Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Not that I'm aware of. Heck, they're just node setups, not objects, textures, or anything that I would call intellectual property. I assume anyone can now download the zip file from my link to ShareCG. Like I said before, maybe the reviewer at BlendSwap has something against using commercial pre-made content. I don't know. The explanation given didn't point at anything specific. That doesn't matter though. I just should have thought to use ShareCG to begin with.
i didn't read the whole instructions , but i thought you'd use mcjTeleBlender's lib_ mode to re-use your materials
the section of mcjteleblender's manual titled
"added june 26th 2012 another way to re-use custom materials (.blend files )"
though maybe it's not how your groups are made to work
------
i do'nt see why blendswap rejected the file, looks like they presumed it contained aiko5 or something like that
Casual, my hero coder. You are great. If I had money I would try to hire you.
If the daz guys could code like you I would still be a customer.
I will look into that. Now that I'm more familiar with Blender material nodes and DS, I should really reread your manual.
I've been trying to render a DS scene in Luxrender via Luxus, and it takes Forever to get a halfway decent result, using the default render settings. It's not the fault of Luxus, though I'm beginning to have my doubts about continuing with Luxrender. With Cycles, I would have a nice clean, composited result by now.
Added 3-14: Yes, Casual, I can see how my custom nodes could be renamed and then used by your script. For example, if I assign my "cornea" group to the 1_Cornea material in the Properties editor, I then rename it "lib_cornea". Is that right?
Remember that my nodes are meant to be as generic as possible. Once assigned to a material, you can alter the parameters of that material without affecting the other materials, even if they have the same node group. To make your changes on one material containing a custom node take effect on another material that already has the same node group, you must copy the changed material and paste it into the new one. The node groups themselves always remain unaffected, unless, of course, you 'Tab' into them and make internal changes. Changing the 'insides' of a custom node group affects all materials with that node group.
Why not just make an uber-material node? It could be done, and it probably has been done. You can look around the net and find one or just make your own. The only drawback I can think of is the extra rendering time caused by extra, unused nodes. Not all materials require complicated node setups. I think that's one of the advantages that give Cycles such relative speed.
I love mcjTeleBlender. Thank you Casual! :)
Image removed
Tofusan, that's very nice! (btw, I think it might violate the forum rules. There's a sticky thread on acceptable ways of handling nudity. I'm not offended at all, but a moderator might say otherwise.)
Just a couple of tips for anyone who read my post about using my custom node groups: When you first save your brand new .blend file in the directory you put your exported DAZ scene and 'Maps' folder', you need to go to 'File > External Data' and select 'Make all paths relative.' That way you can move the .blend file around, and so long as you have the textures in the same relative position to it, you won't have to reassign textures unnecessarily. Then save the .blend file again right away so you don't forget. ;)
On other script related stuff, I bought the African Village Toolkit by AM that was on sale a couple days ago. It contains a script to create a village of 60 low resolution huts on a desert plane. I added some fences and a few trees and props, but no figures. I exported to Blender, and my poor computer came to a virtual stop. Apparently 8 Gigs of RAM just isn't enough these days, so don't do it! Instead of following that route, I'm using the script to export objects by groups and individually. I plan to use Blender's excellent linking system, so I'm setting up a mini library of huts, fences, landscape, etc. I plan to do that with other scenes I have too. It just makes sense to me to spend less time in DS and more in Blender. :)
Thank you Daveleitz. I've re-uploaded the image because I don't want to be kicked out of this forum. :-)
This script is great, but the memory is not enough it seems to be a large scene. I think that would have used the memory capacity for texture image.I have investigated the material node of Blender, a number like .001 at the end of texture name has been added. I wonder if they share the image. Or, is it would be a copy of the image. If it is a copy, I can understand why the out of memory occurred.
Tofusan, that looks even better.
When I export a scene with three characters, hair and clothing, I run up to my memory limit pretty quickly. Too bad Daz Studio doesn't work in Wine (at least it didn't for me when I tried it). Linux OS (Ubuntu 12.10 on my system) leaves more memory for the user than Windows 7. Also, maybe some of the memory requirement has to do with the automated node creation process. Once I save my .blend file and exit Blender, I close DS 4.5. Then I reopen the .blend file in Blender and memory usage is much, much lower. Rendering a scene with three figures, hair, clothes, and not too complex environment is not a problem for me (yet).
Thank you, Daveleitz. I'll try your Tips.
When rendering using the CUDA, all meshes and textures are placed in the memory of the GPU. My GTX670 is not only equipped with 2G memory. The reason would be out of memory has occurred.
