I can no longer edit the Cortana post, but I should have tagged it for "holographic nudity". Sorry. Mod?

I wouldn't worry about that nudity tag Seachnasaigh. Cool image BTW.

Someone must have got it already. I don't see anything that shouldn't be flagged.

I don't see anything that needs to be flagged. The rule of law states that nudity is showing the part of the body that one sex has and the other doesn't. That's why girls can jog in the nude. We all have breasts and their naughty bits are hidden. The rest is simply good taste. This render is in good taste all the from background to subject. The background floor reflections, the tubes are a work of art in themselves.

Now has to the real subject. I didn't use the hierarchy editor until this year!! I had no idea it was so powerful. I didn't even think it was possible to parent a prop to another prop! That should make it easier to use the tutorial. Right now I have the buildings props at full scale. A figure is tiny compared to the sky scrapers. I didn't mind this except that it made distances a bit dicey (which is easily cured by using the YON function in the cameras. I added two skyscrapers which needed to be increased in size but using rokket's GODZILLA analogy, it still works nicely. I simply wanted the coolest picture available for the morning shot of the city.

A lesson to the rokket : Rendering Super Hero's is the easiest part of what you will do because it's the most fun. Getting the setting correct is often harder but also brings about it's own gratification.

I copied the settings for the Atmosphere room. Here is the screenshot along with the city on your left.

quietrob posted at 4:58AM Fri, 30 October 2015 - #4235908

I don't see anything that needs to be flagged. The rule of law states that nudity is showing the part of the body that one sex has and the other doesn't. That's why girls can jog in the nude. We all have breasts and their naughty bits are hidden. The rest is simply good taste. This render is in good taste all the from background to subject. The background floor reflections, the tubes are a work of art in themselves.

Now has to the real subject. I didn't use the hierarchy editor until this year!! I had no idea it was so powerful. I didn't even think it was possible to parent a prop to another prop! That should make it easier to use the tutorial. Right now I have the buildings props at full scale. A figure is tiny compared to the sky scrapers. I didn't mind this except that it made distances a bit dicey (which is easily cured by using the YON function in the cameras. I added two skyscrapers which needed to be increased in size but using rokket's GODZILLA analogy, it still works nicely. I simply wanted the coolest picture available for the morning shot of the city.

A lesson to the rokket : Rendering Super Hero's is the easiest part of what you will do because it's the most fun. Getting the setting correct is often harder but also brings about it's own gratification.

I know exactly what you mean. I won't be in port for awhile yet, but I am itching to post pics of Karen Sanders BEFORE the explosion. I finally got a body shape I am happy with, thanks to the morph package you gifted me. My eternal thanks for that.

I don't have Blaze's phoenix resurrection done because of not being able to download the lava frames. Set backs are not always a bad thing. I was able to do a few other things, like starting on the Forester compound.

Do you see that city on the side of those materials? I'm going to try the godzilla scale method to get the atmosphere to work. I just tried it and NOTHING in the way of noticible atmosphere change. Using the hierarchy editor, how do you parent all those city blocks to a single figure in one fell swoop rather than go block by block, building by building for the parenting process?

File export wavefront object, click universe to clear hierarchy, select(x) each block you want to include, uncheck all export options except include existing groups in polygon groups. Export. Now, here's the thing... whatever transformations you have applied to the blocks in scale, translation and rotation will become the default state of the new single object. That is, it will be 1 object with a single center of rotation and its position and scale at the time of export will be a value 0/100% in the new state. You can disassemble the object into its constituent parts (because you exported with groups maintained) via the group editor by spawning props from groups, or materials.

... after you import your new single object that you've constructed you can parent it to whatever with a single drag and drop in the hierarchy. It would probably be moot though as the blocks now have a single hot point. Poser might successfully import all of your original maps references via the generated .mtl but I usually save a .mc6 just before, in case. I personally habitually trash the generated .mtl and just apply the .mc6

quietrob posted at 6:59PM Fri, 30 October 2015 - #4236046

Do you see that city on the side of those materials? I'm going to try the godzilla scale method to get the atmosphere to work. I just tried it and NOTHING in the way of noticible atmosphere change. Using the hierarchy editor, how do you parent all those city blocks to a single figure in one fell swoop rather than go block by block, building by building for the parenting process?

Are you using a sky dome of some sort? Something like BB's Envirosphere? Try that if you can't get the fog to show up. Atmosphere needs something to reflect off or you won't see it.

Yeah, make sure you have some sort of backstop, like a skydome. Also, you may have to do several test renders to find the narrow window between "no fog shows" and "whiteout".

