[Released] Thickener plugin [commercial]

Nelmi

Alberto said:

Nelmi said:

I have been playing around with the plugin and you did a great job! Congratulations. How would Content creators go about if we want to include the thickened clothing item for resale. Apologies if this has been covered in a previous post, but the process is still unclear for me. I am talking specifically about the dynamic thickened object.

You can include the dynamic thickened object, but for it works, the final user has to own the Thickener plugin.

And for the static one, the plugin isn't required.

Whatever you create with the plugin is completely yours (well, as long as you owns the rights or permits of the original clothing or object).

Ok, great. I understand. Thank you :) 

gitika1

barbult said:

marble said:

... snip ...

We can argue about post-purchase beta testing but I think that a product that adds an obvious and desireable feature should be presented to the customer base working and well explained in simple-to-follow terms.

I don't disagree with your statement, but I will counter to say that Alberto has provided MUCH more help than most PAs provide:

• He posted a commercial thread about Thickener and has been an active participant in the thread.
• He created a demonstration video which is available on the product page.
• He wrote a PDF manual! Most PAs don't even provide any useful readme info. I value and appreciate the technical detail Alberto provided in the manual. It helped me understand the product better. The customer base is too varied to please everyone, I guess. There are too many customer skill and experience levels. There may also be language barriers that make communication in English a challenge for some PAs and some users.
• He has already fixed several bugs. He promised to release an update with those fixes soon. Many PAs don't fix bugs even when they are reported through the official customer service channel.

I am very pleased with what Thickener has added to the Daz ecosystem. Alberto should be quite proud of what he has created. When I get something this useful, I dig in to see what all I can do with it. I find bugs in just about everything that is this complicated. Some PAs use me as a beta tester for that reason.

So let's march on and find more interesting ways to use the Thickener...

I agree with Barbult!  This is one of the easiest add-ons I have ever purchased.

gitika1

barbult said:

This wouldn't work for everything, but for this tank top, I found that I could essentially add a wide border with the Thickener. The border is a separate surface. I could have used a different shader on it, but I chose to use the same one as the tank top and adjust the tiling to make it look of similar scale.

Thin

Thickened

Settings

Wow!  I am going to have to go back and try this. (When I have more DS play time.)  Just glancing at the settings, is it the "Protrusion of border" that created the effect?  Thanks for sharing!!

barbult

gitika1 said:

barbult said:

This wouldn't work for everything, but for this tank top, I found that I could essentially add a wide border with the Thickener. The border is a separate surface. I could have used a different shader on it, but I chose to use the same one as the tank top and adjust the tiling to make it look of similar scale.

Thin

Thickened

Settings

Wow!  I am going to have to go back and try this. (When I have more DS play time.)  Just glancing at the settings, is it the "Protrusion of border" that created the effect?  Thanks for sharing!!

I think protrusion is the main contributor. I bypassed the limits to set it that high.

barbult

@Alberto, I'm having a problem with the appearance of the border with "Stretch UV map". It looks good along edges that are horizontal on the UV map, but not on edges that are vertical on the UV map. Will this be improved by the update that has been submitted?

Here are some images of the problem that I am having. The stretched UV on the edge of the sleeve cuffs looks fine, but the edge of the hood looks bad. The sleeve cuffs are horizontal on the UV, but the hood edge is vertical on the UV.

Here is another example on a cube. Both static and dynamic thickening gave the same results with the same settings. One edge has nice UV stretching and the other edge does not.

Alberto

barbult said:

@Alberto, I'm having a problem with the appearance of the border with "Stretch UV map". It looks good along edges that are horizontal on the UV map, but not on edges that are vertical on the UV map. Will this be improved by the update that has been submitted?

 

Yes, it will. I noticed that problem and fixed it before submitting the update.

barbult

Alberto said:

barbult said:

@Alberto, I'm having a problem with the appearance of the border with "Stretch UV map". It looks good along edges that are horizontal on the UV map, but not on edges that are vertical on the UV map. Will this be improved by the update that has been submitted?

 

Yes, it will. I noticed that problem and fixed it before submitting the update.

Wonderful! I am really looking forward to the update. It will make a great product even greater!

takezo_3001

Alberto said:

jedijudd said:

Can this be used to make a geoshell skin look thicker

Yes. 

So we can use this on conforming clothes then?

 

Ascania

takezo_3001 said:

Alberto said:

jedijudd said:

Can this be used to make a geoshell skin look thicker

Yes. 

So we can use this on conforming clothes then?

If it's got a mesh, you can use it.

takezo_3001

Ascania said:

takezo_3001 said:

Alberto said:

jedijudd said:

Can this be used to make a geoshell skin look thicker

Yes. 

So we can use this on conforming clothes then?

If it's got a mesh, you can use it.

Thanks for the info, just bought it, and am trying it out as we speak!

