cut/paste of a render from Bagginsbill's post

This (from one of Bagginsbill's posts), to me, is almost perfect!  I do see what he means about the nostrils though.

Rather than painting the nostrils, giving them their own material zone is preferable, so that they can be toned down appropriately in a render.

Quote - Rather than painting the nostrils, giving them their own material zone is preferable, so that they can be toned down appropriately in a render.

That would create a hard edge where the two materials meet.

Quote -

cut/paste of a render from Bagginsbill's post

 

This (from one of Bagginsbill's posts), to me, is almost perfect!  I do see what he means about the nostrils though.

Yes I'd very much like to steal those teeth and eye shaders.. they seem a step up from the once I lifted off one of his earlier threads!!

Latexluv,

So far you are the undisputed master. No matter how hard BB tries, it is as he says himself. "I am no artist". But you are.

There's been a lot of hyperspecific feedback regarding the base model for Dawn. That's good for Dawn, even when it's misread as being negative. It's just as important to create a base that has majority appeal as it is for content creators to hear about possible minorities to target with support.

Think of it this way for a moment. Pretend that prior to the creation of Dawn, Hivewire took a poll and asked two questions.

1. What do you want most in a new figure?
2. What do you like least in the current figures?

Now imagine that of the 5000 users that responded, over 50% said they wanted fuller arms and over 50% said they wanted less length in the legs. Also imagine 5% said they wanted the model defaulted to a classic military attention pose and 5% wanted earlobes that attach to the cheek.

First, like most polls, this one would barely represent the PS/DS community that most likely numbers upwards of 100,000 users and possibly, dare I say it, 1.000,000 users. Second, if Hivewire had conducted such a poll, they would have had to focus on satisfying a majority to ensure maximum profit for their business venture. As the primary and initial supporter of Dawn, they have to get the market saturated with her. That's the only way secondary and followup supporters of Dawn can find those niches and exploit them.

Dawn is as much an economic endeavor as she is an artistic one. What is or isn't in the base and expansions that Hivewire has working are most likely focused on attracting a majority. I would ask that in the spirit of cooperation and community spirit, that we avoid voicing opinions that suggest Dawn will fail if she is not all things to all people. Instead, can we make impassioned pleas to the community as a whole, to create, expand, and evolve Dawn, both to Hivewire and to the many talented third pary artists. Some of them may surprise us by providing content we expect from someone else. By doing so, they may inspire us all to be better artists and better human beings.

How we speak is as important as what we say. To paraphrase an old saying, "If you can't say something nice, still say it nicely."

vagabondallen

"I am very interested in outfits of this nature, especially if the vest can be hidden or loaded separately, giving us a decent additional top for our wardrobes."

Yes of course. Each element of the outfit will be able to load and/or be used separately. The vest needs a morph for tighter fits when used without the sweater.
 

Quote - There's been a lot of hyperspecific feedback regarding the base model for Dawn. That's good for Dawn, even when it's misread as being negative. It's just as important to create a base that has majority appeal as it is for content creators to hear about possible minorities to target with support.

Think of it this way for a moment. Pretend that prior to the creation of Dawn, Hivewire took a poll and asked two questions.

1. What do you want most in a new figure?
2. What do you like least in the current figures?

Now imagine that of the 5000 users that responded, over 50% said they wanted fuller arms and over 50% said they wanted less length in the legs. Also imagine 5% said they wanted the model defaulted to a classic military attention pose and 5% wanted earlobes that attach to the cheek.

First, like most polls, this one would barely represent the PS/DS community that most likely numbers upwards of 100,000 users and possibly, dare I say it, 1.000,000 users. Second, if Hivewire had conducted such a poll, they would have had to focus on satisfying a majority to ensure maximum profit for their business venture. As the primary and initial supporter of Dawn, they have to get the market saturated with her. That's the only way secondary and followup supporters of Dawn can find those niches and exploit them.

