SKYLAB CHAT

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I've been meaning to ask Seliah, is this what you used to put fur on animals in DS....Garibaldi Express Hair System for DAZ Studio?

I own Garibaldi, but frankly I've never been happy with anything it puts out. Garibaldi is better for making human hair. But to be honest, it reminds me too much of Poser dynamic hair. I hate, HATE the way Poser dynamic hair looks. It looks like a head full of fake straw to me and always has. So.. uhm.. yeah, it's understandable why I wouldn't like Garibaldi's end results.

LAMH is what I use for my animal furs... the link there is the full version. Alessandro AM and Kendall are the two that put LAMH together. I got it a while ago when it was on sale for a really good price. It DOES go on sale from time to time... Alessandro's store does go on sale on a semi-regular basis.

That said, though, if you're just wanting to USE presets that others make, you can always just get the "free" version (they call it the LAMH Player). This freebie version won't allow you to MAKE your own presets, but it WILL let you use presets that others have made : Look At My Hair Free Player

Personally - I would recommend starting with the free player - and just making use of some of the presets out there. The utility's website has a bunch of freebie presets that you can play with.

It's a great utility - it's NOT perfect by any means - it can indeed be very buggy at times - but it's definitely a great utility to have for Studio and rendering animal furs.

One "bug" I've noticed with LAMH, just as a heads up - is if you go to load a fur preset, but cancel out without loading anything, DS will instantly crash to the desktop. I just wanted to warn you about that particular one ahead of time. I figured it out the hard way. LMAO

But overall it really is a great utility. Garibaldi is good for human hair; LAMH is good for animal fur.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Examples of LAMH furs :

Hannah Moonriver and her wolfish Uncle
The wolf's fur is an LAMH preset that comes with the DS version of Alessandro's wolf. (The Poser version uses Poser dynamic hair instead.)

Night Walkers
Again, in this case, the LAMH preset in use is the sabertooth's fur.

Relatives
And here, the fur can be seen on the moose. (The grizzly bear was an older model of Alessandro's, which predates the existence of LAMH.)

And here's a couple examples of Garibaldi in use by pretty much the ONLY artist I have ever seen successfully use it for animal fur LOL :

Khajiit Portrait by SpyroRue
Khajiit by SpyroRue

I think the figure portraits also used Garibaldi for at least part of their hair, but I'm not 100% positive on that, and Spyro hasn't been online a whole lot lately for a number of reasons. He's an excellent artist, though, and has an understanding of Garibaldi that blows my mind. LOL

 

[skylab]

Thanks for that info, I'll look into the free version to give it a try. Poser hair was okay for making scraggly hair for Nursoda characters...they were meant to look stringy and ill kept. But you're right, Poser hair is really tough to get it to work just right. Takes a lot of practice. Here's some of my attempts using Poser hair:

HEIN MUSICIANS

HEIN ACTORS

BLUE MAN FLISCH

 

[skylab]

That does have a softer appearance, much more realistic...I like the results. I visit the freebie presets and see if I have anything already that it can at least be tested.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

LOL yes; the unkempt/scraggly look works well with those characters! Very cute.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

That does have a softer appearance, much more realistic...I like the results. I visit the freebie presets and see if I have anything already that it can at least be tested.

Yes, make sure you go to the LAMH website... there's a bunch of free LAMH presets there, which you CAN load with the free player. Don't sink yourself into the full version of the plugin until you're absolutely sure you'd use it, would be my suggestion. It's a big ticket item for a "maybe." I waited until I was sure I really would use it a lot - and then I waited some more, for it to go on sale! LOL

 

[skylab]

Oh yes, I'd definitely play the waiting game, at that price....I'd wait for a sale. The free presets might be adequate.

 

[skylab]

Cool, I see several critters that I already have...this will be fun I downloaded the free player so I can get it installed, and will cross my fingers when I do a test run tomorrow.

 

[skylab]

They've got presets for the Mil Cat, Mil Dog and Puppy, Mil Horse, the DAZ Squirrel, the Mil Big Cat, some of Lyne's critters...geez, that about covers it...haha

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Yep. Just remember...

