The latest Digital Art Live, the free monthly magazine for science-fiction and fantasy artists: Digital Art Live Issue 39: Deserts.
Strange tails from SIGGRAPH
Interesting new things to watch out for in the news in the week or so, from the annual SIGGRAPH…
* “A stretch-sensing soft glove” to interactively capture hand-poses with high accuracy.
* A real-time golf training system “using the user’s shadow to correct the correct form of the golf swing”. Might this also have potential for training in sketching, which similarly involves sweeping strokes? Possibly in combination with the above ‘smart’ glove?
* A new process for creating ‘smart’ textiles “that can change shape and structure”.
* Artificial tails for humans… “to allow us to alter our body momentum”. Dogs are going to be either really confused as this development, or really happy that their masters have joined the pack at last…
Release: Krita 4.2 final
The free Krita 4.2 final has just been released for the desktop. It’s an important release, and of course is free as it’s the flagship digital painting software for ‘open source’ creativity, Krita 4.x rivals Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro and has clearly outpaced a clutch of similar software.
4.2 Release Notes and New Features in Krita 4.2: Release Video (start at 0.52 seconds if you want to skip the intro).
The highlights:
– over 1,500 stability buxfixes.
– better drawing tablet support.
– better multi-monitor set-up support.
– “a host of bugs with tablets have been resolved”.
– faster brush-speed.
– improved Flow and Opacity in the brush engine, for delicate strokes.
– better colour-picking and colour-palette storage.
– easier ‘move and transform’ of selections.
– rotate your canvas from the Overview mini-window.
– resize the Layer thumbnails.
– updates GMIC filters plugin to version 2.4.5.
– some new Blend modes such as Freeze, Glow, Heat and Reflect.
– and there’s a new Noise generator.
I’ve previously looked in depth here at the potential of its GMIC filters for doing interesting toon-ification things with Poser renders, and I like what I see.
Be warned that it’s not like Blender, in that you can’t have multiple versions of it on the same PC. It’ll remove your old version. But I found that my Brush preset tagging and custom UI remained as it had been in the old version.
New stuff for DAZ and Poser, May 2019
It’s once again near the end of the month, and thus time for me to survey the new releases for DAZ Studio and Poser. Another bumper month of releases. Here’s what I noticed in among the May 2019 releases.
Science fiction:
A free Klingon Head Morph for La Femme, the new flagship Poser figure. Star Trek, so for fan-art only, obviously.
A futuristic candygirl, Emiko for La Femme, for Poser 11. I’m not keen on the jelly-hair, but it could be replaced. Shows how flexible the new La Femme can be, in terms of getting away from the default ‘Princess Di’ look.
DD Gorgeous Glass Shaders for iRay, Vol. 2, with definite sci-fi potential, and also MMX Silk Shaders for iRay
Planet Irida, an unusual ice-planet and flora, for DAZ Studio.
ATLAS Armored Suit for Genesis 8 by Herschel Hoffmeyer.
Need some fierce pets for your ATLAS warriors? How about Cassius HD, a new monster dog for Daz Dog 8.
A new fan-art freebie Deepcore – Abyss Rig v2.0 is the deep-sea exploration rig from the pretty-good James Cameron movie The Abyss. Obviously not for commercial use.
CS01: Everyday Army Poses for Genesis 8. Ensemble poses, especially useful for storytellers doing things like team superhero or Carthargo-type exploration comics. See other packs in the CS01 series, for more.
A free spaceship bedroom/corridor which is mildly unusual in terms of taking into account the need for low-gravity weightlessness rungs. I like details like that, which make me think, “yes, that’s what they’d have…”.
A slicker and more far-future SF Corridor for DAZ Studio, with viewing windows.
War Manta for DAZ Studio. And an Area 52-like Hidden Zone to serve as a base for your mantas. Looks to be expandable with the larger Mesa Desert 360-environment.
SC20 Gym, a modern gym interior that could probably fairly easily be adapted to be an underground hangar for the above War Mantas.
