A new UserScript for Amazon Historical Prices. Useful for those tracking big purchases such as graphics cards over time, and months ahead of any possible purchase. Perhaps also useful for spotting trends (e.g. “a three-day discount, every six weeks”). The open-source code looks fine to me.
The leader in AI text-to-speech voice, Poland’s ElevenLabs, is now out of beta. Now supporting 28 languages in ‘Eleven Multilingual v2’. Can be paired with Professional Voice Cloning, which should mean that those with the correct intonations in the input can also get these in the output in another language. They also have a ‘Voice Styles’ library.
The newly added languages are…
Chinese, Korean, Dutch, Turkish, Swedish, Indonesian, Filipino, Japanese, Ukrainian, Greek, Czech, Finnish, Romanian, Danish, Bulgarian, Malay, Slovak, Croatian, Classic Arabic and Tamil.
The Pricing is nice, though no PayPal. Someone making a short 90 minute audiobook per month would need the $22 a month subscription, but the free and starter tiers are very reasonable. Especially so for those making short 12-20 minute animations with Poser and DAZ.
The great 1971s has a “Retiring Products” sale on Renderosity. Personally I’d perhaps sell the items as a $10 bundle on another store, or even give the best of them away free as a ‘free trial’ for his content. Rather than delete forever. But there you go.
Some beautiful Poser stuff at 70% off, and his models toon very well in Poser 11+’s real-time Comic Book line-art. As you can see here from the sci-fi Angelfish, one of the models set to be deleted…
You may especially want the Crane (set for retirement), a useful accessory for 1971’s many airships and potentially also for boats.
The Jetbee (set for retirement) is also a nice Dieselpunk craft…
And the SteamBoat (set for retirement) is a useful generic small steam-powered two-man harbour launch.
You can now go from Poser 11 to Poser 13 for $95.70…
Upgrades to Poser 13 are available for $95.70 until 11:59pm Monday, 31st July with coupon code POSERUPG13 at the checkout.” Valid Poser 11 serial numbers are now also being accepted for the upgrade… “… will accept Poser 11 or Poser 12 serial numbers for upgrade validation”. This wasn’t the case before.
Apparently the Poser 13 serial will be valid for the Mac Poser 13 Early Access, due for release very soon.
Poser 12 for $49, apparently. Via Graphixly. The “Windows 10” claim is questionable. It runs fine on Windows 7, though I guess it’s possible you won’t get support-desk help if you’re on older Windows versions. And some store-bought P12 third-party scripts won’t work on Windows 7 (which lacks the required Microsoft encryption modules).
Over at NeoWin, Poser Pro 11.3 is now $79. It was a huge $150 on Renderosity, last week. Ideally a non-photoreal user would want to have both 11 and 12 (they can co-exist happily), and the current discounter prices seem the best way to do that at present.
Pamawo’s “Retiring Products” sale, on Renderosity. Some nice items here. “Below Decks” seems especially useful for pirate and high-seas tales.
Posted in 3D Utilities, Companion software, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News
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The Windows desktop sculpting software Aartform Curvy 3D 5.0 final is now available, having been in beta since November 2020. Cost is $99 (around £92 in the UK), and there are further discounts available if you purchased an earlier version (check your email).
An important new feature in 5.0 is adaptive subdivision on the meshes. There’s no video trailer yet for 5.0, but the YouTube channel will likely have one soon.
EmmaAndJordi have a 50% sale on…
On our Gumroad store we have all products 50% off using this coupon:
saintvalentine2023
They also say “Sale ends on January 17” but that must be a typo for ‘February’, since it’s a Valentine’s Sale with the details only posted today.
Nice items I noted while going through their entire store…
EJ Demon Races Creator and Morphs for G8.
EJ Alien Creator Morphs for G8F.
EJ Face Morphs and Details for G8M.
And a good complete G8M Conan-a-like, EJ Lorcan Deluxe Pack For G8M – Character, Outfit, and Poses.
In older items, Kids4 Fit Addon For Violet Hair and two other K4 hair-fits, Tyler Moods – Organized Expressions For Tyler (should you still have Tyler in your runtime), and a Morphing Ice Pop (choc-ice on a stick).
A rare 50% sale for Nursoda at Renderosity. Also a new standalone figure-character this week, called Chull for Poser and DAZ. As usual, he comes with poses, clothes, expressions, hand poses. Currently discounted to just $9.
Also, free are 15 Expression Presets for Chull on ShareCG.
On Renderosity -renapd- is retiring some items, with heavy discounts for those who want them while still available. The most unusual are the RTproductions Napoleonic-era military uniforms for M4, including British and French packs. I also see a Russian Cossack and a Cossack Peasants pack for M3. Very niche, but no doubt they have a certain appeal in Europe.
Not much sign of “worth having” new discounts ahead of Black Friday (25th November), other than the usual year-round perma-discounts. But I noticed…
* The XPPen Store has discounts on its ‘draw on the screen’ monitors. The XPPen Artist 22 (2nd gen) is probably the target model for most people, and has a nice discount. I have one, and am pleased with it.
* Serif’s Affinity 2.0 bundle continues with its launch discounts. Try before you buy, as the fixed and squinty user interfaces don’t suit everyone.
* E-on has large 45% discounts on the subscriptions for its Vue landscape software. Subscriptions, but… worthy software that can still talk to Poser 11 and 12.
* Reallusion’s Cartoon Animator 5 has a good introductory discount, and all versions are now effectively the Pipeline version. Which makes it bargain if you’re looking for a friendly but powerful 2D animator.
* “Courses from £10.99 until 25th Nov” at Udemy. A nice $10 price on Udemy’s Make Motion Comics video tutorial. Sadly it’s all Adobe software though. Also a $10 price on Poser Pro Game Dev Fundamentals, which may be of interest to those who never moved to Poser 11.
* No discounts on Clip Studio EX (the proper multi-page version of the comics production software), but there is a “get 2.0 free when it appears” flash…
It appears that Clip Studio 2.0 is set for Spring 2023. It’ll be interesting to see if it includes AIs, and if they can make the software less fiddly and annoying to use.
Posted in Companion software, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News
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Serif’s Adobe-killer Affinity 2.0 suite has released. A one-time payment for all the desktop software + mobile apps, and the price is currently discounted. It’s a pretty good no-subscription deal for the equivalent of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, if that’s what you need and you have the required OS (2.0 now appears to require Windows 8 or higher). Personally I’d stick with Photoshop for the extensibility and automation, I have no use for an Illustrator clone, and thus the only one wanted would be the Publisher DTP software. Note that each can be had on its own, at a lower price than the bundle.
Try before you buy, as the UI cannot be scaled up and is too small and poky for many.
Posted in Automation, Companion software, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News
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Looking rather useful for $3.50, Easy Toolbox ZBrush Plugin aims to speed your work with the software’s uncongenial and confusing interface, by…
“gathering together, in a single interface, many of the most useful functions of ZBrush that you use all the time.”
Posted in DAZ Studio, Special Offers and Discounts, The Animation Industry, Tutorials
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Now on the DAZ Store, How to Master Material Zones in DAZ: Tutorial Guide.
Poser 11 Pro for just $52! Nice. Today only, one more day to go.
Update: it appears to be sticking at $52. The time-limit has gone, but the new low price remains.