Adding to Cart…
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.You currently have no notifications.
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Thanks you two. Yes, that was a tough week for Rosie and me. We have little mini shrines to Celie in nice little nooks around the apartment.
I have access to all the Windows 10 voices and languages thanks to a registry hack I shared in another thread but will share the video again
(there is an executable to do it for you)
I can use them in Balabolka, iClone and Crazytalk
Piranha North Studio is owned and operated by my Singer with the full time help of our wonderful Audio/Visual technician
It was started at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic as an answer to all of the public concerts that otherwise would have been cancelled. We kept strict pandemic safety rules and broadcast the concerts live stream. Now it's where we practice as well. The gear is top-notch and growing all the time. These guys are real artists and have a lot of experience.
Here's a recent performance by some of our local friends - Changing Lanes Rocks! But check out the sound from this incredible building. It looks so cool inside - huge arched beams to accommodate the ships that used to get built or repaired in here. It's right on the canal in the area that used to be only ship builders.
...and just for fun, here's my band (I'm the drummer) at a really cool day gig - just a short sample
@Dartanbeck That is very cool, its nice to have a group that will work with you too
the 1 good thing I a like about using Ai voices is the ability to change "accents", tone/pitch, and languages without having to have a good character actor or a bunch of different actor/actresses that can speak different languages it just makes it convenient. for someone that does not have access to a group of people. But like you I try to make animations that do not require much speech
I have to admit to an error I wrote earlier. In the Car Chase scene I'm rendering, there are actually more thsan 160 LoRez Predatron figures animated about - not over 400! That's a big difference. However, the way I use Constant Tweener to jump groups of them into different positions, they create the effect of having over 200 people.
Even with the correction, that's still a lot of animated people to fit within Cuda render range.
Predatron's LoRez people are made for exactly this sort of thing: Need people in the background without chewing up resources? Turn to these folks.
If you don't own any of them, I have to tell you something, in case you ever need them.
Loretta and Lorenzo, the two main packs - they're not required at all for the other packs to work, but by having them, all of their various options work with those other packs - which is Enormously Awesome! Here's a bit of what I mean:
Both Loretta and Lorenzo come with many different texture options, morphs, morphforms and clothing options. They have textures and morphs that individualize them - proper names morphs will give them a whole new individuality. They also have skin map presets for White, Black, Hispanic and Asian skin. I'm rendering now, but I know that Lorenzo comes with morphs for like Alien, Orc, Zombie and other great shapes - I think Loretta might as well.
Without adding anything extra, we can use texture presets to give them many different clothing options. But there are preset LoRez figures that come clothed already, then use the presets to change them in all manner of ways.
I used to say that they work well with V4 and M4 aniBlocks - which I still do, as this is still true. We just need to adjust the foot angle due to generation 4's different way of handling that. However, Genesis aniBlocks really work great without having to tweak the feet like that! Also, Predatron was giving his figures morphforms (pose-assisting dials) even before Daz started doing it, i think. Either way, all Predatron figures have them - and good ones too. These are what got me wanting to make my Anim + dials, which are also morphforms.
So after we apply an aniBlock (or several...) to our LoRez figures, we cna change the pose along the way using these wonderful dials, without messing up the keyframes of the original motion data - which is very helpful, and very fast and easy to do. A simple example would be to use the Pose > Neck morphforms to turn the head in the middle of a walk. But we can do many other things, like I'll have Rosie put her hair back. I have some of my LR people doing things with their arms and hands.
Some more notes about the LoRez series by Predatron (no, I'm not getting paid to say this stuff! LOL):
LoRez MU14 Workers make fantastic pilots, astronauts, fire fighters... anyone we need to have dressed up in a suit with helmet and breathing tanks!
LoRez Masked Super Hero is very versatile for any figure we need who is wearing a jumpsuit or similar - and especially if we want them wearing a mask. They make great ninjas!
LoRez Monks and all of their options look great as background townsfolk and travelers in fantasy scenes
...and I can just keep going on. The point is, with these folks we not only get the goodness of LoRez background bodies, but their initial intentions make them even more versatile in ways that don't require us to go looking for multitudes of costumes just for our background folk!
Finally, the LoRez animals and monsters and creatures are really, really cool! Goblin and Troglodyte might not actually be LoRez, but the have lower rez options that come right with the main figure - LR map options as well! Very Cool! Pred's Dragon is Tolkien all the way, and looks fantastic - literally! Angor is a beast! The Giant Fantasy Spider is freaking Scary! LoRez Upland Troll is Massive and fun! LoRez Skeleton is gorgeous!
