KitBash3D’s new art challenge is “Mission to Minerva”. Entrants get a… “free, 3D asset-kit filled with everything a spacefaring explorer needs” with the aim of creating a space colony in “concept art or animation”. Prizes include “NVIDIA RTX 4080 graphics cards, Wacom Cintiq 16” and more. Deadline: 2nd December 2022.
An AI image derived from a fractal render as a seed-image + a text-prompt involving architecture / lush forest. Seems like an interesting and fruitful combination for art-gen AIs, in terms of wrangling fractal landscapes into more human/natural shapes. While still retaining something of the fractal-ness.
The combination of fractal and AI desktop software has yet to happen, but surely will. There will also be ‘auto up-detailing enhanced’ fly-throughs, something that both Microsoft and Google already have the code for. Video flythroughs will probably end of being a key use for AI in a year or so, because then the viewer doesn’t stop and notice the telltale signs of AI-ness so much. And there will be AI-generated music and soundscape to accompany.
With thanks to Steve Swayne for the example picture.
Changes for the Vue landscape software.
The more affordable ‘Creator’ Vue now gets many of the Pro and Enterprise features. Cinema 4D and Maya integrations will be the addition that most will be interested in, since that will offer an easy Poser -> Vue -> C4D / Maya export workflow. Also added to Creator are “unlimited render size”, Python scripts, Multipass and G-buffer renders, among others. Nice. See the link for full details.
However, there’s a kicker… ‘Creator’ Vue will now be for “Personal non-commercial use only”. But that shouldn’t affect most hobbyists and students. At the most, it would affect those who pick up a few prints-sales each year from DeviantArt or ArtStation.
And… “starting today, any VUE and PlantFactory legacy licenses (versions 2016 and below) re-activation request will be contingent to a service order.” In other words it seems you’ll pay a small unspecified ‘servicing fee’ to have E-On re-activate an ancient Vue licence. Seems fair enough, as long as it’s a fair price. I believe you can also ask them to restore your old Cornucopia content purchases.
Time for another survey of the new and recent 3D content for DAZ Studio and Poser, for other related software, plus links to other goodies. Not quite monthly, as the last such was back on 20th August. So it’s roughly a six-weekly survey this time.
Magazines:
Available now, the new Digital Art Live magazine #72 (October 2022). Newly expanded, with ten new additional features and 108 pages. The theme this month is “Costume”, with a focus on fun and futuristic clothes.
It this sells at $5 then the following issue will be on AI image generators.
Science-fiction:
HF Asterya for G8F. Looks great. Hellfyre71 now has quite a nice line in humanoid aliens.
Car Viter, a Syd Mead-like personal vehicle of the future for DAZ Studio. Looks “very Mead”.
Cafe Racer for DAZ Studio.
Car Tork for DAZ, suitable for sandy and swampy places.
IBOT D2, floater bots for corridors.
The IBOT D2’s are probably hunting for Coflek-gnorg’s Critter. A bionic dino shark-bot!
The classic AirFish, now for DAZ Studio.
1971s Sci-fi interior kit for Poser, and he has another separate page for a DAZ version. 8 modular parts. His content always toons nicely in Poser’s real-time Comic-book mode.
Planning to help Elon take his Boring Company tunnel-digging to Mars? Then you’ll be needing the AtoZ Mobile Dual Beam Gantry Crane and tunnel sections.
Fantasy:
Broomhelga for La Femme for Poser.
Cirque De Lune Texture Set for La Femme. Plus poses.
Cybertenko’s new Atlantean King For Michael 4. Who could perhaps find a use for a D-Force Fur shoulders cape/wrap.
Photo Props: Bottles by ShaaraMuse3D. Pop all sorts inside, from micro-moss landscapes to pesky imprisoned imps.
The classic Steam outpost, now for DAZ Studio.
Halloween:
1971s has a new Underground Place kit for Poser and DAZ. A classic type environment which reminds me of the waterworks under the city of Vivec in the famous videogame Morrowind. There’s another separate page for a DAZ version. Suitable for Halloween revels with the monsters.
A dForce Stage Outfit for G8F. Unusual, and I imagine you could make the web pattern glow.
Fyrboil and his bat cousin Nibbles Bloodfang, both by Anniemation.
Halloween Hair. Fun, but could also form part of an unusual ‘yeti-type superhero’ kitbash for a new addition to your comic-book team.
Scruffy Hair Set for G8M. Always useful to have this sort of Gollum-hair, since it’s so rare.
