Here are all of them plus their teasers:

• Hey there, this is Dartanbeck - Introducing The Creative Cart

• Episode 001 - Sci-Fi Marcoor/Cyborg Genesis 8/Sci-Fi Moves Genesis

• Episode 002 - Pestryakov and the SubDragon

• Episode 003 - TangoAlpha Super Sets (TangoAlpha - Special Guest)

• Episode 004 - The Amazing Predatron! (Coming Soon to Daz 3D)

• Dedication to Predatron - Promo Teaser Breakdown

• Episodes 1-4 Teaser

• Episode 005 - Kara Pitat's Adventurer's ToyBox (Kara Pitat - Special Guest) - Webisode Saturday, July 13th - Details in link on left

Epsiodes 1-5 Teaser in the post above

I am having Such a Great Time these days! 

Day and Night - often forgetting to or just plain forgoing sleep... too much to do... too much to learn... too much Fun!!!\

Digital Art Live 

is all about Artists sharing with Artists to provide inspiration, techniques, investigations into future and past technology that help us grow in this incredibly diverse industry - Creating Art - no matter the medium.

The Creative Cart is a series that focuses on Daz 3D store assets in Daz Studio - exploring imaginative ways to use and render these assets while introducing the content more fully than what one might garner from the brief store descriptions.

Each Live Episode is Free to join

- which gets us Full Access to a webinar that invites Q&A, the sharing of community art, guest artist appearances - all during a Daz Studio experience that has been visually prepared ahead of time to alleviate slow processes and crashes, etc., entirely from the main body of the show - which is presented live, during each session, by Dartanbeck and Paul Bussey.

The episodes are then made available to collect from the store at Daz 3D.

Each episode also offers special "Paid" versions that grant the whole recording of the show.

The experience has been Fantastic so far, and we're only four episodes in - and the next is going to be a real blast with the featured artist, Kara Pitat, joining us to share some insight and just have a ball along with the rest of us.

 I'm So Excited about this!!!

Kara Pitat (formerly known as "Rane") has been one of those Daz 3D Artists that I've followed closely, and collected nearly the entire offering in the store - these models are So Cool and a Lot of Fun to work with!!!

As I work out my presentation ideas and begin rendering out content for the show, I begin the support page for the episode.

Digital Art Live has a special place for the discussion for the whole show as well as the individual articles and I have special web pages on my site for the whole series as well as each individual episode.

As all of these things grow, the whole Creative Cart system becomes more and more valuable as a resource of inspiration and artistic growth - and did I mention that it's a Lot of Fun?!!!

At Dartanbeck.com:

• The Creative Cart (landing page for the series)
• Episode 001 - Sci-Fi Marcoor
• Episode 002 - Pestryakov and the SubDragon
• Episode 003 - TangoAlpha Super Sets
• Episode 004 - The Amazing Predatron
• Episode 005 - Kara Pitat's Adventurer's ToyBox

For all of these episodes - I'm working with content that I Love to buy and use, in ways that I Love to work - and I'm fortunate 

enough to be able to give this whole show the equivalent of a full-time job, with overtime - so getting to meet these artists via texting and otherwise is a Huge honor for me - for I absolutely Love the art that they help me create!

I know how to model. I understand the process and have some experience with rigging. I got started into 3D by working with texture maps vs UV Coordinates, and editing it all to get the models looking right. The experience of learning these things has been a real treat - and knowing these (and more) professional practices grant a better understanding of what this content actually is, which helps immensely with Not breaking the system and figuring out creative ways to work with it all throughout my adventures.

Okay, after that whole mouthful

all-in-all, just through the way I present this stuff in Daz Studio always brings up my unique style in some of these techniques that have been very well received by artists that I truly admire - which is yet another honor for me.

As the show progresses - even through just these first four - I can already clearly see that this series is going to be fun to collect and watch again for some fun information that can be helpful and entertaining, colorful and, like I said before: each show is carefully planned to reduce the down-time of lengthy processes, so we can cover more ground and have more artistic interaction together in each show. It's really a Blast!

Ravnheart, DzFire, Reisormocap, Riversoft Art, Andrey Pestryakov, MysticShard, SimonWM, TangoAlpha, Predatron... and now Kara Pitat - and Linday was excited to hear that their amazing assets will be demonstrated at various times throughout the series - as we'll start to see with other artists as well... this, to me, is like living within a really cool dream!

I get to hang out with all of you!!!

which is truly an honor. The artists that hang out here are magnificent and I've had a great time ever since I've discovered Daz 3D.

So I've made the first little compilation teaser for these first four episodes and I can't wait to see how this sort of thing will grow and change as this exciting series progresses. I mean... my mind and artistic muscle-memory are filled with ideas aplenty, and the Daz 3D store, which all of this is about, is one of the most inspirational places on the world wide web - this thing can only keep getting better and better and, like I said before - I think that this series will make for a really cool program to sit back and enjoy as the number of volumes increases - I'm already starting to watch them over again just for fun! 

