New post category for the blog, Python scripts. I’ve gone back and retrospectively tagged old posts. The category is mostly for actual scripts posted here.
Scene shadow blurring scripts for Poser
One-click to improve your scene render in Poser! Poser Python scripts to instantly switch your scene lights to use softer ray-traced shadows, or to switch back again to the default Depth-map shadows. Working in Poser 11 and 12. In just one click, they save you having to fiddle around with each of the lights to turn on softer shadows across a scene.
Note that you can also soften shadow intensity manually, with the dial found on Light / Parameters / Shadow.
In both scripts the shadows are softened from the defaults (defaults = 0.0 for Ray-traced, 2.0 for Depth-map). Here the softening is increased to 6, but you may want to go to 12 or so. The free PASS Poser watercolor shaders on ArtStation Marketplace work best with even higher shadow blurring.
Change the script’s “(6)” to the shadows softness setting you want. If you want a full reset script, just set the “(6)” on the second script to the default (2) setting.
Set Ray-traced Shadows:
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# SWITCH TO SOFT RAY-TRACED SHADOWS FOR YOUR POSER SCENE # A small script to have all lights in a Poser scene move from using Depth Map Shadows # over to Ray-traced Shadows (with SOFT shadows set at 6.0). All scene lights are # assumed to be on and casting a shadow of some sort. Script is tested and working in # Poser 11 and Poser 12. # # Also boost sample size when rendering, for less grainy shadows. # You can also soften shadow _intensity_ with the dial on Light / Parameters / Shadow. import poser # Tell Poser we expect a scene to be loaded. scene = poser.Scene() # Get a list of lights in the Poser scene. lights = scene.Lights() #Run the script on all lights in the scene. for light in lights: # For some reason this old line needs to be above SetRayTraceShadows - or the switch over won't work. light.ParameterByCode(poser.kParmCodeDEPTHMAPSTRENGTH).SetValue(1.0) # Ok, now we can set the Light to cast Ray-traced shadows. light.SetRayTraceShadows(1) # Now we can set the amount of softness for the Ray-traced Light's shadows. # Note that here we do not use SetShadowBlurRadius() but rather SetShadowRaytraceSoftness() light.SetShadowRaytraceSoftness(6) scene.DrawAll() |
Set Depth-map Shadows:
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# SWITCH TO SOFT DEPTH-MAP SHADOWS FOR YOUR POSER SCENE # A small script to have all lights in a Poser scene move from using Ray-traced Shadows # to using Depth Map Shadows (with shadow softness at 6.0, from normal 2.0). All scene lights # are assumed to be on and casting a shadow of some sort. Script is tested and working in # Poser 11 and Poser 12. Also boost sample size when rendering, for less grainy shadows. # # Also boost sample size when rendering, for less grainy shadows. # You can also soften shadow _intensity_ with the dial on Light / Parameters / Shadow. import poser # Tell Poser we expect a scene to be loaded. scene = poser.Scene() # Get a list of lights in the Poser scene. lights = scene.Lights() #Run the script on all lights in the scene. for light in lights: # For some reason this old line needs to be above SetRayTraceShadows - or the switch over won't work. light.ParameterByCode(poser.kParmCodeDEPTHMAPSTRENGTH).SetValue(1.0) # Ok, now we can turn off Ray-traced shadows, if they are on. light.SetRayTraceShadows(0) # Now we can set the amount of softness for the depth-map shadows. # Note that here we use SetShadowBlurRadius() rather than the ray-traced SetShadowRaytraceSoftness() light.SetShadowBlurRadius(6) scene.DrawAll() |
Especially useful for soft indoor “old masters” type portraits, not so useful for hard-edged sun-baked beach scenes.
15-year burns
Useful new systematic test figures on durability for your old CD-Rs and DVD-R burned-media archive discs.
“Surprisingly, with no special storage precautions, generic low-cost media, and consumer drives, I’m getting good data from CD-Rs more than 18 years old, and from DVD-Rs nearly 16 years old. Your mileage may vary.”
So it looks like 15 years can be more or less counted on, provided they’re stored out of sunlight and in a dry place. Still, it might be best to get the stack out and then systematically go through and copy off still-wanted items onto an external hard-drive.
BSDF Painter
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Posted in 3D Utilities, Companion software, Freebies, Poser 12, Spotted in the News
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Posted in 3D Utilities, Companion software, Freebies, Poser 12, Spotted in the News
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A free Blender add-on for layering and painting BSDF materials.
Poser 12 uses Principled BSDF now, so presumably it wouldn’t be too difficult for this Blender add-on to have an “Output straight to a Poser material file” button? I believe the setups are identical to those in Blender, except for being ‘mirror-backwards’ in their direction of node-flow.
