Morgan's Freebies: Updated March 2, 2016
I decided it was about time I put a thread up in here again. I've offered a few freebies in the past (on the old forum), and I'll be periodically posting some again. It won't be a frequent thing, most likely, since this time around I'm only going to link them if they're ready to drop into Daz Studio (before I would often link props I'd created that were only in .OBJ format and required importing). So the props will be waiting just a little bit (and I'm not sure how/if I'll handle Poser, since I don't have that program), but I've got a few shader presets and scripts to offer right now. First one will be in the following post.
EDIT (March 2015): I now have Poser, and all props have been updated to include Poser versions, and will continue to have Poser versions in the future, unless otherwise specified.
Comments
Glass Shader Presets for Daz Studio
Pretty much my oldest freebie, as well as the most popular. This is a set of shader presets that turn a surface into colored glass. Settings are based on the actual index of refraction for crown glass. 24 colors are included, hitting some of the basic colors and some common glass hues; the diffuse channel can, of course, be altered to provide different colors, these are just included for simplification.
These are presets for the Daz default shader, and are in .dsb format. They'll work in anything from DS 2 on up.
Free for commercial or non-commercial use. Do not redistribute.
Download at my Deviant Art page
Refract-o-Pack for Glass Shader Presets:
This is a newer addition to the glass shader presets. This pack includes 9 presets that alter the index of refraction to that of different commonly-used materials, including water, crown or flint glass, diamond, corundum (ruby/sapphire) and more. The presets are named after the material that they are specifically set for, but are also labeled with some materials that are "close enough" (only a few hundredths away).
Requires the Glass Shader Presets pack.
Included as a bonus is a glass shader preset that preserves the original diffuse settings of the surface while otherwise turning it to glass.
Unlike the original pack, these were made in DS 4.6, and are in .duf format. So they won't work in older versions. Sorry.
Free for commercial or non-commercial use. Do not redistribute.
Download at my Deviant Art page
Gen3 Leg Material Fixer Scripts for Daz Studio:
If you've played around with Generation 3 figures in Daz Studio for a while, then you're probably aware that you can use texture settings from one figure on another. David 3 can use Michael 3's maps, Stephanie Petite 3 can use Victoria 3's, David can use Victoria's, and so on. If you've played around a bit more, then you also know that this doesn't apply to Aiko 3 and Hiro 3. Although the texture maps and UVs are in the right place, they have different material zones in the legs. Thus, A3 presets applied to V3 miss a spot, and V3 presets applied to A3 miss three spots.
These scripts address that problem by copying materials from the hip to the material zones that the .PZ2/.DS/.DUF (or whatever) miss.
This works with presets that are in DzDefaultMaterial format (as most Gen 3 textures will be) AND works with presets that are in DzShaderFormat -- it doesn't just copy the channel settings (the way the Copy Selected Surface(s) command does), it copies the shader as well. That way, if you've updated any of your textures to use the Human Surface Shader (for example), these scripts will still do the task.
The scripts do NOT work with Shader Mixer shaders (materials using DzBrickMaterial format). I tried, strange things happened. I may update the scripts later once I figure it out, but for the present, I decided that the likelihood that anybody was using a Shader Mixer-based texture preset that required specific material zones on a Gen 3 figure was low enough that it didn't warrant a major effort.
Two scripts are included. One fixes the materials on the legs of Aiko 3 and Hiro 3. The other is to fix the materials on the legs of Gen 3 standard figures (David, Michael, Freak, Victoria, Stephanie Petite, Luke, Laura, Matt, Maddie).
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Usage:
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1. Select your figure
2. Apply your texture preset.
3. Activate the script for your figure.
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Free for commercial or non-commercial use. Do not redistribute. You are perfectly welcome to examine the code to learn from it.
Download at my Deviant Art page
Vector to OBJ Script for PSP:
This one isn't for Daz Studio, but it might still be useful to some of you. It's a script for Paint Shop Pro that takes vector objects and exports .OBJ files of an extruded object from the shape. This can then be imported into the 3D software of your choice.
