Turn a figure into a prop

Had some of these thoughts in another thread, but trying agin here, fresh...

I've been trying to find what can do this or if this is even possible.

I'm looking for a solution for showing lots of figures interacting. Not in post, but in a live setting where the camera can pan around them.

Is there a product (if not, it needs to be made lol) that can EXPORT or render parts of a scene into an object?

I want to take a character and export it as a 3-d model statue, that could be reimported as a static ...statue and take up way less memory/resources.

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1) Several ways I could imagine this working if nothing exists yet. 3-D printer's camera. Takes a full scan of whatever object you've pointed to and renders a 3-D scan you can export. Hand held phones can do this now.Takes about 75 pictures. That printable object can now be impoirted and copied and such. 

2) A dynamic resolution editor. Sounds high-tech but the ability to reduce polygons or texture size based on proximity and/or focus of the camera.

Large scene but only the close bits have full details. Video games do this sometimes.

3) Remover. A scene setting that removes whatever the camera can't see. Could be set for entire scene or just what's in the renderers viewport. If it was set toa  figure, you'd lose everything under the clothes and anything there, but not is straight view of the camera.

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Any ideas or solutions?

Comments

  • I'm not sure it does what you want based on your suggestions, but Edit>Figure>Rigging>Convert Figure to Prop.

  • Well, that's interesting. So does it take up less memory/resources?  cause that's the real issue.

    And long as I got your attention.

    What's the tool or tool setting that would allow me to grab an item and move it around freely- without using the parameters menu?

    I usually use the universal tool, but there's probably a grabber that I can't find.

    I feel like it works that way on occasion, but seems a little random as to when it behaves that way.

    I'm sort of trying to move an object in relation to my current view.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,219
    edited February 2017

    translate tool

    +

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449

    You only save memory in Studio because all the morphs are gone.  When rendering I don't think it would make any difference because all the meshes and textures are the same.

  • That's a start though. I should be able to load the scene with more figures and not kill the PC if they are all Props. Then, I can always revert to make adjustments and such...

    The translate tool moves bits and pieces or whatever it's focused on.

    What moves an entire figure? Like I want to move a figure to the left- relative to the viewport....withought grabbing a limb or part....

    Two different ways the Parameter editor fails or I fail to use it properly. 

    1) Sometimes when you move the object, it is so massive, it just shimmers in place and doesn't move. Large models do this.

    2) The camera stretches back and the scene distorts - even though you are using the perspective view.

    Also, I think I've outgrown the hollywood layout and it's time to find another one.

    And I think I asked before...is there any way to get the spot render tool to remeber to render in a new window?

    I ALWAYS forget to change it and render a little bit of the scene and move the mouse and it's gone.

  • I don't think you can render to a separate window with the spot render tool.

  • Griffin AvidGriffin Avid Posts: 3,764
    edited February 2017

    Oh no you can, it's in the tool settings. There's a choice of new window.....I pick that, but it never stays....

    You pick the spot render tool and then open up tool settings.

    Spot-Render-Settings.png
    519 x 235 - 21K
    Post edited by Griffin Avid on
  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    If you do the edit->figure->rigging->convert figure to prop method, remember to unparent any clothes or items from the figure before doing so or they will be deleted by the conversion (you can then fit them to the object after conversion, then convert the clothes to props as well)

    After converting the figure and clothes to props, it would probably be even better to use the texture atlas to shrink and combine the textures into a single image for even more ram saving! (Although the texture atlas is a huge pain to find and never stays in my menu when I put it there)

  • I will experiment. There's a new item in the flash sale shop about memory iray. I would love to have that just to test what kinds of savings I'm getting from trying this.

    Going to sleep on it for now. Thanks for the tips.

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    Iray now automagically lets you see how much resources is being used by things like geometry and textures (each listed seperately) when you go to render. Just expand the progress bar when it pops up by pressing the "history" button

  • I'm going to explore this. But what do you think of this idea? as a whole?

    Best technique for renders with lots of content?

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    I do definately think it helps cram more figures into a scene and the nice part is, since clothing needs to be converted seperately, you can create an instance or 2 of the figure to position at a different angle in a different spot and dress differently for even less resource usage.

    Also, for further away people, you can also use the lorenzo and loretta lorez models to save on geometry :)

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