Works quite nicely for me...at least the 32 bit version does. The 64 bit version has odd problems, but I'm not worrying about it until after I get my new system built.
And no, I've done nothing special, just a standard WINE prefix and DS install.
---------------------------------------------------------
1 liner batch file to help animation renders
---------------------------------------------------------
knowing that batch files can be dangerous when misused
if you're comfortable with the use of msdos batch files
this batch file
will copy the file class.mtl over the files class0.mtl, class1.mtl ... class 100.mtl
For example, you tweaked class.mtl file so that it uses down-scaled texture images
( because Aiko 5's gigantic texture images were crashing Blender Cycles )
this can save quite a bit of time during mcjTeleblender's export
phase since you don't need to use the "collect maps" option
the blender-python script that converts the .obj/.mtl materials
into node-based materials is on the lookout for materials
that use image files with the prefix "lib_" ,
when such a material is found, "lib_cornea.jpg" for example,
then the definition of the material in the .mtl file is ignored,
and a material with the name lib_cornea will be imported from the .blend file
which you specified in mcjTeleblender.
in the example below, the material named lib_cornea will be sought in C:\matLib.blend
welcome ! i used your A3 clothes and LuxRender plugin some times
here's how i handle memory issues which occur more often when using Aiko5 for example
i export the scene using mcjTeleblender's "Collect maps" option
blender is running
before rendering
i go in the maps folder and run a this batch file
which makes use of the freeware imagemagick to down-size Aiko 5's maps and her hair's maps
then i can render using Cycles/CUDA
-----
for animations, i can export 1 frame with the "collect maps" option enabled
i close Blender
i down-size the images maps in the Maps folder
i export my 100 animation frames without the "collect maps" option
i use the batch file
to replace the 100 mtl files with the one that uses the images in the Maps folder
.
.
.
i hope to eventually come up with a less scary way of doing this :)
You should be able to call Imagemagik directly from the main script...maybe offer it as an option with a checkbox or something. Of course you'd have to tell everyone to install it, for that feature to work (or maybe do a check for it....)
You should be able to call Imagemagik directly from the main script...maybe offer it as an option with a checkbox or something. Of course you'd have to tell everyone to install it, for that feature to work (or maybe do a check for it....)
or use Daz Studio's built-in Image functions, there's also some care to be taken to avoid having people accidentally re-size originals
I know it's not quite the same, but I used to have for XP and still do for Linux additions to the right click context menu to use Imagemagik to resize images and the ones I used made a copy (default)...it would be a bit more coding, but something like that would probably be better...especially if it renamed the original to something like filename-orig.jpg (or whatever) and used the name for the resized image.
@mjc1016, yes I tried the 64 bit installation. I will give the 32 bit version a go.
@casual, thanks for that clarification. I will try to find some time this weekend to experiment with the settings.
@tofusan, my graphics adapter is ATI, so no acceleration for me :( I usually have no problem rendering a scene with large textures, however. I seriously think my next computer will need a much better processor because I'm beginning to see that there are hard limits to what opencl can do in any case being limited by the graphical memory.
That said, last night I went through all the components of AM's African Village Toolkit and exported items individually through the Script. I set up a 'DAZ assets' library of .blend files and associated textures. I copied the textures directly from my runtime because I noticed that the textures saved by the Script are much smaller in size (disk size, not resolution). That got me thinking that maybe resaving jpegs isn't a good idea because it will tend to produce artifacts.
This morning I set up a quick desert scene in Blender with linked assets from the library I had created, plus one linked figure I had set up previously. I linked in one landscape, one acacia tree, one clump of grass, and one shrub. I then created a proxy of the landscape and gave it three particle systems for trees, grass, and shrubs. In this way I was able in less than half an hour to have a complete landscape with 20 randomly placed trees, 2000 clumps of grass, and 1000 shrubs. The particles were set to give random rotations and scales. Try doing that in Daz Studio in less than a half hour! ;) I can also go back to my library assets and make simple variations in trees, for example, and then link to the group. The particle system will insert modified the meshes to add even more variety to my scene. I haven't done this part yet; just thinking ahead.
I also added about 5 minutes setting up a simple compositing network for color balance and contrast. Blender only required just under 2 GB and less than 10 minutes to render this test image.
or you can select interactive update
That African scene is beautiful daveleitz68! Did you use any of your custom material nodes for that scene? Also, where do we get your custom nodes again? Are they in the file that you uploaded to sharecg that blendswap would not take?
