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We are going to give it another try
Thanks Kath, i'll make those changes
I started working on my contest entry, got the first character figured out and somewhat costumed. When I was doing the mapping on the torso I ran into an issue of a falling cut-out, and haven't figured out why. Otherwise things are moving along, and I'll post the set as soon as it's done.
For Ninjette, I wanted a really mats heavy composition, using the reflection on her latex suit to portray the scene from her point of view, while keeping her the focus of the composition. So I want the latex really, really shiny and mirror like, but still with enough distortion to sell the reflection without looking too intentional. The katana blade also provides a chance to show more of the scene, from a different angle of view than the suit.
So yeah, this one is all about the mats. Any advice is welcome.
As some of you have found out already SubD isn't the solution to every problem. But when it works
What type of environment are you thinking of for your character?
At this point he does not look like he is standing in a balanced manner but that might be because there is no ground or props to act as a reference point.
You have a good start on this one. Lots of action with the hair and the lightening.
One suggestion is to adjust the camera back slightly so that the toes of his left foot are not cut off.
I agree the textures on the rocks need work. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.
What did you apply the SubD to? The lightening?
Corrected, thank you.
That is one of the things I really like about contests...they give you a chance to try things you might not try otherwise.
What are you using to apply the crescent cutout mat? Are you using LIE? Applying in a photo editor using a template?
The obvious solution (but not sure if it will work) would be to move the cutout higher so it hopefully renders in the correct location.
The suit is built from a textured and offset geometry shell, the cutouts are applied as opacity maps in the shader editor. Never had this problem before, and I've played with some much more complex mapping than I'm using here. As the project evolves, i doubt the cutout will be visible in the final shot anyway, so I might just dump it entirely. at least the cutouts on the face are staying in one place.
Well, here we go again.
: (
This is why I have lost interest in DAZ 3D and walked away from it over and over again for the past 2 years. (Only to come back some time later and try again.)
I can't get past the disaster that is the file structure when trying to save models and props, etc into the correct location on my hard drive without using the Install Manager. I can never figure out where to put free things, for example, and if I try to put things somewhere, I can never find them in DS. It seems every designer puts things together into their .zip files in a different way, and I can never figure out where to put them. DAZ locations, Daz Library, My DAZ Library, Poser locations, DAZ Library, My DAZ Library, runtimes, props, figures, people, materials, geometries, data.
It's hopeless.
I tried to download all the files for this project that DollyGirl is starting, and got most of them. But I'm never going to be able to get them saved so I can find them in the program.
Oh well...maybe next month...
I hadn't thought that far at the time of posting, bet here's what I left rendering overnight.
The link for cre
Lol no problem I read the tutorial that was incorrect while I was at it anyway.
I made my own categories file system. I still have to track the stuff down the first time I load it but after I get it categorized I never have to spend time hunting for it again. I know exactly where to look for my content. But these at least the first three are at the top of you poser library under figures. They have an exlamation point in front of the name so they are right at the top
Well I keep getting a line 7 error when I try to load the example figure so I used kids 4 and did the best I could as far as matching the scene. The pose is way off but the dress would not follow the pose enough to be able to use it and I only have what came with the basic kids 4 for clothing. This is just to follow along with the tutorial, not my entry for the contest. This first one is in 3Delight the second is Iray
Okay, this is tricky initially and can depend how old the content is you've downloaded as to its structure. Generally you need to go into the zip folder and look at its structure in there, content is all housed in My Daz3D Library nowadays so, more often than not if you have the zip file open alongside your library in another windows you can generally follow along - so for example there's normally a "runtime" folder in the zip file, so you can either drag and drop the entire folder into the runtime folder in your library being sure it gives you the "merge" option rather than "replace" this will merge the runtime content into your library in its correct locations. You can do it all manually as well - as you go down each folder in the zip file follow suit in your library folder, normally this will lead to texture folders etc and you can then copy the new files manually from within the runtime/textures in the zip to runtime/textures in your library... kinda hoping this makes some sort of sense, if not I'll try put up a few step by step screen shots later when I'm at my PC.
Did some more work on the textures of where he is.
Greetings all!
Moulin Rouge image on the left is largely based on "default" settings. Lighting in both images is identical. Rendered using Iray. Adjustments in image on the right were made under the "surfaces" tab. Some changes are subtle, others more dramatic. Thanks to this contest, I have a much better understanding of these settings and their impact. I thought sharing might be of interest. Learning this is trial and error and modestly time consuming, but well worth the investment. Enjoy!
the idea
This is 3Dlight but i was thinking of trying Iray istead. One question, is Reality allowed?
Yes you can use Reality, Poser, Bryce, Carrara, 3Delight or IRay.
or Luxus
Here is the start of my idea on what I am going to work on this month going to dive into the tutorials in a bit just wanted you all to see the consept.
Ok, thank you :)
I got a question on control maps.
If I understand the maps correctly, bump maps fake the height changes of the surface using light tricks, but don't change the geometry.
Depending on the camera/light angle this effect can be seen. For instance on round objects the curved edge is still flat.
Normal maps are better bump maps, but also don't actually change the geometry.
Displacement maps do change the geometry.
so here's my question.
If I am using a displacement map, do I need bump or normal maps?
It would seem pointless to fake it with bump/normal maps if I'm actaully doing it with displacement.
I would say tit depends on what you want to give a structured surface. For a rough stucture like a old stone wall the primary thing for me would be a displacement map to show the crevices between the stones and different height. When I render rather close to the stone wall I would add a bump map wich defines the finer stuctures within the stones, but generally yes the displacement map is the one that helps best.