Chronos for Genesis 8 Male. At first I thought meh!, but actually it has a nice retro late-1950s Jack Kirby monster-comic vibe to it.
Easypose Cyber-Tentacles for DAZ Studio (only). Also a Easypose Flowing-Fluids pack.
When the tentacles attack, your characters might need to dive into the Post-apocalyptic Survival Bunker!
Steampunk:
You’ve surely got airships in your runtime. But what about the control decks? The new Steampunk Airship Cabin and control deck. This may also interest Vue users, as an export.
Your airship is probably headed to the new Epic Environments – Floating Sky Island. Again, this may also interest Vue users, exported as an .OBJ file.
New female outfits that would match the airship are dForce Minimalist Chic and dForce Redgrave Outfit and the free Classical Retro Dress for G8F (commercial use for renders).
The airship crew might be in the dForce Anchors Aweigh Outfit for Genesis 8 Female outfits, perhaps with a more Navy-like makeover that throws overboard the lace. And your airship engineers might be in the new X-Fashion Uniform 02.
Your airship captain might look like the new Gustave HD for Genesis 8 Male.
And the airship’s Attack Squadron leader might wear the Myrna 1920’s Vaudeville Showgirl Tuxedo Hat for G8F, in DAZ Studio.
The airship’s enemies might be helmeted with the new Space Spartan Helmet for Poser and M4, by Cybertenko.
… and possibly also be rather amusingly piloting a fleet made up of the cute little Miyazaki-ish Desert Tram for DAZ Studio. This could probably be kit-bashed with the base from some of Cybertenko’s models, to give you an electro-hover-tram with levitation coils underneath.
At CG Trader, a reasonably-priced Owl Skeleton Handpainted, in .OBJ and .FBX. Slap on a pair of goggles and some boots and it could be something for a steampunk museum or laboratory.
Also, some nicely designed low-poly guns, done in 20k, at $9 each at Sketchfab, one and two and three. They’re not going to look great next to a photoreal G8F, but if you’re doing comic-book work with Poser 11’s comic book inking mode then these may appeal.
Historical:
U.S. World War 2 Uniform Paratrooper Expansion, which converts the older World War II U.S. Uniform HD to a Paratrooper and seems to add even more details and controls.
Second World War Roadsigns. Could probably also be adapted for a Fallout / Mad Max setting. Also a new set of Airstrip Accessories and Base/tunnel entrance with guard-hut and barrier, from the same time period.
GWR Fruit D Van by DryJack, specialist in British railways.
A free 1960s Bubble Chair Set for DAZ Studio.
dForce Bliaut for Genesis 8 Female, a medieval outfit which at a guess looks about the 11th century, Northern France?
And a realistic ancient castle ruin and mound, possibly more suitable for backgrounds than closer framing.
Storybook:
Watchmaker house for Poser. Nice work, as always, from 1971s. It looks like it could use a set of material makeovers for the four seasons, plus a Christmas-colours set.
Secret Garden Door by 1971s, for Poser.
Yana for Genesis 3. Looks like she would be a characterful candidate for a storybook heroine.
BBarbs continues to add to her fine set of realistic poses for G8 Young Child.
dForce H&C Pajamas Set for Genesis 8, classic old-style pajamas.
Five Birdhouses in .OBJ format. Nicely designed.
Candy-stripes for the HiveWire Horse, for Poser.
Summer series, Inflatable fun for Poser. Back-garden and beach inflatables.
Macro Worlds: Sand Castle Construction Set by HD terrain specialist ShaaraMuse3D.
Toon:
Lola Free Bundle, a new self-contained/standalone free toon figure for DAZ Studio. Genuinely free. Also free, a set of four Lola Bodies morphs and Hair Colors for Lola. You’ll also want the free More Expressions for Lola set and the Action Actress clothing set for Toon Grrl Lola.
I’ve yet to try to get her over to / into Poser 11, for the Comic Book mode, but I assume she’ll go.
Mr. Spock for Pitterbill, for Poser. Requires the well-known Dr. Pitterbill from Nursoda. Star Trek, so for non-commercial use. Pretty good. ‘Live Long, and Prosper’, little freebie!
