Here’s my personal survey of what I think are the most notable items released in mid and late 2016 for the DAZ and Poser content ecosystem. The survey has been made by trawling as far back as I can go on with the store “what’s new” pages, and my wishlists and my runtime. It’s been about ten months since my last such survey.
It’s been another good year for content, but also a year of change at several stores. One of the most notable changes was of course the denuding (and now effective closure) of Runtime DNA. Some content vendors have gone to HiveWire, some to the DAZ Store, a few to their own stores or even into retirement. Buyers may thus see apparently “new things” on stores that are actually older content from RuntimeDNA being transferred and uploaded. Thankfully I was familiar enough with the old RuntimeDNA range to know which items are really new, and which not.
Animals:
New content vendor Herschel Hoffmeyer makes a splash with a big Tyrannosaurus Rex as his first release. Dinoraul has dinosaurs pretty much covered, though, so you have to wonder what other niche Hoffmeyer’s obvious talents will make their mark in. Sci-fi “future-hybrid” creatures, perhaps?
Also making a big splash is The HumpBack Whale, a new highly detailed model with plenty of skins and poses.
The whale might be combined with Sea Beast.
A new cat is always welcome and the HiveWire House Cat and a HiveWire Big Cat and quality kitties.
Cuter still is Fennec for Foxes by AM which is an addon for Foxes by AM. Comes with Look at my Hair fur presets.
The HiveWire Gorilla for Dusk (free) and HiveWire Gorilla Poser fur also looks fun. HiveWire has also rolled out a whole lot of jungle content around their gorilla and big cat.
In that context note also Stonemason’s new Jungle Construction Kit, Abandoned Temple, Mayan Ruins and Fern Lake Bundle. Also the pose set Gladiator for Victoria 7 and Michael 7 where the poses are keyed to fighting a big cat (a DAZ Big Cat 2, rather than the HiveWire ones) hand-to-claw.
Talking of nature, it seems that the Poser 11-friendly versions of Vue, such as VUE Studio 2016, have recently been released. Certainly there are viable order pages for them now. Previously it was only the top-of-the-line Vue 2016 that had been released.
In nature there has been a surprising lack of quality small lizards until recently, but now Poser nature expert Ken Gilliland has produced a fine set of Nature’s Wonders: Lizards of the World which now has four packs. As always with Ken’s careful work, they’re accurate for real species and could be used for illustrations on nature-reserve information boards and booklets. I’d love to see him do a “Lizards of the British Isles” pack sometime, though I guess we’re behind hotter countries that have brighter prettier lizards.
I seem to remember that perhaps half of Ken’s Birds of Prey series for Poser, addons for Songbird Remix, were also newly released in 2016.
Environments and interiors:
Great designers such as Stonemason and 1971s continued to produce very high-quality architecture-based scenes, of course, each in their different way. Other architectural environments I noted were…
Abandoned Lighthouse for a mere $11.95. Vue only. There’s also a lighthouse-style Ham Radio Equipment set for DAZ Studio.
Medieval Scriptorium. There is a lot of medieval stuff around, and it’s easy to get tired of it. But I don’t think I’ve seen a scriptorium around before, and certainly not one this good…
BB3D Environments: Medieval Study could possibly be used as an external corridor with the scriptorium.
Aslan Theater (requires Aslan Court 3 and its Iray Addon)
Classic New York Brownstones of the Greenwich Village type. The perfect home for a 1920s pulp writer, and as such it might be paired with Newsstand.
Beyond the Clock, an unusual “inside the clocktower” interior.
Santa’s Toy Workshop and a very well designed Christmas Snow Globe.
Restricted Zone is usefully generic, lending itself to “Area 52-style” UFO tales or spy/thriller situations.
Faery, wood spirits and similar:
Sticks the Wood Spirit. The fingertips seem a little under-detailed, but most of the time they’re going to be hidden in grass anyway.
I can imagine a storybook where Sticks the Wood Spirit may come out of the woods and live in The Gardeners Potting Shed for a while. Old Garden – Structures could provide additional environment for the Shed. A Typical British Farmyard might also be a setting.
The Forest King for Genesis 3 Male might also play a part in such a story.
Your heroine in such a story might wear the Melidae Crown for Genesis 3 Female.
Dandelion for Genesis 3 Female
Sci-fi:
Spaceship Laboratory and matching Spaceship Command Center and Spaceship Crew Room. All from PerspectX, a new name to me. By another vendor, SS Marcoor Control Room would also fit with these.
Dominator is an all-purpose “destroy the planet!” do-hickey, which can also double up as an invasion fleet.
SciFi Medusa is a future VR helmet with cyber-tentacles!
2075 Feral Assassin X for Genesis 3 Female is an unusual “human kitty”.
Alien Relics and a Planet X-2 and Planet X-3 DAZ Studio landscape for them.
The BnB Cephalotus would make fun ‘alien planet’ plants. What if they arrived on earth? I can imagine a storybook or comic that paired these with the Songbird ReMix Kiwis to comedic effect. The Cephalotus can speak, sing, with lip-sync in Poser.
Flora Imaginarum offers more ‘alien planet’ plants.
Toon:
B-Bot and B-Bot Add On.
Dr Pitterbill Hobo and Dr Pitterbill Hobo Textures, for Nursoda’s Doctor Pitterbill.
Toon Generations 2 for Genesis 3
Missing the great Nursoda? Take a look at Mythical Pixie for Genesis 3 Male and Impish Poses.
Clothing:
As America prepares to get back to work in January, Construction Worker Outfit for Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 looks like a timely addition to the runtime.
Too late now for Christmas but Mr and Mrs Klaus is very professionally designed and detailed.
Horror From the Deep is one for H.P. Lovecraft fans, and there’s also the new Blind Demon which is obviously a Night Gaunt when you add Wings of The Fallen.
Elven Weapon Bundle, worth seeing just for the preview renders alone.
Pioneer Airman for Genesis 3 Male and Female
For a similar but grittier look try Rough Rider for Genesis 3 Male.
Retro Skirt for Genesis 3 Female. The title is a bit confusing, as it seems the jacket is also included. Has a nice sort of “1840s” feel about it, which could make your 1890s steampunk feel a bit fresher.
Wise Sensei for Genesis 3 Male and an Asian River fishing hamlet scene for him. With a bit of tweaking and runtime-bashing he could also pass as a Bronze Age trader in Europe, of the sort found frozen in the ice a few years ago.
Poses:
MightyMite has continued to churn out pack after pack of comic book hero poses, and I’m told they’re good useful stuff. Anyone making superhero comics with Poser no longer needs a ‘pose scrapbook’ or similar, or to scrabble around in other pose sets.
Ironman13 (i13) has produced a much-needed wide range of quality poses and expressions for the DAZ Genesis 3 characters, often with mix-and-matching eye position and hand presets. For instance, i13 All Life’s Pleasures
Hair:
Pompadour Hair for G3M and M7 is a very fashionable style that seems to be worn by all the cool boys these days. Also look at Rodi Clean Cut Hair Style for Genesis 3 Male. Could go well with sci-fi, given a few white/silver shades.
Shaders:
320 x Quality SuperFly Shader Materials for Poser 11 SuperFly renders. Ignore the scary manual — you can just drag-and-drop these onto your model or character, and you don’t need to get into node editing or understanding the mind-bending theory of how such shaders actually work.
Tutorials:
Digital Art Live now has some of their training webinar recordings on the DAZ Store, such as Daz Studio Content Creation Mastery: Rendering Top Promos & Preparing Products for Sale.
Licensing:
There’s now a Stonemason Indie Game Developer License for many of the Stonemason environments.
That’s it!