Digital Art Zone

GaryTR,

Hair is normally constructed out of planes which can be single sided or double sided. I’m a maya user so the terminology may be different but all you need to do is find the render stats for the hair and check the box that enables double sided rendering. In maya I just need to double click the geo and it brings up the attribute editor that shows all the properties and options. Hope this helps

AJ,

Thank You, You put me in the right direction and I found it, there is a check box for 2 sided in the material settings… Thanks Again

Weird, when I import the lawnmower max starts eating up all my ram.

Nvm, managed to lag through it and started working fine again.

How big is your .obj.?  Mine is 8,475 kb when I export it.  There is a brief hit in RAM until it’s converted to an ARCH mat which better manages textures.  Hope that helps to start troubleshooting.

bohemian3 - 10 October 2012 10:52 AM

Hey Spyro -
I don’t really import things into DAZ - I mainly go the other way.  I take it you are applying smoothing in DAZ as well under Edit-Geometry ... Just taking a stab in the dark. 
s

Nar it was more that I set up the smoothing groups which worded perfectly in Max, but it wouldn’t import it in Daz. I sorted the issue in daz, with “smoothing angle” However it is not as awesome as in 3ds. But hey, cant expect Daz to be as good as 3ds.

I’m really liking what you got going here! It’s really cool to know 3ds will import everything from daz. I’m definitely a fan of ‘MentalRay’ ! Vray was okay, but I always preferred MentalRay. (MR sooooo much better than 3Delight!!!!)

Everything I make for Daz is made in 3ds. But full sets with great detail is all in 3ds, stuff which I’ll never export to Daz.

I’m working on that tutorial for DAZ and 3ds Max mental Ray.  In the meantime, here are the two key places I learned what I know about SSS:

http://www.lamrug.org/resources/doc/sss-skin-tutorial.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2FEET5EI5I

These are about the “Concept” of SSS - not specifically about DAZ and MR…. That YouTube video is where I had the ‘aha’ moment.

Hope that helps someone out there
s

Bump.

It’s christmas break now so I have some time to work on this again!

I now have a decent looking subsurface material in max and used multi/sub-map to apply the textures to my daz character.

A few new problems have arisen:

-the multi/sub-map option in mental ray only has 20 material ID slots available (the exported maps require 26)
-the effects of the SS scattering have diminished or become non existent with the textures applied to the ‘overall diffuse coloration’

EDIT: I was able to confirm that subsurface works when I have my maps placed properly… had to crank a light up to 10,000 lumens though not sure if that is normal.

You can set the number of sub materials in the upper right of the multi-sub object material.

As you assign the materials you’ll want to use a glass-like material for the cornea and tear and an architectural mat for the iris and pupil (you don’t want sss on those)

I’ve had difficulty with the overall diffuse material myself.  Here’s what I’ve found, but not an expert as I’ve said:  Assigning a weight map to to the diffuse weight combines with the diffuse color to help the under sss effects to be seen.  Hope this simple diagram helps.  Here are links for the ones I use or you can create your own.  If you look in the M5 directory, his character ships with these maps.

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/interjection-surface-injections-for-daz-studio

Again, I hope this helps… it’s not easy but the power and possibilities are amazing once mastered.

Ok, thanks for the info.

I realized mental ray’s Sub-Map multi material only allows for 20 slots while the standard multi/sub-object material is up to 1000.

The reason I changed from the multi/sub-object to multi/sub-map was because the sub-object material that imported with the .obj from daz was lagging up my viewports in max for some reason.

I’ll probably just try to join some of the textures in photoshop for now.

Also .... You only need six core maps:
Eye
Face
Torso
Limbs
Mouth
Lash

You should be able to use instances of those five for all 26 slots - that’s what I do.  But I have a beast of a machine.

