[Noobie Questions] White Ground and Adding Bones

Ghoulsby

I have two basic questions that I'm trying to answer:

1) Is it possible to have a white ground layer with shadows? I made a primitive ground layer (with and without a plain white texture) and tried every combo of diffuse, specular, and ambiant colors/intensities (white or black) to try and get a pure white ground with shadows but what I found was that shadows only appeared if the ground looked grey. I was only using distant lights with deep shadowing (I don't know if that makes a difference).

2) I've been enjoying using Hexagon 2 to model various static objects, but now I'd like to try and make a simple robot/mech. However, I'm confused about when or with what program you add bones. Do I create the whole model, in Hex2, in a static position (like the default pose for figures) and then import to Daz3d to add bones? Or do the bones have to be created in Hex2 first? I've searched for tutorials and help with this but I can't seem to find any guides that use both Hex/Daz or goes through the whole process. If someone could just point me to a good resources/tutorial I'm sure I can find my way, but at the moment I'm stuck. Do I need Carrera to create bones? Is creating bones different from "rigging"?

I apologize for all of the noobie questions, but before using Daz3D and Hex2 the most experience I'd had with 3DCG was from Garry's Mod for the Half-Life 2.

Thanks for all the help!

mjc1016

Ghoulsby said:

I have two basic questions that I'm trying to answer:

1) Is it possible to have a white ground layer with shadows? I made a primitive ground layer (with and without a plain white texture) and tried every combo of diffuse, specular, and ambiant colors/intensities (white or black) to try and get a pure white ground with shadows but what I found was that shadows only appeared if the ground looked grey. I was only using distant lights with deep shadowing (I don't know if that makes a difference).

Yes, it is possible...but depending on your lights, especially distant lights, if you don't have some 'angle' to them, the shadows could be either 'way off against the backwall' (which doesn't really exist, unless you put one there) or getting washed out by the other lights.

Try a test render with only one light...

Also what are your render settings?

Richard Haseltine

1) Did you try white for diffuse adn ambient, both at 100%?

2) You should, ideally, group the object in Hexagon - that is, make each bone a separate item in Hexagon. For legacy rigging (so called in DS4, its the only option in DS3 or earlier) that is required, and even with TriAx rigging it makes life easier. In many ways it's best to rig a robot, assuming each part moves as a unit (no flexible hoses or cables, for example), using the Legacy option as you can then simply turn the Bend button off for all of the parts and have just the location of the joint centres left to do.

Ghoulsby

mjc1016 said:

Ghoulsby said:

I have two basic questions that I'm trying to answer:

1) Is it possible to have a white ground layer with shadows? I made a primitive ground layer (with and without a plain white texture) and tried every combo of diffuse, specular, and ambiant colors/intensities (white or black) to try and get a pure white ground with shadows but what I found was that shadows only appeared if the ground looked grey. I was only using distant lights with deep shadowing (I don't know if that makes a difference).

Yes, it is possible...but depending on your lights, especially distant lights, if you don't have some 'angle' to them, the shadows could be either 'way off against the backwall' (which doesn't really exist, unless you put one there) or getting washed out by the other lights.

Try a test render with only one light...

Also what are your render settings?

I'm just using the default "Setting #4 - Best Quality", which uses 3Delight and my distant lights are using deep shadow maps.

Ghoulsby

Richard Haseltine said:

1) Did you try white for diffuse adn ambient, both at 100%?

2) You should, ideally, group the object in Hexagon - that is, make each bone a separate item in Hexagon. For legacy rigging (so called in DS4, its the only option in DS3 or earlier) that is required, and even with TriAx rigging it makes life easier. In many ways it's best to rig a robot, assuming each part moves as a unit (no flexible hoses or cables, for example), using the Legacy option as you can then simply turn the Bend button off for all of the parts and have just the location of the joint centres left to do.

When you say "group objects in hexagon," does that mean highlighting the face/lines/verts and clicking the chain icon button labeled "group?" I tried that and could never seem to get anything to happen. Perhaps I was doing it wrong.

Ghoulsby

An update on testing a white floor:

I figured out how to get the white floor. I up'd the max value for diffuse strength and made it [255,255,255] at 1000% strength, leaving ambiant at [0,0,0] at 100% strength. This produced a ground plane that accepts shadows but is pure white to match white background color.