Sword masters, mages and -- cats!

Lucky I took a look at the DAZ House Cat this morning ... it's on sale right now, and so are several of the packs of poses. So I treated myself to a few items (inexpensive; the lot added together came to $27) and here's the result --

This is delicious! I'd have to call this picture "Irreverence." This is the Mage's study, with all his massive magic books. He's studying dragon-lore (if you could see the open book in CU, you'd see the pictures), and does his cat care? Not a jot! "Let's just roll in the sun on thid big leather book, and maybe I'll sharpen my claws on it!" It's actually a lovely figure:

Ooooh, the possibilities are endless! I'm going to enjoy this. I've just about caught up with images posted here. There's just a few more, the first of which is a set called The Guildhall, with special lighting set up -- Iray loves it.

So I'll have a pleasant afternoon, playing with my new kitty cat! So I'll sign out here, and --!

Something whimsical and "feel good"

I call the top picture "Listening at the Window," and the second "Rainy Days." These were such fun to do, and a huge departure from the usual stuff I do. They're also a lot more complex than they might seem! To begin with, I don't (yet) own either an owl or a cat (they're on the list!) so both of these had to be added in post, in Photoshop ... from transparent PNGs, which you can get for free from a remarkable site, which I assume is kosher. If it isn't ... ahem! Oh, while I'm in this neck of the woods, I should mention that HDRI Haven has changed its name and address to PolyHaven ... another godsend for resources. Fantastic place to get images to drive environment mapping for ambitious scenes like this:

Any chance I can get you to look at that one full size?! Thanks! That was such an ambitious project, in a HUGE set, with two spacecraft, two droids, and three armoured figures, plus an atmospheric plane. I'm just amazed that it only took 45mins in Iray -- and that's the magic of the low(er) poly figures of yesteryear. Then ...

We'll close on this one today, I think! The old DinoKonda, for which I did a new skinmap, and dug around till I found the DinoKonda Plus morphs to make it bigger and badder! This was a neat project too, so filled with shaders and props. Oh! One last image for today, before I sign out -- speaking of shaders, that is! This --

I treated myself to some new toys! Bohemian Candles by Sveva, from Renderosity, and ROG's Fantasy Home props from DAZ. I've also been installing scores and scores of older items from the 2010 - 2019 content ... am juuust starting to knock a dent in that work! The oars are definitely back in the water. 

When all else fails -- shaders!

 

Very seldom does something defeat me, but this did. The assignment was to reconfigure the Xurge3D Medieval Royalty costume for Iray. It shouldn't have been difficult, much less impossible. It's designed for Poser, but in a raytrace it looks very good in Studio --

I did that back in 2019, in Studio 4.12, albeit as a raytrace; so I know what it's supposed to look like! I tried everything. I mean -- everything. No joy. So in the end, what can you do?

I hit three different shader packs for this: one of the leathers, one for the fabric, one for the metal. Some things are destined to give you an afternoon-long fight, and in the end, you wind up what you could have done in the first place, in ten minutes! Next was to install an old set, DM's The Lair --

-- and this also was a tussle. What you don't realise in a raytrace is that this set is HUGE. It's like trying to illuminate a soccer pitch! Anyway. I did get it sorted in the end, and learned a thing or two while I was at it. Next ... merge the Michael 4 in costume into it:

You'll need to see that at full size to see the details, they're not going to come out in the small-size that can be accommodated on the page here, but I uploaded it large. I'm not unhappy with the render, but it's nowhere near as dramatic as it ought to have been, and the more I messed about with the lights, the more drab and confused it became. Hmm. In the end I settled for this, which isn't bad, and I'll come back to the project later. Well, fiddlesticks. Some days, it's just not going to go according to plan! 

In a mood for fantasy!

One thing about working with Genesis ... you never have to worry about the mesh crumpling! After working so long and hard to fix the M4 Stone figure (actually, his face), I needed a couple of days' respite from wrestling with that problem! So I went right back to Genesis, and did this the easy way. Actually, there's an experiment going on in these pictures. At this late, late date, I'm actually getting to grips with the dForce engine, which takes a costume and makes it fit and drape properly. I've avoided dForce items till now, because a) I have little experience with how to use the engine, and b) the couple of times when I did run it, it took sooooo long to drape the costume, even before one could start the render. These, above, were not so bad, which inspires me to experiment further. And...