Enjoy this little teaser for Episode 1-4 of The Creative Cart!

Digital Art Live 

is all about Artists sharing with Artists to provide inspiration, techniques, investigations into future and past technology that help us grow in this incredibly diverse industry - Creating Art - no matter the medium.

The Creative Cart is a series that focuses on Daz 3D store assets in Daz Studio - exploring imaginative ways to use and render these assets while introducing the content more fully than what one might garner from the brief store descriptions.

Each Live Episode is Free to join

- which gets us Full Access to a webinar that invites Q&A, the sharing of community art, guest artist appearances - all during a Daz Studio experience that has been visually prepared ahead of time to alleviate slow processes and crashes, etc., entirely from the main body of the show - which is presented live, during each session, by Dartanbeck and Paul Bussey.

The episodes are then made available to collect from the store at Daz 3D.

Each episode also offers special "Paid" versions that grant the whole recording of the show.

The experience has been Fantastic so far, and we're only four episodes in - and the next is going to be a real blast with the featured artist, Kara Pitat, joining us to share some insight and just have a ball along with the rest of us.

 I'm So Excited about this!!!

Kara Pitat (formerly known as "Rane") has been one of those Daz 3D Artists that I've followed closely, and collected nearly the entire offering in the store - these models are So Cool and a Lot of Fun to work with!!!

As I work out my presentation ideas and begin rendering out content for the show, I begin the support page for the episode.

Digital Art Live has a special place for the discussion for the whole show as well as the individual articles and I have special web pages on my site for the whole series as well as each individual episode.

As all of these things grow, the whole Creative Cart system becomes more and more valuable as a resource of inspiration and artistic growth - and did I mention that it's a Lot of Fun?!!!

At Dartanbeck.com:

• The Creative Cart (landing page for the series)
• Episode 001 - Sci-Fi Marcoor
• Episode 002 - Pestryakov and the SubDragon
• Episode 003 - TangoAlpha Super Sets
• Episode 004 - The Amazing Predatron
• Episode 005 - Kara Pitat's Adventurer's ToyBox

For all of these episodes - I'm working with content that I Love to buy and use, in ways that I Love to work - and I'm fortunate 

enough to be able to give this whole show the equivalent of a full-time job, with overtime - so getting to meet these artists via texting and otherwise is a Huge honor for me - for I absolutely Love the art that they help me create!

I know how to model. I understand the process and have some experience with rigging. I got started into 3D by working with texture maps vs UV Coordinates, and editing it all to get the models looking right. The experience of learning these things has been a real treat - and knowing these (and more) professional practices grant a better understanding of what this content actually is, which helps immensely with Not breaking the system and figuring out creative ways to work with it all throughout my adventures.

Okay, after that whole mouthful

all-in-all, just through the way I present this stuff in Daz Studio always brings up my unique style in some of these techniques that have been very well received by artists that I truly admire - which is yet another honor for me.

As the show progresses - even through just these first four - I can already clearly see that this series is going to be fun to collect and watch again for some fun information that can be helpful and entertaining, colorful and, like I said before: each show is carefully planned to reduce the down-time of lengthy processes, so we can cover more ground and have more artistic interaction together in each show. It's really a Blast!

Ravnheart, DzFire, Reisormocap, Riversoft Art, Andrey Pestryakov, MysticShard, SimonWM, TangoAlpha, Predatron... and now Kara Pitat - and Linday was excited to hear that their amazing assets will be demonstrated at various times throughout the series - as we'll start to see with other artists as well... this, to me, is like living within a really cool dream!

I get to hang out with all of you!!!

which is truly an honor. The artists that hang out here are magnificent and I've had a great time ever since I've discovered Daz 3D.

So I've made the first little compilation teaser for these first four episodes and I can't wait to see how this sort of thing will grow and change as this exciting series progresses. I mean... my mind and artistic muscle-memory are filled with ideas aplenty, and the Daz 3D store, which all of this is about, is one of the most inspirational places on the world wide web - this thing can only keep getting better and better and, like I said before - I think that this series will make for a really cool program to sit back and enjoy as the number of volumes increases - I'm already starting to watch them over again just for fun! 

Enjoy this little teaser for Episode 1-4 of The Creative Cart!

Loving Every Minute Of It!!!

I really enjoy working with Rosie 8 and coming up with creative ways to improve her animations. Her predecessor, Rosie 7 (right), really tipped the scales for me and having to rebuild from scratch after losing over ten years of data, knowing now what I've learned with her while pushing forward and learning more and more... Rosie 8.24 (cover image above) just keeps getting more and more fun with each step of the way!

