I’ve been having fun with a new (new, to me…) fractal programme called Mandelbulb. It’s free. Here’s some space art I made with it.
Original Mandelbulb render…
My space art version, with a lot of Photoshop and a Vue planet…
“Calling the stars”
Author Archives: jonahjameson
New content survey, for Poser and DAZ: July 2014
It’s that time of the month again, when I survey the most interesting DAZ Studio and Poser items released in the last month. I’ve pleased to see that Runtime DNA is now back online.
Not a great deal of quality sci-fi this month, but there’s a bit:
Sci-Fi Training Room could be useful for superhero team training scenes, but it probably needs livening up a bit by having the cracks between the tiles glow and some hologram MATs. You could also cover the sub-basement shaft with a glass dome and have it be a terrarium on a spaceship, alien containment dome, or a home for a classic 1950s-style ‘giant brain in a dome’…
Tenshi for Cyborg Version 4 (for V4) is a nice mix of ancient and modern…
Chroft Apartment Complex is a good-looking modern interior. Add-ons are Matching Furniture, the Chroft Apartment Bathroom and the Chroft Apartment Complex Illuminations Kit…
A little more futuristic is the AJ Futuristic Hall…
Piratess Hair for Genesis 1 and 2 looks unusual, very well designed, and (with a bit of adaptation) useful across a range of scenes: pirates, Iron Age/Viking, celtic, gypsy, Nordic, etc. It also has a Colors for Piratess Hair pack…
The Piratess Hair is probably pretty cool hair to have flowing in the wind while riding your new Battle Cat (for DAZ Big Cat 2)…
And flying alongside your Battle Cat? Why, Sixus1’s new Meowl of course…
Walker HD for Genesis looks rather nice, and is from the always-reliable The AntFarm. I’ve yet to start in on Game of Thrones (I have to finish Babylon 5 first) but I’m guessing this is similar to the ‘White Walkers’ I’ve heard about in Thrones?
HiveWire Unicorn for the HiveWire 3D Horse. Although keep in mind that it might take a while to get renders quite this fabulous…
Over in the semi-toon aisle, Dr. Pitterbill fans have a new semi-toon Madness Lab scene with a preload…
And a freebie. Thr3e Update: This appears to be one of the items which vanished with the demise of the RuntimeDNA store. for both Stan and M4. Three free “low res Head textures and MAT Files, to turn your M4 (or Stan) into an evil clown”.
The same content maker also has a new M4 character Balverk, should you need a grizzled medieval warlord or a mysterious seeker after The Nameless City…
Vue users have a couple of nice looking new scenes at Cornucopia:
Hi-res Volcano terrain…
Silk Road: Persia which could suit historical scenes such as a spice traders (for which there’s a handy new Vue camel) or Second World War desert warfare, or even a ‘greening the desert’ sci-fi tech scene.
That’s it!
Plug-‘n-pose
Cool new animation pose controller, shown at SIGGRAPH. Plug the Lego-like modules together to form your animal’s skeleton, then flex and bend it to pose the creature on the screen.
Mammoth Visual FX from Game of Thrones
Here’s the VFX “making of” reel for Game of Thrones, Season 4…
PzDB upgrades to third generation, now indexes iClone content
Thinking of replacing the awful content management systems in DAZ Studio and Poser? The third party content database PzDB has just upgraded to version 1.3 with a big overhaul.
The new program is faster, more powerful, more customizable, and supports dozens more file types and applications, including Anime Studio libraries and iClone content. (Full disclosure: I helped out with getting the complex web of iClone file types untangled for the developer).
The new PzDB also has…
* new customizable Launch Buttons
* you can hook PzDB up to almost any program you have
* the database is faster and more accurate
* various bug-fixes
* fixed the product activation system
Hurrah for the new activation system!
“…some users found that their free trial was over long before it should have been, and made others reactivate their products over and over again. “That won’t be a problem anymore,” said Margolis adding, “of course, everyone will need a whole new product activation code, and that will take some doing.”
So it sounds like users who upgrade will simply need to ask for a new serial number. Hopefully for the last time.
There’s a trial version if you’d like to try it out. pzDB is especially useful for those who have accumulated huge 200Gb+ content libraries over the years.