This was actually a quickie this morning. It took no time at all, because that only looks like a set. In fact, it's just a backdrop and a couple of foreground bushes, and an HDRI light. The dress is resurfaced with a silk shader ... and (yay!) I have definitely cracked how to install Renderosity content into Studio 4.15. Phew. Now I can shop my favourite store without fear, for Genesis stuff. The old DAZ and Poser content was never any problem --

This is a V4 designed for Poser ... SASE's Nicole, bought in a sale at Renderosity yesterday, along with two other V4's. Installation is a breeze, and as soon as the skinmaps have been run through the Iray converter for Gen 4, they render beautifully. (Also lit entirely with an HDRI.) Call me nuts in this day and age of Genesis everything, but I'm having a flirtation with the Gen 4 characters. They are definitely a challenge, but they look ... different --

-- not to mention that a heck of a lot of stuff that was designed for Generation 4 hasn't been updated for Genesis. Even now, 85% of everything I own is for the G4 figures, and short of dropping about two grand on 3D shopping ...! So it's a good thing I like working with Michael and Victoria 4.   

How good is Michael 4, even now? Takes a bit extra work, but --

 

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!

Ruins in the dying light -- and browsing for a new leading man.

Here's an unexpected pleasure! The sale at Renderosity never stops, and since there's been a few things I've wanted (can't actually say "needed") for a while, I decided to take a look. This is AppleJack's Ruined Church, and it renders brilliantly. I added some skies photographed in the Flinders Ranges last week (where the sky is overwhelming, and gets very dramatic several times a day), and then got clever with IBL lighting, actually using the same images for backdrops and lighting. In this one, above, I added a hugely bright, warm spotlight, angled off to represent the lowering sun, and two copies of Merlin's crow, from the Wild Borders set.

The Ruined Church set may be old, and low-poly enough to render like lightning, but the finished result is more than good enough to feature on a book cover, for example -- and with careful lighting and camera work, it can be indistinguishable from reality. Neat! Very glad I shopped this sale! I also got a boat and a bridge, and you'll see more of all this in days to come. 

Next thing on my list of gotta-have items is this:

https://www.daz3d.com/michael-4-for-genesis-2-male

Rather speaks for itself, doesn't it? Basically, you can dial the exact-same body morphology for M4 into the Genesis 2 Male, which means that all your costumes and skinmaps will work. What won't work, of course, is the Morphs++ for M4; and you lose the head morphs. So the old characters (Jarrat and Stone, Leon, Sebastian, Amadeus, the list goes on) will be much, much harder to resurrect in the high-poly figure; though I wonder if it might be possible to go a step further. For US$50 there's a face transfer system, whereby you put in a clear full-face image, and it drops it onto the Genesis 8 ... mind you, not the Genesis 2! So there's a major compatibility clash, and to date no one has offered to resolve this. Hmm. US$50 is a a lot, but supposing Jarrat and Stone and the rest leapt into being as Genesis 8 characters. Lemme think about this. You have to wonder if there aren't better ways to go ... do what Hollywood does, and "recast" the parts. Try this for size:

See that full-sized, please ... I uploaded it large. This is Ragnar for Gianni 7, for Genesis 3 Male, by GypsyAngel, who also designed the Rex and Dae characters I use so much. Hmm. I really go need to think this through before I run hither and thither, chucking $$$ in every direction! Gianni 7 bundle for $90, and the GM3 Body morphs for $20, and Ragnar for $20. You're out US$130, but see where you are at the end of that spend! Huh.

See where your imagination goes, on a lazy Sunday afternoon?!

A little SF and fantasy ... why not?

 

Generation 4

Genesis 8

Six months after the new PC was installed (yes, it really has been that long!) I'm getting around to installing the Xurge 3D content. Started with the Druid Shaman wardrobe props, which have a really cool "Green Man" mask, which I love. They're designed for Poser, and when they land in Iray they tend to look verrrrry flat indeed, even with the Uber shader applied (which you should do immediately that you import anything to the workspace that wasn't designed for Iray. So... 

