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OK, thanks. I may be confusing this with a different dial making thing. I'm being a little cautious regarding some of the warning labels.
I Came across my first "You made a mistake" message while testing Icon sizes, lol. The image must at least be in "My content" or "My daz3d content" folders, lol.
I don't think that Icon is 91x91 pixels, lol. Looks more like 16x24 or 16x16 Possibly, with a 39x39 outer transparent zone?
You could also try switching the deformer to weight-mapped mode. It requires a few more clicks to set up initially, but sometimes it's easier to paint an influence map than to position a sphere. The switch is done in the parameter tab ("Influence"), then you need switch to "Node weight brush" and locate the "Tool settings" tab (in the "Window - Panes (tabs)", if you don't have it onscreen); in the tool settings, add the map and then paint it. The more you paint at one place, the redder the zone becomes. Red is the most affected by the deformation.
Saving to read later.
Greetings Ice Dragon Art. Yea, this is my small collection of bread crumbs thread.
Mustakettu85, I did fuss with that 'Brush' a few times in the past, and while it is easy to start using, it lacks in some ways of 'precision' and 'result control. So in all, it's a tool to use for a 'Dirty fix', however when precision amounts and placement is needed it gets rather difficult to use.
Hexagon vs UV maps?
I needed to add some polys to my latest experiment (a bent column of cubes), to keep smoothing in check. Simple trick of adding "Slices" near the corners of a cube (for example), or at least that's the concept.
I Made the slices, sent it to studio, and it looked good at first so I saved an OBJ. Then I went to look at how smoothing was messing with the corners, and I discovered a problem with the UV mapping. And it looked familiar, the entire thing mapped to a single pixel of a map. So I backed up a few steps and did it all from scratch (Make a 1cm cube in Studio, send it to hex, add the slices, then send it back to studio.). And when I looked at what Studio got from Hex, it was even worse. There is some "def_surf_mat" that did nothing, and the original "Default" surface all mapped to a single pixel.
Now, Hex dose have a UV mapping section (That I know almost nothing about.), and from the looks of it, it's cube UV mapping is completely different from the original Studio Primitive (None of my maps I already made will work on it).
I spent most of the day figuring out how to add the slices in hexagon, my brain already hurts, and now this, lol.
Well, backtracking a tad more, it looks like messing with the polygons messes up the UV mapping, lol.
I load up a new Primitive cube in studio, and place my map on it. Then I send that to Hex. All good so far.
Then I go to 'Slice' in another line near the edge, and all hell breaks lose, lol.
I guess it is time to try this another way entirely. The question is how?
For more control, you could combine the brush with geometry selection tool, to restrict the brush influence to certain polys only. Yup it's all kinda awkward, but sometimes very useful.
As for UV mapping, most modeling operations that change the number of vertices in Hex (and some other modeling apps) will ruin the UVs unfortunately. Blender can do some slicing that retains UVs, I think. You'll need to ask someone else for a Blender how-to, though.
Yea, I was having the half thought about blender as well. Thing is, I do not have a working 'Scroll wheel' in the house (They have all broken over the years), and the interface looks nothing like what is in all the tutorials out there (So I haven't a clue what to click to make anything happen).
One of these is not like the other, lol.
Some are uneasy with the complexity of Blender, I'm just completely lost.
And as such, Blender has mostly been unused for over five years (or more, I don't remember when I first installed the thing on windows XP three computers back). So in any case, I've started counting pixels for making something different that should be fine without mesh smoothing, lol.
(EDIT) I also did a little digging and found out what UV mapping Hexagon was putting on the cube.
I'm not sure why it's mapping the front of the cube like a top of a cylinder, tho it may be that line down the center.
Well, this is worse without that line, it didn't even get it all on the map, lol. I guess all our tools have gotten so advanced in the drive for complex shapes like cities and people, it has become incapable of UV mapping a simple cube, lol. It's late, I'll look at this again tomorrow, and I am ending on some good news (in the next post).
Well, It's a shame the UV thing went the way it did. However it was not all bad. And that little side project came out well so far, and I didn't need to turn smoothing off in the surface tab.
Now I think there are a few other styles floating around for me to make, tho for now this is my favorite. I think I've seen them around the Goa'uld, Jaffa, Lucian Alliance and a few other places, they must be rather popular lights (Brazier). Well, now it's around here as well, lol.
It looks like the second Brazier is making it along very nicely.
Oh, and yes, the highlighted surfaces can be made invisible, to make it more like the stage prop as well. I just felt like this one needed a tad more to round it out. In fact, all the zones make it incredibly versatile.
I think that almost looks like a Goa'uld equivalent of a Quantum Computer of sorts without the fire bowl on the top, lol.
