Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 8
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Appreciate you folks working on the Centaur reviews and clothes, I'll continue on with some of the characters I've bought recently.
Ekatrina HD
First, and I could be wrong, but when I applied the head and body morphs, there wasn't much change. You'll get the most bang for your buck with these fun materials! Showing you three.
It really is puzzling- if vendors dont show closeups of their character, it raises a red flag to me, whether it should or not. I am not even giving Johanna a try because there aren't any good facial shots. Compare those promos with the excellent ones of Maggy.
Hey @3djoji - Coast Guard is two words. Was there a reason you didn't reference the military service that way, aka another product named that? My husband is a retired Coast Guard officer, so spotted that right away!
Depends where you live. In the UK it is Coastguard, all one word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_guard
I've almost always been a moderator at the forums from the time they started, so mainly I post to help people. I was actually the first one brought on board. I've never really noticed how many posts I have.
Thank you.
I bought a new high-end computer last October just for graphics, mainly Daz Studio. It has one GTX 1080, which runs both the display monitor and the iray renderer. (The plan is to pick up another 1080 once the computer is paid off, as well as more RAM.) GPU memory used was around 5600MB, so it all fit on the card. The logs show it took 3 hours and 24+ minutes to render to 5K iterations.
Ah, thanks @Fishtales! I learn new things all the time!
@ladair That render really a lot of effort to setup, and definitely worth it. Thanks so much for sharing, and for explaining how you got to those wonderful results.
Will you experienced folks tell me if I'm doing Skin Blender right? I load the figure I want to use. Then in the !Skin Blender, the files I put in the top two The Base Layer and the Blend Layer are the DSON files?
Does this really blend the two, or does it just gradually darken the skin? I don't know if I'm seeing the figure's material lose much of the freckles, which I should if the second one doesn't have them and I'm at 55% adjustment. I'll have to test it more.
Skin Blender: Okay, I used the DSON files. I'm going to post what I did, for anyone else who hasn't tried this product. BTW, mine didn't crash, and it saved the results, but I was surprised at how I had to save it. If any of this is wrong, let me know.
A couple notes:
Where do you find it? In Content Library, go to Scripts.
What files do I use? For the top two options, you will choose your base materials (the figure's materials that you have out in the viewport) and the blending materials (the second character's materials.) If you right click on the character's basic materials (the image that normally shows you the tummy and it loads the materials all over the body) you can go to the files. When you get there... TIP: Be sure you have "All Files" down where it shows file type, or you won't see the DSON files. Load each one for the respective section- either the base one, or the blend one.
Then follow the ReadMe, use the adjust the blending slider. Easy.
How do I save the results? (And this threw me, it wouldn't save as a Material Preset) Save as a WEARABLE Preset.
Now my question is this- and I'm trying to tell by my experiments- the eyebrows blend together? Do I use one of the remove brows products on a character's materials, save that (as what?) then load it on a character, then do the blending with the second character?
Lol. I thought your tips post mentioning the essential oils was fascinating. I used to have an online shop selling them with other new age-y type stuff and can well remember the time my daughter brought headlice home from school (a painting or a cereal box model would have done!) and we decided to eradicate them with neem oil. I'm not surprised it has a reputation as an insect repellent - the smell was so awful we decided within minutes that we'd rather be eaten alive by nits and even considered looking around for a drain to stick our heads in just for a more pleasant aroma. We ended up sitting out in the garden for the duration of the treatment, and I think it's safe to say that there wasn't an insect within a half mile radius that hadn't left the area :)
I don't have the Skin Blender product, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with Skin Builder.
I don't have the skin blender product either although at some point I may pick it up. I like options lol. I have a couple things I absolutely have to finish testing this weekend as well as a ton of stuff to do around the house but am hoping to give the Skin Builder a run at some point. I love the first one and am really excitedt to try out all the new options. I may do a randomizer character then build the skin and see what I can come up with.
@L'adair
I'd love to have an i7 loaded with memory with a DSLI 1080 GPU setup.
Maybe next year. :)
Oh, one thing to note about the forums and your ID number...
Most of us, like Cris and me and Chohole who have really low numbers actually predate the original forums, themselves. I don't think the forum ID numbers equate to the customer numbers, but rather to when we went and decided to check out the "New Beta forums" :D
I can't remember but I THINK it was Richard that filled us in on those being member numbers. Not sure though? Anyway, they're kinda fun. I'd love to know if number one is still around (heck, even the top 25!)
