I luv you, Renderosity!
Okay, maybe not loving the slinky female outfit quite so much but the rest of it is looking good. I’ve been on a dieselpunk kick lately, along with the art doll morphs. 😀
I wonder who the vendors are? 1971s? Cofleck-gnorg? So it’s a new vendor! For some reason I thought this was a group thing. Also, no 3DL materials. 
I have AntFarm’s flying car apparatus, which attaches to other vehicles, and quite a few of Petipet’s retro vehicles, but the more the merrier!
Maybe I could do a dieselpunk theme. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything like that on the blog.
I bought MEC4D’s Unshaven 2 for the G2M yesterday, mainly for the African textured beard — there is nothing like that in any other beard set — but the specular setting are frustrating me. Black beards shouldn’t look gray. Even toning down the materials setting didn’t help much, and I hesitate to mess with the light’s specular setting because then the skin looks flat. Argh.
Also bought the 200+ Face Morphs for G8F. I really wanted the RareStone’s morph set, but they weren’t on sale so I’ll have to wait. I already have the G8M version of those (but not the 200+ G8M; who needs consistency??) Ha! Went on sale today; now mine…
I took the newly downloaded Dawn clothing clones for a test drive on a new dial morph character I’ve been working on. Pleased with these; straight renders with no postwork. A few issues — I didn’t do much tweaking beyond adding mesh smoothing — but good results at first try.
Used G3F stuff (except the jeans.) Tra La La Hair (edited to add that it didn’t autofit real well, which I kinda expected), Hayley Outfit, and Riot Girl. The skin textures need help; I’m still working to get them to look the way I’d like. FWIW, G2F poses work pretty well on Dawn. Some adjustments are needed and the hand poses don’t always transfer, but considering the paucity of Dawn-specific content for DS, I’m willing to do a little extra work.
I’ve had time for rendering again, yay! Been doing more art doll inspired character projects, am working on a face morph recreating Akhenaten, did some renders with a new 3DL light set I bought a little while ago — Light Up the Dark — because lighting night scenes are a pain, and also played around a little with the Rim Light Rig. Marshian has some fun light sets for 3DL; I just need to better learn how to use them to their full potential. I also bought Popobawa for Genesis 1, along with the Sculptural Genesis Ultra Fun Kit which looks indeed like it could be fun.
Redid an old M4 project with the Light Up the Dark lights. Some G2F art doll morphs with various textures — including an Aiko 3 oldie! — and a teeny crown from a set of teeny crowns I completely forgot I had. Eyelash fail on the one V4 texture on G2F though, hmmmm. A few more variations on the recent Genesis 1 dolls — I love those Afro Pops! Rim Light Rig on a dead M4 astronaut, Popobawa with the G3F’s delightfully hooked-nose Ceridwen, and my first go at Akhenaten, using the G2M because even though the outfit is for G3M I have no appropriate G3M textures. I ended up using Sol Elite for M4 because I wanted a face with some years on it and most of my G2M textures don’t have that, though maybe I should take another look at Leo 7. Last one’s the bookish MilCat I want to re-crop and make into a bookmark. 🙂
RedEyeCat 
The dead astronaut is awesomely creepy. Reminds me of one of the scariest Dr Who episodes.
Have you tried actually upping the specular glossiness? If it’s too low, the “grey cast” will get mighty spread over the whole surface.
I’m going to have to find time to mess around with the beard settings. As I recall, both specular settings were initially at 100% so not sure that was a factor. I might scrap the provided settings entirely and give the UberHair a try and see what happens. Those are more simple settings.
Not familiar with that Dr Who episode; my son watches the show, but I’ve only seen a few episodes here and there. My TV watchlist on Netflix and Hulu is way too huge already to add another long-running series…
In retrospect I should’ve utilized some of Deviney’s frost brushes on the suit and helmet, but I was mostly playing with the rim light and seeing what happened when I added a light tube from another light set.
Also need better space debris…and I need to figure out why I can’t find the Genesis 1 zombie head morph dial to go with the body morph dial. It has to be there, somewhere…
When Mec4D has something set at 100%, she usually relies on the values in the maps. Are there any maps loading anywhere on the beard? If yes, there may be some gamma correction issues that prevent them from working correctly.
