Open Box Primitive

marble

I tried to create a box with an open top and one side open too. It was clear that I couldn't do that with a cube primitive (can't remove sides) so I tried constructing the box using plane primitives. It looks fine in the viewport but I couldn't save it as a prop (save as Figure/Prop Asset) - only the first plane (which I called the floor) was saved (at least that's all that loaded when I tried to load the new prop). I also notice that I can't parent the planes to each other. There's no Fit-to or parenting parameters under General in the Parameters tab.

All I want is to have a box to position outside a door so that it looks like there's another room through the open door.

WendyLuvsCatz

I have deleted one face or more on a DAZ cube primitive with the geometry editor before today, you can even add subdivision at creation of the number of sections you want and cut out doorways and windows

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I have deleted one face or more on a DAZ cube primitive with the geometry editor before today, you can even add subdivision at creation of the number of sections you want and cut out doorways and windows

 

I did wonder about that but then I thought that I might want to put different shaders on the "floor" and "walls".

WendyLuvsCatz

marble said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I have deleted one face or more on a DAZ cube primitive with the geometry editor before today, you can even add subdivision at creation of the number of sections you want and cut out doorways and windows

 

I did wonder about that but then I thought that I might want to put different shaders on the "floor" and "walls".

create new surfaces on it 

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

marble said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I have deleted one face or more on a DAZ cube primitive with the geometry editor before today, you can even add subdivision at creation of the number of sections you want and cut out doorways and windows

 

I did wonder about that but then I thought that I might want to put different shaders on the "floor" and "walls".

create new surfaces on it 

OK, I need to watch a tutorial then because I don't know anything about creating surfaces or UV maps. That's why I went with planes - they each have their own surface and I can create a place with any number of divisions and apply any shader to it. I'd still like to know how to do it with planes as per my original question - or is it not possible?

WendyLuvsCatz

select the geometry editor tool

select a face on your primitive

rightclick and there are options

one will let you create and assign a to a surface and a dialogue will come up to name it

the DAZ cube is mapped 3x6 so any shader needs to be translated on the x and Y axis and tiled appropriately to fit

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

select the geometry editor tool

select a face on your primitive

rightclick and there are options

one will let you create and assign a to a surface and a dialogue will come up to name it

the DAZ cube is mapped 3x6 so any shader needs to be translated on the x and Y axis and tiled appropriately to fit

 

I do thank you for your help and suggestions but that last line of your latest reply means nothing to me. I have never got to grips with modelling, UV mapping or creating geometry or surfaces although I keep promising myself that I need to. So "cube is mapped 3x6" doesn't tell me much. I could probably manage to find my way around the Geometry Editor tool and create the surfaces - even delete the geometry - but I don't know anything about mapping. So I guess sticking with my individual planes is the lazy (but easier) way for me. I would just like to know how to save the box-made-of-planes as a prop.

WendyLuvsCatz

the 3x2 is the UV mapping of the cube, you cannot change it because DAZ studio is not a modelling program.

its mapped 3 rows of faces by 2 rows of faces on the UV square as one surface 

if I modelled my own cube I would have 6 surfaces and each would be the entire UV square 

the tiling and UV translation I was referring to is the basic shader parameter sliders you would use with any DAZ shader to fit it how you want on anything unless you just click and load and never tile or move around anything 

 

(the other day I encountered one who would rather buy a new shader than turn down glossy reflectivity on her existing ones so nothing surprises me)

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

the 3x2 is the UV mapping of the cube, you cannot change it because DAZ studio is not a modelling program.

its mapped 3 rows of faces by 2 rows of faces on the UV square as one surface 

if I modelled my own cube I would have 6 surfaces and each would be the entire UV square 

the tiling and UV translation I was referring to is the basic shader parameter sliders you would use with any DAZ shader to fit it how you want on anything unless you just click and load and never tile or move around anything 

 

(the other day I encountered one who would rather buy a new shader than turn down glossy reflectivity on her existing ones so nothing surprises me)

Ah now I feel like an imbecile. I should say that I'm quite happy adjusting any and all shader parameters and I have used the geometry tool before to hide a few polygons but I am very wary of anything to do with UV mapping. I just can't get my head around seeing a 3D object flattened out to a 2D plane. Something to do with the way my brain developed - I have always had trouble with left and right and when I was learning to drive I failed miserably trying to figure out which way to turn the steering wheel when reversing. Of course that is second nature now but I was learning 50 years ago.

Oddly enough I do edit 2D textures to add overlays such as rips and frayed edges. That requires loading them into an image editor and working with something called a Fill Layer (in Affinity Photo) which allows me to resize and position the bitmap image overlay. That allows me so many more options for clothing and prop textures but it gets a bit tricky when I have to figure out where on the 2D UV mapped image to place something precisely.

WendyLuvsCatz

I cannot look while I am rendering or I would screenshot the exact parameter settings needed to fit one texture square on each face of the cube but I suspect it's 0.33 on the U axis and 0.5 on the Y axis tiled 3 on U and 2 on Y

 

sadly DAZ studio iray is very slow for me, I am rendering an animation, just finished one and started another before looking on this forum, my renders take 10+ hours which is why it's not my preferred software 

stem_athome

Hi marble,

I would suggest saving the box as a "Scene Asset(s)"

With nothing else in the scene:-

Create the 6 planes and move them to create the box.

In the scene view, drag/drop 5 of the planes on to the 6th (you could drag the sides/top on to the base). That will make 5 planes children of the 6th.

