NEW! Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 6
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Hope it's ok to show these. This is a very nice set from Graphic River: http://graphicriver.net/item/the-sketcher-7-photoshop-actions/6830568?s_phrase=line art&s_rank=67
I show the original render, where I tweaked the color for use with the line art, the line art over the tweaked color and the line art alone. Also a vintage line environment photo.
Of course it is!
I hadn't seen that one before. I like the third one in particular (and also the vintage.)
Need some assistance from the thread viewers- please VOTE in the Because I Said So! contest, there's only 4 hours left to do so. The Entry Thread for November is full of funny renders! The way it works, statements are provided and the artists render it with the emphasis on humor. And they will make you smile or laugh out loud! If you haven't participated yet, check out the December statements- it runs through the middle of next month so you have a month and a half to render something. People who vote are also contributors to the statements- I select several to add to mine, and we have a great mix!
So please go vote, suggest a statement if you'd like, and thanks for your help!
Cathie
A couple things I noticed in the "oldest" section (and hence, better discounts) is the LXV Furniture ReImagined and bedroom. I read it comes in white, so you can literally do a little girl's colors (aka pink, and they show purple, which is close) and any other color you want. Good for "older" styled homes or time periods. So maybe give this a glance- if you're PC+ you pick up the furniture (it's in the Required, on the pages) for $1.99 then use these products. They're $8.97 but then add your discount (5 punches would be $4.48) I haven't played with Iray shaders yet, but I image this could be a lot of fun to convert.
Anyone use this set and have a render?
EDIT: LOL, I read "Commode" in the list of props and thought of a toilet.
BTW, for folks new to Iray (and those of us wading through the never-ending "did ya know..." ) the one thing I did find quickly was the use of the Crush Blacks in the Tone Mapping section. I read it was like increasing the contrast, and have found it handy. Someone had a question on shadows and I showed that could have an effect (still trying to find out what Dimension Theory set they are using, their settings, etc) but if you want to see Crush Blacks in action (and can give this person some other advice) check out this post. I know Crush Blacks isn't the solution, they don't want their overall figure to go dark, but thought I'd mention it as one aspect of too light shadows.
I do postwork in Corel Photopaint and in Photoshop with tweaking hues, contrast, midtones, intensity, etc. While I'm sure most people know about adding layers and duplicating them (right click on a layer and Duplicate) this is also a helpful link shared in another thread that talks you through making those kinds of tweaks. I did this Photoshop to show you, as I think more people use that the Corel (and I have an old version. It works fine for what I do.) I don't do it exactly as Laticis, I do more contrast/instensity, particularly at the end. The first one is the original, the second is the Photoshop/Corel combined postworked one. This render was previously posted, it's Ariella, Cherry Blossom Hair. Don't remember the outfit, anyone know?
Edit: This is Ariella with the Creative Retouch product from Envato, with a lot of layer tweaking. It is a cartoon style but slightly more realistic than cartoons.
Outfit is Just Jokin'
Nice render. I'll check out the link.
I had that in the file name but had the "g" at the end so it didn't come up. (I've learned my lesson, I put the character, hair, outfit so when I go back through, I don't have to wonder what the heck I used.)
Someone else posted the link in a thread and I would credit them but can't find the darned thread. I surf too many!
I don't know if folks like to see older sets reviewed but this is one I only purchased this past year: Ra's Palace for DAZ Studio. The product page talks about it working in Daz Studio 3 so I think it may be fairly old. I tried it with iRay to see how well it works. After loading, I deleted the 3DL lights and the skydome that comes with Ra's Palace. I then used the Desert Worlds scene from Iray Worlds SkyDome. One thing I find with the IWS skydome is the sunlight direction conflicts with the position of the sun in the sky: for example, the sun is in the sky in front of you but the shadows are also going forward as if the sun is behind you (this may come from the mirrored skydome which is made by duplicating one 180 degree photo to give a 360 degree environment). Because of this, I hid the Iray World sun and added the Iray Sun Dial Set (a render preset found in the Render Settings tab). After doing this, the renders were coming out darker than I wanted so I also bumped up the Film ISO in the render settings (I could have changed the shutter speed, f/stop, or other controls to get the same effect). For materials, I added the Daz Iray Uber Base shader to the buildings and the DAZ Iray water shader to the water. Overall, the set renders well in iRay. Comes with a lot of well-positioned cameras that let you quickly go from place to place. Lot's of potential scenes can be set in this environment. Click on the images for larger renders.
