Here is my latest incarnation, its actually just a quick test to see the outcome of a map modification (still new to DS, not done much modifications so I'm still learning/playing), the logo is from one of my favorite t-shirts, a gift after I had some "alterations" done.  Enjoy...

Whatcha think?

Abi.

P.s. Sorry if this image offends, I clicked the language advisory but I'm ne to Rendo's forums too so I'm not 100% sure if it does what I think it does.

LOL @ the caption Im guessing you are using a V4 I can tell by the elbow area, thats one of the areas where Genesis does shine again id fix it with my method....

Quote - SuperBT and bobvan, you are most welcome.  I hated the thought of losing all that informaiton.  In looking at some of the posts not all the images show up.  I think you have to be logged in to see them and of course the archrived stuff you can't log in, it set to view only.  It's a shame we lost seeing some great images..

The images are still there, but seeing them is very fiddly. For example in the post it will say something like:

<img border=0 src="postimages/image_1_3355038.jpg"width=150>

Take the bit in quotes (but leaving off the quotes): postimages/origimage_1_3355038.jpg and append this to http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/

E.g:

http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/postimages/origimage_1_3355038.jpg

Bob, yes it's V4, once its run some more I'll be using PS to fix a couple of bits too.  I really need to start using Genesis but I'll have to wait to get Gen x etc. so I can use the content I already have.

Abi.

Quote - Here is my latest incarnation, its actually just a quick test to see the outcome of a map modification (still new to DS, not done much modifications so I'm still learning/playing), the logo is from one of my favorite t-shirts, a gift after I had some "alterations" done.  Enjoy...

Whatcha think?

Abi.

P.s. Sorry if this image offends, I clicked the language advisory but I'm ne to Rendo's forums too so I'm not 100% sure if it does what I think it does.

LOL, great shirt, saw one almost identical in Vegas 2 years ago.

Nice render. You'll like working with genesis once you get genx, I know I do and I still purchase V4 content for genesis.

Abi, we like cheeky girls around here with some 'tude. Just don't look Dr Jellybean in the eyes or its all over.

I myself have just taken a liking to Genesis, though I'm beginning to think I should have gone with the GenX today. I picked up a few ebony skins for a new character I'm working on and really see the benefit of that GenX script. Damn you hindsight!

Edit: for the elbows, there's several 'fix' scripts available here on Rendo. They're advertised all the time on the sidebar and such. Personally, if you have the V4++ morphs, you can fix them too with a long round of slider work. The script is a timesaver though. There might also be some freebies of the same sort on sharecg. I've Dl'ed them but have yet to use 'em. I'm a posing (and other things!) perfectionist, so if I catch a bad flex, I move it til it doesn't crease or morph the living crap out of it.

@Bob, what is face gen and where do you get it? I'm intrigued all of a sudden.

I've used Genesis a few times when I got DS4 but since I'm a learner still I've not really tried using my v4 stuff with her much, I have the V4 for Genesis morphs but I've been keeping things simple by using V4 til I gain some know-how.

Abi.

Attached Link: Shrink ray

The effects were post worked..

 Fork sharky these take hour and 20 mins on average..

Boom.. http://www.facegen.com/modeller.htm

Gen X works very well in my opinion, if your result looks like crap you are definitely missing something. I did one about half an hour ago (took me 10 mins at most) and it was near perfect. One thing you may miss is that when you apply it to Genesis you have to dial up the shape the morph was intended for as well as your transferred morph. E.g. if it's a morph for M4, dial the M4 shape in Genesis and then your Gen X morph.

If the body morph you are transferring uses dialled morphs (rather than a custom FBM) you might consider unchecking nipple and navel morphs so they are not transferred. These tend to be better done using Genesis nipple and navel morphs. In the case of nipples the transferred morphs do not always align with the texture.