Got the refractive jaggies smoothed out, got the firing pin dents in the primers of the spent casings, boosted the emitters for Stonemason's Arc set, got her hair transparency fixed.

Wow, that looks really good! I am in awe..... You're my idol!

seachnasaigh posted at 11:17AM Sat, 31 October 2015 - #4236132

Yeah, make sure you have some sort of backstop, like a skydome. Also, you may have to do several test renders to find the narrow window between "no fog shows" and "whiteout".

Got the refractive jaggies smoothed out, got the firing pin dents in the primers of the spent casings, boosted the emitters for Stonemason's Arc set, got her hair transparency fixed.

@seachnasaigh You are amazing! It's not only a lesson in how it should be done, the art is an example of how it should be done! That looks like a super hero or at least a super mystery!

No, a skydome wasn't mentioned in the example. I'm big on backgrounds to reduce CPU cycles however, I'm also big on land and atmospheres. I got land and skydomes. Just not BB's skydomes (No Bill, don't put a stupidity curse on me. It's already been done). I'll try it with Terraform's skydome from RDNA. If that doesn't work, I'll do the GODZILLA shrink of the entire city (I have to do it anyway for future shots) and try it with Hinky's weather skydome. It was too small use on a city of a massive scale.

That is sort of the look I want for Blaze's fire form, except I don't want her to be that translucent. I can't download those files you sent me yet, but I am patiently waiting for the next couple of days to go by so that I can get in port and take care of business. If I can find a WIFI hotspot, that is. I can't tell you where I will be until I am there, but trust me, WIFI is a hard thing to find where I am going.

I just the fog atmosphere and got the dreaded whiteout. Any idea's as to what parameters need adjusted first?

@rokket. I watch foreign TV shows all the time. It seems that Internet Cafe's are still popular. I hope you find one or a starbucks with WIFI soon!

Thanks for the encouragement on Cortana, fellas.

Rob, look at the atmosphere node; lower the Volume_Density setting. Try lowering it from 1.0 to 0.6, and see what happens. If no fog, then raise it back about halfway to 0.8 and try again.

If no fog or thin fog, then raise it to 0.9

If whiteout, then lower it back to 0.7

This technique is called bracketing. With Poser atmo effects, it takes appreciable render time. But it will get you zeroed in. Atmospheric fog has a narrow range of good render results. If the density is too high, you get whiteout; if too low, you don't see any fog.

Oh - don't use an infinite light. Use a spotlight, dragged wayyyyy out and given a narrow "end" (i.e., fadeaway) angle for your sunlight. If you want those Godrays, then use a very tightly coned spotlight (small "end" angle), and then you can duplicate that spotlight, and translate/move the duplicate(s) so that spot 2 shines on a different area. avoid changing angle much, because the Godrays should be roughly parallel. The spotlights' attenuation setting should be constant.

@Rokket: We can do that for a flame form for Blaze, and making the flames more opaque will make life easier when using emitters. Emitters will show if viewed through a refractive surface. We need a better flame texture. I'll nose around, but fire is one of those elusive phenomena which are sooo hard to mimic.

Point lights can make nice magic effects with atmosphere, but that's another issue.

Yeah, I am at the mercy of the job right now. We have a long stretch of at-sea time, so I am screwed trying to get anything done in Poser land. But I have learned patience if nothing else being in this industry.

Oh, and where I am going, transportation will be an issue, and I don't think there is a Starbucks within 3,500 miles... I am going to Guam.

I am going to attempt to upload a couple renders later today. I have 2 images I am working on that might work. The final of Karen Sanders, and Blaze that I have tried to work without the flame and lava images. I will be looking for critiques.

Here is a foggy Metropolis. First downtown. Thanks seachnasaigh! I took the low tech way as I kept getting whiteout no matter how low the threshold was. However, it made me think of other ways.

The Entire City...note the globe on the left. I can still add some postwork but I think this will work as a foggy monday morning metropolis.

Yeah, that's way cool!

The Best thread at Rendo keeps getting better! Let's see some Blaze, I'll be working on some bad guys...I'm casting for Luthor right now.

Our ship's internet connection is too friggin' slow. I can't upload. I will have to wait for Wednesday when I can get off the ship. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......

Well, now I have the green light to tell you what I've been doing with the new Natasha Romanoff.

I've worked up Superfly (Cycles render engine for Poser) materials for Natasha; now her suit's neon casts light without any need for extra emitter parts. :D

Same for Blaze.

