New Users Contest *October 2013* ►►► WIP THREAD ◄◄◄

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Comments

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    edited December 1969

    That is an excellent tutorial mcjam24. Thank you for sharing.

    Now I am off to play with the Shader Mixer.

  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    edited December 1969

    firefly43 said:
    okay .... might not be the best ever done, but I found a video that showed me how to do more then I knew how to do an hour ago. So here is my first full scene render. I changed the outfit and the arm bracelet using my created shaders.

    Is it passable?

    It is a lovely render. The blue really stands out against the gold background.

  • firefly43firefly43 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    @ Jaderail & Kismet2012

    Thanks for the encouraging words. Can't believe I actually did it !!! I am going to submit it to the contest, and then start going through some of the older contests to learn more.

    I really do want to thank all of you for doing this for those of us who are new. This has been the most fun I have had with Daz since we (better half & I) started playing with it. I am so eager now to learn more and do better!

    Thank You!

  • firefly43firefly43 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Okay, saw that we could post 2 images in the rules, and after my first try I noticed that each piece of the garment could be changed, did not know that before. So I did a second one that I want to submit also. If I read it right and I am allowed to do two this would be my second.

    Again the entire costume are shaders that I created. Are the shaders acceptable ones for the contest or should I make others?

    Lost6.jpg
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  • firefly43firefly43 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I do have another question if no one minds.

    When I first loaded the figure I played with the face quite a bit to get my own unique looking character. If I were to do that again, is there a way to save those changes so I could load it again?

  • Mcjam24Mcjam24 Posts: 115
    edited October 2013

    Keep in mind we need to keep our images PG, so her top needs a little more....opacity going on, and I just realized I completely misread the question....

    Post edited by Mcjam24 on
  • NeilV_1NeilV_1 Posts: 442
    edited December 1969

    firefly43 said:
    I do have another question if no one minds.

    When I first loaded the figure I played with the face quite a bit to get my own unique looking character. If I were to do that again, is there a way to save those changes so I could load it again?

    If you are Using Genesis or G2F go to File then Save as Pose preset. give the file a name and save in a mapped content folder
    you will will then need to take the ticks out of the areas you don,t want to effect, as you are talking about a face pose you find the head then pose control and then head again making sure only the areas you wish to effect have ticks in.

    This will save as a .duf file

    if you wish to save for a Gen 4 figure you may have to save using a slightly different method this will involve saving as File save as Deprecated then pose preset (.ds*) here you will notice that no ticks are added but as you go through the list you can add the ones you want again to save a face pose go to pose control and head.

    the will save as a .dsa file

  • TeofaTeofa Posts: 823
    edited October 2013

    firefly43 said:
    Okay, saw that we could post 2 images in the rules, and after my first try I noticed that each piece of the garment could be changed, did not know that before. So I did a second one that I want to submit also. If I read it right and I am allowed to do two this would be my second.

    Again the entire costume are shaders that I created. Are the shaders acceptable ones for the contest or should I make others?


    Your shaders are fine :). Looks like you have "poke through" If that is Gen2, go to her materials basic and turn nipples "off". If they are from other morphs or settings, go to them and adjust them down to the point the conforming clothes cover the "pokes" . Alternatively, you can go to your image program and clonebrush or paint the poke out. It is a very common problem with that part of the anatomy and conforming clothes.

    You may also have a morph for the bra cup.. breast. select the bra, go to parameters.. and see if it can be adjusted a bit. Sometimes these adjustment morphs will show up in "shaping" with the bra selected, sometimes not.

    It looks like you used hair texture snippets to make your shader. Clever :), and a great idea.

    Post edited by Teofa on
  • TeofaTeofa Posts: 823
    edited October 2013

    One little tidbit I wanted to get in. Hopefully people will look at this thread in the future.

    Using diffuse color settings to get multi use from one shader.

    I created a basic tan suede leather shader. By adding light diffuse colors, I can create different colors of suede without creating a new shader. It is limited, and you have to think of the color wheel when mixing your map color with diffuse color. But.. it can have interesting results. So, all three shades of suede were done with one shader.. and then changing the diffuse to make the green and red.

