virtual penny 4 yor carrara thoughts ?

otodomus

Dartanbeck said:

 

The common term of modeling that translates directly to "Vertex Modeling" (as it's called by many Carraraists due to the name of the modeler) is a process known as "Box" or "Cube" modeling, even though the same process can be used with shapes that greatly differ from a cube or a box, like triangles, for example.

Not sure if it's still like this, but some render engines used to produce less-than-optimal lighting results unless all of the polygons were triangles. I believe that this is why Carrara was given a "Convert to Triangles" command in the Model menu within the Vertex modeler. Carrara, DAZ Studio and Bryce are not among them, and work beautifully with quads. As a matter of fact, DAZ 3D Premier Artists are not allowed to use any other type of polygon except for quads (polygon made up of 4 vertices or points). I'm not a professional modeler, so I don't really know the exact reasons for most of this stuff, but I pick up tid-bits here and there as I study. Modeling with only quads is very popular among the top artists in 3D, yet I know that many also use trigons as well. I've heard that quads can make up a cleaner topology, but I'm not sure if that's truth or opinion. I do know that modeling in quads forms a bit of a challenge. To be considered "good topology" we need to keep each polygon (quad) flat. Move just one vertice perpendicular to the plane of the others and you've just created a problem in your model. This might be acceptable to do on your own to your own models, say... as a morph, but you'll never want such things in a product to be sold. Carrara's Vertex modeler also has a function called "Convert non-planer to triangles", which finds quads (or n-gons*) which are not perfectly flat - not a perfect plane. This triangulation now corrects the problem, giving each change in angle and edge.

*n-gon is a polygon with more than four vertices and is taboo in most circles, but work fine in Carrara.

 

I would like to point in some of the ideas Dart has mentioned here: First off, I am a newbie modeller but kind of enthusiast on the SubD process, and I have found very nice modeling in Carrara, after a few years doing it in Maya.

I think that the main reason to model in Quad is that you could obtain a better topology hence a better mapping process, that ensures you also the optimization of the polygon number making your models less complex and better built. For that matter Carrara works pretty good, as far as I could experiment with it.

Not sure if it's still like this, but some render engines used to produce less-than-optimal lighting results unless all of the polygons were triangles. I believe that this is why Carrara was given a "Convert to Triangles" command in the Model menu within the Vertex modeler

Triangular models are something that I always have avoid, but reading this is something that we all have to consider, there's a reason that Carrara has the option to triangulate and untriangulate models. I have seen also many complex models with dense meshes that also recurrs to triangles, I can imagine that the mesh could be more flexible, and also have seen them in printing models, in fact any model converted to print in .STL would derivate it in triangulated model.

 

Still learning

 

Cheers

 

Otto

 

Mistara

devoting this whole weekend to cloth and hair blowing in a breeze

Diomede

you might find these threads helpful

Jonstark on carrara hair

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/51604/tutorial-creating-realistic-carrara-hair-for-animations-and-still-renders/p1

animated cloth proof of concept (using softbody physics in Carrara)

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/49954/animated-dynamic-clothing-technique-proof-of-concept/p1

 

Diomede

Note - for just a cape, the animated cloththread may be overkill.

Mistara

diomede said:

Note - for just a cape, the animated cloththread may be overkill.

thanks.  well, starting simple.

i just ordered myself an i5 quad core 12gb/2TB,  ise makin it a race to have an animation ready to render when the new desktop arrives.  gave up on the i7 for now. >.<

Diomede

woohoo, Scotty is going to give you more power!

 

here are some links to more specific posts in that very long dynamic clothing thread

aiko

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/757931/#Comment_757931

more geenral discussion of settings

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/759237/#Comment_759237

jonstark combining dynamic hair and dynamic clothing

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/765003/#Comment_765003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIAp6vysYZE&feature=youtu.be

Diomede

OK that is annoying.  The links don't seem to go to the specific post, just the same page of the thread.  I will copy and paste some information on settings.

 

Jonstark,
I have been trying to mimic what Stringtheory did with V4 here, but with other figures and other settings. (Replication is important)

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/49954/P195/#753927

That was a very important post that I had to read more than once, and I watched each video more than once.

At some point, I will try to post a true step by step tutorial (really just an example), but unfortunately I can't right now. There are at least 4 things that need to be adjusted. These include physics settings in the scene tab, the general collision setting of the base figure (V4, Aiko3, Genesis, whichever figure is being clothed), the physics modifier settings of the undersuit vertex object, and the physics modifier settings of the article of clothing to be draped.

Here are some suggestions, predominantly via Stringtheory, but everyone who has contributed to the thread as well
1) Scene tab
Under physics engine
Simulation Accuracy: 300%
Geometric Fidelity: 100%

2) Base figure (V4,...)
Select the "model" level of the figure group. Under the "effects" tab, there is a physical properties subtab. Make sure "collide with other objects" is unchecked.

