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I agree craft is everything, nothing of any value comes without perseverance and hardwork. It's the 10,000 hour rule. Give ten thousand hours of dedicated practice time to anything and you'll get world class good. Simple, maybe. But not easy!
Here's a quick example. V4 dress on Genesis. Notice that the folds and pleats look more accurate.
@FirstBastion: Is there some kind of wind control in the dynamic cloth setup or some way to specify a heavy cloth like leather vs. a light weight cloth like silk similar to what exists in Poser's cloth room?
Ok this is a tiny bit off topic, but I think it pertains. On the subject of spending money...
There are a couple of things I'll save and spend my money on first because I find that they bring a whole level of professionalism to every render. In Order of importance for me these are:
1. Decent lighting sets: This saves me an enormous amount of time in the learning department. DimensionTheory has some of the best, AOA is good too but I use his stuff as specialized lighting rather than as a staple in my renders; and it must be mentioned that OOT just came out with a new lighting set for Iray that is great. It's over on rendersosity though (sorry Daz I will try to not keep mentioning them.)
2. Good shader sets: Ditto on the learning curve, the surfaces tab is your friend here. AOA and DimensionTheory again have some of the best. This is important to me, because if I can make a texture look like skin, vs another texture looking like cloth, vs yet another part of the scene being believable stone the whole image is vastly improved (IMO).
3. Models with good texture sets. (everyone will have their favorite vendors, depending on their genre and hot-button so I won't go into this)
4. Hair (this is not as important to me because there are lots of stock images of hair that can be bought and then incorporated into my image during postwork in photoshop after the render.)
Just my process here, but I am interested in what is the most important to you when purchasing?
At the moment, I'm hoarding. I'm new to DAZ, and I've got a severe case of the "wish to have everything at once"-syndrom, I fear. Everything which I find interesting and which is on sale, I buy, redardless if I need it now or never. Like a kid on christmas. Give me the presents!
There is basic Dynamic Clothing Control included with DAZ Studio, but for higher functionality you need the upgrade plugin.
https://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-clothing-control
I'm a freebie hoarder. I save all I can because I might need it someday. %-P
The DCC plugin in on my Wishlist.
@manne - I finally got the chance to check out SAV on R (insert bleep, bleep, bleepity,bleep here). Must. Not. Click. Buy. Must. Not - ahhhh!
You're killing me! Budget has been hit for June - can't make any more until next month. And that willpower will last about an hour. lol!
Seriously thanks for posting that - I'm definitely going to pick up some stuff - heck I'll just take one of everything in a bag to go please. ;)
@Cherp - I'm rapidly discovering the variety of tutorial quality. Mine aren't that great, so I know how hard it is, but I've noticed a difference with a couple of things especially since I took riding lessons for sooooo many years. My instructors that came to the ranch weekly were very good. But there was always the occasional workshop or training session under well-known trainers that you would normally never get to see let alone take a lesson. Boy, talk about night and day sometimes. One Olympic level trainer screamed at me two hours straight. I came out of that arena crying my eyeballs out (hey, I was only 13..
But that sheer variety of having different trainers helped when years later, I was the trainer and found myself trying to get through to my student without yelling.
My biggest problem right now with making tutorials and even twitch is being left alone. Someone's always hollering around here. I can say hey - I'm going to be streaming the next hour. That's when doors get slammed, someone turns on the microwave and my mic picks up the beep from 1000 yards away. lol! But even if I get lucky and sneak a recording or stream past everyone - the dog knows - the dog gets me every time. He barks simply to hear himself bark when I'm recording. Otherwise he only barks when someone comes to the door.
Oh I see now. Well, thank you very, very much for the freebies - I just got me some stuffs. Trying to stay away from the store, it's worse than dieting I tell ya.
Now, I'm going to go through your posts again but let me see if I got this right. Dynamic Clothing only comes for V4 and/or M4 - no Genesis 2?
Only optitex makes DC for purchase but I can use the Window/Panes/Dynamic Clothing plug in to tweak some of these freebies a little. But anything fancier I have to get the upgraded plugin that's currently priced at $50.
Right?