Well, in closing for some rest. I think this is starting to look like a Brazier Party, lol.
I want to make a few more pieces before packing this up, so it is not ready just yet. That will be after some shut eye.
This is awesome, I too thought of a computer =)
BTW I found this little step-by-step for UV mapping a cube in Hex (that's indeed not that simple). The images are sadly gone, but the text looks descriptive enough:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/tutorials/hexagon/hexagon-misc15
Thanks Kettu. I managed to get Hex to not mess up a cube, tho I'm not sure how, lol. I'll read that as I have some coffee and let a test render go (geometry test with the new cube).
So, I managed to cut out the bottom of the new 'Lego', and then make another with no top and bottom (I need to make screen-caps of them).
Then I stacked them up for a bit of 2ft x 8ft Ship paneling (Ha'tak I think). The test render is running now. Each panel has 369 cubes in it, and it is still a bit of a strain on my View-field OpenGL interface, lol.
I'll see if I can do some of that with Bump, or opacity maps, as it is very extreme on the Surface count.
I'll just leave these here...
That is beautiful Fisty. I was just still waking up when the test render finished. I have a few ideas to make that better for actual use (using texture maps instead), as not all areas of a set (like the ceiling) need to be done with actual geometry.
And by the way, I had made that Brazier with a messed up Cube from earlier, and Fisty really cleaned up the mess allot. The one on the left in my render is the original, and Fisty's on the right. Not textured at all, just color selections thus far.
Absolutely incredible Fisty.
This is what I was looking at, using Bump and Displacement to cut back on the amount of geometry if that panel thing.
Looks like for some things it will not be that bad, however other stuff will need considerable work to look good at all. Long day, time for some rest.
Did some testing.. 192 polys in this model, you don't need to use the extra edge loops if you're not going to be using sub-d on the object, I told you to use it for the chair so sub-d could get rid of the stair-step effect and keep the overall polycount down. Likewise the braziers with round bowls are nice to have that option so you can smooth out the bowl with sub-d, for this room you don't need it.
I only modeled in the cubes on the side and textured the rest. Looks good in 3Delight with displacement, not quite so good in Iray with normal mapping.. I tried rendering it in Iray with displacement but surface sub-d level 10 gave my computer a heart attack, would have to increase the base model's polycount quite a bit to use displacement in Iray and then it would be better to just model all the details.
B.C. (Before coffee). Yea, I was afraid of that, and I also tried a similar map, with the same marginal results. Those maps look really good by the way. (EDIT. Also I do not have actual measurements for the panels, so your guess is as good as mine. I think there about 12in x 5.75in for the one you tested, with a small gap between each. I think the other is 24in by 6in, possibly. lol.).
Oh, and that chair. Yea, I was attempting to make a "Ship anchor Chair", and ran on to what Fisty mentioned. Because my skills are not all that good in Hexagon, I find it much easier to take cubes (Legos of a sort) and stack them in studio using the scene tab and the 'transit' and 'scale' controls in studio. Exporting the final stack as an OBJ to merge them all together into a single item.
I'm kind of embarrassed by this Pathetic attempt, as some of the dimensions are way off, and I need to re-make some of the parts. I still think it look's good.
I just figured out why Hex was so happy to UV map this cube in a usable way.
The corner treatment never took. Problem fixed, I hope.
Got to hit that little "Validate" button, lol. Let's try that Brazier again, lol.
Now this is starting to look like progress, Tho I think my idea of zones may be a tad 'ambitious' for a beginner.
Thing is, I can see so many different styles in this one Brazier just by making different parts invisible.
Alright, this is where I'm at, and a tad stumped. I'm trying to select "CoreInlay0" and "CoreInlay1", so that I can somehow combine them into a single zone. Something I don't even know how to do in Studio either (Combining zones), lol.
In hexagon, I have tried to just select 'Faces', and I just can't get inside the thing to select all the faces of each cube. In that "Shading Domains" tab, I have tried holding the Shift and/or Ctrl key while clicking, and I just can not get the thing to select more then one 'Shading Domain' at a time. Time to watch that vid again, and see if there is anything about combining surface zones.
Select the polys on the outside that are in the way and hide them, button right under where it says DG Mode, open bowl without the blue sphere in it, bowl icon will show up in scene tab next to your object, click that to make stuff visible again. (Occationally it will make everything visible anyway when you do something else, fun Hex bugs)
Well, Happy thanksgiving y'all. I'm still plugging away at the Brazier festival, and brainstorming with Fisty regarding the wall parts. As Fisty pointed out, I'm finding the interface of Hexagon to be rather flaky on some of the menus and stuff. I've got some of the zones merged together in Brazier 2 and 3 to make them a tad more manageable for customizing the things. And I've started to dress them up a tad as shown in this render.
