Digital Art Zone

I am doing some retopology on Daz Pup and would like to turn the teeth and tongue into separate instances connected to the head. With the teeth at least I can select by shader and disconnect from the mesh but I don’t appear to be able to do anything with the teeth after disconnecting them apart from moving them around. Any thoughts on how to turn part of a mesh into a child instance of the mesh within Carrara?

Hi Ktealby

The teeth are already a “separate” poly-mesh, and since they’re not connected physically to the figure’s mesh, you’d only need to select and copy, then you could create a new vertex model and paste the teeth in, so you could reduce the mesh resolution,..

The Tongue is actually part of the inner mouth model, so it’s can’t be removed as easily.
you’d need to cut / copy paste / fix both new meshes Mouth and tongue,

Purchased models are protected to prevent the user breaking them.  but you can edit them if you really want to
bearing in mind that you’re probably breaking the Weight mapping, UV mapping, and the rigging

I’ve no idea why you’re doing any of this,. but before you go much further, you should check the usage restrictions in the EULA (End User Licence Agreement)  which comes with each product ,. which details what you can and cannot do with the models.

perhaps if you explain what you’re trying to do I can help more.

Hope it helps

Hi 3dage,

With most products, once you buy them, can’t you pull them apart and have your way with them?
Eg just use part of them for your renders?

Daz pup is free? I think? so could be different?

Hi Head wax

Yes, you can ,.. but within restrictions,.. the reason I ask is that re-topology is usually used to create lower polygon (Game figures) and that’s a No no.

The Decimator tool in DS or Carrara would be the direction I’d go to lower the poly-count.
and it shouldn’t involve moving or disconnecting the mesh parts, and should retain the UV and weight mapping.

Technically (in any 3d editor) you can Cut / paste or edit the mesh in any way you want, as long as it’s for you’re own bemusement, or part of an on going quest for knowledge,. but you can’t edit the mesh to make parts for a figure you intend to sell as a “new” model,. and for “Game assets” there’s a different criteria, some things can be used, some things canny,. but you need to have a “Game developer licence” for each product, before you add it into a game.

whether the model is purchased or is given away as a freebie, makes no difference.. the creator of that object still has the “copy rights” and the model should have a Licence agreement with it.

Buying a model to use in an artistic way,..  is different from Ownership of that model

in simple terms, you can do what you want to the models in a rendered image, or animation sequence,....
but, you can’t edit the mesh to make a product for sale or give-away.

The Mesh,.. is Owned by Daz3D, and the End user purchases a Licence to allow them to use that in an artistic way, whether that’s a puppy in front of a cosy fireplace surrounded by a happy family,.. or a Damien Hirst (Half dog in formaldehyde)  is an artistic choice.

This is type of confusion caused when you allow lawyers decide what you can do with a paint brush

3DAGE - 04 October 2012 04:51 AM

This is type of confusion caused when you allow lawyers decide what you can do with a paint brush

I’d amend that to include allowing lawyers decide what we do with anything (warning labels, anyone?)

Also, to add…if all you want to do is use it for your own use/learning and not to redistribute (at all…even give to a friend to check it out) then slice and dice to your heart’s content…

Hi 3DAge

Thanks very much for your comments.

I am trying to make a low poly model for animation. I am aware that I would need to buy an Indie development license from Daz before making use of the model. I am not sure that the decimator would give me the kind of edge flows I need for good animation particularly in the face but I must admit I have never tried it.

Within Carrara I can select the teeth but I can’t copy the selection which is probably down to the protection you were referring to. Possibly to setup the model the way I want before retopologizing I may need to export to another 3d modelling package.

3dAge wroteth

in simple terms, you can do what you want to the models in a rendered image, or animation sequence,....
but, you can’t edit the mesh to make a product for sale or give-away.

The Mesh,.. is Owned by Daz3D, and the End user purchases a Licence to allow them to use that in an artistic way, whether that’s a puppy in front of a cosy fireplace surrounded by a happy family,.. or a Damien Hirst (Half dog in formaldehyde)  is an artistic choice.

sorry, yes I meant in your renders, not that you could onsell a derivative from the mesh

ktealby - 04 October 2012 05:48 PM

Hi 3DAge

Thanks very much for your comments.