UberHair as in that ancient store add-on to UberSurface? I don’t have it, but in theory it might work – but if it loads a bump map, I think you will need to remove it. Fibermesh stuff doesn’t need bump maps.
Quite possibly my all-time favourite 2-episode ark (River Song’s first appearance – in the Doctor’s timeline). It’s the 10th Doctor era.
http://www.doctorwho.tv/50-years/monsters/vashta-nerada
Basically I’d say that outside of the 11th Doctor series (when Moffatt was in full swing), the continuity is more of an “adventure of the week” than a season-wide ark. So if you like Tennant’s acting and have a spare box of tissues for emotional moments, just find the Moffatt-penned episodes of the 10th Doctor and watch them. Non-Moffatt ones are IMO way more forgettable.
Looked a little closer at the settings. No maps and I think the main problem was reflection set to 100%. I adjusted specular settings to 50% and reflection to 15% and results looked much improved to my eye.
Yup, I still use UberHair settings. Some hair props aren’t an issue but I have a few that entail really long render times unless I turn off occlusion.
The son had me start with the tail end of the 9th doctor and gave me a list of episodes to watch with Tennant. 🙂 I think 10 was his favorite, though he liked 11 too. What I did watch I enjoyed and I know the fandom community is huge (and opinionated!)
Oh yes, that could also be an issue. I completely forgot that sometimes people use reflection in vanilla DS shaders. =)
I turn “occlusion” off manually on most transmapped models. It’s just not worth the hit in rendertime in 90% of cases =) Transmapped hair is a cheat by design, so cheating further doesn’t make me feel any bad about it =)
11 had great storylines, but Smith’s character was a bit over the top. Likeable, yes, but really alien most of the time. Tennant’s 10th somehow managed to balance exuberance and relatability.
Have you seen The Day of the Doctor, with both 10 and 11, and also John Hurt?
This was ubersurface I think; there was velvet and translucency and all that stuff not included in the old DS shader base. Translucency color was a reddish one, which I thought was a little odd for black hair. Guess I’d have expected something more blue or gray.
I’m not sure how to turn off occlusion manually, but then I never got around to buying UE2. I thought it came with DS, but apparently it’s the older UE. It’s now in my wishlist and waiting for the next sale. Money is a little tighter around the holidays — though it doesn’t prevent me from taking advantage of glitch sales. I picked up Stonemason’s Streets of Old London for $9.
I cheat all the damn time in DS and shake my fist in defiance to those who mock me! Ha! Seriously, I am probably the laziest render person ever.
I am a little sad all those new dieselpunk props at Renderosity are iray only. Rats. I’ll probably still get them, but less excitement/urgency now.
I can’t remember if I’ve seen that episode you mention. Was it a holiday special episode? I seem to remember a holiday episode with two doctors, but could be thinking of something else.
I watched Tennant in the Jessica Jones show on Netflix. He played on of those villains you just love to hate, and it feels so righteous when his character gets what’s coming to him at Jessica’s hands. It was fun to see him in a role like that.
Yes Day of the Doctor was a Christmas special. They also used a magic painting there =) Crazy, powerful episode.
There’s a recording of Hamlet somewhere with Tennant starring. Modern costumes and all.
UE2, as in “UberEnvironment2” the light, is what comes free with DS. It’s a __new__ version of the old UberEnvironment that is still in the DAZ store (messing with the minds of newcomers, really; I wish they’d remove it at last!).
US2, UberSurface2 is indeed the better version of the free UberSurface that comes with DS.
And manually turning off occlusion is easy if you just use UberSurface on the surface. The free one will do. Occlusion -> Off.
Same as you can exclude a surface from being raytraced by mirrors (“Raytrace”) – to make vampires; or from being seen by camera (the “phantom” switch, or does it use the “fantom” spelling…) – then you can make anti-vampires that are only seen in mirrors.
US2, the store one, has also a switch to turn shadows off per-surface, not just per-mesh as in the parameter tab.
