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Wow, that's great! You always make me want to whip out Carrara and work on modelling, and I never have enough unalloted time to do it lol!
You are doing great with the skill set you already have.
For me, modeling definitely helps expand the usefulness of my existing products. I love being able to kitbash, change materials zones, create styling morphs, etc. People think learning to model always means purchasing less Daz content. It could mean that, but in my case it has had the opposite effect.
Custom Strand-Mesh Facial Hair - Don't Have ZBrush
I have been experimenting with making custom hair for use in Daz Studio. Wasn't an issue in Carrara because that program has strand-based dynamic hair. I'm not quite there yet, but I think I am making strides in transferring to Sudio. In the next few posts I will show the workflow for making eyebrows for the custom ToonElf featured in recent posts. I also made the gautee and mustache.
In general, I've tried to keep modeling posts software agnostic. However, this workflow ceates hair content for Daz Studio from Carrara's dynamic hair and a free plugin.
- Loaded G8M in Carrara using Misty's character at 'rosity. Dialed the full body morph for my custom character (and loaded my recent toon elf outfit for the forum TOS).
- I dragged the hair icon from the top menu on to the "actor" of the G8M group.
- A menu comes up. For now, I accepted the defaults. In the future, may show some useful options.
- The G8M mesh appears in the hair modeling room with my FBM applied.
- I enabled symmetry. This isn;t necessary but it is convenient. he hair sader will be used to eliminate symmetry so don't necessarily worry about it looking too symmetrical.
- I used the left click to paint the area I wanted the har, in this case eyebrows. Hold shift while clickng to remove a painted polygon.
- Under te general tab, reduce the length, change width to medium, and increase the segments per guide hair. More segments equals more smooth bending, but also more resource usage.
- There is a guide hair tool. I created two rows of guide hairs so that I could cut just one of the pair at the corner to look tapered.
- I then used the brush and scissors tools to apply a simple shape and style to the eyebrows. The active point along the strand of hair can be changed under the tool tab. So, if you want to brush the middle of the hair guide instead of the end, adjust the slider under "tool."
- Under general tab, click "show in 3D view" to check on progress. The brows are too dense for my taste. I reduced the number of hairs from default 5000 to 400.
- I did a test render. Looks better.
- Better, but based on the plugin I will be using later, I reduced the display percentage (under general tab). More on the plugin later.
- More styling is done in the shader room.
- Selected the hair and enterd the shader room.
- The deault thickness is too thick at the root and too thin at the end for my taste. I changed accordingly.
- I also increased the variance in the hair length.
- Finally, I made some small adjustments to hair frizz. The changes to hair frizz should eliminate symmetry for the final result.
- Back in the Assemble room, I invoked the free plugin by Philemo. Once installed, the hair conversion option is under EDIT PHILEMO.
- In the conversion dialogue, I reduced hair width to 0.01. I also enabled curves.
- This initial test result (mesh) was too sparse for my taste.
- I deleted the first test mesh, returned to the dynamic hair model, and increased the number of hairs to 800.
- I also increased the display percentage to 40 and length to 15..
- I converted again and got a result that more closely matched what I wanted.
- I've attached a screenshot of the eyebrow mesh. Could continue to edit it in the vertex modeler if desired.
- I've also posted a pi of just th mesh and its uvmap. Notive that the uvmap is a simple square. Each strand has the same square uvmap so you can create frayed fringe at the bottom of you map, use an alpha for fine strands, etc.
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- I used the same techniques to create a mustache and a beard.
- Then, just like the boots example above, I exported the brows and gautee as an obj file at correct scale.
- I loaded them in Daz Studi, and used the transfer utility to convrt them to conforming figures.
- I loaded them on G8M with mysilly toon elf full body morph applied.
- I made sure to check reverse shape in the transfer utiliy.
More work to do, especiallywith shaders and light, but feel like this was significant progress.
Thank you for the walk through
You are welcome. I enjoyed doing it. Feel free to make any suggestions or point out if I mssed something.
