Yes, I know ... you thought I'd gone again, wouldn't be back for another two years! Not quite. I did get sick, and I have been going through "hell and high water" with DAZ Studio 4.11, which I still absolutely detest, because it will ... not ... work ... properly. I've had an open ticket with tech support for three months now, and they're apparently no closer to being able to get it sorted out than they were when I began. And yes, I've chucked around $900 at hardware and software to reach this point --
Does this look awfully familiar:
That, ladies and ... ladies, is a DAZ Studio 3 raytrace, with a tiny bit of over-painting in Photoshop Elements 2009. Yes, ten year old software. It WORKS. First time, every time. And yes, I'm so far up to my eyeballs with Studio 4, I've gone back to Studio 3 to get some art done...
Mind you, the costume is new. Studio 3 is so reliable, I went from browsing the catalog at Xurge 3D, making the selection, buying it, downloading, installing, and painting the raytrace, in twenty minutes flat. This is an old character of mine, "the conjuror," whom you've seen several times before, usually performing a double act with a giant lizard -- Snake Charmer, and so on. This time, he's recast as a kind of fantasy gladiator, on account of this cossie:
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| Catalo image. See this... |
Again, those are catalog images, and if you're interested, and would like to see the whole range for Michael 4 at Xurge 3D, the addy you want is this: https://www.xurge3d.com/daz_3d_michael_4 ...
Uh huh, I've become so sick and tired of the high-jinx associated with Studio 4.11, I've even gone right back to Michael 4! As in, nuts to Genesis and Iray whatever for the moment. I'll get back to it in due course. The biggest problem I have is that Studio 4.11 can't save any of the old content. That is, all the Michael and Victoria 4 figures, costumes, hair, plus all the props and sets from that era. Studio 4.11 loads it all. It renders it all. Noooo problem, till you come to click on SAVE FILE, and when you do, it makes a project file (on the .duf file extension) which is so buggered up, when you reopen it, you get this -- all 3D models lost, stacks of boxes where they ought to be:
Wouldn't that just burn your noodles to a crisp? Yep. Tech Support are at a loss after three months, and I'm so sick and tired of wrestling with it, I've gone back to Studio 3. You see, the problem is, I need the old content in Studio 4, for two reasons. One, I paid over $3,000 for it, can't afford to buy all new stuff at this time ... and even if I could, the costumes and hair are not even available for Genesis 8 yet. And two, my computer is too slow to render the "high-poly-count" sets and figures, which are all you can buy, brand-new, for the Genesis generation...
Huh? Well, it's all about how many polygons go to make up the figure, embedded in the mesh. The higher the "poly count," the longer it takes to render something to get the grain out of the image, right? Right. That's fine. I don't mind long renders. But the new 3D assets are so high in the poly count, my video card "chokes" before the picture is anywhere near rendered. Like this:
Ten HOURS in Iray, and it's still nasty. You could leave it cooking till doomsday, it won't get any better. The problem, with this many polygons in the project: I can render the figure OR the set, but not both. Sooo...
Genesis 8 is all very nice, and Iray is dandy ... and they render the old content well. Check this out, if nothing else:
There you go, that's Michael 4. Midnight Prince hair, costume, set, yukimi, columns, statue, the works. Renders a treat. BUT as soon as you save it, you wind up with a stack of boxes where all the figures and props should be ... so you can't safeguard your work against a computer crash, a power outage ... or come back and finish it tomorrow. Everything is one-shot, on the fly -- !! [Insert sound byte of Freddie and the boys singing "Thunderbolt and lighting, very, very frightening!!]
So ... I'm tired enough of the rigmarole to say "stuff it," and run right back to Michael 4 and Studio 3. Yes, I'll come back to Studio 4 ... yes, there are experiments to run, and workarounds to be tried. But it's a bloody great nuisance, and you shouldn't have to, and I'm tired. So --
Shopping happily at Xurge 3D, rendering to my heart's content in the old program! More art very soon ... and a lot less wheel-spinning and mucking-about. Right? Right.
So here, have a wallpaper featuring today's hunk:
That's 1900x1080, and it should look terrific on most monitors. Looks a treat on mine!
Back soon....
