A nice 86% sale at DAZ (today) enabled me to complete my Predatron fantasy collection for Poser, by loading up with a lot of Troglodye items for around $12.
I now have the complete: Trogoldyte and variants plus accessories, horns, boots and armour; Goblin and cowl etc; Giant Spider and riding saddle etc, Angor the goat priest and robes; the Warhound, and the Upland Troll.
Playbook is an online service-based Stable Diffusion, trained specifically to generate output that looks like it was 3D rendered from textured meshes.
You can already do this on a local install of the free Stable Diffusion, with free LORA ‘plugins’. There thus seems no reason to pay for such a thing, unless Playbook…
– is remarkably better than normal Stable Diffusion;
– is more stable (at following text prompts);
– can generate 100% stable characters along with stable outfits and clothing colours;
– can also generate textured 3D meshes which can be exported.
I guess we test it and see.
I see fiddly and over-complicated Clip Studio EX has gone to version 3.x. And that Clip Studio 3.1.x can now import .BVH motion files, and apply them to its primitive dummy 3D figures. And it has added “support for [import of] 3D models with shape keys”.
Also, Dark Mode is now the default UI setting.
Poser real-time render to Img2Img AI, with a very simple prompt. Just a super-quick demo I made to show someone the absolute basic possibility in terms of quick transformation. Without even getting into ControlNets.
Yes, there’s an icky thumb-shadow in Poser, which has carried over to the AI. I didn’t notice that until it was too late.
New for Poser and DAZ, July 2024. A month’s survey of what’s new in Poser and DAZ Studio, and in interesting AI tools. Not so much, as here I’m picking from just short of a month of items.
Science-fiction:
Steampunk:
Photo Props: Storage Collection
Zeppelin Hangar for Poser, with M4 poses. And a free set of HM Airship R34 Colors for the L-1 Zeppelin.
Luxury Casino Hall for DAZ.
Halloween:
People and clothes:
Donnie 9, a President Trump-alike for DAZ. And a Presidential Bundle.
M3D Reginald HD and Hair for Genesis 9. A semi-toon grandpa character.
Free, Indiana Jones 2.0 for M3 LowRes.
Free, Car Poses for LaFemme 2.
Free, More Crumpled Clothes Props for Poser.
Jepe’s dForce Omni Body Hair Sets For Genesis 8 Males. Hairy chaps, though I imagine your render times will also be rather hairy?
Animals:
Songbird ReMix: Prairie-chicken.
Art Squirrel’s new SketchFab animals, a dolphin and whale. Static OBJ sculpts, but you might give them a basic rig if you have the skills.
Animations and Still Poses for the DAZ House Cat. And a video trailer.
Best Cat Poses n Props for DAZ House Cat.
Seascapes and landscapes:
MS24 Shamrock III & Drydock for Vue, by London224. In 3D, “the big graceful J Boats of the early turn of the century America’s Cup races”. Useful for marine art, by the look of it.
A free Garden Gnome/ Lawn Ornament.
A free Shrub Alphabet.
Historical:
A free Lost Ark set for DAZ, from the Indiana Jones original movies, but suitable for any archeological dig scene. See also the new Ancient Labyrinth – Huge Environment for DAZ Studio.
Wood Chip Carving Set. Possibly useful for making a training booklet.
Soviet Architecture including iconography. Only linked here so I can comment on it, since it looks a bit low-effort. Would Nazi Architecture and symbols be allowed on the DAZ Store? Why does the just-as-evil communism get a ‘free pass’ in such things?
Vintage Industrial, Domestic and Commercial Weighing Scales and weights.
Scripts, software and special shaders:
HDRI Control for Poser 13+. And a Demonstration Video on YouTube.
Poser 11 compound node for creating random colour tiles. Think ‘swimming pools’ and tiled floors. There’s a thread about this at the HiveWire 3D Community.
A free G3/G8/G9 Pose Converter Plugin for DAZ Studio 4.2x as a .DLL file.
