Mythocentric
Extraordinary
Thank you for your reply Ken. Quality environments are always welcome! 
-
Welcome to the Community Forums at HiveWire 3D! Please note that the user name you choose for our forum will be displayed to the public. Our store was closed as January 4, 2021. You can find HiveWire 3D and Lisa's Botanicals products, as well as many of our Contributing Artists, at Renderosity. This thread lists where many are now selling their products. Renderosity is generously putting products which were purchased at HiveWire 3D and are now sold at their store into customer accounts by gifting them. This is not an overnight process so please be patient, if you have already emailed them about this. If you have NOT emailed them, please see the 2nd post in this thread for instructions on what you need to do
Nature's Wonders Sneak Peek Thread
- Thread starter Ken Gilliland
- Start date
I hope you don't cut down the polys TOO much, because the plants branches don't bend in a nice round way, they go at right angles... one of my pet peeves about plants than can't be subdivided... branches that don't look natural... and we do want/need close up environs.... REALLY looking forward to this, Ken!
There's always a careful balance between what I can get away with using minimal polygons and still looking good without being machine killing. I'm spoiled with a fast, newer computer and 32 gigs of memory so it's easy for me to get too carried away. In addition, I know other things are going to be added to the scene on top of my environment, so I tried to stay as polygon light as possible with it still looking good. Again, my newer environmental/plant props are meant to be close-up camera friendly in order to use my birds and other wildlife.
On the plus side, Poser 11 is much, much better on subdivision than the older versions were (that made some polygons explode). It's even probably better than DAZ Studio's SubD is now (which occasionally explodes polygons).
Poser has subdivision? Yes,... select the model, then on the Toolbar, select Figure -> Skinning method -> Poser Unimesh. Go to the Model (Body) properties and select the amount of subdivision. I find the "2" setting will remove the blockiness from the Lizard's tail when using the "Circled" pose.
Edit added: I just tested my Sagebrush Habitat in Poser 11 and DS v4.9-- it subdivides fine
Last edited:
OH cool Thanks, Ken... I use subD all the time (however, I can't on the birds, because they are so complex I guess) ... so even my lil 'ol Poser 2014 does a great job on plants and trees that ALLOW me to! Some plants and objects (made by other merchants) shoot vertices off wildly when trying to use SubD.... but shouldn't be the case in yours, since you are suggesting we use it for your environments.... (and shame on me, I havn't used the kiwi set yet... so many models, so little time!)
I do appreciate the balancing act.... and I'll be patient for the "color renders" of this new nature environment... I LOVE (and can still smell them in my memory) sage brush of the desert worlds...
Some plants and objects (made by other merchants) shoot vertices off wildly when trying to use SubD.... but shouldn't be the case in yours, since you are suggesting we use it for your environments.... (and shame on me, I havn't used the kiwi set yet... so many models, so little time!)I do appreciate the balancing act.... and I'll be patient for the "color renders" of this new nature environment... I LOVE (and can still smell them in my memory) sage brush of the desert worlds...
OH cool Thanks, Ken... I use subD all the time (however, I can't on the birds, because they are so complex I guess) ... so even my lil 'ol Poser 2014 does a great job on plants and trees that ALLOW me to!
I do appreciate the balancing act.... and I'll be patient for the "color renders" of this new nature environment... I LOVE (and can still smell them in my memory) sage brush of the desert worlds...
Poser 11 SubD works fine with everything I've throw at it (including all my birds). The Poser engineers worked out all the issues they had in 2014 and previous versions.
Stezza
Dances with Bees
I'm sure you will get it right... we are a challenging mob
On my wedding day at the church before my bride turned up the minister had me catch a huge bluey before the service and take it up the back hill into the bush well away from everyone ... they do make things hard for us do blue tongues
and ministers!
