Mechasar's Characters Catalog: Who's next? (commercial)

Mechasar

kirbawirba said:

I just bought the pack recently and am having trouble understanding this.  So, if I try to use the new morph for Beverly without owning all of the products, does that mean the rest of the characters will be distorted?

 

Also, I'd like to encourage you to keep making stuff.  Gladys is one of my favorite characters.  If you ever do get around to it, do you think you can look at original Beverly's textures?  It seems like she loses SSS properties in her hands.  In some lighting situations they look bleached, or like she was washing dishes all day!  Not something I'd ever let her do, btw! :D

 

You have some of the most unique and interesting characters on the market. Love them! Someday I will get enough money to buy them all! 

 

EDIT: just read a post above this that mentions Smart Content.  Can confirm that Smart Content does not show the vast majority of anything installed from the pack.  It takes some hunting through SC to find anything, let alone everything.

EDIT 2: I CAN'T WAIT for your next release... They look fantastic!

 

Hi there! Thank you for your kind appreciation!

The Mega Add-Ons Pack, as the name suggests, consists of add-ons for my characters catalog only. Now, as you can see in your products library, the pack is split into 23 different zip folders, each one related to a different character (keep in mind that some add-on related to a single character can be further divided into 2 folders due to their size, something along the lines “folder 1of2”). This distinction is important because indicates that you should download and install ONLY the add-ons for those characters already installed in your Daz library, leaving aside the other add-ons. If you install an add-on for a character that you don’t yet own, the add-on won’t work and there is a chance that some hidden morphs could cause mesh distortions while you are using your Genesis 8/8.1 models. So, long story short, I strongly recommend to not install an add-on without first installing its related character.

That said, the “Bryana for Beverly” add-on needs the Beverly character, but  you don’t need Brooke 8.1 in this case. In other words:
•    Owned: Beverly + Brooke --> Obtainable characters: Beverly
•    Owned: MMAP1 + Beverly + Brooke --> Obtainable characters: Beverly + Bryana
•    Owned: MMAP1 + Beverly --> Obtainable characters: Bryana
•    Owned: MMAP1 + Brooke --> Obtainable characters: none
•    Owned: MMAP1 --> Obtainable characters: none

About her hands look, Iray makes the characters skin heavily influenced by the light color. I can suggest you to play with the environment lights, her translucency color, and you can also lower the values of her normal maps to make her skin smoother. These work pretty well. Or you can use the Bryana colors on Beverly, but keeping Beverly's normal maps, personally I love the result ;)

 

kirbawirba

Mechasar said:

kirbawirba said:

I just bought the pack recently and am having trouble understanding this.  So, if I try to use the new morph for Beverly without owning all of the products, does that mean the rest of the characters will be distorted?

 

Also, I'd like to encourage you to keep making stuff.  Gladys is one of my favorite characters.  If you ever do get around to it, do you think you can look at original Beverly's textures?  It seems like she loses SSS properties in her hands.  In some lighting situations they look bleached, or like she was washing dishes all day!  Not something I'd ever let her do, btw! :D

 

You have some of the most unique and interesting characters on the market. Love them! Someday I will get enough money to buy them all! 

 

EDIT: just read a post above this that mentions Smart Content.  Can confirm that Smart Content does not show the vast majority of anything installed from the pack.  It takes some hunting through SC to find anything, let alone everything.

EDIT 2: I CAN'T WAIT for your next release... They look fantastic!

 

Hi there! Thank you for your kind appreciation!

The Mega Add-Ons Pack, as the name suggests, consists of add-ons for my characters catalog only. Now, as you can see in your products library, the pack is split into 23 different zip folders, each one related to a different character (keep in mind that some add-on related to a single character can be further divided into 2 folders due to their size, something along the lines “folder 1of2”). This distinction is important because indicates that you should download and install ONLY the add-ons for those characters already installed in your Daz library, leaving aside the other add-ons. If you install an add-on for a character that you don’t yet own, the add-on won’t work and there is a chance that some hidden morphs could cause mesh distortions while you are using your Genesis 8/8.1 models. So, long story short, I strongly recommend to not install an add-on without first installing its related character.

