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yeah I tried to promote it back when it was free but got moderated
I only ever promote freebies
that said the free version is still pretty generous in what you get, I never go above 1080p anyway
@WendyLuvsCatz Before I commit to buying Twinmotion, I can't get rid of a nagging feeling that making a game / movie in UE4 will be a better experience, and potentially quicker in the long run once the programming is learn't.
The best tutorials I've found so far are here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqI-7BueefkQwfbOi8ZzMOw
well UE4 is free
and yes if you have the ability especially C++ etc skills or even blindly fudging through Blueprints like me certainly the best option
ha ha - I'm with you on the blindly fudging through method. I used to be a programmer, but never liked C++, Java and all that. Give me Assembler and Basic, or a 4GL and I'm away.
I'm still torn between the two ideas. I don't want to fork out £420 for Twinmotion is what it boils down to, plus even if I go with Twinmotion, you just know that the temptation to import into UE with it's DAZ character integration, better camera movement and sequencing will be too strong a lure.
Still, exciting times eh? We've come a long way since the first poser character, which I remember being given away free on the front cover of a computer mag.
I don't think I would pay for Twinmotion either but then I didn't have to
.
I think play with the free version and get to terms with Unreal Engine, 4.25 works well with the DAZ bridge.
Sensible advice thank you. OK well I have downloaded a load of free stuff. Let's see if I can render the same thing in Unreal and Twinmotion. I believe I have to export as obj.
I'll post when done.
Quick Carrara Octane render
yes spent a few hours renaming every shader so it saves
Twinmotion import Hints,
DAZ stuff group, rotate 180 x axis export as obj from DAZ studio upsidedown import Y axis
from Unreal you just have to rotate it all in Twinmotion on X axis 180, no easy solution there and chose the export maps option then move them all to the root folder
translucent materials won't export you will need to chase up the textures in Unreal and export them, add the export as png plugin
Great help, thanks. Going to try this today if real life will leave me alone for a bit.
Ok day 1 - first object that I successfully added to both Twinmotion and Unreal (that didn't crash unreal).
With Twinmotion it was a breeze, with unreal it took most of the day, and looks worse due to my noobishness. Jury is still out then:- Twinmotion very easy, unreal be prepared for a long slog, but should be able to handle all characters in the scene.
Plus unreal 5 is coming, then again Twinmotion is getting regular updates as well.
Twinmotion - Powerage's Red Light district - with the guts ripped out and some vegitation put in place.
All I did was import an FBX (3ds preset, but scaled up 10x) from DAZ 3D and then select the materials to a combination of the texures with the export and Twinmotions built in textures. Very easy. Need to practice camera motions.
Very exicting to create a 10 sec "movie" in just 2 minutes elapsed, complete with wind and rain.
I'm wondering if Twinmotion used as an interface to Unreal Engine *for props only*, adding the DAZ animated characters (within unreal) is the way to go. I'll experiment with a stonemason set next, that will be higher density of polygons and texture files - might sort my old machine out. It becomes clear that money has to be spent if you are going to prepare for Unreal Engine 5 anyway.
Upshot is DAZ scenes export like a dream via fbx it would seem. Good news.
DownTown Video
FBX if it works works perfectly
but
a lot of sets will explode due to the way they are set up, this is especially true of newer content in duf format.
I have posted threads on the issue as it does it in other software too.
that is why I use an upsidedown obj with original map paths.
as for Unreal crashing, that is hard to say as could be a number of reasons.
I usually have scaleability set to medium for my lighting etc as my system cannot handle high or Epic
so maybe the first thing to consider
also much DAZ stuff even if one piece in D|S imports in bits like it does to iClone 3DXchange except there it needs subpropping to actually be in bits, Unreal it's all sub props by default.
Yes - I've had trouble with FBX in the past. The Red Light District model I used is a simpler low poly model. I will work up to larger sets and keep posting. Let's see what break's FBX. Better to learn now rather than be dependant on it and get a nasty shock when the clock is running.
Thanks for the tips Wendy - I'll report back.
p.s. UE4 wants FBX 2016 - Daz only offers up to 2014, so maybe when they catch up in a future release it might be more reliable.