The trick is to dive into the Surfaces pane and dial up, or down, the values here and there. To test this, I exchanged half of the metal surfaces on the Shaman costume for MEC4D shaders, then dialled up the metallicity on the others ... both look grand. We'll call this piece "Mistletoe Dawn." 

(If you try to do this and don't see the metallicity slider for the surface you want to adjust, select that specific surface in the Surfaces pane, and apply the Uber shader to it a second time --

-- then look back at the item in the Surfaces pane. Click the carrot beside the item in the menu, drop down the sub-items. Choose General --

-- the metallicity slider will be there this time, absolutely guaranteed. This is also 80% of the trick of turning any surface in the scene into a light source. The Uber shader makes available suites of new parameters you can fiddle with; you just have to have the guts to dive into the Surfaces pane, LOL.)

The second piece is "Back in the Hangar," which is a return to a project I did a month or so ago. G8F wears the Hadron Suit, which I've resurfaced in car paint shaders (!), and I re-did the Thunderbike in a new colour (again, car paint), and stood the pair of them in the Level 19 set, then got clever with the light. I have a soft blue environment light (HDRI image) on this, plus one phenomenally bright golden spotlight (colour set with the photometric colour temperature); the only thing I had to fudge was a soft, cool point light to bring out the character's face, which was rendering a bit too dark. 

So today I'll install more of the Xurge 3D items, and see how they perform ... standby for some serious science fiction!

You shall not pass!

 

What else could the picture possibly be called? This is Dae for G8M, wearing the Axarra Headdress, with a couple of old props re-re-resurfaced for Iray ... a gold spotlight on the left, a soft blue point light to stage right ... I cranked a lot of metallicity into the horns on the headdress; and the backdrop was painted as a stand-alone, worked up from three photos. Nice! Also...

"Rhapsody in Blue." This one was dropped to monochrome and colourized, then some surface blur was applied and the colours tweaked. It's a lovely portrait to begin with, and this version -- to me -- is more striking than the original render; but I'll leave it to you to make up your own mind. It's worth mentioning that this is Victoria 4, not a Genesis character; the hair is a G8M hairdo which can easily be jockeyed into place and parented on:

That's all for now! It's late, and ... yaaaawn! More soon. 

Shaders, shaders everywhere; and new hair on new characters

With DAZ having a 55% off sale, who could resist? New Genesis 8 Male character here -- Yonni. This is one of the very few that look good (to my eye) right out of the box; I didn't do anything to him, just posed, lit and rendered him. Am extremely impressed with the skin tones and the eyes. It's well worth taking a look at these eyes, close up:

That's absolutely wonderful, and there's no drama in configuring this. Some characters are very difficult to light (such as Rex, who renders almost too dark to see details in the skinmap), and others have facial angles that can just look "wrong" when they render up. But Yonni is close to perfect. The hair is the Deck Hand hair, which renders marvellously ... and it fits perfectly, too! You wouldn't think fit was a lot to ask for, but it is. Next ...

Shaders! Here, I'm playing with some fantastic shaders I just got from Renderosity ... I may never have to buy fabric shaders ever again! This pack is amazing. I call this picture "Autumn Breeze." The hair is new; Dax Hair for G3 and G8. It's much tougher to work with, but when I get it figured out, it'll be very good. The falling leaves to the left were added with transparent .png clip pics from a free site: https://www.vhv.rs ... it's a massive site, so I assume it's legal and above-board; there's almost 900k items in their library, and that didn't happen overnight, so... anyway, the clipart is free and top quality. And --

Shaders! I've got shaders on everything here, from the floor to ... well, everything. This was a lot of fun to set up, though I have to say the shaders on the costume are very difficult to light, because they're so glossy, they burn out as soon as you put a spotlight on them that's bright enough to render skin tones properly. I'll try again tomorrow, and perhaps light them only with IBL environment lights. They're fabulous shaders, but you can't put a bright spotlight on them! The vehicle is the old Thunderbike, which I resurfaced with car paint -- Shelby Monza Red. Big wow factor. And...

The oars are juuuust about back in the water with Terragen! I've jogged my brain about 55%, still have some things to work out, and I'm not driving it without long, hard thought, but I should be able to generate the atmospherics for Studio work without further ado. Am still making a lot of rookie mistakes; managed to saddle myself with a 25-hour render, when it should have been about two! But I know what I did, and won't make that booboo again. So ... looking good! 

