Nice work John!!

Fantastic lamps, John. I'd like to suggest a miner's Davy Lamp if you are thinking of adding to the collection. (My father and grandfather were both coal miners in South Yorkshire, so this occurred to me immediately.)

There are many variants, but to me, this one is the classic. Lots of references available with a picture search for "Davy lamp". I think one of these would work in a number of settings, not just down t' pit!

John.. I'm assuming now that since you've moved on to other projects that you finished the lighting prop set for reality?  If so, can I have the link to the set.  I had downloaded back when there were only like 2 or 3 lights in the set.

Sharkbytes-BamaScans, indeed the PhotoStudio set is finished but Braintickeler is on holdiday (he's testing it for us) so I can not release it yet, as soon as he's given it his go-ahead I will post a link.

Thankyou FyraNyanser, cannot promise anything but I will have a look at your pit-lamp.

John, all your lamps are wonderful.  I'd love to have any that you're willing to let us have.  I'm always trying to find lamps of some sort and without much luck.

What Xandi said

Quote - okay.. i know it's seriously offtopic.. but I've been working on a texture set for this product: Scrumptious.  The only real major variation is going to be in the style of bra in the set.  I'll make compatible textures for the other pieces in the set so that there will be several 8-piece texture sets in the pack.  I'm thinking 4 to 6 for starters.  Designing the trans maps for the bra has been a pain so far.  Did a quick render of the 2 basic bra styles I have completed so far.  I've attached quick renders(in reality of course) of the first two styles.  I'm not really looking for critiques on the colors per se.  Just more of an overall impression.  Putting the renders in here because I respect the opinions in this thread more than most.  Plus, hopefully I'll get the more feminine opinions of those like my wife(who hasn't seen them yet), Xandi and Callad.

The first is a strapless demi-bra and the second is a platform/shelf bra.

Sorry for this late reply, been very busy the past few days cleaning the house, repainting, ect.

I like them both! Now in the 'frilly' department I would like to see a little rose in the middle (matching colors awf cuz :P )

One question: do they allow to be 'mesh smoothed'? A strapless bra must fit tight so I probably would shrink them, then mesh smooth them to make them fit really, really tight, we don't want the bra to 'fall off, now would we? lol some of you would, I'm sure ;)

As for the patterns; when V4 is 'well endowed' you might have streching on the pattern. Is there a way to make the pattern denser on her breasts? Then when streched it would bring back a nice detailed patern. That's the reason I usually go for a 'full texture' when a pattern is shown, then use 'tiles' to make them look detailed enough.

Anywayz, very nice job and I like to see more!

Made a 3D condom package for a friend and decided to try it in a scene, LOL (click for full)

I'm very worried about those nails and scratches :)

Hey guys, how about this for a pose : )

I really like this one a lot!

Cheers!

Very nice all Some gore..

Very nice all Some gore..

Attached Link: Crushed

I finally put the wraps on this week long project. Yea!!! Full size in the gallery (with due Reality credit, of course); http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2351187

Quote - While organising my prop CD/DVDs I found some old lights I made a while ago, so decided to convert them to work with Reality.

If anyone wants them I will make them Freebies (and add to the set if you send me a reference pic).

I was looking for just such a lamp some months ago John! It'd still be nice to put in the ol' runtime

When I see one like that middle oil lamp in the antique shops, I try to snag them as the remind me of my father's that he used to light for us as children, either before story time, or just because it was a pleasant glow.

Good memories...

Super, I really like the city scene.  Really wonderful render.  I'll have to look into how or what to use to make a city.  Your figures look great too!

Erik, very nice pose and lighting.  If I tried that, I just know the chairs would slide apart and I'd be flat on the floor in the blink of an eye.

Thank you for the great comment, Xandi!

I'm a huge stonemason nut, who in my opinon makes the best scene props bar-none. The bulk of this set is the fantastic Urban Future 4 with some elements of Big Sprawl 2 I scooped up last year (though I believe his store is on sale at daz presently. I grabbed the Walled City Friday, to which will be in the next big production. )

I'm not sure about now, but the large buildings in the far rear are select blocks of 'Dystopia', which were free when I picked them up about two years back. They're low poly but render very nicely with some tweaks in Reality. They also take alternative textures quite well, which I didn't do on this round but have in the past.The catch is that using this many pieces quadruples the number of materials for a Reality/Lux render. Using all 100 blocks will net you a massive 1297 material zones, but thankfully, most are repetitive, so when you get a group that looks good, copy and paste your heart out.The windows don't transfer well to normal glass, however, and need a very deep tint to keep from seeing through the buildings. Because of how much stuff was in this scene, I begrudingly set them to Glossy with 9100 on the polish.

I really love big city scenes and will lovingly point you in the right direction for prop reccomendations whenever you get in the mood.

