SereneNight's Sci-fi Fun
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Good job...that's the hair I was trying to think of...Ryan hair is what I needed for the render I am doing now but I couldn't remember the name. I just knew that I needed TinTin style hair because that's what the hair in the painting is styled as.
Oh Serene, this looks really really nice - The hair looks very good on him and the lighting here is phenomenal.
Thanks! Boyd is without his goatee which makes him look extra pretty. I think one of the reasons he grows it is to be honest.
With lights, I have gone back to using sun/sky. Boyd requires an aqua color added to tone mapping to look redder tan rather than browner-tan. I add that when I render in sun-sky. Then I lighten it slightly in PS and then apply a custom Nik preset
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13dL1B4qDGewrQNpt-l0GkZ1jrKaPy4dG/view?usp=sharing
The preset r is called.... Boyd.
I pretty much use this preset and it is free to download and enjoy. you must use it in conjunction with Nik Collection color effects pro and import it into your directory. Lighten your image and apply. It will do a nice job on outdoor skin tones that are well lit. It does add a grainy film quality which I like.
In the couple image I attached, you can see a before and after. I didn't correct anything else wrong, as normally I'd fix the shadows on Owen's chest and the see-through bits on the back of his head, but It just shows you what the preset can do. On the other image I applied the preset TWICE. I don't like the white blonde roots on that one though.
It does add a nice warmth to the skin tone. And love those trunks.
The trunks are my favorite because they don't conform overly to the abs and fit perfectly!
I really like the lowrise look. Outstanding piece of modeling from this set: https://www.daz3d.com/summer-time-outfit-for-genesis-3-and-genesis-8-male-s by Blue Rabbit. Well worth the price for the shorts and the nice accessories.....
Ah that's awesome, really nice that you are sharing that preset! I'm not actually familiar with the Nik Collection Color Effects Pro, but I see that it is now offered for free - I should check that out! The comparison shots really show the difference it makes. Again, really nice work.
For me, renders are just the beginning. Since I don't have a super high end machine I use many tricks of photoshop to achieve looks that I like.
I am on the lookout for sideburns products for men. I'm not looking for the super mutton-chop civil-war era sideburns, but sort of the edgy small kind which could be blended with other hairstyles. Rouflaquettes for G2M was recommended to me from Rendo. It does create a nice edgy sideburn with short-cut hair. I didn't touch up or photoshop the transition area, so you can see. I think I will have to tug it in slightly. The promo art doesn't do it a lot of justice. You can subdivide it as well to give it a more fine look. I recolored it with OOTS hair shaders which I use for Boyd's sort of strawberry blonde color anyway.
The preset makes a big difference. Its funny, its technically not a huge difference and if you didn't see the second one next to it, you would think, the first one looks pretty good. But when you see the preset, its just got that added wow, that looks great! Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, I like it. Particularly for darker skinned characters as it punches out the skin a notch and warms it up. Glad you like. hope it works for you.
Forget about the men, they always look good. I'm still thinking about how great that jello looked!
Should a horse avatar be saying that?
For some reason, the forums are not letting me upload images. I have uploaded the latest Boyd/Owen thanksgiving pic to my gallery. Unfortuantely Studio has become really unwieldy for me due to a bug which makes the viewport controls unusuable. So it took more time than I would like to reprise the thanksgiving render.
Here we go. Dang, I need to remember the forum does not like unusual character's like &. I think that was the problem.
Nicely done, Serene! A great dinner render, thar. :)
Thanks!
That is my new favorite of yours.
Awesome render! Realistic food and great posing.
Awww thanks it was a lot of work with studios viewport zooming around. I think it turned out well though.
Now I'm hungry for dinner all over again!
Hah! Yes, I love renders of food for some reason.
Okay, I want to talk about converting poses for Genesis 8 male. I have a lot of earlier poses and G8M has very few poses made for him so lets discuss techniques and tools to fix that.
For the initial test run, I'm going to use Savage Freak poses, because I love them. They are for M5 here. Bear in mind the poses are for a big man of Bruce banners dimensions.
https://www.daz3d.com/the-savage-freak5
Unfortunately conversion is a multi-step process.
