Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 10
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Girl 8 I know a lot of people have been waiting for. Can't say anything about the other two, guess we'll see when they come. I do wish they would come with Gianni.. or if it has to be a female.. Lilith
We're going to have some fun throughout the day with showcasing @lyoness Captivating HD Faces and Bodies for Genesis 8 Female so if you have the product and want to play, feel free. The fun with this one is the product is MORPHS. We're going to experiment with different materials/gals and see what we come up with. Not doing the bodies, focusing on the heads.
I'm doing Head 1, and will do several materials (using the same lighting as much as possible. Obviously will adjust as needed so some gals don't wash out.) I'm doing these renders amid massive errands today, in and out of the house and ultra busy, but should be able to get some done throughout today and tonight. Back in awhile!
Second thought, I'm going to do one material and the different heads, because it's easier to just apply different skins then undo. We're starting wtih Anastasia (Gen8F) .
@fishtales - great render of the bar. I will need to start using billboards once I get into larger scene creations. Yours looks really good and convincing.
@mollytabby - you have inspired me to play with more shaders, nice work.
@Novica - thanks for the scoop about girl 8, that should be fun. I don't know the other figures so we'll see. Today I'm snagging Darwin's Christian. Also, I can't wait to see what you do with the Captivating Faces product. I wasn't going to buy it, but you have this uncanny way of changing my mind or, er, spending my money.
@Carolao - I'm waiting on Gianni too.
I really hope there is a guy 8 in the works. I like his toony skin and they make good male poses for him.
Captivating HD Faces and Bodies for Genesis 8 Female
This is the Anastasia (Gen8F) materials. I kept the expression exactly the same, to illustrate the necessity of tweaking it when you change expressions. What looks good for Head 1 simply didn't look like a good expression on some of the other heads. That's normal, because the mouth, cheeks, etc have changed. There's nothing wrong with the product.
To show you why you need to tweak the expressions, I changed the mouth and eyebrows (slightly arching) for Head 1. Note how the mouth's expressions really change as I merely change the head morphs (2,3,4,5)
Click on each one, they will open in a new window, and you can see how the mouth really changes even though it's the same expression. The next batch, I'll show you the default load face, no expressions.
Head 2
Head 3
Head 4
Head 5
@Novica Thank you for posting the two series of Captivating HD Faces and Bodies for Genesis 8 Female It is very helpful for a noob like me who, without your help, would probably start trying different heads and then decide (erroneously, it IS a Lyoness product after all!) that the product is rubbish. It is quite comical opening each of the first set of images in new tabs, and then switching through those tabs. In a similar vein, tabbing through the second set very clearly shows the different faces.
Is my math right? Say it ain't so.
Say a product is 100.00 and you start with 30% off. So 100 x .70 (what you pay) is 70.00 (70%)
You have to buy FOUR things to get another 30% off. Let's say we do that. So 70.00 for that product x .70 (what you pay as you get additional 30% off) is 49.00
100.00 - 49.00 (what you pay) leaves 51.00 or 51% off.
So we have to buy four things for 51% off?
What's the cheapest four things....three are $10.37 so that is $31.11 then the next cheapest is $11.87 for a total of $42.98
So if you have to buy 4 things ($42.98) that averages out to $10.74 each, to get a discount. Yeah, let the average buyer hop on that. FOUR of them.
Did I figure this right?
I think so, it certainly matches with what I saw on a cart testrun.
It's okay-ish if you really want all items you put in the cart, but when I have to put 'well, maybe' items in to get the maximum discount, and the final amount is over budget, I take the maybe items out again, so then my 'but I'm paying too much for the rest now'-reflex kicks in, and chances are I won't buy anything that day. Certainly not if there are no 'must haves'.
@nath Yep, when it takes FOUR must haves or combined with "well maybes" then I can see where some buyers drop out.
Maybe Daz is trying to rebalance our expectations with regard to sales?
When I see something from my wishlist at Rendo for 50% off, I'll buy it if I can - because 50% is at the upper limit of discounts you get over there, and it doesn't happen very often. When I see a 50% discount over here, it's no big deal. I'll wait for a deeper discount in one of the big sale events like March Madness. Well, that strategy hasn't worked for me this spring, maybe that's the way discounts are going? Or maybe I'm extrapolating way to much from limited data.
It doesn't help that the items released on any given day are such a mixed bunch. If all, or most, of today's releases really had a "law and order" theme, then the deal you get from buying four of them might look attractive if you were looking for that kind of content. As it is, I can't see how they get to "law and order" from that collection: there's only a pose set that really fits it (am I the only one who - given today's supposed theme - initially mis read the Bali Resort as some kind of implausibly luxurious Bail hostel?). At least with yesterday's releases, most of them were genuinely sci-fi - if that is your bag, you could pick up a reasonable discount and a free figure.