Having the opportunity to create my Dynamic Character Animation in Daz Studio course at just the perfect moment was an absolute blessing! You see, among the data that was lost was every single file used to create the course and all of the Rosie 7 videos - not to mention all of the Rosie 5 and earlier Rosie 8 animations I had saved and rendered - sometimes many times over for different situations. 

All of my custom texture maps, FX maps and renders, custom characters... everything that I didn't keep on my C drive, which was just the basic My Documents, Photos, and Video sort of stuff - all GONE!!!

Creating the course took a lot of time and effort with many variations on how to approach making it. This really helped to drive my brand new philosophies and discoveries into my subconscious workflow - which is also what a majority of that course is all about - getting these concepts used in daily practice so that animating in Daz Studio becomes second-nature and the biggest difficulties disappear because we're working in Daz Studio language - and Daz Studio Loves That!!!

Creating Rosie 7 was an exercise in its own right... having all generations from the whole V4 family through Genesis 2 and, of course, she was Genesis 3 Female, so she had a bunch of that into her as well. Using the methods I teach in Part 2 of Dynamic Character Animation, I was able to use GenX2 and Genesis 3 shapes as well as the pose control dials in combination with one another within a single dial. This gave Rosie 7 an amazing ease when trying to design new dials made specifically for Rosie.

The data loss thing left no Daz Content files behind. So I had to start over. The only other option really isn't an option, so... I launched DIM and started downloading my entire Daz 3D product library all over again! Yikes! But also - what a wonderful way to 'see' all of the excellent products I've collected over the years!!!

Genesis 8 worked really well for me. I was going to try and build a Rosie 9 and, in fact I did. But for some reason my computer doesn't want me to animate Genesis 9. I thought about rebuilding Rosie 7 until I remembered how much GenX2 was used in her creation. I knew I could do it, so I had the recipe of GenX2 morph transfers in my mind as a fallback when I opened a Genesis 8 Female to give her a try.

Rosie 9 Attempt:

As it turned out, Rosie 8's entire being is very much a Keep-It-Simple sort of strategy that evolved really nicely right before my eyes. I started animating her right away* and kept my video flow going strong for a while there - doing more and more Digital Art Live work, answering questions, creating helpful guides with links and such on my website... it really picked right back up very quickly!

One day I'm all kicked back as I awaited another animation render or hair simulation, and decided to watch my 2024 videos of Rosie 8. I couldn't believe my eyes! I hate the new "Improvements" I had made to her hair - thinking it was this Massive Upgrade!

The picture on the right shows her New Improved Hair, which looks pretty cool in still frame images - especially after I corrected the tint and hue to match the underlying Classic Long Curly, but I had a hard time understanding how I could have rendered out so many animations without noticing how much I hated the effect in animations! Argh!!!

Keep-It-Simple? Yeah... go back to that!!!

I started animating her right away* 

I always animate and my characters as I develop them to look for any problems that may occur during certain situations. So I try many types of motions, simulate the hair, render the result. Most of the videos on my YouTube channel are made using nothing more than these test results

Back to the ol' drawing board? - Not exactly.

Fixing Rosie's hair improvement was as simple as removing the secondary conforming hair from her. If I wanted to use any of the animations, I'd have to simulate the hair again or it just won't look right.

So I took this opportunity to look a bit closer to see if there are any other important changes I'd like to make since, if I'm going to do it - now is the best time!

I decided to make Rosie's head a bit less stylized... less Huge. In doing so, I did a few other minor tweaks here and there. I also reworked the hair settings in all areas - different initial shaping morph settings, different simulation settings in the surfaces pane, and different default settings used in the Simulation pane. This took a lot of tests - and these tests have to use many different animations - which took a lot of time. Weeks!

I also decided that the performance capture examples were doing things to her face that I didn't like. So I started making my own custom dials that I could use to correct what was going on. In the process, I was discovering that these new dials were a cool way to make special "Rosie-Only" facial dials that allow me to alter her facial musculature in Rosie-specific ways that help make all of her facial actions unique to her! Wow!!!

Still in their infancy, the few dials I've made are already a lot of fun to work with!

For Star Wars Day (May 4th) I decided to reuse one of my early tests of the system - this time with Rosie cosplaying as a Fallen Jedi, with wet hair and a different costume (and a light saber!)

The original animation that I reused was Medieval Rosie weilding not a light saber, but Aeon Soul's mighty Legend sword!

During all of this madness with getting the new Rosie 8.24 going, I'm also getting more and more ideas for Digital Art Live performances - which eventually also led me into making a new product for Daz 3D, which still isn't completely ready to ship - but close: Starry Sky Iray for Daz Studio - which is really working excellent!