Just got permission to reveal this today. Rokket, I'll be able to set up materials for Natasha and Blaze such that the materials will have two versions in the same material; further, they will automatically switch and choose which material setup to use when the end user selects the render engine (either Firefly or Superfly). Here is a material screengrab of Cortana's body material, showing two root nodes. I can use the Poser surface root with both engines, or I can use two separate root nodes, as shown here. (Cycles Surface is one of the available root nodes)

We can even set up the material so that SydneyG2 appears as Blaze when rendered in Superfly, but she renders as Karen Sanders in Firefly!

My material setups often look like a pile of node spaghetti, but you can do nice effects very simply now, which would have taken many nodes in Firefly and still not have been as nice. This shows a little deck wayyyyyy up in a tree in the massive Lothlorien enviro. The enviro set has well over 700 paper lanterns and biolumenescent glass globes. In Superfly you can light the scene with those meshes, and use no Poser lights at all! You can also use mesh lighting with Poser lights; in this scene, I put a 7% strength point light in the candle flame.

How hard is it to make that glass for the wine bottles in Superfly? Heh heh - this hard...

The etched silver metal for the ewer...

Holy cow! You are beta testing the next Poser! Nice!

I am going to beg and plead with mama and make sure I can upgrade when that comes out.

Nice work. Now how can we translate that to Poser 10? hehehe

rokket posted at 8:48PM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236603

Holy cow! You are beta testing the next Poser! Nice!

Officially, I can neither confirm nor deny...

. . .

rokket posted at 8:48PM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236603

I am going to beg and plead with mama and make sure I can upgrade when that comes out.

Nice work. Now how can we translate that to Poser 10? hehehe

Given how you use Poser, I think it would be worth it. Oh, darn, did I forget to mention that P11 will do comic rendering? Look at that last material screen grab; in the root node, down at the bottom, see Geometric Edge? That will ink-line your renders in one shot.

All of the stuff I have shown before today was done with P10 (well, Poser Pro 2014 Game Dev); I only got permission to reveal this P11 stuff today. So, we can do Blaze and Natasha in P10 (already have). But P11 would do it faster (no need for emitters), it can do glowy stuff, metals, and glass beyond P10, and P11 can render ready for comics.

In P10, I can make a fiery transparent Blaze, but having that transparency and the IDL simultaneously is a problem. In P11, no problem - just dial in how much ambient response you want. You also won't have to deal with rigging emitters for Natasha's suit.

Nice!

When does P11/Pro2016 come out?

Impressive. Most impressive.

We'll all have to wait for word from SmithMicro on release date.

In the meantime, I'm making new versions of a few of my old props to adapt their mesh and mapping to exploit PBR (Physics Based Renderer) capability.

I am thinking I will wait for the release to start my comic. This will give me time to collaborate with a few like minded individuals and make this story beyond awesome. The attempts I have made in creating Blaze's fire form were lackluster at best. Even with your help, I am not happy with her look. On the other hand, I did create a plump Karen Sanders using the morphs that Rob had gifted me and a few face room tweaks. I have to create a suit for my Green Lightning character too. The few that I made were good, but not quite what I want either. So, this is actually good for me, since I will be able to shore up the story line and at the same time, get all my characters costumed and get the sets created that I don't already have.

I will be able to post a few renders later today, and I will give you a look at Karen and Blaze as I have her right now.

Take your time! Get that suit just they way you want. Even the Lanterns have different vairations on the suit after debut. I remember in the 70's that Supergirl had more than one version of her suit. I wanna see the plump Karen Sanders as well. A hefty characters always contrasts nicely against the perfection of Super Hero bodies. I think it was a selling point in the gritty Frank Miller Batman.

A story beyond awesome? That is a bold statement! Let me help if I can.

Here she is. Final version of her. She won't be around long in this form, obviously.

And any help you want to give, I'll take. Bouncing ideas has always been a good way for me to get things done.

I am not happy with this at all. It's close, but also missing an important element: not realistic.

Looks like fun! The old version of Blaze aka Karen Sanders would love her tight new body! Might I suggest, As her name is Blaze you might wish to include some flame and/or an Aura. Obviously she is like living lava, yet when you go to render her, you'll need a face. Even one without emotion as is suggested in your Author's notes. You'll also need to show the easiest emotion. Hate.

Nice Shawshank Pose, will she have a fire trail?

I am not sure about the fire trail. The funny thing is, she is only in this fire form after her phoenix resurrection. Once she is strong enough to take human form, the only time you will see her in fire form is if she needs it to get out of a jam. So this attempt is really her resurrection...

I tried to do the flames in post, but I was tired, it was late and it failed. I will try it again, maybe tomorrow night. Tonight I am consuming several adult beverages and trying to forget who I am....

