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Oh look, a dusty thread...
Gen9 lured me back. Turns out I had to render both these idiots from years back.
Oh, cute! Blondie looks very German to me, somehow.
There is something a bit, isn't there? Perhaps in a dim and distant past -- he's a sci-fi character so who knows what's hanging around in his bloodline!
I should probably render one where he looks happy, but he's not had much reason to be that in the last couple of stories.
I miss having Yve as my clothes horse for G9, but without his scars he'd be the chaebol brat with a background in gymnastics (and with brown hair!) rather than the amnesiac purple-haired thief. So I decided to remake Alex. I mean, most of the morphs are basic and can just be transposed... right?
Uh.
Turns out there were some morphs from a 3rd-party pack that did some heavy lifting... because what I got instead was Alex around the age of 16, when he was trying to learn how to smile by practicing in front of the mirror... (He never really did get the hang of it until maybe a year or so after he started working with Milos.... when he was 27 *facepalm*)
It's fuzzy because I only really let it get to 500 iterations. I was just so amused at accidentally knocking ten years off him. He was quite a cute little spud at that age. If I ever continue the story of his childhood, I'll have to give this another go.
I think I fixed Alex. He's more handsome in G9 than he was in G8, although I could do with a few more morphs to tweak things and sharpen some angles in his face.
His hair is a perennial nightmare for me. I can't find any that matches how I used to draw him, no matter how much I try. The hair he usually uses is three stacked raccoons in a trenchcoat three copies of Lyall Hair, the base of which is x-scaled to -100, with two other copies parented and sections hidden and others repositioned and bullied into forming what I want it to do. I can't edit it much any more, or bits go off in funny directions.
I do try other hairs now and again... He looks pretty good with Fraser hair, which is more likely to be his ID photo because you can see more of his face.
He still got to keep the Nix eyebrows though. Nothing else really suited him.
...I don't think I'll be moving Milos to G9 for quite a while yet though.
I needed a render of Milos's landlord / boss / mentor Robin, and ended up on G8 again. Well, G8.1 this time. He's part human, part ljusalfa, part dokkalfa, hence his... more unusual skin tone. He came out looking better than he did the last time I tried to create him, back in the G1 days, which I am... slightly uncomfortable about. Part of my brain tries to insist he shouldn't look handsome, he's not a very nice man, but even very cruel men can look perfectly normal. If he'd looked anything like how he was, Milos would have run a mile. not lived there for three years...
And every now and again, I recreate Alex's apartment. This is the third time now, I think? Because I keep losing the other files... Sigh. I'm still working on the kitchen area (I thought I'd got it done, but it needs some work still) but his lounge area came out mostly all right (still a work in progress, mind). Hopefully I won't lose this file.
Yes he really is so dedicated to work that he has a filing cabinet, and is trusted enough that he can work on some files from home in the evenings. They kind of have to let him, or he'll just work until he passes out in the office.
Annnnd uploading is still broken.
I was playing around with Caeso, trying to move him to 8.1 (which was actually more difficult than it should be) and tweaking his morphs prior to trying to sort out his hair for the early 2000s. (He's cursed by Mars to live forever, as punishment for declaring he'd never forgive the gods, so... he's one of my few characters that can wear almost all my 3D wardrobe.)
I decided, somewhat recklessly, to try deforcing Yunbae hair. Standing position, unposed... It only got to 4% before I cancelled it because it was clearly going very, very wrong.
But it did come out looking like a weird cologne ad, so...
(I accidentally obliterated his texture playing with the gamma level, but it worked out pretty well in this context!)
Ooh, uploading's working! Better take advantage of this while I can.
Right! Let's see. It's been an unusually productive time for me. There's a reason for that...
I rendered Milos again, but managed to get the wrong version... A while ago I tried making a version of him that used the PBR shader, but I didn't like it so much. Fast forward a year and I forgot which one it was. The render came out okay, but maybe one day I'll redo it again with the right version. (Why again? Because this is an updated version of one I did with Genesis 1. Except I can't find Shukky's motorbike, somehow I've misplaced my file and all their content has gone, so... Milos got an upgrade.)
Weirdly, it also couldn't initially find the street either. I had to uninstall it(!) and then redownload it.
Another one of Robin I did for a writing thing over on Mastodon. He still creeps me out. I really need to finish the book so he gets what he deserves...
One of Alex's usual dinners, again for the writing thing. You wouldn't think it'd be so fiddly trying to get everything onto a table in a coherent manner.
And a huge thanks to FenixPhoenix and Nathy for ND Liloo and, particularly, the male nipples. I've been wanting a G9 boy who can wear some of the more out-there clothes that I can't really imagine shoving Alex into, and I do have a major weakness for pretty boys with interesting skin...