Hair translucency colour generally should match the colour real hair would have when lit from behind. Most people’s hair turns out to be reddish like that =) Outside of dyed hair, I don’t think there is a natural blue base, humans just don’t have any blue pigments.
How do you find all those glitch sales? Is there a secret somewhere? I installed the DAZ Deals firefox extension and it emails me lists of “cheapest DAZ items” every day but the lowest discount I’ve seen there was 75%.
Whoops! I meant UberSurface, yes. My bad! Guess I just never noticed the Occlusion Off before. Probably because I only use it for hair, but it’s good to know (better late than never!)
My New Year’s resolution for 2018 is to better learn to use what I’ve already bought and throttle back on spending for new stuff (glitch sales not included, ha!) It shouldn’t be too hard for me as Genesis 8 just isn’t catching my fancy. Of course now Genesis 3 stuff will start hitting sales now at higher discounts, but I can be disciplined if I really try.
I’m also prioritizing utilities over clothing (again, not too hard as I’m not into skimpwear and there isn’t much coming out for males) and characters. I’ve actually been spending more on characters at Renderosity for Generation 4 and Genesis 3. Prices are better and there just seems to be a wider variety of character textures.
As for those glitch sales I think it’s just dumb luck, though the one for the Stonemason set was up all day so I’m not entirely sure it was a glitch sale.
I don’t have any extensions installed but I do check my wishlist and the bundle page with price Low to High checked. That’s how I usually notice something is unexpectedly free — like the Lee 6 bundle a while back — or hugely discounted.
*raises eyebrow* Sooo if you’re planning to learn how to use what you have better, could you please include a point about studying how to use UberSurface to get prettier (and faster-rendering) skin than what DAZ feeds us with AoA Subsurface? You said you did download my tutorial back then =)
…and it’s not just about skin, it’s just skin is the difficult part.
G3, you know, I have some impressions to share. I got a number of official Genesis 3 characters free during the Thanksgiving sale. I had some time to mess with Sunny and Arabella. The textures are nice, and the morphs aren’t really bad, but… You know what – whoever did the promos must’ve been a glamour photographer or something! They only chose “the best angles” to show. When you try different camera angles, different expressions, different hair, these two can look really really weird. Very much G8 weird. The most striking thing: Arabella has giant lips that hardly belong on her gaunt face. And they seem to get bigger when you try and make her smile. C’mon DAZ, she’s supposed to be a vampire, not a reality show star!
So yeah, good thing there are some nice freebie morph sets out there for G3F, and Anagord gave some away for Christmas as well. Not sure, though, if hers will help dial down those lips LOL In negative amounts maybe?
Ooh interesting, I didn’t know there was a special page for bundles, thanks for the heads-up!
Well…I don’t think my skins are too ugly LOL but I am trying to do better! Some skins are a real challenge to get to look good — picked up two sets at Rendo for G3, with great freckles but the skins themselves are really, really red so I’m hoping I can get something nicer looking without having to desaturate them in PSP. I have been messing with UberSurface and HSS; took me a while to figure out where I’d stored your tutorial PDF. 😛
Did I mention I have just too much stuff?!
Regarding expressions — and this is only my opinion — they look fake no matter what figure is being used. Some generations work a bit better than others but I don’t use anything too extreme unless the render calls for it. And I’ve postworked some expressions in the past to get them to look a bit better.
Some of the makeup on the base figures are just awful. Heavy lipstick could accentuate the problem too.
I have the DAZ morphs and well as the 200+ Face morphs for both G3 genders, as well as a few Handspan sets, so I have a pretty decent dial options base to play with. I picked up those freebies at Renderosity too. Haven’t had a chance to experiment with them yet.
Genesis 8 has been really underwhelming for me, but it can use Gen3 textures and I have both sets of RareStone’s morphs (just not the DAZ morphs) so I’m hoping I can dial up a few interesting looking characters.
