I like World Travels Wagon... but it needed a few improvements.

JOdel · June 2017

Really lovely work.

There were some remarkably beautiful models done anything up a decade or more ago which really repay the kind of comprehensive reworking that you've given this one.

Haslor · June 2017

So... As I wait, I fiddle......

This time I'm fiddling with Romany Charm, due to their being no logical reason why it can't fit inside the Bow Top. And I've been fiddling with the Bow Top itself, cause, it just looks too tall.

Bow Top First:

So my first fiddle was with the Bow Top and it's Height. And in the process I found something very interesting.

I was working on poses and I was having a... Jolly time... getting anyone to sit on the side benches. The issue is they are just TOO high. Here is a render with Genesis 2 Male on the left and V4 on the right or V4 Assassin, and Genesis 3 Female on her cushion, in the middle.

You can see that G2M's feet are several centimeters above the Landing step and the same with v4's boot. Now I can modify the V4 pose so she is still sitting on the left seat, but G2m would be leaning at best.

But if I reduce the height of the Bow Top by say 87%.

Things sort themselves out quite nicely. I did not move G3F or the V4 Assassin, I just lowered G2M and V4until their feet hit the ground. Now let me move G3f and V4 Assassin off to the side so we can see the doors.

Now The left door is My Rework, the right door is the original; and the doors have not been resized. I would like you to notice that Michael 6 and Michael 5 Superhero, still have headroom. Of course Superhero is going to have to duck or whack his head on the door frame.

Romany Charm:

One of my goals was to resize Romany Charm so it could be placed inside the Bow Top. Well if I move Michael 6 and Michael 5 Superhero off to the side and open the bottom doors.

Yup, that is Romany Charm, resized for to fit inside the Bow top, I have made Sub-Scenes of both heights, the 87% and 100% versions. Due to there being no mesh or texture files involved here, I can include the Sub-Scene with the rework of the Original materials. These will used the original door, not the remakes.

Now Here are two more shots of Romany Charm, Inside of the Bow Top, of World Travels.

Over the work week, I'll look into doing a little candle light, work inside.

Note: The stove I am using here is actually the one for Boundless Journey. But I have to say I like it better. It also needs a Stove Pipe Collar, where it passes through the Fabric of the top. Also if we are going for any semblance of reality, there would be a ceramic and metal heat deflector around the stove and it would sit on a ceramic stand. This would protect the wood of the wagon from drying out, catching fire, and it would add to the thermal transfer of the heat to the inside of the wagon.

Now that I have the models made I can start on the poses and other tops. After seeing Romany Charms in side World Travel, I really want to make a Longer version of the Undercarriage for a little bigger version of the house wagon. To there can be a pull out table and Second bed which is a drawer, which pulls out.

I will start packing everything up next Sunday, Freebie's I will drop a link here for, the rest of it… We will see.

Haslor · June 2017

Well It is Monday and it is Time for an update. (I had planned on posting this last night)

After last weeks fiddling (born of frustration of not making progress on the undercarriage) I had a Eureka Moment, The answer to my problem was staring me in the face.

The issue: The Mesh Error

You can see the upper mesh error on the upper two beam ends. The lower two are my rework of the mesh. I am not sure why there is a Concave look to the beam end, as all the points are on the same plane, as you can see by the side view in the lower right side.

Repairing this took an hour and a bit, as I fixed one end cap and attached it to both ends of a single beam. (I did capture my repair of the end cap, which I will put in any Tutorial. Well Part of it, you don't want to sit through an hour of my fiddling with this vert and that vert.) Getting the UV Map to behave, took some time. Once I had it for one, copied and Resized it for all the beams. I was also remapping these to the original images and here there was another issue. There is a shadow where the axle mounts and the beams intersect. Getting them to line up was even more adjusting them so they landed in the right spot. So now I have Seven beams, all with UV Maps.

The issue: Combining objects with completed UV's into a Single Object.

The Mesh Error was resolved and I had gotten the UV's to behave; Now all I needed to do was weld them together... and I drop into the Seventh Level of UV H-E -Double Hockey Sticks!. Where there was once beauty, ugliness took control.

If I didn't feel compelled to correct the Mesh Error, I could have finished this already. But since I found it... I couldn't in good faith leave it alone. There were several times, I just though about throwing in the towel on this one, but I wasn't ready to give up. Someone had to have this issue. I knew the answer would come, I just had to bide my time until it bonked me over the head. I am doing this using DAZ Studio and Hexagon.

