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I have discovered another 'Why bother' nuance with Hexagon. It is said it is a good idea to name your surface zones, lol.
So I do as much. When I use the bridge to send it to Studio, the names go back to that 'material' number stuff. If I export an OBJ from Hexagon, the names revert back to that 'material' number stuff, lol. Oddly, if I name the zones in Studio and export an OBJ from Studio, the names stick and do not revert back to that 'material' number stuff, unless the other program wipes out the zones for whatever reason.
Headus is also not entirely glitch free. I did not set those zones to black in the above screen-cap, Headus did that one on it's own. It doesn't always do that, just sometimes at random, lol.
There was another one-off occurrence with the former mesh-density test cylinders, tho I don't have any screen-caps of it. There was a single point (not line, a point) that refused to slice open to get the UV to flatten out. I ended up slicing out one of the two quads that were joined at a single point, and that quad I sliced out separated from the other on it's own. then I was able to weld that single quad back onto the mesh and flatten the UV map. Why it was joined at that single point, I have no clue, and it has not happened before or since. I even went back to the OBJ in question to slice it again, and it did not happen on the second attempt (shrugs shoulders).
The single point sticking thing.. I'v run into a couple times.. undropping (shift d) then redropping (d) the island usually fixes it.
As for matzones.. as far as I can tell Shading Domain names are internal to Hex, Material names are what shows in DS, I rename both to what I want them called so they match. I've never had UVLayout strip or otherwise mess with my matzones.
And oddly, when I set up the zone names in Studio (export obj and bring it back into studio to check it), when I send that to Hex (using the bridge) the names stick. I don't remember about exporting that object from Hex after, yet if I send it back to studio using the bridge the names stick from what I remember.
I think the past few days, I've really given Headus a lot of mileage (it's not the age, it's the mileage) . Almost every other adjustment I make to the line placements on that bracelet ends up with me splicing it up again in Headus to make the UV map that Hex eradicated. One of the times I was doing that, Headus had given me an OBJ with no zones (and I had to go back into Hex to set them back up. So far that zone forgetfulness of Headus has only happened once, and I may have pressed the wrong key somewhere (I don't know) and done that, lol.
Ugh! The half-n-half is out. Emergency run for coffee additive, BRB.
I ran out of coffee completely.. had to dig through the Earl Grey stash for caffeine today.
Hex has always been rather fickle on naming materials. Basically when I was working in it, I'd either wait until I was done with the item THEN in something else (UV Mapper, usually) name them there or just not worry about it and leave whatever names it concocted (I've seen highend models from Turbosquid that have worse naming than Hex makes up, and no, I'm not talking about ones that were translated into German from the original Chinese by way of Welsh).
And yes, if you had pre-existing, locked in, stay the same in everything else, Hex usually leaves them alone...but don't have a stray vertex that isn't in any of the named materials...or it will name it and probably screw up everything else, too.
I don't think I can send a can of coffee via Radiogram, lol. I got back from my travels, and I figured I'd look at some of the geometry counts of stuff I really like to use. I thought my geometry count was on the edge of to much for a Bracelet...
Well, the first Item I clicked on gave me a tad bit of shell shock. One hundred and five thousand...
("UT 2004 Max Video Options" comment echoes back).
And for some other stuff. LD Keshi Armlet, 23,626 vertices. EJ Elven Fantasy Arm Band (each) 23,301 vertices. And something I had mistaken as part of the "As You Wish" bundle, Dark Eve Bangle, 1,984 vertices. Well, looking at that, 4,320 vertices is on the light weight side of things, lol.
I think I'm just going to add the minimal number of lines to keep the zones from wandering, and stop worrying about being over a thousand vertices on this stuff.
Yep, details add up really quick.
I'll say. OK, ZdgEgypt Bracelet 1, Final Draft v02004.
I'm off to dice this up in Headus now, and check for geometry stray errors from Hex. Stone inlay zones on the band nailed down, Total damages, 5,040 vertices.
