Models by DzFire
DzFire
Posts: 1,473
Just wanted to show off what Hex can do. Only one crash when I had a brain fart and tried to do some point editing when point editing wasn't needed.
Post edited by DzFire on
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Your so inspiring DZ!
Really cool! I hope to see it in the shop soon. Ive been working in Hexagon as well. Its probably crashed on me about 6 - 7 times with my model. I didnt lose any progress though as ive trained myself to hit Ctrl S at fairly regular intervals.
Very nice!
I go all googly-eyed over neat wheels.. Dunno why, since I'm not much into vehicle modeling. :) I suppose it's just the geometry and the way creating that geometry feels when you "get it right."
PS - Wires, please! (Ppppplease!) ;)
Is this all one piece geometry, or are a lot of things clipped into each other? I don't mean the little details, but more like the rounded areas on the main body.
The body is one piece. The round section behind the door was an after thought for a radar antanna.
Another great model by you DZFire - you keepp the Hez flag flying high:)
Sorry to jump in.
Nice to see you back Roygee, I have not seen you around for a while - I hope you've been okay ?
Thanks, John - I'm great!
Just been very busy selling up and moving on, settling in to another lifestyle. Simply no time to get into any CG. If my laptop has any sort of modelling capabilities, i'll be getting back into it "soon":)
Awesome model. Hexagon is a beautyfull app and is very sad DAZ has got it abandoned. How do you solve UV map relaxing mesh ?
PedroC, not sure if Daz has abandoned Hexagon.
Not sure I know what you mean about relaxing, is it loosing its shape when you export the UVmap or do you want to relax a part of it. If its the latter this is the way I do things -
1. Unfold the object, try to pick a seam where it will look natural.
2. Pin it with 2 pins.
3. Try Different Proj and Pinning Axis. Here you are trying to get the mesh squares to be roughly the same size (helps if you have the pins in the right place(trial and error).
4. Smooth tight places using the Relax brush (second button, top of UV window).
I did do a mini tutorial here a while back which included UVmapping, had a quick look and found it - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44577/
Hope the above helps
Hi John and thanks.
I know pins, but i need more control. Not ever you can have the same size in faces and not always can follow the same direction or a similar density of them. Pins are good but not enough or still I can't control them perfectly.
Here you can see a image of a model I did (attached images). One is Hexagon UV mapped with pins, the other one is a Blender UV mapped imported. I'm not say you which is which (not at the moment ;) ). But neither of two UV maps are perfect yet.
I'm thinking in something similar your can see in this video (40 min.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=D--IDOATOZo . (Of course a result only similar not the tool ).
Probably UV maps and textures are the more difficult parts of modelling.
Thanks again for the link to your tutorial. Good tutorial.
Of course I'm not in DAZ people head. So I can't either speak by DAZ. But all looks it's so for the moment. And it's sad because Hexagon is a good app.
I think either would be good with a texture applied, very little stretching. Personally, I could not do a better myself.
Thanks John.
The idea is make a dress in wich you can apply any random texture and fit pefecctly. Hexagon does a pretty decent job with pins but i can't correct all horizontal lines in sides without showing aberrations in texture. There are tool that do a perfect relaxing mesh but very four-digits-expensive (At least until Blender can do).
I think I can correct it enough. But I still have not found the key. Here is where people as you with more experience in Hexagon can show us the way. That the reason for my first question. And I thank you very much.
Making perfectly proportioned UV maps is difficult. Hexagon has some great UV Mapping features, but it doesn't retain proper area projections when unwrapping, which can be difficult. Pins and seams do not always work well to guide the unwrapping process, either. (By the way, you can UVMap your model in other apps, as you've noted. There are even free ones available. Two that I can remember off had are "Roadkill" and UVMapper (Free version). Roadkill is a bit more powerful than the free version of UVMapper and has unwrapping capabilities besides projection capabilties.
PS - You should have at least UVMapper (Free) in your workflow for Hexagon. Hexagon can map objects very well, but it's terrible for producing workable texture maps/UVMap guides, since it only exports at screen resolution. UVMapper is excellent for creating mapping guides and works well with multimapped objects so you can hide materials or groups in order to produce useable texture map guides. Get it here and use it in your workflow - http://www.uvmapper.com/
However, the most important part of UVMapping a model starts when you actually begin constructing the model, itself. If you want an easy time of mapping a model, you have to plan ahead for it. I'll try to give you a few tips without using pictures. Hopefully I'll make enough sense that you can see what I'm talking about and take it from there.
<Edited out>
I wrote entirely too much, giving a whole bunch of tips for UVMapping that people probably don't want to read and would be suitable for a thread, by itself. (Seriously - I wrote a bunch...)