Kerya
Brilliant
Well - there are two free plant creation softwares:
Kurtz-Fernhout Software: PlantStudio
ngPlant - Open Source plant modeling suite
Okay, I've rounded the corner on Volume III, the rest of the week will be spent doing seam corrections, building the DS version and creating some promo renders. Thanks to some guidance from Szark (thank-you!), I will be creating an alternate set of iRay friendly materials. Then I'll hand it over to HW and focus on texturing the "Sagebrush Habitat" (I guess that's going to be the name of the product). I know my beta tester was disappointed to not see a cactus in the set, the reason was because I'm planning a "Saguaro Habitat" (Southwest USA desert ecosystem) as my next project in line. For what that might look like, check out my Southern Arizona Photography Gallery.
Jan
Adventurous
Hi Ken. Looking at the textures for the Blue-tongue, are you not not going to include one for the most common Blue-tongue, the Eastern, that is probably seen the most.
This is one who lives at my place, under the concrete of the driveway. Here he is sunning himself getting ready for a days hunting or maybe chasing the ladies I took this photo last year, and each year I see him? he gets larger. The Lizards who live around my place, the Blue-tongues and the Skinks are still hibernating, but won't be long now that Spring is almost here when they appear again. The blue-tongues are generally a slow moving lizard, but when they want to, can get up on those stubby looking legs and move quite quickly.
This is one who lives at my place, under the concrete of the driveway. Here he is sunning himself getting ready for a days hunting or maybe chasing the ladies
I took this photo last year, and each year I see him? he gets larger. The Lizards who live around my place, the Blue-tongues and the Skinks are still hibernating, but won't be long now that Spring is almost here when they appear again. The blue-tongues are generally a slow moving lizard, but when they want to, can get up on those stubby looking legs and move quite quickly.
Jan
Adventurous
[,QUOTE="Rae134, post: 60389, member: 104"]The Eastern is the one I grew up with too [/QUOTE] Yes a lot of kids did and this reminds me of something funny. Many years ago, probably around 1960, my first husband had a Pet Shop and in those days there was no restriction on selling snakes and lizards like there was in later years. The local school kids used to come and buy their lizards from him.
One day he received a delegation of school teachers asking him to stop selling the lizards which were mainly Skinks or Blue-tongues - the kids were taking them to school and the teachers were getting a shock to see a lizard pop out from a desk. In those days it was the old fashioned type of desks that the top was a lid. The kids were taking their new Pets to school, that was the "rage" .
Now that's an idea for a render
[/QUOTE] Yes a lot of kids did and this reminds me of something funny. Many years ago, probably around 1960, my first husband had a Pet Shop and in those days there was no restriction on selling snakes and lizards like there was in later years. The local school kids used to come and buy their lizards from him. One day he received a delegation of school teachers asking him to stop selling the lizards which were mainly Skinks or Blue-tongues - the kids were taking them to school and the teachers were getting a shock to see a lizard pop out from a desk. In those days it was the old fashioned type of desks that the top was a lid. The kids were taking their new Pets to school, that was the "rage" .
Now that's an idea for a render
hmmmm.... not being from Australia or ever seeing one in person, I've relied entirely on online photos for reference... the eastern certainly isn't popular in the photographs. But then again, our Western Fence Lizard (which I have to watch where I'm stepping in the summer months-- there's so many of them) wasn't well represented either in Google photo searchs.... I see what I can do about getting the Eastern in the set.
Szark
Awesome
My pleasure Ken and sorry for the late reply my notifications bottomed out again. Plus I am super busy at the mo.
This page has an awesome close up of the Easterns scales. Blue Tongue Lizard – Eastern Also has some blue morphs showing the melanistic/albino etc options that are quite interesting too (although I don't think you get them in the wild, I think they are pets.
Yes, there's a huge variety in coloring and patterning. I'm working on one that is mostly gray (based on the one Jan showed). Some of the Eastern subspecies shown in Rae's post above are actually Northerns. The "Southern" I have shown in and render is actually one of the variations on the Eastern which has some melanistic/albino characteristics. The Tanimbar I created is one of the "Silver Tanimbars" found in Tasmania and New Guinea.
Blue-tongues are actually skinks not true lizards.
Blue-tongues are actually skinks not true lizards.