Thanks Daz 3d!!!
Finding Daz 3d in my early years of all of this was a real godsend! Not only have they always had content of the highest quality, but also the most amazing prices - an odd, but welcome combination!
I've been a Platinum Club member right from the start and, it wasn't until I decided to let that membership lapse before I realized how much that saved me in building my library. Wow, what a difference! They already have very competitive pricing, but the PC+ really changes the game in a Big way!
February for me was all about adding more possibilities to Characters compatibility and animation packs, but with this wonderful exception.
I bought the first set a while ago and absolutely love it, so I know that this one will make the whole thing even better.
What am I talking about?
Yes, this is a Phil Wilkes Carrara product and Yes, it Is Amazing!
36 individual skyscrapers and towers inspired by real buildings can be loaded individually or as a complete scene for either day or night!
As you can see from the center image below, it works very well with his earlier kit - Night and Day City for Carrara
It also comes with a really nice ground level, low resolution people and vehicles... all of the little details you see; trees, streetlamps, etc., are all included in the kit!
I love how, in the night scenes, while not all building windows are lit for that really natural look, the stores at street level are all lit up and open for business in this bustling central district... Kudos, PhilW!!!
This set makes Great looking cities for both day and night!
Funny that this exists and that I didn't already have it. I thought I had all of the Evolution morphs. Now I do! :)
I've already embedded Genesis 1 with whatever muscle morphs I thought I'd need from Genesis 2 via GenX2*, but this A - completes my collection and B - is required to use the next item in this list.
If you're working with Genesis, I think it really pays to have all of this, even if you're not making muscle-bound characters. These sorts of morphs work very well for adding secondary animation movements - shaping the body during strain, relax, swallow, etc.,
They also help to add a lot of individuality and makes fiendish monsters look great!!!
* see Genesis 1 Rocks! for more about GenX2
Simon WM makes these wonderful morph/aniBlock packs that, as the title eludes, make characters live and breathe.
In fact, Genesis Alive! includes several breathing options as well as swallowing, blinking, tightening chest muscles, biceps, triceps, etc.,
He makes use of the Evolution Muscularity morphs and adds new custom morphs, and makes aniBlocks that we can either use on their own, or as secondary motions.
He even includes a foot fix aniBlock to correct Genesis' feet when using V4/M4 poses and animations. I've been delighted with that one, even though I am already good at doing it by hand using the graph editor.
I already had the Genesis 2 Female Clone, and now this one opens up a whole new ballgame for any Genesis figure. There are some really cool Genesis 2 outfits out there - male and female.
It's really nice to be able to use them on our Genesis 1 males or females!
There are other clones and character conversion artists out there, and I'm sure that they're excellent. But you know how it is, when we grow to trust a particular artist, that's usually the first place we look.
SickleYield goes way above and beyond with everything I've ever bought from her, so... well you know how it is.
I talk more about this in my Genesis 1 Rocks! and Content Generations Conversion pages - Basically, if I can't find a clone that goes all the way to Genesis, I get one that goes to something else that I have a clone for.
So having this, I can bring all of my Genesis 8 items to Genesis 3 and save it to my Genesis 3 library. Then I load in the Genesis 3 versions that I just made and convert them to Genesis 1 from there.
This is exactly how I converted Linday's dForce Classic Long and Curly Hair for Genesis 8 Female to work on my Genesis 1 Rosie 5!
It opens up the power of feeling a lot more free when it comes to character design.
RiverSoft Art did an excellent job making this tool, and the promo page includes a nicely detailed tutorial video on its use, with tips on what not to do as he goes. Makes it really easy, yet powerful to use.
The downside for me is that it doesn't work for what I wanted to do - convert Lara for Genesis 8 Female, by Thorne, because it has issues when converting large, stylized eyes.
Still, when we convert a Genesis 8 Female character to Genesis 3 Female, we can now use GenX2 to send those morphs to Genesis 1 and have all manner of cool Genesis 8 morphing features on Genesis 1! Of course, it can't give us the rigging - which is good for Carrara users because Genesis 8 rigging isn't compatible with Carrara.
I enjoy making my own idles animations, but having more aniBlocks to help with everything is always a big plus!
Having worked in Carrara (aniBlock Importer for Carrara) all these years, simple animation tweaks are... well... simple - unlike Daz Studio, which has some nice tools, but it's a headache compared to the ease that Carrara provides us.
Still, what Daz Studio does have is aniMate 2 - and I bought the full version, which gives the full complement of aniMation tools.
Stacking aniBlocks is really quite new to me although it's been right there all this time!
I didn't really have a singular purpose or need for this set, but I really do like the motions, and PoserMocap makes a really solid kit of aniBlocks that includes PZ2 and BVH files, which really helps if we want to convert them to another figure - along with the power of aniMate 2.
My methods of Hybrid aniMation cause me to look through aniBlocks for specific things - like a certain leg movement or torso or arms, etc., so having a large collection of aniBlocks allows me to pick and choose motions from one pack to another - even from different MoCap/animated pose artists.
This one is a real winner, once again!
I'm relatively new to BoneTech 3D, and I really like the files.
They are so different from GoFigure, SKAmotion and PoserMocap, while also being really very good.
The one thing that I feel an urge to mention is that some of the packs come with motions from other packs - something that the others simply don't do.
But the packs are still very much worth their weight! I'm very happy to have them!
These melee bones are excellent!
It's really cool how these work. It's like, the animations are set up for a game engine, and we piece them together within aniMate 2 in the order we need them to be - as if we're using a game controller - kind of.
Attack high, mid or low and the same options for defend (shield).
When Rosie's using a sword, she doesn't use a shield. BoneTech 3D has packs to accommodate that too, but I can still use these and simply adjust the Shield arm and hand as counterweight to the sword hand, which is much easier than one might think.
Very cool collection of motions!!!
This is Awesome!!!
While it doesn't number nearly as many motion files as some of the other kits, this is excellent mage motion!
Now, when I said earlier that some motions belong to more than one kit, don't let those words stop you from previewing them in aniMate!
BoneTech 3D includes several Turntable Stances in several packs, and they may have the same name, but they're actually different... and they're cool!
In getting this, I now have Locomotion bundle Volumes 1, 2 and 3.
Volume 1 is Walks
Volume 2 is Running
Volume 3 is a megapack of all kinds of animations - it's a gigantic set.
Probably the largest selection of different walks anywhere. Some might be walking in place, some are going backwards. Don't let that get you down.
Just look at what they're doing, load in one that matches your mood for the scene, and reverse it if you want it going the other way, decrease the speed if it's too fast, and translate the hip over time if you need an in-place one to move.
Looking at the lower, bold white letters on the cover images indicate the type of pack each of these are.
Vol. 1 is more comedic and Vol. 2 is more Steampunk, but both have excellent animations in them to pick from.
Dance and Photo Shoot packs will complete my BoneTech 3D collection for Genesis!
I haven't tried this yet. I'm still not sure if it will work for me, since I use OctaneRender when in Daz Studio.
The instructions tell me that when fill in the dialog and the last thing we do is to hit the Render button from this script, so I'm not sure if the loading of sequential images will load to Octane.
Either way is fine. I use Carrara for animated textures, and it doesn't need a script for them. In fact, we can put an avi or image sequence nearly anywhere a regular texture map would go - even bump, specular, glow, etc.,
If this doesn't work for OctaneRender, I'll still make use of it in both Iray and 3Delight.
I had this in my wish list for quite some time.
It was my making of the Genesis 1 MorphForms + that finally drove me to buying it.
Originally, I wanted to use this for making all of my Renderosity and Poser World content work with DIM (Daz 3d Install Manager) because I really like how it works - and logs everything into the database.
Genesis 1 MorphForms + is a new animation/pose assistant product that I made myself, so one day I'll read up how to use this and package that up DIM style! :)
Whew!!! What a month February was!!!
and support this site at the same time!!! :) Thanks!!! :)
Have a Question? Just Ask!
I love to help others as best I can. This is a rather broad topic: CG Filmmaking, so my articles on any particular topic may not answer your specific question.
Most of the questions directed to me are regarding Carrara or How did I do this?
For these sorts of things, post your question at the Carrara Discussion Forum (or another appropriate category) at Daz 3D.com forums, and if I don't see it right away, someone else might. They are such a friendly and helpful bunch! I've learned so much from that forum over the years!
For a more immediate question directed to me, log into those forums and Send me a PM!
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