Did you ever give this script a shot - if the mutli sub from DAZ is in material slot one, it will build out the multi-sub with instances
http://sdrv.ms/PnVDMQ

Wow. I was doing everything manually forgot about the scripts…. LOL Well at least I leaned a few things from that.

http://i.imgur.com/x5LiF.jpg    - Are your textures merged in one file for the SSS slots? The only way I could figure it out was to make a       mult/sub-map and add everything manually like in daz (way too tedious and only 20 slots)

http://i.imgur.com/Apjl9.jpg    - This is my SSS and bump result so far

Your script worked great in converting the materials to arch and design but the SSS script gives me a diffuse error 19
http://i.imgur.com/UDdz3.jpg

UPDATE: I’m starting to get better results now… render is so much faster than DAZ lol and way more control

http://i.imgur.com/21S5x.png - before

http://imgur.com/EbavM - after (still have to make specular and sss maps)

As an additional resource for those going from 3D Studio Max to DAZ Studio i have two tutorials that may be of some use.

3D Model Conversion Tutorial:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?adtf0812j6py43i

This was written to aid those who want to convert models that are not native to DS or Poser

If an experianced 3DSM user wants to offer additional advice for what is covered there or show how 3DSM can be used to do more of the work then please do as I could only share what I know.

For those who want to package their own items either for personal use or to distribute for free or for purchase but are not 100% clear on how to set everythign up right

Dealing with Zipped Poser content:
http://www.mediafire.com/?oqcf29kmigzd3gk

If Mediafire shows you the PDF online instead of a download button, there is a green Download button in the upper right of the screen.

Hey bohemian, do you pose your characters in daz before coming into max?

I’ve been experimenting with the rigging tools in max but am wondering the best practice in getting smooth skin morphs when bending the limbs. Right now I’ve been playing with skin morph modifier and morph angle gizmo but I’m still a noob at moving vertices.

Would I be able to align the vertices from my rigged model in max to a posed mesh imported from daz?

Since daz has all the morphs already it should be possible to make use of them.

First of all, I want to say what a relief it was to find this thread! 

I’m a seasoned Max user and fairly competent with DAZ.  My only weakness in Max 2013 has been with rigging.  I’ve worked through the Digital Tutors Max/Motionbuilder tutorials and have learned a great deal but have one odd problem I was hoping someone could help with.

I’ve imported my supersuit genesis fbx character file without a problem, materials come in fine, the figure looks great in the viewport.  When I render however, a second larger character mesh appears in the render (off axis lying on his back) without materials as well as odd objects around the hands.  I apologize as I can’t upload pictures at the moment, but it appears like the fingertips exploded out.  I assumed these to maybe be bones or helper objects but even after hiding and even deleting all bones and helpers they still appear in the render.  Only after deleting the “genesis.shape” do they disappear, but obviously so does my character.  It does mean though that these oddities are somehow built in to my genesis mesh despite not being able to see them as oddities in the viewport.  I’m stumped and can’t find anything of the like about it by googling the web. 

Has anyone had anything similar to this problem?  I’ve been using vray as my renderer and haven’t thought to try MR simply bc it doesn’t seem to be a renderer issue.  But who knows, I’ll give it a whirl after reading how MR seems to be the popular renderer here. 

Thanks for any and all help!

Mattymanx - 18 December 2012 04:37 PM

As an additional resource for those going from 3D Studio Max to DAZ Studio i have two tutorials that may be of some use.

3D Model Conversion Tutorial:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?adtf0812j6py43i

This was written to aid those who want to convert models that are not native to DS or Poser

If an experianced 3DSM user wants to offer additional advice for what is covered there or show how 3DSM can be used to do more of the work then please do as I could only share what I know.

For those who want to package their own items either for personal use or to distribute for free or for purchase but are not 100% clear on how to set everythign up right

Dealing with Zipped Poser content:
http://www.mediafire.com/?oqcf29kmigzd3gk

If Mediafire shows you the PDF online instead of a download button, there is a green Download button in the upper right of the screen.

Awesome resources this will be most useful indeed
Thank you Mattymanx