News about the DAZ Studio and Poser software

Monthly Archives: March 2018

Sculptris Pro announced

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Two new additions to ZBrush 2018, coming soon…

* “Sculptris Pro … ignore the constraints of polygon distribution and just — sculpt! … begin with any shape or model, whether it has ten polygons or ten thousand. There is absolutely no need to worry about having enough polygons to capture details. … simply brush across the surface. Sculptris Pro will dynamically add and reduce polygons wherever and whenever it’s needed, freeing you to focus entirely on the look you’re trying to achieve. Start with a sphere, cube, cone or any other mesh and have some fun with Sculptris Pro.”

* Project Primitive … “Project Primitive is a unique deformer that offers a new way to blend multiple pieces of geometry together. Use multiple primitives to reshape a mesh, cut into a surface, build up from another mesh, and more.”

Vue 2016 R5

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E-on has announced a Vue 2016 R5 patch. Be wary about simply applying it though, as they’ve made changes to the whole User Interface…

“Many UI/UX and navigation improvements, with homogenized navigation manipulation throughout the whole UI, and several dialog and editors redesigned.”

Erk! Nope. The only reason I can see to upgrade is that R5 apparently has a fix to import a Poser 11.2 scene more accurately (it seems some bit of the process broke in R4, re: Poser 11.2 against 11 or 11.1).

2016 R5 Press release final

Update: Actually the UI is not too bad. It’s not a total makeover, more like a series of small tweaks.

Release: Krita 4.0

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Krita 4.0 has been released. It’s the free ‘open source’ painting software. I tried 3.0 and it’s pretty good… if you can’t afford Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro or ArtRage, in that descending order. Have tried many, I’d say that starting in Sketchbook Pro and then finishing off the picture in Photoshop (with the Lazy Nezumi stroke smoother plugin) is the ideal way to do it. Both are highly optimised, so that you can use large brushes on large canvases without lag. Depending on your hardware, the same can’t be said of many of the lesser painting apps.

Anyway, Krita 4.0 is free and it may be worth a look if you’re trying out 2D digital painting software. Here are the new features…

Poser and DAZ to glTF 2.0 for Facebook?

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Facebook seems to be all set to become the next tumbleweed-haunted MySpace, the way it’s going with censorship, data leaks, fake news, and ‘pay to reach your audience’ lockdowns on content. But for now it’s still adding new features. For instance users can now post 3D models on their Facebook posts, though only using “glTF 2.0” files.

How might Poser and DAZ Studio users get a glTF 2.0 file? Well you:

1) Output from Poser or DAZ Studio to Collada .DAE (easier said than done, a lot of times). Note that Collada export is Pro version only, in Poser 11.

2) Then you can use the official Collada2glTF to get a glTF file. Though it’s a command-line tool on GitHub, eeek!

3) Then it appears that when you upload the completed glTF 2.0 file to services such as Facebook, a back-end engine (which you don’t need to know about) will grab it and make it lightweight enough for speedy loading in the Web browser. Presumably it does this by reducing the poly-count and texture sizes. Facebook also has a size-limit on the file, and presumably its back-end will crunch your model down to that size.

If your initial Collada export is getting all scrumpled up, as often happens, then Facebook has a FBX2glTF which accepts the more reliable .FBX format. But be warned that it’s also currently a fearsome-looking command-line tool on GitHub.

Looking rather more user friendly is SketchUp’s free glTF 2.0 exporter plugin, though at only 61 views in a month it’s not currently a plugin that’s getting much lurv. And good luck with trying to get Poser and DAZ characters into SketchUp.

There’s also an online service glTF Model Converter which can handle .OBJs, but note “the timeout limit is 2 minutes and the maximum file size is 10 MB”. I also got loading errors on the Web page widget, but that could be due to my browser. Might be worth a try though, with a small prop. A DAZ/Poser content developer might be able to showcase small bits of their forthcoming product that way, on Facebook.

If you can run native Python there’s also a BatchGltf, offering a graphical user interface. I’m guessing that might be suitable for integrating into the forthcoming Poser 12 as a Python script for glTF 2.0 exporting?