ISO set at 400. A little dark under the eaves but that's something you would experience in real life when the sun is low in the sky:
Very good reflections off the water with the Iray shader:
ISO up at 1200 to make the steps look bright enough. Like a real-world camera, this then caused the sky to get a little washed out. I tried to do a composite scene (render sky alone and merge with building) but a lot of the light is coming from the skydome HDRI:
ISO at 400 with a bit of iRay emission added to the stone walls. This is a good example of the conflict between sun and shadows. I forgot to reset the sun for this view so the shadows look like the sun is high in the sky whereas the sunlight in the cloud says the sun is low near the horizon:
We feature older stuff all the time!
I did Waverly earlier tonight, before you even posted an "oldie." LOL.
Waverly is V4/use shapes for Genesis and use Genesis which is what I did, Apple Hair- and oh my goodness, those awful leg bends at the knees! I'll be transferring my Genesis to Gen2F, that's for sure. There are bend fixers, but they sure add up! I did the research a couple days ago, and there's one here at Daz, and the elbow/other bends are at Rendo by the same vendor. There's no bundle, and frankly, I would buy the generation converter before I'd spend on bends.
This is Iray, without any material tweaking, out of the box.
Now, those Genesis eyes with large reflection areas- how do you fix that in postwork? The first image is the "out of the box" and the second is postworked. What I did: First, I put the darker ring around the pupil where it has been covered up, in this case, the bottom left (as we look at it) of the pupil. Then put a medium color found in the iris, and color over the excessive white glare that you want removed. Make what's left an irregular pattern, or, if you do a rectangle, remember the curve of the eye! Your rectangle can't be straight! Notice even the light areas are not the same color, I used whites, grays, and blues. (Enlarge the images and look at my highlights.)
Last, put other dark flecks in next, then work your way up from darker to lighter. Irises have squiggly flecks and straight lines shooting out from the pupil (think of the sun's rays that you drew as a kid, shooting out and angled.) LAYER. Put in dark, light, medium, more dark, medium, change it up, etc.
Last, compare the black pupils before/after, note I put one bright dot then the other lines are duller- and they should match the curve of the eye. If you don't draw, do a comma, with the tail as the curve! If you do a a rectangle, remember to curve it. These eyes have a square as the default, and it is not a perfect square, note it changes size with the curve.
First is the side view, with the default glary eyes, the second is a different view with the default eyes, and the third is with the postworked eyes. Fourth shows that leg bend. I like Waverly!
Has anyone tried Vandra? Her lips weren't good under Iray lighting, a chalky white. (Using one of Dimension Theory's. Skies of iRadiance)
I had to put in a different diffuse color, glossy color, etc. Rendering now.
her default base lips, or one of the lipsticks? I'm doing a quick iray render of her now, and her lips are looking normal to me.
Uh oh, you are probably doing Vandra, which I typed in, and I am doing Vanda. My bad, sorry!!!!
Vanda for Karen 7 is has Christina Hair and wearing the Abigail Outfit (Genesis 3)
It was her normal lips, default. Even when I put in one of the lip choices it didn't darken as much as the icon showed (not even close.) This was a large render (don't know why I did a 1200 pixel one!) and rendered eight hours, it's 80% and good enough to show you her details.This is with my lip changes, I'll try reloading her from scratch and see if I get the same thing. Was curious if it was a flukey thing and seems to be, if everyone else is getting good results.
I hesitate to step in with nothing of value to add to the thread, but after reading about Kathryn and never having told her how much her efforts were appreciated, it just seems like that kind of day. This is one of the few threads that I always read whenever there's something new, and I just wanted to say 'Thank you' to Novica and the other contributors - I'm pretty certain I've spent money that I otherwise would not have done without this thread, but it's made sure that I've got value for every penny. Here's to a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year for all of you.
That's the most value you can step in with!
Thank you. Carrie (Kathryn, pen name) knew she was appreciated by the number of people who surfed in, even without commenting. The nicest thing you folks can do for her is to keep interacting with each other on her thread, and when it's full, start another one in her memory. The thread is chocked full of timeless excellent advice and it would be a shame for it to get buried. (LOL- and when I'm gone, feel free to change the name of the next thread and carry on!!!!)