Because of the way .OBJ files work, it may be necessary to subdivide the shape before exporting. It will also be necessary to ensure the shape consists of only one contour, due to a limitation in the script. Thus, I'm also linking to my subdivision and decomposition scripts.
Free for commercial or non-commercial use. Do not redistribute. But you may look at the code to learn from it.
Download Vector-to-OBJ
Download Vector Subdivide
Download Vector Decompose
Do you have a tutorial on how to use the Vector to Obj Script, sounds very interesting.
There's a readme included with the .zip file; it should be reasonably straightforward if you know how to draw vector shapes in PSP, but if there's anything specific that needs clarification, please let me know.
Thank you! The glass shaders look interesting. Good glass shaders are rare, and I love glass. Unfortunately it is a very difficult material...
Thanks for all of these :)
You're welcome. I hope it all proves useful. :)
Thank you! Appreciated.
World's Fair Hoverboard
A "retro future" style hoverboard, as might have been dreamed up at the World's Fair. This is an updated version of my earlier Hoverboard prop -- the key difference being that this one is ready to load in Daz Studio, with materials and scale ready to go. The board will load in at 7 feet in length, in the colors shown above. Each part of the hoverboard has its own material zone, making it easy to choose custom colors via shaders, or to set opacity to zero. The UV mapping on most parts isn't the greatest (it was a relatively early model for me, and UV mapping is seldom easy in any case), but the main board and the forward disc (the blue part in the picture) have UV maps which should be amenable to some basic logo additions.
This is my first attempt at saving something as a figure support asset in Daz Studio. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. If it does not, please let me promptly by leaving a comment below, with a copy of the exact error message received.
Download at my DeviantArt page
Thank you! The glass shaders are much appreciated.
Yes, the glass and gem shaders will come in handy. Just what I was looking for for a new project.
I've had your Glass Shaders for a very long time, and use them often. Unfortunately, I haven't upgraded my DS past 4.0 Pro, so I can't use the new shaders in DUF format. :-S
Sorry about that. In the case of the IOR pack, it was simply a case of my going through them quickly and not thinking about the format until I was done. Well, that and not noticing the "deprecated" option under the Save As... menu... :P
I might go back and make some .DS versions of those when I get a moment. It's not something I'd make a point of doing regularly (I don't know how many users are still holding out on updating), but it doesn't seem right to have a split in the user base on the glass shaders and the IOR pack.
OK, it's been a while since I've uploaded something, but I've got a whole mess of ring-related stuff today -- enough so that I'm only going to include a few pictures to give an idea of what's there.
Superhero Rings and Ring-Positioning Scripts
The main offering is an assortment of (currently) 21 rings in 9 packages, mostly based on comic book superhero rings -- there's the Green Lantern Corps and allies/enemies, Flash, Legion of Superheroes, and the Phantom. Being fan-art, those are only for use in non-commercial images -- however, the Generic Rings package may be used freely in commercial images as well as non-commercial.
In addition to the rings, there are packages of positioning scripts to help fit the ring onto the fingers of pretty much any figure you like. (A tip of the hat to 3dcheapskate, whose Smart+ props gave me the necessary insight on how to go about writing the scripts.) Each package includes a script for each finger of each hand of the figure, except for the thumbs. All major human figures from Generation 3 to Genesis 2 are covered, plus Apollo Maximus and Dawn.
All rings and scripts are for Daz Studio 4.6 and higher.
Because there are so many rings and so many figures, I'm only going to link to my master list here; you can go there and pick out what you want to download.
Go here to see all the rings and positioning script packages.
There will probably be additional rings off and on as I think of more to tackle. As for additional figure positioning scripts, well, you can always ask, but it'll have to be something I either have or can lawfully obtain freely.
thank you for all this, ecspecially the vectors, I just love your programs n stuff *hugs*
Blessed Be
Dana
You saw it in Granthor the Mighty, Vanquisher of Porcelain, and now you can use it for yourself! Presenting the Shatter Vase, a simple little vase with 12 different material zones that represent "shards". Turn all but one invisible, position that shard, then load another vase and do it again, as often as you like. It has a flat UV map, so it takes textures reasonably easily.