That said, the “Bryana for Beverly” add-on needs the Beverly character, but  you don’t need Brooke 8.1 in this case. In other words:
•    Owned: Beverly + Brooke --> Obtainable characters: Beverly
•    Owned: MMAP1 + Beverly + Brooke --> Obtainable characters: Beverly + Bryana
•    Owned: MMAP1 + Beverly --> Obtainable characters: Bryana
•    Owned: MMAP1 + Brooke --> Obtainable characters: none
•    Owned: MMAP1 --> Obtainable characters: none

About her hands look, Iray makes the characters skin heavily influenced by the light color. I can suggest you to play with the environment lights, her translucency color, and you can also lower the values of her normal maps to make her skin smoother. These work pretty well. Or you can use the Bryana colors on Beverly, but keeping Beverly's normal maps, personally I love the result ;)

 

Got it, thanks! I guess I'll try to uninstall the ones I don't have then!  Also, the Bryanna mats are very nice!  All in all, great stuff, and I hope to see a lot more! 

evacyn

Mechasar said:

Thanks to the success of this character, Esra’s universe is in expansion. Here’s the first preview of his big sister (T . . . .), the werewolves huntress. She will be released for Genesis 8 and 9 models. Stay tuned ;)

Demo hair and outfits used here:

https://www.daz3d.com/heidi-hair-for-genesis-8-females

https://www.daz3d.com/janey-hair-for-genesis-8-and-81-female

https://www.daz3d.com/big-bad-red-corset-for-genesis-8-and-81-female

https://www.daz3d.com/shadow-thief-outfit-for-genesis-8-female-s

https://www.daz3d.com/tara-outfit-for-genesis-8-females

https://www.daz3d.com/forest-guardian-outfit-for-genesis-8-males

https://www.daz3d.com/rogue-elf-outfit-for-genesis-8-and-81-males

Super excited for this one! Your female characters are instant buy for me (Gladys is one of my favourites) :) 

hookflash

Has anyone else noticed some strange deformation in Norbert's uppert arm / shoulder area with "Arms Up-Down" is dialed in to 100%? It's not a deal breaker or anything, and it could just be my lack of anatomy knowledge. I'm just trying to figure out whether I might have some JCM conflicts happening under the hood. Here's a couple pics:

 

Mechasar

hookflash said:

Has anyone else noticed some strange deformation in Norbert's uppert arm / shoulder area with "Arms Up-Down" is dialed in to 100%? It's not a deal breaker or anything, and it could just be my lack of anatomy knowledge. I'm just trying to figure out whether I might have some JCM conflicts happening under the hood. Here's a couple pics:

 

Hi! Yea, when you bend up Norbert’s arm, his armpit morph kicks in. If on one hand a morph can add realistic appearance to a character, on the other it is not possible to prevent distortions when you push to the limit its limbs rotations, especially when arms or legs are completely bended and twisted at the same time. Norbert was designed as a non-athletic character, so his corrective morphs was designed for undemanding movements :) My first advice is not to bend to the limit shoulders and arms at the same time whatever the character. Anyway, you can still correct that result as you wish by following these simple steps
-    Right click on Parameters pane and flag the “Preference/Show Hidden Properties”
-    Then go to “Parameters/Hidden/People/Norbert/JCMs” folder
-    Just play with the “JCM_Norbert_Collar_Up” and “JCM_Norbert_Shoulder_Up” morphs until you get the result you need  

hookflash

Mechasar said:

hookflash said:

Has anyone else noticed some strange deformation in Norbert's uppert arm / shoulder area with "Arms Up-Down" is dialed in to 100%? It's not a deal breaker or anything, and it could just be my lack of anatomy knowledge. I'm just trying to figure out whether I might have some JCM conflicts happening under the hood. Here's a couple pics:

 

...

Hi! Yea, when you bend up Norbert’s arm, his armpit morph kicks in. If on one hand a morph can add realistic appearance to a character, on the other it is not possible to prevent distortions when you push to the limit its limbs rotations, especially when arms or legs are completely bended and twisted at the same time. Norbert was designed as a non-athletic character, so his corrective morphs was designed for undemanding movements :) My first advice is not to bend to the limit shoulders and arms at the same time whatever the character. Anyway, you can still correct that result as you wish by following these simple steps
-    Right click on Parameters pane and flag the “Preference/Show Hidden Properties”
-    Then go to “Parameters/Hidden/People/Norbert/JCMs” folder
-    Just play with the “JCM_Norbert_Collar_Up” and “JCM_Norbert_Shoulder_Up” morphs until you get the result you need  

Cool, good to know I'm not having any JCM conflicts (this is an issue I've had a couple times in the past with other vendors). Great characters, by the way! 

ioonrxoon

Is there any way to get rid of Divory's nails? I tried everything I could think of, but no luck.