Oh my goodness, I'm playing with Brow Remover and it is FANTASTIC. I mean smooth as silk removal and SOOOOOOO easy. So here's what I am doing- the Brow Remover first, and that one saves as a Material Preset. You get to choose the path you want, and since I left the studio the same in Content Library (with the People>Genesis 3 Females>Characters etc, I named my file path to Materials, because alphabetically the "M" and "P" are close together. I then did Materials>No Brow>(Character Name)
I will show you my results soon, but what I did was take Godin's Maria as the base figure, and FWSA Agnes as the blended one, and did Skin Blender at 15%, 35, 55, and 75%, without removing Maria's brows first. Now I've started from scratch and removed the brows, then I'll test it again and then show you the results. I've got to get off the computer for awhile but I am testing the way these work and so far I really like both Skin Blender and Brow Remover. TTYL.
I liked Brow remover a lot. Very useful utility.
Well, I'm not sure how Skin Blender works with materials that have the brows removed, but when I use the Maria with no brows, and then use Skin Blender, I have to crank it way up so the brows show from Agnes. And that makes the skin really dark. How do these two work together so the skin doesn't go ultra dark?
What does he/you think of that new Coast Guard vessel? Is it fairly representative?
Want to see how well Brow Remover works? (and it's easy- beginners can breeze through this tool!) Here's Maria and Adaline.
Having trouble uploading, it's stalling out. Will keep trying. Edit: it was due to the file names. I posted them in a later post. I forgot- don't put dots in file names ( like .this.this)
That was my problem with the product. The eyebrows. I asked in the support forum but there were no responses. The other issue for me was that when I saved a character with a blended skin and reopened it Daz errored out for me. Cool idea but didn't entirely work well.
Some observations about Skin Blender. First, this uses geoshells. The "blend" script is what adjusts the opacity for the geoshell. If you have a character without brows as the base and a character with brows as the blended overlay, you have to crank it to a sufficient opacity to see the brows. The reverse is also true.
Second, the "blend" material that's selected (not the base) is the material that gets slapped on the geoshell. Keep in mind, order matters, so keep the colors of your base material in mind when thinking about which materials to blend them with.
Third, the optional materials do work. I used the Face section for makeups and the Torso section for any torso-specific looks I want to bring over (like tattoos or alternate torso materials).
IMO, this works best if all materials used are "no brows." Then it's super easy and I add brows in later. Otherwise you have to keep in mind the opacity of the shell is what controls the visibility of the brows.
Saving as a wearable preset only saves the geoshell. You would still have to apply the base material to G3F and then the wearable shell to get the same look as when you saved it originally. You could save the geoshell once and combine it with Hierarchical Material Presets that included the base material and the geoshell material to have an endless variety of material combinations to play with. If you have the patience / need to do this, that is (which I don't).
It's a neat utility, but I don't think I'll be using it that often. I can get much better results combining skins in Photoshop without messing with the geoshells. Good luck to all those that try it. :)
@Saba Taru Thanks for the explanation, I had read about the geoshells and did figure out both had to be without brows as it simply will go too dark if one has it and the other character doesn't. I haven't read up on the Hierarchical Material Preset- can you clarify? When you said save the geoshell once, to use with Hierarchical, was that as Material Preset or Wearable?
Geoshell is saved as a wearable preset. The Heirarchical Material preset is a separate save and will save both the G3F material and the material on the geoshell (if selected on save). It's useful for applying materials to multiple things with one click. So you create a geoshell (that's the once part). Once it's created, you can apply any material you want to it. Then you can create as many base and overlay material presets as you want using the Heirarchical Material preset option without creating a new geoshell every time. And as long as you don't rename the geoshell, you can continue to use the Skin Blender scripts on it.
**Note: Some tweaks make be required to adjust the opacity of the geoshell when using other materials on it (applying a new material sets the opacity to 1), but I don't view this as a one-click solution, so that doesn't bother me. It may bother other people, though, so it's worth mentioning.
Thank you, Novica. I wasn't sure what I needed to include with the image when posting here. I assume more info is better than not enough. I managed to buy more stuff during MM than I thought I would, but it wasn't until I got the centaur that I felt motivated enough to start creating again. I'd tinkered with a few products, but couldn't seem to put together any scenes!
DAZ combined G3M with DAZ Horse 2, albeit smaller with fewer of the Horse 2 morphs, to create Centaur 7. It would have been nice if DAZ had created a Horse 3 product to base the centaur body on, with better textures and top-notch iray shaders, (as well as support for 3Delight,) even if Horse 3 wasn't slated for release until later. I agree, they took the easy way out, using a four-and-a-half year old product to create the centaur. It's no wonder the horse textures look dated, even with updated iray shaders.
Then there's Rogan from Rawart, with custom 4K textures for the centaur body and the human torso. In my opinion, Centaur 7 done right. The down the side to Rogan, (and I assume any future centaur characters from Rawart,) is he can't also be used as a standalone G3M, and there aren't separate shape morphs for the head and body. Even so, I expect I'll be buying all of Rawart's centaur characters.