Note: Has Anyone tried this, does Blender, Lightwave, or the rest have a way to do this? I would like to know how other software handle this, so I want to hear how other Software handles this.

The Solution:

I have Found my solution and I really want an updated Hexagon, but let me add; the Solution is both simple and was staring me in the face.

I was preparing to record the Intro to the Tutorial today. I was going through the Process and I realized I'd already done this! The original door does not have a handle on the inside. I sliced off the handle on the outside and put it on the inside. There was my Eureka moment and I now knew how to take seven beams, one Axle and a few other things to make the New Undercarriage, while maintaining all their UV's. I run them through DAZ Studio and back to Hexagon and Believe it was painless and I laughed at myself for a good fifteen minutes.

So here it is:

Make sure the each item has a valid UV Map. (Once you do this, you can't do any editing to the UV Maps, though you can make minor adjustments.)

Get all the parts you want welded together in Hexagon, then save it, with some sort of tag, that will let you know what it is.

Do a New and Load that File back in. Makes sure there are no extra materials or extra pieces. Clear them out of if their are. OH and make sure that Everything has A Material Assigned to it. Very important.

Once everything is ready, export your parts to an OBJ, with the Settings below:

Note: Hexagon is 10cm/unit. If you export it at 1cm, you will get a very Tiny undercarriage. Like this one, which might be cool for a Child's Toy, but not for a full size Michael and Victoria.

Then you import it into DAZ Studio, using these settings:

This will import the various pieces and make a single Object out of them. If you have pulled them into the "Figure Setup" tab I would have read the OBJ file and separated out the parts as bones. Now you are thinking what if I just import the OBJ into Hexagon? Ah, Hexagon, like Figure Setup, will break out the various parts and pieces. And I am guessing Blender would do the same.

Once it is imported, all fo the parts will be made into one asset, not a group of assets. Then you apply your texture.

We have a welded all the parts together, and proven that they maintained their UV's, by them accepting the old Materials and nothing looks out of place. Now I can send it back through the Hexagon Bridge, so I can add the parts that have to twist and articulate, in a figure.

So Now I'm Ready for my next post.

Haslor · June 2017

It should come at no surprise, from the time I created this thread, I have shown you about four different versions of the undercarriages and Bow Tops. After looking at my various attempts; I didn't like any of them. So this weekend I went back to the beginning and Started over, well almost. I did like the reworked beams, and now that I had the bringing them together solved, I could move forward.

One goal of Backward and Forward Compatibility was paramount. The new model has to be able to use all of the textures of the Originals and any texture or expansion asset I create has to be able to be used with the Original. BTW that is not as easy as it sounds. The request for a tutorial was another reason to go back to the beginning, whatever I did had to be repeatable and I had to prove it. Seeing I am know World Travels quite well, at this point, could move quickly; but even so I found new tricks to make the process faster and easier.

So I only have one more undercarriage to show you. These are the final pieces of the new undercarriages. Below you can see it is apart:

Together, save the Hitch will be a parented prop:

With the Bow Top, reduced in height by 87%:

How about a close up of the detail:

And one more, this is the Door Handle, Now on both sides:

This is the last one, because it is finished. At this time, it is a collection of parts but it ticks off all of my goals; save one, it isn't a single figure. That said, these are the assets which will make up the finial figure.

I have actually created several versions of the Steering Undercarriage. Undercarriage_2 has a beauty plate, just like the Original. Undercarriage_3 is the bare framing. Undercarriage_4, which I am working on now, will Longer, and their might be an Undercarriage_5, which morphs in Length.

As the great playwright should have said: "A Rose by any other name, would just be confusing."

One of the other things I like about this model: it's naming structure; so I am maintaining the already established naming structure. For instance, the original Bow Top will be Bow_Top_1, my height reduced version will be Bow_Top_2. The new front wheels will be Wheels_5 & Wheels_6. The new Door with will be _2 and _3.

More to come

Haslor · June 2017

Hang on there Bucko, You said by today you would have Materials for us!

You are talking about these:

And I suppose you want these as well:

Fine, today I am also going to add a link to pick up the materials corrected for 3Delight, which will not make the wagon glow and they were used on the undercarriage and Bow Top. (Note: This is only the correction, it does not add the other maps, but it does Normalize everything. All the Wood uses the same settings and reflections, Same with the Metal and Glass.) These are just Presets, no copyrighted Materials.

Now for the Legal Mumbo-Jumbo. I will sum it up like this. I give Daz3D and the people who own World Travels the Rights to use and Daz3D to Distribute the items within the attached zip file. There is no warranty expressed or implied.

