Going away for the weekend, but leaving your PC running? Then the new Batch Renderer for DAZ Studio may interest you. It will churn out a series of renders, while you have fun. Works with Daz Studio 4.5 and higher, and is compatible with iRay renders.
Gosh, is it September already? Time for another monthly survey of the most interesting scenes and props for Poser and DAZ Studio.
Are you back from your summer holidays? Then slip on the ol’ fuzzy slippers and relax with the Cosy Kitsch Living Room Props for the new A Cozy Kitsch Living Room…
Want to quickly fake some summer holiday photos, showing yourself in amazing locations? You might need some new exotic Poser/DAZ settings, then. Aurelio’s new Venice for instance, puts you in a gondola on the lagoon at Venice…
His Venice might be used with a hazy background made with 1971s’s new Coastal Pier set.
Or how about a trip to Chinatown? Only this is Stonemason’s fantastic new Chinatown, done in the same high-rise style as his classic early sci-fi cityscapes.
A depth-fogging tool is going to be a ‘must’ for this sort of big scene. A new one for Daz Studio 4 + iRay + a powerful PC is AtmoCam for Iray. Likely to be a whole lot quicker, provided you have and know Adobe Photoshop, is making multiple pass renders with Light Dome PRO (Dreamlight’s successor to the very useful old Mood Master II) and then compositing them together using the Screen blend mode in Photoshop.
Need to give Chinatown some aerial anti-gravity powered traffic, like in Blade Runner? The AntFarm has a fine new Floating Junk…
If you have a graphics card that lets you use DAZ Studio’s iRay rendering with any kind of speed, and you want to get a Blade Runner style ‘rain look’ on your Chinatown scene, then Dreamlight has some new DAZ Studio iRay Rain Look Tutorials…
Ground level in Chinatown? 1971s’s new Old town houses kit might serve for that…
Or what about Coflek-Gnorg’s new Cyberpunk Corner for a Chinatown ground level scene? Coflek-Gnorg also has Street Shops…
What about taking your characters underneath the new Chinatown? The new Subway Train is a subway train/carriage that looks like a useful stock prop for your runtime, highly detailed on the exterior and interior. See also the new Ruined Subway Tunnel scene.
Need a new character to roam Chinatown? I love JerryJang’s new CosHero for M4 suit, it looks like something out a 1980s Bilal comic in Heavy Metal. It’s a touch expensive at present, but even so I suspect we’ll see more than a few texture-set add-ons for this one…
And your hero’s cypherpunk underworld contact in Chinatown? Sixus1’s new Outlanders Stalker might work…
Stonemason’s new interior nicely blends together sci-fi and nature, in NWX Section 18…
Some of the exotic plants from Dinoraul, such as his Pandanus tree might look interesting in the NWX Section 18 terrarium…
3DA Stella and eDarlyn for Victoria 4.2 also both look like they might be at home in Stonemason’s new NWX Section 18 scene…
Could NWX Section 18 be a room inside the Deep Core Explorer, a new deep-sea drilling/mining rig?
Need futuristic submersibles floating around your Deep Core Explorer? The new MMRship looks like it would work in a sub-sea situation…
Vue users also have a new realistic two-person submersible this month…
Anyone doing fan art or comics for The Witcher is going to feel right at home in the AJ Northern Citadel…
Also rather Witcher-esque is Dante78’s new Medieval Fisherman’s Hut, with his usual fine levels of detail…
Decorative Easel Set is currently free at DAZ…
The Easel Set could be useful for showing your characters making a painting from the deck of the new Summer Tree House Deluxe, which has a modern design that looks like it’ll suit adult characters more than a small brood of DAZ/Poser kids.
Also very pastoral is the new Portals – The Shire. This makes the fine (though rather gothic) 3 Gate Pass scene into a lush portal suitable for the furry feet of hobbit folk.
Not much steampunk/dieselpunk, this month. But Rosemill Astrometry has some nice instruments that would suit any era between about 1750 and 1900.
Oskarsson’s new Diesel Punk Clothes for Genesis 3 Females is unusual, and nicely designed. A sort of hybrid between 1930s ‘jolly hockey sticks’ girls and 1940s air cadets.
If you have Second World War / World War II uniforms in your runtime, then Predatron’s detailed new miniature set Beach Barricade may well interest…
New semi-toon standalone characters are always welcome, and this month we get several of them. NeftOoN Gal comes complete with hair and clothes. Possibly not new? Possibly just a new bundle of character + extras? Anyway, she also has a Neftoon Pal…
I’m thinking that the above two characters might be especially useful for a comic book artist making a domestic gag-strip, and looking to over-paint and/or toon their renders in Photoshop?
Packy the Toon Elephant is another toon standalone, for Poser 9+ only…
Another fine character from the same maker is Tiny, a sort of aquatic ‘fire newt’ , for Poser 10+ only…
Finally, available now is iClone 6 PRO + 3DXchange Bundle + DAZ Genesis (1 & 2 only) import, currently at a 40% discount. iClone is the mature and speedy real-time animation tool, with some excellent model and character conversion tools. Those looking to make 5-minute YouTube-size 640px animations will probably find that iClone is a better option for making animations than DAZ or Poser.
