Show Us Your Dawn Renders!

[Glitterati3D]

I have to say the processor heat from DS is one of the reasons I gave up DS. 3DL just ran hot on my processors.

I'm a temperature "nut" on my PC because you can really burn up a processor by letting it get too hot - been there, done that. On my new PC I added an Arctic cooler which really does the job well.

 

[Hornet3d]

I have to say the processor heat from DS is one of the reasons I gave up DS. 3DL just ran hot on my processors.

I'm a temperature "nut" on my PC because you can really burn up a processor by letting it get too hot - been there, done that. On my new PC I added an Arctic cooler which really does the job well.

Very true, I added an aftermarket cooler when I built the PC, which I purchased after a lot of research. On top of that the case as a total of seven large fans so that they can move a lot of air without being too noisy. The one luxury we have in the UK, at least as far a PCs are concerned, is that it never gets that hot, certainly not compared with parts of the US.

 

[Ken1171]

Very true, I added an aftermarket cooler when I built the PC, which I purchased after a lot of research. On top of that the case as a total of seven large fans so that they can move a lot of air without being too noisy. The one luxury we have in the UK, at least as far a PCs are concerned, is that it never gets that hot, certainly not compared with parts of the US.

No kidding - I was living in Arizona when my PSU blew up, and the GPU burned out. >___<

 

[Lyne]

Thanks, Lyne! The pants and the hoodie are from different outfits I have been working on. There are also 2 t-shirts, a dress, and the police outfit. Each are in different stages of completeness. They will eventually come out to the store. ^^

Very cool, Ken.... I'm 'there' when they do!

 

[Ken1171]

Very cool, Ken.... I'm 'there' when they do!

^_____^

 

[mininessie]

Alert for Rae134
Daz Iray this time

 

[Ken1171]

@mininessie Awesome wild tigress Dawn render! Nice touch with the jewelry, it adds personality! ^___^

I have finally textured these pants, and modeled this new crossed straps top last night. Figure is Dawn with my custom body morph and my CatsEyes textures. Clothing modeled in 3DSMAX. Rigged and rendered in Poser with Superfly. Textured in Paintshop.

I had to throw away the existing pants OBJ and rigging. I was letting Poser do the grouping - and what's worse - I was using the OBJ created by Poser. The rigging was fighting me all the way. There were also issues with some groups not responding to weight maps.

Then I just TRASHED everything, got a fresh copy of the pants from 3DSMAX, and grouped it in Modo. THEN the rigging went smoothly and uneventful. When I finished the rigging, Poser created a new OBJ when the file was saved, which I promptly THREW AWAY and replaced with the one grouped in Modo. I could finally finish it in just a few hours, and with the spare time, I have modeled this new top for Dawn in 3DSMAX. Of course, it was grouped in Modo and doesn't use the [broken] OBJ created by Poser.

Another advantage of grouping models in Modo is that it will easily export to DAZ Studio. In addition, OBJs created by Poser have split geometry, which changes the vertex count and make morphs and UV editing impossible in other programs (except for zBrush because it doesn't use groups). Not to mention split geometry will rage havoc when you try to create JCMs in Poser, because the morphing tool doesn't [yet] support non-Unimesh geometry. SMS has created a workaround to avoid JCM editing destruction, but good luck with that. It's much easier to group the model properly as unimesh in Modo or Blender3D. I am not sure if any other program can do that.

I remember me having arguments with Cath (Mec4D) here in the forums about this, because I didn't know Poser was breaking the OBJs into multiple pieces. 3DSMAX and all other Autodesk programs will also break the model into multiple parts, so I thought that was the only way. Even in Blender3D, that's the default setting, but it can be changed to keep the model in one piece. In Modo it's the opposite - the default is NOT to split the geometry, so it's less dangerous. If Cath didn't warn me about it, I would never know what was going on. The poly count doesn't change, but the vertex count and order do. But way back then I didn't have Modo, so I had no way to avoid the geometry splits.

Coming from 3DSMAX, it took me a while to understand Modo, because everything is called differently, and it has its own way to doing things. It was not easy or intuitive to figure it out, but it was very worth my time. Thanks to Modo, the outfit below has PROPER grouping and rigging. I could even share morph targets with DAZ Studio if I wanted, which would not be possible if I used grouping created by Poser. But for that, I could not use any of the awesome Poser morphing tools, because anything it exports will have split geometry again.

And what's more important - after the model is grouped in Modo, I can no longer get it back into 3DSMAX for editing, because the model will be broken into separate parts the moment it's imported, even before I could do any editing. Once the model is split, morph targets and UV editing are no longer possible. The morphing tools in Modo are great, but the UV editing is rather poor, so that's a bummer. I better get the UVs perfect right at the first try.