Now for the second part: I am also including My 'ge_base_1' base plate, which give you the tail for the Bow Top. It has two versions non-parented and Parented to the Undercarriage. (Note: The base plate is for DAZ Studio Only, I will create a Poser version next week.) This is an addition, which contains none of the original World Travels Mesh or Assets. The same Legal Mumbo-Jumbo applies.

Install Instructions, for Windows Users:

Just extract the Zip File into your Content Folder or a Test Content Folder.

You will find the Materials where they should be, Vehicles - Land - World Travels - Materials - 3DL

The Base is in Vehicles - Land - World Travels - Props

Mac Users, You will have to do what you do with all Zip'ed Content. (Personally I use RendoInstall for installing Zips on my Mac).

P.S. There is no metadata attached to this, because it is not a product.

That it for this week, Work for the next four days.

NexySaloon · June 2017

Wow, brilliant!

I like many of the.... 10? year old meshes, and this one is a fave.

I've done some lighting rigs on the older buildings, unfortunately I work in Carrara so not many would care to use those files.

Am trying now to adjust to the DS incredibly long render times compared to Carrara, so I can do more popular work LOL, it's like selling a Ferrari and buying a Vespa.

And G8F is gorgeous so naturally she crashes in Carrara, but that's another story.

Wonderful work you've done, please carry on, and if DAZ or the original artists like what you're doing, then maybe I update some stuff too, or help on your projekts.

These are Redhouse Christmas Carol with one of its expansions, I forgot which, and some props added from other sets and things I made - and A Thousand and Two Nights, totaly stock except for the new lighting.

Fisty · June 2017

Best way I know of to combine meshes into one group without messing up the UVs is load both parts in Hex, export as one OBJ, then open it up in UV Mapper classic, select all, and assign to group - either one already there or type in a new name. You can also rename both pieces in Hex the same, then export OBJ, and import OBJ again and they'll be combined - however - I've had it mess up royally doing it that way so I avoid it.

tsarist · June 2017

Wow Haslor

That is some impressive work!

nonesuch00 · June 2017

Very pretty.

Haslor · June 2017

Fisty said:

You can also rename both pieces in Hex the same, then export OBJ, and import OBJ again and they'll be combined - however - I've had it mess up royally doing it that way so I avoid it.

I actually tried the same name trick in Hex and it didn't work, for me.
I also tried it with different material names same material domain.
In both cases Hex broke it back into it pieces for me, or I got a bloody mess.

Bringing it into DAZ Studio seems to get it sorted with no issues and all UV's Maintained, then you can use the Hexagon Bridge bring it back into Hexagon. I haven't tried Exporting it from DAZ Studio to as OBJ. (I'll try that next weekend and tell you if it stays in one piece of breaks it up. I would guess it will stay as one piece.)
You end up with a single mesh, that you can then apply the existing materials too. I have a Video I will post somewhere of my applying Old Timer to the reworked World Travels.

Another thing I learned; Always make Materials, that way you don't end up with a funky default surface. If you get a Default surface, then you missed something, go back and look at your UV Map, cause you have a Polygon or a group of them at aren't mapped.

tsarist said:

Wow Haslor

That is some impressive work!

Thank you, but I had a good foundation to start with, which made things much easier.
The hardest part was reparing the beams and bringing the UV Maps together.

Fisty · June 2017

You can assign matzones in DS too, and delete the default one, it's in the polygon group editor.

RKane_1 · June 2017

So, how do WE the consumer get these LOVELY modifications to the items we own? :)

Haslor · June 2017

RKane_1 said:

So, how do WE the consumer get these LOVELY modifications to the items we own? :)

That is something Daz3D, Jack, and I have to talk about.

I don't know if I have to just submit it or because the original mesh belongs to Jack there are other legal hoops.

I would think it would be an expansion to the original, but it isn't like a morph set. There is original mesh it the package and new mesh that I've created. I am waiting to do the final assembly until that question is answered.

in the mean time I am building new pieces and refinements.

Which brings me to suggestions. Is there anything you would like to see beyond what I've listed.

Haslor

PS next tear down will be a building.

RKane_1 · June 2017

I know this sounds wierd and off the wall but. I would love a puppeteers stage complete with Punch and Judy puppets as was popular in the Medieval to Renaissance period with much the same look.

Well...

You asked. :)

Haslor · June 2017

That sounds like fun. Let me find some photo references, of course we want to have a crouching Michael and Victoria behind it.

