Steves-3D
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ANNOUNCING THE LAUNCH
1 min read
Announcing the launch of my Wife's new book, being launched on Monday July 2019.
I'm so very excited for her as this one has been her baby.
I'm so very excited for her as this one has been her baby.
She started in around 2006 and wrote the whole book. Since then she has tweaked
it here and tweaked it there. With a lot of prodding and coffee she finalized it.
If you want to buy it, you can purchase from Amazon
If you want to buy it, you can purchase from Amazon
There will also be a kindle version available too.
If you read it, please consider leaving a review 
Thanks
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Christmas Time
2 min read
:bademoticon: Kia ora to all my watchers.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for all the activity you have left on my pages
I have been really busy these last few weeks and it has gotten busier, so I haven't really posted much.
I have a really big project that I am working on in my spare time for my wife.
Some of you will have see the little animation I created. this was done to prove to myself that I can animate.
I think it is ok. very basic but ok. so I have to animate a children's story for her.
So if I miss any activity I will thank you now. All your activity is appreciated.
So, it just leaves me to say I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year.
And I will be back after the new year
Steve.
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Throughout the time we all spend creating tweaking and rendering our work, we all learn a few things.
I am far from the best 3D artist, by a long shot, The fact is I am still learning. But if I can provide some information to someone
who is still learning like myself, then this journal entry is not for naught.
So here are some of the things I've learnt;
Eyes;
You have to pay attention to these, otherwise if you are not careful they look like a deer caught in headlights.
I found that closing the eyelids top and bottom a little relaxes the eyes and they no longer have that stunned look.
I also realized that if you use the close eyes slider in Daz, one eye always seems to look weird.
So, I now always lift the lower eyelids and lower the upper to meet just below halfway, they don't look quite so weird.
Smiles;
I have a personal hate for the smile sliders. Daz seems to have real issues with making a character smile.
I've tried to make models smile a lot and most of the time I think OMG Sheldon Coopers forced smile.
so now I use a combination of open mouth smile simple smile and open mouth smile sliders to get it as
right as I can.
Hands;
My issue with hands was always how far apart the number one bones were from each other. This is something I've
seen in few other peoples work, so either they haven't noticed, or, they are not as concerned about it as I am.
So, when I create my pieces now I try to remember to close the metacarpals up so that the fingers are more
side by side, instead of having a canyon between them.
Using the hands to hold things. Find something similar in the real world and hold it, and if you need to, take a photo
showing how your hand looks holding it, then duplicate it as best you can.
Get vein morphs so that the veins stand up a little on the hands for realism.
Feet;
I used to have real problems being happy with what the feet look like, and to be honest, I still have issues.
It's probably no surprise to most of you that I like feet, so this feature is important for me to try and get right.
This won't mean that you will see updates of my old work. I feel it is important for viewers to see the progression
of my work, and how I feel it has improved, since I started. So if you don't have the morphs to make a foot look like
it is flat on the floor spread the toes out a little till the feet look as if they are bearing the weight of their owner.
Also, like the hands, veins add for realism.
Shoes;
It goes without saying that as I like feet, I also like shoes as well. Looking through the galleries of artists I've
come across an issue that I think some artists are overlooking.
High heels: I'm sure the majority of us have put a pair of high heeled shoes on our feet at some stage or another.
whether it is because you like to wear them, or for a dare or to see whether you can walk in them, or for fancy dress,
or in my case a 21st Birthday where the daughter says, I would like a Rocky Horror themed party, Oh Dad, you are
going to be Frank n Furter.
So, have you ever tried to point your toes while wearing high heels? it's impossible. There are a surprising amount of
images coming through where this has been overlooked, and the feet have been allowed to have pointed toes, which
in turn has straightened the toes of the shoes out. for about 3 weeks I was practicing drawing and without realizing
Until I really looked at my work, to decide whether or not to put it up on DA, when I came the issue. Needless to say
I make sure that the toes and toes of the shoes look right.
