Memory Lane by longprong
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Description
I decided to dig into runtime files from years ago and excavate Victoria 4 but what a baptism of torment it turned out to be.
I had forgotten just how much old Poser and Vicky 4 material still exists on my external drives.
Locating the files was my first challenge and then compiling them in a runtime that Daz would recognise and work with.
Next was to relearn how to navigate the runtime folders to find what I want, remembering now that different venders had a habit of locating files like textures in different directories to others.
Then other venders changed the product name across different directories just to add more confusion - the files in Figures going in a directory bearing their name and the textures in the Pose (or sometimes Materials) directory bearing the product name........
Anyway once started I was determined to get some semblance of understanding and see how it would render out.
At this point I remembered Iray and realised that all my old textures will need to be Irayed to look right.
So what started as an idle enquiry became a couple of hours down memory lane tackling all those Vicky 4 idiosyncrasies like shoulders misaligning and falling apart when posing not to mention everything poking through and needing endless tweaks.
The resulting image is a collection of some forgotten Vicky 4 characters and dated accessories brought together just to prove to myself that I could get them to render.
There's a few faults I've seen with this post render but its an exercise, and though an interesting one it is unlikely I'll be repeating it any time soon
I have credited the Rendo V4 ladies and the matriarch bless her is Mollie from Daz
Plus Ali Hairs HR096 and HR124 which I cannot credit on Rendo ?
Comments (24)
longprong
Chuckle........there had to be some poke through that I missed aligning with all that clothing........and yes........ I've found it
eekdog Online Now!
super work with this group of characters LP, wonderful image indeed.
makennedy
You did fine I think, trying to pose that many characters and cloth in one scene is very ambitious. Nice one...
MollyFootman
Heh. If your runtime is anything like mine (and is sounds possibly worse!) this is truly a Herculean task to complete! Nice job and it's a great reminder how versatile ol' V4 was/is.
Molly
longprong
Thanks for taking a look and commenting Molly. TBH my old V4 vintage Rendo runtime was no longer active so had to be uncompressed / resurrected and added as an additional library under Poser Formats to my Daz library. Fun to get my head around how it used to be done.........so much easier today eh.......but then I note that you are still using Poser so will undoubtedly have never left the Runtime zone :)
RodS
Oh, trust me.... I feel your pain.... Which is why long ago, I sub-divided my runtimes into sub-divided sub-divisions of sub-divided..... Stuff... Seriously, I have them all in separate categories like V4 characters, V4A4 characters, V4A4G4 characters and so on. Same with clothes, and footwear. Then there's stuff like props divided into categories like vehicles, weapons, environments, and so on. I'd never find stuff otherwise. It's even a challenge sometimes with Poser's search function.
If I ever get my DAZ machine sorted out, it'll be fun getting all those runtimes and such reinstalled - although I've used a similar setup for DAZ.
Remember.... We do this for the love of art. Either that or we're bat-s##t crazy! π€£ And I still use the heck out of those V4 ladies.. LOL
Looks good here, sir!
longprong
Yes RodS you are so right about having separate runtimes for everything. I used this method in the past and even compiled runtimes dedicated to particular scenes I was creating for ease of access. With regard to Daz content I find Daz Central a really good way to search for and locate content and once used I would not be without it......but so much of my resources have come from the likes of Rendo, shareCG and FoRender etc.
Saby55
You did a very nice job on this lovely scene ππββοΈ
starship64 Online Now!
Fantastic work!
gaius
I know what you mean ! this is why I leave those old products alone ! The worst, in my opinion, is not that creators have changed the names of their products, it's the fact they've got big heads...and instead of calling a character by its name, say Lolotte ! they call it Mr X (the name of the artist) Lolotte or worse, if you buy a Daz product, it's IMOOO788 something and at the very end the name of the product ! That said, your image is perfect.
Kordouane
It isbeautiful this rendering my friend !!
paul_gormley
that really pulls at the cords of nostalgia and brings a smile
jdwtrxk
I think we're all going to run this exercise as some point. It's a little daunting to think of all the products we've bought and phased out or forgotten, and some of them aren't bad when tweaked or set up in the right scene, Then you throw in the changes in names, paths, and whatnot and it only gets worse. I started after V4 so I've missed out on all of that, but Genesis series characters might offer the same joys down the road...
That said, you did a pretty good job with those relics :)
sissywoods
Grandma? Oh wait, it's just a very nice pic by long prong. Does bring back warm fuzzy feelings, thanks.
anitalee
Excellent
JohnnyM
You put all these V4 characters on this scene together...I am impressed! Excellent work and well done!
I agree with you on how difficult it is to find an item in the runtime! I work primarily with Poser and Studio Max and find the runtime in Poser to be a challenge, as I have never taken the time to rename and organize the directories. It would have been best if the content providers were all on the same page when it came to naming the directories where all these items end up. :-)
madame
Wow, I love this style of images, beautiful posing and rendering work... great looking work !! Iβm doing the same exercise than you some of my runtimes are old from the Poser 4 version until the last one. Itβs quite a challenge but Iβll also repeat it when I will have time !
RubyTuesday70
Wow, sounds like you really had your hands full with this one, I love the result though. It seems like the wackiest of reunions where each individual has different personalities. And it doesn't take long to understand who's the boss, lol!
I had such a messed up runtime the first time around. Then I started using Poser and started from scratch, trying to organise thing better. But it wasn't enough. So when I got Poser 12 last January I decided to start from scratch again, only this time I have separate runtimes for almost everything (hair, structures, clothing, animals etc). I still use Gen 4 so I put them in their own runtimes, for example. It can still be messy because some things are for both V4 and LF, but I seem to be able to find my way around now. One thing is certain, I only do manual installs, I unzip in a temp folder, rename things and them put them in the definitive runtime.
longprong
What you say is def the way to go. I would do the same if I decided to resurrect these old assets permanently
dakotajaroo
a nice compilation V4
Ken _Gilliland
nice work!
romangirl
Yes and I still use the heck out of V4 ladies And M4 men. Great job!
jmattatall
Great idea
MajinBoo
Love the filter look to give it a slightly aged look. Of course I still use Poser and V4 regularly but I do have a deep runtime too.
jdwtrxk
Lot of work but it looks great. Have a few 4s in my externals also - think they'll say there.
nefertiabet
Beautiful characters !!!π
Flint_Hawk
That was a lot of work you did! The results made it worth it though!