LAMH for the kitten?

[DanaTA]

I don't see this anywhere! The big dog, house cat, and puppy, have LAMH presets...but not the kitten?

Dana

 

[CWRW]

There isn't a specific one for the kitten. People use the Cat ones. I often scale the kitten up some though as the fur is a bit long (even the short fur).
I might ask VS (who made the free cat ones) if I can modify her cat ones a little to look better for the kitten. If so, they would be free here.

Here is one image I did with the kitten and VS's cat short 2 preset

 

[DanaTA]

That's gorgeous. I see what you mean about it being a little long, though, especially on the paws. I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't tried LAMH on anything yet. Haven't done much of anything at all in quite a while, but I look ahead.

I look forward to any progress you make on this. Thank you!

Dana

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I keep meaning to dig in and learn how to create LAMH presets, but I never seem to have the time.

Dana, a word of advice if you start using the LAMH presets : add them at the END of your scene setup, and do NOT save your scene with LAMH objects loaded in. I have had it corrupt my scene files before, and manually removing it fron the scene via editing the code is an extremely long and painful process. LOL

Build your scene, save it, and when you're ready render, load the LAMH and click render.

 

[CWRW]

What Seliah said is good practice- I posted this recently in the LAMH presets for the House Cat thread- it is my workflow for using ANY LAMH presets for ANY critter:

Here is the workflow I use for ANY LAMH preset for any of the HW critters: (hair density etc will vary as well as shader settings depending on the animal and also the lighting you are using in your scene). I am using the readMe for my Cougar LAMH presets, but the workflow will be the same for the HW Cat.

NOTE! BEST WORKFLOW PRACTICE IS TO FULLY POSE AND TEST YOUR SCENE BEFORE APPLYING LAMH PRESETS. MAKE IT THE LAST THING YOU DO BEFORE RENDERING AS THIS WILL AVOID POSSIBLE DAZ STUDIO CRASHES.

Instructions:

1. Select HW Big Cat in Scene Tab. Apply the desired Cougar or Cougar Cub MATs and also the Cougar or Cougar Cub Full Body Morph (Parameters->Body->Full Body->) as desired.
(NOTE- make sure the Mesh Resolution is set to 1 (a higher setting will cause issues). To check the Mesh Resolution, select the HW Big Cat in the Scene Tab. Then go to the Parameter Tab: HW Big Cat -> General-> Mesh Resolution -> Render SubD Level)

2. Pull up the LAMH Free Player window (In the Top Menu select Window-> Panes-> Look at My Hair)

3. Hit the button "Attach Preset" and scroll to where you saved the presets and pick your desired preset.

4. Once the guide hairs are generated, assign a numeric value to number of hairs under "Hair Quantity":
For Adult Cougar, suggested is 1,200,000 - 1,600,000 (do not use commas in the dialog box) and for the Cougar Cub suggested is 600,000, (do not use commas in the dialog box) but experiment!

Be careful about your computer's memory. You can, but don't need to, change other settings. Less Hair Density works well with full body/longer distance renders. For up close you might want to increase the Hair Density.

The next part depends on whether you are using Iray or 3DL, so follow the instructions for the Render Engine you want to use:

******

3DL:

5. Select the HW Big Cat in the Scene tab.

6. Play with the MAT generated if desired - select, for example, "HiveWireBigCat_Grp_0" in the Scene tab, and then in the Surfaces tab, modify the materials as you want.

7. Render!


******

IRAY:

5. Pose. You must do all your posing, morphing, etc, prior to the next step, as the generated OBJ can not be changed, and you will have to start the LAMH "To OBJ" process over.

6. Click the button "to OBJ". It will suggest a location of the files that will be generated.

This step will likely take a decent amount of time, depending on your computer. In testing, average times ran from 5 to 10 minutes. Follow and click the dialog boxes that appear.

7. Once that is generated (a pop up will tell you that it has been generated), in the scene tab, under HiveWireBigCat LAMH Group, select "HiveWireBigCat_Grp_0". Go to the Surfaces tab, select "HiveWireBigCat_Grp_0" and apply the Iray Uber Base Shader that comes with DAZ Studio (This can be found in Shader Presets>Iray>DAZ Uber)

8. Modify the Iray Uber Shader as desired. Suggested settings:
- Translucency Weight: 0.1 (You can set it higher and even put the Diffuse Map in the Translucency Color)
- Glossy Layered Weight (default is .33) .1. If you are getting a lot of undesirable white "fireflies", set to 0.
- Glossy Reflectivity: 0.10. Again depending on lighting you can play with increasing this setting for more "shine".

Different lights may need adjustment from these settings, but they are a good place to start.

9. Render!

__________

On the "fireflies" issue here are some tips for eliminating those: (all are done under "Surfaces" once you have converted the fur obj to the Iray Uber Base shader.)

Turning "off" the "Share Glossy Inputs" button helps. Also, lowering the "Glossy Layered Weight."
In some lighting situations to eliminate fireflies I also set the transluscency as low os .01, 0 on Glossy Layered Weight and 0 on Glossy Reflectivity. Usually that does the trick. Some lighting situations exacerbate the fireflies issue so I tend to use lighting that doesn't. The basic Sun-Sky Environment Mode NEVER generates fireflies for example.

 

[tparo]

Dana DS has the strand built hair built in you could always try to do your own. SBH is a lot more stable than LAMH and renders in Iray without having to export as an obj.

 

[DanaTA]

Thanks. Haven't started up DS since the update I got last week. And a long time before that, too, I'm afraid.

Dana