Dawn is as much an economic endeavor as she is an artistic one. What is or isn't in the base and expansions that Hivewire has working are most likely focused on attracting a majority. I would ask that in the spirit of cooperation and community spirit, that we avoid voicing opinions that suggest Dawn will fail if she is not all things to all people. Instead, can we make impassioned pleas to the community as a whole, to create, expand, and evolve Dawn, both to Hivewire and to the many talented third pary artists. Some of them may surprise us by providing content we expect from someone else. By doing so, they may inspire us all to be better artists and better human beings.

How we speak is as important as what we say. To paraphrase an old saying, "If you can't say something nice, still say it nicely."

Very well said...

What will become of Dawn ? ask The One with the Cookies.

Quote - > Quote - There's been a lot of hyperspecific feedback regarding the base model for Dawn. That's good for Dawn, even when it's misread as being negative. It's just as important to create a base that has majority appeal as it is for content creators to hear about possible minorities to target with support.

Think of it this way for a moment. Pretend that prior to the creation of Dawn, Hivewire took a poll and asked two questions.

1. What do you want most in a new figure?
2. What do you like least in the current figures?

Now imagine that of the 5000 users that responded, over 50% said they wanted fuller arms and over 50% said they wanted less length in the legs. Also imagine 5% said they wanted the model defaulted to a classic military attention pose and 5% wanted earlobes that attach to the cheek.

First, like most polls, this one would barely represent the PS/DS community that most likely numbers upwards of 100,000 users and possibly, dare I say it, 1.000,000 users. Second, if Hivewire had conducted such a poll, they would have had to focus on satisfying a majority to ensure maximum profit for their business venture. As the primary and initial supporter of Dawn, they have to get the market saturated with her. That's the only way secondary and followup supporters of Dawn can find those niches and exploit them.

Dawn is as much an economic endeavor as she is an artistic one. What is or isn't in the base and expansions that Hivewire has working are most likely focused on attracting a majority. I would ask that in the spirit of cooperation and community spirit, that we avoid voicing opinions that suggest Dawn will fail if she is not all things to all people. Instead, can we make impassioned pleas to the community as a whole, to create, expand, and evolve Dawn, both to Hivewire and to the many talented third pary artists. Some of them may surprise us by providing content we expect from someone else. By doing so, they may inspire us all to be better artists and better human beings.

How we speak is as important as what we say. To paraphrase an old saying, "If you can't say something nice, still say it nicely."

Very well said...

Dittoing the very well said remark.

One thing that people seem to forget is that DAWN as launched doesn;t have to be perfect, or everything to everyone, she just needs to a GOOD base product! I remember nearly the same nit picking (NOT meant to be critical just pointing out that the criticisms currently being offered are about truely minor details) about V2, V3 and V4 when they were first released. It wasn;t until people began to see the morphs, characters and textures offered by content creators that those venerable figures grew to be the goto figures for their time periods.

I suspect Dawn will be the same. It's what will be offered by 3rd parties or by Hivewire add-ons that will allow her to BECOME everything to everyone. If you are unsatified by the BASE figure then grab a CC copy and start making morphs, or textures. That way you will help to support her and increase her value, AND you will have exactly what you want AND maybe even make a couple of bucks, a win-win. Trying to convince everyone else that YOU are right and Hivewire is wrong is a losing proposition, potentially for both parties.

Quote - One thing that people seem to forget is that DAWN as launched doesn;t have to be perfect, or everything to everyone, she just needs to a GOOD base product!

Yes -- what would be the "perfect" figure anyway?  Each of us would have different ideas.  I'd want a glamour girl, with some realism thrown in.  vilters would want perfect breasts.   Some would want thin, others voluptuous...so that's a good statement.

And if I've said anything that can be construed as negative and critical, I am sorry. 

Dawn is actually looking better than I thought she'd look...and I thought she'd look great.  Bagginsbill's realistic renders are flooring me.  In a good way!

If you shade the nostrils correctly using a ramp gradient, not just use a flat diffusion level, it won't be a hard line.

I know of very few people here detracting from Dawn as a figure.  Dawn is as good as it gets in Poser/DS.  What I see is people voicing their feelings on what they want to see added to Dawn and why they want it, and that is good for those making content to be looking at things to consider making.  Content is not all clothing and makeup.  There is a wide variety of alterations to be added, morphs, fixes, details for a wide variety of rendering styles.