    I shaded all three clothing items with the tan shader, the used the editor to add pink to make the red suede pants, and used the editor to add very light green diffuse to make the green suede shirt. You can get a pile of colors this way without having tons of shaders in your shader presets.

    the orange? eh. you know.. fads.

    diffuse.jpg
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    Post edited by Teofa on
  • Mcjam24Mcjam24 Posts: 115
    edited December 1969

    Fads!!!??!! :-) Oh...they're here to stay,
    nice job on the shader by the way

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 13,189
    edited December 1969

    firefly43 said:
    Okay, saw that we could post 2 images in the rules, and after my first try I noticed that each piece of the garment could be changed, did not know that before. So I did a second one that I want to submit also. If I read it right and I am allowed to do two this would be my second.

    Again the entire costume are shaders that I created. Are the shaders acceptable ones for the contest or should I make others?

    Very nice job

  • JesterVIIJesterVII Posts: 175
    edited October 2013

    Edited because I'm silly willy.

    Post edited by JesterVII on
  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    It still needs a Full render based on it.

  • TeofaTeofa Posts: 823
    edited December 1969

    JesterVII said:
    Ok so I choose to work with Mestophales Dragon. It had only 2 body surfaces. After working on it with the Polygon editor it has 11 different surfaces.
    Title: Metalic Dragon

    Program Daz 4.6…..
    Shaders: Supersuit
    No Post Work.

    Not sure if this would count but would like it to…lol

    Perhaps I misread.. but you used Supersuit shaders?

    For the contest we are making our own shaders. There is a lot of information in this WIP thread, start with Ann's basic tutorials.

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 13,189
    edited December 1969

    Yes you should be making your own. That is the idea behind the contest to have you tinker around with setting to make your own

  • JesterVIIJesterVII Posts: 175
    edited December 1969

    Yeah I misread the info. Sorry. Can some one pull that post for me?

  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I so missed the Supersuit part. Opps..

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,331
    edited December 1969

    firefly43 said:
    Okay, saw that we could post 2 images in the rules, and after my first try I noticed that each piece of the garment could be changed, did not know that before. So I did a second one that I want to submit also. If I read it right and I am allowed to do two this would be my second.

    Again the entire costume are shaders that I created. Are the shaders acceptable ones for the contest or should I make others?


    Very nice work. If you want to keep tweaking shaders and surfaces, I'd focus on the architecture...see if you can improve the appearance of the default materials by adjusting the surface settings, or else use shaders to create some unique and different looks. I don't know if it has bump or displacement applied already, but you might consider applying one or both. I dug up this mini-tutorial by Totte from a previous New User Contest, which explains a simple way to add bump to something that doesn't have a bump map.
  • JesterVIIJesterVII Posts: 175
    edited October 2013

    Ok so second try. I made this shader following Jade guide posted here…Kinda. Using a picture of some my old camo pants (US Navy) I made or attempted to make a decent likeness of the pattern.

    Edited: Added 2nd pic with shader sphere.

    Navy_Cable2.jpg
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    Navy_Cable.jpg
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    Post edited by JesterVII on
  • firefly43firefly43 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    firefly43 said:
    Okay, saw that we could post 2 images in the rules, and after my first try I noticed that each piece of the garment could be changed, did not know that before. So I did a second one that I want to submit also. If I read it right and I am allowed to do two this would be my second.

    Again the entire costume are shaders that I created. Are the shaders acceptable ones for the contest or should I make others?


    Very nice work. If you want to keep tweaking shaders and surfaces, I'd focus on the architecture...see if you can improve the appearance of the default materials by adjusting the surface settings, or else use shaders to create some unique and different looks. I don't know if it has bump or displacement applied already, but you might consider applying one or both. I dug up this mini-tutorial by Totte from a previous New User Contest, which explains a simple way to add bump to something that doesn't have a bump map.

    Though I would love to learn how to actually change the background, I know nothing about bumb, displacement, or the other types of maps. I keep looking on the web for tutorials on how to make them, as I know it has to be something simple I just don't know about yet.

    I really did not follow the mini tut, but that is probably because I don't know the basics of what they actually are and how to construct and use them.

    Big giveaway here is that I am totally amazed I made a preset and learned to load a scene .... LOL ... so that shows you how far my knowledge goes.

    If anyone can help with these great, if not I still appreciate the encouragement and the critiques they do help!

    I have not given up ... I do keep trying to just experiment but it so often goes so terribly wrong that I panic and just shut the whole program down so not to destroy those things in my library.

