new discovery in Daz
texjones
Posts: 0
I've been so busy concentrating on the animation and set ups for future plans that I haven't really seen what I can do with Daz. And so I dicovered just now, sorry it took a while but I been kinda busy, how much easier it is to just create a new primitive plane and put a picture in to Diffuse. That opens up a whole thing, as I create in Illustrator. And to make matters worse, create a primitive, put a wood diffuse on it, send that to Hexagon and THERE turn it into a table or so...
But the flat plane in Daz sure opens up a new can of ideas.
This is what I've been busy with lately. Creating a little village of sorts, to map out the main scenes that will be used in the episodes of my upcoming series "Muscle Shores". Trying to get everything in place and working out the details before I really get started. The backdrop is Bryce. On the left is a double layered Room Creator mixed with McLean Hotel, The Gym is surrounded by Room Creator, that also contains the Locker Room, I flipped it around and took out walls so it becomes one building, and made the Room long in the front as a lounge of sorts. The shoreline is a pic of the Gulf Of Mexico off Galveston taken off Google Earth. The McLean Diner on the right, I added the roof from the Suburban House, everything else is blanked out, cause I liked the roof over the Diner, gives it a nicer look. The orangey building behind the gym, I created in Blender, modeled after the shopping area where I work. Most of the buildings have that appearance but one in particular I really liked and modeled the front of another building as the main entry way, sorta the best of two building I like blended together. On the gym wall the mural is Daz (the silhouette figures) rendered in png, the finished Mural is Illustrator, taken back to Daz to go on the wall on a plane from Blender (before I discovered about Daz's primitives).
And the still for the opening title, rendered in Daz but enhanced in Photoshop...The title in Photoshop
BUT I really really really wish Daz would/could work with Blender better. If I create the wooden box in Daz and send it to Blender would be better, since I can work it better than Hexagon.
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You can always export as an .obj file to work with it in blender. Just be sure you don't lose the .mtl (material file ..at least I think that is file type) file in translation.
AND I just discovered something important, I wish I had a long time ago. When bringing stuff into the scene, the translations can be given values. I mean if I bring in the Junction from the McLean streets, but need it to face the other way, I put in the 180 and it flips the junction and keeps it square. DUH!! I could have saved a LOT of aggravation over this. So NOW, I have to completely re-do the Village, as the above image/scene I have had to manipulate so many times based upon the view, and it still didn't look right. DANG IT, oh well at least NOW I KNOW.
AND to be able to scale everything the same...so they all line up together.
Figuring things like that out has always been part of the fun for me. I like those "ohhhh" moments.
yeah, I love those moments. Such as a while back, it was posted about the easiest way to move a whole scene. For me, I figured to make everything into a group, then the whole group can be moved together and keep everything in tack. As I am re-creating the village, that has helped alot. Naturally, I've made the layout way too big, I mean way beyond the borders of the center floor. But for the sake of distance I did this. I've laid out the streets, made them into a group, then adding traffic lights made the intersection(s) the parent, then all of it together as one group so that I can move the layout to the center of the floor squares, which makes it easier to add more pieces to the scene without chasing it all over the place. I did a better layout of the shore line (since having discovered about the primitive plane) and Gulf water as part of the group that makes it easier to move ALL of everything. Everything is one big group, but then subdivided for each area as needed. And constantly bring in people figures to be sure of how they will move on the scene. That the Y translate is a at '0', while everything is moved on the X and Z. And then keep rendering to check how it looks. DANG my head hurts!!
In this pic, the junction at the shore line was it all started in the center, then as I finished that section (the traffic lights) moved the whole scene so the intersection is now in the center to finish it.
Something you may already know about in 4.5 is being able to save Scene subsets. I've really loved this addition because I can save a selected part of the scene and not the whole darn thing. You could save selected "groups" to add back in as repeating things if you needed for example.
Something else you may have fun with is being able to add/change surface selections n studio. Being able to add new surface areas to a primitive or prop your using may come in handy. Canary3d has a really good tutorial on how to do it.
http://www.canary3d.com/tutorial/Tute-CustomMatDSPro.zip
and here is the finished traffic light system on the two main roads and intersections, looking out to the gulf. Again, the traffic lights were parented to their respected intersections so they are a complete system, and then all the streets are grouped as a whole so I move it all again back to the junction to add the buildings on the road. Then recenter back to the intersection for those buildings and such. Thanks for mentioning the scene subset, I almost forgot about that, in case I have to do this again.