Cheapskate’s free 3D Candle Flame for Superfly in Poser.
Everyday items, fruit and vegetables. I guess this sorts of counts for Halloween, as these days some think you should give nice healthy broccoli (eew…) to kids instead of candy. The potatoes and tubers looks especially nicely done.
CW Jospeh for Genesis 8, a handsome vampire with just the right sort of face for a less photoreal look (e.g for a 3D comic).
Another Vulture Mask for G8F.
Toon:
Not much in toon this month, as everyone switches to Halloween and Christmas. But Norbert the Nerd for Genesis 8 appeals, as a photoreal semi-toon.
Storybook:
Cutie Cloud Bundle studio set for DAZ Studio.
A generic Bicycle for Poser. Looks to be electrically assisted, and the sort of town run-about you might see in Japan.
Steampunk Submarine SeaMaid, possibly useful for a storybook adventure.
Hobby Props Art Supplies for DAZ Studio, including crayons.
Handmade Textures for Use with G’MIC’s ‘Artistic Stylize’.
Poses and AniBlocks:
Skydive G8 poses. Unusual, and possibly very useful if that’s what you want for your scene or animation. Could perhaps also double-up as outer-space weightless-ness poses? But for that see also HF Outer Space Poses for Genesis 8 Female.
Loiter Motions 2 for G1 and G2. Slightly mis-named, as one involves the figure having a heart-attack (see video)! There’s also a Loiter Motions 1 for G3F & G8F. Who knows what lurks in that one?
MultiGroup IV – Poses for Genesis 3 and 8.
Characters and clothing:
DZ G8F FemmeFataleZ. Looks similar to the Catwoman character, but not being any kind of a DC Comics or movies fan I’m not sure how similar. Be wary of commercial use, as DC Comics are very protective of their IP. For G8F.
Hard Work for M4 and V4 Hi-Vis Top and Pants for Poser. Useful if you make work-safety training videos for companies, and need the right gear. Also matching Work Gloves.
Victoria 9 HD, pre-order, for the forthcoming Genesis 9 free base figure. Apparently you need to be able to already comfortably run HD figures, to run this one. Also needed will be the very latest DAZ Studio.
Sexy Leotardo Classic for G8. And it is indeed, since it looks like a ‘instant classic’ go-to for many.
Layered Strand-Based Hair Shader and Merchant Resource for iRay.
Animals:
Songbird ReMix Parrots Vol 5 – Amazons of the World 1. Another triumph for Ken’s line of birds packs. See also the Songbird ReMix Perching Places and Eggs and Nestlings for garden birds.
DS Cadichon for DAZ Horse 2. Strange name, but it’s a donkey with pack gear. The gear probably needs a dust and wear pack for a makeover.
Texture Pack for the Hivewire Winged Horse and Poser.
Steampunk Pirate Octopus. A static model, but nicely done. Would be fab to see something akin to this made for Poser / DAZ.
LoREZ Horse 2 Bundle, a useful looking general cart-horse.
Landscapes and environments:
OpenWater, a block of open sea with waves. Looks useful, when you don’t want and can’t really control a big plane of water that might try to take up your entire scene.
Also a matching Wading model.
3 Beach Materials in SBS and PBR.
Raffy Raffy’s new Four biomes, though for Blender rather than for Vue.
Historical:
BW Primitive Weapons Bundle. Also digging and skinning tools.
dForce CH Greek Mythological Armour for Genesis 8. And a Medusa shield. See also the dForce Ares War Outfit.
Far From Home – Roman Legionary. Looks like it has just about everything you’d need to build your own legion, provided you can get more than four G8s in a scene. For G8M.
Viking Town Set 2. Older content from VanishingPoint, and showing its age, but now available for DAZ Studio. Also suitable for a Saxon settlement, seen from a distance or in a bird’s eye view. May also interest Vue users who can put an ecosystem on parts of it.
Napoleon’s Polish Lancer Bundle for G8. Specialist military historical content, no doubt a big hit in Poland.
Battleship Variations, an add-on pack for the Massena Pre-Dreadnought Battleship from the 1900s. Real-world, but suitable for steampunk.
Classic Silver Age retro Comic-book helmets.
1930s/40s hard-working Farm Livin’ outfits for Poser. Requires the Work and Leisure set.
A 1930s German Nurse for Poser.
Scripts and Utilities:
Ken K’s new script has been released. One-click to fit clothing to body morphs on figures in Poser 12 (only). There’s a video demo.
AutoSave and AutoLoad Creator for DAZ Studio.
