Making the toon bus bigger/longer ... is it possible?
WillowRaven
Posts: 3,787
in The Commons
I want to use the Toon Bus for a children's book, but I'd like it to be a touch longer to hold more kids. How would one modify the existing bus to make that happen?
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modeling app like Blender or hexagon
ugh ... I have Hex, but never could figure it out.
I bought mesh grabber a long time ago and never figured it out, either, lol ... would it work easier rather than trying to learn a whole software in an hour?
I seriously doubt meshgrabber could do the job since you would need to do more than just move some vertices. basically you have to remodel it and UV map it again. What you could try is load 3 versions of it and use the geometry tool to hide parts of the geometry to make it look longer. One version would be the front with the back hidden. the second version would be the middle with the front and back hidden and then the third version would be the back with the front hidden and all versions combined. Would be about the same about of work as redoing it in a modeling app.
If I knew how to use any of the modeling apps, that may be true, lol, but since I don't maybe Frankensteining it would be easier. I've done that before for other weird things I couldn't find. Thanks :)
Not having looked at the asset in DS (I don't have it), your big issue is going to be the placement of the rear axle. What I was going to suggest is using the Geometry editor to chop the bus in half (i.e. delete all of the polygons forward of a certain point, save it as it's own .duf file with a different name, then quit Daz and restart it again, load the bus, chop off the front of the bus at some point, save as it's own .duf file, then load the rear of the bus and position it so that it overlaps slightly...
This would assume that the polygons for the bus at your 'separation points' are more or less vertical, and not zigzagging.
The reason why I'm recommending saving, quitting, then restarting DS is that I've seen weird behavior with polygons re-appearing when you do this sometimes. This mainly applies to duplicating primitives where they 'fall back' to one of the original shapes when you save then re-load, which is where saving each 'modified' shape to a separate .duf file then re-importing them into a new DS session comes in...
But, again, that rear axle messes with this strategy. I suppose you could make it a six wheeler, i.e. chop off the front door/driver seat area, save as own .duf file, then chop off the bus behind the rear axle, save again as own .duf file, then load the two .duf files and position the rear version just behind the new front version, making a six wheeler.
Not sure how the seat positioning would work out though. You may also end up with a long window in the back instead of separate windows, I suppose you could use a couple of daz cylinder primitives (4 or 8 sided) to add a vertical bar in the middle of the window making it sorta kinda two windows, and use cube primitives scaled and positioned appropriately for seats, with cylinder primitives underneath for legs...
But there may be seat, etc. alignment issues here, which is why people are recommending sending it to Hexagon or Blender. That way you could bridge polygons after you chop the bus at some point, to 'fill in' the area between the front and the back of the bus, but my experience has been that this often 'resets' the texture groups in Hexagon, which means you'd need to re-define the texture groups. I suppose you could chop the bus into two pieces inside of DS, then send it to Hexagon, bridge it, then chop off the front and back sections and send the center section back to DS after defining the orange and black sections...
In short, if you REALLY want to go to the trouble, this would be a good time to learn Hexagon... or Blender maybe.
Your other option might be a shuttle bus. There's one by Vanishing Point over at Renderosity. It's not as toon looking, but it is a little bit longer...
Not sure if you could reach out to 3ddoji to see if the PA might be interested in making a longer version of the bus, might be worth a shot but PA's are usually focused on their next projects.
For a slightly longer toonish bus have you considered using A Curious Bus
Might be time to learn since you do this commercially. Personally, I feel there are two things every person working with Daz products needs to have installed, an image editor and a modeling app sine they are the basis for 3D.
I would try to make a morph for you if you buy me the bus! :)
Texture might need work too, to avoid stretching.
Another potential option, multiple buses in a row with some parts hidden.
Without having a detailed look at the model, I would consider inserting the bus in multiple times. Hide the back half of the first bus so you have the hood, front wheels, door, and steering wheel. Similarly, hide the front half of the last bus to get the back of the bus. Use the middle of the other buses to get middle seats and extend the bus. This method depends a lot on how the model is constructed. If it is a figure, for example, wheels may be separate parts and turned off with just the eye in the scene tab. Some parts can probably be turned off by setting opacity to zero in the surfaces tab. For other parts, might have to use the geometry editor to create a new surface called alpha or something.
If you look at the model, you may find that approach quite difficult due to the location of the rear axle - It's too close to the door.
All of you are right ... I need to learn Hex and if I also need to piece-part this, it's also going to be a lot of work.
Luckily for me, the author liked my initial draft using the bus as-is and also happened to lessen the number of characters in the story, so fewer kids = smaller bus. Whew!
But I still have a feeling I'll need to revisit this need for a longer toon bus son for another project coming up. So all of these ideas are going to help me.
If you need a longer bus I can do a special version for you for free. Just send me a mail at (email removed by mod for security purposes) with an exemple of what you want.
(please use the site PM system for direct contact and instruct from there)
OMGoodness ... You are so amazing ... Sending you PM now. :)
One thing I've found with the geometry editor. If you are modifying a model that you *ever* expect to use in a scene with the original version of the model, then *save your modified cipy with a different name*.
Otherwise, as soon as you merge it into a scene with the original, or try to load a copy of the original into the same scene, the program will apply all your modifications to the original model.
In the case of the Toon bus, I'd take the artist up on the offer. There is effectively no actual bus in the original model. Where it needs to be extended is between the back of the door section and the rear wheel well, and there simply is nothing there. Otherwise, you could split it behind the door, and save each half by a dfferent name. And then take another copy, split off the back of the bus behind the wheel well, remove the back panel/door, save that as another name and then insert copied of that between the door and the wheelwell until you have it the right length. But keeping all the pieces together is going to be a mess.
Will you be making this availble to other customers, please?
In between two works, I have already the mesh for a 4 windows but not yet the correct texture neither the rig adapted. This is a WIP
uv corrected to match the textures of the school bus, no more distortion of the deck and the internal panel or the floor
The 4 window bus looks SO GOOD !
during lunch time, I work on a 6 windows bus
As usual, you are utterly fantastic 3djoji.
As a modelling suggestion, could it be done by splitting the bus in two at a window pillar in the middle of the bus, then moving the halves apart (by a translation morph for the aft section) and putting in integer multiples of a single window between the two halves? Rather in the way a commercial aircraft fuselage design is lengthened when a new varient is created. That way the user could extend the bus to ridiculous toonish extents (say 20 extra windows). This may be taking a mad idea to its illogical extreme, but I thought that was the point of toon stuff...
Regards,
Richard.
Yes this is a great idea but the design of such a bus requires more than the kind of extension I design for the pleasure of the requester. I will think about it, may be with a new bus design too.
I am beside myself with how awesome you are, 3djoji. And these look great. Now I can have a whole school-yard fleet :)
I love all of your toon stuff :)
May be ready for the end of the week. I will send you a link for downloading from my dropbox. The two extended bus use the same Iray textures as the original one, I just patch the UV for the new ones. I 'll provide also some more textures because if you foreseen a fleet, the bus number should change (let say 5 different numbers).
Oh man, you did it now, LOL Might need to change your email now since WillowRaven will be putting you on retainer for all those modeling jobs in the future
I know, right? :) I am offering payment of whatever kind he feels comfortable with. At the very least, I'll be sending people to his store :)
I feel confortable with do nothing. It is always a pleasure to get people out of troubles with my items. You are not the first, you won't be the last. It costs only the pleasure to do it.
Will you make this update available to other customers, too?
I'm thinking of that. May be I'll add it to the freebies of my site.
That would be nice.