Thanks,
Marcus
i'm making a mental note in 3 copies :)
Marcus, you can find the custom node groups here:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/67957/view/7/Material-and-Shader/Blender-Cycles-materials-for-DAZ-Studio-characters
I do have a figure in the scene that uses the custom node groups. It's Tyrese for M5 using tribal paint textures. Couldn't do a close-up because he's nekkid! ;) Well, it's supposed to be Africa, right? Anyway, I'm going to clothe him later. I want to do a village scene too with some women dressed appropriately. Not trying to be totally accurate, though, just playing with ideas at this time. The rest of the scene is all mcjTeleBlender nodes. I use the optional 'mix shaders' python file by Casual. There is one sun lamp and an environment map in the world settings. I also like to use about 0.1 ambient occlusion.
Please remember, my custom node groups are not a 'one click' solution like the mcjTeleBlender script. There's nothing really difficult about using them either.
Here's a new render from the African Village Tooklit by AM, starring Tyrese for M5. He's wearing the hat from Morphing Business suit (Just Chill textures) and Leathered Up jeans. Tyrese and his clothing use my custom node groups. The rest of the scene has basic mcjTeleBlender nodes with optional 'mix shader' setup.
It's still a work in progress, of course. I noticed a few things that need to be changed-added-fixed. One of the more obvious problems is 'floating grass.' That wasn't noticable until I had set the sun lamp at such a low angle and rendered at a high enough resolution to see the problem. It's an easy fix, though, for the next render. I just went into the asset file I had created and linked to, and I changed the object origin on the grass mesh. Now, when it is used by the particle system, it should properly intersect with the ground plane. I would also like to add a fake horizon to give more depth to the scene but still show proper atmospheric perspective. Once again, with a little testing it should be an easy fix.
interesting image with a lot of details
wonder what would be the way to add light fog in the distance,
though maybe that area is very dry
interesting image with a lot of details
wonder what would be the way to add light fog in the distance,
though maybe that area is very dry
I was just watching a video this morning from Blender Cookie.com which is all about adding 'mist.' It is a different scene than this, but of course the colors could be adjusted. Anyway, watching and understanding are two different things. I was making breakfast and playing with some new dynamic clothing in DS. So much to learn and so much to do!!
http://cgcookie.com/blender/2013/03/11/creating-mist-blender-cycles-z-depth/
Here's a quick render of Stonemason's Derelict Corners environment that I got on sale yesterday (still on sale today). Exported with mcjTeleBlender script using optional 'mix shader' py script. Added sun lamp (set at 20) in Blender, and set world light to 0.1 and ambient occlusion to 0.4.
And now for something completely different... (This thread is kind of an unofficial Blender render thread, isn't it?)
Sam and Sadie toons for Genesis! I've been waiting for 3DU stuff to go on sale. These kids don't get enough love in these forums, imo. :)
I used my custom nodes with some changes here and there, except for Sadie's outfit, which is just mcjTB script nodes. Sam thinks he's a big boy now, so he's trying on some of Michael's Dynamic Clothing. Sadie thinks this is just hilarious because they are obviously too big for him! Too bad for Sam that this won't change anytime soon. ;)
Another great scene daveleitz68! How did you make that Sun? That is a beautiful sunset!
Also, how many total samples are you using in your final cycles renders?
Marcus
Another great scene daveleitz68! How did you make that Sun? That is a beautiful sunset!
Also, how many total samples are you using in your final cycles renders?
Marcus
Thank you Marcus! The sunset is one of the textures that come with AM's African Village Toolkit. Since it was made for DS, it is applied to a skydome object in DAZ Studio. But in Blender I don't use the skydome. I just load the environment texture set as equirectangular in the World settings tab of the Properties Editor. I don't have that file on this netbook, so I can't remember all the details as far as ambient occlusion and strength. There is also a sun lamp set to point in the same direction that the environment map's 'sun' is pointing. That is how I got sharp shadows and contrast. I also used some basic compositing nodes in the end. I've had lots on my plate this week playing with new March Madness products I've bought, so no new progress has been made on this scene yet.
As to the number of samples I use, I can't remember the exact setting, but it was probably 150 or 200. I get fairly noise free renders by setting "clamp" to 1.5 and "filter glossy" to 0.012 in the render tab.
Here's another render, this time featuring AM's Ultimo Paraiso environment. To export the basic set with minimal vegetation, you really need at least 8 gigs of RAM. If you want to render in Blender with a character or two, you really need at least 8 gigs of RAM. Did I tell you that this environment is pretty heavy on resources? ;)
After export, I had to make some material changes and fixes. There's just too much to go into, but if anyone has a question, I'll be happy to give my specs on this scene. I consider this a test render, but most of my changes to the basic environment are finished. (For example, I did add some bump to the coconut trunks after I saw this render result.)