Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 11

11415171920100

Comments

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

    @worldsedge  Hazel looks spunky!  Kinley Hair is perfect for her. 

  • MollytabbyMollytabby Posts: 1,163
    edited June 2018

    @Worlds_Edge, those are lovely renders of Hazel. I love the Kinley hair on her smiley.

    I bought Hazel, too. I have Dottie and Salem (plus a number of other characters) by the same PA and I use them a lot. The makeup is always good and transfers easily to the other models. This is Hazel 'out of the box'. No changes to the figure.

    These are my renders of Hazel, putting her in a G8 outfit I picked up as part of my freebie bonus.  The outfit is Slouchy Sweater Outfit for Genesis 8 Female(s) and then on the full figure image I used Rarestone's Sweater Shaders Merchant Resources on the top and Fantasy Leather Iray Shaders on the shoes. On the portrait render I changed the top using Fabric Factory: Realistic Texturing - Iray Shader Presets.

    Her hair is Orion, which I picked up the day before in the V4 sale. I messed about with several shaders before I was happy with the colour, but it is mainly IDG Iray Hair Essentials Shaders on the final version. I used the Genesis version and the hair autofit well, which may be because I have some of the Sickleyield clone/morph products. 

    I based my freebie Girl 8 purchasing on getting as many 'kitbash' items as I could because I have a good range of shaders now. I've wishlisted those texture sets I really want and I'll pick them up some time in the future. 

    SaveSave

    18 06 06 HAZEL FULL FIGURE.jpg
    750 x 1125 - 385K
    18 06 06 Hazel portrait.jpg
    750 x 1125 - 749K
    Post edited by Mollytabby on
  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548

     

    L'Adair said:

    The Girl makes me shiver. I add her to my long list of disquieting daz figures, right behind Ollie, and his female counterpart Edie.  I realize they are popular, but I can't see any reason to pick those up. I don't like caricatures or toons, mostly unless they are hunky men.

    That said, I'm wondering if  the house brownie shirt top would work under the victorian Jacket. I don't like the victorian necktie, and the house brownie one... Looks like it might work.

    Ollie mixes very well with other males, and can make that perfect male model look more like someone you might actually meet in your lifetime! Here he is mixed in with Darwin's Giuseppe:

    LA Paolo

    It was what a bit of Ollie added to other figures could create that made him a must-have for me. By himself, Ollie is definitely more of a fantasy character.

    Awesome, he looks like an Old Testament prophet or someone who would be playing one in Hollywood.

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548
    edited June 2018

    @Worlds_Edge, those are lovely renders of Hazel. I love the Kinley hair on her smiley.

    I bought Hazel, too. I have Dottie and Salem (plus a number of other characters) by the same PA and I use them a lot. The makeup is always good and transfers easily to the other models. This is Hazel 'out of the box'. No changes to the figure.

    These are my renders of Hazel, putting her in a G8 outfit I picked up as part of my freebie bonus.  The outfit is Slouchy Sweater Outfit for Genesis 8 Female(s) and then on the full figure image I used Rarestone's Sweater Shaders Merchant Resources on the top and Fantasy Leather Iray Shaders on the shoes. On the portrait render I changed the top using Fabric Factory: Realistic Texturing - Iray Shader Presets.

    Her hair is Orion, which I picked up the day before in the V4 sale. I messed about with several shaders before I was happy with the colour, but it is mainly IDG Iray Hair Essentials Shaders on the final version. I used the Genesis version and the hair autofit well, which may be because I have some of the Sickleyield clone/morph products. 

    I based my freebie Girl 8 purchasing on getting as many 'kitbash' items as I could because I have a good range of shaders now. I've wishlisted those texture sets I really want and I'll pick them up some time in the future. 

    SaveSave

    I really like the hair and clothing on this one.

    Short hair, especially from the earlier Genesises, *should* autofit ok with just the base autofit templates. A quick tip for 3Dream/Mairy hair in general (I don't think I own this one in particular), is that they used to include multiple pose presets to style the hair in different ways and keep the user from being overwhelmed by their zillions of hair morph dials. Obviously the pose presets won't work after autofitting, but if you know you want a particular pose preset, load the Genesis version of the hair without autofitting, apply the pose to it and then autofit.