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,331
    edited December 1969

    firefly43 said:
    firefly43 said:
    Okay, saw that we could post 2 images in the rules, and after my first try I noticed that each piece of the garment could be changed, did not know that before. So I did a second one that I want to submit also. If I read it right and I am allowed to do two this would be my second.

    Again the entire costume are shaders that I created. Are the shaders acceptable ones for the contest or should I make others?


    Very nice work. If you want to keep tweaking shaders and surfaces, I'd focus on the architecture...see if you can improve the appearance of the default materials by adjusting the surface settings, or else use shaders to create some unique and different looks. I don't know if it has bump or displacement applied already, but you might consider applying one or both. I dug up this mini-tutorial by Totte from a previous New User Contest, which explains a simple way to add bump to something that doesn't have a bump map.

    Though I would love to learn how to actually change the background, I know nothing about bumb, displacement, or the other types of maps. I keep looking on the web for tutorials on how to make them, as I know it has to be something simple I just don't know about yet.

    I really did not follow the mini tut, but that is probably because I don't know the basics of what they actually are and how to construct and use them.

    Big giveaway here is that I am totally amazed I made a preset and learned to load a scene .... LOL ... so that shows you how far my knowledge goes.

    If anyone can help with these great, if not I still appreciate the encouragement and the critiques they do help!

    I have not given up ... I do keep trying to just experiment but it so often goes so terribly wrong that I panic and just shut the whole program down so not to destroy those things in my library.
    The question of creating bump and displacement maps is getting more on the texturing side of things, which we'll cover more in November I was more talking about loading the diffuse map into the bump channel--no construction required.

    If you need more information on what bump, displacement, etc. mean and how they affect the render, I'd recommend giving another look to Ann's Surface Basics tutorial and also my tutorials on the UberSurface shader (part 1 | part 2). The UberSurface tutorials presume that you already have some basic knowledge of the concepts covered by the Basics tutorial.

    In order to make changes to the set, it's basically the same procedure as changing the clothing: select the object that you want to change, then go to the Surfaces pane and select the material zone or zones that you wish to edit. Then you can either adjust the settings on the Surfaces pane, or even apply an entirely different shader preset.

    One last tip: save often--and change the filename every time you make a major change. That way if something goes wrong, you can load an earlier version of your scene.

    If you get stuck or if something doesn't make sense, feel free to ask here.

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,331
    edited October 2013

    JesterVII said:
    Ok so second try. I made this shader following Jade guide posted here…Kinda. Using a picture of some my old camo pants (US Navy) I made or attempted to make a decent likeness of the pattern.

    Edited: Added 2nd pic with shader sphere.


    Looks really good! Only issue I see with the shader--and not really a huge one--is that the camo does have an unfortunate repeating pattern that causes some diagonal bands or stripes...if you want to try to get rid of that, you could try using a larger source image, or just change the tiling.
    Post edited by Scott Livingston on
  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,331
    edited October 2013

    firefly43 said:
    I really did not follow the mini tut, but that is probably because I don't know the basics of what they actually are and how to construct and use them.

    I took another look at Totte's info and saw that a lot of it is specific to the situation that he was responding to at the time. Here's my attempt at generalizing the information:

    You can add a bump map, if none is already set. The simplest way is to select the surface, then locate the Diffuse Color parameter in the Surfaces Tab. Hold the mouse over the little icon and it will show the texture and the name/path to it.

    Now go to the Bump parameter, click the little empty icon and select the texture that you found on Diffuse as bump map. This is not a real bump map, this is really not how to do it properly, but without involving Photoshop and a whole bunch of more stuff, this will do.

    Now set the Bump to 100%, negative to -1 and positive to 1. Do a test render, then adjust those numbers as necessary.

    Post edited by Scott Livingston on
  • JesterVIIJesterVII Posts: 175
    edited December 1969

    JesterVII said:
    Ok so second try. I made this shader following Jade guide posted here…Kinda. Using a picture of some my old camo pants (US Navy) I made or attempted to make a decent likeness of the pattern.

    Edited: Added 2nd pic with shader sphere.


    Looks really good! Only issue I see with the shader--and not really a huge one--is that the camo does have an unfortunate repeating pattern that causes some diagonal bands or stripes...if you want to try to get rid of that, you could try using a larger source image, or just change the tiling.