Quote - Erik, very nice pose and lighting.  If I tried that, I just know the chairs would slide apart and I'd be flat on the floor in the blink of an eye.

Thanks Xandi!

Hey, what about this then, could you do that one? ; )

Placing your hands flat on top of your head, with your elbows pointing forward isn't too difficult to do in real life, yet I have to brutally override movement constraints with Genesis to make it do that. Am I doing it wrong, or does Genesis indeed have a 'shoulder problem'?

Cheers!

Super and Erik, very nice renders indeed! I don't think my body will allow me to pose like that lol.

Dirty Dancing

Quote - Is this okay FyraNyanser

:ohmy: That's fantastic, John. It will be worth making a scene just to use it! Thank you so much for taking the time to model it, and I hope other people will like it as much as I do.

Attached Link: intro

Quote - Dirty Dancing

The dancing may be dirty, but that burl floor is clean as can be!! Where'd you get it?

Quote - Nother.... Boom I agree with Stonemason's aka Stefan's sets they work bery nicely!

Thanks Bob. He's got a nice website I stumbled on about a year ago where he was so kind to share some of his texturing secrets. I can't seem to pull it up now, of course, but whatta ya do.

This ran forever.  Trying out some homebrewed textures for Hongyu's bikini.  Yeah.. I know.. the hair sucks.  And when viewed full-screen it seems a little grainy.  Was playing with different film stocks instead of just the default.

Quote - Dirty Dancing

Charley & the Doc OOOOoooo...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2853507&page=1#message_3961671

Quote - Just got a message that my image "a day in the park" is one of this week's staff picks.  Nice way to start my morning. 

Saw that Brad and added a little note and a rating to your render's comments.

Quick technical question for (probably) Paolo.  For Reality's purposes..what's better to use, Bump maps or displacement maps?

Quote - Quick technical question for (probably) Paolo.  For Reality's purposes..what's better to use, Bump maps or displacement maps?

They are 2 different things. Depends on what you are trying to do. If you want to give the mesh height, such as fur or a lump use displacement it you are defining detail such as wood grain or texture use bump (or normal).

Quote - Just got a message that my image "a day in the park" is one of this week's staff picks.  Nice way to start my morning. 

Congrats, well done!!

I am happy that there are a few done with reality, which hopefully  will help in sales and ratings.

In looking thur the images, I see some things that make me wonder. In the "Jane" image, is it me or is she floating off the bench and in the "Pandors" one, interesting postwork, make me wonder what the untouched one looked like.

Quote - > Quote - Erik, very nice pose and lighting.  If I tried that, I just know the chairs would slide apart and I'd be flat on the floor in the blink of an eye.

Thanks Xandi!

Hey, what about this then, could you do that one? ; )

 

 

Placing your hands flat on top of your head, with your elbows pointing forward isn't too difficult to do in real life, yet I have to brutally override movement constraints with Genesis to make it do that. Am I doing it wrong, or does Genesis indeed have a 'shoulder problem'?

Cheers!

 

LOL, nice pose, talk about easy access, LOL.

I always turn off limits when using genesis as most poses don't fully pose when on. I did notice that genesis bends differently than V4 in the shoulder area so to get extreme poses you have to pose different parts to get realistic poses.

Also on the chair, not sure if intentional, but shouldn't there be material zones other than red?

Quote - Dirty Dancing

Nice one Doc, alhtough having done ballroom dancing, nothing to dirty about that move, LOL.

"Hey, what about this then, could you do that one? ; )"

Sheeesh.. I doubt I could even get into  that position flat on the floor.. leaning against something.  She's very talented.

"Just got a message that my image "a day in the park" is one of this week's staff picks.  Nice way to start my morning."

Congratulations to you!  Well done!  It is a great image and you deserve the recognition. ;)

Quote - LOL, nice pose, talk about easy access, LOL.

I always turn off limits when using genesis as most poses don't fully pose when on. I did notice that genesis bends differently than V4 in the shoulder area so to get extreme poses you have to pose different parts to get realistic poses.

Also on the chair, not sure if intentional, but shouldn't there be material zones other than red?

I think this girl knows how to defend her 'comfort zone'. An 'access denied' response from her probably breaks your nose (or worse)  : )

The human shoulder is a pretty complicated mechanism, so I'm not surprised DAZ had to cut corners here. I just didn't expect that a reasonably common arm position would be so difficult to arrange.

The red chair is indeed intentional. I'm still suffering the consequences of an 'old school' (european) design education many-many years ago. You know: 'Less is More', 'Keep It Simple Stupid', that kind of arty-farty stuff. Stuck in a rut, can't shake it off. Please try to ignore it ; )

Cheers!

Quote - Quick technical question for (probably) Paolo.  For Reality's purposes..what's better to use, Bump maps or displacement maps?

