Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 7

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Comments

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    barbult said:

    Here you go!

    Beautiful! That shack is one of my favorites. Love your characters and shaders!

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,834
    barbult said:

    Here you go!

    These use items from the Lilith Pro Bundle and the Voodoo Magic Bundle. There are a lot of Mec4d PBS Shaders Vol 1 and Mec4d PBS Shaders Vol 2 in use also. Of course I used V3Digitimes Iray Smart Skin Converter on the skin. The dark skinned model is Monique 6 character Marie. The hair is not from either bundle. One is Fashion Hair and the other is Vidal Braids for G2F.

    Your images always set a high standard for us to aspire to. I especially like Marie, your lighting is really good given her dark skin. I also like how the sky peeking through the wood in the first render adds so much depth to the image.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249
    RGcincy said:
    barbult said:

    Here you go!

    These use items from the Lilith Pro Bundle and the Voodoo Magic Bundle. There are a lot of Mec4d PBS Shaders Vol 1 and Mec4d PBS Shaders Vol 2 in use also. Of course I used V3Digitimes Iray Smart Skin Converter on the skin. The dark skinned model is Monique 6 character Marie. The hair is not from either bundle. One is Fashion Hair and the other is Vidal Braids for G2F.

    Your images always set a high standard for us to aspire to. I especially like Marie, your lighting is really good given her dark skin. I also like how the sky peeking through the wood in the first render adds so much depth to the image.

    Thank you. I found Marie's skin to be way too dark. I used the Image Editor built into the Surfaces pane to change the Base image map gamma to 1.4 to lighten the texture images.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249
    edited April 2016

    Here is a combination of 50% Lilith and 50% Monique with some other body morphs, like Weight.

    The HDRI lighting and background is Woods from HDRI Haven hdrihaven.com.

    Post edited by barbult on
  • BlueIreneBlueIrene Posts: 1,318

    She's beautiful, Barbult, very real-looking. I could quite easily imagine her as a work colleague or neighbour. I particularly like her teeth - opening the mouths of DS models often feels like it needs as much effort to get right as the rest of the figure put together, and I think you've done really well there.

  • RenomistaRenomista Posts: 921
    barbult said:

    Here is a combination of 50% Lilith and 50% Monique with some other body morphs, like Weight.

    The HDRI lighting and background is Woods from HDRI Haven hdrihaven.com.

    Such a strong Character!

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249
    edited April 2016

    Thank you Astracadia and Renomista.

    Astracadia, I always tweak the teeth material settings. In this case I also dialed up the HD teeth morph and Teeth Irregular morph a bit, too. I think the lighting in this image was in my favor for good teeth, too. I appreciate that you noticed and commented on the teeth! I will tell you my super secret wink formula for good Iray teeth. I set Refraction Index to 1.65 and Refraction Weight to 0.9. The teeth also have SSS and Translucency. Those values were probably set by the Iray Smart Converter and Advanced Skin Managers for Genesis 2 that I used, but I'm not sure. It is the refraction that gives them that realistic look, in my experience. It does take forever to render. I usually let it render until the skin and eyes look good. Then I stop the render and save it. Then I spot render just the teeth/mouth area to a new window. The small spot render will go pretty quickly. Then I Paste in Place with Photoshop to replace the original render teeth with the spot render teeth.

    I thought it would be fun to render her with a lighter skin and hair. She looks just as nice that way, I think. This is based on the Merdiana skin with eyes from FW Joanie HD.

    The HDRI lighting and background is Woods from HDRI Haven hdrihaven.com.

    Monique Lilith 6 Meridiana skin Figure Metrics close Woods HDRI.jpg
    1600 x 2000 - 2M
    Post edited by barbult on
  • Barbult...wow...!

    Great dynamism in her expression and hair. :)

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249

    Barbult...wow...!

    Great dynamism in her expression and hair. :)

    Thank you, Scott. I used Cailin Hair and the included style and wind morph presets.The expression is 0.58 Amazed and 0.60 Disgust.

  • Cailin Hair is a great product. Not sure which coloration of this character I prefer (maybe darker skin and hair, but lighter eyes?), but I do like the dress texture on the fair-skinned version.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249

    Cailin Hair is a great product. Not sure which coloration of this character I prefer (maybe darker skin and hair, but lighter eyes?), but I do like the dress texture on the fair-skinned version.

    The dress texture is from PD Iray Shader Kit 2 - a great product.

