Methods for Graphic Novel creation.
faeleshstudios
Posts: 0
I plan to use Daz to create renders for a Graphic Novel I am creating.
I am still learning my way around Daz, but it seems that I may end up needing to create a different SAVE FILE for each and every single still I plan to make, which could end up being an ungodly number of saves.. Is there something I am missing that I could use?
So say I have two models / characters that are going to be interacting together across 6 different panels.. Is there any way to have those 6 different poses / arrangements in one save file and I can quickly switch between them on the timeline or something, WITHOUT it being an animation? So I could render each of them separately from one another? Or do I need to have each poses / arrangement of those characters be a separate save file?
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What do you mean by "without it being an animation"? You can certainly use frames as states for the poses (but materials do not animate without the manual addition of proxies) - the thing to watch for is having something that isn't keyed in one of the frames of interest as it would then be in a state between the keyed states either side of it.
You can use the timeline to do "sequential art" but it is a bit of a PITA - basically you just need to make sure that every key set is of type "constant". Daz Studio will (at least it seems to me) fight you on this: every time you set or change a parameter it will set the key to its version of spline interpolation (there's no way to set the default key type as there was in Poser) so ...
Every time you've got a frame the way you like it: lasso -select all those frame's keys and change their type to constant (thankfully you can collapse the scene hierarchy on the left of the timeline - setting the parent object's key type to constant sets all it's children's keys too)
Maybe it's just me but I find it advisable to keep lassoing the keys on frame 0 and setting those to constant too. E.g. if you change a parameter on frame 10 that you've never touched before, and set it to constant, then it seems that DS will create a key for that parameter on frame 0 - not constant of course - and then happily interpolate it through frames 1-9. Aargh!
It can help to start your first frame with a zero pose that sets all the figure's parameters, just to set the keys on every bone. Then load, build your first pose on top of that. For each subsequent frame start by copying and pasting the keys from the previous frame. This helps if you insert or re-order frames, e.g. you don't find that the elbow bend in the frame you've just copied wasn't set in that frame but carried over from the frame before.
DON'T use frame 0 for your first frame - every single morph can get keyed (initialized) on that frame, and copying and pasting all that stuff can really lead to large file sizes and bog your system down
I tend to make my final frames on every 2nd, 3rd or more timeline frame. It makes lasso selection easier and it lets me try out e.g. pose, camera or lighting changes in the intermediate timeline frames that I can either copy and paste back onto the frame I'm changing, keep as an alternative, or just delete.
When you've completed a frame: save the file with a subscript of the frame number, just in case working on a later frame screws stuff up
... but, hopefully, at the end of all that you will have one file with all the assets and frames, which is great if you want to change the appearance of any item and have that stay consistent across all the frames.
Good luck (and keep those keyframes constant!)
In the past, I myself saved the story boards as separate files. I never used Timeline for making VNs because I found that way cumbersome and time-consuming.
Since Camera Magic was released, I rarely saved separate files. Camera Magic is definitely a game changer for me. It can save Visibility, Pose and Shape data on each Camera. As for the case you mentioned, you only need 6 Cameras in one DUF file for 6 boards. Save Pose (and Shape / Visibility data as needed...) data on each Camera, then switch Camera to render.
PS: A trick > Better label the Camera with necessary discription (or add a Note to the camera...) in case you forget which camera tells what ~~
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/8934041/#Comment_8934041
If you combine Camera Magic with Instancing, you can also "move" your characters within the same scene-set - by hiding/showing instances you've saved in the different locations you want the characters to appear on the set. Always keep your "master-models" off-camera. This is quite efficient and means you can treat your GN like a series of movie sets, where "the background" is probably all that the necessitiates new files
There's also a costiume saver - which I find very useful in a similar kinda way: https://www.daz3d.com/wearables-manager
And (again, in a similar vein) this is very useful for poses: https://www.daz3d.com/ultimate-pose-mixer-pro-with-mega-pose-toolkit
Thanks crosswind, Richard and kpr !
I am partial to the timeline as it provides a useful visual indication of what's set where and allows me to copy and paste positions, poses and/or shapes between frames.
I should add the caveat though that I haven't tried using dforce simulation in the same scene file as a multi-frame story. Maybe it would work if done with care, but it just seems like a recipe for disaster :-)
Thank you all very much for the input! It sounds like Camera Magic is the way to go! That's so awesome!
Another question I have, if I may. I have some character that are androids, and they have no facial features or ears. I have found a way (Via Faceless) to remove their faces entirely, but I need to find a way to remove their ears and have had ZERO luck finding something that does this.
Also, one more question: Can I apply Filatoon to ANY Gen9s that I made? Or only if I start out the gate w/ a Filatoon Figure? I am currently of the understanding that they act as separate, independant entities and generally aren't compatible with each other. I want my models to have a "Arcane-esque" cartoony, cel-shaded sort of look that Gen9 doesn't offer.
I'm sorry if it's generally not okay to go off topic like this, if need be I can make another thread.
If you know sculpting, you can easily make an Earless morph for the figure, like the one I roughly made in the screenshot down below.
Yes, you can apply Filatoon shader onto any surfaces of a Figure, a Prop, etc.
Filatoon uses the Filament rendering engine (not the iRay one) - It's something like a series of "props and tools" that, as crosswind put, can be applied to any models (including figures of any generation). There's decent argument to say it works better with older content (G3 and even before), which - if you need assets - are generally cheaper to buy. There's also a couple of filatoon threads on the foums (which should be fairly easy to find!) and contain a ton of related info.
AFAIK: It's absolutely fine
Would you be willing to sell me this morph? It's the last thing I need to move forward and I can't find ANY earless morph on the shop for G9
(Not wishing to stop crosswind making a sale but) you might want to look at this https://www.daz3d.com/easy-geometry-hider
(at least, I think it will "do" ears)
Oh, it's just a morph. Pls feel free to use it!
Just extract the data folder winthin ZIP file to the root dircectory of you Daz Library. The morph is under Actor/Head/Ears/Morphs in Parameters pane, or just filter by Earless.
Ah, I never sell things in the forum though some kind folks in here usually buy me coffees or pay for commissions.
BTW, Easy Geo Hider is a good product esp. easy for creating conditional grafts... but it won't help with OP's case because it mainly works on conformers rather than a close-looped softbody ~~
Whichever of its "ways" will just bring "two holes" on the Ears region.