Displacement maps actually alter the geometry of the model, and I think they do so inacurrately and unpredictably. In my opinion they are overused in DAZ/Poser models. Perhaps because, it seems, there is very little penalty when rendering in their built-in rendering systems. In contrast, you would not use them in games because they would unnecessarily hog resources which are much more valuable when the models are animated. Normal maps are the standard in games and they work very well there.

In Reality/Luxrender I think it's somewhere in between, but in most cases bump or normal maps are preferable to me. To use displacement maps you will need to increase the subdivision of the mesh, which takes up more memory. This should hardly be necessary for small variations in the surface so it's wasteful to use them casually for small displacement that can be done very well with bump or normal maps. I think you would need to have some whacking great veins, for example, to justify displacement, but in commercial models aimed at Poser and DAZ displacement is used quite casually for things like this. I always delete them for body textures because I think they are more trouble than they are worth.

If I am creating my own maps, I go for normal maps every time. Paulo's well-known render with the breast plate shows how effective they can be, although I think you need a decent program to generate them.

Still, perhaps I just being too purist. If you have the memory and existing displacement maps work for you and it's easier then you should use them. The end result is all that matters.

& what one's need is.  I have a tip to share. Today when rendering a scene I noticed one of my M4's rendered all white aka texturless. Upon investigating the matter I noticed that when picking any texture on it, the surface line was jumping to another M4 in my scene as I called Reality. I then realized I had 2 M4's that loaded as M4 (2) all I has to do was rename one of the twos to (3) and all textures loaded normally.

okay.. does using normal maps over bump or displacement maps increase render speed?  Because I grabbed PixPlant (automatically creates normal, spec, disp maps) and created some normal maps for a texture I'm working on.  Got everything loaded into reality and tweaked my materials the way I wanted them.  Just a simple scene.. model, clothes, hair, alpha channel so I can add in a 2-background and my render is running like 4x faster than I've EVER rendered

it's grainy as hell due to the fact that it's only baked for about 100 passes; but you can clearly see the leather-grain texture on the bikini.  This is using normal maps over bump/displacement

Have another question for anyone who might know.  This might be an issue for Paolo.  I'm nearly done with the 1st third of my texture set for Hongyu's Bikini.  I went in and got the textures all tweaked the way they would look really nice and saved ACSEL shaders w/textures for them.  Now.. to share them you have to have a description of the shader.  To add the description you have to double click on the line of the shader in your shaders box(the bottom one) on the ACSEL screen in Reality.  When I do that.. nothing happens.  So that's basically my question.. how the hell do I add a description for my shaders so that I can share them?

And yet another challenging pose : )

I really-really enjoy the way LuxRender lets you adjust (or completely change) the lighting balance during/after the render process.

Cheers!

Quote - Quick technical question for (probably) Paolo.  For Reality's purposes..what's better to use, Bump maps or displacement maps?

Let me prefix that there is no "better", it all depends on what you want to achieve. Second, we are talking about two different technologies here. Bump maps simulate the shading that would happen on a surface if that surface had been displaced. For example, if you have an armor and that armor had been decorated by chiseling grooves in the metal, the surface would have been displaced, moved. If you have a displacement map that simulates the chiseling then you will get more convincing effects by using the displacement map. On the oher hand that will take a lot more memory and time to render. If your armor is not prominently shown in the frame then a bump map will do. A bump map does not displace the surface, it simply simulates the shading that would have occoured if that surface would have been displaced. It's a trick but often it works.

For me the best solution is Normal Maps. A NM is more sophisticated than a bump map and it provides a much better simulation. At the same time it does not take as long as displacement.

Please note that these technologies are not exclusive. You can, as it happens often, use a Bump Map or a Normal Map together with a Displacement Map. In fact, using a rough D.M. in conjunction with a N.M. is a great trick to create very convicing effects. The N.M. generates the minute surface shading while the D.M. can do some rough diaplcement of the surface so that such surface looks good when the edges are clearly visible. The edges are what break the illusion when using Bump Maps or Normal Maps.

Hope this helps.

Quote - To add the description you have to double click on the line of the shader in your shaders box(the bottom one) on the ACSEL screen in Reality.  When I do that.. nothing happens.  

You don't have to double click, you have to click twice. That is: click ... and... click. :)

I didn't make the rules, that's how Studio works.

Cheers.

Just a scene from a project, enjoy! (click for full)

Quote - The dancing may be dirty, but that burl floor is clean as can be!! Where'd you get it?

She spent all day scrubbing it :) Unfortunately, that product isn't available anymore. It's from Modern Hall, previously sold here at Rendo.

Quote - Just a scene from a project, enjoy! (click for full)

Cant deny your talent man!

Showing off the chainmail texture I made for hongyu's bikini.