Animals:
Alioramus altai DR, a new and somewhat feathery dinosaur from Dinoraul.
Hivewire’s new Red Stag and Red Stag LAMH Preset. Also a Fallow Deer.
A new set of Animations for the HiveWire Big Cat. I guess you might also get something from these if you tried them on the Housecat, too.
Songbird Remix Shorebirds Vol 4. Including a scarlet Ibis.
Also Songbird ReMix Flock Formations, for rapid setup of flocking flight for your ReMix birds.
Hair:
3Dream’s Freestuff now includes a big range of SuperFly MATs for older Poser hair.
Sylvia Tied Bun Hair for Genesis 8 Female.
Everyday:
A new La Femme Business Suit, for Poser 11.
dForce Office Wear for G8M and the more casual but still office-ish dForce Basic Jacket Outfit.
Adult and Baby care poses for Genesis 8.
Message-Shirt for Genesis 8 Female. A G8 shirt that lets you easily apply your own logo or slogan. Also a similar Magic Baseball Cap.
Need somewhere to stash your fab dForce garments? The new FG Closet for DAZ Studio.
Interiors and exteriors:
Cloakroom Clutter for DAZ Studio.
London Courtyard for DAZ Studio. A modern London townhouse. And matching dForce Oxford Outfit.
Arabic Living Room for DAZ Studio.
Utilities:
Iray SurfaceWorx. Easily add dust and grime layers, but keep most of the underlying textures.
MF Content Bookmarks. Add a Bookmarks feature to your DAZ Studio Content Library.
Karina’s EasyPose to Normal Pose, for Poser characters.
Soft Body Morphs for G8F in DAZ Studio. Makes G8F squish-able in small ways.
Tutorials:
Powerful Poses : How to Create Dynamic Pose Sets for DAZ Studio characters.
Motion Graphics : Easy Animation for Visual Storytelling.
Prime Postwork Secrets with Drew Spence.
OK, that’s it. More picks next month!
OpenClipArt alternative
OpenClipArt has been down for about six weeks now. The best searchable fallback I’ve found is Public Domain Clip Art which has 13,778 bits of clipart under Creative Commons or Public Domain, though that’s only a sub-set of the apparently 150,000 bits that OpenClipArt had at its demise. So far as I can tell, after extensive searching, no-one was keeping a full mirror or tarball of OpenClipArt at 2019.
Currently free – M4 + Pro Bundle + extras
Currently free on DAZ, the M4 Hero Pro Pack. This includes the base M4 + the M4 Pro Pack + a load of M4 extras. “Michael 4 Shapes++” includes “Michael 4 Genitalia” and seems to include the vital “M4 Morphs++” pack in a supercharged expanded version — this may even interest those who think they already have the M4 and Morphs++ combo.
If you’re new to DAZ and Poser, and get this, you may want want my tutorial on how to activate and load Micheal 4 and Morphs++.
Also currently free is the original Troll, which is worth having in your runtime as there were many extras and makeovers and freebies made for him.
Cartoon Animator 4: the official demo video
The official 4-minute demo video for Reallusion’s new Cartoon Animator 4 (formerly CrazyTalk Animator 3) has just been released…
It’s 2D animation software, now 2.5D on the heads. Just be aware that, once you’re hooked into the Reallusion ecosystem, it can become a very expensive option to get all the features and content packs you want.
The welcome Mat
3Dream has kindly made SuperFly MATs for a whole lot of Poser hair, and has posted them free on ShareCG.
iClone Plug-in Marketplace
There’s a new iClone Plug-in Marketplace, for small plugins. Only nine there at present. I’m no longer a regular iClone user, but I like the presentation. Wouldn’t it be great to see something similar for your favourite creative software? Presented in a uniformly slick and at-a-glance way, with comprehensive coverage and everything tested and known to be working. Some software occasionally has such a thing, and there are the stores, but more often the details and links are scattered all over the Web.
