Baby dragons ... how cute is this?

 

The assignment began as the chore of breaking the Consulting Mage out of storage as a Character Preset, running the whole thing through the Iray Converter, and seeing how he'll render up in Iray ... and I guess I got side-tracked! Can't have the Consulting Mage without his pet, right? Right. So ... next, load up the Dragonling and convert that also for Iray. This was such fun, I wound up posing him as if he were a kitten, and the render was so delicious, I wanted to come back for more. So --

The experiment grew. I had an intuition that the Demon Wings would look better on him than the wings shipped with the Dragoning, so, having fitted them, well, then I had to paint a whole new shader for them, so they matched the rest of him. Diffuse and Displacement, translucency ... okay. And doesn't this just look grand! Then, just as I was closing down for the evening a little idea ran through my mind of having the Dragonling chasing butterflies in the sunshine, since he's like a scaly, smoke-breathing, flying version of a kitten (ye gods, what a thought), and the top picture happened! This was a lot of fun. I think I'll come back to these characters soon...

Staying on the fantasy theme, I went on to these ... and you know something momentous is going on here, but I'm not sure (yet) what it is! The Gypsy Wagon is enormous fun to play with...

...and I treated myself to a pack of "greens" to make it easier to get really good landscapes. I still need some great trees, but they can start to get very, very expensive. I have some wish listed, and am keeping an eye on them, because trees are the factor that can make or break a photorealistic scene. If they're "storybook" trees, you'll end up with art, not a photo, no matter how clever you are with the lights. I did some other renders of the wagon, too; but I think the figure I placed into the scene is out of scale, so I'll re-do that ... the lighting is too gorgeous to just ditch the project because of a problem that could be pretty easily fixed. Hmm. I might do this, this afternoon! And right now --

https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/the-wizards-wagon/72818/

--Sveva's Wizard's Wagon is on sale at Renderosity. I think I'm about to give myself a treat! I just have to be a bit careful with spending, because it's soooo easy to spend way too much. This month, I already bought characters, poses, shaders, two greens prop sets, and a fantastic set of homewares for a fantasy house. An inspired designed has modelled Bilbo's hobbit house, and filled it with all his possessions. You buy it room by room, set by set. LOL, all you need is money! I bought one set of props, and the rest are wish listed. Oh, one day.  That's all for now ... there's a load more to post, but we'll get onto SF and so on tomorrow. 

Colony world, a fractured faery tale, virtual holiday snaps, new props and shaders!

 

"Heavy lifter on approach" ... another in my series of "Alien Colony" images. Pleased to say, this doesn't use a backdrop ... that's the Power Cargo prop, by Powerage, waaaaay outside the Station 3000 set, also by Powerage, with an atmospheric plane slapped between. I put an opacity map on it for some airborne texture. Add Yonni for G8M, and the Droid with new shaders; the whole thing rendered all of a piece. The only post work is a lick of dust rising in the foreground. This took about twenty minutes to "cook"... interesting that the old Rust-icator shader works excellently with Iray. And ...

"...and as the sun touched the hills she heard the creature's dreadful cry. Rogue Red took up her grandmother's sword, left behind the ill-favoured riding hood -- and went out to hunt wolf. " In fact, a fractured faery tale, in which Grandmama had been the swordmaster who, in her day, taught the young warriors, and the wolf is wyrkind, yielding only to an ancient blade that was Grandmama's possession for over a hundred years before the creature got the better of her. (That's Jolinari; Akaste hair gussied up with new shaders by TwiztedMetal; parts of the Rogue Red Returns costume; Swashbuckler boots; DM's Kerrick's Sword, fallen boughs and lantern. Additional shaders by Atenais (dress), JG (glass), Twizted (tights). Yet more shaders layered on the ground. One bright, warm spot, a hint of environment light, a tonne of light poured out by the candle flame, and some tone mapping. The shader on the sword ... hey, I made another shader! Couldn't find anything I liked today, so I delved back into an old project and exported the surface I'd made for another blade. It worked!) Plus...