This thread is what it is because of all the contributors.
And LOL, I've bought a few featured things myself- thought "Whoa, that looks good.... how did I miss that one?"
I can't get to it right now because I'm doing another closeup of Vanda (still with my lip settings, which I gave you) but I'm going to give you the Expressions / individual face parts combination that I am using for her smile in case you're interested. (And in case you're not, you get it anyway, ha ha.) I dialed in (why do we say that when we're doing sliders? Because it sounds weird to say "I slid in..." ) the Expressions first, and I usually tweak the eyebrows and top eyelid after that because they are usually too high or too low. For Vanda's expression, I lowered the eyebrows and top eyelid.
I like to do Expressions first because there's different smile choices for the mouth (when you go to Parameters) and one includes mouth open. I want to see how open the mouth is before I twiddle with that, therefore Expressions comes first. Curious as to how the rest of you set up expressions.
So I'll post the settings and the front view of Vanda with that expression (same as from above, but front view shows it better) but it will be about an hour. She's still rendering.
EDIT: Okay, here's the expression on Vanda, it should be similar to other Gen3 Females depending on their lip shapes.
Select Vandra (or your character) in Scene. Go to Parameters>Pose Controls> Head. Start with Expressions:
Confident 34.4, Desire 46.8, Excitement 9.2, Flirting 4.8, Happy 47.2, Pleased 14.4
After you do Expressions, check these and change any that don't match. Some of these are set by the Expressions.
Then Brow>Inner Up/Down 0, but the Left and Right are -47.9 Outer Up/Down -81.2 but Left and Right are -100. Then Brow Up/Down and the Left/Right are all -47.9
Next go to Eyes and the Upper Eyelid, do -9. That's it!
Invited Guest Contributor
I used these products ( love it)
- Little Ones (African Male) for Genesis 3 Male http://www.daz3d.com/little-ones-african-male-for-genesis-3-male
- Little Ones (Props) for Genesis 3 http://www.daz3d.com/little-ones-props-for-genesis-3
I also used Reality 4.1 - DAZ Studio Edition http://www.daz3d.com/reality-4-daz-studio-edition
Hope you like it
Yes, I absolutely do! That shirt is giggle-producing too! I haven't played with the kids yet, love what you did! Thanks for sharing! (BTW, do they render fast compared to other stuff you have done, or about the same?)
No, I was definitely using Vanda for Karen 7
(i don't know a Vandra?)
This is just a quickie iray test - used the default Vanda iray base mat, no makups. Her lips are looking normal to me, not chalky white. I wonder if it's maybe the lighting doing that? The lights I used are a simple quick set that a friend did - just two lights, and the environment map is actually from dimension theory's Luminence for DS set (it's just a tif tho)
There's a Vandra who is V4 (I did a search when I typed in the wrong character) I am using one of Dimension Theory's lights (the Skies of iRadiance) and haven't had a chance to reload and try her but I'll do that shortly. If I get the same result, I'll try another light. Thanks for showing her, this is definitely funky on my end.
BTW mods, there is a 404 error on the new product by Ansiko, the beach huts. Where the products used are listed: The hot mess outfit doesn't have the last part of the link (for-genesis-2-females)
And KUDOS to Champion Outfit vendors- no high heeled boots, and a backside that is completely family friendly! I can't think of when I'd ever need this outfit, but I'm buying it because it's discounted steeply and because of the effort to give us something that doesn't have the booty hanging out and NO HEELS!!! on the boots!
This freebie looks like fun! The first is Ariella again, with the Shading DuoTone. If you want to make posters, gallery art pieces, this would be fun!
Second, outline/shading/duo tone (all this is done for you, one click. On all these, I choose the brightness and contrast, really neat!) The next one, I hid the original and the shading, and kept the LINES ONLY. Didn't tweak at all (darken or contrast) this was out of the box.
