Even more Black Friday weekend additions:
* At last, Comic Life 3 for Mac & Windows, $14.99.
* 10% off on Cinema 4D, today only.
* Reallusion has Cartoon Animator 4 for $129.00, CrazyTalk 8 for $99.
Monthly Archives: November 2019
Black Friday: the weekend newbs
Black Friday weekend update:
* Richard Rosenman has 40% off his fine Photoshop plugins, many suitable for science-fiction pictures, with a coupon code: BLK40
* Quadspinner has 25% off their Gaea landscape software, until 2nd December.
* The Blender Market has 25% discounts.
M4, V4, H4 and A4 base figures – all for $6 in a bundle
M4, V4, Hiro 4 and Aiko 4 base figures, currently on the DAZ Store for $6 in the Black Friday sale. They’re in the “Anime Manga Starter Bundle”. Also, the ++ morphs packs are over in the Victoria 4.2 Starter Bundle and Michael 4 Starter Bundle, both $5 each. Also down at $5 is the M4/V4 Creature Creator Bundle.
Epic landscapes
Eugh, now my PayPal really is cleaned out right down to the bare bones, with nothing left for a Blambot font on Monday. Oh well. A final $20 went on three superb Vue landscapes from RaffyRaffy at CG Trader, at 50% off. These had been 30% off, but have gone down even further for Black Friday.
Black Friday: further additions
* The ArtStation Marketplace now has its sale on. Seems to be around 50% off on most items, although huge landscapes are only about 10% off.
* Topaz Labs has 50% off bundles, today only. Not including Topaz Clean 3, regrettably.
* 50% off Vue subscriptions, including annual.
No sign of any price movement from Comic Life.
News on Poser 11.3
A new official post today on “What’s planned for Poser Pro 11.3?”. The gist of it is…
* Wizards, to help ensure that your render settings are efficiently set up.
* In-software help for newbies to install new content in the runtime.
* The L’Homme male character, as a partner for the new flagship female La Femme.
* Improvements to the clothing fitting tools.
* “You’ll be able to buy Poser on DVD through Amazon” before Christmas.
* A key maker of the early Poser software, Larry Weinberg, has returned as a senior developer on Poser.
Sounds good, and the DVD will be good news for those in places such as the wilds of Australia or Canada with slow broadband or only metered connectivity. Good for gifting, too.
On the new render Wizards, I’d suggest that the Sketch Designer render Wizard should offer a one-click button to… “Turn off all sketching into the scene’s Background”. Since that’s the thing that either makes Sketch rendering very slow and/or crashes Poser.
Black Friday: a few more additions
A few more additions for the Black Friday list…
* PoserWorld.com has 30% – 50% discounts via a coupon.
“50% off sale on Black Friday which lasts 24 hours! 50% off Muvizu [software] and all content packs.”
* Keyshot have announced unspecified discounts for Friday.
* The OpenGL real-time U-Render for Cinema 4D, 33% off.
* 3D-Coat. Unspecified discounts on Friday.
* 40% off HitFilm (the “poor man’s After Effects”). Just keep in mind that, as with all video editing, you’ll need a beast of a PC.
Black Friday: Poser Pro 11 for $164
Renderosity has just launched their 50% store-wide sale for Black Friday, so there’s a chance to get items that didn’t feature in the rolling 70% selected-vendor sales over the last month.
A few items are omitted, such as PhilC’s $30 Python for Poser manual. A pity, as I’d have gone for that at $15. I guess it was counted as “software” and thus not included.
Still, they managed to ding me for another final $15…
Even the Poser software itself is down in price, by a small amount. Poser Pro 11 is now $164 (was $199). Upgrades from $82.
The marketing text on the page is a bit weird. The software is prominently classified under “La Femme Pro – Female Poser Figure”, and the page text opens “Please go to PoserSoftware.com/store to download this free update for Poser 11 owners!”. That double-confusion is likely enough to make newbies back off, wondering if the page is actually selling the software itself or not. But the price shows it to be Poser Pro 11.
Over at the DAZ Store they have 20% off Gift Cards, for one day only. My Wish List there is also still showing plenty of 50%-70% discounts, though nothing compelling at the low end. The Look at My Hair plugin and RSSY 3Delight to Iray Converter are both 50% off.