    Tried to change the tiling…too many and you loose the pattern, too little and it stretches out too much. But I took a look at some of my older camo pants/tops and noticed that the pattern actually repeats itself through out the whole uniform. Not as much as mine does but eh. Till I can get a bigger source image (that was taken by my iPhone btw) this will have to work.

  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited October 2013

    JesterVII said:
    JesterVII said:
    Ok so second try. I made this shader following Jade guide posted here…Kinda. Using a picture of some my old camo pants (US Navy) I made or attempted to make a decent likeness of the pattern.

    Edited: Added 2nd pic with shader sphere.


    Looks really good! Only issue I see with the shader--and not really a huge one--is that the camo does have an unfortunate repeating pattern that causes some diagonal bands or stripes...if you want to try to get rid of that, you could try using a larger source image, or just change the tiling.

    Tried to change the tiling…too many and you loose the pattern, too little and it stretches out too much. But I took a look at some of my older camo pants/tops and noticed that the pattern actually repeats itself through out the whole uniform. Not as much as mine does but eh. Till I can get a bigger source image (that was taken by my iPhone btw) this will have to work.I think it looks very good. Now if you want to add a Bump map here is another way. Hunt the web for Free Use cloth Texture files, ignore any not in Grey Scale. Now when you find one you like you CUT it to the SAME size as your Camo image. Load that as the BUMP or DISPLACEMENT as Scott said and test.

    EDIT when Happy save again as a NEW Shader.

    Post edited by Jaderail on
  • DAZ_ann0314DAZ_ann0314 Posts: 2,783
    edited December 1969

    Just a little reminder the contest ends tomorrow night so be sure to get your entries posted to the Contest Entries Thread Here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/29935/

  • firefly43firefly43 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    firefly43 said:
    firefly43 said:
    Okay, saw that we could post 2 images in the rules, and after my first try I noticed that each piece of the garment could be changed, did not know that before. So I did a second one that I want to submit also. If I read it right and I am allowed to do two this would be my second.

    Again the entire costume are shaders that I created. Are the shaders acceptable ones for the contest or should I make others?


    Very nice work. If you want to keep tweaking shaders and surfaces, I'd focus on the architecture...see if you can improve the appearance of the default materials by adjusting the surface settings, or else use shaders to create some unique and different looks. I don't know if it has bump or displacement applied already, but you might consider applying one or both. I dug up this mini-tutorial by Totte from a previous New User Contest, which explains a simple way to add bump to something that doesn't have a bump map.

    Though I would love to learn how to actually change the background, I know nothing about bumb, displacement, or the other types of maps. I keep looking on the web for tutorials on how to make them, as I know it has to be something simple I just don't know about yet.

    I really did not follow the mini tut, but that is probably because I don't know the basics of what they actually are and how to construct and use them.

    Big giveaway here is that I am totally amazed I made a preset and learned to load a scene .... LOL ... so that shows you how far my knowledge goes.

    If anyone can help with these great, if not I still appreciate the encouragement and the critiques they do help!

    I have not given up ... I do keep trying to just experiment but it so often goes so terribly wrong that I panic and just shut the whole program down so not to destroy those things in my library.
    The question of creating bump and displacement maps is getting more on the texturing side of things, which we'll cover more in November I was more talking about loading the diffuse map into the bump channel--no construction required.

    If you need more information on what bump, displacement, etc. mean and how they affect the render, I'd recommend giving another look to Ann's Surface Basics tutorial and also my tutorials on the UberSurface shader (part 1 | part 2). The UberSurface tutorials presume that you already have some basic knowledge of the concepts covered by the Basics tutorial.

    In order to make changes to the set, it's basically the same procedure as changing the clothing: select the object that you want to change, then go to the Surfaces pane and select the material zone or zones that you wish to edit. Then you can either adjust the settings on the Surfaces pane, or even apply an entirely different shader preset.

    One last tip: save often--and change the filename every time you make a major change. That way if something goes wrong, you can load an earlier version of your scene.

    If you get stuck or if something doesn't make sense, feel free to ask here.


    Thanks this info helped and I will try to give it another try before days end. Also read the bit after this post and will revisit those two tutorials.