In case link above doesn't work please CLICK HERE
SECOND EXPERIMENT - Take a more substantial set (Stonemason's The Streets of Steampunk), and import via FBX. Also add water and render for longer.
Import - great, very quick and no problems. Note that all the textures are flat as I've not spent time using internal materials.
Scene responsiveness - Great, even on my ageing 8GB, GTX 780 Ti machine.
Render time - awesome! Just 6 mins 20 secs for 40 seconds of footage, so an average of approx 1.5 minutes for 10 seconds. In other words 240 frames for the time Octane would take to do 1 (maybe 2).
QUESTION -I couldn't find how to lower the bitrate of Twinmotions video output - it's too heavy for internet streaming, so sorry for the wait if you decide to click play.
is there a link?
if the render is the anchor it doesn't work on Safari (iPad)
(sorry won't be on my computer as have doctor appointments today)
Hi Wendy. The picture with the play icon acts as a link. It works in FIREFOX, CHROME seems to have a problem. If you can tell me how to link to a video a better way I'll be glad to improve over what I have here. Good luck with the Doctor.
NEXT RENDER
The Streets of SteamPunk NIGHT. With added IES lights, and a couple of material changes.
Now, adding the lights in Carrara with the Octane plug in is a dream, just change all lamplight shaders to one shader and make that an emitter an you are done in about 60 seconds. Here due to an import issue the widget for each object is set to 0,0,0 - so no where near your light. Change the material to an emitter and it will shine at 0,0,0. Useless. So you have to insert a primitive (I suggest a sphere), move it to the location and replace it with a spotlight or whatever kind of light you want. Once one is set up it can be copied (instanced) and moved to other locations. A one minute job is changed into a hour or mores work. A huge shame unless someone has a better solution?
Sorry for the large bitrate, my sony vegas crashes at the moment, so can't reduce it. I'm working on it. Enjoy.
In case link above doesn't work Click here
TWINMOTION MATERIALS and ROTATING FAN TEST.
Using Stonemasons THE PRIVATE LIBRARY I exported via FBX to Twinmotion and set about replacing as many materials as I could easily do so, which was about 90% of them.
I took out the original vegitation and replaced with Twinmotions animatable vegitation.
To my suprise I could take the imported fan model and apply a rotator to it - and it worked. I'm now hungry for any more built-in animatons that Twinmotion can supply, which work against imported models - it's a great easy way of animating.
I didn't apply any lighting and to me, even with the built-in materials, the whole thing is a bit flat - although it looks better when the video is running. My best Twinmotion lighting effort being the Steampunk night scene so far then.
If picture above does not take you to the video - please CLICK HERE
re: Camera motions. Everytime I think I've got it I get a nasty suprise. So it liked to wobble the camera on each direction change this time, it looks smooth in the preview. Strange. Anyone?
Twinmotion Render. Medieval Fantasy Village with Rotator making the boats float on the moving water.
NOTE. There is an issue with this scene which you might have noticed, that is the boats are not entirely sitting on the water. If I make the nearest one sit on the water then as there is no collision detection in Twinmotion (at the time of making the video), the water would "leak" into the boats. That would look more silly than a boat which only on closer inspection isn't sitting on the water. At least that's the decision I made.
I'm testing features here, so I'm pleased with the result. The other thing which is not that noticeable but is created - is that is a watery sandy bed underneath the moving water. A bit of realism there for you all. :)
If the picture does not take you to the video please CLICK HERE
thanks for the links as clicking the pictures indeed doesn't work on my PC on Chrome either
it is rather laggy for me though, I thought nevermind will replay it but it goes to the next video
annoying thing is Twinmotion needs png with alpha for opacity, and DAZ stuff all separate maps but funny enough the Streets of Steampunk HAS png with alpha!
I spend a lot of time in Gimp otherwise opening diffuse and Opacity maps as layers, selecting by colour the black bits, dragging that layer to the bottom and merging adding an alpha channel to the layer then cutting the selection and exporting as file type png
Yes, sorry about the lag. Do you know a way of making Twinmotion output at a lower bitrate? That's what is causing the problem. On the plus side you can just start the video and pause it and it will download in the background, then play for a top quality picture. I'll get around to fixing my Sony Vegas or installing some conversion software if it can't be fixed within Twinmotion.
re: alpha, and indeed bump maps, normals and all the other possible layers - they are all lost from what I can see. So the end result (without work in Twinmotion) is a very old "gamey" look, esp if you get up close. From afar no one notices. I see tutorials on youtube to put the work in, or you can substitue as many materials for the in-built ones.
