Mage 13X13 said:

I started a thread of my own here in the DAZ Forums to try and find help with that problem, and another member directed me to this thread. I am planning to revisit the model and try your method of using the area light base to convert my light bulb to an area light, and I will be using your other instruction the make the lens have refraction. Also, I will set the raytrace depth up so that the light will pass through the lens. It will need to be set to at least 6 to allow for the reflection off the inner dome to pass through as well.

I thank you for providing your tutorial, but I do have a question for you. Would it be possible to get a pdf document version of your tutorial?

It's always a good idea to go one more than you think you'll need for raytrace depth. And if you are turning the filament (if you modeled one) into the emitter, then you will need at least a depth of 8.

I have been doing some experimenting with IES profiles and thought I would share what I have learned so far.

So what are IES profiles, well basically they are maps of how light spreads form the filament or whatever else the lamp is using to generate the light. All types of globes are different and most globe manufacturers provide the profiles for them free of charge so we can visualise them before purchase. There are thousands available on the web and I found this set of 30 files that came with an image of how they will look when rendered. http://www.mrcad.com/download-free-ies-lights/

The image bellow has a few examples of the different profiles in the pack. I used a sphere and scaled it down till I thought it was a good size for a globe, added a couple of planes for the floor and wall and a couple more to hide the sphere so the glow from the sphere wouldn't distract placing the sphere as close to the wall as I could.

To the sphere I applied the 100W bulb shader from DZFires Real Lights Collection (in my opinion they are a must have) and plugged one of the ies files into the Emission Profile channel. To get the light pointing in the right direction rotate -90 on the X axis to point down and +90 to point up.

So back to the image bellow, the one marked default is DZFires 100W bulb at its default settings. In the rest of the images the only change that was made is a different ies profile in the Emission Profile channel.

I am really excited about this as it adds a whole new dimension for lighting inside DAZ Studio. I hope that I have made this easy enough to follow as this is still new to me. I wanted to put it out there hoping others will add their thoughts as well.

I haven't been able to get this to work on planar mesh lights within a scene, for some reason the profile shines from theedge of the plane and not the Surface, thets why I used a sphere.

The Blurst of Times said:

If Watts work for you, great. I eventually went back to lumens because Watts measure electricity applied to light. This makes sense in a filament. However, when I tried applying Watts to different primitives of varying surface area, I found Watts to be less than reliable because the light emission never seemed to scale logically with the change to surface area.

Using a lumen output per surface area measurement just made for more sense to me. YMMV, though.

I assume Watts must be based on the light output of a particular type of light, probably an old style tungsten filament bulb. Other types of lights produce different amounts of light from the same number of watts.

Lumens is a technically more correct measurement but most people are not familiar with it. When I'm looking for a replacement for one of those low energy fluorescent things I look at the bit that says what wattage old style bulb it is equivalent to rather than it's actual wattage.

The Blurst of Times said:

If Watts work for you, great. I eventually went back to lumens because Watts measure electricity applied to light. This makes sense in a filament. However, when I tried applying Watts to different primitives of varying surface area, I found Watts to be less than reliable because the light emission never seemed to scale logically with the change to surface area.

Using a lumen output per surface area measurement just made for more sense to me. YMMV, though.

Or think of it this way...just how bright would a 100W LED lamp be?

Considering that industrial lasers are not usually in that range (much lower...) and consumer grade LED bulbs fall in the 15W and under range...

The Blurst of Times said:

I eventually went back to lumens because Watts measure electricity applied to light. This makes sense in a filament. However, when I tried applying Watts to different primitives of varying surface area, I found Watts to be less than reliable because the light emission never seemed to scale logically with the change to surface area.

Using a lumen output per surface area measurement just made for more sense to me..

That's actually an excellent point. Thank you. I'll definitely keep in mind.

If Watts work for you, great. I eventually went back to lumens because Watts measure electricity applied to light. This makes sense in a filament. However, when I tried applying Watts to different primitives of varying surface area, I found Watts to be less than reliable because the light emission never seemed to scale logically with the change to surface area.

Using a lumen output per surface area measurement just made for more sense to me. YMMV, though.

Well, some will tell you to switch the emitter to Watts... but I found Wattage to be a little unreliable because you're no longer talking about the filament in an incandescent bulb, where we associate Watts with light. Your emitters have a lot more surface area to consider.

