Saturday 29 June 2013

In the meahwhile...



Lali's taking a rest while I prepare stuff for the next set of comics. Project E is one of those things. That project is taking quite a bit of time, but I wanna get it perfect before I announce anything. All I can say is:

"As the other side of the world wakes up to a new Dawn, we prepare for a night full of detailed fun... the way nature intended..."

Saturday 22 June 2013

Mudboxing

Ok so I might have been a little pissed and over-exaggerated a tad in that previous post... well maybe not... whatever, I just hate unnecessary extra work, and I now have proof that it can be done easy! Which brings me to the subject of this post: Mudbox!

O. M. G.

I just got the trial. Either I am about to shit myself, come over my screen or cry like a baby, this is so easy. What a breeze compared to zBrush. I'm not joking, 10 minutes into Mudbox and I can do almost as much with it as I can with zBrush. In zBrush that would've literally taken me hours, and still have trouble remembering what how and in which order. Now its like: take a brush and start painting. Its almost like Mudbox is saying "DUH" to me!

Its clear that these two apps have their different strengths, zBrush being very very specialized in detailed modelling. Some features of zBrush are still unparalleled, like its Unwrap UV function, and some of the sculpting tricks. So I won't chuck zBrush out the window yet. But my my my, Mudbox's UI is pure sex, the painting is so easy... and they help you out all the time with little tips and advice. It seems like its the very tool I've been craving for...

I think I'm in love.

zBrush!!!!

Can I just bitch and moan for a sec? Can I? Thanks! 

Ok, is it me or is zBrush just a rediculous application? There you go I said it, for the love of god, Erogenesis hates zBrush. I detest it! AAAH may the developers burn in hell!!

I bought it a while back and I'm still in two worlds about whether or not I should be regretting it. I have used it a LOT, as in: I spent a full year working with it, non-stop... so you'd think I'd be used to it by now? Not! The problem is that I don't know of any other app that can do what zBrush does, as in its mesh editing capabilities and UV control. That part is brilliant. For the rest it is a fucking nightmare, it is a GUI disaster! I now know what to do where, and in which order, but it still feels tedious, unintuitive, and cumbersome. Once I'm editing the mesh, then its ok, but if I wanna do something else, I grow tired just thinking about what I'll need to undergo. Even after years of zBrush you'll still need to remember procedures and routines to get to where to wanna go. All apps have that, off course, but with zBrush it is anything but logical. 

Why Pixelillogic? Why? Why must you be the necessary evil? Never before with any application have I had to consult help and tutorials SO MANY TIMES to get something simple done in it. "Ok, load this, press that button hidden in that unrelated menu, and then that button on the other side of the screen, then go to that menu and select some tool, press this hotkey, then you can do what you want". I spend so much time on zBrush Central, it might as well be built into the application... I find that rediculous! (that is btw my indicator for a good app, the less you need to consult the manual, the better it has been designed... hm what does that say about Lali's Bits? ;) )

Get this, in that application alone there are well over 4 buttons called 'Texture', but all do entirely different things. There is no logic in the UI design, it is entirely random almost. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing and the 'Undo' button doesn't guarantee any safety from experimentation. If you press the wrong button, by god you're in for a rough time to unfuck whatever you fucked up, because nothing in zBrush makes any sense. Even monster apps Autodesk 3D Max and AutoCAD are EASY compared. I have been using 3D Max since 2001 and before that I played around with my father's AutoCAD. Not once did I consult the manual. It was just a few months ago that I checked on the internet about Max's UV mapping functions, but that's seriously the first time. Same with Poser, the only time I checked the manual was when I was making the INJ for Lali's Bits, and once when I wanted to know what certain dials for Scatter nodes did. But zBrush has taught me the meaning of the concept tutorial, and being entirely dependent on their need to be interesting or something. Its inexcusable actually. Of all the apps I use, 3D Max, Poser, Photoshop, UV Mapper, Wordpad even... zBrush is the only one that will stop me dead in my tracks. And that is bloody frustrating when you're on the go! (much like Microsoft's ribbon, another workflow killer).

It also seems like there's this generation of artists that are fine with being forced to learn a new UI system (if that is what you can call it). Whatever is wrong with logic? has it become boring? Why reinvent the wheel? In these times of faster processing power and quantum leaps in computing efficiency, what sense does inventing a square wheel make? Is it the trend to stoop oneself into UI puzzles and return from it all glorified with an 'I survived zBrush UI' Tshirt? Pff. Whatever they fancy, but for me, I have enough work to do and I really don't feel like having to bend to some company's desire to be 'different' to get my work done. In the time that I spend on learning some hideous hop-skip and jump routine in zBrush, I could've set of a bunch of renders, drink wine and have sex with my girlfriend! I do have priorities!