I have the LoRez animal bundle that includes Horse, Dog, Cat, Pig, Mouse and Crow. I haven't played with all of them yet, but the horse and crow are So cool!!! The horse comes with everything you need for a horse with multitudes of options! The dog comes in a whole lot of breeds, too!
So if you need to populate that scene, but still want to keep within an exceptable range, this is one 3d dynamic way of doing it that is night and day more flexible than using billboards! (not to say anything bad about billboards, however)
Three LoRez Masked Hero and Predatron's Droid figures
Troglodytes tormenting Genesis 1 Abominable
A bunch of Masked Heroes with Loretta
Many shapes and sizes of Loretta and Lorenzo to form groups of families
Back when Iray was first introduced to Daz Studio, I still really didn't have much of a clue how to use Studio, but I have spherical map creator presets in my Carrara EnvironKit series, so this was me (still a Daz PA back then) trying my hand at making an Iray dome using my Carrara kits. Now that I actually have the means to create HDRI (this one was a tif, I think) I might have another stab at this - eventually.
These Corpo Cyborgs don't have much of their human selves left, except for their brain - a brain that has been trained and manipulated to do the company's bidding since a very young age
The cybernetic heart has the ability to rapidly create combat stimulants and aggressors of various types and inject them directly, making them highly formidable in the defense of their domain and offense of others. They are relentless, yet due to their human brains, they still require occasional sleep and food.
Yet another magical reason to continue using and collecting Generation 4 content, especially if we've been collecting poses and animation data for them. This is another incredibly powerful creation by the Hexagon Master: DzFire!
Okay, I have a large (and continuously growing) collection of Jen Greenlees shaders, so I am very confident when going back to generations early enough to not include Iray shaders.
One thing puzzles me, however: When trying to apply an Iray material to an earlier generation surface, it won't do anything. The usual solution is to first use the Daz Iray Uber Base, and then it will apply as normal.
But for some reason it's not working with this guy. It's not a problem for me because I also enjoy setting up materials myself - my Carrara pals already know this about me.
Still, I wish I knew how to overcome this. A lot of her Iray shaders have special options and features that I wanted to try - but when I double click the preset with the surface selected, no changes occur. It's already using an Iray Uber Base material, so I'm not sure why it doesn't take.
This major baddy is Fantastic!!! I wish I could just run sequenced images at 30fps on here to show how cool this realy looks.
He's standing in shallow goo, which helps to explain that his feet get sunk into the surface. He's delivering a speech to his minions - and it turned out so well that I excitedly called Rosie in to have a look - she is highly impressed.
Using these Face Controls is really fun - and highly effective for adding micro-movements to the face during animated timelines.
The above bad guy is no exception! I've really become a Josh Crockett fan - his creations animate nicely and look fantastic in camera!
I've created an entire library in three categories of Anim + dials for this rig setup.
To make this tool work on Genesis 3, we have to first use the facial rigging of Genesis 8, and the product comes with simple instructions - as well as a video version - to set it up. For folks like this bad dude, who are already Genesis 8, we just add the thing like it was clothing.
The product also comes with nice instructions and demonstrations of its use - very cool!
The whole reason I made the major leap from quasi-real, but more painterly using V4, M4 and earlier into using Genesis, then Genesis 3+, was watching Alita Battle Angel for the first time.
Shortly after I started on this path, Daz 3d released Genesis 8.1, which comes with a rig just like this. Blew me away!
I couldn't take the leap into 8.1 then, but I already created a similar set of tools using Anim + dials for Genesis 3 - using a plethora of morphs from Genesis 3, but also V4, A4, G4, Reby Sky 4, SP4, Genesis 1 and 2.
I'd combine a bunch of subtle morph settings and ERC them into a dial. I have a whole lot of these dials.
This product can be used to create the shapes using the gizmo, and then make the dial directly onto the base (Genesis 3, in this case) figure. Instead, I created a plethora of dials directly on the tool itself - so I can use the dials completely separate from the dials used on the figure.
That's a mouthful, but if you do a lot of micro-movements of facial muscles in your animations, it'll make sense to you.
Very worthwhile purchase that I am ever gratefult to have made!
!!!WARNING!!!
Watching the following video might make you addicted to pushing yourself beyond your personal limits!!! Truly!!!
Please keep in mind that Weta Digital is made up of Teams of genius artists working in tandum on a single thing to make it the best that it can possibly be within the budget and time constraints of the project.
I try to keep this in mind as I push forward on my own, personal project - yet I've ended up starting over from scratch many (Many) times after making a new attempt at a fresh, new Rosie figure. I've dumped a whole lot of completed Iary rendered animations to a backup drive - using names like Rosie 768. Rosie 786, Rosie 876, Rosie xxx - you get the idea. Each new Rosie would get animated, clothes and hair simulated, lighting and cameras set, and finally rendered and stored. So each time I started over lost hundreds of hours of work!