Incidentally, on the subject of yesterday's releases, it's a bit disappointing that as a man in the space army you get a piece of extra armour to protect your heart and lungs from the front. As a woman you get a sort of zipped waistcoat thing that it's not physically possible to zip up. I hope they aren't planning to assault anywhere cold. Or dangerous.
It's a pity, because casual sexism aside it looks like a really good set. I wonder what the male top looks like fitted to a G8F?
Right now, I have one item from today and one from yesterday sitting in the cart waiting for what the rest of the week may bring. Together they are around $40, when I had my cart filled with enough items from today and yesterday - and wishlist items from today's related merchants - to get maximum discount it came out at well over $100.
I'll see what I check out with eventually.
I put a bunch of items in the cart, weeded out the higher prices, looked at the total… and cleared the cart of all but Christian, who is a must buy. I've just been holding off for the inevitable Flash Sale that will require a new product to get the higher discount. (Last time I did that, though, there wasn't anything in the Flash Sale I wanted. But I was prepared!)
51% off new releases is not bad. But a four item buy-in to get that discount? Ain't happening in my cart!
I understand they need to come up with the money they promised to pay the PAs for the big snafu last year, but it seems to me trying to strong-arm the customer base into buying $50 of new releases every day will be less effective than putting back catalog DOs on sale with deep discounts. They've been very stingy with the G3/G8 back catalog stuff, but there are always new customers who will go overboard with V4/G1 and G2 when they are looking to build a runtime.
@Novica, I did not buy the Captivating HD Faces and Bodies for Genesis 8 Female, so I can't help you out with that. But I did buy the same for the males, so I can help out there, if you decide to feature it as well. In the meantime, I'm finishing up some renders of Kande, (from the Bonus Madness items,) along with the dForce Kinley Hair, Esha's Summer Dream dForce dress and the Tree and Swing set from Predatron.
I was super disappointed by that too. Also that it was only in a bundle, if the male and female outfits had been seperate options, I would have at least bought the male one. But only a bundle means no sale for me.
Left is a straight up conform, right is using the SY Clothing Breast Helper G8F to make it less clingy. It was fast so I think with more time to really work the fixer, it will totally rock the woman.
No way am I buying 4 items to get a discount. And I have also noticed that things are more expensive across the board by at least $2 or $3. (Not saying the artists don't deserve it, but it doesn't change the fact that I have to take that into account). I would rather pay full price than put 3 items I don't need or particularly want to get a couple bucks off of the one I do want. And, I have enough stuff that its not an issue at all for me to wait until the next pc+ or pa sale.
@ladair If you get time and would like to do some or all of those, that would be helpful. I'm doing a massive task this week (getting a room ready for eventual carpet rip-up, which means going through bookcases of stuff so furniture can be moved, which means getting other rooms ready to move the furniture to, etc. I literally would start a render and just have to come back to it.
I would suggest not using an expression (to start with) if you want to show default, as they don't do equally as well across the board, and if you tweak them then it's not apples and apples. (But if you're wanting to show what they CAN look like, toss that out the window.) Up to you of course. And thanks! Looking forward to seeing other renders. (reminder to everyone, she has a great thread here in Art Studio too.)
Anyone else who wants to show what they bought during MM, as always, feel free. Appreciate you all very much.
Kande and Musoke for Genesis 3 and 8 Female Kinley Hair with dForce for G3F/G8F dForce Summer Dream for G8F
I bought the Kinley Hair and wanted to see what I could do with it, so I decided to use products I've purchased recently but haven't used. This is Kande, the older sister of the two characters in the Bonus Madness product from Anain. The original scene has Kande swinging on the "plank" swing of the Tree and Swing monthly freebie from February, wearing Esha's Summer Dream dress and sandals. I made the hair blonde so it was easier to see in the shade of the tree. This shot is a full body shot, however, with lighting and background from Colm Jackson's Render Studio Iray. I should mention, the dress and shoes are not "out-of-the-box." I used one of the many fabirc shaders on the dress and tweaked the base colors of the sandals, escept for the one strap, which uses the same settings of the dress for a perfect match.
Besides being the first dForce hair in the store, Kinley has an interesting coloring system that lets you do remarkable things with the hair. The next studio shot of Kande is after I changed the hair color.
The pose is modified from one I found in Z Real Beauty. The modifications were mainly to fit the body shape of Kande, but I also moved the arm down to get the hand away from the face. In the above shot, I also changed the pose of the hand. From a distance, the original looked fine, but closeup, it looked a bit odd.