I can do the stage, some one else will have to do the dolls

I was thinking about the wagon, oh and Boundless Journey can get the same treatment.

Haslor · June 2017

'While I wait II' or 'More Fiddling…'

.I am waiting for decisions to be had; and while I wait, I fiddle. And in this case fiddling is good.

I wanted an undercarriage box, like Boundless Journey has, so I spent about an hour this morning and came up with this.

And a box is worthless unless you can open it.

But is it is slightly larger than just a box, which is only exciting if it contains cute furry young animals or food. (Warning: Do not carry food and cute furry young animals in the same box, when you open the box you will not have food fit to eat.) So I connected it to the back of the Undercarriage.

Okay that is not going to work. Those spring supports have to go, like this:

And that required that I rework the Front Axle and the hitch, like this:

Okay, I was mistaken, that was not the last Undercarriage I was going to show you.... but this might be (For Now).

Then I loaded on the Bow Top and Oops!

After a little adjustment, That's better.

But there is more here still:

I've been playing with the Millennium Horse Harness and found it had straps already, so I've made use to them, as you can see in the image below.

Also there is V4 Checking the Tack, one of the poses that will be included.

The pose is basic and will be refined. G3F's hands are on the reins, But they need a little help on the close, look, I'll get to that. (Not all the poses here are new).

Also notice that the harness' chest strap is digging into the Horse around the chest, I'll work on refining it and resizing it for DAZ Horse 2.

Notice there is a White Block at the side of the Hitch on the Undercarriage. To get the Harness to work properly, I had to narrow the hitch. This is a WIP so by the end of my weekend I will have those shaped to match and with a material as well.

This is Yet another Harness image. And here you can see the use of the harness connections brings the horse forward on the hitch. You can also see that the harness doesn't quite fit, the chest band is a digging in a little. The Harness has morphs, But I wonder if ME Horse was update or something, cause fit to causes all sorts of fits. It is just better to Loaded it and then parent it to the horse, without Fitting. I will have to experiment with different breads. I may endup making several morphs for the Hitch so it can adjust for various breads and Horses. I haven't tried DAZ Horse 2 yet, But that will be next weekend.

(Have to clear out tomorrow they are painting our building, so no more work this week.)

Haslor

Haslor · June 2017

Quick note here about the new Iray Materials for the wagon.

So I was looking at how to do this, so they would not just be and up convert of the 3Delight Materials. Knowing that Metals are handled in Iray differently than other materials, I when out and looked at various sites and watched several tutorials on the Metalness workflow. Grabbed a set of free PBR image maps, made for the Unreal engine, and tweaked setting until I had a surface that look like the promo, behaved properly in various lighting, had proper Fresnel, and actually looked like a steal ball with rust pitting. Here are two examples, the one on the left was before I put it in my light light box the one on the right in in the light box.

Notice that the ball is more reflective at the edges then in the center, that is the Fresnel. (Search for "Everything Has Fresnel" for and in-depth explanation). One thing I learned is I needed to invert the Metalness map. Unreal wants it one way and DAZ Studio wants it inverted. Then I applied that Surface to my Test surfaces, to see how it looked on more than just a ball.

It is not easy to recreate what your eyes see. SLA cameras come with a 50-55mm Lens, but the human eye is like a 30mm lens. But I shot this with a 18mm lens so you could see the Fresnel affect on the plane. Notice that on the edge closer to bottom, you see the metal material, but at the other end you see the reflection of the wall then the material; but the sides which are at a more steep angle, you nsse a mix of the Material and the walls. All of that is due to the Fresnel affect and it is why some material don't look right.

So what affect can this Metalness workflow have on the Materials for World Travels. Now this is a rough and not to be taken as the Finial Material, I need to pick up a piece of software help make all the maps, so there is no roughness and just a black and white block mask Metalness map. Knowing that after about a half hour I had this. I like it, but it looked like it was dipped in oil or freshly painted to hide the rust spots. One other note, I am using the same material on the wood, with a few slight tweeks to lighten the wood.

By the way there is no glossiness or topcoat being used on any of this. I have turned all the glossy setting to zero, this is just the Metalness workflow on the images for the axle from World Travels, plus a normal map I created using Crazy Bump. infact it is a pretty simple material.

Well, back to sleep and work in the morning, just thought you might want to know I am still fiddling, while I am waiting.

Reviewing this I just realize I left the Sun and Sky on and not Scene Only mode, So I thought I'd Add two more quick renders for you. on the material without the sky and with hafl the lights of the Light box turned off. Notice the Material doen't changedo the lighting.

