The advantage of SW is that I can take a Geometry file from a clothing item with a single material zone and then after getting a template and grid file, I can do what I want with it.

Dawn will hopefully be the same, and I can make second skins etc for her.

Sometimes it's easier to model, say a sci fi outfit out of bits, leg armour, arm armour etc. and have a second skin as a fake undersuit.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Hi Shane, which parts do you think are drawbacks?

I think everyone here is up for contructive criticism, as against destructive ones.

It's good to talk and bounce ideas about.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

I'd like to see Dawn's Hip given it's own separate material zone. In case we Poser users would like to made some pantyhose shaders for her.

It's a pain having to use Poser's grouping tool to create a new zone for her. I tried to do that for Miki 4 and had this unexplainable gap in the buttocks area. Took a while to figure it out.

Quote - Ok been following this since it was first announced and it does have my support, I'm just wondering if we're going to see an official list of new features that actually makes Dawn different from all the figures that are currently available. Maybe a contrast/comparison list of features covering Dawn against the top 2 or 3 females/figures currently available.

  What do you think are the top 2 or 3 figures currently available?

Me, I see Dawn's advantage being that she makes use of new features (like weight-mapping), and works natively in both Poser and DS.  No DSON required.  That, and the reputation of her creators.

Figures live and die on support.  We've had other non-DAZ figures for Poser, but one person or a handful of volunteers isn't enough to give them the kind of support needed.  I think it's become obvious that you need an actual company - people whose jobs are to support and promote the figure.

And the names behind Hivewire have the credibility to pull this off. The figure will be great, and they have the business end of things down, too.

Quote - Ok been following this since it was first announced and it does have my support, I'm just wondering if we're going to see an official list of new features that actually makes Dawn different from all the figures that are currently available. Maybe a contrast/comparison list of features covering Dawn against the top 2 or 3 females/figures currently available.

What really hasn't been shown yet are the incredible "Posing Controls". Controls like "Arms Up", "Left Arm Down", "Torso Twist", "Bend Forward", to mention a few...  These controls, even when animated, give some of the most life-like bending I've ever seen in a 3D model.  Once you see those, you will see that there is a difference...

Quote -
Figures live and die on support.  We've had other non-DAZ figures for Poser, but one person or a handful of volunteers isn't enough to give them the kind of support needed.  I think it's become obvious that you need an actual company - people whose jobs are to support and promote the figure.

And the names behind Hivewire have the credibility to pull this off. The figure will be great, and they have the business end of things down, too.

Agreed. Without a specific site committed to the base figure, there's less chance of success. Although, that alone won't guarantee success. Anyone here heard of Mariko? Fema Su? Apollo Maximus?

To truly compete with the establishment, Dawn is going to have to be flexible, exciting, and tirelessly promoted. She's going to have to light up Rendo, RDNA, CP, and yes, even sites like Rotica and ShareCG. If she can stand in for the V-girls in nearly every situation, then she will. She could be the InDesign of figures in a world dominated by Quark. Or she could simply be Pagemaker. Only time will tell.

I would like to say a big thank you to the Hivewire3D team for creating this wonderful new model and much success from this moment on.

I would also like to ask if anyone would be willing to create a tutorial on creating a character from start to finish for us newbies out there that would like to take advantage of the teams kindness in making Dawns texture a merchant resource.

I myself have no experience in creating a character complete with morphs and textures to package up and sell and so a tutorial would be most appreciated by myself and others out there who want to support this great team and model.

I ask for a tutorial from start to finish so that way us newbies do not make any mistakes and unkowningly do something illegal.

Once again, thank you Hivewire3d :)

Well, the price is right at least!

I am most interested in the possibilities of a new figure, particularly if there will be decent support in the form of new shapes and textures.  One figure is one figure, but one heavily expandable figure is gold.

I wish you luck, I am following your FB page with MUCH interest.

Barry

Quote -
What really hasn't been shown yet are the incredible "Posing Controls". Controls like "Arms Up", "Left Arm Down", "Torso Twist", "Bend Forward", to mention a few...  These controls, even when animated, give some of the most life-like bending I've ever seen in a 3D model.  Once you see those, you will see that there is a difference...

Sorry, but what is new about those? These kind of controls are availaable for years. They are in original Poser figures like Simon, Alyson, Rex, Roxie (under advanced pose controls) as well as in DAZ figures like M4, V4 (comes with morphs++ under "morphforms") and Genesis (standard, under pose control).

Is there anything that is done different, better in this respect in Dawn? Just curious.

Ciao

TD

Ok, quick post as I am swamped...

major rigging difference is what I call PROM, or Pressured Range Of Motion. This means that the full range of rotation for Dawn will be as if it were under pressure. An example is crossing you fingers or bending your wrist. If you bend your wrist, you can only bend it so far, but place your hand flat on a table and you can bend it more under pressure.

I will post an example of fingers crossed (it is a control dial too!) wireframe no smoothing or sub-d.

