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For the purposes of this month's contest, I had planned to keep it low poly, although I might make changes later. I think I follow you but a pic would be helpful.
Thanks
jonstark - that is really great - and your first try! Took me ages before I could get a usable human face:) You're a natural !
Good critique on the Dreamlight training - pretty much what the guys on the Hex forum said, but you are much kinder. Their set of Studio tutorials is a lot better - but done by another guy.
What head wax said about the knees and elbows applies to the shoulders as well - if you want to get really technical, you can do the same to each finger joint ! I'll leave him to explain, seeing he brought it up:)
The case of the morphing - in the spirit of the challenge and wanting to keep it all in Carrara, I made a dress for V4 - seeing it was for a single pose, I never bothered to make it conforming - simply attached V4's rigging. This worked fine, but there were a few tiny pokethroughs. Very simple to fix if I was using Studio/Hexagon, but had to keep it all Carrara.
Searched all over for the videos I knew were out there. Tried using magnets, which worked fine, except that the magnets have to be kept in place and no way to hide them, so scrap that idea, go with morphs. Eventually figured out that what I had to do was to save the pose with an NLA, detach the bones, make a full body morph of the dress, re-attach and apply the NLA to get it into the posed state, then edit the morph.
What a shlep!
Oh, I feel your pain. I was trying to think of this example in another thread. Carrara is very easy to fix poke through in the posed position - but only if there is already at least one morph. For some reason, if there isn't already a morph then the tools in the morphing area under the animation tab are not active. Now that you mention it, I remember when it came up. I had created a female figure for the 1st monthly contest and wanted to attach a simple dress, but then couldn't fix the poke through. I never had a problem with V4/M4 and their content and couldn't figure out what the difference was.
I bet there is some simple step to take if there isn't that first morph, but I have no idea what it is.
edited - to note that this issue had come up in this very same thread.
diomede64.... Well the idea for eg the knee is to get rid of poly's at the back so that when you bend the knee all those polys don't get scrunched up - same with fingers etc as Roy said, so here's a crappy pic drawn with my mouse (that's mouse) not mouth
so the image on the left is the side view, the polys on the round part of the knee are spaced out where as the ones at the back ar collapsed./ The image on the right shows a 3/4 view from the back so where your knee creases there will be a straight line. I'm not saying this is the best way and I saw some other examples of low poly knees today but this one should work. It's worked for me in that past anyways - not that I am a hot modeler! Far from it. This was shown to me by a guru called mp3d in the olden days.....
diomade64
Fenric has an unlock figure plugin which allows you to unlock a figure to add morphs to it
Fenric has an unlock figure plugin which allows you to unlock a figure to add morphs to it
Thanks for the pics on using "tris" for joints. I get it now.
RE: the morphing in posed position issue. In this case, the problem isn't that the mesh is locked. It is that the selection and morphing tools under the animation tab aren't active unless there is a morph zone created first. The solution is to go to the general modeling tab, select the entire mesh, and add a morph. You don't even have to create the morph, but you need the "morph area 1" or whatever you want to call it, so that when you go back under the animation tab, there is at least one morph on the list. Then you can use the drop down menu under convert morph to create a new morph in the posed position.
That probably didn't make any sense. I am attaching some pics in which a figure and its dress-prop are both attached to the same set of bones. I have a put a morph on the figure, but not the dress. I can morph the figure in the posed position, but not the dress. The fix is to get out of the animation tab and back to the morph tab, and create a morph (even if you don't actually morph anything). Then you can go back under the animation tab and it will let you morph in the posed position to fix poke through.
I created a separate thread for this issue so that I don't clutter up Gareth's thread on polygon modeling with 'morphs in posed position" issues.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/29483/
Jon, I PMed you about this module.
Thanks Evil, I got the PM. I had gone ahead and purchased the 3d pinup course though.
For everyone else, sorry to drift off topic, but I've got to say the 3d pinup course from Dreamlight was worth not much more than the 15 dollars I paid for it, and I would never recommend getting it at full price (if anyone is considering that), as there just isn't much there. There are a few solid tips here and there, but mostly it's just long-winded filling-of-time.
The funniest thing in it was there was a section about Posing your female character to best effect, and the first instruction he gives is 'Use pre-made poses'. Lol! Well, gee thanks, so instead of learning how to pose from a zero position, I should just go buy some cool poses from DAZ or rendo or wherever, and apply them. Thanks bunches, you've totally taught me everything I need to know about posing!
Lol, there was more to it and he did offer some solid tips on posing, but that first instruction had me falling out of my chair laughing.
