No one asked me - Diomede screenshots on whatever - Warning AI Discussion OK

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    - Double check that the hip bone and spinal column are at zero in x axis and that the bones are within the mesh and that limb bones names end in the letter L or R for left or right.  

    - Now can use duplicate with symmetry for limbs.  Select the top of a limb (thigh, collar, shoulder, or whatever) and use EDIT : Duplicate with Symmetry.  Choose the axis (typically X).

    - Double check that the duplcated bone fit the mesh on the mirror side.Adjust if necessary.

    - Remember to change the names of the mirror bones by changing the last letter, such as R to L, or L to R, to reflect the corret side .

    - Repeat for other limbs and mirrored body parts.

     

    You should now have a complete bone skeleton with constraints.  Next will be weightmapping.

    bb21 duplicate with symmetry x axis may have to adjust for off center so note use constraint icon.JPG
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    bb22 create animation group remember to change last leter to R.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    There are some predictable problem areas for a typical skeleton.  For exampl, the shoulder bone will deform the side of the chest instead of just the armpit and the hip will influence the top of the thighs.  After attaching the skeleton to the mesh, it is necessary to go through and edit the wieght that the bones have on various parts of the mesh.

    - I typically do not want the eyes to deform with the skeleton.  There are a couple of ways to do this.  I prefer to exclude the eyes from attaching to the skeleton and then parent them to the attached figure.

    - Select the hip bone (entire skeleton) and the mesh, go the animation tab, and choose Attach Skeleton.

    - Now I move the eyes back in place in the hierarchy.  I made a bone for each eye off the head so I could parent each eye to its bone.

    cc01 before attaching skeleton i move eyes out of group.JPG
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    cc02 highlight mesh grop and hip bones within animation group.JPG
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    cc03 in animation tab attach skeleton and see menu accept.JPG
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    cc04 move eyes back to bones parent to appropriate.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Edit the weghtmaps in the vertex modeler room.  There are two ways to edit.  One is to use the bone brush tool.  The other is to select parts of the mesh and manually adjust the numeric value of the weights, or delete/add bones to influence the part.  For a low res mesh like this, I find it more efficient to rely primarily on the manual bone menus.

    - Select the mesh of the figure.  Enter the modeling room.  Choose animation mode (middle icon).  Click on the bone tab.

    - You can click the bone icon on the top menu to initiate the bone brush.  The esh will turn to dots and the influence of the currently selected bone will be yellow.  Set the tool to add or subtract influence.  Us the brush on desired parts of the mesh.  Repeat for each bone.  Again, for a mesh this low poly, I don't use this as much.

    - You can also select an individual vertex, line,olygon, or multiples of the same. Then use the bone menu to icrease or decrease influence.

    - A very efficient way to address the hip influencing te legs is to select te legs and click (remove hip).  Often, this approach is much faster than using the brush.  In the attached pics, notice that th hip is present in the first, removed from the second.

    - Repeat for the shoulders/chest, the neck/head, and any other problem area.

    cc05 select mesh of figure.JPG
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    cc06 vertex modeling room animation mode bone tab.JPG
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    cc07 bone tool top menu but i prfer vertexes.JPG
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    cc08 or select vertexes and polygons and use menu on right.JPG
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    cc10 select legs all see hip on bone list.JPG
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    cc11 use remove bone to get hip off list.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    - Next I selected the torso mesh except right next to the shoulder and removed any arm joints from influencing.

    - Insead of removing influence, you can also add influence.  For example, I could select the lower base of the torso and instead of removing bones, I ould simply increase the influence of the hip to 100.

    - The rest is just doing some sample poses and then editing the bone influences to taste.  This is an alien so frankly their are no rules.  However, we lik to have things make sense so I tried to have the joint bends generally make sense.

    You can find the alien figure in the following thread.  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3068636/#Comment_3068636

    It is free to use and play with, but not for resale.

     

    cc13 seelect all chest to remove arms joints.JPG
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    cc09 select lots of belly and increase hip to 100.JPG
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    test render alien.jpg
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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099

    Fantastic tutorial, as always, Diomede! Bravo!

    Just to keep things simple, here's a link to the beginning of the tut: Quick Toon Alien Character

      

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997
    edited December 2017

    Have been playing with Carrara's hair modeler and related stuff.  Pretty excited.

