Kerya said:

As one of those who are using and liking more than one software (see my signature): Welcome! :)

Nice post! I am one also, used most modeling apps, used Vue, used Bryce, used hexagon, used Poser from version 5. Currently i have poser 7 and 2012 installed, DS 4.5, Carrara 7 pro, Blender, 3DSMax, Gmax and Sketchup pro also, LOL.
Gotta say, DS 4.5 with all it's features gets most of my time for rendering.

warmblood said:

There is one at the Sketchup 3D Warehouse, but you need to be able to import sketchup. Not easy and often not successful.

There's also a very nice one for sale over at Renderosity as part of the Trains Expansion Pack..

EDIT: Just found a free one here. Not as nice as the paid one, but free is good. http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/download.aspx?3dmodel=44902

Those last two are exactly the kind I need, thank you! I'll probably get the paid version.

There is one at the Sketchup 3D Warehouse, but you need to be able to import sketchup. Not easy and often not successful.

There's also a very nice one for sale over at Renderosity as part of the Trains Expansion Pack..

EDIT: Just found a free one here. Not as nice as the paid one, but free is good. http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/download.aspx?3dmodel=44902

select all and triagulate ngons I guess
(I do not model in Hexagon though I want to learn oneday)
that is how I fix mesh in Carrara or from Google Sketchup.

Another render, this time using google sketchup for backgrounds. Original pic is much larger, but may have some content that may not conform to community standards, so I played it safe ^^;
Combined Akatora's Deco (face) with Sixis 1 Media's Cyber Her (limbs) and Reiko's cyber parts (torso). In the background we can see the last cyborg attempt was... unsuccessful.
Amazing what one can make with $0, isn't it?

Dorseyland said:

A bit of a shock compared to your avatar, but SUPERB!

AND very REAL! I think I can count at least 8 items in there, and if they're freebies and you have the links, this would be a great entry!

Actually, the background is just a plane with a random parking lot image on it. The truck was a google sketchup model that was converted. I just used a shader on it. I think it was Grandma's Jewelry Box shaders. The hair is Yuna from Studio Maya but it seems to be a dead link.
The tanktop is Little Dragon's and the texture for it is Wayii's from eons ago.

Pose set (tweaked): http://www.sharecg.com/v/60858/gallery/11/Poser/V4---How-Rude!
Tank: http://littledragon.francemi.net/misc_01.htm
Tank Textures: http://www.sharecg.com/v/34121/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Dark-Remix-Textures-for-LittleDragons-Tank-Top

Google Sketchup warehouse maybe? I will look
trying not to cheat and use iClone 3dxchange only the collada download
Daz studio with opacity turned un on all surfaces (too many ngons)
Carrara, (more forgiving of ngons)
no lions

Rezca said:

DanaTA said:

Rezca said:

5 hours rendering, gave up and canceled the render. Disabled "Aperture Diffraction" and the coloring/brightness was a bit different... But the image cleared up in only 30 minutes >_<
Hardly any fireflies either (Some, but they're not as bad as before). There was this one spot on the ground with AD enabled... That was reaaally bright and noisy... I'm assuming it was coming from the windows reflecting light onto the ground (Indigo does some neat tricks with reflections and light), but it was far from being cleared up - disabling it removed that bright spot almost entirely - not all the way, but most of it.

Looks good to me! So, what is Indigo in? I really have to do something, it's been a long time. But I'm entrenched in getting my website going.

Dana

http://www.indigorenderer.com/

It's an unbiased render engine like LuxRay I guess, but a bit more expensive (As in: Not free :P )

Currently they only have exporters for SketchUp, Cinema 4D, 3DSMax, Maya, Blender, and something called RevIt.
The pluggy is built into C4D so I don't even hafta leave the program to do the renders and test renders, but lately I've been preferring to do the test renders in C4D but the final renders in Indigo standalone. Reason is that you can pause, save, and resume renders in Indigo but not in the C4D plugin :B Also is easier to change the camera models, ISO, and tonemapping in Indigo ^^; Seems a bit faster too.

Also attached is a "Neat trick with lights" I did in Indigo some time back using a default glass material and a single light

Thanks for the info.

