Where does Subnautica store Game Saves?

Subnautica game save files can currently not participate in any “cloud save” options as far as I’m aware. As such, to transfer files between systems or to make backups, we’ll have to dig deep inside a system folder to find said data. The exact path depends on which marketplace you purchased the game from. Steam …

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TurboTax and QuickBooks Self-Employed – what’s the best deal?

This is a slightly longer than usual story, but I thought I’d share it nonetheless – maybe it’ll help someone who’s in a similar situation than I was in April 2019, just about to file my tax return in the US. Grab a coffee and take a trip around some Intuit products that helped me transform the way Julia and I do our taxes.

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Animating Numbers with Blender and DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #12

In this live event I’ll show you how to create 3D Text Objects in Blender 2.8, then bring them in to DAZ Studio to animate and render. We’ll animate a single number first, then apply the same animation to the other numbers and add small variations using aniMate. Other than that, I’m happy to answer …

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DAZ Studio Test Scene – share your Iray Render Speeds

I’d love to see a decent Iray render speed comparison between the current NVIDIA graphics Cards, specifically for DAZ Studio performance. All we need is some data from a static test scene, render it on a variety of systems and compare the results. Well here’s such a scene! Please download it and render it on …

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About OBS Scenes, Collections and Profiles

When I first started using OBS Studio, I was tremendously puzzled about its use of Scenes, Collections and Profiles. It all makes sense if you know what these mean, which I guess eventually you’ll find out – but I wish someone had explained this philosophy to me instead.

Let me help you with that in this article.

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Where does OBS Studio save settings?

I genuinely like what OBS has to offer – especially the new OBS 23. In fact I like it so much that I’ve decided to support Jim and his the entire project through their Patreon Campaign. Today I’ve “refreshed” my Windows system, which is the system that I use OBS on primarily, and after every …

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Building a Creepy Corridor Scene in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #05

In this live event I’ll build a creepy “survival horror” type scene: an unsuspecting janitor is working the night shift, while a bunch of super intelligent bugs have escaped and try to take over the facility. I’ll start by modifying the stock corridor to make it longer, then I’ll setup a camera with an extreme …

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Converting older Skin Shaders for use with Iray in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #04

In this live event I’ll explain how we can use an existing Iray skin shader and apply it to an older character like Staci. In my last stream I’ve shown you how to apply existing Iray materials from the library to various surfaces, and this time we’ll create a whole shader (almost) from scratch. I’ll …

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Using Older Content in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #03

In this live event I’ll show you how to utilise some of your older content in DAZ Studio and make it compatible with the NVIDIA Iray render engine. Specifically, I’ll take two 3D Universe characters from 2004, pose them in a brand new set by Danie and Marforno and create a riveting Sci-Fi scene. I’ll …

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Where does DAZ Studio save Morph Files

I have recently explained how we can create morphs for DAZ Studio assets with external applications, and how to apply them to characters and clothing using Morph Loader, or something like the GoZ Plugin. You can watch those videos here and here.

One of my viewers was asking – quite rightly – what to do with the applied morph, and how to save it. The answer to that question is a little in-depth, and depends on what you’d like to do with said morph. I thought I’d expand on the answer I gave Scott in one of the above videos with this article.

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How to use Reference Images in DAZ Studio

In this episode I’ll show you how we can use Reference Images in DAZ Studio. This is not a built-in option, but with the help of a Plane Primitive and a dedicated camera we can use references to help us build scenes, poses and shaders. We can create as many planes and cameras as we …

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How to “transcode” FLV into MP4 files with OBS

By default, OBS Studio likes to record files in FLV – for a reason that’s absolutely beyond me. I easily forget to change this setting into something more sensible, which means I frequently end up with FLV files that contain my material. At that point I have no way to edit those properly.

This means I’ll have to transcode my files in order to make them useful.

Or do I? Well, yes and no. Let me explain a bit more about this dilemma.

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Creating Depth of Field in Photoshop

In this episode I’ll show you how to create an artificial depth of field effect in Photoshop, using the Blur Gallery. This can be useful for cutting down on render time, or to apply to images that have been taken with small fixed focus cameras (like the GoPro). This technique is similar in style to …

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About that Denoiser in DAZ Studio 4.11

There’s an article by Phil Miller that explains NVIDIA’s philosophy about the new interactive Iray Denoiser.

Thanks to deep learning, NVIDIA’s own DGX-1 AI Super Computer and a lot of trial and error, this machine developed an algorithm that can predict how accurate the final result will look like when only a limited amount of ray bounces are available.

In a nutshell, their Artificial Neural Network went ahead and compared a partially finished render with a finished one, and each time it made a prediction that was not looking handsome, it learnt from it. Eventually they came up with what’s currently integrated in the latest release of Iray, which has made it into DAZ Studio 4.11, and that in turn is available for us to beta test right now.

I’ve run some tests with this new toy, and I’m excited to share those with you today.

