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And here are the elements loaded in Studio
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Here is a work in progress. It is OK to laugh - these are baby steps. I have a lot of things to look up. However, I have been able to get similar poses, etc. as my target scene. I was able to use the surfaces pane to select material areas of figures and props and load Iray shader presets for that material zone. The shader channels look pretty straightforward but I only did very minimal tweaking. I loaded an iray light preset for environemtns but have no idea what was going on.
some things I will be working on before posting the next work in progress
1 - lights - what is going on? (and thank you, Novica and Knttingmommy, above, for giving me the links - I just need to spend more time with them).
2 - for posing references, saving a camera - and/or inserting a new camera in fixed position and making it the rendering camera
3 - short hair for G2F may be poking out of helmet - how adjust?
4 - gun has many shader domains / material sets. How do I see where barrel 1 is vesus where barrel 2 is etc. I just randomly assigned metallic iray shaders (thank you, TobascoJack above, for the Iray shader links - again, I need to spend the time)
5 - can I duplicate the drop ship or do I have to add another in the scene?
6 - how do I invoke instances or ultra-scatter to turn the robot into an army?
7 - is there a text primitive? Or do I need to model text or add in postwork?
No text primitive that I know off.
The hair, you may have to increase the size of the helmet just a tiny bit. Or you can pick up Sickleyields hat helper, she has one for each generation, Genesis, Genesis 2 and Genesis 3. They work fabulously
I think that yes, you can duplicate the ship but I am not sure how.
I use Ultra Scatter and have Instances Plus wishlisted for doing large groups. I don't know how to do it natively but I know there is a create new node instance and creat new node instances but I don't know how they work or what they actually do.
If I am having trouble telling where a material zone is a lot of the time I will choose a very bright color and toss it in and see what changes. Then I can go back and add the correct shader to it.
I know that wasn't super helpful but that's all I got.
Instances in DAZ3D = Replicator in Carrara.
Click on the item to be Instanced, then go to Create tab, click on New Node Instances, then enter the amount of instances required.
Click on Instanced item and translate, rotate, scale to required position.
Don't know how to do blur in DAZ3D. Hopefully someone will chip in.
thanks Wendy et Diomede ; Nice render Diomede, didnt know us old blokes could look so sexy in lycra :)
I must use VWD on Gramps and my other nonstandard figures too.
Is it my imagination or does vwd work better in Studio than in Carrara?
varies I have found different issues in both,
Saving whole scenes works in DAZ studio as it breaks it up into files in temp folders, Carrara puts the lot in one file which easily hits 4GB and fails.
I solved this by exporting each bit as a separate car file.
Carrara recovers easier from object not found (as too big)
each has its quirks, Carrara perfectly did a scene then showed me my desktop with out warning when I went to render, D|S showed me the log file bug so cannot say either any worse except D|S tells me more info I cannot understand anyway.
Ice Dragon Art - thank you, that was super helpful, really. One of the biggest hurdles of using an unfamilar program is just knowing what a typical workflow is. It really does help to hear what you have a shortcut for, versus what you just slog through. Next time the shader domain issue comes up, I will see if the bridge to Hexagon can be used to find them. Meanwhile, I will make a few fitting morphs for the helmet. I had gotten spoiled having all the tools in one program and then making small adjustments on the fly. Will have to plan accessories, etc. more carefully for Studio projects.
Bunyip - thank you for the instancing screenshots. Very helpful. I will be using instances in the future so this was the perfect intro.
Headwax and Th3Digit - in the Studio test render, the bodysuit worn by Gramps is not draped with VWD. I had made the bodysuit conforming using the transfer utility because I have not bought the Studio version of the bridge. Will be correcting that this weekend. Personally, I really like how VWD draped near the knees of the C8.5 version compared to the conforming version. Over time, 3DUniverse's Gramps character has sort of become my version of Mad Magazine's Alfred E Neuman. I tend to use Gramps when I want to wink at the viewer. I wish there was also a Gramma counterpart.
Dave is great! The following is copied from a post by dave.smith_62783623a8 so that it is gathered with my other information resources.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1769416/#Comment_1769416
Ive done some reading and the most information on IRay settings I have found are in the Programmers Manual.
Progressive Rendering Tab
Min Update Samples
Controls the minimum number of samples that need to be rendered per render call in the progressive render loop.
Update Interval
The update interval time in seconds is compared to the rendering time since the beginning of this batch render call. This acts as a hint to the renderer. Longer times will generally increase rendering efficiency, while shorter times yield more frequent updates.
Min Samples
Controls the minimum number of samples that need to be rendered before the progressive render loop is allowed to terminate by any of the termination criteria.
Max Samples
The maximum number of samples is compared to the number of samples since the beginning of this progression. The render call will return 1 if the rendering loop is terminated by this termination criterion.
Max Time (secs)
The maximum time in seconds is compared to the rendering time since the beginning of this progression. The render call will return 1 if the rendering loop is terminated by this termination criterion.
Rendering Quality Enabled
The convergence quality estimate is only available in the non-interactive render mode and can, in addition, be enabled and disabled with this attribute. If disabled, rendering will not stop based on the convergence quality and no progress messages will be issued for the current convergence quality.
