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Simple WorldBalls for DAZ Studio 3/4.5+ and Poser 6+

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  • 3dcheapskate3dcheapskate Posts: 2,719
    edited April 2015

    Poser WorldBall Version 5 (Updated File ONLY) Released

    As mentioned in the post above I've been using this version of the WorldBall with Poser 6 and Poser 9 for the past few months. The only reason I didn't release it was that I never got a nice TkInter or wxPython UI working.

    Version 5 of the Poser WorldBall gives the user the options to parent the WorldBall Sun to the WorldBall, and to enable IDL (InDirect Light) if their Poser version supports it.

    Whoops! Forgot the download links:
    ShareCG: Poser WorldBall Version 5 (Update ONLY)
    Renderosity:

    (The ShareCG page also includes a picture of the dialogues you're likely to see)

    PsWB500.jpg
    500 x 500 - 97K
    Post edited by 3dcheapskate on
  • 3dcheapskate3dcheapskate Posts: 2,719
    edited April 2015

    Sooo... I've been using Poser WorldBall version 5 for several months.

    And I guess I've just got used to having to manually check the 'Visible In Raytacing' checkbox on the parameters tab for the WorldBall prop when I use IDL.

    Why doesn't it do that automatically if you select to use IDL ? Either I forgot, or couldn't find a way to do it (so probably I forgot)...

    Post edited by 3dcheapskate on
  • 3dcheapskate3dcheapskate Posts: 2,719
    edited July 2015

    Almost a year to the day after I said  "...I've Also Started Looking At A DAZ Studio WorldBall Update To Parent The Sun/IBL - This looks fairly straightforward..."  ...well... I've actually, finally, got that bit to work !

    While doing so (and it all happened over the past day or two) I uncovered and fixed a bug that could be causing problems (3) and (4) mentioned in that link.

    So, is anybody still using the worldball in this  DS4.8 era ?

    Is it worth me releasing an update after so long?

    And can anybody tell me how I go about finding post 116 in this thread ? (I suspect it may be this one, {don't know what happened there - that now links to a completely different post!?} as I know there are still problems if bits of the worldball are already loaded)

    P.S. The new forum c**pware won't let me edit the "[Update For Dual Users]" bit out of the title or amend the first post.

    Post edited by 3dcheapskate on
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited July 2015

    Yes...since I'm still using 3DL, most of the time, with some Luxrender. 

    Yes, the new software won't let you edit posts from the old software.

    No, the only way I know of to find which post...start at the top and count, because there isn't even a post number in this software, as far as I can tell.

    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • SemicharmSemicharm Posts: 375
    edited July 2015

    I haven't bothered installing 4.8 yet, as I don't have an nVidia board. (I do have Luxus but can't get anything usable out of it either.) UberLights give can give better results, but take a lot longer to even a get usable render. So, yes I do find WorldBall useful. :D

    That said, I do have an issue that took me a while to figure out. I think it might be more of a "feature" than a bug, but it's not documented. I noticed that I would sometimes get odd colors in shadows that I couldn't account for. Turned out that the IBL was rendering a "reflection" on the surface specular. Poser can't do this directly with IBL (believe me, I've tried!), so it caught me by surprise when the DS version of WorldBall did. Perhaps that could be documented somewhere, as that's a big difference between the two versions. Now that I know what's going on, I know how it use it properly, or turn it off if needed.

    [Image1:default settings; Image2: IBL (Diffuse only); Image3: surface mat specular strength 0%]

    DSWB1.jpg
    800 x 800 - 53K
    DSWB1-IBL (Diffuse Only).jpg
    800 x 800 - 51K
    DSWB1-no mat specular.jpg
    800 x 800 - 50K
    Post edited by Semicharm on
  • 3dcheapskate3dcheapskate Posts: 2,719
    edited August 2015

    mjc1016 - okay, one user is good enough! :D But I won't be doing anything for a week or so as I'm taking a break from modern technology. Sitting in the jungle, surrounded by the sounds of nature... and inevitably now, mobile phones! Can't get away from the accursed things!

    Thanks for the heads up on the forum c**pware. Don't know which is worse now - here or Renderosity. Thank heavens (fingers crossed!) for RDNA!

    Semicharm - odd things with the DS IBL don't really surprise me, as it's really 'faked IBL' as mentioned in the "A Few Tips For Adjusting The Lighting And Shadows" post half-way down the first page of this thread (I can't just say "post #" any more...). In post 18 of the thread it links to I said "...I've got what I wanted using ShaderBuilder in DS3. Ridiculously simple really - almost embarrassingly so! It's just a point light whose position is defined by the point on the surface being illuminated - i.e. the point light is at the end of the surface normal. Started with the DzPointLight network, disconnected the shadow stuff, adjusted a few connections, added an Environment macro and a couple of user inputs and it worked first time! "  And that's what I stuck with. (btw - I had planned to try and incorporate the UberEnvironment2 into it, but the major bugs in UE2 plus a "no, you can't use that code" from a DAZ person put the kaibosh on that)

    Back in a couple of weeks. With luck and a following wind the forum might be working better by then...

    Post edited by 3dcheapskate on
  • SemicharmSemicharm Posts: 375

    Well, your quick and dirty solution does give interesting results much faster than other solutions, so I'd still call it a win. lol And I'll still chalk the specular lighting as a feature too. I'd tried to get Poser to do what you'd been doing in DS all along and didn't even know it.

  • 3dcheapskate3dcheapskate Posts: 2,719
    edited July 2015

    Two weeks later the forum's still not right. Maybe give it another month...  :(

    In the meantime, I'm almost ready to release the DAZ Worldball update. Here's what's been changed:

    • Sun/IBL are now parented to the Worldball so that if you rotate the worldball the lighting rotates with it.
    • (The ground is intentionally NOT parented to the worldball)
    • When you load a new environment set the worldball is automatically reset to its zeroed orientation
    • You can now (at last!) see the background in the preview pane (the image is plugged into Diffuse Color, with Diffuse Strength set to zero)
    • The WorldBall has been increased in size by a factor of 10 and its default scaling is now 100% (reduced from the previous 1000%)

    I've been giving it a thrashing in DS3.2 and DS4.6 and it seems okay so far. Only two files have changed - 'WorldBall Setup DS3,4.dsa' and 'WorldBall Setup DS3,4.pp2' so I'll probably do an 'Update Only' release first with just these two files.

    (The actual changes were very simple in the end. The big hold-up was unearthing the problems already in the code that only showed themselves when I added the new code...)

    Post edited by 3dcheapskate on
  • SemicharmSemicharm Posts: 375

    Woot! Looking forward to it. smiley

  • 3dcheapskate3dcheapskate Posts: 2,719
    edited November 2015

    The most annoying thing now is the shadowcatcher groundplane, which in the preview pane always appears solid black. Can't see any way to get round this, so you'll just have to put up with it I guess !

    (edit(25Nov2015): this is a test edit for customer support request #205589)

    Post edited by 3dcheapskate on
  • gingercakes47gingercakes47 Posts: 382

    Nice, I'm looking forward to the update.

  • 3dcheapskate3dcheapskate Posts: 2,719
    edited July 2015

    Since these new-new forums won't let me edit the OP of this thread I've decided to start a new WorldBall thread here by simply copying the original OP across - that way I can add new links/comments at the top again.

    And I've just posted the DAZ Studio Worldball Version 2 release as the second post on that thread...

    I'll be posting any new stuff about the worldball to that new thread...  see you over there !

     

    Post edited by 3dcheapskate on
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