Glad to help out re: bundles. Every now and again some great deals pop up. 🙂
The ones I’ve seen you render look nice, but you don’t appear to use DAZ texture presets for G2 and later much, right? =) When they moved Vickies and Co to AoASubsurface and most PAs followed suit, resulting in all sorts of nightmares – including extra render time because shader mixer stuff like AoA Subsurface makes the renderer do way more completely unnecessary math.
It should be possible to fix the redness by tinting SSS colour. Sorry I forgot if you did get US2? It offers even more control over that sort of thing.
Most full preset expressions are rather unconvincing, I agree. But making custom ones generally works. Just a normal custom smile =) I’ll show a render when I’m on the computer. Yes there is one of the goth/punk makeup options on, and this time makeups actually fit her “role” from the product description. Her lips don’t, though LOL
Have you gotten into using deformers to help morphing?
the clothes aren’t astonishing.. but the flying vehicles – including the buildings – are totally awesome ❤
I love the props and buildings but agree the clothing sets are a little more underwhelming. The harness stuff looks good for kitbashing, though, and the one female outfit in the background looks more on the normal side — ie, not skimpwear. Which is always a plus for me.
Re: using DAZ base figure presets, it depends on the figure. Some of them look too orange to my eye so those I’ve fiddled with. I always struggle with getting darker skin to look right, so I pretty much use the Darius and Monique figures as is.
Are the AoA subsurface settings one of the reasons so many of those skins have an orange cast to them?
No, I don’t have UberSurface2 yet. It’s sitting in the wishlist.
I understand what you mean about custom — dialed in? — expressions. I have expression packs but don’t use them often and what I do use are the more subtle expressions anyway.
I’ve never used deformers for morphing. I pretty much stick my gazillion sets of dial morph products.
Curious to see your render!
Yes, the orange thing does come from AoA Subsurface (especially because they also abuse the “velvet” channel often, making it pink/orange/scary). The Genesis V5/M5/etc line used the basic UberSurface and looked so much better out of the box because of that. There was still some “velvet abuse” but not _that_ bad.
Yup, dialing from all those little per-feature sliders, and also adding further fixes from deformers. They’re very very useful for a lot of things, you should really try them one day =)
I’m also thinking about unhiding those “expression bones” in G3 – they don’t make sense in terms of anatomy unfortunately, but maybe trying to scale some of them could approximate the way real muscles contract and pull the skin.
Hopefully later today =)
Well that explains the orange thing. I don’t use US2 yet so just using US and HSS, but I’m having a hard figuring out when a vendor uses one of the Omnifreaker shaders or AoA’s. Is there an easy tell in the parameters that would clue me in right away which one is which?
I keep forgetting about those face bones. Since I tend toward sticking with the subtle expressions the need just hasn’t arisen but it is something I should experiment with.
I’ve used deformers in the past on clothing parts to move them but it never occurred to me to use them on the figures itself. Hmmmm….
Yes, you just need to look at the top of the surfaces pane: when you have a surface selected, it will say “Shader: ” (or “multiple” if you have many surfaces selected and they have different shaders on them)
I suspect I’ll need to save out a handful of new dials using those bones if I want to make Arabella look more natural. Have you seen my post where I compare the same smile on her and Vicky? Vicky just works better out of the box. Not perfect, but better.
Deformers are good on everything that is a mesh =) they can even help old/free hair that has few morphs.
There is an option to use “weight-mapped” deformers now, which is awesome in theory, but in practice the painting tool in DS is rather poor. If they ever make it possible to paint weightmaps in another app and then import (like fur distribution maps in LAMH), it would be such a game changer.
I can’t believe I never noticed that info about the shaders in the surfaces tab! And I’m always in the surfaces tab! (( slinks away in embarrassment))
Arabella is a bit underwhelming, Nonetheless, I am determined to make her look better. Probably will dial down those lips. The skin itself is one I’ll probably not use. It’s just not a very interesting skin, imo.
Re: fur distribution, would it mean something like being able to have the hair on the back of a cat stand up when the cat is doing its hissy fit pose with arched back and laid back ears? (My black HW Cat wants to know in anticipation of next Halloween…)
Things happen 🙂
I’m looking at Arabella and I don’t even understand what ethnicity she’s supposed to be. If DAZ used a scan of an actual living model, she must’ve gone through some plastic surgery. Otherwise those lips, eyes, cheekbones and that nose (kinda suspicious in and out of itself, to boot), they just don’t mesh.
