3D Archives

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

How to constrain an object to a Motion Path in Blender

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Carrara has a concept of Motion Paths. Those are bezier curves to which another object can be constrained during animation. I’ve described how to use them in this article. Blender has the same concept: create a curve (any curve will do), then add a Clamp To constraint to your object using the curve. Here’s how …

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How to create keyframe animations in Blender

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Keyframe Animations work a little differently in Blender than in other packages I’ve used. It all makes sense and is very intuitive – but I fear I might forget this, so here’s a quick guide on how animations work in Blender. At the bottom of the interface is the standard timeline. Move the green line …

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How to speed up rendering times (or improve quality) with 3Delight in DAZ Studio

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It’s easy to reduce rendering times in DAZ Studio with 3Delight at the expense of quality. Likewise, it’s possible to greatly improve the rendering quality with the same setting: the secret lies in the Shading Rate Slider.

On the Render Tab, under Render Settings, take a look at a lone slider called Shading Rate. The default is 1 and it produces a good compromise between speed and quality.

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The higher the Shading Rate is set, the lower the quality of the image is – but at the same time, render times speed up. This is great to get an impression of the overall scene without having to wait ages.

Conversely, the lower the Shading Rate is set, the higher the render quality is as a result – which increases render times, but gives a very nice quality boost. It’s easy to overlook this setting!

Here are some example renders. Click on the images to see the full resolution at 1920×1080. No postwork was applied. The scene is Stonemason’s Tin Pan Alley with the Genesis Troll.

Shading Rate 1 (Default) – Render Time: 1 minute

Troll-SR1-1minThe default setting gives a good compromise between quality and speed. I always wondered how to make such a render look better.

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How to apply textures in Blender (with Blender Render)

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Adding textures in Blender depends on which render engine is used. In this article I’ll discuss how to do this for Blender Render. I’ll explain how to do this with Cycles in another article. It’s easier to make a texture appear in Blender Render. Make sure it’s selected as the render engine at the top of the …

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How to assign Materials in Blender (Blender Render)

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Materials are closely related to Textures in 3D modelling: they describe the surface properties of an object, or parts of an object. Which colour it has, if there are any texture maps applied, how shiny it is, how rough it is. That sort of thing is described via Material Properties. Other 3D applications may call them Shaders or Surface Properties.

Blender calls them Materials, and here’s how to assign properties to them. The actual properties you get depend on which rendering engine is used: Blender Render or Cycles. I’ll stick with the traditional Blender Render in this description. I’ll discuss how to do this for Cycles in this article.

Select an object and head over to the little shiny ball icon in the Properties Palette on the right hand side. The icon is located between and upside-down triangle and a checkerboard icon.

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By default Blender creates a default grey material. Feel free to amend it, or add a new material to this list by clicking the little plus icon to the right of the materials list. This  creates a new slot. Now click Create Material to proceed.

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Give it a nice name, then pick a Diffuse colour to change the appearance of your entire object. You’ll even see a nice preview of your new material.

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See where it says Lambert? Pick something else and see the effect. This describes the basic reflective properties of your object – it’s a Blender internal thing, so it won’t matter when you come to export your object for use in another 3D application.

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How to point the camera at an object in Blender

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Other 3D packages usually have a camera setting that allows us to “point at” an object. This can be either part of a scene or a null object which doesn’t show up but can be animated. The idea behind this is that no matter where you move the camera, it will always frame your object of …

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How to use Sculpt Mode in Blender

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Blender has an excellent Sculpting Mode that works very similar to Sculptris and ZBrush. It’s very easy to sculpt on a mesh – let me show you how. Create a Mesh Object with a decent amount of topology for sculpting. For example, use Add – Mesh – Ico Sphere. In the init menu on the left, set the …

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How to use Soft Selections in Blender

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Soft Selections are those that influence more than what you have selected for a more organic and natural influence around an area. In Blender this concept is called Proportional Editing and it’s disabled by default. To enable it, while in Edit Mode, select SHIFT-O (as in the letter). There’s also a little circle icon which …

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How to apply a Modifier in Blender

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Modifiers are forces that act upon your vertex objects, with the added advantage that you can manipulate them later. Carrara has the same concept. Here’s how to create a Modifier in Blender. First, select an object in your scene. Underneath the scene tree, find the little wrench icon and click it. This opens the Modifier Pane …

