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decimator question

kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914
in The Commons

I'm thinking of torturing my credit card and picking up decimator, however I think I remember reading that the decimation on objects does not save with the scene.

Is this true and is there a way to keep the decimation after closing DS?

Comments

  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,786

    Sadly... no.... it works on a per session basis.
    Saving a decimated figure to your library 
    will not save the state of decimation and will have to be done again
    after reloading.

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    So I guess the only way would be to decimate, export as an object, import, and then do a rigging transfer and save as a new model...

    Now I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort

  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,786

    "So I guess the only way would be to decimate,
     export as an object, import, and then do a rigging
     transfer and save as a new model..."

    Yes this would work
    I beleive the Decimator was developed on the assumption
    that one would be exporting the decimated models to a game engine.
    not re -using it in Daz studio.

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    Thank you

    While my credit card is now screaming at me and slapping me upside the head, I did break down and pick this up as I'm not quite ready to start transfering morphs over to G8 as I still need to get G3's head and body morphs I think and G8M still isn't out yet.

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,321

    One of the main reasons I use the decimator is on a clothing item I intend to use for a dynamic simulation. If the item was not originally designed to be used dynamically it may be too high poly, and a high poly simulation takes ages to run. I will thus use decimator first to reduce the item down to 20K or so polys, before using this for the dynamic simulation. Since I will export the final dynamically posed clothing as an obj, and then re-import, then the fact that the decimator will not restore the decimation is not relevant.

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    Ahh, yes. I forgot about Dynamics. (Which I plan to use a lot more once I get my comic going)

  • InkuboInkubo Posts: 744
    edited August 2017

    @wolf359, do you know if Decimator could be a good product to auto-retopologize a character? I think the problems with rendering Minotaur HD in Iray may be due to non-planar surfaces. If Decimator triangulates, decimates, and then requadulates (I just made that word up!) with planar surfaces, maybe it could fix model problems.

    Is that a pipe dream, or maybe something unnecessary because one can already do it with Carrara?

    Post edited by Inkubo on
  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,786
    edited August 2017
    Inkubo said:

    @wolf359, do you know if Decimator could be a good product to auto-retopologize a character? I think the problems with rendering Minotaur HD in Iray may be due to non-planar surfaces. If Decimator triangulates, decimates, and then requadulates (I just made that word up!) with planar surfaces, maybe it could fix model problems.

    Is that a pipe dream, or maybe something unnecessary because one can already do it with Carrara?

     

     

    Hi I use the decimator to create low poly figure  to export to C4D
    for crowd scenes in animations.

    But honeslty it is a rather "brute force"
    poly reducer that creates a horriblly triangulated
    topolgy that would be a bloody nightmare to 
    retopologize unles you have a dedicated solution
    like 3DCoat or Topogun etc

     

    in fact I would not even recommend it for reducing meshes for cloth sims because of  the large, messy tri's it creates.

    That said is works great for my usagelaugh

    The orange suited hazmat  guy and the 36 figures watching
    the carousel video at 46 seconds of this video, are all decimated down to about 7000
    faces each for much faster rendering in C4D.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2TYEp536iB8aVBBdHJWRE9jODg/view?usp=sharing

    Post edited by wolf359 on
  • InkuboInkubo Posts: 744

    Thanks! I guess I'd better look elsewhere for retopology, then.

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,321

    If your are going to decimate something to really low poly (say 5K or below), I don't think this software is the way to go. That said, I do like the way you can control the weights of where the decimation is the heaviest. So, assuming a figure is clothed, you can generally decimate the legs and body more than the head, as the head (particularly the ears) quickly starts to look very odd as polys are removed.

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