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WIP HiveWire Dragon Begins
- Thread starter Chris
- Start date
That set of wings and the morph look awesome Sparky, I can't wait to see them textured.
@NapalmArsenal, it is possible with DS at least to do alternate uv's if there is stretching using the morph. IIRC and I'm just waking up so may be confused, morphs can have their own rigging and uv's.
@NapalmArsenal, it is possible with DS at least to do alternate uv's if there is stretching using the morph. IIRC and I'm just waking up so may be confused, morphs can have their own rigging and uv's.
I didn't notice this part of your message before. The only kind of morphs I seem to do are super extreme morphs. I always use the default uvs, because Poser doesn't yet support alt uvs, and I like to supply Studio and Poser versions of my products. The way I overcome texel stretching is to texture in a 3d painter, or to make alt uvs, texture on them, then bake the texture back out onto the original uv.
I worked on my griffin a little bit waiting for a promo to render...
One thing I've noticed about putting the dragon on the big cat mesh that will almost certainly garner criticism is this:
It's rather difficult to get long, slender toes on it, and I'm fairly certain they won't bend satisfactorily without some fierce JCMs and some posing morphs. Some webbing between the toes will be unavoidable.
Perhaps the dragon should have some conforming/geografted feet that come with it as an option?
Sparky you come up with some of the coolest critters!
I have Blacksmith Pro so ........ hmm...... got me thinking some now about how to possibly go about this, but honestly spots and scales are some of the hardest materials to match up along seam lines. @Pendraia I might send you a PM on how to go about doing it in Daz.
Around the mouth here it's rather wonky and stretched, and then the tail portions Bottom is seamless tile top part is template mat using base UVs and that would really push your details over the top if you can get it to flow right. P.S.: Don't everyone go and get all crazy excited this is just to get the scaling as it should look.
Dragon Feet
Yeah, I figured that might be an issue with the webbing on the feet and the toes. Personally I agree a little longer toe would be nice. The dragon feet are very cat-like and have that webbing between the toes, but some dragon feet look rather similar. I'm thinking of the Larry Elmore style dragons. McFarlane dragons not so much they are more reptilian and bird like as in your griffon image. It might be offered as an add on possibly or alt foot set, but if we are going that far with it some nice talons and variation would be nice.
Ahh isn't there some model that has the bird feet you can conform to the model?
Thought I remembered seeing one over at RDNA at some point.
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For that use case, I would use ZBrush to reunwrap the uvs, so that they are flat for the dragon shape. If you don't have ZBrush, you can use Blender. Blender's live unwrap function doesn't get uvs as flat as ZBrush, and it's not as automatic, but pretty good for free!
Check it for fidelity by applying to the figure as an alt uv in DAZ Studio. Sometimes alt uvs will fail if the model export altered the vertex order. If it didn't work properly, the texture on the model will look like patches of the texture are being tiled at random. Obviously, the texture won't look *right*, because it doesn't fit the new uvs. Apply your working texture and bake from the default uv to your new alt uv.
Then texture it at a very high resolution, something above the target resolution of 4096.
As a final step, bake the texture back to the original uvs using DAZ Studio.
If that workflow looks good to you, I can elaborate. ^.^
Check it for fidelity by applying to the figure as an alt uv in DAZ Studio. Sometimes alt uvs will fail if the model export altered the vertex order. If it didn't work properly, the texture on the model will look like patches of the texture are being tiled at random. Obviously, the texture won't look *right*, because it doesn't fit the new uvs. Apply your working texture and bake from the default uv to your new alt uv.
Then texture it at a very high resolution, something above the target resolution of 4096.
As a final step, bake the texture back to the original uvs using DAZ Studio.
If that workflow looks good to you, I can elaborate. ^.^
Thanks for the tip I will for sure have to give it a try LOL, but I am for sure not a modeler and don't have all that much experience with UVs, but I do have blender so I guess that's a start LOL!
I may be a bit out of my depth when trying what you are suggesting, but willing to give it a try.
I may be a bit out of my depth when trying what you are suggesting, but willing to give it a try.
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I would like to have some elaboration on that technique Sparky as I haven't done anything like that previously.
@NapalmArsenal , I'm happy to help but much of this I've never done either so still trying to work it out. I did at one point want to try and create alternate uv's for Dawn that would use V4's textures but I had to stop as I was finding it too difficult. One day maybe I'll work it out...
@NapalmArsenal , I'm happy to help but much of this I've never done either so still trying to work it out. I did at one point want to try and create alternate uv's for Dawn that would use V4's textures but I had to stop as I was finding it too difficult. One day maybe I'll work it out...
It's easier than it sounds, and definitely takes less time than trying to deform texture resources manually to compensate for a wildly stretched uv map. Once I've finished my big cat skeleton promos, I will make a tutorial for you. Perhaps even a video. ^.^
OMG!! thanks you so totally ROCK!! I will be your slave for life now! ROLF!!
6000 btw on the map resolution.
Mucho Thanks!!
6000 btw on the map resolution.
Mucho Thanks!!
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Here's my very first video tutorial...man, I never realised I sound like a 13 year old boy before... :-S
It apparently takes six minutes to do, and that's without editing out any of the tedious edge selection or export wait times, lol.
I'm sure I completely forgot to cover something, just let me know if it's coherent! lol
It apparently takes six minutes to do, and that's without editing out any of the tedious edge selection or export wait times, lol.
I'm sure I completely forgot to cover something, just let me know if it's coherent! lol
