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I think this is the Poser exporter wendy♥catz mentioned.
Yes it is. It can come in handy because it can also export animated poses.
Yes it is. It can come in handy because it can also export animated poses.
I created my first animation in DS yesterday. I am very pleased with myself. This Animate system is pretty cool.
I've been studying three programs at the same time. Sounds self-destructive, I know, but it seems like the thing to do. At this time I am focusing on import/export between the three programs. I've almost got the drift of it, too. I learn something every day. I'm dying to make these suckers boogaloo down Broadway, but I have to shovel through the arcana first. Shaders come next. My stuff is too shiny.
This is, without question, the best, the most helpful, of the forums. Thanks to all.
I created my first animation in DS yesterday. I am very pleased with myself. This Animate system is pretty cool.
I've been studying three programs at the same time. Sounds self-destructive, I know, but it seems like the thing to do. At this time I am focusing on import/export between the three programs. I've almost got the drift of it, too. I learn something every day. I'm dying to make these suckers boogaloo down Broadway, but I have to shovel through the arcana first. Shaders come next. My stuff is too shiny.
This is, without question, the best, the most helpful, of the forums. Thanks to all.
Carrara also has an Animate Plugin, and more sophisticated tools than D/S, such as different tweeners, editable keyframes, etc.
I created my first animation in DS yesterday. I am very pleased with myself. This Animate system is pretty cool.
I've been studying three programs at the same time. Sounds self-destructive, I know, but it seems like the thing to do. At this time I am focusing on import/export between the three programs. I've almost got the drift of it, too. I learn something every day. I'm dying to make these suckers boogaloo down Broadway, but I have to shovel through the arcana first. Shaders come next. My stuff is too shiny.
This is, without question, the best, the most helpful, of the forums. Thanks to all.
I form part regularly of jury at the time of competitions of films (all kinds), and it is the thirds time that I see this animation, but you are the first which modified the Genesis character!
But one needs a beginning with all, good continuation!
I saw the Animate button in Carrara. I also saw the Aniblock importer for Carrara. There will come a time when I can animate without canned animation scripts, but for the moment, those blue rectangles in DS Animate are my friends. I haven't seen any of those in Carrara. I could easily have overlooked them.
I've worked with tweening and keyframes in Flash. I can't imagine working in 3D without them. But I'm still at the What the hell is this? stage. Just finding out what features a program has, and where to find them, is a research project. Six months ago, all I wanted was a posable 3D mannequin. I was happy with 2D. That's history now.
I scanned the chapter on shaders in Carrara. I'll need a dictionary just to get started. And guess what it said at the end of the chapter. Experiment. Ha! At this stage, everything I do is an experiment. :cheese:
I believe that if you are accustomed with the keyframes, you should try to animate very simply at the beginning, the characters in Carrara.
Perhaps after having understood the facility to create movements, not very natural at the beginning, you will be able to plan to import files like .BVH or Aniblocks etc.. being perhaps modified in Carrara, but it is ideal to learn how to carry out oneself of animations at the beginning.
You must try the Puppeteer too !
I've looked at the supply of ready-made Aniblock animations. The selection is limited, and the subjects are specialized. Depending entirely on Aniblocks would limit my abilities. They're good for me right now, because now, I have 1,000 failures to each success. That stupid dance I made gave me encouragement. It reminded me of the reason I'm studying this subject. I needed to feel good.
I've played with Mimic too. I am satisfied with its lipsync abilities, but I may want to improve its facial expressions. When I get to that point, I'll study the keyframe editor. I've used the keyframe editor in CrazyTalk too, and I have some limited experience in tweaking it.
To make the character walk and speak at the same time is my goal. But I'll never learn the basics if I start having fun now.
BTW, why did you say I used Genesis?
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It is because Genesis is the base of DS, but to look at there more closely, it would be perhaps a avatar of iClone ?
It also could be a gen 4 figure such as M4, or perhaps a gen 3 or even a Poser figure.
I've looked at the supply of ready-made Aniblock animations. The selection is limited, and the subjects are specialized. Depending entirely on Aniblocks would limit my abilities. They're good for me right now, because now, I have 1,000 failures to each success. That stupid dance I made gave me encouragement. It reminded me of the reason I'm studying this subject. I needed to feel good.
I've played with Mimic too. I am satisfied with its lipsync abilities, but I may want to improve its facial expressions. When I get to that point, I'll study the keyframe editor. I've used the keyframe editor in CrazyTalk too, and I have some limited experience in tweaking it.
To make the character walk and speak at the same time is my goal. But I'll never learn the basics if I start having fun now.
BTW, why did you say I used Genesis?
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I agree with your sentiment about having fun while you're learning. If you're enjoying the journey, that's the important thing. Just don't get to impatient with us if we suggest a side trip or two along your road. ;-)
BTW, your video is a great first start.
It also could be a gen 4 figure such as M4, or perhaps a gen 3 or even a Poser figure.
Not, their shaders does not have this brightness…
It also could be a gen 4 figure such as M4, or perhaps a gen 3 or even a Poser figure.
He is an M4 figure. Plenty of morphs and clothes for M4.
The shiny skin came from Poser. Poser makes everything shiny in other programs. Hair looks lacquered. That's why I want to learn shaders.
I lost the bet…
The shiny skin came from Poser. Poser makes everything shiny in other programs. Hair looks lacquered. That's why I want to learn shaders.
that interests me!
I making a sequence with wet characters, can you explain the process (I have also Poser)?
Impatient with you guys?
I hate the marketing department, and the product managers, certain features of the UI make me want to commit assault, and I am deeply impatient with myself. But you guys are saving me. Thanks.
Maybe next year I could explain it. Right now it's beyond me.
