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Category Archives: Freebies

Competition: Observatory Houses

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As south Italian hill-villages depopulate rapidly, there’s a need to create new types of attractions to bring in tourists and possibly new caretaker residents. The “Observatory Houses” competition seeks young… “designers will have to create a story composed by stars, silences and landscapes. This story will have to include architectural elements designed to create a place beyond compare” for observation of the stars at the hill-village of Roccascalegna. Deadline: 27th July 2017.

Nice idea, but as you can see there’s a tight deadline and also a hefty entry fee. But note that they have a free public 3D model, albeit only in the difficult .DWG CAD format and not quite the same as they one they’re showing in the promo…

However I’ve snagged it before the competition closes and made a basic .OBJ conversion, import-tested in Vue. Three material zones, soil, buildings and roofs, which all take Vue materials nicely.

Poser and DAZ new content survey: June 2017

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Slightly late this month, here’s my pick of the new Poser and DAZ content released since 1st June 2017. I’m assuming that everyone knows by now about the release of Genesis 8 Female and Victoria 8 for DAZ Studio.

Science fiction:

Nenana Alien HD for Genesis 8 Female. Fabulous Hollywood-quality from Josh Crockett, who did the excellent Robbus Goblin HD a few months ago.

Revo Hair for V4, and Revo Exposed for added colours and styles. Simple but stylish.

More funky future-fashion with Exoline Boots and Accessories for Genesis 3 Female.

Holographic Interfaces and Holographic Battle Charts for Poser, from Coflek-Gnorg.

Fusion Engine Room. Just add di-lithium crystals.

SpaceTech: Landing Platform for Poser, nicely detailed by 3-d-c.

The AntFarm’s Anti-Gravity Office Space is a standalone, and doesn’t require his previous anti-grav content.

Pin-Up Gynoid Phase8 for G3F.

Pd Poison for Genesis 3 Female offers unusual G3F skins.

Summoner’s Alien-Spore for Poser.

Summoner’s Sun God-Ra for Poser.

Alpha Centaur for Centaur 7 Male, an alien-style centaur. Requires the base Centaur 7 for Genesis 3 Male.

A quality leather X-Fashion Kitty Girl Outfit for Genesis 3 Female.

Steampunk:

In what looks like it might be the first in a series, Sixus1 does steampunk with Aftermath: The Admiral for G3F.

Some Fascinators for Dawn for Poser, including an unusual steampunk-ish hat.

Harmonica Pistol and Old Repeaters from Cybertenko.

Historical:

Tommy Atkins from Cybertenko, a humble British ‘Tommy’ of the Second World War. For M4 in Poser.

Workers cottages of the English rural sort, from DryJack.

Cafe Racer, a vintage motorbike racing helmet for Poser.

Wooden Bleachers in the American style, and matching Crowd Reaction Poses.

Practical Archeology has Raiders of the Lost Ark -style poses, weapons and tools. Could work well the Gold Prospecting Equipment, also new this month, which has boxes of dynamite, shovels and suchlike.

Fantasy:

Fairy Bridge by 1971s.

DA Unicorn for DAZ Horse 2.

PBReal Blood Demon for Genesis 3 Female, which requires the Dark Fantasy Add-Ons for Genesis 3 Female.

Summoner’s Shadow-Pan for Poser.

Book of Souls and Book of Souls Add On for Poser.

Lumen Tenebris candlestick, and Illuminantis Libris candles for Poser.

Draconic Rising for Genesis 3 Female, a dragon-rider outfit with an especially stylish helmet.

A Titan Quest-style The Temple of Anubis, complete with “Attack” pose sliders for the statues.

Fantasy Throne Room for DAZ Studio.

People:

Tatsu for Genesis 3. A distinctive new face and character.

Maria G8F, a highly detailed and characterful new older woman for G8.

Outfit for G3F, a useful simple office suit.

Molly HD for Genesis 3 Female which requires the Growing Up for Genesis 3 morphs.

Nerdy Glasses for Genesis 3 and 8.