Ha ha! Success! I got it to do that stuck point again for a screen-cap. lol.
I was fiddling in Hexagon trying to make a diamond shaped 'key slot' in an axle, and ended up with a few bad things. I bigger geometric puzzle is what to do with the Chevron shaped quad after turning the other triangles into quads on the end of the cylinder.
Well, I'm sure that is not a good thing to have there. And then I was curious what would Studio do with that illegal shaped quad (It didn't crash to my surprise, lol). Headus on the other hand let me get close enough to see exactly why this should not be done with quads ever.
And then it happened as I was flattening out the experimental axle, a stuck point.
So there you go, a stuck point in Headus.
Oh, how to fix such Chevron Quads, make it go away, lol. BTW, I'm sure that chevron shaped quad has nothing to do with stuck points in Headus, as that bracelet has none and it also got a stuck pixel once.
Well, I'm not completely happy with the gold reflection, however the stone insets are working out very nicely.
Also, being an inset into the bracelet, it should also work in Iray with a normal or bump map. I still need to work on the maps some more, tho I'm happy it's showing signs of being OK.
Yea, and each time I move a line, and have Headus 'flatten' out the maps, Headus moves the parts around the map. The old Displacement map I made becomes useless and I need to make it again for the new layout. It's gotten into a rut of paying multiple times for the same piece of real estate, lol.
I've discovered, that some surfaces (chrome, mirror, etc), just render faster in the daz default rather then in Omni or AoA. If I wasn't still fussing with the geometry and didn't care about test renders taking more the fifteen minutes to run to completion, I'd give Omni or AoA a shot. By the way, it's not the lack of blur I'm not happy with, it's the distortion of the reflected image (environment) across the surface. Its bunched up one area and stretched out elsewhere.
The inset stone is just a simple diffuse mask to blot out any UV wandering edges. A displacement map (made in win-98se Ms Paint), with the stone bump in the bump channel. I've yet to combine the bump and displacement into a single map. Now if that was not complex enough, each section of inset stone is a different size in that map, so I can't just copy and paste the stones around, and a simple tiled shader is out the window. Ugh.
I have been leisurely rounding out some of the edges of the inset stones to be a tad more consistent with the original style used back then.
Photo for referance only.
Progress, to an extent.
I'm still not sure about the colored glass inlay on the Djed. Amarna and Piramesse glass work.
Small amounts of blur will do more antialiasing than anything else. If the distortions I notice are the same that you do, these look to be normal-dependent, as if the smoothed normal isn't used but just the polygon normal. UberSurface could be an improvement there, too.
Good point, especially with that 'Trace normals' option if needed.
Here it is side to side with the geometry. This one is the SubD (right ones in the other renders), tho it was also happening with the non-SubD one as well (left ones in the other renders). That last test render I did with the four of them, I had fussed with the angle thing to see if it would help (not much). Angle smoothed out the inside of the bracelet where there was no edge protection vortices, tho it did nothing for the bunching up of the reflection on the outside of the bracelet.
(EDIT 31Jan2016) It's "Trace Displacements", not "Trace Normals", oops. Sorry.
More of a rut day. I've been trying to get the energy to do something productive, rather then watch geology vids and lectures, lol. It's one of those, lack the will to drudge threw more waiting on test renders kind of thing. I feel like I've been throwing hours and days of work at that thing, and making little if any progress, lol. Perhaps after some coffee, I may get some ambition to do more on the bracelet. I know what I need to do, it's just a matter of just getting it done.
In separate news, It looks like there is a bit of a possible showdown in the Store today. Bouncy (21508) vs Bunny (23980), hmmm. Well, there was that more expanded chart that I did not publish, and I don't have much at all before the 23,000s that actually work on G3F (with the exception of two PA's. No Don't ask, I'm not saying.). So given that chart, I'm not having a lot of confidence with the new bunny suit. However it is after that 23,000s flood of broken stuff, so there is a possibility, a chance, that maybe it will work without needing hundreds of D-Formers put on the thing. So I'll do the impulsive click on the Buy-now button and find out.
