Soulforged: the Outlander overview and tutorials

[AlfaseeD]

READ ME - Package Overview

Soulforged: the Outlander content

The package includes:
- Helmet
- right and left Hair/Dreads (tubes)
- Bodice
- Bustier
- Belt
- Thighs
- Shinwears
- Shoes (sandals)
- Swords (right & left hand + belt): PROPS

- Poser advanced MATs (P6 and above), DAZ materials presets
- 9 hair colours
- Flat Ears INJ/REM morphs to fit the helmet
- Zero poses for the hair tubes/dreads

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Premise

a few words to get you into "Soulforged: the Outlander"
(Read through the end of the thread!)

Hello,
in this thread want to show a few suggestions and tips to enjoy Outlander to its fullest.

First of all we should highlight that Outlander can be heavy on system resources.
This means that after loading the complete Outlander set your scene may sensibly slow down: please, note this has no impact on final rendering time, only on the speed your scene moves!

That said there are a few expedients that may speed things up considerably:
- Dress the character as last thing only once you've you set up ready so you scene won't be slowed down by the number of polys in the scene or just make the clothes invisible while you work on your setup (Figure -> Show all Figures: to make all items show up again at once, this will not work on props though).

- If you run out of memory you can reduce the texture size.
Very high resolution textures are supplied to offer a higher quality in general and in close-up, afterall textures can be re-sized down but not the opposite so better start with a higher-res file than with a lower one.
If you want to down-size the textures simply open the JPG file in a 2d editing program and resize them then export with a good compression to not lose too much detail (we usually use Photoshop and export textures via the Save for Web option with a compression of 50/65% depending on the texture).
Also remember to do the same with BUMP textures as these may be large as well. Specular and displacement aren't usually very large in size.

- If Poser is unable to complete a renders use the area tool to split your render in more pieces that you'll stitch in a 2d editing program.


Outlander is a large and complex product, sometimes you can't just load, pose and render as it COMPLEX and may easily need some tweaking and adjusting here and there due to the very nature and concept of the package.
Just arm yourself with a tiny bit of patience, since Poser isn't always user friendly when it comes to posing and tweaking, and you'll really enjoy playing with the set (see below for tips and suggestions).

[AlfaseeD]

Morphs

Outlander includes several full-body and partial-body fittings however we really cannot include all V4 morphs for several reasons (workload and file size, above all).

If you realize Outlander or other clothes are missing morphs that are important for you/your custom characters remember you can always:

- Use other included fitting morphs (for clothes featuring cross-talking technology you have to set the fitting morphs on the various parts rather than on the BODY)

- Use additional fitting helper morphs (that we always include in our products): morphs such as "move front", "move back", "move right", "move left" "enlarge *" etc.

- Use Poser magnets or D-Form: for a quick fix you can easily load up a magnet and fix that poke-through that's bugging you!

- Use Morphing Clothes by Dimension3D: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/i...wProduct=64629

- Use available magnet fitting sets, such as those from Netherworks:
Clothing MorphKit for Victoria 4:http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/0/c...7570&cat=&_m=d

or Lyrra
V4 Morph Magnet Fits: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=4895
V4 Muscle and Creature Morph Magnet Fits: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=5474.
V4 Magnet Fits: Morphia: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=5821
V4 Elite Magnets: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=7117
V4 NGM Magnet Fits: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=7797
V4 SheFreak 4 Magnet Fits: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=9585
V4 NGM Fantasia Magnet Fits:http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=9877
V4 NGM Utopian Magnet Fits: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=10039
V4 NBM Magnet Fits: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=10104


This way you'll have all V4 morphs at your disposal and don't need to depend only on those included in the clothing packages you purchase.

The complete list of morphs included can be read in the product page and/or read me included within the product!

[AlfaseeD]

Belt

Outlander belt does not bend or one simple reason: it would distort in a ugly way.
Moreover conceptually it's made of very hard leather so it just makes more sense for it to move "as a whole" rather than bend and distort as a lighter/softer material would.

1- First thing you have to do when using the belt together with the bustier is setting the FitBelt morph on the BODY of the bustier to 1 (this is not "on" by default because if you use the belt alone it would be too large) and the when you use the Belt together with the Thigh-wears you have to set the FitThighsWear morph on the hip of the belt to 1.

click on the images to enlarge

2- The non-bending nature of the belt means that when V4 is posed and especially when her legs are moved it can easily poke-through the leg BUT you can fix this just as easily by using the parameters and morphs you find on the hip of the belt.

On the second image (on the right) the yellow parameters are those I used for example while the large reddish box highlights all those included and that you can chose depending on your pose/the fix you prefer to create.
Of course for your own fixes/fitting you can also set negative values for the parameters!

click on the images to enlarge

3- Just for comparison purposes the images below show the difference between the non-bending belt adjusted through the included parameters and morphs and the one with no manual adjustments and the bend feature enabled (on the right): distorted belt as well as pouch and metal, a non-realistic and quite ugly result!

However if you don't want to make manual adjustments and can "live with" the distortion on the belt you can simply enable the bend option and avoid manual fixing.

click on the images to enlarge

[AlfaseeD]

Helmet/Hair

Outlander dread hair makes us of the easy-pose technology, this means that you can easily achieve a very dynamic movement with just a few clicks!

Each dread tube in fact is divided into 54 segments to allow for very smooth curves/movements that will always look natural!

Note: we suggest you should move/adjust the hair to your pose before loading the rest of the set or making it visible again to avoid scene slow-downs!
You can also use the "Display Tracking" option set at fast or box to speed up the scene even more!

1, premise First of all when you use the helmet you need to use the Ears INJ morph to avoid the ears showing through the helmet:

click on the image to enlarge


POSING THE HAIR

1-Set the display tracking option to BOX for a faster response when using the easy-pose parameters

tip-It is also advisable that you do this before completely clothing your character, or, at least, with the other items in the scene hidden
tip-However just do it AFTER posing your character so that you can move the dreads to follow the pose flow and add the right dynamism!

click on the image to enlarge

2-The first segment of the easy-posable chain includes 3 parameters that affect all the segments on the chain. As for their effect the name is self-explanatory: twist, side and bend.

click on the image to enlarge

3-Any of the other 53 segments, instead, features 6 parameters.
The “*Aft” parameters only affect the segments AFTER the one selected while the “*Bef” parameters affect the segments BEFORE the one you’re using thus affecting the WHOLE chain movement as a consequence!

Just play with the dials a bit to understand how things work, it’s actually easier than it may seem even though you never used an easy-posable item!

click on the image to enlarge

4- In a matter of a few seconds, clicks and dial moving easily style the hair as you wish!

And then check the result in display tracking -> Full mode!

click on the images to enlarge

Additional NOTE: If you use (included or added) morphs on the helmet and the hair tubes/dreads do not perfectly match anymore simply select the root part of the hair and use the x/y/ztran dials to move and re-match them!

[AlfaseeD]

Bodice + Head twisting

The bodice neck does not move together with the head, again (see belt), this was done to avoid exaggerated distortion of the piece of clothing.
In fact By definition the bodice is composed of very hard leather, fairly rigid strings, not as hard as metal but still hard enough to keep shape and be fairly resistant to movement.

Regardless of the material/fabric rigidity, moreover, it does not really make sense for an high neck to follow the head twisting since the piece of clothing is not "glued" to the head. Of course it does move when the head goes side-to-size but does no twist with the head.

This also means that very visible poke-through can happen when the head is twisted which can quickly be fixed with the included morphs (BODY of the bodice):

click on the image to enlarge