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GoMe December Newspaper

 
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Szark
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Joined: 28 Dec 2007
Posts: 150
Location: UK

PostPosted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:13 am    Post subject: GoMe December Newspaper Reply with quote


It’s been a long two months and again we have managed to cobble together another issue which includes the usual, plus the completion of both, Marten’s in-game video and Mowog’s podcasting, tutorials. Please sit back, put your feet up and join us this one last time as we dip into the cavern.
To download the full newspaper in PDF format please follow this link.

Also for any late breaking community news please, feel free to use the GoMe News RSS feed. Click on the big Submit News button which is also on the Front page. Help is provided with this new feature. - Both in Text and downloadable PDF tutorial.
Shorah to you all.

A Guild of Messengers Publication. Serving the community.
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janaba1
Great Tree Member
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Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 1639
Location: berlin, germany

PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you very much, Szark... Very Happy

I have to say that it felt awfully sad at first, your announcement "... cobbling together something...
Please sit back, put your feet up and join us this one last time as we dip into the cavern..." and when
opening the Newspaper you see all those beautiful but sad farewells "Auf Wiedersehen... Sayonara...
Au revoir... etc..." followed by all the statements as of the reasoning etc... though I can understand
all of this very well, you have all my appreciation and sympathy by all means...
Yeah, that's just the first impression and what is being conveyed in the first instance...

Haha... not to worry... now let's shift our attention to another gems filled source of information...
It doesn't feel like being cobbled together at all... It was a pleasure to read all the "What happened..."
news of the past months, some of them as real news and some as a welcome refresher... And the introduction
in the Explorer's Lounge to the age of "Pradetsahv" is just awesome... I've looked up some more preview
screens on the GoW forums... Wow! Can't wait to explore this age...

Yeah! And now to those invaluable tutorial treasures generously provided by our Marten and Mowog...
We have to thank both of you for this great effort to help everybody feeling inspired to prove and
challenge his/her creativity, to overcome one's inhibitions and idleness with the help of those extensive,
illustrated and excellent step by step instructions and special professional hints and tips you only learn
through years of experience... This is very encouraging, thanks ...

Ah, and I forgot to mention your avatar, Marten, he's so beautiful and sweet lol...
I also hope, you'll find many volunteers for the Rel.to database... As of myself,
there's not much time left atm...

Then, finally on page 15, I almost thought you all forgot about them haha... my beloved "Did you know?"...
I will miss them, really... And I always admired your wealth of ideas for new puzzle expressions...
I also loved to follow and vote the monthly Photo Quest contributions... If that had started a bit earlier,
I believe we would have seen much more of the vast richness and beauty of the Myst and Uru universe...
Last but not least... What a wonderful choice and appropriate way for a last farewell (A&Y)... or maybe
a new beginning somehow anytime anyway...

It is nice to read, that everything is only put on hold and that you are all keeping the doors open for
new ideas and projects offering your valuable resources and help, and even for a whole new resurrection
under whatever new circumstances... Maybe the ending has not yet been written...

My friends, precious members of the Guild of Messengers and the Newspaper Team, along with my best wishes
for each of you I'm sending my love and appreciation to everybody for your tireless and diligent efforts, for your
dedication and perseverance so far... You've been and definitely still are and will be in one way or another
a great gift for our community... Enjoy the Season and take your well deserved rest... Take care, Szark and all... Very Happy
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Durin Mephit
Great Tree Officer
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Joined: 29 Jan 2004
Posts: 3119
Location: Tigard, OR

PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hah! The fellow with the camera you'll see throughout the filming article is Szark, not me. Smile You might say we went on a training mission together...

Hopefully Szark will come by and explain how he made the avatar, with the camera and all - I was quite impressed, and it's well beyond my abilities.
_________________
Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768
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Szark
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Joined: 28 Dec 2007
Posts: 150
Location: UK

PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Janaba as always your words are so uplifting and will be sorely missed, thank you. I really appreciate the time you take to share your thoughts. People like yourself make this community great and make the time I spend doing these worthwhile. I said over on the guild forum I have mixed feelings. On one hand I am relieved and on the other I am saddened it has come to this. My thirst to return to Uru hasn’t waned that much as I will be trying to make an age with a good back-story and so on. Part of that effort is paying for a year’s online tuition regarding 3D art. This in turn has helped me understand a lot of the Blender functions I need to know. It is surprising doing this so called 3D art how much understanding regarding modelling, textures and baking them, lighting and composition. Still working on the latter.

Anyway since you kindly asked Marten here goes. (btw Marten anybody can do this with some application and time)

I have only been learning this properly for the last 3 or 4 months so my results are pretty poor in comparison to others who have been using this type of software for years. Something to look forward to, getting where they are. Very Happy

So what is all THIS, well DAZ Studio http://www.daz3d.com/ (Anybody familiar with Poser will know what I am talking about) This software uses 3D models that are already made and textured to be used in either Poser, Daz Studio or Carrara. The human figures (male and female) are all anatomically correct in looks and movement (fully poseable and articulated). You can purchase extra skin textures, body shapes and characters. I can make the figures into weird and wonderful creatures using an add-on called Creature Creator; a Centaur, a vampire or a warlock to name a few. These models can’t be used in age making as they would freeze most computers. If you think that an average age should not exceed 100,000 vertices and then you consider that only the face of the female figure has 60,000 vertices you understand the issue. This goes for clothing, hair, props and buildings. Most are highly textures also.