The whole Digital Art Live thing... I really Love it!!! (see My Digital Art Live page)

My first course is a stand-alone course that I slaved over for Months! Paul Bussey at Digital Art Live was really happy with how I put it all together and invited me to come up with a plan for a live webinar - so along comes The Power of aniMate 2 - a course that answers all of the questions I've been getting about aniMate as well as a whole bunch of information that isn't readily known by many aniMate users. 

That course was a Blast! I was nervous to perform my first webinar - and Solo, nonetheless!!! And most of the things I do (especially with Rosie) are very time-consuming. So I went to work recording my screen as I work through the topics of my course so I could judge myself and try to get the program within a reasonable amount of time.

Well, that last bit was a bust before I got very far. I chewed through waaaay too much time without getting very far at all - so I just kept working and kept recording - at least getting my workflow logged on screen so I could figure out where to go with all of this next.

By the time I was done, I had a LOT of hours of screen capture. Hmmmm...

Okay, in Dynamic Character Animation for Daz Studio, I did the same thing, and then sped up the lengthy processes in DaVinci Resolve afterwards rather than cutting it out. I wanted people to be able to "see" the entire process - even if it was going by really fast. Many video players allow us to speed up or slow down playback - and I felt that it would be best to just leave everything in there - and let the viewer decide. I love how it all turned out.

So I went through the same process with these screen captures and... voila!!! I immediately asked Paul if it would be okay to use the resulting video during the webinar, and narrate live as I play it back - being able to pause as I go, if needed. He approved the idea, but I'm sure he wasn't entirely certain how well it would go over.

It was Awesome! Paul Loved it! The attendees (according to chat and replies I've received afterwards) Loved it too!!! So Cool!

In the process of it all, I created a thread in the Daz Studio Discussion forum and then also made a support page for anyone, whether they attended or not, which also works perfectly for anyone who later bought the course here at Daz 3D! The Power of aniMate 2!!! And if anyone has any questions for me, the support page also has links to the forum page. Replying to the forum page notifies me so I can answer the question, which is a feature I've thought long and hard about doing way back when I started my site as a Help Center for Carrara Users, which it still is - it just has a whole lot more to it now that I'm deep into Daz Studio! ;)

I found myself answering more and more questions regarding my rendering/post work practices - as well as seeing (and answering) a bunch of render-speed-related queries. So I contacted Paul and asked if I could perform a Movie Magic webinar. Now, the last one took two sessions - so it was two weeks of webinar for him to host, so I wanted to give him fair warning that this one would do the same. He liked the idea, so... Bam!

Next thing you know, he invites me to attend a Content Wizard webinar because he likes a lot of the methods I use to organize and find all of my Daz Content using DIM and the Content Library in Daz Studio. So he wanted me to talk a bit about that stuff. Of course I agreed. I Love doing these webinars with Paul, and I Love answering people's questions! That went really well too - and Paul says that he really likes my unique style of dealing with Webinars - that whole screen capture thing along with spending hours and hours each week practicing the topics - getting prepared.

Paul also liked that, in addition to being active in the Digital Art Live STUDIO and Daz 3D forums, I create support pages within my website. After exploring my website for a while, he contacted me about doing free webinars utilizing my love for Daz 3D and their products. In my site I like to get visual and I'm always enthusiastic - because Daz 3D just always does that to me - so I like to share that experience as much as I can find time to do so. 

Thus, the first Creative Cart was born!

We discussed the series at length, but the reality of it is that I don't think either one of us really knew how it would play out. So for that first episode I just started building it as if I was writing an article for my website, yet also trying to fit it into a TV show type of format or style. So I told Paul that I'll be doing an Animation Corner for each episode. I'm not sure how well he liked that idea, but at least for this episode, the light was Green!

Although I really like the ad I made for it, I'm not sure that anyone really knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew what I was going to do, however, and I had a feeling that anyone who enjoys the pages of my never-ending information site will love the show - I just had that hunch - and sometimes, like this time, my hunch paid off!!! 

But armed with the Incredible Star Ship Marcoor and all of its support interior products by Ravnheart, DzFire's Amazing Cyborg Generation 8, and the entire Sci-Fi Moves Genesis aniBlock series by Reisormocap, how could it really have gone wrong, right? I mean... this stuff is right up my alley!!!

The Creative Cart Epsiode 001 - Sci-Fi Marcoor went Very Freaking Well!!! 

So without hesitation from the exhaustion of preparing for and performing Episode 001, I began working on Episode 002 in earnest. Before long I sent a message to Paul to let him know that Episode 002 will be called Pestryakov and the Dragon, featuring Andrey Pestryakov's landscapes for Daz Studio along with the Millennium SubDragon for Animation Corner. And since we're using it for Animation Corner, I'll first demonstrate how to work the surfaces into Iray shaders and, as an added bonus - demonstrate how to make a material preset that doesn't overwrite the Base Color maps. 

I think he was surprised. I mean... not a lot of time had passed, and he knew quite a bit about the fact that I poured my heart and soul (and Gobs and Gobs of Time!!!) into the first one - that we Just did!

