TangoAlpha's Coming Soon Thread [Commercial]

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  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    What a great set, Tim. Did you need to visit a lab for your ideas?  yes Silene

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    I bet he just watches a lot of CSI and Morse...

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    and Silent Witness . . .

    Actually, Morse could well have used this lab, since the real building is round the back of his old cop shop. Mind you, the "Tactical Lab" room is pure CSI, although I refuse to stoop to anything so impractical as transparent whiteboards!

  • chickenmanchickenman Posts: 1,202
    edited February 2017

    Where is the white in transparent whiteboards.

    They are just glass boards.

     

    Post edited by chickenman on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623

    Thanks to @PhilW we've discovered that it's not immediately 8.1 compatible, but it can easily be made to be. Seems that 8.5 introduced a new bitmap sampling method, "Fast Mip Map" and made it the default. If you open something with fast mip mapping in 8.1, there's all sorts of bits don't show up and it looks kinda meh. But converting the shaders to use the old "Sampling" filter will fix it. The .car files are uncompressed text, so it's just a matter of opening them in TextEdit (or Notepad in Windows), searching for Filt 3 and replacing with Filt 0 The set after this one will have that done by default.

    Thanks again to PhilW for finding th problem and its solution.

    Maybe someone could go through all of this, leaving texture maps to "Local", so they're not included in the shader files, and upload a free fix for this?

    I remember helping many people with this when Carrara 8.5 first came out. I never go back to 8.1 ever so I never need to worry anymore.

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    @Dartanbeck just mentioned in another thread that pre-8.5 didn't support normal maps. So that would be a problem.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623

    @Dartanbeck just mentioned in another thread that pre-8.5 didn't support normal maps. So that would be a problem.

    Normal Schmormal... leave the darned polys flat, I say! LOL

    Kidding, of course. Well... it's not your fault. They've been practically giving away 8.5 Pro for a long while now. Personally, after using 8.5 for only a few weeks (back in the beta period) I couldn't stand going back to 8.1   there really is a huge difference between the two - and I barely ever use it for Genesis!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623

    Speaking of TangoAlpha products, did you see this?

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    BTW, there's a few more renders in my other thread, out in the wilds: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/89331/tangoalpha-s-coming-soon-commercial#latest

  • GreymomGreymom Posts: 1,113
    edited February 2017

    Speaking of TangoAlpha products, did you see this?

    Incredible looking set, grabbed it this morning.  Lot I can do with this!   The orchard is next on my list.

    The new lab will be a must-have too!

     

     

    Post edited by Greymom on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,182

    Looking forward to your new lab product.  Any chance that you can give Daz a gentle reminder to test the DIM install for the Carrara version?  For the TangyOrchard product, DIM overrode my filters and installed the Carrara version in a newly created subfolder where my Studio program is installed.  Found it, but we shouldn't have to track that stuff down.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,996

    hi Dart, small correction and probably irrelevant but 8.1 uses normal maps as well.

    I have 8.5 as you know but (for me) it's like going to the supermarket and finding they put the bread in the rat bait section and the fresh tomatoes in with the fried chicken.

    I don't  really have enough spare time to work it out.

    I don't have any trouble with 8.1 apart from the mipmapping business and so far that's only been with certain Carrara products and a daz only railway station I needed to use - but the PhilW fix should solve that. 

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    diomede said:

    Looking forward to your new lab product.  Any chance that you can give Daz a gentle reminder to test the DIM install for the Carrara version?  For the TangyOrchard product, DIM overrode my filters and installed the Carrara version in a newly created subfolder where my Studio program is installed.  Found it, but we shouldn't have to track that stuff down.

    I did double check the install folders when it appeared in my account a few days ago - is all okay smiley

     

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    head wax said:

    hi Dart, small correction and probably irrelevant but 8.1 uses normal maps as well.

    I have 8.5 as you know but (for me) it's like going to the supermarket and finding they put the bread in the rat bait section and the fresh tomatoes in with the fried chicken.

    I don't  really have enough spare time to work it out.

    I don't have any trouble with 8.1 apart from the mipmapping business and so far that's only been with certain Carrara products and a daz only railway station I needed to use - but the PhilW fix should solve that. 

    Other than backwards compatibility, is there any benefit to using "sampling" over "fast mip map" (or vice versa)? To my eyes I can't see any difference in the renders . . .

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,996

    Not sure, but when I try to render a 8.5 scene  in 8.1  I get black ;)

    I think the fast mip mapping iss what's happening to blacken it!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623
    head wax said:

    Not sure, but when I try to render a 8.5 scene  in 8.1  I get black ;)

    I think the fast mip mapping iss what's happening to blacken it!

    It is. The reason being that 8.1 doesn't have Fast MipMap, so it ends up as an incompatible filter solution instead of reverting to one that works, like Sampling.

     

    head wax said:

    hi Dart, small correction and probably irrelevant but 8.1 uses normal maps as well.

