Genesis 2 Braces for Impact (now working on Dental Head Brace)
Basis
Posts: 121
I'm almost done my first attempt at making a product.
I had to teach myself how to do UVs, building up from raw shapes, textures, geo-graphs, rigidity groups.
Luckily there were people who where able to give me some tips on the occasions I painted myself into a corner.
All I have to do now is configure some presets and package it and I hope it'll be excepted.
I'm calling it "Braces for Impact"
The Braces have 36 rigidity groups which allow each bracket to follow closely the tooth it's paired with. This allow the braces to work with anything from irregular teeth, gap tooth, etc. or Vampire teeth. The brackets and arcwire will shift to accommodate virtually any tooth morph (as long as auto-follow is enabled).
I've built two elastic band sets. The first one is native to the braces and is set further back for nuance. The second set is a geo-graph that is set closer to the front of the mouth and when applied hides the native elastic bands.
It's build to stretch when the mouth opens and closes.
There is a set of 12 facial morphs. 1 morph cleans up the gum line in the mouth and the other 11 provide various lip protrusions that are caused by braces and to help prevent lip/brace collision.
In the Braces themselves there are 40 bracket morphs which are sub-components of 18 controller morphs. Which in turn are controlled by 2 master morph controllers. This allows for ease of use without sacrificing utility.
Each symmetrical bracket has a separate Width, Height and Depth which can be directly dialed to personalize how the user wants.
The same goes for hiding the brackets. There are 18 Hiding morphs which are sub-components for hiding the Top braces or Bottom braces. Each symmetrical bracket pair can be hidden separate from the arcwire and elastic bands. Which can be used to make a retainer appearance.
There are multiple surface regions. 4 for the O-rings, 1 of the top & bottom brackets and 1 for the top and bottom arcwire. This can give you the option to make the brackets clear to make a "clear plastic bracket" version.
What do you all think of my work?
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Comments
here are a couple more examples
Also, it is compatible with Gia, the Youth morph and Teen Morphs.
Though I don't have them at the moment, Stephanie 6 and The Girl 6 should also work with it. Here's a picture of the braces with Youth morph dialed to 50%.
Nice work! The different wire and band options are very cool.
Here's some Goth Vampire version of the braces.
I may throw the Vampire teeth in with the package. Since the Brackets obey the top vertices of each tooth, if those are are moved in relation to each other the bracket could skew alittle.
The close up side view shows the sub-controller "Top Braces Depth" and is set to 50%. This morph spans out radially from each tooth without moving the back of each bracket. This let's you smoosh the braces closer to the teeth (which is the quickest way to remove clipping with the lips) or jut them out in a stylized manner.
The other Shows with height increased as well as the depth. It's mainly for making the braces easier to see from a distance but this is what it looks like close up.
Will these work with the Growing Up morphs for G2F and G2M?
Yes.
The teeth and mouth get really small at 100% and there is some minor skewing on the canines. However, since 5 year olds don't wear braces it shouldn't be problem. Plus the mouth covers most of the braces anyway.
But it's negligible at around 50% which puts in in the proper age group.
Here's a picture of Youth Morph at 100% and 50%.
They look fantastic!
Here are some examples of the Braces Lip Protrusion morphs.
There is 1 gum line clean up correction morph.
2 collision morphs that push the inside of the lips away from the teeth.
4 morphs for the top lip (Protrude, Roll, Bow narrow, Bow wide)
4 morphs for the bottom lip (Protrude, Roll, Bow narrow, Bow wide)
& 1 morph that swells mouth corners and pinches the mouth sides closer to each other.
I made it top/bottom so the user can have better control over the mouth shape.
The "Protrude" morphs widen the mouth and pushes them away from the teeth radially. I made them so they look natural at 50% for the Adult Victoria6.
However, since the growing up morph set shrinks the mouth, 100% protrude looks natural when using the Youth morph.
Here are some examples of how they look like when used together.
First picture is with both 'protrude' morphs applied at 50%
Second and Third show the Lip Roll morphs dial to -50% with a little bit of center bowing to show the front teeth better, plus side swell added.
Fourth show the Lip Roll morphs dial to 50% with just a bit more bowing added.
Well, I'm almost finished the Metadata for the smart content.