Fed up with searching for the eye controls among a zillion other sliders in DAZ Studio? Eye Clock Pose Control for Genesis 3 Male and Female, plus it’s claimed it “will adjust the eyelids automatically to keep the gaze natural looking”.

A Free Belly Button Morphs for Genesis 3, and Belly Button Morphs for Genesis 8 Female.

Also Sign Language Greetings as aniBlocks and Poses for G3F. The same maker has a range of other Sign Language pose packs.

Creatures:

aniBlocks for Millennium Cat and Run AniBlocks for Millennium Horse.

Handmade Old Doghouse, which could also add clutter to an Anglo-Saxon or Celtic settlement in an overhead picture. I guess it could also double as a medieval henhouse.

Toons:

Morpheus for G3M, a stylish movie-quality semi-toon set of guys. Plus a superb Strongman for Morpheus and a Toon Super Guy Suit.

Bori Bori.

The Hungry Plant, which looks a bit basic but it might work well tooned-up in Poser 11’s Comic Book mode.

A set of free Cupcake Expressions for the Cupcake toon cat.

A toon-ish little Seahorse, a stand-alone for DAZ Studio. I’m not sure how dynamic it is, but I seem to remember that they don’t do much more than flutter their fins and curl their tails.

A new dress for Mavka. Apparently it’s been specially commissioned by a Mavka fan. I like the idea of that. Perhaps we need a dedicated Poser/DAZ Kickstarter-style site which would aggregate donations for similar project ideas, to sustain much-loved older figures?

Places:

AJ Floating House for Poser, and also likely to be of interest to Vue users.

Recording Studio and Guitar and Microphone with poses for G8F.

Mediterranean Courtyard and Towers.

The Streets Of The Wild West by Stonemason, with his usual high quality.

Nature:

Flinks Instant Meadow 3. Plus Flinks Instant Meadow 3 – Small Parts and More Small Parts and Flinks Dandelion, for Poser.

TruForms Jungle for Poser. OBJs available “on request”.

Oskarsson’s The Forgotten Park for DAZ Studio.

Vue users have Green Canyon, a classic ‘Lost World’ type of scene. Also a Green Valley hamlet which I guess is sort of a ‘the Green Canyon a million years later’, which suggests some sort of time-travel story that would link the two scenes.

David Brinnen’s Gritstone Hills, new for Bryce 7.

That’s it, more picks next month!

Elephants Dream – the .blend production files

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I found the ‘open movie’ Elephant’s Dream production files and .blends, on a steady FTP server, in the form of a copy of the official 1.3Gb elephant.production.tar.gz archive file (2006). It expands to 2.4Gb, and has just the .blend files and the pre-vis animatics.

I’d downloaded it years ago, and still had a few selected .blend files from it. But the original big archive was deleted from my hard-drive long ago. All these movie production assets were issued under a straight Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license, with a fully inclusive credit needing to be to something like: “Orange Open Movie Team with the Netherlands Media Art Institute and The Blender Foundation | www.blender.org”.

The elephant.production.tar.gz file has just the production folder with the Blender assets from which the movie was made. If you want to watch it then the 4K version of the final movie is on YouTube here, albeit with unobtrusive Chinese subtitles.

The movie’s Blender production files used to be freely and widely available, but then the archives began to slowly vanish over time. Currently, a larger 4.4Gb version of the (full?) production assets folders are now behind the paywall at the Blender Foundation’s Blender Cloud. I’m guessing from a screenshot that these folders also have the textures, isolated sound FX, the GIMP .xcf files, the full range of matte paintings (apparently the mattepaintings.tar.gz bit weighs in at 240mb).

If your broadband is slow, Archive.org has a browse-able unpacked version of the lesser elephant.production.tar.gz Blender production archive, at ../ED/production. with .blend files that download and open. I can’t guarantee that all of them will download and open, but the ones I tried did.

