• 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

Songbird Remix's Product Preview Thread

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
You and me both Rae, as I had fun walking among some at the San Diego Zoo's Aviary many years ago. The Aviary was a huge, totally enclosed area of the Zoo, and the majority of the birds were flying, and walking, around because they aren't caged as the Zoo is set up as a "natural habitat". I think there were only a few of them that were, though I don't remember what species they were.
 

Janet

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
The peacock looks awesome! I bet it was a huge amount of work to get it rigged.
 

Chris

HW3D President
Staff member
Co-Founder
The peafowl, which I sidelined in favor of finishing "close-to-ready" items done by the sale, will go back to my full-attention in a few weeks (after I unwind a little from the sale). I am planning to do the Indian (Blue with some Green), the Green (Green with Bronze), the Congo (doesn't display and has shorter feathers) as well as the leucistic (white) Indian peafowl. Each species will have peacock (male) and peahen (female) versions. There aren't any plans for chicks or juveniles at this time. I could always explore doing that whenever I finally get to the Motherhood update (as well as Motherhood2 which I've had close to finished and sitting on the shelf for years)... but Motherhood will be one of the last to SBRM set to update, so it's going to be a while.

While I have the peacock male pretty close and rigged, there's still a lot of work to go and it probably won't be released until mid-summer (and that's with everything going right). As my newsletter said, I am developing a 4-staged wing fold which will look right and realistic from any setting between 0 and 1 and that is very, very complex to get right. Once I get that right, I think I'll be able to hybridized the wing set to use with all the base SBRM sets (that being one reason those haven't been updated yet).

All this is a tough balance; updating sets and developing new ones and trying to maintain some sort of economic stream (which is why I jump to easier, quick projects like Lizards v4 and Fish in-between the difficult ones like peafowl and "free" updates).

This will be an amazing product and I would imagine very popular too. I'm certain it will be top notch too Ken!
 

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
Since I shared the sneak peak on my newsletter, I thought I'd post something similar here...

Peacock_h_06.jpg42e67f60-c62d-4840-8684-7eaa0a666313Large.jpg Peacock.JPG
 

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
These ostriches with a head start shouldn't have a problem, being able to run 40 mph/70 km for miles. Lions can run up to 50 mph/80 km for very short distances. If ostriches do get caught off guard, they will stand their ground; Ostriches have been known to kill a lion with a single kick.
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
haha Szark, The emus defeated an army so yeah, they're tough lol (look up "The Great Emu War" if you don't believe me)
 

Szark

Awesome
I do remember my dad mentioning it when I visited him in Australia many moons ago but after reading about it now I had no idea the extent of it.
 

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
Arabian Ostrich.jpg


The Arabian Ostrich went extinct in 1966. Primary reason for this was the introduction of hunting from motor vehicles to the Arabian Peninsula. These ostriches had existed in the area from prehistoric times, slowly receding from the hottest desert areas as the Arabian peninsula dried.

In historic times, the bird seems to have occurred in two discrete relict populations: a smaller one in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula and a larger one in the area where today the borders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Syria meet. Towards the Sinai Peninsula, it probably inter-graded with the North African subspecies camelus in earlier times.

By the early 20th century, the Arabian Ostrich had become rare. Its main stronghold was the northern Nefud, northwards to the Syrian Desert between latitudes 34°N and 25°N and longitude 38°E, eastwards to the Euphrates Valley. It was most plentiful in Al Jawf Province, where it associated with herds of the now extinct Saudi Gazelle and the very rare Arabian Oryx.

Shown here with some Arabian Golden Sparrows (from Sparrows of the world) in an Iray render
 
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Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
It's finally here :)

Songbird Remix Shorebirds Vol 4 - More Wading Birds - A Ken Gilliland Creation at HiveWire 3D
Also, if you have any of the other volumes of the Shorebird series, the updates are in and live.

What to still expect?
Updates for Flock Formations Volumes 1 and 2 and Ostriches are coming soon
and a new Flock Formations Materials (26 additional materials for v1/v2) will be here sometime in May.

Yes, I am now resuming work on the Peacock ;)

The Audubon Sale ends at midnight on May 7th.
 

Ken Gilliland

Dances with Bees
HW3D Exclusive Artist
I thought I should clarify my comment above regarding the Shorebirds updates. In finishing up Volume 4, I found a small weight map issue in the DAZ Studio version of the WF4 and WF5 models ((volumes 1 & 2). The updated versions correcting that issue was posted last Friday (May 3rd). So if you downloaded the updates earlier and use DS, download them again.

Now that the pressure of getting stuff ready for the sale is off, I'm finding some time to render for the fun of it. This morning I found myself wanting to do an image with the Sharp-tailed Ibis from Shorebirds v4 because I like the iridescence (purplish-brown) feathers it has on its back. Since the ibis is found in Venezuela, I added some more Northern South America species (doesn't North South America sound like an oxymoron?). In the background is a Jabiru (stork) and a couple Choco Toucans. Also in the image is a NW Fish and Frog, as well as some Dinoraul Trees and Stonemasons Misty River Gorge.

It's always hard to capture emotion with a beak but I think the ibis with the fish does appear "pleased" with himself.

sharp-tailed Ibises.jpg
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
I added some more Northern South America species (doesn't North South America sound like an oxymoron?).
No more than South North America, but then there's really only the USA, Canada and Alaska here, so folks are more likely to name the country than North America. IOW, South USA, South Canada, and/or South Alaska.
 
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