That is neat. I wonder if I could get that in DS using the refraction values for glass. Hmmm...

Dana

DanaTA said:

Rezca said:

5 hours rendering, gave up and canceled the render. Disabled "Aperture Diffraction" and the coloring/brightness was a bit different... But the image cleared up in only 30 minutes >_<
Hardly any fireflies either (Some, but they're not as bad as before). There was this one spot on the ground with AD enabled... That was reaaally bright and noisy... I'm assuming it was coming from the windows reflecting light onto the ground (Indigo does some neat tricks with reflections and light), but it was far from being cleared up - disabling it removed that bright spot almost entirely - not all the way, but most of it.

Looks good to me! So, what is Indigo in? I really have to do something, it's been a long time. But I'm entrenched in getting my website going.

Dana

http://www.indigorenderer.com/

It's an unbiased render engine like LuxRay I guess, but a bit more expensive (As in: Not free :P )

Currently they only have exporters for SketchUp, Cinema 4D, 3DSMax, Maya, Blender, and something called RevIt.
The pluggy is built into C4D so I don't even hafta leave the program to do the renders and test renders, but lately I've been preferring to do the test renders in C4D but the final renders in Indigo standalone. Reason is that you can pause, save, and resume renders in Indigo but not in the C4D plugin :B Also is easier to change the camera models, ISO, and tonemapping in Indigo ^^; Seems a bit faster too.

Also attached is a "Neat trick with lights" I did in Indigo some time back using a default glass material and a single light

You need to either group the bits you want to move, and then use legacy rigging to turn them into a figure, or to turn them into a TriAx figure, add bones and apply weights of one to the parts you want to move for a bone and zero to the rest. If you are lucky the parts will either have unique material zones that you can use to select them with the polygon group editor tool, or will be distinct mesh that you can select as a unit, or even will already be grouped as you need them from Sketchup.

Hello all -

I have got a motorcycle that I have built in Sketchup and exported as an obj. I would like to be able to rotate the front wheel and handlebars. While it would be cool if I could pose it like the Dark Raven motorcycle or something, I don't think I want to delve all the way into making the entire bike poseable - I really just want to be able to turn that front tire and the handles. Is there a way to do that in Daz?

Thanks!

Hi,

I've just realized that I've been on the forum since the end of Dec 2012 and that i did not introduce myself! Shame on me!

So here I am not an old bachelor and likely to remain so as would say Professor Higgins (see My fair lady:-) ) , French, living in Paris, and retired from a financial career mostly in the banking business.

I'm here by chance as I was trying to find a way to create a figure out of a stoned victim of Pompeii eruption of 79 AD. I'm more interested at the beginning by video editing and I'm developing a project to edit all my videos made on that incredible archaeological site that I've visited probably 10 times.

The idea behind the project is inspired by a French novel of Theophile Gauthier called "Arria Marcela". This writer is well know of horror movies fans as one of his novel, "the story of the mummy" was the source of many films since the beginning of this industry.

When I began with DAZ studio 4.5 in December 2012 I had no idea of what 3D modeling was but was quickly amazed of the possibilities it opened for my project. I found ready made monuments of Pompeii in Sketchup, and was able with Bryce to import them and more or less modify some errors, my quest for the stone figure was fulfilled and now the second stage is to light the whole scene, and animate my corpse which will transform itself gradually from stone to living flesh and will be the guide of my viewer, if any become interested in the final render and movie. At least I'll be the one and only spectator! lol!

I want already to thank all those of you (Richard Haseltine, Chohole , Jaderail, mjc1016, and others whom I forgot their names but who will excuse my aging memory) for all the help they already gave me not sparing their time to hasten my real folly!
This is the stage of my project which could not having being achieved in so short a time without them:

You could download the pro version of Sketchup. (don't buy it, just the trial one) It doesn't have to be the latest version. I use version 7 for almost a year now. It gives you a couple of hours unlimited use. It comes with an .obj exporter. Just import the .skp model, look if there are undesired items like a groundplane or promotional text, delete those, then export it as '3d model' Don't tick the boxes 'export two sided faces' and 'export edges'. That's all there is to it.

There are several obj exporters for SketchUp...you may want to try one of those.

