Update (Patreon)

OK, so I've got two sets of XXXmas presents in queue right now that will be up this weekend. That will be two commissions down and two more to go. Of course, these sets are just the beginning of extended scenes that will amount to over a hundred if not hundreds of images per scene down the line. Thank you all for your feedback! 

     I learned a lot this time around. I learned the difference between backdrops and environments in DAZ 3D. A backdrop in 2D. You see it in the office scene in Duck Session. The environment is a 3D HDRI image that is taken with a 360 degree camera and projected onto a dome that surrounds the scene. 

     If I use an HDRI image as the backdrop, the picture will look very distorted. Never been an issue in the past as I've only used sky HDRI's as the backdrop. 

      Going into the render tab, however, there is a space to plug an HDRI image into and if no backdrop is in use it will appear as a proportional image in your scene: one you can rotate. 

     This is coming in very handy with the current scene as the character is getting auto-erotic on a bus. I can rotate the HDRI 30 degrees in each picture and it creates the impression of the bus moving. I'll be able to get a lot of mileage out of each dome image before having to replace it as the scene advances. 

      I also learned how to turn sneaker assets into open-toed shoes. Seems easy enough, but there's more to it than deleting pixels. I needed to create a thick sole for the shoe and do it inside a program that doesn't let you create new geometry per se. Forums were useless, as is often the case. I managed to figure it out, but it will be better, and hotter to show you.   

     I have the entire second half of Suck Session's fantasy sequence rendering. I figured out what was causing the lighting to be so crappy and found an optimal way to use natural sun lighting only for many of the shots. It is my preferred method but the sun casts long shadows that completely obscure the juiciest parts of the scene at times. 

      The key was to go into the render tab and play with the calendar and time sliders. Depending on the day of the year, a face that cannot be properly lit any time of day can suddenly be lit perfectly, at the perfect angle. This technique has proven to be a game changer. 

     So I'm working the next couple days, but have a three day weekend coming up. Once rendered, it will take little time to post process the 2 sets I mentioned, and I'll easily be able to get 3 more sets created and posted by Sunday: fulfilling a third commission in the process that I think you'll all find exciting. I know I'm looking forward to it. Think beautiful, leggy Samauri woman in bare thighs and toe armor. 

     I should also be very close to finishing the visual part of Suck Session by weekend's end as well. Having everything butr the narration and formatting finished by New Years looks like a reachable goal.