2020 vision

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Demos for the NVIDIA RTX are unleashed as a technology showcase this week, the Game Developers Conference. The RTX holds out the promise of…

“real-time ray tracing to game developers and content creators”.

It’s centred around the Volta GPU system, which NVIDIA says is… “multiple integers faster” than previous generation architectures when it comes to ray tracing. Microsoft is reported to be on board as a partner, with a… “new DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API. Any GPU capable of DirectX 12-class compute should be able to run DXR”, and a few game studios are working on demo games.

But it seems it’s not going to be boxed and in the $300 racks at the stores anytime soon. According to NVIDIA the technology is likely to take some “years” to mature, and for consumers to have the zippy hardware that can run it fully. I’d guess… perhaps by the year 2020?

Daz To Maya plugin

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DazToMaya 1.1 plugin, with auto-conversion of materials for Arnold/Vray in “Maya 2016 or higher”.

I imagine most DAZ Studio photoreal users will be happy sticking with the quality of their iRay / Reality renders. But for a modest $30 the new plugin may interest small-studio Maya users, people who need to more quickly import DAZ’s royalty-free content while doing work for clients.

Of course there’s also the possibility of tooning a DAZ scene in Maya. I’ve never really looked at Maya’s toon capabilities before, but I had a look just now. It appears the default toon effect is certainly not up to Cinema 4D standards. I searched in vain for a screenshot example of a Maya toon render that wouldn’t cause derisive snorts of laughter among readers/buyers of graphic-novels. But all the likely examples I lit upon turned out to be done in Unity or Unreal Engine, or Blender, or were highly customised Vray. Or they obviously took an enormous amount of time and fiddling to set up. But if you want to check it out, I read that Maya’s basic toon rendering engine is to be found at: Maya | Surface | Ramp Shader, and judging by the documentation it’s fairly tweak-able.

But it’s obviously nowhere near as good as the ink and toon effects in Cinema 4D, and remember that Poser Pro 11 to Cinema 4D is really easy to do via Smith Micro’s plugin.

Admittedly Arnold may get a good toon render option soon, though that’s not yet available. Possibly there are others for Arnold that I don’t known about. And Vray also appears to have basic toon shaders and can be tweaked. So there may also be options to explore there.

But for making still renders for comic-book frames etc it still looks best to load the DAZ character or prop into a $60 copy of Poser 11 (or export as .OBJ, if a Library load can’t be done). Then in Poser set up a flat IBL light and turn on the real-time Comic Book Mode. Thus getting a superior and quicker effect. Even more so, if you’re willing to swop out grungy 3D textures for something more toon-friendly.

Unreal Studio launches

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Unreal Studio is now available. No, it’s not the long-awaited virtual movie-studio based on Unreal. Architects and product designers will upload their CAD or 3DS Max files to the Unreal Studio servers, and then Unreal will send them back a real-time Unreal Engine render. There’s a plugin for 3DS Max that examines the textures and suchlike, and auto-converts if needed. Unreal Studio is currently in a free beta until November 2018, but is then set to be $49 a month. May be useful for some, perhaps especially for animated turnarounds, but you have to wonder why someone can’t run 3DS Max to Unreal Engine locally — if all it needs is a plugin and it’s producing a genuine real-time render.

For the boot

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I was interested to hear about the surprisingly robust approach taken by the French when training their new VFX talent…

“[our] French counterparts [who run university VFX degrees, teach on] courses four or five years long, and cull students from the course who don’t meet the quality expected.” (Tom Box, interviewed in the latest edition of 3D World magazine)

In the UK it’s overwhelmingly a three-year degree. Although there tend to be a lot of first-year drop-outs, the duffers who remain on the course after that tend to be tolerated right through to graduation. They’re too often graduated as well, at management insistence, if only with a 3rd class degree. In France, it seems, the teachers have more control and thus a degree course’s reputation trumps the income from a student’s fees / the university’s student retention-rate statistics.

New for Poser and DAZ, February 2018

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Slightly late, here’s my latest monthly look at the new releases for DAZ Studio and Poser, and some items of interest to Vue users too. New items that caught my eye in February 2018:

Science fiction:

New from quality outfit-maker Aeon Soul, Orbital Merc for Genesis 8 Female.