OK, here's the easiest thing for you to do in order to create a dress that is "universally" mappable with any texture without a seam being detectable. You'll use a "stacking" technique:
Here's a graphic to help you out:
http://imgur.com/a/DFiCD
First, this is best for objects that are relatively symmetrical, like your dress, and can be mapped in this particular fasion. However, the principles for this are the same across the full spectrum of objects that are being mapped in such a way as no seams should be shown. The principle is basically that the bordering vertices in the UVMap match, exactly, with the bordering vertices in the UVmap that correspond to the bordering vertices in the object between the two mapped portions. Here, we're just "stacking" the maps on top of each other so that any texture can be applied to this object without any seams being visible. (Which is what you want.) HOWEVER, that means that the texture will actually be "mirrored" and the user will not be able to have different textures for the front and back of the dress - Both will be the same.
Unwrap the object, placing seams along each side of the dress and at the tops of the shoulders. Experiment with both sets of seams until you can get maps of each, front and back, that are relatively sharing the same amount of space for their used faces.
Scale/move as necessary, but don't move the bordering vertices around too much,yet, and only use "relax" on regions that have been "bloated", taking up too much relative space (maybe the breast/buttocks areas) until they're shrinked a little bit - Most cloth does not stretch like a UVMap might in these areas, but there will be some slight stretching of the "cloth" and you can facilitate that being shown when a texture is applied by manipulating the area occupied by corresponding faces. ie: To "stretch" a certain area of texture in a region of an object where that material would naturally stretch, shrink the faces in the map in that region relative to the rest of the UVMap.
Move the area of the map over the other, lining them up so they are along the same axis.
Now, use the edge, vertice and face selection to move the bording vertices and edges on top of each other, so they occupy the exact same UVMap space. You can use the "scale" functions on the tool to get these verts/edges exactly in the right spot. (ie: Select two verts that are supposed to be aligned on top of each other and then use the Scale Sliders on your tool to move them until they are in exactly the same position. Verts have no physical dimensions, so you're not actually shrinking/expanding them. What you are doing, instead, is reducing or increasing their position. You can also do this with edges if they are already aligned well along either the U or V axis.
Once the border verts are on top of each other, take a look at the map and move entire edges, using the edge select and loop function, (Hopefully you have good edge-loops) so that no faces are radically streched away from the edges. Move individual verts as necessary to give a nice, clean, non-stretched UVMap in areas where it should not be stretched. (Just in case you have to move individual verts a long distance to meet up with their opposing verts.)
Resize the map as necessary by selecting all of it. From now on, to avoid messing up your work, you'll be moving, resizing, rotating, both "halves" of the object together. Here, in the pic, I've assumed there are no other materials that need to be on the same map, for a multimapped object, so I've maximized the space that map occupies. This affords the opportunity to use the resolution texture that is desired without being constrained to only hi-res textures, for instance, if the map occupied less space.
Note: It is possible to do what you wish using several different techniques. But, this is the easiest one to do and doesn't require you to do much else than move around two different map groups. You could, for instance, use different material sets to manipulate this map to get you want you want. It all depends on how easy you want this entire thing to be on the user - This will be easiest on the user, but they won't be able to use texture maps to differentiate the front and the back of the dress as separate materials, having different decorations, etc.. I'm just helping by demonstrating one way this can be done without clogging up everyone's time rambling on too much... :D
PS - And, I still wrote entirely too much. But, I wanted to help. :)
Morkonan, thank you very much for your advices. I take note.
That is the idea. You can have an initial texture and people can replaced it easily and create their own texture in 2D without having to worry about excessive deformation.
Really, the dress was a cylinder at the beginning (a mesh multiple of four). It's an exercise to solve situations. That why the mesh is a very tight dress that must to adapt to a given shape and I'm testing the mesh with Genesis 3, morphs and movements and try to see where the mesh tension points and folds are, and how different geometries affect to the uv maps and morphs. And one of the conditions is that any random texture works perfectly.
I think do a 3d mesh is easy, do a good 3d mesh it's other thing. So I believe do exercises it's a good habit, more when the tools don't do part of work and you have to do manually.
You're absolutely right!
The internet is full of free 3d objects that have terribly designed meshes. (Most of them originate from game models or people wanting to produce them and those sorts of models don't lend themselves well to still or even animation rendering.) Practice, practice, practice and, most importantly, good practice, makes perfect. :) Or, at least lots of good practice helps hone one's skills in order to make better models!
A few more models.
You shouldn't have to. If you Google some dress sewing patterns you'll notice that clothing rarely matches fabric patterns at the seams. You should search for Marvelous Designer pattern images to see what I mean. As far as I'm concerned, MD outputs the perfect clothing UVs because the pattern you create is also the UV set you export.
Your stuff is amazing. I'm going to try and learn Hexagon. If I can get close to your level, I'll be very happy.
Excellent!
Here's a new one coming soon, the M1012 "Warthog" Prototype.
Inspiring for sure. It's just good seeing detail ...and lots of it as you do. It allow the questions in mind, how'd they do it? and how can one accomplish it? That's the personal inspirationI receive when I see your work. Great motivator. I faithfully use Hexagon. Have tried other stuff, But the simplicity and layout make it a breeze to work with. For those who don't know, Yeah those crashes, as you mention, only happen when one tries to do what Hexagon knows (somehow), should not have been attempted.
Great work DzFire.
A few more in the clean room.
@DzFire
Excellent stuff. I wish you sold modeling tutorial videos.
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