3) Underarmor

a) object composition
Single object, made up of separate panels roughly corresponding to the base figure's bodyparts. It will be easier to do the softbody attach steps if each panel has had its vertices named separately. Important, for convenience of selection - should have named vertices, not just named polygons.

b) Soft Body settings (just suggestions, worth experimenting with)

Stiffness 80%
Bending 5%
Self collision: off
Margin: Checked and set to 30%
Quality: 10%

c) Soft body attaches
Separate soft body attach for each bone of the figure that you want covered in clothing (for example, maybe stomach, hip, right thigh, left thigh for a skirt for a simple figure). If the vertices of the panels have been named, then you can use the "named vertices" tab to select the panel and the "tree" tab to select the corresponding bone. Then in the upper left, click the validate button (very important). You can select the verices by using the brush and + and - tools in the upper left, but I don't recommend that. So, upper left in soft body attach room is important because you have to validate the softbody attach.

4) Article of clothing (dress, skirt, robe, or whatever)
Vertex object. Settings here will depend on what type of fabric you want (leather will not react the same way as silk, for example). So, I am less willing to put any numbers here at all.
Stiffness (vary for different fabrics)
Bending (vary for different fabrics)
Self collision: (on for something like a pleated skirt, but maybe off if shoulder or something similar could be a problem)
Margin: Checked and set to 70%
Quality: 10%

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In one of the prior instructions, you mentioned to add a general softbody modifier to the whole vertex object that’s going to be the invisible underarmor, and mention using Stringtheory’s settings he posted about before (with the exception that self collision is unchecked).

Yes, that is 3(b) above

 

» show previous quotes

You then mention adding softbodies to each of the named vertices parts, but didn’t give a lot of details on specific settings. Did you mean this to be the soft body attaches, not the softbody modifier itself? That’s my guess, but I don’t want to screw up my setup by getting this wrong as I follow in the footsteps.
Also I’m not 100% sure I’m doing the softbody attach right. I’m clicking the plus sign in modifiers to add a new soft body attach, then when that comes up, I click on the ‘Edit’ button and then ‘Named Veritces’ then select whatever specific body part of the soft underarmor I’m attaching (for example RthighS - added the S to denote it would be the softbody under armor). That lights up that section in red, showing it’s selected, then I click the ‘Select Tree’ button and choose the bodypart bone from the V4 in the scene that corresponds (in this case, the right thigh). Is that all I need to do to attach? Or am I way off on my approach here so far. Because there are also some controls that appear in the upper left of the screen, the first one on the left being ‘Validate’, then ‘Add’ and then ‘Remove’ and I’m not sure what any of these do, but if I had to guess maybe I’m supposed to click the ‘Validate’ button to tell it that hey yeah I definitely want to attach this part of the softbody to that particular bone.

Yes, these are the soft body attaches in 3(c) above. Yes, for each, select the vertices (easiest to use the name vertices tab, but you can use the brush and the + and - tools in the upper left). And you have to selct the bone from the tree. Then you have to validate in the upper left for each softbody attach.

Also assuming I’m on track so far, when I add the actual cloth to the scene, how is that done? I’m guessing an ojb file of a dress from content, scaled up a little but over the V4 in the default position, then as the sim runs the dress goes back to regular scale and falls where it may and I see what happens? Just want to make sure I’ve got the right idea here.

Yes, the article of clothing is a new vertex object. If you already have a suitable piece of content designed for your base figure then that will be fine. Plenty of such articles are available for V4 because of Poser's dynamic cloth room has encouraged people to make dresses for V4. Marcello Teixeira has a series of free youtube tutorials if you want to make your own.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+marcelo+teixeira+dress+tutorial+carrara&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=DA264CD1F2C63E8C5C72DA264CD1F2C63E8C5C72

After you click the calculate physics wand in the upper left of the assemble room, the clothing will begin draping against the softbody underarmor, which will have its panels moving along with the movement of the underlying bones of the rigged base figure.

Hope that helps.

Mistara

thanks.

i think it's harder cuz i'm used to Poser clothroom and Hair room.  haz to break through the preconceptions in my head.

 

Diomede

You might wish to continue using Poser's cloth room and then import the cloth objs as morphs to be applied in Carrara, epecially for Aiko3.  That is what I would do.  There is a free python script somewhere to help with this workflow in animations.

 

Meanwhile, here is a link for a still image with a genesis character from Studio character creation to Poser cr2 and cloth to Carrara

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/675785/#Comment_675785

- using poser as a cloth plugin for G2F and G2M in Carrara

Not surprisingly, with the G2 figures you can still use Poser as a cloth plugin for Carrara if you get the DSON importer working. This will be old hat for a lot of you, but one thing that I like is that you can still attach the posed prop to the skeleton within Carrara and make some additional changes to the pose, which you can't do if you just import the figure and cloth as an obj.