The fun Prototype-X: Atomica for Genesis 8 Female, with a nice retro look to it. Not sure how often I’d use it, but definitely fun.

Prototype-Six for Genesis 8 Female.

Unusual sci-fi headgear with the KX StarSuit for G8F for DAZ Studio.

Hornet Outfit for Genesis 8 Female, with a cyber-style arm-cannon.

DP1 for the RoboSpider. It’s only a textures makeover, but it’s hi-res and it certainly improves on the old defaults.

Cyborg Generation 8 and its Light and Glow textures.

A new Sci-fi Stasis Pod, plus room and curvy ceiling pipes.

Underwater Bedroom for DAZ Studio. Simple, but nicely curvy. Could probably be adapted to have an outer space rather than an ocean view.

Aqua Striker Units for GF8. Looks like Pamawo is shaping up to be quite an interesting developer, if rather too expensive for me.

Need a sci-fi ocean creature to go with the above? Biomechanical Whale Animated, on Sketchfab store in .OBJ and .FBX formats.

Steampunk and valvepunk:

A well designed SF unit from 1971s.

A detailed retro Mind Control Lab and poses, for DAZ Studio.

A free Leather Hatta.

Fairytale:

Girly for Anceata is a freebie character and clothing and hair, all for Nursoda’s excellent Anceata for Poser. Has a nice Slavic / Finnish look. Although be aware that she’s a huge download of 350Mb! The culprits seem to be 250Mb of Paintshop Pro source files, in files called DressMAP.pspimage and AncPantsMAP.pspimage, which are presumably templates that can be deleted by anyone who doesn’t need them.

Tree And Swing for DAZ Studio. Also a set of matching poses.

Matching the Tree and Swing scene, the girls’ dForce Clothing Set 01 for Genesis 8 Female, from 3D Universe. And Mary Janes shoes.

A high quality Fairy Outfit for Karyssa 8 and Genesis 8 Female and Poses and Expressions. This will likely get a lot of third-party texture makeovers and add-ons, in due course.

Fantasy:

Safia Dynamic for V4 and textures set. Looks useful for the Arabian Nights and Conan/Frazetta sort of fantasy.

SY dForce Roman Clothing Male and Female for DAZ Studio. Adaptable for a variety of mythic settings.

MS18 Grain Mill in OBJ and FBX, and also for Vue 9 and up.

The old mill possibly guarded by the SkeleDog for the new HiveWire Big Dog for Poser.

Fantasy Trees for Daz Studio. Very nicely stylised, though it looks like the leaves are trans-mapped rather than geometry. Thus, the leaves are not likely to toon up nicely in Poser 11’s comic-book mode.

House of Traveler from 1971s for Poser. Very nice, although for ‘fan art’ only — as it’s almost exactly like the Corner Club in Balmora, in the famous videogame Morrowind.

Animals:

A superbly realistic Vampire Bat by AM with Look At My Hair preset.

Also an equally realistic Amazon Tree Frogs and Tadpole also by AM, and an Amphibian Pond scene for it to inhabit.

Rajasaurus DR, a new Dinoraul dinosaur for Poser. Also a new long-necked Giraffatitan.

Worms. Don’t overlook this, thinking “it’s only horror worms”. It also includes an earwig, a fat hawk-moth caterpillar, slugs, and snails. The quality fat caterpillar and snail also put this into the fairytale category.

Landscapes:

Mystic Red Lands for Poser, and accompanying Mediterranean Red Cliffs, with HD textures and modelling. Reminds me a bit of the fiery semi-volcanic uplands in Morrowind. Also likely to be of interest to Vue users.

End of the Tracks for DAZ and Carrara. Lots of potential uses, from Goonies / Stranger Things -style adventure to a complete tropical jungle or arctic makeover.

Fog Camera for DAZ Studio, with simple fog-volume props and presets.

Lastly there’s a free V4 character, Alex for Victoria 4 for Poser. Has the sort of ‘everyday look’ that might suit those making renders for small business and educational/charity clients.

That’s all the picks for February. The Cornucopia store is still down after being hacked, so the list is light on Vue items. More picks next month!