Jay Versluis

Sneakers (work in progress)

I've tried my hand at making some shoes in Blender. Fugazi and I were talking about releasing the Caryl Outfit as a product for G8 and G9, but it wouldn't be complete without perhaps a Fitbit type smart watch thing and a good pair of shoes. I had never done any vertex modelling from references, let alone shoes, but I really liked the process.

I followed a very chill tutorial by Blue Inversion and learnt a lot about mod...

Fit and Flare Dress - Turntables (and Thoughts on Shorts)

I had a very enjoyable Marvelous Designer working session this morning and made a dress for Victoria 9, from a pattern I found on Etsy. This was my second attempt, and it went even better than my first one I did on my own. I've been using Marvelous Designer for about 7 years and can't say I'm "fluent" in it - or rather, that's my own "internal perception" of my capabilities with the software. I actually enjoy ...

News for October

Hello Supporters!  

I have some exciting news to share with y'all: from October, I'll start  producing videos for the official Daz YouTube channel! The team at Daz  enjoy what I do so much that we've expanded our partnership into making  more content. 

Thankfully I'm not doing this all by myself, I have help  from two lovely trusted team members namely Julia and Ray.  Julia helps out with thumbnails, management, scheduling and  descriptions,...

Victoria 9 Couch Potato

I've made this picture for Daz+ Live Stream, in which Fugazi and I are explaining how to create an outfit for the new Daz Genesis 9 figure. Here she is wearing something we've made a few weeks ago, we call it the Caryl Outfit. Made in Marvelous Designer for the base female shape, then fitted to various other shapes and imported for better fitting. We may make a G8 version for it too, expand it with materials and make it available for sale. This is the outfit we gave away for free using the G9...

Say Hello to Victoria 9 😎

I've had great feedback on the Victoria 9 animation that I made for the  Daz G9 Reveal Event. I thought this would look great in portrait format,  so here she is - enjoy! 

This is a cleaned up animation from Mixamo that  I've brought in via the G2/G8 trick I've talked about, then imported to  G9 with ManFriday's Pose Converter. I also have a vitiligo skin version  and a turntable coming soon.  

More news as it breaks! You can pre-order Victoria 9...

Special Event Animation - Blender Scene File

This week I've spent some time christening my new RTX 3090 card that  spontaneously arrived on Monday, with this little animation you see  here. The new card is replacing one of my perfectly working RTX 2080's,  which in turn may henceforth replace the RTX 3060 in my streaming  computer. It was a nice test to see how much render power the new card  adds to my production pipeline.

I did this in Blender from regular  text objects, then spent some time debatin...

ZOTAC RTX 3090 Unboxing Video

This week an unexpected surprise arrived: a brand spanking new ZOTAC  RTX 3090 from The Amazon! This card was on sale for $1090 plus tax, and  apparently a free copy of Spiderman Remastered was included. I didn't  see a code, so I got in touch with Amazon and they apologised, couldn't  find the code either and then gave me $150 in store credit. "Will this  be acceptable Sir", the nice support representati...

Say NO: Disable the Photoshop Splash Screen

I used to enjoy the changing splash screens in Photoshop, but the latest  rendition of "Intense Woman in Blue quite possibly sponsored by Amazon" looks too much like an ad to me.  It's too distracting for my taste, so here's a quick trick that  suppresses the splash screen completely. 

This is scheduled to go live on Tuesday, except you fine folks get to see it today!

OBJ Companion by ManFriday (Sneak Peek)

I've picked up ManFriday's new OBJ Companion yesterday and have a quick tour during a Twitch stream. I'll make a  proper video about it soon, but wanted to share this rough and dirty  clip with you in case you're interested in the product.

The  companion gives us handy way to export one or multiple item...

Midjourney has landed on our Discord!

I'm sure you've heard of Midjourney, one of the amazing AI image generators that have been making waves recently. It's a tool like Dall-E, Night Cafe and Artbreeder, all of which can generate images from text prompts we humans provide. 

Last week Brian has performed a little miracle on our WP Guru Discord server: he's added the ability for all of us to use Midjourney without signing up with anything else. It's highly addictive and we've had a ton of fun with it alr...

Using Face Sets in Blender Sculpt Mode

Hello Supporters!