Just learned that you don't want to use aggressive smoothing on the clothing item before you thicken it!

It does not work with conformiong clothes in that it doesn't move with the conformed clothing it just makes a freeze-frame of the clothing mesh, I suppose it's good for dynamic clothes only, if you want to animate with it you'll have to use dynamic clothing... still, I can try and use the generated mesh as dynamic cloth.

skinklizzard

The dynamic mesh rebuilds/synchronises itself on timeline movement, or if you disable and enable the mesher, so animating will be fine even on conforming clothing, just make sure you use the dynamic thickener.

I also assume you mean clothes without dforce when you say conforming.

LindaB

Forgive me if this has been covered before, but the thread is too long to read all the way through. I can't find the documentation for this product. The installer is an executable file, so I don't have access to the individual files. The readme says the pdf file is located here: /docs/Plugins/Thickener/Thickener Manual.pdf. I checked and it wasn't there. I tried installing both manually AND using the Install Manager, but the files are simply not there. I don't know where to load the plugin, it doesn't appear in the list of windowpanes, nor does it appear in the list of tools., I don't know where to enter the serial number, I don't even know if the plugin is actually INSTALLED, let alone how to get it working, Can someone help me out here? thanks.

Daventaki

@LindaB  Goto menu Help/About Installed Plugins  scroll down to Thickener  the little plugin beside it will be gray until you put in your serial number. Once you put your number in you will have to restart DS.

Manual will be in your installed plugin folder you can actually access this through DIM by going to the Installed tab on the far right there is an arrow that has a drop down menu, in this menu choose Show Installed Files a new window will open with the info.  The locations are were it is installed and you can click the link and it will take you to that folder.

 

takezo_3001

skinklizzard said:

The dynamic mesh rebuilds/synchronises itself on timeline movement, or if you disable and enable the mesher, so animating will be fine even on conforming clothing, just make sure you use the dynamic thickener.

I also assume you mean clothes without dforce when you say conforming.

Yep, you are correct!

takezo_3001

I have another question, can you make the generated mesh into dynamic clothing, and if you can, what setting will I have to use within the thickener program?

Chumly

Just a shout out to Barbult...
You are awesome.  If I was a PA, I'd send you a copy of any Asset I made, gratis, just so you could test drive it and give feedback.  I always enjoy reading your posts and getting your Daz-insights.

When this covid thing is over... beers on me!

Alberto

takezo_3001 said:

I have another question, can you make the generated mesh into dynamic clothing, and if you can, what setting will I have to use within the thickener program?

Could you elaborate more on this? I'm afraid I don't understand the question.

barbult

Chumly said:

Just a shout out to Barbult...
You are awesome.  If I was a PA, I'd send you a copy of any Asset I made, gratis, just so you could test drive it and give feedback.  I always enjoy reading your posts and getting your Daz-insights.

When this covid thing is over... beers on me!

@Chumly you made my day! That is so nice to hear.

barbult

The Thickener update is already in DIM!

barbult

So now I am going back through my issues to see what is fixed. I started with the thickened plane, where the UV stretching looked OK on one side but not the other. In version 1.0.1.0 (the update) I see that the original problem that I saw at subD 0 is fixed, but there is a Border Subdivision problem. The problem may have been there before, but I looked only at subD 0 at the time.

The problem I see is that the subdivision of the border mesh is not uniformly spaced in either UV direction. In the vertical UV dirrection the pattern isn't stretched over all of the subdivisions. (These are all static thickened objects.)

Border Subdivision 0 - UV stretching is fixed

Border Subdivision 1,2,3,4,5 - UV stretching is not uniformly spaced. Here is Border Subdivision 3 as an example.

Alberto

barbult said:

So now I am going back through my issues to see what is fixed. I started with the thickened plane, where the UV stretching looked OK on one side but not the other. In version 1.0.1.0 (the update) I see that the original problem that I saw at subD 0 is fixed, but there is a Border Subdivision problem. The problem may have been there before, but I looked only at subD 0 at the time.

The problem I see is that the subdivision of the border mesh is not uniformly spaced in either UV direction. In the vertical UV dirrection the pattern isn't stretched over all of the subdivisions. (These are all static thickened objects.)

Border Subdivision 0 - UV stretching is fixed

Border Subdivision 1,2,3,4,5 - UV stretching is not uniformly spaced. Here is Border Subdivision 3 as an example.

I see.

It's fixed. I expect to be sending the fixing to DAZ next week.

 

barbult

Alberto said:

barbult said:

So now I am going back through my issues to see what is fixed. I started with the thickened plane, where the UV stretching looked OK on one side but not the other. In version 1.0.1.0 (the update) I see that the original problem that I saw at subD 0 is fixed, but there is a Border Subdivision problem. The problem may have been there before, but I looked only at subD 0 at the time.