I like the candela per unit area default for my lights. It gives me more of a standard across a variety of objects, I think.

So, you just crank up the luminosity. You don't need to touch temperature, although knowing the temperature spectrum of emitters is a good thing for a physics system like Iray.

It also depends on your camera setting, like the ISO. You may not need as many candela if you have a high ISO.

I've found emitter objects even easier to work with than point lights, myself. I read a lot on light, optics, and camera/lens behavior when I started with the Iray beta.

Can't really help on V4, however. The Iray settings also can work differently from one skin to another on the exact same G2F model. There are a ton of factors to consider.

It would have to be flush with a thigh, not dangle, or be erect so the filament could build from below as it cannot extrude in mid air without coming out the nozzle all over the place making a mess. :lol:

Tim_A said:

The figure on the right looks a bit jagged around the arms, presumably there's some cleanup required after printing. What's the material, and is it easy to paint? Are they solid or hollow? How strong, and what do they cost per figure (ie in terms of material, roughly)?

Sorry it's all questions, but it looks interesting and I know absolutely nothing . . .

wendy♥catz said:

.... but can see up pointing swords etc are entirely possible even fine ones ...

Not necessarily. With fine isolated detail the preceding layer doesn't have time to cool before the next lay is printed. Eventually, the constant placement of hot material on a small hot base, leads to the piece slumping.

I have partially got around this in the past by printing a sacrificial tower away from the required detail to give the pointy bit time to cool between layers. it can still be problematic though.

Swords are probably better printed separately and added afterwards any way. You can then print the sword flat making best use of the strength of the filament grain direction.

I endeavour to print without support material when ever possible (back to the design to print bit). You can generally get away with an overhang of up to 45º without support. Unfortunately my slicing software doesn't differentiate so I either have support material or I don't.

I have also added my own supports, to remove, as this gives greater control than relying on the slicer generated supports.

LIke I said, not necessarily impossible, but very frustrating. Nothing tries your patience like being 6 hours into a 7 hour print, and having something go wrong. It's even worse than waiting all night for a render, and finding it's wrong. At least you haven't wasted material.

fionathegood said:

Title: "The Abduction of Teddy"

Agent for Missing Persons Division: Tell me again what happened, Willow?

Willow: That beady-eyed space rat pointed his ray gun at me and demanded I cut loose the cheese. I just.. froze... any other time I could have, but I just... I just ran out of gas! Normally you can count on me to me to defuse the bomb in the tightest of situations. Elevators, stairwells, crowded airplanes... usually I work best under pressure! Why, agent? Why? By now Teddy is probably being probed by beady-eyed space rat thugs deep in the depths of... space... deep, dark space. Oh agent, how could I have failed him?"

Agent: Do you know we found your hidden supply of beano, Willow?

Willow: *gasp* Beano? I would never! It must be a plant, a set-up... My boyfriend has been jealous of Teddy all along, I can't help that I reach to snuggle Teddy in my sleep! I bet my boyfriend is in on this! Maybe he wanted Teddy for himself. Teddy will never be happy with him! I bet he laced my Taco Bell with Beano so I would run out of gas right when I needed it most. Poor, poor Teddy. Why does Teddy need to suffer? I can't imagine what those space rats must be doing to him... No matter what they do to him, Teddy will never love anyone but me.

As for my jerk boyfriend.... I am so over him. And to be honest agent, I am sorry about Teddy but I am relieved to be rid of the boyfriend. Thank heavens. Finally, no more scented candles, perfumes, and soaps, ugh! And the flowers! Why always the flowers? Why can't a boy just buy a girl a nice box of Fiber One and be done? Not to mention the not so subtle rotation of air fresheners dangling from my car's rearview mirror...

Oh Agent... I know I never should have let anyone else into my life... Teddy was all I ever needed, all I ever wanted! He understood me, he loved me no matter what. . Unlike mister soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, Teddy never said my profession stunk or questioned me when I explained how important it was to have the dog as my canine alibi. Just bring Teddy back to me safe and I will never fail him again. Please tell me you know how to get Teddy back? I will put up any ransom the space rat thugs demand, no matter how large! I don't care if you have to re-route deliveries from every cheese store in Wisconsin and Vermont combined, if those space rats want me to cut them some cheese, I will cut them the biggest cheese I can find. You can't let the evil space rats destroy his innocent teddy love. We have something special, agent. Teddy and I..."

