New to Daz, long time CG guy, simple questions

computersandmore

Okay guys. Been doing CG for years with 3dsmax and Vue Xstream. I am a science fiction writer and always create my own cover art, well I decided to give Daz a try and see if I couldn't incorporate some characters into my next cover.

My first question is one about content, specifically, has anyone seen any content that has a uniform top/jacket similar to the one the big guy is wearing in the attached image?

What about a work jacket, like a plain dickies work jacket, I'm looking for something like that too but haven't seen it in any of the Daz content. The problem is I'm needing to make characters that aren't wearing contemporary clothes, or medieval/fantasy clothes....but also nothing over the top and futuristic since the books are about a crew that work on-board a rocketship. They live in the far future, but it's kinda retro so no skin-tight suits with integrated circuits or anything like that. I need mostly stuff that just looks like work clothes and expedition clothes.

Anything like that out there? Thanks!

Richard Haseltine

The privateer http://www.daz3d.com/the-privateer might work for the man on the left, though since it's for Michael 3 you'd need to use AutoFit and the Classic gen 3 shapes to get it onto Genesis. There are plenty of cargo pants around for his trousers. I thought I could think of a product with a jacket like the man on the right, but when I got there it wasn't - still, I'm pretty sure there is something like that around.

computersandmore

darn, the privateer jacket looks almost perfect...except it's long sleeve instead of short sleeve or rolled up.

I may have to figure out how to design my own clothing.

thanks for the info though

sriesch

Perhaps one could change sleeve length by applying an opacity/transparency map to hide the ends of the sleeves. It wouldn't have cuffs, but you might be able to fake it with a few primitives or some dformer work.

computersandmore

I will post up some results later when I get something going. Think I may have found a solution.

REALLY wish I could find some kind of "work jacket" though, like a Dickies work jacket or something with padded shoulders (exterior padding, not shoulder pads inside)

computersandmore

Ok, I am confused. There seems to be a million different formats and none of them work together.

I got the Privateer pack but it only shows up in the content library under poser stuff and it will not let me fit it to any of my characters :(

What's with the fragmentation of formats? It's maddening trying to figure out what will work with what.

sriesch

I just tried it and it worked for me, so it is possible. When you say it won't let you fit it to any of your characters, exactly what do you mean? Your character isn't listed in the autofit dropdown, after autofitting it still doesn't appear to actually fit correctly, you can't get to the autofit window, etc.?

My test used the following steps: In the content library, double-click on Genesis.duf, then on PvtJacket.cr2 . Select the jacket in the scene tab. In the Parameters tab, click on General, then click on the "Fit To" parameter. In the "Fit To" window, change the None dropdown to Genesis and press the Accept button. when asked what figure type it was originally for, change the Unsupported dropdown to "Michael 3", then press Accept.

I haven't checked recently to see if there are updates for this product, so you might also have a .duf version in addition to the .cr2 version perhaps, but both should work. For products in general, typically you would want to use the DAZ Studio version (.duf) because the materials are supposed to be adjusted for DAZ Studio rather than the poser version. However if your product has older DAZ Studio formats like .daz that no longer work correctly, you would want to ignore those and use the poser version of the product instead.

Also make sure you selected the jacket and didn't try to select the materials for the jacket instead. People often do that by mistake as it can be hard to tell which is which, and then believe the object didn't load (because they actually selected the material instead of the object and Studio doesn't have the object loaded to apply the material to, so it doesn't do anything or asks you what object to apply the material to.)

computersandmore

I loaded up an emtpy scene, loaded the genesis figure (content library couldn't find genesis2.duf but I found it under My Daz 3D Library>People>Genesis). I then search for pvtjacket.cr2 and double clicked on it. It loaded into the scene. I right clicked it and did "fit to". I told it to fit to the Genesis character. It asked what it was originally designed for and Michael 3 is not an option but Michael 4 was.

As you can see by the screenshot it mostly lines up but the sleeves aren't right, some of the arm pokes out the back and the wrists aren't positioned right.

sriesch

Is it possible that you forgot to purchase, install, uninstalled, or somehow got the files damaged for the product Richard mentioned earlier? Perhaps you could uninstall/reinstall that and see if the option then shows up. And make sure you have the folder you installed it in mapped so DAZ Studio knows where to look for it, maybe you have it installed but DS just can't see it.

If for some reason you do not own and do not wish to purchase the product needed to fit M3 clothing to Genesis, I suppose you could also try to use dformers with the jacket incorrectly fit to version 4 as you have it above, although that might perhaps take a bit of work (or maybe not, I haven't tried) and of course you should try getting your autofit option working first if you can.

EDITED: Sorry, I listed the wrong product here earlier! I removed my incorrect references, see comment below.

sriesch

Oh, forgot to mention that when you use the M3 autofit option once you get it working, you won't have that pokethrough problem in the back of the arm that you seeing when you selected M4.

Richard Haseltine

GenX isn't the thing that's needed here - that's for converting morphs. The product I referred to (by the wrong name) is the Victoria 3 and Michael 3 sahpes for Genesis http://www.daz3d.com/v3-and-m3-shapes-for-genesis which will add Michael 3 as an option to AutoFit.

sriesch

Ooops! Sorry, I listed the wrong product for getting autofit to work. I have edited my post to eliminate the incorrect product name/link.

jestmart

The Gen3 Iconic Shapes for Genesis bundle includes all the major Gen 3 figures and would save you $20 over buying the individual packs. A3 and H3 have a lot of steampunk content that could be adapted to the style you want.

http://www.daz3d.com/gen-3-iconic-shapes-for-genesis

computersandmore

Okay. I finally got it working, mostly.

So my next question is about materials. Is it possible to create a sort of iridescent color? In my books I describe the captain's uniform as an "iridescent purple". (see attached photos).

Again, thanks for all of the help so far. I've attached an image that I managed to get out earlier, did it with Luxrender. It think it came out good but if I could make his uniform iridescent (and if I could figure out how to make his cape look tattered) I think it would look better.

Herald of Fire

Well, the tattered cape can be managed using a simple alpha map. If you've worked in CG before, you know this to be a grayscale image with black representing the 'holes' and white being the actual cape. Use this in the Opacity channel and you can poke holes in the cape. This works best on items with no 'thickness' to them however, as it may otherwise be a case of lining up the holes.

Iridescent materials ARE possible, but they're also annoyingly complex. In Luxrender they generally work by using layered materials. You could have a metallic purple over a metallic blue, for example, with a third layer over the top acting as flecks for a reflective shine. There are however downsides to this approach. Firstly, it can take some trial and error to get the right mix of the materials, and secondly this will exhaustively increase your render time.

in 3Delight, I don't believe there are any pre-made shaders which can quite match up to the sort of iridescence you want. You may find yourself working with the Shader Mixer to create a custom shader, which can be incredibly confusing at first. The same principle applies though; layering materials over one another to achieve the result you need.

Come to think of it, UberSurface 2 might come in handy for the iridescence as it handily provides two levels of reflectivity, specularity and even multiple diffuse channels. I'll try some experiments and see if it might be suited for your needs.

computersandmore

There are some materials that come with the supersuit (which will come in handy anyway) that seem to work. His shirt is using the supersuit material, pants using the plain old material.