I'm taking a break before writing up the itemized list for what's included to work on some preliminary promo images.
Here is some examples of what I've made so far.
The Main Promo image is two overlayed images. One done in Luxus and the other using Ray-traced shadows in 3Delight. I Overlayed them together using Photoshop using the Luxus image at 40% opacity. I like the results but I think I could do the shadows better and do it from a few more angles.
I'm open to any suggestions on what I could do to make the image pop.
These look great! Though I'm having terrible flashbacks to my awkward Jr High/High School years. I had braces for 4 years and a retainer for many years after that.
Thanks. What do you think of my elastic band selection?
I've never had braces myself so I had to work off googled images to get an idea on what they look like.
I chose Braces as my first full project because I reasoned that it should be easy to make. It's basically the same bracket repeated 28 times. Boy was I wrong.
When I first started this project I wanted to practice with as many different facets of building an item as possible. I started with primitive objects, then Surface Domains. Then I had to teach myself how to do UVs and finally how to create textures.
Then in DAZ, I figured out how to make Rigidity groups (there's at least 36 separate groups in the main braces) because morphs would stretch the brackets like taffy.
Which got me thinking about elastic bands.
So I went back and started again from scratch as there were flaws I didn't like in the first version and crafted in the default bands.
Then I had to figure out how force each bracket to only obey the tooth it's on. The first version had 72 rigidity groups and tooth morphs would cause them to skew, elongate and blow up.
After much trial and error I finally got the brackets to obey only certain polygons on the teeth.
This lets the Braces work natively with V6, Step6, Girl6, Teen Josie, Growing Up Youth morphs (these are the ones I've been able to verify personally) or facial morphs which move the teeth around, like gap teeth or vampire fangs. That is, as long as they don't deform the master polygons each bracket obeys.
The main braces finally worked perfectly. But then I realized the Default bands were very subtle on V6 and became very hard to see when applying morphs which made the mouth smaller.
I ended up building a second set of elastic bands which geo-graft directly to the braces. When applied it hides the default elastics and places the bands further forward.
I was very happy when I didn't have to do anything to the main braces to get the geo-graft to work.
Here's another Promo image, This one I think is better and less saturated then the previous one. Instead of Hard Light I used Normal in photoshop.
If you're planning on selling it at DAZ you don't need to make the meta data, they do it for us.. and apparently will redo it even if you do it yourself.
I like the second version of the main promo much better, it focuses more on the product, dynamic angle, compelling, all that.. very good. =)
When you are ready to upload these, send an e-mail to pa at daz3d.com.
As a PA you have access to new figures (free) so you can add the morphs to your product.
I've submitted my product for review, now to work some more on promo art test.
Here's an example of the braces on Stephanie 6 using Taylor. (need to move the hand and fingers a little at the temple)
Fix some tiny issues with going to 100% using the Youth morph from Growing Up. Before, I could go to 50% and slight skewing would start happened on the back teeth. Not a big problem since you really couldn't see it. But I knew it was there.
Now you can go to 100% and it's perfect. First two images are the Youth morph applied to 100%
Also added is an example of the brackets auto-adjusting to the Teen Josie morph using the Cassie face morph. Her upper front teeth have a gap in the middle. The second is Cassie and Irregular teeth and a second Gap tooth morph applied.
Here's an example using The Girl 6.
The teeth are morphed to irregular with gap teeth.
I hid the top number 2 symmetrical bracket pair on this one. I recall seeing braces that skip some teeth so I made the morphs that hide the top and bottom braces modular. This gives the artist any number of braces' appearances.
The second image is of another preset I've been experimenting with while waiting on feedback on my product submission.
Plastic Brackets.
Well, I'm in the final stretch for Uploading BFI for review. All I have to do now is finish the promotional advertizing artwork.
Which turns out to be hard as hell. Doubly so when all previous experience with Adobe PS was cleaning up images.
I've been spending the last couple of weeks tapping away at the keyboard like a monkey in the hopes of getting a result I like. After much revision and compositional experimentation I think I've gotten close to finishing.
What do you think of my current image line up?
...And the second half.
Looking at both (Halves)
Dare I say .... a mite too hectic! .. Info overload sort-of thing
The product looks fine (its already in my cart in my mind) and I've been watching with great interest since you first let us see your project.
