Monthly Archives: March 2012

Any new scene pack from Stonemason is guaranteed success. The latest such is the just-released “stand-alone 360 degree environment” called Return To The Enchanted Forest, which is now on the DAZ Store for DAZ Studio and Poser. It looks like a darker and moodier version of his existing Enchanted Forest pack. Perfect for dark fairy-tales…

My Survey of 3D assets for Space Art for users of Poser 9 / Poser Pro 2014 / and DAZ Studio.

Part One: planets and planet surfaces.

1. Planetary bodies:

Landing Zone’s Mophing Terrains will quite easily get you a unique rugged planetoid or moon, although it’s showing its age and the textures look a little soupy today…

One could, with a few tweaks and a new sky, double for Mars or Tatooine or similar…

Planet X for Poser. Spheres specially UV mapped for the various planet textures available for free…

“Textures are no problem for this model. UV mapped to accommodate the wealth of 2:1 textures available from the likes of NASA, content providers, and enthusiasts across the web, a simple search will begin to yield a galaxy of planets”

You can find a really nice 2:1 texture set for alien planets via MyClone…

Planet Suite for Poser (doesn’t work in DAZ)…

“is a collection of medium and high polygon 3D planets and celestial bodies. There is an Earth-like layered planet with separate surface, clouds and atmosphere, a sun, a moon, a generic planet with no atmosphere, a ringed planet, an asteroid, an asteroid field and a star field.The planets are surfaced entirely with Poser’s shader nodes so they can be rendered at virtually any size, without fear of pixellation.”

Over on the DAZ Store, there’s the ‘Strange Worlds: Planet Pack’…

Lucky DAZ Carrara users have the Home Planet pack…

2. Photoshop plugins:

Photoshop users can make their own 2D backdrops for Poser and DAZ by using the Gitterator starfield and nebulae plugin, and the LunarCell planet making plugin. SolarCell can also make flare effects, as can Star Spikes. And if you need quick efficient water, they also have Flood.

3. Space Panorama Systems:

The DAZ Store has The Heart of Space, and Heart of Space 2: Nebulas, both addon packs for the Millennium Environment pack. Although the ME pack backdrops have started to look increasingly low-res as the years have gone by, and possibly these Space packs have suffered the same fate? Please comment if you know different.

4. Special Effects:

Space Explosions for Poser is a set of animated explosions.

5. Atmospheres:

Horizons with the Atmospheres Pack…

“Bring your Poser spacecraft into close orbit around strange new worlds, with the Horizons morphing scenery pack. Horizons is a terrain set complete with morphing water, clouds and land layers, as well as two separate cloud and land figures to allow you to create different effects by merging using extra layers. With morphs to curve it into a planetary horizon and seven different terrain morphs, you can achieve a wide range of scenes with as much or as little horizon curve as you need.”

There’s also a special SF version of Atmospheres/Weird Weather…

Spaceport scenes and the like would benefit from Fog Tool Deluxe III for DAZ and Poser, which is available on the DAZ Store…

There’s a quick tutorial for Fog Tool Deluxe here. And a Poser Pro free materials upgrade for Fog Tool.

There’s also a useful short volumetric “light cone” tutorial for Poser, at 3D Artist, perhaps useful for Sparth-like spaceport scenes…

Spaceport scenes could also benefit from the use of various greebles packs, intended for use in the middle and far distance, of which Stonemason’s is perhaps the best known…

Number three in this series is… my close frottage of some of the more striking steampunk clothing, available for DAZ Studio / Poser 9 / Poser Pro 2014…

Victoria 4:

The core DAZ/Poser female outfit is Lady LittleFox’s SteamPunk for V4, of which there are now also many retexture variants available. This being one of the subtlest and less gaudy…

You can also buy the same Accessories for V4 seperately and at less cost.

The other major V4 steampunk outfit is (or was) Acherontia Finery and its Apteromata Flight addon…

Sadly, though, both these appear to have been withdrawn from sale recently (they were available until a few months ago).

Less fantastical Victorian-era daywear can also be had for V4, in various forms, although not a great deal.

Rather unusual, and worth noting, is this V4 Mechanica No.5 mechanical doll… Was at RuntimeDNA, now appears to be lost.

Micheal 4:

Sadly I really couldn’t find anything I’d really want to use on Micheal 4. Perhaps Poser/DAZ users are meant to be satisfied with a Vicky-only lesbian adventure…

The best I’ve found is EF-Steampunk for M4, although it’s a little too “Wild West” for my purist English tastes.

There’s also this awesome Steam Powered Armor for Michael 4… Was at RuntimeDNA, now appears to be lost.

