Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 10
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Agreed. That bundle went into in my cart immediately! I'm not completely sold on the character, but the bundle is only $2.50-ish more than the hair and outfit separately, so I'll take a chance on him. But that outfit looks to be one of the best made men's outfits to be released in a long time. I'm really looking forward to using it. (Seriously, this is one of the first male products/bundles I'm buying on the strength of the products offered. I've bought many of the male offerings solely to support male products in the store. And I've ended up with some weird stuff buying Daz 8 males, too!)
As for Redz products, I've bought everything she's released here at Daz, and a lot of products she released over at Rendo. Her fibermesh hair always looks great, and she fits them to G3M/F and G8M/F. Some of her freebies at Rendo are G8 fits for those G3 hairs, too.
@Novica, it stopped snowing in my neighborhood within an hour. Hubby got snowed on several times while delivery newspapers, though, a bit higher up. But it never got cold enough to stick. So no snow day for kids.
The character’s morph looks a bit too plain for my tastes. But the skin with the eye option might be useful.
Is the Daz site loading slow for you guys? I was beginning to think Comcast had lowered my speed when I renewed, but other sites I've gone to load quite fast. And a speed test shows my speeds are in the ballpark for what I'm paying. But loading any page on Daz—store, forums, or galleries—seems to take 5 to 10 times longer than other sites...This has been going on for a few days now.
It is not slow but I am not on a throttled connection.
I'm not on a throttled connection either. And Daz is the only site that's slow for me.
On another topic, I've got some images to post, along with a review of Megah; expect that sometime today.
Just a quick 'Heads Up" for anybody who is using FaceGen and might have missed this thread in Commons: There is a major upgrade for Artist Pro 1.10 to version 2. If you purchased FaceGen at DAZ you can get the upgrade for free by contacting support at FaceGen
Thanks for the heads up @charlie judge!
The mens bundle flew into my cart this morning as well - can't pass up nice looking men's outfits as there are so few to be had.
Megah and Swimsuit for Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 Female(s) Charli Hair for Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 Female(s)
I have so many female characters that I tend to only buy males, unless there is something special about the product or the price is deeply discounted. I picked up Megah along with Missy for TJ8 and HP Luthril for G8F for 71% off. If not for that discount, I would have passed, and I would have missed out on one truly nice character. (Maybe more, but I haven't used Missy or Luthril yet.)
I've rendered her for this review using the Tattoo option, front view and back view, using both skin options. For each comparison, the only thing I changed was the skin, so you can get a true comparison. These side-by-side images use the Maui HDRI from Dimension Theory, which gives "high noon" light, with a fill light provided by KA's original Ghost Lights.
Front
Back
And here's a portrait I did first, using the same setup as Portrait In Lavender: the default HDRI, with the figure rotated to face the "Sun." Background was added in Photoshop.
Portrait in the Sun
Megah is a beautiful character, in my opinion, but there are some drawbacks. The option of two skin "types" can be confusing. (The 01 skin material settings use the "PBR Metallicity/Roughness" Base Mixing mode, while the 02 skin material settings use "Weighted.") The skin presets are labeled 01 and 02, as are the Tattoo options, and Tattoo Remove options. And there are other options that are independent of the skin type—fingernails, lips, and eyeliners—so the makeup options being type dependent isn't obvious. The makeup is only for the eyeshadows and is labeled "Eyeshadows1" and Eyeshadows2" to indicate skin type, while the actual color options are labeled 01, 02, etc. (Eyeshadows1 01 and Eyeshadow2 01.) Once you get all that figured out, though, she is a beauty.
Additionally, the shape of her lips is defined, at least partially, by the materials. If you put another characters's materials on her, you'll lose those lips. And it is possible Megah's materials on another character will look odd, depending on the lip morphs for the other character.
The included geoshell swimsuit is a nice plus, but don't forget to select the swimsuit when applying materials. If the character is selected, she'll become the swimsuit, effectively disappearing. The Wearables preset works on any G3 or G8 figure, too. (G3M looked pretty silly, but it fit amazingly well!)