Here are the steps that I did.
Part I - creating and saving the character, clothing item, and pose to Studio, Poser, and Carrara
- in Daz Studio, I loaded a G2F character (Riven) and dialed some more morphs. I made sure to include some Stephanie 4 morphs to change height.
- use "save as" and save the adjusted G2F as a character preset so the shape can be loaded directly in Carrara later
- still in Studio, use "export" and save the G2F figure as a Poser CR2 fle.
- In Carrara, load the morphed G2F and model a simple dress tailored to the morphed shape
- Optional uvmap and make other enhancements if desired
- change scale to 1.042 and export the obj in Poser format
- Open Poser, locate the saved CR2 file, and load your custom G2F
- import your dress obj to Poser. It should fit the figure. Double check to make sure youdon't have poke through
- advance forward a few frames and pose your figure to what you want. Save the pose to your pose library
- use Poser's cloth room to drape the dress to the pose - make sure you like the results
- export the dress as an obj and reimport it to poser.
- add the posed reimported dress to Poser's props library

Part II - using the figure and clothing item in Carrara
- Open Carrara. Load the morphed G2F figure from the character presets in the content browser
- Apply the pose from the Poser library runtime in Carrara's browser tray
- Load the posed clothing item from the Poser props folder. It should fit the posed G2F figure . If not, edit with vertex modeler.
- If you want to make some minor changes to the pose, you can still attach the dress prop to the g2f skeleton hip
- if there is poke through after attaching skeleton, you can edit in the posed position in animation mode (make 1 morph first), or edit bone influences, etc

 

Mistara

experimenting to find the uber displacement settings for M4's displacement maps.

found the offset of .5 was important.  didn't start seeing displacement til render 20 >.<
enabled subdivision

tried the original .tif first, then tested jpg and png.  jpg and png is a visible difference.

WendyLuvsCatz

MistyMist said:

tee hee.  autogrid replicated the spinning sphere.  turned on seamless.  

someone posted this on facebook, you can do a similar thing

Mistara

blood shot eyes?  lol  

Mistara

don't think there's a vasculars for Aiko/Hiro/Mil3 peeps?

bigh

MistyMist said:

don't think there's a vasculars for Aiko/Hiro/Mil3 peeps?

they are in DS 32 bit

Mistara

thanks   

 

in Corel editor right now.  music i added is longer than the video track, cant find how to tell corel to end the movie at exactly 240 frames.

bigh

MistyMist said:

thanks   

 

in Corel editor right now.  music i added is longer than the video track, cant find how to tell corel to end the movie at exactly 240 frames.

see if there is a slider you can move over to frame 240 - many program have one

that will stop the video at that spot .

Mistara

if only it had a frame to frame # option 

Mistara

keyframing a single parameter?

i went to the frame.  highlighted the line in sequencer, it's yellow.  but when i hit add keyframe, no triangle appears.

in other thoughts, it's tricky to not make characters over act.  kinda like they say about Bill Shatner.

evilproducer

I'm not sure what you're asking? If you wish to place a keyframe, then the playhead needs to be at the position you want the keyframe to be placed. You then need to make sure the keyframe tool in the sequencer is selected. Highlighting the line in the sequencer does not place a keyframe, it's just highlight to make it easier to tell when it is selected.

wgdjohn

Is Misty planning to change her pic back to the previous cheerful one? IMO it more represented the jolly person she is.

Mistara

the luv spirit?  it'll be back.  changes with the seasons and holidays.  

 

Mistara

evilproducer said:

I'm not sure what you're asking? If you wish to place a keyframe, then the playhead needs to be at the position you want the keyframe to be placed. You then need to make sure the keyframe tool in the sequencer is selected. Highlighting the line in the sequencer does not place a keyframe, it's just highlight to make it easier to tell when it is selected.

 

i get stuck on the most obvious things. lol
can't remember special key combos to copy paste, add keyframe?

i right click all i see is delete on the right click menu.  feeling ridiculous 

evilproducer

I'll get back to you on the key combinations. I usually have a couple minutes of trial and error before I remember them correctly.

wgdjohn

MistyMist said:

the luv spirit?  it'll be back.  changes with the seasons and holidays.  

Nice pic. Will just have to wait for spring then for the "luv spirit" to return. Idea for Easter... picture the luv spirit hatched or hatching from an egg... top half of egg could be on shelf upside down and luv spirit having one leg in one leg out of bottom half. Now go create the egg halves. After you're done keyframing of course.

evilproducer

On a Mac, to copy the keyframes, highlight the keyframes you want to copy, then hold the Option key and at the same time drag the selected keyframes to the point in the time line you want the copied keyframes.

Mistara

thanks.  guess would be ctrl key for pc  

Mistara

wgdjohn said:

MistyMist said:

the luv spirit?  it'll be back.  changes with the seasons and holidays.  

Nice pic. Will just have to wait for spring then for the "luv spirit" to return. Idea for Easter... picture the luv spirit hatched or hatching from an egg... top half of egg could be on shelf upside down and luv spirit having one leg in one leg out of bottom half. Now go create the egg halves. After you're done keyframing of course.

 

with background music made in sony music,

watched tutorials, understand bus and mixer.  VST and adding to tracks, waiting for the epiphany of comprehension

 

Mistara

tee hee  just had an idea to do an all catgirl virtual band

Aiko Cats or Katz

Diomede

Like Josey and the Pussycats?

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/uploads/FileUpload/58/d083894e1e6ef474a14c294e2b7f25.jpg

 

Mistara

sort of. but as catgirls instead of girls in cat costumes.  

josie and the pussycats ever come home?  i remember they were in outerspace.  gleep gleep