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Thanks a lot for the comments and the tips.
Thanks. There was also previous version of the program: Topaz Studio from Topaz Labs, mostly free.
One can use these programs in many ways. I use them mostly with included ready made presets for achieve different looks.
That would be extremely useful to me, and then I wouldn't have to put dark-tinted windshields on my cars.
Ah, and I notice it works with Affinity Photo also.
Question: I'm on a Macintosh and this is the first set of your Billboards I've bought. I really like it, but when I brought any billboard into the Viewport, it was blacked out, until I used the camera (preview) tool to render it. Then, I noticed I had my Viewport set to Texture Shaded. I turned it to iRay Preview, and the billboard figures showed up. Is it supposed to work this way. Fine, if it is. Or, am I doing something wrong?
Ok. Also good to know
I would think at least a couple of these would work too.
On my system, they are visible in Texture Shaded, Wire Texture Shaded, and Cartoon Shaded as well. Do you usually see bitmap textures in your view? It is probably based on your video card capabilities.
They show fine in Texture Shaded for me, too. I'm using a PC with Windows 10 and GXT 980 Ti graphics card.
I'm seeing them as black in texture shaded view when using the 'face the camera' script - but if I rotate the view to the other side, they show up as normal (they render fine either way). Looks like the normals are flipped on this set (though why some of us are seeing this effect and not others I couldn't say) - all the other sets I've bought show in texture shaded view as expected.
That is strange. I didn't think I made them differently.
Hmmm. That is interesting. I'm having a different problem with the orient script not doing anything SOMETIMES. I'm trying to pin down a simple repeatable test case to be sure it is not something I am doing wrong, before I beg for help.
Another thought. What is your setting in preferences for backfacing polygons? (I'm away from the computer right now, so I may not have that wording exactly correct.)
Here are two preference settings that will make the billboards black. (I only tried the sitting set at this point. I haven't tried older sets.)
This does imply a reversed normal.
Edit: I tried a billboard from Modern City Life (my favorite!) The normals of the Sitting product seems to be backwards of the Modern City Life product.
Here is a simple scene with a billboard from the sitting package. The Orient script won't do anything for me. I've used Now Crowd billboards quite a bit, but I could still be doing something wrong. Can you help?
Edit: I tried both DS 4.11 Release and DS 4.12.1.40 Public Beta.
Edit 2: The log says the script was executed successfully, but nothing changes in the viewport.
Edit 3: I changed the attached scene to remove the HDRI that you may not have. (Sorry for all the iterations of this message!!)
Ah, that is good to know. And sorry for messing up
I will look at it, but can you post the log?
Not at my render pc either right now (on laptop in the library) - I haven't changed that setting so I guess whatever the default is - looks like you found it though.
Really odd that it's just happening with this set. Still, at least it still renders ok.
My orient to camera script is working fine - I can select multiple billboards and they all work with one click.
Edit: Chan, too many 'though' tho (Doctor Who reference for those who think I'm just being weird) - edit was just to remove excessive use of the word 'though'
It doesn't show much in the log. Here is an example:
2020-01-07 21:40:30.420 Loading script: N:/DAZ 3D/Studio/My DIM Library/scripts/riversoft art/now-crowd billboards/now-crowd orient billboard.dse
2020-01-07 21:40:35.839 Script executed successfully: N:/DAZ 3D/Studio/My DIM Library/scripts/riversoft art/now-crowd billboards/now-crowd orient billboard.dse
The orient script sometimes works for me if I start a new empty scene. When it works, the same two lines as above are logged. So, the log looks the same whether the script rotates the billboard or not.
I even tried reverting to an old version of the script, but that didn't work either. It is a mystery to me. I can't see what the difference is between when it works and when it doesn't. I will be interested in whether you or anyone else can reproduce this.
If you open my scene that I posted above, does the orient script work on it?
So I tried it. Ok, I think there are 2 problems going on.
Postscript: it is weird though. I can set up the script to set its rotation to the current frame but it is still getting ignored even if there is no key there. I am not an animator so I don't understand this.
Ah, you have great observation skills! Thank you. Now this is making sense! I originally added billboards to an existing scene that used an animated dForce simulation, so the final state of the scene was on the last frame of the animation. That scene is where I ran into problems with the script not working. I saved this simple test case by deleting everything else from that scene and saving only the billboard that would not work. I didn't even think about the fact that there was still an animation set up. This also explains why the script worked if I started a brand new scene.
If you fix the script to work on any frame, running the script should update the transformations of the billboard on any existing keyframe, just like it would if I rotated it manually, shouldn't it? Is there some limitation in the script or in Daz Studio that would prevent a script from creating/modifying a keyframe? (If I clear all keyframes and run the script on frame 0, the script creates a keyframe there just fine. If I move the camera and run the script again, the keyframe is updated just fine.)
In a couple days, I will be without a rendering computer for almost a month, so I may not be able to test any fixes you submit until February.
A thought on the keyframe problems you are seeing...
What version of Daz Studio are you testing in? I am using DS 4.12.1.40 Public Beta. Daz has been making lots of changes and bug fixes to the Timeline and animation. If you are using 4.12.0.86, maybe it is buggy in this regard. You could try 4.12.1.40 or a later Private or Publishing Build that might be available to you. If running the script on a frame other than 0 will not create a keyframe or update a keyframe, that sounds like a bug that needs to be reported to Daz developers.
Well, I think I see everything except for these billboards. I see all the things I bring into the Viewport before I do any preview rendering. I see them in cartoon shaded, texture shaded, etc.
So what might I try changing in order to see the billboards?
Until they are fixed, you can use the Geometry Editor to select the whole billboard and reverse normals on the selected polygons.
I finished my picture with the two billboards. I arranged them at frame 0 and them moved to frame 60 to render.
I am using 4.12.0.86. It's a good suggestion. I will have to try it.
Very good suggestion. I don't know when/if this issue will be fixed with previous BB products. There are 19 Now-Crowd products. Fixing all of them is a daunting task.
That is well integrated. Hopefully, he is not pointing out what the 2 dogs can eat!
99% sure it's just the latest one (my other Now-Crowd sets all have normals facing the right way). How many individual planes are there in the set? (not textures, just the plane as saved in the data folder - you only need to correct those as texture settings don't change normals).