3D Archives

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

How to use Proportional Editing (Soft Selections) in Blender

Porportional-Editing

Proportional Editing is what Blender calls a tool with which you can modify part of your object with an area of influence around your selection. Other apps would call this Soft Selections. The principle is the same: pick a selection, and rather than just move the selection, you have influence over an area of gradual falloff.

In the above GIF I’ve selected a single face in the middle of a grid. Without proportional editing, only the face is moved. With proportional editing, the whole area around it is moved. Let’s take a look at how to use this tool.

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Blender Keyboard Shortcuts

Here’s a list of shortcuts for use in our Blender adventures. These become second nature very quickly, but when you’ve been away from Blender for a while it’s really easy to forget them all. So while they’re in my mind, here’s what my brain currently knows and likes.

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How to chamfer edges in Blender

You can chamfer edges in Blender using the Bevel Tool (from the Edge menu). To do this, enter Edit Mode and select one or more edges on your object. Hit CTRL+E to bring up the Edge Menu and select Bevel. Alternatively, hit CTRL+B to enter Bevel mode immediately. Now move your mouse and the an …

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How to use the View Selected shortcut in Blender on a Mac

On standard Mac keyboards and laptops, some of the handy Blender shortcuts are hard to find. That’s because many of them rely on us having a full-size keyboard or an additional Number Pad. While those aren’t expensive, some of us just don’t want to use another gadget that clutters our desks (be that at home or in our coffee shop).

One of the many useful shortcuts in Blender is View Selected. It frames the selected object(s) and lets us tumble the camera around them. View Selected is accessible from the View menu, and by default it’s mapped to NUMPAD + . (the period key on the number pad). I do this a lot, so I really want this as a usable shortcut on my keyboard. But the default doesn’t work, because I don’t have a  Number Pad.

There is an option under File – User Preferences that lets users like me emulate one, and it works with most keyboard shortcuts – but NOT for the View Selected shortcut. I have no idea why. Fact.

So what can we do, if we don’t want to invest into more hardware? Re-mapping the keyboard shortcut to something usable springs to mind. Thankfully, Blender is endlessly customisable. Let’s see how we can assign our own shortcut to the View Selected option.

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How to set the origin (pivot point) in Blender

Every 3D object has a point around which it rotates or scales from. It’s usually the point at which the 3D manipulator gizmo shows up. In Blender this point is called the Origin. In my screenshot, that point is at the top of the selected book. But perhaps I’d like to move it to the …

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Joining and separating objects in Blender

Joining objects in Blender means that two different meshes can become part of the same object. This sounds like it’s related to grouping and parenting, but it’s more useful in modelling. Think of a complex object made of several primitives: rather than having a hierarchy in Object Mode, you’ll have a single object with multiple linked …

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How to use Reference Images in Blender

Reference images are nice if you’re modelling something from scratch: take pictures from the front, the back, the sides, and then use them to create a 3D model with all those fancy extrusion tools and what have you. Trouble is, how do we get them into Blender as a backdrop? Let me show you, before I …

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How to add thickness in Blender

Adding thickness or depth to an object is easy in Blender, thanks to its lovely Solidify Modifier. It’s as easy as adding the modifier to your object and changing the properties – you can even do this while you’re still working on the geometry. Let me show you how to do it. For this example, let’s create …

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How to weld points in Blender

Screen Shot 2016-05-09 at 15.54.22

Sometimes 3D objects are created with duplicate vertices that should be in the same place. Imagine two sides of a cube: ideally they should share the same points, but when you place two planes closely next to each other, they’re just two planes and not one object.

For that we need to “weld” vertices together, an expression shared by pretty much every 3D package – except for Blender, where “being different” is just as important as “being complicated”. In Blender, welding is called “removing doubles”.

Let me show you how to do this – no matter what you want to call it.

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How to add thickness in ZBrush using Panel Loops

Screen Shot 2016-05-09 at 12.54.35

I have previously shown you how to add thickness to an object using the ZBrush Move Tool. While that method may have had its uses in the past, it is hugely cumbersome and can’t really be used on a complex object.

So today I’ve learnt how to achieve the same thing using something called Panel Loops. It a nutshell, with this feature ZBrush splits the whole model into separate little objects, adds thickness to them and merges if all back together again. It even adds Polygroups for all those little bits too.

