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Category Archives: Freebies
A free 3D trilobite
I found a scientifically-correct base trilobite in 3D, made in 2003. Because… trilobites! One of the most famous fossil types. They ruled the earth for 270 million years, although the closest thing to a trilobite which most people encounter today is a cute little wood-louse standing on a wood-pile.
The 3D model appears to be the best available for free, and…
“features the basic properties evident in the species but no specifics of any of the many subspecies … as anatomically accurate as possible, based on current knowledge.”
Sadly the model’s in Maya 4.5 .MB format from 2003. But if anyone with an (old?) copy of Maya wants to convert it to .OBJ it seems they can. The model is OK for non-commercial educational use only, as per the original rights notice. There are various bits of software which claim to be multi-3D-file converters (3DWin5, PolyTrans, SAP Visual Enterprise Author etc) that can open .MB files, but I’m told they all require a copy of Maya installed before they’ll actually open an .MB file. I haven’t found any simple “.MB in, .OBJ out” utility.
And here’s a picture which suggests the coloration of your trilobite, and the sort of soft parts that don’t survive to be seen in the famous polished fossils…
We think of them today as hard and black and like an Alien face-hugger, but in their time they were perhaps as attractively coloured as modern-day cuttlefish can be.
There’s also an un-rigged $12 Trilobites Set for Vue, although it’s a bundle so getting it into your wishlist seems to be impossible. There’s nothing worth having for Poser and DAZ Studio.
Of course there’s also some on Turbosquid, but they also come with the usual ridiculously high Turbosquid prices ($250!) that appear to be aimed at big advertising and movie production studios.
Drone -2- Mesh
Want to create a high-precision 3D map of your own specific bit of the earth, for beautification in Vue or Terragen? There’s no need to hijack a passing NASA satellite — just launch your GPS-enabled drone, snap some HD photos and use PrecisionHawk‘s free software for drone mapping…
“Using GPS information embedded within the drone images, the software automatically stitches together a complete map, viewable in both 2D and 3D. Free users of PrecisionMapper can create up to 60 surveys a year without resolution or export limits.”
The precise types of 3D models that can be exported is left a little hazy by the publicity, but I presume they’re fairly standard types.
Possibly it’s easier just to sculpt the terrain with reference to a good large-scale map with contour-lines, of course. Or wrestle with some public geo-data sets. But if you happen to own a HD/GPS drone then it could be a nice project to use it to make an accurate and crisply Vue-beautified “bird’s eye view” version of your valley, local nature reserve, cycle-way, etc. Possibly even for VR fly-throughs.
A survey of Brush Managers for Photoshop
Got Photoshop brushes? Got too many Photoshop brushes? Yup. And, let’s face it, Photoshop’s brush management and preview pallettes are something out of an archeological dig — even in the newer versions.
What are the alternatives and helpers, for managing your brushes? Here are all those I could find.
Newer:
* The $19 Anastasiy’s MagicSquire 1.5 is billed as a “brush organising agent”. It’s rather expensive for what it is, which is a better ‘but not that much better’ replacement for the usual panels. Still… colour codes tabs, drag-and-drop sorting, better auto-generated brush-stoke previews and more are all improvements. If they’re worth $19 to you, then it’s the one. The great advantage it has over the Brusherator (below) is that it works in older versions of Photoshop… “CS3 CS4 CS5 CS6 and CC”.
* The $13 Brusherator 1.3 is for Photoshop CC and higher. Probably the most elegant of the lot, and you can configure it how you want it. But to use it you need to be running a newer version of Photoshop, and its management methods and menus are far from intuitive to learn. It’s also nearly impossible to set up on a second pen-monitor with a pen, and so it needs to be set up on your main monitor with mouse + keyboard.
* The $13 BrushBox seems similar to MagicSquire, but looks more basic. It only runs on “CC 2015.1 and above”.
Older:
* The $2 drbjr Custom Brush Manager. The panel uses Flash (and is thus an inherent security risk), but it does support Adobe Photoshop CS6 and early versions of CC on Windows. The panel UI is rather basic, but it is obviously has quite a few features and it only costs $2.