Rendering Quality
A convergence estimate for a pixel has to reach a certain threshold before a pixel is considered converged. This attribute is a relative quality factor for this threshold. A higher quality setting asks for better converged pixels, which means a longer rendering time. Render times will change roughly linearly with the given value, i.e., doubling the quality roughly doubles the render time.
Rendering Converged Ratio
If the progressive rendering quality is enabled, this attribute specifies a threshold that controls the stopping criterion for progressive rendering. As soon as the ratio of converged pixels of the entire image is above this given threshold, Iray Photoreal returns the final result for forthcoming render requests. Additionally, the render call will return 1 in this case indicating to the application that further render calls will have no more effect. Note that setting this attribute to a value larger than the default of 0.95 can lead to extremely long render times.
Optimization Tab Settings
Max Path Length
Bounds the maximum number of vertices (bounces) of light paths to contribute to the result. Since this setting cuts off indirect lighting contributions (one example would be the headlight of a car that depends on a lot of indirect effects to look correct), it should only be applied when the rendering has to be accelerated at the expense of physical accuracy.
Caustic Sampler
The Iray Photoreal caustic sampler can be used to improve the quality of caustics in typical turntable scenes. When enabled, Iray Photoreal will augment the default sampler with a dedicated caustic sampler, designed to improve capturing caustic effects. In terms of light path expressions, the caustic sampler was designed to handle paths with the signature E D .* S L much better.
Architectural Sampler
The Iray Photoreal architectural sampler can be used to improve the convergence speed of difficult scenes, as such complicated lighting scenarios can then be handled much more efficiently with this sampler. A common scene type that profits from this specialized sampler is indoor architectural visualization, especially if it is mostly illuminated by indirect lighting. One specific example would be a room that is illuminated by light sources placed in neighboring rooms or by outdoor lighting (such as the Sun and Sky model) shining through a small window.
Filtering Tab Settings
Firefly Filter Enable
Controls a built-in filter to reduce bright spots that may occur under some difficult lighting conditions. Such bright undesired pixels are often called ``fireflies''.
Nominal Luminence
The nominal luminance is a hint to Iray Photoreal on what is considered a "reasonable" luminance level when viewing the scene. This luminance level is used internally to tune the firefly filter and error estimate. When the nominal luminance value is set to 0, Iray Photoreal will estimate the nominal luminance value from the tonemapper settings. If a user application applies its own tonemapping without using the built-in tonemappers, it is strongly advised to provide a nominal luminance.
Noise Filter Enable
This specialized post filter reduces initial high variance noise without sacrificing overall sharpness. It is particularly useful for removing isolated bright or very dark pixels that result from certain kinds of disadvantageous chains of scattering events. This filter is intended to be used only during the initial rendering phase, mainly to smoothen out the yet unfinished simulation results. Note that the overall rendering performance can be reduced noticably on low-end CPU cores.
Noise Degrain Filtering
Selects one of several additional post filters that can reduce low frequency noise without sacrificing overall sharpness. These are intended to be used in the final stage of the rendering phase, mainly to reduce remaining subtle grain in difficult areas of a scene. There are five different filters to select from
Modes 1 to 3 are working very conservative and should thus be safe to use in general, modes 4 and 5 are considered to be more agressive and should be used with caution, especially if the scene features fine details in either geometry or applied materials. As these filters can be tweaked during the rendering process, it is recommended to experiment with different radius settings to achieve best results.
Noise Degrain Radius
This value should be reduced if the filter smoothens out edges, and increased if some noise still remains in the image.
Noise Degrain Blur Difference
Modes 4 and 5 feature an additional setting that limits the influence of neighboring pixels if the brightness is too different.
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there is, she is here too now
https://www.daz3d.com/granny-for-toon-gramps
got her cheap RDNA sale
Thank you! Thank you!
Oh, I am so sorry I didn't know during the RDNA sale. On the wishlist.
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While taking a break from learning about ultrascatter for the robot army, I decided to see if I could get a custom tree from Carrara to Studio. While I was nominally successful, The polygon count was way too high to be practical (99,000 for my first attempt). However, here was the workflow.
I created a custom tree using the plant editor and shader room in Carrara. You will find the steps starting here. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2413676/#Comment_2413676
To prepare for export so that it included all the branches and leaves, I had to go to the scene preview section of the plant editor and make sure that I checked "tree." If you just want the tree and branch hierarchy without the leaves, use the approrpiate setting.
Then I returned to the main Assemble room and selected the tree. I then exported as an obj using the Daz Studio (full scene) settings with morphs and skinning checked.
I opened an empty Daz Studio scene and imported the plant obj using the Carrara unit settings. The model came in without the correct textures, so I had to use the surfaces pane. I then saved as a support asset for future use. However, as I said, the tree came in at 99,000 polygons so it isn't practical as it is. The poblem may be that this tree is 90 feet tall and that a 40 foot tree would have significantly fewer polygons. Similarly, I could easily cut the polygons in each leaf down significantly. I invite any other suggestions to reduce the overall polygon count.