Although I've recently noticed a few things I'm not too crazy about with this new Rosie 7, I'm just going to keep using her for now as she is - and keep her name Rosie 7. I can make improvements after I'm done with this project. By then I'll probably adopt Genesis 9 (?)
This is a great little short done by Weta Digital about animating Alita from Rosa's live performances - it's mind-blowing and highly inspirational!
I bought the Art of Alita Battle Angel book, and it delves even deeper into the workflow processes used.
For the clothing, the costume designer created real world young teen outfits for Alita to wear, and they made them to fit a young actress that fit the real world size that Alita should appear to be.
The clothing design patterns were also given to the 3D art department, who made them using Marvelous Designer.
Actual footage was then folmed of the young teen actress performing while wearing the real world outfits, and those films were used in the simulation department to ensure the most realistic folds and physical simulations they could muster. That's why her clothes look like they actually cut them out from real, live action footage - but they didn't.
It's a great book about the making of a great movie!!!
The written material is Fantastic!!! But I bought the book for the amazing images. What a pleasant surprise to find so much wonderful text within!
My Alita Battle Angel Inspirations Page (I see that I have some video links to fix - please be patient - I'm really busy right now)
She sneaks up and takes him out!!!
One less Cyber Soldier to worry about!
I just got this Sci-Fi retro Suit for Genesis 8 Females
Rosie is a Genesis 3 Female
After auto-fit, which works really well thanks to my Sickleyield stuff, I added Fit Control and opened it a little, made the abs part more low-rise style.
I added dForce and a dForce Weight painting node, made it shrink in the surfaces tab and gave it plenty of stretch and the ability to buckle and bend, but also reduced the dynamic strenth down to 30 on the top, 15 on the pants, and 0 for the zipper. Using Geometry Editor I already removed the belt loops and patches. If I didn't remove them, I'd also set those to zero, and they'd just follow the cloth like the zipper will. The pants section will only nudge as it needs to, while the top portion will have a bit more motion - but not much.
I lowered the dynamic strength way down because this is the sort of suit that isn't going to behave like linen - but more like leather. So I didn't want it flapping around. To that end I also bumped the Damping up to .2 and I shrunk it so it would take her shape nicely and not be baggy. And buckle and bend to give it everything it needs to take those shapes at will.
Using the Geometry editor and a good angle with the camera, I lassoed a selection of the collar. I want this to stay in that shape and not shrink. So with that selection I switched to weight painting mode, selected the dForce weight node, in tool settings added a map, right-click in an empty part of the viewport > Weight Editing > Fill Selected > 0
Then I slected a small area where this new gray color meets the red - selected around both sides carefully > right-click > Weight Editing > Smooth Selected weith both setting somewhere around 65 if I remember correctly.
When I started the simulation, I notice the bottoms of the pants shrinking and rising and... so I stopped the sim, went back to frame 0. selected the bottom ruffle area and then some, Right-click > Fill Selected > 0 / and then also made amnother selection to smooth that transition.
Boom. Nice! The gloves and boot also auto-fitted very nicely! Thanks Sickleyield!!! Love your wonderful helpfuls!!!
dForce doesn't have to only create flowy movements. Even adding a bit of natural shape changes withn the animation can make the entire clip more visual appealing in motion.
Man, I hate this keyboard! Always hitting the wrong keys!!! My new mouse is even Worse!!! Argh!
Image of results coming soon. Simulating hair a bit so she isn't bald! LOL
Here's the result of the above post
If it's the ones I'm thinking of, Riversoft Art deserves more credit than I do, but I'm glad it's working for you. ;)
dForce + MG can create very nice effects. It's really worthy using on the old stuffs~ Nice work!!
dForcing Whymsy
I've tried this before, but I was still so green with dForce that I overthought everything and went nuts weight painting.
Today I have Whymsy behaving beautifully, and without any weight painting at all.
The whole key for this one is a dForce Surface property called "Dynamic Strength"
For Contraction/Expansion I left the skirt alone, but set both chest cloth surfaces to 85 to tighten them up, and the collar cloth to 102 to expand it a bit. This sort of thing is all done to taste for the situation and the individual artist - what you're going for. When I contract cloth to tighten it, I alway add stetch - either by hand or using the magic button from the hamburger menu. So if you shrink something and it blows apart, either you're shrinking too much or there isn't enough stretch. Sometimes both.
