That's what I like about him. I often like characters that are "unique", rather than just another pretty face. Though I do like those too . . . obviously.
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Nataani for Dusk
- Thread starter Seliah (Childe of Fyre)
- Start date
That's what I like about him. I often like characters that are "unique", rather than just another pretty face. Though I do like those too . . . obviously.
I'm really glad he's meeting with everyone's approval.
Maybe I am a little too nit-picky about the surfaces and materials, but I just can't ship something out that I'm not happy with! LOL But this is definitely the final form of the base/distance materials.As far as his morphs go... I made very extensive use of all of his currently available Head morph packages in our store here. Especially Chris' add-on head morphs! It is literally impossible for me to put out a character that looks like a stock figure... if the character does not have some kind of personality, they don't live for long in my head. LMAO While I intended Nataani's morphs to resemble more of a Pacific Coast tribal man, the morph seems to change it's appearance depending on what hair and skin and clothing is used on the figure. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it does mean he can be used in a variety of situations and scenes.
Here's a quick screenshot of the head options... I have saved out all of these MATs and they have proper rendered thumbnails now. I did two different styles of thumbnails so that there is no confusion about which ones are the clean skin options and which ones are dirty skin options. I know some folks go by the thumbnails, while others go by the label on the thumbnails, so hopefully this will work for both types of artists.
So there are a total of 12 face options here; six clean and six dirty... I am making the body and limb MATs now. ^_^
And as an FYI, this is kind of what the Poses folder looks like for Nataani. Please note that I mostly have NOT done rendered thumbnails on the poses yet. I always wait until I have the "final" versions saved before I do the thumbnails. Yes, you will have 10 full body poses, but you will also have a lot of partial body poses to work with as well... so you won't be stuck with just those ten, you can pretty much mix and match the partials as much as you want to get whatever you're looking for.
The poses will most likely require manual adjustment if being used on other Dusk shapes, since I built them on Nataani... I'll get a comparison shot up here soon of Nataani next to a base, out-of-the-box Dusk so you can see what I mean. He's a bit shorter and a little stockier than our base Dusk, so things like hands/fingers especially where they meet thighs or the cowboy hat will be the most likely culprits needing some tweaking when used on other Dusk shapes.
Anyway - this is a quick screenshot of Nataani's Pose folder.
If you prefer to have the poses under Dusk/Poses, you can of course just cut and paste the Nataani/Poses folder to that location. I just put it here to kind of keep his package all together in one place.
Yes, typical Artist Syndrome, I think... we are always our own worst critics.
Making progress on the body and limb options... should have these saved out to the library very soon, and then I can adjust the materials for close-up or portrait renders. I won't need to make a ton of separate MATs to offer the Lo Bump options, thankfully. I will just be making a couple of utility MATs that affect only the Bump and Normal channels and maps.
So it won't interfere with whatever skin options have been chosen, but will reduce the bump settings enough to look good in close-up or high resolutions.And on a different note... holy crud, is this thread really up to 11 pages?? Wow. LOL
Got the next pose completed and saved out to the library. Little bit of a different look this time. Elleque's EXP hair (originally for Hiro3) and used Fabi's Tyllo jewelry for the necklace. All clean skin mats; using the soul patch face option, and red eyes from the fantasy eye color options.
This is one of the poses where you would need to do some manual tweaks on the fingers and hands if using long pants on Dusk. A couple of these are like that. Also, I would strongly recommend turning limits OFF for the whole figure before applying poses; some of the poses required limits being turned off on certain body parts to achieve.
This is one of the poses where you would need to do some manual tweaks on the fingers and hands if using long pants on Dusk. A couple of these are like that. Also, I would strongly recommend turning limits OFF for the whole figure before applying poses; some of the poses required limits being turned off on certain body parts to achieve.
I'm working on it!
Still finishing up poses and the close-up bump settings here. All other mats and morphs are done, though. ^_^
I like to keep things altogether, as it were. I use my Pose library for pose sets I buy from DM and Island Girl and others, but like to keep poses that come WITH a character, such as Dawn's Everyday Poses, right there where the character is in my runtime.
This is the three quarters back view of the previous pose... I find that Dusk really doesn't like to bend his shoulders or elbows at all. Even the slightest bending of his joints results in the mesh folding over itself in places, or weird kinks. I'm really not sure there's anything else I can do about this elbow kink unless I completely change the position of the entire arm and hand to something totally different.
I've been running into these kinks a LOT with the poses, no matter how slight or how little I bend his joints... I think we might need some updated JCM's or maybe some fix-morphs for his joints to avoid some of this. I wish I knew how to do that, or I would do them myself for this poor guy! LOL Maybe I'll look into how to do those once I've gotten this package finished and through QAV.
I've been running into these kinks a LOT with the poses, no matter how slight or how little I bend his joints... I think we might need some updated JCM's or maybe some fix-morphs for his joints to avoid some of this. I wish I knew how to do that, or I would do them myself for this poor guy! LOL Maybe I'll look into how to do those once I've gotten this package finished and through QAV.
I do remember that, yes. It's the elbow that concerns me the most for exactly that reason. LOL I'll fuss with the arm position a little more... but shy of leaving his forearms always mostly unbent, I'm just not sure how to avoid that particular kink.
But once I'm done with his package, I'll probably look into how to *make* a morph, and then how to get it *onto* Dusk inside of DS... I can fix it all I want in Blender, but I sure don't know how to import that to DS, and get it into Dusk as a morph dial.
That's for afterwards, though. Getting myself back on track here... I need to stop distracting myself. LOL
But once I'm done with his package, I'll probably look into how to *make* a morph, and then how to get it *onto* Dusk inside of DS... I can fix it all I want in Blender, but I sure don't know how to import that to DS, and get it into Dusk as a morph dial.
That's for afterwards, though. Getting myself back on track here... I need to stop distracting myself. LOL
Finally! Alright, I have all of the dirty skin options done for the default (distance) materials. This is a quick screenshot of the folder with the torso and limbs options, with their rendered thumbnails. Now, I usually end up doing at least a little bit of editing on content library thumbnails, even if it's just to put a white background or something behind the rendered parts.
But here we go. Eight body options - torso, legs, and arms, in both clean and dirty versions. Materials sorted and MATs saved.
And here's a full body render of the dirty skin.
I'm off to finalize the LIE presets - and test them out on other Dusk skins, as well as Dawn and Luna.
But here we go. Eight body options - torso, legs, and arms, in both clean and dirty versions. Materials sorted and MATs saved.
And here's a full body render of the dirty skin.
I'm off to finalize the LIE presets - and test them out on other Dusk skins, as well as Dawn and Luna.
Yep! Getting there, finally! And I know I'm getting there, because I'm already getting nervous about QAV processes and how the heck I'm going to force sales pitch out of my brain. LOL!
I'm hoping to have the LIE presets finalized before I go to bed tonight.
I'm hoping to have the LIE presets finalized before I go to bed tonight.