Panel Loops can be used to create the backside of an otherwise single sided object (for example, a dress exported from Marvelous Designer).

Let me show you how to use it briefly.

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How to install 3D Content from a ZIP Archive on Mac OS X

Alt-Drag-and-Drop

Dealing with ZIP files from 3D content marketplaces isn’t easy. I’ve been asked several times how to install such content, and thought this article may come in handy for future generations.

The principle is the same on Mac and Windows, however it’s slightly more tricky on a Mac because it wants to replace the whole folder rather than merge it. We’ll see how to deal with this peculiarity and have our content installed in no time!

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How to export a UV Texture Template in Photoshop

Screen Shot 2016-04-29 at 11.21.17Sometimes it’s necessary to have a 2D Texture Template for a 3D model. It makes texturing a lot easier in 2D painting apps.

While some programmes like Marvelous Designer can create the UVs, and quite clearly show them to us, there’s no easy way to export them as a flat file – akin to the one you see on the right here.

Photoshop to the rescue! All versions of Photoshop 3D and Photoshop CC can import OBJ files, and they can not only display the UV Map as an overlay, they can turn it into a new Layer for us as well.

Here’s how to do it.

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How to add thickness to an object in ZBrush using the Move Tool

While other 3D apps usually have an option to bring thickness to an otherwise flat object, ZBrush does not. Hurra.

Here’s an extremely fiddly and imprecise way to add thickness to a flat object (such as a 2D plane) using a Morph Target trick I’ve learnt from BadKing the other day.

First, bring in a flat object into your otherwise empty document. The Plane_3D primitive will suffice nicely for this demonstration. Drag it out, enter Edit mode and turn this thing into a PolyMesh 3D.

Turn the object on its side and hit Move (right next to the default Draw).

If you held down SHIFT while looking at the plane from its side, you’ll notice that you don’t see your object anymore – only the Move Tool. That’s just fine. It’s all part of the “fun” of using ZBrush. Have you used the Move Tool before? It takes a bit of getting used to. But I digress…

Click on the little blue circle on the right and you’ll see the tool change, expanding itself to the right. That’s excellent because we’ll move our invisible plane ever so slightly to the right in just a moment.

Screen Shot 2016-04-29 at 17.31.33

So in my screenshot, where the green line is, that’s the side of my plane. Feel free to turn the view around a little so we reveal the plane like so:

Screen Shot 2016-04-29 at 17.35.15

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How to apply Subdivision Surfaces in DAZ Studio

Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 22.37.50

I was modelling a chair in ZBrush the other day and wanted to bring it into DAZ Studio for rendering. So I exported my chair as OBJ from ZBrush, imported it into DAZ Studio and was slightly surprised by the result: it looked more edgy, and not as smooth as it appeared in ZBrush.

Why was that, I wondered, and – more importantly – how could I fix that?

The secret sauce is called Subdivision Surfaces (SubD) and it’s easy to add to any object or figure that doesn’t already have it applied. Let me show you how to do this in DAZ Studio 4.8.

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How to cut holes in ZBrush

Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 10.52.43

Sometimes we need to cut holes into an object. Every other 3D app under the sun would call this a Boolean Operation – except for ZBrush of course, where this problem is solved with a (totally unintuitive) DynaMesh trick.

While the ZBrush manual mentions that this is easily achieved, they’ve missed out the part on how to actually do it.

Let me explain that here before I forget (which is probably tomorrow).

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How to select multiple parts of a brush in ZBrush

Several brushes in ZBrush insert 3D meshes into your object rather than sculpting it. Some of the default brushes are named IMM in the brush menu, but you can get dozens of others from sites like BadKing.com.au (check it out – they’re phenomenal). IMM stands for Insert Multi Mesh, and such brushes can be created …

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No more Tweet Counts

Twitter have recently announced that they will stop supporting the API endpoint that allows developers to show how many times an article has been tweeted. Services such as Jetpack, Shareaholic or even the old fashioned Twitter Button can no longer display a number next to them. Although announced a while ago, on the 20th of …

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How to enable the Magnifying Glass in ZBrush

On some systems it can be hard to read the plethora of menu items that ZBrush presents. It’s hard enough to find the one you need, but it’s even harder to do so without straining your eyes. ZBrush has a lovely solution that can help us, both for modelling and viewing menus: The Magnify Glass …