Another in my ongoing series of "Holiday Snaps" ... in fact, playing with "available light" streaming in through two opposing windows. This was fun. That's a mix and match V4, with the face morph from one character, the body morph from another, the skinmap from a third, plus Nana hair with Twizted's hair shaders added, and the old Shadow Dancer costume given a complete makeover with fabric shaders. Victoria is visiting DM's Anardhouse set, and in the background --

Renderosity was having a sale (when are they not?) and I couldn't resist a pack of Ceramic shaders. These are goof proof and unspeakably gorgeous, so I'm salting them away in all kinds of places. They really are gorgeous ... and tonight, DAZ was having a sale, and I bought the "ROG Fantasy Home Living Room Furniture Set, which is a set of over sixty props, which are going to be sheer joy to work with! Later, when I have some spare cash, I'll get the Fantasy Home set too ... it's a 3D realization of Bilbo's house, and it's ... delicious. But not before I have some spare bucks. 

A little SF, a little fantasy

 

She's the boss! Or, "This alien tomb is eight thousand years old, you are not blowing it up!" There's a story idea running through this sequence of images. A field archaeologist has her dig invaded by the military, and naturally their idea of getting things done involves explosives! I've been installing more old goodies from yesteryear ... DM's Pyrago set as never looked better, and the Xurge3D space armour renders so well. That's actually Jarrat wearing it ... I wanted to put the scene together quickly, so I merged in an existing figure...

And the other day I bought a new Genesis 8 Female character -- on sale for about $7.50 and too good to go past. It's Fumiko, and it renders like a dream -- soooo easy, literally no way for it to render poorly with this HD skinmap:

And the other thing I've been playing happily with is the hair shaders, by TwiztedMetal, which are a little tricky to use, but can give some amazing results, like this Genesis 3 hair prop, which fits Michael 4 perfectly...

Varun Hair for Genesis 3 male, fit to Michael 4, with shaders by TwiztedMetal

Must play with these some more, and really get the hang of them. Tomorrow, I'll be installing the set of ceramics shaders I bought the other day, too. From the catalog pictures at Renderosity, they look amazing ... this will be fun! 

The Little Demon returns ... and hair shaders!

 

Now, here's a character we haven't seen in a long time! I got back into Studio 3, exported a whole bunch of the old characters as presets ... ran them through the Iray Converter for Generation 4 to get them ready for Iray, and here we go! "Magic Hour" -- the Little Demon, in the Ruined Church set by AppleJack. And the thing I'm proudest of about this render is ... the shader on the wings is mine. Yep, I made a shader, the whole thing, with the mapping and everything. Whoo! Also...

I treated myself to some shaders from Renderosity this morning, and boy, do they work!At least, so far, so good. These are the Hair Shaders 2, by TwiztedMetal, and they just look so good on hair props right across the spectrum from Genesis 8 back to Generation 4. Above, this is Georgia HD for G8 Female, and good old Victoria 4, wearing a face designed by me and the Angel skinmap. The hair in both cases is resurfaced with the new hair shaders ... now, I'm impressed! The possibilities are endless. There's more, but it'll wait till tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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!

Hello, beautiful ... but not what I expected! And breaking the armour out of storage...

