Come learn the art of 3D computer generated art and animation. This blog deals with the lessons learned and the art created by Robert G. Male using DazStudio from Daz3D.
Also covered are the ancillary software, tools, techniques, and processes needed both before and after rendering in the 3D software.
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In my comments for yesterday's blog Thorne explained what my trouble was with understanding what I bought and how to put it to use. Thanks to Thorne I can relay the following to any of the rest of you who might be wondering the same kinds of things as I was. For starters, where I read on the sales page for Saylor that it required Victoria 4.0 Base, that is not entirely correct. Using those two sets together gives Victoria 4.0 a Saylor skin, not a full transformation. So it's more cosplay than a proper henshin (inside joke). For the price I paid I guess I won't complain. I can use the skin to make a completely different character. The price for Victoria 4.0 Full is going to make me wait a bit. It does look like a good deal too; given it has a few morphs to turn Victoria into other "people".
Now, INJect was one of the things that puzzled me. The other was REMove. With them spelled out like that it made a huge lot of sense suddenly. The way I understand this works is that the Full version of a figure has several channels that can be modified. These modifications can be done by changing the dials, or using an INJ to inject the proper settings. I can only imagine that REM removes the changes, which I can see being useful in limited situations, like where you want to change your altered figure back to its original form without losing it's positioning, etc. Well looks like I'm set for my fiddling. I'm going to look into reorganizing my folders within Daz if I can, I put things where the installation programs suggested, but sometimes it doesn't make as much sense as I thought it did.
Sorry I could not resist such a title for this topic. As I mentioned yesterday I joined the Platinum Club and I bought some things. One of them is the package for the "character" Saylor. This is an add-on for Victoria 4.0 Base. As an add-on I did not know exactly what to expect. More or less Saylor is a skin, or a map for Victoria. There are other alterations to the Victoria figure, as evinced by all the things that go on when loading up Saylor. Once I found the correct folder in my Daz3D I found three files at the top of the pile. An INJ, an REM, and an MAP. The first two did not to my eye appear to do anything. I don't even know what those files are used for doing.
Another point of confusion I found is that the add-on when I installed it came with Materials, some or all of them for the dress that comes with her. However other than finding the files on the hard drive I do not know how to put them to use in Daz. I went through my extensive groups of folders within the program but I cannot find those materials anywhere. As such the dress is just plain white and other than a bunch of controls for shaping it, it's pretty bland, even when I go into the surfaces controls and apply a colour to it. I'm at a loss to figure out how to access these files, which I recall have an .MT4 extension.
I joined the Daz Platinum Club last night. I kept seeing all those models, props, sets, and everything at low prices for club members and I finally couldn't stand missing out. Once I had joined I don't know how long it took me to download all of the freebies that they gave me for signing up. It must have been over an hour and half, and that was with a nice file transfer of 350k/s or so almost the entire time. All I can say is, "Sweet!" Now I have a lot of "toys" to play with, things to throw together, stories to tell in single pictures. I did have to poke around a bit to decide what to download.
I run a PC, and most of the files were clearly marked PC or Mac. However, some of them were .exe and others .sit extensions. I used to have StuffIt on my computer, but I soon realised that was for files from a friend with a Mac, so I left those versions (.sit) of the freebies alone. I might also point out for anyone who joins that some of those free files don't have descriptive names, but I suggest getting them anyway, even if I can't remember what some of them were now. Once I was done with those files I bought a couple hair downloads, and Victoria 4.0 Base so that I could pick up Saylor. Now I just need time to start working up scenes.
Here is the moment of truth, the surprise, the thing I was working on, that I was going to show off yesterday until I decided to be a bit of a tease instead. To get right on with it, the link is here.
This Maze Isn't So Fun Anymore.
I took a number of test renders from that animation that I was working on with some additions to the scene, and particularly several additions to the lighting. Each of those yellow spheres is supposed to be a light. I maybe should learn to give them some kind of texture or something to make them less primitive looking. Get the joke? I'll tire of it soon.
I was initially going to use a new Power Toy called Slide Show Wizard to display these images but I didn't like the way that it worked outside of Internet Explorer. These days I compatibility test with Firefox only, at least since I found out Opera has no issues with any of these things. I had been working on a slideshow JavaScript. I took it and applied the pictures. Still that wasn't enough, not after I had a taste of the higher functionality of the Microsoft slideshow. That's when I added the scrolling "DIV" of all the pictures together in a row. That bit of CSS was pretty hard to track down. I combed through a number of tutorials to get it to work correctly. That little bit still won't work correctly in Mozilla driven browsers, it won't scroll, but that's a minor issue.
I said I had a surprise that would be ready for Monday. Well in a matter of about ten minutes it could be ready, but I think I'll be a bit of a tease and wait until tomorrow. Instead I will taunt some of you with my scary, horrifying picture that I just added to my gallery. Check it out. I tagged it with Controversial simply because it isn't violent, although I suppose it could vaguely be considered the result of violence if it were a different type of picture, but it isn't. It is what it is, and so, no violence. It certainly isn't nudity, so that was out. That is why I tagged it controversial. Just something of a warning.
Speaking of warnings. Instead of the usual thumbnail I decided it might be prudent to go with a warning. Now, let me tell you a little about the picture without spoiling it. It started when I accidentally put the camera somewhere and saw things man was not meant to see. At this point it was really dark and there was not a lot to see. What I saw though was pretty creepy. There was something, I thought, to make this eerie scene really get under people's skins. I did that, but the effect really wasn't what I'd envisioned. I turned on a distant light in the correct direction to alleviate the problem. I went back to the malevolent camera angle and all I could say was "Egads!" and then I put it up in my gallery.