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How to remove polygons from your model in ZBrush

In Hexagon you can simply select a face (polygon) and hit the delete key, but things are slightly more complicated in ZBrush. Here’s how to remove one or several faces of your 3D object in ZBrush. First, select the desired polygons. In my example above it’s the flat side of a cylinder, so I’m rotating …

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Say hello to Victoria 7

Victoria-7

Victoria 7 is here! According to the marketing hype she’s “totally amazing”, but we don’t know much about her yet. Feeling finally better, I thought I’d give the new girl a spin and see how DAZ have improved upon the previous generation of Genesis 2 (which – let’s face it – wasn’t shabby at all).

New figures are fun to play with, and I’m sure over the next two years we’ll find out more about Genesis 3 than we will in the first few days. Here’s what I’ve found so far.

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How to preview HD Morphs in DAZ Studio

Michaels

In the above picture we have a render of Michael 6, the standard version on the left and the HD version on the right. Zooming in closer we can see that his abs and knees for example have a lot more detail – as we’d expect from an HD version of a model.

Comparing the two Michaels in our viewport instead of the render however, we can barely make out a difference. Both figures look nearly identical (except for the belly button indentation perhaps).

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-07 at 12.59.33

So why is that, and how can we preview those HD details before we render them?

The secret lies in our viewport’s subdivision levels.

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Cardozo Textures for Peplum Dress – now available at Hivewire3D

Take Stephanie’s Peplum Dress and Blossom Shoes for a walk on the town with our brand new Cardozo Textures: 10 brand new outfits for the dress and the shoes, all carefully crafted with love from Miami Beach!

This gives you a total of 40 Material Presets for both DAZ Studio and Poser (via DSON Importer). This is our second release on Hivewire3D, and something tells me it ain’t gonna to be the last 🙂

HW-Main-Promo

I’ve rendered the promo shots using Stephanie 6 (it is her dress after all, even though it fits all the Genesis 2 Females) and Stonemason’s fantastic Streets of the Mediterranean.

In the background you’ll find 3D Universe’s Jason and Amy walking up the stairs, the Millennium Cat licking his paws and the Toon Mouse fleeing in panic (and presenting the shoe compilation too). The red bike is courtesy of Carrara.

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All these things and the Peplum Dress are available from DAZ 3D.
In this article I’ll explain how to get the most out of our texture pack.

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Breakwater Textures for Frilly Triangle Bikini – now available at Hivewire3D

Promo-1

Summer Time means Bikini Time – unless you live in Miami Beach, where it’s Bikini Time all the time. May I present with pleasure a brand new texture set from Team V:

Breakwater Textures adds 10 new Material Presets for the beautiful Frilly Triangle Bikini by Nikisatez. Take your Genesis 2 ladies out for a dip in the lake or a stroll at the beach and give the Frilly Triangle Bikini a whole new spin (watch out for little green monsters though).

The set is now available from Hivewire3D.

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All the above were rendered in DAZ Studio, but separate Poser Material Presets have been carefully crafted from scratch. The backdrop was made in Carrara using HowieFarke’s beautiful Secret Lake scene, and the little green critter is another 3D Universe classic called “Monsters in my Cupboard” (both available from DAZ).

Our models are Victoria 6 (left) and Lilith (right, and in single shots), featuring textures designed by my wife Julia. Right on!

Let’s see how to use those Breakwater Textures.

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How to change the launch image in DAZ Studio

Did you know that you can change the splash screen / launch image that comes up when you start DAZ Studio? It’s nothing major of course, but just in case you find the default image too distracting you can make DAZ Studio launch with something more plain, as pictured above. Head over to Preferences – …

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How to enable Hardware Acceleration in DAZ Studio

Are the viewport movements in DAZ Studio getting you down? Does it seemingly take forever to make a small camera adjustment, despite your decent hardware? Check if Hardware Acceleration is enabled – because it isn’t by default. They do this so that most hardware will work with DAZ Studio out of the box, but they don’t …

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How to reduce the Depth-Of-Field frost effect in DAZ Studio

Something that’s always been bugging me is the “frost effect” that DAZ Studio introduces on renders with depth of field. The above picture is a perfect example of it. Where does it come from, and how can we avoid it? I’ve mentioned two approaches in an earlier article that discusses how to setup depth of …

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