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Well that settles that, I guess! LOL
Thanks Wendy!
Discovering Daz Studio
an article by Dartanbeck
I've been using (and loving it) Daz Studio for years - but only as an assistant, a plugin of sorts to Carrara and my endeavors there.
As of the release of Daz Studio 4.14 and all that the development team has been pouring into it, I felt that I owed it to them to give it a whirl.
With all of the talk (earlier in this thread) of "Filament" and "New Animation Features", I also owed it to myself to try it out!
My experience has been up and down - of course. That goes with any attempt to try software that's entirely different than what we're used to. On these forums, I've expressed my downs and my downs, and then some more of my downs. I think this is common too, because we know there are answers out there and we're frustrated. So we hope to find answers that will propel us forward once again.
That said, I decided to write something more honest about my overall experience with the software. The full article may be incomplete now, but the words there express a true account of my earliest experience with this amazing software. More to follow.
Discovering Daz Studio - Read the Article
I appreciate any feedback. I haven't even proof read it at the time of this posting, so any and all thoughts are totally welcome! ;)
I've been making bold leaps with a new idea of cross-technology optimization.
The target is a newly designed Rosie figure that works seemlessly between Daz Studio and Carrara, and hopefully then into other realms as well via the new Daz Bridges.
After a lot of tests and ponder sessions, I've decided to base this project, once again on Genesis 1, partly because of the wealth of content and prepared assets I have for the generation, but also because Gn1 truly has the highest level of compatibility - at least with the software I use, Carrara and now Daz Studio.
The most difficult hurdle to clear is the hair - hence the importance of cross-technology. What works well (yet still falls short of the dynamics I get in Carrara) in Daz Studio, doesn't (so far) work at all in Carrara, and what works well (but lacks the stability and overall appearance of what I have in DS) in Carrara, doesn't work at all in Daz Studio - as it's a Shader driven strand-based dynamic hair.
I have plans on how I might be able to merge technologies to create something that will finally give me what I've been after all along. While those tests are still on the horizon at this point, my current endeavors are creating the assets needed to experiment with it.
After all of that, I really want to say that I'm really liking this early new version of Rosie - Rosie 5.5, she's currently being called. I was also kicking around the idea of Rosie 5.64 > the "5" from generation 5 (Gn1), then 6 and 4 because she's also using morphs from those generations as well.
I really like my Rosie 5 figure. She's very custom and can really only work in Carrara due to the custom mesh shaping I did.
I also really like Rosie 8, who started out a Lot more stylized than she is now to follow the footsteps of Rosie 5, but when I backed off on the unrealism a bit, I liked her a Lot more.
So when it came time to designing Rosie 5.5 I took my favorite parts of Rosie 5 and did my best to shape her face more like Rosie 8. I'm really happy with how she's looking now, but it will take more animation and expression tests to call her complete at this point.
I have been taking a few short breaks from this to keep up on progressing with other things not related directly to Rosie, but not much. Being the main importance of this entire endeavor, she must remain in the forefront. Once I have successfully 'completed' her, I'll be freed up to proceed with everything else.
Just wanted to give a bit of an update on what I've been doing.
Additionally, I've made a lot of progress with learning more about Daz Studio.
I'm still a Carrara guy. But I'm no longer putting DS on the back burner. I'm glad that I took that time over the holidays to get to know it better (thanks for the nudge email, Daz 3D)!
I've made comments before that Iray is out of the question for rendering animations. Well after some of WendyLuvsCats' wisdom sunk in a bit (and Octane wouldn't run without internet), I did some test render quality runs that zipped by in a flash using Iray. She said to just lower the iterations waaaay down and turn on Denoise.
With Iterations set to something like 100 and Denoise set to 1, I was able to watch a four second (@30fps) animation render before my eyes. I was amazed!
With my internet bill paid, I decided to have a closer look at doing test renders more quickly in Octane. Yep. Doing basically the same thing, while keeping in mind that the two entirely different engine interpret values in different ways, I'm churning out test renders in a heartbeat.
When it comes to using either for 'final' results, I'll be less concerned entirely with how fast they are, and more into having the frames look how I want them to look.
I'm finding that my brain has an easier time building shaders in Octane's NodeGraph Editor than in Iray, but I've yet to explore the shader building page in DS. In fact, I just recently noticed that it's there! So I'll be digging around in that too. Afterall, building/tweaking shaders is one of my favorite things to do in 3D CG. Adjusting shaders and lights to work together... I just Love that stuff!