    Post edited by Odaa on
  • MollytabbyMollytabby Posts: 1,163
    edited June 2018

    Thank you @Odaa, that's really useful information. I try that next time. I didn't know it was possible to do a preset before autofitting. You've opened up a whole new range of things for me to try :-) 

    This is the first 3Dream/Mairy hair I have purchased and I'm rather impressed at how well it updates. I actually bought it use with V4 figures, but it proved to be a lot more versitile. I'll be looking at others by the same PA's in the next sale.

    Post edited by Mollytabby on
  • MollytabbyMollytabby Posts: 1,163
    edited June 2018

    This is Hazel dialled down to 50%, with Dottie for Edie 8 dialled in at 50%. I wanted to see how they'd work together. She's wearing Lana Hair for Genesis 8 and 3 Female(s). I like the mix and will be doing some more experimenting smiley.

    SaveSave

    18 06 06 Hazel Dottie Mix.jpg
    750 x 1125 - 584K
    Post edited by Mollytabby on
  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548
    edited June 2018

    Thank you @Odaa, that's really useful information. I try that next time. I didn't know it was possible to do a preset before autofitting. You've opened up a whole new range of things for me to try :-) 

    This is the first 3Dream/Mairy hair I have purchased and I'm rather impressed at how well it updates. I actually bought it use with V4 figures, but it proved to be a lot more versitile. I'll be looking at others by the same PA's in the next sale.

    Glad to help. I loved their work to bits in the V4 days, and in my experience the way their hairs are modelled and transmapped usually works well with Iray...but people would never guess that from their rather stylized promo art and diffuse texturing style. The other cool thing the 3Dream/Mairy team did is that their pre-Genesis hairstyles consisted of a cr2 for V4 and an hr file (a prop version of the hair that autoparents to the figure's head) for everyone else (at that time, M4+older figures). The hr/prop versions can be used on G1-onwards figures with a bit of y/z positioning and use of the fit morphs, and can use the pose presets.

    Post edited by Odaa on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

    Note there are a couple sets in Fast Grab (including a bundle) and there is a Flash Sale right now.

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548

    One of the flash sales is for 50% off Facegen, but banner goes to dead link instead of to here: https://www.daz3d.com/facegen-artist-pro

    At 50% off, Facegen Pro is still a fairly bloodcurdling amount of money, but I guess if you have store credit or a PC club coupon it might be slightly less so.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Odaa said:
    L'Adair said:

    Ollie mixes very well with other males, and can make that perfect male model look more like someone you might actually meet in your lifetime! Here he is mixed in with Darwin's Giuseppe:

    LA Paolo

    It was what a bit of Ollie added to other figures could create that made him a must-have for me. By himself, Ollie is definitely more of a fantasy character.

    Awesome, he looks like an Old Testament prophet or someone who would be playing one in Hollywood.

    Thank you, @Odaa. When I look at him, I see an Old-World fisherman, either Greek or Italian, working on a small fishing boat. It's always fun to hear what other people see in the characters we create.
    laugh

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited June 2018
    Odaa said:

    One of the flash sales is for 50% off Facegen, but banner goes to dead link instead of to here: https://www.daz3d.com/facegen-artist-pro

    At 50% off, Facegen Pro is still a fairly bloodcurdling amount of money, but I guess if you have store credit or a PC club coupon it might be slightly less so.

    Right now it's $69.50  I picked that product up August 2017. Look at the price. So about $70 now compared to $42 at the best price. I think it was part of a sales deal, as the app chart only shows it in the 60.00 for August 2017. Either needed to buy other things to qualify, or it was a glitch. 

            Centaur 7 Female Pro Bundle                  $28.34
            FaceGen Artist Pro                                   $41.70

    Post edited by Novica on
  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548
    edited June 2018

    My advice to anyone looking to pick this program up at $69.50 is to play with the demo version on the creator's website to get a feel for how it works, and take a long, hard look at the available full-face photos for whoever it is they're wanting to create. Are there true full-face, cleanshaven shots with reasonably even lighting and no hair crossing the eyebrows, cheeks or jawline? Is the person's profile look important to you? (Facegen, at least prior to the recent update I haven't downloaded yet, isn't great at noses). 

    Post edited by Odaa on
  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647
    edited June 2018

    Thanks. I picked up Minto as she is cute. I also like her outfits.

     

    Post edited by Serene Night on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    Odaa said:
    Odaa said:

     Is the person's profile look important to you? (Facegen, at least prior to the recent update I haven't downloaded yet, isn't great at noses). 

