#herewiss

[dduane]

...Okay, that's all the work I need to do with this set for the moment. It has some interesting features that can be exploited in some other contexts. Will come back to it another time.

[dduane]

...So here's an evening-lighting test of the other day's "Afternoon Off" image staged in one of the ROG Red Crow Inn "Little Crows" expansion sets, "Crows Cellar v2". (Click the in-image link to see the full-sized render.)

The improvised out-the-window view doesn't quite work yet. I was fighting to get the moon to appear where I wanted it to, while also trying to work out (and change) where the functional moonlight was coming from. (It's folly to expect a background HDRI file to necessarily light in-scene items correctly and look natural: normally that file's functions will need some help from other light sources.)

So some more wrestling with that is likely to happen sooner or later (with the addition of more/different/better mountains, and ideally some localized mist to soften them). This is, after all, just a quick-and-dirty testing shot. (sigh) "We learn by doing..."

ETA: Pushed in for a medium angle. Full size render at the link.

(I have no idea what the garlic’s doing there. I’d have hung up, I don’t know, some horse brasses or something…)

...Meanwhile, off a note at Bluesky from @pj-evans.bluesky.social: "Magic keeps the warm air inside." The response: "Doubtless the fault of the guy on the left. :)" ...Amusing that this issue gets dealt with glancingly in a WIP:

Lorn had enough Fire of his own these days to feel the protection of the unseen chamber-wards settle into place around them with the shooting of the bolt. Herewiss had spent a difficult week’s wreaking on those invisible barriers five years ago when Lorn formally moved into Kynall, weaving his Flame and the fraction of his life’s days that would fuel it into the building’s ancient bones: the stone of the walls and floor, the wood of the doors and the glazing of the windows. No creature or being not part of their family had power to pass those wards… though each year as the seasons shifted toward winter, Lorn was most routinely glad that what Herewiss had also warded away were the drafts.

...Meanwhile, must try the daylight render again with these positions...

(For the moment, though, a daytime-set version with the wider angle and a different outside background.)

[dduane]

Happy Year of the Fire Horse to those who celebrate!

[dduane]

Today's test render in Daz Studio: the Prince of the Brightwood and the Prince-elect react to the most recent message from the younger prince's increasingly infuriating idiot boyfriend, who needs to have his butt rescued again.

...Now that I've finally found the figure and face I needed for Hearn, I can start to deal (at least briefly) with this scene from the first chapter of The Door Into Fire... which is pretty much the only time these two are seen together until war breaks out in the series's third book.

I can see right out of the box that I'm going to be fighting with textures and lighting and positioning issues for a while. ...But that's par for the course. Later I'll do a bigger render Have now done a bigger render (click here or on the link in image to view it) so I can see in more detail where the problems are.

[dduane]

...A first-light render (with some minor tweaking) of a new Daz Studio Medieval Forest Village set from clacydarch.

I'd been looking around for some time for a set that could stand in for those parts of the near-Woodward Brightwood that could be made representative of the area. (After all, the principality-town on which the Wood is centered does not consist of just a giant log house-cum-castle with "a tree growing through its living room floor" [as the lady would say] and a bunch of hovels.) Délann-in-the-Brightwood is a smallish but proper city, with neighborhoods and streets, and even a few avenues.

This set came very close to something I could use almost without adjustment... except I had to get rid of a lot of the grass in the street (which made no sense) and add some trees and background terrain. But this'll do to be going on with.

...Making notes to swap in some better trees when there's time: and some better weeds. There are makers on Daz who specialize in trees and flora, and I've got some of their stuff in the toolbox... so I'll go rummaging when I have time. No hurry on this: there's much more immediate work on the desk.

Meanwhile, a closeup of these two idiots, because why not. :)

[dduane]

30 Days of Pride, day 7: Sometimes I let these two out of their own universe to have a brief run around in ours. In the original post: Cake baking.

(Bonus shot: When you know your opposite number can't take his eyes off you [and you love it...])

[dduane]

Day 5 of 30 Days of Pride (Middle Kingdoms version): from a 2023 post. (And how interesting that the dates are the same...)

Falling in love with a shapechanging, genderfluid fire elemental isn't without its challenges. And once you've married them, every day's an experiment. Here's one that's worked, at least: fire can't burn Fire. (Or in this case... won't.)

[dduane]

For 30 Days of Pride: Day 4: "Up late reading."

(Originally from this post—a lighting and SFX test—with accompanying excuses:)

TFW when your spouse really did have the magic turned down pretty low when he started reading, because he's always considerate that way, but then as usual he got all focused and forgot all about what the lighting was doing, partly because (you're sure) he believes in his heart of hearts that even this kind of light won't be enough to keep you awake when you're as tired as you were when you came to bed...