Where will technology lead us?
We're about to find out!
Bridging Technology is the main landing page which will lead us into our efforts regarding making things for a harmoneous balance between Daz Studio and Carrara and eventually beyond - and already hints at some of what's been going on, but not a big reveal yet.
Mimic Lip Sync begins with a discussion about the different types of Mimic available today as well as the (now extinct?) Stand-Alone Pro edition. This will (soon?) lead to a wealth of information regarding the efforts we've been putting into working with this powerful software as well as other options, etc.,
Rosie 5.5
Bridging Technology
And our first look at the new Rosie 5.5
She's not entirely 'mission complete' yet, but she's really close - still a few kinks to work out for faithful, consistent animation duties.
This whole Bridging of Technology that Mindsong and I are on has inspired this project, which couldn't have happened at a better time for me.
There are issues with Rosie 5 and 8 that have mostly been resolved already with Rosie 5.5, and she's helping us to ever drive forward with what we were intending to do in the first place, simply by finding solutions for her.
Big Win!
I owe a lot to him for nudging me and opening my eyes to more and more ways to push this whole thing forward into positive directions and taking advantage of the really great tools that we've had all along - and will be stepping into brand new ones as we go!
Really looking forward to all of this!
Thanks Mindsong!
What a cutie. Wait till you see her smile! :)
Rosie 5.5 is:
Outfit shown here:
Image - first frame of a promo animation:
Many Clone assets and Cloth adjusting morphs by SickleYield and Zev0 as well as the Generations Clones by Daz 3D
These in-figure tools along with VWD really help a character like Rosie to be as seamless as she is. She can wear nearly everything from generations 3 through 8 as well as items made for entirely different figures altogether. Not that she ever wants to wear much.
She's also very dynamic, having several lip sync options available and the ability to use motion data from generations 3 through 6 with little extra effort - one of the biggest reasons why we switched back to generation 5 from 8, right when 8.1 looks so exciting.
We'll still be working with the new, just not for Rosie!
Check out Bridging Technology for more details and information
Making Rosie 5.5 was a necessary endeavor - this time building her up from scratch in Daz Studio in order to be able to utilize all of Studio's various tools and helpful functions.
Bringing a Daz Studio version of Rosie into Carrara is as simple as loading her in from the library. Getting her from Carrara into Daz Studio requires a rebuild by hand. So you can see why this had to be done, right?
Carrara saves figures differently than Daz Studio. All morphs that the figure can access - even if not used, get stored into the Carrara file. Daz Studio's modern genius simply uses a Database to track when a morph is needed, otherwise it doesn't use any overhead.
That said, when it came time to bring this new Rosie 5.5 into Carrara for optimization, I used my tried and true method of Carrara Genesis Morph Reduction. Not only does this lower the overhead of the figure, it makes sure that someone as sweet as Rosie doesn't have dials for Monstrosities, Trolls, Orcs, Guys!!! LOL
It's nice to be able to refine the number of morph dials the figure has. In truth, I did this when I did the final build in Daz Studio as well, just to minimize what I even have available to use for morphs, which makes things a Lot quicker.
Here's an article that I wrote on the procedure: Genesis Morph Reduction
If you like that sort of thing, I have a plethora of other helpful hints and articles written to help us build our characters, animate them, get them talking, walking, rendered with volumetric fog... all kinds of stuff! Come on in and make yourself at home!
Dartanbeck.com
I've now taken the above info about Rosie 5.5 (and much more) and started a new subpage of Bridging Technology: Rosie 5.5
I go into further depth about where we're going with this character along with a lot of the details going into her design, build and the power that she holds as a digital actress base on Genesis 1 technology within todays Genesis 8.1 world.
I was a bit reluctant to step away from Genesis 8 and even made an 8.1 version of Rosie. All of the capabilties we were able to harness by taking this step back finally nudged me toward at least starting this new build.
Rosie 5 simply won't work in Daz Studio without far too much Genesis 1 destruction in Hexagon or perhaps Carrara. Her Manga shaped head/face required some time-consuming mesh editing that I was able to do in Carrara completely non-destructive to the Genesis 1 Base.
Rosie 8 started off trying to mimic the look of Rosie 5, but in the end I decided to make her a Lot less Manga - yet still a tad bit toon. I had really grown attached to Rosie 8 - hence my reluctance to move back to 5 - even though Rosie 5 herself is difficult to let go of as well! Argh!!!
