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Lately I've been engrossed in this series: Blade Runner: Black Lotus
I never saw the movie, and don't remember the trailer. Looks fantastic!
When it comes to animation that particular generation of genesis works really well. I not sure gen9 resource heavy designed will work as well for animation.
not the least because the Genesis 1 animations work on Genesis 3 (animated poses and static ones NOT Aniblocks unless baked to timeline on 1 and loaded on 3)
The way I'm set up, All of my poses and aniBlocks from all generations except Genesis 8/8.1 work on Genesis 3, and all Genesis 3 poses and aniBlocks work on Genesis 8, 8.1 and 9.
I cover all of that in the course as well. Like I said... it's all just a whole lot of fun!
It works great that way, because I have collected a lot of really cool characters and creatures for the entire Genesis line over the years. It's really fun to be able to run them through my massive aniBlock and Custom Partial aniBlock collection to create all manner of... well... I keep saying it... Fun! :)
Genesis 9 seems to animate really well. Genesis 8 and 8.1 can feel pretty heavy and sluggish in the viewport, where Genesis 9 will just make me reboot the whole computer now and then, but with smooth working experience in between.
Genesis 1, 2 and 3 along with Generations 3 and 4 previously, all animate really well.
So a fun way to film is like this:
Back and mid-ground folk - Predatron (any), M3 or 4, V3 or 4, Genesis 1 - 3 characters and creatures
Closer up shots - Genesis 3+ (or earlier with care and time spent on Iray shaders, which is also a lot of fun)
Genesis 8 brought an incredible variety of some really detailed preset characters that just load n' go, which is a real time saver.
Genesis 1, having the flexible UV Map system is an excellent monster base.
So some Genesis 8 Joe Quick/Josh Crocket, etc., Baddies with Genesis 1 minions is a lot of fun!
That said, using the custom dials I talk about makes for an excellent way to make figures that are less-than-simple to animate (stand-alone, etc.,) much easier. Then we can make our own aniBlocks for them to drive more and more flexibility out of them. Earlier, really cool creatures like Xerr are a great example of this, but I'm also working out an animation system for Valandar's The Elder Race for Genesis 8 Male. Those tenticles don't come with much love for the poser, so I'm making a variety of dials for them, then some aniBlocks.
Wings are another example. While they might come with a great assortment of dials already, we can set up dials that combine them to make our animation lives a Lot more smooth, which makes it more powerful and fun.
It's never easy getting these two in the same scene together, so this was a fun little animation walking within each other's arms
Okay, I guess this is a sign - a sign telling me that it's once again time to Up my Game.
I just lost... Everything!
My custom assets, characters, custom aniBlocks, custom clothing, animated scene files... evrything I've done and saved over the past several years.
Much more than I've lost with my last crash.
Yes, I'm pretty bummed.
But I'm not going to dwell on it.
I'm going to take this opportunity to up my game and shoot for my next level.
It really is a bummer, though. I had so many finished animation renders that I was gearing up for a fun animated short.
The nice thing about it is that, amongst all of that was also some fairly crude (not really that crude) test renders that I thought were "good enough" to include, so I probably would have.
When it all comes down to it, they were all test renders. Tests that have now led my to this point, where I need to advance to the next level.
In the recent sales here at Daz, I got some exciting new tools and content. Time to Go For It!
Everything! All of the images seen within these pages were parts of animation renders. All gone now. Really is a bummer.
I'm still going to try and be optimistic about it. Look at it as a really good thing and get back to work.
Wow. Even all of my old Carrara renders. Gone. Everything.
I am so sorry for your content losses. Sending positive vibes. Great to see you look at it as losing test renders. Your next round will be even more amazing with your experience and with your new tools. Stay motivated.
I had a major computer failure in 2015 with a win7 gateway, that cost months of work. It was a very traumatic time.
But that shakeup led to evolution in the skillset because none of old stuff was there to anchor in the past.