:D

Quote - Ok, quick post as I am swamped...

major rigging difference is what I call PROM, or Pressured Range Of Motion. This means that the full range of rotation for Dawn will be as if it were under pressure. An example is crossing you fingers or bending your wrist. If you bend your wrist, you can only bend it so far, but place your hand flat on a table and you can bend it more under pressure.

I will post an example of fingers crossed (it is a control dial too!) wireframe no smoothing or sub-d.

:D

Neat. That sounds cool and useful.

Thanks

TD

We also have our fingers crossed, that she'll be released as soon as possible.

Sorry, couldn't resist. xD

She can do that with her pinky and ring fingers or ring and middle fingers too!

Quote - > Quote -

Figures live and die on support.  We've had other non-DAZ figures for Poser, but one person or a handful of volunteers isn't enough to give them the kind of support needed.  I think it's become obvious that you need an actual company - people whose jobs are to support and promote the figure.

And the names behind Hivewire have the credibility to pull this off. The figure will be great, and they have the business end of things down, too.

Agreed. Without a specific site committed to the base figure, there's less chance of success. Although, that alone won't guarantee success. Anyone here heard of Mariko? Fema Su? Apollo Maximus?

They'll have their own store at Hivewire3D. I'm sure they have every intention of making that store as big as DAZ3D or RMP. Otherwise, they'd be off getting full-time jobs elsewhere. There's probably some decent VC behind this. What seems like a small indie thing right now could be a mega-store in years to come. That's my prediction.

BTW, as we're talking hands, would you mind showing us a picture of her thumb bent inwards (parallel to the rest of the fingers, but as if trying to touch the smallest finger)?

I wish to see how realistically her hands bend. Poser figures always have hands with palms looking so much more hard and "locked" than they should when the thumb bends...

that's some sweet flexability! fingers crossed  =D

looking forward to getting my grubby mitts all up on this

Quote - She can do that with her pinky and ring fingers or ring and middle fingers too!

Nice!  So doing the "Vulcan Salute" should be no problem for Dawn :)

Looks great so far!!!  ...and I hope Dawn will "Live long and prosper!"

-AniMajik

I'm also curious about palm bending...pinky finger to thumb.  This comes up a lot when creating pose sets...that, and tolerance of movement of the shoulders in extreme positions which bring the shoulders and arms inward.  In both the pinky/thumb and shoulder inward bend, it's as if the core needs some way of being as if hinged, the way the hand appears naturally when cupped inward.  This action/appearance may not be possible in a model, but just thought I'd ask, as they are the two problem areas I encounter most often.

Things are looking great by the way.  If Dawn's weight-mapped movement is as good or better than Roxie's, it will be wonderful.  Looking forward to the release.

:)

I ask for a tutorial from start to finish so that way us newbies do not make any mistakes and unkowningly do something illegal.

I don't know if that could be covered in one tutorial.  :-)   One vendor has written a pdf book on the subject though, that you could probably find with a search engine.

Dawn is looking more unique, every time I see a new render.  :-)  Love the fingers!

Quote - I love StitchWitch! :D I agree with the M4 thighs. I've made a few outfits for the figure, but haven't done so in a while b/c of the problems with them. It helps if you put the character in wireframe or ghost frame mode, however. But, still a pain.

Funny you should mention stitch witch. I have Corel psp,Photoshop, but there are still a few things I prefer to do in that program. It is a remarkable program for the price.

About that tutorial........

I can't promise, but I will have a look at what I can do, once Dawn appears.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Hmm... Stitch Witch, does it actually generate the textures?  Or does it help you take textures and patterns created elsewhere and align them?  It's hard for me to tell what it does.  I searched for a YouTube video but didn't find anything.

SW will allow you tomake a template like a UV one, but... You can also save a grid file.

That grid file maps all the points of the template, so you can snap to the nearest point.

Saves a lot of time when texture making.

Once you have the template and grid file you can then start playing, save the texture file out etc. Then drop in Poser and add the image files.

I use it on clothing, charactersand props all the time.

I'll drop a couple of pics up shortly.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Doesn't generate textures. I use Filter Forge for that. I use Stitch Witch to apply trims and laces, even on curved hems. It allows you to align everything perfectly. Then you save as a png with no background and apply it to your texture psd. You use the template as a guide.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Normally now I would add a bleed option of 5 to stop any white line seams appearing.

Then I would just save it out as a texture file to use in the Poser material room.

The template underneath is not saved with the texture file.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Looks handy.

Now I gotta figure out if photoshop has a way of making a trim image follow a path, I guess that would work quite the same. ;)

Sneaky plug!!!! Lol

http://www.sharecg.com/v/30532/gallery/3/Text-Entry-Tutorial/Stitch-Witch-Magic-01

5 years old, but will still give people a start.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Trims are easy in SW!!! There is even an option for them. In SW it's called Lace.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Quote - Looks handy.

Now I gotta figure out if photoshop has a way of making a trim image follow a path, I guess that would work quite the same. ;)

I was able to creat a seam brush in photoshop that could be used as a stroke for a selection. Very handy. It's all in manipulating the brush parameters.

In other news, can someone remind us where SW is available? It's PC-only, right?

