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VortigensBane

Busy Bee
(Everytime I type that I think of the fact that in Australia a VB is a Victoria Bitter which is really weird.)

As long as it's a good beer that's fine with me...

I might need a few pints myself to get through the next stage of the process: texture mapping. I know I'll be able to get the bump, displacement, specular, and reflection maps OK, since those are color-free, but I'm certainly NOT looking forward to the diffuse maps.

One other thing I have to figure out is how to make my Cloth Room material parameters embed into the blanket, so that when you "Clothify" it, all the groups are all set up with their proper parameters. I could write a tutorial on which groups to select and which numbers to type into the Dynamics Controls pane, but I'd rather not spend 20 minutes setting up the sim each time... Anyone know where I could find out how to do that, other than spending the next month learning Python?
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
lol...I feel like that myself on occasions when creating content. I'm still learning to use Poser for content creation so I can't help...sorry!
 

VortigensBane

Busy Bee
Thanks, Pendraia and Flint_Hawk!

To answer my own question (I've been analyzing .pz2 files in Notepad...), apparently Poser Pro 2014 embeds all the cloth sim parameters automatically when you save a prop that is part of a cloth simulation. I had always tried before with Poser 9, which does not automatically do this. With Poser 9, I could save a smart prop, but had to re-enter all the cloth sim parameters. With Poser Pro 2014, I can't save a smart prop, but I don't have to re-enter all the cloth sim parameters. Since it's a lot easier to make something a smartprop using a text-editor than to enter all the vertex information needed to save the cloth sim parameters, I think I'm better off in the long run. Just curious, though, is anyone else not able to save a smart prop in Poser Pro 2014, or is it just me?
 

Satira Capriccio

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
Yes. Once you've setup and run a simulation, if you resave the prop, any groups you setup for the simulation and the dynamic control settings are saved in the pp2.

I don't believe I was able to save my props as smart props in PP2014, which is why I use Netherworks PoserFile Save from RDNA.
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
It looks wonderful!

Harry definitely needs more cloths, I'll be lining up for this if you release it (oh just re-read, its only for Poser?).

Just a question, are you going to offer it so you can change if you want one, two or three layers of tassles? I think that would be a good option especially if you have more than one horse in the render and you want them to look different.
 

VortigensBane

Busy Bee
There have been too many fun contests recently... I've gotten a little side-tracked from modelling.

Right now, Rae, I am still stuck in Poser-only mode, since I haven't figured out a good way to make it drape convincingly in Studio. HOWEVER... I am looking at a new plug-in script on Renderosity which supposedly can turn a random prop into a DAZ dynamic object. Since I already spent too much this month, I'm waiting til next month to get it, but hopefully it will work out. That way I won't have to rig and add movement morphs to each tassel. The multiple layers option is a really good idea. I think (at this point, anyway) that it would be more efficient to have three separate props rather than to use trans maps to hide various levels of tassels, since otherwise you give Poser extra work to do for no purpose. However, when it comes to rigging, there is no way I would subject myself to all that extra work, so a rigged version would DEFINITELY use trans maps.

I had another thought, too, while I was doodling out my rough texture ideas for the blanket. Supposedly, the fewer UV maps your computer has to load (especially when there are four 4000x4000 images per texture), the faster the render time (it has something to do with the memory cache, I think). Soooooo.... I figured it might be a good idea to model a bridle that uses the same UV layout before going through and painting all my textures. Then a bunch of fun contests came up, and I got sidetracked... Right now I'm trying to finish entries for two different contests, but hopefully March will be a more productive month.

In the meantime, here is an photo of an old blanket that I am using for reference. I want my texture to be pretty much the same, but I'll probably do a gold option and a silver option, with various blanket colors besides red.
blanket model small.jpg
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
Wow, that blanket is too beautiful!

I can imagine any rendering program having fits doing extra work it doesn't have to, so I completely understand :)
 

JOdel

Dances with Bees
HW Honey Bear
I was thinking of this in regards to the script from Rendo, as well as various clothing items from vendors I'd love to be able to use (Fabiana, Esha, Arki...)

I do have one question. the saddle would go over the blanket, right? So I'm assuming that we could use something like the classic saddle and just turn off the cinch? There is no hole to pass the cinch through the blanket so it can be fastened to the horse, so are we just supposed to fake it?
 

VortigensBane

Busy Bee
As far as a saddle goes, I haven't the slightest idea. So far, all the pics I've been able to find online either don't have one, or the poofy pantaloons of whoever is riding the horse completely hide whatever saddle there might be. As far as draping with a saddle, though, I personally would probably leave the cinch in, but have the blanket not collide with the saddle during the sim. I would add a "constrained" group with the vertices under the saddle to avoid pokethrough/postwork. The more "medieval" style barding that I'm "working on" has a cut-out for the girth strap, but this set doesn't (yet, anyway...).
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
Looking at this: ArabHorseStore.com the saddle is part of the blanket (the blanket part is over the stirrups and girth etc except the saddle seat). Others I found for modern showing just have the blanket go over the saddle with cutout for the stirrups (see last image) or are like a modern saddle but fabric instead of leather (I couldn't tell if the fabric was covering leather or not, see image 2 & 3).
Edited to add. I never saw Traditional Arabian costumes at the shows I used to go to. When I did see the Arabs they had the minimal show halters (that's going back 25 years ago :p)
715541.jpg
EDS5.jpg
redsaddle3 (1).jpg
564b5272aa216d5fae64a616e0f2c173.jpg
saddle1_blackd.jpg
saddle3_black.jpg
Wine Arabian horse Native Costume.jpg
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
You're welcome VB. They probably didn't have stirrups way back then anyway so you should be good :) And with just a "pillow perched on top" it would be similar to the 1st, 5th & 6th pix with just the stirrups gone.
 

VortigensBane

Busy Bee
It's been a while, and I haven't actually been doing anything, but now I actually do have something to report...

horseblanket 001 iray.png


This is a trial render done in DAZ Studio, using the DAZ cloth simulation engine. Using the newly available dynamic cloth-making script, I ran a trial simulation of my Arabian blanket. It actually ran faster than it normally did in Poser; the downside is that I haven't been able to get a sim where there is NO poke-through yet. More playing with parameters, I guess... I do have the "extra" plug-in for Studio dynamic cloth that lets you modify all the parameters, so that may have had an impact on my success, but it looks like the blanket "can" work in Studio as a dynamic object.
 
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