    I have 8.5 as you know but (for me) it's like going to the supermarket and finding they put the bread in the rat bait section and the fresh tomatoes in with the fried chicken.

    I don't  really have enough spare time to work it out.

    I don't have any trouble with 8.1 apart from the mipmapping business and so far that's only been with certain Carrara products and a daz only railway station I needed to use - but the PhilW fix should solve that. 

    Other than backwards compatibility, is there any benefit to using "sampling" over "fast mip map" (or vice versa)? To my eyes I can't see any difference in the renders . . .

    Fast Mip Map is introduced to help reduce flickering in animations - possibly some other benefit. So you could just set all of your shader (which use texture maps) to use Sampling, and then it would be backward compatible. That's how I worked while I was running both 8.1 and 8.5 - then I switched to Fast MipMap and never looked back.

     

    head wax said:

    hi Dart, small correction and probably irrelevant but 8.1 uses normal maps as well.

    I have 8.5 as you know but (for me) it's like going to the supermarket and finding they put the bread in the rat bait section and the fresh tomatoes in with the fried chicken.

    I don't  really have enough spare time to work it out.

    I don't have any trouble with 8.1 apart from the mipmapping business and so far that's only been with certain Carrara products and a daz only railway station I needed to use - but the PhilW fix should solve that. 

    Without a plugin? Are you sure? Were Normal Maps introduced in 8 instead of 8.5 and I'm just remembering wrong?

  • dbdigital2dbdigital2 Posts: 270
    edited February 2017

    Nice work Tango, I will have to grab that set soon.  Also talking about Fenric's Advanced Shader Doctor, it appears it is no longer available/for sale.  The trial is still available for download, but he isn't selling it anymore (aka store for registration is closed).

    By the way, with regard to CSI transparent whiteboards...I could't use them either.  They would drive me nuts trying to write on that.

    Post edited by dbdigital2 on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623

    Nice work Tango, I will have to grab that set soon.  Also talking about Fenric's Advanced Shader Doctor, it appears it is no longer available/for sale.  The trial is for download, but he isn't selling it anymore (aka store for registration is closed).

    He did say we should contact him if we needed any of his plugins from his store - he'll set us up ;)

    Fenric Rocks and, for me, Carrara wouldn't be the same without his plugins - I use tham All the Time!

    In case where texture maps weren't nested, as in being muliplied, etc., changing all Fast MipMap to Sampling worked fine for me. But then again, like I said, I don't really need to do that anymore.

  • Oh that is good to know about Fenric.  I have one or two, but certainly not all the ones he has developed.  Quite impressive.  Which ones do you use the most/are the best/couldn't live without?

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    Shader Doctor and Pose Helper are probably my most used general Fenric Plugins. I've used MDD Exporter/Importer a good deal too in order to get animations into and out of Marvelous Designer, but that is more specialist.

    I think the difference with MipMapper is that it performs some sort of averaging when the texture is more distant, which helps prevent flicker in animations as Dart mentioned. For stills, the difference would be pretty marginal.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623
    edited February 2017

    Oh that is good to know about Fenric.  I have one or two, but certainly not all the ones he has developed.  Quite impressive.  Which ones do you use the most/are the best/couldn't live without?

    Me? Here's an article I wrote on the subject:

    ►► Fenric's Tools ​​
    A brief overview of Fenric's amazing Carrara plugins

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623

    It was too hard to simply give a quick answer to, so I made that. I feel as if Carrara is missing something when I install it fresh and don't have my Fenric tools on it yet.

    Sorry for the side rail, TangoAlpha!

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    Congratulations my friend! I am sure it will do well for you, it is VAST with so much potential for scenes and renders.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,182
    edited February 2017

    Vast is an understatement.  Very Versatile.  Wow. 

    Detailed building with both an interior and exterior.  There are several staging areas along the exterior for showing characters entering or leaving the County Crime Lab that can easily be converted to a hospital entrance or other major building.  There are other exterior areas that can easily be used as a back alley or a city sidewalk..  Inside, there are many rooms, each with unique setup and camera.  The prop product has plenty of crime investigation instruments and general office suppies to put that evidence under the microscope - and to adapt to other scenes.

    Well done, Tim. 

     

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623

    So cool! I love all of your work. You've really pulled out the stops on this one! :)

    I remember way back when you came into this forum inserested in becoming a Daz3d PA. I'm very happy to have been part of the encouragement staff behind all of this! ;)

    Rock On TangoAlpha!!!

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Thanks Dart. Way back then, ambition definitely exceeded talent. But keep improving and the world's your mollusc! smiley

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    Goes to show, if you really put your mind to something, it's amazing what you can achieve - but of course it requires time, hard work and dedication. Things that TangoAlpha has in droves (well, I don't think he has more time than us mere mortals...)

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Clones are definitely on my wish list . . .

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited February 2017

    I've got 5 products in the top of store "What's Hot" scroller right now. That's never happened before - I'm quite chuffed! laugh

    Post edited by TangoAlpha on
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