW, what beach and water is that? Love it. Nice foam and clear water.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,131
    cismic said:

     

    @fishtales. Nice animation !

    Thank you.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited May 2020

    I remember when Predatron released first the Hog and Barrel Pub Exterior and then the next day, the Hog and Barrel Pub Interior sets. I loved them at first site, but couldn't justify the cost. Fast forward less than a month later, and both products were featured as PC+ for a Day in the PC Anniversary sale. I couldn't resist, even though I had no idea if I'd ever use either one.

    Well, I used the interior set for my last render, and I was blown away with the attention to detail and just what a beautiful set it is. Predatron combined props and instances in an intelligent way that made it easy to remove what wasn't in my scene and not have to fuss too much to keep what I needed. And it renders beautifully.

    (For my HW3D entry, I replaced the fish plaque aboved the fireplace with a shield prop I'd created textures for. The shield is from Magnus Manor, a set no longer available here at Daz.)

    The Inn of the Prancing Unicorn

    The Inn Of The Prancing Unicorn, by L'Adair

     

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,163
    Novica said:

    @cismic  Nicely done, and yep, your teeth look normal so guess it's a hit and miss type thing.  Thanks for sharing. Love the funky backgroun on the second one!

    BTW, off topic and a few observations/comments. I decided to go to Walmart today, and do it early. Here was my reasoning:

    1. Hurricane season starts June 1st, and for some reason, many people are oblivious that is approaching  until the word "June" appears. May 31st is SO different than June 1st. (Sarcasm) So come Monday, if you thought things weren't on the shelves now, just wait until June.

    2.  It's the end of the month so many people are broke. 

    3. I'm not going on Walmart's designated senior day. I went one morning and the line was down the sidewalk and down to the Garden Center.

    4. Going early, as close to opening as possible, as less crowded.

    5. June 1st starts tax free hurricane season buying, and that brings crowds. So no way was I going on Monday or later. People getting paychecks PLUS tax free? No way.

    How did it go?  JACKPOT. No more than two people at a time on any aisle, if there were three, one of us was at the end leaving the aisle.
    Talked to the cashier, and she passed this along- "Come before 10am. It starts getting busier around 9am, and it varies, but by 10am we're always busy. And avoid Senior Hours. It's like a herd of cattle stampeding through, and they never social distance."

    And I had to laugh, being a senior, because the only clueless people ignoring the ONE WAY signs were seniors, just going wherever they wanted, whenever.  The way it was marked, it was really unlikely they didn't see it. 

    But anyway, early morning and about two days before the middle of the month and end of month paychecks are going to be my only shopping days. I had my hand sanitizer and also my wipes, to wipe down my key fob and my door handle, before I ever got in the truck. Let everything sit until that evening (cardboard is estimated at three hours IIRC for the virus to live) and scrubbed my hands afterward when I unloaded everything. 

    What items are you folks finding hard to get? For me, it's the No Yolk egg noodles, of any type. I like the broad. It used to be chicken broth, but now that's back. No problem at all with toilet paper or paper towels, and of course no Lysol or Clorox wipes. But we now have the Lysol sprays off and on.  I'm anticipating bread and water going fast starting mid-June if hurricanes start forming. And batteries. I already ordered (Walmart delivery) AA batteries for the troops for the neck fans I'm sending them. It's already 114 degrees in Afghanistan.  So what are you finding hit and miss in the stores, and is it Walmart or where do you shop?  FYI I haven't been in Walmart since FEBRUARY. I just use the pickup and they bring it to the car, or the delivery- love that! Never any errors, everything is always there, and it arrives usually within 2-3 days. Some things have taken a week if it's a specialty item, like a card game.

     

    Actually, I'm not a senior and I walked right past those signs that said "Use Other Entrance" and "Use Other Exit" at the very large doors designed just for those purpose and only lately closed for some covid-19 reason. It's quite easy to ignore new signs when you've long since learned that the signs that are changed most frequently are advertising, most of which we know implies qualities about the product that it can't supply and so are reasonable to ignore. I find it very easy to look straight past a sign in a non-critical situation and ignore it, it's quite nice and peaceful to do quite often. I also walk past newspaper racks, magazine stands (that gossip is frightfully mean), and TV without even reading a word, seeing a picture, or hearing a word. One Word: Defense! laugh 

    And this medical / social isolation of seniors amongst only other seniors is a good way to spread contagion in crowds of the most susceptable people as has been proven in nursing homes all over the country. Whoever has been designing medical advice at such high levels obviously hasn't earned accolades for the disasters they've inflicted on nursing homes and now shopping seniors at Walmart and other stores during 'seniors only hours'. 