New content survey for Daz and Poser, June 2014
So what’s new in paid-for content this month, at the DAZ Studio and Poser content stores? Things seem to be slowing down for the summer, at least for quality sci-fi and historical scenes, but here’s what especially caught my eye…
Darkseal has some Alien Podz, rigged and with transparency. For Poser and Daz 3+.
Darkseal’s Podz might work well with a fringe around the base of scaled-up Pikaia, a new Poser creature. Pikaia were basically prehistoric sea-slugs…
And your figures inside the Podz might benefit from the new Dirty Skin for V4/A4
A new Sci-fi Box pack, plus cages, containers, and gas cylinders.
Need somewhere to store the sci-fi boxes? Try the new generic Sci-Fi Industrial Colony and Sci-Fi Passage.
Stonemason has new sci-fi buildings to add to his city skylines, Utopia Cityscape Blocks.
Flying through Stonemason’s city towers could be the chunky new spaceship Zeneca Brute, by Darkseal.
AntFarm rarely disappoints, and this month he has the very cool CrabMech, plus three textures and 12 poses.
Adh3d has a 1914 Cyclone Racer, an early motorcycle of the First World War era. Although the engine is a little more valvepunk “wow!” than actually authentic.
Ironman13’s new Tenure looks like a usefully flexible “1960s professor’s office” scene.
If you need a similar professor’s office, but set another two hundred years back in time, Maps of the Empire might be useful.
For Vue users there’s a new Witches Coven House.
That’s it! Both Teknology3d and Runtime DNA have their stores offline at present, so I can’t select anything from them.
3D/2D
Posted on
by
Posted in 3D Renders, Comics, Natural media emulation, Spotted in the News
Leave a comment
Posted in 3D Renders, Comics, Natural media emulation, Spotted in the News
Leave a comment
This picture is 3D, though 98% of people wouldn’t know that from looking at it. It features in the latest 3D World magazine (Aug 2014), along with a tutorial. It seems to me to be another example of how 3D (in this instance ZBrush, 3ds Max) is increasingly able to successfully mimic 2D illustration, albeit with a little tickling in Photoshop. It’s another example that suggests that 2D and 3D will likely become pretty much indistinguishably mashed up together, at least for stills work, and in the relatively near future.
Boom times
The 3D animation market in general is thriving, according to a weighty new market report. That’s despite the ongoing crisis among the custom VFX houses which service big movies and high-end TV series. But in terms of the whole picture (“hardware, software and services”)…
“The 3D animation market is estimated to grow from $21.06 billion in 2014 to $40.78 billion in 2019 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.1% from 2014 to 2019.”
Of course, one would ideally like to know how much of the consumer end of the 3d videogaming industry they included in those figures. But the relatively small “$40bn” seem to indicate that games and console purchases have been removed, as their previous 2011 report found that…
“The global animation and gaming market is expected to grow from $122.20 billion in 2010 to $242.93 billion by 2016.”
Octane 2.0 released
Posted on
by
Posted in Carrara, Companion software, DAZ Studio, Lighting, Poser, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
Leave a comment
Posted in Carrara, Companion software, DAZ Studio, Lighting, Poser, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
Leave a comment
The external render engine Octane 2.0 has been released for various 3D software, and has added…
* Displacement mapping.
* Faster hair and fur rendering.
* Better sky backgrounds.
* Motion blur.
* Region rendering (for making small test renders)
* Network rendering.
…and more.
Octane 2.0 is available for Poser 9 or 2012 or higher, DAZ Studio 4.5. Last I heard, a Carrara version of Octane 2.0 version is being worked on. All Octane users will need a newer CUDA-capable GeForce NVIDIA graphics card slotted into your PC, which for many will require fitting a more powerful Power Supply Unit than the puny one that shipped with the PC.
Free to students with a valid .edu or .ac.uk email address. Note that students are currently limited to the 1.2 version.
Competition: Design a 3D Mars base for NASA
Posted on
by
Posted in Competitions, DAZ Studio, Poser, SketchUp, Spotted in the News
Leave a comment
Posted in Competitions, DAZ Studio, Poser, SketchUp, Spotted in the News
Leave a comment
Want to design a cool Mars base for NASA? Make a 3D model in a standard format like .obj, upload to Thingiverse, win your own trip to Mars desktop 3D printer! Deadline: 12th June 2014.