 

[mininessie]

thank you!
and for the explanation too! is good to know....the top and pants look great! and the image is really lovely!

 

[JOdel]

The only classes that I can afford and get to are in Maya. Mainly because that's the current industry standard for animation and there's a swarm of people who want to get into either that or game development. If you can show you're a student you can download the student version of the program for free. It times out eventually, but you've got it while it lasts.

I don't really get the impression that it's the optimal program for building things like clothing. But that could just be because the training is focused on doing everything low-poly and depending on subdivision to smooth things out. We've had a couple of UVMapping exercises in it and those didn't go too badly, though.

 

[Ken1171]

@mininessie Thanks! The top is new, but pants are the same I have used in my other recent renders, but now it's finally textured, and the rigging had to be redone. ^^

@JOdel Maya is also from Autodesk, so it will split the OBJs when you group them, just like 3DSMAX does. As far as I know, all Autodesk programs handle groups that way, which is incompatible with Poser and DS. I still use MAX for modeling and UV mapping, but not for grouping. And after it's grouped in Modo, we cannot edit in Max or Maya anymore. I love MAX, and the UV tools in Maya are some of the best in the market, but they have this limitation when it comes to Poser/DS contents.

 

[Miss B]

Ohhh, and I'm really liking that top Ken.

 

[glennf]

Thanks RAMWolff for the like.I hope I didn't miss anyone.

 

[JOdel]

@mininessie Thanks! The top is new, but pants are the same I have used in my other recent renders, but now it's finally textured, and the rigging had to be redone. ^^

@JOdel Maya is also from Autodesk, so it will split the OBJs when you group them, just like 3DSMAX does. As far as I know, all Autodesk programs handle groups that way, which is incompatible with Poser and DS. I still use MAX for modeling and UV mapping, but not for grouping. And after it's grouped in Modo, we cannot edit in Max or Maya anymore. I love MAX, and the UV tools in Maya are some of the best in the market, but they have this limitation when it comes to Poser/DS contents.

I'd already seen that exporting an .obj from Maya for use in Studio does not go well. Even inside Maya, trying to convert something that's made from NURBS to polys is completely borked. I never saw such a screwy mesh.

There used to be a student version of Modo available for a 1-year license through... I think it was Creation Engine. I should check again and see whether it's still available. Not that I'm really ready to address trying to find my way around another modeler quite yet.

 

[Gadget Girl]

The only classes that I can afford and get to are in Maya. Mainly because that's the current industry standard for animation and there's a swarm of people who want to get into either that or game development. If you can show you're a student you can download the student version of the program for free. It times out eventually, but you've got it while it lasts.

Yes I have a student version for similar reasons. I did a class a few years ago on animation basics in Maya. I'm not sure if it's true, because I'm not trying to get a job as an animator, but I have heard that one of the reasons they want you to know Maya, is because they figure if can handle Maya, you can handle any other program they might be using.

I don't really get the impression that it's the optimal program for building things like clothing. But that could just be because the training is focused on doing everything low-poly and depending on subdivision to smooth things out. We've had a couple of UVMapping exercises in it and those didn't go too badly, though.

I'd already seen that exporting an .obj from Maya for use in Studio does not go well. Even inside Maya, trying to convert something that's made from NURBS to polys is completely borked. I never saw such a screwy mesh.

I could be wrong, because I haven't tried going from Maya to Poser or DS in a while but when you subdivide in Maya, if you export out as say an .obj file wouldn't it have all the added geometry there? Same sort of thing with NURBS. As I recall you're right, trying to convert them in Maya is a huge pain. But I feel like they should convert out nicely on an export. Game engines for instance are polybased as well, so you would have to do that to use a model in Unity or Unreal.

Honestly the only thing I never really like about Maya, is actually one of it's strengths, which is you can do basically everything in it from beginning to end. Model, texture, pose, animate, etc. The only reason I don't like that, is that sometimes it feels to easy to accidentally switch out of the animation tools into the modeling tools and then you are making changes you didn't mean to.

 

[JOdel]

Well, if you show the grid, when you add the subdivision, all you can see are the original divisions of the original grid. You can't see any additional polys. So it may not actually be dividing the mesh. (Frankly, what it looks like is that its making the poly figure look like it was built from NURBS).

And NURBS do not export to .obj. Nope. Not at all. Cannot get NURBS into Studio. You *can* import a poly figure that you've exported as an .obj, and that doesn't screw up the mesh. And you can add smoothing to it *in* Studio, so *that's* all right.

I went through a completely unproductive 3 days last semester, when we were to do thumbnails of our projected final project as our midterm, NOT doing it in Maya, but using a rigged puppet man figure provided by the instructor as the focus of the narrative.

