News about the DAZ Studio and Poser software

Monthly Archives: May 2022

Sketch Master 2018

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Redfield Sketch Master, aka Sketchmaster, now in 2018 (v19.01, January 2019). Who knew?

* Still affordable at $40.

* Windows only. I expect it would not be flummoxed by anything back to Windows XP, but that’s just my guess.

* Now multi-core and with a far bigger preview window (and thus slower than before for previews, about on a par with G’MIC). But much faster at 1000px to actually render a preset to your final image, due to the multi-core support. Not so much faster at 3600px, though… maybe 40% faster. But worth having.

* Ships with wholly new presets. Also appears to have a different or more advanced or canvas-scaled engine, but keeps a very similar UI.

* Installs and runs alongside your old 3.3x version. Does not inherit the old custom presets.

* The new version’s engine is no good for humanising 3D line-art, and for that you need the old 3.3x.

* Requires standard 8-bit images (“Last Draw” save-renders from DAZ are 16-bit, and thus require downsampling before filtering).

* Backup and restore of your saved custom presets is done by the same method. They’re stored in the registry, so you save out a Windows .reg file, thus…

If you’re upgrading your PC to a new one, or a new OS, this is how you transfer your Sketch Master presets.

Poser 11 to .STL

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Newly on Archive.org, Poser -> Rhino -> RepG workflow test by Christopher Corrigan of PRYStudio, uploaded April 2021. May be of interest to those trying to 3D-print Poser props or figures, as it shows it is possible to get…

“a Poser 11 mesh sealed up and put through Rhino [to get printable] .stl and .x3g files”

“Rhino” is a robust old 3D modeller. “RepG” is “ReplicatorG, a simple, open-source 3D printing program”.

Meanwhile… 3D printing with sound waves. Busts of ultrasound insert tiny hot bubbles, that serve to form super-fine details on the figure.

New for Poser and DAZ in May 2022

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Time for another monthly survey of selected new items for Poser and DAZ Studio. In the merry month of May we had, among others…

Science fiction:

Star Hauler Salvage Ship. Possibly fairly close to some branch of the Star Wars franchise? Check before you use it in a comic or book cover.

Sci-Fi Rusty Railyard.

Pandora Greenhouse. Possibly close to fan-art? I hardly recall the Avatar movie at all now.

Fantasy:

Merlin 8.1 Pro Bundle and lots of related accessories. Merlin, ancient British wizard from the time of King Arthur, see the movie Excalibur, etc etc. But here pitched as definitely a bit Gandalf-y.

Don’t overlook the nice CDI Poses for Merlin.

The free Faerie-Folk 2 for Anime Girl Kristin. Also free is the toony Mer-Folk for Anime Girl Kristin.

Azumanji for Genesis 8 Female.

La Femme Chaos Seed.

Myst-type Fantasy Structures vol.1 in .OBJ format. Will also interest Vue artists. Could be paired with the new free Orc Tent Addon for Orc Camp.

Steampunk:

M3D Chuck Hair and Mustache for G8. Modern hipster, 1910s Brooklyn bar-tender, or Aerial Board of Control airship captain.

Chuck Hair may work nicely with the new M3D Chuck.

Walk A Throne.

A big Steampunk Cube from Coflek-Gnorg, which should fit right in alongside DM content in your runtime.

Mecha Fish and Phantoms Lair: Part 1 – Underground Lake.

Free spy stuff from the First and Second World Wars.

Halloween:

Ferryman To the Underworld by Cybertenko. Looks a bit Disney-cheesy “theme park” in the renders, but it could no doubt be made more realistic looking.

Great to see Poisen back with Hed-Bugs.

Faces of Fantasy for M4. Not new, but newly found. Also works with K4, and one hobbit-like body morph.

Toon and comics:

Jolly Mouse and Jollo and Jolly assets including some basic clothes. There are also commercial clothes being made for him, on Renderosity and also ShareCG.

Storybook:

dForce Ladybug Dress.

Grubby Tennis Shoes for G8M.

Free ‘halo-phones’ earphones Head Gear for Victoria 4.

A free Garden Playhouse.

Could be a home for Popcorn the Goat.

A free mcjETBike, an E.T. style bicycle. Also has cycling-animation video tutorial.

Hobby Props Gardening, Hobby Props Sewing & Knitting, and Hobby Props Baking.

Doughnuts Props for DAZ Studio.

A useful go-to free Snow Terrain, at 98Mb, with panorama. Comments suggest it’s high quality.

Animals:

Songbird ReMix: Flamingos. Classics and variants.

Songbird ReMix: Hoopoes & Scimitarbills for Poser and DAZ.

Weasel by AM.

Herdbeast Motions, an old set of AnimMate blocks. It would be interesting to know if this also works on other early four-legged lizard-beast-ish type of DAZ figures.

Free Jungle Props and Allosaurus in .FBX.

Characters, poses, expressions:

Free La Femme Comic Book Expressions, for the flagship Poser 11/12 female.

Free Simple Winter for L’Homme, American winter-wear. L’Homme is the flagship Poser male figure.

Soccer Juggling (football skills) for M4, V4, and presumably also K4. Useful for things like football comics, in the Striker! mould.