Download "Shatter Vase" here
Here's a project that's been occupying my time for the last few days.
UV Map Reader for Paint Shop Pro
Just as with my 3D object exporter for PSP, I find that working in PSP is convenient for a lot of things -- and obviously texture making is one of them. But while there are a lot of UV map exporters out there, they aren't always ideal for working with, so I decided to cut out the middle man. (Plus, it's always kind of fun to make a program do something it was never intended to do.)
The ReadUVMap script reads an .OBJ file, lets you choose which material groups to create a map of, and can color the different material groups in distinct colors if desired. It draws in either vector or raster mode, as desired.
Instructions are included in the README file in the zip.
There are a few known issues to note. Due to a bug in Paint Shop Pro, there are certain UV maps that wind up with a "smear" effect when read in (as seen here with the V4 3_skin_foot map) and displayed as a vector. This is a PSP bug, and so far I don't see a way to fix it. It only happens with some maps, though. In general, I recommend using vector mode, as it's much faster than raster, and using raster only when the bug pops up.
The script was created for Paint Shop Pro X3 and should work with any higher version, and will probably work with lower versions at least down to X1 and possibly X.
Download the UV Map Reader Script here
Wow this looks neat - wish there was a way to do this in Photoshop Elements!
It's been a while, but I've got a big update -- for the Poser folks, this time! And also for at least some of the DAZ Studio users.
Thanks to the copy of Poser 10 from Karibou's Boutique's "Recycled" mini-contest in the RRRR thread (way back in September!), I now have the ability to create Poser props as well as DS objects. So my Superhero Rings have been updated to include Poser versions, and so have all the positioning script packages for them. (Poser versions of my other props will be coming along soon).
Additionally, I've created new positioning script packages for all the human characters that come with Poser 10, so Alyson, Ryan, James, Ben, etc., are now just as capable of joining the Legion or GLC as Victoria and Genesis.
Plus, I've also created positioning scripts for Hivewire's Dusk, the DAZ Troll, and Creech. Just because.
Main page for the Superhero Rings is here, listing all current rings and positioning scripts.
The World's Fair Hoverboard and the Shatter Vase have been updated with Poser versions. That makes the last of the updates. Now to go on to creating new items and additions.
...or GIMP!
New stuff! I've long noticed that there isn't much out there in the way of iconography for 3D. Sometimes you just want to stick a symbol on something. So I decided to make some. I've got a to-do list of a little over 100 individual icons, but for the first set, here are some shamrocks, since March 17 isn't too far off.
This set contains four different icons -- 3-leaf and 4-leaf clover varieties, and stemmed and stemless varieties. Each has an elevate morph that thickens the icon without distorting the rounded edge the way standard scaling would.
Download here. For both Daz Studio and Poser.
Thank you for the shamrocks. I wasn't familiar with the word "iconography" so I scurried over to Google dictionary. I have increased my knowledge and added assets to my runtime. Again, thank you.
Thank you for the Poser versions :)
AtticAnne and Vilian, you are both welcome. :)
A bit more in the way of fan-art props; these are somewhat older models of mine, but I'd never updated them for either DS or Poser distribution. (They'd just been OBJs for people to load in manually). So here are some Legion of Superheroes props for folks.
The earrings have extend morphs on the hooks to make it a bit easier to make them work with different figures. And the Saturn badge has separate material zones for the planet, the ring, and the filler inside the ring.
Download here
Another trio of Green Lantern rings for folks. Alan Scott, Earth-3 Power Ring, and a ring with the GL symbol enlarged and outside the stone.
Download here
Also: It's been brought to my attention that most people wear their rings past the second knuckle, not past the first... which is where my positioning scripts have been putting them. (So as you can see, I never spent much time observing peoples' ring fingers.) I'll eventually update my positioning packages to include positions further up the finger, but it may be a while, since there are so many of them and there are other things I want to do. Sorry about that.
Thank you very much for sharing your work!