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No bull, to get to where you're getting cows and baby calves, you've got to let the big fellow have a go at some point!
Actually a lot of farm people just buy the... ok, we won't go there. I haven't done very much with the bull but here's one attempt, see attached. This is from before I learned about the posing tools so cut me some slack... in the story line my 7 lb. teacup dog travels to Spain to chase the bulls, and they're all running through the narrow streets in sheer terror, insert the thumpety sound of the hoofs on the cobblestones etc.
Oh-oh... I just realized that the hoofs *are* in fact cloven: I went back and looked at my file "bull.jpg", so my bad sorry... the model just has something funny going on around the back of the feet (the DAZ dogs have this too; I think I'm going to modify the "lorez" one a bit)... note that the image link is to a satirical page about my little dog; we all know I do this stuff on the computer and that no animals were harmed etc., but it's starting to look pretty realistic and I don't want to get letters!
I just picked up the ol' cow last night and can get in and see what's what to help you along as you need.
Frankly, I'd do the modifications in Hex, because that seems to be what you're working in now and it's a good program for what it does. Carrarra would just be another learning curve for you to master, and whatever you do in Carrarra might not translate very well over to DS - at least not with some extra hoop jumping.
The "Genesis" rigging is different than the "Poser" rigging that the Daz Cow currently has. It's not too hard to convert poser rigging to DS triax rigging (and this is something you would NOT be able to do this part in Carrarra). I cannot remember if the figure creation tools are integrated into DS now or not. Once upon a time they were a separate purchase. But you'll definitely need those tools (joint editor, weight map brush tool, and geometry editor) to work with weight maps ("Genesis" rigging.) Hopefully they're all part and parcel now.
As an aside, I want to agree with what Llynara said. The Daz farmyard animals all need upgrading. Unfortunately the artist who did a lot of the Daz animals passed away. The Big Cat 2 was the last project she worked on. I made poses for the beast too, and at the time I mused that it would be cool if all the animals were upgraded to the triax rigging. And that was the direction she was going, too, but then things happened. And the other PA who does animals, Noggin, has been strangely quiet for years. So it would be great to see the animals, ANY of the animals, upgraded.
Haha. :P I have done Artificial insemination on my cows in the past. I do have a real bull. I named him Big Guy. He is one of several I have owned over the past 20 years, plus all the little guys I keep in the fall when weaned. Anyways, I have no pics of him my camera crapped out on me sooo...
Nice pic..bulls are welcome here. I found out my partner got the poses for the bull, but not the bull. LOL I like the render looks great.
Also, some background history, for those interested, in the Cow model. The Cow is back from the days of Zygote, the company that made content for Poser, that eventually became Daz (as I understand it, some of the zygote folk founded Daz, or were instrumental in the early days of Daz). When the Cow was created, Zygote didn't think anyone would ever want the UV map for anything, really. (Silly, 'cause now it's crucial to have the UV map in order to make textures, but that's another story.) So they didn't include it with the model, hence its absence, despite Daz liking to include the UV maps for all it's Daz Original sets.
Well...I just had a look-see at the Cow in Hexagon and the mesh is in serious need of upgrading. The eyes alone are a horrible mess. I'm sure the rest of it is as well - I just didn't get further than the eyes before I got a headache. The vertices in the eyes (and behind the eyes) are scary. I think if anyone were to upgrade this beasty, the whole thing would need a major overhaul. New eyes, new mouth structure, new rigging, new morphs, and new textures.
Oh, cool great the more the merrier, plus maybe you can make some poses for her. I can do some poses still learning so it takes me a while to usually get what I want. I am a bit pokey. :P
I am going over some tutorials of Hexagon right now so I can find everything and know for sure what it does. It similiar to blender in ways so much of the 'tools' are familiar once I find them. :)
The Daz cow has poser rigging? Hmmm... I thought I read Carrara was used for at least the early genesis figures not genesis 3 for sure, which is triax right?
Oh, that is unfortunate that the original creator passed on. I love animals, so I am game to work on them just might not be speedy. I just have to get the rest of the farm critters or figure out how to model them myself. I have really only done furnture modeling at this point. The measure twice, cut once kind of thing. LOL
I just opened Daz and seen those tools you mentioned joint editor, etc. We have that to work with. It sounds like if we can 'fix/upgrade' the animals then it might be possible to get them triax rigged. I am completely in the dark about that, but could be a fun challenge to learn during the winter months. :D
I have seriously thought about remapping if we could at least or the upgraded version. It seems like there are not a lot of texture maps out there for her and most of them seem to be free so no money loss involved there for anyone.