I have an early access episode for your  today, in which I'll show you how to use Face Sets. It's a masking  feature in Blender's Sculpt Mode that puts the regular ZBrush-esque  masking feature to shame.

I came across this thanks to a tip from  one of my viewers Bluxfy, after explaining that I wanted to adjust a  Marvelous Designer garment. Without Face Sets, this would have been  impossible. I'm so glad I've found this feature and w...

Join the inspirational WP Guru Render Challenge! 😍

Camilla had a great idea to bring us together through a monthly  inspirational Render Challenge. The first theme is RAIN, and submissions  are open now! 

You can submit up to three pieces (3D or 2D artwork as  well as animations), and in the last week of September I'll curate them  all as a gallery for everyone to enjoy. I may even build a little Unreal Engine project that lets us walk through that gallery, so watch this space.

• Submi...
  2022-08-24 01:03:17 +0000 UTC View Post

Adjusting Multiple Slider Attributes in Daz Studio (like colour and limits)

In this episode I'll show you how to adjust the colour and limits of multiple slider values at the same time in Daz Studio. This was inspired by a discussion on our Discord server and a great tip from Mr. Chris Cox, who knew how to do it. I've never seen the "set presentation" option in Daz Studio and had no idea this was even possible. You learn something new every day, ey?

Thanks, Chris 😎

English Version: 2022-08-17 09:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Fixing wonky topology with Bmesh Clean for Blender

Sometimes I come across ugly triangulated topology that makes adding materials impossible, like the ones we get from converted curve and text objects, or those from procedurally generated meshes. This caused me great headaches until I've discovered this cute little tool called Bmesh Clean. For less than $10 it's a lifesaver add-on for Blender, and in this episode I'll show you how to use it.

Download it from Blendermarket: 2022-08-16 09:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post

WP Guru Brand Assets / Media Kit

Hello everyone!

A few weeks ago one of my supporters (Brian, aka D-Witt) was asking if he cold use my WP Guru logo on one of his character's shirts as a little cameo gag, and to show is appreciation. Brian is working on a comic story and found the Iray Decal Video I've made last year super helpful. Welcome to the supporter pile, Brian 😎

I th...

Draping with Extreme Poses in Marvelous Designer

Some poses distort the avatar during import in Marvelous Designer  beyond something that's easily drape-able (if that is a word). This  happens because an OBJ avatar doesn't have a skeleton, and MD/CLO use  the shortest distance when moving vertices from one position to another,  resulting in scary-odd deformations. In this episode I'll show you how  to avoid this by exporting multiple "helper poses" so that Marvelous  Designer gets it right. Enjoy!

English...

Using the NVIDIA OptiX Denoiser from the Command Line on any image

I have an early access release for you today that I'm struggling to  title appropriately. It's a clever little command line tool that lets us  use the NVIDIA OptiX Denoiser on any image we want, be that a partially  grainy render or an old photograph.

This is interesting to me  because the Denoiser doesn't always work, and having it applied at  render time isn't always desirable. With this tool we can clean up  things after the fact, independent from the re...

Packing UVs in Blender

I've explained how to pack UV Islands during Twitch stream the other  day and made this clip for Darja. I hope it'll come in handy fur future  reference! I'm showing how to pack the UVs with the default Blender, and  how to do it with UV Packmaster Pro. It's a paid-for product that's recently been updated to v3, but honestly it's not necessary to buy for what most of us do.

I'll releas...

Discovering Car Teleporter for Blender

I’ve discovered Car Teleporter for Blender. It’s a huge product of fully rigged luxury cars, complete with asset browser. All cars are compatible with the Rigacar add-on, which can be used to let all cars drive along a path/surface, rotate its wheels and even simulate the suspension and breaks.

I wanted to let you know about this product and will cover how to use it in upcoming videos. You can buy individual cars for as little as $11, or buy a small collection, or get the whole pack...

Discovering Villagen: Create a whole Village from a Path in Blender

I found a fascinating Blender product by Alan Wyatt this week: Villagen lets you draw a path, around which a fully fledged village is created from a selection of assets. The houses are built along any uneven surface, and it even creates a cute little market at path intersections.