Historical:

Zyanya V4, a fantasy stone-age character currently free on DAZ.

Ancient Egyptian House, I’ve never heard they had houses like this, but it looks great.

V4lkyrie is available again.

Ruched Harem Pants for G8Fs, dForce.

Crafting Herbs, for a medieval herbalist.

Free Ferrier outfit for G8M. And matching free figure. From the first Pirates of the Caribbean, so fan art only.

Narrow Gauge Tracks Part 1, for some European lines and some British theme parks.

GWR 3 Plank Wagon for British railways.

A 1956 hairstyle, Cute Short Bob for GF8.

Concert Harp and Poses for Genesis 8.

1980s type hobby Craft Tools.

FX:

Fabric Folds PS Brushes for Photoshop. I had a look for others but these appear to be fairly unique. I found 25,000+ me-too ZBrush wrinkle brushes, but very little worth having for Photoshop and nothing at all free. So… these look great, but slightly swirly. I’d say we also need a set of more angular L-shape elbow-type creases too.

In Blender, Real Wrinkles.

Tutorials:

Abstract: Compositing with DAZ Studio, four hours with Drew Spence and Digital Art Live.

The latest free Digital Art Live magazine has a concise guide to making your old K4 into various ‘Little Monsters’.

Scripts:

A very nice wavering Candle flame shader (3D mesh) for Poser Firefly.

Animated (may not appear, due to a GIF-blocker in your browser)

Static, for those running GIF blockers.

Volumetric Clouds for Poser, as preset props.

A free Light Manager script for Poser 11 and 12.

A free Poser 11 script to disconnect all bump maps, along with a render preset to then make a line-art only render from Firefly. Bump maps are 95% of the cause of speckles which mar Firefly lineart renders in Poser. Useful for comics production and for painters planning large complex pictures. Update: Now also for Poser 12.

Script AutoLauncher for Poser 12 and Script AutoLauncher Demonstration video for Poser 12.

Sub-Level Maze, first in a series based on a DAZ script that apparently automatically randomly assembles a maze from seamlessly matching parts. In this case, a generic underground storage/pipes area. It’ll be interesting to see this series develop.

Camera Lock Script updated to work with the latest DAZ Studio. Also CamLock 2022, possibly the same thing.

That’s it, more next month. As always, my Patreon welcomes new patrons. Thanks.

Fiber Shop 2, now perpetual-licence

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Fiber Shop 2 is a standalone real-time 3D hair creator, with export to .FBX as strands or ‘cards’. Version 2.2 is now available on a perpetual licence (it had been subscription) and at a reasonable $120 at present. There is a free non-commercial version which restricts the resolution of the texture-map exports and you don’t get things like the gradiated root-to-tip textures. Windows only.

What you don’t appear to get is a real-time “on the head’ view on a showroom-dummy head, it’s just the hair-cards that are previewing in real-time. You need to be able to round-trip to some 3D software that has actually built the hair mesh, so far as I can tell. I’m not sure if such round-tripping is possible with DAZ or Poser. Though it is with ZBrush and suchlike.

As for an art-AI to ‘add hair to a bald 2D render’ from DAZ or Poser, that’s still at the level of academic research papers so far as I can tell. But it’s doubtless coming soon.

Release: Storyboarder 3.0

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Release: Storyboarder 3.0 slipped out at the end of March 2022, with almost no-one noticing. It’s a bit sad that those with the biggest and slickest marketing hog all the attention, when there’s so much fine software around these days.

Free and open-source, for movie storyboarding but also possibly useful for figuring out the flow of comics. Especially a comic that is likely to be viewed in reader apps that offer ‘Panel View’ (one panel at a time, filling the screen) or scrolling formats.

Among other changes…

* Shot Generator: Insert Image via Drag/Drop or Paste.

* Storyboarder: Video Export fixed.

Release: DAP 7

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Dynamic Auto Painter 7 has been released. Will still run on Windows 7 and 8. The price remains at $89 + local tax. The key new feature is Feature Follow in which brushes can be set up to follow the direction of the picture’s structure. This gives a more believable look to the result. Some of the new DAP presets have this already enabled.

Also a new ‘True Mosaic’ maker which (while slow) gives nice results.

No UI makeover.

No introductory discount, but apparently the coupon code NEWYEAR2022 still works for now.

Release: iClone 8 and Character Creator

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iClone 8 and its companion Character Creator are now out of beta and officially released. The vital additional and expensive importer/exporter 3DXChange is no longer needed, as its functions have been ‘mostly’ integrated. As is the animation Curve Editor. Static non-animating objects apparently now render twice as quickly in the real-time renderer, and there have been engine improvements such as volumetrics and the ability to tweak shadow strength. I took a look at other features on the v8 beta back in November.

Nothing in terms non-photoreal features, akin to Poser 11’s comic-book mode or Sketch rendering, so far as I can see. No mention of automation, akin to Photoshop’s record / replay Actions.

There’s a been a huge price hike. Together, even the entry-level iC 8 and CC will together now cost you a hefty $900, and that’s before any further costly add-on packs such as mo-cap or canned animation or 3D content. Both still work on Windows 7+, which is nice to see given the trend toward ‘Windows 10 only’ software. The free edition of Character Creator is reportedly being ditched.