I have discovered an oddity, that I'm trying to figure out how to track down with these Braziers. They appear to be working perfectly fine in studio, however Hexagon has something somewhere that indicating that something is amiss somewhere.
It's that "Unassigned Faces" in the left tab at the bottom. It will not let me click the Egg-thing to make it visible, and it will not let me select that "domain" in that tab. And as such, I have no idea where that thing is in the Brazier.
So, in any case. Thank you very much Fisty, and Happy thanksgiving y'all. I'm going to play a tad longer with these things.
I think I answered in my half asleep state last night, can't really remember, Unassigned Faces is always there, it's a catch all, if it doesn't have a blue egg you did it right.
Something else I do remember from last night.. thought of it right as I turned off my computer and my phone wasn't charged to email you again that way, another fun Hexagon bug but one that's easy to overcome and doesn't lose you hours of work... assuming you know the trick, which I didn't until only about a year ago, someone mentioned it on the forums here but I can't remember who (thank you anyway person I can't remember.)
95% of the time when you export an obj from Hex it will add a "default surface" material zone, about 1/2 the time it's empty so you can just delete that matzone in DS and go about your merrry way, the other half of the time it will randomly pick polys from other material zones and stick them into "default surface", and you can select polys and assign them to matzones in DS as well but when you have 10-20 matzones and lots of overlapping areas that it randomly stole polys from that's next to impossible. For years I fixed it with UV Mapper Classic, but again for you it would be impossible with how these are UV mapped with everything stacked. The way to get around it is to export your final obj, delete it from your scene in Hex, then import your obj and export it again. For some reason that double export fixes that particular matzone bug.
need more coffee...
Yes, need much more coffee. I just noticed a small mistake, that should have been easy to fix, and Hex is being extrordinarly dificult. I can not delet them and just "Fill gaps". Hex will not let me select a 'loop' of dots, just lines. And every time I think I'm getting somewhere, the UV mapping gets tossed out the window. This should be a "Stupid simple fix", why is it being so difficult, lol.
As a last ditch effort, I tried that duble Export thing, and it apeard to work, however every single way I tried to send it to Studio, the triangles come back.
Disregard emails.. I found n-gons on my original remodel.. fixing now.
Oh no...invasion of the n-gons! (sounds like a 50's B sci0fi movie....).
This latest round of experiments it looking pretty good.
I figured out what I did wrong.. that's what happens when you press backspace to delete a row of lines and choose None when you should choose All, it deletes the lines but leaves the points giving you a whole row of 6 sided polys.
Fixed it up, UV mapping didn't change, I'll email you the obj.
Sorry for the trouble.
Sorry, passed out at the keyboard (jet-lag), you need not apologies for that. I got the triangles to go away, unfortunately it made a whole I could not fox no mater what I tried. And it would not let me select some things. I couldn't even make a 'slice' across all the 'points', as the slice thing when dead when hovering over a point.
You need not cry. Threw that mistake (an honest mistake), I discovered a mountain of things that Hexagon, Will Not, let you do, no mater how you try to do them, lol. Screen-caps from the old OBJ, as it is an incredibly good example of how many ways you can not make a line between a pre-existing loop of dots.
It should have been a simple fix, to draw a line from this dot, to that one, and on around the loop. And Hex will not let you do it.
mjc1016, yes, "Attack of the killer to-mah-"(never mind), lol. Yes, the Braziers are progressing very nicely, and I do hope to share them when there done. And that will be, when they are done properly, and not before then. I have already decided the Ha'tak construction parts will not be included, as that is another can of worms, that needs much more work to be 'light enough' for studio on lesser computers. I have 4 braziers, I just need to dress them up, and work on the bowls for two of them. Considerable credit goes to Fisty for over half of this so far, thanks.
If the geometry isn't totally borked you should be able to select those two points and then click the connect function, it's in the vertex modeling tab in the center area. In this case I just removed the extra points because the model didn't need a line there and I had removed the line (but badly). To remove points like that you just select them all, hit backspace, and chose "All".
Back-space, not the 'Del' key, that may have been one of the mistakes I did. I didn't try the 'Backspace' on the dots. When I select two dots, and click 'Connect', it dose nothing and de-selects the dots. "Weld" has a more dramatic result, tho it at least looks like it tried to connect the dots, lol.
Oh, and both operations throws the UV mapping out the window, lol.
I'm not sure this is good, lol. I selected all the dots (holding the shift key and clicking them *1),
Then I hit the "Del" key.
Now I have to make lines the other way, lol. At least the UV mapping is still there.
*1, WARNING, you must periodically release the 'Shift' key, or windows will disable the key for that "Sticky Key" feature, making it impossible to do any thing else.