Before I even handed him a promo for Episode 002, I informed Paul that TangoAlpha replied to me and that he will be not only our featured artist for Episode 003, but he will also be a guest on the show! Oh... and by the way, Predatron will be the feature for Episode 004, with Kara Pitat on for Epsiode 005.

Episode 003 - TangoAlpha Super Sets - with Special Guest: TangoAlpha!

It was Awesome having TangoAlpha on the show! He contributed a lot of fun tid bits about his creative flow and inspirations, comments on the products as I presented them, and even gave us a wonderful sneak peek at his upcoming product, which is Absolutely Fantastic!!! At the end he commented that it was interesting and rewarding to see someone else (me) present his products in such a way. Building them and shooting all of the promo images... and then to see them through my eyes as a happy, enthusiastic customer was a real treat.

I was really happy with that comment - because I really do love these works of art that I get to work with in my own projects - my animations... and I really wanted to convey that into the show.

I'm also really happy that Paul loves these and that he enjoys performing them with me - because I am Really Loving This!!! 

I am planning more course videos as well - and trying to keep animating Rosie 8.24 along with finishing Starry Sky Iray - and just got back from taking Rosie (the Real Rosie!!!) on a road trip sponsored by my awesome Dad! 

This whole Creative Cart thing, however... I think that this will be a good one to focus hard on and keep this thing going as long as I can keep up with it and Paul is willing to host and our Daz 3D fans continue to attend - because the more of these that come out, the better the entire collection becomes. I'm envisioning years of these things and as each episode is completed, it adds a whole new level of cool to the whole series and, years down the road we'll have a nice video encyclopedia of Having Fun with Daz 3D... I Love That!!! 

Being involved in one of Jay Versluis's Daz + Pro Artist Series webinars (must be logged into Daz + for link to work) was a Huge honor - and I'm hoping to do more with that. Jay and I have always had a special kinship that, I think works well - especially when performed live, on screen. We both animate and Love to do so, and yet we both have almost entirely different workflows that compliment each other really well - so we can intermix both of our philosophies together and really have some fun! 

Also, I think that we both get even more passionate and even more energetic when you put us both in the same room together. A certain Magic comes from it that nobody - not even ourselves could have planned. So, Jay... if you're reading this... yeah... I'm looking forward to working with you Anytime!!!

Along with all of this stuff, I've also been forcing to give myself a little "Me" time on my website and just do something fun. Some of it is just taking care of housework - organizing things from the Home page to the categories where they might belong, making new support pages for the things that I do... but also just hopping into the Rosie 8 page and writing about my exploits with her and writing other fun stuff, either on its own or with something else that I already had started... I'm really loving being overly busy because this truly is a Labor of Love!

Speaking of Love, I've also worked very hard to create a whole workflow for all of this stuff, so that I am Always taking time, every day, to doing something wonderful with my Incredible, Wonderful, Beautiful Treasure - My Reason for Living - My Real Rosie - My Amazing Wife!!! Thanks, Treasure! I couldn't do any of this if I didn't have your support and unending encouragement! Rosietreats... You Totally Freaking ROCK!!!

I just grabbed the SubDragon Textures pack and discovered that it also comes with Carrara Shaders for each of the texture styles! Sweet!!!

Something cool I've also discovered working with the mighty, legacy SubDragon is that, in Base Resolution (no SubD applied), it is Incredibly easy on the system! Wow! 

In Studio, even if I have the Iray viewport option enabled, I can actually Play an animation! That's Crazy!!!

But it also means that Carrara will have a Blast with this thing!

Just to be clear, the Millennium SubDragon was Daz 3D's first SubD figure using their then new SubD technology which became the foundation for the entire Genesis line afterwards. However, the timing for Carrara users is Perfect! It's using some of Daz 3D's Best Work of the day and, get this, before their figures went from Poser CR2 figures to DUF or DSB or whatever they started changing into - so Millennium SubDragon is Poser CR2!!!

Why is that cool? Because those Poser CR2's have Awesome compatibility with Carrara!!! 

The Textures Pack has Carrara shaders included, but if any of you need help making Carrara shaders for the awesome textures it comes with, just hit me up and I'll work you through it! Serious!

Plus, it's the Only Dragon that I know of that has a Complete aniBlock pack available for it - and the animations are pretty darned cool!!!

I have some of them rendered in this promo video I made (Creative Cart promo below), if you want to check them out - and I have a bunch of links to the dragon and texture pack in my Pestryakov and the Dragon page.

Love you All forever, 

Dartanbeck

In the Webinar that the promo is about, I rendered out examples of each of MysticShard/SimonWM's aniBlock Collection. They looked really cool rendered out with optimized materials like that - and I slowed them down to 50% so we could 'see' the movements better in a single play through. It was awesome!!!