    My and a cousin were talking the other day aftyer that Detriot Nursing  Home fiasco and I feel every nursing home should have for every patient beside there bedside a motorized cart to travel out of their rooms and anywhere that is not a private room on the property, inside or outside, that they should be allowed to have a personal cell phone always by their side, request and receive 24/7/365 video surveillence of their rooms and all the commons by police stations and consenting next of kin, have many types of hobby and craft rooms inside, have outdoor gardening areas, motor scooter accessible, including multiple green houses all over the property. Many things to keep a person busy and happy that aren't on offer to those people confined to those nursing homes.

  • sueyasueya Posts: 832
    edited May 2020

    Queenie and Alice

    I find I get a lot of use out of  Legacy uvs for genesis 8 - genesis 2 female and Legacy uvs for Genesis 8 - V4 female. Both of the Genesis 8 females have Modern Muses textures which have been converted using these tools. The one on the left is Zoe which seems to be no longer available and the other is Yzande. I think that it's great that I can still use these textures with the newer figures.  

    Post edited by sueya on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895
    L'Adair said:

    .

    (For my HW3D entry, I replaced the fish plaque aboved the fireplace with a shield prop I'd created textures for. The shield is from Magnus Manor, a set no longer available here at Daz.)

    The Inn of the Prancing Unicorn

    I think that shield really adds to it. Love the lighting, I'm a sucker for fireplaces.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895
    sueya said:

    Queenie and Alice

    I've got that product but of course, haven't used it yet. SIGH.  But I think I like a LOT of the Genesis 2 and 3 eyebrows better than these sticky fibermesh eyebrows. Some come way too far down the nose bridge, others like I've said are lawnmowered and chopped straight across. Maybe I'll revisit Genesis 2.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895
    edited June 2020

    Byni for Eva 8            Jessie Hair (G3F / G8F)           dForce Sporty Baby Outfit (G8F)          Channen Hair (G3F) (G8F) 

    I know I bought that outfit to kitbash, because to me, having a long sleeve outfit with a bare midriff is just plain stupid. The Jessie Hair I'm so-so about, I did a lot of postwork on the ends as they didn't lay well (hard to get the curve right, the entire strand was moving on a lot of the morphs. One thing I would like to see from vendors is more emphasis on the ends of the hair, and not having only long sections affected. This hair does have some nice morphs though.  The product page only says 60 morphs, no details, but you do get various front and backs, the neck, the split of the hair, etc. 

    One thing I found about the hair morphs though, I often had to click the cog and undo the parameters. For example, there was no bun lower. I had to click the bun higher and go negative. 

    QUALITY CONTROL FAIL-  CHEEK IS NOT SPELLED CHECK. This is a glaring error. How do we get in touch wtih the quality control people directly and point this out to a supervisor? There's NO WAY they reviewed this product. Check , check, check, check...@dazsteve do something about these issues!  Enough is enough. Your quality control people haven't been doing their job and it's gotten horrible this past year. 

    Note she doesn't come default with a line between her brows, this is part of the asymmetrical expression I put on her. 

    For hair color, if you want to match her brows- For Jessie Hair (which took an HOUR to render compared to 26 minutes for the Channen Hair btw) use the blonde and then change it in Surface pane to 252 / 222 / 210   

    For Channen Hair, 10M Blonde and use 222 / 194 / 183.  This one would be very helpful for your ash blonde looks with just a slight hue of red mixed in. Took me awhile to get it really close to the brow color so thought I'd share.

    Click to enlarge, 1300px

    Bynie Composite2.png
    1233 x 1233 - 2M
    Byni SportyBabe Channen Hair.png
    800 x 1200 - 1M
    Post edited by Novica on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Novica said:
    L'Adair said:

    .

    (For my HW3D entry, I replaced the fish plaque aboved the fireplace with a shield prop I'd created textures for. The shield is from Magnus Manor, a set no longer available here at Daz.)

    The Inn of the Prancing Unicorn

    I think that shield really adds to it. Love the lighting, I'm a sucker for fireplaces.

    Thank you, Novica.
    smiley

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,163
    Novica said:

    Speaking of characters, @nonesuch00 did a remarkable job of a self portrait over in that thread. Kudos Andy!

    BTW, what beach and water is that? Love it. Nice foam and clear water.

    Thanks!

    While I was rendering that scene I really liked the look of that sand, rocks, and water too and also thought it looked like a beach, not the Rhein River.

    I've always dreamed of going to a California Beach and playing near (but not dangerously so) sea lions on a clear rocky sandy California Beach so of what that render looks like. The nearest I've gotten to seals was exploring northern Iceland and the nearest I've been to a rocky beach was Marineland, Florida's beaches. I actually haven't been to Marineland Beach since 1977 I think but back then the part of the beach we visited was filled with very long stretches of brown eroded bedrock; something that was unique in contrast to all other Florida beaches I've been too which if they have any rocks at all they are usually imported giant boulders of granite piled up to be storm retaining walls for the beaches they dump them on. 