Because I used a short hair style in the first portrait, I wanted something totally different for this one. I really liked Charli hair on her. In fact, she looks stunning with the black hair materials, but I wanted even more difference between the two portraits. You won't see it here because I applied OOT's IrayPair Hair base shader, with both color tint and gloss tint, but the Charli Hair has some overly white strands in this light caused by the gloss color. You can tone that down by going darker in the settings.
Charli Hair has one of my personal pet peeves with hair. The scalp is not a separate material zone. It is easy enough to create a Scalp zone using the Geometry Editor, but I don't feel like I should have to. As OOT's base shader is not intended to be applied to the scalp, it was necessary to separate one material zone into two in order to use those hair shaders. On the other hand, there are some very nice materials that come with the hair, so it may not be an issue for you. (And really, it's a relatively minor issue for me.)
One of the pluses of Megah is the character works equally well on G3F and G8F. I suspect we can thank Zev0 for that. I noticed the Skin Builder 3 logo on the face texture when I had it in Photoshop, and the only way you can use SB3 skins on a G8F character commercially is if the product includes both G3F and G8F... a really good reason for us non-modelers to be happy SB4(8?) isn't out yet!
I like the maui hdri. I use it often. What is the white powder on the backs of her hands? Is that a shine of some sort?
Yes, it's the light from the HDRI. I probably should have turned down Burn Highlights in Tone Mapping...
The site speed seems normal for me. @ladair She is quite lovely! I like the brown around the pupil in the iris, it's a bit unusual. I'm not in to tattoos but those look nice and sharp with varied patterns. Okay, so what sale am I missing, how did you get 71% off?
BTW, don't know if I've mentioned this lately, but I've found rotating the dome to 230-270 gives some nice dramatic side lighting. I've used it with the Maui light you mentioned, which is what reminded me.
Did you guys get the green banner, additional 30% off the Lolita Kimono Bundle? It drops down to 66% off, 18.16 which for 3 products, makes those $6.05 apiece. The Kimono has really pretty materials, and I rather like the tousled look of the hair. I think it would be cute on kids.
No Lolita bundle discount for me, but unsurprised since I don't really buy much female content so I would not likely be eligible for discounts.
I got the additional discount on the Lolita bundle. I would have just bought the kimono but the price diff between it and the bundle was so slight that it didn’t make sense not to pick up the bundle.
So does anyone know about the 71% discount L'Adair was talking about? Need to know before the site changes over in an hour and a half.
I’m not sure maybe it is a pa store on sale. There are several 40 percent with purchase maybe something stacked. The men’s sale discount was not that great.
Sorry. That was on the day they were released, February 12. I think it was a combination of DO discount, Intro discount, and buy "more" and get another discount on top of that... Anyway, that was over a week ago, and the sales page has already come down. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a glitch, or I would have PMed you, @Novica.
The "Exclusive Message" said it was the extra discount is for owning Teen Josie 8, which is 70% off with the bundle.
The only thing that I liked with that bundle, though, was the hair, which I've wishlisted for now.
Also, within an hour of a "saying something" about how slow the site is, things started working normal again. Go figure! (But earlier, when I was downloading the updated "The Pit," my download speed was reminiscent of my old DSL connection!) though I suppose it could have been a cloud flare issue. If that were the case, it wouldn't necessarily affect anyone using a different cloud flare connection.
Ah, thanks @ladair Wasn't thinking glitch, I was thinking a good sale that I must've missed.
Ooooh, a new dude hits the store. Go Edward! I'm just getting swirlies at the moment though.
LOL the manatees wearing tshirt commercial just came on for Geico. That is too cute! Do you folks overseas get to see Geico commercials? If not, look them up on YouTube. My favorite is the golf one with the golf commentators. This link will take you to a good channel with the commercials. The raccoons and Tarzan are also some of my favs.
He's up now
This is a render (2hr, 20min) I did tonight using spectral rendering, faithful, cie1931, White Point HEX( 122,124,122) equates to .20,.20,.20 in whitepoint values and Saturation at 1.5 with gaussian at 1.00 pixel filter radius. Background was Aako Iray HDRI Storms. I could have adjusted other values but have been using these only as a default for a bit and images look good on different monitors. Still playing around with all settings on images. But use these every time.
Testing more stuff: Planet Glise and Anemone for Genesis 2 Female(s) . Clothing is Patient X for Genesis 2 Female(s) .