The skin is an okay base skin, I think. I haven’t yet checked the textures up close, but I do hope that whoever does DAZ O textures has by now learnt proper light canceling (so that there are no burnt-in highlights and shadows on the maps) and handling JPEG compression responsibly.
Yeah, if you make two “shave groups” (where did those two get that name?!) with different settings, you can use maps to have one group appear on the back of the cat.
Does DAZ still do scans for characters?
I don’t think Arabella is based on anything other than what the person who sculpted her thought was interesting. I do like her nose; it has character. But agree, her features don’t seem to mesh particularly well.
Her skin looks more pale beige and also a bit stylized.
I’m not as particular as you about skins but have noticed that keeping nose shadows causes issues with dark lines showing up on the outer nostril flesh where there shouldn’t be dark lines. I remember painting out parts of RawArt’s dark Dawn skin because of that problem (among others.)
But skin color variations, especially around the eyes, bigger pores in the nose or cheeks…those things don’t bother me as much and can add more realism, imo. It’s one of the reasons I like the Lana Elite texture as much as I do.
I thought they were and that those scans were factoring into those “base” characters being so expensive. I’ll need to comb the forums some more. I seem to remember it was a thing for G2. I think.
Maybe that’s how DAZ understands “immortal vampires” and punk/goth? That these should be stylised Cuz Perfection ™? They really are very out of touch (no pun intended) with anything non-“cleancut”, so to speak. Did you see the “metal music” mentioned in the Owen8 description? It next to offended my religious feelings, since there is nothing remotely metal in the whole pro bundle even. More like anti-metal, that all.
// I did consider shelling out all that money for a moment because of “get all the other bundles free”, but then I came to my senses //
Either way, I mess with base skins a LOT whenever I am making a character I’ll eventually use. In this sense, more uniform = more room for personalisation.
I like most of Lana. Hate the lip bump, though.
On the other hand, when a lot of PAs do male textures, they plant giant pores on the nose that are further “enhanced” by UV distortion.
And I thought I’d read the opposite on the forums, somewhere. Ha! Some of the DO base characters have excellent skin textures. It’s probably the deluge of air-brushed pinup types or stylized types that look more generic/less detailed to me.
Lana’s lip bump too strong? It does seem to bleed over the edges a bit.
Agree about the nose pores. Just make ’em tiny to start with. Male facial hair can be problematic too. Hard to avoid when using model scans, I’m sure, but that — and chest hair — can get weirdly distorted.
I haven’t looked at anything re: the Owen bundle. Is the metal too 70s/80s or just too punk or goth? I assume there’s plenty of “borrowing” across the various music genres. To some extent. Probably not a lot of cowboy hats in metal bands?
Maybe it’s again different between generations. They change so fast now, hard to remember anything.
That, and it’s kinda… chunky? Like chapped.
Oh don’t get me started about chest hair =( I think every generation now sees a PA or several releasing fibermesh chest hair for dudes… why do some characters (even DAZ O bases) still only come with hairy chests? It’s not like I couldn’t edit them out, but it’s boring… and with those prices one expects more options. Male characters rarely have extra tattoos or makeup, so why don’t they give the customers a non-hairy version at least?
No metal in sight at all, not even black/death or that US Slipknot styled nu-metal. There’s a “goth” outfit and a “grunge” outfit that don’t look much scene-credible either. Some facial piercings but that’s not exactly metal either. Generic characters and very contemporary hair (even the long one is a loose hipster man-bun).
I wouldn’t complain if they had 80s metal inspired stuff – either glam or thrash would do. Thrash would even be practical and versatile – it’s basically about denim/leather in various combinations + hightop sneakers. And those long messy but not teased hairstyles would be welcome for the ladies too.
https://www.last.fm/music/Metal+Church/+images/4ea199fc66084e649587f1f453a05857
https://www.last.fm/music/Testament/+images/21197257a0084411c4d3cafdb5cfe88a
I don’t mind a chapped look for lips. Sometimes it’s nice to have that as an option. It can probably be smoothed out with more specularity — or just cheat and use another lip bump.