Hovering;
I found a little shortcut (ctrl+D). until I found that I either have hovering characters/props, where they shouldn't have
been hovering, or I would spend ages with the Y Translate slider moving the characters/props until they appears to be
on the ground. But then I noticed that even when the character was on the ground, after rendering, they often
appeared to hover ever-so-slightly above. so I decided that sometimes you need to lower then into the ground slightly.
This cleared that issue for me. But, even when using the shortcut mentioned, which drops the selected item to the ground,
I still needed to lower them slightly into the ground surface.
Meshlights;
Thank you Renderfem, for informing me about Meshlights. I love them, the light is so much better than what I was using
which was a combination of spotlights, point lights and distant lights. If you are doing portrait work, find the 'Ring'
meshlight and scale it down, then move it to just behind the lens of the camera you are using and make sure it is facing
your subject. then increase the intensity of the luminance to about 2000, maybe 3000 but no more, (at least that's what
I have found), and when you render you get that lovely ring in the eye of your subject.
You can put meshlights as close to you model as you like then just turn them off in the render. they still produce
the light you want but can't be seen.
HDRI;
Thank you to all of you that told me to start using HDRI backgrounds. An excellent way of lighting your subject all by itself.
If you don't use them yet, I strongly recommend you start. A good source for free ones is hdrihaven.com/
There are other free sources out there, as well as pay for.
I know most of you will know this already. But if I only help one person, then that's Okay by me.
Thanks for taking the time to read this journal.
Tell us about the things you found helped you create your pieces.
Waffle over.
Steve
AKA Steves-3D
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Shocked clippers hovering.
3 min read
Stupid title I know.
It's something we are all guilty of at some point, and I know I still get caught out by it even now.
Things vanishing into the body, or props.
I did a render, it took a massive amount of time, around 18 hours, and when I looked at it,
I saw that the nails on the girl had vanished into a part of her body.
18 hours and I had to trash it. I looked at the prerender and the nails were clearly visible. never the less
I reposed the fingers and re-rendered successfully.
On another render the girls was hovering above the surface she was meant to be standing on.
Only a spot render that time to show that, quick fix, Model selected CTRL+D and she was grounded.
And the other thing was the eyes. I posed the girl beautifully, and had her looking just past the camera.
I posed her so she had a smiling face, so her eyes were smiling too. they looked perfect, till I spot rendered.
OMG, the poor girl looked like she'd just watched a horror movie. the expression in her eyes was pure shock.
repose and re-render fixed it.
Why am I boring you all with this?
I'll tell you.
It amazes me how many images have one, two or all three of these simple to fix issues.
I am not pointing fingers, because as I said at the beginning we are all guilty of it at some point.
But, at the moment I am seeing it quite a lot.
People are creating what could be an exceptionally lovely piece, and then fall foul to these issues.
I realize that a lot of the time we simply miss it, and rely on someone to point it out. If you see it in my work,
please tell me.
But there are some out there that continually have these issues.
No I'm not having a go or ranting lol, Perish the thought.
So why this Journal then, I hear you ask. It's more of a journal for me, to remind me that I need to
look at my images before posting them up lol.
But I also hope that others will read it and then check their own work to see if they are suffering the same.
We all need to be their for each other. if you see something, comment (diplomatically) or note the artist.
My recent pole as of this moment when I am typing shows that 100% of the voters welcome constructive criticism.
I will always tell someone if I see it, and I strongly urge you to do the same.
But yes, be diplomatic, no one wants to read, "Hey your work sucks, it's rubbish, Why the hell did you push
her fingers into her face like that".
Yes that's a comment I got once. when I first started doing 3d images.
What issues bug the hell out of you when you look at peoples work?
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Come to Rada **Update**
1 min read
Well I was going to upload the update for Come to Rada, but,,,,,
I checked my onedrive last night to see how it rendered and
was gutted that it was sooooooo grainy.
So I have played with the emitter and added a little HRDI on
the image and will run the render again later.
So fingers crossed I shall update a little later today or tomorrow morning.
So all you members that were chomping at the bit eager to see the update,
(I'm sure there had to be one other, than myself 
)
)You'll have to wait, just like I do lol.
Steve
AKA Doing-it-in-3d
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