This next one is not out of the box, it is the 3 ALT BW Line, but I right clicked the Outline Layer 2 and changed the normal light to hard light, the fill opacity down to 56%. Next to it, was really PLAYTIME. I went through so many steps that it was ridiculous, I will post them for you but I am sure there's a faster way to get there than the way I did it. However, if you've ever tweaked anything in Photoshop, you know that doing one step differently will get you a totally new result. See below the images. What this did- note the arm on your left, the bolder, rougher line going down the arm, and if you see these closeup, the peaks of the lips also have more of that effect, as does the right line going down the nose (our right) the midtones are richer in the patterns on the top and vary more throughout, etc. The most immediate place to see the difference is the puffy sleeve on our right really has more detail.
Still using the hard light setup, all these go to Image>(the step)
Brightness/Contrast: -27 / 50
Exposure>Exposure -0.16, Offset +0.3789, Gamma Correction 0.39
Levels>93 / 1.72 / 223
Curves> Output 98, Input 119
Shadows/Highlights> 0/0
Black and White>all 300%
Brightness/Contrast>12 / 19
Then I went into Corel Photo Paint to fine tune (but the above will get you very close, ony using PS) Brightness 29/Contrast -26/ Hightlights 15, Shadows -75, Midtones -98.
Whew.
Oh hey, Flash Sales are stacking on some items with the SaveALanche if you have a new product in your cart. While I might not be considering some of the hairstyles initially, I do remember them being rendered in one of my previous threads. Danyel Hair is good for time period renders, and we don't have anything like it that I can remember. Casual Slick Hair is another one that is stacking. Their price? $1.25 Experiment with Neftis, I have a lot of them so I didn't test the ones I don't own. I do remember they might take a bit longer to render (fiber mesh?)
Also in the SaveALanch- take a peek at this: Immortal Ronin and look at the masks! If nothing else, I wonder if they can be used for wall masks in the background! That goes for $4.99 and there's a lot to it. The poses are $2.39 and Kochi Castle Assault is $3.99.
It's my birthday next Tuesday so I decided to treat myself and buy my own birthday present
and i just picked up the Olympia 7 Pro bundle. Normally, I don't really like the pro bundles, but this one I liked more of the products than not, and it worked out better to get that rather than just the base and the stuff I wanted. I was hesitant about Olympia 7 but I caved and nabbed her eventually...and I'm really glad I did. She's gorgeous. This is just a quickie iray render - stopped at 93% mark at about half hour. Lit with a couple of point lights and the background is just a tif in the environement map. She's wearing AprilYSH's fantastic Odessa Hair and the dress/top from Artemis Moon
It's faster than the other renders that I have done
Nicely done jakiblue. I haven't bought this figure yet. I really need more guy content, but you render looks great.
Wow! great looking render. And a good birthday present for yourself. She does look gorgeous.
jakiblue- She is absolutely STUNNING- wonderful render! Contribute anytime, love your work. (And thank you Rich too- stellar contributions and I appreciate all the time it takes to do the art and the writeups.)
RHS Stagecoach was a surprise- done in 2007, you folks who do Iray should note it HAS IRAY MATERIALS. Is there a list somewhere of what has been updated with those? I was like, "Whoa!" (keeping with the horse/stagecoach theme, thought that was appropriate...) Don't know why, out of the blue, an old stagecoach is now Iray-ed, but thanks to whoever did it!
Edit: EEEEEEEEK. 10,600 posts!!
Did you folks catch this comment by Daz_Steve?
"<spolier alert> There will be another male next week, and you'll save extra on him if you own Olympia 7."
I wonder if that will happen? Next week would be great! Hopefully not a teen or kory 7
Something relatively new. I got Loft Dance Studio in late September along with Teen Josie 7 Pro Bundle. One of my daughters took dance for a while so I've seen studios like this. In fact, I took dance with my sister and even performed on stage as a little boy (tap dance back when it was popular!). I was never very good.
Josie is clothed in Dance Gear for Genesis 3 Females and uses a pose from Classical Dance Poses for Genesis 3 Female (both of these are in the Josie pro bundle). Hair is Toulouse Hair from Genesis 3 starter essentials with a color from that same pack. The render is 3DL. The lighting comes with the set but I thought the default uber environment light was too bright (washed out the shadows) and the sunlight not bright enough so I changed both. I also thought the 3DL skin of Josie was too red, so I changed the SSS color a bit. It rendered quickly and I like the reflections in the mirror and the gloss on the floor.
Although the set doesn't come with Iray materials, I'm going to try a render in Iray to see how well it does.