any news on the hd plugin?? :D

Dartanbeck

This fellow has a complete tutorial playlist that can be even more helpful. He also has incredible tutorials on making your own animated figures in Blender (for games), but that's another story.

Playlist for getting the most out of Materialize

Diomede

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Diomede said:

Has anyone tried the HD plugin on Genesis 9?

https://sourceforge.net/projects/carrara-time-savers/

not many HD G9 characters to try and I own none  

The base Genesis 9 relies on HD morphs for torso details like the bellybutton and nipples.  Here is the base Genesis 9 with default male textures in his best William Holden shirtless retro movie star mode.  See the settings for HD are even without additional characters.  Argh.  It has been the cause of considerable annoyance in the main Commons Forum.  The relatively even polygon density of Genesis 9 came at the cost of efficient edge loops - therefore, detail is provided in another way.  In the case of belly buttons and nipples, that way was HD parameters.

If anyone does experiment with the HD plugin, please let us all know, even if it is not for Genesis 9.

 

Diomede

One of the most annoying things is the inconsistent use of terminology.  I am not even sure that the term HD Morph is being used the same way by Daz for Genesis 9 torso details as the term HD morph is being used more generally in the 3D community.

Diomede

Dartanbeck said:

This fellow has a complete tutorial playlist that can be even more helpful. He also has incredible tutorials on making your own animated figures in Blender (for games), but that's another story.

Playlist for getting the most out of Materialize

Thanks.  Believe it or not, I actually did some 3D models for someone developing a game for 'augmented reality.'  The tech world is evolving quickly.

Dartanbeck

Diomede said:

One of the most annoying things is the inconsistent use of terminology.  I am not even sure that the term HD Morph is being used the same way by Daz for Genesis 9 torso details as the term HD morph is being used more generally in the 3D community.

Daz 3d uses it as such:

The base figure can have x number of actual polygons, and then it has standard SubD levels that it uses and can use by default.

HD Morphs are morphs that are created specifically to add higher density (HD) details to the base mesh.

It's a genius system that allows a base mesh to be less cluttered by density that it doesn't need in its default state - but may be anticipating for the future. Now these HD morphs can be used to apply the extra density only if the end user requires it.

Dartanbeck

Diomede said:

Dartanbeck said:

This fellow has a complete tutorial playlist that can be even more helpful. He also has incredible tutorials on making your own animated figures in Blender (for games), but that's another story.

Playlist for getting the most out of Materialize

Thanks.  Believe it or not, I actually did some 3D models for someone developing a game for 'augmented reality.'  The tech world is evolving quickly.

I don't find that hard to believe at all. Diomede like to model!

Yeah, that Royal Skies is awesome! I was digging around with trying a Blender version of Rosie when Daz released those bridges. Eventually I just started feeling more like I was going to spend the rest of my life trying new software, learning, etc., and never actually getting anywhere.

UnifiedBrain

Dartanbeck said:

UnifiedBrain said:

When I first started Carrara, I was not really focused on anything.  Everything was new.  Then I noticed that Generation 1-3 stuff was disappearing fast, so I focused on that for years.  Now that I understand the HD plugin, and know how to use normal maps better, G2 is like a new door opening.  A while back Diomede said that G2 was his main character set.  I am coming around to that point of view. :)

Intersting, and nice work on that G2M character!

If you're intersted in trying more cool stuff, Genesis 1 has impressive capabilities - always has. For the Genesis line, it's definitely the most dated, when looking at characters available for sale. Genesis 3 and newer also gained Iray materials, which makes their promo shots that much more stunning.

But Genesis 1's magic will not be dying anytime soon. From the incredible Monstrosity series by Daz 3d to the wonderful Lycan by Midnight Stories, Abominable, Gorilla, all the men, women and children made for this fascinating any-gender figure - they all share the magic of, for the most part, being able to wear any of the clothing made for the entire line, but also your Generation 1 through 4 figures.

 

To the point:

Materialize is an amazing piece of software that allows us to quickly and easily create Normal maps from the bump maps.

I did some experimenting with it for Rosie 5. That was a while ago, but the results were really quite awesome.I noticed something particular to keep in mind, however: 

When making Normal maps from Bump maps for a figure (or anything else with multiple map seams) it can help to begin by editing the edge of each map's island to extend out a bit further as to not create a Normal Map Ridge at the seams. Took me a while to figure out how I suddenly turned Rosie into a marionette! 

This is a simple task if you want to 'get it done', but the more patient you are at enlarging the edge, the better the result will be.

Can't remember if you use Photoshop, Affinity Photo or what, but both of those two have what's called a cloning brush that works beautifully for doing this. Basically what I'm talking about is where the image portions of the skin maps meet white or other blank color. This isn't something we need to do for any of the other maps, just the bump (or whichever one you use to create the Normal map.

Dart, thanks for the comment on G2M!

Regarding Materialize, I have been using it for over a year now.  I'm even going to use it today.

I got my start from this thread: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/520171/making-bump-spec-and-normal-maps-in-materialize-mini-tut#latest

In that thread, Jonstark mentioned that you (Dart) had figured out a way to remove the seams when creating normal maps.  But since both you and he were missing in action for a while, I couldn't ask about the details.

So, thanks for the clarification.  I will give enlarging the edges a try.

Materialize and Philemo's HD plugin are both awesome tools.

 

Dartanbeck

What I ended up doing instead was to actually edit Rosie's UV's so they weren't so close to the edge - and it worked beautifully, and was easier for me to do.

Not sure how comfy you are with UV Mapping. That's how I got started into 3d was UV Mapping game elements for someone who turned into a good friend of mine. He later bought me Poser 5 and turned me onto Daz 3d

 

I ended up finding Carrara 6 Pro on my own, but couldn't buy it until Carrara 8 was nearing release. So I bought Carrara 6 Pro, upgraded to 7 Pro (for a massive discount) which got me Carrara 8 Pro beta useage as well as the actual 8 Pro once it was released. 

Sorry for the absences. It's something that simply cannot be helped right now :(

Dartanbeck

Wow. Timing!

Yo Unified Brain, I know you don't really need this, but look what I just bought for free! LOL

Dartanbeck

It requires one of the two bridges, but not the software that they bridge to. And those bridges are free too.

WendyLuvsCatz

Diomede said:

Has anyone tried the HD plugin on Genesis 9?

https://sourceforge.net/projects/carrara-time-savers/

OK some weird results using the G9M dev load at subdiv2 render 4

ass room and renders differ wildly

also that hand suggests the base pose is not zero if G9M dialled in