That’s it, more next month!
The guys behind the Poser-created Anomaly comic book have a new Poser product coming soon. Faster Than Light is a new SF 3D comic complete with invisibly-embedded QR Codes which spark your phone or tablet into showing Augmented Reality overlays. Sounds a lot better than the old red-blue cellophane glasses!
Posted in Comics, Companion software, Freebies, Real-time animation, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
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It’s all happening! A new Poser coming, and now Muvizu wakes up as well. According to their news mailing Muvizu, the very useable and free real-time toon production software from Glasgow, is moving forward again with a new Chief Exec. Also…
“From August we will introduce a market place where we will offer new characters – and content packs as well as expansion packs including multi-layer rendering and key framing.”
Interesting. Project Manager for Poser, Charles Taylor, reports that Poser 11 is set to plug in the powerful Cycles rendering engine from Blender…
“Poser 11 will include … Our new render engine … based on the Cycles engine of Blender fame. Don’t worry; the familiar FireFly render engine is still going to be there. We’re just giving you another rendering option.”
“Poser’s integration of Cycles, (currently code named SuperFly) is going to give you a much-requested feature: rendered caustics. SuperFly will use the same material room you already know from FireFly. You won’t need to learn a new material interface.”
And since I seem to remember that Blender Cycles does glow very well indeed, this may (my guess) also bring a proper spillover glow effect to Poser users?
Posted in DAZ Studio, Freebies, Poser, Special Offers and Discounts, Vue
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It’s moving towards the end of the month, so it’s time for my survey of the most striking new content that’s just become available for Poser, Daz Studio, and Vue. I guess many of the freelance scene/character/props making creatives are off on their summer holidays, but there’s still quite a nice selection of new items…
The famous Stonemason has released a new domestic interior for his growing ‘contemporary apartments’ series, The Pool House for DAZ Studio…
And, of course, in Stonemason’s sci-fi future no apartment is ever complete without its own walk-in Robotics Lab to maintain the robot assistants…
And what about adding a talking-point sculpture to your new Stonemason apartment? Predatron’s new Classical Morphing Bust is an unusual item for DAZ Studio, that might just suit…
The Forestals are an unusual and well-designed forest family of characters for M4, V4 and Kids4 (K4). The faces are especially well made…
Also at Runtime DNA, the new Arcane Seer seems to fit with the Forestals’ design aesthetic…
Need fresh and convincing child characters to explore the weirdly magical forest? Skyler for Genesis 2 Female is a very high-quality base character, from the expert character designers at 3D Universe…
The new Explorer Diary stones are meant for sci-fi exoplanets, but might suit a mysterious forest inhabited by the likes of the Arcane Seer and Forestals…
Flink’s Flinks Green Hills…
Need a foreground for your green hill? Quality outdoors-man Merlin Studios obliges with a new Wild Borders foliage and scene set for DAZ Studio…
Creepy Crawler for Poser looks like a lot of fun…
I’ve pretty sure I’ve never seen a quality Ventriloquist’s Dummy for Poser, but here it is…
Need a weird Ventriloquist to operate your new Dummy? VYK Cosplay…
Equally unusual is the Millenium Dog (Poser) makeover that is War Dogs for Mil Dog…
There are also War Unicorns for Mil Horse. I like the idea — take a character like Mil Dog or Mil Horse that everyone has in their runtime, and give it a armour/robot makeover…
Last month’s Vue Rusted Space Tug is now also available for Poser…
A classic Scenicruiser 1954 long-haul Greyhound bus for Poser, and a basic matching Bus Station…
DryJack’s Dunster station is a fine example of the classic British village train station…
Runtime DNA has a Fun in the Sun Props pack for free…
Vintage British Caravan and 1960s chairs, plus HD materials and interior…
For those with a taste for more exotic holiday destinations, Vue users have the new high ice plateau Silk Road High and the tropical Holiday Villages…
That’s it! More next month.
A nice new retro freebie from Japan, which will interest many readers of this blog. A classic 1950s dress (page linked via Google Translate). For Poser (V4/A4), with 4 MATs plus morphs.
The Disney Accelerator opens on 6th July 2015. Ten startup companies from around the world…
“will be selected to gather in the Los Angeles area for three months, to accelerate their ideas and build exciting consumer media and entertainment products.”
What’s new in June 2015, for Poser and Daz? I’ve already noted Victoria 7 for Genesis Female 3 a few days ago. Here’s what else has caught my eye this month.
20th century retro seems to be hot this month. Luthbel’s Eldritch Seeker for Genesis 2 Male is a vintage hard-boiled American city boy, who is poised in time somewhere between 1928 and 1948. As readers will no doubt know, “Eldritch” refers to the macabre mythos of H.P. Lovecraft — but this character could have many uses in a vintage American setting.
Blue Sky Biplane is a sweet plane from the same era as Eldritch Seeker…
A vintage wooden Electric Chair and Bank Vault and Indoor Gun Firing Range are all new, and would all fit with a gangster-ish / pulp noir scenario for using your Eldritch Seeker character.
