Songbird Remix's Product Preview Thread

[eclark1894]

Hey Ken, really stupid question here, but is the Roadrunner depicted in the WB cartoons, which don't look a thing like a real road runner, I might add, is it a Greater or Lesser Roadrunner? Also, i know it can fly, so why doesn't it?

 

[Harimau]

Interesting info on the Dodo:

The dodo gets a makeover

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Hey Ken, really stupid question here, but is the Roadrunner depicted in the WB cartoons, which don't look a thing like a real road runner, I might add, is it a Greater or Lesser Roadrunner? Also, i know it can fly, so why doesn't it?

There's no such thing as a stupid question

First of all, I'd make an educated guess that the WB "Beep-Beep" bird is based on the Greater Roadrunner because it's more widespread and common (Southern US and Mexico) than its cousin the Lesser Roadunner (Central America). Since the artists and animators were based in the US in makes sense they'd base it off of the the US bird.

Roadrunners can fly, its just not they're preferred method of travel. Similar, I guess, to chickens, turkeys, and peacocks-- all have no trouble flying short distances. The peacocks that invaded our yard this morning had no trouble flying to the roof of the house to avoid being chased off lol

Interesting info on the Dodo:

The dodo gets a makeover

The NG dodo is even sleeker than the dodo I based my model off of (which was the current ornithological consensus of the time 2011). Most of the "classic" dodo imagery ornithologists believe were based captive dodos that were overfed.

 

[eclark1894]

Ever experience a bird attack? I have, and on more than one experience. I will admit though that birds will usually only attack a human when said human is walking notoriously near a bird's nest. When I was young, my aunt used to take all of us kids to the beach for a few days. Naturally, we'd all run over to the beach as soon as we got there, and as we ran near a certain bush, we were dive-bombed by several birds. Turned out we were running past her nest in the bushes. Why didn't the birds build the nests higher up in the trees, you ask? Ever been to a North Carolina beach? Not a lot of trees.

Then there was the time my cat was crossing the front yard, and for no observable reason, several birds decided to dive bomb him. Kept it up until he came back into the house.

 

[JOdel]

And then there are bantam roosters which will attack anyone.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I've been fighting with the update of the "Long-necked" Seabird all weekend... I think I'm finally on the right track. I had to seriously rework the map to get the textures right on the diverse bills that these seabirds have. Here's the Black-footed Albatross in Firefly with some Glaucous Gulls in the background. The ocean is Nerd3D's "Waves on the Beach" with one of my custom water material settings.

 

[Janet]

I've been fighting with the update of the "Long-necked" Seabird all weekend... I think I'm finally on the right track. I had to seriously rework the map to get the textures right on the diverse bills that these seabirds have. Here's the Black-footed Albatross in Firefly with some Glaucous Gulls in the background. The ocean is Nerd3D's "Waves on the Beach" with one of my custom water material settings.

View attachment 72077

Excellent render!

 

[Bwaomega]

Ever experience a bird attack? I have, and on more than one experience. I will admit though that birds will usually only attack a human when said human is walking notoriously near a bird's nest. When I was young, my aunt used to take all of us kids to the beach for a few days. Naturally, we'd all run over to the beach as soon as we got there, and as we ran near a certain bush, we were dive-bombed by several birds. Turned out we were running past her nest in the bushes. Why didn't the birds build the nests higher up in the trees, you ask? Ever been to a North Carolina beach? Not a lot of trees.

Then there was the time my cat was crossing the front yard, and for no observable reason, several birds decided to dive bomb him. Kept it up until he came back into the house.

The local crow population decides every once in a while to dive at everything in sight. I'm really not fond of the people who decide to throw bread, donuts, crackers, fries, etc. all around them while sitting at a bus stop. Sometimes, even the seagulls are afraid to try for the junk food. The usual ratio is about 6-10 crows per seagull in my neighborhood.

 

[Chris]

I've been fighting with the update of the "Long-necked" Seabird all weekend... I think I'm finally on the right track. I had to seriously rework the map to get the textures right on the diverse bills that these seabirds have. Here's the Black-footed Albatross in Firefly with some Glaucous Gulls in the background. The ocean is Nerd3D's "Waves on the Beach" with one of my custom water material settings.

View attachment 72077

DANG! This looks amazing Ken. You create impressive stuff!

 

[Ken Gilliland]

DANG! This looks amazing Ken. You create impressive stuff!

Thanks Chris... it always means a lot coming from you.

---------------

For the next couple of months, I'm probably going to be frustrating those that are trying to figure out where I am in the updates because I'm jumping all over the place and my renders will mirror that. There is some method to my madness because I have to update a number of remaining models to complete some sets (Hawai'i, Austrailia v3, Legend) and that the same time make sure they are doing everything I want them to do for future sets (so I'm not constantly having to re-update every set). Chances are most of these updates will finally show up in the store in late March, building to my Audubon's Birthday sale finale.

