3D Archives

My notes on 3D apps I use: ZBrush, Hexagon, DAZ Studio, Poser, Carrara and many others.

DAZ Studio 115: Parametric Light Objects in Iray

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In this episode I’ll give you an introduction to the various parametric light objects we can create from the menu, how to use them and how to tweak their respective parameters as they apply to the Iray render engine. Here’s the link about Colour Temperature I’ve mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature Here’s the one about Luminous Flux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_flux …

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Using Blender on a Laptop with a Trackpad

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After futzing CentOS 7 on my old Samsung Q330 laptop, I thought it would be fun to see if the old hardware from 2010 would be capable of running Blender. After all, the team have recently added CentOS as a new pre-built package to the list of downloadable options, and for me that was the perfect opportunity to try it out.

Turns out my Q330 only runs OpenGL Version 2.1, which means it can’t run Blender 2.8+. However it’s still capable of running 2.79, and it made me smile to see it full screen.

Of course trying to move anything on the screen proved to be difficult, because I had never done that before with a standard trackpad. My Mac has one, and it behaves beautifully with gestures out of the box, but I guess Windows and Linux users don’t have that luxury, even if a trackpad is present.

How do we navigate 3D space in Blender then, if there’s no mouse nearby? Well I’ve just found out, and I’d love to share it with you. I’ve only been able to test this in Blender 2.79, but I’m assuming

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Duplicating an object along a path in Blender 2.8

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The other day I tried to create a simple necklace in Blender 2.8, only to find out that the way I’ve once learnt from Blender 2.79 and below using DupliFaces no longer works. This feature has been removed from Blender 2.8. Thankfully there’s an easier way to do this, using the Array and Curve Modifiers.

For this example I’ll create a circle for our path, and an object I want to duplicate on it. Perhaps a UV Sphere. Make sure to apply all transformations after any scaling operations with CTRL + A.

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Editing DAZ clothing using a reference figure in ZBrush

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Even though I own it, I know very little about ZBrush. It may forever remain a mystery for me – like driving a car or getting excited about Team Sports. It’s just… not for me. Be that as it may, I’ve often wondered how clothing manufacturers use a character as a reference to make or update clothing geometry in ZBrush. Perhaps a jacket that doesn’t quite fit, or some boots that need a quick adjustment.

The challenge here is that both the character and the clothing need to be imported into ZBrush, and we need to be able to adjust the clothing only, while seeing the character in the background as a reference so we can work around it.

While the art of sculpting in ZBrush entirely eludes me, I believe I have finally understood the overall workflow. Before I forget it again, I thought I’d share it with you and my future self. Let’s see how we can transfer a clothed Genesis 3 figure from DAZ Studio 4.11 into ZBrush 2019.1, make adjustments on an item, and then bring it all back with a few clicks.

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Going Shopping in Ironman13’s Clothing Boutique – 3D Shenanigans #22

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In this live stream we’ll take two Genesis characters shopping in Ironman13’s Styling Clothing Boutique. We’ll build the whole scene from start to finish, including lighting and depth of field. This will bring some of the techniques together that I’ve shared with you recently, including how to spin the sundial. PS: The stream dropped out …

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How to bring back Selection Toggling in Blender 2.8

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I’m so used to pressing A to select or de-select everything in Blender. It’s been so ingrained in my brain that I cannot easily get used to the new default behaviour in Blender 2.8. Thankfully there’s a simple tick box in the Preferences that will bring this option back, so there’s no need for my …

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An Overview of Strand Based Hair in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #20

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On today’s live stream, I’m giving you an overview on how to get started with the new Strand Based Hair feature in DAZ Studio 4.11. It’s only been released to the public yesterday, and we have not many details on how to create handsome looking hair with this tool, but I’ll let you in on …

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Building a Kitchen Comic Scene in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #18

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In this live event I’ll show you how to build the above funny kitchen scene. It’s simple with several subtle nuances, such as lighting and expressions. I’ll explain how to add your characters, pose them, adjust the camera, and add appropriate (comical) expressions. Then we’ll adjust the lights of the set and add our own …

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Animating sunlight (SS Time) in DAZ Studio

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I’ve recently explained how to make use of the realistic sun disk in DAZ Studio. I’ve talked about how to make this thing visible and how to set it to mood/effect you want, and I’m pleased with the results. This workflow works great for still images, but for animations, it quickly becomes clear that the SS Time parameter under Render Settings – Environment cannot be keyframed.

Or can it? Looks like it can, thanks to a little helper tool called the Sun Dial. Let me show you how it works.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 7:05 — 6.5MB)

Urban Future Fly-Through Animation Workflow

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I’ve rendered this quick trailer for my 3D Shenanigans Live Stream, using Stonemason’s Urban Future 6 set the other day. I did this really quick, and there are some rough edges to this animation. It only took 8 hours to render the full sequence plus a bit of post production in Premiere.