Planet Glise is large and complex, but the !Pre Iray preload will work with 8 GB RAM / 8 GB VRAM. A 1448x1041 render takes over 10 minutes before it even starts to render on my system, but looks like it will finish withing 30 minutes total with Iray default settings (stoppede these after 20 minutes total). Has both 3DL and Iray textures. Last picture is Anemone with human skin, converted to Iray.
I love how she looks with human skin @taoz What a great idea.
@cismic As a horse owner, I know exactly what she's thinking. "Is the pasture going to be muddy tomorrow?" Love the glow of the lantern with the horse waiting patiently to get attention.
A comment in general to everyone, not about that image- I do change up the Crush Blacks and Burn Highlights on every single render, and also tweak in postwork. Although I have subscribed to PS off and on, (my two sons got the PS6 right before it went subscription, we heard that was coming and scooped up two hard copies) I use Corel Photo Paint and the midtones option is wonderful. Gets those subtle details in the darkened out areas, when reducing contrast. (Contrast eliminates midtones, makes a sharper, consolidated area. Good for drama, not for nitpicky details)
The boards going away from the lantern show detail. If you want more, then the contrast would be reduced (among other things, like Shadows.)
I love the mood on the render and the posing relays the feeling beautifully.
@taoz That environment is so different- glad the vendors are thinking out of the box and taking a chance on it. The colors are dazzling. You did a fantastic job with that water. I could jump right in, it's EIGHTY degrees here in Pensacola! (whacky weather. Groan, wonder what summer's going to be like. Another active hurricane season predicted.)
And I agree, the human skin looks really good on Anemone. The render with her on the bank, you did a good job of trying to dodge all the things on the ground when positioning her hands.
@novica I've come a long way since I started using DAZ a year ago. So, Thank you! Lots of great ideas found in this forum. I'll have to experiment more on contrasts. I did slightly turn the Mr. Eds head and ears a little. :-)
I've not used the noise filter a lot because I was seeing where my renders would take much longer, and when looking at log files, found issues with how Iray was working with the CrushBlacks. I've logged a bug with DAZ., You're unable to set 3.0 and a above 2017-11-15 20:26:40.585 WARNING: dzneuraymgr.cpp(307): Iray WARNING - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.0 IRAY rend warn : Non-physical gamma value 3.00 used in tonemapper. And, with improper use of Noise and Degrain, renders are very slow as it reads the filters every time 2017-11-17 03:01:36.840 WARNING: dzneuraymgr.cpp(307): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.0 IRAY rend error: Degraining filter cannot be combined with "black pixel filter". Anyway, as I analyize logs I've been making adjustments for Iray rendes that so far seem to work well. I'm always searching for ideas and tips on how to produce better renders.
I also notice tons of these errors 2017-11-17 07:54:18.870 WARNING: libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile. To qualify this would be to say right before this it trys to load items from a vendors product. 2017-11-17 07:53:51.114 Loaded image Amisieyesteal_1007.jpg not picking on this one by the way. And, the above error takes approximately 2 - 3 seconds. Now compond that with all the other little images that are displayed one after another receiving this: 2017-11-17 07:54:18.870 WARNING: libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile.
Well, I have logged lots of these types of issues. Has anyone else noticed that certain combinations of settings are slow and snails?
I too like Planet Glise. Been trying to create big scenes with it. I open up project from time to time add update and change when I have new ideas. https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/489016 I had a longer and high resolution of this image printed on cavas at costco for inexpensive. Looks Great I call it my blacklight poster. :-) https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/images/486761 ;
One thing though for placement of items I found the water plain to be difficult to work with So, I added a plane primitive colored blue and made it the same as the water plan. After placement of items can hide primitive plane.
Sorry my friend, I’m really happy about it as you probably remember that was my suggestion for the pro bundle in the product suggestion forum. =-)
That was my suggestion initially. But I suspect that hd morphs will be standard issue in the future.
I quit buying the add on HD packs after discovering that the normal maps in the regular character package accomplished 99% of the job for me in my renders. I didn't want to spend $$ on the HD morphs. I do own some, but most don't seem to make that much difference, especially the female ones. YMMV, of course.