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Building an Indoor Pool Scene with DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #02

In this live event I’ll build a scene with the Hotel Indoor Pool product from DAZ and Imaginary 3D (available for free this week for Platinum Club Members). I’ll explain how to walk through the scene to explore the the whole set, pick a good camera angle, convert existing objects into light sources and add …

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DAZ Studio 113: Using Cameras

In this episode I’ll tell you many interesting things about how to use cameras in DAZ Studio. It’s a rather complex topic, which is why this episode is a little longer than usual. We’ll create a simple scene together from the latest Platinum Club Freebie product, frame up a shot, and create a couple of …

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Creating a Turntable Animation in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #01

In this first Live Event I have planned for y’all I’m going to explain how to create an easy turntable animation in DAZ Studio. We’ll dress up a character, pose him (or her), set some lights and create a 360 degree slow spinning animation of it. This technique is a nice way to show off …

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How to create DAZ Studio Morphs with ZBrush

In this episode I’ll show you how to create morphs for DAZ Studio using ZBrush, thanks to a free plugin called GoZ for DAZ Studio (it’s like a ZBrush Bridge). I’ll also explain the prep-work necessary for GoZ to work properly and how to install it. For Allan. https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1901-DAZ-to-ZBrush.mp3 Podcast: Download (Duration: 12:48 — 11.7MB)

DAZ Studio 112: Content and Smart Content explained

In this episode I’ll explain the differences between the Content Library Tab and the Smart Content Tab. I’ll also show how to bring content into your scenes, and touch on the different types of content (for example, a shirt fits on a figure, but a material preset fits on a specific shirt). https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1906-DS-112-Content.mp3 Podcast: Download …

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Creating a round cutout mask for OBS Studio

I like the way my PlayStation 4 adds a soft round cutout mask to the PlayStation Camera Feed when streaming gameplay. I wondered how I could best recreate this effect in OBS Studio for a consistent experience, no matter which device I decide to stream from.

Here’s how I did it, with a little help from Photoshop – feel free to use the resulting asset without any need for further fiddling.

You can download the mask further down (anchor link).

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Display all Keyboard Shortcuts in DAZ Studio

I’ve recently found out that there IS indeed a way to show a list of all DAZ Studio Keyboard Shortcuts. Sadly this functionality is not built in to DAZ Studio (as of 4.11 as far as I know), but we can convince the app to use the following script to show us a handy list. …

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My Rig(s), Devices and Rendering Workflow

From time to time I get asked what hardware and GPU I’m using for my 3D adventures, including video games. Rather than typing it out every time, I thought I’d make a handy post that I can refer interested parties to, and update as my configuration changes.

This is that post.

It may contain more information than necessary, but I thought I’d add it all here, including a bit of history on how this setup came to be and what it cost. I keep this page updated as my configuration and workflow changes.

TL;DR

These are the main systems that I use for work and play. They run the Adobe Creative Cloud, games, 3D apps. Most systems are CAT-5 wired with a 1000Mbps connection.

Main Workstation / Presentation PC

  • HP Z840 Workstation
  • 2x Xeon E5-2670 CPUs (48 threads)
  • 48GB of DDR-4 RAM
  • 2x RTX 2080 GPUs

Streaming PC

  • HP Z600 Workstation (Rev B)
  • 2x Xeon x5675 CPUs (24 threads)
  • 24GB of DDR-3 RAM
  • RTX 3060 GPU
  • Elgato HD60 Pro HDMI capture card

Render Node 1

  • HP Z800 Workstation
  • 2x Xeon x5675 CPUs at 3.07 GHz (24 threads)
  • 48GB of DDR-3 RAM
  • 2x GTX 970 GPUs

Render Node 2

  • HP Z600 Workstation (Rev A)
  • 2x Xeon x5560 – 2.80 GHz CPUs (16 threads)
  • 20 GB of DDR3 RAM
  • GTX 970 GPU

Email / Coding / Chat PC

  • Apple MacMini 2012 Server Edition
  • Intel Core i7CPU at 2.3 GHz
  • 16GB of DDR-3 RAM
  • Intel HD 4000 GPU with 1.5GB of RAM

The Longer Story

Most visitors are probably content with the info above. However, if you’re interested in how all this equipment came to be, and how I’m using it in my home/office, read on below. I’ll tell you how I acquired most of the parts and how I’ve built them from older technology that still packs quite a punch.

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Discovered in December 2018

I’m a big fan of Anders Enger Jensen. He’s a retro composer from Norway, I’m proud to support him on Patreon, and I love using his music for incidental underlays and many other video projects (with his very kind permission of course). His latest compilation album is available on Sportif – check it out and …

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How to add Subscription Alerts to your stream in OBS Studio

Have you seen those fancy graphic overlays that animate over gaming live streams? They’re great for audience interactions, and when I did my research on how to create those, I came across Streamlabs.com. That’s a service most successful streamers seem to use these days. There are two ways to set this up: either download a …

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Where is the Symmetry Option in ZBrush

No matter how hard I try, I just never remember where the Symmetry option is hiding in ZBrush. At least I remember this website, so when I search here next time, this post should come up. Which tells us that Symmetry in ZBrush is in the Transform Menu. Here’s a link to the official documentation, …

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Creating a Zoom Blur Effect in Photshop

In this episode I’ll show you how to create a moving Zoom Effect in Photoshop, using the Radial Blur Filter. I’ll also explain the use of Smart Objects and how to blend the original image with the blurred version using a Layer Mask. I’ve used this effect to create the thumbnail for my Vertigo Shot …

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