Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 7
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Okay to the best that I can determine the windows and doors do not open. They do however have separate material zones (very detailed down to the door frames being separate from the doors etc). but they don't open and close.
OK, thanks for checking. Scratch that one off the list then. Maybe there's still hope for Provence, the promos show shutters and doors in various positions but no mention of rigging.
I checked Provence. No rigging that I could find.
A test run on Mini Haven, a recent PC+ product. Overall, a nice set for the price with a lot of props and foliage you can move about or use to kitbash with other sets. I used the Iray skydome from Modern Museum for the sky and lighting. There are two walls and a small patio - I found you couldn't move the camera too far out before you start seeing the space around the set. I did reduce camera focal length to 50 to get a wider field of view. The walls are thick which is good if you don't mind seeing the edge. You could also duplicate a wall and the floor if you needed to cover more space. One wall is attached to the floor but the second wall is free of both. The bench was parallel to one wall so I had to rotate it to see both figures without seeing outside the set. None of the props are parented (e.g., the bottles and cup on the table), so it's a good idea to parent them before moving the furniture. The render was slow, I suspect from all the transparencies in the window and the bottles plus the cutouts for all the leaves. I decided to buy this set as soon as it was released but waited a few days as I've learned there are many sales requiring the purchase of a new release and the PC+ items work as a trigger.
Drats, 2 for 2. Just as well, saves me some money. Thanks for checking anyway.
Yes, thank you both. I just got back from Mom's. I didn't think Provence had moveable parts, but wasn't sure at all about the other one.
The set looks good Rich. I can imagine it would be slow to render with all that in it.
Ah, this is a pants outfit, not a full length skirt! Not a great main promo. The black blends so much I thought it was a skirt. Edit: WAS on sale.
Happy to help, you guys usually beat me to it lol. I will say that the Harpsburg does have separate houses you can move and it has a lot of outside props that come with it.
That's a nice looking pants outfit, I don't usually do modern but I like that one enough that its going on the wish list til it goes back on sale
SO How big is this yearly PA sale coming up? I figure someone on this thread probably knows.
I've only been buying here since around December I think, so I haven't experienced one yet. Is it just like the March Madness sale? I have some things I want to buy that are on sale right now, though not what I consider to be must buy items.
Is EVERYTHING on sale during the PA sale and are the prices the BEST for the whole year?
Just curious as I've spent so much this year, its shameful, its like a crack habit. Not that I've ever done crack. And I've told myself I'm not spending anymore this year other than what I have left in store credit/gift card balance, which is like $340 or so. And I feel like I should save that for the PA sale.
I've had so many instances where I bought something for 50-60% off and then 45 days later its 70-85% off, that I am now hesitant to buy anything unless its at least 70% off.
Well, let's see. The PA sale is September and the PC+ in October. Going back a year,I'll go to my laptop I was using last year and see if I kept the screenshots of all my carts. Back in awhile.
From what I see, there were tiers with punches. The more you bought, the higher the tier. I had typed a note that I had 50% off and with the tier, a 20% on top of that. Another note says it was 60% off, there was a $20 off offer for DOs if you bought X amount, and another discount kicked in to raise it to 70% because the punches went to the next tier. Another discount was buying 3 and getting another 10% ON TOP OF the punch/tier discount. So there are stacking discounts.
So sales can be a bit complicated, and depending on how they structure this next one it can be better prices. And remember you can combine the sale prices with any PC+ codes to drop the prices $6 (For the DO one, and another $6 on a different order using the PA code one.)
They also changed a sale after the first week, the punches were dropped after a week and it was poorly structured, everyone complained. Was that the PA sale?
Here's the full price- amount off and paid prices on a few orders:
200.35 -131.55 paid 68.80
192.50 - 129.20 paid 63.30
Note this one, it gave me $30 off for whatever was required so...
99.70 - 81.43 paid 18.27 A great deal!
Awesome, thanks so much for taking the time to look that up. So if I do the math, overall you paid 150.37 for 492.55, which is just about 70% off (69.5%).
That seems to be the standard discount if you play your cards right. That's why I've been holding myself to a simple buying rule since March Madness, If I can't get my cart down to at least 70% off, I delete everything and just wait for the next sale. That rule combined with always buying gift cards when they are available, means I always get everything effectively discounted for 82-84% off list price.
Depends on how much content you already have and if you are interested in v4 m4 genesis and genesis 2. I am coming up on my first anniversay and I happened to join right at the beginning of the PA sale. I probably save closer to 90% on everything I bought on average. I was picking up some stuff for 59 cents.