    So the render it's actually not a beach but the Rhein River flowing through Trun, Switzerland. So we were actually searching for Rheingold in the Rhein River! We didn't find any but I did actually find a thumb sized berg crystal (a crystal clear hexgon quartz crystal in the Vorderrhein River which is a seasonal river nearby Trun going through Sur Selva. So we were like Charlie Brown, no gold (candy) for Halloween just rocks! laugh

    Ugh! I just realized you were talking about what DAZ Assets did I use for the water & the riverbed and not where the actually where the picture was taken.

    Ready? Here I go:

    a) River Water: https://www.daz3d.com/hidden-waterfall-pool (I hid everthing but the 2 water foam layers and astoundingly the foam areas when moved about a bit sort of meshed with the ankle locations and rock locations). I also changed the diffuse layer to contain more of an aquablue color instead of the grey color.

    b) River Bed: https://www.daz3d.com/pond-builder-base (For this I hid everything but the actually ground layer and I repeated (duplicate in DS) the ground layer. I used Will Timmins (aka Oso3D) WTP3 (Will Timmins Procedural Shaders volume 3) linked in the next item.

    c) River Sand:  https://www.sharecg.com/v/87095/browse/7/Material-and-Shader/WTP3-Will-Timmins-Procedural-Shaders-for-Iray This contains the beach / sand procedural shader that Will Timmins wrote. It's quite good and there are many other procedural shaders in the pack.

    d) Water pouring out of gold pan: https://www.daz3d.com/liquid-pack and I applied the Water, Dispersive shader from the DAZ Studio Essentials freebie Uber iRay Shader presets.

    e) River Rocks: https://www.daz3d.com/rdna-rocks-vol-2 and because the original RDNA / Traveler shaders were too low resolution I replaced with the Jen Greenless Nature Shaders stone presets listed next.

    f) River Rocks Shaders: https://www.daz3d.com/nature-shaders and choose different stone shaders and scaled them up to improve the look of the rocks (I feel they are too dark and so look wet above the river water surface but they still did OK).

    g) Opposite Bank of the River:  https://www.daz3d.com/the-harpwood-trail-for-daz-studio And truthfully the other bank of that river is not a dense forest but somewhat arid and rocky foot of an Alpine terrain. I needed something I owned though and nothing was quite right that I did own so I used Harpwood Trail.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,163

    @Fishtales, loved 'Warg'!

    I am headed to Target in about an hour to do my shopping. Some minor stuff we have ran out of, or will at the rate I am using (Kleenix for my hayfever). 

    When I was making my mask, I got the urge to make a quilt again. So have been off the computer a bit.

    I did one render of Monet for Aubrey 8, and I found she has a skin option with scales. It was listed on the promo page, but I had totally ignored it. When the render was past 97% converged, my computerd crashed. But for the first time, I was able to find the render in the C:... files. Someone suggested using 'Memory' on render optimization, so I wonder if that is what saved it? (I was kicking myself for not saving the scene before the render.) I believe I used: 1st Bastion's Rock Crevice Shore, which I picked so she could sit on the rocks, but I kept getting her under the water level, but I decided to go with it; her swimsuit was picked to show off the scales, yet keep her modest (I liked this one because there were adjustment morphs for the bust area); OOT's Caprice Hair with a texture from the add-on; and I couldn't resist adding a fish from Ocean Wonders (no clue if correct but I love the guy.) And the pose is from my favorite sitting pose set.

    Mary

    This is so pretty & I'm excited to have bought both the Sea Life 1 & Sea Life 2 packs on sale today combined with my June PlatClub coupon for like $1.85 each.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,163
    Novica said:

    Byni for Eva 8            Jessie Hair (G3F / G8F)           dForce Sporty Baby Outfit (G8F)          Channen Hair (G3F) (G8F) 

    I know I bought that outfit to kitbash, because to me, having a long sleeve outfit with a bare midriff is just plain stupid. The Jessie Hair I'm so-so about, I did a lot of postwork on the ends as they didn't lay well (hard to get the curve right, the entire strand was moving on a lot of the morphs. One thing I would like to see from vendors is more emphasis on the ends of the hair, and not having only long sections affected. 

    Note she doesn't come default with a line between her brows, this is part of the asymmetrical expression I put on her. 

    For hair color, if you want to match her brows- For Jessie Hair (which took an HOUR to render compared to 26 minutes for the Channen Hair btw) use the blonde and then change it in Surface pane to 252 / 222 / 210   

    For Channen Hair, 10M Blonde and use 222 / 194 / 183.  This one would be very helpful for your ash blonde looks with just a slight hue of red mixed in. Took me awhile to get it really close to the brow color so thought I'd share.