* The $10 Preset Viewer Argus is a general standalone Photoshop Preset Viewer. It renders out a big library of thumbnail previews from all of your Photoshop brushes and presets. No more squinting at tiny little “what is that?” icons, which may be useful for those who know what they’re looking for. It works with presets and brushes from all CS6 and CC versions, and has been updated to run on all versions of Windows.
* The freeware BrushView QuickLook PlugIn is another oldie, from circa 2009, and seemingly aimed at Photoshop Elements users. It… “allows you to see the contents of Photoshop brush files. Now you no longer need to load a brush file into Photoshop to see its contents. … supports three different version of Photoshop [Elements] brush files — versions 1, 2, and 6.”
* The freeware abrMate 1.1 was a “Brush Viewer, Organizer, Converter, and Exporter for Windows”. Nice, but it was last updated in 2011 and only supports brushes made in Photoshop CS5 or lower, so is not really that relevant now. Apparently it required Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0 to be installed.
That’s it. I’m guessing that possibly I could also do something with Adobe Bridge in finding brushes, but I never use that and don’t want to start.
Digital Art Live magazine – winter issues catch-up
As we head into the really-leafy bit of the springtime, here’s a catch-up on last winter’s free monthly Digital Art Live magazine. The list below features the issues which have appeared since I last featured the magazine on this blog.
DAL is a Poser and DAZ -friendly magazine, devoted to science-fiction art and artists. It is currently regularly nudging 90-100 pages per issue, and is able to get in-depth interviews with the likes of Syd Mead. Next up is the Vue-themed issue, set for release any day now. Contact Paul to be put on the mailing-list and get your free copies. DAL will also soon be inviting advertising at very reasonable rates, so Poser / DAZ content vendors may also want to ask Paul about that.
Issue 12 : Second Skin, a Skin Art issue with a heavy Poser / DAZ contingent.
Issue 14 : Cybertronics. A Tron tribute issue for the mid-wintertime, with lots of glowing neon.
Issue 15 : Mystworlds, a tribute to the videogame Myst, with a lead interview with original Myst artist and animator Chuck Carter.
Issue 16 : Future Vehicles, with exclusive in-depth interview with Syd Mead.
Issue 17 : Movie Magic, on makers of VFX for movies and TV and more.
Poser and DAZ content: what’s new in April 2017
What’s new in the DAZ and Poser content in April 2017? Here’s my personal selection from the month’s new releases.
Sci-fi:
Morphing SciFi Glasses for G3F look like they could made flexible use of across a range of sci-fi and superhero characters, even if everyone is going to say “oh, that X-Men guy!” when they see it.
For something similar but more retro, the Project Zero Goggles for Poser.
Slime Attack for G3F is very unusual, and the slime models would also appear to have possibilities as standalone exports for ‘alien garden’ scenes.
Swamp Mushrooms by 1971s for Poser. Simple, but effective.
AJ Hibernation Hall for Poser.
Liquid Lab for DAZ Studio.
Missing those good ol’ Bryce 3D primitives? DAZ now has a pack of Impossible Objects.
A freebie, an iRay pack of Shimmery Sheer Fabrics suitable for sci-fi.
Aeon Soul’s new Proxy Outfit for Genesis 3 Female is an everyday cyberpunk style. No texture add-on packs yet, but Aeon Soul’s quality sci-fi clothes usually get one or more texture packs fairly swiftly.
Nostalgia:
The free Milkshake Props for DAZ iRay look like they’re worth a shake.
The Realigh Hopper 1970s Chopper bike, plus G3F and G3M preset poses. And if you want a ‘newspaper delivery-girl’-style duffel coat for the rider, there’s one in the new GaoDan Uniforms pack for G3F.
Historical:
Classic James Bond-style 1960s Mountain Cable Car with sliding door.
Coflek-gnorg’s Bunker Hill is a large freebie scene for Poser.
U.S. Musket is a very high quality recreation of a musket. There’s also a new Lee-Brooke Railway Gun from the American Civil War.