He really fits in everywhere! I'd bough the dForce Elegant Slit Skirt for the top, but the skirt itself looks really nice too, and I bought the dForce HM Almira Outfit for the pants. I really love vendors who remember the masculine characters for their G9 clothes and skins.
And I finished the render I'd been working on Caeso for, but I can't show that because although technically everything's covered, I suspect it would still fall short of the forum TOS. Amazon didn't seem to mind it though: pretty sure that was one of the faster cover change approvals I've had.
Who Is He???
I'm having fun, lol.
Weirdly gendered item of the day: Funglasses for Genesis 9 Feminine, because only women are allowed to be fun and frivolous.
I'm a fan of your work, @Pax Asteriae, so thank you for your purchase of ND Liloo! I'm glad you liked the skin and that is has helped you produce such beautiful boys! <3
It is cool.
I've been playing some more, trying to make the cute Aery Soul G9 poses work better for the boys; I was aiming more for a bit similar to Sun Wukong but may have stopped by Nightcrawler along the way... I think that's what I get for letting him steal the Siorga Dorcha eyes.
This is so very cute.
OMG, he's gorgeous and he indeed feels like a cute Nightcrawler. All he's missing is the tail, fangs, and claws! I really love the shape of him too. He looks like he could play the role of a gentle boy or a bad boy pretending he's nice. :)
Thank you!
I'm really happy you like him! 
Aaa, thank you! It sounds like I may have managed to catch that aspect of Sun Wukong / Son O-gong / Son Goku then, a mischievous trickster who could be a sweet boy or a complete pain in the backside.
(I may have a soft spot for guys like that...)
I picked up HID Donna because not only is she cute for the times I do render women, but she has male textures too, and I wondered how well the little trickster prince up there would look with them. The answer, it turns out, is very cute. I did discover though that despite all the new morphs for expressions G9 has, it doesn't have the ones I wanted to try to emulate a cute smile I saw in a TV series... Maybe a little more experimenting is in order.
I also picked up the Freya mega-bundle, because with the character, the hairs and the other things I wanted and the stuff that was on offer at the bottom of the page, it worked out cheaper to buy the works than cherry-pick. And honestly, this time I very much had my eye on the skin for Alex, rather than the (very awesome) morph. Alex is A Pain because he's very pale; previously he's been using some of the base G9 SSS maps, but the Freya textures are nice and pale so I'm happy.
I have a sneaking fondness for high-key imagery.
Not so keen on the outfits though; Freya 8 had some fantastic practical outfits, while Freya 9's... well, she's gonna get more than just chilblains in those, honestly. Alex is in the pants from the dForce Warrior Outfit, but how did he get into them?? Snake-hipped so-and-so. They're very definitely designed to be worn under things. The ones from the Comfy Style dForce Outfit that came with Minerva that the l'il trickster is wearing are more detailed.
I really shouldn't be such a sucker for hairs...
Oh, I recognize the Son O-Gong reference because I saw a k-drama about him, so I'd say you've indeed nailed that type of mischievous (but very charismatic) character for sure.
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The character with a human skin reads so differently, but he's indeed very cute! I guess those pants look more like leggings, huh?
Aah, you've seen Hwayuki / A Korean Odyssey? Such a good series (and so sad, but so many stories about the character are...). I really do have a big soft spot for him, lol. Lee Seung-gi was so well cast, since he seems like that sort of personality in reality too.
I don't know if you've seen it, but the k-drama The Interest of Love on Netflix has a character called Jeong-hyeon, who is the owner of the cute smile I was trying to replicate. It's a sweet little v-shape, so I'll have to give it some more thought and work.
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Yes, they're definitely a lot more like leggings. Somehow now I can just see a strong Norse warrioress on her branded exercise bike. Actually, she's probably an instructor...
I wondered if I was being a bit unfair with it, so I grabbed a render I couldn't make work, swapped out the clothing and hair and found that, yes, actually, the Warrior outfit could be nicely combined into something more scifi. I love the texturing of the pants, I just really wish the Vikings hadn't invented spandex so much earlier than I thought!
Yes, indeed, I saw a Korean Odyssey and loved it. That was like my fourth K-Drama, so I enjoyed it despite the less-than-stellar ending. I have not seen The Interest of Love, but I checked the actor who played that character you mentioned and he indeed has a very cute smile. I haven't bought it yet, but I wonder if a product like this would help to refine expressions.