Mechasar

ioonrxoon said:

Is there any way to get rid of Divory's nails? I tried everything I could think of, but no luck.

Hi! Sorry, there's no chance to shorten those nails. Or at least, anytingh ordinary you can try. But if you can wait, I'll show here an easy but quite long solution that it can be suitable for you :)

ioonrxoon

Mechasar said:

Hi! Sorry, there's no chance to shorten those nails. Or at least, anytingh ordinary you can try. But if you can wait, I'll show here an easy but quite long solution that it can be suitable for you :)

That would be great, thank you!

Mechasar

ioonrxoon said:

Mechasar said:

Hi! Sorry, there's no chance to shorten those nails. Or at least, anytingh ordinary you can try. But if you can wait, I'll show here an easy but quite long solution that it can be suitable for you :)

That would be great, thank you!

Thank YOU for your patience, here we go. First, Load 2 Divory characters in your scene. Let’s call Divory (A) the final character with the short nails you need, Divory (B) the temporary one. Divory body is based on Gladys body, therefore you can follow these steps:

• Select Divory B and set her Divory full character morph to 0 and her Gladys full character morph to 100%
• Now scale Divory B to 101%, then select her “Shoulder Bend” and “Forearm Bend” bones (left and right side both) and scale them to 112% on the X axis.
• Select her bones from “abdomen lower” to the hands and lock them (parameters/lock/lock selected nodes) in order to hold them down.
• Select the ActivePose tool, then move the fingers of Divory B until her nails position matches those of Divory A as accurate as possible (see figure 1).
• Use symmetry on the other hand to pose the fingers quickly.
• Delete divory A, set Divory B hd level to base (character and attachments), then export her as an obj file into a new folder you just created on your desktop.
• Go to the obj file then copy and paste it other 9 times (1 file for each finger) in the same folder.
• Rename each file with the name of a different finger (e.g. LeftIndex, RightThumb, etc.).
• Return to DAZ Studio and clear your scene, load a new Divory A and select her.
• Select the Morph Loader, set the “Load Morphs for:” option on “Primary Figure On Graft (Facet Order)”, then click on “Choose Morph Files”.
• Select all the obj files from the previous folder.
• Now, for each loaded morph, be sure to set its “Reverse Deformation” on “Yes” (right click on it, select “yes”), and the “Attenuate By” on the 3rd phalange bone corresponding to the name of your morph, i.e. “lIndex3” for LeftIndex, “rThumb3” for RightThumb, etc., (right click/Weight Maps/Bones/”finger3”/General Weights). (see figure 2).
• Click on “Accept”.

Now your Divory character should show a list of 10 new morphs in the Parameter pane, each of them with the name you assigned to the fingers. Set them to 100% and, if everything went well, you can see her nails getting shorter. Just remember to save this Divory into a new personal scene to keep these morphs available for a next time :)

 

Mechasar

Pleased to announce that TALIA is on her way to the store! Meanwhile I hope you can enjoy these teaser posters. Stay tuned!

Credits:

https://www.daz3d.com/capri-hair-for-genesis-8-females

https://www.daz3d.com/heidi-hair-for-genesis-8-females

https://www.daz3d.com/yvas-outfit-for-genesis-8-female

https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-sparrows-mage-outfit-for-genesis-8-females

https://www.daz3d.com/sy-fantasy-wear-megapack-genesis-8-female-s

https://www.daz3d.com/tara-outfit-for-genesis-8-females

https://www.daz3d.com/rogue-elf-outfit-gloves-for-genesis-8-and-81-males

https://www.daz3d.com/retaliation-outfit-top-for-genesis-81-females

https://www.daz3d.com/big-bad-red-corset-for-genesis-8-and-81-female

https://www.daz3d.com/skies-of-gaia-volume-2--40-8k-hdris-for-iray

https://www.daz3d.com/fantasia-for-genesis-2-female-s

https://www.daz3d.com/fair-corsair-outfit-for-genesis-2-female-s

https://www.daz3d.com/jannah

https://www.daz3d.com/old-metal-shaders

https://www.daz3d.com/stones-hr-2

https://www.daz3d.com/willow-creek

https://www.daz3d.com/medieval-kitchenware

Ninefold

Hi Mechasar! I'm a huge fan of your work. I particularly love Natural Movements Pack, which is what got me on board with Genesis 9. However, I've been getting some weird behavior on the first ring finger knuckle of each hand, as seen in the screenshots, which I made for another thread a while back. (The negative screenshots are because I thought the problem might be that the morph was inverted, but that's clearly not quite it.) This looks to me like it's probably an error, rather than how these morphs are intended to look. Is there any chance of a fix?