Rivetted…
It’s not wise to judge Cybertenko’s items wholly by their store previews. His Short Sunderland British Empire flying-boat for Poser, for instance.
What you think you’re getting (store preview picture)…
What you get…
Here seen in Vue. And as you can see, the off-puttingly prominent bumpy rivets on the previews are not so much of a problem on whole-plane renders. Although they are perhaps a bit too prominent on the front base (the ‘planeing step’) and I could have cleaned them off there in Photoshop.
iRay to 3Delight
The free iRay to 3Delight script. A converter script that works. May be useful for those trying to make comics with DAZ, but who have a thingamajig that only adds lines to old-school 3Delight and not iRay.
1. Download and install script and its icon to ..\content\Scripts\iRay_to_3Delight (script is iray-to-3dl.dsa)
2. Load iRay thing into the scene, which for some reason you want to convert to 3Delight materials.
3. Add some old-school scene lights, so your 3Delight render won’t just be a black silhouette when rendered.
4. Go to the DAZ Studio “Surfaces” Tab/Room. The script can only do its thing from there. Select, open all items in the surfaces tree, then select the required surfaces on your figure or pop. Shift + click for “All”.
5. With the surfaces still selected, now run the script now found in Scripts | iRay_to_3Delight
6. Ensure you are in 3Delight as a renderer, and render.
There are also commercial scripts, that toggle your scenes between iRay and 3Delight. But if you only need 3Delight conversion for a few things, this freebie may be what you want.
It’s Crazy
This week, NVIDIA finally catches up with the old $50 CrazyTalk Pro…
Before you get all excited about hobbyist potential… it appears to be an Omniverse thing for small production studios with $3,000 graphics cards and workstations. Lots of NVIDIA stuff is individually free, true, but you have to ask the price of such a production setup then you can’t afford it.
Also new this week for the ‘build it and they will come’ Omniverse system, auto-lipsync for 3D faces from an audio file. Again, playing catch-up with Poser and Mimic.
Vue’s magic “w”
Problem: In E-on’s Vue, the Camera Zoom / Pan controls and Nudge are way too sensitive for Poser scene imports to Vue. The settings there appear to be intended for vast three-mile wide scenes, where exact artistic framing of the picture is not so important.
Former solution: Pressing down Crtl while moving the camera used to work to damp down the camera, but now no longer does. The old manual had: “You can slow down the camera controls by holding down the Ctrl key as you move (this can be customized using the Operations tab of the Options panel).” This was good for Vue 11, Vue 2016, and still is if you have them. Not for the latest version(s).
New solution: The answer is “w” for the new versions of Vue. It is the new keyboard modifier for slowing or ‘damping’ the camera. Who knew? Not E-on’s Learning Center, certainly. No results for a search there for ‘Camera Controls’ and similar.
Customised as before with: Top menu | open Options panel | switch to Operations tab | scroll down the long list to find ‘Trigger Modifiers’.
There doesn’t seem much to be done about Nudge, though I guess a Python script could “move currently selected item down by X units” in a far smaller increment. I expect my nudge to be like Photoshop, one pixel at a time. Not 50 feet at a time.
Vue users could also use a Python script that runs through all possible settings that could have the damnable ‘Lens Flare’ enabled, and turns it off. Ideally permanently. It still takes forever to run at the end of a completed render, if enabled. You may think you’ve turned it off, but always seems to find a way to sneak back in. As Vue renders are now so fast, this is a big drag.
From the Attic
Added to the Links page, the new location for Fantasies Attic Freebies.
Haberlin’s Hellcop – made with Poser
I only just noticed that Brian Haberlin has a new comic, Hellcop. Same style and wild sci-fi as the earlier Sonata and Lighthouse (collected Nov 2021), and I definitely recognise that Poser monowheel, the steampunk rifle etc. So I’m 99% certain the production is still Poser + his usual studio workflow.
Seems to have debuted October 2021 and then raced through the issues, possibly monthly? Hellcop is already in a trade “Vol. 1” which collects issues #1-5, and I see that issue #9 just came out last week. So I’m guessing the title’s second 5-issue story-arc will be finished by the end of the summer. I’m not used to such a fast pace, and often hand-drawn comics issues are glacial in appearing and you wait ages (sometimes years) for an actual concluded story. But I guess that’s what Poser does for you, speeding up production.
Texture Paint Helper for Poser
I was prompted to take a quick look at Texture Paint Helper 1.3 aka texturepainterhelper. Long marked as “Unavailable” at Renderosity. No videos though there is a helpful short user-guide, and the software itself has a step-by-step workflow built in.