Willow awoke with a start...

Not surprisingly, she really needed to _ _ _ _ .

She looked at her boyfriend, sleeping peacefully beside her. With dreams like that she was very glad that she didn't talk in her sleep! Or so she hoped...

Software Used:
Blender to convert file formats
Pre-work in Photoshop (Bubble text plane, background image on cyclorama plane color, adjustment to filament in lasergun)
Rendered in Daz Studio Pro 4.7 with 3 Delight
No Postwork (or I would have fixed some obvious minor details!)

Products Used:

No Counts: Dawn, cyclorama plane

Paid Items: Willow for Dawn (Comes with Bun Hair)

Freebies:

*registration required

*Ratty mouse by marco.dd
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=63094

*Mouse Trap by Avros Designs
http://www.dreamslayerartworks.com/stores/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22&products_id=211

*Space Alien Laser Ray Gun by MP Design
http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-3ds-mode-gun-extraterrestrial/620172

Super Shine Shader (Blue on Laser Ray Gun)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/31573/Material-and-Shader/Super-Shine-Shader

*Space Kit Pro by davidoblad (20 space ship components- pointy soft.obj used for ray gun laser shape)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=26938

*Jepe's Special Z (cropped and oppacity modified in pre-work to fit ray gun laser filament)
http://shop.poseraddicts.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=3002

*Classic Ufo by engine9
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/71379

Ultimate Lighting by Worldwild (lights under UFO)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/38593/browse/11/Poser/Ultimate-Lighting

*XMas Elf Outfit for Dawn By Evil Innocence
http://forum.runtimedna.com/content.php?346-13-Days-of-Christmas-2013-Day-7
or
http://www.runtimedna.com/Elf-Dress-for-Dawn.html

Textures for Elf Dress by eblank99
http://www.sharecg.com/v/79640/browse/11/Poser/Textures-for-Elf-Dress

*Shoes- Byudragonbreath's Nitaland outfit for Star and Dawn
http://pfdlives.com/pfd/index.php?topic=7197

*ULTIMATE SHADER PACK FOR DAZ STUDIO by georgehaze (hot pink on shoes, metals on ray gun)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=66943

PlushToy Props by Cabletoru (Bear)
http://cabletoru.atspace.com/pages/dlfiles005.html

Spring Room by Gorilla Labs 3D (Walls and Floor)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/76271/related/5/3D-Model/Spring-Room

*FRM-Painted Skies Exclusive (Moon Background)
http://fantasiesrealm.com/market/-Designers/FRM/FRM-Painted-Skies-Exclusive

Really happy to see someone else made use of that mouse trap.

You managed to get quite a few freebies in a nice, simple scene. Well done.

I do not have a membership for PFDLives so could not confirm that link but you have more than enough.

ENTRY ACCEPTED

Title: "The Abduction of Teddy"

Agent for Missing Persons Division: Tell me again what happened, Willow?

Willow: That beady-eyed space rat pointed his ray gun at me and demanded I cut loose the cheese. I just.. froze... any other time I could have, but I just... I just ran out of gas! Normally you can count on me to diffuse the bomb in the tightest of situations. Elevators, stairwells, crowded airplanes... usually I work best under pressure! Why, agent? Why? By now Teddy is probably being probed by beady-eyed space rat thugs deep in the depths of... space... deep, dark space. Oh agent, how could I have failed him?"

Agent: Do you know we found your hidden supply of beano, Willow?

Willow: *gasp* Beano? I would never! It must be a plant, a set-up... My boyfriend has been jealous of Teddy all along, I can't help that I reach to snuggle Teddy in my sleep! I bet my boyfriend is in on this! Maybe he wanted Teddy for himself. Teddy will never be happy with him! I bet he laced my Taco Bell with Beano so I would run out of gas right when I needed it most. Poor, poor Teddy. Why does Teddy need to suffer? I can't imagine what those space rats must be doing to him... No matter what they do to him, Teddy will never love anyone but me.

As for my jerk boyfriend.... I am so over him. And to be honest agent, I am sorry about Teddy but I am relieved to be rid of the boyfriend. Thank heavens. Finally, no more scented candles, perfumes, and soaps, ugh! And the flowers! Why always the flowers? Why can't a boy just buy a girl a nice box of Fiber One and be done? Not to mention the not so subtle rotation of air fresheners dangling from my car's rearview mirror...