For the show (Pestryakov and the Dragon), I made rendered examples of each of the cool animations from MysticShard/SimonWM's aniBlock pack. Looks cool rendered in Iray!

Here's just a few examples of the frames of animation and the Iray optimizations I taught during the show:

Dartanbeck said:

A fun little "Appreciation" story

DAZ Studio : The Creative Cart may be all about the cool stuff we get at Daz 3d - and endeavors to help all of us dust off what we have in our libraries and put them to creative, artistic use, but since it gives me the opportunity to promote it, it also opens up the ability to call out Thanks to the people involved it making it all happen.

Of course, we can't get that all done in a single video - heavens no! So I guess I'll have to keep making more and more videos! :)

 

This one shouts out appreciation to several people who actively helped this whole thing along. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I appreciate All of YOU!!!

Okay, first of all I'd like to thank All who came to the show!

Your interaction with questions, ideas, experiences, etc., and the wonderful artwork you share is Amazing to me! I Love this!!! It's cool to see fellow Carrara users attending as well! So Cool!!!

I think its truly wonderful how we can all hang out and share like this, and I feel that Paul Bussey is perfect at running the show, don't you? He tracks the questions and makes sure that I get them, he calls on anyone and everyone to share their screen so we can see what you're working on... it's all so very organic and artistically healthy! I love it!!!

I put a Lot into these things - recording myself work in Studio and, instead of cutting, I speed up lengthy processes and procedures to keep the flow and allow for So Many products and tips and tricks to be explored, and you folks make it all worth it - Big Time!!! I've even been creating all new special music just for the promos! So while this show is fun and organic, it's also forcing me to become better at all of this, which is a real Rush! I really have to start training myself to Go To Sleep once in a while! Sheeesh!!! LOL

I'd also like to express how honored I am that the video in the above quote has gained over 1.9K views in only 2 weeks!

For some YouTubers, that might not seem like much. For me... it's Golden!!! 

Thank You Thank You Thank You, to All of You!!! 

If anyone wants to know what was going on in "Pestryakov and the Dragon", the support page on my website explains a lot with pictures and links and will likely grow with more info, tips and tricks, etc., as time moves on!

There's a Lot of cool stuff on the horizon! I have a rather massive library of really cool stuff that's calling out to me because it wants to be demonstrated in interesting ways on:

The Creative Cart!!! 

A fun little skit for Pestryakov and the Dragon

Creative Cart

Webisode 002 - Pestryakov and the Dragon

See you there! :)

Creative Cart - Webisode 002 - Pestryakov and the Dragon

vozolgant said:

I think DAZ Studio may actually be decent for making animations, but the problem is there's no real examples of how to make them.  The current animation tutorials are all beginner level.

DAZ TEAM HAVEN'T MADE A TUTORIAL THAT EXPLAINS ALL THE ANIMATION & TIMELINE FEATURES.   There's no explanation and demonstration of how to use TCB, Linear & Constant properly.

Someone, anyone, please try to make advanced animation tutorials by the start of next year please.   

DAZ Studio came out in 2005.  After 16 years, I expect there to be a library of 10,000 animations ready to be used with any Genesis 8 figure, both non-adult and adult related, but there isn't. 

We need to fix this now, or just put it off another 10 years?

In the community, DAZ Studio has a reputation as being the WORST animation suite, bottom tier, even worse than Poser. You don't want that title. Poser was ten times better in the animation department, and that software is total fail now, DAZ defeated Poser, but not in the animation department.

Posing in DAZ is still archaic, I'm surprised that hasn't been fixed yet, but we'll save that rant for another post.

I'll see what I can do in those regards, my friend! I may be a little late (two years) to the party, but we'll get you some fun animation tutorials.

In the meantime, perhaps you might enjoy a quick sampling of an animation rendering workflow that works really well for me on my meager system. 

In this, each element - characters, Background terrain, a Sky background behind that, two layers of foreground, and a mist element in between it all, is rendered separately, using the same camera as those used for the characters. 

I began with the character animation and setting those cameras, then pick out (in my mind) which environment I wanted to use so I could select one of the HDRI Photo Shoot (by joelegecko) domes I want to use for the character renders - Save the scene and render both cameras. Although I'm using fairly low render settings, it is these renders that will recieve the highest of the settings. 

After that I bring in the main environment terrain while the character are still in the scene. (A Walk in the Woods - Andrey Pestryakov)

I rotate and translate the scenery itself until it looks like a good match, visually for what the characters are doing - in this case, walking through the woods. Since I won't be rendering the characters in it, I only have to be close. It's mostly just getting the environment set up at the angle that would look good, then hide (I delete because I already saved) the characters from the scene.

In this case, I couldn't select and hide the elements that would be in the foreground, so I selected the polygons with the Geometry Editor and hide them during the render. 