And the more I'm working on this stuff - the more I'm confusing myself. I'm getting my wires crossed between morphs and deformers.
On a fun note, I did pick up Hexagon because it was on sale for under $20. I found this fun little tutorial that showed me how to do morphs, exporting a figure from DAZ into Hexagon then into Sculptris and back again. Strangest thing I ever saw but it was pretty cool because you're exporting the figure as an obj but also leaving it open in the programs as you go, as if using the bridge to photoshop or other programs. You can only do morphs, if you change the polygon count Daz freaks out, but it got me thinking. I wonder what else I can do morphs on - you know - more than just characters.
I also found a tut about repairing meshes in Hexagon but that one got a little too complex for me and I fell down - went boom - halfway through it. I watched some vids on YouTube about making your own dresses in Hex. But I I wasn't quite making the translation from dress to what I needed yet. I think I just gotta mess with it a bit more.
One thing I'm really struggling with is getting M4 to work properly for me. Even the clothing made for him doesn't want to fit him no matter what I do. I end up going to war every time, then dumping everything in favor of my Gianni character and I customize that to get different looks.
I was working on yet another test when I noticed something in the background of the render. I just about fell over laughing.
I've been photobombed by a 3d horse! I didn't even finish the render. But they're supposed to be play fighting in the background so they have their ears pinned and one has his teeth bared - as if he's threatening to to bite.
Ha! Instead he's grinning like a damned fool at the camera.
There is basic Dynamic Clothing Control included with DAZ Studio, but for higher functionality you need the upgrade plugin.
https://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-clothing-control
I did not know that. Thanks! I've added it to my wish list.
Although the clothing says it's for V4 and M4 it can be applied to a Genesis and G2 figure, I have done it many times. (I haven't had time to find the tutorial and link it over to you yet. Sorry :( I'll get it as soon as I can find it. )
V4 and M4 are generally considered old tech. Like 6 years old. Now you can still use them in DAZ Studio, but with two generations of Genesis available and infinitely better functionality, G2F and G2M are certainly industry standard at this point. I still use the various generations in my art including V3 and M3 and A3, though they're usually more in the background.
That's why the Optitex freebies for v4 and m4 are there. They've been doing this for a while too, and their newer and current generation stuff is in the store for sale. And as Manne said, dynamic clotting is flexible enough that they can be used on various generations, though a bit of trial and error will be required to get the look you want. The other thing you can do, is shape Genesis2 to the V4 dimensions as a starting point and then all those clothes will fit.
http://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-female
@manne and First Bastion
OH I see said the blind man! Okay now it's starting to make a bit more sense.
When I first started I couldn't decide which came first, the chicken or the egg with Michael and Gen 2 because we start tagging on the numbers with M4 and v4 and so on then it really gets confusing. I just grabbed some bundles on sale - Gianni Pro because I was having better luck with Gen 2 and that bundle had more of what I thought I'd might need. But I also got the Michael Pro a long, time ago - like when I first signed up and it was a welcome discount plus already on sale cheap so it was next to nothing. But I found myself getting really confused because everywhere I went on the web its all M and V stuff.
So I'd definitely like to get some of the clothing I got for M4 and V4 updated to possibly use on my Gen 2 - since it's mostly medieval stuff. A couple of contemporary things too. There's not much but it would be cool if I could get it to work.
Now, I did have a big breakthrough today.
I'm starting to get a handle on this iray and hair shader thing - I think - I have no idea what I'm doing detailed wise - but I'm seeing results with various adjustments - well hell, here check out this most recent render. The hair isn't iray compatible and I have the initial render of this character in my very first post. Here's how he looks now.
I think even non-compatible the hair looks good. (And the man as well ... a nice barbarian lord )
As for the renders, I tried my newest scene in 3delight and iray, both not very convincing. Than I exported everything to Bryce, rendered it- one hell of a lot better!
Thanks Cherp! One question for y'all Does that previous image look dark to you? I'm using two monitors over here and it always looks better on my 17 inch laptop screen than the 21 in secondary monitor. It doesn't surprise me that it looks darker on that one. But even when I keep it on my main laptop screen, when I open various renders in Photoshop, they look darker to to me but I'm not sure if it's really the image or my imagination. lol! Everyone's monitors are calibrated differently, even if you have factory settings. But it's weird going from the image in the render screen to photoshop on the same monitor and one looks darker than the other.