  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214

    Wow Barbult!  Amazing work..I love the darker skin you did and the teeth are so real I noticed them immediately as usually teeth on the characters are blindingly white. The facial expression is really good too :)

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249
    edited May 2016
    Kharma said:

    Wow Barbult!  Amazing work..I love the darker skin you did and the teeth are so real I noticed them immediately as usually teeth on the characters are blindingly white. The facial expression is really good too :)

    Thanks for the kind comments. Did you see my comments on teeth surface tweaks? Give it a try. Where's Novica? She is absent from her own thread. That is unusual. I hope she is OK.
    Post edited by barbult on
  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214

    Yes I saw the comments for tweaks on the teeth, would not have thought of the spot render part, thanks for the tip. I was away over the weekend, gone to look after my 3 year old grandson, but I noticed Novica hasn't been around much, I haven't heard anything but yes hope all is well with her and she will be around soon.

  • FistyFisty Posts: 3,416

    Spot render to new window has saved me countless hours of rerendering scenes for little fixes..

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249
    Fisty said:

    Spot render to new window has saved me countless hours of rerendering scenes for little fixes..

    +1000 laugh

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited May 2016

    Hey guys, I'm here. I went to the barn yesterday (hadn't seen Stetson in about two weeks) and I've also been exercising a LOT.

    Just so you know why I'm not on much- I injured both ankles two years ago and they wanted to do surgery, I said "no way" and gradually exercised my way back to health. (I was in two walking boots for about a DAY, couldn't balance, they said to take one off and alternate, but then my other ankle was SCREAMING in pain.) So long story short, I shot up 25 pounds! Imagine no exercise for two years! I think I did pretty good keeping the weight off, considering how active I was before the injury. I'm going on 60 so am in that prime "weight gaining" time of life- but not gonna happen on my watch, now that I can exercise again. 

    Anyway, when I started exercising, I could only walk for a minute or two. I'm walking an hour to hour and a half every day, losing 2-3 pounds a week this past month. Thankfully, when Stetson had that vet emergency and I had to walk him for 1 hour 45 minutes, I was already exercising. (But was only up to 30 minutes!)  So in a month, I've dropped twelve pounds. It wasn't that hard.  But I'm away from the computer 1-2 hours more each day, and I'm focusing on writing my book. The past four days, it's been going really well so when it's flowing, I can't stop to render as it disrupts my train of thought. (BTW- I dropped a couple pounds just getting up and walking while things were rendering, instead of sitting there waiting on it/ reading the forums. So if I don't know what's going on, that's why lol.) I'm also going out to the barn more, starting this week.

    I did do a render of Samira, and dang it, forgot to post it- to show how dark the skin is compared the other African American recently posted by Barbult. This is out of the box.

    She's wearing Odessa Hair with Slosh's shaders, to me the hair is a bit clunky in the strands with this particular lighting. Doesn't look like the promos, so it's got to be my lighting. Anyone else rendered it? The outfit is Artemis Moon, since I was rendering a dark skinned gal, I darkened the diffuse in the outfit to balance out the brighter light I had to use. I used a shader on the headpiece and stone in the middle of the chest. 

    Congrats to FirstBastion btw-  wonderful sets, one right after another! 

     

    SamiraArtemisMoonOdessa2HrLatLong.jpg
    400 x 600 - 122K
    SamiraArtemisMoonOdessaHrLatLong.jpg
    400 x 600 - 124K
    Post edited by Novica on
  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,651

    Woohoo. Dark skin, and look at those nice nails and hands. Nice job Novica.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,834

    A good gift card sale going on now. 20% off if you buy 4 new items. I got the full discount by getting 4 PC+ items that I had planned to get at some point.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,834
    Novica said:

    Just so you know why I'm not on much- I injured both ankles two years ago and they wanted to do surgery, I said "no way" and gradually exercised my way back to health. (I was in two walking boots for about a DAY, couldn't balance, they said to take one off and alternate, but then my other ankle was SCREAMING in pain.) So long story short, I shot up 25 pounds! Imagine no exercise for two years! I think I did pretty good keeping the weight off, considering how active I was before the injury. I'm going on 60 so am in that prime "weight gaining" time of life- but not gonna happen on my watch, now that I can exercise again. 

     

    Ouch, that would be difficult to have two injured ankles at the same time. Glad they are healed enough for you to get back moving. I fully understand the need to stay active to avoid that "weight gaining time" - a constant battle it seems. I'm sure Stetson is glad to have you out and about as well.

    Novica said:

    I did do a render of Samira, and dang it, forgot to post it- to show how dark the skin is compared the other African American recently posted by Barbult. This is out of the box.

