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Puhh the contest this month seems a big challenge. To bad i have not much time to render, because i spend most of my free time to build at our new house.
Hope to have more time later this month, so I can enter this very interest contest.
Here's what I left running overnight.
If I had that ball of fire behind me I think I would be in a bigger hurry.
But he might know something I do not.
Did you apply a texture to the floor and walls? Have you tired playing with the horizontal and/or vertical tiling and offset in the Surfaces Tab?
I like the scar and the determination on his face. He is very focused on his mission.
I would assume it's the other way around, that we as viewers know something he doesn't, ie, that there's a ball of fire behind him.
Hi Kathryn,
Thanks for jumping in to this discussion (which I really think we should be having somewhere else...!) I DO use the install manager for everything I buy in the store. Most of the time the installations go off without a hitch. I wish everything was that easy!
The problems start when I get a freebie from somewhere else, (...like for this month's project in this thread...) and have to figure out where to unzip them so they shows up in Studio. Am I missing something? Is there a way to use the install manager for non-DAZ purchased products?
That would solve a lot...
I am going to have to take a closer look at KA1's suggestions (and others!) and get this under control. It's so intrusive to have the learning interrupted by technical stuff not related to the art...
Thanks!
David
That would be awesome thank you!
That's simple enough then. Thanks!
I will trackdown the thread where I learned how to organize my content when I have a chance to sit down a bit later. I still have to hunt for the freebies but I only have to do it once and then its organized.
Added this to the opening post list, as well.
It looks as if Kismet2012 has answered this but I'll add my 2 cents worth. You can save it as a jpg or png but jpg is better if you're saving space. You're right in the way you're bringing in the map but if it doesn't look right you maybe missing something. I have been putting together a simple pdf tutorial on this as it helps me remember what I did... (may not be the best or most correct way but worked for me). if you like I could post it here as it may help those who want to work in photoshop to create materials and textures without needing to know too much. I'm not sure about Photoshop elements but I beleive it works in the same way.
Ah I see said the blind man, lol! So sorry with everything going nutso with my dad, it's hard for me to keep up with such a fast moving thread. I know this was mentioned in a post but I'm the kind of gal who likes visual aides so I put together this for ya.
I'm not aware of any way to get Install Manager to work with this stuff, if there is one, I hope folks let us know, so I feel your pain on this one. If the artist has included documentation, it should tell you where to find it. If not, then you're winging it here. But here's what I do.
First off, do you use 7zip? This utility makes everything easier to follow. You can do this using the Windows unzip utility but 7zip is free and can do a lot more than the Windows utility. You can download it here.
Here's a zipped file that I have that's not Install Manager user friendly.
Using 7zip, right click the file and on the popup go to 7zip then Open Archive.
7zip opens revealing the contents of the zip file - what you're looking for is the RUNTIME.
In the next image, to save attachment space, I have things numbered in order.
1, Click on Extract
2. Click on the "..." button.
3. Navigate to your My Daz Library, typically at c:/users/public/public documents/my daz 3D library
There you will see the folder Runtime - DO NOT UNZIP DIRECTLY TO RUNTIME. Instead, unzip to My Daz 3D Library. The folders will merge or it will pop up and ask you what you want to do. If you copy Runtime to Runtime it will become a subfolder underneath your RUNTIME and won't work.
The trick is doing the categories and tags right AFTER you download something new, if you let it stack up then it gets really frustrating.
I hope this helps make the previous suggestions clearer and try 7zip if you don't have it, it's just a bit more user friendly.
Maybe later we can have a mod move this to where it won't get in the way.
Now, I have to respond to some really great critques and suggestions I received on my entry! lol!
Cheers,
Kath
Wow..Thanks Kathryn!
This is really helpful. It seems I was doing this right for the most part. I did make mistakes earlier on, so I have runtime folders all over the place...
: /
I have resisted suggestions to make my own categories and tags, and take control of the file structure myself, but I am probably going to have to break down and do it. I'm sure I will wish I had done so long ago once it's done to my preferences etc.
One suggestion you made was to get the 7zip utility, which I did.
Thanks again!
"D"
Thank you both for some really fantastic suggestions!
I realized that for this render I didn't have the Depth of Field turned on with the camera! WHOOPS! I fixed that in this render and adjusted the settings so it looks a bit better I think and I didn't cut anything off.
Cris - you're right about the background, I've tried changing up the angle but I might have to dump it all together. Because of my textures I've had to start rending my elements separately, so I've removed the background for now. I just put up a black background in Photoshop so y'all can see details easier.
I am in the process of changing the shaders on his pants - the texture of the leather is too large and reminds me of the '70's nogahide craze. lol! - plus I got some new boots in the Medieval sale yesterday. I'm still having problems with poke through on his left calf and even reduced the size of his calf muscles. I think I got it small enough that I can fix that in post.
Now I really like how the lightning is turning out. In order to get the glow, I read up on Sickle Yield's atmosphere tutorial and another tut on changing the Bloom render settings. But that was changing the entire image - not what I wanted. So instead of using 3 materials which the lightning is set up to do, I knocked the outmost one down to almost nothing (I set them all up as Iray emitters they're just different colors - inner is white, middle is purple, and outer is blue) so I knocked the outer, blue, down to nothing as an emitter but it's still there. Now that I knocked that down, I see I need to boost the blue reflection on his skin - I have a plane emitter off camera that I was using to boost that, so I need to bump it a little more I think.