I am excited to learn and have someone(s) to help me along too. Thanks!
Did mention that the mouth has no rigging? I had no idea!! Gah! How do you have a cow chewing its cud when you can't pose the mouth?
I'm officially in dither mode. Lol.
@Liana - I've sent you a PM.
Cool history..sooo possibly Daz would not be too upset if we overhauled her. :D
I concur totally having done some texture work myself the uvmap is horrid and I would be cussing up a storm trying to color it properly seriously. I am willing to tear into her, try to learn, and fix her up at the same time. It will be a good way for me to learn organic modeling, rigging, morphing, figure out how to unwrap a model properly, etc. I have been wanting to do this and winter is a good time (timewise) for me to do it. :)
Just a side note: I do have a biology back with anatomy and physiology sooo...it's kind of my thing. :)
Add: I noticed that about the mouth, plus the tail movement is not right, the front of the head/skull needs to be a flatter surface not rounded, The ears need to set-up a bit more, udder attachment in back needs changing a bit, spine needs to be more pointed upward instead of down, the dew claws spread apart, and mapped like the hooves. I think that is most of what I have found. I did try to play with the spine and skull/head a bit last night. I needed to watch some videos on the tools first though. :)
Hence my first post. When I opened the cow up I was like ack! I could hardly do anything with her really. I thought maybe if I posted what I was wanting to try to do and maybe someone would give me tidbits of advice along the way. The content on anything should be easy for a 'customer' to use I think plug n play type of thing instead having to 'fix' everything so a person can play and create other types of art. I personally, spend way too much time trying to figure things out, then fix things, and it's a struggle. Which is defeats the purpose in the first place on so many levels. I am one to learn the nuts n bolts of things and how it ticks for full understanding. LOL
Got it thanks! :)
You do need that stuff; I have a bit of fine art and some gross anatomy but without a cow nearby I'd never have known about the feet... here in Canada (brrr!!) I've actually encountered more MOOSE hooves than cow feet, many too close for comfort! Now that would make a nice DAZ model... (moose)
About the eyes, sometimes I bail out and just do postwork... this here was done back when I didn't know what the plastic and matte surfaces were but I could do a glossy sphere with a matching environment map... the mane on the Millenium Horse remains an issue; I think Allesandro has only done the mane preset for the second generation horse so it will be "postwork time again" at some point.
Heheh. I love the dog riding the horse.
Allesandro seems to be the only PA at Daz these days who does anything animal related. Noggin has disappeared. I haven't seen him around in a couple of years, which is too bad, 'cause I wanted to bug him about updating his chicken.
Oh, I should also mention JoeQuick does animals, but mainly as morphs for Genesis 1/2/3. Which isn't the same, but still worth a mention. I love his animal characters.
I think a moose would be a nice addition to the Daz stable. Although I think Alessandro already did one...or am I mistaken? *runs and takes a look in the store*.
It helps sometimes knowing those kind of things :)
Eyes are tricky and worse if the map sucks. I am still learning lighting and the surfaces/textures/shaders type tabs and drives me crazy. Cute dog! :) Cold in Canada too right now. We are just starting to come out of the deep freeze. LOL
There is no moose? Maybe that was not a moose I seen. hmmm... Northern MN has moose, but not the central part. I have seen one up close. That would be a tricky one to create. lol
I was thinking I had seen a moose. lol
Add: The Moose http://www.daz3d.com/the-moose
Ha, I missed that (moose by AM), thanks. Looks great with the fur.
You're welcome Roman :)
I have not quit the cow incase people are wondering. I have been working with FeralFey. We have looked at other critters to see what has been done and compared them to the cow. :)
I have added some tail bones and moved them about or forward, started working on her head, and now I am working on her butt. I have also spent some time looking over Hexagon tutorial, pdf's, etc to get a better handle on hexagon in general. Overview on hexagon uvmapping, but I have not done anything at this point in that area. I have also spent some time on Daz bones and rigging reading and watching videos.