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Creating selections on Vertex Objects in Blender

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To edit a vertex object in Blender, we must first switch into Edit Mode. By default a scene is in Object Mode. Select an object by right-clicking it, then switch into Edit Mode by using the drop-down (or drop-up) menu. The entire object may be selected, which is not exactly what we want. Hit A …

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How to render with Depth of Field in DAZ Studio

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Depth of Field is a photographic term that describes how much of a scene is in focus. In the 3D world this has to be calculated and switched on – because otherwise everything in a rendered scene is in focus. A real world photographic lens doesn’t work that way: take a portrait with a long lens, …

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Creating Primitives in Blender

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To create a new primitive in Blender, select Add – Mesh from the bottom menu. Alternatively, select SHIFT-A to bring up a similar context menu anywhere on the screen. Pick your poison and it will be inserted into your scene wherever the 3D cursor is located (that weird little red-white ring-thing). You can position the …

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Navigating 3D Space in Blender on Mac

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Using Blender with the integrated Magic Trackpad on my MacBook works a treat – it’s  intuitive even! It’s a nice surprise in the otherwise daunting user experience Blender has to offer. Here’s how to navigate a 3D scene using gestures: Rotate using two-finger swipe Zoom using two-finger pinch, or the PLUS and MINUS keys Pan by holding …

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Comparison: 3Delight vs NVIDIA Iray for Animations

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For this animation I’ve rendered the same scene twice in DAZ Studio 4.8: once with 3Delight and once with the new NVIDIA Iray engine. It’s interesting to compare the results in an animation rather than a still image due to the different challenges involved.

One thing is that the subject is illuminated differently depending on how far away it is from the camera. Another is that it’s difficult to get matching end results when mixing faster and slower hardware: Iray can take a long time to finish a render if no GPU acceleration is around.

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How to render Iray with transparency in DAZ Studio

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DAZ Studio Splash

DAZ Studio 4.8 comes with a new render engine called NVIDIA Iray. From what I understand it’s similar to the Mental Ray engine and – from what I hear – is supposed to become the new default render engine in DAZ Studio. It’s not a replacement for 3Delight, just an addition – selectable on the Render Tab (under Engine).

Unlike 3Delight, Iray renders images without transparency (or alpha channel) by default, which isn’t desirable. There is of course a way to change this, and here’s how to do it.

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Skeleton at the Graveyard

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Yesterday I’ve animated this skeleton. The steps involved were rather complex, so I thought I’d better write down how I did it.

In principle, there are four parts to this animation:

  • the animation of the skeleton (using DAZ Studio and aniMate)
  • the cloth draping (using Marvelous Designer)
  • a moving fog layer (using Carrara)
  • a graveyard picture (from Graphic Stock)
  • and finally, blending it all together (in Premiere Pro)

Here’s how I did it step by step.

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How to export garment animations from Marvelous Designer for use in DAZ Studio

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In my previous article I’ve explained how to export an animation from DAZ Studio and import it into Marvelous Designer, where we’ve created and animated our garment. In this article I’ll show you the reverse: exporting the garment with animation and import it into DAZ Studio for rendering.

Here’s how this works in principle:

  • export your garment animation from Marvelous Designer as OBJ Sequence
  • import the sequence in DAZ Studio using Morph Loader Pro
  • turn all those morphs into an animation

I’ve explained the whole process step by step in this video:

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How to export animations from DAZ Studio for use in Marvelous Designer

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Exporting character animations from DAZ Studio for use in Marvelous Designer is a trifle complicated. In this article I will explain what works for me.

I’m using an animation created in DAZ Studio 4.7 using Michael 6, a Genesis 2 character. I will then create some clothing in Marvelous Designer 4.5, drape and animate it, and eventually export it back to DAZ Studio for rendering.