Most of the newer male characters I’ve previewed look to be more on the hairless side — no chest hair, no armpit hair, no leg hair. I agree that at least a fiber mesh option would be good. I’m not always big on how fiber mesh hair looks but it’s a huge improvement over stretched chest hairs.
Good thing most of my characters wear clothes.
80s inspired stuff would be fun! (Says this child of the 80s.) I think StudioArtVarantian (sp?) had some 80s hair props that look similar to the images you linked.
Kit bashing the look probably wouldn’t be too hard — I’ve seen quite a few motorcycle jackets, skinny jeans, t-shirts, and high tops — but it would be nice to see an outfit like that.
I looked at the grunge outfit and don’t really like it. Also getting a little tired of the goth stuff. Still buy it, though, from time to time.
As an option, yes, but as the default… kinda weird. And her diffuse lip maps don’t look chapped to me.
Specularity won’t really help, the chunky bump just doesn’t break it up the right way for “smooth” lips. It just winds up kinda suspicious. Chapped lips are dry (at least if I look at myself, that’s the trend LOL).
So many characters, such different luck =)
Characters don’t always have to run around Conan the Barbarian style, but if we have an elf character and his shirt is ever so slightly unbuttoned and there’s chest hair poking out, that’s kinda off. Even if it’s more like stubble rather than long.
Yeah, SAV had a glam perm style, the 1984, and Alpha (without suffixes) that works as an early to mid 90s power/thrash style when dudes still wore layers but bangs went out of fashion. 3Dream/Mairy’s Selene is also kinda 80s looking but very feminine. Aprilysh’s Leyton and Littlefox’s Shanda also kinda work for the 90s metal look. There’s also some ancient “Wavy Hair” I once got at DAZ – which doesn’t look half bad with contemporary materials, but has a center part rather than a side one, which is very European power metal, mid 90s and onwards.
There’s a shortage of styles with bangs and layers, though. I wouldn’t mind seeing something like Mike’s classic style: https://www.last.fm/music/Metal+Church/+images/a0808c7a21ab47d781d77a4091b3b643
I only have two biker jackets that fit the style – one from one of the Cowgirl sets, for V4, and the other one is that dynamic one from the DAZ store. It’s for M5, so quite bulky. These days I guess it could be converted to dForce and then it could be made to fit smaller characters…
And no hightops at all =( I don’t even remember seeing any! Do you happen to maybe remember the vendor?
I’m not an expert on grunge fashion, but I found it odd that the outfit had no flannel shirt =D
Yeah, I always thought grunge and flannel went hand-in-hand. The Kurt Cobain thing. I wasn’t much into grunge. I’ve always been a more casual listener to music. Like what I like, but don’t pay much attention to the particulars of styles/genres or the lives/dramas of the musicians.
I listed a few links in the post today about my computer’s near-death experience. That’s just stuff which came to mind; let me poke around my content and see what else might turn up.
You’re probably right about the bump map stuff, being far more experienced at 3DL stuff than I am! I did find that adjusting the specular values on one texture that I like did seem to provide a better looking result.
I used an older texture from RDNA, Juniper for V4. I like the pale, uneven, freckled skin tone but didn’t quite care for the lips. I did end up using a lip color, but the original issue still existed.
In 3DL:
Iray:
The chest hair thing…I had this result when testing an M4 texture on Scott 6:
Eek. Prince Elric didn’t come with a hairless chest option, otherwise I would’ve used it.
I see 🙂 Well I’m very much a textbook definition of fan – at least one of those definitions, though. I’m not the “collector fan” type, you know the ones who buy each and every piece of merch, “rare” editions with some specific typos on record sleeves, etc. But I will want to know the band’s history and personal dynamics – because these will often inform the music. After all, it’s people who write it, and people are personalities.