I thought I’d share my multi-machine workflow and pipeline with you, indulging some tips of what I might do different next time.

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Rendering with Blender from the Command Line

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I wanted to put some of my (old) computers to good use by helping them render animations. Everyone is stronger when we work together as a team, no matter if we’re built on carbon or silicone. Sadly though, Blender doesn’t start its GUI via RDP, which means it’s not so easy to speak to the application – unless you employ clunky workarounds.

That’s where the command line interface comes in handy. We can issue a text command to Blender, telling it which file we’d like to render, where to render to, and which frames of an animation to render.

Before I forget how this works, I thought I’d best write it down.

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Shattering my Logo in Blender – 3D Shenanigans #15

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On this week’s live stream I’ll take my 3D Shenanigans Logo and shatter it into pieces, to build a creepy backwards animation using the Cell Fracture add-on in Blender 2.79. I’ll start by explaining how the tool works, then we’ll move on to building the logo from scratch, add materials, and then we’ll build something …

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Creating Animated Fog with Carrara – 3D Shenanigans #14

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In this live event I’ll create animated volumetric fog with the highly underrated Carrara. I’ll show you around the app and explain how the programme works, introduce you to some of its features, and then I’ll animate good looking fog. Once exported as a transparent image sequence, I’ll try to animate it live over my …

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Using Iray Canvases in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #13

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In this live event I’ll tell you everything I know about Iray Canvases in DAZ Studio. It’s a huge topic, and admittedly I don’t know everything about this subject, but it will cover how to get started with multi pass rendering and the principles of creating separate images from your scene. About Depth Passes There’s …

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Animating Numbers with Blender and DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #12

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In this live event I’ll show you how to create 3D Text Objects in Blender 2.8, then bring them in to DAZ Studio to animate and render. We’ll animate a single number first, then apply the same animation to the other numbers and add small variations using aniMate. Other than that, I’m happy to answer …

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DAZ Studio Test Scene – share your Iray Render Speeds

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I’d love to see a decent Iray render speed comparison between the current NVIDIA graphics Cards, specifically for DAZ Studio performance. All we need is some data from a static test scene, render it on a variety of systems and compare the results. Well here’s such a scene! Please download it and render it on …

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Building a Creepy Corridor Scene in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #05

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In this live event I’ll build a creepy “survival horror” type scene: an unsuspecting janitor is working the night shift, while a bunch of super intelligent bugs have escaped and try to take over the facility. I’ll start by modifying the stock corridor to make it longer, then I’ll setup a camera with an extreme …

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Converting older Skin Shaders for use with Iray in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #04

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In this live event I’ll explain how we can use an existing Iray skin shader and apply it to an older character like Staci. In my last stream I’ve shown you how to apply existing Iray materials from the library to various surfaces, and this time we’ll create a whole shader (almost) from scratch. I’ll …

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Using Older Content in DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #03

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In this live event I’ll show you how to utilise some of your older content in DAZ Studio and make it compatible with the NVIDIA Iray render engine. Specifically, I’ll take two 3D Universe characters from 2004, pose them in a brand new set by Danie and Marforno and create a riveting Sci-Fi scene. I’ll …

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Where does DAZ Studio save Morph Files

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I have recently explained how we can create morphs for DAZ Studio assets with external applications, and how to apply them to characters and clothing using Morph Loader, or something like the GoZ Plugin. You can watch those videos here and here.

One of my viewers was asking – quite rightly – what to do with the applied morph, and how to save it. The answer to that question is a little in-depth, and depends on what you’d like to do with said morph. I thought I’d expand on the answer I gave Scott in one of the above videos with this article.

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How to use Reference Images in DAZ Studio

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In this episode I’ll show you how we can use Reference Images in DAZ Studio. This is not a built-in option, but with the help of a Plane Primitive and a dedicated camera we can use references to help us build scenes, poses and shaders. We can create as many planes and cameras as we …

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About that Denoiser in DAZ Studio 4.11

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There’s an article by Phil Miller that explains NVIDIA’s philosophy about the new interactive Iray Denoiser.

Thanks to deep learning, NVIDIA’s own DGX-1 AI Super Computer and a lot of trial and error, this machine developed an algorithm that can predict how accurate the final result will look like when only a limited amount of ray bounces are available.

In a nutshell, their Artificial Neural Network went ahead and compared a partially finished render with a finished one, and each time it made a prediction that was not looking handsome, it learnt from it. Eventually they came up with what’s currently integrated in the latest release of Iray, which has made it into DAZ Studio 4.11, and that in turn is available for us to beta test right now.

I’ve run some tests with this new toy, and I’m excited to share those with you today.

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Building an Indoor Pool Scene with DAZ Studio – 3D Shenanigans #02

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In this live event I’ll build a scene with the Hotel Indoor Pool product from DAZ and Imaginary 3D (available for free this week for Platinum Club Members). I’ll explain how to walk through the scene to explore the the whole set, pick a good camera angle, convert existing objects into light sources and add …

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