Hopefully we'll see a number of new products from vendors to support the centaur. First and foremost, I'm sure new body textures for the horse-half with 4K maps and a decent normal map could give new life to the body. If I were talented in that way, I'd come up with a set of textures that could be used on either Horse 2 or Centaur 7, with LIE presets for the G3M torso to blend with the horse body. Supporting both figures would increase the target market considerably. As I can't do it myself, I'll be very interested in purchasing any such product coming out.
I can so relate!
Almost 3 years ago, I replace a 5-year old computer with an HP Envy. Not a great and powerful machine, but powerful enough, it turned out, to run DS 4.7. Two years ago, when Iray came out in the 4.8 beta, I discovered this computer was pathetically underpowered for Iray. It took another year and a half before I could take the plunge and get a new computer, (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/114436/,) and that was using my credit card! I still use the Envy for everything else. It's really not a bad little computer, just not beastly enough for Iray.
Luis Vallejo had some excellent images of centaurs. That would be the direction wtih the abs transition that I would've tried for as well as the centaur body. I want my centaurs much more ripped and defined. Centaur 7 is a touch soft with his horse half.. I realize that Centaur is a wholely mythical being, but I would really want some more definition in the horse part and more sharp angles and better textures. Perhaps there will be an HD version that will help add some sculpting to those soft looking horse body.
Rawart has a nice transition area, but I'm not fond of it being a standalone figure... I want all my centaur stuff to work together. Technically it is a different creature than Centaur 7 so releasing two standalone centaur products at the same time is a bit strange of a marketing decision.. People might become confused about the compatibility. The facial textures and sculpt also don't particularly appeal to me.
I think it's actually a just typo by DAZ, if you look at the graphics on the side of the ship in the promo pics, it's spelled correctly with a space between Coast Guard.
@ Novica: Ha, another Coastie. I was a Coast Guard officer "for temporary service" (i.e. a mustang) from !962 to 1967 . I signed up as enlisted and then went to Officer Candidate School at Yorktown Virginia. Have you bought the model yet, so you could do renders for husband?
@ RCcincy: I served on a 310' class cutter and the model is a 217' class cutter, specificfally the 'Acushnet' None-the-less it looks pretty realistic to me and I want it; but I've had to wishlist it for now. There are a few minor changes to the logos and stripe, prresumeably to avod copyright infringement.
Edited to add picture of the Acushnet
Hey @charliejudge I have it in the cart, along with Maggy to get the price down, but not sure I'm buying either of those right now. After MM I said I'd cut back on spending but not doing as much as I'd like. I am also waiting until tomorrow (well, when site turns over) to see what's offered. That's cool about you being a Coastie! If I do buy/render it, I will @ you.
Thanks Charlie. I think I'm going to pick it up then.
Okay, my efforts to show you images of Maria and my experiments with Skin Blender and Brow Remover failed due to my naming- I forgot about putting dots in the file name. Kick me. (Well, I'd also been awake nineteen hours. So here we go, showing you my experiments with Godin's Maria mixed with FWSA Agnes. Maria has freckles so I want to see what those do in blending. FWSA Agnes is for a different figure (Lilith 7) and has dark skin (and as we've since discussed, you really can't do a no-brows figure (as Base) + Blend a dark skinned figure, because to get the brows from Blend Figure to show up, your figure goes VERY dark. (You'll see. The ears look like sunburned or chocolate crispies!)
BTW, I'm so proud of myself for tackling all these script products. I usually don't have the energy and get frustrated easily. So for the next week or two, I'm going to be doing script products when taking breaks on weight mapping. (Also testing a really cool new product and the vendor was really receptive to suggestions and made fun changes- you're going to love it with the variety of options! There were a lot to start with!)
Already eyeing Wow Brow and Real Eyebrows for Genesis 3 Females. Have a favorite? Feel free to share your experiments/ what you know.
Here we go! Let's take a look at Skin Blender first, my first experiments last night. On Maria (who is ADORABLE!)
Maria, out of the box. Different lighting to show the freckles, and because a STUPID WINDOWS UPDATE shut down my computer and I had to reload her. HATE it when that happens! The second and third are with the Brow Remover, the third is with Agnes blended in to get her brows. As you can see, waaaaaay too dark. But how cool is that to remove the brows?!
Takes on Agnes' dark skin and the freckles are going bye-bye. This was only 55%. Because Maria has no eyebrows, those are Agnes eyebrows coming in.
Hijacking your thread long enough to post a picture of the ship I was on, The USCG Coos Bay WAVP-376: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Coos_Bay_(AVP-25)