Mechasar

Ninefold said:

Hi Mechasar! I'm a huge fan of your work. I particularly love Natural Movements Pack, which is what got me on board with Genesis 9. However, I've been getting some weird behavior on the first ring finger knuckle of each hand, as seen in the screenshots, which I made for another thread a while back. (The negative screenshots are because I thought the problem might be that the morph was inverted, but that's clearly not quite it.) This looks to me like it's probably an error, rather than how these morphs are intended to look. Is there any chance of a fix?

Thank you, I’m very pleased! Ok, If I understood correctly you think the bend radius of the fourth knuckle is too large and smooth. Unfortunately I can’t submit any modification request in this case, because this kind of issue will be considered as a “subjective preference” rather than a functional error. Anyway, I checked again that morph, and I need to point out some features first:

-    You should use the highest subdivision level on your model when the NMP is on, the higher the levels the more the detail will be defined.

-    When you bend the phalanges, those Up-Down finger morphs have been designed to perform at best individually. But when you close the fist, the “Hand Left/Right Fist” morph has to activate in order to correct the overall look of the hand. Since these “Hand Left/Right Fist” morphs are controlled by the “Pose Controls” box, my suggestion is to use the hand poses from that box when you want your model to close its hand, avoiding to bend its fingers one by one.

I can also exclude that morph was meant to be used in “reverse”, because all the morphs were created adding positive values only. It was just designed as it is. I can show you how to turn that morph off at least, without using negative values.
Following these steps you can redesign the “Hand Left/Right Fist” automatic morph, so the effect of the “Ring Finger Down” morph will be minimized when you use the quick poses of the “Pose Controls” box, but without affecting it when you’ll bend the ring finger alone.

-    Load a base Genesis 9 model in your scene and select it.

-    Right click on Parameters pane and flag “Edit Mode”.

-    Go to “Parameters/Natural Movements Set/Hands”, right click on “Ring 1 Left Down” and select “Show in Property Hierarchy”.

-    Expand the selected morph in the Property Hierarchy pane until you see the content of its Sub-Components and Controllers.

-    Go back to the “Parameters/Pose Controls/Hand/Left”, now drag and drop the “Left Fingers Fist” into the “Ring 1 Left Down/Controllers/1st Stage (Add/Subtract)” line of the Property Hierarchy pane.

-    Expand this added morph until you see the content of the “Attribute” line, then be sure the “Save with” line is set on the same Natural Movements Pack morph (Ring 1 Left Down), and change the value of the “Scalar” line from 1 to -0.6/-0.7 (I think these values are good enough, but you can use -1 if you need to completely override the effect).

-    Do the same thing dragging and dropping the “Left Fingers Grasp” morph.

-    Repeat the same instruction for the right hand (“Right Fingers Fist” and “Right Fingers Grasp” morphs into “Ring 1 Right Down”).

-    Now you can go to File/Save As/Support Asset/Morph Asset(s), select “Mechasar” in the vendor name box and “Genesis 9 Natural Movements Pack” in the product name box, then flag the “Genesis 9/Natural Movements Set/Hands/Ring 1 Left Down” and “Genesis 9/Natural Movements Set/Hands/Ring 1 Right Down” morphs ONLY in the properties box, then accept.

-    Remember to go back to the Parameters pane and deselect the edit mode.

PLEASE NOTE this action is irreversible, so if you need to restore the pack as it was, you will need to delete it completely then reinstall it. Hope this can help.

 

ioonrxoon

Mechasar said:

Now your Divory character should show a list of 10 new morphs in the Parameter pane, each of them with the name you assigned to the fingers. Set them to 100% and, if everything went well, you can see her nails getting shorter. Just remember to save this Divory into a new personal scene to keep these morphs available for a next time :)

 

Took me a while to finally get to it, I dread having to work with morph importing. I did a terrible job matching the fingers, but it worked well enough anyway.
Thanks for the clear and easy to follow tutorial; I ended up learning some new things from it.
I'm going to try replacing the hands completely too, might be more fitting for using the morph with human characters.