A basic Face Control for Genesis 9 as an animator’s face-plate.
MD List of Products Used… “The script can track the products used in the scene based on the nodes, the materials, the geometry, and the modifiers used with more than 95% success”.
Archiving Your DeviantArt Favourites to locally saved pages. The workflow and the free tool you need to do it in an automated way.
Tutorials:
Using Bone Minion for Horse and Rider Poses.
The Ultimate Guide to Building Low Poly Figure Scenes with many characters.
How to create a wet material effect in Poser.
AI:
A video on Mastering the new ControlNet ‘Scribble’ for SDXL, in the free InvokeAI. And combining it with a depth-render from a basic 3D sculpt.
The “I battled through 20,000 anime girls… so you don’t have to” AI list for artists directory has updated. Links to free models, LORAs and more, all for SD 1.5 and 2.1 768 users making imaginative works in a western art style.
That’s it. More in September.
Posted in Poser, Poser 12, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News
Leave a comment
A Humble Bundle Poser 12 $25 (£20) licence key. If you’re rendering then you really want Poser 13 for the improved Blender Cycles rendering and improved OIDN de-noiser. But for those who use Poser for real-time comic-book renders, reference images for manual over-inking and over-painting, or for AI export, then Poser 12 will be fine. P12 is also good for export to the now-free E-on Vue.
However Poser 14 is coming soon, and if they have the sense to add a free integration of Stable Diffusion as a render option… then many will feel like they wasted $25 on Poser 12 over what will then be the must-have Poser 14.
Posted in Companion software, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
Leave a comment
Pallaidium, claimed to be an AI ‘movie generator’ and editor, based around Blender. Requires CUDA 12.4, which in combination with Python means it’s effectively for Windows 10 or 11. Free, open source, and locally run on your PC.
Here’s a round-up of what interests me, from the recent Poser and DAZ releases, and also from related software. The last such was back at the end of April 2024. I’m pleased to find that Renderosity has stopped their show-stopping captchas, so I can access it again.
Science fiction:
HF Bad Hym for Genesis 9, a sort of cross between The Silver Surfer and Adam Warlock.
Orbital! from Coflek-Gnorg. Build your own near-future space station.
Retro sci-fi:
Nitaka Aurora for Poser, rather cute anti-gravity scooters.
Atomic shelter for Poser by 1971s. Also available for DAZ.
Robby The Robot (Forbidden Planet), for fan-art although I think he may be public domain by now?
Steampunk:
Steampunk Bus for Poser. Also available for DAZ.
Giant pipes for Poser from 1971s. Also available for DAZ.
EV Flamethrower with animated flames. Don’t let it anywhere near the giant gas-pipes room… oh, too late.
Horror:
WyldWood, a new stylised trees set from Poisen.
A free Demon Chair. Looks fairly compatible with WyldWood, given some re-texturing.
The Metro, an abandoned metro tunnel entrance for DAZ. Could be used with the new End of Days for DAZ Studio.
Superhero:
Peacemaker For G8M. Yup, he’s definitely brave enough to go down the old abandoned subway tunnel.
SuperHero Speed for G8M Volume 6. More ‘running really fast’ poses. Also SuperHero Leap for G8M Volume 2.
People, clothes and poses:
Free Crumpled Clothes props for Poser, dropped and cast aside clothes.
El Zorro outfit for G8M.
Police Artist for Genesis 9. Work with a police identikit process, to accurately recreate the face/head of a historical figure in G9. Also available for G8.
Toon:
Waste Paradise for Daz Studio, just the sort of place you might find a discarded but oh-so cute ‘lil robot. Or cute aliens hiding their flying saucer.
Fantasy Mandrake for DAZ Studio.
Plushi Birthday Cake and Red Panda Plush with lots of materials.
A free PB Snowman Plushie for DAZ Studio.
Animals:
Smilo Poses for AM Smilodon. A type of prehistoric sabre-tooth tiger.
All the Rabbits by AM. Rabbits galore, and also what looks like a hare.
Nature’s Wonders: Grasshoppers.