The problem I see is that the subdivision of the border mesh is not uniformly spaced in either UV direction. In the vertical UV dirrection the pattern isn't stretched over all of the subdivisions. (These are all static thickened objects.)

Border Subdivision 0 - UV stretching is fixed

Border Subdivision 1,2,3,4,5 - UV stretching is not uniformly spaced. Here is Border Subdivision 3 as an example.

I see.

It's fixed. I expect to be sending the fixing to DAZ next week.

 

Fast work! I see that the stretching now covers the entire vertical UV direction, which will be a great help. But the spacing of the suvdivisions is still not uniform. The border subdivision nearest the top of the thickened object is wider than the other visible mesh subdivisions. I can't really see the bottom subdivision from this camera view (in either my example or yours). I don't know if it matches the others or not. The fact that the subdivision near the top is wider causes visible distortion in the pattern and the bump/normal texture. Is that mesh spacing something that you have control of and can improve?

A different example, Border Subdivision  5

barbult

The problem with white triangles in the border with negative offset reported here seems to be fixed in version 1.0.1.0. Thank you, Alberto.

barbult

The problem with the dynamic thickened object losing it high resolution after saving and reopening the file, reported here, seems to be fixed in version 1.0.1.0. Thank you, Alberto. This fix also means that I can now use ManFriday's Render Queue to properly render scenes with dynamic thickened objects. Wonderful!!!!

The related problem with thickened geometry disappearing after a file was saved and reopened, reported here, also seems to be fixed in 1.0.1.0. I'm happy.

barbult

The problem with Iray preview viewport blockiness/pixelization, documented here, seems to be fixed in version 1.0.1.0. Thank you, Alberto.

barbult

The issue with applying a materials preset to object 1, causing the the dynamic thickened object of object 2 to be rebuilt, has not changed in version 1.0.1.0. The rebuilt dynamic thickened object no longer loses its high resolution, so that is an improvement, but waiting for complex thickened objects to be rebuilt is a pain. I'll repose the question. I'm not sure it was answered before. (Or maybe I just forgot the answer.)

Question: Why does applying a materials preset or shader preset to one object in the scene, cause the Dynamic thickened object of a different scene item to be rebuilt?

Alberto

barbult said:

Alberto said:

barbult said:

So now I am going back through my issues to see what is fixed. I started with the thickened plane, where the UV stretching looked OK on one side but not the other. In version 1.0.1.0 (the update) I see that the original problem that I saw at subD 0 is fixed, but there is a Border Subdivision problem. The problem may have been there before, but I looked only at subD 0 at the time.

The problem I see is that the subdivision of the border mesh is not uniformly spaced in either UV direction. In the vertical UV dirrection the pattern isn't stretched over all of the subdivisions. (These are all static thickened objects.)

Border Subdivision 0 - UV stretching is fixed

Border Subdivision 1,2,3,4,5 - UV stretching is not uniformly spaced. Here is Border Subdivision 3 as an example.

I see.

It's fixed. I expect to be sending the fixing to DAZ next week.

 

Fast work! I see that the stretching now covers the entire vertical UV direction, which will be a great help. But the spacing of the suvdivisions is still not uniform. The border subdivision nearest the top of the thickened object is wider than the other visible mesh subdivisions. I can't really see the bottom subdivision from this camera view (in either my example or yours). I don't know if it matches the others or not. The fact that the subdivision near the top is wider causes visible distortion in the pattern and the bump/normal texture. Is that mesh spacing something that you have control of and can improve?

A different example, Border Subdivision  5

The UV map is following the geometry of the stretching. You can see that the first row of facets is the wider, wheras the central rows are the thinner.

That was the model I chose. But let me see...

Let me see...

 

Alberto

barbult said:

The issue with applying a materials preset to object 1, causing the the dynamic thickened object of object 2 to be rebuilt, has not changed in version 1.0.1.0. The rebuilt dynamic thickened object no longer loses its high resolution, so that is an improvement, but waiting for complex thickened objects to be rebuilt is a pain. I'll repose the question. I'm not sure it was answered before. (Or maybe I just forgot the answer.)

Question: Why does applying a materials preset or shader preset to one object in the scene, cause the Dynamic thickened object of a different scene item to be rebuilt?

This is causing by a signal that the plugin interprets as a reloading of the scene. It's an inconvenient I have to accept to get the mesh reconstructed after loading.

barbult

I never see a progress dialog anymore, even though I have not selected "Silence Progress dialog". It look about two minutes to update the dynamic thickened item, which was 3.5 million quads. During the processing, Daz Studio was "Not Responding". Should I have seen a progress dialog?

smaker1

Thanks to barbult for his complete tests (you can be hired by Daz :-) )  !

And , of course, thanks to Alvin for this amazing plug-in !!