Daz sent me a note about D|S 3, asking if I'd like to beta test. I (rudely) never responded. I should answer that guy - been too busy. Also I'm sort of in a conflict-of-interest involvement with SM at the moment.

stonemason:

Thank you.  I downloaded your example.  I will take a look and see if I can come up with a viable solution.

Does Poser 6 see smooth groups differently in .pp2's as opposed to smooth groups in .cr2's?  I am considering building main model component (Katana blade) as a .cr2 that would be non posable except for included morph targets.  Then all interchangeable parts would be smart prop parented .pp2's.  Would I need to compensate smooth groups in OBJ depending on groups ending up a figure or a prop, or does this even matter?

Thanks again for your time and input.
Take care all...
Ken

"hey Bagginsbill..have you looked at D|S3 recently?..I'd love to see what you could do in shader builder & shader mixer which seems to offer many things Poser does and some...the only thing D|S users are lacking now is a 'D|S Bagginsbill'"

I second that.

Actually, BB, I think you'd be impressed by  DS 3. Not just by Shader Builder/Mixer, but by the way DAZ have opened up the whole of DS to 3rd-party coders. In fact, the full DS SDK is now completely free, (it used to cost $1000), and allows anyone to delve deep into DS and come up with all sorts of cool plug-ins and scripts. The documentation is also pretty thorough so it's not difficult to get started.

Like Stonemason, I stick with the current (non-beta) public version. DAZ have now settled on a fairly simple system where they post a stable version on Download.com and have a 'beta' (but usually pretty stable) version available at DAZ. Plus at the moment, they have DS 3 which is in beta, but has some remarkable improvements and new features.

mac

I reckon the firefly render looks more detailed personally!

Quote -

Actually, BB, I think you'd be impressed by  DS 3. Not just by Shader Builder/Mixer, but by the way DAZ have opened up the whole of DS to 3rd-party coders. In fact, the full DS SDK is now completely free, (it used to cost $1000), and allows anyone to delve deep into DS and come up with all sorts of cool plug-ins and scripts. The documentation is also pretty thorough so it's not difficult to get started.

mac

The Trolltech plug-in SDK not the scripting SDK? Very interested, have link?

Awsome pic Patorak !

*Awsome pic Patorak !

Thanks!  I haven't used studio a whole lot.  Gotta admit,  I was impressed by the way it handled displacement maps.

I'm way confused. It started when patorak said nothing more than "really!?!".

Could you elaborate what you meant there?

Then Andrew said some pic is awesome.

Which is the picture that is awesome? Is there an awesome picture you linked to or something? I'm not trying to be an ass - I really don't know what is awesome.

Patoriak - that image you posted 4 up from here, are you saying that was a Daz render? And are you saying that is good or bad?

I see no displacement, but I do see a lack of polygon smoothing - the figure's sillhouette is clearly polygonal instead of rounded, and there are no shadows, so I'm really confused as to whether this is what being called awesome or is it something else?

remember this guy?

Quote - I've found Firefly to be a pretty capable renderer once you get your head around those settings. This is straight out of Poser, my standard render settings for quality and speed. Rendered in P7SR3 in about 5 mins.

Very simple materials - no bump or displacement. Just regular diffuse and specular for this test (which was mostly about lighting). The lights were fairly straitforward as well, 1 point & 1 spot  (I used falloff on these), & 1 IBL with probelight image (light based AO).

awesome, it looks real.

-Lara

*I see no displacement

Try cleanin' off your monitor.

I cleaned off my monitor, but I still see a guy with a bag of popcorn, smiling moronically.

It does look real, though.  Almost photographic.  Skin tone looks kinda fake.

Gamma correction, anyone?

Seriously, I'm asking. You said you were impressed with the way it handled displacement maps. It doesn't appear to have any displacement - it appears exactly like a bump map.

At the edges the figure has no obvious 3-dimensionality on the surface. And, as I said, it distinctly lacks even simple roundness that you get with sub-division surfaces or you get with REYES polygon smoothing as in Firefly, which is a kind of automatic displacement to get low-poly objects to look smoother.

I'm trying to understand what you're talking about.

