Cocktails with Gloom

“This is not the cleavage you were looking for,” is what he told the guy at the bar who was staring at him. And this was not a pickup joint, anyhow, nor a place to meet clients; this was his favorite neighborhood dive, or close enough. So Gloom took his third? Fourth? Hypnotini back to his table–maybe a bit unsteadily–and sat again at the booth he had to himself.

Shan, the waitress came by to tell him that he didn’t have to get his own drinks.

“But I’m trying to save your poor feet. Now I think you have to sit and talk to me.”

She sighed, but sat. Gloom usually got his way, and he seemed pleased that she sat, giving her a charming smile.

“Now,” he said, gesturing with both hands–somehow not spilling his drink before slurping up half in one go. “What’s on your mind?”

Shan blinked at him, being as he’d asked her to sit, not vice versa. “Just checking up on you. You know, you’re in by yourself tonight.”

“Indeed I am,” he said conspiratorialy. “Brothers have their differences sometimes, you know? If Hesperos knew I was out here getting shit-faced by myself, he’d have kittens.” He straightened up at that, taken by the notion. “You know, I’d like to see that. I’ve always wanted a pet.”

“Why haven’t you had one?”

“Keep scaring them,” he said, and arily waved the arm that was encased nearly to his armpit in the cyber-prosthetic. Little staticky balls of essence-lightning rolled off his fingertips, and Shan looked like she suddenly understood why he couldn’t keep a cat: it was making her hair stand up.

Now, one didn’t usually ever ask Gloom his business, but she felt bold, since he was forthcoming–and she’d been serving the brothers for years in this joint. So, she asked, nodding at his arm, “That conduct or generate it?”

“Conduct. I get my own.”

“Oh…” And that meant that even though he looked Gaiain, he certainly wasn’t. “Um, then you’re not Gaian. Rakshasa?”

He leaned so close she could smell the liquor on his breath mingling with the scent of his soap–and a faintly musky odor–not because he hadn’t washed, however. It was faintly minky, but it told the story. “We,” he confided, “Are half-Chidimbari.”

Shan made herself smile. Well, mystery solved as to why they brothers got their way in the cafe, and why they were so secretive. Chidimbari-hani (male Oni of the Chidimbari nation) were considered weapons-grade biologicals. And Gloom, here, he was a sorcerer, too. Oh yes, there was suddenly a lot that made sense, now.

And he cocked his head, beautiful eyes nailing hers, soft, rough voice very quiet. “You’re a friend, Shan. But if you breathe a word of that, I’ll eat your heart raw.”

She just nodded. He was cute when he was trashed…but he was still Gloom, and ever so dangerous.

Production notes: Surreality’s Equinox character with shaders adjusted to use Poser Pro2012′s SSS nodes; Coflek-gnorg’s RazorRider diner; cocktail glass from Powerage Hype bar, but with other shaders; Cyberpunk M4 cyberarm and pants; Nagase for M4 with a PD-Gothic texture applied. Postwork done in Photoshop for hair, a bit of touch-up, and some light f/x work.

Cheers!

But back to human beauty. IF you are a Poser user, you have the ability to morph faces on your human figures, whichever ones you use. Want to make something ugly or good looking intentionally? We have the lowdown, thanks to Jim Farris (again).

The Golden Deckagon

You can see more about Dr. Marquardt’s research on his web site.

That, and Xaa (Jim Farris) and Wayii have been, between them, spiffing up Victoria 3 Reduced Resolution. Wayii has complete a boatload of really nice sci-fi themed second skins, and Jim is doing the morph and other magic.

Therefore, we (the 3D artists and forumites) seem to be in need of a list of Victoria 3 Resources. We’ll include reviews if and when they’re made. You know how that goes.

Well, the tab’s at the top of this page ^^^. Enjoy!

FemaSu Horns

M4 Jewelry Pack 4 (yes, there were 3 others!)

M4 Spiked Collar

Oh, heck. Just go to the damned freebies page.

I’m going to work on some other stuff, too. Hexagon is acting out a little, and I’m trying out Modo…skittishly. Augh, another interface! But all will be cool. Hopefully the Modo folks will offer a discount. And DAZ3D actually has a Hexagon update in the works–in public Beta no less! Of course, I can say here what I will not on the forums: which is that I will probably be retired before Hexagon 3 comes out. 9_9

Meri in Royloo's T2 with Wayii's textures and my Poser materials

Antonio, the administrator of the Poser Addicts II site, has managed to get this much-loved Poser free outfit for M4 (and the V4 version as well, I believe) from Royloo, who created it and make it available to the public once more!

Antonio said to me:

Just wanted to alert you that the T2 sets are now on PoserAddicts in the Royloo/Freebies section.

I’m trying to get in touch with Royloo as his Kacha site is down, but he is in Mainland China at the moment (his dad was ill and lives there) and they don’t have internet access.  Figured I’d let you know since maybe you could spread the word around that the products are now FREE on PoserAddicts.

So you can now pick those up again! And get Wayii’s really lovely textures for it when you do, hmm? You won’t be sorry.

There’s part three of this freebie set if you use Poser. Wayii’s Steampunk Sith textures are for DAZ Studio, so what I did was to make Poser Material setting (.mt6) files for them that do add on to them. No, my freebie doesn’t include her textures–those are hers alone. Nor do they include T2. You have to go get all three pieces to make it work in Poser, OK?

"Gloom Happens": CyberSorcery

I don’t know who this is, yet. I’m sure he’ll inform me, shortly before he demands a novel be written about him–which is what Fechín did, after all. I may have unwittingly spawned another villain.

Anyhow, was just playing and came up with a very moody, crazed gothboi type wielding magicks–for fun and the sheer joy of being able to render again.

Enjoy!

Production notes: Poser Pro2010 raytraced render; M4 Enhanced with a character & skins from Surreality’s Otherworldly Wonders: Equinox set (zowie, I’m glad she finally did a GUY); Cyberpunk M4 pants and cyberarm with one of the JM Postapocalyptic textures (I hope ForeverNyt appreciates the strain of making sure there are PANTS on my guys); various jewelry of my own and stolen from Inception 8′s cool bling for Vickie; hair, background, gloom and magick added in post. Pull up a chair, this might be fun…!

It’s amazingly easy to render over a good background in Poser, according to Jim. Pretty neat, huh?

I like to do things more high-rez, so my backgrounds are generally added in Photoshop after the fact, but hey, this method let’s you put someone into a photo and look really good doing it.

Jim’s Curve Joint Tutorial
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=2634199#2634199

This one tells you about refining joints in Poser rigging where the whole chain is supposed to curve. Pretty neat. Illustrated.

(Note: I use Poser Pro2010 these days.)

Decent final renders take a while. I know that some folks have a 5-minute rule and very limited patience, but my own FINAL renders, in Poser 7 Pro, with a quad core machine and 4 GB RAM, would often run overnight–4 hours is not unheard of. So you set it up and push Render before going to bed! Come back the next evening, see what’s happened. Pro2010 runs a bit faster, and I am often done in a third of the time.

TEST renders should be quicker–lower render settings, smaller pictures–15 minutes is the longest they go, usually.

Using “Layers”

Compose your renders with a foreground, middle, and background–in conceptual layers. Doesn’t really matter how many. The reason is this: if your scene is too complex to be final-rendered all at once, you can hide pieces of it and render those a bit at a time, and then assemble the finished renders into one document in post-production in Photoshop or PSP.

Say you have two people in the scene and a fairly detailed set, plus clothing and props. Poser bails on you when trying to render the final version at high-quality settings so you know you have to use layers. I did in this one:

Misdirection: Taiev

In this scene we have three (conceptual) layers:

Foreground: There’s an M4 character, and he’s wearing a nice outfit and holding a complex pistol model–it’s in the foreground, so I wanted the detail most especially.

Mid-ground: Then there’s the Oni female, who also has a complex outfit on, but no props. However, she’s done with V4, who is high-poly.

Background: The workstation and the whole rest of the set.

When composing layers, watch what casts shadows on what.

Lights: There are overhead point lights and an IBL for fill, all set up so that these various actors do not cast shadows directly on each other.  If the lady cast a shadow on the workstation or the wall, they’d have to be in the same layer with her. The lights are used in all the renders without moving them between times–their logic holds the layers together as glue. What you do not want to end up with is “unmotivated” lighting, that is, actors that are lit mysterious, by no discernable lights or by lights that couldn’t possibly exist in the final scene.

In the above example, I rendered the foreground and mid-ground without the set. This also gave me my alpha masks that I would use. I also managed to do a full-size z-depth mask by using lower render qualities. All in all, I ended up with four .psd render files that I then assembled in Photoshop, where I painted in the hair and  special effects.

See more about:

• Alpha masks and render passes
• Alpha masks and z-depth done in Photoshop