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Loading and Saving Morph Loader Presets in Daz Studio

I use Morph Loader quite a bit in Daz Studio, and the deeper you go down a rabbit hole, the more parameters you have to adjust. The main ones are usually “Reverse Deformations” and “Apply Deltas Only”, and if you use the tool only occasionally they’re easy to remember. If you’re a PA and use …

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The Hank and Greta Recipes for Genesis 9

Now that the Head and Body shapes have been released for Genesis 9, I thought I’d let you have the complete “character recipes” as it were for the two custom figures I’ve built on stream over the last month. Hand and Greta were a fun project, particularly because I feel we’ve made them together. Here …

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How to change the Photoshop Colour Picker

This morning Photoshop had spontaneously updated itself to a new version, thankfully with an updated Splash Screen that no longer featured an Amazon ad. I was happy about the retro car and the eighties background! I had some work to do so didn’t check out the new features just yet, hoping everything was going to …

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Filed under: Categories 2D

FLUFFY: October Render Challenge

Get ready for another exciting instalment of the WP Guru Render Challenge! This month it’s all about FLUFFY. Interpret it as you see fit, anything goes from fluffy clouds to fluffy animals, even belly button fluff and fluffy duvet covers fit the bill. Find out what you can submit and everything else you need to …

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RAIN: September Render Challenge

We’ve decided to embark on a little project and let the community submit pictures around a common theme every month. I’m excited to tell you that submissions are now open for the September 2022 WP Guru Community Render Challenge (and yeah, we might want to work on that handful of a name). This month’s theme: …

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How to flip normals in ZBrush

I had a weird issue that threw me when I was working in ZBrush the other day: flipped normals (not Henrik and Morten, the actually phenomenon of normals facing the wrong way). ZBrush only shows the “right” side of the normals by default, and although it has the option to show both sides, the default …

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Filed under: Categories 3D Tagged as: Tags

Hiding Geometry in Substance Painter

Sometimes we may need access to occluded parts in Substance Painter. The easiest way to deal with such hidden parts is by making them accessible before importing the model, such as opening the lid of a chest or the mouth of a figure, or even “exploding” an object to make all its surfaces accessible. While …

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How to do Projection Painting in Substance Painter

I’ve just figured out how to do Projection Painting in Substance Painter, and thought I’d best make a note of it. The magic happens inside a regular Paint Layer. It works in both paint mode and projection mode, but to transfer colour information, we’ll need to switch into Projection Mode. With your paint layer selected, …

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How to change the Texture Stencil in Blender

Blender can do projection painting with textures that can be used as stencils. It’s super handy when it comes to transferring 2D images onto 3D objects. All we need to do is load in a texture, then rub it onto our objects in either Vertex or Texture Paint mode, as well as the new Sculpt …

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Creating Fluid Simulations in Blender

A while ago I watched a nice video by CG Cookie about pouring some coffee into a cup in Blender. It’s a great starter video, even though I found it really tough to follow when I tried it for the first time. I thought I had made some notes on the process back then, but …

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How to import Morph Targets into Blender

Blender has this habit of being a little different then perhaps any other 3D app. While it can deal with morph targets, they’re called something different and it’s entirely un-obvious how to bring them in (hint: it’s NOT the import option, nor in Edit Mode). I’ve just figured out how to do it and thought …

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Creating something like “decals” in Blender

Many render engines have the concept of decals. Those are texture projections that can be thrown onto existing objects without having to amend the actual texture files. Footsteps and bullet holes in video games are examples of decals. I’m not sure if Cycles or Eevee have this concept natively, but there’s a relatively easy way …

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How to change the length of a Timeline in Unreal Engine

Timelines are behind a lot of the animation magic in Unreal Engine Blueprints. I’ve been implementing one to make my plants grow on Jay’s Farm, but I needed a functionality that would let me change the duration of my parent timeline with a variable. That way different seeds could grow with different rates. There’s no …

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How to avoid issues with Recent Files in Premiere Pro

There has been an issue with Premiere Pro with the list of “Recent Files” for many years that I’ve thankfully only experienced recently. It’s that list of recently opened projects that is shown both on the home page and under Files – Recent. On my system, it appears that files I’ve just worked on are …

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Filed under: Categories 3D

Frame Width vs Focal Length in DAZ Studio

We had an interesting discussion on my private Discord server the other day, about the difference between changing the frame width and changing the focal length. At first glace, both options appear to do the same in the viewport. However there’s an important difference and implication on other parameters as you setup your scene. The …

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What other 3D tools do I use alongside DAZ Studio

I had a great question from a viewer today (hi Doomguy) about what additional tools I use when working with Daz Studio. It’s an often overlooked aspect of the software that Daz Studio by itself can only do so much, and external tools can help build better scenes, work faster or aid in making adjustments …

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Rendering with transparency in Unreal Engine 4

Like everything in Unreal Engine, rendering a subject with a transparent background isn’t a one-click affair. It’s doable though, thanks to a neat tip by Alexzander The Geek on YouTube. In the above screenshot, the background was added in Photoshop, exactly how I like it! Here’s how to do it in principle: Let’s take a …

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Filed under: Categories 3D

Creating Depth of Field in Unreal Engine 4

Depth of Field is extremely difficult to judge in Unreal Engine, at least visually in the preview. It’s also a little intimidating to setup, and I don’t mind telling you that it was very difficult for me to grasp the concept. Yet like so many things in Unreal Engine, there is method behind the madness, …

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How to create a Stroke Effect in Clip Studio Paint (like in Photoshop)

Photoshop’s Blending Options are so powerful and useful, it’s easy to forget that there are other ways to accomplish the same thing. Case in point: the Stroke Effect, which lets us create an outline around an object. It’s essentially an outline we can apply, which can be used to separate a transparent object from the …

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How to draw on a Layer Mask in Clip Studio Paint

Layer masks work differently across our favourite 2D apps, which can be a little – shall we say – infuriating at times. In Photoshop for example, I’m used to drawing on Layer Masks to hide/reveal something underneath the current layer. Black hides (masks) the current layer, white reveal what’s underneath it, and as such it …

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Filed under: Categories 2D