Knittingmommy's Laboratory

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  • Linwelly said:

    I still like the Aiko with the clear outline the best but that is just me.

    And congrats for making it to the banner!

    Thanks, @Linwelly.  I like that one, too, which is why I put it in the thread.  But, I just happened to like the one I posted to the gallery just that much better.  Art is such a personal thing and sometimes you just have to go with your gut.  I do like the clean lines of your favorite, though, and it is a great filter so I'll probably be using it again in the future.  I'm glad you gave me some input.  I'll keep it in mind as I do future experiments.  You do not want to see the ones I didn't save!  As I said, not everything works!  

    And, yeah, the banner!  I'm still a little awed by that one.  She even got another like while up there.  It is a good thing I don't make art with the idea of getting on the banner as I never would have thought she would make it.  I just do what I like.  Getting on the banner is just a nice bonus to put me in a great mood all day long. :)  I still have a hard time imagining my art sitting up there with work by so many artists I admire.  It is kind of nice, though, to have a little tangible proof that I'm not the only one who thinks my work is getting better.  I have friends here, like you, who tell me when they think something I do is good or great or not so much!  But, for some reason, having a bunch of people I don't know say with their votes that they like what they see just puts a girl in a great mood.  One of those unexpected happy incidents that you don't expect, but love when they happen!  I still value the input of my friends more.

  • Its a well deserved spot!  I just make what i like too, but it is nice to know that we can occaisionally make something that lots of other people like as well.  Validation is good lol!

  • Yep, validation is a wonderful thing! ;)

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited September 2016

    Cleaning up my forum house:

    I edited the third post at the beginning of this thread to turn it into a links post.  I forgot to save a spot for links when I first started this thread.  I've started going through the thread for the tips and tutorials spread throughout so that I can link them near the beginning of this thread for ease of use.  I'll try not to miss any of them.

    While going through the posts, I found that I forgot to mention something that not everyone who has worked with LAMH may know.  I added the following to the first post that talks about exporting fiberhair with the following info that will be of use to anyone who renders LAMH presets in Iray.

    Added tip: For those who don't know this, if you highlight those last three fur groups that I have viewable in the screenshot and unparent them from the LAMH group, then DS will save them those fur groups and you won't have to repeat those steps the next time you open up your save file.  As long as your pose is set and you don't change it, you can parent these to the wolf and move it where you want in the scene.  You don't have to go back into LAMH to export the fur again.  If you leave those fiberhair groups inside the LAMH group, they will disappear when you save your file and not be there when you open it again. 

    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited September 2016

    Over in @Novica's thread Serene Knight had a great idea to transfer the 200 Plus Morphs for Genesis 3 Female by Dogz over to Genesis 3 Male with GenX2 AddOn for Genesis 3 by Dimension3D.  That discussion starts here.  Since I had 200 Plus Morphs, I thought I give it a try and see what happens.  I opened GenX2 and found all of the morphs that said 200 Plus and transferred them to Genesis 3 Male.  All of them.  After I was done, I loaded up a the base Genesis 3 Male and used only those 200 Plus Morph sliders on the head and face.  I got what I thought was an interesting character head and did some comparison renders of the G3M base with the new head that I morphed.  The new head is on the left and the G3M Base is on the right. Both are wearing the Kyle HD for Michael 7 skin.

    I was a little surprised by what I was able to to do because the few times I played with those morphs for G3F, I thought they were all very subtle morphs.  Certainly nothing as dramatic as what I was able to get with G3M.  Considering how drastic the changes were I thought I would see what those exact same morphs would look like on G3F.  Again, the morphed head is on the left and the G3F Base is on the right.  Both are wearing the Arianna for Karen 7 skin.

    What I found is the those same changes are barely noticeable on G3F and you have to really look to see those differences.  The differences are more noticeable on the side view than from the front.  I'm not sure why there is such a big discrepancy, but my guess would be that I missed something in the transfer, possibly some hidden feature of the morphs that I missed.  I was discussing this with another forumite and their thought was that there was a smoothing and resolution thing that GenX does.  I'm not sure what the reason for the difference is.  In the end, I ended up with some morphs that actually work well on G3M even if they don't work quite like they do on their original target figure.

    Here is a side by side view of the two morphed characters together, both with the exact same morphs on top of their respective bases. 

    200PlusMorphsG3MComparisonSide.jpg
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    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • Very cool experiment KM.  I actually like the starker features the morphs gave to the male.

  • Yeah, I like how they look on G3M, too.  I'm going to run it the morphs through the Randomizer when I get some time later.  We'll see what kind of guys I end up with after that. 

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,956

    Knitting, you are a workaholic!, the amount of things you get managed to test, I'm in awe! I don#t own any of the products but its interesting to see the options like this.