As for genx, what I did was create a V4 in poser with my custom morphs and any others that I use often, including an face morphs. then I saved that figure in the poser library and using genX, loaded that CR2 into it and viola, I had all those morphs avaliable for genesis. I find that using my custom morphs along with small amounts of some of the genesis morphs, makes for some fine characters.

the Genesis in this render is a combo of V4 GND, one of my fave V4 FBMs that you have seen plenty of times in my other renders, part of another custom morph, along with genesis fitness details at 80% and the thin slider at 10%. along with some small  V5 tweaks. (click for full size)

Attached Link: Valerie poke

Edit speaking of which

Quote - > Quote - SuperBT and bobvan, you are most welcome.  I hated the thought of losing all that informaiton.  In looking at some of the posts not all the images show up.  I think you have to be logged in to see them and of course the archrived stuff you can't log in, it set to view only.  It's a shame we lost seeing some great images..

The images are still there, but seeing them is very fiddly. For example in the post it will say something like:

<img border=0 src="postimages/image_1_3355038.jpg"width=150>

Take the bit in quotes (but leaving off the quotes): postimages/origimage_1_3355038.jpg and append this to http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/

E.g:

http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/postimages/origimage_1_3355038.jpg

 

Thank you FyraNyanser I've copied your note and added it to the post so everyone will be able to look at the images. :)

Quote - I use both genesis and 4th gen. Another render which has one of each. I tried gen x looked like crap il have to look at sharkeys tut. I still use 4th gen cause of the bloody shoes situation and some clothing fit..

 

The effects were post worked..

 Fork sharky these take hour and 20 mins on average..

Boom.. http://www.facegen.com/modeller.htm

 

I'm beginning to hate you and your hour long killer renders.. :tt2:

Quote - I've used Genesis a few times when I got DS4 but since I'm a learner still I've not really tried using my v4 stuff with her much, I have the V4 for Genesis morphs but I've been keeping things simple by using V4 til I gain some know-how.

Abi.

When you get ready to use GenX.. I just posted a tute on it here in the DazStudio forum.

Quote - > Quote - I've used Genesis a few times when I got DS4 but since I'm a learner still I've not really tried using my v4 stuff with her much, I have the V4 for Genesis morphs but I've been keeping things simple by using V4 til I gain some know-how.

Abi.

When you get ready to use GenX.. I just posted a tute on it here in the DazStudio forum.

LOL at your comment thanks booked marked the tut moocho appreciated, btw I turn 50 tomorrow (cheap plug LOL)

This one's for whoever knows the info; but, I think I have my issue with my render speeds and it sort of has something to do with textures.

Ordinarily, when rendering with 3Delight, I rely heavily on shaders of all sorts.  Uber hair for hair, pwsurface2 for skin, glass shaders, metal shaders.  Anything that I think they can improve the looks of.

My question is this.. do shaders help, hinder or have no effect on Lux render times?

and for bob.. shoes fit and look great if you hide the feet.. unless they're sandals of course..  but i feel your pain.. shoes play hell with my characters too.. v4 AND genesis

Quote - and help my 

This high amount of noise is a clear indication of gloss level too high. You have to lower your specular and/or glossiness. Without seeing an example of your material I cannot give you better information. If you post the screenshots for the car body material it will help. Second, from the use of Reinhard I gather that you are using the Sun. Is that correct? If so don't do it. The sun should be avoided unless you know exacly what you're doing. Cars are always phtographed with very large lights. And I mean large. A real life photo-studio for cars lifts top lights that are 40 feet long, so you need to scale your mesh light accordingly. 

Anyway, too high is  a material mistake, it's not a renderer problem. Edit your materials and you'll be fine.

Cheers.

This high amount of noise is a clear indication of gloss level too high. You have to lower your specular and/or glossiness. Without seeing an example of your material I cannot give you better information. If you post the screenshots for the car body material it will help. Second, from the use of Reinhard I gather that you are using the Sun. Is that correct? If so don't do it. The sun should be avoided unless you know exacly what you're doing. Cars are always phtographed with very large lights. And I mean large. A real life photo-studio for cars lifts top lights that are 40 feet long, so you need to scale your mesh light accordingly. 

