Just one image today ... but it is a humdinger. A new character and hair -- and I'm running tests to see how it renders. A treat, is how it renders! This is Rex, and if I tell you the truth, this was the character that made me bite the bullet and get involved with Studio 4-point-whatever and Iray, because this is a Genesis 8 character and it can only be done in Iray, which demands Studio 4.9+ ... so!
In fact, DAZ has been having a 50% off sale, so I got this character and another, plus this hair, and a set of the best eyes for Genesis, and (ouch!) the G8 Male Body Morphs, at full price. Yes, I know, I just dropped over a hundred bucks, but at least you came home with a swag of goodies!
There are so many permutations of these characters and hair props, it'll take eons to work through them. You could actually use any one of five different permutations and call it a new character. And, I wonder ... could you take the skinmap from one character, the face morph from another, and the body morph from a third?? The possibilities are endless, even before I start designing my own G8 characters -- which I will be doing as soon as I get the head morphs, to accompany the body morphs. (Alas, they're sold separately and cost A$30 each, so it'll take a wee while.)
Also -- I think I might have Iray performing properly, to wit, this render, above. The thing is, I think I'm cheating. This is, I think, the best render I've had so far ... and I didn't create a camera. I did IBL lighting and rendered the perspective view, and -- 1) the eyes are good; 2) the shadows are good; 3) the shot is beautifully balanced. The missing element is the camera. And yes, I know you can't get DOF working without a camera, but I have to admit, it's a relief to just get a really good render, DOF or not, camera or not!
Speaking of depth of field ... it does work differently in Iray than in 3Delight, and I'm planning to spend a whole afternoon getting it figured out, as soon as this splitting headache stops ... yes, this is Day 5 of the skull-splitter. I live for the day when it ends. Then, I found a really great tutorial on YouTube, and I'll just have that running on the laptop and Studio running on the desktop right beside it ... skip over all the preliminary stuff, because 85% of it theoretical and pertains to 3Delight, which I can drive in my sleep. But close to the end it gets to the Iray DOF stuff, and that's where it gets interesting.
So there you have him: Rex in one of his permutations! The catalog images look like this:
...that hair is listed as being the Elan wig, but I do have that one, and it doesn't look like this -- or, I haven't found the way to make the prop look like this yet! There's also some displacement mapping on the character in these renders, that isn't in the default load -- need to find that too. But as a first look, first test of the character, I'm very happy indeed.
Incidentally, the hair he's wearing in my render is Shavonne Hair, which was actually designed for Genesis 3, but it turns out that almost anything for any of the Genesis figures does work with G8, so that's a mercy. Means I can buy just about anything, and it'll work. Big grin.
Stay tuned. Soon as I get this headache stopped, I have tonnes of stuff to do. If it doesn't stop soon ... well, the words 'doctor' and 'MRI' have been spoken, so ... ask. Bear with me.