Step 1. To bring these poses up to Genesis 2 Male I used V4 to Genesis 2 Pose Converter https://www.daz3d.com/v4-pose-converter-for-genesis-and-genesis-2-female-s
This will also convert Genesis 1 figures quite well.
Okay so now we have our Gen 1/V4/M4 pose as genesis 2. Groovy. Now it needs to be made Genesis 3.
Step 2 is to run our Genesis 2 to genesis 3 pose converter. I have this one: https://www.daz3d.com/pose-converter-genesis-2-female-s-to-genesis-3-female-s
I run and test. And voila. We have Freak 5 poses for Genesis 3.....
Step 3: Okay to convert my genesis 3 male poses from Genesis 3 to Genesis 8 I used this product https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-3-to-genesis-8-pose-converter
To get the pose converter to work, I had to go into the Genesis 3 Male folder where I put the converted folders, highlight the files, and convert them by doing a group selection and then running the tool. This is from within DAZ.
Now if I could just automate conversion from Genesis to Genesis 8 I'd be happy...
But you can convert your older poses from Genesis 1 and Michael 4 to Genesis 8, if you are willing to do a few steps. This should also work for Genesis 5 an V4 female.
Hey, @Serene Night! I was referred here from the book cover thread, since I design M/M book covers and am wanting to use some 3D characters as torso resources. You have sooooo many great looking dudes! Like, seriously, whoa.
I was wondering if I could get your advice on which character I might be best off starting with, with regard to M/M poses? There are a lot of Michaels. My instinct is that newer is better, but I see a lot of negative reactions surrounding G8 stuff. I'm not clear on why that is (too new for there to be a lot resources out for it?). But I thought I'd give asking a shot, lol. I don't really care about clothing or the heads, so I wouldn't want that to play a role in my choice, either. I'm mostly concerned with getting good photorealistic skin, lighting, and posing two dudes together as realistically as possible. If I'm being honest, I'm not even unhappy with the stock G8 male Daz provides, except that if there's better out there, I definitely want it :D
I picked up a M/M and F/F pose set on Renderosity ("Romance for All" by aeris19), which is G8. So it might be nice to start playing with that.
Any advice appreciated!
Great Thanksgiving dinner, SN! I think it turned out great.
I might have to try converting poses some time. I have to admit to doing it the hard way. If I see a pose I like for an earlier generation (like M4), I'll pose the figure and then I just use it as a reference and start posing the current figure (like G8M) to match until he's as close to the original pose as possible. Doing it that way taught me a lot about posing on the rigs we have for each generation, but it does take some time.
@knittingmommy yeah, thats the crux of it. I'm off work right now so I have more time to do renders, but the reality is I have a lot of old poses and very little time to do much with them. . Especially if you go through multiple generations. Savage freak has about 80 poses in there. I do admit a 3 step process for some of the older poses is a bit of a pain, but if you do the later poses, it is not so bad, since there maybe is one to two steps. The trip is to keep track of where you are at, so you don't try to convert something you already have converted.
I tried to stick to tools that have no additional steps. There are a number of pose converters which require additional steps to use, and the ones I used... Do not.
Hello angstyg and welcome to the forums.
I personally use only genesis 8 male, because he bends better and his expressions are better. I've gone through all the generations and each have their problems. . I think there is no harm in trying both generations as both genesis 3 male and genesis 8 base male are free to use. If you are doing close up work you'll want a HD package like Michael 8 HD so you can get the definition on the torso and probably a muscularity set like Massive Morphs for Genesis 8 male.. If you are just doing bodies, I'd get Michael 8 and bend control for genesis 8 male so your bodies bend well. I tend to want to dial in a lot of morphs for my heads, so if you start doing heads, you'll want face morph packages.
Depending on whether you want bodyhair, there are several fiber mesh options available and some autofit from older generations.
I think your instinct is correct, I'd try Genesis 8 and a figure or two and see how you like it.
Some don't like the heads of Generation 8 males, but since your not doing heads, you should be okay in getting something like Michael 8. I use him a lot and he's a good basic. But I usually use morphs to reshape his head the way I want.
Good luck! And if you get something you don't like there is a 30 day return policy.