There have been a few grumbling nay-sayers, but very few.  The general atmosphere is excited and enthused.  Don't let the details of 100+ pages throw you.

There has been an outpouring of positive.    Dawn has us all waiting with open arms and runtimes!

I mentioned the red legs because they have been a buy-stopper for me in the past for characters. As much as I liked the morph, the red legs stopped me buying them. OK, this is Dawn's default texture which will probably be exchanged (or she will be clothed in long trousers or rendered as a portrait) quite fast, but I thought it is good mentioning it before somebody uses this MR for a commercial character.

I never saw real people with red legs/thighs like these, but I am not a photographer and don't see models standing for a long time. I am seeing a lot of legs at the moment, it is summer and skirts/trousers are short - but I didn't see anybody with a colouring like that.

Thanks to Zev0 for the tutorial (Feathered selection)!

Maybe I will buy one of those redlegged characters I didn't buy before.

Think of Dawn as a new jacket you have bought.

You have the base, you can now decorate it the way you want.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Quote - I wonder, at this point, how many of the people at Hivewire are wondering... Why didn't these people find this stuff during the testing?

 I know why the burnt in specular, it's to help the newbie people. Those who don't understand such things, and on top of it are poor when it comes to understanding lighting.

 Then again I can also understand why the more advanced users are finding fault with it... I'm sure, however, that new characters for Dawn will come out and people will have addressed the faults.

It;s not so much advanced user vs. not as advanced suer when it comes to burned in specularity. In some cases burned in specularity is used as a render time-saver. Especialluy in multi figure or anumation scenes.

Generally speaking, in 3d games where this kind of efficiency is super important, most of the lighting still gets baked in.

I think in last few years since computers have goten much more powerful, compared to maybe 10 years ago, demand for not burned in higlights has gone wayup, because most people can raytrace them in a reasonable time, and get very believable results.

Update from the FB page:-

Thank you for the great response on volunteering as a store product tester and the stories of your experience with welding and tight-rope walking, and the great pics of Miss Swanepoel .

We are still looking for a few folks that have access to Poser 9 specifically. Any takers? Extra great if you also are familiar with DS, but that's not a hard requirement.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Burned in specularity is there because the person who made the texture set didnt know any better or simply didn't know how to remove it from the resource they used. Just like having that ugly burnt in shadow under the glutes and breasts baked in. So now when you bend the leg, you have this ridiculous shadow line across the thigh even when there is light directly shining on it. That is just bad texturing, sorry, no excuses. Why is it only on skin and not really on clothing? Because the resources for clothing materials they use are flat (and easy to find) and don't have specularity baked in.

I look forward to seeing the texture sets by various artists, or will they not do them?

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Nice eye textures!!!

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Latexluv,

Not only is it great art I also only enjoy how you put all the self-appointed experts in place. Please notice how they grid their teeth..

An old lady from Canada showing who that is papa, or in this case mama!

;)

Thanks for the compliment vintorix. I live in Canada now but I'm a transplanted Texan! And I'm just glad that I have a lot of Merchant Resource textures to muck about with! :)

Quote - > Quote - Nice work Baggins, I am sure that no living person on earth can make a better procedural human skin texture. But I have a question. Ideally, in the dreams would be if you could blend together your proc texture with the original mats, and set the percentage for both, how much each will influence the final result.

Is that possible to do?

Absolutely possible to blend between procedural bump and mapped bump. However, you would do that if the mapped bump was actually a bump map and improved things by representing the small-scale height of the skin - pores and wrinkles. If instead it is, as usual, a gray scaled copy of the color map, which has brighter areas exactly where the burned-in-specular highlights are, not exactly where the skin is higher, then this is not such a good idea. When you use the locations of specular highlights as if they are heights of skin, instead of a properly heighted skin, you get a diseased skin.

Same with the specular map. I could blend the procedural specular modulation with the map, or I could use the map alone. But the map is not a specular map - it does not indicate where there is more shine or less shine. Instead, it is a gray-scale contrast adjusted copy of the color map. As such, it is showing where the specular highlights fell from the point of view of the camera taking the reference images at the time and place that the photo was taken.

