Rigging

kaotkbliss

I think all you really need is the diffuse and bump.

When I rigged the female suit, I just simply placed the jpg of the full-color suit in the diffuse section on Daz.

joshuabouillion87

kaotkbliss said:

I think all you really need is the diffuse and bump.

When I rigged the female suit, I just simply placed the jpg of the full-color suit in the diffuse section on Daz.

I know. Just trying figure out how to use different maps. Some armour variants have different skins.Which color control maps allows some areas of a mesh to be masked off, and then allowing others to be transparent.For example,with the under suit. Most of it is black except for most of the torso, where is is white. Next to the diffuse map where you apply it in Daz, you are able to add your own custom color with clicking the box on the side of the map.But, by doing so I believe it affects the black of the suit with a shade of whatever color that you would choose. With control maps it already has its own colors, if these maps are used, it would just color the white of the undersuit, leaving the black of the undersuit untouched.Hope that makes sense.If you seen the render on the 405th. The actual armor and the undersuit came out to bright due to the color control map not being placed in the right spot.

kaotkbliss

Well, since the original was not made for Daz, then it's not going to work the same. You might have to use a geoshell or the LIE image editor to layer the textures. You'll also have to create a tansparency map by creating a pure black and white version of the texture (black is invisible white is solid)

joshuabouillion87

kaotkbliss

Is that rendered from Daz then?

joshuabouillion87

yes sir! And I just figured out how to post  pics, since they have changed the new forum format.

 

joshuabouillion87

(To anyone who sees this comment) If I'm able to get the color maps posted for the female spartan under suit, will someone with more experience in using them have a look at it? To see if it will work in the surfaces tab in Daz Studio? And if it does work, maybe provide a little info on how it works?

kaotkbliss

Sorry, that's not for me :(

I'm only just beginning to use bump and displacement maps

 

Nice work so far though :)

joshuabouillion87

kaotkbliss said:

Sorry, that's not for me :(

I'm only just beginning to use bump and displacement maps

 

Nice work so far though :)

Thanks Kaot!

 

joshuabouillion87

 

 

So, I know its been a couple of days since my last comment about using color control maps, and using alpha channels. There hasn't been a big spark of interest, so I'm hoping the above image will provide a better understanding of what I'm trying to accomplish. And, maybe some feed back.The above render was done by a friend of someone that I'm friends with back over on the 4O5th.com. I'm almost sure that person was using a different modeling program to acheive his results. If we take a look at the above render we can see the red designs that are on certain spots of the armor. Thats what I'm going far. The color control maps would allow to mask of certain parts of armor mesh. Allowing custom color variants. And thanks for any feedback, its greatly appreciated!

joshuabouillion87

Here is another example from the same person. Also, if you notice its not just the armor, but the undersuit as well.I believe that to be the Halo 4 under suit(male variant).

 

kaotkbliss

One thing you can do is take the texture map into a photo program and re-color what you want. Save each color option as a new texture image. Then you can swap textures in the diffuse channel for the different suit colors.

joshuabouillion87

I seen someone do that before in a thread back at the 405th.com. Didn't want to have to go that route, but willing to check it out. Well, as long as the photo program is free.

kaotkbliss

I just started using Gimp. It's free and seems almost just as powerful as Photoshop.

The only oddity about it is that in order to save an image as anything other than a gimp image, you actually export it to jpg, png, tif, etc.

joshuabouillion87

Can anyone tell me how to make this render better? It looks grainy, and unfinished.

kaotkbliss

For Iray? under render settings, click on the "Progressive Rendering" tab and increase your Max Samples and Max Time. That will let the image render longer. I've got mine set at some crazy high settings (10,000 max samples and 14,400(4 hours) max time)

That makes sure that it reaches a nice converged ratio :)

joshuabouillion87

Can anyone tell me how to make this render better? It looks grainy, and unfinished.

kaotkbliss said:

For Iray? under render settings, click on the "Progressive Rendering" tab and increase your Max Samples and Max Time. That will let the image render longer. I've got mine set at some crazy high settings (10,000 max samples and 14,400(4 hours) max time)

That makes sure that it reaches a nice converged ratio :)

Yes, for iray. Not sure if you ever had trouble with iray. I did what you had told me to do. Still having issues. I know for sure Iray will let me do a full render of a character. But ever since I added the Enviroment into the scene, the render gets stuck at 3% when making out the canvas. It shows the time for the render. It can be 2 hours later and still be stuck at 3%. And yes, even after changing the settings you have mentioned. Not sure if its my computer, or if Daz Studio is acting up?

kaotkbliss

It could be 1 or 2 things that I can guess.

#1, you have too many items in your scene and your PC is getting stuck trying to process the light calculations. See if there is anything off screen you can remove

#2, you need more light in your scene. Try increasing the emmission of your lights/add more lights.

joshuabouillion87

kaotkbliss said:

It could be 1 or 2 things that I can guess.

#1, you have too many items in your scene and your PC is getting stuck trying to process the light calculations. See if there is anything off screen you can remove

#2, you need more light in your scene. Try increasing the emmission of your lights/add more lights.