 

First, the good stuff: the Xurge3D armour installs smoothly, loads perfectly, resurfaces easily, and renders beautifully in Iray. "Mirror black armor," all that kevlex-titanium ... sound familiar? Look familiar? It should! Sooo, I was inspired to break Jarrat and Stone out of storage along with the armour, and things didn't go quite as smoothly -- more on that in a second! The HAAS amour itself is great, with one exception, a problem I couldn't solve today. I'll take another crack at it tomorrow. In Studio 4.15, the helmet visor is ... missing. Yup, gone, not there. Say, what? Now, we know this suit has a great visor. This is the raytrace done for Event Horizon a few years ago --

Same armour, just different configuration and surfacing. Check out the helmet visor -- all present and correct in Studio 3. But in Studio 4.15, the exact same prop loads without the visor. It'll have something to do with incompatible opacity masks or some damned thing. I'll need a couple of hours and a clear head to work this out. Hmmm. Tomorrow. So, getting past that, I left out the helmet and thought, I'll render Jarrat wearing the hardsuit with the helmet off, right? So --

I go to my folder of Character Presets, load a Michael 4, merge the preset onto it, and I get --

-- somebody else entirely! I mean, he's beautiful, and renders marvellously from every angle; and he's wearing the Varun Hair for Genesis 3 as if it were made for him. But that ain't our Raven 9.4, not by a long shot. The last time you saw Jarrat and Stone in fresh renders was 2019, and this one here might have been it --

Well, there's another Bermuda Triangle style mystery. Though some sorcery and alchemy involving two computers, two versions of Studio and some old project files, I was able to get out Captain Jarrat back (phew!) ... now this was what I'd been expecting, and it's well worth seeing at full size:

So I was able to recover Jarrat, and had a chance to play with a great cotton shader by TwiztedMetal, for the tank top, and re-re-reworked the Mon Chevalier hair, which suits this character so much (and which renders well in Iray, if you just change the lighting model to matte!). Tomorrow, I'll see about working out the problem with the helmet visor; and if I can't, I'll figure a way to either make something to fit the helmet and do the job, or else work out a way to paint it in Photoshop -- which I do not want to do, because it turns into a major painting assignment every time the armour is rendered. Argh.

In the meantime, we got Jarrat (as I said, phew!), and we also scored a new and very attractive character, which I like a lot! Serendipity, I guess. Tomorrow, helmet or no helmet, I'll try from Stoney. Stay tuned. 

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!

Some like it red!

 

Yes, I now ... I'm supposed to be writing and editing, but the truth is, I can't get my head around the job. It's just not happening at the moment, so ... artwork. The leader image today is a beauty ... that's a Genesis 8 male, Yonni, wearing the Varun hair, and I'm using the vascular mapping from Dae to get the venous effect. Now, that is a lovely sight, no? Then -- 

"Tales of Barsoom," or something along those lines. Lots of red tones in this fantasy ... would you believe that's Victoria 4? Yep, it is. Face and body designed by me, Angel skinmap, with the tattoos turned on. New shaders on the costume, which is "kit bashed" from two old costumes ... and I managed to get the G8M hairstyle to fit V4 -- and parent to the figure.(The costume is the top of Andromeda, and the bottom of Lilith bikini; shaders by Atenais.) But wait, there's more --

This might look a bit familiar. It's a re-render of a piece I did a few months ago. It was quite good, but I was never happy with the face, so when I stumbled over the Yoni model, I thought, why not go back in and drop that face and skinmap onto the guy in the horse picture? Then, since I've recently got the CWRW Panted Ponies textures for the Millennium Horse, there's no reason not to play with those too. And the guy is wearing a new wardrobe prop, "Swamp Loincloth," which was on sale last week. And --

Back to the Throne of the Barbarian King set ... which turns out to be a bear to render. It actually chokes my graphics card, though you have to look very, very close to notice this. It's because the set is so vast, I know, I know. Anyway, I can get it to render enough to look good, and probably I'm the only one that knows it would actually have taken 20k samples to finish it ... I max out at 15k. This is Victoria 4 again, and that's the Lilith Bikini costume, very red. The set is mostly lit with its own firelight, as generated by the surfaces in the fire baskets. Neat! Plus...

Shaders, shaders everywhere! This is the G8 female, using the Ginnie HD character wearing the Shavonne hair (set to red, naturally). There's more, but ... not tonight. It's getting late, and I'm calling it a day. This is also the last of April. So, I'll see you in May!