Burned-in specular highlights to do not directly represent the allocation of oily versus dry skin. Rather, they incorporate local bump, angle and strength of light sources during photography, and the position of the camera taking the photo. The resulting "map" is not a specular map at all - it's a manipulated photograph. It looks pretty weird when you use it to drive real specular effects. (Unless you happen to recreate the original situation where the reference photo was taken - then it's perfect.) Using it a little bit (blending it with procedural) is a way to make your render only a little bit bad, instead of very bad.

How difficult would it be to create a bump and specular map that would add something beyond the procedural? The tutorials I have found seem to be about the simple way of a few filters and one-click modifications of the color map. Isn't this basically about a relatively simple bit of painting over things like dimples and eyebrows in the greyscale image?

I have seen maps that look like the color map was indeed just flipped to greyscale and blurred, and some others (e.g., Danae's London) that look like they have seen some additional manual work. However, even those seem to be a combination of modified details (pores, eyeybrows, hair, etc.) on a background layer of the greyscale photograph.

Would it not be possible to use the procedural for the "background" in Poser, and blend it with bump -and specularity that only modify those details? I.e., a neutral monotone-grey map with some bright and dark spots for pores and dimples + bright (bump) or dark (spec) hair painted where it occurs?

Quote - Thanks for the compliment vintorix. I live in Canada now but I'm a transplanted Texan! And I'm just glad that I have a lot of Merchant Resource textures to muck about with! :)

Yehaw and remember the Alamo! ;) (just kidding...lol)

Great looking eyes hon...really nice. I'll be wantin that green/brown one (the first one I did was green). LOL

I tried some eyes, but had other pressing things that took precedent :). Great stuff! :)

Laurie

I was trying for Hazel and got this brown with radiating green. Thought it was interesting. I made Violet, Purple, Amber, and a weird bright blue/pink color. Don't know if I'm going to include all of those or not.

I can't wait for Dawn to go public and see what the so called texture experts come up with.

I have seen it all before, those saying that it is easy for this or that suddenly go very quiet when asked to show what they can do.

I'll wait and see on those, to the ones that are actively showing what they are doing and transforiming textures etc. for others to use, keep it up.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Any chance of some nice fantasy eyes???

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Quote - Any chance of some nice fantasy eyes???

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Good things come to those who wait ;).

Laurie

I have plenty of time to wait!!! Lol.

I'm enjoying seeing what people are showing.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Oh my god! Pixel #487 from the top and #127 from the left has the wrong color!  RGB 195,133,120 instead of 195,133,121  -a fatal flaw...

Hoping to finish my project today, so more thumbnails to do, glad I have Thumbnail Designer and MATWriter Panel to work with, I'd hate to try and do all the stuff I have done in the old ways. Lol.

Just done a quick estimate on usable content thumbnails and it comes out to about 328.

I'd hate to think how many mix and match options!!! LOL

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Quote - Burned in specularity is there because the person who made the texture set didnt know any better or simply didn't know how to remove it from the resource they used. Just like having that ugly burnt in shadow under the glutes and breasts baked in. So now when you bend the leg, you have this ridiculous shadow line across the thigh even when there is light directly shining on it. That is just bad texturing, sorry, no excuses. Why is it only on skin and not really on clothing? Because the resources for clothing materials they use are flat (and easy to find) and don't have specularity baked in.

I seriously doubt that Thorne and Sarsa, serious veterans in this businees whom i hear made dawn base tex. don't know how to remove eye specularity. It would make about as much sense as claiming that stonemason doesnt know how to make props because he did ir didnt do something you think should be done a certin way.

Quote - Oh my god! Pixel #487 from the top and #127 from the left has the wrong color!  RGB 195,133,120 instead of 195,133,121  -a fatal flaw...

diet coke spew

Man, too funny :-)

When shall you show some wips yourself Kitteh? I visited you store and the content there were spectacular...

Quote - > Quote - Oh my god! Pixel #487 from the top and #127 from the left has the wrong color!  RGB 195,133,120 instead of 195,133,121  -a fatal flaw...

diet coke spew

Man, too funny :-)

Lol Hope the computer survived the cola onslaught. :)

I want to say so much more about Dawn and what not but don't wanna end up in trouble.