Sorry to drift off topic, but since I mentioned it here, I figured I would give a follow up review. I'm not an angry customer or crusading against Dreamlight; I do feel his courses have some merit, but only if you can pick them up at *very* steep discount :)
Now back to the modeling... :)
Oh, pshaw, I'm just following the step-by-step instructions, and not doing very well at that; I'm far from a natural (but I appreciate the compliment!). You guys blow me away on a daily basis with how good you are at this stuff, and I've made a sort of alien-looking slightly-melted face :)
The funny thing is I don't think I'll ever need to model a human figure for anything, I'm pretty happy with the V4/M4 and now Genesis stuff, and it already looks miles better than anything I could produce myself. If I need an anime girl I've got Aiko or if I need a toon girl I've got some of 3d universes cute toon things. But still I'm really enjoying following this tutorial and figuring things out as I go, getting a thrill out of it every time I start to understand and master some new tool (and this tut is forcing me to branch out and use tools I might not have thought to reach for).
For example, I have no idea what modeling program this tut was written for, but it mentions using Nurbs smoothing. I have no idea what Nurbs is, but I found I could get a very similar effect when I used 'smooth edges' in the 'Model' menu (in addition to the normal smooth in the subdivision menu for the model) That gave me a thrill when I hunted around and found that and it gave a similar efect to what I saw in the tutorial :)
But nothing beats the pleasure of having such a great community of Carrara artists in these forums. It's fantastic that particularly now we have several active modeling threads (I learned tons in the 'ways to model a building thread', for example).
So in essence, thank you guys for being so great at helping a newbie like me learn the ropes! :)
It's hard for me to just cough up that much cash. But after seeing the value, I'll never wonder if I should again.
I'm a big fan of PhilW, and would love to give it a try, but honestly I just can't mentally justify the expense. :) I'm sure it's very worthwhile and I have no doubt I would learn tons, but it's just priced too high for me, since I dabble with this stuff strictly as a hobby. On down the line, if I ever get around to putting together an illustrated novel that sells (the purpose for which I originally got into digital rendering, since I consider myself a fairly good writer but struggle to draw stick figures lol) maybe the expenditure would be more justifiable but for now it's just beyond my reach.
But hey, I've still got the forums, right? I've learned tremendous amounts here, and I'm constantly surprised (almost on a daily basis) by the new stuff I learn here :)
Hya Jonstark, I have Philw's instruction set and only have watched the first little bit but I learnt something almost immediately, which surprised me immensely (as I know everything about everything) so I am really looking forward to getting some spare time so I can sit down and work through it (with a beer or two at my side) and milk Phil's brains
And as far as I am aware PhilW has never been a porn star.... :) as the guy who does the dreamlight thingies was/ is allegedly rumoured to be by an allegedly unknown poster on this forum who has promised no to make unfounded allegations again unless they are only rumours, allegedly ,
so that gives PhilW more time with Carrara than the other bloke who allegedly would need to spend more time in the sack to keep his eye in
which obviously means PhilW's tuts will be better
just stands to reason eh :) you can't be everywhere at the same time
PS check out this http://www.empowernetwork.com/goldpath/?s=Waldemar+Belwon
Hey I'm in no position to judge, spent a fair bit of time as a bartender in a strip club myself, and all my girlfriends have been dancers... (weird how I'm not married and in a stable healthy relationship, with my stellar dating choices, now that I think about it...)
But I do feel free to judge his tutorial work, since I opened the wallet (a little) to get it, and I find it wanting. Not 'take to the streets with pitchforks and torches, let's kill the monster!'-wanting, but disappointing-wanting. Honestly I kind of knew it when I bought in, but it was not too much to break my budget and I'm so completely unversed at modeling, so I don't feel cheated because I did learn some things, but the guy shouldn't advertise specifically that he can teach modeling in Carrara when it's pretty obvious pretty quickly that he doesn't really ever use Carrara and doesn't seem to know his way around the interface. Also he's just not a good instructor, and as he wandered and doodled and droned on and on about exceedingly basic or unrelated stuff, while breezing past more complicated stuff, I was left ready to either fall asleep or stab myself :)
PhilW would certainly be my first choice for tutorials, no doubt (Mark Bremmer too) but I just can't (yet) justify the cost. On the other hand, over time if I save my extra money by not ever buying another Dreamlight product ever again so long as I live (which is my solid intention) maybe I can squirrel away enough in a piggybank somewhere to ease the cost and pick up the Infinite Skills course at some future point. Hey, it's a plan!
Meantime I'll just keep at it, and watching the forum threads like a hawk for new info and tips from folks who are much more skilled than I.
Also have you considered that Phil possibly *is* a pornstar? He's certainly a stud, judging from how awesome he is, both on the forums and in regards to his products, and with that sultry british accent he's got going there I can't help but imagine that women swoon in his presence ;)
@Johnstark
I'd keep an eye out for sale prices. Infinite Skills had very deep discounts on their training courses when they released their Ipad app. That is when I jumped to get the PhilW courses. Amazing courses. Maybe they will have another sale, or maybe VTC will have a sale for Mark Bremmer's tutorials if they release an Ipad app. I'd definitely recommend either series if they fall into a price range you can justify.