True, I should of clarified I'm talking about non PC+ items.
I wish they would keep making Genesis 2 stuff, I feel like its the middle child. No love. Its all I use in my animations.
This is my last purchase in the PA Sale last year if that helps any
placed on September 29, 2015 11:35:23 AM MDT
Grand Total
$49.76
I'm a big Genesis 2 fan myself. Some people still make things for Gen2 but I would definitely buy new stuff for Gen2's. I have some Gen3 stuff but I started right before Gen3 came out and had just spent a ton of money (even with the fantastic sales and pc+ lol) and I didn't and still don't really want to start over with Gen3. I am adding to it slowly but I honestly don't like most of the Gen3 males, I far prefer the Gen2 males. I have had a fair amount of success using Gen 3 clothing on Gen 2 but you never know what will happen until you try it.
I'd like to see some iray renders of those older hair items you picked up, especially the pirate hair, when you have time to play around with them. I buy a lot of the older hair for G2F, but often its hit or miss, a lot winding up look great but some come out just awful.
And when do they change the fast grabs? It seems like those have been up since thursday evening? Slow grabs is more like it.
I will be happy to do some hair for you as soon as I get a chance. anything specific besides the pirate hair? I have a LOT of hair. (i'm actually afraid to count it and see how much I really have lol.). Do you happend to have Slosh's UHT2 Hair Salon shaders for Iray? They can make a big difference with the older hairs converted to Iray.
I've been debating on the UHT2, its in my wishlist actually.
One thing I didn't like about the UHT2, at least from the promo pics, it looks like the hair is very "dry". Is it easy to give the hair a little more shine with those shaders?
Also the biggest issue I find with older hair is the "wispiness", especiallly in bright light. I found a trick which helps somewhat, changing cutout opacity to somewhere between 2 to 2.5, but then there are still the problem with "jagged hairs". Does the UHT2 shaders fix those jagged hairs?
Also I'd be interested in seeing Doll hair for Gen 2 by SWAM, if you have it. Its a rather unique look. Seems to be the only one parted down the middle and straight.
Will have to look and see if I have the Doll hair. The uht2 does have several options to change the shine. Last count was 6 or 8 differnet options? and it also has options to fill in that wispiness with different thicknesses. You could always try it and if you dont' like return it. Either way I will do those other renders for you tomorrow.
Sonja, you got quite a deal! Dominic Tesla- one thing to always check- even if a hair says it's for Genesis 3, read the product description. Some of them also have the Genesis 2 included. They can't always put it in the title as I believe the number of characters are limited (plus it would be a long title!)
Yes, I do that, and I even often buy hair for G3F, like Seema and Jade Tiger hair, both of which work really well with Gen 2, even though they are not meant for it.
But (and its a big but)... the newer more realistic looking hair takes a lot longer to render, and for animation thats a big problem. So I tend to use the older hair more often, like Charm hair, Fashion Hair, Janna, etc. Maybe not as realistic but still looks really good.
For example, I can render a scene with a couple characters and Janna hair in 40 seconds. The same frame with Jade tiger hair will take 1.5 minutes per frame. So thats the difference between rendering for 6 hours or rendering for 15 hours for 600 frames (20 seconds) of animation, so those little differences make a big deal.
I got some fantastic deals those first two months. Crazy good.
Aren't all those products in your list all PC products at the price that was normal ($1.99) for PC products at the time, or did I miss something?
Piratess Hair converted and rendered in Iray. This is only at 19% since I am still at work and don't really have time to let it run longer. Just loaded on Gia 6, did the autofit, converted it with the Iray Uber thingy added a couple of lights and rendered. This one looks pretty good to me- I haven't tried the UHT2 on it yet. Probably won't be able to do that until tomorrow as I am leaving here in 20 minutes and heading out to a meeting. Maybe I will get lucky and get home before 10 tonight lol.
Honestly not sure Barbult I have a really hard time with what discount I got for what item given the somewhat convoluted nature of Daz sales. I just remember that sept was the PA sale and oct was the PC plus sale. I will go and have another look at my orders and see if I can break it down any further.
The piratess hair looks pretty good, I was interested in that because I need hair that can be used under a hat without pokethrough and I figured its an easy way to just turn off opacity for the pirate do-rag hat and just throw my own hat on there. So looks good, thanks!
I hear ya! Don't waste time researching it for my benefit. It is nearly impossible to figure out what you really paid for any given item with the Daz order/invoice system. I guess you really have to keep screenshots of every order, and I'm not willing to take the time to do that and keep them organized in any way.
No problem happy to help.