For the next year I probably don't care as the empahsis for me is just show the set. Also that allows more time for Twinmotion to develop, plus the bridge to UE4 (UE5 is coming).
Finally, today I'm working on the best way of getting a single character object out into Twinmotion. I may even go with your flats idea (just an image), but would prefer a rounded 3d object. Is there a way to merge all texture files into one on export, i.e. a single UV map? I think probaly not and it's a naive question - but just in case that would simplify things.
Cheers.
I have imported many posed DAZ figures as obj props myself
hiding bits unseen in studio helps reduce them a lot.
BTW obj export also untick the paths in quotations option to get the textures
you can manually add bump, normal maps etc, I add glow maps a lot as it has emissive surfaces
Hitfilm Express now loads the mp4 exports
(I think since I killed Win10 video editor in Powershell since it stopped working)
before that the codec wasn't recognised
Ok thanks Wendy - I shall experiment with adding bumps and normal maps in due course. I've just hit the opacity problem you mentioned with eyebrows on an M3 character. I'll see if I can export with PNG or fudge it in an external program.
I'm still fighting with Windows 10 to get control of my machine properly, I have a new machine on order. Still very positive about using Twinmotion for production, semi-production.
My current idea is to use Twinmotion with imported DAZ scenes (Carrara OBJ export to DAZ if I need to edit / kitbash first), Carrara to export individual characters as OBJ files (although FBX export works just as well even if it is limted to version 7 - ha ha), and then just place static figures in the moving Twinmotion scene, replacing the character with a freshly posed object if they talk or require a more dramatic pose change.
I don't know if this show made it to Australia for your childhood as well but the original PADDINGTON BEAR used this approach (albeit with drawings) to knock out episodes quickly. Once the viewer is acustomed to seeing the presentation in this format it works well. They also used this format for the BLADERUNNER 2049 preview animation. It was fine.
I used phases to animate between 3 objs
not a good example just the easiest to search for given the title
composition with a shadowcatch Carrara render
Great - thanks - I will google those things to investigate. Just looked at an FBX file in a text editor, no chance of changing the eyebrows to a PNG and leaving the rest to JPG (to save on space). So will look to fix in Carrara. I see facemaps have eyebrows baked in anyway, so will look to change eyebrows and lashes to point to that texture file.
Here is an M3 Peasant with eyebrows / lashes removed, no bumps, normals etc. It can also be polygon reduced via a 3rd party program I use called Atangeo Balancer.
The point is - if you don't get too close then the character looks fine, plus all the built-in materials of Twinmotion distract the eye. Especially if you include some movement (vegitation, rotating fans, cars, airplanes etc).
Ok so I will test phases next - I know it's possible because you've done it already.
Full size image in the attachment below.
Twinmotion. DAZ M3 Peasant Phasing TEST. Note the poke-through.
EXPLANATION: When using phasing in Twinmotion 2020.2 you hide one version of the figure and show another. In this way you get a rough and ready animation between 2 keyframes. It's a horrible use of resources but at this time the only option to animate your own models in Twinmotion is to export the whole scene to Unreal Engine 4, then reapply the characters in UE4 and animate from scratch. That's not what we signed up for when we got Twinmotion - we want ease of use and rapid development. So using multiple phases in the Video creator gets us a poor mans animation.
Now to why the poke through starts happening. Twinmotion forgets the hide / unhide settings per phase WITHIN each model. So hiding the torso here which was exported with a little poke-through means it'll show up from phase 3 (it will remember the first state of each object).
The answer therefore is to edit the model correctly before you export it as an FBX or OBJ, as currently you can't fix it in the mix so to speak.
If Video won't play please CLICK HERE
French Quarter
I saw this video yesterday. It's a pretty good New Orleans set right? Thanks for the tour.
I've had to stop for a while as my old machine just refuses to run Win 10 reliably. I have a new machine on order. When it arrives I'll contribute to this thread again.