Ravenswing

I've been religiously logging characters out in useful areas, teaming up badges for Accolades, etc...

My main had 4 badges, 2 Accolades (Mercenary and Rapid Response).
My old main, who spends more time logged off, has 5 badges and 3 Accolades, and the other less used characters are similar.

It's something to do, takes no effort, and (sometimes) gives a useful little bonus. I'm not complaining.

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A good background

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I had to rebuild from scratch, I've got next to no background stuff on the system yet and was mainly rendering that one for test purposes. I rather like it too, so I'm going to see about putting some background in and see how it goes.

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The hair is a great improvement for a start, looks much more... "Ni".
The face has changed too? She looks a lot better again.

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The hair was some new hair I got (cheap ). I need to tweak her fringe a bit, but it does look a bit more like her in-game 'loose' hair, and it's more morphable.

Her face has changed (you try remembering exactly where to put 50-odd sliders), I think she's a bit younger looking, slightly less angular, but the basic shape and such have remained pretty close to the old version.

Right then... I can't open any of my old scene files, so I'll need to recreate things I actually want. Irritating, but at least the system's useable and I can create new stuff.

Such as this... Nitoichi

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I do think the mesh part of her costume could do with being a bit more see-through though.

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It's more see through. I fiddled with the transparency map so that the doubled over edges remain fairly solid, but the panels are about 65% transparent. On the stunningly large version of this I have on my screen at home, you can tell because of the shadows. I'm not sure if it comes out as well on the smaller version on dA.

*shrug* Most people just take Boxing and don't use it...

There will be a pause in production. My new PC doesn't like DAZ|Studio very much. I think it's an OpenGL problem, which means it's vista and I'm stuffed unless I 'downgrade' the OS which I'm reluctant to do.

Have to see what happens.

The really cool bit about creating art this way is that I can say things like "I think this came out awesome" and get away with it not sounding like bragging because it wasn't me, it was the modelling software. I mean, all I did was put some other people's bits together like lego, position the gates and the figure, pick an expression, and render the thing several times until I liked it (at 15 minutes a shot).

So... I think this came out awesome, though her face is a little overshadowed, perhaps.

Graveyard Shift - Nitoichi goes zombie hunting.

I normally tweak the expression. She generally gets a bit of a scowl. I kind of forgot.

I think the half-turn view in the last one's better anyway.

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I think a look of contempt would suit her better - slightly narrowed eyes, head tilted a smidgeon and a tiny condescending smirk on her lips. But that's just me.

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No... not just you.

For now, I'll be happy with the "Ooo"

*wanders off and goes back to sleep*

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The body and costume looks nice, but something about Nis face just puts me off. I cannot put my finger on it either. Maybe it's her mouth, dunno :|

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Hey, she's built to my taste.

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And I'm not sure how DAZ really works, so I'm not sure if importing 3D, textured models works or they have to be setup...

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Any surface can have an image file mapped to it. I'm not exactly sure how it works myself and it would take a lot of fiddling to get right, I suspect. I'll have a go at it sometime, just because I can, but I don't have the energy for that stuff tonight.

How's this? You're next...

And that's all for tonight because that sucker takes ages to render!

You wait until I get into this enough to fork out money for the software! The cheapest package is over $100. Poser is about £300.

The problem with the city in the background is it's scaled up about 5000% which messes up the texture. Might see what I can do with a room scene or something, I can get those sized more appropriately for the characters... Hmmm... You're evil, Crius, you realise I'll be at this until you go "Oooo!" right?

*wanders off grumbling*

Ideally you would be able to edit the numbers, but it would very likely produce some nasty side effects without a load of other added features. It's a non-trivial, but highly desireable feature.

Well, the Troll isn't much cop, but Ni looks good. You wanted action and more detailed backgrounds, I give you action and more detailed backgrounds!

Ni vs Troll

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Look at this: http://www.douglasshuler.com/Tutoria...msonStorm.html

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that's a mighty fine piece of work

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Had a think about this... That is an absolutely excellent piece of work, and I can't hope to match it, but then, I don't exactly want to.

That artist was after creating a full comic-book look. I'm actually after something more like photorealism.

What I need to learn to do in 'photoshop' is fixing up things like twisted joints which seem to be inevitable in 'poser' style software.

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but making patterns is kinda hard - it's tricky to get them to join up if they wrap around boots or gloves, for example.

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Tell me about it. See the edge on the underside of Libby's arm. Still not happy with that.

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I'm guessing this is an actual program limitation (and personal taste) but I think she looks too...old?

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Probably personal taste there. It does depend a lot on angle and expression.