You may want to install an older 2006 or 2007 version of Blender to ensure full compatibility. Old versions will happily install alongside your current version, and haven’t yet been placed behind the Blender Foundation paywall. Though keep in mind that a newer version should have vastly better export, if all you want is the mesh + material zones.

In terms of audio there’s only a title medley audio .wav in the elephant.production.tar.gz file. But the movie’s audio was usefully somewhat split into different 5.1 tracks on the release, and the files for that are still freely available here as individual 5.1 channel .flac files, one per track. Not quite the same as having a folder full of all the foley work and FX, as one file per isolated sound, but still useful to have under Creative Commons Attribution. The symphonic music was placed under Non-Commercial.

Update:

This is a picture of the original Summer 2006 double DVD which contained the full 4.4Gb of Production files (elephant.production.tar.gz + all the rest needed to re-render the entire movie, expands to 7Gb). Apparently there was a Sept 2006 USA release on a single DVD, which also had the same 4.4Gb of Production files. So far as I can tell none of the production files were included on the later Imagion releases of the film to HD and Blu-ray. The Imagion releases were essentially advanced tech-demos for the then-new HD and Blu-ray formats, and all the possibilities they offered for interactive menus and the like.

Also, here’s the .zip of Jan Morgenstern’s symphonic music track for the movie, which was placed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license. Still useful though, even under NonCommercial.

“Awww, sooo cute!”

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There’s a new page on this blog, Stuff for free. Opening with a free version of the prehistoric trilobite which I found a few weeks ago. Converted from the legless Maya .MB format to .OBJ. Added legs, fins and the correct material zones, to allow you to apply your own textures. Also included in the package are some free Creative Commons materials taken from the open movie Sintel — use of these will require you to credit “The Blender Foundation” on your pictures.

I’m assuming that this one spends most of its time scooting among the dappled shadows of sparse weeds on the shallow seafloor, like those seen in this scientifically-accurate museum diorama, so the green I’ve applied may be camouflage…

A free 3D trilobite

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I found a scientifically-correct base trilobite in 3D, made in 2003. Because… trilobites! One of the most famous fossil types. They ruled the earth for 270 million years, although the closest thing to a trilobite which most people encounter today is a cute little wood-louse standing on a wood-pile.

The 3D model appears to be the best available for free, and…

“features the basic properties evident in the species but no specifics of any of the many subspecies … as anatomically accurate as possible, based on current knowledge.”

Sadly the model’s in Maya 4.5 .MB format from 2003. But if anyone with an (old?) copy of Maya wants to convert it to .OBJ it seems they can. The model is OK for non-commercial educational use only, as per the original rights notice. There are various bits of software which claim to be multi-3D-file converters (3DWin5, PolyTrans, SAP Visual Enterprise Author etc) that can open .MB files, but I’m told they all require a copy of Maya installed before they’ll actually open an .MB file. I haven’t found any simple “.MB in, .OBJ out” utility.

And here’s a picture which suggests the coloration of your trilobite, and the sort of soft parts that don’t survive to be seen in the famous polished fossils…

We think of them today as hard and black and like an Alien face-hugger, but in their time they were perhaps as attractively coloured as modern-day cuttlefish can be.

There’s also an un-rigged $12 Trilobites Set for Vue, although it’s a bundle so getting it into your wishlist seems to be impossible. There’s nothing worth having for Poser and DAZ Studio.

Of course there’s also some on Turbosquid, but they also come with the usual ridiculously high Turbosquid prices ($250!) that appear to be aimed at big advertising and movie production studios.

Drone -2- Mesh

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Want to create a high-precision 3D map of your own specific bit of the earth, for beautification in Vue or Terragen? There’s no need to hijack a passing NASA satellite — just launch your GPS-enabled drone, snap some HD photos and use PrecisionHawk‘s free software for drone mapping…

“Using GPS information embedded within the drone images, the software automatically stitches together a complete map, viewable in both 2D and 3D. Free users of PrecisionMapper can create up to 60 surveys a year without resolution or export limits.”