     

    Here is a hair style that I had made for a haircap for G2F.  Test render with dynamic hair.

    Here is the same hair but rendered with the Toon III Pro filter.  Notice that the dynamic hair appears as a shadow in the toon iii plugin.

    Here is the same hair rendered with the NPR engine.  Doesn't show at all.

    ee05 regular render of regular hair.jpg
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    ee06 render toon iii pro.jpg
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    ee09 npr render strand hair.jpg
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    Post edited by Diomede on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997
    edited December 2017

    With Philemo's plugin, I converted the dynamic hair to a vertex object.

    Here is the toon iii pro render.  See how improved it is compared to above?

    Here is the NPR render at default settings.  Again, very much improved, because it renders at all.

     

    ee02 50000 polygons.JPG
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    ee07 toon iii pro using philemo.jpg
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    ee11 npr with philemo.jpg
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    Post edited by Diomede on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Will be playing more with shading domains, morphs, and the like.

     

    ee12 second try 37488.JPG
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    ee13 morph load but have axes wrong.JPG
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  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139

    Nice style and good results!

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Thanks.  Am very excited about the possibility of morphs.  I renamed the converted mesh.  Brushed the original dynamic hair to a new shape. Converted again with the same settings and am happy to report the same number of vertexes (verteces?).  Exported this second mesh as an obj.  Returning to the 1st vertex converted mesh, I created a morph area and new morph.  I loaded the second shape as a morph.  

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Here is a morph.  Had to remember to export the obj in local coordinates and to map the Carrara axes to obj axes.

    ee14 base shape.JPG
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    ee15 shape morph.JPG
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  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139

    Good to know it works, that will be important for making dynamic morphs for hair products.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Here is a try for a bun haircut.  This is made from two hair groups including the front bangs and the back bun.

    ff01 cinderella style.JPG
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    ff02 front converted.JPG
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    ff03 bun.JPG
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    ff04 bun.jpg
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  • nice hair! :)

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139

    Great style again! They only thing I noticed was that the strand of hair in front of her ear had not been converted, but overall looking really good!

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997
    edited December 2017

    Thanks again.

    The sideburns did convert, but I think you see the haircap behind them.  Forgot to uncheck visibility for the cap.  

    BTW, was sideburn the correct term?  Do women have sideburns if hair droops in front of the ear?  cheeky

    ff05 sideburn.JPG
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    Post edited by Diomede on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139

    Oh yes, I wasn't looking closely enough.  I don't think you can use the term sideburn of women's hair without having to duck pretty quickly! Maybe there is a term for that, but I would avoid using "sideburn".

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997
    edited December 2017

    So far, the suggestions from the Commons area are to use terms such as payot, wisps or side bangs for women instead of sideburns.

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    Diomede said:

    Thanks.  Am very excited about the possibility of morphs.  I renamed the converted mesh.  Brushed the original dynamic hair to a new shape. Converted again with the same settings and am happy to report the same number of vertexes (verteces?).  Exported this second mesh as an obj.  Returning to the 1st vertex converted mesh, I created a morph area and new morph.  I loaded the second shape as a morph.  

    That is such a cool thing! Yeah, I love the possibilities that plugin opens up!

    If you do ever decide to stick with Carrara hair, a quick tip is that we can really tweak the look with the number of hairs to thicken or thin the hair. I've been doing a bunch starting off really thin, for quicker results, but still taking the end thickness into account, and then adding more hair in the end. Pretty cool, but we just have to keep that final thickness in mind to avoid pokethrough, etc.,

    The plugin also reads the shader information, I think, because when I converted Rosie's super-curly dynamic hair, the mesh came out nice and wavy. It may have actually even been twisted (Kink/Frizz curls) in the process because I ended up with some strange parts - which just makes for really fun experimentation.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    A professional hairstylist reports using the word sideburn.

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3120211/#Comment_3120211

     

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    shader tree for hairs has extra stuff on it

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997
    edited December 2017

    Repurpose Female Content for Its Raining Men

     

    Decided on a repurpose project for the Its Raining Men contest. The contest includes a category for repurposing Daz content that was designed for females, but the focus of the render has to be a man (or male humanoid).  I think Carrara's excellent kitbashing tools are ideal for this.  Time permitting, I have decided to repurpose a woman's corset into a terrain with stone age houses.

