A whole new character, yep. High time, I thought, that I started creating my own, since I got the face and body morphs, and I now have something like ten skinmaps. So here's "first try, first look" at something created by me, right on the desktop here. I like this so much, he needs a name so we can come back to him and see a lot more of him (uh, literally). It wasn't even difficult to put the character together, though it took a bit of painting to fix (and I'm astonished to say this) an incongruity in the skinmap. You can't see it till your four hour render is finished (I left it cooking when I went to bed), but then you can see a terrific "tidemark" where the shoulder diffuse map joins the arm diffuse map: they seem to be at two different "exposures." Anyway, it's an easy fix, so, what the hey?
The skinmap itself renders beautifully. It's the Kingston for G8, and you see it right here. Lovely. The face morph is also good, but not what I wanted for my own character --
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| Catalog picture. See this... |
About ten days ago I discovered that at least one Michael 4 wig fit Genesis 8 so closely, it takes minimal tweaking or post work to make it look good on G8. The question was, did the Yannis Rasta Dreads fit Genesis 8? Soooo ...
Answer: yes, they do! The hair prop was from Renderosity, years and years ago. I did track it down there today, and ... sorry to say, it doesn't look the same by a very long shot. You can still get a version of it, but I think it's been updated; and I do prefer the Jack Sparrow original. Take a look, anyway -- cheers. It's for the Michael 4 base figure, but you see the proof for yourself: M4 and G8 are sooooo nearly compatible, it's a crying shame someone doesn't do a conversion script for the costumes and hair!
Treated myself to some new shaders, and am playing happily ...
Metallic leather ... this is one of about a hundred combinations you could use, and it'd slap on a costume just as easily. Now, there's a thought!
The File-Save problem continues, into Week 10 now, with DAZ Tech Support still chasing it down. If we can't get there in the end, so be it. Am spending a tonne of money on sets and so forth, all geared for Iray. The oars are not quite back in the water, but in about $1,000 they will be. Ouch! For the moment, my one challenge is (still) how to get EYES to render reliably in Iray. One day "Plan A" works, the next day it doesn't, so you can never be sure of what you're going to get. I confess, from time to time I'm still painting the pupil, iris and highlights in Photoshop ... also, nothing I do will make the G8 eyelashes turn on, on some characters. On others, they're automatic. WTF??? Photoshop to the rescue.
Have been absent for a week from this blog -- sorry! So sick, if I was a dog, you'd have shot me. Getting better now ... not 100% yet, but up to playing in DAZ and Photoshop. Sometimes it's frustrating, but (mostly) it's also fun.
More very soon: I have images swimming in my head, trying to get out...