Songbird ReMix: Flowerpiercers & Leaftossers.
Songbird ReMix: Mynas. The birds that can mimic talking.
Power Rat for Daz Studio, a standalone figure.
Photo Props: Fence Construction Kit is classic weathered white. Looks useful if you have a horse and pony collection.
Gorilla Motions for Genesis 1.
A free Waterfowl INJ for the free Poser Low-Poly Bird Prop. Put lots and lots of flying geese in the sky.
Plants, outdoors, ocean:
Bow Wave 1 and Bow Wave 2. Bow wave props for DAZ.
Photo Props: Potted Plants for Poser and DAZ.
UltraScenery 2: A Comprehensive Guide for DAZ Studio.
Jurassic Forest scene for DAZ. With HDRIs.
Historical:
Neanderthal 9 Starter Bundle and XI Neanderthal Cave.
Servi Domini – Monks for G8M. Medival monks and a variety of outfits.
Free, Aircraft Leonardo Da Vinci. With ceiling hangers.
An Edwardian style Circus Ringmaster for G8M. And a matching Circus Strongman for G8M.
A classic pioneers / woodsman Log Cabin for Spruce woodland.
Uncle Sam for Genesis 8 Male & Genesis 9.
Elegant Movie Room from perhaps the late 1930s.
Hr-262, a late 1950s bobby-socks hair for V4.
Late 1960s Hippy Van, anniversary edition.
GWR Sleeper Wagon by DryJack, another fine addition to his ‘model railway in Poser’ collection. Also a 20 Ton Coal Wagon.
The Pool Hall with an early 1980s vibe.
Movie Theater, again with a 1980s vibe.
A free Nuclear Explosion and an .OBJ file.
Tutorials:
Using colour to change the mood of your 3D scenes.
Improving Firefly render speed in Poser. Not that it’s slow, but you may want it to go even faster.
How to convert DAZ tileable shaders to Poser.
How to access your Poser content in DAZ Studio. Easy, when you know how.
The Hidden DAZ Studio Master Light Switch. Yes, there’s an ISO film setting few know about.
The Creative Cart: TangoAlpha’s Modular Super Sets.
Tutorials for other software:
Vue: Export anything with the new Export Central in E-on VUE 2024. 2024 is now supposedly free, but download attempts always fail.
Vue: Seamlessly Integrate Vue and DAZ Studio.
PD Howler: Scripting with AI.
Clavicula: Cavicula : Physics I.
TinkerCAD: Tinkercad – Easy Modeling to Create DAZ Studio Assets.
AI:
Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL): ControlNets for SDXL models. Still not great, but apparently better than previous attempts.
InvokeAI: How to Get Regional Control In Images using layers and a few other items.
Camera-control example: Place angled camera view, seen from (slightly above:1.9), at or very near the start of your prompt. Vary as needed. Adding the opposite – e.g. seen from below – in the negative prompt can also help. Better with some models than with others.
It seems the perma-offer of a Poser 12 licence for around $50 has vanished, presumably ahead of the planned Poser 14 release. The bargain licences had been sold via Graphixly, the Clip Studio Paint store. I guess we may see Poser 13 on a similar perma-offer once v14 is out, but that’s just a guess.
That’s it for now. More next time.
Posted in Companion software, Freebies, Poser, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
Leave a comment
tyFlow 1.111 adds Stable Diffusion in 3DSMax, with its tyDiffusion module “matching simple guide geometry” and “depth” from the 3D scene, to make “detailed” generated images that closely follow the 3D scene. The SD UI being used is ComfyUI. SD 1.5 Models, LORAs and ControlNets are supported.
Interestingly, it appears to be free…
tyDiffusion is available in both the Free and Pro editions of tyFlow, with users of the Free edition getting support for GPU acceleration.
Requires 3ds Max 2018 or higher[tyFlow = “Max 2018”, but tyDiffusion = “Max 2023+”].
Yup, and on an open 435Mb download.
