I’m putting the finishing touches on a new tutorial, so just dropping in quick to let y’all know that there is currently a huge Iray Shader sale. There’s a bunch of other stuff on sale too, but Shaders, lots and lots of shaders!
Oh, and there’s a fresh stable DAZ Studio release out, also exciting! We are now up to version 4.9.4115. Check out the thread over at their forum for all the latest updates. Nothing too surprising in there if you have been keeping up with the betas.
[aside]I’ve been away from my render rig a while now. The current computer I’m using has a i7-960 I retired a few years back due to concerns it had been overcooked one too many times, so I’m not pushing it too hard. It’s amazing how quickly I grew accustomed to the 16GB RAM too. 8GB just seems poky, with the system chewing up a large chunk for it’s own purposes. Being back on the R7 290x graphics card with a mere 2GB RAM is the final limiting factor – no Iray. It’s been an interesting change of pace and given me some time to work on other projects.[/aside]
Anyway, I’ve seen some interesting content come up in DAZ’s store and thought I’d share my picks. There have been a number of major DAZ character releases but I’m not counting those here.
One of my favourites, the Ball Joint Doll by Sickleyield Fuseling is back for G3. The doll is a surprisingly diverse product fitting themes from contemporary to the surreal.
DZFire has been making popular Robot/Cyborg characters for some time now and his latest addition, the ASN Model 4, looks very cool. I’ve made a lot of use of his earlier Cyborg Model 4.
Luthbellina produces some fine diverse character outfits. His current Nomads for Genesis 3 Male and Female. Hiking, down on one’s luck, or zombie survivors – you decide.
Saiyaness’ catalogue my still be developing at DAZ 3D, but she has interesting and varied characters from the pretty to the ugly. Rhys for Genesis 3 Male is a dirty and pimply lad, perfect for your hard luck character or wastland survivor. See DigiSprawl’s artist feature with Saiyaness here.
It’s no over statement to say that DimensionTheory’s name is synonymous with quality lighting and surface products. It was the Interjection surface injections for the generation 4 figures that got me onto this guy. His hand painted subsurface scattering maps gave a level of control in configuring SSS for these figures that was very rare with any of the DAZ released characters. Thankfully SSS control maps have become somewhat more common since. Since then I have added many DT releases to my runtime. …but I digress, DimensionTheory’s Subsurface Workshop For Iray contains some stunning looking shaders, covering plastics, waxes, fabrics and more. If I was rendering right now I would be on this.
As a sucker for shiny things I had to add ImagineX’s Glassware Collection For Iray Volume 2. If you’re similarly afflicted go check out the promo images. This is some fine glassware. Diverse and varied seems to be the key word for this post, and this product is no different. Lots of different pretty glass ware objects here.
There were plenty more recent releases that I wanted to add, but that’s already quite a lot of bling right there.
Promo image from http://www.runtimedna.com/newsletter/2015_10_29/index.html
No one seems to know, or those that do know aren’t saying why, but Aeon Soul is closing down their Runtime DNA store. Everything there is currently discounted 40%. There has been some speculation that Aeon Soul is set to make DAZ 3D their primary outlet, but who knows. Let’s hope this isn’t another case where the artist throws everything away to reappear sometime later with a new name. Like when Aery Soul went on to be AlfaseeD, with a whole pile of cool content being lost. I think some further content was lost as AlfaseeD went on to become Aeon Soul.
So, pickup the stuff at RDNA while you get the chance, because it might soon be gone forever. You can also find Aeon Soul’s store at DAZ 3D. One can only guess at the motivations for this and the previous moves, name changes, and content dumps. In any case, best luck to Aeon with whatever is cooking.
Looking for a Full Genesis 2 and Victoria 6 review?
Rumours of Genesis 2 have been bouncing around since December of 2012, just a year after the release of Victoria 5. Whether the quote from a 3D World promotion was correct at the time or not is not known. It prophesised the emergence of the sixth generation of figures and characters for 2013, which to many seems absurdly soon considering Genesis was only released at the end of 2011. Considering Victoria 4 and her gen 4 counterparts ran rampant for more than half a decade before the birth of Genesis, a two-year reign does seem on the short side.
The subject was quite for just over six months until the release of Gwen Hair, on the 13th of June, once again exploded the cat in the bag (that’s how the saying goes, right?). In the included features it lists Genesis 2 and Victoria 6. Whether this was an intentional slight or not is debatable, but since then several other products have come out with similar support, with the release of one character product (FW Candace) designed specifically for Genesis 2 being promptly removed.
A Member’s Club (PC) only Genesis 2/Victoria 6 preview thread (which I can’t directly link to for some reason) was created on the 11th of June but not made public till the 14th. The thread features renders by various DAZ published artists depicting Genesis 2, Victoria 6, and other related characters and products. Examining the images does yield some information about what we can expect. Character mesh appear to be more detailed, and flexing joints are more realistic. There is no other concrete information, but judging by the wording of some of the promo material and comments by some of the vendors has led to speculation that Genesis 2 characters will not share a common mesh. Whether Gen 6 products will be backwards compatible with Genesis is not known, and many are wondering if this indicates a return to the days of buying matching his and hers morph sets and the like.
I would love nothing more than to spruce up this thread with some fresh Gen 6 images, but alas the images posted on the member’s forum have yet to leak onto Google in any serious or obvious way. I feel compelled to play by the rules here, but in any case it should only be a matter of a day or two before we can expect a full press release and/or product release.
Sentiment and opinions are split between those are looking forward to seeing new advancements, those that are wary, and those that are out-and-out pessimistic. With Genesis being supported primarily by DAZ 3D, and only a very small pool of content creators selling on other stores working with the figure, the days of fresh Genesis content could be short indeed. Generation 4 figures, on the other hand, have remained popular with vendors servicing the other big DAZ/Poser stores like Renderosity and Runtime DNA.
Why exactly DAZ has decided to release Genesis 2 just two and a half years after Genesis is a head scratcher, but for it to gain a slice of the market, let alone own it, there would have to be some serious advances in technology. One suggestion is that it could be Poser compatible to a greater and more flexible extent than is currently possible with Genesis’s DSON plugin for Poser. Certainly since Poser’s adoption of Pixar’s OpenSubdiv, which was included in the last DS point release, this removes one obstacle. Of course, the two programs still work with two different weight mapping solutions… Specific inclusion of OpenSubdiv’s power into Genesis could be another reason for the release, but alone seems unlikely to generate a huge amount of interest.
Whatever the reasons DAZ has decided to spring this rather unexpectedly early Gen 6 on the community, some are already chalking this one up as another DAZ PR disaster, but only time will tell.
See our Full Genesis 2 and Victoria 6 review