The precise types of 3D models that can be exported is left a little hazy by the publicity, but I presume they’re fairly standard types.

Possibly it’s easier just to sculpt the terrain with reference to a good large-scale map with contour-lines, of course. Or wrestle with some public geo-data sets. But if you happen to own a HD/GPS drone then it could be a nice project to use it to make an accurate and crisply Vue-beautified “bird’s eye view” version of your valley, local nature reserve, cycle-way, etc. Possibly even for VR fly-throughs.

A survey of Brush Managers for Photoshop

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Got Photoshop brushes? Got too many Photoshop brushes? Yup. And, let’s face it, Photoshop’s brush management and preview pallettes are something out of an archeological dig — even in the newer versions.

What are the alternatives and helpers, for managing your brushes? Here are all those I could find.

Newer:

* The $19 Anastasiy’s MagicSquire 1.5 is billed as a “brush organising agent”. It’s rather expensive for what it is, which is a better ‘but not that much better’ replacement for the usual panels. Still… colour codes tabs, drag-and-drop sorting, better auto-generated brush-stoke previews and more are all improvements. If they’re worth $19 to you, then it’s the one. The great advantage it has over the Brusherator (below) is that it works in older versions of Photoshop… “CS3 CS4 CS5 CS6 and CC”.

* The $13 Brusherator 1.3 is for Photoshop CC and higher. Probably the most elegant of the lot, and you can configure it how you want it. But to use it you need to be running a newer version of Photoshop, and its management methods and menus are far from intuitive to learn. It’s also nearly impossible to set up on a second pen-monitor with a pen, and so it needs to be set up on your main monitor with mouse + keyboard.

* The $13 BrushBox seems similar to MagicSquire, but looks more basic. It only runs on “CC 2015.1 and above”.

Older:

* The $2 drbjr Custom Brush Manager. The panel uses Flash (and is thus an inherent security risk), but it does support Adobe Photoshop CS6 and early versions of CC on Windows. The panel UI is rather basic, but it is obviously has quite a few features and it only costs $2.

* The $10 Preset Viewer Argus is a general standalone Photoshop Preset Viewer. It renders out a big library of thumbnail previews from all of your Photoshop brushes and presets. No more squinting at tiny little “what is that?” icons, which may be useful for those who know what they’re looking for. It works with presets and brushes from all CS6 and CC versions, and has been updated to run on all versions of Windows.

* The freeware BrushView QuickLook PlugIn is another oldie, from circa 2009, and seemingly aimed at Photoshop Elements users. It… “allows you to see the contents of Photoshop brush files. Now you no longer need to load a brush file into Photoshop to see its contents. … supports three different version of Photoshop [Elements] brush files — versions 1, 2, and 6.”

* The freeware abrMate 1.1 was a “Brush Viewer, Organizer, Converter, and Exporter for Windows”. Nice, but it was last updated in 2011 and only supports brushes made in Photoshop CS5 or lower, so is not really that relevant now. Apparently it required Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0 to be installed.

That’s it. I’m guessing that possibly I could also do something with Adobe Bridge in finding brushes, but I never use that and don’t want to start.

Digital Art Live magazine – winter issues catch-up

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As we head into the really-leafy bit of the springtime, here’s a catch-up on last winter’s free monthly Digital Art Live magazine. The list below features the issues which have appeared since I last featured the magazine on this blog.

DAL is a Poser and DAZ -friendly magazine, devoted to science-fiction art and artists. It is currently regularly nudging 90-100 pages per issue, and is able to get in-depth interviews with the likes of Syd Mead. Next up is the Vue-themed issue, set for release any day now. Contact Paul to be put on the mailing-list and get your free copies. DAL will also soon be inviting advertising at very reasonable rates, so Poser / DAZ content vendors may also want to ask Paul about that.

Issue 12 : Second Skin, a Skin Art issue with a heavy Poser / DAZ contingent.

Issue 13 : Spacewrecks!

Issue 14 : Cybertronics. A Tron tribute issue for the mid-wintertime, with lots of glowing neon.