Glad you like my barbarian - I had to chuckle - he's the hero of Heart's Ransom which will be starting audiobook production shortly. The producer is just finalizing some corrections on Mist Warrior and when that's done, HR is up next. So that's why I'm trying to get some thing with the particular images I'm working with - for the audiobook covers. I can't just reused the ebook covers - wrong size. Anyway, in the book the hero is a marcher earl (just in case anyone was curious, the marches in medieval England were the borderlands with Wales and Scotland.) In HR the hero is the earl of Montgomery which is on the Welsh border on the Severn River. Anyway, the marches back then were considered too far away to be a part of civilization - so they were very much considered barbaric compared to their counterparts in London. This hero kinda gets the short end of the stick with people thinking he's a "barbarian" when actually he is wealthier than most of them and because of all of that military experience on the volatile borders, he's better at strategy and tactics than most of 'em too. lol!
So that "barbarian" aspect is something I definitely had hoped to convey - I'm very glad it worked. Yay!
So Cherp - you're not talking about your grand canyon for the contest are you? You mean a different scene started in DAZ and then exported to Bryce for rendering right? Post a pic if you've got one if you don't mind that is.
*head desk*
Do they read the forums so they know when I'm out of money and offer stuff like this on a flash sale?
http://www.daz3d.com/medieval-fantasy-dynamic-clothes-for-genesis-and-genesis-2
Of course it's dynamic medieval clothing *head desk*
Consider it a premature Christmas present from DAZ. :-)
Yes, I took another scene, the Grand Canyon one will need more time, one month is too short, as I started with Bryce just now and I'm an absolute beginner. The canyon will need a hand-painted terrain terrain map, I fear.
DAZ on the other side starts to get familiar, sometimes still a bit frustrating, especially with the lighting.
So back to your question: I have one monitor, not calibrated- there the picture looks somehow normal.
I have another one, calibrated, there your picture looks a bit dark.
Printing tends to go to the darker side, so you might consider post-production-adaptments on the lighting with photoshop.
And because you asked, this is my newest Bryce render.
I agree, the hair looks fine. What makes it incompatible I wonder (as you can see the hair I used doesn't look nearly as nice)? I hope you don't mind, but using the information you supplied about what packages you had, I put together a render as well (sorry you were just having too much fun for me not to join). And yes I am aware that the skin color isn't great. I wanted to hit a couple of high points that I think help me get a more professional result.
1. I used the G2 Iray shader to get my base settings (much like you did earlier)
2. Under ShaderPresets/ IRay/ Daz Uber I found a lot of free shaders that I could apply to objects in my scene. I applied the leather shader to the cross ties on the cape, and a steel shader to the pommel of the sword. No cloth though, I probably have to buy a shader for that.
3. Also while my render settings are nothing special since almost all of my settings were just applied from the preset. (there are a lot of artist here who REALLY have it dialed in) I do like to enable displacement on the skin of my figures. This is because displacement actually creates dips and rises in the skin mesh, and although we don't consciously register it, we do see the pores on people's skin. Bump maps simulate this without actually changing the mesh. So using bump and displacement maps in the surfaces tab will make the skin on my model not resemble plastic by being too smooth.
Best of all these shaders are free and enhance the realism of my scene.
EDIT: Since I had nothing else to do tonight...I did a little more research on realistic skin with the Iray shader, and added another picture to the post here. Funny thing is, I pulled this out of the render engine at 13%. I will have more time tomorrow to make it run all the way through.
@kathryn: Your guy DEFINITELY looks more English. :)
here's the tutorial settings I used: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/54239/
I don't think it's too dark. I have dual monitors and I purposefully have one set to a darker view that the other (one in text mode, one in movie mode) so I can compare how renders look in each. I know if they're light enough to see on my dark monitor and still don't look too washed out on my light monitor, I've hit the sweet spot. :)
What's the frustrating part with the lighting? Maybe I can help?