I thought I'd do it in Studio. The figure was NURBS -- except for the hands. I tried converting it to polys. Which resulted in a spectacularly bad mesh, and polys in one area were grouped by default with polys scattered about in other areas. With an extra day or two I might have been able to export the one or two parts of the figure which couldn't have been duplicated by Studio primitives, Particularly if I did it individually, and built it with Studio primitives and the exported .objs, but I was on a time constraint, threw up my hands and did it in Photoshop.

 

[Deleted member 325]

I remember me having arguments with Cath (Mec4D) here in the forums about this, because I didn't know Poser was breaking the OBJs into multiple pieces. 3DSMAX and all other Autodesk programs will also break the model into multiple parts, so I thought that was the only way. Even in Blender3D, that's the default setting, but it can be changed to keep the model in one piece. In Modo it's the opposite - the default is NOT to split the geometry, so it's less dangerous. If Cath didn't warn me about it, I would never know what was going on. The poly count doesn't change, but the vertex count and order do. But way back then I didn't have Modo, so I had no way to avoid the geometry splits.

This fills in a blank area for me on something I knew didn't work right but didn't know the why. I knew that whenever Poser saved out a new OBJ with the CR2 it would often cause Morphs, and previously working textures and UVs to stop functioning. Which is why, after making morphs, or making groups and UVs in either UV mapper or Lightwave, I started just re-writing all the CR2/PP2 files to point back to that OBJ, ignoring the new Poser saved version. Now I know the why's of it. If I could only figure out now why Wings3D is giving me trouble altering Poly/Point count when I take an OBJ into it to UV it (it breaks all my morphs but I actually prefer it's UV mapping to that in Lightwave).

Incidentally, for those editing CR2/PP2 files - if you save out a figure or prop you have so edited from Poser it will rewrite your CR2/PP2 and often destroy dependencies, morphs, ERC and ARC, etc... I have found, if you absolutely need to save an OBJ out of Poser...say after scaling and positioning...before rigging to use the File Export options to give greater control over the final OBJ (I do know in that menu you can select whether to split groups or merge duplicate vertexes which can help preserve your point/poly count and order).

 

[Ken1171]

I'd already seen that exporting an .obj from Maya for use in Studio does not go well. Even inside Maya, trying to convert something that's made from NURBS to polys is completely borked. I never saw such a screwy mesh

NURBS are meant to be used for things like industrial design and computer-assisted manufacturing, and not for things that will need to be converted into raw poly format. This is why other technologies like SubDivs (subdivision surfaces) and Power NURBS were created. Personally, I do all my work in SubDivs because it combines many of the features from NURBS while working with raw polys. The downside is that it lacks some of the things NURBS can do, like punching holes and creating fillets. Modo includes a plugins that can make up for these deficiencies, but I admit I rarely need them for Poser/DS content creation. Trying to convert NURBS to raw poly (OBJ) will never workout because it wasn't designed to do that. It's important to use the right tools for the right tasks.

if you save out a figure or prop you have so edited from Poser it will rewrite your CR2/PP2 and often destroy dependencies, morphs, ERC and ARC, etc...

Actually, this depends on what was edited. Poser will ONLY create a new OBJ for conforming figures if the grouping or MAT zones were modified. Otherwise the changes will be saved to the CR2, and the OBJ will be preserved. As for props, it's VERY important to extract the geometry from newly created ones, and place the OBJ at the proper Geometries folder. If you don't do this, there will be consequences, such as:

1. Your geometry will be overwritten every time you save the prop to the library - even if you only changed the materials.
2. If you load 2 or more copies of the prop to the scene, each will use its own geometry, hence using more memory.
3. If you have many copies of the prop in a scene and edit the geometry, only the individual prop will be affected.
4. Stores will decline props with embedded geometries.
5. Your props will take longer to load and to save.
6. If you save a scene, the PZ3 will be bigger if it has many copies of the prop in it.

Over here, I use a script from Netherworks that always asks me if I want to extract the geometry when I save a prop to the library. This saves me trouble of having to do it later. But the point is that, assuming you have extracted the geometry from the prop, Poser will only create a new OBJ if you edit the groups or MAT zones. All other changes are saved to the PP2, and won't change the OBJ. ^^

 

[Mythocentric]

MISCHIEF (aka To Bed Or Not To Bed)
Between the daughters and the grandkids I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen the film Annie, so I guess this image was inevitable and who better to take the starring role than our own Diva. This one was a request by the grandkids, (i.e. they threatened to beat me up if I didn’t!)

 

[Ken1171]

Another outfit I have been modeling for Dawn in 3DSMAX, grouped in Modo. This is early rigging. No textures yet. The boots are from my Superhero set for Dawn. Rendered in Poser with Superfly.

 

[Miss B]

That looks promising Ken. Can't wait to see what kind of textures you come up with.