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That's what I want ... God lights ... but that set only works in DS3.
Another quickie update... I'm feeling more comfortable with just an (optional) inlaid pattern of some sort, rather than all the fancy sculpting... <(^_^).</p>
I had a closer look at the modelling of the staff set - it looks like I'm going to have to adjust what we have here (more-or-less oval cross-section) to be pretty much circular, in order to fit with those other staff heads. I'll keep our "handhold" though, which will mean the staff will have to taper considerably more than what you see here. stretching the base of the claw into a circular shape shouldn't present a problem though.
This is pretty :D
That's what I want ... God lights ... but that set only works in DS3.
Actually I'm pretty sure that does work in DS4 -- testing it now.
Actually I'm pretty sure that does work in DS4 -- testing it now.
Thanks for testing for me :D
Yes, it works in DS 4.6 -- straight out-of-the-box render:
Awesome :D Thanks :D
Just what every aspiring magic-user needs... (>_>)...
(rampant chicken kindly supplied by a friend, to test the SVG import process).
Sorry for the lack of updates - RL intervened (>_<). Was this still going to be useable? (I've unwrapped the staff and straps -- just trying to decide how to unwrap the claw most usefully...).</p>
In the absence of any guidance to the contrary - I ended up unwrapping the claw by removing the "palm" first (which would normally be under the ball), and then flattening out the rest of the hand, separating the claws one by one. Good? bad? indifferent? I've not unwrapped a hand shape before, so I'm quite open to commentary on what is easiest to texture... v(^_^)v.
About time to hoist it into DS and see how it fares I think...
*drools*
looks great, are you planning to make it look like both the claw and the staff itself are of made of bones, or planning for the claw to be made of bones and the staff made of wood? *curious*
Dragged into DS4 and threw a few quick Calida shaders on it...
Thank you <(^_^)... the claw and staff are separated objects, with separate mat zones (as are the bindings at top and bottom, and the leather straps around the 'handle' - you can hide any/all of these if you wish) - you can texture them to be whatever you need - either make them both into "bone", or the 'staff' could indeed be replaced with wood... however Aidana originally asked for a "dragon bone"ish sort of staff I believe.</p>
(btw, I don't tend to put textures in with my objects other than UV maps and an AO shadow map - I leave it to the recipient to texture or shade as s/he wishes... which is why my items aren't really "render ready", but "some assembly required" ;-) ).
You are so amazing, MFM.
What shaders did you use?
Thank you <(^_^)... the claw and staff are separated objects, with separate mat zones (as are the bindings at top and bottom, and the leather straps around the 'handle' - you can hide any/all of these if you wish) - you can texture them to be whatever you need - either make them both into "bone", or the 'staff' could indeed be replaced with wood... however Aidana originally asked for a "dragon bone"ish sort of staff I believe.</p>
(btw, I don't tend to put textures in with my objects other than UV maps and an AO shadow map - I leave it to the recipient to texture or shade as s/he wishes... which is why my items aren't really "render ready", but "some assembly required" ;-) ).
OOhh that do sound interesting.. I actualyl love playing around with shaders.. even if some of my results are.. less pleasing *laughs* If this one ever end up being for public, I will sure do what I can to pick it up :)
Thank you <(^_^)... the claw and staff are separated objects, with separate mat zones (as are the bindings at top and bottom, and the leather straps around the 'handle' - you can hide any/all of these if you wish) - you can texture them to be whatever you need - either make them both into "bone", or the 'staff' could indeed be replaced with wood... however Aidana originally asked for a "dragon bone"ish sort of staff I believe.</p>
(btw, I don't tend to put textures in with my objects other than UV maps and an AO shadow map - I leave it to the recipient to texture or shade as s/he wishes... which is why my items aren't really "render ready", but "some assembly required" ;-) ).
...question, how does one go about using a UV map to create a texture?
I have UV mapper (free version) but it tends overlay the maps on one another making it difficult to near impossible to select a region to work on. Same for Hexagon, tried a UV unwrap on a really cool retro bus I converted from .3ds to .obj so I could define the Material zones, and all I got was a screen pop up with all the individual UVs overlapping each other to the point that was just a square packed with blue lines.
I'm afraid I don't have any experience with UV Mapper - however what you describe will happen if I select all the parts of the object at once, and look at the UV map.
In fact, my staff does exactly the same thing - because the claw+talons are expected to be on one map, the sphere is expected to be on another, the staff on a third, each strap and binding also separated out to more maps.
Coming down to fundamentals, a UV map is a set of 2D coordinates that correspond one-to-one to each vertex in the 3D object. Not all of these 2D coordinates necessarily have to be in the same "space" (ie map, or texture). If you do put them each in the same map, then you get the mess you describe. If you split them out according to their texture assignments, then you will see the "neat" maps the way the creator intended.
You can see the same effect if you use DS and switch to "UV View", then select an entire Vickie (or character of your choice), and you'll see all the separate maps (torso, head, eyes, mouth etc) overlayed on top of each other.
End result - you need to find some way to select just the appropriate "parts" of the object - those parts that were expected to be on the same map - and not all the others. Once you do that (or figure it out), you'll be able to see the UV map cleanly.
Ooops... after all that, I forgot to answer your original question <(^_^).</p>
The UV map defines what areas of a texture will appear on what portions of the 3D object. Note that multiple textures can be assigned to the same 3D object (although they'll generally apply to separate UV maps).
There are some restrictions on _how_ you UV map though - what will "look good", and what will look repetitive, or with inconvenient discontinuities in texture patterns, or make the texture look stretched or pixelly.