This took all of 6 hours to complete, I should clock out now and go home. Thanks for mentioning the tutorial, I'll check it out.
Now a big question...the trees in Bryce...how can I get them to come into Daz. I saw the tutorials, I think it says the mountain can move but not the trees, right? Can I move the trees to Hexagon then to Daz?
Now in Blender I created a plane with simple buildings just to fill up the scene, other than the main buildings for the scene. And as I have learned, when creating something in Blender export it as a Collada so it will stay in the scale I created it, if exported as an obj it tends to shrink down.
This layout is modeled after Galveston, Texas with Venice, Ca in mind. I may go ahead and bring in the canyon mountains(in the background) to surround kind of like Santa Monica, Ca up to Malibu.
Looks like a great scene (and an ad for my products - LOL). It must be a lot of work.
A couple of things that might help. Are you using the pose presets for Streets? You can move and rotate things in 'jumps' with them, and the jumps are measured so they position correctly. Also, did you know there's an extensive Help file with it? If not, read it. It has a lot of useful info.
Actually, the Room Creator Toolbar in Daz Studio has rotate/move actions on it too and they'll work with any figure or prop - even Vicky, the Mill Horse, or whatever. I use them all the time for moving stuff around. (Btw, look out for Room Creator Stairs and Balconies soon. It has some fire escapes you might like).
Last thing. You know that in daz studio, you can create a Null (Menu> Create> Null) and parent anything you like to it. Then you move/rotate/scale the Null and everything goes with it. Might be handy for you.
mac
PS Thanks for buying so much of my stuff - and for using it so well!!
You might be interested in this -> http://blender3dclub.com/posertools/index.php
I really like your work, the details down to the smallest intricate is really amazing. When setting up a scene or such, I zoom in and see the amazing work you put into your stuff. Yeah, I keep forgetting about the tool bars. I figured out to work them with Daz. And I keep forgetting about a null. Hate to sound dumb but what is a Null? Is it just a 'blank figure' that can manipulated. With this layout, I had parented the traffic lights to the intersection so it all moves together if necessary, so if I create a null would save me a lot of trouble?
The only real question I have is the telephone in the Hotel, I've put it there and inside the gym. My question is: can the handset be lifted up off the base so someone could be using it. I've tried to 'lift' it off, but there are no morphs or a seperate bone for it.
Also for the traffic lights, one small detail would be the left turn signal. Or at least a seperate single light that can be used as needed, especially in those intersections that have just the blinking lights. (I tend to think way ahead of myself, in case I have to use a scene like that.)
But otherwise again the smallest details in the Streets is really amazing. Between your stuff and the Home One sets I am able to do so much. And since I finally figured out the image mapping that opens up so much more. In Blender I had created a small building landscape, and I will use the building fronts from the Streets for the faces, so those buildings (Streets) have depth. And yeah the balcony in RC, will be used as a wharf/boardwalk on the beach. And the amazing thing I discovered, in a render the mirrors in Home One REALLY do reflect.
I guess the main reason I put up the renders is to show much anybody can do with the available stuff that is out there. I do so much detail to the layout is because I've already done renders of the key building scenes and when there's nothing else around it looks like somewhere out in the middle of Arizona.
ALSO the neat thing I just figured out, you gotta find the common file type between the programs. SO since Hexagon doesn't have a Collada file, I moved one of the buildings from Streets into Hexagon, saved it as a Carrera (again which works better than saving as a obj file), which can open in Blender. And so in Blender, I was able to take off the top part (the upper windows), so leaving just the lower bank face, saved that as a Collada file and able to bring THAT back into Daz, and in Daz re-apply the materials(the basic setup frame material remains intact, in the surfaces tab) so I have just the Bank face infront of the buildings landscape I did in Blender. THAT again opens up a whole new set of ideas I can do!!! As can do the same thing in reverse, keep the upper windows (as an apartment or hotel facing) and take out the lower bank area. In Los Angeles, it's very common to see a hotel apartment (I lived in one when I first got to L.A.) , and that's what I am trying re-create. And also to add depth to the Streets building, being able to change the face so it's not the same thing all the way around the 'building', so the are sides with windows but not a bank or diner on all four sides.
So with what I asked about the traffic light to a single light, MMMMMMM......I can take the 'green light' material into Illustrator and Photoshop to create the left turn arrow.