For those that are morbidly curious, this is how well the Bouncy thing (21508) didn't fare so well with the first few Pro bundles... It dose sit rather close in a few spots, and I have a suspicion that it may have been made before a change to something in G3F that essentially broke it. There is a lot of common trouble spots across all the G3F figures and outfits. Groin, Hip bone ridge, and the sides and underside of the breasts. I really am hoping that the post 23,000 stuff is a tad better, and it is safe to start looking at Pro bundles again.
And yes, there is a little bit of a distraction around, a new Elf. EJ Estela. (like Scrat) Oh, elf! (runs to distraction). Admittedly I was the same way when Yulia came around. TBC...
So Bunny Girl dose look more promising at first glance in the view field.
Some things give hints by small specs of poke threw in the view field that turn into gaping holes in render. I'm not seeing any of that in the view field. I am also not seeing any hints of vanishing body parts either. I am seeing a few gaps in some spots on the edges, tho that may be bad projection-shape-things in the figures and not the outfit. So choosing your poses and camera angles carefully is still a must for Generation 7.
The back also looks good. I've seen some outfits that for some odd reason go a few inches into the figure on the lower area of the buttocks. Bunny Girl dose not appear to do that at all, in fact it even passes the hold the dial at zero test. The outfit also is low enough on the back to escape the occasional shoulder blade poke threw spots. So the outfit looks good, so I guess it's time to hit the render button and walk away while the computer dose it's thing.
Ahhh, what have we here. I was racing daz as I was rapidly clicking the outfit parts, and some figures ended up not having all the stuff on them. I was going threw and putting the missing parts on each figure, and noticed two things. Silver Sophia from the Bethany 7 Pro bundle has some poke threw on the underside of the breasts (That may be another Broken projection-shape-things in the figure. More then certain of to be honest.).
And the Outfit loads with No smoothing. From the looks of it, it dose not need it for most figures, However you may need to resort to applying it yourself for a few figures, if the included adjustments are not adequate for your needs. ("Adjust Fit" at 14.0 appears to be good for Silver Sophia from the Bethany 7 Pro bundle). Rrrrrr, tho not all of it.
This is where I call it a Broken projection-shape-things in the figure (WTH daz), and move on. No body else is bad in this location (except V7-Pro Adaline from DIM, and I know Daz completely and utterly Busticated that one). Going to click the render button and sip some coffee and try to calm down.
Yep, looks good. Even that spot on Sophia isn't visible from this angle. And I did not apply smoothing to any of these, there just loaded onto the figures with no adjustments (except for Sophia, "Adjust Fit" at 14.0).
Ha-choowy!
(shakes off water, and curls up into a sad ball as the acorn floats away)
What to do with Elf ears, I don't know.
So the Ireland Hair has some cool color options. Tho I would not say it is 'Elf friendly' for what I had in mind on FWSA Yulia. There is a single dial to move the hair back on just one side. And the shape from the looks of it is only for human ears. So really nice for many different renders, just not what I was trying to do, lol. FYI, that excessive bulge on the back of Yulia's head, is from that behind the ear dial, a mistake I think.
I was just about to say the stockings for that Bunny outfit are really nice as well, and then as I was applying the 3delighrt mats, I got an error. Hmmm. Now I'm guessing the preset was saved from another object-thing that was not included with the outfit. Most of the time, it is an error you can ignore for shaders, I don't know yet if it is as benign for material presets.
Yea, looks like a benign error, I think? (EDIT, It is Iray only settings in both preset folders for the Bunny outfit) It is rather black to begin with, and dose not appear to be 'adversely effected by that Missing DSF file Error. That Orianna hair is a possibility for Elfs, tho that tiny wisp close to and in front of the ear may be a potential 'difficulty' for some ears. Lots of really cool color options (is there an expansion pack for this? goes to look), and it dose look quite good on EJ Estela.