The frustrating part is lighting versus render machine. 3delight renders tend to look darker, so I throw lights in the scene. Still everythings looks darker than normal, especially the skin tones, but I can make them look fine enough. Now, the same object in Iray, everything looks much too light, some colors are even washed out (and I deleted all the aditional lights I used for 3delight renders.
The rock with the dragon, which looks well lighted in Bryce and a bit reddish in 3delight, under Iray the texture broke and I had kind of a checkerborad pattern on the rock.
I really hate it that DAZ doesn't provide everything new with a simple step-by-step tutorial, written. A lot of these tutorials on the daz side are made for older versions, their links to screenshots are broken. Most free and sold video tutorials are difficult to understand for non- native-speakers, often the sound is very low, so that I can't understand anything at all, and often these video tutorial makers clearly have not clue about didactical teaching.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad these tutorials exist, and thankfull for all the work thes people put in making, but for a novice user they are nevertheless confusing and discouraging to a point.
Okay - thanks Cherp! And I love the dragon! I need to wander back up to the contest thread and see what all is going on. I'm probably going to enter my night scene with the horsies but there's nothing special about it so I don't think it will do anything. But I do like your dragon scene - talk about being between a rock and a hard place! lol!
lol! I don't mind at all and this is too cool! I love it! And it's a great way to compare notes and learn. So let me return the favor because right away I noticed some key differences because of your screen shots - so let me show you a couple of things I've got over here.
With iray using MDL it's speaking a different language - I'm probably completely wrong here but I've been thinking of it as the shaders for 3delight speak the same language but here comes iray and it's speaking the same language too - but its accent is so thick no one can understand it. lol! One thing I discovered, I can open the MDL shading code in a little program called Brackets and it makes more sense to me as one might look at javascript than looking at bricks.But I don't mess with Java or coding a whole lot. The one thing I know in a limited fashion is html and css as the code applies to epubs and formatting.
But that's neither here nor there - let me show you some of my settings.
1 - Lighting - one of the first presets I picked up, when I decided I was going to jump into this iray thing with both feet is the iRadiance HDR Mesh Lights for Iray. I think I mentioned before that it has a preset called headlamp blocker. First of my screenshots - on the left in my smart content screen, I show the product but the right side of the screen I have my Camera settings pulled up. That's because the headlamp blocker lights my scene so I can see but turns off the headlamp on all cameras automatically so I don't forget about a setting and it screws up my lighting. I use the head lamp blocker in almost everything I do now even if I don't use any of the mesh lighting. Basically, with it, I know I'm starting off from zero with the cameras and I don't have anything funky going on that managed to slip past my notice.
2 and 3 - Environment - Under Render Settings - next screenshot. I should probably make mention of this because in this particular shot, my environment settings are different than in some of the other scenes I posted. The big thing is Draw Dome On, Environment Intensity I fiddled with until it's barely registering at a 0.010, everything else is on it's defaults. The next shot is that I left the draw ground ON. With all of my other stuff that I've posted, I've turned the environment off - since this scene I did so differently I thought it was important to mention that.
4 - DTML preset - the next screenshot shows the preset lights in the package I purchased - what's important here is primarily the distance from subject which you see on the right viewport and that the lights are primitives pointed at a Light Target which is the green and red cross on the left viewport. I move the target around the subject to get the lights where I want them. For me, right now, it's easier to pull the primitives away from the subject using the xyz translate if I want a softer light. I'm sure that's totally wrong and there's a lot more I could tinker with but for right now, I'm just wanting something I can control easily and get consistent results. I'll dig into the details of fine adjustments with these presets later. If anyone wants to know any details of particular settings for these - holler - and I'll post 'em.
5 - Hair - I'm using Julius Hair for Gen 2. Since this package is NOT set for iray let me get it out of the way. Plus what I did set for iray is important. The next screenshot shows bottom left that the Julius Hair with it's own lights and camera presets - so I didn't use those at all. It also comes with materials to control lighting, shine, raytracing and visibility for posing. Those are out the door as well.