Here is the facial hair (not brows) applied to another G8M character. It is a conforming figure so should adapt to facial changes. This is Edward looking like a 17th century noble with a bad hair dye. I need to improve, but I think this was a successful test as a proof of concept.
Freebie Chrismas Tree in Daz Studio Format
I'm new to dsitributing freebies in Studio format instead of Carrara. Let me know if there are any problems installing or loading.
https://sharecg.com/v/92762/view/21/DAZ-Studio/Christmas-Tree-Daz-Studio-format-Reload
Thanks for the freebie!
Interesting tutorial thanks for sharing!
Thank you, Sonja, for the nice comments. I hope to share a few more simple freebies in Studio format.
Resolution 1 - Learn UltraScatter Pro in 2019
Resolution 2 - Create a few small outdoor landscape sets for my silly Studio toon figures, to be rendered in Iray
(related to resolution #1)
Toward that end, I will need the attached reminder about memory settings for scenes with multiple complex instances. Do NOT use the 'speed' setting for complex 'Howie Farks type' outdoor landscape scenes and Iray. Set the Iray render optimization option to 'Memory' not to 'speed.'
Now you will have to keep those resolutions since you told all of us about it lol.
Happy New Year!
I still need to get UltraScatter Pro
, looking forward to seeing what you do with it.
You’ve been staying busy...
Am bookmarking tutorials for when I’m more familair with Hexagon.
How did the surface for the tree end up working? Think you were having trouble with glossiness if remember correctly. Didn’t know you were even on shareCG. : 0 !
Quick question since we might have picked up “Ultra-Scatter” when on sale. Know if Carrarra can generate just a ground plane? (currently not installed)
“Ultra-Scatter” looks pretty good, but not very convincing on a flat plane-- even with d-formers added. Wondering what other app to use.
I like the goat-tee on Edward. Short of reminds me of Dali -- all he’d need is a beret. Best wishes on it!
--Bruce
Thank you, @IceDragonArt, @Dustrider, and @Tynkere, for your comments. Not sure why I didn't get notified.
Yup, Sonja, you called me out on what I am doing. If I post a resolution, I absolutely have to follow through! There aren't any unfinishd projects in this thread (or are there?).
Dustrider, I am a big fan of replicators in Carrara, and I think Ultrascatter can deliver that same functionality to Daz Studio. I've even heard the master Howie Farkes report that Ultascatter pro has even more functions than Carrara replicators. I am slowly migrating to Studio, and improved instancing would definitely speed up the migration. I will try to share some of my experiments if I think they can be helpful.
Bruce, I am still getting up to speed on Hexagon, but I am very happy with it overall. If Daz makes even marginal improvements and preserves the bridge to Studio, I will continue integrate Hexagon in my workflow. I'll post more screenshots, both as a manual for myself, and to the extent it can be helpful to all the people who have helped me, or to pay it forward. I have learned quite a bit more about Daz Studio Iray surfaces (hard not to improve from zero), so I should go back and revisit that awful tree stump. Carrara can generate a groundplane, but I'm not sure I'd install Carrara just for that. For Studio, whatever is used to generate a groundplane, it has to be converted to an OBJ before being imported. So yes, I will be using Carrara to convert heightmaps to terrains, and then terrains to OBJs, but that is merely because I am so comfortable with Carrara.
And there is a great Art Studio forum thread for Ultrascatter Pro. Thanks, Barbult
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/304386/ultrascatterpro-experiments-and-experiences/p1
Haven't updated in a while. Here are a few of my recent endeavors. There is no logic to it all. I've been experimenting with various software and trying to learn new functions.
Bryce Stuff
I've dipped my toes in Bryce. A recent Bryce challenge had robots as a theme. I tried to get some of my robot models in Bryce. If folks are interested, I highly recommend the Bryce forum folks. There are a lot of online tutorials and the forum members are very helpful. Here are my Bryce tries.