Haslor · June 2017

Oh and three other renders of the modified Bow Top:

Breaking Camp

On the road base, but that backround looks odd. the trees are fine by the grass and flowers no so much. Let's fix that...

with foliage and a changing in lighting. Still really early morning so muted lighting, but the redish hue is gone.

The 19 different kinds of foliage, the 4 kinds of trees, and the Road are from RDNA, I'm not sure if the road made the transfer or not, but most of the foliage and trees did. The Backdrop is Millennium Environment, but I really need to find a better go to backdrop for fast scenes. Or I used UltraScatter to instance all that foliage, but going in and out and setting it up each time for each item is insane. For one or three items it is fine, but almost 20 or 50.... annoying!

One error I found with the Saddle for DAZ Horse 2, as the horse's neck goes down the saddle elongates. You can see it on if you ompare the saddles on the bay and the blue roan, at the front. The Triplet V4's behind are on Millennium Horse. Also I have a better seat for V4 on the Western saddle, which I built from scratch.

argel1200 · June 2017

Wow Haslor, amazing work! Here's hoping we see it as a PC+ expansion/add-on. Great stuff!!

JOdel · June 2017

If your computer can handle it, I had reasonably good luck with Andrey Pestryakov's Forest, turning off the stream water and using the streambed as a road. But there are other forests and roads out there, and that one is old and 3DL in any case. It's also a large enough set that the program tends to lag whenever you try to move anything. But one can turn off, or delete all of the trees and whatever and just use the groundplane.

My image using it is here: http://www.redhen-publications.com/exchange.html#

It's a set of images. This one is the one under #4

Haslor · July 2017

Okay, one of my co-workers looking at my wagon said... "It is way too Clean!" Which brought up the line from the Holy Grail, "How can you tell he is the King?" Ah... Well you can look up the answer if you want.

So in the Effort to get things a little less Pretty, I when and got the Substance Tools from Allegorithmic, so I can get it more the Muddy, I can get it really grungy.

First image is the original materials, just converted to Iray, by clicking on '!Iray Uber Base', I have added the Normal Map I got from Crazy Bump, to get it a little texture.

This next one, is a little more tweaking of the Material, with more of the Crazy Bump maps and adjusting levels.

And the third image is after taking it through Allegorithmic's Bitmap2Material, doing a little more in the way of roughing things up and throwing some Dirt on it.

Yeah, looks like it has been around the block a little and that is what I am looking for and want. All three of these images have the same Surface Color Image.

For those who might be interested what the 3Delight materials woudl look like using the same maps, here it is:

I flipped it over so I could get more light on it and you could see it better.

Bed Now, work tomorrow.

Haslor · July 2017

I am still waiting For an answer, but time is only making this rebuild better.

For those that are interested, here is the current status:

undercarriage_1 (the replacement for the original) is a single figure, with the hitch attached, with all the hitch improvements.

undercarriage_2 (steering) is complete and I am testing it for defects. This is complete with Pose Controls and some rather nice ERC setting. One of them rolls the wheels properly as the axle pivots.

undercarriage_3 (shorter version) just needs finial assembly.

undercarriage_4/5 (the 2m longer version of 2 & 3) needs tweaking and final assembly.

both Bow Tops (short & tall) are ready

so a question for everyone

do you want props ready to drop into a scene with no tweaking, so the undercarriage and bow top as one figure; with some parts, like the doors and hitch, as parented props and the bow top and undercarriage separate; or do you want it all ready to go and configurable?, with part props so you can litter a battlefield?

Haslor

carrie58 · July 2017

I personally like'em all ......but that's not a help so I'll go with the second option .....looks great

Haslor · July 2017

Well, I had a nice gif of the ERC Slider, and for some reason, unknown to me, if becomes a static image.

So... I'm rendering a movie, of it, so you can see some of the controls I've made.

Haslor · July 2017

Haslor said:

Well, I had a nice gif of the ERC Slider, and for some reason, unknown to me, if becomes a static image.

So... I'm rendering a movie, of it, so you can see some of the controls I've made.

Okay, I am just going to post the link to the movie.

carrie58 · July 2017

Very nice !!

Plant · July 2017

Looking good

Notifications

I like World Travels Wagon... but it needed a few improvements.

Comments

So... As I wait, I fiddle......

Bow Top First:

Romany Charm:

The issue: The Mesh Error

The issue: Combining objects with completed UV's into a Single Object.

The Solution:

'While I wait II' or 'More Fiddling…'

Adding to Cart…