Since I needed to do a new build from the ground up, I used Rosie 8 as my reference this time, and had Rosie 5 handy as well to assist with the shapes I used to bring her to life. The end result is a bit of a hybrid between the two, yet so much more. I'm very proud of what we've come up with for her. She's incredibly emotive - much more so than I was able to achieve easily in either other version.
It's going to be fun moving forward with this!
Taming the Hair!
Rosie Talking
(low rez test renders)
very nicely coiffed
Thanks! :)
She sports the Wild-Look! :)
I just finished the first video for the new Bridging Technology section - Rosie 5.5 Introduction
Rosie 5.5 Support Article
Pushing ever forward!
With Mindsong's coaching and utilizing some of the techniques I've used with Rosie 5's Carrara Dynamic Hair, Rosie 5.5 is turning out to be a real winner. She's proving to me, over and over how powerful and beautiful the fifth generation of Daz 3D figures can be, even in this world of rapidly advancing technology of metahumans.
Genesis 8 and 8.1 are truly amazing. I feel that the new 8.1 advancements are going to truly be a blessing to animating highly realistic figures, entirely crossing that line in the uncanny valley. But that's not really a line I am pushing to cross. In fact, Rosie 5.5 is really quite realistic looking now - I may just dial back on that a bit. We'll see. The fantastical nature of the environment she'll be acting in will likely lend well to keeping her more on 'this' side of that line, while still leaving her in this, more realistic look.
The AI voicing in my last video (above) will likely prove handy moving forward, but I think I'll be getting my Real Rosie in front of a microphone to do her own voice. She's a natural, so I'd hate to pass up such a wonderful opportunity to breathe full life, expression and personality into this amazing creature!
(the animated sequence looks really good - this still frame from within doesn't do it justice, but it does show some of how her muscularity can change with what she's doing, and I love the lighting of this scene)
Sorry for the Downtime
Non-CG tme has been invading my schedule lately, but I've still been animating, simulating, simulating some more, tweaking and rendering away!
I've also decided to take some of these moments where I don't seem to have enough time to do anything else to study up on a workflow that was just a whimsical notion before > adding Blender to this whole mix, which is also quite possibly (according to the whimsical daydream) just a middle ground for the next part of the flow.
Heading into Blender as someone entirely new to it is not all as bad as I thought it would be, but it's still a bottleneck in the works.
Funny, though. I just got a comment on a video stating how clunky and old Carrara is. I find that to be rather hilarious since it seems to handle a Lot more being thrown at it than either Daz Studio or Blender, and can then turn around and crank renders out of it. Perhaps what they mean to say is that clunky and old is better?
Blender is really nice now, and offers so many tools and workflows - not to mention unlimited add-ons. I can totally see adding this to my Carrara workflow as well as the reverse - so we'll soon see how/if this all plays out.
One of the next steps in this particular adventure will be to add mCasual's Blend Bot Special to the mix, so I can export Carrara and/or DS scenes into Blender.
For Rosie 5.5 I'm currently using Diffeomorphic Daz Importer to Blender, which is quite robust with many options for actually turning Daz Figures into Blender armatures that can be posed, animated, etc.,
I also wanted to try Sagan Alembic Exporter so I downloaded it, but the only instructions that I could find so far is to drop the dll into the Daz Studio 'Scripts' directory - that's it. When I look at export options, I see nothing. If anyone reading this knows how to activate an export using this, I'd love to know the drill!
Although he's making games and I'm making movies, I really have to give a shout out to Royal Skies LLC, who has several really good series regarding the Blender animation pipeline, and is now also teaching basic programming for Unity as well. In his lessons he builds, rigs and animates a female heroine and gives her finished result away for free, and then also does the same (without the video tutorials) for a Male version. Then he teaches us how to bring them (and their animations) into Unity and script them into the game engine. Well, that last part is being worked on currently.
All of his videos are really short and filled with humor. But underneath that is Real, Pro tips on making Great work! Check him out!
Chugging along, animating, simulating, rendering and learning new software, I've taken a bit of time to start sketching out my "Learning Blender" experiences on my website: Blender Zone
I'll be working my experiences into those pages soon, along with some video demonstrations and tutorials. In the meantime I simply added a few of the things that are getting me heading into the direction I think I want to take within Blender.