Shadow Jester Outfit for Genesis 3 Male looks a bit silly on a standard male, but would fit to a more suitable G3M character.
Tus – Persian Warrior Outfit for Genesis 3 Male is obviously fine workmanship and has a more toned-down texture pack.
There’s a new Ancient Celtic Adrian Hair and Beard for G3 Male.
There’s also a charging herd of male fantasy-historical centaurs on the DAZ Store this month, obviously high quality, but way too many content packs to link.
Steampunk and valvepunk:
New on Content Paradise. Meshbox’s old content can often be rather too low-poly since it was meant for old videogames, but their Steampunk Helicopter certainly looks nice and appears to have detailed engines. Beware that their stuff tended to use a single texture atlas, so swopping out the materials can be impossible.
Small town Newspaper Office of the 1910s-1930s, complete with a news-sheet printing press in the basement and a big bundle of period props.
Creatures:
‘Mr. SongBird Remix’ Ken Gilliland has a new creature, Nature’s Wonders Frogs with two common species created with his usual high quality and realistic approach. Certainly the best Poser frog I’ve yet seen, and I have a few in my runtime. His Renderosity Gallery suggests a “Giant Monkey Frog” morph may be forthcoming in volume 2.
AM has a rodent base and a squirrels morph and LAMH hair preset pack for it plus poses.
BoneZ for the HiveWire Big Cat gives you the base skeleton for things like museum displays, magazine illustration cut-aways, and horror scenes.
Somewhat similar to Sanctum Art’s old Drub figure, Res Mortifera plus Poses and Expressions.
Nature:
Dirty Mudyard is an unusual one, and might perhaps also double as part of a small harbour at low tide. The new Frozen Lake Scenery also looks like it could also help with a kitbash of a low-tide harbour scene. The Dirty Mudyard might also be used for the inside of a recent bomb crater that’s been rained on for a few weeks, and which your Res Mortifera monster (see above) rises up from.
Got ducks and dragonflies? The Harpwood Trail – Mallard Pond.
Stonemason also has a new similar water-side setting at Willow Creek.
Vue users have a base for an ornamental Palace Gardens and topiary. Also a large White Meadow frozen stream-side winter scene which looks superb and is currently a mere $8.
If you fancy something more steamy there’s a new Vue Jungle Scene.
Clearance:
I also see that the DAZ Store currently has a (mostly) sub-$5 clearance sale on many items, as well. Lots of characters mostly, rather than scenes and props, but on a quick skim-through I spotted:
Gothic Muse has an unusual skirt which may interest makers of steampunk scenes, to make background characters more interesting.
Anu-naki, a sci-fi V4 character by TheAntFarm which I wasn’t previously aware of.
AnimeEyes for V4 and Aiko 4 / Hiro 4, possibly useful for making comics with the Poser 11 comic book mode. On the DAZ forums you can also find a freebie set of Genesis presets for fitting the eyes to Genesis 1 in DAZ Studio. (If you need similar for Genesis 2 see DG Toon Style Eyes for Genesis 2 Female).
Swordist for M4, a big collection of sword and hand poses which fit a set of weapons made by Xurge.
The Moebius-style Space Mother head-dress for V4, which is actually fan-art for the Lotus character in the Warframe videogame. This toons up very nicely, in Poser’s Comic Book Mode with flat lighting.
Feral is set of quality cat-girl / cosplay poses for V4 and the Poser Furries Melody/Micah characters.
That’s it, more picks next month.
A further choice of Vue freebies at Cornucopia
Here’s a look at my second round of Vue freebies from the Cornucopia Store. They limit a customer to seven per week, so this is my second batch. Around 110mb for the lot, so once again the download wasn’t huge.
Some choice Vue freebies at Cornucopia
Building a Vue content Wishlist on the Cornucopia Store is a bit odd. You first have to add-to-Cart, then go to the Cart and turn it into a Wishlist item, then you get taken through to the Wishlist. It slows down powering through the Store to build a Wishlist. But I spotted some nice free small scenes there, such as “Crypt” and the Pit” and some others…
That lot came it at around 200mb total, so the download time was acceptable too (Vue scene files can be big).