OBJ Companion, “makes creating morphs using OBJ files easier”. Seems to be a helper for content makers switching between DAZ and Blender.
D-Talks! Realtime Talking Chatbot for DAZ Characters. Works with SAPI5 voices.
Legacy Set Converter. I’d always be wary of letting an autobot loose on a big runtime, but this apparently goes through on automatic and converts everything to the current DAZ .DUF format.
Bone Minion for Genesis 8 for Generation 4 (V4 and M4).
Tutorials:
Digital Comics Creative : Volume 2, for DAZ users. The Poser volume of this six-parter is due shortly. Update: it’s here.
dForce Case Studies : An In-Depth Tutorial Guide. Break through your dForce learning roadblocks.
Fixing Marvelous Designer Clothing Objects for DAZ Studio.
An easier and better way to do displacement in Poser 12.
Creating a hand grasp from one main dial in the body of the Poser figure.
Creating Scripts for Moho, the 2D animation software that uses Python. Formerly Smith Micro’s Anime Studio. No longer interfaces with Poser, sadly, put perhaps someone could whip up a new Python script for that?
Ok, that’s it for the latest round-up. Be sure to pick up the new edition of Digital Art Live magazine. More next month!
By accident I found the freeware MMD to DAZ, v2 (2019) plugin. May require Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable installed in Windows, which all but ancient dinosaur PCs should already have. Lets you import .PMD (older MMD) and .PMX (newer MMD) Miku Miku Dance figure files, apparently with the proper textures and bones, shaders, and toon outlines. You can also apparently drag and drop .PMX files onto the DAZ viewport.
Basic tutorial video: MMD Importer for DAZ Studio.
The other MMD option is said to be: Blender importer > FBX export (optionally also with dance motions) > Poser 11 import > save as .CR2 from which you can also take it to DAZ Studio. There may be other, perhaps better Blender importers by now, I haven’t made a huge search for them.
The first look at Elon Musk’s humanoid Tesla-bot, early version. Can’t be long before someone produces a DAZ Studio version…
The Amsterdam Blender Conference, set for late October 2022, is calling for Blender-made films. No deadline that I can see, but… “The list of nominees will be published a few days before the Blender Conference.”
Posted in Companion software, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
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Reallusion’s Cartoon Animator 5 desktop cartoon production software is coming soon, and there are offers in the emails such as ‘buy an upgrade and get version 5 free when it appears’. It’s good software for making that kind of animation, especially for a small studio. Professional, fairly easy to use, very well documented and supported. Though you to be aware that you probably need to budget four times the initial ‘sticker price’, if you’re going to fully get into the expensive Reallusion ecosystem with motion add-ons and expansion packs and suchlike.
Starting soon, a six-week coaching course on AI for your art, with Vladimir Chopine.
Now available, free on Gumroad, the “Battle” issue of Digital Art Live magazine. Also has a 12-page centre section on the Poser 12 software, to give some light relief in the middle. And a two-page technical primer on Poser-to-Vue.
The DAZ Freebies pages has updated.
Ninive 6 Starter Bundle has Beach Wave Hair for Genesis 2, and a set of Capsces poses (always quality).
Keiko 6 Basic Poses, suited to thin toony Genesis 2 figures.
Tale Hero Textures are nice, but require the Sarsa/Val3dart “Tale Hero” (not free) for Genesis 1. The shirt has potential, for hobbits.
An interesting new re-lighting service, ClipDrop – Relight. Requires a 2D picture-upload, and you then get “as-if 3D” real-time relighting.
I’m not sure how well it would work with a picture that doesn’t look like a head-and-shoulders passport photo.
I’m guessing it may also be flummoxed by wild Poser/DAZ stuff, such as an all-action hero cyber-elephant wearing goggles, posed against a complex cyber-city background.
Doubtless this sort of capability is coming to desktop software in a month or two, if it isn’t here already in something I haven’t heard about yet. But this is a nice online demo of the capabilities.
By the way, here is the “Click to replay” code, for the above demo. A few lines of simple HTML for Web pages. I’m surprised people go overboard with massive javascripts just to add a simple animated .PNG control…
Working in Opera (Chrome), Brave (Chrome) and Pale Moon (Firefox). You’re welcome.
Most readers of this blog will already also be members of the free Digital Art Live STUDIO forum. But if not, there’s the ‘joining’ link. It’s a more Facebook-like forum, not the old type.
A fun, relaxed A.I. Generated Art : Community Workshop with Digital Art Live, this weekend. Free and booking now.