Love the new character too, thanks for continuing to support G8.

Mechasar

ioonrxoon said:

Mechasar said:

Now your Divory character should show a list of 10 new morphs in the Parameter pane, each of them with the name you assigned to the fingers. Set them to 100% and, if everything went well, you can see her nails getting shorter. Just remember to save this Divory into a new personal scene to keep these morphs available for a next time :)

 

Took me a while to finally get to it, I dread having to work with morph importing. I did a terrible job matching the fingers, but it worked well enough anyway.
Thanks for the clear and easy to follow tutorial; I ended up learning some new things from it.
I'm going to try replacing the hands completely too, might be more fitting for using the morph with human characters.

Love the new character too, thanks for continuing to support G8.

My pleasure!

Woooow it seems Talia's put on some muscle ;) Amazing composition and character mixing!

ioonrxoon

Mechasar said:

My pleasure!

Woooow it seems Talia's put on some muscle ;) Amazing composition and character mixing!

Thanks! I used Divory after nailjob for this one.

Mechasar

Hi guys! Here's a small tutorial about how to use the Talia's Crossbowolf properly :)

Credits:

https://www.daz3d.com/raven-guild-assassin-outfit-for-genesis-8-males

https://www.daz3d.com/yvas-outfit-for-genesis-8-female

https://www.daz3d.com/rogue-elf-outfit-gloves-for-genesis-8-and-81-males

https://www.daz3d.com/heidi-hair-for-genesis-8-females

https://www.daz3d.com/forest-guardian-outfit-for-genesis-8-males

https://www.daz3d.com/castle-creator

https://www.daz3d.com/skies-of-gaia-volume-2--40-8k-hdris-for-iray

Mechasar

Hi there! Here’s another teaser poster I’d like to introduce here, or I should say a teaser roadmap to the 7 “Gems”. Did you ever notice the main colors assigned to each of my human female character are always different? Well… that’s not accidental. They actually compose a spectrum of light, and materials, that ends up defining the personality and the story of each character. Now, just 1 light left and the ring will be completed. Then, the central one! Human, divinity? WIP ;)

kirbawirba

Hey, Mech!  Dunno if anyone pointed this out, but, I used DIM to install Talia and her eye material for G9 version doesn't appear anywhere in the material smart content tab. She loads with gray eyes.  Can you update this you think? I can uninstall/reinstall to see if that helps. Looking forward to more!

Mechasar

kirbawirba said:

Hey, Mech!  Dunno if anyone pointed this out, but, I used DIM to install Talia and her eye material for G9 version doesn't appear anywhere in the material smart content tab. She loads with gray eyes.  Can you update this you think? I can uninstall/reinstall to see if that helps. Looking forward to more!

Hi! Yeah I answered it in a previous brief thread, so I'll just copy that reply and past it here below:

As I mentioned in the product description, eyes and inner mouth maps are not included for the Genesis 9 model. That’s because I’m firmly convinced that the eyes and mouth material set offered within the G9 starter essentials is extremely well done, it can provide the extra touch of photorealism you need for your G9 Talia, choosing among different eye colors, so I thought there was no reason to revive the same G8.1 Talia eyes/mouth maps for G9 considering that they can’t compete anyway. Hope that such a choice will not affect your appreciation for Talia :) 

Mechasar

What will come out? :)

Uthgard

Oh, looking forward to this one!

Rod Wise Driggo

Dito

RandWulf

Me, too

Mechasar

New sneak peek on the next character!

RandWulf

Very cool!

kirbawirba

Kind of NEED the disembodied slime hand.... 

Mechasar

kirbawirba said:

Kind of NEED the disembodied slime hand.... 

I'm already on it ;) Anyway, I'm sorry for the waiting of my next character, it seems it has been delayed a bit, but everything is ready.

kirbawirba

Mechasar said:

kirbawirba said:

Kind of NEED the disembodied slime hand.... 

I'm already on it ;) Anyway, I'm sorry for the waiting of my next character, it seems it has been delayed a bit, but everything is ready.

Just picked her up and she looks amazing! Thanks for 8 and 8.1, btw! Really good work.  And the explanations on the promo page... Been fiddling around with them for translucent setting for months without really knowing what I was doing :D

 

TesseractSpace

Very nice, instant buy. Looking forward to trying her out with the slime props.