But how can you care about the displacement when the shape of the figure is so linear anyway? You should turn on polygon smoothing or sub-D or something. Otherwise, the increment provided by the displacement is overwhelmed by how wrong the shape is in the first place.

ROFL Oh for f***s sake...Coke or Pepsi?:lol:

Both engines produce good results when settings are properly applied.

D|S 3Delight is somewhat easier to use straight out of the box and is rispec standard allowing the use of renderman compliant shaders while Poser Firefly has better accessibility to surface settings so edges out the D|S front end for 3Delight in usability for average users.

Any way you cut it to get the best results you're going to have to learn how the render engine of choice  works and create appropriate surface settings.

If you want grab-n-go rendering and are satisfied with using other people's shaders , D|S. If you want better control and to roll your own, Poser.

You want to learn something about how materials work in general download the Kerkythea material editor guide. It's a good primer on the theories and practices of material/shader creation and easy to follow. (Mr Baggins Bill sir, your information is priceless but you use the "M" word too often and it frightens off the folks that have to remove their shoes to count up to twenty.)

Interested in rispec, go to the MOSAIC blog page and have at it, enough info and links there to keep a body busy for awhile.

In my most recent gallery pic here on Renderosity the vase texture is a fractal generating node based material converted to rispec using MOSAIC and rendered through the D|S 3Delight front end. The magnolia branch uses another material node set-up in Blender also converted through MOSAIC.

HLSL anyone? Nvidia and ATI developer info pages.

Now I just want info on the free DAZ Studio Plugin SDK that maclean mentioned. :biggrin: (Last I checked it was $199.00 unless you have a current commercial QT license.)

FYI:

DAZstudio 3 and DAZstudio3 advanced are out now:

forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php

and yes, the SDK is for free.

best regards,

Bopper.

Cool, now is it part of the DS3 core or available as a separate DL?

When following your link and clicking on the Free Studio Plugin SDK page link it redirects to the support section/ developers info where the Plugin SDK is still listed as $199.00

I'm not arguing, just trying to track it down so I can DL it.

*Cool, now is it part of the DS3 core or available as a separate DL?

*I'm also a bit puzzled about this, when I follow the link, it's says that the SDK is free but when I go to that page, I still have to pay $199,- .
But perhaps because this is a early bird release (the official release is tomorrow), they are not completely ready.

regards,

Bopper.

Quote - I'm trying to understand what you're talking about.

I thought the pun was pretty awesome. :laugh:

Quote - > Quote - I'm trying to understand what you're talking about.

I thought the pun was pretty awesome. :laugh:

care to explain it to the rest of us?

Quote - I thought the pun was pretty awesome

Pun? What pun? I'm totally lost now. You quoted me, but mentioned a pun. I didn't make a pun.

What the hell is happening in this thread?

I know what's going to happen next. When I start questioning what somebody actually means by some statement I can't make sense of, somebody usually says "you're just arguing semantics". That one usually stops me cold. Yes, when I ask what you MEAN, I am asking about semantics. Brilliant - thanks for the scientific term that changes nothing. LOL

I'll leave you guys to your popcorn.

I can't resist any longer....

Bagginsbill, thread title + Patorak's posted render  = pun

That wasn't really anything negative towards you BB.

Quote - I can't resist any longer....

Bagginsbill, thread title + Patorak's posted render  = pun

....?

Apparently the Ben Grimm character is called the Thing - I didn't know that since I'm not into comics at all.What a waste of half an hour Googling.

"Things look better in Daz"

o.k., I get it - the thing.  it would look better in carrara or max, too.
but nobody has explained the giant polythene bag of popcorn yet.
one tip, however: when going to the cinema, take a giant bag of popcorn and throw it around, like confetti. this is also a good thing to do when standing up and shouting at the screen, of course.

It's an inside joke with me and Bagginsbill, don't worry about it.

Hope this is not off topic.

