Here's a place to take a peek, get information and comment on my latest projects...

As most of my customers know, I'm slowly upgrading the entire Songbird ReMix library. Five volumes should be updated and ready to go by the end of April to kick off my annual Audubon Event. These sets include: Africa, Cool and Unusual Birds v1, Europe Edition v2, Woodpeckers and Pose Pack2. The updates are free to purchasers of the product(s).

So what kind of changes should you expect? Well, I've edited/enhanced the geometry, added more morphs and cleaned up rigging and reworked most of the textures. All bird characters have been written in Character format (no more having to build your birds) and have been placed the Animals/Songbird ReMix folder with everything else (materials, poses, props, etc) so it's all easy to get to. There are two versions, native DAZ Studio and native Poser (v10+) and support Iray, Superfly, 3DL and Firefly renderers.

Here's a couple comparisons of the old version Vs what's coming...

from Europe Edition v2:

from Cool and Unusual v1:

Looking good Ken, looking very good.

I always look forward to your annual Audubon Sale each year.

Thanks... I guess I can share at least the titles of my two new sets that will be premiering at the end of April...

Paridae of the World (contains 15 species of "Tit" including dimorphic male/females and some subspecies; 27 birds in all) Woodpeckers v2: Woodpeckers of Eurasia (contains 13 different species of woodpecker including male/female, some juveniles and subspecies; 33 birds in all)

Both sound like interesting sets, so I'll look forward to seeing some promos when you're ready to post them here.

Here's a couple more images...

The Eurasian Three-toed Woodpecker from Woodpeckers v2... Firefly render

...and the redone Lilac-breasted Roller from the Africa update... Iray Render

Here's a couple more preview images from the updates;

The Ivory-billed Woodpeckers from the updated Woodpeckers v1. They're in my Big Cypress Habitat which is a natural habitat for them.

The Greater Roadrunner from the updated "Cool and Unusual Birds v1" with one of my Nature Wonders Lizards and in my Sagebrush Habitat

I have all your Habitat sets, so I'm looking for the new, and updated, birds.

Yes, there are specific reasons I did those habitat sets... not just because I wanted accurate environments for my Nature Wonders critters and Songbird Remix birds, but ones that when you decided to feature those characters actually looked pretty good up close as well. I'll probably do at least one more when I get to upgrading the duck pond set.

But first, more bird updates. I'm determined to finish the SBRM updates by the end of the year (or at least get real close). I may throw in a new NW set or two-- I have a partially done Turtles v2, Frogs v4, Moths v4 and Dragonflies v2, so those may get some attention as I hit slumps in bird building. On the new bird set side, I still have a ready to rig Prairie Chicken/Sage Grouse model awaiting morphs and textures, more parrots, woodpeckers, bee-eater sets I'd like to do, but again, those updates need to get done... hopefully I'll be starting seabirds/pelicans/puffins early summer

Here's a bird I just upgraded from the 2010 "SBRM Australia v2" (the complete update of v2 should be done in about a month)

Looking good Ken, and a Habitat to go with the Duck Pond would be nice.

The Sultan Tit from my upcoming "Paridae of the World"

Yellow and Black is nice coloring. They'll stand out in renders for sure.

Thanks... There's a Hivewire Artists Welcome Sale going on. Please support my fellow HW PAs that have moved to Renderosity. Why am I not participating in the sale? Well, it's a little too close Audubon's birthday for me to participate.

I'm steadily working my way through the Australia v2 update... here's a promo page showing the redone Australasian Robins. As with the comparison, I shared above with the Pipit, the changes while subtle are significant, making the birds look more like their real-life counterparts and less like 3D models.

Ken _Gilliland posted at 1:17PM Wed, 14 April 2021 - #4416934

Thanks... There's a Hivewire Artists Welcome Sale going on. Please support my fellow HW PAs that have moved to Renderosity. Why am I not participating in the sale? Well, it's a little too close Audubon's birthday for me to participate.

Been there, done that!

BTW, that little Red-capped Robin's a real cutie.

Thanks, I'm expecting the update/re-release of Australia v2 to be out early-mid May. From there, I'll be focusing on the Kingfisher model makeover which will unlock Australia v2, Second Edition, Cool and Unusual v2, Amazon and Yucatan for their re-releases. Over the summer, I'm start working on the updates for Seabirds.

Speaking of updates, five Songbird ReMix volumes are one week away from their re-releases. Those sets are: Africa, Cool and Unusual Birds (v1), European Edition v2, Woodpeckers (v1) and Pose Pack v2. All are significantly better, if not almost unrecognizable from the original versions; with improved geometry, morphs and rigging, enhanced or totally redone 4k texture maps, Iray/SF support, native DS/Poser versions and additional new content in every set.

Ken _Gilliland posted at 2:05PM Fri, 16 April 2021 - #4417061

Speaking of updates, five Songbird ReMix volumes are one week away from their re-releases. Those sets are: Africa, Cool and Unusual Birds (v1), European Edition v2, Woodpeckers (v1) and Pose Pack v2. All are significantly better, if not almost unrecognizable from the original versions; with improved geometry, morphs and rigging, enhanced or totally redone 4k texture maps, Iray/SF support, native DS/Poser versions and additional new content in every set.

Good, I'll be looking for the re-releases.