Re the phone - The phone in the Hotel is just a prop, so you can't raise the handset. But the phone in the Office is fully posable, so that's an option, if you have that set.
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/the-office
Re the traffic light - Yes, to be honest, I didn't think of the left-turn light. I had so many things to build, that one escaped me. But what I was going to suggest is to take the traffic light into a modelling program and slice it to remove the red/orange lights. I'm not sure if Blender can do things like that. I've never used it. If you can slice it, you could add it on the side as an extra prop.
Alternately, the green light has a texture (ES2_Tlight.jpg), so you can easily make a black overlay to create an arrow. I made this black overlay in Photoshop - a Custom Shape arrow in black on top of the texture. Then I saved it as a .jpg and added it to the 'light3' material in DS in place of the regular texture. (I knew it was a good idea to make 3 separate light materials!)
mac
You know, I have looked at your wonderful stuff over and over, and eventually I will have it ALL. Honestly, when I got the Diner it was a toss up between that at the Cafe Italia, but I want both because of the atmosphere you were able to capture so well. Again your work is amazingly wonderful, you are really talented at creating the right realistic atmosphere.
When I first started shopping Daz, your stuff had me thinking like crazy. The Room Creator is so versatile, I was looking at The Bungalow, that will be coming up probably next in my list.
This is another thing I was able to do with Room Creator, to turn it into a flat apartment. The light post and the railing was done in Blender, and finished in Daz. THe front porch light is from the Hotel. The walkways are the Streets, lowered down enough so the Skydome plane will show with grass diffuse.
What I did for the traffic light, I sent it to Hexagon, saved as an object and opened in Blender. There I was able to take off the lower light and raise the bottom up to short to just the top two lights, which is a common one at intersections.
A question about the Suburban house, is that a common structure in the UK? I think I remember seeing such a layout in upper state New York. A friend of mine who was from NY,(long story short) we went to a house and I think I remember it being built like that.
After looking at the Office (again), I do need that. There are things in there I was looking for to use elsewhere...
The more common way here in the States, is a black field with the arrow lit up. I'll see what I can do with it later. It was just something I was thinking about. the way I have village laid out it may not work anywhere anyways.
Here again is the versatility of room Creator and Streets. The Hollywood Hotel on the right, I used the face fronts from the Streets, surrounded it with the Room Creator, giving the walls the brick material, and let the entry come out enough to look like the entry, and second entry as an emergency exit or maybe a phone booth.. A fire escape would be the finishing touch on the building. The sign was done in Illustrator and Photoshop and mapped on a plane over a primitive cube. The other building landscapes, the basic set up is Blender, but I was able to add faces from the Streets so they have depth. At the end of the street is actually the Nerd3D backdrop with a render of my first attempt, a few months ago, at reworking the streets and hotel building. It turned out great to close off the road, so now I just gotta add some mountains as a backdrop. The McLean stuff keeps me creating...
GAWD!! WHY do I do this??? It's getting more complex as it grows. Dang you DAZ and MCLEAN!! See what you make me do...
When I lived out in Los Angeles, I had the privilege to watch movie shootings several times. At my job, the little Chinese Restaurant next to us was chosen as setting for the movie "Rush Hour 3", the mural was painted on our building. I remember watching them convert the little restaurant and the artist paint the mural. And the small store at the end of the corner was used also. It takes a lot to build the sets and put everything together, and it took almost a month to complete before the actual shooting. I guess for me, I am doing the same thing as I am building this set for the outside shots. As I mentioned earlier, I had already done some outside shots but it looks like the only building for miles around, so by creating this village it gives more atmosphere. And since I looked at McLean's stuff again, there is SO much more to get and do to make it complete!! In the far back right, is the flat apartment bungalow type things, they were common in L.A. more in the Venice area.
Yes, most UK suburban houses are that style. I'm more familar with them, (being from Scotland), which is why I chose that look.
I was out today picking up a new PC and several hours after I posted the traffic light pic with arrow, I realised that I got it wrong. I don't mean the style, but the fact that it's a black arrow on a texture. In the UK, it's often a black overlay which leaves a green illuminated arrow, so it should be the reverse - black all over, leaving the arrow clear.. When I posted, I was doing something on my other computer, and I just knocked it up in Photoshop without thinking it through.
Well, you certainly seem to be inspired with your scenes. I like the combos of Room Creator and Streets. It's great when you have plenty of things to recreate. At least you don't have to wonder what to do next.
mac