BTW, that new render looks fantastic! I was actually more interested in the top that came with the dforce Warrior Outfit than the pants, since I figured it would look cool and guys as well. I wished the boots weren't high-heels, but those can always be swapped for other boots.
Yes, it's very much a "I like the series but I'll pretend the ending never happened" story.
I'm currently avoiding the end of Vincenzo for that reason...
I have that product on my wishlist and yet totally forgot about it! So I snagged it when I picked up the long, long awaited legacy skins for G9 and it really does help! It's odd though, although they seem like they should be in the Pose section, they're under Actor morphs. I might have to see about moving them, it feels strange having to move around the two sections.
Finally, the cute smile! In a less than stellar render, ahaha... More a proof of concept than anything else.
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I'm really glad you like that render! I was surprised at how nicely the top fitted the boys, and it really does look cool on them. I guess we'll have to chalk high heels up to something else the Vikings stealthily invented... along, apparently, with zips.
(I'm starting to suspect the Warrior outfit was not supposed to be a Viking outfit...) The leggings seem very much designed to work with the thick Warrior boots though, so you have to manually set negative numbers to some of the morphs. The morphs are called Shine L and Shine R rather than shin, just in case you have the same "I'm clueless" moment I did...
I watched Vincenzo and let's just say, there's nothing to worry about with the ending :D. Unlike with shows like Black. That show was tragic :(. The most recent K-drama I watched was The Glory. It's great, but I wouldn't have watched it had I known it was split into seasons since now I have to wait for the next one. My Name is also a great one on Netflix.
And awesome smile render! I should really pick up that product as well to really do more expressions, but I usually do a ton of renders for products so the last thing I bother with is the expressions. Nevertheless, I shall pick it one day for sure.
I have the Freja megabundle in my cart. There's not a lot of difference (price-wise) between one of the smaller Freja bundles and the Megabundle. I'm just wondering whether to buy it all or just cherry-pick. Decisions... decisions.
With Vincenzo, I'm aware a character Iike [redacted]. And I know he wasn't the best person, but innocent and a bit stupid, but... if I leave it where it is, everyone is happy-ish.
I started Black but haven't finished it, and from what you say that's probably for the best! I watched Hotel del Luna (by the same people as Hwayuki... wish I'd known that then!) and while the ending was 'technically' happy, I probably wouldn't watch it again. And I'm on The Glory now, but... I have to stop now and again, it's a bit... yeah. It makes me aware my life could have been much worse, ahah... I might finish it by the time the next series rolls by! In the mean time, there's Crash Course in Romance, that's taking a while to get to the romance, but is creating very sympathetic characters in the meantime and is just ridiculously cute. If you watched Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, you'll enjoy it.
The Interest of Love is a lovely (lol) series so far, very much slice of life along with romance and so beautifully shot. I swear, it's ridiculously beautiful camerawork. The lighting, the angles, the acting, everything. Very slow-burn, but so gorgeous. I'm on episode 11 right now, and the leading lines you mentioned in a recent reply here are perfection in the major shots. It also plays with split screens in ways that make me hugely envious, haha. And everyone is so human...
And the soundtrack is amazing, but that's by-and-by here.
Also, if romance isn't your thing, then The Good Detective is fantastic for flipping certain tropes on its head as well as being an amazing ensemble cast drama, and MIU 404 does the same thing in Japanese. They're both frankly hilarious and so quoteable it's ridiculous.
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With Freya, I had to figure out what I wanted from the character sets, then work out what worked out cheapest. For me, wanting the character, both hairs, the wings and some of the facial paints combined with the promo for owning a previous Freya set, it worked out cheapest getting the mega bundle. Possibly, without the promo, I might've cherry-picked. The bundles these days are a pain figuring out what works best for you... It's why I passed on the Ivar bundle entirely.
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To keep this vaguely on topic, because I can talk about 1. Korean and Japanese dramas and 2. my characters until the cows come home...
I keep trying to render Milos's second home (the home he moves into, not an actual second home; he would never, ever understand being that rich), and I keep running into one particular issue: there are very few UK content creators. We have a lot of Victorian houses here that are inexplicably TARDIS-like and bigger on the inside. I used to house-sit for a friend with such a house, and it is surprisingly difficult to recreate it. The Northern Terrace doesn't work because it's too small (possibly too northern; I'm thinking Nottingham), and the European Suburb doesn't work because it has a garage (not Victorian enough).
Ultimately, my issue is that content creators create house-builders, then forget things. Like... how do you create a dormer window, then forget to create a floor for it? I have nothing that fits into this gap unless I get creative in Blender or Hexagon, and I have forgotten how to use Hex and my recent experiences in Blender ("Google: how do you create a texture map?") have shown me I need a LOT of practice. I was only trying to make a ready-meal container! And I basically failed at that!