Issue 15 : Mystworlds, a tribute to the videogame Myst, with a lead interview with original Myst artist and animator Chuck Carter.

Issue 16 : Future Vehicles, with exclusive in-depth interview with Syd Mead.

Issue 17 : Movie Magic, on makers of VFX for movies and TV and more.

Poser and DAZ content: what’s new in April 2017

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What’s new in the DAZ and Poser content in April 2017? Here’s my personal selection from the month’s new releases.

Sci-fi:

Morphing SciFi Glasses for G3F look like they could made flexible use of across a range of sci-fi and superhero characters, even if everyone is going to say “oh, that X-Men guy!” when they see it.

For something similar but more retro, the Project Zero Goggles for Poser.

Slime Attack for G3F is very unusual, and the slime models would also appear to have possibilities as standalone exports for ‘alien garden’ scenes.

Swamp Mushrooms by 1971s for Poser. Simple, but effective.

AJ Hibernation Hall for Poser.

Liquid Lab for DAZ Studio.

Missing those good ol’ Bryce 3D primitives? DAZ now has a pack of Impossible Objects.

A freebie, an iRay pack of Shimmery Sheer Fabrics suitable for sci-fi.

Aeon Soul’s new Proxy Outfit for Genesis 3 Female is an everyday cyberpunk style. No texture add-on packs yet, but Aeon Soul’s quality sci-fi clothes usually get one or more texture packs fairly swiftly.

Nostalgia:

The free Milkshake Props for DAZ iRay look like they’re worth a shake.

The Realigh Hopper 1970s Chopper bike, plus G3F and G3M preset poses. And if you want a ‘newspaper delivery-girl’-style duffel coat for the rider, there’s one in the new GaoDan Uniforms pack for G3F.

Historical:

Classic James Bond-style 1960s Mountain Cable Car with sliding door.

Coflek-gnorg’s Bunker Hill is a large freebie scene for Poser.

U.S. Musket is a very high quality recreation of a musket. There’s also a new Lee-Brooke Railway Gun from the American Civil War.

Shadow Jester Outfit for Genesis 3 Male looks a bit silly on a standard male, but would fit to a more suitable G3M character.

Tus – Persian Warrior Outfit for Genesis 3 Male is obviously fine workmanship and has a more toned-down texture pack.

There’s a new Ancient Celtic Adrian Hair and Beard for G3 Male.

There’s also a charging herd of male fantasy-historical centaurs on the DAZ Store this month, obviously high quality, but way too many content packs to link.

Steampunk and valvepunk:

New on Content Paradise. Meshbox’s old content can often be rather too low-poly since it was meant for old videogames, but their Steampunk Helicopter certainly looks nice and appears to have detailed engines. Beware that their stuff tended to use a single texture atlas, so swopping out the materials can be impossible.

Small town Newspaper Office of the 1910s-1930s, complete with a news-sheet printing press in the basement and a big bundle of period props.

Creatures:

‘Mr. SongBird Remix’ Ken Gilliland has a new creature, Nature’s Wonders Frogs with two common species created with his usual high quality and realistic approach. Certainly the best Poser frog I’ve yet seen, and I have a few in my runtime. His Renderosity Gallery suggests a “Giant Monkey Frog” morph may be forthcoming in volume 2.

AM has a rodent base and a squirrels morph and LAMH hair preset pack for it plus poses.

BoneZ for the HiveWire Big Cat gives you the base skeleton for things like museum displays, magazine illustration cut-aways, and horror scenes.

Somewhat similar to Sanctum Art’s old Drub figure, Res Mortifera plus Poses and Expressions.

Nature:

Dirty Mudyard is an unusual one, and might perhaps also double as part of a small harbour at low tide. The new Frozen Lake Scenery also looks like it could also help with a kitbash of a low-tide harbour scene. The Dirty Mudyard might also be used for the inside of a recent bomb crater that’s been rained on for a few weeks, and which your Res Mortifera monster (see above) rises up from.