I have never used D/S for anything other than the setup tools.  But since reading the info on improvements in D/S 3 I plan to try it out and see what it's all about
  But I am wondering how much their "Advanced" version will cost. 
  The main advantage that I see that D/S may have over Poser is still the sub D option. (clarkes mull or what ever it's called again.)   I have recently been very impressed with the D/S setup tools as opposed to the setup room in Poser.
  As to wheather things look better in D/S than Poser, I don't agree.  Never having done any renders in D/S myself I am judging from renders of others I have observed.  Perhaps the new D/S with it's "improvements" will change my mind.

The prices are already listed:
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=115030&sid=c524874f43cc4dc1bb61095dcaefa31d

In the free version:
Improved Render Engine (exactly WHAT is improved is ambiguous, for sure the shading engine, IBL/HDR, Area Lights/Shadows, and Global Illumination is NOT included in the free version)
aniMate Lite - Special thanks to GoFigure!.
Visual Helpers for Cameras and Lights - Special thanks to Dreamlight.
Selection/Bounding Box Display
Render Album
Visible in Render
Plugin SDK

The "Advanced" version is $97.47 for regular people, $52.48 for platinum club members.  The much more expensive "bundle" looks to me to be a terrible deal - not that I'll be spending money on this stuff anyway, at least not for a long while until you eager guinea pigs debug it for me.

>> " What the hell is happening in this thread?"

JenX, that minx, has deleted half the posts that would otherwise make this thread comprehensible.

I still have no clue what the popcorn guy is about.

And frankly, the Thing image didnt impress me either. Am I missing something there as well?

But I concur with the earlier poster that said, in essence, "Use what works for you". My images are pretty simple, texturally, so it really doesnt matter what render engine I use. I like the results in Firefly, even though they're only minimally different from the old P4-style renders... still, it's enough difference to work for me, and right now that's about all that matters, right?

What is the Philosophy of Art?

Mental=Technical

Emotional=Imagination

Will=Purpose

I do suggest a study of non computerized art.

Banaman

http://universeabovetheearth.com/

Personally I think Play-doh is a better medium for 3d work but all these nerds insist on using computers and polygons and stuff.  I think they're weird.

* I had a feeling that was a Play-doh tongue.
Banaman

http://universeabovetheearth.com/*

Quote - Personally I think Play-doh is a better medium for 3d work but all these nerds insist on using computers and polygons and stuff.  I think they're weird.

I'd wondered what that tongue was made of.  Pretty nice sculpting...

EDIT:
DOH! Banaman beat me to the punch.  :cursing:

Look at the color and texture - clearly it's silly putty !

Klebnor

Quote - ROFL Oh for f***s sake...Coke or Pepsi?:lol:
Both engines produce good results when settings are properly applied.

Ahhh, the periodical attempts at establishing the pecking order!  LOL

I'm way too opportunistic to lock myself into one or the other.
I try to use the tool that fits task at hand.

Quote - Personally I think Play-doh is a better medium for 3d work but all these nerds insist on using computers and polygons and stuff.  I think they're weird.

Now we're talking!

I'm still handier with regular and polymer clays then I am with, um, Mudbox!

This is ridicuoulsly off-topic but since there seems to be some preoccupation with my prehensile girl-meat avatar image, trust me, there's crazier stuff in reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX7wfsDfySc

strangely hypnotic.

personally I think things look better in Povray or Kerkythea.... but thats just me... (or Indigo or Yayafray tho I've not gotten poser content into those yet....)

Quote - Personally I think Play-doh is a better medium for 3d work but all these nerds insist on using computers and polygons and stuff.  I think they're weird.

Hmpf! MUD is obviously the superior choice for anyone with taste and discernment. :rolleyes:

It comes in a variety of colors.

The consistency can be altered to accommodate any level from liquid to solid.

You can mold it, shape it, paint it, bake it, make pies with it, bath in it ( for a ridiculous amount of money), fling it about carelessly, use it to obscure unwanted details  AND it squishes delightfully between the toes.

Try that with your silly play-doh.

*I'm trying to understand what you're talking about.

It was a joke Bill.  I'm loadin' morphs and got bored.

*This is ridicuoulsly off-topic but since there seems to be some preoccupation with my prehensile girl-meat avatar image, trust me, there's crazier stuff in reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX7wfsDfySc

strangely hypnotic.

Awesome!

Poor poser froggy has spots that didn't render.