Need help creating an Akita breed for Daz dog 8
drbetochas
Posts: 12
Hello, I'm kinda new at this and never created a character much less a dog with all the fur...
After establishing my null skills, I wish to create an Akita (like the one on the movie Hachiko) since I can't find one neither here or other sites :S but need some guide and help on how to go about it. I have basic skills on blender, Zbrush and have a POP scanner (I made models for a special project to add to my renders).
Mostly the problem is the specific type and shape of the fur and colors usually found on the breed and their characteristic face and paws (this last more cat like than dog)
thanks for your time and help
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Comments
Do you want the fluffyness to come from the dforce fur on the model or from a morph on the model?
I'm a Blender user so my suggestion is mostly related to Blender ~~ (probably the quickest way...)
As for the shape, an Akita is similar to a Husky, so you can easily sculpt the shape accordingly if you own a Husky for Dog 8 (also doable based on a Dog 8 Base...) in Blender (as per the metrics if needed...). Then create or udpate as an Akita morph as well as the fur morph as needed.
As for the texture, you can then export Akita figure to Blender and paint the color and texture according to a typical ginger + white Akita, especially on the material zone of "Coat", and bake the texture maps. No need to touch UV ! Personally recommend this free but pretty good add-on for texture painting https://github.com/ucupumar/ucupaint/releases
Since the dForce Furs on a Husky for Dog 8 are generated on Target Surfaces, so the painted Akita textures can be well used on both Akita's figure as well as the fur figures. Then you tweak the surface settings on Akita's surfaces to have more realistic and natural lookings, as well as the surfaces on Furs, e.g. increase density, length, etc. to make them more fluffy ~~ yada yada.
Alternatively, you can make specific strand-based furs by using SBH Editor in DS... only that'll take more time and you have no way to add dForce capability...
Here's my try at Akita Inu without any bought products;
The head is the only part I'd bough husky for.
You need to look up drawings, with the all the measurements in metric or imperial, of "Akita Official Kennel Club" allowed size ranges and shape variations. Add fur variations. You need drawing both with and without fur. I'd do the fur 100% as dForce hair and ot as a sculpt morph shape on the base G8 Dog.
Hello all! I'm unsure of proper ettiquite, but figured I'd bump this thread I found with a question related to making a dog breed as well (please let me know if it's preferred to start a new one).
I'm wanting to sculpt my Dalmation to put him into music videos with my other 3D characters and designs. I purchased a low-poly model from RenderHub (the only I found when I looked last year) and figured I would use that as a base and referrence photos to get his shape. The issue with this is that I then have an unrigged dog statue. How would I copy over a bone-structure? Well, it's in a pose and not zero so that may not work either.
Also, I purchased UHD Fur Builder when it was on-sale for this but it's looking like that wont give good results but I'm sure it's my lack of know-how right now. I'll attach a couple quick renders, but on the low poly Dalmatian (being that there's just one surface) it covers the entire figure. On Daz Dog 8 it causes noticable seams. I tried it on a human figure, and they have the seems on all limbs. I don't know how people normally line up these seams, I use Skin Builder on my characters and customize from there. Mainly I figured I would paint his spots manually and use UHD Fur Builder for a more realistic texture, but none of the textures seem accurate to the short bristles on a Dalmatian anyways. Prob stick to using it on furniture and clothes.
So, it seems my options would be:
1) Learn how to rig the low-poly dog and paint over their horrifying UV wrap (attached), shape it up in Blender.
2) Shape the Daz Dog 8 and paint those UVs.
Being that there's no Dalmatian in the shop, making this a Daz Dog 8 compatible figure would be preferable. I'm sure I'll need to learn how to make the strand-based hair layer, though.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
I think rigging the statue would be nontrivial. It's a good skill to know, but difficult to master. It's more than just bones and weight painting. You'd probably also want joint corrective morphs to improve the movement, morphs for body parts like ears and tail, inverse kinematics etc. Rather, starting with any pre-rigged dog figure lets you dive right into sculpting and retexturing.
Maybe look for a lab-like base figure such as the HiveWire Big Dog or Daz Dog 8 Labrador. Those already have the floppy forward ears and general body shape.
Look up Substance Painter for texturing. You can paint a figure in 3d like you were airbrushing a physical model on a desk, without having to think about UVs.
A Dalmation was not too difficult. I did one using the Base DAZ Dog 8 and editing a color map for it's fur. Let me see if thhat scene still works & I'll share that scene with you.
I found the scene but I have to look for the texture(s) I edited. I remember though that I only replaced the diffuse and it wasn't at all realistic but it worked pretty good.