Anyway, too high is  a material mistake, it's not a renderer problem. Edit your materials and you'll be fine.

Cheers.

Thanks for the tips Paolo... I had thought that all the noise was due to the fact that the render had only been baking for 10 minutes and that it would clear up on subsequent passes.

Quote - Thanks for the tips Paolo... I had thought that all the noise was due to the fact that the render had only been baking for 10 minutes and that it would clear up on subsequent passes.

Not that noise. Once you get a bit more experience you will recognize the difference. That amount of really bright spots are actually "fireflies" and will not go away. Check that your specula color brightness is well withing a quarter of the way and that there are no pure white diffuse colors. Also, for the metal parts keep an eye on the polish level, that too might be too high but start with the specular color and glossiness levels first.

Good luck.

Alright.. it's time to dive back into the pool... I've gotten a lot of information harvested today and hopefully my battered short-term memory will recall it all.  I'm going to install an old character that I liked working with, some clothes that I'm not tired of looking at and a simple backdrop and see what happens.

Bob.. do the math on this one..  I just turned 44 on May 27.. my MOTHER IN LAW turned 50 back in March.  :sneaky:

Question for anyone who might know: As relayed earlier, my rig has 12gb of ram. I'm working a scene with a lot of little props, and its bogging down big time. I thought maybe I was hitting the limit, but task manager says its barely out of 1gb. What the...?!?! This is with DS4pro 64 bit, which I thought was supposed to utilize whatever you have. Is there a magic switch somewhere in the settings to unlock this?

Sharky here is why I stuck with Reality. I too was into UE and shaders ect. In spite of all that I saw IMMIDIATE improvements using Reality LUX. This one with a structure which mostly could not be hidden and as Paolo mentioned with some glossy settings set too high using the sun and few mesh lights took 2 /1/2 days back then http://fav.me/d4solzk.

These were  slg renders that took a few hours I then rendered the characters on their own in full LUX and PS'd them together http://fav.me/d4somlh  http://fav.me/d4solye I was experimenting and finding my workflow which of course is always ongoing.

Fast forward a few months in this more or less same type setting instead of using the sun I use one mesh light with the sun as a pre set to give the effect of the sun coming in with one mesh light above and a curve light to the side and this took 5 to 6 hours

http://fav.me/d519vv1

BTW the render with the ray gun took hour and twenty the one with the giant female 6 to 7...

Also note alot of the kind folks around here have more experience with Reality and 3Deeing in general. Like Mike and Tako they are animals!! If I can offer some tips why not...

I remember a discussion about Depth of Field and using a Null (?) object to focus on, can anyone point me to that discussion?

  ~ Russ

It was several pages back, but jist of it was to create a null near the eye of your main character, have that selected when you call Reality, then in the camera tab, select 'Set Focus', which will focus the 'lens' to your null.

You can also use the crosshair ball and the DoF planes directly in studio. Tomato-to-mott-toe.

Question about swapping ibl maps.  I am guesssing that any of these maps http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html can be swapped to any ibl light that works in lux. What is the best way? Via the browse tab in studio or the path map in Reality? What files would one use? Thanks.

Ok ok, I'm kinda converted to Genesis, me being an idiot I didn't even recall that the PD Claudia set (my most used character) has Genesis morphs too! I must say, Genesis has so much more dial control than V4, I think I'm going to enjoy working with her, sorry Vikki 4.  Time to start playing with getting V4 clothes to fit.

Also just noticed I have Gen4 in on my hdd (bosses wife keeps buying me content/tools - even bought me Cararra 8 Pro!), just tried running it but it crashed transferring, need to play some more...

Abi.

Quote - This one's for whoever knows the info; but, I think I have my issue with my render speeds and it sort of has something to do with textures.

Ordinarily, when rendering with 3Delight, I rely heavily on shaders of all sorts.  Uber hair for hair, pwsurface2 for skin, glass shaders, metal shaders.  Anything that I think they can improve the looks of.