Here’s how to do it in principle:

  • bake aniMate blocks into DAZ Studio timeline
  • export OBJ file of your first animation frame
  • export the whole animation as MDD cache
  • import OBJ into Marvelous Designer
  • import MDD cache in Marvelous Designer
  • drape and animate cloth

I’ve explained the whole process step by step in this video:

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 30:26 — 27.9MB)

How to display the camera frame in DAZ Studio

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By default DAZ Studio will render everything in the current viewport, whose size depends on now much space the viewport occupies on your computer screen. That’s not necessarily the size or aspect ratio you’d like to render. To frame the camera accurately, we need to be able to see what the camera sees. There are two …

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How to transition from a static pose to aniBlocks in DAZ Studio

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The way aniMate works is that we can either animate characters with a traditional keyframe approach, using the standard timeline, or we can use aniBlocks. There’s no easy way to mix and match both approaches. But sometimes it’s necessary to transition from a static pose to an aniBlock to get a smooth transition. The best way to …

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Getting started with the ZModeler in ZBrush

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The ZModeler is is a new feature in ZBrush 4R7. With this new gadget we can perform polygonal vertex modelling, something that was not possible before the introduction of this brush. The term “brush” is a tad of an understatement if you ask me: this “minor addition” gives ZBrush abilities that are worth about $1600, which is what …

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How to export a garment from Marvelous Designer

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You can export your garment from Marvelous Designer either in OBJ or FBX format. Note that at the time if writing, FBX is highly experimental and appears not to work very well. OBJ on the other hand is doing a fine job. Head over to File – Export and choose OBJ. There’s also an option …

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How to import DAZ characters into Marvelous Designer

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Screen Shot 2015-03-25 at 09.24.00Marvelous Designer comes with 7 default avatars, but it’s very easy to use your own 3D figure and create custom clothing for it.

Simply export your desired character as OBJ, including full body morphs, then import it into Marvellous Designer.

Here’s how to do with with the Genesis 2 Male character from the free essentials pack.

 

Exporting from DAZ Studio

Load your character into an empty scene and select it in the scene tab. It’s typically located on the right hand side in DAZ Studio.

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Head over to File – Export and pick a location for your files: DAZ Studio will create a .OBJ and a .MTL file. It will also bring up an export dialogue in which you can specify the scale and size for your export. Those need to match the import dialogue of your other app.

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Navigating 2D and 3D Space in Marvelous Designer

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Sometimes it’s the simple things they don’t to tell you about in the brochure: Zooming Magic Trackpad: move two fingers up or down, much like you would scroll a web page up or down. Intuos Tablet: hold the lower button down (right-click), then drag the pen. Mouse: rotate the wheel. Moving/Panning Hold the ALT/OPT key down, then: Magic Trackpad: drag …

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How to install Carrara 8.5 in Mac OS X Yosemite

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I’m configuring a new Mac Mini 2012 specifically for all my 3D ventures this year. As such I’m installing all my favourite (and annoying) 3D apps fresh from scratch. Being a futuristic kind of guy I’m using “the best operating system ever” (yeah, right!) OS X Yosemite.

Over the last 7 years I’ve installed Carrara more times than I can count and in every version of OS X and Windows that I can remember, and it’s never given me any trouble – neither when installed manually or via the DAZ Install Manager.

Until today, when I’ve received the following message in OS X Yosemite: “The application cannot get the administrator access right”. Thank you, Yosemite!

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What does that even mean? I thought my user account HAS admin privileges.

Turns out they’re just not administrative enough. The solution to this awkward puzzle is to login as root for the initial launch of Carrara. Which leads us to the next adventure:

How do we enable the root user in OS X?

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Navigating 3D Space in DAZ Studio

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Nothing is more frustrating that not knowing how to accomplish basic tasks. Navigating 3D space in different apps using different devices in the same day is one such thing. Before I forget, here’s how to navigate your scene in DAZ Studio 4.7. Dolly You can dolly the camera in several ways: by dragging the cube icon in …

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How to group objects in DAZ Studio

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Groups are helpful to keep the many items in your scene organised and grouped together. They’re like a “folder”, even though you’re not really moving items to another place. They just appear together with a heading and a disclosure triangle. For example, rather than having a character and five independent clothing items, it’ll be much …

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How to edit 3rd Party Vertex Objects in Carrara

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You want to make a quick change to a 3rd party vertex object in Carrara, head over to the Modelling Room, but all your favourite tools are greyed out. What’s going on? Carrara has a feature called Protect Topology, and there’s a good chance it’s switched on for items you bought from a marketplace. It’s …

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