I'm going to be honest. I enjoy working with Michael 4 a lot. Genesis makes everything easy, but the Generation 4 figures, especially M4, are so rewarding. Also, 80% of everything I own in terms of assets was designed for Gen 4, so even now the Genesis figures are somewhat restricted. Assets such as wardrobe and hair are expensive, and I don't have the bucks to buy everything all over again -- even if the really cool stuff that was designed for M4 had been re-jigged for G3 or G8, but it hasn't! The fact is, some really good shaders will get the oars back into the water with most of the old props; and these images, today, are shader-heavy. So --
How good is Michael 4, even now?! This one, above, I call "Last Stand," and this was a massive experiment in lighting. Genuine daylight was achieved with the environment lights but not with an IBL image. I used the Sun And Sky Only option, which lets you set the time of day, sun position and brightness. Now, this could be brighter and more contrasty --
-- which might be more in keeping with a photograph, but frankly, I prefer the richer, more colour saturated version. Either way, it's true daylight! I'll enjoy playing with this trick of Sun and Sky Only again! One more interesting thing --
I've reprocessed this as a movie still. That is so neat! I ought to do more in monochrome. It can produce some startling results. That's all from me for today ... my head is full of ideas, but tomorrow is a day off, so I'll be back in a couple of days!