3D content survey: swamps and marshes
Here’s a survey of swamp and related 3D models and characters for DAZ Studio and Poser users. Create your own Jurassic Park; stage “Swamp Thing vs. The Hulk” in the Florida Everglades; pit your jut-jawed 1930s hero against seedy rum-runners and bootleggers; or investigate Lovecraftian Cthulhu cults among the inbred shanty dwellers.
Marsh Monster (Swamp Thing). For Daz Studio 4.5 / Genesis 2.
The Swamp for DAZ and Poser…
Soggy Bottom, a whole virtual acre of wetland for DAZ and Poser…
Heavy Vines Vol 1 and similar… Update: This appears to be one of the items which vanished with the demise of the RuntimeDNA store.
Willow Deep GuardHouse is an .obj. The maker also has a nice range of Swampy Weeds Twigs n Stuff.
If you wanted to toon it up a bit, LarvaBug and CreexDR might help that along…
American Alligator and Caiman…
Need the original Creature from the Black Lagoon? He’s now free as a Poser character…
And last but not least, that cool Indiana Jones explorer hat! Relic Hunter Essentials. Just add snakes!
I don’t recommend volumetric fog in a scene, as it my experience it massively increases render times. It’s better to apply it in Photoshop. But I also have a tutorial on how to get depth haze in DAZ Studio 3 using Mood Master.
Daz and Poser, new content for May 2014
Here’s my survey of the new paid-for DAZ Studio and Poser content that’s appeared in the last month. Just the items that caught my eye as being especially well designed and well presented, unusual (in a non-tacky or not over-the-top kind of way), or just plain useful…
Perfect for those who fondly remember The Movies videogame, Nikkelah’s Vintage Movie Makers…
AntFarm has a nice high-quality early 20th century Arctic research station in The Colony…
Also from ArtFarm, Squid Mech…
There’s also a similar Zeneca Fighter Drone, although it looks a touch low-poly…
Zeneca Fighter Drone has a companion in the new Zeneca Racer which is usefully rigged for different looks…
Consequence for V4 (boots not included, I couldn’t find those). Designer Shaft 74 has a range of original superhero characters for M4/V4, including the matching Slade…
The new IGD Fall poses for V4 could come in handy for superheroes and masked avengers.
Alessandro’s Warthog for Daz 4.5 and Poser, with Look At My Hair presets.
Possibly inspired by the wild success of The Unicorn over at Runtime DNA, Hivewire has a semi-toon Toon Horse and poses…
And last but not least, a well designed lecture lectern can always come in handy… Update: This appears to be one of the items which vanished with the demise of the RuntimeDNA store.
Travel with Exidium!
Love this picture from the Exidium Corp., which perhaps points the way toward combining sci-fi art with wildlife art.
My recent survey of DAZ and Poser content for ‘alien wildlife and fauna’ suggests there’s a big gap in the market for this sort of creature content in 3D. How many would buy it is another matter — but Dinoraul’s excellent dinosaurs, perhaps the closest 3D content, seem to sell well and to command high prices.
I believe the videogame Planet Explorers tries to do something similar to this sort of ‘alien safari’ theme, though with not-so-lush graphics (I think it’s an MMO, hence the need for the circa 2004 low-poly style?). But the animal designs in it are pretty inventive…
New Sketchbooky blog for Sketchbook Pro users
Missing the survey of free brushes and brush sets, for Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, that I posted here the other day? I decided that Sketchbook deserves its own blog and so moved the post over there.
DAZ/Poser 3D content survey: British elections
As we’re now less than a year away from the General Election here in the UK, and in the grip of the Euro elections this week, here’s a quick survey of 3D election related content. With a British focus.
No. 10 Downing Street, the famous central London home of whoever is the current Prime Minister.
Gothic Clock Tower, rather like the famous Big Ben in London. See Google 3D Warehouse for more London landmarks. 3D Warehouse also has a Parliament model.
3D Warehouse has a very simple voting box / ballot box model. Add a worn black metal texture.
There’s a free Blender version of Wallace (to whom Ed Milliband is compared), but it’s not rigged.
If you need a seedy/cluttered socialist election-campaign office, then The Office is not perfect but might help…