A few Vue freebies
Here’s a little round-up of some Vue freebies I found and checked today on a quick 30 minute scoot-around, and which are not fan-art…
Reeds 2.0 as a .veg file.
And the shiny new D&D Creations web store has a nice free frozen lake material which uses multiple layers.
Starbase1 – 26 semi-transparent PNG alien planets for Vue.
Vue Scaling Objects – 34 different types of sports ground terrains. I’d never considered that Vue might be good for sports scenes, but it makes sense — big fields and stadia, atmospheric weather, large squads of easily-posed and placed characters via Poser.
And of course the 3D free samples of trees and plants from Xfrog and the Silva3D freebie plants.
What’s New for Poser and DAZ – March 2017
It’s time for the monthly survey of what’s new in the world of content for Poser and Daz Studio. Here’s what caught my eye, in March 2017.
Characters and clothes:
Dale for Genesis 3 Male is a distinctive character, who could serve in a role as a sensitive craftsman or a spaceship’s ‘alien ecosystem’ expert. He comes with fibremesh goatee and eyebrows…
Adaptable new sci-fi clothing from veteran designers like Aeon Soul is always a treat, and especially when it’s made for males. Such as the new 20.50 Cyberpunk Everyday Clothes for Genesis 3 Male…
Hair and headwear:
Poisen’s new HelmetZ 3 is the third expansion pack for the wonderful Helmetz series for Poser, and you also get a folder of .OBJ files alongside the Poser files…
Sci-fi Head Gear for Genesis 3 Females and Males…
Gwennili Hair for Genesis 3 female is a very nice freebie from Kayleyss and is inspired by a hairstyle to be found in the recent The Witcher 3 videogame…
Toon and storybook:
DAZ Studio’s Real Toon Expressions for Toon Generations 2 for Genesis 3.
FairyTale Furniture as .OBJ or for Bryce…
Old Windmill for Poser, a freebie from VanishingPoint. Possibly a bit of an old model newly converted for Poser, but it should still look fine in the far distance of a storybook scene. The sails can be animated in Poser…
The AntFarm is developing a very appealing line of Nursoda-like characters, and his latest is Kobold Woodland Spirit for DAZ Studio, currently nicely priced with an introductory offer. Both .FBX and .DAE exports get badly crushed on import to Poser but Kobold can be successfully taken to Poser for Comic Book Mode, with pose intact, using a basic .OBJ export.
Animated lip-synced Talking Kitten? It’s now a possibility, with the new Talking Kitten for the HiveWire Housecat kitten. There’s also a set of 18 PuddyTat Poses for the HiveWire Housecat.
Creatures:
The Great Kraken, a squiddy sea monster for DAZ Studio. Might also look interesting small, re-textured with some luminous stripes, and placed in a sci-fi lab tank…
Need a demonic moggie? SkeleCat for the HiveWire Big Cat…
Need a robot dinosaur? The new R.A.P.T.O.R. and R.A.P.T.O.R. Battle Poses…
Steampunk and valvepunk:
Freakshow Tent for DAZ Studio.
Also in the sideshow section, a bucking Mechanical Bull by Coflek-gnorg, which might even be given a steam-driven copper-plated steampunk makeover. Perhaps pop a clock-face dial texture on the central circle…
This valvepunk Snowmobile is nicely quirky…
Oskarsson’s The Great Library is a scene where you may struggle to get satisfactory low-level camera angles, but this certainly is a very good-looking library with a pleasingly fantasy/steampunk edge…
1920s Explorer:
Ancient Egypt Exhibit is for DAZ Studio, but looks like it would also look good in Vue (via a Collada .DAE export) provided you’re willing to wrestle it to get the camera angles…
Ancient Egypt Exhibit might be combined with the new The Wraithgate from Orestes, and the M4 World War I Headwear Pack II. The latter is a freebie and includes a good Michael 4 Pith Helmet…
Cornucopia has a delightfully ratty old Swampboat / Riverboat for Vue, with detailed interior and many accessories…
Natural scenes:
With Vue 2016 and Poser 11 now both fully patched up, speeded up and talking nicely to each other, now seems like the time for those with fast multi-core CPUs to take another look at using Vue — especially if you want to render Poser scenes that require lush natural landscapes or rich atmospheres. (Note that Vue’s rendering isn’t speeded up by a faster graphics card, as its final rendering is CPU based).