Black Friday 2019 – the round-up
The DAZ Store and Xurge 3D, maker of top-quality armour and uniforms for M4 and V4.
Heavy discounts and a $59 ‘all-you-can-download lifetime offer’, at Teknology3d. Sadly they have a new-look site and my old log-in from a few years ago no longer works.
A small sale at Hivewire including AniBlocks for the HiveWire House Cat. Also ‘Ants of the World’ for Poser, which I don’t think I knew even existed. They can presumably be scaled up into house-sized 1950s atomic-mutant ants…
CGTrader has lots of 30-50% off items (but keep in mind that they add local Sales Tax at the Checkout!):
Poser & DAZ | Sort by Lowest Price
KitBash3d has 50% off its store.
The XFrog store has 60% off. Contrary to the name, they make quality realistic 3D trees and plants not frogs.
An “up to 70%” sale on around 5,000 game assets in the Unreal Marketplace. There may well be some stuff that can be got out to .OBJ, of interest to those who need large lightweight landscapes done in geometry rather than as domes / backdrops.
And “up to 50% off” at the similar Unity store. The Diesel machines constructor kitbash kit apparently has 220 items, for instance.
No sign of anything happening at the ArtStation store.
GarageFarm.NET has “up to 40% extra” render credits for its render farm. They support Vue 2015 and 2016, but not the new subscription Vue.
The similar RebusFarm also has extra render credits.
Blambot comics lettering fonts have a 30% off Cyber Monday sale coming up. No sign of anything happening at ComicCraft.
Slight discounting on PzDB with 1.2 down to $32. Highly recommended if you have a huge Poser runtime.
Corel has 15% off Corel Painter 2019.
Serif / Affinity has 30% off its budget “Adobe-killer” products, including Publisher and Designer.
Marvelous Designer’s “personal perpetual” licences are reduced to $340 until 31st December.
No signs of any movement on the price of Comic Life 3 or JitBit Macro. But Clip Studio Paint is now 50% off. Keep in mind that only the EX version has multi-page support, and that Comic Life has multi-page and is far easier to use.
And lastly, completely free… the new Krita 4.2.8! Krita is also good for comics production, if you jiggle it a bit.
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Updated script – ReplaceTexture
I’ve just spotted that Semicharm’s free Poser script ReplaceTexture V1.1 had a May 2019 update. Now works with older versions of Poser.
Just a few easy in-situ clicks to replace a texture and all instances of it, with the option to shift Gamma too.
Not sure that it works with Poser 11, though. It doesn’t give errors in Poser 11, but it only lists one material on a selected character rather than the expected enormous list.
Blambot comics font sale
Blambot will be having a sale soon. They specialise in digital comic book fonts, quality but at a significantly lower cost than ComicCraft.
Their sale will start next Monday, albeit only as a 30%-off sale, and will run through 6th December 2019.
I like the look of the $20 Big Bad Bold, although my Black Friday PayPal stash has already been drained by sub $5-ers at Renderosity and DAZ.
In the meantime, Digital Strip 1 and Digital Strip 2 are free. Also Milk Mustache which is a more causal webcomic font.
Daedalus Sky Mercenary
I’ve had time to toon-test a recent purchase, the Daedalus Sky Mercenary for M3. Picked up for $3 from the DAZ Sale.
It all worked fine except for the inner uniform-jacket, which has un-solveable problems at the neck on even a standard t-posed M3. Possibly it was made for an earlier version of M3? Or for an M3 with a particular set of morphs applied? I replaced it with a sweater from the UziliteM3 BAM set, and did the “apply the b&w bump map to the diffuse” trick to lighten it up and show ribbing in Preview. Standard Poser 11 “Basic Materials” were dropped on the trousers and boots, these being linen and leather, so it looks better in real-time Preview. Predatron’s M4 Max Muscles mustache was added as a final touch, also picked up for $3 in the sale.
Still in need of an inner waistcoat, and a lot more optimisation of materials for Comic Book Preview mode.
Some useful tips when searching for steampunk menswear: the Americans call a waistcoat a “vest”, a jumper a “sweater”, and trousers “pants”. Similarly, “mustache” and “moustache” are easily confused.
Dante78 70% sale
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Posted in Poser, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News, Vue
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It’s the Dante78 70% sale at Renderosity. While you may think that your bulging Runtime can’t take any more medieval stuff, this is top quality and the prices are very low.
