News about the DAZ Studio and Poser software

Monthly Archives: July 2019

Neobarok

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Neobarok. The alpha for 2.0 was previewed a year ago. 2.0 is now being trailed on the site.

Totally free open source software, from one developer. Intuitive modelling and sculpting, with easy boolean and also paint.

It has good video reviews, and it looks quite promising for 2.0. There’s .OBJ export, but so far as I can tell there’s no in-software rendering of what you see to a big 3000px .PNG file. The best you can get there is switch to hi-res, go fullscreen, and take a PrintScreen screenshot.

There are some introductory tutorials and the maker has a DeviantArt gallery.

The most vital first-step in using it is quite tricky, until you get the hang of it. To rotate:

1. First press down and HOLD the RIGHT mouse button.
2. Then do the same with LEFT mouse button, so that both buttons are held down.
3. Then move the mouse to rotate the view.

Do not just press both buttons simultaneously, as that won’t work.

It’s not insanely complicated like some software, although the basic camera and move controls are not initially very intuitive or standard. Let’s hope 2.0 has a camera widget like Poser.

Release round-up

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Some release notes of interest, re: recent releases in budget/free software and/or comics and non-photoreal rendering.

* The latest version of PD Howler is available, as Howler 2020 (Windows only) at $77 before discounts. The big changes seem to be a revamp of the legacy brush engine, new paper textures, and rationalised de-cluttered media presets.

* The free Krita 4.2.3 (17th July) is only a minor update, but makes the 4.2 (May 2019) brushes even slicker.

* Just released, a new version of Cinema 4D R21, although I can see nothing on the feature list to interest Poser users or users of C4D’s Sketch & Toon module. However, it’s important to note that there’s now no more confusion between Prime / Visualize / Broadcast / Studio / BodyPaint editions of C4D — they’re all gone. Everything is now in the one edition. Apparently Internet access and online log-in is now required with each launch, with this edition. It doesn’t work with the PoserFusion plugin, and for that you want R17 (which also, rather usefully, doesn’t need the Internet).

* The Release Candidate for Blender 2.8 is now available, as Blender continues to grind its interminable way to the final final really-final-we-mean-it-now honest-it’s-here-at-last 2.8 release.

Corel purchased

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Wow, even Corel Corp. is not immune to being purchased. A big investment firm has just bagged Corel for an undisclosed sum. The press-release mentions Parallels, which was purchased by Corel in 2018, and one suspects that this was the main prize rather than the Corel’s creative tools…

“Parallels enables seamless delivery of virtual desktops and applications to any device; running Windows on a Mac; Mac management with Microsoft SCCM; remote access to PCs and Mac computers from any device”

It also mentions…

“ClearSlide, a sales engagement platform leader that enables sales, marketing, and service teams to drive more successful customer interactions.”

Again, something purchased by Corel relatively recently in 2017.

Sounds to me like these generic ‘doing business’ tools were what the investors were after, and not the ageing graphics software such as Painter, PaintShop Pro, and CorelDraw.

Release: MagicTints 1.0

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Just released, an interesting new “tint transfer” engine for Photoshop called MagicTints 1.0. I especially like the apparently semi-generative ability to…

“iterate through moods, matte color spaces and ideas”

It needs a later CC 2014+ versions of Photoshop and it works as a Panel. There’s a 15-day demo.

I’d just suggest that someone wanting to save $39 could probably wait six months on this. To find that something very similar has been added to G’MIC, and thus to Krita, for free. G’MIC already has 2D style-transfer, auto-colour of line-art, and automatic greyscale-to-colour (see below)… and thus instant-and-acceptable tint-transfer between 2D pictures can’t be far behind.

Cartoon Animator 4: new 360 head tutorials

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Whatever you may think about ‘the ultimate price-tag’ on Reallusion’s software, or the radical UI makeover and new render-engines in iClone, as a company they do provide excellent support and tutorials. And the new Cartoon Animator 4 is fine software which is also useful for comics makers of a certain type. Today Reallusion uploaded an hour of detailed new tutorials on the vital skill of how to set up a “360 head” in their new Cartoon Animator 4 software…

Basics of Head Composition in CTA 4, and Full 360 Degree Head Creation Part 1 and Part 2.

There’s also a new 20 minutes video that dives into the details of all the Face Key Editor Enhancements in CTA4, which offers the user detailed creative control over the resulting frame-by-frame animation.

DAZ Studio 4.11 – new strand hair and a denoiser for iRay

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The new DAZ Studio 4.11 is available,. It’s been out a few weeks now, but as usual it seems impossible to find a full official changelog via search. The main new things in 4.11 are…

1) a new and much-needed Denoiser for iRay renders, to remove the speckles, grain and fireflies. Several tests I’ve seen suggest this works fairly well.

2) the new dForce-enabled strand hair. I’ve seen some fiddly-looking tutorials, but as yet no one-click preset packs which offer nice furry makeovers for popular DAZ creatures. I assume it increases render time, and apparently it often doesn’t play nicely with the new Denoiser.

Note that the Denoiser is GPU (graphics card) only. Those who, like me, run their occasional iRay renders with Scene Optimizer + CPU seem unlikely to see the Denoiser in action.

Release: Flowscape 1.3

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FlowScape 1.3 is out, and the most stable way for purchasers to get this $10 landscape tool is via the Itch downloader/loader.

New are…

* a basic ‘first draft’ implementation of a terrain-sculpting tool. The maker says “ideally you want to sculpt the terrain before you place anything” on it. “Also if you save and reload, it does weird things if you try and sculpt some more.”

* paint paths, which seems to mean that you can easily lay down footpaths and trackways with a paintbrush.

* 12 new skies.

* a collection of ships.

* six “snowy mountain pieces”, for backdrops.

* “lava and ice options”, as well as water.

* more save slots.

* the overlay grid opacity can be changed, which is useful for RPG map makers.

* water can be made more reflective in top-down-RPG views, so it shows up better.

* “pressing SHIFT will let you rotate”, and this seems to mean rotate a prop with the mouse wheel when placing it on the terrain.