This is the problem with house-builder type sets. The creator seems to get bored before they finish an actual house, or it's fitting only fits the house they have in mind. I managed to cobble together kitchens for Alex's apartment and Milos's bedsit, but when it comes to the house Milos moves into later in the story? There are no modular kitchens in DAZland! Oh there are a lot of kitchens... that assume you live in a big house or US apartment, or there's the one small, non-modular Northern Terrace apartment (I'm in the Midlands, our terraces, as mentioned, seem bigger... and my friend's cupboards were on the left, not the right, and built further in). These are great if your character doesn't already live in a pre-described house.
I just want a properly modular kitchen. [sob] I have so many modular appliances, but no modular cupboards! I want an oven set into a cupboard bank like the one in my (very Midlands, relatively new-build (80s)) kitchen! With a cupboard above and drawers below! And an electric/gas hob with a cupboard for pans underneath without an oven! And I have the sad, sad, realisation I won't get these unless I model them, and honestly hell will freeze over first ("Google: how do I select faces in Blender?").
It goes to show how few people are trying to create a house around a pre-described template, I guess. [sigh] Obviously my boys should quit being English entirely, but I think there's more than enough mutant US stories already...
EDIT: Also, stairs! There are 14 steps in UK stairs - 13 steps and the landing. The one set of stairs I have that doesn't involve a turn is from the Maclean House Builder set that is otherwise fantastic... but has too many steps and no banister (huge H&S violation — this was actually an issue in a fairly recent UK drama where a character fell from banister-less stairs and it was promptly pointed out no reputable H&S agent would have signed off on it). Apparently no one in DAZland has stairs, or lived in the aforementioned US luxury houses, and not the 'deluxe' UK houses of ths 80s I'm currently in, where your stairs lead directly from the front door. (No real life photo, because I'm untidy and no one needs to see my easily-accessible pet food.)
I shouldn't drink and render. I type fast as it is, and apparently I type even faster once I've had a drink.
*prods previous post*
I updated the cover of the one Alex and Milos story I managed to publish (because it's short, unlike the other, uh... six?). The previous one was fine, technically, but something about it made me feel creepy and I still can't put my finger on what. It's not even that Alex looked possessive in it, because he is, he freely admits it, and Milos likes it. Either way, I managed to get a similar pose that looked sweeter and I'm much happier with the full effect.
It's odd though, I'm finding with so many more morphs for expressions with G9, it's actually getting harder to do expressions I like. I tried to do a lop-sided smile with Alex, whose face morph I will probably be tweaking for the next year, much like I did with G8... And I had to keep going back to the drawing board so many times. It's hard to stop the corners of the lips rising so much, even with the corner up/down morphs. I did get to look at several pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal and Richard Armitage though, who have similar smiles, so I got something out of it... even if it wasn't a render I'm fully satisfied with.
(It's odd how Alex always looks so much younger with the hair off his face. He did with G8 too.)
And also... Sometimes I'm so disappointed with how a render comes out vs. how it looks in the Iray preview. I'd been fiddling with Milos's hair from some time around book 4, when he finally got a haircut, and it looked really nice in the Iray preview. Actual render... not so much. Talk about expectation vs. reality.
It looked so soft and fluffy until I rendered it. *sob*
It turns out that now I can render faster (and can actually use Iray preview! *giddy*) I may be becoming a bit dangerous...
I've had this mental image of Yve in my head for ages, but never got around to setting it up. So when I picked up the Dark Station Control Room and its add-on textures, I figured I might as well. It's not how I'd originally envisioned the scene (mostly location-wise) but I like how it came out regardless.
Another thing I was giddy about is that there are three figures in this and I didn't think anything might explode or die! *giddy*
Doing some fun character prompts on Mastodon, so I decided to do a cute render of Alex and Milos, demonstrating that they can actually be normal sometimes.
And a render I did for a Valentines thing, although this was the first version and Milos ended up dressed for work like Alex in the finished one. But I loved this one too, even if I did spend ages cursing at the ground plane... and then cursing it again when I tried a different IBL and it reset the position. *sobs* I had to go in and change the parameters so it could. not. move. EVER. and that at least stopped me developing the urge to throw something at my screen.
What's he doing now? *facepalm* How did he even GET up there?
I had so much fun with this. That's Urban Future 2 in the background, which lights up beautifully once you turn all the LEDs and signs on. It makes me kinda wish I'd bought 1 and 3, but I never needed elevated scenery before, and considering quite how many years it's been since I bought it... (Actually, I just went and looked and now I wish I hadn't. What do you mean I bought it in 2009???)