I hear ya! I will have a cup of coffee. I have an extremely long render working while I do this. Man I need a kickass computer.

Rokket, It might take some experimentation (and multiple test renders), but I think we'll be able to get a flame effect that you'll be satisfied with. The aura wouldn't be much different from TinkerBell's pixie dust aura. Don't give up the ship!

Rob, have you tried using a clouds node for your atmosphere? It would give that patchy fog effect. P.S. @Rob: If you plan on getting a 3D computer, get a server/workstation motherboard with dual CPU sockets.

seachnasaigh posted at 6:58PM Wed, 04 November 2015 - #4236836

Rokket, It might take some experimentation (and multiple test renders), but I think we'll be able to get a flame effect that you'll be satisfied with. The aura wouldn't be much different from TinkerBell's pixie dust aura. Don't give up the ship!

P.S. @Rob: If you plan on getting a 3D computer, get a server/workstation motherboard with dual CPU sockets.

My gaming laptop from my Poser 7 days back in 2008 literally blew up one month after the warranty ended. The video card is $600 bucks. I'm trying to get a new job for the sole purpose of providing for my future, paying bills, and most of all, getting a new computer. I do want it to kick ass! Lord help them if I get a credit card increase for the whole amount. As it is, I'm running on a super slow DELL desktop. Pages that used to an hour tops, now have to run all night. How much would a DUAL CPU rig cost? How much RAM are you using? What video card? I can tell you that I don't get the same range of colors with the weaker card that is embedded and running reality just isn't fun...IRAY and PBR are out of the question.

In making a comic, this can make a lot of difference.

If you have gobs of money, buy everything new, two of the HyperThreaded 18-core Xeons and two Xeon Phi co-processors for PCIe slots. Obscenely powerful, but that will cost cubic dollars.

If you're on a budget, look on eBay for surplus/refurb enterprise gear. Search terms could be "2x X5650", also check X5660, X5670, X5680, and X5690. The higher the number, the faster the clock speed. In Xeons, "E" are economy power-saver models, "L" are a balance of computing power and economy, and "X" are the high performance models. You want X. Although, H/T quads like L5520 are absurdly cheap now, and two of those would give you sixteen moderate speed render threads. All of the X5650 through X5690 models are heavy duty HyperThreaded hex core Xeons; a pair of them in a workstation gives you 24 render threads. Chassis which came with these processor packs include Dell T7500 and HP z800. The smaller midtower versions are T5500 and z600.

Server/workstation motherboards use registered memory (often called server memory), although they generally can use common gamer memory. You can use more RAM if it's registered. Basically, this type of RAM has an extra chip which functions as a memory controller, relieving the CPU and north bridge of a big share of the burden. It often has error correcting code (ECC) to increase stability. It often has metal heat spreaders to help cool it.

Look for a used workstation with dual Xeon processors and 36-96 GB of RAM. Figure on supplying your own hard drive(s), since you can't count on a used hard drive. You can get a 64bit Win7Pro OEM license for $75-$120.

Beyond that, you might add a better video card (or cards, if you want to GPU render), and you can add PCI/PCIe cards to give it eSATA ports and/or USB3 ports, if you want them.

I have $1260 in Urania, and she has 48GB of registered ECC RAM with heat spreaders and dual X5660 H/T hex Xeon processors (24 render threads), and a Quadro FX3800 video card. Compared to what you'd get in a new gaming PC for $1260, Urania will kick the gaming machine to the curb when it comes to 3D rendering.

dual X5690 on eBay . I specified T7500 and z800 in the search along with "2x X5690", because if you search for just the processor you'll get a lot of blade servers and bare processors. The blade servers are great as render slaves -I have several- but their form factor is not suited to use as your desktop computer.

quietrob posted at 10:17PM Wed, 04 November 2015 - #4235566

Look at this render. How do you think he did this? I have the blocks but I'd rather make it for a contemporary setting.

I rendered that in DAZ Studio,then all the clouds are painted in with help from a zdepth render,most of the buildings are instanced so it was pretty fast to render

That's hilarious... The one and only Stonemason pops in and finds the sound of crickets. Lol. You guys must be unusually busy tonight to have missed that.

@Stonemason. That is simply amazing! I just read up on Z depth rendering. I understand instancing. As stated, I own the Utopian Blocks (I have almost everything you made for Poser. Purchase order or screenshot given upon request) and I also just joined the CG Society.

The background city lights that are seen behind the main city to the next collection of buildings in the background. Are those part of the Utopian Blocks and thus can be rendered with nightlights in DAZ Studio? Now that I know it was indeed postworked, I'm off to study Godray tuts for Photoshop 6.