  • Ah, I have this really long list of things I want to get done and test out in DS.  No matter how much I test and play, the list never seems to get shorter!  It just continues to grow!

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,956

    there is only one thing to be done about that, keep calm an render on... I should probably change my signature to that hehe

  • That would be a good motto! :)

  • Did I miss a final render of Jaguar Sadie?

    - Greg

  • @algovinician  Ah, not yet! I got a little distracted with other projects and haven't set up the photo shoot yet.  It's coming, though, as I want to get her all finished up this week.  She is all groomed and ready to go so it's just a matter of setting up the proper background and lighting.

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited September 2016

    And, one of those projects that distracted me is the New Users Contest.  I'm doing a render in 3Delight since I'm still very bad with render engine.  While I was setting up my scene which is an old west town, I bought new stuff in the sales thanks to 3D Universe being one of the shops on sale.  I admit I may have gone a little crazy there, but I got some good stuff at 75% off.  I was thinking that I could do an NPR type render for the contest as one of my renders.  Unfortunately, DOF doesn't seem to work all that great with NPR.  I'm still playing with the idea, but, while I was playing with Toony Cam, I ended up with this:

    I'm not sure why Tumbleweed lost his pupils with Toony Cam.  I ended up adding them back in while I was in GIMP 2.9 beta.  It's a nice image, but I thought I'd see what those NIK filters could do with a toon image and I ended up with some really great images.  I'll be uploading my favorite to my gallery, but I think they all turned out great.

    These are all done with a combination of NIKSilver Effects and the last two had an added layer of the original as an Overlay to give an extra splash of color:

    This one ended up being my favorite and is the one that I'm going to upload to my gallery:

    The main difference between this one and the previous one is one of the camera options in the NIK filters.  It is amazing the difference one simple little change can make, but the previous one ended up being my favorite with that one little change.

    This one used the NIKViveza filter before I decided to add in Tumbleweed's missing pupils:

    So, how's that for a distraction?  My list never seems to get smaller, but I love the things I've been doing!

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    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,895

    Love the horse. Had to laugh at the disappearing eyeballs. I'm working on a set right now that is weird- the gal inside the car loses her hair but it's there, and in the render it shows up. But in Iray view in the viewport, the hair disappears. Weird. 

    Anyway, love your composition and the posing too. Nice job! 

  • Thanks, @Novica!  I had a lot of fun doing it.  That Tumbleweed is very expressive for a toon horse.  I'm going to have to do more renders with him.  I think I could have a lot of fun with him.

  • isidornisidorn Posts: 1,601
    Novica said:

    Love the horse. Had to laugh at the disappearing eyeballs. I'm working on a set right now that is weird- the gal inside the car loses her hair but it's there, and in the render it shows up. But in Iray view in the viewport, the hair disappears. Weird. 

    Anyway, love your composition and the posing too. Nice job! 

    @Novica . The hair disappears in the viewport when you see it through a glass surface? I've had that happen a couple of times with completely different sets. Not only hair, but also clothes has become "invisible" in the same manner for me, which I'll admit, is rather amusing. laugh

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited September 2016

    I got a few of Dreamlander's low poly city blocks today.  I wanted to do a little test to see what the textures would look like.  They are pretty decent and they seem to work well in both 3Delight and Iray.  I did a small test and replaced some of the textures with ones I did in Filter Forge.  It isn't perfect, but I can see some promise for a different look.  I thought I'd share.  This was just a quick test without going into GIMP and lining everything up perfectly.  If I decide to retexture everything, it will be a little bit of a long term project.  I haven't completely decided what I'm going to do with them yet.  I'll be doing some tests with the default textures and then I figure out what my next steps will be.

    Block1TextureTest.jpg
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    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,618

    Whoa! I love your 200 Plus Morphs experiment! The difference in those morphs from the male and female versions is so drastic! 

    I didn't know you could transfer morphs like that from M to F and vice versa. That's yet another reason for me to get the GenX2 products. Sadly I think you have to have like three or four of his products just to make the G3F and G3M one work, right? That's super expensive. :(

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,618

    I got a few of Dreamlander's low poly city blocks today.  I wanted to do a little test to see what the textures would look like.  They are pretty decent and they seem to work well in both 3Delight and Iray.  I did a small test and replaced some of the textures with ones I did in Filter Forge.  It isn't perfect, but I can see some promise for a different look.  I thought I'd share.  This was just a quick test without going into GIMP and lining everything up perfectly.  If I decide to retexture everything, it will be a little bit of a long term project.  I haven't completely decided what I'm going to do with them yet.  I'll be doing some tests with the default textures and then I figure out what my next steps will be.

    That looks good! Where there quite a few textures you had to add yourself or just a few?

  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943

    Whoa! I love your 200 Plus Morphs experiment! The difference in those morphs from the male and female versions is so drastic! 