First off, they are probably a mess. Most apps do a poor job of this, at least from human readable perspective.

If you have one your willing to share in can take a look, parse it and comment it. Might be valuable to everyone. Don't pick the largest one! ;)

Learning is kinda easy, make a simple scene, light, object, shader, texture and export. Test render. All good? Make a copy. Open in text editor, if you ne'er stand things you see great, otherwise add some lines for space, add some comment lines, find end and beginning of objects/functions and remove. Test render. Go back and name that in the original file, repeat. Pretty soon it starts to make a lot of sense.

That leads to cool features like archives, static object/functions, etc.. Most shaders also come with a read me in the 3Delight files for the parameters and what they do.

With some knowledge you can take your current renders to a whole new level. Everything you have ever seen in film/television can be reproduced rather easily in a text editor. Easier if you have an app and text editor.

Back in 2000, used an app that had very little bells and whistles, but allowed simple put/get through TCL. We wrote the RIB import/export and all the necessary tools once the RIB got exported for an animated series. Even included import for Sketchup for buildings long before it was acquired by Google of course. Almost anything can be done to better enhance the process with a little desire to go further. Could have used Maya, SoftImage, but the budget just wasn't there.

mjc1016 said:

jvdesuit1 said:

mjc1016 said:

I can't wait until you've got some renders of all of this...it's been a long process, but it's starting to look like it's coming together. You're starting to get all the little details now.

I do appreciate your interest, it's very kind of you...

How can I not be interested...you got me hooked with the first questions about the model from SketchUp...I may not be answering all that much, but I am watching...and waiting.:-)

Here are some rendering of camera views of the scene. The lighting is the default Multiplane one. I've found at last the suitable ground for the hills and terrace but had to abandon my idea of have only a single plane for it. The map scale and data are not the same as the model's; obviously the guy did not check a real and accurate map of the amphitheater just as he has made 2 major mistakes in the walls of the Palestra which unfortunately I can't although I tried. I can't un-group the two sides of the palestra concerned and change their situation.....

mjc1016 said:

jvdesuit1 said:

mjc1016 said:

I can't wait until you've got some renders of all of this...it's been a long process, but it's starting to look like it's coming together. You're starting to get all the little details now.

I do appreciate your interest, it's very kind of you...

How can I not be interested...you got me hooked with the first questions about the model from SketchUp...I may not be answering all that much, but I am watching...and waiting.:-)

Actually speaking of Sketchup, I sent a email to the guy who did the models to tell him I was using them for a private project and what I intended to do and at the same time I asked him if had the possibility to send 2 models he is supposed to improve since a year ago. They are interesting because they are the 2 districts of houses surrounding the Palestra and the Amphitheater; up to now I had no answer and I think I wont have any!!!!! Pity and frustrating. The 2 suburbs are shown on the site but you cant download them.

Something I could have used is the DS3_AnimatedTextures_1.0.1.235_Win64 usable with DAZ 4.5; I thought it was and bought and found it was not! I was furious and told what I thought to the customer's service and since then it looks as if they check up and put the precise version of DAZ which an addon is compatible with and not just DAZ Studio which does not mean anything. Animated textures would have enabled me to have the Vesuvius eruption in the set! Instead I'll have to do it using mattes and all the annoying part of it...

jvdesuit1 said:

mjc1016 said:

I can't wait until you've got some renders of all of this...it's been a long process, but it's starting to look like it's coming together. You're starting to get all the little details now.

I do appreciate your interest, it's very kind of you...

How can I not be interested...you got me hooked with the first questions about the model from SketchUp...I may not be answering all that much, but I am watching...and waiting.:-)

I was hoping that they would have fixed that by now, really. I mean, Hexagon works...you'd think they could take something from there...or DAZ Studio!! LOL

Kinda ridiculous...and lame if you ask me.

Well...I guess I'll uninstall it, and go back to Sketchup....which works on just about any platform known to man. I guess I knew that the software would be ruined once it got bought up by Daz.

Sorry to rant and whine...but...this is entirely stupid. A great way to ruin good software.

Maybe someday I'll give another look...hopefully they'll have come to their senses by then.

Do you have any other 3d software Jon? WIngs3D is free and has this function, Sketchup also does.