Quote - I've just finished checking the latest spotlights and will packing them later today for testing.

The small spotlight is the one used with the softbox, because you probably will not see it when rendered I've made up a front cone and added it to the set.

Love your lights, John.  These will be great fun to play with!

  ~ Russ 

Yeah, I am running Win 7 64bit so it should handle 32GB fine.  I guess I will bite the bullet now and go for the extra RAM.

  ~ Russ 

I am seriously considering a high-end PC for 3D graphics.  My primary use at present is DS, Reality and LUXRender, but I also have Poser Pro 2012 and will be using that too, in the future.  I know that for Reality/LUX, GPU rendering isn't working very well currently.  I know I want a high-end CPU, and the system I am contemplating will have an Intel i7 Six Core Enhanced processor overclocked to 4.5 Ghz.  I plan to start with 16GB memory, but can upgrade that now or later if needed.

My key question is, does it much matter what graphics card I install?  I want to stay with NVIDEA, but I am wondering if I should go with a Quadro 4000 (3GB) or am I better off going with something in the GeForce line, like the GTX 680?   Or maybe the new GTX 690, which apparently is a dual processor card.

Any thoughts form you experts out there?  Do I wnat to install more RAM or is 16GB enough?  What's the best graphics card for LUX?  For Poser?

Thanks for any help or insights you can give me.

  ~ Russ 

Michael, could you raise the camera angle by a foot or so?  ;-)

I just want to see the heels from a slightly different angle, is all...

  ~ Russ 

Quote - the images are thumbnails, just click to open them

Doesn't work for me.

  ~ Russ 

Looks great, John, can't wait to get my hands on it!

  ~ Russ 

SickenlySweete, I'd love to try your tutorial but the images and screenshots are so tiny they are unreadable.  Am I doing something wrong?

  ~ Russ 

Here is a crop of a simple render I did using the Sabrina character and the Amarseda hair.  Lighting was simple, a mesh main on the left and a much weaker mesh fill on the right.  Everything was enclosed in a large matte black cube.

I turned the gloss of the hair way down from the default that Reality had set.  I let it render for 40 hours.  My question is, even after all this time, there are still red speckles in the shadow area of the hair.  How can I get rid of that?

I still don't understand why my Intel Core 2 Quad system renders so slowly.  I guess I will just keep tinkering until I get it figured out.

  ~ Russ  (a.k.a. Ansel)

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

  ~ Russ 

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

  ~ Russ

OK, a reinstall did the trick, thanks, Bob.  I have no idea what I did to break it, but it's working now, so all is good.

I have a couple more questions.  Attached is a recent effort.  I'm getting a rather glaring and embarassing "poke-through."  Her top appears fine in the DS preview but obviously LUX seems to have X-ray vision.  How do I fix this?  Is this where D-formers come in?

Also, the tiles on the fountain and on the wall look blurry, where in the DS preview they seem much sharper.  Does anyone have any idea why?

  ~ Russ 

Hi Gang:

I've been doing a little housekeeping in my DS file directory, and I seem to have messed up my Reality props.  I used to find them under Content Library > DAZ Studio Formats > Reality-Add-ons, but they are no longer there.  Did I screw up the directory where they are stored?  Where should they be, under my "Studio" directory?

The plug-in itself is fine, and I am able to call Reality off the Render menu.

  ~ Russ 

I changed all the skin surfaces to matt, no other adjustments.  I should have adjusted the lip gloss down, I'll try fixint that in post.  There is something odd about her eyelashes too, which I will also play with in post.

Next I need to figure out how you do the trick with a null object and focusing the camera so I can enable DoF.  My first experiments have been failures.

I'm also going to try the new version of Lux, with the hope that I can enable my GPU and cut the render time.

  ~ Russ  (a.k.a. Ansel)

I have a serious question for y'all.  It is sort of OT, sort of not.  I've been exploring DS/Reality/LUX and have finally begun to be able to get decent renders out of this combination, though it is slow to render on my 4yo Core 2 Quad CPU.

I see that Smith has a 60% off sale going right now, and I am considering picking up a copy of Poser at this great price.  My question is, am I going to get anything significant by doing this that I don't have with DS/Reality/LUX?  I have seen lots of stunning renders out of Poser, but the stuff I've seen coming out of our combination is certainly stunning as well.

What are you guys' thoughts on adding Poser to the toolkit?  Advantages, disadvantages, or any other guidance you care to share.

  ~ Russ 

Quote - Here you go, for those interested. The chair, table and glass used in my render.

Custom OBJ files

Wow, awesome, thanks so much!

  ~ Russ