Until then, Cripeman is your best buddy.
well I hadn't imagined him with a big moustache but maybve you are right !
diomede64 is right : keep an eye open for the specials!
cheese :)
Having very little time to work on this, due to just getting back from my wonderful meeting up with the Carraraists "evilproducer" and "Garstor", I was inspired to really dig in and have some fun in Carrara. I had only a couple hours into this:
The face is a custom scuplt that I performed on the Genesis 2 Female, with no other morphs applied. I'm really loving this model - an the Carrara modeling tools! With just a smidgeon left, I began a low poly sculpture of some hair, big and wild - which it isn't even close yet - but I wanted to get some seems down and unwrap the thing. I think I'm going to redo the UV mapping - otherwise just keep tweaking on it as I have done thus far - which was most of the time spent - as the modeling went really quick - I love that dynamic extrusion!
So thew hair has somewhere around a quarter of the polygons as you see squares on the grid. Very low poly beginnings on the air - I like the shape, so I'm now going to try various strategies with it - save a bunch of different experiments. Tomorrow... more real life :(
Perhaps at least one day this week I can work on the really cool other new character I've started the day before the meeting of The Three Carrarateers!
Later all... wow there's going to be a lot of catching up on these forums I see! Bravo! Just busting with posts of all manner of topics - most exciting indeed!
Glad to see I'm not the only insane person around.
I too have been using Carrara since before it existed; my first serious modeling was in Ray Dream. As a starving artist on a Mac (I know -- horrible combination!) I've found the majority of 3d aps are cut off from me. Either they require a thirteen-button scroll mouse, a computer with a gamer-quality video card, a monitor the size of Nebraska, or whatever.
Carrara is fairly uncluttered and the navigation is very smooth. I find it (mostly) easy to get around and inspect work on a complex model.
All 3d software has its peccadilloes. I spend a lot of time swearing at the work-arounds, laborious hand-tasks that should be automated, and periodic crashes....but I KNOW how to work with this ap. I can get a model into Poser for a test rig, take it out, clean up a problem -- whilst maintaining scale, position, mesh flow, and UV map. That can be a real trick on many aps.
Pity that modeling in Carrara will never be more than just-above-the-horizon for DAZ. There are still basic productivity issues (bad welds, bad UV maps, ruined meshes, application crashes) and bugs that haven't been touched in the six years I've been sending in bug reports.
So, yes -- I use this software as my primary modeler. I've used it to make Poser product for sale, and 3d objects for print. But I don't see the point in continuing to pay for each upgrade, when they are all about better renders of naked vickies, and the vertex room remains essentially untouched. So the version I'm on will likely be the last version I use.
Perhaps.
I don't know, though. When DAZ asked what we'd like to see in C9 a lot of stuff was vertex modeler related. A lot along the paths you speak of. I wouldn't be surprised to see some overhauls going on in Carrara for its next edition. Doing what they did to get Genesis in here was one big tangled mess. I think. In the end, they really made a better Carrara along with those improvements. Dollies are truly important to DAZ. it's their forte. So giving Genesis compatibility was essential in order to continue to support further development to Carrara at all. It just wouldn't make sense to update something that can't work with your own stuff.
That out of the way, development may now resume in other departments wanted and needed from all of the other many corners involved. I'm rather anxious to see what they come up with!
Very cool.
I was just perusing the manual regarding Vertex Modeling and such. I got to Displacement Painting and noticed that, for better displacement, you'll want to enable Subdivision Smoothing. The higher the level of SubD, the more detail you can expect to achieve via displacement painting - which makes perfect sense.
Of course, to use your exported displacement map, I don't think you still need to have SubD turned up - or possibly not even on at all, as you can control that in the displacement portion of the shader in the Texture room.
However... what if it's not at all a displacement map that you're after? What if you wish to use Carrara more like a sculpting program, like Z-Brush or Sculptris? It wasn't until I began reading the manual on this subject (since I've never really tried displacement painting yet) that I noticed where it is that you turn on the affects of Displacement Painting in the properties tray. Sure... I've seen the check mark where it says "Displacement", but could that mean displacement due to SubD?
What I'm talking about right there is the fact that Displacement is located right in the same spot as the SubD Smoothing sliders. What else is right there, in with the SubD Smoothing (within the Model room)? I'll tell you. It's a nice sized button that says "Convert" on it. Yeah... Convert!