I've found some minor issues with dForcing the dress around the sleeves. however, in both simulations, the pose above and on the swing, the arms at the shoulder are tight against the body. Besides using smoothing, I converted to subD and rendered at level 3. I set up the pose on the Timeline at Fraome 30 with 61 frames total. after the simulation finished, I dialed it back until I liked the drape of the skirt. The ended up being Frame 40. I then converted the drape to a pose, rather than rely on my ability to not hit the Clear button! As it was already set up, I used the same timeline to dForce the hair, which I also converted into a pose. While changing the hair color, I used the Lengthen morph for the Center Bangs to shorten the bangs, and I applied the transparency option for closeups.
The hair has a very impressinve line-up of morphs and can just as easily be used without dForce. In the swing images, I used several morphs to tweak the tails after the simulations was complete. And for the record, in either scene, either pose, hair or dress, it took many attempts at simulation before I got the look I wanted. (Even got, and rendered, an impressive explosion of the dress, when trying to sim both dress and hair at the same time.)
Not to be a total tease, here are the images with the swing.
All images link to the larger images, and open in a new window, except for the full swing image. That link opens the public gallery page.
Vivienne for Genesis 3 & 8 Female(s) X-Fashion Activewear 02 Outfit (Gen8F) Big Afro Hair (Gen3 / Gen8)
Vivienne is a nice balance between a fair skinned gal and an average gal (not that any skln is typical.) I wanted to try the Big Afro Hair, and I really like the details. One thing I didn't like is independent side morphs, meaning moving the sides without affecting the top of the hair. You only have options of heart, cone, etc. To avoid a rounded skullcap, use the heart option anywhere from 5- 8 and it will give you a slight indentation for a middle part in the hair. The cone option will take out the sides, (but affects the top) and I would suggest using that with the heart option. (both shown together.) Note the hair is for both genders, both generations (3 and 8) It has lovely colors and a nice variety.
If you are on a slower computer, Big Afro Hair will do fine for you. These renders (full body) were under 4 minutes for me (have a really good computer.)
X-Fashion Activewear has a good variety of materials, and for your fairer / lighter skinned gals, the muted brown is nice and doesn't overpower her.
Again, for the floor plane, I used Ceramics for Iray.
Let's talk domes for today. I am showing you the default Dome Rotation of 000, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, and 315. Depending on where your light presets are starting from, you'll get different results, but this will show you how the lights move and the directions they go. Hope it helps. I never have my domes at the default, there's so much more with rim lighting and dramatic side lighting when you move the dome, even slightly.
TIP: use Y ROTATE (in Parameters) to slightly turn your figure toward or away from the light, depending on your pose, to really get the best effects of your lighting. (Example- Try to avoid the break between light and dark going down dead center of the nose.)
So have fun- click each one of these in order, which opens new windows. Then click through them and watch the light move. This is Pro-Studio lighting, number 20. (which is the most dramatic, a bit darker than the rest. Very bold. I counter it with the Exposure Value/ISO and as stated previously, I start with ISO 135 then I tweak Exposure Value. This was at 14.19
Click to open these in a new window, then go through them and watch the lights! (Quite fun.)
Default
Below: Dome Rotation 90
Below: Dome Rotation 135
Below: Dome Rotation 180
Below: Dome Rotation 225
Below: Dome Rotation 270
Below: Dome Rotation 315
With the breast helper the male set looks great on a woman. It's definitely more practicle without dteracting from her femininity.
Vivienne for Genesis 3 & 8 Female(s)
Here's a closeup. She's really a nice character.
In the commercial thread, the PA explains technical reason are part of the reason for the difference in the tops (and possible future fixes or options), in case you're interested. I believe all indications are that the male top will fit a female figure if she has a small or no bust.
Ooh, yes, very nice - and surprise, I actually have her
Nice render. I like the skin. From the midwest I bet. :-)
Signing off for the night (going on 4am) but I did pick up Penny. Even ultra close-up, the brows look drawn on. Meh.
The eyelashes are so long you can't get a natural look to her, I'm not finding a natural, no makeup look at all. I'll look again tomorrow, maybe I'm just missing it. Oh, and the makeups are all one thing- lips and eyes together. HATE that.
Judging by the promos, I think Penny has shares in a eyeliner factory.
I’m not a fan of Penny. Too, generic for me but her clothing looks useful. It’s too bad really, I love vintage retro stuff.... she just seems rather nondescript.
Same here.. some of of the clothing looks interesting. Now if there was only a richer source from the mid 60s to early 70s. I've been wanting to do a series from that extremely trubulent period.
Congrats to @carolao for winning the PC+ Inspiration Contest and being featured in the newsletter. Coming Home is a beautiful render. Go girl!
Rendering Penny for you, been about half an hour so she'll be finishing up soon.