     

    Yes, you need to input the front and side views to get good noses. Earlier, I did my neighbor, and she was spot-on. I haven't done anything else with it so I have extremely limited experience. There's a thread on Facegen so it would be worth finding and checking it out to see actual examples. 

  • Tramp GraphicsTramp Graphics Posts: 2,411
    edited June 2018
    Novica said:

    The Girl makes me shiver. I add her to my long list of disquieting daz figures, right behind Ollie, and his female counterpart Edie.  I realize they are popular, but I can't see any reason to pick those up. I don't like caricatures or toons, mostly unless they are hunky men.

     

    Hey, now there's an idea. Combing The Girl 8 with Edie..... that's an interesting combination!

    Now this I have got to see. devil

    Post edited by Tramp Graphics on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131
    edited June 2018
    Odaa said:

    My advice to anyone looking to pick this program up at $69.50 is to play with the demo version on the creator's website to get a feel for how it works, and take a long, hard look at the available full-face photos for whoever it is they're wanting to create. Are there true full-face, cleanshaven shots with reasonably even lighting and no hair crossing the eyebrows, cheeks or jawline? Is the person's profile look important to you? (Facegen, at least prior to the recent update I haven't downloaded yet, isn't great at noses). 

    It's pretty good at noses is there isn't too much bright light in the pictures and the pictures aren't post processed. If light is too bright or post-processed then it will shave much of the geometry off the face - because that's what the photograph has had done to it - and the face will look somewhat flattened and smoothed.

    My nose, with good, unprocessed pictures, and both side & front or only front comes out the same. It was interesting doing enough pictures from youth to current age because it showed weight flucuations that I never paid much attention too but they were there. 20 - 30 lbs is a lot, lol like the Chipmonks with a mouth full of nuts.

    Where FaceGen fails udderly is on the forehead above the browridge, the temples and the backs of the jaws, and the under the chin down to the neck - even if you also have a good profile photo. And the overall shape of the head. In DAZ Land it seems all characters use the same shape cranium but that can be very different shaped and sized. Those areas can make or break a character's likeness.

    It would be nice if FaceGen had the ability to form the actual hairline & include the ears, especially if the front & side puictures were available. Also, if it could generate fibremesh eyebrows, hair, beard, mustache based on pictures. Finally, generate a new clean texture rbased on the picture & biology instead of orring the picture onto a DAZ supplied one (that only looks good from a distance).

    Of course if it did all that you'd expect it to cost $200 instead of $129.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • ChangelingChickChangelingChick Posts: 3,211
    edited June 2018
    Novica said:

    The Girl makes me shiver. I add her to my long list of disquieting daz figures, right behind Ollie, and his female counterpart Edie.  I realize they are popular, but I can't see any reason to pick those up. I don't like caricatures or toons, mostly unless they are hunky men.

     

    Hey, now there's an idea. Combing The Girl 8 with Edie..... that's an interesting combination!

    Now this I have got to see. devil

    This is with both of them dialed 100% with Edie's skin and then both dialed at half in Edie's skin.  (and Edie HD at 100% in both)

    Edie Girl.png
    752 x 1023 - 665K
    Edie Girl Half.png
    756 x 1023 - 660K
    Post edited by ChangelingChick on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,244
    barbult said:
    Carola O said:

    I'm sorry to say.. that not a single Dforce item I have bought, has had ANY movement morphs at all... which means that I can't really use it. It conforms yes, that isn't a problem. The problem is that if I pose my character and want to move the skirt, or the coat, or opening the jacket a little to indicate movement or wind.. I can Not do that, since there is NO morphs for that. There is adjustment morphs, but that's as far as it has been on the clothing I've bought. 

    It do start to annoy me, and I have stopped buying dForce clothes because of that. Because I simply don't dare to anymore. None of the dforce clothing has movement morphs or such written out either, and while I'm aware most of the non dforce clothes didn't had that either, they still had those morphs to some degree (some more, some less and a few not at all) but for those clothing I could be more or less sure it would be there, and the few times it wasn't I did return the product.

    I'm the first to admit that there is clothes I would love to buy, because they look amazing and I could easily see me using them. But without morphs to make it possible for me to use them despite not using dforce, I simply dare not take the chance.

    One of the items I bought, that was dforce, was a long coat. There was nothing in there to morph it to follow the character when he was in a walking pose. Another was a suit which really look great, but I could not even find a morph to move the jacket at all.

    If I could, I would lvve to use dforce, but I simply can't and I also can not afford to buy a new computer to be able to. It saddens me, and I might come off as annoyed at tiems because of that, but I do assume that it is a lot of extra job to put movement morphs into the clothing and that it would take too much time as well as add to the price as well (i have no idea how much extra job or such, I just assume there is)

    I admit I haven't bought any dforce after those two, I've been tempted but simply not dared to. Was those two products unusual in not having any movement morphs? I don't remember if the dforce outfit that came with the start package from Daz had any movement morphs or any morphs to help with such, and I'm not able to look right now. I would be happy to be wrong in this regard, I promise :)

    I tried to see if I could pose the outfit to fit the Monique 8 pose I used, without dForce. There are no movement morphs that I see for sitting, walking, etc. There are morphs to poof the skirt and bustle out, but those didn't help with the Monique 8 pose I used, because her hands are close to her thighs and hip. The skirt and bustle have thigh bones that you can bend and twist to help with skirt movement. There are no shin bones to help with the bottom of the skirt. I wasn't able to get a satisfactory fit to the Monique 8 pose I used, by adjusting those bones. With a less challenging pose, the Skirt Poof, Skirt Windy, and the thigh bones might work for you. You can always buy it and if it doesn't work for you, you can return it within 30 days. I think it is worth a try. It is a nice product.

    There are some oddities to be aware of. The morphs are listed in Parameters pane under "Morphs", instead of under "Actor", Unless Daz has suddenly changed conventions, I think that is an error. I almost didn't notice them, because I am trained to look for garment morphs in "Actor". The skirt morph to make the waist larger is spelled "Expqnd Waist"; I assume that is just a typo and was intended to be "Expand Waist".

    Vernea Fae Outfit has been updated to correct the errors I reported.

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548

    My beef with Facegen and nose is that it's not good at extrapolating bumps or protrusions along the nose ridge. In a word, it's not good at Richelieu noses, in my experience.

    Note on Windsong Hair, which I picked up in the recent M4/V4: The concept was clearly of a long, loose braid in the back with strands artfully escaping at around shoulder height. However it looks like it was modeled as a shoulder length loose hair with a braid attached to the bottom, and this become VERY obvious if you leave the cut-out opacity at 1.00 when applying Iray shaders (the original textures are not suitable for Iray). To fix this, leave opacity on the surfaces called "Top Wisps", "Braid Wisps", "Braid Ends" and "Ribbon" at 1.00, apply OOT HairPair shaders (or another hair shader that will change the allowed limits of cutout opacity) to the other surfaces, and then set those other surfaces to 5.00. (For some reason, Daz Studio freaks out when I change the parameter limits on cutout opacity myself, and starts making the hair look thin and mangy even if I haven't changed the actual opacity values, just the parameter limits). On light colored hair, you may still be able to see the join between the two pieces of modeling to some extent, but at least it won't look like a disembodied braid hovering just under the girl's remaining hair moments after she cut the braid off. :P

    @ChangelingChick: I like the 50% version, sort of a cartoon Gloria Swanson type. ("I *am* big, it's the pictures that have gotten small.")

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131
    Odaa said:

    My beef with Facegen and nose is that it's not good at extrapolating bumps or protrusions along the nose ridge. In a word, it's not good at Richelieu noses, in my experience.

    Note on Windsong Hair, which I picked up in the recent M4/V4: The concept was clearly of a long, loose braid in the back with strands artfully escaping at around shoulder height. However it looks like it was modeled as a shoulder length loose hair with a braid attached to the bottom, and this become VERY obvious if you leave the cut-out opacity at 1.00 when applying Iray shaders (the original textures are not suitable for Iray). To fix this, leave opacity on the surfaces called "Top Wisps", "Braid Wisps", "Braid Ends" and "Ribbon" at 1.00, apply OOT HairPair shaders (or another hair shader that will change the allowed limits of cutout opacity) to the other surfaces, and then set those other surfaces to 5.00. (For some reason, Daz Studio freaks out when I change the parameter limits on cutout opacity myself, and starts making the hair look thin and mangy even if I haven't changed the actual opacity values, just the parameter limits). On light colored hair, you may still be able to see the join between the two pieces of modeling to some extent, but at least it won't look like a disembodied braid hovering just under the girl's remaining hair moments after she cut the braid off. :P

    @ChangelingChick: I like the 50% version, sort of a cartoon Gloria Swanson type. ("I *am* big, it's the pictures that have gotten small.")

    Hmmm, those type noses are not so common. I will have to try. I've only done mine, Debbie Harry's, Meryl Streep, George Maharis and a few others but none with a nose like that.

    It does sometimes give results with pictures that look to be worse quality than pictures that look to be very professional quality so I'll often try several pictures and compare results.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

    @changelingchick   Thanks for showing that! They definitely have personalities! (I think you just put @serenenight into shock though) 

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,647

    Um... NO comment. wink

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Facegen gets so much shade, but it is so much better than Headshop - and the deal is this... the minute you put an expression on the face, you're going to see the likeness start to disolve, because while it can get a neutral surface impression from a picture, it can't figure out the underlying musculatur, skull and teeth structure, and just personality. 

    It does a very good job, overall. 

  • OdaaOdaa Posts: 1,548
    edited June 2018

    Facegen gets so much shade, but it is so much better than Headshop - and the deal is this... the minute you put an expression on the face, you're going to see the likeness start to disolve, because while it can get a neutral surface impression from a picture, it can't figure out the underlying musculatur, skull and teeth structure, and just personality. 

    It does a very good job, overall. 

    Agreed with you there. Never could get Headshop to even work, whereas Facegen produces reasonably good results if you have a decent photo to work with and plant your reference points carefully. Adam Driver, Michael Caine, George Washington (from a marble bust), Random Italian Female Starlet nobody's heard of...I've had pretty good luck with it. I'm just saying that when I want to do, say, Lee Van Cleef or Topol, some additional nose dialing gets done in DS after I'm finished in Facegen.

    Post edited by Odaa on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    Yes, even with Genesis 8 extended expressions it is near impossible to do any expressions other than very faint ones that look realistic. Genesis 9 needs modeled rigged musculature over the modeled rigged skeleton before FaceGen or DAZ Studio can do anything about the expressions.  

    The alternative is to learn to sculpt and do the expressions for each individual manually. I wonder if everybody's muscular under the face has the same amount of muscles connected to the same places? I didn't find a mention of that in search. I know not everyone's body has the same set of muscles. eg, I have two palmaris longus in each forearm.

    http://mentalfloss.com/article/91022/5-muscles-you-might-be-missing

     

  • Tramp GraphicsTramp Graphics Posts: 2,411
    Novica said:

    The Girl makes me shiver. I add her to my long list of disquieting daz figures, right behind Ollie, and his female counterpart Edie.  I realize they are popular, but I can't see any reason to pick those up. I don't like caricatures or toons, mostly unless they are hunky men.

     

    Hey, now there's an idea. Combing The Girl 8 with Edie..... that's an interesting combination!

    Now this I have got to see. devil

    This is with both of them dialed 100% with Edie's skin and then both dialed at half in Edie's skin.  (and Edie HD at 100% in both)

    Yeah, that first one is scary; like someone a bit too old and out of shape for a bikini. devil The second actually looks good though. 

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited June 2018

    Shout out on a possible error for Bared Soul poses by @ilona   Haven't tested Victoria 7 but it appears that pose 18 and pose 19 are reversed for Genesis 3 Female. When you click to load 18 you get 19. And vice versa.  The mirrors are wrong too. Someone else want to test to verify?  And the partials may be wrong, didn't test those. 

    Post edited by Novica on
  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421
    edited June 2018

    Just realized that a great way to get a good visual idea of what you have in your content library is to just view the entire marketplace and set ATI's plugin to "Only Show Content I Own". 

    I've got 27 pages of content... which is way, way, way more than I'll ever be able to use. 

    But I'm sure I had big plans when I bought it. 

    Post edited by donovancolbert on
  • Robert FreiseRobert Freise Posts: 4,444

    Just realized that a great way to get a good visual idea of what you have in your content library is to just view the entire marketplace and set ATI's plugin to "Only Show Content I Own". 

    I've got 27 pages of content... which is way, way, way more than I'll ever be able to use. 

    But I'm sure I had big plans when I bought it. 

    Holy whatever I've got 186 pages

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Heh... yeah... you've got more than a 3rd of DAZ's entire library. You need an intervention. 

    You have it set to 60 items per page? When I do that, I've got 53 pages... 



     

This discussion has been closed.