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She's Coming!!!
The latest version of Rosie will be able to jump back and forth between Daz Studio and Carrara!
No crazy exporting or manipulations... just load from the library and go!!!
She's nearing completion, but not quite there yet.
This image is a celebration of my latest epiphany - using dForce and Linday's Classic Long Curl Hair to build up a conforming hair with a plethora of Joint-Controlled-Morphs created directly from Simulation data - and it works!
I still have a way to go, but I wanted to give a small sample of where I'm at.
In this image she's also wearing her own custom GeoShell, and I made up the transparent shader with V4 HiRes Wet Maps (Specular and Bump).
I ported Arki's EYEdeas 4 for Genesis 3 Females over to Rosie and am also using PhilW's Eye Surface for Genesis - and he made his "Bright Eyes" for both Daz Studio and Carrara - so, win Win!!!
I really like the modern shaders for the latest few generations of Genesis, so I've used those as a base to work from and have come up with a really nice skin shader for Rosie using V4 Elite: Reby Sky.
Her shape comes from many sources - Sol for G8F and G3F, Star 2, Aiko 6, Gia 6, Victoria 6, Victoria 4, Stephanie 4, Arki's EYEdeas 4 and many shaping morphs from across generations 5 through 7.
After all of this time learning about many of the 'not-so-obvious' tools of Daz Studio, I've really come to love this software, and Carrara has been a Huge asset through this whole process, which is my Favorite Reason to even use a computer - Period! Carrara Pro ROCKS!!!
I started my article on this project, which will be covered in great detail in upcoming videos and tutorials
Bridging Technology - Rosie 567
That's a terrific render, Dart. Hope you complete the character soon.
Your workflow sounds complex, but if it works for you, great. All that matters is the result (which looks outstanding).
Glad there are no bloodshot eyes. I really didn't care for those. :)
Rosie Rocks!
Interesting that you are using Genesis and backward adapting later content. Makes perfect sense, but I doubt I would have thought of it. Stay motivated.
Thanks guys!
Yes, it's incredibly involved. But it answers problems that have been driving me Nuts through all of this.
Backward Adapting:
Yes. Genesis 3 was a massive technological leap for Daz 3d, in that it's base isn't quite so heavy of a mesh, relying more on HD morphs and normal mapping to add the details.
I was almost completely switched over to Genesis 3 and really love the Rosie that I created with it. But then I stumble upon aspects that drive me back to Genesis 1 all over again. I love my Rosie 8 as well, but again, she's just not as versatile as Rosie 5.
My stint with Daz Studio was a great one - one which will truly keep me using it from that point forward.
The magic of this new Rosie 5 is that I won't have to rely upon hair simulation during the animation phase (I hope). I will be simulating cloth, but I use VWD for that, which works well in both Carrara and DS alike.
I've dug in deep with Studio and discovered how I can inject animations into a character as a morph - where 0 (zero) on the slider is frame 1 of the animation, and 1 is the end of it. So I can still use VWD in Daz Studio for soft-body. I've written my own dynamic morphs file for that, which is a lot more subtle, and matched with Rosie's incredibly changed shape (from what the original files were written for - base-sized characters), so I can make various aniMorphs for many situations, and add new ones whenever needed, thanks to being able to load her equally in either application.
It's all very difficult for me to just write about now, because it's fairly in-depth. Plus I have my odd way of speaking about things. I notice this immensely when I read stuff that I've written long after I've forgotten what I wrote - so the context and subconscious knowledge of what I was trying to say has vanished. LOL
So I'm also busy preparing ways to speak about this stuff visually as well as aurally in order to demonstrate this most amazing workflow I've stumbled upon - and ephiphanies (Aha moments) keep building it up even stronger.
Anyway, all of this technical stuff I'm pouring it the base figure (Rosie) will allow me the freedom once again of animating and rendering in Carrara - still haing plenty to do in Studio.
Fact is, I've also really grown to love Iray and Octane, so it's possible that I may still use those for characters that would do better with good SSS, like Rosie and Dart and some of the more dramatic monsters and such. In which case I'd be actually rendering using both Carrara and Daz Studio to make it all work.
Kinda cool how the new hair that I'm still working on for Rosie almost animates itself without the need of further simulation, because I'm actually using simulation results to drive Joint-Controlled Morphs (JCMs) according to her posture and natural head movements, while also adding many (Many) more morphs to drive the actual 'action' movements of the hair, each of which will be accentuated by the JCMs I've put on auto! Kinda exciting!
I should have added: "And a whole lot more"
The Genesis 3 lineup was Brilliant! Genesis 8 proves how serious Daz 3d is in regards to being the absolute Best at what they do - making articulate digital humans for the masses to shape, pose, animate - whatever. Making a great 3D model is one thing, but to answer to as many people that Daz 3d answers to every minute of every day... now that's just plain impressive!
Then comes along Genesis 8.1!!!
I'm not part of a major Hollywood production team, so I'm fine with hanging back a few generations. But I do love to load up what Daz 3d has accomplished and scope it out. They really are good at what they do!
Taking off my "It doesn't work in Carrara, screw it, I won't use it at all" blinders was an important step in my getting a Lot better at what "I" want to do with all of this. Yes, it took time away from making something move on screen, and also rendered pretty much all of the animated renders I've made prior fairly useless.
