WIP Shepard Robe for Dusk

[Gadget Girl]

I think in #6, if you scroll down toward the bottom of the picture, you see where it's tied on the side..so in that case, it's like an second outer garment, sorta like a modern day apron, that slips over her head and ties on.

Yes, both the women are wearing aprons, which I love. I was more looking at the woman on the right. She has several pink and blue seams on her tunic underneath the apron. Looking at the aprons however, gave me a brilliant idea that I may or may not be able to pull off. If I make a transparency map for the trim, on the plainer version of the robe it could be fraying where the fabric doesn't have a clean edge.

 

[skylab]

Ah, saw it that time...yes, she plays the Elizabeth character in the movie, the same lady who was wearing the pretty blue outfit. Folks in Jerusalem had access to more resources and money, she was wife of the priest...so her outfits are going to be more colorful than someone from a poor community....the poor had so many problems meeting their taxes each year that the Romans could come through the community and collect people's daughters as prisoners to "pay the taxes". If I remember correctly there's a scene like this in the movie (Youtube link). So their garments reflected their social condition, depending upon where they lived, and if they were wealthy or not. Shepherds were the bottom rung on the social ladder...a job for young boys and old men...and again, this is accurately portrayed in the movie, as it showed a combination of both guarding the flocks.

 

[Gadget Girl]

Okay, so now I need some advise, because I'm beyond what I know how to do. I've got the robe setup as a conforming figure, and I've welded the left and right thighs and shins so that it behaves like a robe not pants. But you can see what happens when I move one of Dusk's legs:

So I'm not sure how to effect the grouping so that the polygons don't stretch but are gradually effected. Or if anyone knows a good tutorial I can look at, that would be great too. I haven't really found any good ones on how to create conforming clothing that aren't for versions of Poesr like 4 and 5, so I'm making it up as I go.

 

[skylab]

Now the modeling part is way over my head, but I'll see if I can get you some help

 

[Pendraia]

Which version of Poser are you using Gadget Girl? I'm assuming it's 9 or above as that's dusk and we're looking at weight mapping rather than legacy rigging. Paul may be able to help or Ken as they both rig in Poser. I generally rig in DS so wouldn't know how to do it in Poser. It's on my learning to do list...

Just looking at the image it looks like it's stretching the polys and probably needs some smoothing of some sort applied. I'm not sure how you would do that in Poser. Can you post a wire map image? I sometimes see that in DS after using the transfer utility and before fine tuning the weight maps.

 

[Glitterati3D]

GadgetGirl, you are at the stage in rigging where you need to adjust the weight maps. Maybe my freebie tutorial on PP14 WM in 10 minutes can help? There's a section on how to edit the weight maps for the thighs in there...

 

[Gadget Girl]

Which version of Poser are you using Gadget Girl? I'm assuming it's 9 or above as that's dusk and we're looking at weight mapping rather than legacy rigging. Paul may be able to help or Ken as they both rig in Poser. I generally rig in DS so wouldn't know how to do it in Poser. It's on my learning to do list...

Just looking at the image it looks like it's stretching the polys and probably needs some smoothing of some sort applied. I'm not sure how you would do that in Poser. Can you post a wire map image? I sometimes see that in DS after using the transfer utility and before fine tuning the weight maps.

I'm using Poser Pro 11. However Glitterati's tutorial has just want I need. Thanks.

GadgetGirl, you are at the stage in rigging where you need to adjust the weight maps. Maybe my freebie tutorial on PP14 WM in 10 minutes can help? There's a section on how to edit the weight maps for the thighs in there...

Perfect. This is exactly what I needed. I scanned through it, already learned a few things on how I can do this more efficiently next time, and I see what I need to do now. Thanks so much for the tutorial. It's wonderful.

 

[Glitterati3D]

I'm using Poser Pro 11. However Glitterati's tutorial has just want I need. Thanks.
Perfect. This is exactly what I needed. I scanned through it, already learned a few things on how I can do this more efficiently next time, and I see what I need to do now. Thanks so much for the tutorial. It's wonderful.

