How to change primitive's shape?
wildbillnash
Posts: 756
in New Users
I was wondering if there was a way to cut, reform, or just change the shape of primitives? For example, I can make a sphere but I would like to cut it in half.
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With the Geometry editor.
Though, using an actual modeler is easier.
If it's something you're going to do often, you could get Everyday Morphing Primitives. It has plenty of shpes you can use for odd things.
Mac's Everyday Morphing Primitives is a fun product. You can also use dForms to create morphs within Daz Studio. To reshape things using dForms, you'll need to have a reasonably high polycount. You'll be moving around the vertices, (the corner point where the polygons meet,) to change the shapes.
Using the Geometry Editor, you can select and remove polygons. Using your example of a sphere, removing half of the polys will result in an open-ended dome. If you need this half-sphere to be an enclosed mesh, you'll need to create a morph. Or you can try to model it in Hexagon, (free, here at Daz,) or Blender, (free, elsewhere. Sorry don't have the link handy.)
Ascania, I found the Geometry Editor in the Tools menu but that's all. I clicked on it and nothing happened, except I can't navigate the screen. What's suppose to happen? I tried to find it in the Daz manuscript but that was useless, it doesn't even list "Geometry Editor". (I think the 'manual' is for an older version of Daz. I have Daz 4.10.)
The Geometry Editor allows you to select polygons, which you can then hide and delete - but if you want to reshape the dForms are better.
Richard, sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about. Can you point me the way to a video or some images so I can see.
L'Adair, I did try to use Hexagon but I can't see much about it. I think part of my problem is not knowing the terminology.
Here's a post I did that covers some basic Geometry Editor functions. Maybe reading it will help. (There are lots of images, too!) LINK
There are a number of modeling tools out there. Hexagon and Blender are free, but they still have a steep learning curve. Some of the Daz PAs use Hexagon to create their models, and have some amazing work. I'm doing good to create simple morphs, most of the time. If you're interested in learning, there a number of tutorials on youtube. That's where I started.
I think you're doing ok so far, but like any new thing it sometimes takes a while for a person to wrap their heads around it.
Let's take a primitive created in DAZ Studio... those are fairly basic, especially when you compare them to Maclean's morphing primitives. The morphing primitives have "control points" or vectors in them if I may use those terms, a feature that allows you to alter them using little on-screen sliding tools. If the tools are present they will appear in the Parameters tab under "Morphs" when you have the object selected.
Ok, so if we take a sphere (round ball) say it is possible to select it, and then with the Geometry Editor you can, for example, cut the ball in half which gives you a bowl say. Ok? That's the sort of thing that the G.E. does real well: it removes polygons. The steps that it works in involve selecting some polygons and then you may hide them, and if you're happy with that you can delete those polygons which is an irreversible step. Just as an example you could make a hole in an object - your bowl (say) could become a piece of broken pottery or something similar.
With the morphing primitives in Maclean's set (search "morphing primitives") you're not removing polygons so much as you're stretching or flattening -- and sometimes bending -- groups of them. It's kind of like apples and oranges and plums - roughly the same thing but a bit different at the same time.
Studio lets you do a sort of stretching and/or flattening on a primitive using the Scale tool. On an object like a bowl, scaling down on the "Y" axis might flatten the bowl into something that resembles a dinner plate.
If you look up Catmull-Clark you'll see another way to manipulate a primitive, especially a "pointy" one. This is advanced geometry that has been worked out and the resulting "rules" are now included in programs like Hexagon. What you do is you select an object like a cube (say) and you send it to Hexagon. In Hexagon you can apply progressive smoothing to the object; just cease and desist when you've had enough. Then you can send the geometry back into DAZ Studio. Catmull-Clarke works best on sharp edges so a square surface becomes more... spherical - and a square hole say will slowly morph into a round hole if I'm not mistaken.
Thanks to all who responded. I'll have to look over this in the morning to teach myself. To date I've only used 3D Builder which comes free in Microsoft 10. It was easier to understand. Hexagon and Daz's GE is harder, using different terms than I am used to.
Tomorrow I will have some fun. I will want to use the sphere to create another flying saucer, or two. Once I get that down I should have enough knowledge to be dangerous. Thanks again, everyone.
All the functions of the Geometry Editor are accessible through the Tool Settings pane.
Thanks, found it. One of my pet peeves is a computer program with limited instructions in their manual. I had NO idea how to access the GE. As well as no idea how to work it since there are no instructions. It's trial-by-error time. Thanks again.
The lack of a manual for Daz Studio has been cussed and discussed many times in these forums. On the one hand, it would be really nice to have one. On the other, it would be perpetually out-of-date.
I'm sure it's not obvious, (said tongue-in-cheek,) but I used to write/rewrite technical manuals for products in more than one job I held as an electronic technician, "back in the good ol' days." These were relatively simple products, with manual of only a few pages, I'd get handed a few pages by the engineer(s) who created the item, spend a week or two hounding them for explanations of this and that, and then write a manual in plain English so non-engineers could actually use the product!
With that experience in mind, I have come to realize, it would take a group of dedicated technical writers months to write a comprehensive manual on Daz Studio. And by the time they were finished, the manual would be obsolete.
What has worked best for me, over the years, is to use a Google search, with the site parameter. For example, if I were looking for information on how to best use the Geometry Editor, I'd search for:
site:www.daz3d.com/forums/ Geometry Editor tools
And if you don't have an issue with video tutorials, a similar Google search will bring up videos:
site:youtube.com/ Daz Studio Geometry Editor tools
(And of course, you can substitute vimeo.com or other video site for youtube.com in that search criteria.)
I will say the Geometry Editor is well worth the effort. I use it a lot, and keep finding new ways to improve my workflow by using it.