What up Kaot? I know its been a while, but I think I'm ready to give this render another shot again. You mentioned more lights to add to the scene. I know that some enviroments/props allows you to select certain light fixtures within a scene, then those can be used for lighting. Well in this scene you can see the 3 lights at the back door, ceiling lights, etc. Problem is, they can't be selected. Even in the scene tab no lights are showing up in the list. Any ideas?

mjc1016

A quick comment on GIMP, from a previous post...that was intentional.  I don't know what the devs were thinking about, but they made the save options that way on purpose.

 

joshuabouillion87 said:

 Well in this scene you can see the 3 lights at the back door, ceiling lights, etc. Problem is, they can't be selected. Even in the scene tab no lights are showing up in the list. Any ideas?

They are probably set up as mesh lights...the light controls for them would be on the Surfaces tabs, as being a meshlight/emitter is a surface property.

joshuabouillion87

mjc1016 said:

A quick comment on GIMP, from a previous post...that was intentional.  I don't know what the devs were thinking about, but they made the save options that way on purpose.

 

joshuabouillion87 said:

 Well in this scene you can see the 3 lights at the back door, ceiling lights, etc. Problem is, they can't be selected. Even in the scene tab no lights are showing up in the list. Any ideas?

They are probably set up as mesh lights...the light controls for them would be on the Surfaces tabs, as being a meshlight/emitter is a surface property.

Not following you about the save options. But will take a look at the Surfaces tab tonight.Thanks Mjc!

fixmypcmike

joshuabouillion87 said:

mjc1016 said:

A quick comment on GIMP, from a previous post...that was intentional.  I don't know what the devs were thinking about, but they made the save options that way on purpose.

 

joshuabouillion87 said:

 Well in this scene you can see the 3 lights at the back door, ceiling lights, etc. Problem is, they can't be selected. Even in the scene tab no lights are showing up in the list. Any ideas?

They are probably set up as mesh lights...the light controls for them would be on the Surfaces tabs, as being a meshlight/emitter is a surface property.

 

Not following you about the save options. But will take a look at the Surfaces tab tonight.Thanks Mjc!

They changed GIMP so that "Save" is only for GIMP-native formats, and "Export" is used for other graphics formats.

joshuabouillion87

They changed GIMP so that "Save" is only for GIMP-native formats, and "Export" is used for other graphics formats.

That clears things up a little more.Thanks pcMike

joshuabouillion87

If I were to scroll up back up some a little, there would be Emissions Color. The other 2 are marked with the yellow arrows. Other than that, can't find anything else that shows Emissions.

Also, in the image I have the back bay door selected. Thats the one that says B5 on it. It has a few emmisions lights.

mjc1016

Put something other than black in the color and that will open up the other settings...yes, it's context 'aware' or  something like that.

joshuabouillion87

So, 2 hours later Iray Iteration 257, 0.17% Coverged. Thanks for the advice! Changing the Emission color did open up a new tab that allowed me to access the lights. I mainly increased the Luminance to about 6500. Hope thats not to much? Although I am concerned about the progress its made after 2 hours. Should it be further along for being at 2 hours? I mean the canvas hasn't even been written.

kaotkbliss

What I normally do is, all your wall lights you have, I would make those emissive (maybe 30,000 or 40,000 lm) then I would also add a point light in those same spots at about 50,000 lm

It helps to add a lot of light to the room without washing out the light fixture.

 

*edit*

I should add that glass, water and geoshells tend to increase Iray render times (at least they have for me)

 

*another edit to add*

there's some pretty good advice in this thread dealing with indoor settings

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/78691/can-t-render-won-t-buy/p1

joshuabouillion87

Woo, read just about that whole thread you just posted to go and check out. Just alot to take in. Will give your advice a try tomorrow. I'm pooped out for the night. As always thanks for the input!

joshuabouillion87

Alright guys, got the male undersuit rigged. I rigged it in Blender using the Rigify addon. Really enjoyed using it, wasn't that hard at all. About to import a Genesis 2 male into my Blender scene with G2M in with standard T-pose position. Then posing the male undersuit to match the G2M as close as possible. I know Kaotbliss was able to get the female undersuit to work using the Transfer Utility without the female under suit not being in  Tpose position. I tried many times but it didn't work for me. On that note, which I don't think previously I've asked this. When scaling and moving the bones to match the under suit, does the orientation of the bones all have to be the same on both sides of the rig? What I mean by this is if I were to scale the right shin bone, should the left shin bone be the exact same scale also. Also, by keeping both side exactly the same, is there a mirror option that I can select when manipulating one side of G2M'S RIG?

kaotkbliss

Daz does have a symmetry option for posing. I'm not sure what it does with scaling though. I hardly ever use it. I think it's under edit->figure->symmetry

When I did the female suit, I did it the hard way and copied the xyz rotations and scales from one bone and pasted them to the opposite side and made adjustments as needed, then moved on to the next bone.