And the Space Defenders: Commander for M4 suit could double up, with some retexturing, as an Imperial airship commander’s uniform…

Micheal 3:

Possibly Micheal 4’s neo-Victorian wardrobe is so lacking because the market was saturated for M3 — there’s a fine variety of older M3 Victorian clothes to be found by searching the DAZ Store for “19th Century”…

David:

The Edwardian Casual Suit for David 3 had this rather nice working-class addon, “J. Buckley”…

Dr. Pitterbill:

SteamPunk for Pitterbill…

Pitterbill also has a couple of “Han Solo -style” steampunk outfits from Jonnte, although these seem more Wild West than English Victorian.

More exciting is this SteamPunk Scientist hat…

Plain OBJ or Poser-only personal props:

Hat Set Steampunk gives the standard base for a helmet and goggles, on which one can build.

There are also various types of more elaborate goggles available, to which you can fit your own oculars (some come with such attachments) such as these…

Steampunk Armor for Poser also looks rather cool for a Time Traveller -style inventor character…

Steampunk Tobacco Pipes…

The DAZ Store has a nice Steampunk Explorer mask for entering the sewers and the like….

And Jonnte has a SteamPunk Protective Mask, although it needs to be severely dirtied up…

That’s it. I might have a look at weapons for the next installment.

Here’s my survey of some of the various quality steampunk transportation, available for DAZ Studio / Poser 9 / Poser Pro 2014 …

Personal street transport:

The classic early Victorian mode of personal transportation, the Penny Farthing by Traveler…

Something that could look home-brew steam powered (add a steam boiler and a retexture), is Oskarsson’s Steampunk Transport1…

And at the top of the range in road transport is the Steampunk Coach…

There’s also a nice SteamPunk Mechanica II Monocycle.

Those in need of an early car should look at the Steampunk Carriage.

Airships:

A pretty good work-horse of the air is 1971s’s Vacuum Zeppelin for Poser…

Also look at this excellent free airship from Adm on Archive 3D. Like most Archive 3D models, the textures are missing and you will have to retexture by hand…

If you want a leviathan-class airship, Meshbox’s Clockwork Steampunk Zeppelin 1888 should fit the bill. It also has its own Docking Towers…

The Steampunk Cathederal for Poser also has an airship docking tower. This one looks best in Poser, and even then may need some texturing.

Hot-air balloons:

There are many conventional balloon models. But this delightful steampunk hot-air balloon is something special, with a flag texture and brass bathysphere-type basket…

Going underground, not into the air? Try this Meshbox Clockwork Steampunk Digger…

Going underwater? Try this free one-person submarine, Senya’s Submarine for Poser…

Or try 1971s’s Steam Fish for Poser…

Also look at the excellent and authentic free Turtle, although you will need to convert it from Sketchup…

For something more Nemo-esque there’s also a very nice Meshbox Submarine, although it’s only available as a freebie if you buy the whole of the Meshbox Clockwork Vol.1 series…

The best of the free 3D Warehouse steampunk models are all collected in this comprehensive collection.

Another installment of the Steampunk Survey, soon!

Here are a few of what I think are the best scene assets for Victorian steampunk renders and animations in Poser 9 / Poser 2012 / DAZ Studio:

Old England room…

Steampunk Timelab (makes sure you get the Poser, and not the Vue, version), and a cool boiler which would suit the lab nicely…

The DAZ Store’s The Enigma could also fit in a Lab nicely…

The following three Meshbox scenes, and the trolley bus, are part of the larger Steampunk City Volume 1:

Meshbox Fantasy Crystal Palace…

Meshbox Charles Babbage’s Thinking Mansion…

Meshbox Baker Street Construction Set…

For a more interesting roofline, combine Baker Street with the NeverHome pack, available on the DAZ Content Store. Suitable street accessories for Baker Street, from smaller developers, would be the SteamPunk WheelChair, and a free MIDI-powered Victorian street organ…

Also suitable for the street is the Steampunk Clockwork Trolley-Bus (yes, there were steam-powered trams, in the early days) which is almost a complete environment in itself…

The DAZ Store’s Rybolt Mechanical would nicely complement the Bot Shop…

And the DAZ Store has set of Steampunk Tools and Machinery for the lab (I found the textures on these are best in Poser)…

Good for simple posing of characters against are: DM’s Clock for Poser and DM’s Inertia for Poser and the DAZ Store’s Steampunk Empire…

That’s it for now. Clothing, goggles, headwear, and rifles/guns will be covered in a future post on this blog. I’ve also noticed that there’s a number of elements now that could called “valvepunk” or “Teslapunk” — I’ll also survey those in a future post.