The Lair of the Goblin Queen -- and so forth

 

Please see this full size -- it's quite a visual feast! Taking inspiration from Frazetta, I've put the G8 Female, and a G8 Male, into The Throne of the Barbarian King, and then lit it largely with its own torchlight. The G8F is Ginnie HD, wearing the Crimsoneye costume and Axarra headdess. The G8M is Michael 8 with the Dae face turned on 100%, and the Angelic Fallen tattoos added. All else is lighting. Oh -- Conan, here, is wearing the AS Hair for G8F; the prop works well on the male, though it's very glossy. I need to work out how to make it look less like a shampoo commercial -- or else, as I did here, zap it with some virtual paint to "paint it down." I'll come back to this barbarian soon ... I rather like the Conan thing we've got going on here!

And now for something completely different ... an android. doubtlessly. Compete with mauve hair and purple fingernails, and a costume that's been resurfaced with (!) car paint! The car paint shader was a freebie from Deviantart, and I went back to the page to find the link, to be include it here. Its a fabulous set of colors, shades, gloss, the works. Highly recommended -- click here to go there. And here's something pretty...

Right out of a storybook. What I must do (soon) is work out how to get fully photographic results with the horse. This is the exact same lighting set I used for a G8F fantasy gypsy-warrior a little while ago; on the human character, I got a photographic result. On the horse ... pretty, but nowhere near to photographic. This is one I must work out, because I'd love to get photo-realistic horse renders. 

That's all for now, from DAZ, but --

I've just started up Terragen for the first time in several years, and I'm making every rookie mistake! I've saddled myself with a 25 hour render, and it's 97% done by the time I get up next morning, figure something has to be wrong, research it, get a lead on what I did to sabotage myself ... it's not worth stopping it after 21 hours of render time, so I'll let it go, and finish -- and I won't make that mistake again! First experiments are jogging my memory nicely...

The object of running Terragen is to be able to create custom atmospherics for DAZ renders, so the 25-hour booboo I have finishing up sometime today, which involves sunlight sparkling on water, doesn't need to be repeated. From here on, I'll drop the skyline low in the shot, and just render the sky. Oddly enough, Terragen renders the skies quickly. Since this was the whole point of installing it --! More soon, but right now, the system will be tied up all day, finishing a pretty simple picture: mea culpa. My bad, as they say. Aarrghhh.  

 

Installing third party content into DAZ Studio 4 ... new shaders, sets and toys!

I'd bought a gorgeous new set of shaders and set out to play with them, only to discover myself playing with lights, too ... and this happened. That's a heck of a nice picture. And...

This one makes me think of Purdey from The New Avengers -- is anyone old enough to remember that show? This is where shaders come into their own. This costume is put together from bits of four others, but a great shader on them makes the whole thing dovetail into something new. Kit bashing for fun. Continuing on --

This worked well. The background was rendered in Vue, many years ago (by Dave!),and it's the perfect sunset for DM's Sunedge set. I call this Forgotten. It was just a few minutes in Iray, because the older models and refreshingly low-poly; and then some quick post work in Photosop (birds, lens flare on the virtual camera), and it was done. Nice! Then --

This one, you're going to have to see full size, to appreciate the details. Throne of The Barbarian King, by Sveva, was on sale at Renderosity, and I couldn't resist. This was also the exact thing I needed to test out the installation paths for third party content going into Studio ... by George, I think I've got it. In fact, I know I have. When you're installing 3D goodies to Studio, the Zip file unpacks to produce a data folder and a Runtime folder. The data folder includes a sub-folder named for the designer of the goodies, and it gets unpacked/copied to this file path:

C:\Daz 3D\Applications\Data\DAZ 3D\My 3D Library\data\[designer]

There could also be an Environments folder (with the subfolder named for the designer within), and if there is, it gets unpacked/copied to --

C:\Daz 3D\Applications\Data\DAZ 3D\My 3D Library\Environoments\[designer]

...and after that, everything else is placed into the Runtime folder, same as always.

If you've been trying to work this out, this should get you going. I have much more to upload, and a very complex render cooking in the background as I type this, but I'll sign out here, and go looking for some dinner!