I've another picture I did with the two of them in. The original version of Libby made her look like a granny, but when I was constructing the face 'head-on' she looked fine. I cut the facial wrinkles down a good bit and that worked better.

I suspect the same is true of Ni. She looks a lot younger with less expression and more face on. (Though, for a teenager, she's probably a bit more care-worn that typical...)

As for the muscles... sorry, the girl's wired.

PS. I don't mind constructive comments, and even discussion. Helps me improve.

First... AllTime High ... Libby takes Ni flying.

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but lots of the Female costume pieces in CoX really are that revealing!

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I've possibly cut the hips a little higher on Libby's costume than she wears them, but she's notmally in a belt, so it's hard to be sure.

I started doing a skin-paint job for Ni at one point before finding the costume piece which I've used (it was easier to do the paint job, but it takes more fiddling to get it to fit her figure; swings and roundabouts). I was fairly shocked at the amount of 'cloth' I had to cut away to get it looking like the in-game model. Put it this way, Paragon's heroines who wear briefer costumes wax their bikini lines...

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I don't know if it's a limit of the program, but I'd love to see Nitoichi set against a more detailed background/floor

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No, that's a limitation of me learning to use the program.

I'll probably do another couple of Ni shots with better backgrounds. Something actiony, I think. But not tonight.

I caved and bought some thigh boots. At $6.95 you can't really complain.

So, redux of the Ni and Libby pictures...

Nitoichi
Liberty Girl - Freedom

I'm not posting a link to it since there's a bit of nudity involved (not much, I hasten to add, I think it might scrape in per-watershed), but there's a third new pic up on my dA site should you wish to look for it. It's by way of a joke.

Nope, hadn't seen that one. Nice work.

And you're right, patience... okay, downright pig-headed determination that the software isn't going to beat you, appears to be the prime requirement for this kind of thing.

I can't see the point of an actual mailbox.

I've given up on persuading people of the 'merits' of not transfering stuff between characters, so I won't say anything about that.

However, there is an existing 'mail' interface, which would just need to handle 'attachments' to allow it to be used for this purpose. It might actually get used under those circumstances. It's a bit of a dead feature now since global messaging is more effective and does the same job.

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Apart from a few, there seems to be a very big fixation on using them to create certain scenes, but it looks like you're straying away from that

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Depends where you go look, but I know exactly the kind of scene you mean. Mind you, even in the places where that kind of scene is common, you can find some beautifully rendered work which has often had a lot of postwork done on it in Photoshop (or similar) to get the look just right. By comparison, this stuff is extremely primitive, being untouched render output.

By the way, the city under Libby is built up of some free scenery I picked up. Looking at the style and examples from some of the other packs available, I think I see where the backdrop of the image on the main CoX site comes from. Guess they modelled up the picture using Poser.

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A slight breast fixation going on there.

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My other half mentioned Ni's chest size. I say to you what I said to her, "the minimum cup-size on a CoX heroine is about a C." I don't have a breast fixation, the game designers do.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

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Even i don't like 3D Art (i find it unnatural for my taste)

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I find it alarmingly realistic if you get it right, but it's all a matter of taste, really. I can't draw for toffee, but I can tweak sliders and spend hours trying to get muscles right and lights perfect, and stuff like that, so this is what I do.

One more, featuring Happy_Dan's character Liberty Girl in flight.

Freedom

The recreation of Libby's costume isn't complete, but after a lot of hours painting skin maps, this was as close as I could get to the original. It still needs work, and boots, of course.

I really need to get her some thigh boots though...

That last one... I'll explain a little. It was a test shot. I'd just got the model set with the swords and scabbards. It set the shot up with a backdrop piece painted up with a sort of concrete texture and two lights. One is distant and spread, to represent the moon, the other is a narrow beam, close-up spot, representing someone's torch as he suddenly discovers Ni, standing in the shadows, looking right at him...

So, I've been trying to build 3D models of Nitoichi and Liberty Girl in DAZ Studio so I can be all artistic and stuff as well as all literary. Thing is, for those familiar with the technology, you tend to end up with a lot of nudes and I can't really post those here. However, I've finally got some stuff I can post, even if it's not all perfect, I thought I'd stuff a few bits on DA and let you lot see.

These are all of Ni, because I haven't managed to get a costume sorted out for Libby yet...

The Girl Means Business - well, whatever business it is, it's not good.

Action Shot 1 and Action Shot 2 - two views of the same pose. (As an aside, two people added the second pose to their favourites list on DA before I'd posted the shot below... I got something right there? )

Original Ni, accept no substiture - and Ni in my closest current version of her original costume. It took ages to get the colour maps even this right.