When I'm modelling an item, I generally don't give too much thought to how to "unwrap" it - I'm more worried about making a "clean" mesh, with regular verts spaced around loops and things. If I'm _really_ thinking ahead, I'll add in perhaps some lines of extra verts where I might think seams would be most logically placed to be out of the way and least likely to appear in renders.
Once the modelling is more-or-less done, then comes the fun of working out how to flatten the shape into 2D, such that discontinuities ("seams") are minimal, stretch is minimal, and overlap is non-existent (overlapping UV areas is a no-no, especially for auto-generation of AO maps and baking bump/displacement/normal maps etc).
Once I've got a UV map that I think is "pretty good" (ie meets the criteria above as best I can), then it's just a matter of creating a new blank texture, and colouring in between the lines (of the UV map) with my desired diffuse patterns / colours etc. Assign the texture to those parts of the object whose UV coords match the colouring I've done, and voila.
Here's a quick example using an older version of the staff. I'm not claiming these are the "best" UV layouts, but they were what I settled on.
The first shot shows what happens when "everything" is selected - the UV maps are all on top of each other.
The subsequent shots show what happens when you select just the parts that belong to a particular map - and these are how the textures will have to be produced.
...thanks for the clarification. What app were you using in the screen shots?
Also I need to figure out how to split an .obj up into the various material zones I need before importing. How and where is that done?
When I view it in the Surfaces tab, all I get is the entire object as a single selection without all the grouped parts below, so I am unable to adjust diffuse, specular, bump, opacity, specularity, reflectivity, etc. of the windows, tyres, wheels, seats, etc individually.
Yes - I would expect your mapping tool would have that ability (or perhaps it's a limitation of the free version?).
ETA: okay, I just grabbed a copy of the freeware "UV Mapper Classic 0.30a" from the UVMapper website - I'm guessing this is the one you use? ... and... hmmmm... helps to RTFM... *judgement suspended while I play with it a little...*... hmm... "Edit -> Select -> by Material" does select the various pieces of my staff (but it'll depend on how the OBJ has been exported, whether you have Groups, or Materials)... okay, not as bad as first impression gave (definitely had to read the tutorial though X)... imho that should do the job for you, I think.
I have another prop need for a new book cover project. The attached image is of a Buddhist symbol of Crossed Vajras. I need one of these in 3D. I need it fairly fast, too.
As usual, I have a small budget to work with, so payment can be negotiated if desired.
Let me know if more pics are needed. Here is what I could google: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1163&bih=543&q=crossed+vajras+space&oq=crossed+vajras+space&gs_l=img.12...1097.4157.0.6078.20.10.0.10.10.0.144.1084.1j9.10.0....0...1ac.1.26.img..8.12.987.0Fq0GGP62mM
Oh that looks interesting... how many "prongs" are there around the outer ring shapes? I believe the wiki-page mentions 5 or 8, but in that picture I count something like 6 o.O.
ETA: this is a quick 6 using beziers, just to check what you think of the shape before I spend time fiddling with the details... I'm hoping you'll be using shaders on this one as well...
Geezus. Can I ask if you're self-taught or is this your profession?
Yes. ;-)
Oh how did the staff turned out? (if it is finsihed that is *grins*) I'm curious to see the finished version so I must admit *sheepish smile*
LOL :zip:
Oh that looks interesting... how many "prongs" are there around the outer ring shapes? I believe the wiki-page mentions 5 or 8, but in that picture I count something like 6 o.O.
ETA: this is a quick 6 using beziers, just to check what you think of the shape before I spend time fiddling with the details... I'm hoping you'll be using shaders on this one as well...
You continually amaze me, M ... Not just with how good you are, but how fast you are, too.
The example the author has been using, while waiting for her book cover and logo is attached. But I encouraged her to allow me to have an original version created. So I found a more detailed, easier to see image for a skilled modeler like yourself to use as a guide. :D
Is there a way to add the detailing and symbols using a shader? How would I go about creating a texture map that I could paint in Photoshop? I may just made it just a hammered gold, though ... lol.
That should be sufficient ;-).
I decided to go for eight makaras, because four looked a bit too sparse, and the wiki page didn't say anything about having six. You're looking at about 33,000 verts (and 33,000 faces) for just one "arm" here... so total "weight" is heading towards 120,000 verts -- this might be a bit "heavy" (>_<), so I'll try to slim it down a bit on export.</p>
Can I ask what proportion of the final image this item will occupy? (I mean, is it a foreground high-detail entity, or is it just something a character is holding in his/her hand, so much less detail will be visible)... perhaps a (rough) estimate of how many pixels on the final image it will be? (from there, I can work backwards to determine how "chunky" we can make this thing... currently it would be nearly 8 times "heavier" than a single V4... o.O...).
That should be sufficient ;-).
I decided to go for eight makaras, because four looked a bit too sparse, and the wiki page didn't say anything about having six. You're looking at about 33,000 verts (and 33,000 faces) for just one "arm" here... so total "weight" is heading towards 120,000 verts -- this might be a bit "heavy" (>_<), so I'll try to slim it down a bit on export.</p>
Can I ask what proportion of the final image this item will occupy? (I mean, is it a foreground high-detail entity, or is it just something a character is holding in his/her hand, so much less detail will be visible)... perhaps a (rough) estimate of how many pixels on the final image it will be? (from there, I can work backwards to determine how "chunky" we can make this thing... currently it would be nearly 8 times "heavier" than a single V4... o.O...).
For this first book, it will be small, in the series logo, but since the author wants high-rez close ups for marketing the series, it will have to be viewable close-up, as well.
So when given the option, I go for higher quality and larger scale over render speed.
Is that what you mean?
Also, if the author specifically only wants four makaras, vs eight (I have not read the actual text description, just have the image she sent me), will I be able to blind some of the makaras?