Also, Lyoness has a few really nice figures I also picked up today in that impulse purchase, along with Smile Delight (yet to install). There was also two other figure Pose sets I got, tho, after looking at the poses above, I have some doubts. The hip pelvis legs area in the pose set I already had is in such an extreme angle/bend, that the skirts turned into pretzels. I've been trying to keep the over all pose and move things back to unfold the skirts, and I just have not gotten it quite there yet. The Yulia Outfit is OK, it just doesn't quite look real. The other not so conforming skirt styles (bell, or cone) just bunch up into a ball almost.
Yilia and Geneva Hair. I'm very impressed. Honestly, I ditched the pose preset, and started from scratch.
Expressions. What I find useful, vases what is out there.
I have found in the past that some Expression packs use the words "Mix the expressions", when in fact it is more like 'Combining' them. I often associate the word "Mix" to imply that the individual components can be adjusted in strength or level. On/Off DUF presets do not exactly have the ability to 'adjusted' the strength of them without a dial for that expression, and thus I find it to be on the edge of exaggerating facts to say they can be 'Mixed' rather then "combined". I have quite a few 'Expression' sets for G3F, however as you can see in the following screen-cap, only two useful ones for me. I don't even know where all the other ones are, and it is of no use for me to even look for them (There is no dials for them, it's a waste of my time). Some figures also come with a few expression dials, and that is always a very nice bonus I think.
Another thing that makes it a tad 'fun' to set up expressions, is that what you see in the view field, is not always what will be in a render. That is the same 'Expression' from the former spot render, and I see some subtle differences (even tho I swapped the direction of the eyes), lol.
So, I'm going to install that Smile Delight expression set and see what happens. Besides, I think Yulia is asking for a Scrunchie for her pony tail, lol.
Wow. The dials can go into the negative without fussing with settings, They look incredible on figures, etc.
It's racial prejudice rampant among those humans, y'know. There are so very very few elf-friendly hair models out there. =(
What I usually do is try disabling the auto generated elf morphs in the hair (with the hair selected, in the parameters tab enable 'show hidden' and do a search for 'elf' or 'elven' or whatever your ear morph is called, and dial it back down to 0). Sometimes it works well, sometimes not so much. Sometimes deformers work well, sometimes not so much...
Blender always works...
Can get too damn tedious with multi-layered styles. Same as LAMH/Garibaldi - always the best choice, but actually brushing strands around ears isn't exactly an inspiring process =(
Yes, but with transmapped hair, at least you only need to do it once for each set of ears per hair. And you can do a couple of short cuts if you use proportional editing. I've been playing with hair in Blender a fair amount lately and proportional editing gets you a 'rough' morph quickly and there's a lot less actual scupting to do.
Yulia's ears are really close to her head, makes styles which usually work fine for other elven type ears not work with her.
I've noticed a few thing as I was dozing off at the keyboard. It appears that there are a few things that have 3delight folders for presets, with presets in that folder. However they just load the Iray presets rather then some 3delight shader ones. One is a hair clip on a hair style, the other is that Bunny outfit. It wouldn’t be so bad, except sometimes that Iray shader just completely falls on it's face in 3delight, and takes hours to render (and I don't know why or what the trigger is for that).
In any case, back to the Elf ears, and hair. Some ears as Fisty points out, are just difficult to work around, and there are many different elf ear shapes at that. (three complete sets at least that I know off. List T.B.C.)