1.) If you go to "load" the fur preset, don't ever cancel out of it without completing a load. Even if you can't find the preset your looking for, just load a different file and let it tell you that the file isn't an LAMH preset. If you simply cancel out without completing the load, DS definitely will crash.

2.) Don't ever save a scene file with an LAMH preset IN the scene. I have noticed in my own experience, that scene files which contain the LAMH preset (especially if they have more than one) are prone to corrupting themselves during the save process. This CAN be fixed by hand editing the .duf file, but believe me, that's a LOT OF NUMBERS to delete to get rid of the preset and save the scene file from landing in the bottomless pit of computer recycle bins.

3.) If, for whatever reason you DO find yourself with a corrupt scene file, don't try to edit the scene file with Notepad! Notepad WILL choke on it. I have used Wordpad to edit those files, and believe me, even Wordpad complains loudly at me about it! LOL

I just wanted to give you a heads up on those.. maybe save you from some frustrations I've run into while I learned the quirks of the plugin. Once you've installed the player, you will have a new item in your DS menus : Window --> Panes (tabs) --> Look At My Hair.

Hope that helps.

 

[skylab]

So I should save the scene file BEFORE applying the fur, and don't save the scene file after. And yes, there are several things that do the same type of thing to Poser....if you try to back out of it, it just says I'm outta here, and you lose the whole works if you haven't saved the work.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

So I should save the scene file BEFORE applying the fur, and don't save the scene file after. And yes, there are several things that do the same type of thing to Poser....if you try to back out of it, it just says I'm outta here, and you lose the whole works if you haven't saved the work.

Bingo. Yup. You got it!

I learned it the hard way - after having my program suddenly re-introduce me to my desktop repeatedly...

 

[skylab]

Seems like I remember trying the bear when it was released, and my computer at the time, which was an XP system, grabbed itself and did a Fred Sanford "Lizbeth, it's the big one" and crashed. It came back up, but obviously I didn't have the juice at the time to handle it...haha.

 

[skylab]

I see on their website that one of the bug fixes to the new beta version is saving to .duf....hmmm...better test that on a scene that you haven't worked hours to pose...haha.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Seems like I remember trying the bear when it was released, and my computer at the time, which was an XP system, grabbed itself and did a Fred Sanford "Lizbeth, it's the big one" and crashed. It came back up, but obviously I didn't have the juice at the time to handle it...haha.

LMAO! Yeah, I could see that. The grizzly bear and his old (REALLY OLD) Poser wolf were both VERY heavy on system resources. My current rig can handle the grizzly very well, despite all the mesh that makes up his fur. But even my 12gbs of RAM slows way down on the OLD wolf model.

LAMH fur can get a bit heavy on a scene - this is another reason to save the file and apply the preset by hand just before render - but so far I haven't had a scene crash out for lack of memory yet, just over LAMH furs.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I see on their website that one of the bug fixes to the new beta version is saving to .duf....hmmm...better test that on a scene that you haven't worked hours to pose...haha.

Yeah... that's something you'd want to save your scene file first... and then load the preset and save to a NEW scene file to test out.

 

[skylab]

I think I'd start with something small...like the Mil Cat, or Dog or Puppy. Wish somebody would make a collie dog...that would make a gorgeous render. I saw one this week in the front seat of someone's parked car...beautiful...looked like Lassie.

I downloaded the two manuals that were available on the site, and got all the animals that I own, plus some Genesis hair and beards to try.

Guess I'd better try to get some sleep, the sun will be rising soon. Thanks again for all your help...I'll have plenty to play with later today when I finally get up. Catch you later, after a few Zzzz's See you later

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Have a good rest, Sky.

 

[skylab]

Question for Seliah when you come through...I've gotten the Look at My Hair beta plugin installed successfully. I've skimmed through the manual and I don't see this addressed...are the unzipped presets supposed to be installed in a certain folder with DS, or are they considered an outside content, like a scene file, to be imported?

I'll be back online later...catch you then

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Sky, the presets do not need to go into a specific folder. They get loaded manually through the LAMH dialogue in any case.

Every vendor/content maker does it differently, but I store as many of presets as I can under a folder just labled "LAMH Presets" in the DS structure. So something like My Library/LAMH Presets. Now, those files will not be visible inside of DS, nor will the folder. But when you go to attach your preset, you at least will know right where it's located.