Ok so in conclusion, if ever there's an alternative to the god-damn bitch of a motherfucking piece of crap zBrush that uses regular Windows menu convention, with a logical UI buildup and workflow, I'll be the first in line!!!! In fact, I'm thinking of buying Mudbox when I get my next paycheck.

Pff ok that's out there. Bloody hell.

Friday 21 June 2013

In the meanwhile...

Hehe, yeah I'm still alive. Sort of taking a break from the madness that was Lali's Bits... but now stooping myself into an even more insane project that might end up being even better than Lali's Bits. We'll see, we'll see. I'll announce it once I have the confidence that it will be worth the fuss. The project is now called Project E (instead of Project V). 

:)

But, in the meanwhile, I bought Poser Pro 2014 and having fun with it in the few hours I've spent on it!!! Yes sir, its not bad at all. It seems to be stable and has many useful gadgets that are perfect for my workflow:

  • Render preview is brilliant, simple, but brilliant
  • the 'frame selected' option is also useful as hell, especially in my cluttered scenes
  • The 'copy morphs from...' function is insanely brilliant (although doesn't work for some master parameters)
  • The 'fitting room' is very very promising and darn useful. I did manage to crash Poser while trying to convert a billion morphs for the original Lali... but then again she's a loaded chick with well over a kajillion morphs and JCMs
  • Lock figure & hand parts... just useful!!
  • Depth of Field (DOF) render time sped up significantly!!!! (thanks knight77)
  • And many other small improvements I forget to mention
the cons IMHO are:
  • the progressive render thing. Can't see the value of that... unless for quick movies or what.
  • Their figures, Rex and Roxie... sorry but they're butt ugly. Rex is less ugly than Roxie, I might even cameo him in my comics hehehe
I haven't forgotten the updates, I should be getting to them this weekend some time.

BTW: I just bought V6. Needless to say I did the whole DSON thing. I cannot say I am excited at all, and that is my most unbiased view! In fact, its the same boring old prudent bubble-butt Victoria rig. Nothing new, just a different body shape. The magic must be this Genesis thing. Now from what I've seen of Genesis is that its very flexible with bodyparts and UV maps and all... but, from what I've seen, humans haven't changed in the last 100,000 years. I'm definitely into humans. So yeah, hm, from Anubis to sexy chick in 1 second, not interested haha. And another thing is, I have my characters, and my taste it too specific that even Genesis will not be able to help me out. Besides, Genesis comes in an application called DS, which is too much of an experimental platform for my likes. Poser is definitely a production workhorse compared. 

In any case, good ol' Lali V4 emanates more sex-appeal than that ho V6! That's what works for me :)

So anyway, here are some renders of me farting around in PP2014 :)







This is the DOF test. Something like 20 mins render?

and some jeans for Lali in the fitting room :)





Wednesday 5 June 2013

Getting horny now...

Hey guys n gals, I just wanted to share my excitement about developing my babes for the next comic 'Lali Lite: The Gentlemen's Club'. For those that don't know what a 'Lali Lite' is, its a simpler and shorter comic that fits into Lali's main storyline but doesn't carry it.

I thought it up because my main comics usually take forever to make, and hopefully these Lali Lites will be a bit quicker and make up for time lost on Lali's Bits. Themes of Lali Lites will be mostly flashbacks and little sub-plots to the main story where Lali works and does questionable things for the FIS (Fox Intelligence Services). In the Lali Lites you'll get to meet new characters that are otherwise not related to the main story (like Julie, Lali's bisexual friend from college), or will only get involved at a later stage (like Laila, Lali's younger sister). If you wanna know more about Laila, I've updated Lali's bio a little bit.. 






I know, I know I should be working on the Lali Bits update. But I hope you won't mind me taking a tiny break from Lali's Bits. I've been at it for too long and I've been dying to work on my comics. But I promise it will come.

So about the girls: ok I fixed Lali's texture. It's slightly less splodgy, but her nice big Mediterranean eyebrows and beauty mark on her cheek are still there. I reshaped her boobies as we're going back a few years for this Lali Lite. Slightly firmer. You might have noticed her hair changes every now and then. She had her hair straighter and the split more to the side when she was younger and graduating from college (we're talking 20 years old, don't worry). For the rest she remains untouched.