Furthernmore it is rather easy to fake at least a simple bump map (I know the experts wouldn't accept that) from the image used in diffuse turned to grayscale and increased in contrast using Gimp /photoshop, but depending on the original image this is not able to give you an acceptable displacement map
I think it's a very good way to make good quality bump/noraml/displacement maps :)
if those very fine details aren't modeled into the mesh, then the diffuse texture will be the only place to get them.
Krita is a free photoshop type program that is very easy to use and can make 32bit images in tons of formats.It makes 32bit greyscal maps from the diffuse textures in about 3 mouse clicks and lets you change the bit depth, color profile (this has lots of options) and several other things.Studio can use a huge number of file formats for textures and maps, so I've been using the tga format.Krita lets me save 32bit greyscale maps in tga format and takes all the work out of it :) . I should note though, different file types can be different sizes so they can get fairly large quickly.A 32bit floating point RGB diffuse map in tiff format can be 200MB or larger.Won't take very many of these before you get to the point that not even a Titan GPU can help.
also,,not sure if it's a bug( I've not looked into it yet) but Krita appears to be saving some tga format images as 128bit, oddly Studio is still using them.Only Krita and Studio seem to be able to open these 128bit images.
I'm actually working on a stone wall :)
Let me get my test render done and I'll post it
As Linwelly has said you can use both in a render. That is where the "art" comes in. In the image below from the Landscape and Scene thread, notice the mountain in the background. You see the dark cracks and rivulets on it face. I used a combination of both displacement and bump. Why? Because I wanted to have darker shadows along with a change in the surfaces. So by using displacement I got bumps that cast shadows and those same areas were also accentuated by bump calculations to enhance the shadows. I am saying that these are tools and to say yes don't use them in conjunction may be limiting your options. I know that I was surprized with how much more interesting my image became when I did use both. It could have gone the other way just as well and tore up the mesh so badly that it detracted instead of enhanced. Sometimes you just got to play and see.
Working in 3Delight
I am going to go over what I did using the 3Delight environment first. In the attached image the left side is the straight out of the box render and the right side is the gussied up render.
1. In the renderer tab I turned on gamma correction. I did this so that you could see a true comparison of linear work flow from both 3Delight and IRay. If you use this option then the value is 2.20. You will also have to go into the surface tab and for every diffuse texture image click on the down arrow to bring the selection box up. At the top below None you will see the Image Editor. Click on this and input a gamma correction of 2.2.
If you want to know more about linear work flow and using 3Delight then I would suggest you read this thread. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/54913/approaching-realism-in-daz-studio-and-gamma-correction-demystified/p1
2. All of the clothing has had the smoothing option applied to them. I also applied the smoothing option to Nelly to smooth out some of the ugly bends on her. All of them are the default values. I also tweaked her left eye to bring it back in alignment with the right eye.
3. I applied 2 deformers to the dress. One to fix the belt and the other to fix the poke through of the pants. I find that this video helps me a lot in understanding how to use deformers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SEBV2GHJHA and this tutorial helps me to understand how to fine tune the deformer influence https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/DAZ_Studio/D-Form_tool
4. If you are using the Suki Model then you know that it is using the default DAZ Studio shader and plugging in a tilable texture in the diffuse and bump parameters. In Poser which is the model's native environment the creator also applied a bump setting which Studio interpreted to mean Bump strength at 100% but because Poser does bump differently does not give the delta parameter settings that we need to set the Negative and Positive Bump values in Studio. Studio users would call this texture application, a shader preset because it is using a set of parameters with no specific information directed towards the underlying mesh. Details such as buttons or belts or appropriately placed wrinkles are not being provided. This shader can be used on any mesh and the result would be a smooth continuous cover of the pattern across the entire surface.
Also the creator used the texture map to create the Bump map and this is an incorrect use. Engines will use the colored map but they really are expecting the values that come into this channel to be grey scale. Strictly speaking you should be using color maps for the diffuse parameter, grey scale for bump, opacity and specular and grey scale or normal maps for displacement.
Because the creator used a preset, the Suki model does not come with texture templates. If you wanted to create texture maps so that you can add details such as buttons or ribbon trims or a more controlled pattern on the surface of the model there are ways to generate the template files. I found that mcasual has a script file that will create a template file for you for any of the surfaces you want. You can find it here: https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts2/mcjtemplate
There is also a program called UVMapper: http://www.uvmapper.com/ There is a free version for you to play with.
UV mapping is an art in and of itself that I will not get into here. Let's just say if you want to learn more about how to UV map then hunt the internet and you will find tones of tutorials to do a more sophisticated map of the object.
But with that said if you have made a template you can create the design you want. There are many ways to do this but I like what our Cho has taught me. The tutorial is here: http://chohole.ovbi.org/texture_tutorial.htm and the link to the completed dress texture is here: http://chohole.ovbi.org/page_7.htm
Next I will take you through the steps I did in creating and adjusting Nelly's outfit. Also I did not go the template route.
Another thing to keep in mind with Displacement vs. Bump is that you can only displace the mesh so far before getting distortions. This may be another reason to use both.
Not everything is a solution to every problem. What works in one render/image may not work in the next. You have to test different things to get the results you desire.
You asked two questions Sonja11 and I only answered the first one. Here is a tutorial that might help you see how it is done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml4cwtWp1FA
I used this google search and got a few hits of things that might interest you. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=how+to+baking+textures+in+daz3d