    I didn't know you could transfer morphs like that from M to F and vice versa. That's yet another reason for me to get the GenX2 products. Sadly I think you have to have like three or four of his products just to make the G3F and G3M one work, right? That's super expensive. :(

    You can do it by hand - there is a tutorial for G2F to G2M: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/484862/#Comment_484862

    Read the rest of the thread - or the very first message - to find out more about how to do it yourself for free concerning clones and morph transfers: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24093/transferring-morphs-from-genesis-to-g2m-g2f-and-from-g2m-g2f-to-genesis-now-with-clones/p1

  • Whoa! I love your 200 Plus Morphs experiment! The difference in those morphs from the male and female versions is so drastic! 

    I didn't know you could transfer morphs like that from M to F and vice versa. That's yet another reason for me to get the GenX2 products. Sadly I think you have to have like three or four of his products just to make the G3F and G3M one work, right? That's super expensive. :(

    @Divamakeup  Thanks!  Experiments are fun!  

    It would depend on which characters you wanted to transfer, but yeah, you need the base GeX2 and then the addon for which ever characters you wanted to transfer.  Mostly you would just need the Genesis 3 Addon for the stuff you are doing unless you decide to branch into the really older figures then you might consider getting those.  

    The tutorials that @Kerya linked work well from what I understand, but I've never followed them.  I might at some point give them a try as it would make a nice experiment and knowing how to do it manually is always a good thing.  

    The GenX2 items were not knew when I first got them so I waited for a good sale and picked them up.  I started with the base and then picked up one of the addons and just started collecting them when the price was cheap.  If I had found those tutorials before, it is possible that I may have not bothered.  However, I do like the convenience of having them now that I have them and know how to use them.

    I would give the tutorials a try and, if you like doing it that way, you're good.  If you're like me, and like the convenience of having an easier way to things, then wait for a good sale and get GenX2 (NOT GenX) and the Genesis 3 addon (make sure you are picking up the right one!).  That would definitely get you started with most of what you need to transfer between Genesis, Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 figures.

    In the city blocks, I only replaced three textures: the windows on the two buildings on the left are mine and the rest of the textures on there are original, the texture on the building on the right is mine, but the trim is the original texture for that building, I made the ground a plane primitive with an asphalt shader just to have something on the ground so the buildings weren't floating in mid-air.  The buildings in the back still have all original textures with Iray Uber Shader applied.  The sky came from the Skies of iRadiance HDRIs for Iray.  It's far from perfect and was just a quick test to see how much work would be involved.  The original textures aren't bad and I'll be doing some renders in the near future with them.  I like the 1950s feel to the set as a whole in the original textures and I'll be collecting the rest of the city blocks.  No way I could afford to get all of them, but I got a nice little start.

    I had a slight advantage in being familiar with these to take a chance on them.  I was familiar with the vendor from Rendo and have purchased a couple of his high rises. The city blocks had been on my wishlist over there for awhile, but the price was just never right for me to get them.  I'm very glad to see them being moved over here.  If I decide to redo all of the textures, I'll make my presets available for free on my ShareCG account for each of the city blocks as I do them, but that may take awhile as I have a ton of projects on my ever growing list of things to do.  :)

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,618
    edited September 2016

    Whoa! I love your 200 Plus Morphs experiment! The difference in those morphs from the male and female versions is so drastic! 

    I didn't know you could transfer morphs like that from M to F and vice versa. That's yet another reason for me to get the GenX2 products. Sadly I think you have to have like three or four of his products just to make the G3F and G3M one work, right? That's super expensive. :(

    @Divamakeup  Thanks!  Experiments are fun!  

    It would depend on which characters you wanted to transfer, but yeah, you need the base GeX2 and then the addon for which ever characters you wanted to transfer.  Mostly you would just need the Genesis 3 Addon for the stuff you are doing unless you decide to branch into the really older figures then you might consider getting those.  

    I was told that to use the Genesis 3 one you need "Genesis Generation X2", "GenX2 AddOn for Genesis 2", and "GenX2 AddOn for Genesis 3" (so all three). It also says in the product description:

    "Please note that the only clone morphs available for Genesis 3 are from the predecessor Genesis 2, but not the initial Genesis figure or for Poser figures. Hence, Genesis 2 is always required as an intermediate figure, and thus the Genesis 3 add-on will not work without the Genesis 2 add-on for GenX2."