Here's the thing:
I've always found my Carrara workflow to be plenty powerful enough to never feel a need to expand to new software territory. It was the hair that really drove me to at least look at other things - and that's precisely where I am now - looking at hair options for the Rosie character. She's the only one of my characters that requires such personal attention, but she's also the Main character - so she totally deserves it.
Who knows, in the end I may just find that the best thing I can do is to stick with Carrara and adopt a new method of getting her awesome hair under control? We'll see. In the meantime, it sure feels like a Good Thing to open my mind to these other possibilities.
I'll see if I can get a nice little test render video demonstration made of what I've done lately. Between working and drumming, it's been (again) very hard to get me in front of a computer in a state that resembles someone who's... awake! LOL
I had no idea this existed. Thanks for the tip.
I just watched the video from Royal Skies you posted. The rant on Youtube flagging his rigging tutorials is TREMENDOUS! I must follow that guy. (I just subscribed to the channel).
I know! He cracks me up!
The LoRez people he gives away are really cool too!
This one is absolutely hilarious!
Freebie Male and Female - entirely royalty free!
@Dartanbeck The Sagan DLL goes into the plugins directory, not the scripts directory, e.g. C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio\plugins
Sorry for the typing error - yes, I put it in the plugins directory. Nothing shows up when I try to File > Export, and I've found no instructions to do anything else.
under edit not file
Cool! Thanks!
I've maintained my membership status this whole time with one exception. When I had to pull myself away from this hobby, most of the internet and pretty much all other personal joy due to family issues, I decided to let my PC+ membership lapse.
When I came back, I was amazed to see the store through the eyes of someone who isn't a PC+ member. Yeah, the prices here are still really, really good. But PC+ adds a whole new realm of affordability, which usually also means much more content within the same time frame.
I immediately came back to PC+ and hope to never be without it again!
Anyway, PC+ membership or not, Daz 3d and the artists here are always finding ways to get us great content at very low cost. I mean... this stuff is really high quality stuff and the prices really rock! Then Daz 3d comes along and has these masive events, where we get to score a good amount of free merchandise for some specified amount of time - and we get to pick from a nice big list. In addition to the giveaways they also run amazing sales to boost our spirits of the times even more.
Well, with the major overhaul of the store and website, image addresses changed, leaving that thread a big pile of empty image containers.
So now I've started a new Thanks Daz 3d landing page, knowing that I'm going to need a few pages for this - and the pages within it will showcase some of my favorite gear that I pick up along the way.
I'll be working backward in the beginning - starting with recent purchases and working my way into my Product Library history. Our Daz 3d accounts do a great job of reminding us if we got a product in a bundle, when we bought it, and how much we paid, so I can easily (for the most part) decipher the stuff that I got at insane discounts, and which stuff I just bought outright.
Why? Well because I think it can offer a lot of insight and direction as to how I decide to build my library for what I'm doing. Even in the early stages of such a info center, I do my best to at least give a brief idea of why I felt a need for each product - sometimes offering more details on my plans for them.
Besides, it's a lot of fun!
Wanna check it out and see what I mean?
You add fantastic vibrance to these assets. I appreciate all the information you share. So in reply to your Thanks Daz niche, I offer...
Thanks, Dart!
I still use your enviro-kits and starry sky. So excellent.
Awww... Thanks Diomede! I love seeing your uses of my kits, and notice their use in your work - it's so nice to see!
Thanks for the kind words, my friend!
Well I've finished off the May 2021 compilation page, except for any new sales that may yet arrise.
I wasn't actually planning on this page having only May purchases, but the beginning of the month was so chock fill of goodies, May purchases alone have already made for a nice, full page!
I was also planning to simply list each of the purchases in order, newest to the top, but after I got into writing it all, it truly started to make sense to instead put together groups of content that can be used in the same sequence of a story.
In doing this, I think that the article turned out pretty cool. One wouldn't think that all of these elements can work together within the same story, but - you'll see... it will! :)
As I say at the end of the article:
I've added Thanks Daz 3d!!! - Compiled February 2021, which shows that I was really into buiding up my Genesis 1 base for this new Rosie 5 (Rosie 5.2) that I'm working with now. Shapes, clones, convertors and animations - but I also grabbed PhilW's amazing Central Business District for Carrara, which is just Awesome!!!
It's a cool page though. It has some nice little explanations about my decisions for adding these products to my workflow.