Actually, 99K isn't too outrageous for a 100ft high tree.
For general poly reduction, you can cnvert to vertex model before exporting, then untriangulate. Gets rid of 30-40%.
Reduce the number of leaves - have them start further along the branch (say 50%). The inner leaves get hidden by the outer ones, so they don't need to be there. Change the leaf distribution from "Symmetrical" to something else will have them looking less like rows of soldiers, and restrict the leaves to only one level of branches (you might need to tweak your branch structure at that point to stop it looking like a pruning disaster!)
If your tree is intended to be part of woodland, it can have far fewer leaves, because the effect of coverage is built up from many trees. Conversely, a standalone tree will need to be denser, or it will look bare.
Thanks, Tim. Excellent advice.
Hi Diomede,
To see which material is which you need to use the "Suface Selection Tool". Hope this helps.
Thank you very much for the way to export a tree from Carrara. I miss Carrara's trees.
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4 - gun has many shader domains / material sets. How do I see where barrel 1 is vesus where barrel 2 is etc. I just randomly assigned metallic iray shaders (thank you, TobascoJack above, for the Iray shader links - again, I need to spend the time)
xmasrose - thank you so much for posting the screenshot. A single pic with a red circle or a red arrow is worth a thousand words.
In the Surfaces-Editor tab, if you click in the Base Colour box with 1 1 1 shown it will bring up a colour picker.
Bunyip, thank you for the color picker info. Extremely useful.
I don't know why I can't seem to retain any information about lighting. I can't remember how to turn off the headlamp from the camera. Or maybe it is a bunch of ambient light flooding the whole scene? I purposefully rendered Michael in a Courtyard with a Sword using just a key light and a back light to see if I had control of the lighting. Nope, I'm missing something. This scene should only have two spot lights that I inserted, according to the light pane. Well, only two can be selected. The first is coming from the lower right pointing slightly upward. You can see its effects by the hard sword shadow on the chest and the yellow tinge to the shield and sword. The backlight has a blue tinge and is behind Michael pointed at the camera. Where is all this other light coming from and how do I adjust it?
To turn off the headlamp (my nemesis!) go to the camera tab and scroll down to headlamp and you should be able to turn it off. (the same tabs that have surfaces, posing, shaping, lights, cameras - that camera tab, it really depends on how you have your tabs set up. Mine is custom so its hard to give good directions lol. Too bad it won't stay off when you exit studio. I have a starter scene set up to load as my default that has a camera with the headlamp turned off cause I forget every. single. time....I can't get to Studio right now or I would screenshot as well.
In your Render Settings/Editor tab, turn the Environment Intensity to 0.
In your Lights/Editor tab you will also need to adjust the Luminous Flux (Lumen) slider of your spotlights to achieve the desired result.
When rendering in Iray you can change the environment mode to Scene only instead of Dome and Scene to avoid the hdr (which can act as an ambient).
You can also turn the headlamp off at render time. Or create a new scene with the lamp off like @Ice Dragon Art recommended.
Thank you, Ice Dragon, Xmasrose, and Bunyip. The workflow in Studio makes sense once it has been pointed out to me. Not sure why I don't remember the next time I open a scene. Here, I was able to have just the two spotlights as I planned. Feeling relatively confident that I can watch more advanced lighting tutorials now for better control. Hope it won't be too long before I can start learning emissive surfaces, mesh lights, etc. Still at baby steps for now, though.
Same scene (slightly different camera angle, plus a third light
Well, on closer look, I can see that my 3rd light helped with the shadow on his left arm, but does not help with the shadow on the wall. Need another light, or a way to soften the shadows from the 1st light. And need a background so that the gaps in the gate contrast with the gate (right side of image). And that background, once inserted, should not create ambient light. Thanks again, folks.
Looking forward to seeing the completed render once you get the kinks worked out!
Using the method posted above, I created a tomato plant and saved it in DUF as a Studio prop asset. Happy to offer as a freebie, although it only has very simple procedural shaders right now. Is there a preferred file structure for sharing DUFs? How are the folders for the mesh, textures, and DUF organized within a zip file to share? I have shared Poser files, Carrara files, and objs, but not Studio DUF files.
That looks good !
This link may help you : http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Tutorial-Packaging-Testing-Your-Own-Product-577051650
SickleYield's tutorial is a good one. To illustrate it, this is my project folder for Country Ford (there's loads of other anciliary stuff in there, but that's all hidden for the purposes of this discussion). CF-DS is the base level folder that gets added to Studio's Libraries list. The Data folder gets created automatically when you save as prop asset. The Runtime/Support folder gets created when you save out the metadata.
I've expanded the Carrara folders too, just for comparison.
BTW, as the file paths are embedded into the .duf files (and .car file), you should save your work into the folder structure, not copy it in after the fact.
Thanks, xmasrose and tangoalpha. The SY tutorial was great. But, I still have a question about the obj file. In a Poser structure, the obj file would be saved to Runtime\Geometries and the textures would be saved to Runtime\Textures. Here, I see that the textures still go to Runtime\Textures, but is the obj file not saved in the DSON structure prior to saving out of Studio as a prop asset?