Theoretically then, one could take a Poser scene to Vue, then to Max, then ‘render’ it with AI. Though you can do something similar manually, rendering line-art and a depth map from a Poser scene and using them in ControlNet slots. Unless tyDiffusion is extracting some extra ‘secret sauce’ from the 3D scene, such as PoseNet poses from figures, or light maps for scene lighting.
However, I’m still hoping Renderosity has the sense to save Poser, by making a similar free and robust SD ‘rendering’ plugin for Poser 12 through 14.
Steampunk: New History 3D Challenge, the winners…
From the big-name Stability.ai, the release of Stable Audio Open… “an open source text-to-audio model for generating up to 47 seconds of samples and sound effects”. Potentially useful for makers who require sound FX or short loops that can be guaranteed to be pass copyright checks on YouTube, Rumble etc.
AI Video Face Swap, the first time I’ve seen a really easy offline desktop Windows AI tool for this. Yup, desktop PC, offline, TensorRT support, no watermarks, one-time-payment ($80, though no PayPal), and as simple to install and run as one of those Topaz AI software packages.
However it’s still 4,000 Python files sitting inside the bundled .EXE file. Users will need a good CUDA graphics card with 12Gb memory and CUDA installed, Windows 10 with 10Gb spare on the hard-drive, and the K-lite Codec pack for video input-output.
It seems to have obvious potential for making comics. Make a thirty-second set of all expressions you want, using your own face. Then use this to swop out the face for that of your character. Then extract the frames from the resulting video, for use in the comic. Or for pushing through a style-transfer AI.
Maybe only good for a front-view with a normal press-photo camera lens though, which is where 3D Poser/DAZ figures still have the advantage. Overhead, from the side, foreshortened lens… all no problem for Poser/DAZ.
Users of AI Video Face Swap report a high quality face-swap on a RTX 3080 card, transferring onto a three-minute 1280px video, takes about 30 minutes. Faster at standard quality. Multiple faces can be swopped at once. Edge-blending is good.
The dedicated alternative in free / open-source / offline software is the namesake Faceswap, but it looks like it may take a bit more setup. Still, not as much as most Python AI software does. It can also run on Linux.
With a lot more technical savvy and the right nodes you can also face-swap in general AI ‘Stable Diffusion’ image generation software such as ComfyUI and InvokeAI.
Posted in Companion software, Freebies, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
Leave a comment
Leading audio generator ElevenLabs now offers an AI Text Prompt to Sound Effects Generator. Possibly useful if you can’t find what you need on the FreeSound website or similar. A 20 seconds limit, at present.
E-on has kindly released Vue 2024 “for free, including for commercial use”, perpetual and un-crippled, after owner Bentley Systems “decided to cease development” rather than sell it on. The final version improved clouds, improved viewport display, and added Blender’s Cycles as an experimental render option.
Apparently the free 2024 edition has all the subscription Vue’s superb export capabilities to C4D, Maya etc. And since its SDK still supports easy Poser import, it effectively replaces the old PoserFusion export from Poser. Export is done via a new Export Central panel in Vue 2024.
Python is supported, so theoretically a script could be devised to link Vue to AI image generation, taking quick rough-render Vue landscapes and depth-passes and sending them to AI for full amazi-fication.
Downloads are at https://www.bentley.com/software/e-on-software-downloads/ though the download links are currently 404. Presumably overloaded.
New users should keep in mind that Vue uses CPU rendering, and your monster graphics-card (GPU) will only be of use in accelerating the viewport.
Update: 19th May, download links still dead.
Update: 22nd May, download links still dead.
Update: 28th May, download links still dead.
Update: 1st June, download links still dead.
Update: 6th June, download links still dead. I give up.
New $40 Blender add-on Humanify plugs the DAZ Genesis 9 figure mesh into Blender, automatically lays on photoreal skin textures suited to Blender, and makes the whole process of getting a high-res photoreal character easy. Not sure if you also get the G9 rig, but the aim seems to be to supply the mesh to Blender pros — who may have their own rig?
