This weeks freebie (18-Jul-2018) the letters
Ikyoto
Posts: 1,159
in The Commons
https://www.daz3d.com/rw-letters-and-more
Go... now.
Stuff like this is amazingly useful. I have characters stubb their toe and the trip over one of the letters of the "BONK!" from the previous panel. Signage becomes better....
https://www.daz3d.com/rw-letters-and-more

Comments
This looks really good but I'm a bit puzzled by the description. It says "The whole Alphabet in 3D! You get 24 Letters (A-Z),..." I'm pretty sure in school they taught us there are 26 letters in the alphabet. Is this one of those things that is different in American English
L&M got kicked out for smoking!
Very old joke... L&M was a brand... and now almost no one smokes... cigarettes. LOL
Yes, quite useful. I'd like to see a matching lower case set as well.
You can use this to create your own:
Font to Mesh Express Converter - https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/05706
This way you can use any font on your system, use local and special characters, dingbats etc..
You'll need the d3dx9_30.dll to make it work, if you don't have it it can be downloaded here:
https://taosoft.eu/misc/D3DX9_30.DLL.zip
I didn't know that item existed. The description does say that it's compatible with Daz, so it's now on my wishlist for a future purchase.
Thanks for the dll link too. Google doesn't like downloading dll files at all (no matter what dll fix site they come from). Plus, it's good to know that there's a safe site out there to get the fixes from.
AVAST blocked the direct download from that site as being infected.
Isn't Hexagon free now? It has had a "3D Text" tool for years. Yes Hex can be buggy, but at least it's still officially supported and developed.
Strange, I'm also using Avast (AIS - the full commercial package) and it doesn't complain at all. Scanning the link at virustotal.com (which I did before posting it) also gave a "100% clean".
Yeh the link you posted seems clean; it is when I hit the download button for the dll that AVAST has a fit and blocks the download as being infected with malware.
OK, haven't tried to click the button, only used the direct link to the file below it. But Malwarebytes pops up here if I click the button, it just seems to be a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) though, these are usually not dangerous. Malwarebytes flags a lot of things as PUP, even installed commercial programs like driver update utilities.
So, just use the link below the button.
The mesh it makes with the tex tool takes a fair bit of work to get usable in DS, you can run some automated tools over the output to get it to be triangles instead of n-gons but it'll still make a ton of long thin ones that DS hates.
I'm not sure where you mean. The only possibilities I see are the 'Download Now' button or the " download fix tool" link to the right of the page. And my AVAST is blocking both of those links as malware threats.
This is what I see. I click the link inside the red square (which I've painted) and the file downloads without any problems.
Strange that doesn't look anything like the page I'm seeing from your link
DO NOT USE the program from the Download Now link, that's just spamware they are trying to install on your computer. Best case scenario they're just trying to sell a useless "system maintenance" software that doesn't actually do anything. Worst case is it's an easy front door into your system for all the malware, spyware, keyloggers, cryptolockers, etc that they can shovel into your system before it dies. Even if the site itself is legitimate, that "download now" link is an advertiser paying them money for easy access to your system. The link you want is the one under it that says "No thanks, download only D3dX9_30.dll". And be prepared for your anti-malware program to slap the heck out of it when you try, .DLL files can be a major security threat. It is a legitimate file type, it's an extremely critical one for the Windows operating system itself. But that's what makes them so dangerous and so frequently turned into malware, the OS is designed to let them through all security.
You've probably got a better Adblocker installed
Yes. Americans don't need the letter "F" because we never fail. Also, we don't need the letter "Z" because we never come last. Or at least that what I assume they were thinking.
It's the same page, but I get the popup I posted when I click the red button on the page. Apparently Avast blocks it for you but not for me.
Just checked my add-ons in IE, it appears that the Avast plugin has been disabled. I recently had some browser problems which I suspected was because of it, so I tried to disable it. Apparently I've forgotten about it and not enabled it again. Enabling it now locks up IE completely, so I can't test the page with it enabled.
So I've now downloaded the files for both Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10, it appears to be the same file for them all. I've scanned it with both Avast and Malwarebytes, as well as on virustotal.com, and all say it's clean. I've put it up here for download instead:
https://taosoft.eu/misc/D3DX9_30.DLL.zip
..I remember, had an uncle who smoked them.
..same here.
..I did this using the Carrara text tool and exporting as a .obj a for use in Daz a couple years ago. (screenshot included)
Thanks.
Oh that's good to know.
Carrara also lets you add new fonts. I haven't tried it in Hexagon, so I'm not sure about it.
Instant Meshes does a good job (and it's free). I used a no-bevel default Hex output (beveled letters generally tend to be whacky), ran it through Instant Meshes without really fussing over anything, then subdivided it in DS. You can see a couple of notches, but that's because the original Hex mesh wasn't hi-res enough. The tesselation slider Hex exposes during mesh generation should help with that.
I'm just not sure that the ancient paid-for piece of software linked above here would somehow magically provide perfect topology that wouldn't need any extra tools.
But if you don't have Z then Y is the last letter so you'd have to remove that, then X is the last ... and so you recursively remove the entire alphabet. Still, they say no-one reads anymore
It's less buggy with the 65 bit version out now. :)
Writing in English and getting the number of letters in the English alphabet wrong is marginally less ignorant than the DMV worker who rejected a new driver's licence application because the applicant gave her previous address as in New Mexico and the DMV agent said with great pomposity, there ain't no state called "New" Mexico.
(* sigh *)
...wow, the level of ignorance these days is astounding.
A bit less, yeah :) I'm not sure though if the 64bit version solves the issue text beveling will often have in this tool (try saving this scene and reopening it, chances are you'll see artefacts in the mesh even in Hex).