Medieval Warfare
Medieval Warfare magazine may interest some who use DAZ/Poser to recreate such scenes, and are seeking place to publish. I’m guessing the editors might be in need of the highest-quality artwork that’s both dramatic and historically authentic, to match with their articles from the leading scholars in the field. The publishers are Dutch, and also have a sister title Ancient Warfare, for which it’s probably even more difficult to find suitable artwork.
New content for DAZ and Poser, April 2019
Right then, it’s near enough the end of the month. Time for a survey of the new content released in April for Poser, Daz and Vue.
Note that I’m no longer covering freebies if they’re only ‘non-commercial use’ or if the licencing is confused (i.e saying “commercial use” in one place on the page and “all rights reserved” in another). Certain fan-art is excepted, where it’s obvious that there can’t be commercial use.
Science fiction:
Mervin the Alien HD for Genesis 8 Male.
Space Bundle for DAZ Studio. A highly detailed near-future cockpit and matching spacesuit for G8F.
A Port Horizon spaceport scene for Poser and DAZ Studio. Also The AntFarm’s Sci-Fi Wall for DAZ Studio.
Alpha One Ghost Outfit For Genesis 8 Female.
Not especially well-served by its preview renders, but ATVE Strider looks like it would have potential for wide desert scenes.
A free Phytopanel Wall suitable for ‘sci-fi greenhouse’ type scenes, and a room set into which the panels might fit.
An Italian style Monocycle ‘Mono-Scooter’ as an .FBX with material zones. On the new ArtStation Marketplace, at a very reasonable price and with commercial use.
Lickalicious for Genesis 8 Female, a mutant “super tongue” for G8F. With nine new bones in the tongue.
StarJet Cockpit for the StarJet.
Orbit Apartment for DAZ Studio.
There’s a new Collection at 3D Warehouse for free Space stations for SketchUp.
Steampunk:
Steam Voyager, a very nice Jasper Morello -style airship for DAZ Studio.
Wild West Mine, which could be fairly easily adapted for steampunk.
dForce Fancy Punk Genesis 8 and Travel Suitcase Collection for DAZ Studio.
Sliced for G8F and PBR texture set. Looks super, with uses from Doctor Who monsters, to fantasy forest-spirits, to steampunk mechanoids, to sci-fi aliens.
Cartoon Airplane at CGTrader. Low-poly but detailed, as a 44Mb OBJ. I’m guessing it’s probably the 4K materials that are making the file size so big, for a supposedly low-poly craft. It looks a bit Miyazaki / anime, but I’m assuming it’s not fan-art.
K-9 freebie for Poser. The famous robot dog from Doctor Who, and thus of course for fan-art only.
Free Steam Powered Clock at BlendSwap. For Blender, so you’d need to wrestle with the infernal Blender UI and export to .OBJ.
3 Wheeler car for DAZ Studio.
There’s a new Collection at 3D Warehouse for free Monowheels and monocycles models for SketchUp. See also the older MrSparky’s free CogBike for Poser, with V3/M3 pose.
Fantasy:
Behemoth HD for Genesis 8 Male.
Gladeling Female for G8F and dForce Gladeling Female Outfit.
There’s also Gladeling Male for G8M and outfit.
Fantasy Hair for G3 and G8 females and a set of hair colours.
Historical:
HD 3D Scenery: Buried Remains for Poser, from expert scenery maker ShaaraMuse3D. Very high-res textures. Suited to ‘prehistoric’ sabre-tooth tiger -type pictures, as well as modern pictures.
Jack Tomalin’s Trinity Atrium Fallen Iray Addon for Trinity Atrium Fallen for Trinity Atrium.
Authentic Early Roman Empire Imperial Legion guard, for Genesis 8 Male.
Retro dforce Retro Swimsuit from the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Audrey Hepburn for Genesis 8 Female.
Storybook:
BBarbs continues her fine series of believable Genesis 8 Young Child Poses, as freebies with commercial use.
dForce Prairie Queen For GF8 and textures pack. An American Pioneer outfit from the days of the Frontier. Could also serve as more of a generic Grimm’s fairy-tales storybook outfit.