    She's wearing Odessa Hair with Slosh's shaders, to me the hair is a bit clunky in the strands with this particular lighting. Doesn't look like the promos, so it's got to be my lighting. Anyone else rendered it? The outfit is Artemis Moon, since I was rendering a dark skinned gal, I darkened the diffuse in the outfit to balance out the brighter light I had to use. I used a shader on the headpiece and stone in the middle of the chest. 

    Dark skin - white dress - you do like a challenge! Turned out really good with your dress adjustments.

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    You motivated me to start walking again lol.  I was on crutches for two months and have just been putting off getting started again.  No more excuses.  there is a nice little lake about 5 minutes from work I can go to on my lunch, its half a mile around on a nice level sidewalk.with the added bonus of baby ducks lol.  Its right in the middle of a little town so very safe as well.

  • RenomistaRenomista Posts: 921
    RGcincy said:

    A good gift card sale going on now. 20% off if you buy 4 new items. I got the full discount by getting 4 PC+ items that I had planned to get at some point.

    Thanks for the hint. Just what I needed right now.

    Got  "Touch of Dirt" as one of the four to also trigger the 50% Rebate and finaly get the Iray Smart Converter for G2 and Genesis and Generation 4

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,249
    Renomista said:
    RGcincy said:

    A good gift card sale going on now. 20% off if you buy 4 new items. I got the full discount by getting 4 PC+ items that I had planned to get at some point.

    Thanks for the hint. Just what I needed right now.

    Got  "Touch of Dirt" as one of the four to also trigger the 50% Rebate and finaly get the Iray Smart Converter for G2 and Genesis and Generation 4

    You got a real deal!

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

     

     

    Renomista said:
    RGcincy said:

    A good gift card sale going on now. 20% off if you buy 4 new items. I got the full discount by getting 4 PC+ items that I had planned to get at some point.

    Thanks for the hint. Just what I needed right now.

    Got  "Touch of Dirt" as one of the four to also trigger the 50% Rebate and finaly get the Iray Smart Converter for G2 and Genesis and Generation 4

    You'll LOVE that converter! Let's see what you do with it wink

    I'm not sure if they meant to let the PC items trigger 20%, but it's a great deal. 

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

    You motivated me to start walking again lol.  I was on crutches for two months and have just been putting off getting started again.  No more excuses.  there is a nice little lake about 5 minutes from work I can go to on my lunch, its half a mile around on a nice level sidewalk.with the added bonus of baby ducks lol.  Its right in the middle of a little town so very safe as well.

    Excellent! I started out walking- no kidding- two minutes. Did that for a couple days, then increased to five minutes for a couple days. That's how hard it was to walk.  Let me know how your walking goes!  

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

    OT- Okay, you've probably seen some of these, but even so... enjoy!   (45 Funny Dog Memes)

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Ya when I quit smoking I could only walk about 2 minutes cause I couldn't breathe.  I can do miles now but I pulled a tendon in my foot in July so between the cast and the strict orders to stay off it after the cast came off, then winter its been a while.  I've done a mile yesterday and today and will probably up it to a mile and a half next week.  Best exercise in the world.  LOVE zumba too but I just got cleared to go back to that a couple weeks ago and of course, I have been working extra so no time even to do it at home.  If I do it after dinner I am too wired to sleep.

    I picked up the Touch of Dirt as well as Carrara (less than $28 for that with all the stacked discounts and my coupon). Not sure when I will have time but looking forward to learning a bit more about the modelling and terrain features in Carrara.  Although Bryce is fabulous for terrains.  I need to quit my day job so I can learn all this stuff faster!

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887

    We talked about the Multiplane Cyclorama a month ago- FYI the OOT 60% sale at Renderosity has several for $3.58-$3.98. We did provide a link to free ones in this thread, but if you need some winter ones (check out White Worlds) or skies (Clouds-n-Heaven) then you might want to take a peek. They extended the sale because the site was down 8+hours yesterday (last day of sale.)  I'm picking up a few hairs (Check out Cece Hair, would be great for kids- has bangs. Very silky)  There is a casual top/shorts for MEN! (Gen2M) called Underdog for Genesis 2 Males that is $6. 

  • jakibluejakiblue Posts: 7,281

    I found you all again!!!!

    LOL I lost ebots for the thread and I can NEVER remember which forum this is in - had to find Novica in the forum and then click on 'find user's threads" to find this again. 

  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,764

    Another big believer in walking,  usually 40 min to an hour everyday. Sometimes more.  Usually take a camera with me,  able to snap some shots at the same time.  One thing I never understood was threadmills.  It's always the same view. 

This discussion has been closed.