Taking the model of the camera I purchased from the Daz store, not just two days before assembling the paper. I am glad I did because it is well made as you can see. The interesting thing about this is that it was made by a chap who makes real metal body armour. This was his first commercial Daz product. It took two years to learn and to make. Now when you buy a model like this you get some preset poses with them. For quickness what you see through the paper are standard poses.

The above pictures has a lot done to it don’t be fooled. Displacements maps were applied to get the muscles and veins looking like that, which I got in a sale in October. Plus a special skin effects add-on that I am learning to use, was applied. This is supposed to get the skin bouncing light off as it would in reality well as close as. Still working on it. LOL (Daz had a 7 year anniversary sale in October which I picked up a ton of content and add-ons all for $1.99 each. Mind you I did have to pay $99.00 for a year’s subscription for the Members club for the privilege. Well worth it for me though. For which I received a welcome gift voucher for $30.00. Plus I get a lot of good items at the $1.99 mark.) Word of warning these programs eat RAM. I have 2 MB, granted I don’t turn off the antivirus and disconnect from the internet. If I did I would have enough, Since I don’t want to I will need to max out at 4MB of Ram. Yes Daz can run on a 64 bit system though not all the plug-ins work. More get updated each month oh and check your Open GL version. My computer is two years old and has no problems now that I know how to work it. Had a few crashes while learning. Haven’t crashed it for two months now.


All I did was select the camera prop, clicked on a preset to parent the prop to the figures hand. Parent: This means if I should move the figure’s hand the camera will move with it. With it parented, I then selected the figure and clicked on the figure preset pose and hey presto the figure is standing there with the camera, looking through it. It gets real time consuming to do other non preset poses. It can take up to three hours to pose one figure. Which is what I have done with most of my images. No fun using presets all the time.

Most clothes I buy have a lot of adjustments (morphs) built in. This means I can move parts of clothing or hair to conform to a position. Not everything is click, some things need finer adjustments. I can manipulate the face to get expressions, the list is endless.
Lately I have been learning a lot more about Photoshop, combining the 2D with the 3D, which is where I started. LOL

Then comes the lighting which is the hardest to get right. Many, many people have trouble with this aspect and I am no exception. I had no idea the real world knowledge needed to replicate real lighting conditions. Dreamlight http://www.dream-lounge.com/dreamlight/ the place of learning I paid for specialises in Lighting among others. They have made a few free lighting presets to help newbies like me, when you join up that is. LOL Plus they make commercial products which I have one of. The people behind it are professional 3D artists and film CGI artists, so they know their stuff.

I have more images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/39347293@N02/ and I have started a new blog http://artyszark.blogspot.com/ which might help a bit more.

Hope that explains things a bit Marten. Very Happy
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janaba1
Great Tree Member
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Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 1639
Location: berlin, germany

PostPosted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow!!! Professionals among themselves... great!!! Very Happy

What an amazing program, Szark, that Daz 3D, and it's free!
And so many awesome 3D models, esp. your Michael 4 Base, and what
arduous efforts to make him behave and look as perfect, realistic and
handsome as he does... Also the camera and all of their models have
such a lifelike look and feel, they look so real... absolutely stunning...

But as you've already stated those are just preset poses, though already
very useful and a great basis to get started, but there's a lot of additional
work and modification to be done and skills to acquire to actually get unique,
varied and also satisfactory and useful models, objects, forms and shapes...

As of the vertices, that's why Second Life can accommodate thousands
of its ugly avatars at a time, while in Ae'gura, when there's a crowd
of about 80 to 100, you have a hard time to move at all lol...

And yeah! I love your images and that cute mouse on your Blog page haha...
I also think you like strong and vigorous ladys lol...

Dear Szark, thank you very much for sharing those detailed and vivid depictions
of that creative and passionate part of your life and the development of its amazing
results revealing all the valuable hard-earned secrets behind...

Go on having so much fun... and I can't wait to some day explore your first age... Very Happy
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Szark
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Joined: 28 Dec 2007
Posts: 150
Location: UK

PostPosted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You are most welcome Janaba.

It's nice that you took the time to have a look. Yeah I like DAZStudio very much so much I will pay for the Advanced version. This will give me so much more flexiblilty with lighting, Volumetrics (clouds, fog, mist etc) and textures. I could go on but I won't, don't want to bore you. Very Happy

Yep come the new year I will be embarking on an age making journey. How that turns out we shall see. But like always my vision is beyound my skills so more learning to be had.

Lets hope the new year bring us what we want.

All the best and have a good Christmas and New Year.

Szark
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