    Click to enlarge, 1300px

    There are so many good characters that come out anymore I can't keep track of them all.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895
    edited June 2020

    Heads up to Texas and Louisiana- if you go to nhc.noaa.gov you'll see that system went from 50% to 60% now to 70% and from what I've read, most tracks are Gulf Coast western regions all the way down to Mexican / Guatamala areas. Very uncertain.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,835

    what DAZ Assets did I use for the water & the riverbed and not where the actually where the picture was taken.

    Your selfie is very well done and very creative blending of various products. Thanks for sharing what you used, shows how much can be unlocked by kitbashing.

  • memcneil70memcneil70 Posts: 4,196

    @nonsuch00 my thanks. And I was amazed by your selfie and I will need to read through it a number of times to understand it. Migraines are no fun when reading small print. 

    And just a note to you and everyone, those links that do take time and you may have forgotton you did years ago, it is during sales like the PC+ when older items are available, that they are so precious. As I made my selection I went down a number of rabbit holes of older discussions over products, along with some wonderful gallery pictures. I am a very happy camper right now.

    Mary

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,163
    RGcincy said:

    what DAZ Assets did I use for the water & the riverbed and not where the actually where the picture was taken.

    Your selfie is very well done and very creative blending of various products. Thanks for sharing what you used, shows how much can be unlocked by kitbashing.

    Thanks

  • StormlyghtStormlyght Posts: 666
    Novica said:

    Heads up to Texas and Louisiana- if you go to nhc.noaa.gov you'll see that system went from 50% to 60% now to 70% and from what I've read, most tracks are Gulf Coast western regions all the way down to Mexican / Guatamala areas. Very uncertain.

    Thank you for the heads-up.

    Trish

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895
    edited June 2020
    Novica said:

    Heads up to Texas and Louisiana- if you go to nhc.noaa.gov you'll see that system went from 50% to 60% now to 70% and from what I've read, most tracks are Gulf Coast western regions all the way down to Mexican / Guatamala areas. Very uncertain.

    Thank you for the heads-up.

    Trish

    Well, it may get even better.  Possibly two storms for the price of one. Tropical Tidbits explained the first one, which is now a depression, is most likely going to impact down there, possibly Mexico, then LOOP and head North, pulled by the front this weekend. Then head north this weekend or through the middle of next week, and models are hinting for THAT to be a hurricane. The models are pointing north, not to the peninsula of Florida, at this time. All subject to change of course, but many of the models are showing two storms now if the land impact the first time is minimal. 

    This means you folks not on the Gulf Coast, but in bordering states north of us, are probably going to see a lot of rain. This isn't a bad thing, we need it, as long as the stupid thing doesn't stall and float around like Allison did in Houston.  (Time to stock up again on paper towels and toilet paper lol.) 

    Edit June 2: Looks like Louisiana, with it taking a sharp north tern (as of this morning's extended track. Estimated at least 65mph winds.)

    Post edited by Novica on
  • GordigGordig Posts: 10,099

    I finally got around to using AcharyaPolina’s Expedition African Environment. They’ve done some great work, but I must say I’m a bit let down by this one. I used the grassland scene, and it feels a bit under-designed in that it kind of falls apart if you move the camera away from world center. The grassy field (which, if I remember correctly, doesn’t even have a ground underneath it) is basically just big enough to fill the screen, and the overall scene relies heavily on forced perspective. I moved the scene a little lower to get a higher perspective, and suddenly the mountain and some of the trees were hovering way up in the air. I moved the mountain down, but missed one or two of the trees before I rendered this scene, so I re-rendered it but haven’t uploaded the new one yet. Also, the trees are fairly low-poly. Originally, the chimp was hanging on one of the trees from this set, but it just looked ugly, so I replaced it with an UltraTrees Eucalyptus. I may either instance that tree or drop a couple additional UltraTrees into the scene and re-render, or else just DOF them out. 

    Reveille

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895

    You made a fun render though!  The chimp is Mr Personality! Thanks for the feedback. 

  • GordigGordig Posts: 10,099
    edited June 2020

    Thank you. The chimp is really well made, although I wish AM had released dForce hair for it because I’m not crazy about having to use Catalyzer. Maybe I’ll see how well the G8 Gorilla dHair works on it. I suspect gorillas and chimps have pretty similar hair growth, but I guess I’ll find out. It also bugs me a little bit that it’s labeled as an Anthropomorph, because it’s really not; it’s just a realistic chimpanzee built on G8M. It’s not actually anthropomorphized in any way, as opposed to RawArt’s ApeWorld figures, for example. By contrast, his other Anthropomorph is a stylized - albeit still fairly realistic - hippo-man. 

    Post edited by Gordig on
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