Convert figure to an
kaotkbliss
Posts: 2,914
So 'm working on a scene and it's up to about 20 figures but I have much more to add.
Unfortunately t work in that scene my computer is now using 6GB of my total 8GB of ram.
Is there a way that once a figure is clothed and posed, to convert them to basically an "empty shell" so to speak as I no longer need to do anything with them?
Or is there another way to clear out behind the scenes stuff?
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I don't know what your scene consists of, but is there any way to render in stages, and then composite each of the renders on separate layers in Photoshop, or whatever 2D app you use?
That way you can render and save the scene as say Scene-1, and then remove the characters already saved in that first file, and resave as Scene-2 with just the environment you're using. That way you can use your first render to see where the already used characters are situated, so you can add the next set of characters you want to work with. In fact, you could probably use a copy of the first render as your scene background to make it easier to place new figures.
There may be an easier way to do it, but compositing separate renders is how I would do it.
I think I get what you are saying. Basically put in some of the people, save the scene. Remove those people and add some of the other people, save the scene with a new name. And so on until I have all the people in multiple scenes.
Then merge all the scenes before final render... Correct?
You might want to think about getting Decimator for DAZ Studio now it's on sale, as it rarely is. If you're in the Platinum Club it's a massive 65% off for the next few hours at least.
As awesome and useful and as much as I'd like to have that, $70 is unfortunately out of my price range and will be for some time while I try to get my card paid down from my other Daz purchases :(
Another way is to make a "cardboard cutout"
Zoom in on the character
Render character only against a grey background
Export the image
Create an alpha mat
Apply to a rectangle
Adjust size
Delete 3d figure.
Not so good for your main figure but OK for extras
Various products have been sold based on this such as Movement of Mass (NLA) and Crowds (Renderosity)
Well, it was showing for me at $35.33. If you used your PC coupon that would take it to under $30. Unfortunately its off sale again, but it's conceivable they'll put it back on again before the month is out.
That's not a bad idea, thanks for the tip. The only part I'm not understanding is creating a mat but the rest seems pretty straight forward. Basically what I'm imagining you are saying is using the render of a person as a texture for a primitive cube.
Yes, that's basically what I was saying, except I meant to put all the separate scene renders together in postwork in Photoshop or other 2D app of your choice. Since you seemed to be having a hard time working with so many characters in one scene, I think merging the various scenes before rendering, would just slow your computer down to a crawl and possibly crash during render, assuming it even loaded as a single scene once merged.
However, I do think pwiecek's idea sounds doable as well.
Thanks or the tips! for now I've been doing groups of people and merging them into the scene which has been working thus-far (I think I've about tripled the amount of people). While the final scene takes quite a bit to load, I won't need to do anything with that except kick off the render. My computer should hold up for that (crosses fingers) My computer was built for gaming, not so much this but I'll definitely have other things to consider when I can get to my next upgrade (like a ton more ram)
Next time I do a scene with large amounts of people (and there will be a number of next times) I'll definitely remember this thread as I think starting a scene with these options already in mind will go a lot faster than converting everything I've already done.
I think I figured something out with this :)
I just read a post about geometry shells so I was experimenting with that to see if I could:
1. create a figure and clothe it
2. pose the figure and create a geometry shell
3. reparent clothing to shell
4. delete original character
Of course this didn't work (Or variations of)
but it got me to wondering when I was working on a prop trying to make it posable...
I wonder what would happen if I sent a figure (clothed and posed) to Hex and back
Sure enough, skeleton and everything was gone. it was basically just a solid "statue" of the figure, clothed and posed just as I sent him.
So I was able to duplicate the statue over and over and ended up with 128 figures in a scene before Daz hit 1GB ram usage! So now if I can learn how to reduce poly counts in Hex I can really fill up a busy street or crowded stadium.
You don't even need to send your figure into from Daz Studio into Hexagon to create an object out of him (or her), All you need to do is simply go to File>Export> and save as an object. It's that simple.
Yeah but by sending to Hex, I can then use the Decimate tool (I just found it) to reduce the poly count of the model before sending it back to daz. Unfortunately this also messes with the textures for the items :(
I'll have to try the save as object method though and see what pops out of that.
I've been looking for a way to create nice, 3d, easy-on-the resources figure props to create crowd scenes.
I'm not keen on the 2d method as you would have to get the angle just right before the render and then the shadows wouldn't be quite right.
Another method of layering renders in postwork just sounds messy and again, I believe there would be a shadow problem as well as other problems with layering and opacity.
I was playing around with geoshell and I was thinking, why not a tool that's similar, but includes parented items to the figure. Then creates a shell, but permanent so you can delete the original model and are still left with the shell?
We could then set up a figure, clothe and pose, create a shell, then delete the original and be left with a realistic-looking "prop" to set in the background that's not going to bring Daz to it's knees!
Textures use up more memory than geometry. You should try using the Texture Atlas to reduce the multiple maps for a figure to a single map.
You can export the figure and its clothing as a Wavefront Object then import back in and it will be a non pose-able 'shell' of it former self, but that is not going to reduce resource consumption by much.
Yeah, I started doing something similar, sending to Hex, then sending back to Daz (which does the same thing except auto-applies the textures to the materials and figure)
With a geoshell type figure though, I would guess there would be a lot less geometry thus allowing for a great deal many more figures in a scene.
Right now with an empty scene and using the Hex method, I can get 128 figures using just over 1GB ram. But I think that since daz is a 3D scene building software, a simple 1-click tool to create background figures (and lots of them) would be extremely invaluable.
A geoshell is an exact copy of the figure's / model's geometry.
Well that doesn't help then, does it? :(
I thought it would use less resources than the other methods (Hex and Obj) maybe that's something that could be worked into the tool, reducing poly's or something to cut back on ram used.
Thanks for that info, I'll have to look up how to do that.
Merged two threads on the same basic topic.
I just confused myself. Trying to do too many things at the same time (most of them having to do with Daz :P )