Confused about LOD
Pjotter
Posts: 274
I am going to use many Victoria's in my scene. Figured out how to insert LOD. But the 17Kb LOD for instance ads almost 2 Mb to Victoria. Does this mean it only uses 17Kb in the scene? Because the file size gets bigger, saving will take longer. This looks like a disadvantage to me with many Victoria's.
Does it make a difference to use LOD? Will the scene become faster?
I am not talking about the duplicators. That is a different story.
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Sorry. I never used LOD because Carrara does that well enough without having to go through all of that.
Even super-high resolution models render in no time at all at a distance. Plus I've always had a hard time finding the LOD versions for things - so I just never used it since the first time I looked into it :(
3DAGE has always been the one to help folks with this aspect.
Thanks. The rendering is not my biggest problem. Too many characters slows down my Assembly room movements too much. A ten second walk becomes a one minute walk. It is not realistic anymore.
I agree, it was not easy to find LOD (for Victoria). The manuals fail. I had to do a Google search to find the right thread in the DS forum. Because of that I found the folder name and with that I searched my computer.
LOD works on distance from the camera, so,.. if you have a group of figures, ..far from the camera, Carrara will calculate them using the lowest LOD figure.
if you have multiple figures close to the camera,. there's little benefit to using LOD,.
Generally,. the more objects you add to a scene,. the longer it takes to process all that data,. and if the figures are dressed, with props, and scenery,. then things can quickly grind to a halt.
It's easier to work on animation using bare figure's ,. save the animation as an NLA clip,. then load your fully dressed actor into a scene, apply that animation clip, then render.
If you render out a figure with an Alpha channel background,. you can composite that with other rendered figures, live footage or background scenes
Compositing is probably the most efficient way to create a multiple figure scene, or, to compose elaborate scenes which would be time consuming to build and render as a single scene,. break big scenes into more managable chunks,. like background, midground, foreground.
Render out single characters,. (or a small group), to an image format which supports alpha channel, ..then composite those sequences together in a video editor.
Replicators in Carrara,. are the best way to add large crowds or army's of thousands, and if you want a lot of figure variation within that "crowd" Sparrowhawke3D has a randomiser shader which can help to alter the shadrs of different figures.
Hope it make sense and helps :)
Ahaaa! Gotcha. Just so happens Carrara has the perfect solution to your (our) woes! ;)
"Show in 3D View"
Deselect that on one before bringing in another. We can always turn them all on at once to see where everything is, but then shut off any of them that we don't need on right now - they still show up in the render though. So use Visible instead if you aslo don't want to test it in the render.
To help with this, Every character I even make ends up in its own Group. This enables me to quickly and easily move, rotate, hide, whatever, all at once. It also just makes it easier for me to always keep track of things.
I also use simple target helper object to help mark out in the scene where some of these hidden things are to make it easier for positioning.
It really does. You have such a tremendously awesome way of (thoroughly) explaining things! ;) Thanks 3DAGE!
For lots of figures in the scene, you may want to look at using characters such as Loretta LoRes, they are made to be very efficient background characters and you can apply poses and animations made for V4 (I think).
Yeah... you know how we have to fix the feet for Genesis using V4/M4 poses and animations? Same with Lorenzo and Loretta. M4 and V4 mesh were made with their feet aimd down, and then saved with their feet already rotated to be flat on the floor - so the animations/poses have those angle added - simply by being made for those figures.
That's where I just use the Graph Editor to correct the feet and any other joint - all keys for the whole length. Fixes it all in one shot, and it's fairly easy once we've done it more than once, but even the first time is pretty intuitive ;)
Man... those LoRez by Predatron figure are fantastic too. Kids, teens, big or thin, orc or zombie, elf or dwarf, asian, hispanic, indian, african, caucasian, Leroy, Elroy, Bob, George, Sue... these things come packed full of morphs (also version without! for further savings of memory) and texture options. I just love them. If we wanted to, we could probably even make some higher-end facial morphs for them and use them for ceratin closer-up character if we're not going for realsim.
Some useful points. Putting the animation in NLA is a bit of a problem and haven't solved that yet. I have another thread about this to avoid confusing. But in short here, if I correct the small amount of foot sliding (from an Aniblock) on keyframe level and add this to a NLA clip, the foot sliding stays for some reason. Trying to use target helpers, but cannot include these values in NLA.