So that is the wisp of hair that may be a tad bit of trouble for some ears on the Orianna hair. It is some what isolated there, and may possibly be easy to put a single D-former on the both sides to fix that, possibly. MJC1016 and Kettu bring up a good point, in a round about way, that IF daz and Propschick are ok with, may be a major help to us mere mortals without Z-whatever-brush skills. Especially if they have Hexagon and the Studio-hexagon bridge. That bridge has an option (I have not tried) to import a shape as a morph, and a morph can be saved as a dial, hmmm (What is 'Z' proposing now?). I'm not asking nor suggesting they 'do', just saying, it may be possible to export that Hair to your favorite Z-whatever-brush program to shape it around the elf ears, send that to Hexagon as an object, and possibly using the bridge to import that into Studio as a Morph for the hair... And with permission, possibly a Morph that can be shared with others. Don't get your hopes up tho, I know Fisty, MJC1016, Kettu, etc are very busy with little free time to embark in such endeavors. Not to say, when I hinted to Tech support that I'm willing to make the missing adjustments for that TJ7 leotard and share the morph set on shareCG, I got a "Hell NO! don't do that" response from Daz... So back to that hair. BTW, the wisps are a separate zone, so it may be easier to just "make the problem go away" by making the wisps invisible in the surface tab.
This looks like a case of forgetfulness, or rushing to get it done omission (I honestly think forgot). There dose not appear to be an adjustment to lift the front (forward) out of cloths. Only a move them to the side is all I managed to find. So that is what, two or three more D-formers for this hair. Given how bad some G3F pro bundle outfits do not fit G3F figures, that is nothing for the number of D-formers needed to make it work, lol.
Oh, one other possibility. EJ G2F hair for elfs (they have lots of them). Load a G2F figure into the scene, select G2F in the scene tab, go to the Hair category in the smart tab... right click a hairstyle and drag it over to the view field over your G3F elf (and let auto-fit do its thing). I've noticed allot of the EJ elf hair styles work very well on G3F figures, and most (every single one I've tried) of the adjustment morphs retain there functionality at that. However, pony tails do lose the pose bones, so I've been sticking with G3F pony tails on G3F figures.
I need to look real quickly, I don't remember for sure. I think FW Eve's ears are the same way... I know there is another Generation-6 elf with similar close to the head ears. I need to go look.
Errrr, not Eve, the ears do stick out more at the tips. Hmmmm.
Yep, that's why they removed my pointy ears as a child, too make me fit in better in school...
I don't think it worked at all. Humans can be so illogical at times.
That zero out the auto generated morph thing dose work on some styles back in the Generation-6 lineup, I have not tried it on Generation-7 yet. The thing is, most styles made for elf ears work fine without zeroing out the ear dial, and a few acutely do need to have that dial set to zero. It's one of three issues with the Ireland Hair, the other two make it not worth the effort (the Mount St. Helens bulge on the back of the head, and one side only for elf ears). We all make mistakes, the results are just funny sometimes.
How bad is it, when your doctor starts naming the zits on the back of your head. This one here, Anak Krakatau, and this one over here, Katla, look like there about to erupt...
lol.
Well, it looks like most of the other ears I have do tend to be further away from the head then Yulia's. I'll guess that was for the ears being tucked into the hat. Yea, I know, my lighting totally hit rock bottom on this one, I was mostly looking at the ears. I guess it goes with the indoor territory, lighting is more difficult inside. So in any case, the Orianna hair dose have a few zones specifically for the hair on the front, and thus after quite a bit of clicking, I was able to make the problem go away, lol.
On the left is EJ Estrella (G2F) with Tsukiakari Hair (G2F). Also FW Eve with her back to us, with "Lady Florence Hair" (the pony tail may be a problem on G3F). In any case, now that I have Eve around, I can use her to bring out all the Generation 6 Elf hair styles, and try them on generation 7 figures.
I'm also happy to report that the Disco Dancing poodle skirt wearing Roman has not been seen around these parts lately... Damn he's back. Yea, FW Yasmin dose not look happy about this, I wonder what he's been scavenging from that phone booth lately, lol.
OK, starting with the first random pic out of the Smart tab. These are Generation 6 styles on generation 7 Elvs (EJ Estela in the spot renders). I'm using FW Eve (G2F) to make sure the dials and such are doing the same thing on both G2F and G3F.
Xandria Hair. (EmmaAndJordi)
Obviously my first question was those "Side-Pieces" on the, uh, head jewelry thing. yes that widget, lol. Can they be posed, and do the pose controls still work on G3F.