Your attitude is exactly right. Everything that you learn up to this point, today going forward, has you leaps and bound ahead of where you used to be.
Your new stuff will be better, more cohesive, more accomplished because its is built on a solid foundation but not restricted by it.
P.S. spending some money on high quality portable storage drives can be a good investment. Cause you don't want to lose this new stuff.
I would also suggest looking at an offsite solution - I have a BackBlaze subscription, and pay a little extra to have them keep deeted/changed files for a whole year (beyond a year they charge a fee based on amount of data, which could get pricey, but a year should cover most things). I'm pretty sure there are other, similar services.
Dartanbeck,
A few years back, I had a laptop crash the night before a client meeting. When I related the incident to my client, I thought I'd get some sympathy. Instead I got huff and a curt, "Huh, even computer *experts* have bad days!" Eeeech. Not my best day; not my best customer.
When I started exporting Daz assets to Blender I'd customize the materials and save these to .blend files. Then using Python scripts I could swap materials as the need arose. A handful of JSON files acted as my mapping table, allowing me to mix different versions of materials for a given figure. Separating the model from the material proved useful; as I learned more and upped my skill, I'd kitbash the model and simply re-run the scripts to apply the stock materials. Though I haven't dug deep into it, Daz probably applies this same scheme.
I experiment with non photo realistic rendering, so the material .blend files are binaries less than 500KB. (For the occasional image texture, I'd resize this to less than 2K.) I decided to store materials and scripts in GitHub for version management. Along with a backup drive over my home network, this became my back up system.
Starting with a clean slate, maybe you can put some time into organizing a backup scheme. Nice to have, if only for the peace of mind.
Cheers!
Are you sure there's no hope of recovery? I had a crash a few years ago and technicians were able to recover everything on my C drive.
Thanks, all! As always, my friends keep me inspired and always wanting to keep pushing ever-forward. Thanks!
Yeah, yesterday was a strange day as I let DIM spend the night before installing the most immediate needs of content (just over 2,800 products) so I could get started again. I started in earnest to get Rosie back up and running. First stop was Rosie 9, but Genesis 9 still crashes Daz Studio hard for me every so often - almost like clock work. So, while I have a really good Rosie 9 started, she's on hold until I can get a spiffier setup.
Starting a Rosie 7 over again, I found myself really at a bit of a loss. I was fairly new to learning Daz Studio when I started building her, and I used GenX2 to bring over literally every darned thing I could think of. All of her expressions were custom creations by me, using various shaping and expressive morphs brought over from the V4 family, Genesis 1 and 2 Females. Not to mention all of the muscularity that I built into various Custom Dials I made for her. So I'm really, truly looking forward to going for that again as well.
All of that aside, I decided to try my hand at Rosie 8 again. OMG!!!
Okay, so that's where this whole condundrum with the loss is truly a blessing!
Somewhere along the line, when I was on my very first days with the first Rosie 8 I ended up botching my Genesis 8 Female base figure. I went to the Studio forums for answers and Richard helped me out, but I think she was still broken in some ways. When I was recently saying that I'm using Genesis 3 Female instead of 8, because 8 was just too glitchy, or whatever, in my viewport, that's that 'broken' thing!
Now, with a fresh install of the Genesis family, Genesis 8 Female is a real Dream to work with!
I got a really good (and fun!!!) start with Rosie 8 to this point.
<Bummer. Still can't upload. What gives with this forum?>
After I saw this render I decided to take a break from her and start building my custom dials, like I do in my course. I made a really nice set of them as well as to reconstruct those that I made for FACS using the Genesis 3 & 8 Face Controls product, which I really like. I have all of the expressives done, still have to do the FACS and Visemes dials for it, but that'll be done in a few minutes once I start that back up again.
Soon, I'll also dig in and make my Rosie 8 custom expression dials.
Getting just the right costumes together won't be happening over night. Well... not over One night anyway! So I threw together some nice casual wear to start with, so I can get animating with her so I can keep developing her forward. Animating is my best solution for discovering problems with my Base build. So I initiate that as soon as I can.