1) Black and White Tribute to both Wizard of Oz and Metropolis - because nothing says robot like those two movies!
2) And a tribute to the 1970s cult scifi movie, Silent Running
Bryce is capable of much, much, better than I as a newbie put together. If you get a chance, check out their render threads and challenges. Some great stuff. Like any other program, I need to get focus on getting better at the material/shader textures and the lighting.
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Carrara stuff
Here are some entries in a challenge with the theme of extinction.
This is the Roman senator Cato saying Carthago Delenda Est (Carthage must be destroyed!). Going for an illustration look.
and here is an attempt at realism (not my thing, sigh). This is an attempt to reproduce a fossil display of an extinct hominid. I saw the display at a local musem.
I so wish I had the time to explore Bryce and Carrara more. I still want to learn to model and I found Carrara quite intuitive. And I have dabbled in Bryce and really like it but just don't have the time right now.
I quite like your Carrara entry.
Appreciate the comments. I think the Cato image is probably the best of those, but I find more joy in the Wizard of Oz / Metropolis image. Personal thing.
RE: other programs, modeling, etc - Haven't gotten deep enough in Bryce to post a screenshot tutorial. Besides, the free youtube videos available are already excellent. I am making some headway in Substance Designer and Substance Painter. They have a recent update. Depending how that goes, I may post a sample workflow to customize object's shaders for Daz Studio.
Modeling some New Claymation Toony People
Big Heads! Big Eyes! Big Mouths! 3-Fingers plusThumb! 3-Toes plus Big Toe!
Step 1 is complete. Created the base meshes for some toony people I am putting together. Replaces prior attempts.
Step 2 coming soon. I have 3DCoat now, so hope to go through the process of sculpting/retopoogy/UVMap/bake maps.
Step 3 have to dream about. Rigging, weightmapping, and correction morphs.
Step 4 some day, create a clone to use my Daz content with my custom figures.
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Here are some stages of modeling the toony claymation dude. For these toony figures, I sort of follow a Frankenmodeling approach. The body parts are basic shapes, adjusted, and then sewn together.
Simple rigging test - no weightmapping adjustments, no correction morphs, yet
A Few Recent Renders
These are just some fun renders I've done recently outside the Carrara-verse.
First - For the random runtime render RRRR challenge "what can go wrong," this is Dracula's Daughter's Buy Him a Fixer Upper.
Second - some fun I had with 3DCheapskate's space opera themed "pointless prizeless challenge."
Creating Fantasy Barbarian Type Stuff for G8M
Gladiator briefs with big belt.
Belt and scabbard for dagger.
Sandals with ankle straps.
Forearm bracers.
Bicep armband
Necklace
Bowl cut mid length hair (obsolete, I guess)
No shaders yet, but I've tested some meshes, Haven't installed the most recent Daz Studio yet. I see there are new hair options. I guess that makes the hair part of this project obsolete, but that is OK. I'm attaching some screenshots of the mesh hair anyway. If I get the shaders sorted out and touch up some rigidity maps for the necklace and bracers, I'll offer the rest of the outfit as a freebie.
Lots of changes in my personal life kept me from doing much 3D stuff. Trying to get motivated again. Completed my federal service, sold my condo in DC, and am looking for a place to settle down. Traveled all around the US by train and bus (surface only, no planes). Went from DC to New Orleans to Houston to Dallas to San Antonio to Los Angeles to San Francisco to Denver to Omaha to Davenport to Chicago and then back to DC.
Freebie!
The above barbarian outfit is now available as a freebie. Not the hair. The conforming outfit is Untextured.
Let me know if there is a problem. I'm still not used to assembling DUF freebies so may have messed up the zip.
Update!!
The outfit is in People \ Genesis 8 Male \ Clothing \ Diomede
This version works - apply your own textures.
Barbarian Outfit
https://sharecg.com/v/94316/view/21/DAZ-Studio/G8M-Barbarian-FRD01-Untextured