Ok so then we have her sister Laila. I gave her a slightly gentler and more feminine look than you've seen in previous renders. You can see the sisters both have nice curves but Lali is just a little more pudgy than Laila. Laila has puffier nipples and cup B.

Laila also sports nice pubes. This is a project I don't want to tell too much about, but I'll keep you posted on where that's going.

























You'll see that Laila will always have a slightly reserved aura about her, especially in the presence of others, particularly around Lali, her big sister. I'll leave you to wonder why. But alone or with others, Laila becomes more daring.

Her gothic look might betray these sentiments a bit, not that being Gothic means anything in particular, but... you get what I mean ;)
























Then we have the gentle giant Julie. Well, maybe not a giant but she's definitely a bit taller than the sisters. From Dutch origins she meets Lali in college in Washington, during which, her bisexual feelings gradually evolve and Lali is allowed to be the subject of her exploration, Laila perhaps too ;) 












So, in short, I cannot wait to get this Lali Lite out as it is also an experiment to see how much personality I can pack into a fun-filled little comic about a couple of bored girls getting up to no good in their last week as foreign exchange students in Cambridge... and dragging goody two-shoes Laila along with them... :D





Oh and just as a teaser (because I am an asshole) these are the emoticons I have in my runtimes for Lali v3.23, Laila v3.23, Julie v3.23 and ... wait... who's that?





   

Tuesday 4 June 2013

Daddy's Girls

An innocent little pic with Daddy the ex-Foreign Legionnaire, and his two gals. Can you tell they're family? He'll definitely play a role in future comics, but not in the way you think hahaha... well maybe, but not with these two girls!


Monday 3 June 2013

Laila, HOT chick! ... and GND4 for Lali's Bits

Hey, so here's me fiddling with Laila's textures and morphs (also inspired by some fans hehe). She's now looking FLIPPIN HOT if I may say so myself. Prepare to drool... cuz I did...

In other news, someone came up to me and said: hey, so how about Lali's Bits for GND4. I was like, wtf is GND4? so he explains, and I'm like Oh. And he then buys GND4 for me!!!! THANK YOU SIR! So I check out GND4 and I almost get a heart attack. They completely messed up her crotch area. So what do I do?

What I did was pretty tedious but it was the only way that I could maintain some form of sanity. I copied the GND4 morph mesh and replaced the hip and thighs with that of the original V4 mesh. From there on I reattached the mesh to GND4 and sculpted it to be as similar as possible to GND4, but without changing too much of the crotch region. It looks WAY better now. Lali's Bits work properly now.

I'd say I manage to save 95% of GND4. Her crotch is not as deep as the original. If you want GND4's deepend crotch, you'll have to use Lali's Bits dials for that, but it will get tricky. 


The only issue now is... how do I get that in an update without getting my ass sued to kingdom come by DAZ and the rest...? We'll see.

Saturday 1 June 2013

Comic preparations & Update for Lali's Bits

Hey peeps, fans, supporters, critics, customers, ladies, gentlemen, guys, gals, dawgs & pervs...


Comixxx!

Well, now that Lali's Bits is out for DS (which is going very smoothly compared to the Poser version, thank you Poison) and almost all people are reporting that the 1.04 Poser injection update seems to have solved the cross-talking and save issues, I've FINALLY begun to get back into rendering again. Below you can see some test renders of Lali and one of Laila, trying out textures and props. I am really pleased with the way Laila's boobies worked out!


Updates?

Off course I haven't forgotten my promise to everyone about an update with reset poses and extra mats for the vagina prop. That's on its way. I'll also try to add a remapped version of the prop with a new texture and some parameters that respond to the usual FBM dials like Aiko, Elite, Stephanie, etc. I need to discuss with Renderotica how this gets distributed. My update will be limited to the vagina prop however because any changes on the actual Lali body system will be a nightmare to implement. 

By the way, a note on the 1.04 Poser injection update, which is currently available through me and Renderotica: its just two injection files, almost identical to the old c17 injection files, except slightly differently coded to deal with those ANNOYING cross-talk and save issues. You will only need it if you have these issues.




Anyway, so, without further ado, my ladies:

Lali & Laila, daughters of a retired French Foreign Legionnaire, born and raised in Senegal and Sierra Leone... not your average chicks. Laila will gradually get more involved in Lali's comics, but for now, she will only appear in Lali Lites.



Trying out her new lip-biting thingy

Training for FIS, au naturel


Laila, Lali's super-hot goth sister. She works for the Berliner Polizei as an undercover field-investigator. A risky job when you get involved with the Berlin underground organisations... risky enough for our pleasure ;)