Much thanks to the Master Builder, Stonemason. This humble thread has just become the Hall of Worthies.

EldritchCellar posted at 11:00PM Wed, 04 November 2015 - #4236986

That's hilarious... The one and only Stonemason pops in and finds the sound of crickets. Lol. You guys must be unusually busy tonight to have missed that.

I'm glad you were here! I got no notification but at least Stonemason (the one and only) knows he was appreciated. I'm always busy but not to busy to say thanks to you for commenting because that notification DID get sent.

seachnasaigh posted at 11:02PM Wed, 04 November 2015 - #4236977

If you have gobs of money, buy everything new, two of the HyperThreaded 18-core Xeons and two Xeon Phi co-processors for PCIe slots. Obscenely powerful, but that will cost cubic dollars.

If you're on a budget, look on eBay for surplus/refurb enterprise gear. Search terms could be "2x X5650", also check X5660, X5670, X5680, and X5690. The higher the number, the faster the clock speed. In Xeons, "E" are economy power-saver models, "L" are a balance of computing power and economy, and "X" are the high performance models. You want X. Although, H/T quads like L5520 are absurdly cheap now, and two of those would give you sixteen moderate speed render threads. All of the X5650 through X5690 models are heavy duty HyperThreaded hex core Xeons; a pair of them in a workstation gives you 24 render threads. Chassis which came with these processor packs include Dell T7500 and HP z800. The smaller midtower versions are T5500 and z600.

Server/workstation motherboards use registered memory (often called server memory), although they generally can use common gamer memory. You can use more RAM if it's registered. Basically, this type of RAM has an extra chip which functions as a memory controller, relieving the CPU and north bridge of a big share of the burden. It often has error correcting code (ECC) to increase stability. It often has metal heat spreaders to help cool it.

Look for a used workstation with dual Xeon processors and 36-96 GB of RAM. Figure on supplying your own hard drive(s), since you can't count on a used hard drive. You can get a 64bit Win7Pro OEM license for $75-$120.

Beyond that, you might add a better video card (or cards, if you want to GPU render), and you can add PCI/PCIe cards to give it eSATA ports and/or USB3 ports, if you want them.

I have $1260 in Urania, and she has 48GB of registered ECC RAM with heat spreaders and dual X5660 H/T hex Xeon processors (24 render threads), and a Quadro FX3800 video card. Compared to what you'd get in a new gaming PC for $1260, Urania will kick the gaming machine to the curb when it comes to 3D rendering.

dual X5690 on eBay . I specified T7500 and z800 in the search along with "2x X5690", because if you search for just the processor you'll get a lot of blade servers and bare processors. The blade servers are great as render slaves -I have several- but their form factor is not suited to use as your desktop computer.

Gobs of Dollars? Mmmm no. I'm just an expert at making a dollar out of 15 cents so I'll be going the cheap way to big power. This is an excellent guide. Much better than fighting through the ads that made me leave MAXIMUMPC. Thanks to that link I found several workstations that vary in price from $942 to $3600. I'm alway wary of used hardware as I think their must be a reason for them selling it. Hopefully it's so they can upgrade or sadly because they need the money more. Your memory spex are incredible. You must render at blazing speeds. As long as I have the slots I can add memory up to16G in my current rig but If I let Microsoft upgrade me to Windows 10, I can move up to 128Gb support. Thanks for information. At least I know how bad off I am but how hopeful the future can be!

quietrob posted at 2:23AM Thu, 05 November 2015 - #4236987

@Stonemason. That is simply amazing! I just read up on Z depth rendering. I understand instancing. As stated, I own the Utopian Blocks (I have almost everything you made for Poser. Purchase order or screenshot given upon request) and I also just joined the CG Society.

The background city lights that are seen behind the main city to the next collection of buildings in the background. Are those part of the Utopian Blocks and thus can be rendered with nightlights in DAZ Studio? Now that I know it was indeed postworked, I'm off to study Godray tuts for Photoshop 6.

Much thanks to the Master Builder, Stonemason. This humble thread has just become the Hall of Worthies.

no worries :) the city lights are just a photo of a city at night, probably from cgtextures.com ,that is set to screen so that all you get are the lights,then mask out the buildings so the lights sit in the background,I use zdepth to do color range selections(photoshop) of groups of buildings then I can paint in clouds behind them, do that from the front to the back and you should get some nice depth to the image,then the god-rays are just painted in on separate layer, I find volumetrics are just easier to do in post,you'll get better control and don't need to worry about the extra rendering time.

Thank you for explaining, Stonemason! It is valued. And it's good just to hear from you.