I usually just use morphs and size dials of body parts in DAZ, that covers a lot of shape changes already.

Astrally projecting

Here is my first attempt at some cutsom tattoos for the Freak.

Chinese style tattoos

Those look good!

That is freaking awesome.

I concur, extremely well done!

...nice effect. I have pwGhost but with raytracing it's like pouring molasses into the CPU during renders.


...excellent effect. did you use the Layered Texture Editor (that's how I did the trademark facial makeup for the Short One) or Decal Master, or just Postwork?

OK, now that everything is said and done, here is the picture...

I Won't Let Them Hurt You

Click on the image for the full size. As I mentioned in the DA comments. the theme of the challenge couldn't have been better. One of the parameters was that the image had to work as a desktop background, hence the size and proportions. Sort of Shadowrun even though the scene takes place in Zagreb during the occupation. Though only 16 years old Leela is already a veteran of the war, however, deep down she is still a scared and lonely little girl.

I don't use raytraced shadows, but deep shadows. Makes rendering much faster.

Here's a Duel in the cellar, a scene from last week's session.

...while a pain in the butt render-wise, raytracing does make for higher quality shadows and really brings out the translucency of elements like hair and skin.


...nicely done. The action flows very well.

Thanks. And yes, raytracing does get better results, but with deep shadows I can render pictures with 8 characters in a few minutes. That's more important to me given my time constraints.

Yes, very nice scene. I must really be turning into a DAZ geek, I even recognize a lot of the models, like the JeanZ. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Lighting is definitely something I want to work on. I usually do a simple set up with 2-4 global lights, one of which casts shadows. Sometimes I use a spotlight instead of casting shadows with a global light.

Here is a scene I just did of Sam, my character from Redjack's campaign, with my new motorcycle model, Road Eagle, from Renderosity.

A Girl and Her Bike...

It's pretty typical of most of my lighting setups, but I definitely want to learn how to do more complex lighting.

Good picture. Did you think of using a street background or similar motive?

Lightwise, I usually use a spotlight for shadows, and a distant light from another angle to soften it up some.

I think I will drop in a street background when I fix the finger poke-through on her shirt. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) The paper background looks too "studio".

I also think I need to switch back to JeanZ instead of the Flower Power jeans, so she can wear her TreadZ biker boots. I like the look of the worn out jeans, but not at the expense of her boots. I guess I have a project, to make some holes in the JeanZ model. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


EDIT: I fixed the poke through and added a street background...

A Girl and Her Bike...

Another Picture of DD.

Looking good, Gray.

DD in a new outfit, going through some files in AR.

Another quick picture from the "Phoenix Rising" campaign.

Very nice image. How did you do the lighting effects on the floater bots?

I did not use Layered Texture Editor or Decal Master for the tattoos. I used Photoshop to apply the tattoo templates to the Freak battle scarred texture, and remapped the new texture to the Freak in DAZ on the Surfaces tab.

I do the same for my tatoo skins.

...Fuchs, the pics of DD are great. I especially like the one of her sorting through the files. Postwork or were all those translucent planes rendered first (that would bring my system to a screeching halt)?

I see you have a few Dystopia sets there. Wonderful for SR settings.

Gray, thanks, that work is very special to me.

The light effects on the floater bots (including the sparks on the one she shot down) were all postworked in Gimp using different flare effects. Very intricate and time consuming but rewarding. For the "wash" of the sensors on the wall and doorway, I placed two narrow focus red spotlights in the front of the floater, one in the "eye" and the other on the smaller IR sensor. I positioned the three laser pinpoints on the wall by using a camera above the floater (yeah, I saw Predator one too many times).

I also placed a narrow spot in the lower sensor that is aimed downward at the threshold.

Having been involved int technical theatre in the past, I really enjoy playing with the lighting system in D|S.

I love a Girl and Her Bike. Did you use the MP Cyclorama for the backdrop? I find it a handy tool when I need to cook up a quick image that wont take an our or two to render. It's tricky to use right however, particularly if you have lost of shadows.

...in that vain, I guess here's "An Elf and her Sports Car" (Leela's girlfriend Tracey Kyle). This is a piece in which I set up an array of ambients and one distant light to simulate a late afternoon with filtered sunlight rather than go with a lighting preset. As I mentioned in the description, I added a bit of lighting and blur effects in postwork to make it look like a paparazzi's photo (I also have a B & W version that looks so "old Hollywood film" like).

Tracey Kyle

Very nice work with the shadows, KK.



I don't do postwork at all, all my pcitures are rendered as they are, just for big group pictures - over 6-8 characters - I usually vertically split the picture up in 2 or three parts, render all, and then combine them.

The files are holographs from Aery Soul's Bioshock set.

...you must have a pretty good machine compared to I. I can't do very much at all with translucency, reflectivity, or fog effects in the render as they tend to kill the process with runtime (D|S) or memory allocation (Carrara) errors. Basically I have one of those Intel integrated cards so the OS and other apps steal memory needed for rendering.

Got to get a totally dedicated system. I have some money put away, but not enough to get the system I need built.

Quad Core (Intel) 2.5 - 2.8 Ghz
nVida GeForce 8800
4Gb RAM
A good MB to support all this and up to 8Gb RAM
minimum 650W PS
.5TB main HDD
300Gb (or thereabouts) Backup HDD
minimum 19" LCD display
64 Bit OS (most likely Vista Premium)
Decent cooling
Local Networking (for file transfers with my Notebook as I do not have net access at home).

Don't need any other bells & whistles like office suites, games, DVD playback, Media/internet connectivity & such. This is to be strictly for 3D CGI so save for a power outage, when I need to do one of those 10 - 15 hr Bryce renders, there's nothing else to get in the way (including me as I still have my notebook as well).

...of course, I have also been looking into UPSs too.

I have a dual core and 2 MB RAM. 2 years old by now.

...prety close to what I have. What kind of Video card/driver?

Not sure. Was one of the best 2 years ago I think, though video cards do nothing for renders, at least that's what I hear from a friend working IT.