    Which pretty much sucks, as you have to buy three different products just for the G3F conversions. So it's $63 (base price) to be able to use the Genesis 3 one. Which is basically over three months worth of my Daz budget, and not an amount I could spend anywhere near at one time. I've been waiting for them to get a really good deep discount sale so that I can afford to get them ...but yeah, I'll have to keep waiting. Hopefully soon they will get a really good sale. Or maybe I'll be blessed and someone will make a product that let's you do it without having to buy three different prodcuts. lol

    Post edited by 3Diva on
  • I'll have to read the product pages again.  But, I'm sure those are accurate.  That's one of the problems when you already have some of the previous stuff, you forget what is actually required and what you got just because it was what you needed at the time.  I'd definitely go by the product pages, though.  If it says you need all three then you need all three.  Probably because you need the parts for each generation you want to transfer which makes sense.

  • Just wanted to let you know I can't answer your message on my phone. No WI if camping this,weekend and my phone won't let me respond. Will be back sunday sometime though
  • That's fine!  Enjoy the camping!  I know you guys don't have very many more camping days left in your area before it gets too cold!

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited September 2016

    So, I kind of finished Jaguar Sadie's grooming and photo shoot.  She isn't perfect, but she will do for now.  I was having issues with my computer and the number of hairs I had to generate to get her rendered.  My computer really did NOT like going up over 800,000 hairs.  The hair looks a little thinner than I would like.  I'm really hoping that the never version of LAMH can help with that issue.  I've read several things Kendal Sears has written and it looks like FiberHair will be native in Iray for the next major upgrade and will take up less memory.  In the meantime, there are a few things I will be fixing in the next few weeks.  I think JS needs more fiberhair around her mouth than I have currently.  Same goes for her hands, she need more hair on the fingers which I left kind of bald and I really think she needs it.  I'll be working on that as well as trying to push for a more furrier render.  One thing I may try, is to create a preset that only includes her upper body so I can have more hairs for a thicker appearance on the head and upper body.

    At any rate, for a first LAMH preset, it isn't bad.  I've learned a lot.  I hope anyone following along has learned a lot.  While I'm fine tuning JS as time permits, I'll be starting on an actual hairstyle in LAMH and see how that goes.  I'll take screenshots along the way and, when I'm done, I'll post the tutorial in case anyone wants to attempt a hairstyle, too.  I'll be doing one for both G3M and G3F, but I'll be starting with G3M.  I will probably also attempt a beard and mustache preset.

    So, for the big reveal, here is Jaguar Sadie's final picture full size:

    I did a little postwork magic for my final avatar.  I don't know if I'll keep it or change it out for one of the other versions that I did.  I may switch them up once a week and see how I like them.  Seeing them in thumbnail version really makes a huge difference.

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    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • She came out beautifully!   

    Great work, @Knittingmommy!

  • @TabascoJack  Thanks!  There is definitely room for improvement, but I'm happy.  Not quite as happy with the thumbnail, but I'll let it sit for a few days and then try out one of the others.  I think the vignetting washes things out at such a small sized image.  I have a few other postworked versions I'll be trying out in the next few weeks.

    As I try them out, I'd love opinions anyone has on favorites!

  • So, I kind of finished Jaguar Sadie's grooming and photo shoot.  She isn't perfect, but she will do for now.  I was having issues with my computer and the number of hairs I had to generate to get her rendered.  My computer really did NOT like going up over 800,000 hairs.  The hair looks a little thinner than I would like.  I'm really hoping that the never version of LAMH can help with that issue.  I've read several things Kendal Sears has written and it looks like FiberHair will be native in Iray for the next major upgrade and will take up less memory.  In the meantime, there are a few things I will be fixing in the next few weeks.  I think JS needs more fiberhair around her mouth than I have currently.  Same goes for her hands, she need more hair on the fingers which I left kind of bald and I really think she needs it.  I'll be working on that as well as trying to push for a more furrier render.  One thing I may try, is to create a preset that only includes her upper body so I can have more hairs for a thicker appearance on the head and upper body.

    At any rate, for a first LAMH preset, it isn't bad.  I've learned a lot.  I hope anyone following along has learned a lot.  While I'm fine tuning JS as time permits, I'll be starting on an actual hairstyle in LAMH and see how that goes.  I'll take screenshots along the way and, when I'm done, I'll post the tutorial in case anyone wants to attempt a hairstyle, too.  I'll be doing one for both G3M and G3F, but I'll be starting with G3M.  I will probably also attempt a beard and mustache preset.

    So, for the big reveal, here is Jaguar Sadie's final picture full size:

    I did a little postwork magic for my final avatar.  I don't know if I'll keep it or change it out for one of the other versions that I did.  I may switch them up once a week and see how I like them.  Seeing them in thumbnail version really makes a huge difference.

    Wow - 800,000 hairs? IIRC, my noodle only had 200,000 hairs. As far as the thinness goes, might adjusting the root/tip thickness help? I know I cheated a bit and made each hair thicker so I wouldn't need so many hairs. I also vaguely remember playing with opacity.

    She looks great, and I like the NPR work a lot, too!

    - Greg

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