Surfaces settings - using the surface tool or just clicking on the editor menus on the right, if I click on Julius Hair, it automatically selects the sub surfaces Hair 1, Hair 2 and Scalp. I applied the DAZ uber default iray shader to all of these - but from that point on - SCALP gets left out of the picture. I read something somewhere (I've been reading and Googling so much that I don't always remember exactly where I encountered everything) that scalp doesn't really apply to the hair appearance in rendering in the ways we think it should. So from here on - scalp is out of the picture.
And that puts me at my limit of 5 attachments for a post. I think what I'll do is another post showing the foundation settings for the skin and clothing - especially because what worked for me on this character with skin settings DID NOT have the same results for a female's skin settings and that was frustrating as all hell for me at first.
If you guys want to see the details of the hair settings let me know that too and I can post the info.
So next post will be the my shader targeting on the skin, clothing, and metal. And I hope I'm not boring y'all to tears. lol!
Cheers,
Kathryn
Okay this starts getting a little more complex here and a little crazy because all of this is the result of experimentation on my part - I tried to be as methodical as possible but that didn't always work out like I planned.
So I've got some combined screenshots and will start with the presets because for anyone who has these packages, we then have common ground to build on.
6 - Character - Gianni pro came with a variety of character presets Gianni, Hector, Ryze, and Taric. For the shape of the body and face, we're looking at primarily Gianni with Hector applied. From there, I just tweaked sliders until he looked like the character I had in my head when I wrote the story. - but Hector is also important because it's the Hector skin mats that are the foundation for the character. Because after I finished the shape, I went back and purposefully applied Hector's skin mat, even though it was applied when I selected Hector as a character - it wasn't very strong. When I went back and applied the mat - I noticed a big difference.
7 - Speaking of character mats - I have more than one on this dude so Phillip is also playing a role here. In my content library, under Genesis 2 Male - if I scroll past the characters previously mentioned and click on Materials I find Phillip. I think he's generic to Genesis 2 males? I have no clue where he came from - he's just there. lol! But he has a lot of choices in mats - so I ain't complaining. The biggest thing is he has a mats for facial hair - I used Phillip Face 02 and Phillip Eyes 04 and 04 Shadow. I also found a reflection mat somewhere that I used on the eyes but I can't remember which one.
8 Now absolutely none of those mats were made for iray. So in my content library right under that Materials section I clicked on to get Phillip, it lists Gianni 6 then Iray. I clicked on that and there's my Iray Optimized Gen 2 Male MAT. On the right under the Surfaces Editor, I clicked on Skin which automatically highlights the subsets that you see in the screen shot. Then I right clicked on the iray optimized icon on the lift and Merged Into Scene.
I think this is SUPER important - before clicking on anything iray from the content library - first select specifically what you want on the right. I'm not even using the Surface tool any more because I want to KNOW what I have selected down to the tiniest detail. Skin works automatically but Hair - like I said in my previous post, grabs Scalp with everything else, and at a certain point, I don't want that. So I'm always using this list to make sure I have everything selected before I apply any shader for iray.
When I was doing all this I was also doing the Spot Render. So it was apply, spot render, adjust, spot render, apply spot render. Well, you get the idea. ;)
Since I'm getting to know my content library - I'm also using key words to search. So I brows for character mats and stuff - so I can find hidden gems like Phillip, but for the clothing once I have the wardrobe applied - i've got some additional textures for Night Guard - I applied the Twilight cape and Twilight fur piece texture to the cloak - I use the keyword search. it doesn't always allow me to find what I need but in general it works the best. Case in point, DAZ default shaders for iray don't all list under iray. If I look up content alphabetically under D there is Default Lights and Shaders for DAZ Studio listed and I can find what I want out of that. There are many ways to get where you're going, and like Bugs Bunny, I don't always take that left turn to Albuquerque.
9. Just for sake of comparison - before I took this next screenshot, I deleted the Night Guard Cape and the Cape Fur Piece so I could bring it back in without any shaders. I then applied the Twilight Cape and Fur Piece which is a texture package. Then I applied the DAZ uber base iray shader to the cape making sure on my Surfaces menu that I selected only Cape Belts, then I right click the shader and apply, Cape fabric selected, apply, then Cape fur piece which has subsets, and apply. Going back to the belts, I selected those in the Surfaces tab then applied Rubber Shiny. I like the leather but as you can see that particular shader has it appearing cracked and worn - I use it all the time on the pommel of the sword where that wrapped leather should look really worn. But I like the Rubber Shiny on the belts better. Then out of sheer curiosity I applied the iray shader Fabric Red Velvet only to the fabric of the cloak. The screenshot is telling because this is what started to give me a clue.