Ohhhhh..could ya make a new thread for the SW thing? I've had my eye on it for awhile and think I wanna get it ;).

vagabondallen - it's at Daz...not sure if it's anywhere else.

Laurie

It did that time in about 1 minute, I could make it better if I had a little more time to play.

All the best,

Great Uncle LROG

Quote - vagabondallen - it's at Daz...not sure if it's anywhere else.

Laurie

Found it. Yeah, PC-only. Maybe I'll install Windows on my new Mac next week. ;)

SW - Stitch Witch can be found at DAZ.

I did all the months of beta testing it on the PC before it appeared.

This is why I mentioned earlier in the thread, if you become a beta tester, don't think it's a walk in the park. Lots of testing to do, retesting, more testing etc. Late night updates that can sometimes appear in the early hours.

To people like me, it's fun, but it can be pressure work if you are working to a deadline.

Plus, all the way along, you know you have somehting amazing to tell people about, but you cn only talk to other beta testers as you are under a NDA. Sometimes that's the hardest part

I worked on SW for months and the only thingt people got out of me wa that something interesting was coming. No info, no specs, no screenshot, even my closest friends on the internet knew nothing, until the day of the release.

So, anyone thinking that beta testing dawn will be a nice easy job, you might want to think again. LOL.

Also, when I test for other people, I actively try to break the item, that's how far I take things at times!!! Lol.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Download the PDF file I posted the link to and you can look it over.

The reason I mentioned it, is that once Dawn appears, I can make my own templates of her mesh and start to work on those templates.

It's amazing what you can put on a body texture and how quick you can do it.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Quote - > Quote - Looks handy.

Now I gotta figure out if photoshop has a way of making a trim image follow a path, I guess that would work quite the same. ;)

I was able to creat a seam brush in photoshop that could be used as a stroke for a selection. Very handy. It's all in manipulating the brush parameters.

In other news, can someone remind us where SW is available? It's PC-only, right?

Yeah, that is how I do trim in photoshop as well.

Yep, theres all similar ways of doing things, the hard part used to be finding the tools to do the jobs.

Now, we have all sorts of toys to play with, thumbnail designers, matwriters etc. So much easier than when I started out!! Lol.

The fun thing is how people will make use of Dawn. The morphs will allow us to make characters that are nice and those with a dark side as well. Lol.

Give me the clothes and away I go with textures. These are all fun things for me to play with.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

But saving as a brush in Photoshop doesn't keep the trim image's colors, does it? o.o

Can you get the material to follow a brush path?

All the best.

Great Uncle LORG

That's what I'm wondering. Not that I know of, no.

I've heard Illustrator can, but not Photoshop.

Little tutorial:-

http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/brush7/yj/yj.htm

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

Yep, that technique I'm familiar with. It's not keeping the image's original colors - it's taking just its shape and stroking the path with the color you have selected, plus a little variation of it.

ok ok ok.. I know we need to get off the stitchwitch topic as its de-railing the thread but...

I also was very interested but couldnt figure out thwat it does exactly..  

what I want it to do:  take a straight piece of trim, say a hem or lace edge and apply it to a curved edge of a UV template without distorting  or having to merge together a bajillion segments of the edge to make it around the curve... is that what its for?  or does it just line things up on a UV template?  I can line things up on a UV template just fine by myself.. I just cant curve things well without screwing up the image too badly

.. maybe it does need its own thread...

Quote - But saving as a brush in Photoshop doesn't keep the trim image's colors, does it? o.o

Alas, nope.  You're right about that.

I don't know if Stitch Witch does layers.  When I do trim, I'm doing entirely different layer settings and coloring for bump, displacement, shine, color map, etc., stuff that simply gray-scaling and adjusting gamma won't accomplish. 

So where is this wonderful Stitch Witch thread so I can follow it?  This thread is about Dawn.  :) 

Dawn Dawn Dawn, Dawn Dawn d Dawn.

Dawn Dawn Dawn, Dawn Dawn d Daaaaawwawwwn! Ooh Daaawn.

You got me rockin and rollin, rockin and reelin Dawny Dawn, Dawn Dawn, Dawn Dawn d Dawn.

Okay, yeah, that was corny.  >_> 

Easy peasy!!!!!

When you do a Lace option, you just have a line of points, then add the Lace option.

Your texture comes in, but could be large, so you just scale it down.

The advantage of that Grid file is that you can go on the very edge of anything and it will snap to the nearest point. You hold down the Ctrl key and pick where you want it to go. It snaps in place and away you go.

Look at the pi I did for the Lace option, that isn't an area of defined texture, that's a single line of points, so much easier than trying to define areas.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

This is why I mentioned earlier in the thread if we could have a render of material zones for Dawn.

I like doing textures and work of material zones most of the time, especially in clothes.

Most of the time vendors dont do a material zone renderm so it makes it hard for me to work out what I can do with something.

Give me a long flowing dress with long sleeves, and lots of amterial zones and I'm a happy bunny.

I'll make the dress into all types of length, long, kne, short, Hey yo9u can see your... Lol. Same with the sleeves, make them long, mid or short, even no sleeves at all.

This way I can mix and match so may options, materials etc.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG