Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 12
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or, is there perhaps a geoshell in use there? Because as Sandy is suggesting with mentioning displacement & bump, the outlined face part seems to be a visible distance above the rest of head...
~Gen
So, admittedly, I'm really doing a lot of stupid things here:
I've removed everything, including the shaders, textures and geographs, and you can see the visible difference in the base character. It looks like some sort of base geometry got baked into the character shape. I just tested with the character using the pre-Altern8 version... then I applied the Lucas 8 no-maps shader and nothing else, and the seam instantly showed up.
I just tried again, using the Aiko 8 no maps shader instead - and the seam doesn't show up - so I just have to play around with which Altern8 shaders I use - it is something specific to the Lucas 8 A no maps shader, I guess. No big problem - and keep in mind, I'm using Altern8 shaders on Gen3 Male FaceGen created base maps that are AoA then converted to iray with Anagenesis before adding Alternn8 shaders on top of that! Probably a lot of unnecessary work going on here to get where I want to be... if you're doing all kinds of things you shouldn't be doing, you MIGHT have this problem show up! :D
I had trouble with Lucas 8 shaders long ago, back when it was released. I wrote a ticket & they basically said they didn't have problems when they checked at DA 3DZ. Likewise I have similar problems with Edward 8 shaders from the Edward 8 I recently got free. I probably would too with Michael 8 if I rendered him in a similarly lit environment.
Did another Aiko 6 piece. This time, she's wearing the Cherryblossom dress for G2F, and End of Summer Hair, along with the previously used Cyberpunk for M4 and Cyberpunk for M4 Expansion. I also tried a little experiment, and discovered that the eye textures for Gen 4 characters still work on G2F, so I used the eyes from HFS Evan for M4 on her. It actually works.
Yeah... I don't think it is Altern8 itself that is the problem... but you may be right - it may be an inherent problem with the base G8M map... that I am using with a G3M character... that was created with AoA shaders then converted to iRay with Anagenesis before then being modified again with Altern8.
Altern8 makes my renders *crazy* fast. I've got a 1080 and a 2080 in my rig... but even by those standards, the renders are so fast I can barely believe it. Divamakeup is an awesome PA.
Altern8 alters the Photographic tab parameters in the iRay renders is why it's so fast. I've not bought it to see what she's changed exactly because you can create similar results changing different parameters there but I know that's the reason.
There are several folk that have said they were professional photographers in the past. I'm surprised that don't make a whole set of typical professional photographic settings and filters like they used back in those days and sell it as a product. That's essentially what Altern8 has partly done, although it's marketed in a different way.
That's really strange. Many people have been using Altern8 for nearly 2 years now and no one else, to my knowledge, has reported strange issues like that. I think Fishtales might be right as it does look like there's a displacement issue. Does FaceGen Pro or Anagenesis 2 add a displacement map to the face surface? It looks like that might be the issue. I'd look at the face surface tab and make sure there's no map there under Displacement.
Dawwww Thank you! That's very sweet of you to say! :D You made my day!
lol What now? I'm pretty sure he's talking about my Altern8 Skin Shaders - and the shaders don't change anything in "Photographic tab parameters". They change skin, nail, and eye surfaces settings.
My product does include a folder with a couple of render settings, but the render settings I included aren't any faster than the default Iray render settings.
You said they did yourself in an earlier post if I remember correctly, it's AKA "Tone Mapping"
Facegen only creates head, torso, arms, legs, eyes diffuse images. No displacement, bump, normals, spectral, and so on are created.
Oddly, changing from the Lucas 8 mapless to a different map (one of the black characters, actually), fixed it. *shrug*.
Maybe I'll play around with the character and Altern8 this weekend and see if I can narrow down where things are going wrong.
In my review of UltraTrees I had one scene using Modular Field Environment. When MFE first came out I did not buy it as I have been disappointed with a number of grass products that I had tried but I am finding this is a wonderful set for landscape renders.
The product is simple to use. It has five different field environments that consist of a grass and weed filled prop that sits at world center and a 360 degree cyclorama of rolling hills, trees and fields with a cloudy sky. There are two hill fields (one with a surrounding fence), a field with a stone shelter, a field with a pond, fence and scattered trees, and one small flat field. The hill fields are not very hilly, having more like hillocks and shallow dips. Grass variety and weed height varies by field: hill 1 has some tall grass on one side for example.
Besides the assembled field environments, the props used with the fields are also available to add to one of the field presets or use with other environments. These include the shelter, components to make a barbed wire fence, several stone wall segments, and five trees. The trees are among the better ones I have seen.
The set also has an outstanding collection of materials you can use to customize the field. Field presets load with 3 to 10 different grass meshes. You can change the material used for each of these grasses by choosing from 34 different grass materials that vary in size, structure, density and color. There are 7 tree materials that change colors and leaf size and type. There are two materials for the cyclorama: one more densely forested and another with more open fields and houses.
The following renders use the default Iray settings and hdri. The default hdri and the cyclorama work well together. The cyclorama is a cylinder not a dome so if you use another hdri you will cast shadows, so either hide or delete the cyclorama if you want to use a different hdri.
Render times were pretty good with my 2080 Ti. It's a fast card so you may have longer render times depending upon your GPU or CPU. I've added animals in each to give a sense of scale.
Hill Field 1: 15 min 4 sec This shows some of the taller grasses in the background.
Hill Field 2: 9 min 25 sec This shows the fence and a closeup of the grass. You can see the flatness of the flower heads when you get this close. At normal distances this is not apparent.