Note on the right - on the Surfaces tab - the Base color is .50 .50 .50 - if 0 is black and 1 is white the .5 is a neutral gray if I ever saw one. The lightbulb in my brain went on and now I'm starting with the neutral gray foundation. To start it's not a matter of translucency, top coats and volume which confuse the hell out of me, now I can think of it - at least in its simplest form to start - as just mixing colors and because of all my years painting gaming miniatures, that's something I know how to do on a real 3d object quite well.
For me, learning comes the easiest when I can relate the new with something I already know then build on the similarities and comparisons. When you tell me the definition of the Glossy Color and what that controls - it will sail over my head every time. But now I'm looking at colors on that surfaces tab and I know what I want to change. On the surfaces tab the only colors I see are the Base = neutral gray, Glossy Color which was red and I changed to dark, dark blue, and the Top Coat Color which was the same color of red and I also changed to dark, dark blue.
10. So I'm looking at all the shaders and realized the various aspects of each - the metal, concrete, the stuff that's shiny, the stuff that's matte or rough, I've got everything I need right there to make the comparisons and get what I want. There's something somewhere that I can tweak, with one of those darn sliders, it's just a matter of finding it. Then I can add the maps into the mix to get even more variety and control.
I know I still have a lot of lightbulbs waiting for me as I put things together, but I wanted to highlight the first one. And in this last screenshot you can see the little spot renders I did on each screen and what those specific shaders changed on the belts and on the back of the cape - only the fur has the uber base alone. Oh and the spot render on the left viewport isn't complete since the skin makes it take forever.
And with all the posting I did - I realized I didn't address this outright. Check your Environment settings under your Render Settings under Iray. In my first post I just made showing everything I address the specifics under #2. Your dome light is still on - no I don't mean the car. ;)
You are right, I did not turn my environment down. Thanks I'll do that in future. Also I have the same lights package so if you're finding adjustments...awesome!
As far as pulling the light away from an object, when I was watching a reality tutorial, it said that if you also increase the size of your light it makes a softer light. The same might hold true for Iray as it seems to be a more physics based render engine.
So next post will be the my shader targeting on the skin, clothing, and metal. And I hope I'm not boring y'all to tears. lol!
Cheers,
Kathryn
Well it's certainly not boring me (if this is tedious for everyone else sorry). Thanks for posting.
Kathryn, your approach seems to be much more methodical than mine. I just try something, and if it doesn't work, I try something else. So far I think if I need really daytime light, Bryce does the best job.
But I might try your instructions. Thanks for sharing!
Did you find any shaders you felt were suitable for rough cloth like wool or linen?
I know I still have a lot of lightbulbs waiting for me as I put things together, but I wanted to highlight the first one. And in this last screenshot you can see the little spot renders I did on each screen and what those specific shaders changed on the belts and on the back of the cape - only the fur has the uber base alone. Oh and the spot render on the left viewport isn't complete since the skin makes it take forever.
As far as the fur goes, were you happy with how that rendered?
I wonder if applying a hair shader to something that is supposed to be fur would work. I just bought the OOT hair shader from R(bleeep) and it's supposed to apply to 95% of hair and make it Iray compatible. I must say I think it did a pretty good job on the SAV Kouros hair I'm using. Definitely made it look softer and more hair-like in the lit areas, although, the weird bulky areas remain.
@Cherp methodical - that's the accountant rearing her head again. Plus, I get that dog with a bone syndrome and won't let it go until I figure it out - or at least get something that I can live with.
As far as the fur goes, were you happy with how that rendered?
I wonder if applying a hair shader to something that is supposed to be fur would work. I just bought the OOT hair shader from R(bleeep) and it's supposed to apply to 95% of hair and make it Iray compatible. I must say I think it did a pretty good job on the SAV Kouros hair I'm using. Definitely made it look softer and more hair-like in the lit areas, although, the weird bulky areas remain.