Got ducks and dragonflies? The Harpwood Trail – Mallard Pond.

Stonemason also has a new similar water-side setting at Willow Creek.

Vue users have a base for an ornamental Palace Gardens and topiary. Also a large White Meadow frozen stream-side winter scene which looks superb and is currently a mere $8.

If you fancy something more steamy there’s a new Vue Jungle Scene.

Clearance:

I also see that the DAZ Store currently has a (mostly) sub-$5 clearance sale on many items, as well. Lots of characters mostly, rather than scenes and props, but on a quick skim-through I spotted:

Gothic Muse has an unusual skirt which may interest makers of steampunk scenes, to make background characters more interesting.

Anu-naki, a sci-fi V4 character by TheAntFarm which I wasn’t previously aware of.

AnimeEyes for V4 and Aiko 4 / Hiro 4, possibly useful for making comics with the Poser 11 comic book mode. On the DAZ forums you can also find a freebie set of Genesis presets for fitting the eyes to Genesis 1 in DAZ Studio. (If you need similar for Genesis 2 see DG Toon Style Eyes for Genesis 2 Female).

Swordist for M4, a big collection of sword and hand poses which fit a set of weapons made by Xurge.

Merlin’s Flintlock pistol.

The Moebius-style Space Mother head-dress for V4. This toons up very nicely, in Poser’s Comic Book Mode with flat lighting. Now if only there was a set of texture shaders that made the tooning look like it was drawn by Moebius…

Gear Cybernet for Victoria 4.

Feral is set of quality cat-girl / cosplay poses for V4 and the Poser Furries Melody/Micah characters.

That’s it, more picks next month.

Some choice Vue freebies at Cornucopia

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Building a Vue content Wishlist on the Cornucopia Store is a bit odd. You first have to add-to-Cart, then go to the Cart and turn it into a Wishlist item, then you get taken through to the Wishlist. It slows down powering through the Store to build a Wishlist. But I spotted some nice free small scenes there, such as “Crypt” and the Pit” and some others…

That lot came it at around 200mb total, so the download time was acceptable too (Vue scene files can be big).

A few Vue freebies

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Here’s a little round-up of some Vue freebies I found and checked today on a quick 30 minute scoot-around, and which are not fan-art…

Vue – Powder Snow material.

Reeds 2.0 as a .veg file.

And the shiny new D&D Creations web store has a nice free frozen lake material which uses multiple layers.

Merlin’s Free Rope Bridge.

Starbase1 – 26 semi-transparent PNG alien planets for Vue.

Vue Scaling Objects – 34 different types of sports ground terrains. I’d never considered that Vue might be good for sports scenes, but it makes sense — big fields and stadia, atmospheric weather, large squads of easily-posed and placed characters via Poser.

And of course the 3D free samples of trees and plants from Xfrog and the Silva3D freebie plants.

What’s New for Poser and DAZ – March 2017

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It’s time for the monthly survey of what’s new in the world of content for Poser and Daz Studio. Here’s what caught my eye, in March 2017.

Characters and clothes:

Dale for Genesis 3 Male is a distinctive character, who could serve in a role as a sensitive craftsman or a spaceship’s ‘alien ecosystem’ expert. He comes with fibremesh goatee and eyebrows…

Adaptable new sci-fi clothing from veteran designers like Aeon Soul is always a treat, and especially when it’s made for males. Such as the new 20.50 Cyberpunk Everyday Clothes for Genesis 3 Male…

Hair and headwear:

Poisen’s new HelmetZ 3 is the third expansion pack for the wonderful Helmetz series for Poser, and you also get a folder of .OBJ files alongside the Poser files…

Sci-fi Head Gear for Genesis 3 Females and Males…

Gwennili Hair for Genesis 3 female is a very nice freebie from Kayleyss and is inspired by a hairstyle to be found in the recent The Witcher 3 videogame…

Toon and storybook:

DAZ Studio’s Real Toon Expressions for Toon Generations 2 for Genesis 3.