After rendering that with both cameras, I went back to the Geometry Editor > Select All > Geometry Editing > Delete, then Geometry Visibility > Show All Polygons, which got rid of all of the terrain I just rendered, and gave me back my foreground elements. I only need these for one of the cameras - as the other is just following the characters through the woods.

We don't really see them in the final render, but I took this time to add some of ThePhilosopher's iReal Bees from his Ultimate Grasslands aniMate expansion, and have them busily swarming around the rocks collecting pollen from the tiny flowers within.

Then I added another tree that will only be seen in the first few frames - added for nature - added for depth. It's a cinematography thing. Again, I only need to render these from the one camera.

I'd like to point out that both of these foreground shots turn out many frames in a single second. But they add a lot to the overall continuity of the scene, and keep the horse's hooves from being 'pasted' over the backdrop.

For the mist element I dropped in one of ThePhilosopher's iReal Animated Clouds and adjusted it for one camera - render. The other camera - render. 

For the sky I picked an HDRI from my collection - this one from DimensionTheory's Skies of Economy, I believe it was, added some more Andrey Pestyakov in the form of Overgrown Peeks and ThePhilosopher's iReal Flocking Birds. Render.

At this point I head into the free version of DaVinci Resolve's Fusion Page and do this to it all:

When I first got into all of this, my favorite was Faveral's Medieval City combined with elements of his Medieval Village. And then later came his amazing Medieval Docks! All amazing kits that fit in artistic design so work very well together in the same series of adventures.

And while I still love using those, another favorite has come through the magical workings of DzFire - Forsaken Village and Forsaken Keep, which are both also Construction Sets

Enter Andrey Pestryakov, who has absolutely Wowed me with these and many other kits that work well for filling out the rest of the adventure!

Dartanbeck said:

Thanks! Fen!

Yes, I'll eventually have all of the iReal. Probably soon too.

Ocean was my first and I love it! Here, I added it to Andrey Pestryakov's Stones and Structures to put motion in the river. I love how it turned out

The video itself was my response to someone saying that there's simply no way to get dForce to work, so I asked dForce to simulate this, which is not a dForce-ready outfit. Of course, I've been simulating that hair since I got to Daz Studio! LOL

Wow man, just wow. I wanny say "Holy ****!" but I'm keeping it clean in here lol. Well, I have the free stuff offered by Daz Studio through DIM but still haven't been able to purchase Carrara or Bryce, or any of the textures and plugins, plus all my discounts are gone:( I tried emailing sales multiple times over the weekend with screenshots of the error message, my cart contents etc and every email bounced back- Tried getting them on Twitter too, and no response, so just waiting to see what's going on. As frustrating as it's been I've had a lot of fun watching videos like yours and other artist's work to keep me inspired so thanks for doing what you do.

Thanks! Fen!

Yes, I'll eventually have all of the iReal. Probably soon too.

Ocean was my first and I love it! Here, I added it to Andrey Pestryakov's Stones and Structures to put motion in the river. I love how it turned out

The video itself was my response to someone saying that there's simply no way to get dForce to work, so I asked dForce to simulate this, which is not a dForce-ready outfit. Of course, I've been simulating that hair since I got to Daz Studio! LOL

...and More, But I'll keep this Brief ;)

From eerie to awe... these are perfect for anything from dramatic to majestic - take your pick. It's all how we set the lighting and camera angles. The music will help set the mood too!

And these are Excellent for adding really "Real" looking rocks and stones to Any scene. I use these for all sorts of things - especially forgrounds and places for characters to stand. Again, Andrey Pestryakov is really efficient, so these sorts of things can be included right in the Character render - excellent for use when using the massive kits mentioned above to get the backing plate footage!

And I also picked up the more legacy Forest Bundle, which is a Really Great Product! I love it and he's got some really cool videos about using it. Included is the final Forest Elements, which helps to bring the original products up to date with Daz Studio 4.5's advancements. All in all, I enjoy working with this cool set of products!

Here I used Forest Winter to make a fun set of clips for my PD Howler Deep Dive Homework (Digital Art Live is a Fun Place!!!)

This video shows the original Promo of The Forest, which helps to show how excellent the product is, but also how less photogenic it is compared to Andrey's newer Iray kits. These sorts of environments still hold a lot of vlaue to me. For instance, it would be perfect for a toon-style forest setting!

Stairs and Rocks

This Kit Is Awesome too!!!

It's a real treat moving around in this environment with the camera. Going for a specific shot, I started noticing more and more ways I wanted to shoot this set... it's Incredible!

At the time I bought this, I had also got my hands on DeepSea's incredible Bald Eagle Bundle. So I put that majectic creature in one of the trees and applied his "Take Off From Branch" aniBlock and watched the magic happen. So Freaking Amazing!!!