Woah... my current needs require the younger Rosie, so that's who we're going to see for a little while. She's really nice to work with, and with all of this new content and new Studio tools, my game truly is going to be upped!
ManFriday's Mesh Grabber!!! Wow! Where have you been all this time?!!! This should have been one of my very first purchases!!! What a great tool!!!
Oh... and yes. I'll be looking into back-up solutions as well. I'm a bit embarrassed that this happened. I used to back everything up on several drives - and then preach that everyone needs to do this.
Eventually my animated renders folders started getting bigger and bigger. Saving scenes with simulated dForce hair and saved VWD files take up a good chunk of space as well. So my drives all filled up and I ended up getting lazy as I slipped deeper and deeper into my current level of poverty.
We're breaking out of all of that now, so I should be able to get a decent home-bound back-up system, and the Studio my band plays at (owned by my singer) is going to be starting an online backup service as well, so I should be able to get a good deal on that.
The future is looking bright in many. many ways!
Thanks for all of the suggestions and inspiration. I'll be looking into all of those as well!
Cheers
Here's that image that I couldn't upload. The first WIP of Rosie 8 2023
Here she is after getting her animated, and after today's Wish List Sale (scored this amazing outfit - Finally!!!)
And a new page for her story on my site!!!
Surviving the city streets on her own for years, she's now eighteen and a half and can really handle herself... or so she thinks!
For any character animators out there, here's something to keep in mind:
Observe Real Life
The smallest things can make a big difference. As an experiment, try looking around the room at various things within it, keeping your eyes traight ahead - only turning your head. It's really tough for me. I came to this notion thinking about the reasons I've never used "Point-At" on the head of a figure. When I stop and focus, it's amazing how many things I look at in my office without turning my head much at all, and my head turning is definitely Not a direct link to the focus of my eyes.
For this I've tried a prototype eye focus rig. So that I don't have to have it waaaaay off in the distance or have cross eyes, there's a target for each the left and right eyes, all nestled into a system of nulls a some simple colored cones that I use for telling the locations of the eye targets when their not selected.
The multiple nulls make it possible for me to hand edit the rotation of each axis from their own individual node to make it easier to keep the L and R target orientations correct, while the main container nod is used to align to areas of interest in the scene. The next null in from the main has a Point At constraint on the head of the figure.
Putting it all together:
Pay attention to your own "Direction" (of the story) when it comes to the head and eyes. If the character is in a conversation, looking back and forth between two or more subjects, keep in mind that sometimes folks will keep looking at the previous target with their eyes even while their head is already turning toward the next, then the eyes snap to focus on the next person. In real life, the time it can take our eyes to find a different target is much faster than our own conscious thought - which is really fast. Our subconscious already knows what the eyes are about to target, yet it also might want to absorb a bit more from its previous attention.
Other times the eyes completely precede the rotation of the head - and often the eyes will do most of the journey while the head moves very little.
If the the head starts turning to the next person while the eyes are still fixed on the previous, try thinking of the reason. Often it's because the previous subject is still talking, and our head anticipates the timing of the next speaker's turn to talk, while the eyes are still reading the end of the other. In this case, try and give that magical moment you've discovered some kind of significance - like it forces a quick chuckle out of the observing character - but only for a second. Or perhaps a sneer.
In the same sense, when the eyes precede the motion of the head, perhaps it creates a subtle, short - even unintentional bit of surprise - only a little, and only for a second or less.
Now try adding subtle assymetrics to those micro behaviors. If the previous speaker makes your character give a quick chuckle, try also shifting that facial expression slightly in the direction of that speaker. Now this is all going to happen very, very quickly - we want it that way. We're introducing micro-expressions to the face.
One of the huge micro-expressions I notice a lot is how much peoples eyes dart around during every day life. It's what gives us that tell-tale sign that someone is day dreaming - they're eyes aren't darting around.