With the parent selected. Save as "Scene Asset(s)"

 

 

marble

I am trying your method now but am having trouble selecting a single side of the cube. You said "select a face on your primitive" but it seems to me to be all one face. So if I move my selection circle over one side of the cube I find that I can't stop it from overlapping into the other sides.

WendyLuvsCatz

what selection mode do you have the geometry editor set to?

you don't want lasso or the one that box selects, (I cannot look up the terms right now as rendering)

you want the one that selects faces (polygons)

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

what selection mode do you have the geometry editor set to?

you don't want lasso or the one that box selects, (I cannot look up the terms right now as rendering)

you want the one that selects faces (polygons)

 

Selection mode is "Drag"

Selection Type is "Polygon"

But there is only one face: "default" - which is the whole cube.

WendyLuvsCatz

something odd going on there as it definitely is 6 faces 

it would be a plane otherwise 

maybe Richard Haseltine could chime in, cannot tag him as username is 2 words

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

something odd going on there as it definitely is 6 faces 

it would be a plane otherwise 

maybe Richard Haseltine could chime in, cannot tag him as username is 2 words

 

Sure. Pity you are in the middle of a render but perhaps someone else could check my facts? I only see a single face group and that is called "Default". At the outset there was also only a single surface and that was also called "default". No Regions.

 

marble

stem_athome said:

Hi marble,

I would suggest saving the box as a "Scene Asset(s)"

With nothing else in the scene:-

Create the 6 planes and move them to create the box.

In the scene view, drag/drop 5 of the planes on to the 6th (you could drag the sides/top on to the base). That will make 5 planes children of the 6th.

With the parent selected. Save as "Scene Asset(s)"

 

 

Hi and thanks for the comment but it seems to me that is exactly what I did as I described above. I created a box out of planes and tried to save it as a ... hold on ... don't you mean "Support Asset"? Also, there is no parenting of the planes as I mentioned earlier.

marble

OK so I managed to select each side by carefully dragging the selection tool and I seem to have crated the surfaces I need. And now, I can also save it as a prop. Thanks for all the patient help with this seemingly simple task. I would still like to know if there is a better way of selecting the sides of the cube primitive.

 

 

WendyLuvsCatz

I will post a Shadowplay capture when I can but it shouldn't be that hard to select single faces,

I do it and delete them on clothing to split it up for new support assets under a different name and PA name with modified added to save in a different data folder as to not overwrite the original all the time.

So I do think you have a different selection mode to what I use.

Greybro

Cool!

WendyLuvsCatz

OK render done, here is a video for next time 

WendyLuvsCatz

OK to fit a full texture square on each face of a DAZ primitive cube you need

horizontal tiles 3.03

Vertical tiles 2.00

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

OK render done, here is a video for next time 

 

It is the selection right at the start of your video that has me confused. I have the same setting that you show but when I click on a face it selects the polygons under the pointer - not the whole face, There must be another setting I am missing.

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

OK to fit a full texture square on each face of a DAZ primitive cube you need

horizontal tiles 3.03

Vertical tiles 2.00

Oh right - now I know what you mean by tiling. I am so silly - I use those settings in the surfaces panel all the time when I apply shaders.

[EDIT] By the way - what do you mean by a full texture square? Is there a standard image size for a texture square?

jjoyner

marble said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

OK render done, here is a video for next time 

 

It is the selection right at the start of your video that has me confused. I have the same setting that you show but when I click on a face it selects the polygons under the pointer - not the whole face, There must be another setting I am missing.

When you create your primitive cube, do you have  divisions set to one?  Otherwise, you wil lhave many small polygons on each face of the cube, rather than one polygon on each face of the cube.

 

WendyLuvsCatz

by full texture square I mean the image or photo like Zuck's face is the whole UV square not an atlased selection of islands for lots of surfaces on one map

marble

jjoyner said:

marble said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

OK render done, here is a video for next time 

 

It is the selection right at the start of your video that has me confused. I have the same setting that you show but when I click on a face it selects the polygons under the pointer - not the whole face, There must be another setting I am missing.

When you create your primitive cube, do you have  divisions set to one?  Otherwise, you wil lhave many small polygons on each face of the cube, rather than one polygon on each face of the cube.

 

 

I guess that's the problem. I have got into the habit of creating primitives with lots of divisions because I generally need them to interact with dForce cloth and without those polygons, the cloth just falls through.

 

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

by full texture square I mean the image or photo like Zuck's face is the whole UV square not an atlased selection of islands for lots of surfaces on one map

 

I must admit that I'm not 100% clear on when UVs are required and when not. I thought that shaders do not require UV maps. I guess that if you are putting an image like a photo on a surface it needs a UV map? But I don't know how to make a UV map.

WendyLuvsCatz

you don't have to make a UV map and cannot in DAZ studio anyway 

but it has UVs already and the layout is 3 x 2 flat mapped faces so if you want to texture it you need to put the tiling values I posted for a full image on each.

creating different surfaces means you can use different images on each one 

marble

WendyLuvsCatz said:

you don't have to make a UV map and cannot in DAZ studio anyway 

but it has UVs already and the layout is 3 x 2 flat mapped faces so if you want to texture it you need to put the tiling values I posted for a full image on each.

creating different surfaces means you can use different images on each one 

 I didn't realise that primitives have a UV map. OK - that makes more sense now. I always think of a cube flat map as a kind of cross butI'm not sure if that is what you mean by 3x2 (seems more like 3x4 to me):

WendyLuvsCatz

they can be mapped like that but the DAZ cube isn't 

its a rectangle of 3 x 2 squares

just select the surface and look in UV view in the viewport