Maureen the Witch / Updates

Nothing has put me into the Spirit of Halloween more than creating this set. What was supposed to be a throwaway session, done in a single day has become one of my favorite works. My one terminal grinded away for five days to render the next chapter of my latest book, but the results will not be as good as what I came up with here and was able to render in a single night.

I thought I had lighting down, but I'm humbled by how much better things can be made when a set is properly lit to begin with. This stone chamber is an ancient DAZ artifact, created back in the day when Iray was first introduced. I actually had the option to select a 3D Delight version of it, which is unheard of now. It is a 10/10 set. A real classic.

This isn't the purple witch I had promised, but I think Maureen will definitely due for now. I think I might have a new favorite, at least in terms of how her feet look. This brings me to the updates. I have hit the mother load: a cache of almost two-hundred video game pinup character models. Not direct rips from the games, unfortunately. Some are much more faithful to the originals than others, but my favorites are all there and most of those were done very accurately.

I wanted to surprise you with the Recluse from Elden Ring's Nightreign. Her model was in the cache, but it's a Blender session, as are all of the others. That is not a deal breaker, but my workflow would be sped up fantastically if I had DAZ Genesis 8 models to start with. The good news is that the conversion can be done. The program I need costs about $500 today, but went on sale last year on Black Friday for 50% off. That's just around the corner!

When I have this tool, I'll also be able to convert the actual character meshes pulled straight from video games to Genesis 8 models, which I can then convert to something I can easily animate in Blender. This was all supposed to happen last year but the item sat in my cart for too long, the payment did not go through, and by the time I realized that I was working with a demo copy and not the activated software, I missed the sale. I will not make that mistake this time.