The new An Abandoned Mine is just the sort of place your Eldritch Seeker is going to find at the end of his quest….
Or you could just ‘go the whole Cthulhu’ and send your Eldritch Seeker to The Mountains of Madness, with the help of a complete 1910s-1930s era Antarctica Expedition: The Encampment, Sled and Poses…
Also very nicely retro is the Retro Space Suit for Genesis 2 Male which has a 1930s-1960s vibe about it, strongly brought out by the additional Retro Space Suit Textures pack…
A companion female spacesuit set is the new Starlight for Genesis 2 Female and Starlight Textures pack…
They might look good in the new Columbus, a weightlessness 20th-century space station interior room, from new DAZ content creator Bricabrake…
Also fairly space-y / sci-fi is Leather Body Suit for Genesis 2 Female. It seems like a very flexible base outfit with fine leather bump-mapping, for everything from super-spies to superheroes to kink. I suspect there will be a lot of texture packs for this one.
Leather Body Suit might work well alongside the Solar Vagabonds for Genesis 2 Male, in a near-future Mars colonists setting or similar.
Timothy HD for Michael 6 seems like a very characterful male…
Edit Hair for Genesis 2 Males is for your Young Urban Creative Entrepreneur (Yucee, pronounced ‘you-see’) type of character. Plus a Colors for Edit Male Hair pack…
In general scenes, the Science Classroom is a classic school science lab of yesteryear, from the era before risk-averse schools locked the door to the hydrogen sulfide cabinet and sealed off the Bunsen burners. The new Detention Room has props that might add to the Science Classroom.
The Lost Place is a rather flexible looking place, rather RPG-ish but perfect for everything from sprites, dragons, mystic rites and ancient invocations. For Poser/Daz, but I’m pretty sure that some of those good ol’ Vue atmospheres could look great wrapped around it…
The Lost Place is just the sort of spot you might find the WitchHunter lurking in…
The Vampire Hunting Kit would be a nice add-on set of props for your WitchHunter…
Your WitchHunter is probably chasing this guy, the new “Creepy Kid Too” — though any LOTR fan knows who he really is, my preciousss, oh yesss… He also has a pose pack and expressions. He just needs a really good texture add-on, I’d say, to turn him fully into Gollum. Of course, then you’d have to stick to non-commercial use, since he’s a recognized movie character.
Not much in terms of new animals this month, but what there is is quality. There’s another very fine new Dinoraul dinosaur, the TarbosaurusDR…
And Songbird ReMix has released his Birds of Prey Vol. 5…
Finally, lucky Vue users can now have the beautifully steampunk-ish Rusted space tug…
That’s it, for now!
A great example of what can happen to a real scene when you start laying 3D CG over the top of it.
The movie is the recent Biblical epic Exodus.
Available now is the new flagship female DAZ character Victoria 7 for Genesis 3, which only works with the DAZ Studio 4.8 beta.
Some readers may be wondering: “What?! I only have Genesis 2, where do I get Genesis 3?” Good question — none of the Victoria 7 DAZ Store pages have any indication of how you get Genesis 3. The latest version of DAZ Studio states clearly that it only ships with Genesis 2. DAZ’s main Genesis 3 information page has no links to any G3 downloads or product.
So the process of getting G3 seems a real mystery. It took me 40 minutes of searching until I found the following aside, buried in a Forum thread:
“You can select it [the new G3 Female icon] in your Library [inside of DAZ Studio 4.8 beta only] then click the Download & Install button”
This apparently starts your “G3 Female Starter Essentials” download and install, through Download Manager. There’s currently no other way, such as .zip, to get it.
Then once you have G3 up and running, you can then load your new Victoria 7. You can also now get three G3 Female expansions…
Note that the new G3 Micheal 7 flagship male character won’t be released until mid November.
Ready to pop your pod? The Hyperloop pod design competition, from SpaceX.
A group of artists explores the best ways to produce a photorealistic 3D human face. A face that doesn’t freak people out, by looking not-quite human. Their early work is now available as a free Maya file (non-commercial use only).
The Syfy Channel is known for its often-unimpressive low budget SF productions, with painfully cheap and sparse CG. But it’s interesting to hear that they’ll be dramatising Arthur C. Clarke’s intelligent and sweeping debut novel Childhood’s End as a serial.
“Childhood’s End will be adapted by Matthew Graham (creator of BBC’s Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes).”
Update: I’ve now seen it. A very excellent 5.5 hour adaptation, and definitely a success. It was slow in the middle, partly because it was padded with about 40 minutes worth of “emotional couples talking about their emotions”, presumably added to widen the audience appeal. At least 50 minutes could easily have been cut, giving a big boost to the narrative energy. Hopefully we’ll see a tighter fan-edit at some point. They didn’t mess with the ending either. Overall, a very fine adaptation.
3D animation of the coming launch of the new private spacecraft the SpaceX Falcon Heavy, using the most powerful rocket in the world. It’s set to launch from the NASA’s Apollo Saturn V launchpad later in 2015.