I love that G9's 'this is for utilitarian but sexy women' clothing like Worker Uniform Outfit always comes out looking so good on sexy men too... (the quality of the texture expansion is outstanding too, the detail is incredible!) Possibly moreso without the addition of the hefty gloves from the Mr. Klaus outfit and the boots from the Jingle Outfit, anyway. I've been itching to use those boots, and couldn't find a reason to until now. They aren't really 'everyday' shoes, but turn out nicely for sci-fi. And this is the first time I used the Container Cabin since I bought it, and yet you can barely see it...
And the whole render only happened because I wanted to test out the jumpsuit and Space Warrior Hair, which backlights so nicely!
At some point I guess this guy is gonna need a name. And a job...?
I did a cover mockup for someone who was told by two different cover artists that what she wanted was impossible. I mean, it didn't look impossible to me, so... have a pretty girl in the pretty boys thread. (She liked it enough that she said she'd send it to the next cover artist. No job for me, haha.) I stole the ruffles from the Almira outfit for G9, with... varying degrees of success with meshgrabber it has to be said.
Impossible, my arse.
She also described the second cover... sort of. If all you have to go on is 'copper skin, turquoise bob and lipstick, flamboyant, likes embroidery, holding Victorian house" it's a bit... awkward. Apparently there's a PDF. I didn't get the PDF. Should've been aiming more for the Scarlet Pimpernel, apparently (which is a look I considered, then discarded, oops). I had a lot of fun, although I did realise there's a remarkable shortage of turquoise lipstick (I stole this one from a female skin, and not via LIE), which was... surprisingly awkward actually. Lots of purple, lots of dark blues. No blue-greens. I feel this could be awkward if I rendered more sci-fi women...
Annnnd I can't get the new UltraScenery addon to work. I am the only person who can't get it to work. There is no reason it shouldn't work, it's all installed in the right places and literally every. other. addon. works, but this one won't. I am unhappy. (Not the creator's fault.) But while I was swearing and grousing I created a couple of different scenes, and this one I got a bit carried away with. I had to get a bit creative with getting the UltraScenery water shader onto the droplets (ahh save shader preset, my old friend, I last abused you to move Yve's hair colour around) and even more creative with some water splashes to turn them into grit. I've been wanting to do this scene for ages and couldn't ever quite get it to work, so I'm happy with this.
That's my little doggo in the passenger seat.
I've not really played with Dog 8 because the base Dobermann morph really irritated me — it's illegal to dock ears and tails in the UK, but I know it isn't in the US and the fact that someone would create a docked ear for a 3D dog is just gross to me, especially because pinschers have absolutely delightful ears and tails — but the jeep looked empty without a passenger. So I decided to put my MinPin in it. (Despite what you might imagine from the name, Miniature Pinschers came some 300 years before the Dobermann Pinscher, which was created when a businessman, Mr. Dobermann, liked the fearless attitude of the MinPin and wanted a bigger version to protect his property. In the words of my (female) Tesco driver: "Huh. Typical man.") It took a bit of work to get a MinPin's typical oversized bat ears, and even more work to get them to fold back properly (why are there two sets of morphs??? maybe I should have paid more attention sooner...), and my little girl would never be so ungraceful as to flap her tongue out her mouth like that... but my little girl also sheds her clothes in the bed in winter and farts under the covers and vacates the area, so she's not exactly a paragon of virtue.
Currently she has her back legs on the back of the sofa and her front legs on my shoulders, watching me type. I should probably be nicer about her.
ANYWAY. This render was fun.
The Scarlet Pimpernel (set during the French revolutionary Terror, as I recal) would be a good forty years before Victoria came to the throne, so blame the brief for any confusion.
There is that. And the fact she specified an American Victorian house, so my brain wasn't exactly considering the whole French Revolution thing.
Picked up Sade's Mixable Warabi Outfit yesterday because that top is just ridiculous amounts of fun. I love that she always supports male G9 morphs, and honestly the outfit does not disappoint. It dForces at incredibly fast speeds and drapes like a dream.
This guy and his changeable face really will need a name soon...
EDIT: My Photoshop went peculiar (different PC entirely, nothing to do with recent DIM issues, probably related to the unexpected shutdown Windows Update very kindly did for it the other night) so I was reinstalling the brushes and actions when I decided to have a little play. The end result from this one reminded me of French textbooks in the 2000s (although I'm pretty sure ours were older than that...), and the... interesting design choices that always made it look like France was somehow stuck in the 80s.
I wonder if they have similar weird design choices for teaching languages on foreign planets...
oh, boy, you have new fan!