Quote - When shall you show some wips yourself Kitteh? I visited you store and the content there were spectacular...

Aw, thanks biggrin  i had some wips earlier in this thread and some are on BadKittehCo facebook pages. School all day tomorrow, however ill have some for friday, im sure. Almost 3 am here, im reading forums from my droid before dozing off to sleep, and have no pics handy here, sorry.  I dont know how to copy an url on a droid tablet, for the facebook page.... 

Quote - Hoping to finish my project today, so more thumbnails to do, glad I have Thumbnail Designer and MATWriter Panel to work with, I'd hate to try and do all the stuff I have done in the old ways. Lol.

Just done a quick estimate on usable content thumbnails and it comes out to about 328.

I'd hate to think how many mix and match options!!! LOL

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

If you have Notepad++ or Crimson Editor making MAT poses from an mc6 is easy and quick. LOL.

I don't have the money for all the little helper programs so I have to do a lot of stuff the hard way, but MAT files are pretty easy ;).

Laurie

Quote - > Quote - Burned in specularity is there because the person who made the texture set didnt know any better or simply didn't know how to remove it from the resource they used. Just like having that ugly burnt in shadow under the glutes and breasts baked in. So now when you bend the leg, you have this ridiculous shadow line across the thigh even when there is light directly shining on it. That is just bad texturing, sorry, no excuses. Why is it only on skin and not really on clothing? Because the resources for clothing materials they use are flat (and easy to find) and don't have specularity baked in.

I seriously doubt that Thorne and Sarsa, serious veterans in this businees whom i hear made dawn base tex. don't know how to remove eye specularity. It would make about as much sense as claiming that stonemason doesnt know how to make props because he did ir didnt do something you think should be done a certin way.

I tend to agree. It IS a merchant resource after all and meant to be changed ;).

Laurie

I change textures all the time. V4's original texture is terrible. Hasn't hurt sales. I am so glad to see all the merchants working together on this project. I'm hoping the general community agrees.

Quote - There has been an outpouring of positive.    Dawn has us all waiting with open arms and runtimes!

Speak for yourself Jan, as a DS user I don't want her, and it's not because of that pedo's wet dream that comes with DS, but rather from the massive headache she's going to cause for us, that and the flak Hivewire and the vendors are going to get for the lack of compatible content for the DS version.

You see unlike most of the people here I know what is required to get content working with a Tri-Ax figure, if the content isn't made in DS and then exported to Poser but rather made in Poser, then it's completely fucking useless to us.

The teams hopes for Dawn are that she will unite the community, the only way that will happen is if all of her content works out of the box in both DS & Poser, and for that to happen all of it will have to be created in DS and then exported for Poser.

Bejaymac:

I would wait for that, just an example:

Rawart is going to make morphs - and he knows how to do that for a Tri-Ax figure.

Quote - Bejaymac:

I would wait for that, just an example:

Rawart is going to make morphs - and he knows how to do that for a Tri-Ax figure.

Except that without the DSON tools it's going to be an issue getting them to working in Poser via PMD and with scaling broken in the CR2 exporter, scaling morphs would have to be done manually in Poser... not sure how that can be done to Dawn in Poser and have the morph and ERCs  proprogate in existing clothing for people running the non-pro versions.

Bejaymac is pretty much right about how things should be made if it's going to benefit both communities.... just like Dawn was made in DS and converted to Poser, so will all the content need to be, unless it's going to be Poser only.

It amazes me that people who don't want Dawn post about it.

I don't want a X amount priced Wacom tablet etc. I don't thing I have posted about it until now.

Those that don't want to use Dawn, don't, but I can bet those that say that will be the first in the download queue when she appears.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Dawn is for Both Poser9+ and Studio 4.5+, or do I really need to do the famous Ripley sentence from Aliens.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

It IS a merchant resource after all and meant to be changed ;).

So agree with this Laurie.

Remember way back in the thread when the HiveWire3D team said that not everyone will want Dawn as she is.

Those that have been with the thread from the beginning understand what is going on.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Oh the Mats are not a prob, it's all the options I have added into the project.

It takes time to do and test that all. Lol.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG