2/18/2024 12:42:38 PM by
ZenMaster3D
(Edited: 2/24/2024 10:46:30 PM)
Views: 37
Back in the days magicians and knife throwers would sometimes tie their good looking female assistant onto a wheel which then got spun around while they threw daggers at it. No, literally ;)
This inspired Davo to come up with such a wheel prop of his own: the Wheel of Daggers, though the official product name within Daz Studio is "Wheel of Death". I've been using this prop for several of my renders such as this alien interrogation as well as this exhibition and it's really quite good.
What's included?
Props, cuffs, materials and poses. Also a readme in both txt and pdf format as well as a user license.
This collection consists of 2 main props: the actual wheel itself (duh!) as well as a knife prop. There are 3 texture variations for the wheel: the standard as seen on the product page, a target texture (which I used in my render) and finally the spiral which I used as the promo pic for this blog post. However, if you're familiar with the Surfaces pane of Daz Studio then it's actually not that hard to apply a texture of your own, you can see that in my exhibition render which I linked to above. Material presets are provided for both 3Delight and Iray.
In addition we also get a collection of cuffs for both male & female Genesis 8 characters which can be applied to their wrists, legs and neck. There are no texture varities but just as above textures are provided for both 3Delight & Iray.
And finally you get some poses for both Genesis 8 male and females: one where the character is tied to the wheel (including all cuffs) and one where they hold the knife in their right hand.
Thing to look out for: if you apply the pose where the character is tied to the wheel then this will add a new wheel prop which gets parented to the Genesis character. However, this may not be an ideal setup because the wheel has a morph which allows you to spin it around. But as long as the wheel is parented to the character vs. the other way around your character will simply remain in place. Not very useful.
Fortunately it's easy to fix: right click on the wheel in the scene pane and "unparent" it. Then expand it until you see the "wheel" node: base => conn => wheel. Now make sure to drag & drop your character onto the wheel node and you're all set. Davo also provided a script to do this.
Which is the other thing to look out for: if you want to quickly spin the wheel you need to make sure to select the actual 'wheel' node: this will list the "Spin" morph which you can use to, well... spin the wheel ;)
My only critical comment is about the cuffs: if you got more of Davo's props then you'll notice that these aren't any special. It's not too big of a deal, but at the same time it would also be cool if the material for the cuffs would better match that of the hooks on the wheel itself.
How to install?
Same as most Renderotica assets: you get a ZIP file which you'll need to extract in the right location. Davo's zip files are normally "clean", meaning that you get the main content folders right away. In this case: "data", "props" and "runtime".
While you can extract this into any of your Daz Studio libraries I'd strongly recommend to use a dedicated folder / library for all this.
How to use?
Easy: check your content library pane and find the 'Props' folder. You will find this under Davo => Wheel of Death, and it even has its own browser icon. You'll find the 2 main props in the main folder: just double click "wheel of death" (or.. drag it into your scene while keeping "alt" pressed) and that's all you need to do.
While the included poses are solid (see promo image) I'd still recommend that you either customize it or maybe set up your own pose. As hinted at above: you can simply add a Genesis 8 figure to your scene and while keeping him or her selected you simply apply the appropriate pose.
But getting the daggers to appear on the wheel as if they've been thrown will need some manual posing.
Verdict?
On this blog there's a golden rule: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!"
The fact that this product got mentioned here should be enough to realize that this is one heck of a prop which I really enjoy working with and can therefor recommend.
And instead of throwing daggers or other nasty stuff at your character you could probably also consider to use this opportunity of them being incapacitated to do some "other things" :P
Pro's => different textures for the wheel, rotation morph, easy to use poses for both male & female (G8).
Con's => dull looking cuffs; the same Davo includes in more of his products.
The "target texture" worked incredibly well with Sukai's red mask, as you can see....