Advice from FSMCDesigns on the forums for DAZ users of these Poser models, re: iRay rendering of these in DAZ Studio…
With Dante78 products, turn down the Specular and change the color in the Diffuse channel to white” for iRay.
How to easily combine and merge selected sub-folders in Windows
Problem: You have a massive .ZIP or .RAR file, perhaps an old archive of Poser content you archived a decade or more ago. It has a structure that looks like this:
MyAmazingContent1
| Runtime
|Textures
|Libraries
|Geometries
MyAmazingContent2
| Runtime
|Textures
|Libraries
|Geometries
MyAmazingContent3
| Runtime
|Textures
|Libraries
|Geometries
What you want to do: You want to extract just the sub-folders named “Runtime”, combining them into a single new folder named Runtime, while keeping their lower directory structure intact-but-merged. Because that’s what you’re going to need to do, to merge them back into your main Poser Runtime folder and thus make them usable.
The solution: It can be done quite simply in Windows, and without freeware or command-line code or PowerShells. And without several-hundred tedious manual click-copy-merge operations.
1. First, simply extract the entire .ZIP file. (Don’t waste time messing around with tricky command-line controls for the like of 7-Zip and WinRAR, trying to extract just the Runtime folders. You may be able to do that, but you won’t also get the merged sub-folder structure you want).
2. Now open the resulting extracted folder with the standard Windows Explorer. Add there a new empty sub-directory called Runtime, as a newly added folder among all the extracted folders. We’ll be using it a few steps later.
3. Now use Windows Explorer to keyword search inside your huge extracted mega-folder for the word “Runtime”. A huge list of sub-folders will appear as the search results…
4. Shift-click and scroll on these found Runtime folders to select them all. Then right-click and copy-paste them into the top level of your newly extracted folder. NOT directly into the new Runtime sub-folder we just created. Windows 8’s mighty cyber-brain then spots the empty Runtime folder and thinks… “so that’s where all these same-name folders should go, ok let’s merge ’em all in!”
This method works and takes advantage of an auto-merge feature in Windows, which many Poser folks used to manually dealing with installing to runtimes will be aware of. If you copy-paste a folder with the same name, it merges without any fuss. Thus, in this case, your 250+ Runtime folders become one, while retaining their sub-folder structure…
| Runtime
|Textures
|Libraries
|Geometries
All our Runtime folders are now nicely amalgamated, and ready for a final check and then to be copy-merged in the same way into the main Runtime used by Poser.
Just note that those still on Windows 7 may get a prompt about merging. On Windows 8, you won’t, it’ll just go ahead and do it. I’ve no idea about Windows 10, but I assume it behaves much the same as Windows 8.
New DAZ and Poser items for November 2019
My blog’s last monthly survey of new DAZ/Poser content was 27th October. I’m conscious that Black Friday is coming soon, and I don’t want to collide too closely with that. So… here’s a slightly earlier-than-usual survey-pick of November 2019’s newly released store items and freebies. As usual freebies are only covered if they’re commercial use.
Science fiction:
Astromaster. Nice, with a Star Trek vibe but not fan-art.
The FuryX future-car for DAZ Studio.
My Place for Poser and Daz Studio, an unusual sci-fi window scene. The dystopian distant scene could be easily replaced by something more likely at that level of technology.
Need more pipes for My Place? The new Flex Pipes set.
A cool sci-fi assets kit for a mere $10 from Jean-Francois Liesenborghs. Sadly only for 3DS Max, though.
Crew of Solaris 2019 bundle. One of a growing series of pose bundles targetted at popular DAZ Store sci-fi ships and vehicles.
Note that Predatron also has four of his own Solaris pose sets on the DAZ Store, though only for Genesis 8 Male.
Vanguard IV for Poser, a Thunderbirds-style car which kind-of recalls the old Gerry Anderson supercars. But, so far as I can tell, it isn’t fan-art.
A Planet of the Apes style Underground War Room with doomsday warhead. Again, not close enough to be fan-art.
Steampunk:
Steampunk Classic for Genesis 8 Male.
At The Helm poses, a free set for G8 and a recent airship model.
Merchant Airship for Daz Studio by 1971s. 1971s is getting his large Poser range converted for iRay materials, and has some others already converted.
Victorian Microscopy set.
The Raypunk Santa for Poser, being Santa in a steampunk spacesuit. From Meshbox, and now also on Renderosity.