I am trying to make a low poly model for animation. I am aware that I would need to buy an Indie development license from Daz before making use of the model. I am not sure that the decimator would give me the kind of edge flows I need for good animation particularly in the face but I must admit I have never tried it.

Within Carrara I can select the teeth but I can’t copy the selection which is probably down to the protection you were referring to. Possibly to setup the model the way I want before retopologizing I may need to export to another 3d modelling package.

Hi ktealby

I’m not exactly sure if this is what you need but here goes.

If you select model in the dog then use EDIT>Smooth Mesh
Then you can use Detach Bones/Skeleton

This will unlock the mesh.

You can then go to the vertex modeller and select those parts tyhat you need and delete the rest.

So select teeth gums tongue whatever by shader and then invert selection.

In the assembly room make a copy of your new model after resetting the hot point.

Then take one model into the vertex room and delete what you don’t need so that you now have two meshes - one for the teeth, one for the tongue.

Add some bones to each if you want.

Bring in a new puppy, in the shader room make the alpha values zero for those shaders you want to hide (tongue teeth)

Then in the assembly room parent the new figures to the puppy’s head or neck crest or whatever you like.

maybe this will work-

PS Save your work before you parent the new figures to the daz puppy because sometimes dragging figures in the instances tree makes Carrara crash

sometimes you can decimate or alter the vertex count of an fbx export/reimport of an animated figure often if you weld it too.
often not, it will just distort.
depends on other factors I have yet to quite figure out.

With Meshlab you can decimate to 50% and in some cases more without any noticeable deterioration of shape.  It does convert everything to tri’s - Blender has an excellent tri-quad converter.

Of course, that gives you a whole new .obj, so you’ll have to do the UV mapping, texturing, rigging thing - may as well just model a figure and get done with it.

Hi ktealby

I suppose it depends on what maximum polycount you feel is needed for the animation you want…. and to figure that out, you need to do some experimentation, although, as teeth go,.. the pup’s teeth are pretty low poly,.

It’s perhaps also important to remember that the Daz Pup, and several other figures, were built as (Sub-D) figures, which allows them to use subdivision smoothing at render time, to refine the appearance of the mesh (make it less boxy).

so,. it’s not really a (high) polygon figure to begin with,. and that may make the process of reducing the mesh ,.. tricky.

Looking at the teeth,. I think it may be easier to select edges and use dissolve, rather than the decimator in carrara,. which can be a bit of a blunt instrument.

As Head Wax pointed out, you can unlock the figure protection, (using Edit /Smooth) or,.. Fenric has a plug-in to allow you to “break in” to the figure,... then you can experiment to see what works.

making the Old teeth, invisible using the shader is a nice idea,. but I think you’d still need to delete and replace them, to export the final (low) mesh.

There’s also a Decimator tool available for Daz Studio, which was designed to reduce figures for game development.
and as far as I know, that works on the figure and rigging and retains the UV’s, and creates a “LOD” version.

it may be worth checking out.. (see pic)

As for the legality aspects,.  

I just think it’s important to point that out at the start of the process,. rather than later..

Mesh reduction for games is a common question,. but, so many times the user is either unaware of the fact that they don’t “Own” the model they’ve “purchased”... or that they need a developer licence for game production,. .. or that “Not all models” can be used for game development.

I like Roygee’s suggestion of building your own,.. then you avoid lots’ of possible issues, ..and don’t need a licence.

Hope it helps

Thanks everyone for your very helpful comments! I think what Head Wax outlined would get me through the issues I was having. I am starting to lean towards the direction suggested by Roygee and 3DAge, building my own may not be such a bad way to go

Just thinking on this…anyone who has the skills to retopo and make it work well has the skills to build an original.  Retopo, at least the way I do it, is actually modelling using a 3D figure as a template - unless there is some magic tool that i don’t know about that can do it automatically?

Blender’s new BMesh has fantastic retopo capabilities - you can draw lines on the surface with a grease pencil and it will make a mesh from that, but you still have to decide where the lines go and how you want the edge flow to go.

3D-Coat can do an automatic retopology. Probably not suitable if you want to animate the model though. You have the option of telling 3D-Coat if some of the mesh (ie head) should be more dense than other parts of the mesh and you can provide some guidance about where you want some of the edge flows to go. It takes its best guest for the rest of the model.