But it taught me a Lot about the advancement of Daz 3d's figures, not just in what isn't compatible, but more importantly: what I can bring into Carrara's amazing possibilities.
Building characters for Carrara in Daz Studio is a real game-changer for me! I've learned to re-target the skeletal rigging, create controller morphs far beyond what I've been using Daz Studio for for years. I've also learned that, by making my characters in Carrara makes them pretty much incompatible with anything but Carrara - which was always fine by me then, but not anymore.
Yep, Daz Studio has made itself a permanent home in my workflow - and I'm loving it!
Sort of thing. ;)
Something to note about that render of Rosie:
The hair isn't finished yet, which is why it's bunched up around her neck, and I also morphed it up to be too big and puffy to help make up for what is currently lacking in morphs.
It's a long and tedious process simulating out all of the morphs, but test are showing that it should work really good when I'm done.
A couple other things about that render of Rosie above:
The new hair idea is working... but not as awesome as I had envisioned. I may still keep plugging away at it, but it's actually more difficult than making time for a simulation, and doesn't turn out looking even close to as good as a simulated result. Bummer. I'm not going to quit trying though - just not quite as gung-ho, non-stop as I was, just feverishly slaving over it.
Also, I realized that I really do Not like her face!
It's a strange phenomenon, but she looks darned good in preview mode, but when rendered she just has this chiseled jaw and facial shapes that I just cannot stand. I wonder if that's what haapened when I ran a whole series (Years!!!) of Rosie renders in my gallery that totally suck!!! Yikes, it drives me nuts that I don't notice these things while I'm all caught up studying aspects of mootion, filmmaking, VFX, learning plugins... the whole gamut of things that take my brain out of focus of the actual beauty (supposed to be) in front of me!
A while back I bought Thorne's Lara, for Genesis 8 Female. She has been my absolute favorite character (head) shape ever, and then came along Sol for Genesis 3 and 8 Female - who is incredibly adorable, and not stylized.
I'm liking the idea of keeping Rosie as a stylized character and have a whole story backing up the reason she's like that. In actuallity, it's the same story as I had broasting away all along, but the previous versions of Rosie didn't make the fact that she's... Different, nearly as obvious.
Anyway, I also grabbed RiverSoft Art's Character Convertor from Genesis 8F to G3F, which works really well - but there was a whole big thing about how it doesn't really work for stylized characters with Big Eyes.
It's funny because I knew that it didn't work for stylized characters (like Lara) before buying it. I just wanted to add to my GenX2 situation - and have the ability to add any morph from any generation to any other generation. I can do that now with the ladies, but Genesis 8 Males are currently left out of it - I'll get those in the future.
Well, after getting an honest look at that image I posted of the new Rosie, I really wanted to figure out how to get Rosie 5 to look as awesome as Rose 8. Rosie 7 is darned close, but since I didn't have Lara for her either, my attempts to recreate her turned out to look a Lot younger.
So I put out a call for help in the release thread for the convertor.
Not long after I hit "Send", I tore through the included manual and read every word - well... until I finished reading everything I needed to know about converting stylized characters with big eyes! Right there in the dog-gone manual!!! Aaaaaahhhh!!!!
I feel like such a ditz!!!!
Now I have a near-exact replica of Rosie 8 in a Genesis 3 figure.
Trying to figure out how to reproduce that conversion through GenX2 into Genesis was another chore altogether.
After thinking about it, I really didn't have to. I already had Sol in Genesis 1, I just really needed a good copy of Lara's face - that's it.
So I ran the convertor in it's most intended fashion: converting a G8F "Actor" into and G3F Actor. Lara for G8F becomes Lara for G3F.
Now all I had to do was to GenX2 Lara's Head shape over to Genesis 1, which was done in a blinding instant.
Oh, I am So Happy!!!
It's crazy though... Rosie 8 (and 7) uses Sol's materials. Sol has freckles. Rosie 5 uses Reby Sky's texture maps. Reby Sky is a fighter, not a younger kid. So Rosie 5 looks much more the part - as adorable as Sol's materials are.
Here's the converted G3F version of Rosie 8. Rosie 5 is busy working right now. When she's done I'll put up the render I did of her. I don't like to bother my computer when both GPU and CPU cores are all running wide open!
Wait till you see the new Rosie 5. She's not an identical twin to 7 and 8, but very similar. She has bigger eyes and she's a warrior... kinda. Not by choice.
To get Rosie 5's materials to be Iray materials, I copied individual materials from Rosie 8 and just pated them into G1 Rosie 5, and then changed the maps.
Sol's maps are fairly gray, whereas Reby Sky's are bold and colorful. I may end up desaturating Reby's, but for now I just tweaked the existing shaders to suit.
She'll look much better after a good ol' desaturation I think. Perhaps I'll do that next.
Here she is, though I haven't yet done as I said in the above post: desaturate the texture maps a bit to work better with SSS and blended render skin options. (the following GIF my take a bit to load)
There's a fairly decent writeup on making her in the gallery listing here
looks great Dart, thanks for all your explications!
wonderful article thank you
...and now she's defunct for Rosie 568! LOL
Yeah, sorry if I get wordy. I'm just so neck-deep into all of this that I have to say something... like, Everything... or I'll explode!
This is one of the very first versions of Rosie 5 (not the very first, though)
I did this for one of the Carrara challenges:
A look behind the curtain, these images show how immense this little chunk of the city is, and how much I put into it.