There’s a complete traditional Medina oasis settlement for DAZ Studio, which might also be adapted to serve as a future or off-world setting found in the cult videogames such as Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (which opens in Casablanca in the year 2219) and Elder Scrolls: Morrowind (which starts largely in the town of Balmora). Might be combined with the new Tropical Palm Trees for Daz Studio.
And if you need a large city then the Medina is accompanied by a fascinating sounding Cityscape Generator script for auto-generating vast low-poly 3D backgrounds…
And how will your camel reach the Medina? Perhaps take the new Wild Road for Vue, available at Cornucopia…
DryJack’s Railway Cutting is a fairly simple scene, but this .OBJ could save someone a lot of time in Vue if they wanted to set up a lush summertime steam train scene. DryJack also has a host of other beautifully modeled British train line scenes and props…
Sci-fi scenes:
There’s a very appealing Tomorrowland-style / Mass-Effect-style Sci-Fi Square from Mely3d…
If you have a need for secret underground test facilities, also have a look at Mely3D’s Secret Underground Base and Mecha Hangar.
Dominator Planet from Petipet…
Ahead of the release of the Blade Runner sequel later in 2017, the new Stonemason scene Urban Future 5 is well worth a look, and can of course be used as an expansion for the other Stonemason scenes in his series.
And finally, free tentacular Repair Drones that should work well with Stonemason’s Urban Future 5…
That’s it, more next month!
Vue 2016 – R2 official patch is available
Got Vue 2016? There’s now an R2 update patch for Vue 2016. This weighs in at a 350Mb download, and in the changelog I see that they’ve added 360° VR panoramas and additional viewports, plus a host of fixes for EcoPainter and fixes for various stability and loading niggles. There’s also an R2 patch for Plant Factory.
If you don’t have Vue but want to try it, E-on has just announced the PLE (Personal Learning Edition) and trial versions of Vue 2016 and Plant Factory are now available.
EZDome v1.2 for Poser – completed and free
Snarly’s Space: EZDome, “EZDome v1.2 is complete.” A new Poser script to create skydomes and to manage their associated HDR lighting and backgrounds. The creator Snarlygribbly has very kindly given…
“permission to do whatever you like with this program and its source code: share it, use it, rewrite it, sell it, dissolve it in acid, laugh at it or set it as a challenge to a troupe of infinite monkeys and their typewriters … anything at all.
MeshLab 2016 released
The excellent free 3D mesh conversion and poly-reduction tool MeshLab has had a long-awaited update to MeshLab 2016 (Win 64-bit and Mac).
HandBrake 1.0 released
HandBrake 1.0 has been released to the public, after years in beta. It can do things like: take the huge raw video files from your camera, and turn them into something that’s much easier and smoother for your video editing software to use. The new v.1.0. is free and…
“brings tons of new presets and support for more devices and file types”
Digital Art Live magazine – summer issue catch-up
If you’ve been away over the summer, and are only just settling back into university or work, don’t forget to catch up with the summer issues of the free Digital Art Live magazine. This free monthly magazine is Poser and DAZ -friendly and is devoted to science-fiction art and artists…
Issue 9 of Digital Art Live : the Blender special issue. A special issue for Blender artists.
Issue 10 of Digital Art Live : the Steampunk special issue.
Read Issue 11 of Digital Art Live : Future Landscapes and Seascapes special issue.
Next up is the September issue, set for release any day now. Contact Paul to be put on the mailing-list. September’s theme will be Second Skin: tattoos, future-skin and cyber-skin.
September cover: “Reality Sisters” by Rian Bergwerff. DAZ Studio and Reality.