     

    Here is my general concept for the stone age setting.

    sketch block out.jpg
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    Post edited by Diomede on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    I have picked the corset in the outfit Dark Embrace 3 (DE3) for V4 as the object to be repurposed.  https://www.daz3d.com/dark-embrace-3

    The idea will be to morph the cups to be roughly the shape of huts.  I will use the 3D paint tool to create shader and replicator opacity maps.  I will replicate stones on the sides of the cups and straw on the top to make the buildings.  I will replicate plants to make a field and a path.  

     

    de3 screencap.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    First, I loaded the corset in Carrara.  

    I selected the model level and clicked the wrench icon to enter the model editing room.

    I enabled symmetry and soft-select.

    I used the ediing tools to begin reshaping the cups for general mound shapes.

    aa01 load v4 dark embrace corset.JPG
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    aa02 select modellevel and enter modeling room by click wrench.JPG
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    aa03 symmetry soft select cup.JPG
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    aa08 shape inner back sides.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Second, I wanted opacity maps.  One reason is to control the shaders.  A second reason is to control replicators.  For example, I need opacity maps to control where the shader for the roof of the buildings will be, but I also need the map to control where alpha (invisibility) will place the doors.  Similarly, I need to control where grass will be replicated, and were stone sides of buildings will be.

     

    But, before I started, I wanted a clean texture to begin painting on.  

    I selected the model level of the corset figure.

    ​I entered the shader room.  I created a new shader which is the default grey.

    ​I returned to the assemble room.

    ​For good housekeeping, I used the edit menu to remove all unused shaders.  These steps assure that I will not overwrite the texture maps that come with the DE3 corset.

    To start creating the maps, I again selected the model level of the corset figure.

    I clicked the icon in the top menu to begin 3D paint.  Carrara gave me a no active texture warning.

    Under the texture tab, I clicked the triangle next to the color channel and selected the magic wand to create a new texture.  

    Carrara warns me about existing textures but it is OK because I already removed the DE3 original maps.

     

     

    aa09 shader room see default fabric.JPG
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    aa11 see now default grey.JPG
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    aa12 remove master shaders so no risk overwrite shader.JPG
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    aa14 there are no active shaders warning.JPG
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    aa15 open color channel click little triangle icon see empty.JPG
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    aa16 click magic wand to create new texture and get warning.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Used the color picker to select the base color of the new map. I chose gre because it is easy to see.

    Carrara prompts me for the name and location of the new texture maps I will be painting.

    Used the tool tab to set up my paint brush and colors.  

    I make sure that for opacity maps, I use black = 0,0,0 and white = 100, 100, 100.

    I chose a hard edge for the brush, but that depends on the project and taste.  You can change the brush size using the menu, or you can hold the conrol key and left-click drag your mouse.

     

    aa17 click box to bring upcolor picker for default on object should use black have grey in pic so can see.JPG
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    aa18 choose name and place for new texure.JPG
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    aa21 change brush size in menu or use control key and drag can also change brush type and smoothness.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    I then painted color coding for different areas of the project.  I want to be able to distinguish between

    -grassy field

    - worn path and area around buildings, and edges of worn path

    - sides of buildings

    - doors of buildings

    - roof of buildings

    - sides and back of corset tha I want to make invisible.

     

    aa22 paint path and houses.JPG
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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 14,997

    Image editor software.

    I could have painted each map in Carrara, but I thought it would be easier to take the color coded map to my image editor to make the maps.

    So, still in the 3D paint editor, I return to the textures tab upper right, right click on the color channel map, and save/export my painted image.

    The next steps are in my image editor.

    I loaded the exported map and created a layer for each shader domain or replicator area that I wanted to use.

    I then paintbucket filled the desired area absolute white (100, 100, 100) or absolute black (0, 0, 0) as appropriate.  For example, I have attached the opacity map for the grassy field.

    Repeated for each map area and saved each layer out for use in Carrara.

     

     

     

    aa22b textures tab to see uvmap and to export.JPG
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    aa25 create layer and name for grass location.JPG
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    aa27 save opacity grass layer as separate file for later use.JPG
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    aa28 repeat to get opacity masks.JPG
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