Back to the lightning. I boosted the purple then taking a page from the above tuts zeroed out or turned off everything Glossy. I then started experimenting with various scatter settings usually finding a better result with scatter and transmit. I also boosted roughness on various settings which seems to add a bit of "noise" to the emission and gives it that glowy feel. If anyone wants to now the specifics of what I changed, just let me know and I'll post the details.
So here's how he looks now.
Now the one thing I don't like is the light cutting across his leg, so I'm turning the lightning just a little to get rid of that. I also fixed the hair in his eyes, and his foot that's kinda embedded in the rock.
After reading Cris's suggestion about the hips, I'm thinking that they're still turned a little too much, so I'll try fixing that for the next render. Maybe if I rotate both the hip and toe inward a little and have the hips facing in the same direction that his right toe is pointing it will help with the balance of the character?
Thanks for the help everyone!
Cheers,
Kath
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/64485/taming-the-content-library-beast#latest ; here is the easiest way I have found to categorize things without messing the main folders up. works really well. Takes a bit to get it all set up but once its done its easy to keep updated and its super easy to find what you are looking for because its set up how YOU think
Thank you!
That's an awesome guide Kismet... thanks for sharing that :)
Kath if you have a full length mirror in your house I would suggest you try the position yourself. Then you will see where things need to go to keep his balance and is a comfortable orientation.
Yes please. And it works exactly the same way it just doesn't have a couple of tools (which doesn't interfere at for what I need it for)
Thank you so much! I have the Bear now! :-)
Thanks Sonja11! I spent a TON of time today tracking things down just for DollyGirl's project I have everything located except for 2 things:
1. The color variations for the Kyoko hair. This is really odd. When I loaded the hair, I got a message that a file was missing. (attachment 1) I browsed to the file location where the textures were loacted. (attachment 2). As you can see, the texture files are in DAZ 3D Library > Runtime > Textures > Kozaburo.
But in DS, there is no texture folder under Poser > My DAZ 3D Library. Does this mean I need to create a texture folder manually? The error message does say "To avoid seeing this message, make sure that the Poser content directories are set up correctly."
So how do I make sure the Poser content directories are set up correctly?
I must have looked in every folder under Poser content for those hair color files. I looked in Hair, Materials, Poses Props; I even looked in Cameras!
(didn't surprise me that it wasn't there...)
I even went through a ton of folders under Poser in My Library, then I started looking in DAZ Studio folders in both My Library and My Daz 3D Library. (just trying to be thorough...)
I tried several searches...Kozaburo, Kyoko...nothing.
And thanks again for taking time out to help with this. I owe you!
"D"
Oh...the 2nd thing I haven't tackled is the Lights. I have the zip files; just not sure where to put them I'm guessing Poser > My Daz 3D Library > Light
Thanks for the feadback Kismet. Everything that is in the render, has had some thing done involving the surfaces tab. I'm glad to read that you liked the scar, it was a pain in the rear to get it to were I felt it wasn't standing out like a soar thumb.
I noticed it right away. It works very well and I can just imagine the trouble you had getting it right.
Ok..here's my baseline render Lights are right out of the box..no changes. 3Dlight render to start. I have done a bit with Iray. May try to do both at the same time...but not tonight.
David, You will never see the textures folder inside of DAZ. That folder is there for the other files to look in when a texture is being called. What you can do is click on the hair and when DAZ tells you it can't find the file, click on the Locate button. Explorer will open usually in the directory that the hair file was in. This case it is the hair folder. Highlight the file name and copy it. Move to the Runtime folder level and in the search box paste the file name you copied. When it is found then click on it. Click open and the object will load with textures.
If you get tired of doing this you can either make a new duf file that will load the hair or you can go into the hr2 file and fix the path references to the correct path name. You have had it lucky with DAZ products because they are very diligent about making sure things are in the right places. That is the hazards of using freebies. Sorry I did not tell you about the issue. I had corrected that file a very long time ago and forgotten that it had the incorrect path references. For your lights they should go in your lights folder in the DAZ Studio 4 folder. These are not Poser lights but Studio lights.
Thanks DollyGirl,
I got almost everything sorted out. (I'm still waiting to hear from Faeriewalde about my join request so I can get the bear.)
I will take a look at creating correct path references at some point.
In the meantime...I did my first reference render for Nellie in 3Delight. It's posted back up above..I think I hit post the same time you did! (I named her Dolly in your honor...)
: )
Thanks again.
"D"
Thanks Dolly Girl! I'm sick with a fever right now and my balance sucks. As soon as I shake this bug, I'll give it a shot - otherwise it might get really amusing around here. lol! "What do you mean he's falling over? I caught my exact pose in the mirror!" lol!
Cheers,
Kath
As promised... a brief tutorial on materials in Photoshop. I created this to help with learning Daz and am putting a few of these together as I learn. The thing is that this is just the way I did it... there may be plenty of other ways and I may have missed stuff that is bleedingly obvious and so I would love to get some feedback (either good or bad) and any pointers if anyone reads this :)
Its probably under the materials files under poser/daz studio/ materials
This is great thank you!
Having won the October Contest I'm now tempted to follow the advice "Quit while you are on top"... I really would, if DAZ wasn't so insanely fun to play with. So I'll continue to torture myself with trying to understand things. But this seriously just makes my head spin. It's like trying to read greek using an Arabic - Mandarine dictionary. On top of that, hair seems to have stopped wanting to work with me in DAZ. They all look silly.
Attaching my second project that I started as I'm still waiting for advice on my first (or maybe I've managed to miss them?) and both have in common that the hair looks really off. In this one I used grime-inizer for daz studio and it worked well on the skin, not so well on the hat, and not at all on the hair.