The Sparrowhawke plugin does work on the replicator, but only for the base figures, not the replicated results. And probably it does not work if the figure has multiple shading domains.
Good idea, it does help, but the saving problems stays. Larger scenes takes minutes for saving for me. Even the hidden stuff is going to be saved. And I am not sure if hiding does make the scene faster. I think the keyframes from the hidden stuff is stil read. You could do this: for the parts you do not need, drag your character or the whole group if possible (?) to the Carrara browser (maybe new directory) > delete the group > remove unused objects > and move on. If I am correct (test first please) everything is saved in your browser, including keyframes. So when you need it, drag it back from the browser.
That looks good. Why didn't you tell me this two weeks ago. :)
Any idea if the skeleton in based on V4? I want to combine it with BVH. And with Genesis for instance I have too many problems. And many self designed characters have other bone structures. Or maybe Dartanbeck knows this.
Does this plugin does not have morphs for that. They have many. See the product page.
Just a note on the Instance Randomizer - it certainly does work on objects with multiple shading domains (my Night and Day City set is built with it), but as you say, you need duplicates (Ctrl-D) to see the differences rather than those instances produced by a replicator. This is an issue with figures as they don't duplicate easily. What you need is to convert the figure into a "non-figure" so that it can be duplicated, and then make as many duplicates within the replicator as you want variants in the shaders, the overhead for each duplicate is minimal. However, this will remove any animation, so for animated figures you still have an issue.
I know of one way around this - but it involves using Octane! Octane has a similar function called Random Color and that does work with Replicated objects as well as Duplicated ones.
One trick I have discovered. Maybe someone can use it. If I inject all morphs to Victoria (the file becomes 4 times as big) > I set the parameters I need (Bodybuilder for instance) > after finishing I remove all morphs (file size becomes small again) > do my scene and at the end before the final rendering I inject all morphs again. The bone movements do not go back to default (raise arms) and the values of the bodymorphs (bodybuilder) are still there.
It for animated figures. It was not an issue for me, but it was brought up here.
I wonder if there is a way to make a reduced resolution V4? Earlier Daz figures (up to V3) came with reduced resolution versions, and the LOD meshes are already there. Perhaps you could use Daz Studio's Transfer Utility to create a "V4-RR" figure out of one of the LOD meshes? I don't know how much you need it but it might be a consideration.
If you know which morphs you are using, you need only inject them and not the use the All option - that would save you some memory.
LOL!!! Well of course! Sometimes we need to be patient and let the files get written. There are ways to speed that up.
As 3DAGE and I often suggest, try working with less actual geometry in any one file and combine them only when needed - and combine them using compositing if possible.
Faster hard drives on faster computers can speed up saves and loads
But sometimes we just have to realize what we're asking of our software and either wait, or use the compositing advice. There are often sacrifices to be endured to get what we want.
What plugin? Which product page are you wanting me to look at?
I have a list of each Morph INJ I need for both of my main characters. But I also have my V4 Powerload and M4 Powerload versions that I've saved as new CR2 files in my runtimes, after Powerloading ALL morphs for each - and their file sizes never bother me. But again, I go through great lengths to try and keep my scenes optimized to my needs. I do use lower resolution figures for background people, and still try to keep them optimized. I have a few M2 LR and V2 LR background folks saved, but I usually use Predatron's. It depends. Vicky and Mike are great with the amount of clothing available. But my BG folks often can be pretty much anything, so Lorenzo and Loretta fit my needs in most cases.
Still... it's nice to load in background folks into a background scene - get it all animated and render it out. Then either use that in the backdrop of the render for the main content or composite the main content over the previous render using Fusion, Howler, HitFilm, AfterEffects or whatever compositor we have. It looks like Corel's VideoStudio Pro is starting to work towards getting better compositing tools too. The whole world is seeming to make vfx easier and easier as time goes on.
I was always impressed by how easily I can composite directly in Carrara though. Because I can just keep working the scene through. Start from the furthest thing we need to see - animate - render. Delete, but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights. Add next 'layer' of depth - animate - render. Delete but keep cameras and lights.
I could do that, but that makes it complicated. There are about 200+ morphs. Everytime I have to find the right one. And the file size keeps piling up, so saving takes longer everytime. And very often, one morphs injection leads to leading many more, because they are related. Try "smile" for instance. I now load morphs at the end. Bone rotation is not a problem. These are very small. I inject those.