The lip colour you chose looks much better than the original, and I think it’s not only because it just makes more sense for natural lip colour with that skin shade, but also because it makes the symmetry of those little lines less noticeable. It’s as if the vendor just mirrored the texture. Doesn’t look to be the case for the rest of the face, but kinda stands out when the lips are pale.
Your character looks bad-a$$ BTW =) Reminds me a little of a toughened up Kirsten Dunst.
The dude looks great in your render… save for that out-of-place hair, yeah =(
I googled the name and apparently this product isn’t available anymore. I wonder if Michael Moorcock’s lawyers made the vendor take it down? LOL Although of course this texture doesn’t seem to represent an albino non-human.
Nothing wrong with being any flavor of a fan.
Except maybe ‘shippers. I kinda find them annoying.
Just released that V4 character into the wild at Renderosity. It’s been a while since I did a V4 dial character. There was the Sofia Boutella one, but I do prefer doing faces from scratch.
What’s the deal with Michael Moorcock and Prince Elric? I know the Moorcock is a fantasy writer but I’ve never read him — lot of older sci fi/fantasy authors I haven’t read.
Lots of Morris’s textures for M4 ave disappeared from the store. She’d partnered with someone at one point so maybe that has something to do with it.
She often provided no body hair and no brow options on her male characters. I miss options like that for male textures.
Shippers like those who write endless romantic fanfiction about two specific characters who have no plausible reason to be together in canon?
Oh that’s cool. Shame I don’t have all the required dials. Maybe one day, then.
Elric of Melniboné is MM’s best-known character, also a personal favourite of his. He was consciously introduced as an “anti-Conan” (not a huge burly Barbarian but a refined non-human, a sorcerer whose health is so beyond repair he is dependent on either alchemy or magic for mere survival). MM seems to have a thing for swatting down anything he doesn’t like where the mere name “Elric” appears, even if it’s a coincidence.
I love MM as a writer (he’s not without faults of course, but very daring which is always so rare), but as a person he does seem to be somewhat paranoid. And too quick to judge (like when he convinced himself that Sapkowski copied Geralt from Elric – while in reality, pan Sapek just followed MM’s own “anti-{insert popular hero here}” lead and deconstructed Elric’s archetype).
Agreed =(
Oh, man, authors-behaving-badly. Something I’m well acquainted with. I try to keep the bad behavior from interfering with my enjoyment of their books, but sometimes it’s hard.
Any kind of ‘shppers are annoying to me, but especially the ones where romantic interests — usually a romantic triangle — are canon and they all fight over which one is the “real” true love. Some of what I’d seen was downright vicious.
I wish there was a way to get Morphia into the PowerLoader the same way Morphus and Morphlet are included, but Faerime is the way I work around that if I want to use dials other than Morphs ++ — CDI’s sets and the Elite Ethnic Faces are really useful, imo. The toon-centric promo images for CDI’s sets does them a diservice; they work really well for realistic characters too.
*sighs* Fandom wars are the worst. Even in non-fiction – it’s 2018 and people are still at each others’ throats on youtube arguing whether John Bonham was the best drummer in rock!
I’ll keep that in mind, thanks. I wonder if there are any dial kits that provide actual real-world variations of the around-eye and cheekbone areas. You know I can and will take things into a modeler when stuck, and yet.
Fandom has its moments. It’s just too bad a minority can ruin the fun for everyone else.
The CDI morphs have a fair amount of dials for the eyes and cheekbones. I usually use them in small degrees though.
I still haven’t had time to play around with the RareStone morphs for Genesis 8. I had gotten so comfortable using Morphs++ and CDI’s morphs and now, with these new sets, I have to relearn everything.
Oh woe is me! 😛
Is there a full reference sheet for CDI morphs somewhere?
I LOVE the dollies! They are adorable!
Thanks, taishobee! I like all my dial morph projects, but I’m especially fond of these. I’m going to tidy up the later two and then upload all three dial morphs over at Renderosity. Not sure when I’ll get to it, but hopefully soon(ish.)
Not a list that I know of, but give me a bit and I can do a screenshot of the thumbnails; they should give a better idea of what’s what, as the sets generally have the same sort of dials.