The next time you talk to someone in real life, try to observe the mouth of the person you're talking to while you're talking and they're not. You'll be amazed at how many changes there are to a person's expressions when they're not trying to.
Starting all over again brings back some pretty crazy memories.
I remember a time when I was experimenting in PD Howler making animated "Sway" texture for Rosie 4's conforming layers of hair.
I used Carrara's model room to make a bazillion and three movement morphs for each of the three (sometimes four) individual versions of Angelica Hair, each customized to be much bigger and altogether different that the original - with no wreath around the head.
I was working out animated waterfalls using avi files for textures, and thought it would be fun to try it with hair.
When I bought Howler, I also bought (no longer available) AnyFX for Howler - a special animated effects plugin. It came with a Rain filter for animating all kinds of rain.
So I made dripping animated textures for Rosie.
Those were some crazy times packed with really fun "trying to think like Phil Tippett and/or Douglas Trmbull" type of experiments. The scary thing is that this was Not Very Long Ago!
Beowulf CG animated movie was awesome. It kept me thinking that I really like the path I'm on.
Alita Battle Angel came out and I decided in the first few minutes that I wanted to up my game in a big way!
LOL! This was my first try with animating rain on Rosie's skin textures. The rain fall (and her animated textures) was made with that AnyFX plugin. The rainy backdrop is included with EnvironKits - Woodlands
Wow. Rosie just let me invest in completing Rosie!
Now Rosie 8.23, bluejaunte's amazing Ensley HD character is blended into the mix! I've been wanting to do that for a long time now. I always felt that Sol, Lara and Ensley could get along just fine together. Now being able to see it for myself, I was right all along.
Ensley's amazing smile and asymmetrical mouth and teeth are a very welcome addition, and the rest of her incredible sculpt works perfect!
Still a WIP, Rosie 8.23's head consists of 75% Sol, 75% Ensley, and 40% Lara, which gives her that wonderful stylizing in a very cute way.
See my Rosie 8 Revisited page for more details
These are some of the "Tip" icons I made for loading her various materials, etc.,
Okay first MeshGrabber, now 3DU's awesome LimbStick! 2023 is starting off really well!
I've never even heard of these tools before, living under my rock. Thanks, friends for turning me onto such wonders!
First test I had Rosie come running into the room and slam her hands onto the table and excitedly talk to Dartanbeck (me). With almost no fuss at all, my first try turned into a Big Save! Yes!!!
LimbStick!
Another wonderful score from the store was this really nice Female Walking Construction Set for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Females, by Havanalibere
Really cool kit! I'm still loving GoFigure's - use it all the time, even for just partials. This one is really nice, and is different. Less arm swing, which I like, and there's are several idles and poses that transtion into and out of whatever walk... I mean... this thing really has you covered for walking - including something for the character to do before, during and after the walk!
Female Walking Construction Set for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Females
Meshgrabber is really cool!
We can even adjust simulated items and save it as a morph (temporarily or add it to the item) so we can dial back the change anywhere we need to in time. So beneficial!
Thanks Crosswind for turning me onto this great thing!
I've been having a blast building up Rosie 8 for her new season of animation.
Up a few posts I was talking about eye targeting and how quickly they respond without us even thinking about it. I've been doing some really fun experiments with that and added a bit of my findings to the top of my Rosie 8 Revisited page. It's really pretty neat how this is working out!
Woohoo!!! Finally got my AstroMaster - converted into an Astro Commander!!! (click to see it in UltraHD)
I have a fun little writeup about how I built her on my site
Hmnpf! Uploading still broken, eh? Odd for a place like this to go so long. Sorry guys.
When I can get the image up I will.
Meet Dartanbeck 8, a new blend of cool characters built up using some fascinating techniques I've been discovering for Rosie 8. Finally, a Dart character who has skin (Ryel) that can be in the same render as Rosie with her awesome Sol materials! So cool!
Check him out here!
looking cool