Doing renders help me make sure the updated birds are working well-- as well as granting me a little "fun" in this tedious process. My last image of the Black-footed Albatross showed my updated "Long-necked palmate seabird" model used primarily for albatrosses and giant petrels (which is used in Hawaii, Seabirds 1/2 and Legend). Yesterday, I decided to start moving all the key done pieces of the Australia v3 set together before starting the "Topipalmate" updates (cormorants, boobies, frigatebirds, pelicans), and decided to play with the Austraila v3 birds I've assembled so far. The Australia v3 update is going take some time because I'll also have to update Jacanas too before it's done.

Shown are the Banded Stilt, Royal Spoonbills, Sulfur-crested Cockatoos and Brolga. The image was rendered in Iray and uses Howie Farkes UltraScenery system.

 

[eclark1894]

Thanks Chris... it always means a lot coming from you.

---------------

For the next couple of months, I'm probably going to be frustrating those that are trying to figure out where I am in the updates because I'm jumping all over the place and my renders will mirror that. There is some method to my madness because I have to update a number of remaining models to complete some sets (Hawai'i, Austrailia v3, Legend) and that the same time make sure they are doing everything I want them to do for future sets (so I'm not constantly having to re-update every set). Chances are most of these updates will finally show up in the store in late March, building to my Audubon's Birthday sale finale.

Doing renders help me make sure the updated birds are working well-- as well as granting me a little "fun" in this tedious process. My last image of the Black-footed Albatross showed my updated "Long-necked palmate seabird" model used primarily for albatrosses and giant petrels (which is used in Hawaii, Seabirds 1/2 and Legend). Yesterday, I decided to start moving all the key done pieces of the Australia v3 set together before starting the "Topipalmate" updates (cormorants, boobies, frigatebirds, pelicans), and decided to play with the Austraila v3 birds I've assembled so far. The Australia v3 update is going take some time because I'll also have to update Jacanas too before it's done.

Shown are the Banded Stilt, Royal Spoonbills, Sulfur-crested Cockatoos and Brolga. The image was rendered in Iray and uses Howie Farkes UltraScenery system.

View attachment 72205

Congratulations, when I saw the variety of birds, I actually wasn't sure if it was a render or a photograph.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I've decided that my "Gulls and Waders" folder in my Bird Library is too confusing with the addition of all the updated seabird models, so I've decided to section it off similiar to what I've done in the Kingfisher and Woodpeckers folders.

You'll click on "Gulls and Waders" folder and instead of getting the usual Render engine (Firefly/superfly/3Delight/Iray) and Poses folders get two sub-menu folders first; Seabirds and Shorebirds. I'll eventually update Shorebirds v3, Europe v3 and others that place birds into the "Gulls and Waders" / Shorebirds folder, but if you have that folder in your Bird Library, you can fix it right now. Simply add a Shorebirds folder under the "Gulls and Waders" folder and move the renderer folders and poses into it.

​

 

[Miss B]

That actually makes a lot of sense Ken, so thanks for doing that.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Here's a sneak peak at some "new" seabirds... the Guadalupe Murrelet (chowing down on some Krill (one of my "DAZ original" models)). I may rework and update the krill model for the Nature's Wonders line at some point since it's good seabird and penguin food.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

 

[MEC4D]

I love the Royal Spoonbills , so beautiful bird , all of themthe EUropean and AUstralian as well
Blue-footed Booby aka Kovalsky looks cute , top update , looks so much better now

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Another bird from Seabirds v1 updated... some subtle and some striking changes-- the updated version is shown in full breeding plumage. That completes the base firefly version of that set. I'm moving to volume 2 (before cleaning up and completing the V1 update) because I'm still reworking the 3 seabirds models and need to make sure I'm happy the gannets, shags and frigatebirds in v2 first.

 

[Miss B]

WOW, the updated version's bill looks like someone tied it up with string to silence it.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

WOW, the updated version's bill looks like someone tied it up with string to silence it.

I guess it does sort of look like a string

The original texture had a very "muddy" version of that only on the lower beak. That wasn't ornithologically correct. The update reflects the correct look. Breeding plumage is hard to see in this render but there's a medium to light blue eye ring and the wispy crest curly-Q. On non-breeding birds, its a black eye ring and no curly-Q. The Shag (European version of a cormorant) that I'm working on, it also has a unusual bill with tons of little circles on the lower half. I'm guessing those provide some sort of camouflage in their fishing.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

here's a quick render of my redo on the Japanese Cormorant