I am pretty patient, but if I know saving takes several minutes, I am posponing the saving. I regret that if Carrara crashes. It does not happen often, but sometimes it does.
I have not the latest pc, but my Core I7 and 12 Gb memory will have to do the job.
The Lorenzo and Loretta you mentioned. I think it can change the foot pointing down problem.
it's possible to create a foot pose, which would alter the angle of the feet,. it wouldn't be a morph, as morphs only effect the geometry position, and it's the bone angle which is needs to be adjusted,.
I don't have that product,. but i'd try using V4's first,. since you have those already,..
Try saving your V4 actor (with morph's clothes, hair) etc,.. into a folder in your browser EG: My objects / my actors.
this should load and save faster.
Hope it helps :)
I always thought this too, but you are wrong. Victoria with all injected morphs, has a mixture of mesh adjustments and bone movements. But they are all called morphs and this is not right. The parameters are both mesh and bones mixed. Bodybuilder is a morph, but head turn is bone movement. Bone "morphs" are very small in size and rotate bones. Maybe 50 Kb. Real morphs is mesh only. Bone morphs is for bones. But you cannot see this at the parameters. Use common sence. Bend over cannot be done by mesh. Otherwise the bones would stick out. You can open the morphs (it is a script) and this lead to another script. Bone "morphs" control bones. Mesh morphs seems to have obj values included.
One day, or probably year, I am trying to figure out how to create bone "morphs" myself. It is doable, because these script are very small. But for now a little bit too complicated for me.
What that is ,. is a transform, or MorphForm,.. it's a control which applies both a pose adjustment and a morph,. similar to ERC where one action controls another or multiple,.
has to be done in poser/DS as far as i'm aware.
This shows how to do that in Daz Studio for Genesis (any version) figures. It might be nearly the same for Generation 4... not sure. If I was looking to do such a thing, I'd start here.
So, what you're saying is to create a morph dial onto Lorenzo and Loretta and any other figure that isn't Generation 4, to match the feet angles to a zeroed out Generation 4? Brilliant! If I knew how to create morph INJ files, I'd make one for each of the two I've mentioned s that I could add the morph to any of the Predatron LR figures, as they all use the same base mesh, I think.
I've got so quick with fixing the feet angles in the graph editor that it just never bothers me to do it. The motion data is already saving me gobs of time.
I suppose I was sounding cynical - I didn't mean to. Yes, saving does take time. I always use compression as well, so it takes me even longer. But if I want to work on a difficult scene with a LOT of info in it to save, I'll do a save without compression nor a thumbnail, so I can keep saving it as I go without waiting nearly as long. Then when I want to do a more permanent save (at a time when I want to go eat or some other form of walking away) I'll add thimbnail and compression to the save, and walk away while it saves.
Yeah... IMHO, that's a great Carrara machine, what you've got. There are many i7 chips to choose from, but I bet all of them are excellent.
There have been times when I bring this laptop up by my Carrara Beast for multitasking purposes. Carrara Beast multitasks very well... but When I'm working on animations, I like to work only in Carrara. Then switch to the laptop if I'm waiting for a save or whatever.
Lorenzo and Loretta have morphs on their own. Loretta has 215. No idea how to inject.
http://www.daz3d.com/loretta-lorez
Also on the bottom right is a INJ/REM Heeled Boot Morph and Translation (.PZ2). Not sure if this is the one. Maybe this file can be used for other characters. But this is a wild guess.
Good news, both of them are on sale now (40% off). Including the bundle. This was not yesterday. Wanted to buy them next month, but now have to rethink this.
That might do it.
For that matter, we can use the "Heel" function in AniMate 2 (I have the paid version) and save new aniBlocks.
So we could load LRL in Daz Studio, add the aniBlock(s) needed, and see if the "Heel" adjustment tool works to correct Generation 4 blocks into non-generation 4 blocks, and then save the new aniBlock. It's been a while since I've worked directly in aniMate 2 in DS, but I loved it. I still have some custom aniBlocks I've made by tweaking originals, and some that I made using animated pose files for Poser to create new aniBlocks. We can stitch aniBlocks togetehr and then save a new one, etc., Even though they were only used once (so far), it was awesome making them because it's so fast woring with them in DS and aniMate 2, then loading them in Carrara.