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@Wanderer - Thanks so much for the encouragement. It means a lot. Am working on another progress report for April, but not quite ready yet. The suit I want for my project has some issues at the shoulders and knees. Therefore, some of the topics that I may have questions for include weightmapping and joint correction morphs.
Making a Face Morph for G8M through the Hexagon Bridge
I am revisiting a render I did several years ago in which I put Tin Man in Maria's chair. MetropolOz. I did that old render for a challenge in which we were required to use low res objects. For this revisit, I am using the Genesis 8 male. I loaded G8M in Studio, deleted the eyelashes, reduced the base mesh resolution with zero subd. FILE : SEND TO HEXAGON. G8M appears in a newly launched Hexagon.
On the right side of Hexagon is a panel. Make sure to select the genesis 8 male. Place checkmark in symmetry. Make sure subdivision is at zero. Select dynamic geometry. Turn on soft select. Adjust soft select settings for size of area to be affected and how much.
I used the selection and manipulation tools to lengthen the nose out from the face, flatten the tip in a ring, and then pull the inner faces of the nose tip back toward the face. Hopefully, the result looks somewhat like a nose that is tube-like.
Next I worked on the eyebrows. Double-checking symmetry and soft select are on, I selected the middle of the eyebrows and moved vertically. Repeated to pull down the corners.
I also wanted the cheek bones to be more prominent.
When finished, I used the brdge to retun to Studio. So, in Hexagon, used FILE : SEND TO STUDIO. This opens the morph dialog in Studio. I renamed the morph. I also changed the morph location from morphloader to ACTOR : HEAD. This makes it easier to find in the paramenters tab. I then tested the morph to confirm that it works. I then saved the result as a morph asset. I chose a name for myself as "vender" and product name. I closed Studio and started a new scene to confirm that the morph has been preserved for future use.
Here is the current state of Metropol-Oz 2.
Edit: Aaaargh - wires pierce Tin Man
Here is the same render after some postwork.
Clever. Had me going with G8F figures and wondering... Foc-con or 2,000 face morphs to get Brigitte Helm?
You chose the tin min! Good one!
If we should meet in real life, memind me never to play poker with you. ; )
--Bruce
Unfortunately for me, I have one of the worst poker faces in history.
Thanks for the feedback, Bruce.
Had a few questions on methods. Here are some basics.
- I did not render a color image and then desaturate to get the Black and White result. Instead, I applied grayish rock, stone, and metal shaders to all the elements except the pentagram, which had a bone shader. I changed the G8M skin shader to silver, for example.
- When doing the postwork, I did brighten the whole render, then darken the outside, using a multiply layer. I also blurred the light rings.
Here is the straight render for the next iteration. No postwork yet.
- adjusted wires so no longer pierce Tin Man.
- changed all the shaders so that chair is darker than Tin Man's skin. Pentagram also has metaliz shader.
- added one more light torus above head, and moved another torus below his head.
The Tin Man suit was modeled in Carrara and then used the transfer utility in Studio.
- used Misty's G8M character for Carrara to load a base G8M in Carrara (otherwise would crash).
- inserted a vertex object and then used the assemble room wrench to model in the assemble room.
- created separate meshes for the suit and the chinstrap/hat.
- exported each mesh from Carrara as obj using the preset for Daz Studio Full Scene
- imported each obj to Studio using the reset for Carrara units.
- used the transfer utility to convert the objs to conforming, then saved as figure/prop support assets
ha ha dangerous job to be german Expressionist film maker
Thanks, HW. Might be even more dangerous to be an American symbol of the nineteenth century industrial workingman. I think I need his axe included. Thoughts on a missing heart?
One of the reasons I've returned to this project is because the missing heart is such a central feature of both Metropolis and The Wizard of Oz.
I quite like this one. The contrast between the lights and the darks look very good
@Diomede - I messaged you. Thanks again for sharing.
Thanks, @IceDragonArt and @Wanderer. Weighing some options.
Haven't updated for the last ten days or so because I've been having fun modeling some toon stuff, which I often enjoy more than rendering stuff.
Here are some toon figures (3 fingers and toes instead of 4, big eyes, that sort of thing) I've been working on for an ambitious animation project in which a cave girl escapes a saber tooth tiger by jumping in a pond and then through time travel emerges in a modern pool.
Cavegirl, modeled in Carrara
Making a morph so the hair can become wet
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3560896/#Comment_3560896
Saber Tooth Tiger
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3567136/#Comment_3567136
Wow. That is ambitious and I can't wait to see the finished result. LOVE the wet hair morph! Its going to be a bit of a shock when she get to the modern world! She might be safer with the tiger lol
Thanks, Sonja. I am very happy with the way the wet hair morph turned out. The hair is prop hair because of the toon look, but it was created with strand-based dynamic hair. There is a dynamic hair conversion plugin that makes creating morphs a breeze.