What convert does with Subdivision smoothing is this:
Turn up the slider in the model level of SubD smoothing and what happens? For every polygon in the polymesh four more are made - per level of smoothing. So, for example, a level of 3 means that each single polygon gets multiplied by four. Then each of those four by four, and finally each of those again by four. There's an example in the book where you begin with 400 polygons would increase to 1,600 at level 1; 6,400 at level 2; and 25,600 polygons at level 3. The great thing about SubD modeling is that we can create a 25,600 polygon model by using only 400 polygons. That's how that works.
The convert button takes whatever level of SubD you currently have set and converts the mesh to have the number of polygons necessary to create the shape you're seeing. Not something you want to do with it cranked up too high... or perhaps you do... we all have reasons for doing things that defy the norm from time to time.
Well I got to wondering if I can use displacement painting to sculpt and then convert the result into a mesh, rather than exporting a displacement map. The answer is "Yes"!!! :ahhh:
The quick example that I performed was quick and dirty. Nothing worth showing here. But the theory is sound. I would like to add that doing such things could result in an incredibly heavy model. But you do not have to convert the mesh at high levels of SubD either. You could use a combination: Start sculpting to get the shape you're after. If you're not noticing the results you were expecting from your Alpha brush, which is used to texture the brush result, it is most likely the fact that you have too low a level of SubD smoothing set. Once you get the shape the way you'd like it to be, try turning the level down a step or two in an attempt to reduce the polygon count of the actual mesh. Then convert the result and save the mesh. Now go back in and turn up SubD again and paint in more details that you'll export to a displacement map.
Pretty cool, eh?
I wasn't actually reading to learn about displacement painting. I already found what I was looking for and decided to peruse a bit more. I'm glad I did! Go on... kick me that you've known this all along! But I started a thread a while back regarding sculpting apps. 3DAGE had some great things to say about Carrara's vertex modeler. Others had a lot of input, too. Perhaps this was mentioned. But now that I've actually tried it myself in Carrara, I'll never forget how it works - and it works good!
The face on Genesis 2 Female that I've shown in the image just up a few posts was done in Carrara. It's really great how much work can be done on the modeling front, right here, within Carrara.
If you're about to venture forth into the endeavor of 3d modeling and you already own a copy of Carrara, I strongly suggest that you begin your experience here. 3d modeling takes practice. Box modeling is one of the more important ways to learn. Spline modeling is another, though box, otherwise known as extrusion, modeling is much more widespread, I think. Carrara has both and then some.
We hear people say that it is lacking something or another - which very well might be true... I have never seen it. I do not claim to be an expert in the field - nor am I making a living modeling day in and out. But I was trained by someone who does. I have since taken a book course on modeling the human figure, which included courses for box (extrusion) and spline (nurb?) methods. Using what I've learned in all of my experience I began modeling in Carrara and I am very pleased with the whole process. I love the interface and how it handles holding so many tools on one bar the way it does. Although I've not used it yet, I am really excited that the vertex modeler has its own replicator. I've been working with SubD modeling for quite some time now, and am very pleased with how accurate of results I have been able to achieve. And then if, after getting familiar with the concepts and necessary steps, you still feel that Carrara is holding you back, at least you'll have a better idea of what to look for in your next software choosing. But keep Carrara installed! You'll be back!
Hi Dart :)
Carrara's displacement painting is really useful - I've been using it for ages to make rocks and customise terrains converted to vertex. Haven't found a method to export a displacement map, though - Hexagon has such a feature to export a bump map. Could you enlighten me on how to export the map of which you speak?
Cheers :)
Hi Dart :)
Carrara's displacement painting is really useful - I've been using it for ages to make rocks and customise terrains converted to vertex. Haven't found a method to export a displacement map, though - Hexagon has such a feature to export a bump map. Could you enlighten me on how to export the map of which you speak?
Cheers :)
In the modeling room. File - Export Displacement Map
Thank you :)
I looked everywhere but the most obvious place :red:
The Obvious Place™ is usually the last place I check for my car keys, checkbook, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. ;-)
https://app.box.com/s/1artll3mu55ixttvysb6
I lately have been modeling stuff from tracing around photos then uv mapping the photo as the texture sort of like Google sketchup
I rigged it in carrara too (not in this file) and animated it for this iClone5 render, getting the FBX back into carrara or any other program unfortunately it messes up as I did not name the bones and copied some with symmetry so they all become duplicates.
might post a fixed redone .car file another day maybe
htm view https://app.box.com/s/8j28fg3d1m0zhd6pwzo6 cannot get this preview-able can on google sites but google+ has stuffed me up cannot find my site editing page
Fantastic. Could you give a little more detail? For example, are you tracing with a polyline, then filling and adding thickness?
I updated it to include a .car file
and yes basically I start by tracing with a polyline and filling polygon then duplicating and bridging to make a chunky model I then smooth
be careful Wendy, you know what they say about dogs and their owners !
just for you -
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=cqxTUxzOceE&feature=youtube_gdata_plaJ