Pelis Kel

Five years ago I played around with Daz Studio and made a few simple animations (example; also, a green screen example). The header image for this blog is derived from a Daz Studio rendered scene. I recently downloaded Daz Studio 4.5 and Bryce 7 so that I could find out if there has been much of a change in the rendering software during the past 5 years.

Pelis Kel mountains rendered by Bryce 7, Regina the bothet rendered by Daz Studio.

Muchlo with facial nanites morphed to Buld appearance.

After a quick try of Daz Studio 4.5 and Bryce 7, I don't see many changes from the v3 & v5 that I used previously. Even though my two core processor is driven by Daz Studio at "190%", it still takes a loooong time to render such images on my 6 year-old Mac. Daz is now available in a 64 bit version for newer machines.

My main motivation for taking a new look at Daz is that I've decided that for the story Exode, the pek will be visually distinctive so as to clearly distinguish them from humans. I've been playing around with Daz in an attempt to identify a simple alteration to normal human facial features that I can use to make the pek have unique appearance. The pek are a form of artificial life, what we might call robots. Although the pek on Hemmal normally use a slightly non-human facial structure, they do have facial-nanite implants that allow them to change their appearance, and they can take on a normal human appearance under special circumstances.

Muchlo with facial nanites morphed to pek appearance.

In fact, those pek who function as bothets are in a special category. Since bothets are intended to be visually appealing to humans and can serve as surrogate mothers, they can't appear too freakishly non-human. Muchlo is another pek who travels with Kach and visits Parthney at Demon Lodge. In the images above, Regina and Muchlo have taken on the appearance of a normal human, which for Demon Lodge, means the appearance of a typical Buld.

The Buld are a small minority group. The majority of humans on Hemmal are Prelands. One of the biological features of Prelands is that they only have one set of teeth, the 20 primary teeth. As adults, their jaws retain juvenile features and they almost never speak (they communicate "telepathically" using nanites that are integrated into their brains). On Hemmal, the pek who live among the Buld typically adopt the Preland facial features: the reduced, child-like jaw and distinctive blue eyes.

Typically, the pek shift towards a more Buld-like appearance when they are interacting with Buld who are, due to long acquaintance, perfectly aware that a particular individual is a pek. When first interacting with newly-met Buld, pek shift their appearance towards the classic Preland facial features so as to make obvious their identity as pek. These shifts in pek appearance are so carefully and slowly done that the Buld seldom notice them.

The Buld reside in one small region of Hemmal, the mountainous Pelis Kel area, and they almost never interact with actual Prelands. The Buld and Prelands have a kind of symbiotic relationship. In fact, the Buld originally came to Hemmal in order to study the Prelands.

Muchlo has a special reason for adopting the Buld facial appearance. Kach is a false Buld and she conceals her unusual biological nature. She has demanded that Muchlo pretend to be her human companion. In the first chapter of Exode, Kach is playing a trick on Parthney, which offends Muchlo's sense of proper behavior. Muchlo reveals to Parthney the fact that Muchlo is actually a pek and warns him that Kach has a secret, the nature of which is not revealed immediately (it will not be revealed until Parthney has spent 15 years living on Earth). Thus, the secret that is revealed in chapter one of Exode is Muchlo's Secret.
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Ultrarender looks nice. I did a 30 frame render in Daz Studio 4.5 that took my iMac 26 hours. I've posted the video in my next blog post.

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Izhiun's quest on Luk'ru.