Free Bus Poses for G3 & G8 for the Maxis Bus.
Dieselpunk:
A free Wedell Williams Model 44 Air racer for DAZ Studio. A nice classic late-1930s racing plane for your dieselpunk scenes.
And a free Vintage Style Hanger for DAZ Studio to go with the plane. There’s even a free pilot pose.
A 1920s/30s SW LadySmith revolver.
Mafia Environment Bundle for DAZ Studio and a Vintage Slot Machine from the same era.
Halloween:
A few late Halloween items which I didn’t catch on my last survey.
The Obelisk for DAZ Studio with iRay. An adaptable eldritch marker, for free.
Highly detailed Vampire coffin suited to close-ups.
Fleshy Demon Wings for Genesis 3 and Genesis 8. 45 morphs, and judging by the previews they can be somewhat folded up at the back.
Satyr with dForce Hair for Genesis 8 Male. Not thick enough on the thighs for a classical faun, but that’s likely fixed with a few tweaks.
Storybook:
Father Christmas for Poser. The Meshbox character, now on Renderosity. For an alternative staff, there’s also a Young Santa for Poser from Meshbox.
A free set of Colourful Lollipops for Poser.
Genesis 8 Young Child Pose – Baseball (a free G8 bat is here), and Grazed Knee pose. Both free for G8. BBarbs also has a new line in free toddler poses, which may be useful if your storybook is for very young children, or requires the star to have baby siblings.
Free Realistic Curtains, for DAZ Studio. Has wind morphs, but no ‘draw-up the stage-curtain’ morphs. But you could simply raise the curtain behind a hidden facade, to make it a dark-red front curtain for a puppet-theatre stage etc.
Landscapes and scenes:
A simple Picket Fence for Poser, with nice micro-detailing and HD textures for close-ups.
Flinks Snow Crystals for Poser and DAZ.
The Orangery. A classic British orangery, a large warm glasshouse for growing citrus fruit in the winter. Of course it could also be filled with Dr. Barmpot’s Barmy Bananas, for a more steampunkish setting.
Heavy haulage:
Need some heavy haulage across your landscapes? Have a look at these new items…
Peterbilt 281 1955. While there are trucks a-plenty elsewhere, often for free, this mid 1950s classic is nicely grunged up with plenty of highway mileage.
A finely detailed GWR Coral A Wagon, a heavy-load rail wagon from DryJack. Apparently intended for shipping plate-glass, but possibly also useful if you need to transport your special alien-destroying whizzbang to the launchpad.
Carrier for Poser, a heavy-load carrier for your desert planet scenes, by Beckhausen. A bit bare on the legs, but Poser’s Hair Room could shaggify the lower legs fairly easily.
Animals:
Underwater Wonders for Poser. A variety of creatures and plants plus a scene-builder. Could be used to help populate the new v176 Iray Coral Reef.
CWRW Silver Stag for Poser and DAZ. Nice but it has a large list of dependencies, requiring HiveWire Horse, HiveWire Mule Deer Buck, and HiveWire Antler Pack.
History and prehistory:
The Colosseum. A complete Roman Arena.
The new Wild Journey Poses Part 1 and Part 2. Human G8 poses for battling wild animals hand-to-tooth, perhaps also useful for gladiator scenes in the Colosseum.
Pirates, All Aboard! Bundle for DAZ Studio. Looks like this has just about everything you’d need to make a pirate epic. Also available in a half dozen or so packs. You may also be wanting the new Photo Props: Wooden Barrels set.
Cave. A nice free stylised pirate-y cave in Bryce and .OBJ format.
A traditional South Sea Islands style dForce Tropical Leaf Outfit for Genesis 8 Male.
People and Animations:
Real Facial Animation for Genesis 8 Males and Females. Expensive but excellent. So far as I know, unique in being quality motion-capture for faces.
Free Fibermesh eyebrows for G8M, and beard stubble.
Utilities and tutorials:
Character Converter from Genesis 8 Male to Genesis 3 Male and Hair Converter from Genesis 8 Male to Genesis 3 Male.
DAZ to Blender 8 at Gumroad. Looks like the best current option, if all you want to do do is take G8 to Blender for sculpting.
FlowScape Tutorial with the maker of this great new $10 landscape software.
That’s it, more pick next month!