Shelter Field: 4 min 49 sec
Pond Field: 12 min 27 sec This shows the trees
Flat Field: 8 min 42 sec
In conclusion, this is a great product, well made, flexible and one I'll be using a lot.
those look good
Just a head's up if you're buying things in the sale today. There are a couple of items in the 60% off PC+ section at the bottom of the page that are also new releases. So if you want to buy something else that gets a bigger discount if accompanied by a new release, you can get one of those shaders (who doesn't need more shaders?) to do the trick for next-to-nothing if you're PC+.
I haven't noticed that being the case on other days, but then I haven't yet been tempted to buy much. Today I'm bingeing on Freja G3F characters for $2.80 each!
And also note this one- it has peanuts, and spilled peanuts, and a LOT of things. Quite the variety. It's in the featured stores.
@rgcincy That looks exceptional.
I was looking for nuts, peanuts! I was like why would this set have peanuts in it.
You're not alone ;-)
Me too.
Oh, you people. Picky, picky :) The closest I could find was a PBJ sandwich. So now vendors know what we need- NUTS.
https://www.daz3d.com/ark-modern-food-pack-i--sandwiches
EDIT- HA! I found them. @daventaki You're welcome LOL!!!!
https://www.daz3d.com/rodents-by-am-squirrel-props-and-poses
Thank you! LOL
Here's a few things I'm looking at as I scoot through a few of the vendors. It's going on 6am here so headed to bed and will have to get through all the vendors later today, and narrow it down for that 10 or less. Feel free to share what you're finding so folks can see if they've found the best deals/ get ideas. I got the Make Me Merry Props And Shaders as my New item on that page. (for the Loyalty. But the artist catalogs work with ANY new release.)
For the most bang for the buck, obviously bundles are a good choice as they count as ONE item. Here's a space bundle that I had wishlisted.
Sci Fi Starship Bundle 12.60 72% and get the Transporter Room too (I didn't get the Medical Bay, I have one similar I think)
Faye And Young Lyra 7.56 72%
Lina and Lina Older You get an old character too! 5.30 72%
Lois for Kala 8 Really like the nose, she's exotic 5.02 72%
Ascelin $5.30 72% A lot of options, as usual from DarwinsMishap(s) There's also a bundle if you want the outfit.
Ron's Acrylic Painting Talk about FUN! Use a graphic program and change these up by adding effects!
so will have to keep going later. Happy shopping!
That squirrel looks like it's just been caught stealing that acorn...
Novica, how are you getting these prices? My loyalty discount is 30%... the My-Fav-10 is taking off 20%. That isn't taking my prices as low as yours. I'm maxing out at 66%.
But I haven't spent much this sale.
Anbody have any recommendations for good, high quality, recent tutorials on DAZ animation that covers from beginning concepts to advance concepts? I was looking at Udemy - but they seem to focus on Blender. The DAZ documentation is pretty sparse. I feel like I may just have to take a Blender course which will get me familiar with the concepts, then figure out how that translates to DAZ. Does anybody here do animation, or is everyone just doing rendering of still images? I've also got Carerra and I hear it is pretty good for animation - but I'd like to keep one engine I am familiar with for all of my 3D rendering needs. I really don't want to install and learn Blender, either for that matter... but it looks like Maya and Blender are pretty much what everyone uses. I can see why - DAZ could be an awesome 3D animation engine - but the documentation to introduce you to it is so erratic, sparse and inconsistent and disorganized that you would NEVER know.
Have you added a New item to the cart? That's what triggers the 72% on PA stuff. (You get 50% less 30% less 20% instead of 60% less 30% less 20%)
ETA: Of course the new item counts as one of the max 10 you are allowed.
Thanks for mentioning this, Novica. I was pleased to see it was a DAZ original, used my $6 coupon and the discounted Loyalty. Yippee!
I picked up the Asian Court Addon and did some test renders. I wasn't happy about the curved edges with the wide angle lenses so I used the Lens Distortion settings under the camera to fix it.
This is the original camera, which uses a 16.83mm Focal Length which is ultra wide angle, although using my own render settings.
2019-12-14 12:14:14.071 Total Rendering Time: 3 hours 26.5 seconds
Click on image for full size.
This is the same camera but i added the Lens Distortion Settings.
2019-12-14 17:25:37.211 Total Rendering Time: 4 hours 38 minutes 33.23 seconds
My camera lens settings.
Camera 5
Focal Length === 16.83
Focal Distance === 672.37
Tonal Mapping
Shutter Speed === 64.00
F/stop === 8.00
Film ISO === 200
Lens Distortion Type === poly3
Lens Distortion K1 === -0.70
Lens Distortion K2 === -0.50
Lens Distortion K3 === -1.00
Lens Distortion Scale ===1.00
Click on image for full size.
This one is the same 16.83mm camera but using my render settings and also using the Lens Distortion Settings, which uses an aspect ratio of 16:9.
2019-12-14 01:32:52.733 Total Rendering Time: 3 hours 33 minutes 25.19 seconds
Click on image for full size.
@donovancolbert, Don't forget about the 60% category at the bottom of the sales page. There is no new release requirement to get that discount. With my 30% Loyalty discount, the My-Fav-10 discount, and the 60% off for the category discount, I bought PA releases at 78% off, (as reported by Daz Deals.) DOs should be 84% off, if my math is right.
I picked up two PW UFOs for about $10.50 total and the Licorne and it's accessories for under $6. There are some great deals in that category right now.