Well, I can tell by the way they move, that was set up with some kind of D-former origami. They do move, tho use of the "Size-Side-Piece" dials will need to be used to keep them in shape as there moved. The rest looks good, so I didn't bother looking at the fit adjustments.
XTechDreads (ElorOnceDark)
There isn't much for movement options to begin with. Only wind like stuff.
Xylia Double French Braids 2 (AprilYSH)
Morph based movement. So it works, tho things tend to distort as there moved with the dials.
Solange Hair and Hair Combs (EmmaAndJordi) Hair yes, Combs yes.
Discarding the bit about "Genesis2", and substituting G3F in that, the instructions appear to work fine for G3F and the 'Manual' Combs.
Continued in Post 2...
Melinda Hair (EmmaAndJordi).
Well, the Tail poses all work as expected, including the "Tail-Ends" and "Tail-Move" dials.
"For-Ears-1" and "For-Ears-2" appears to only adjust the right side. "L-Ear-Cover" works to an extent, tho not quite for really big/long ears.
Oona Hair (EmmaAndJordi)
At first I thought the chain on the left side may be in the way, tho there is a dial to move it up some, and another to move the bells back a tad.
Over all the rest looks good as well. I would not exactly take this style to the dance hall, other then that it is a very nice style for lounging around the village or forest.
Galadrel Hair (EmmaAndJordi) Possibly to long with not enough flex points for movement dials.
The hair dose have some dials to adjust around ears, tho the opacity effects can make it a tad difficult to see as your adjusting it.
And the strands on the front do appear to just be to long to be useful for many poses (It would need a lot more movement zones, or tons of bones down the length). The Move-Ends dials effects further down then where her arm is against the hair. It's why I don't do a lot of renders with such long hair to be honest, there is just no easy way to set up posing for it and D-formers can be just as much of a pain on them.
More names I'm looking in to (They are fine on G2F, tho the doubts are with G3F)... Tsukiakari Hair (No doubts), Scarf Braid Hair (not sure about the tail. Oops... I have that now?), Bloomingwood Hair (No doubts), Sora Hair (not sure about the tails), etc.
There are a few G3F styles as well, tho I'll need to look to see if there Elf ear friendly (I don't remember).
(Core Dump Warning. If you don't like griping, skip to the next post.)
You know, it would be nice to be able to get some documentaries on DVD that will actually play in my DVD player. It would be nice if the documentaries I paid for on line, would actually play after upgrading the CPU in this computer. It would be nice if some automated driver updates did not brick your USB devices that you paid for because of some chip that the retailer did not know anything about. And it would be nice, if some one at Daz would take three seconds to swap out the completely busted zips for good ones that DIM has been installing in my computer for six months now.
When you move the figures shaping dial, and the cloths move the complete opposite direction than the way the figure is moving, something is wrong. Oh, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the contents of the V7 Pro bundle, these are not the droids your looking for... really? The Eva 7 Pro bundle contents work exactly as intended, Bethany 7 Pro bundle is completely flawless, and the Teen Josie 7 Pro bundle is not full of completely and utterly broken content. The Pro bundle outfits are so perfect, that Daz3d will go so far as to take legal action against you if you attempt to make and offer additional fit morphs for the Pro bundle outfits.
You know daz, you really are wasting my CPU power and your resources protecting your broken intellectual property by encrypting it, it doesn't work to begin with, lol.
What is that, it can't possibly be poke threw. Have I seen anything like this before... Bandeau Bikini, nope... Hungyu G3F Bikinis, nope... Eva 7 Monokini, nope... TJ7 Leotard, nope... V7 Post apocalyptic outfit, nope... I'm drawing a blank, I have no idea where I've seen poke threw like that on G3F in that same exact location.
Why is daz wasting my time, my money, and there resources with this encrypted BS, when there are much bigger issues with generation 7 that have been completely ignored for six months now?
Auto-follow, however, must be fixed! Auto-sequi Ceterum oportet esse figi.