Oh Agent... I know I never should have let anyone else into my life... Teddy was all I ever needed, all I ever wanted! He understood me, he loved me no matter what. . Unlike mister soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, Teddy never said my profession stunk or questioned me when I explained how important it was to have the dog as my canine alibi. Just bring Teddy back to me safe and I will never fail him again. Please tell me you know how to get Teddy back? I will put up any ransom the space rat thugs demand, no matter how large! I don't care if you have to re-route deliveries from every cheese store in Wisconsin and Vermont combined, if those space rats want me to cut them some cheese, I will cut them the biggest cheese I can find. You can't let the evil space rats destroy his innocent teddy love. We have something special, agent. Teddy and I..."

Willow awoke with a start...

Not surprisingly, she really needed to _ _ _ _ .

She looked at her boyfriend, sleeping peacefully beside her. With dreams like that she was very glad that she didn't talk in her sleep! Or so she hoped...

Software Used:
Blender to convert file formats
Pre-work in Photoshop (Bubble text plane, background image on cyclorama plane color, adjustment to filament in lasergun)
Rendered in Daz Studio Pro 4.7 with 3 Delight
No Postwork (or I would have fixed some obvious minor details!)

Products Used:

No Counts: Dawn, cyclorama plane

Paid Items: Willow for Dawn (Comes with Bun Hair)

Freebies:

*registration required

*Ratty mouse by marco.dd
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=63094

*Mouse Trap by Avros Designs
http://www.dreamslayerartworks.com/stores/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22&products_id=211

*Space Alien Laser Ray Gun by MP Design
http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-3ds-mode-gun-extraterrestrial/620172

Super Shine Shader (Blue on Laser Ray Gun)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/31573/Material-and-Shader/Super-Shine-Shader

*Space Kit Pro by davidoblad (20 space ship components- pointy soft.obj used for ray gun laser shape)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=26938

*Jepe's Special Z (cropped and oppacity modified in pre-work to fit ray gun laser filament)
http://shop.poseraddicts.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=3002

*Classic Ufo by engine9
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/71379

Ultimate Lighting by Worldwild (lights under UFO)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/38593/browse/11/Poser/Ultimate-Lighting

*XMas Elf Outfit for Dawn By Evil Innocence
http://forum.runtimedna.com/content.php?346-13-Days-of-Christmas-2013-Day-7
or
http://www.runtimedna.com/Elf-Dress-for-Dawn.html

Textures for Elf Dress by eblank99
http://www.sharecg.com/v/79640/browse/11/Poser/Textures-for-Elf-Dress

Shoes- Byudragonbreath's Nitaland outfit for Star and Dawn
registration required: http://pfdlives.com/pfd/index.php?topic=7197
no registration required: http://www.pfddelights.com/index.php?topic=958.0

*ULTIMATE SHADER PACK FOR DAZ STUDIO by georgehaze (hot pink on shoes, metals on ray gun)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=66943

PlushToy Props by Cabletoru (Bear)
http://cabletoru.atspace.com/pages/dlfiles005.html

Spring Room by Gorilla Labs 3D (Walls and Floor)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/76271/related/5/3D-Model/Spring-Room

*FRM-Painted Skies Exclusive (Moon Background)
http://fantasiesrealm.com/market/-Designers/FRM/FRM-Painted-Skies-Exclusive

(edited to add no registration required link for Nita-land outfit.)

Interesting thread ...which I've missed. :-(.

I've had a 3D printer for a couple of years now and wished I'd seen the thread to warn you off.

Filament machines are fine provided you design the item you want in a manner that prints well. I.e. you design it to be printed. It certainly isn't just a matter of "Oh I have a 3d model I'll just print it" - as you would an image file.

The main issue is in respect of support material. If you have a dual head machine, and can print dissolvable filament, you are in with a chance. If not, and you have to print support material, almost inevitable with figures, the main issue is removing the support without damaging any fine detail on the figure which you want to keep.

Powder based and resin vat printers don't have this problem as the unbonded medium supports that which has been fused. These are really the only machines suitable for printing figures. They are spectacularly expensive compared to filament based machines.

If using filament, PLA is much easier to print than ABS as it doesn't shrink as much when it cools. I have seen ABS prints split weeks after printing because of the internal tension through cooling. PLA doesn't suffer as much from bed lift either, it can still occur but not as much. The down side with PLA is it is less heat resistant once printed - I've had prints deform when left in a hot car.