If you want to see if you have it archived somewhere, the DAZ Studio installer was DS3_TexturePaintHelperLoader_1.0.0.0_Win64.exe (possibly DAZ 3 only) and it was ps_ap204b_TexPaintHelper.exe for Poser. Windows only. I find I have a copy of the latter installer. Re-installs and runs fine for me. Works with any Poser figure, is not restricted to a base V4 or just DAZ figures.
It doesn’t appear to be a re-texturer / re-painter as such, but an overlay-builder (think ‘tattoos’, ‘body-paint’) which lets you use regular Photoshop to do the painting of the overlay. There may be better tools now. I guess 3D Coat, and I recall many used Blacksmith3D at one time, and a simple node setup in the Material Room can also work with any Poser version, and don’t overlook that Poser 11 had new Material Room features in that regard. But it’s nice to know that ye olde standalone desktop software dedicated to working with a Poser runtime can still run. It only requires the ../content folder and not access to Poser, so does not require a specific Poser version due to scripting etc. It knows about Poser runtime structures and presents these quickly and well.
Pitterbill in Texture Paint Helper, 2022. A fine use of structured workflow with incorporated buttons for the user.
No drag-and-drop from its loader library, over to the Poser stage. Lack of drag-drop or any keyword-search means it can’t be re-purposed for use as an alternative Library. Still, if someone can access the source code today, there seems no reason those features could not be added.
Disco Elysium wants sci-fi artists
The developers of the latest ‘hot thing’ in art generating AIs, Disco Elysium, are seeking sci-fi artists with a love of outer space. The lads at ZA/UM are at the starting process of making their first game, presumably incorporating AI-gen art elements. The game news site DualShockers and magazine PC Gamer report the game will use Unreal Engine 5 rather than Disco Elysium’s Unity engine, so familiarity with both Unity and Unreal will probably be needed by applicants.
Poser to Vue
A 10-step Poser to Vue guide in 2022. Yes, it still works.
1. Install Poser 11. If possible, tell its Library about your Poser 12 runtime, if you also have Poser 12.
2. In Poser, make a scene with Poser.
3. Save the scene as a normal .PZ3 Poser scene file.
4. Install Vue (Vue 2016 R5, or latest subscription Vue R6, or both).
5. In the Vue “Options”, find the Poser button and set the path to the Poser 11 .EXE file’s folder. The Poser SDK version will be automatically set.
6. In Vue, New Scene, File, “Import Object…” (NOT “Import entire scene…”). Find and load Poser .PZ3 file.
7. On the import options pop-up: Group figures as single meshes. Render using Poser Shader Tree. Single Frame at “0”. (Research the other import options, as needed).
8. Ignore Vue’s legacy warning notice about your puny under-powered PC — it appears to say the same thing regardless of if your PC is a 1876 steam-driven abacus or a modern workstation with oodles of RAM and many cores. Just say “No” to having Vue over-ride your Poser scene import options with settings that it thinks are best.
9. Vue imports the Poser scene. Should not take too long. There’s a Progress Bar.
10. Frame the Poser scene nicely (Vue does not import Poser cameras), apply a Vue Atmosphere, Vue plants etc. Save file. Render.
There should be no materials tweaking required. Vue knows about Poser textures. The only thing you have to watch out for is spectacular on the lights and the sun in Vue.
Crtl is the camera movement damper key for Vue 11, Vue 2016, and W is the damper for the current versions. With this key pressed down on the keyboard, the camera moves in far small increments, more suitable for artistic framing of a Poser scene that’s smaller than the vast landscapes Vue is mainly used for.
Changes at ShareCG
A new annoying behaviour on the popular freebies site ShareCG today. Once you click “download” the site won’t let you do anything else with it, until the download has completed. Not even click through to another page. So be wary of casually starting a long download, because the rest of the site will then be frozen.
Changes since DAZ Studio 4.20.1.17
A quick look at DAZ to see if anything important changed. Changes since DAZ Studio 4.20.1.17…
* support for the new iRay “curves/fibers for strand-based hair/fur” (and later fixes)
* iRay at “2021.1.2”
So it looks like if you want the latest “furry” iRay, you want DAZ 4.20.1.34.
Though if you go later than that and on into the public betas, at 4.20.1.58 you get…
* iRay at “2021.1.6”
* and a thorough overhaul of FBX export.
Looking at the iRay dev blog…
1.6 – was a “minor critical” bugfix.
1.5 – no mention.
1.4 – no mention.
1.3 – was “a minor bugfix”
The iRay devs are working toward a major iRay “2022.0.0” beta, which seems due soonish.
So unless you want to experiment with iRay hair, or think “minor critical” is worth the change, there doesn’t seem a great deal of need to upgrade DAZ just yet.