Creepy Old Attic for DAZ Studio.
Interiors:
TS Barbershop and Hair Salon for DAZ Studio.
Oxford Library for DAZ Studio.
Landscapes:
Soggy Bottom for DAZ Studio, a new-made bog-garden with paths and pools.
“The long oasis” for Vue, and a free Stretch Tent for shading your desert scenes as a Poser freebie prop with commercial use.
Kake-zukuri Temple and garden, by a name new to me, i74.
Underwater scenes could be enhanced by the new Scuba Gear for Genesis 3 Male.
Animals:
Three volumes of Poser shorebirds, by Poser bird expert Ken Gilliland. Songbird ReMix Shorebirds Vol 1 for Wading Birds inc. Sacred Ibis (Ancient Egyptian); Vol 2 – Herons & Bitterns including the classic Heron; and Vol 3 – Small Waders for mudflats and shorelines.
HiveWire Antler Pack for the HiveWire Mule Deer Buck, which itself requires the HiveWire Horse for Poser.
There’s also a Whitetail Deer LAMH Preset for this and the CWRW Whitetail Buck textures, both at HiveWire…
Marguerite The Cow HD and Denver The Calf HD , both requiring the DAZ Horse 2. There’s also a Poses set for cow and calf and child milkmaid, and a complete French Cowshed.
Purr-fect kittimations with Animations for Millennium Cat, Pack 1, Animations and aniBlocks for Millennium Cat, Pack 2, for DAZ’s Millennium Cat in either Poser or DAZ Studio.
Tyrannosaurus Rex 3 Saddles and Poses for the new Tyrannosaurus Rex 3. After riding one of these your character might be needing a trip to the Wild West Outhouse.
Characters and generic clothing/hair:
Ethan for Genesis 8 Male. An excellent male character, believable and great hair. Looks like a very flexible guy, re: being able to range from medieval dragon-fighter to 1940s noir detective to spaceship captain and beyond.
dForce_French Twist Hair for Genesis 8 Female. Free dForce hair, with colours, and commercial use.
A dForce cape Splendid Chic for Genesis 8 Females which seems to offer all sorts of flexibility in terms of settings, from an Irish colleen to a sci-desert nomad and beyond.
Maki for La Femme, an affordable makeover from Japan for Poser 11’s La Femme.
La Femme – Another Look MATs, giving Poser 11’s new La Femme flagship female character an older and more weather-worn look.
A free set of G8M M8 romantic couple poses, SN I love U Poses.
Toon and semi-toon:
Toony Lizard Head Morphs for G8F.
Diarmuid for G8M, a Scottish-looking semi-toon lad character for DAZ Studio.
A toon-ish 3D model Shipwrecked Boat and a nice Wooden Pier at CG Trader, in .OBJ.
Shaders, materials and add-ons:
Vince Bagna’s SuperShaders for Poser 11 SuperFly, Volumes 1 & 2. Over 300 high quality Cycles shaders for the SuperFly engine in Poser 11, easily applied via presets. A must-have for Poser users.
Atmocam2 for DAZ Studio.
Render Queue for iRay, for DAZ Studio.
Tutorials:
Wrangling the Daz Studio Content Library.
Ten Style Secrets for Sequential Art.
That’s all for the month. More picks next month!
A sale of interest to digital comics makers
TwoMorrows, an online store dedicated to comics history. They currently have a sale on for their Draw! magazine “the professional ‘how-to’ magazine on cartooning”, with most issues as low as $5 and some as low as £3.
Also Jack Kirby Collector and Write Now magazine, for writers of comics and similar.
Their sale runs through 1st May 2019.
Hair Strand Designer
In among the stampede of ‘big wallet’ releases from the makers of 3D software this spring, there’s still space for the small and niche. How does a tool to design individual hair strands grab you? Yes, you can of course ‘grow hair strands’ fairly easily in Poser Pro and DAZ Studio has its LAMH plugin and its presets. But the new $3 Hair Strand Designer beta… “creates hair strands ready for placing onto your hair cards” on 3D hair models. It’s for people who make hair this way…
… so may be useful for DAZ / Poser / iClone content makers.