Kits like this and the ones already mentioned and yet to come, inspired me to buy more and more of ThePhilosopher's iReal products - of which I now own most. A couple more and my collection will be complete. So... ThePhilosopher, buddy... I need you to make more, okay? :)

It's a bummer that I lost all those years of my work. Remembering some oof it, I had some great shots of Rosie 5 and 7 climbing these stairs as that eagle took off from the branch.

As for the Rosie 5 part, it led to the very beginning of this Rosie 7 short, where Rosie 5 is flying the eagle into another of my favorite Andrey Pestryakov kits

Medieval Lands

Wow! Just... Wow!!!

I mean... this kit is Enormous!!! 

But that's not all that it is. It's light on its masive feet and renders really really well. But even more, as we explore this immense terrain and head toward the really cool medieval castle area, we start to see other points of interest along the way! Buildings and structures. Check the library and there's a plethora of otpions for having a more populated, higher-resolution environment with a lot more trees, or just keep it light. Additional castle structures, complete buildings to place in the places... and the other favorites that I haven't mentioned yet - the rock formation kits - work Beautifully as foreground elements or simply as changes to the terrain!

I Love This Kit!!!

Some of my Favorite Andrey Pestryakov Kits

Walking in the Woods

This scene is So Amazing! Wooded shadows and leafy sunlight enamour this set with realism and beauty!

Not just Bark shader on trunk with green leaves, no. This place is brimming with life growth and that which has spent. Very natural. But you know what? It's also very easy to work with and use with our characters. I render my characters separately because they take up a lot of render space on their own. So I try to think like a filmmaker who is working with ILM or WETA - but in my case, I'm working with me - the VFX department.

This kit makes it easy to select various parts and hide them from render. Then I'll remove everything else (still there, just hidden) to film the foreground and other elements I need for the shot.

In basic form, this is the process:

Stones and Structures

This was an Excellent find! I found this after becoming so pleased with Temple Cave, I looked up the artist and searched his store. 

I bought this and loaded one of the two full scenes and tried those wonderful preset options like the ones I loved about Temple Cave - yes! Fantastic!!! So I loaded the other scene and was eaqually impressed, amazed, and ultimately satisfied with my purchase.

Exploring the product more reveals an enormous weath of additional loading options for individual elements. This kit is Awesome! 

I needed an animated render of this, so I bought ThePhilosopher's iReal Animated Ocean Water System to see... and, Yes! It works really really well! being that this is Not an ocean, I used the water shader that came with Andrey's Stones and Structures on the iReal water, and it worked like Magic!!!

check out the water movement in this scene

Really loving how nice the stones, rocks, water, and especially the plant life in various levels of Living or Spent, I went back to Andrey's Store looking for more.

Rock On Andrey Pestyakov!!!

One of the things I love about Andrey Pestryakov is that it seems that he is following in Stonemason's footsteps - making efficient scenes that render amazingly well, right out of the box!

Including all of the additional Light Presets for the Iray Sun/Sky dome is a really nice bonus.

In the end, they turn out to be very simple settings in the Sun/Sky pane - and that's part of what makes them So Good!!! Before I bought my first Pestryakov kit, I have never even used that feature. Didn't even know about it.

Temple Cave was that first Pestryakov I bought, and it is Stunning from all camera angles, yet Andrey includes many of them to help us get started. I couldn't believe my eyes! I also thought that, if I add a character to the scene that it would take forever to render... no. Andrey includes minimized render presets and options for improving or altering the render setting, like spectral and all that stuff. Bringing in and animating a charcter is a breeze!

Thank You Andrey Pestryakov I love evey kit I've bought so far - and will continue!

plarff said:

Ok, it appears DAZ v4.21.0.5 is faster with regards to the issues i have been having. It's not how fast DAZ use to be about 2yrs ago but it's better for sure.

One of the things that made big load/save differences over the years is just how products are made. 

So many 4K and even larger maps are being used to map even fairly insignificant parts of some products. Granted, there are other things using that map, but when one item shows up in Scene Optimizer with something like 27 maps at 4K resolution - and that item is just something that's back behind everything else... yeah. It's going to take longer to load, save, clear, render....

That's always been one of my many favorite aspects of Stonemason's products. There are others, too, who have some nicely optimized modeling/mapping going on. 

Scene Optimizer really helps with that - especially if we take the time to really use it in a good way - not just fire it up and click Go, but to really analyze the scene and make intelligent decisions on what needs what. It can make a HUGE difference.

A wonderful example being some of Andrey Pestryakov's Massive outdoor scenes. MASSIVE! Yet they load, render and save with the breeze.

Rosie's Platina Armor was made for Victoria 3 and she's riding Predatron's first LoRez Horse through a much more modern "A Walk Through the Woods", by Andrey Pestryakov with more modern elements from ThePhilosopher's iReal series to add some nice motion