Work in progress which will take time, but will help me learn several things in Daz and Hexagon. Mostly all experimental and a learning process to see what can and can not be done. I have to try anyways. :)
I was going to look on Morguefile for some side on images since it maps that way but the site is broken on my Chrome browser.
Think they have gone app friendly
mmm broken on IE too
I still have my mom's camera I may need to go out and get my photogenic girls to pose. They are pretty dirty from the snow and such, winter is not the best time for shiney clean cows. Plus they have longer hair usually and the red(resessive) coloring factor they carry shows up more in the winter hair coat. lol
Hard to find good pictures side, front, etc of cows usually something off legs, tail, head due to posing of said aniaml or their innate ability to move at just the wrong time. I could never get my 4-H cows to stand perfectly for very long. I wonder if I have any photos of them?
yeah I have the same issue trying to photograph my cats
every image I find thats Creative commons the head is turned
Yep and side views of cows from bull stud books they are posed on a small hill under the front feet and legs positioned to show off udders and such. I am pretty sure I will just paint by hand so to speak. It is good to have different reference pictures to use though. That is a good head shot for looking at her head shape. :)
Don't forget to do "alternate" textures like NASC-R and C-rgill, McH-rton's, Dr. Cola etc.! Or at least polka dots and/or the marijuana symbol.
I have a fantastic little framed 5x7 picture of a cow that I just *have* to send to my friend in N.Y... he has cows on his land, close-to-the-border area sort of thing. This picture has the holstein really, really reddish, and the center "splotches" have been manipulated to be a maple leaf (Cdn flag, get it?)... the red cow looks surly and I put a caption on it to say something like "^%$#@*&! American cows taking all the best grass!!!". I found the pic in a Goodwill store a few years ago.
I just figured out the "Bend" tool (Youtube tutorial link) which is kind of hidden under a nonsensical icon and has lots of drop-down, ancillary settings. But it lets you wiggle long cylindrical shapes -- like the tail -- real good.
Haha..Yea, loads of tools I can edit and manipulate pretty good now. The only thing is I have to find out what I can and can not do with the daz cow which is seeming sort of limited at this point, but maybe still can do some morphs ( starting to learn those) that will fix a few things and improve others. Make 'character' cows for sure with new uvmap from the looks of it
you can share morphs but they need to be dsf or duf not sharing the morphloader obj, sadly no way to create Poser morphs as ExP injection channels not doable, I have tried on the milcat and learnt this sad fact.
its a shame one cannot do a higher poly mesh or HD morphs but they claim displacement maps just as good, who am I to argue.
You're doing some cool things with that cow! :)
I might have just read that the wrong way
Yes. We have some big plans for the cow. By the time we're done with it, it won't even be the same beast. :)
@ knittingmommy Thanks! Like FeralFey said we have big plans lol :)
LOL
Sounds interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing how things go with the efforts you two are putting in.
I am not putting any effort in though I did in the past try making it mimic compatible.
http://download.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/362889/#Comment_362889
https://www.box.com/s/7181r0b1v5kwv3lbryhx
:)
That looked pretty good the3Ddigit. :)
Just to ah, chew the fat a bit I haven't the first clue of what I'm doing, but today while repainting the Lorez Dog texture map more to my liking :) I sent the mesh to Hexagon to have a closer look at it... ok so it's LOW RES, I'm not being critical but oh wow I'm just dying to fix the feet a bit!
What *I am* able to do is adjust the figure slightly and then move it around on the screen while I make real world clay maquettes out of soda straws and plasticene or Silly Putty (because it's cleaner), and then I'll use that (real) figurine as reference for a couple of watercolor and felt pen sketches/compositions.
I am thinking that any DAZ animal that has fur (as opposed to that thin smooth stuff that most cows and horses and Doberman dogs have) may not require too detailed an underlying mesh because when you put Look At My Hair on it, many of the surface characteristics are smoothed over?
At least one of the animal PA's is on another site... not Renderosity but one of the other ones.
I think if you live with an animal for a while be it horse or cat or chickens you can pick up a lot of the body language and stuff. I am just dying to try the sculpting tools in Hex and Blender but I ain't there yet. I'm good at real-world clay and Fimo, stuff but procedural art on the screen is soooooo way past my orbit.