News about the DAZ Studio and Poser software

Author Archives: jonahjameson

Reality 4.1 will have a 10x speed boost

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, DAZ Studio, Spotted in the News Leave a comment

Remember when the Reality plugin for DAZ Studio was ummm, well… a little slow? Reality 4.1 will have a 10x speed acceleration, due to acceleration and other tweaks built into the forthcoming LuxRender 1.5 beta. Yup, ten times faster.

“Q: Can I simply install LuxRender 1.5 and reap the benefit of the acceleration?
A: nope, it’s not going to be that easy, we will have to wait for Reality 4.1.”

Paolo is so excited he’s funded a nightly build of LuxRender 1.5!

Quickstart on how to access Garibaldi Express hair plugin in DAZ Studio 4.7

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, DAZ Studio, Tutorials Leave a comment

A friend kindly gave me a personal video demo of the Garibaldi Hair System plugin for DAZ Studio 4.5 and higher. Seems to render rather quickly, which is very encouraging. Overall it looks fairly simple to use, once you work out how to access the editor and control the styling of the hair. There are manuals and videos, of course, but for future reference here’s my step-by-step quickstart for this plugin…

Load the Garibaldi Hair System editor:

1. Load a figure in DAZ Studio. Select the figure.

2. Top Menu Bar: Create | Create New Garibaldi Hair… | Select DAZ Geometry Node | Select Character | Accept.

3. You now have a Garabaldi Hair item listed over in the Scene tab list of scene items. Select this Hair item. Now go to Top Menu Bar: Edit | Edit Garibaldi Hair.

4. The special Garabaldi Editor Window will launch.

5. Setup Room: Select Head / Skin on your character | Paint Room: Paint areas of head skin on which to grow hair | Then work the basic hair through the other Styling Rooms.

Save a finished hair style:

1. Select the Garabaldi Hair item listed over in the Scene tab list. Rename it. Grab it and slide it up so it becomes a child part of your character.

2. Activate Parameters tab: Top Menu | Window | Panes (Tabs) | All | Scroll down to “Fit to”, and ensure the hair is set to “Fit to” your character.

3. In the Scene tab list select the root/main entry for your character. In Top Menu | File | Save As… | Wearable preset… Now DAZ Studio should save the hair into …\My Library\Presets\Wearables. Find it as a clickable preview in: Content Library | DAZ Studio Formats | My Library | Presets | Wearables | (may take a few seconds for the preview icon to appear).

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DAZ Studio & Poser content survey: March 2015

Posted on by Posted in Carrara, DAZ Studio, Poser, Vue Leave a comment

So, it’s been a while since I did a “What’s New and Cool?” 3d content survey for DAZ Studio and Poser. Here’s my selection:

Runtime DNA and LittleFox’s new STAR! character is a pro-quality toon that’s already gathered a growing range of add-on extras. The core would seem to be the character, a CrossDresser 4 License for Star, the Violet for Star pack, your choice of the current hair for Star, plus Intensity Expressions for Star and Flitter Expressions For Star.

star

Honey Bolt is an unusual but stylish toonbot, with lots of looks and options…

toonbot1

HFS Cybersuit for G2F & G2M…

suit

Stonemason’s industrial Sci Fi Interior 2015…

stonemason

A cloud-floating Sci Fi Marina and matching Sky Yacht, though you might have to take it to Vue as an .obj to do it justice…

marina

Need something to zoom through the clouds and attack your Sci Fi Marina? London224’s MS15 Alien Drone might oblige…

drone6

ile-avalon’s Android Repair Kit is amusing…

android

The Alien Collector, a nice accompaniment to a collection of 3d alien flora and fauna…

collector

Modular Mech Squid…

mechsquid

Tree of Life is an interesting and detailed alien “pod tree”…

podtree

1971s Fishing Village is nicely organic, and looks like it’s located somewhere between Morrowind and Myst…

fishvill

The price is rather high, but I like the above/below split scene idea of the Muelsfell Victorian Street Display Base. I could imagine making a set of H.P. Lovecraft / steampunk game playing cards with this and some quality lighting and characters…

under

Stonemason’s new Ruins Of Egypt 1 and The Path To Cloud Temple…

cloud

Dante78 has a finely detailed Medieval Training Camp, that could be re-worked as an Iron Age / Roman-era / Saxon structure…

camp

Need a highly detailed camel, complete with all the traditional accessories? Meet Camelia…

camel

Alessandro_AM’s uber-cute semi-toon Bear Cubs. These work with his Look At My Hair DAZ Studio plugin…

cubs

His Panda Bear Cub is also available on its own…

lonepanda

Vue users have a detailed 1.3M poly Sci-fi Chamber, though it seems you’re going to primarily use lights to colour it…

chamber

Also for Vue, a late 15th to early 17th century English paneled room, though the glass is too modern. A great nobleman might have had flawed crystal windows that looked a bit like old stained glass, a middling noble might have had fine translucent slivers of oak or horn in his window panes, and a poor scholar or alchemist might have used wicker.

room

… and a detailed Tiki Bar and a steampunk friendly Collector’s Facility.

iClone 6 Pro is now available…

iclone-6

And the design and sculpt tool Curvy 3D 3.0 is also available…

curvy

That’s it, for now!

New Vue! Vue 2015 released

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, Natural media emulation, Spotted in the News, Vue Leave a comment

E-on has just released Vue Infinite 2015 and Vue xStream 2015.

Key new things…

* A new non-photorealistic ‘sketch’ renderer, with 40 presets.
* Render performance has also been improved across the board
* Photometric rendering speed now twice as fast.
* Scene previews up to eight times faster.
* New displacement mapping engine that may reduce render times.
* Pipeline integration – exchange data with ZBrush via GoZ.
* The user interface is more customisable.
* Real-world terrains can be imported in DTED, SDTS/DDF, and GeoTIFF data formats, on top of the existing DEM import.
* New content browser for searching, browsing and previewing large numbers of files.
* Further improvements to the clouds and atmospheres.
* Export Vue scenes to LumenRT for real-time renders.

Epic freebie

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, Real-time animation, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry Leave a comment

The leading videogame engine Unreal Engine 4 is now available… “to everyone for free, and all future updates will be free!”…

“You can download the engine and use it for everything from game development, education, architecture, and visualization to VR, film and animation. When you ship a game or application, you pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter. It’s a simple arrangement in which we succeed only when you succeed.”

Nvidia VCA

Posted on by Posted in 3D Renders, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry Leave a comment

Oooh, the end of rendering is here! Again. Yours for a mere $50,000 / £32,000 + tax, the new Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) from Nvidia. 8 of Nvidia’s supercharged graphics cards are at your command, along with 256 GB of fast memory and oodles of other drool-inducing components.

nv

I guess it’s not an impossible option for a 25 business ‘incubator unit’ of creative digital businesses. Everyone would chip in $2,000, via a quarterly $250 levy on their office rental for two years, then time-share the unit over a network. It is amazingly fast, after all, so it’s not as though Sally’s ‘formerly nine hour render’ is going to block Bob’s ‘formerly six hour render’ if they can render in minutes instead.

I also wonder how easy it would be to DIY something similar, and at far less cost, with eight cheap Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 cards and a big empty case, if one was familiar with building PCs. Actually, such a chassis/case may not be that hard to find, as I guess the Bitcoin miners have some similar kit like that lying around, since that sort of thing is what they use to ‘mine’ the coins.