But I'm afraid I find the proposed 'promos' to be miles too 'BUSY' for my eyes.
(But then I'm an ould codger anyway :lol:)
Vinny
That elasticating rubber effect looks very impressive... Would love to see you use that same technique to create a saliva-based product. I've often wanted to be able to stretch fluid between jaws of characters, whether it be saliva, blood or some kind of other blank, shader-ready liquid.
Would be especially desirable for people, now that the official Genesis 2 creature creator has both gender variations.
Your promos look very busy.
I do like the image for the main promo (too much text though)
You main promo should be 1000x1300.
Pop up promos should be 500x650 or larger.
DAZ likes the 10x13 ratio
I thought along the same lines when I figured out how to make the bands and had been exploring some tricks with saliva/blood/etc. I think I could make a working product and have some ideas on how to stream-line the build.
I may work on that next after this project.
Maybe I'll call it "Spitting Mad"
I can easily edit out some of the more descriptive text out of some of the images. I've just finished packaging my work and just about to upload my first draft.
I've made a few more changes to some of the images, but I'll see what QA has to suggest on what should be cleared up in the promos.
Here's the new Main Promo & first Supplemental image;
Would definitely be interested. There are a lot of things where the only real option is post-work in an image programme, but for which I'd much prefer having physical props within DS to attain the effect of. This certainly numbers among them! Would probably have uses for things like war or sports-themed art.
One of the tricks I worked out on the bands was how to make the bands pinch at the center as the jaw opens without using a morph.
I figured that trick out by the time I reached the second band attachment though.
I could do that with the strings of saliva but make it more pronounced. However, I'ld have to make a mixture of some rigidity groups, ERC Freeze supplemental morphs tied to the Lower jaw and Tongue.
Hmm. Ya, I think I could do it. The hard part, I think, will be the Tongue & Upper jaw interaction and bubbles. Plus figuring out a way to make the saliva 'snap.'
I like making my morphs & props video friendly. So it may take some time.
Hit a bit of a snag. The product that got me access to the vender uploading site by one DAZ Team member was shot down by another before it was even looked at.
Reason being; "no market for it," apparently.
Oh well, I'll try to contact the one that liked it and convince them otherwise.
But if not, I'm sure one of the other merchant websites will take it. I'd just hate to have to repackage everything.
I was in the middle of making an add-on pack for my braces and a Male Genesis 2 version.
Here's the Braces Headgear I'd been working on. It's still being built up. Only the front wires so far. I haven't sculpted the wires or done the sides and neck brace yet.
lol no market huh?....well I hope if I watch this thread I will find out where you sell because I will buy.
“no market for it,”, dose a similar product already exist for G2F, And Where!? or Whom else is making braces, and dose not want the competition?
I was watching this thread in anticipation of getting them, now this. I am not happy about that "Snag" you ran in to, to say the least. I'll stop there before my language de-evolves any further.
For whom shot this down, Give me a link to where I can buy a similar product for G2F, Or let me buy this particular product. Yes for Daz Studio 4.6.
Hehe, thanks. Just wanted to keep you guys apprised on the products status and/or possible change in merchant website.
I'm a bit upset myself, however, as I've spent 4 months working on this.
Granted, if I was to start all over from scratch it would probably only take me a month or so.
Speaking of starting on something new...
The Headgear add-on is going very well. The tricks I learned on the braces helped be big time. I'm about 2/3's done on the Headgear Brace and it's only taken me maybe 10 hours total so far. It really helps to build up a library of 3D primitives.
The other thing I learned the hard way is to never increase the polygon count until the very end. God that was tedious moving vertices until I was happy with the placement.
I may make several Headgear versions as it's going very fast and I can always cannibalize parts for one to make another.
Anyway, Here's a picture of the current build. As you can see I'm getting tricky with the surface regions. All I need now it to make the neck pad and coupling ties for the back of the head. Surface region set up on the back of the neck is going to be tricky. I'm thinking I may have to make it so I can create some presets that will hide parts of the neck pad brace for certain hair styles.
Ah, that's convenient. The Headgear looks like it's fully compatible with the lip morphs that come with the braces. I wont have to make any changes or additional lip morphs for headgear mouthpiece collision.
Here's a example...