FairyTale Furniture as .OBJ or for Bryce…

Old Windmill for Poser, a freebie from VanishingPoint. Possibly a bit of an old model newly converted for Poser, but it should still look fine in the far distance of a storybook scene. The sails can be animated in Poser…

The AntFarm is developing a very appealing line of Nursoda-like characters, and his latest is Kobold Woodland Spirit for DAZ Studio, currently nicely priced with an introductory offer. Both .FBX and .DAE exports get badly crushed on import to Poser but Kobold can be successfully taken to Poser for Comic Book Mode, with pose intact, using a basic .OBJ export.

Animated lip-synced Talking Kitten? It’s now a possibility, with the new Talking Kitten for the HiveWire Housecat kitten. There’s also a set of 18 PuddyTat Poses for the HiveWire Housecat.

Creatures:

The Great Kraken, a squiddy sea monster for DAZ Studio. Might also look interesting small, re-textured with some luminous stripes, and placed in a sci-fi lab tank…

Need a demonic moggie? SkeleCat for the HiveWire Big Cat…

Need a robot dinosaur? The new R.A.P.T.O.R. and R.A.P.T.O.R. Battle Poses…

Steampunk and valvepunk:

Freakshow Tent for DAZ Studio.

Also in the sideshow section, a bucking Mechanical Bull by Coflek-gnorg, which might even be given a steam-driven copper-plated steampunk makeover. Perhaps pop a clock-face dial texture on the central circle…

This valvepunk Snowmobile is nicely quirky…

Oskarsson’s The Great Library is a scene where you may struggle to get satisfactory low-level camera angles, but this certainly is a very good-looking library with a pleasingly fantasy/steampunk edge…

1920s Explorer:

Ancient Egypt Exhibit is for DAZ Studio, but looks like it would also look good in Vue (via a Collada .DAE export) provided you’re willing to wrestle it to get the camera angles…

Ancient Egypt Exhibit might be combined with the new The Wraithgate from Orestes, and the M4 World War I Headwear Pack II. The latter is a freebie and includes a good Michael 4 Pith Helmet…

Cornucopia has a delightfully ratty old Swampboat / Riverboat for Vue, with detailed interior and many accessories…

Natural scenes:

With Vue 2016 and Poser 11 now both fully patched up, speeded up and talking nicely to each other, now seems like the time for those with fast multi-core CPUs to take another look at using Vue — especially if you want to render Poser scenes that require lush natural landscapes or rich atmospheres. (Note that Vue’s rendering isn’t speeded up by a faster graphics card, as its final rendering is CPU based).

There’s a complete traditional Medina oasis settlement for DAZ Studio, which might also be adapted to serve as a future or off-world setting found in the cult videogames such as Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (which opens in Casablanca in the year 2219) and Elder Scrolls: Morrowind (which starts largely in the town of Balmora). Might be combined with the new Tropical Palm Trees for Daz Studio.

And if you need a large city then the Medina is accompanied by a fascinating sounding Cityscape Generator script for auto-generating vast low-poly 3D backgrounds…

And how will your camel reach the Medina? Perhaps take the new Wild Road for Vue, available at Cornucopia…

DryJack’s Railway Cutting is a fairly simple scene, but this .OBJ could save someone a lot of time in Vue if they wanted to set up a lush summertime steam train scene. DryJack also has a host of other beautifully modeled British train line scenes and props…

Sci-fi scenes:

There’s a very appealing Tomorrowland-style / Mass-Effect-style Sci-Fi Square from Mely3d…

If you have a need for secret underground test facilities, also have a look at Mely3D’s Secret Underground Base and Mecha Hangar.

Dominator Planet from Petipet…

Ahead of the release of the Blade Runner sequel later in 2017, the new Stonemason scene Urban Future 5 is well worth a look, and can of course be used as an expansion for the other Stonemason scenes in his series.

And finally, free tentacular Repair Drones that should work well with Stonemason’s Urban Future 5…

That’s it, more next month!