Dartanbeck brought this up a week ago. Sometimes things look OK in poser but weird in other programs. The shiny skin is an example. He's written something general about it. Shaders look like black magic to me.
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This is Dartanbeck's video about shaders. He talks about shininess and wetness.
I will try and demystify the shiny skin and greenish skin in few simple screen caps!
Using M4 as an example, open the figure's hierarchy in the Instances tray and select, Model.
At the top of the screen, select the model's shader tab. You should see a big multi-colored ball, and below it, a list of shading domains.
Find the domains that would have skin, such as SkinTorso, SkinFace, SkinArm, etc. These are the names of the domains. The other name is the name of the shader and texture map. If you have Carrara set to consolidate shaders when you load a figure, some of the names for the shaders may be shared across multiple domains. You can do this manually as well, by selecting the Edit Menu-->Remove Unused Masters-->Consolidate Duplicate Shaders.
Double click any of the skin domains and it will open the shader in the Texture room. Many times the Shaders will look like my first example, with a multiplier in the color channel and values that are unrealistic in the Highlight and Shininess channels.
To get rid of the multiplied color in the Color channel, click and drag the slot with the image map up to the top of the color channel, displacing the multiplier which will now go to electron heaven.
To get rid of the plastic look, you need to change the Highlight to a 1-100 numeric slider if it isn't already set to one. Slide the value down to around 10%. The Highlight controls the brightness of the specular effect.
Now, adjust the Shininess to around 5%. Shininess controls the spread of the effect. The lower the setting, the more the effect spreads out and the softer the edges. The higher the setting the less it spreads out and the edges are harder.
The settings I gave are starting points. Tweak to your own preferences.
BTW, the color in the multiplier could be changed to reddish or pinkish color to make the skin look a bit more devilish. ;-)
Thank you for this, evilproducer.
There are some higher end texture packages that come with specular maps. Carrara often doesn't load these because the way it's set up in Poser is different than Carrara, so Carrara doesn't know what to with them. If you think your package has a specular map, you can load it into the Highlight channel and use the brightness slider to adjust the level of Highlight. You don't need one in the Shininess channel.
I should also add that Carrara Pro comes with hi-res optimized shaders for M4 and V4. C8.5 Pro may come with Genesis shaders, though I don't know for sure.
Anyway, you can find the M4 and V4 Hi-res Carrara shaders in your Shader Browser under Skin (provided the native content was installed). There are versions that use subsurface scattering (GI will appear in the name) and versions without SSS. To use, select either model under the figure's hierarchy and then the shader tab. Now, drag the icon for the shader from the browser and drop it onto the multi-colored ball. The new textures will load into the appropriate domains.
Conversely, if you have a custom shader for you character that you want to save, drag the multi-colored ball to your Shader Browser to save all the domains.
The shiny skin came from Poser. Poser makes everything shiny in other programs. Hair looks lacquered. That's why I want to learn shaders.
Fenric has plugs in the Daz Store and a few of his own. One is Poser Shader Doctor which will do a basic adjustment of the shaders on the selected object. EvilProducers example is great! (thank you). I didn't see Dartenbecks shader video I am going to have to watch now. I wasn't sure if I could link directly but do a google on fenric carrara should find it.
Thank you Evil, I will try that after my job.
Well, evilproducer, it looks like I will be the boss of my shaders sooner than I thought. The shader dialog is intimidating. Your blurb shows me how to deal with 95% of what I have encountered. I'll need to work through it a time or two, to let it sink in. Thanks for this.
* What's the difference between Delete Unused Shaders and Consolidate Unused Shaders?
* How do you handle the Editing Shader Default dialog?
I see that you have a professional writing style. It's easy to follow. I'm guessing you've done some of this work for a living.
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My next mind-boggling assignment is to understand the Carrara "Browser" (poor choice of names), the content library. I add a runtime to the browser. I look through the subfolders. The browser shows no content. Argh...
Unused shaders are just that. Unused. They can collect if you have an object and use a different shader in its place. The shader isn't flushed from Carrara (and its memory) until you remove it. Periodically removing unused shaders is a good memory management practice to get into, especially if you're doing a lot of shader work.
Consolidating shaders is usually useful for objects with multiple shading domains. A good example is M4. When you load him in, you'll notice different domains for his arms and legs, each one of those uses the exact same image maps and the exact same settings within the shader. When you consolidate the shading domains, Carrara gets rid of one of the shaders and uses the other one in its place. You can do this manually as well, by dragging the arms shader and dropping it on the legs domain.
If you are doing it manually, it is important to make sure it is utilizing the same image maps, and the other settings are the same, such as Highlight/Shininess, etc.
I forgot about the default shader question. I usually just create a new master shader to use, rather than edit the default, but if it's easier to edit it, I would choose the, Create New Master option to avoid shading issues on other objects in the scene that use the same default shader.
Evil, I followed your tuto posted higher and it is what I sought, V4 is very wet!
Thanks!
Search DAZ for Wet Maps. Stick them in the Highlight channel and it looks like water drops and streaks!
Well, I got through the highlight and shininess just fine. But when it was time to change skin color, I took an oblique turn.
Sometimes, I had the COLOR variable set to IMAGE MAP, but there were no subchannels. It was image map or color, take your pick. I learned to use OPERATORS | MULTIPLY to add a color select subchannel. Get down! ;-P BTW, this ability to copy and paste colors is slick.
Sometimes there are no multipliers in the color channel. I find that some of the older products have them, and some of the newer don't, however, this also is not always the case.
As you mentioned, you can add all sorts of fun modifiers to your shader channels to get some cool effects. In the bikini carwash picture above, I used the same texture set for both models, but for the Asian woman, I added a multiplier to the color channel and a very light tan color to give the skin color a darker, more exotic look.