My Audubon's Birthday Sale is here. The two new products, Paridae of the World and Woodpeckers v2, plus on the five updates; Africa, Cool and Unusual Birds v1, European Edition v2, Pose Pack 2 and Woodpeckers v1 are live!.

33% (or more) of my proceeds from the sale will go to Audubon in support of their $5/5 Birds program. This program compensates farmers to delay their wheat harvests, so that the endangered Tri-colored Blackbirds, who nest in the fields have the extra time for their nestlings to fledge and avoid being "harvested". Every dollar given saves at least one endangered bird.

Already made purchases from the sale today, and have 3 more ready for Tuesday.

First of all, thank-you to all who participated in my Audubon's Birthday Sale. We managed to help save a lot of Tri-colored Blackbirds!

I've given both the updated Australia v2 and Art Treasures from the Bowerbird Collection to my testers, so I'll now look at what key SBRM models I have to convert to unlock more updated sets-- I think it's the Syndactyl (aka Kingfisher) and Hummingbird models which will make the following updates possible: Second Edition, Cool and Unusual 2, Yucatan, Amazon, Australia v1 and, of course, both Hummingbird sets. I still hope to finish the seabird sets by the end of summer. And then, it's a matter of updating the models for the single sets (flamingos, pelicand, jacanas, dodo).

Here's an Iray render of the bowerbirds (Australia v2) and Art Treasures...

Both Songbird ReMix Australia v2 and SBRM Art Treasures from the Bowerbird Collection are updated and out at 30% off.

a little before and after on the Australia v1 I'm updating....

Looking good Ken.

Here's a couple more "now and then" comparisons on Australia v1 has I work through updating the set...

Looking very good Ken.

My Renderosity "Vendor of the Month" sale is finally here!...

YAY!!!

My update to Songbird ReMix Australia v1 is now available. I'm often jaded by the volume of work and repetitive checking in creating my sets, but even I did a "wow" as I was replaced the old versions images with the new ones in the store.

I've put it, plus the updated Australia v2 and Bowerbird set on 30% off sale for a couple weeks to reintroduce them. Australia v3 will be updated at the start of next year since I need to update all seabirds first. Australia v4 (the Lyrebird set) is almost finished with its beta, and after QA testing at Renderosity, will appear as well (I'm guessing 4th of Julyish).

My Nature's Wonders Cicada set is moving along and will probably start betas around the time Lyrebirds is released. That will allow me to start work on what I'm really excited to start, the updates to Amazon and Yucatan, as well as Second Edition and Cool and Unusual Birds v2. Somewhere it July/August, I'll probably squeeze in a new Bee-eaters and/or Kingfisher set too.!

SuperbLyrebird.jpg

That Lyrebird is so unusual looking. I don't think I've ever seen a bird with those sort of tail feathers.

Then again, the unusual is what I've come to expect with your wonderful bird sets.

I'll be doing a webinar on July 17th (1pm PST) called "Digital Nature" via Zoom. My 90 minute talk will include my background, art and life as a freelance artist artist plus focuses on my approaches to 3D digital bird-making, techniques and a crash course in composition and marketing.

https://digitalartlive.com/event/poser-environmental-art-with-ken-gilliland/

Here's a couple before and afters on some of the sets I'm updating...

From Cool and Unusual Birds v2...

From Yucatan...

Looking great Ken.

I've been stalking, er, admiring your work since the Daz days, and got more items during the Hivewire period.  I looks like I'm a wee bit behind in updating my birds, though.  [sigh]  At this point I've even lost track of which ones have been updated, and which have not.  Do I need to create another spreadsheet to get access to the updates already done, and the future updates.  [wry smile]

Because, as Miss B points out, these are looking great, sir.

One of the best ways to tell what's been updated now is to look at my SongbirdReMix.com page.  Recently, I flipped around the huge list on that page to "what's left" (not updated yet). If you're looking if specific sets have been updated there's two ways... my webpage store can tell you or you can look through my store at Renderosity (every description of a product says on of two things; "This product was completely updated in late September 2021 to include..." or "NOTE: This product is still in the "old" Songbird ReMix format. It will be upgraded to..."

As for spreadsheets, the online tool found in the new sets in the "Bird Library" folder called "! Bird Finder" links to an Excel (xls) file kept on my website.  This file has every bird subspecies (including subspecies and variants) created in Songbird ReMix format (both updated and non-updated).  The spreadsheet tells you exactly where to find the birds in the new library system so you don't have to be an ornithologist or advanced birder. The reason I have chosen to keep this file in xls format for users is to help them my bird library system.  It shows you exactly what folder to find the birds in and because it's in xls format you can sort it to your own needs.  For example, recently I had someone comment they liked the old library format because they wanted only birds from a specific region (e.g. S America).  Using "Bird Finder", you can sort by the "Continent/Region" column and get ALL the birds I've done that are found in S America (not just from "Amazon", not from the "Toucans" and "Parrots" sets, etc). Want only endangered birds?  No problem, you can sort by the "R-E-D" column and then sub-sort by "Continent/Region".

I love the idea of the spreadsheet!  That's far more ambitious than what I was envisioning, which was merely to list what I have, and which ones I've updated.  However, Renderosity doesn't seem to know which sets I bought at Daz and Hivewire, only my more recent purchases.  (Yeah, I'm in "what's left" mode, too, as the list of the stuff I don't have is much shorter than the list of what I do. [chuckle])

Thanks for all of the info; I'll get right on that.