So, apologies, if I'd seen this thread earlier I would have said don't buy a filament printer to print figures because it doesn't really work....even if you do manage to produce a water tight mesh ....and then there is no guarantee your slicing software will understand the mesh sufficiently to produce the print file. And then, unless the figure is sitting, or lying on the floor, you will have to print it too small to get any reasonable level of detail.

I'm not saying it is impossible, and success would be worth the challenge, and the difficulty makes the reward so much sweeter....I've looked at doing it several times...... and then gone "Naaa."

Sorry.

Elele said:

wendy♥catz said:

my first attempt failed miserably and took 12+ hours
made mistake of adding rafts, it printed solid!!
was Jaderail but all you see is legs and arms and a big block of honeycombed plastic (yes I broke it open)
.......... and wasted half my ABS filament
second go took two hours and was a success, went much smaller and used lesser settings, a kittycat of course
will try smaller and work my way up maybe doing parts and assembling in future.
after all cannot have bits suspended in mid air printing so joining bits best solution.

Looks great! And that is a small one, how big can you go?

I looked up the material safety dafa sheet for Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). If that is the material that is used, you don't want to sleep in the fumes and do the printing in a ventilated area. In solid form it seems pretty harmless, but the fumes can cause problems for your eyes, respiratory tract and also skin if the fumes condensate on it. Though normally that information should have been provided with the equipment.

As far as ABS as a solid, Legos are made of ABS plastic. That should give you an idea of the strength.

Here are some webpages that talk about it:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Is-3D-Printing-Safe-or-DIY-Testing-for-HCN-from-/

https://www.whiteclouds.com/toxicity-abs-plastic-3d-printing

http://wiki.solidoodle.com/abs-safety

If the mods need to remove the off site links, you can google "is abs printing safe"

ncamp

wendy♥catz said:

my first attempt failed miserably and took 12+ hours
made mistake of adding rafts, it printed solid!!
was Jaderail but all you see is legs and arms and a big block of honeycombed plastic (yes I broke it open)
.......... and wasted half my ABS filament
second go took two hours and was a success, went much smaller and used lesser settings, a kittycat of course
will try smaller and work my way up maybe doing parts and assembling in future.
after all cannot have bits suspended in mid air printing so joining bits best solution.

Looks great! And that is a small one, how big can you go?

I looked up the material safety dafa sheet for Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). If that is the material that is used, you don't want to sleep in the fumes and do the printing in a ventilated area. In solid form it seems pretty harmless, but the fumes can cause problems for your eyes, respiratory tract and also skin if the fumes condensate on it. Though normally that information should have been provided with the equipment.

It is indeed honeycombed, I am uploading a long boring timelapse video of the job.
I need to hack the firmware to use the SD card but will wait till out of warranty, have looked into how, it will mean cheaper and more varied filament too, this one uses cartridges with a chip that records how much to stop people refilling.

wendy♥catz said:

my first attempt failed miserably and took 12+ hours
made mistake of adding rafts, it printed solid!!
was Jaderail but all you see is legs and arms and a big block of honeycombed plastic (yes I broke it open)
.......... and wasted half my ABS filament
second go took two hours and was a success, went much smaller and used lesser settings, a kittycat of course
will try smaller and work my way up maybe doing parts and assembling in future.
after all cannot have bits suspended in mid air printing so joining bits best solution.

my first attempt failed miserably and took 12+ hours
made mistake of adding rafts, it printed solid!!
was Jaderail but all you see is legs and arms and a big block of honeycombed plastic (yes I broke it open)
.......... and wasted half my ABS filament
second go took two hours and was a success, went much smaller and used lesser settings, a kittycat of course
will try smaller and work my way up maybe doing parts and assembling in future.
after all cannot have bits suspended in mid air printing so joining bits best solution.

wendy♥catz said:

Misty Whisky said:

was thinking bout you in my sleep, lol

weird dream you were making a bust version, one of those from shoulders up
there was a cat

I am getting high on plastic filament fumes in my sleep.

more like magic marker fumes? or more like glue fumes?

:)

Misty Whisky said:

was thinking bout you in my sleep, lol

weird dream you were making a bust version, one of those from shoulders up
there was a cat