    I do have the problem though of not knowing how to save things properly. This is why I got so excited when I actually saved a preset shader that worked. No matter what I save, when I go to reopen the project I am told that one error or another has occurred, or that the file is corrupted.

    I have saved my renders, but do not seem to be able to reopen those once saved. So what should I be saving and how would I go about it so that it will actually reopen in DS.

    I am going to go play with the background scenery again and try the things you suggested. Despite all the glitches I entail with learning it is a big thrill for me when I manage to conquer something :cheese:

  • JesterVIIJesterVII Posts: 175
    edited December 1969

    Jaderail said:
    JesterVII said:
    JesterVII said:
    Ok so second try. I made this shader following Jade guide posted here…Kinda. Using a picture of some my old camo pants (US Navy) I made or attempted to make a decent likeness of the pattern.

    Edited: Added 2nd pic with shader sphere.


    Looks really good! Only issue I see with the shader--and not really a huge one--is that the camo does have an unfortunate repeating pattern that causes some diagonal bands or stripes...if you want to try to get rid of that, you could try using a larger source image, or just change the tiling.

    Tried to change the tiling…too many and you loose the pattern, too little and it stretches out too much. But I took a look at some of my older camo pants/tops and noticed that the pattern actually repeats itself through out the whole uniform. Not as much as mine does but eh. Till I can get a bigger source image (that was taken by my iPhone btw) this will have to work.I think it looks very good. Now if you want to add a Bump map here is another way. Hunt the web for Free Use cloth Texture files, ignore any not in Grey Scale. Now when you find one you like you CUT it to the SAME size as your Camo image. Load that as the BUMP or DISPLACEMENT as Scott said and test.

    EDIT when Happy save again as a NEW Shader.

    Jaderail/Scott

    Found the perfect (well imo) image for a bump map and tested….LOVE IT. Thank you for the advice guys.

    Cable2.0_.jpg
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  • White RabbitWhite Rabbit Posts: 231
    edited October 2013

    Hi All :-)

    First off, I just want to say thanks again to DAZ for creating all these awesome software tools, and so much more! I started with DAZ in 2003. Then through my studies, I had to use other software which turned out to be nowhere near as fun as DAZ. So, I'm back again (to stay!)

    How Did I Do It?

    The hair for Altaira is actually dynamic hair. And was animated over 100 frames of animation to get it to fall into the pose I was looking for in the scene. The blonde texture I created myself to get the right feel. I actually prefer dark hair, but in this scene, I found that blonde hair really looked the best. at least for me. I created my own textures/shaders for the dress again to get the "right look". I added a 50's type makeup as this was a movie made in the 1940-50s with that kind of diva look.

    More detail about what work I did on crating the Shaders for this to solidify a few things. I worked from tutorials online for the Bryce Shaders for the robot. I had never done any work before with shaders and so I found this extremely useful. The tutorial gave a "default" setting for the various pieces of the robots body, lighting, glass head, and so on, I tweaked these to my own liking including working with Ambiance, Glossiness, Specularity, Diffuse attributes. Especially for the robot's gunmetal color, and his lights ambiance.

    The girls hair, as I mentioned, had to be dynamically posed in Poser 7. Then, I found that the hair was the wrong color. It was based on a series of texture maps for the skullcap, and several other layers. Each one had to be re-done for the right shade of blonde. I experimented initially with Posers Node based texturing. The hair plus textures were exported as Collada DAE format and imported to DAZ.

    The dress for the girl has had much experimentation for Shaders. I started with the basic yellow in DAZ, and then re-surfaced in Bryce. The Mat Lab is very cool! I have been working on this scene for over a year quite honestly. I have been learning a lot, but I have learned a lot from this project. You guys have given some awesome tutorials. Actually, I have been asking questions of the last months or so that has helped me along too! Thank you all for your help!

    What Software Used?

    DAZ Studio 4.6
    Bryce Pro 7.1
    Poser 7 (Hair Pose)

    All the best,
    White Rabbit

    Mark_Trappett_Sep_2013_02_Rob_Hand_Fix-002.jpg
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    Post edited by White Rabbit on
  • White RabbitWhite Rabbit Posts: 231
    edited December 1969

    Here's my Altaira with a glass dress!

    altaire_v4_jb_hi-res_blonde_glass_minidress.jpg
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