My question is this.. do shaders help, hinder or have no effect on Lux render times?

Well, of course, the DAZ shaders you mention for cannot be imported by Reality as such. Where possible they are translated into the analogous Reality/Lux shaders that you see in Reality (e.g Top Coat, and of course metal and glass). In my experience these shaders only effect render times to the extent of their glossiness, reflectivity, etc. In other words, there are no special considerations that would not apply to any settings you make in Reality yourself. The use of hyper-real glass, or a material acting pretty much as a mirror of a significant size, will tend to have an enormous impact, as you would imagine.

The appropriate use of lighting is what has the most impact on render times generally, which is why Paolo has put so much effort into training users in the correct use of it.

Quote - Also just noticed I have Gen4 in on my hdd (bosses wife keeps buying me content/tools - even bought me Cararra 8 Pro!), just tried running it but it crashed transferring, need to play some more... Abi.

I'd say it's worth upgrading to Gen X. If you have your original order info for Gen 4 there is an upgrade for $12 at DAZ.

Thanks for the tip, I'll have to call the bosses wife, she got it for me so she should have the order info.

Abi.

I haven't uploaded any renders lately. This render is part of a another scene, which will be rendered in due course. This is the fullsize render, in the other scene it is part of the background.

Quote - Question about swapping ibl maps.  I am guesssing that any of these maps http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html can be swapped to any ibl light that works in lux. What is the best way? Via the browse tab in studio or the path map in Reality? What files would one use? Thanks.

Studio doesn't have real support for IBL, just a very limited version of it. You need to use Reality's IBL controls to set up the IBL file. Load in the IBL editor the largest .hdr file in the st. If you need to have the preview in the Studio scene thrn load the Reality IBL Preview sphere and set the diffuse texture in the Studio shader to use the jpeg in the set.

Hope this helps 

I think its in the RUG right?

What is in the RUG Bob?

Quote - What is in the RUG Bob?

You dont know your own Reality User Guide?  You ALWAYS refer to it as the RUG dont you?

Attached Link: The prize

Quote - You dont know your own Reality User Guide?  You ALWAYS refer to it as the RUG dont you?

Bob, you posted a message without context asking: 'I think its in the RUG right?'

So, I'm asking what is that you are referring to? Without saying what "it" is, we can't answer the question. 

We were discussing swapping maps with ibl lights just prior so I thought it was obvious but no matter

Would I not simply load a  the largest replacement .hdr file map in the spot circled in attached pic?

Bob, in the IBL editor there is only one file slot so that's where you add it. If you load one of the supplied IBL and look at the IBL editor it will be clear.

Best.

Quote - Bob, in the IBL editor there is only one file slot so that's where you add it. If you load one of the supplied IBL and look at the IBL editor it will be clear.

Best.

Sounds pretty straight forward thanks Paolo!

Attached Link: http://fav.me/d53xfx6

Click the link for big version.

Another question regarding ibl maps. I dont quite understand to what purpouse they serve? Quite often they are out of scale and blurry are they suppose to create a poor man's DOF effet?

If you use the right camera focal length, things should be in scale and not blurry.  However, some IBL maps seem to work better than others.  Try a few combinations and see.  I think I usually get good results with neutral to wideish angle "lenses", starting at 50mm.

Quote - Another question regarding ibl maps. I dont quite understand to what purpouse they serve? Quite often they are out of scale and blurry are they suppose to create a poor man's DOF effet?

Quote - If you use the right camera focal length, things should be in scale and not blurry.  However, some IBL maps seem to work better than others.  Try a few combinations and see.  I think I usually get good results with neutral to wideish angle "lenses", starting at 50mm.

 

Quote - Another question regarding ibl maps. I dont quite understand to what purpouse they serve? Quite often they are out of scale and blurry are they suppose to create a poor man's DOF effet?

I dont fully undrstand their function got it

Quote - Just a quick test render. The set is coming along nicely I think :)

Simpy wow...

John, I love these - can't wait to get them all!

  ~ Russ