I’ve only just discovered this gem and can’t wait to play more with it. You can pick it up from only $6 on Gumroad: https://ala...

Rigacar Test: Bugatti Vision on Bumpy Road

Yesterday I was exploring a fascinating free add-on for Blender  called Rigacar. It can add wheel rotations and various other modifiers  to a car model very easily. I got into this through Elmas, who makes very detailed car models, all of which come pre-rigged with Rigacar.

This  here is a super early test, the road looks like trash, but the  principle seems to work really well (aside from the wheel rotation that  didn't come out). The car follows a nurbs path, ...

Selecting UV Islands in Substance Painter

In this early access episode I'll show you how to use the Polygon  Fill Tool in Substance Painter. It's a handy little thing that lets us  arbitrary make selections based on UV islands, connected meshes or even  single polygons. This is helpful if you don't have an ID map for parts  and you don't want to paint things out by hand.

I've also made a German Version of this video. If you have a...

Thumbnail Previews from yesterday's session

I had a very productive session on Twitch yesterday and made these thumbnails for a total of 8 videos I've recently shared with you. I've spent some time and scheduled them so they'll drip feed on my various YouTube channels over the next two weeks. It feels good to have them finished.

Thumbnails, titles, meta data and scheduling takes quite a bit of time, it's like everything in 3D. The "quick fix" doesn't take 5 minutes as it appears, it takes an hour or more. Dorelle likes to call it...

Fixing Render Sparkles in Photoshop

Hello folks! I have a few links and things for you today.

First  of all, in this early access episode I'll show you a quick and easy tip  on how to fix render sparkles with Photoshop, or rather any 2D graphics  app that's capable of using masks and layers. It won't work for every  situation, but it's great for out of focus background sparkles and  definitely beats the time it takes to re-render an image.

2022-07-25 23:30:46 +0000 UTC View Post

Crash Course: Texture Painting in Blender

Today I have a half hour Crash Course on Texture Painting in Blender for you! It's something I've been exploring for a while on and off, and it turns out it's not a simple thing to explain. The concept is  easy enough, but there are so many Blender intricacies I had to mention that it turned into a longer and more difficult video that I had  imagined it to be.

During the recording a lot of things went wrong, and I wasn't sure if I could edit something that's fit for release, h...

Removing Deltas from a Morph in Daz Studio (great for fixing eyes and teeth after scultping)

In this episode I'll show you how to remove the deltas from a  selection of vertices in an existing morph. This is useful if a  sculpting or wrapping operation has wreaked havoc with parts of your  model, such as eyes or teeth. With this trick, you can bring them back  to their pristine original condition.

Note that you'll have to  correct the position of the fixed parts as they'll snap into base  position and bring them in line with your custom morph.

My thoughts on the new Daz Editorial License

We had a chat about the new Daz Editorial License that will soon come to the store. I thought it worth splitting this segment out as a clip, with some editing to tidy it up a bit. 

I've re-jigged an earlier thumbnail I had for a video that explains the other two licensing options we have, and I'll cross-link it appropriately. I'll put this out on YouTube later today.

Separating a Head and Body from a Full Body Morph in Daz Studio

Hot off the cutting room floor: In this episode I'll show you how to  split a separate head and a body morph from a combined slider in Daz  Studio. Character creators often hammer and chisel away at a model and  end up with a single slider that changes both the head and the body, but  for mix and match control with other Genesis figure this will come in  handy. It requires a product called 2022-07-14 19:09:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Loba (for Jason)

I had fun making this render of Loba, a playable character from APEX Legends. I seriously had no idea that game characters for Genesis are a thing!

She's from Renderhub, and I was discussing how to install her into one of my supporter's libraries. All I wanted to do was send a "proof of working installation" type render, and spend a couple of hours putting two nice looking pictures together - and since I can't post pictures in the Patreon DM, I thought I'd share the results with you all...

Daz Studio Masterclass Intro

I've spent some time yesterday to work on the all important intro and  outro for the Daz Studio Masterclass. I tend to obsess about details  that don't quite flow as well as they should, and as a result spend far  too much time on tiny edits.

In particular, I wanted to make sure  the intro is good enough as a showcase/trailer, as well as first  episode to the whole series. First I took some time writing a script.  That's a novelty for me as I usually just s...