Tutorial: How to get a larger preview window in MojoWorld 3
One of the problems with the old MojoWorld software is that, even when you full-screen the software, the “instant preview” window is very small. Here is that preview window, seen actual size on a modern 1920px desktop monitor…
So tweeny-weeny, so cute, but… a pain on the eyes and the neck, on a big widescreen monitor! The user can do certain things to improve it. In its Settings controls you can set render size to: ‘Large’ and ‘Auto-update’. While its ‘Render Quality’ is best left at Default (it makes little difference, but is slightly the fastest of the three options).
So the user can do some things to improve it, but can’t actually enlarge its size. Wouldn’t it be great to get a bigger view? Like this…
Is there some freeware that can do that? What about a Windows magnifier software? Nope… I looked for hours and there’s absolutely nothing that can grab a section of the screen and show it in an enlarged fixed window like this. They all want to play “follow the cursor, and show what’s under it”.
There is a solution, and it comes from a surprising direction. It’s the popular free video player VLC Player. Here are the instructions…
1. Launch the latest VLC Player. From the top menu, go: Media | Open Capture Device | Capture Mode | Desktop | 12 FPS | Play. You have now set up a live video-stream of your desktop. Don’t worry, it’s not being sent to some dodgy blokes in Ecuador, and is staying within your PC!
2. From the top menu, go: Tools | Effects | Video Effects | Crop | then you will need to play around with the pixel offsets to suit your screen. You may need to ‘jiggle it a bit’ until the section of the screen you want to isolate pops out into an ‘enlarged’ mode, but you’ll soon get the hang of how its ‘indenting the screen’ and thus enlarging it. Here are my settings on a big widescreen desktop monitor…
Optionally, you can also have VLC do a very slight real-time sharpen, which is controlled from the same Video Effects tab — the Sharpen slider is found under ‘Essential’. You can even send the image into black and white and slight change the contrast, to get a sense of how the greyscale values of the picture will visually “read”.
3. When happy with the view, effect and magnification level, grab the VLC Player window and place it in the bottom right of the screen (as seen above). Then go to the top menu and set: View | “Always on top”. This forces VLC to be visible, even when MojoWorld is the active window.
You then work with MojoWorld as usual.
Optionally, in MojoWorld if you mouseover on the native instant-preview window, then you can click once on it to “Enhance”. That’s pretty quick on a modern PC, little more than a second. After doing that Enhance, here’s a comparison at actual-size of the two views, the native instant preview and the VLC stream of that section of the desktop…
Not ideal, but better that the native preview. You’re getting an entire planet rendered in WYSiWYG in near-real-time, and as such some pixellated blockiness seems a small price to pay.
There are a few drawbacks:
1. You lose instant access to your “random cam” dice buttons, because the corner of the VLC Player windows is covering them up. If you want access to them you have manually grab the VLC Player window by its top bar, and slide it down for a few moments, then manually side it back up. But that’s easily done, and then you can re-select the MojoWorld window and go back to the JogNav buttons.
2. You get a slight ‘mouse cursor flicker’, due to VLC capturing the stream.
3. It’s overkill for fast-rendering planets. On a fast modern PC you’d get a preview that’s nicer and almost as fast by just doing a quick 600px render on the lowest settings.
The above technique should work on any older software where the instant preview is of a fixed size.
Freebie: Render in Background for Poser 11 Standard?
A new freebie from JLK, a Python Script which claims to enable Render in Background for Poser.
Poser 11 Pro already “Enabled rendering in background” for SuperFly renders (that’s the equivalent of iRay, DAZ readers), back in the official Poser 11 SR5 update patch in September 2016. Thus I assume this script is a workaround to enable background SuperFly rendering in Poser 11 Standard?
I don’t have the time to test this just now, but I assume it does what it says on the tin. The script’s code shows it expects Poser 11 and SuperFly.