When I dForce, whether or not I start from a memorized pose, I always let it drape (Initialization - Simulation tab) at a value of 0.5 to let it settle before going through the 30 frame cushion I give it before the actual animation takes place. If this seems like overkill... don't do it. I have found that the results I get from the hair is greatly benefitted by this extra drape, and everything else is so much quicker than the hair, I don't mind.
That extra drape initialization really helps me determine my dForce surface adjustments for Contraction/Expansion, as it'll be in full effect by the end of that initialization period. If I want to tweak it, I'll often know right away, so I can cancel the sim, make adjustments and start again.
Another thing to keep in mind with dForce is that many animations and poses will cause the upper arms to intersect with the chest when the arms are lowered. Be mindful of this and carefully repose the arms to avoid intersection. If your cloth is blowing up, most of the cases I'm experienced with, this is the cause! My Anim + dials help immensely on a per-joint adjustment level - but it's amazing how well we can correct this with only Arms Up/Down, Arms Front/Back, Shoulders Fwd/Back and Shoulders Shrug. If those aren't enough, and you don't have any custom dials to help, the graph editor can help. But that's another discussion.
Keep in mind that, after the simulation is complete, we can delete the key frames that changed the arms, etc., those aaded poses were ONLY to prevent cloth explosion!!!
Sometimes I also simply remove the sleeves from the clothing. Other options can be to simply disable certain parts of the cloth from simulation in the Surfaces tab.
I also create special "Partial" aniBlocks - some are just the arms, some are the arms and head (and neck, etc.,) some might be just one arm or one arm and the head/neck. I use these as Sub-Track aniBlocks that I can add to other animations. It really adds to the amount of possibilities I get to start from using aniMate before I ever get to the timeline tweaks with my Anim + dials!
This information will all be in my articles when I get them up - but I like to put some out there in this thread in case anyone is having troubles be I get there.
Nope. Your own clones and clothing fixers! Unless he had his hands in that too?
But don't get me wrong... I'm also very grateful to Riversoft Art too!!!
Thanks! :)
Umm... curious. What's MG? Pardon my ignorance! LOL
More on dForcing non-dForce content:
For things like Whymsy, by Aeon Soul, please try and be patient if the simulation takes a little longer.Some of these conforming clothing products - especially Aeon Soul's, have a high level of beautifully crafted mesh detail. This often requires more polygons, which is awesome for good simulations, but can also take a little longer to simulate, especially if we want to retain some of that detail, which can be achieved in several ways, which I'll discuss later.
Impatience seems to be a leading factor in complaints about failed simulations.
Take your time thinking things through and looking at the available options.
Take your time and let dForce do its thing.
Yes, there are some other simulators out there that can handle some pretty intense simulations fairly quickly. But keep in mind that, sometimes the examples shown are nowhere near as complex as simulating Whymsy on a highly detailed character figure, like Rosie 7.
In my very honest opinion, dForce being added to Daz Studio was a very good move, as it has proven to me to work really well (I mean REALLY WELL) with almost no prior knowledge on a very wide scope of content.
I say Bravo to the developers of dForce!!!
I say Bravo to Daz 3d developers for doing such a wonderful job of adding it to Daz Studio!!!
I remember that one of my best learns from SY is to fit G3 garment on G8 by changing Scene ID instead of auto-fitting, from which I benefit a lot~ And CW and Turbo Loader from RSA~ Grateful!
Mesh Grabber lah~
Most of Rosie's individual animations are six seconds worth of animation or less.
Those that are six seconds usually take about an hour or more for the hair to simulate. Some folks might find this to be unacceptable. For me, it's GOLD!
Coming from Carrara, the hair simulation time really hit me hard. Carrara's dynamic strand-based hair simulates incredibly fast. Well it turns out that dForce strand-based hair simulates rather immediate as well - and many clothes products simulate right in front of our eyes as well.
Linday's Classic Long Curly Hair (and others in that family) are a different situation. They are very special, carefully designed figures to produce simulating hair that retains a very natural amount of 'body'. That's not easy at all to achieve in a physics sim. Simulated mesh likes to 'find flat' as it heads in gravity's direction. I am ever grateful that Linday made it possible for me to ignore trying to achieve this on my own! And I LOVE how it looks in my animations!!!
So... what are you doing with Mesh Grabber... how does one use that? I'm still a DS noob!
Just use it to manipulate the object geometry by grabbing, draging, pushing, rotating, for resizing / reshaping objects, fixing poke-thru, improving JCMs, even creating new head / body morphs, etc. For most of the cases, I don't have to resort to modeling / sculpting software.
Alright, then. Into the Wish List it goes! Thanks!
Have you tried any of the Fit Control products? They're amazingly useful! I transform clothing into things that are barely even similar, sometimes. Other times I just use it to adjust the fit, or the style in which it's worn.