ROFLMAO! Guess what I picked up last night. YUP OOT - I eyeballed it, went to do something else, went back and eyeballed it again - after doing that about five or six times. I finally caved. I kept wondering what I'd find if I compared those to what I'm rolling with -hrrrmmmmmm.
So said package got purchased and I dove right in. ;) Now the fur on Talon's cloak up there - yes, I am happy with that render, but that's one of the reasons why I mentioned the importance of the texture itself. Because the original Night Guard fur piece - I don't like at all. But if you look at Twilight Guard texture for the fur, it has a lot more definition in the diffuse channel alone.
I also asked the same question you did about fur and those OOT shaders - okay first don't use the texture files on horses - it's human hair, and it's kinda scary. But since I can draw human hair, horse, and animal fur in Photoshop pretty well, I will be trying that out. Basically I'll make the textures, pull an alpha channel out of 'em, then just apply the base OOT shader and nothing else that he's got in that package and see how it works. I haven't had a chance to do that yet. I just did the one experiment on my two horses that photobombed my previous render, since they were standing there doing nothing. Did you find the little help file buried in the zips? I read it last night and what SAV says about certain types of hair not working with the shader seems to be the case. I tried it on the Tristan Hair that came in the Gianni pro and it looked hideous! It looked like the plastic hair that you see on Disneyland characters walking around Main Street. Ancient Combat Hair was the same way and just to see what happened, I tried applying it to the base Buenavista hair which is already iray compatible but I don't like some of their darker colors - they don't show highlights at all. But that little test didn't work out at all.
So for the guy I attached to this post - the black smith's hair only has the DAZ uber base applied to it and of course the blond mat that came with the hair. I got to the point where I couldn't mess with him any more.
In fact, I'm under the gun right now guys. I've got three books that are going to audiobooks. Well, my first audiobook was completed and just hit the market a couple of days ago, the second is in production now, but it's not as long as the first. The same narrator is doing all three, so we worked out most of the bugs with the first book. Well, he sends me completed chapters via email to listen to for corrections - if we went through ACX it would be rough to make the inital changes because the files get locked after he uploads them until I jump through hoops on my end. For the finally approval it's fine, but for current production, he sends them too me directly.
Well I had a few corrections, the biggest one was the voice of not the antagonist but someone who is an adversary to the hero. I guess the term now is "fri-enemy." Anyway, that character has quote a bit of dialogue and unfortunately the narrator got his voice all wrong. The narrator is really good it was just the wrong choice of voices. So I had to ask him to redo the first four chapters. While he did those, He was sending me others that he recorded and had changed the voice within hours of me asking. So I listen to all of this stuff for mis-read words, skipped words, things that might make perfect sense in a book that you read but all of a sudden it falls down miserably in an audiobook. And being the accountant that I am, I note time stamps and make a little spreadsheet with the corrections. That should keep him out of my hair for the rest of the week.
NOT!
They uploaded the final chapters to ACX. So I get to listen to them again. And I'm hopeless. Because I'm a writer, I always work with multiple drafts of the same thing, going over and over it again. So now that I have all of the chapters waiting for me do I just listen to the corrections and make sure they're okay? Noooo . . . I gotta listen to everything - the entire book, multiple times, to make sure I didn't miss something the first time around. *head desk* Why do I do this to myself?
Anyway, this book is on a deadline so the narrator can get paid. I'm not paying him, ACX is - all three books got stipend awards so they pay the narrator. But anyway, in order to get that money, the book has to be finished fast.
Not only do I have the problem of listening to all this stuff, I can't approve anything until I upload a book cover. So now we're back to the beginning and why I started this thread in the first place. Plus the cover model who is on most of my books, I know personally, and he pulled a major boneheaded stunt with me and a couple of other authors - and there's some fallout going on - not from the authors but from the rabid fans. Anyway, because the fallout might get worse, I am done with a having a certain cover model on my books. So he's being replaced - by technology. lol!
