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Just tried out the new Principled shader - wow, that's gonna make life a lot easier.
Marble:
I like the way it's looking for the new brush for Blender. I was thinking along the same lines as MDO2010 until I saw the video where it was working on the lips of the character in ZBrush. That was outstanding, and I hope the Blender author achieves the same functionality.
Regarding sculpting morphs in current Blender without the aid of the new brush exactly as you described can be done (I have been doing this for a couple of years now), and without having to paint a mask in sculpt mode.
It is a little known trick in Blender (though I have mentioned it a few times before) for morph target work in sculpt mode where you don't want parts of mesh affected, or separate meshes affected (such as your two layer clothing example). The answer lies in edit mode, and the ability to hide selected geometry.
Whatever you hide in edit mode will still be present in sculpt mode, but the sculpt tools will not affect those meshes/parts. Think of it as a quick mask system. The only thing is you have to move back and forth between modes when changes are needed, and you just unhide everything in edit mode when you are done with your morphing work. I use it in conjunction with edit mode morphing, and shape keys.
Not as eloquent as the new brush will be, but it works - give it a shot...
And, just wanted to also say hi to Joe. Not sure if I will get used to it, Mr. Cotter. To me, you will always be Gedd...
Wow, it's hard to believe this thread has been going since 2012. It seems like just yesterday that you started it, and as I was reviewing page 01, I came across my first post in the thread where I stated this:
* In context to modeling * - "Blender isn't quite there yet, but is getting there slowly but surely. Eventually, I can see myself completely abandoning W3D, and use Blender exclusively for my modeling tasks. For now, I'm content with my W3D/Blender/Hexagon/Metasequoia workflows."
Well, it sure has gotten there, and is only getting better each year and with each new version. I have abandoned those other software for working almost full time in Blender. I still open the others once in awhile, but for the most part, I would say 90 - 95 percent of my work is done in Blender now.
Thanks for the shout out.
I'm glad we've been able to keep this little sub community going here as it would be hard to support a group as specialized as Blender & DAZ anywhere else I think. You know, it's interesting, the mention about the change from pseudonym vs now... it changed on posts back to beginning so many would never have heard of that. Guess it's its own piece of history now. A little side note, the picture is from in front of a cenote in Cozumel where I was lucky enough to get my cave diving certification from German Yanez. If you see some videos on Cozumel cave diving you get an idea of how great that was. :)
@DaremoK3 : Thanks for the advice. As I said, I'm a novice when it comes to Blender and am learning by doing: I find a need for something then try to find a way to do it. So some of the things that regular Blender users think of as basic are probably still a mystery to me. So, with that in mind, I'm thinking I will need to find out about hiding parts of the mesh in Edit mode - somehow select an area and click Hide or some key combination - and then switch out of Edit mode into Sculpt mode and that are will act like it was masked. Will there be any indication of the masked area or does it all look like a continuous surface? One of the things I liked better about ZBrush is the fact that you can see the polygons while sculpting but Blender doesn't seem to have a wire-mesh overlay in sculpt mode like it does in Edit mode.
Wire Draw setting.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/properties/display.html
Works in sculpt mode.
While in sculpt mode go to the properties panel, click the object tab and check "wire" under diplay.
That's what I get for taking the time to take a screenshot. Ninja'd!
Well, thanks for showing me the wire draw ... like I said, some basic things have eluded me and I'm sure there are a lot more despite having followed quite a few tutorials. I'll put it down to old age ... takes longer for things to sink in than it used to.
No, it's not old age. It's that ZBrush is perhaps the most poorly designed UI on the planet. Total disregard for virtually every intuitive, standardized workflow, methodology and keystrokes that have been in use since computers began. Yeah, some people will counter with "I learned it, you just have to spend a lot of time". Fine, but that's true of everything on the planet. It basically says it doesn't matter how terribly designed something is, with enough hard work you can overcome. While true, it's not the point. The point is to take users into account when you design something. That makes stuff GOOD, as opposed to BAD. If you don't you waste peoples' time. And then they charge that kind of money for it?
Making stuff intuitive is a GOOD thing.
Yeah, Blender is also a mess, starting from the standard right-click to select (the only software in the known universe to do that), and continues that kind of counter-intuitive practice in many cases. But not nearly as bad as ZBrush. Yeah, ZBrush is powerful. But that's only part of good software. The UI is a very important part. If you jump over to another 3D software, and then jump back, you end up in a morass of incorrect keystrokes and clicks and running back to the onlline videos to see how to do simple simple stuff.
I've been using Blender for many years, and I still forget the procedures for simple stuff. Luckily you can customize both of those apps to some extent. but I just don't have much patience for such poorly designed UI's. And in that regard I have to give DAZ a lot of credit. At least for me, stuff generally makes sense. And in fact in some cases it's designed better than stuff we're used to, and when you find out the D|S way it makes a lot more sense. For me at least...
Oh, and BTW, I'm proud of myself. I built the glasses in the image below in Blender, from scratch, as well as the earrings. Tweaked a circle, did some mirroring and extruding, and voila, it came surprisingly nice, considering I'm a terrible modeller. And very quick. And only twice did I have to run back to the manual to figure how to do something.
I have not yet reached a point where I would venture into modeling from scratch. I'll be happy to kit-bash existing stuff seeing as I'm not in this hobby to sell anything, just for my own fun. So if it isn't fun I don't do it. Like following the instructions for installing a branch version of Blender - I used to work on Unix servers and had to do quite a bit of that kind of thing but it wasn't fun, it was tedious (every dependency had a dozen other dependencies). The fun part is using the tools to make pictures or animations - fun for the frustrated artist in me, not the bored techie.