@Diomede - You have a knack for modeling, clearly, but do you have suggestions for someone like me who struggles doing more than making some very basic props? I find a lot of the UI for 3d modeling progs very confusing. You may have already answered this, but if you'd humor me, please tell me how you got past the learning hump in 3d modeling to where you're actually able to make more complex figures. Is there one program you find easier to learn? Are there any particular tutorials you found extremely helpful?
@Wanderer - thanks for the kind words. I've always enjoyed modeling.
Quick answer
- Youtube free modeling videos
- Webpages devoted to good modeling techniques
- Reverse engineering models in my library
EDIT - hang out in the hexagon forum, that software is a dedicated modeler
Longer answer
There are some basic concepts that apply no matter which software one uses. An example of a book that covers many of these standards is Digital Modeling by William Vaughan. I'm not telling you to buy the book because there are so many free resources available on the web, but I think it is important to distnguish a tutorial that is just showing you the tools within a specific software package from a tutorial that explains what a good model is. In general, good models rely on 4-sided polygons and avoid triangles, keep the quads roughly square and avoid long-thin creases, and have good edge flow in areas where people are likely to want morphs or where the model is going to be animated. Like most things in life, there are exceptions to these standards; for example, a long-thin rectangle might be appropriate to brace an edge if the model is going to be subject to smoothing (SubD). Thus, an organic model intended to be rigged and posed, might have some differences from a static prop.
As far as software, the models above use Carrara, but it is not a dedicated modeler. Those models will be riggd and animated in Carrara so I am more comfortable doing it all in that program. However, I also model in Hexagon, especially if the model is intended for Studio (love the bridge). I've tried Blender but I am one of the people for whom it has not clicked. Both Hexagon and Blender are free, so definitely worth checking out. Each of those programs has more vertex modeling tools than Carrara. It doesn't mean that they create better models (as defined by edge flow, etc.), but it does mean that they can create the same model in fewer steps.
Here is a thread dedicated to modeling. Some of it is Carrara-specific, so just scroll to the more general stuff.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/96301/modeling-objects-in-carrara-q-a-come-one-and-all/p1
@Diomede - Thank you. I will put all of this information to good use. Congratulations on doing so well on the RRRR thread - you deserve that win. Like I said, you and Tynkere are very funny, so combined with your skill and talent, I think that contest is a good fit for you guys. I appreciate all the feedback and insight you've given me. Cannot wait to see what you do next.
April's PC Club challenge had a dark theme related to the novel, 1984. "It was a bright cold day in April..." I split the difference between 1984 and 1793. It was a bright cold day in Paris Texas 1893. If you look at the entries you can see that Laura Ingells is accused of being a hoarder. Couldn't stay too dark.
3DK May render contest link so I don't forget - https://www.3dkrender.com/blog/May2018Contest ; and https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/249841/3dk-render-may-contest-25-10-10-gift-cards#latest
For the April new users challenge, I revisited one of my oldest projects as a way to learn Studio. You can see the steps I took to create the tin man morph in Hexagon in the posts above. Here is the original from several years ago and the one I did this April.
Metropol-Oz 1
Metropol-Oz 2
@Diomede - It's wonderful to see the progress you've made from your earlier piece to this one. Please keep up the wonderful documentation. You're an inspiration to me.
@Diomede
you are awesome and an inspiration..... go you good thing
Creating a DForce - Enabled Prop - Butterfly Net
Struggling to come up with a subject for the May new users. The theme is action and props. Had thought about something sports related. Instead, I have decided on a Spring scne with a woman with a butterfy net running through a field. Perhaps use TangoAlpha's Jackson Field, but we will see. The first thing though is to create the butterfly net prop. In anticipation of using DForce, my goal was to create a pole, circle, and net. The net would have two shading domains, one where it attaches to the circle, and one for the main body. The idea is to use DForce surfaces parameters to exclude the handle, shaft, circle, and ne close to the circle from the DForce similation by setting dynamic to zero. The dynamic for the net main body is set to one. The net itself is actually a solid tube. I rendered white lines on a black background to create a net opacity tile. I placed the net tile in the "cutout" channel of the net's shader domains.
I saved two version of the prop. The first version has no DForce nodes. The second version has a DForce node and the dynamic sliders are set to enable the net but exclude the shaft. Initial tests have been posiitive. I will go into more detail of the modelng, but this could be done with a simple cylinder for the shaft, torus for the opening, and an extruded oval fr the net.
Test render with G8F chasing butterflies in TangoAlpha's Jackson Field. I will post some more details for the DForce prop soon.