And Mist Warrior, the book that I have to approve and upload the cover, was the first cover I bought - the premade I mentioned in one of my previous novel length posts. I've also attached the cover that I have to replace - but I need to do that anyway because of copyright and because ACX has to have a cover that's square - like for a CD case instead of a book and they don't want the book cover just boxed on the thing - it has to be it's own artwork, although it can be the same image. '
My problem - that damned kilt. First off, I hate it because it's not even historically accurate. No - William Wallace did not dress like Mel Gibson did in Braveheart. The Scots had their plaids - also called a brat - but they didn't wear kilts until much later - after the Renaissance I believe - the time period for my writing is anywhere from 1066-1400's or so but especially the time of Edward II, Longshanks.
But here's where we get into the image selling that book. Those who read Highlander romances expect to see a man in a kilt on the cover - they're smart about history, most know it's not accurate, but if that kilt isn't on the cover - they won't buy it. (But they nail me for have my characters eat potatoes in their stew in England 100 years too early. lol!). But as I said before that cloak or something I could use as a kilt - I don't have anything that works and doesn't look crappy.
So I just started a crash course in Blender - yeah, learning two 3D programs at the same time isn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but I wanted to try creating clothes. My first cloak (no hood) worked - it's pretty ugly but the cloth worked. But then I went to try a kilt and the collisions won't work worth beans. Can't figure it out because I went over the tutorial a bunch of times and did it the way I was supposed it. So I don't know why it's not acknowledging the collision.
So, if y'all happen find a freebie of something I could use for a kilt and maybe even a cloak with a hood (for the first book), I would really appreciate it. I can't spend anything more until the end of the month. But I've got to get this cover together fast! At least I can listen to the chapters and work on that at the same time.
Anyway, it won't be the end of the world if I don't have anything. I can still draw that stuff in Photoshop, but it would be nicer if I could have something that matches the character photorealism. My will look like art in comparison.
Let's see the couple I posted are the hero and heroine from that novel Branan and Catriona. I started this one last week and let it sit while I worked to figure out shaders. So I still have a lot to do on them - if I go with them for the novel cover. I really want to get this 3D image as close as I can to the original without copyright issues of course. For a $45 premade cover that book has been amazing. It sells like you wouldn't believe- so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's why I'm hoping to stick to it as close as I can.
And the last image - something I started working on when I need a break from figuring out shaders and hair! lol! I was thinking of entering the members only contest for the movie thing I had started on a different idea but when I heard James Horner had died in a plane crash, I switched to the Star Trek them. He did the score for Wrath of Khan is is my second favorite movie - the first being The Crow starring Brandon Lee (rest his soul too). So I wanted to do a little Trek theme - if I can get it done. We shall see.
And I am going to have to take a bit of a break here - I can't even see straight to work on these images in Daz or Blender right now.
The woman in the third pic (Catriona) looks a bit like Emily Browning.
One important thing to remember is that each render engine, of the four now commonly used with DAZ Studio, 3Delight, Iray, Reality/Lux Render and to a lesser extent Octane, all have their own materials and lighting setups. Since materials are significantly inluenced by the lightset that they are setup for and used in, there are additional sub category material settings, in DS for lights like Standard 3Delight, AO UberEnv2, AoA Ambient lights. These are not always interchangeable and its import to check the informations detailed on the product page. . So if a model has Uber Surfaces settings for the materials, to be used with Omnifreaker Uber lightsets, those may not transfer setting for setting when used with Iray, where as the 3Delight standard material setup tend to correspond a bit better. The store list 16,700 products, many of which were released before a few of those renderers were even commonly available in the community, there's a lot of learning and work arounds going on trying to tweak settings which work best in iray.
ShareCG has a free kilt for M4, which might be usable for newer figures as well.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/55095/browse/11/Poser/Great-Kilts-Dynamic-Props-for-M4
And a more modern one:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/36209/browse/11/Poser/M4-Kiltz
They are in Poser form, which works with DAZ.
And there is a cloak (no hood)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/73624/browse/11/Poser/Dynamic-cloak
and one with a cloak
http://www.sharecg.com/v/74352/related/11/Poser/Another-cloak
All are Poser material, but, as I said, might work with DAZ,