So I agree with you, ZBrush was a horror to get around the UI when I had that brief access to the software. Blender crams too much into one interface but I have no idea how else they could do it and still offer the same functionality. DAZ Studio was comparatively easy to navigate from day one; I realised that when I bought Poser and absolutely hated it.
@ebergerly You can customize the mouse to select with left button, and rotate with the middle wheel/button of most mouses and leave the right button to move the 3D cursor.
Yeah, thanks PedroC, I did those simple customize steps long ago. My Blender is super customized, and I actually have some python scripts I developed to make things work the way I want. In fact I'd recommend people look into that if you're so inclined. You can even make more intutive menus and buttons, and have them do the non-intuitive stuff under the hood.
That is what the interface redesign is about, creating workflow customizable interfaces so that if all one is doing is modeling, they don't have to see video editing tools for instance. We sort of have that functionality in Blender now with being able to have custom layouts but it's not the same since all of the other features are there, just the tools we want are at the forefront with a custom layout. Having a simplified interface for a given workflow is not just reorganizing but also decluttering. For many people, we need to 'remove' things that aren't part of what we are doing or it adds to the distractions and interferes with the task at hand. Creatively, we want to be as in the moment as possible, with as few distractions as possible. For people who can work in a cluttered environment and ignore anything that isn't pertinent, they don't realize the limitations others who can't do this have to deal with. Luckily, it finally got through in the Blender community and there is a fix supposedly coming. Considering this ability to have pared down specialty interfaces that do a specific task or set of tasks so that Blender becomes more like a suite of integrated apps (for those that want that) we have a common core that makes moving our project through the pipeline seamlessly a built in feature that putting together multiple apps together to make up a pipeline doesn't have. It also gives those who do want to swap out components, like a compositor or a vse a product that supports streamlining doing that. If the interface redesign works out as we hope, it will be a bigger deal then the last one.
I sent a message through to Jonathan Williamson about another concept, suggesting considering that if the rewrite, the code be modularized as much as possible (if it's feasible) so that one could load only the parts of the core application on an as need basis with loader scripts. If one could do this, along with creating one's own custom interface, Blender could be used even more then it is as a basis for custom applications like chemical modeling, physics modeling, architectural/film previz, VR/AR projects, etc.. without all of the extra baggage that isn't necessary. This would facilitate a lighter more specialized core that could be built upon and deployed on lighter hardware such as tablets, phones, vr/ar gear... It would also facilitate updating components faster without quite as much worry about the implications of other areas of the code. There is a term for it that unfortunately not enough system designers adhere to; tight integration with loose coupling. Of course, who knows, there could have been discussion around those concepts previously, I wouldn't know, but haven't seen it myself I threw it out there. If it's feasible, it could have some positive effects for Blender implementation and future growth I believe. :)
I just read on interesting tutorial from blender guru ( https://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/secret-ingredient-photorealism ), that I had somehow missed. Could that be a solution for indoor renders, and has anybody tried that?
Yes, he's talking about Filmic I/O which has had a number of posts in this forum and out. It will be included in the next point release of Blender by default but you can load it up now.
That IS interesting
Would this be a good place to ask if anyone has found a good solution for exporting figures from DAZ to Blender for rigged animation?
As far as I can tell, every current means of export is suboptimal: OBJ format gives you a perfect model with no rigging/morphs/animations, whereas FBX and Collada give you rigging/morphs/animations, but a crappy model.
I'd sure like to learn that I'm just doing it wrong and there is a high-fidelity way to export characters to Blender.
http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.jp/
Currently, the best solution imo is to rerig.
Interesting teaser of a future tutorial on animated scales by Vít Procházka.
Isn't there a plugin somwhere up thread?
I think mcjteleblender has an option to export animations to blender. I've never actually tried exporting animations, only static scenes, so I'm not sure how well it works.
My current understanding is that Teleblender exports animations as a series of posed OBJs, not a rigged model.
I'll have a look; thanks!
Yu still have to do some things manually but that and teleblender both have tutorials on their websites to help you along.
A couple quick tutorials on natural looking wrinkles in cloth for Blender, one using a procedural texture with a displacement modifier that is modified with a control object and another through the Tension Map add-on. Remember that if you like these, keep an eye on my Pinterest boards. :)
I don't want to distract this thread too much...but I'm having trouble starting Blender on my workstation. I'm getting an Exception_Protection and the app won't open. The same version of Windows 10, Nvidia driver, and Blender run fine on my laptop, so I'm sure it's probably due to something entirely specific to my desktop machine. Searches on this have borne no fruit.
Normally, I'd try testing the application with Windows in Safe Mode to see if that would work, but Blender needs the graphic driver.
Can anybody give me advice on how to find a resource who could help me trace this down to an actual root cause? I'll happily start a new thread if there's anybody here who can help.
http://www.technicalnotes.org/fix-system-service-exception-error-in-windows-10/
Unfortunately, this could be a deep issue in the system, possibly requiring a system reinstall, but go through the article as it has some good information on possible solutions. As mentioned in the article the root cause could be anything from a corrupted system file, a bad driver, a setting difference between your notebook and pc, etc... It takes perseverance and some detective work to sort this particular type of error out.
Will do; thanks!
Why not just do a cloth sim?