You're welcome! I guess I should do a quick tutorial on editing weight maps. That process is a big part of getting a product out - freebie or paid.

 

[Gadget Girl]

You're welcome! I guess I should do a quick tutorial on editing weight maps. That process is a big part of getting a product out - freebie or paid.

Yes, that would be good too. I'm sure there are better and worse ways to do it. At least now I know where to find the tools so I can adjust the weight map. Now for lots of fiddling to get it right.

 

[Pendraia]

Thanks Traci...I was hoping someone with more knowledge than I have would pop into the thread. I would love to see a tutorial on weight maps for Poser also.

 

[skylab]

I agree Pen, so glad someone came by who could give the help needed. Not only will this be a very nice robe when GG is done, but it will also be an opportunity for learning for future projects

 

[Gadget Girl]

So I'm making progress on the weight mapping. Still quite a ways to go there, lots of rogue vertices to track down.

But I'm getting there.

So in the mean time, I have another question about everyone's favorite subject. . . UV maps.

Marvelous Designer does a lot of the handwork (at least as I understand it) for me. Sadly it then doesn't allow me to take advantage of that. So it does UV map the textures and create material zones in .obj file, and I can even see what my UV map looks like and take a screen shot of it.

Sadly, I can't take this and turn it into an image file, other than by taking a screen shot. So I need to use some other program so I can get the UV map as an image file. I need this for two reasons. The textures I'm using are from a merchant resource, I checked the license and I can use them for both free and commercial works as long as I'm not including the original texture file. Also, I want to create a transparency map for the trim so I can make a frayed look.

Now I'm on a Mac, so I can't use UVMapper, of which I hear wonderful things. As far as I can tell, the next favorite choice is Blender. And although there are tons of Blender tutorials, all the ones I've found assume you're starting from scratch with your UV map. This is as far as I've gotten:

When I choose Unwrap I get the little window in the bottom left, but there doesn't seem to be any, okay go ahead and do it option. And I'm not sure this is the right thing to begin with. So once again I come looking for help. Any ideas on the easiest way to get an image version of the UV map (is there a better name for that by the way? Maybe it would aid in my google search for answers if I had the right terminology)

Thanks guys

 

[skylab]

I know both Seliah and Miss B are Blender users, so I'll post a message for them that you need help with this...maybe one of both of them may have the answer

 

[Miss B]

I'm here ladies. Just read Sky's post, and came over to see if I can help.

What I just did was to move my 3 posts to a mini-tutorial over in the Blender forum so there's no duplication of effort. You can view it with the following link:

Setting up Blender for UV Mapping

 

[skylab]

I posted links in the chat thread to Blender PDF's in case they will help

 

[skylab]

Oh hi Miss B...yay...Miss B to the rescue

 

[Gadget Girl]

Hope that helps. Any more questions, come over to the Blender forum and ask.

Thanks so much. That helps a lot, as I never would have found some of those buttons. And you'll probably see another question in the blender forum from me in just a minute

 

[Gadget Girl]

Oh and I should've mentioned, be sure to mark your seams first, or what you'll see in the UV Editor is not anything you'll be able to work with.

Yes, that's what happened. I have a big circle. At least I know what I'm trying to do now.

 

[Miss B]

Glad to be of help. I'll go over to the Blender forum in just a bit to see your other question.

 

[Gadget Girl]

You're welcome! I guess I should do a quick tutorial on editing weight maps. That process is a big part of getting a product out - freebie or paid.

If you do end up doing a tutorial the one thing I've discovered the hard way, which might be second nature to someone whose been doing this for a while, is that when you're using the weight brush, it 'pulls' the vertexes, so the direction you use it in is important. This never really seemed to matter when I've used the the brushes in the fitting room, although maybe I just haven't been as exact as I'm trying to be now, but it's making a big difference the weight maps, especially when I have folds in the cloth I'm trying to preserve.

By the way, using the fitting room for quick setup was a great tip. I use the fitting room all the time for other things, but it just didn't occur to me to use it that way to turn my prop into a figure. I spent a lot of time crashing the setup room before I got a good figure.