Lyrra posted at 6:23PM Mon, 26 October 2015 - #4235297

aha! got it

I had to not only regroup the jaw, but re position it in the obj and lengthen it so it matched the top jaw.

So both LE and full versions will have RTE coded files

Anyone making (or who had made) morphs effecting the head will need to convert them to the new obj grouping and shape to use them on the Improved version. sorry guys.

benefits - now has fully rigged ears with groups, and fully rigged jaw with group

Costs - RTE coding files needed for distribution, breaks all existing morphs (I'm converting everything that comes stock). Some existing morphs are being deleted as no longer needed )open mouth, howl, etc)

LM

does this mean all the original breed morphs as well as on-board ++ morphs ad poses paks? What about the original texture .PP2 morphs/MATs?

progress has progressed!

part 1 - mildog LE, bend fixes with erc - done. Rigged jaw - done. Rigged ears - done

Part 2 - mildog starter kit/classic canines - morphs converted to new obj. All mildog LE improvements included

That leaves new shaders for both parts, and part 3 - new conformers, new breeds, new morphs

So msot of the fixit part is done.

Attached are some images of the improved mildog, with various breeds and proper scaling hooked into the morphs. I used the AKC breed heights, and a ruler to sort that so when you dial the great dane its great dane sized and the min pin is 11 inches tall. Tiiiiny dogs. Default shaders, terrible render. But enough to show the heights and all

Lyrra

looks nice

Very nice. When do you think it will be available?

Oh wow!! I'd been hoping someone would pick up the Mil Dog! glee! Just being able to move the ears is huge, it's so hard for a dog to show emotion without those.

This will not be available any time soon I'm afraid.

My next step is to make the fur conformers for part 3. Those will need to be modeled, mapped and rigged and then morphs to fit the existing morphs.

After the fur is built, with a basic set of textures for transparency, then I can build all the new breeds. This will be mostly ERC compilations and not single morphs - that is to say I'll be making a lot of partial body morphs and adding controller dials per breed. This is similar to how the current German Shorthair breed is a composite, and uses various other morphs to achieve the look in the current MAT/MOR file. I've coded it to a single control dial, and that is how I intend to create all the new dog breeds on my list. This cuts down considerably on memory needed for the figure.

After I have made all my new partial and breed morphs, and the new bump and disp maps, then I can split the MilDog LE and new smooth coated breads out and release parts 1 and 2. I could in theory release it right now, but it would have no new breeds maps or morphs at all.

Part three will contain the new fur conformers, all the new long haired breeds, and new shaders for all breeds and will be a marketplace item.

In addition, I will make the layered psd file for my textures available on my Patreon for a low donation. This donation will go towards buying zbrush and other tools.

About the tongue - I've lost all the tongue morphs. This is a nuisance. I'm debating the merits of rigging the tongue but I need to look at the mesh and see if it allows for it. There will be some solution, since it's needed for expressions and phonemes.

Testers: I would like several testers for the Mildog LE and several who have the MilDog Starter kit and Classic Canines mat/mor packages. You will need the RTE encoder/decoder. Please send me a pm asking to test the mildog. Thanks!

Lyrra

Thank you a Million times for doing this! The Mil Dog was in serious need of work..thank you!

there .. tongue all rigged. since I was in there I added a new material for it. Any existing materials will need to have the settings copied from InnerMouth to Tongue. This one needed all weightmaps to work at all, so I'm not entirely sure how will this will be read by DS or older versions of poser. I am including movement morphs on the tongue, so a certain amount of motion based on those will be available no matter what.

Lyrra

Uvmaps.

The dog as it stands has several less than optimal uvmapped areas - the tongue, teeth and claws are not entirely unwrapped. This was very common on models of this era, and considering the tools of the time, very understandable.

If I change the UVs then all existing maps will no longer work.

I can make the cr2 in 2 versions - Classic and New UV's. This may cause some confusion, but I'd like to think anyone who has gotten this far can figure it out.

Would people like improved UV's for this?

Attached is a uvlayout snapshot fo the existing uvs. Red is squished, blue is stretched. A certain amount of this is unavoidable, but as you can see a lot of parts overlap themselves and that would be cleaned up, and a great deal of the distortion on the head and feet would be smoothed out.

Lyrra

new bump map! renders before and after changing shaders and adding a new bump on the default skin

afters

I don't think that if people are willing to do the RTE that re-mapped uvs would be that much more work for the end user. This coming along beautifully.

seems to get the new and improved is a good thing. what might be a good solution, if the end user wants t keep all the original dog stuff well that is good. but, if the new better-fied version he can load that instead from the runtime. as long as the names are different and the two versions can work together i see no problem. the only thing i am worried about is the encoder. on mu newer mac i have had problems running the application. am going to hate buying this only to find i will not be able to surmount this issue. :(

I think it looks really good. Only criticism I have is that the lower jaw seems to be too thin and seems to be translated oddly in the z axis, not sure if that's an issue with the original mesh or was brought about by the fixes/additional rigging. Any thoughts on improving Woody the Poser mannequin? Just kidding, although I'm considering doing something along the lines of surrogate conformers or a custom geom switching .cr2... just because, well, I'm a weirdo. Lol. Fantastic work Lyrra!

EldritchCellar posted at 4:08PM Thu, 05 November 2015 - #4237109

I think it looks really good. Only criticism I have is that the lower jaw seems to be too thin and seems to be translated oddly in the z axis, not sure if that's an issue with the original mesh or was brought about by the fixes/additional rigging. Any thoughts on improving Woody the Poser mannequin? Just kidding, although I'm considering doing something along the lines of surrogate conformers or a custom geom switching .cr2... just because, well, I'm a weirdo. Lol. Fantastic work Lyrra!

Would like Woodie changed. I have used the P4 male head and the P4 Male hands to replace those on Woodie for some needed realistic mannequin renders I needed to do, sort of a MayaDoll like mannequin. An out of the box ready to work with Woodie and female version would be swell.

Was thinking a female version. My head is all over the place with "maybe I'll". Already have a full plate. We'll see, I imagine a geometry switching .cr2 would be distributable, long as the replacement parts are original .objs, it's a very basic iconic Poser fig, not a lot of hoops to worry about. As far as RTE goes, I use RTEncoder Java on an older Mac with no problem, don't know about Intel Macs though... maybe a Parallel or some such?

Shante, here's the link for all the versions of RTEncoderPy (not Java, must have gotten that mixed up with some other Mac ported poser strangeness). It says they have a download for Intel Mac, not sure if it works and it only can decode/encode version 1 files. Not sure what Lyrra is using to encode. Last time I used RTEncoder was for PitKlad's Posette Nea... what ever happened to PitKlad?

RTEncoderPy

EldritchCellar posted at 12:48PM Sat, 07 November 2015 - #4237132

Shante, here's the link for all the versions of RTEncoderPy (not Java, must have gotten that mixed up with some other Mac ported poser strangeness). It says they have a download for Intel Mac, not sure if it works and it only can decode/encode version 1 files. Not sure what Lyrra is using to encode. Last time I used RTEncoder was for PitKlad's Posette Nea... what ever happened to PitKlad?

RTEncoderPy

what happened to Posette Nea for that matter? ;)

Yeah, mysterious... Pitklad's stuff no longer on ShareCG. Started modeling that stuff for the Poser mannequin Woody btw. Barring some life disaster and other projects it should come together pretty quick. Anyway, don't mean for OT. Sorry, Lyrra.

this project is currently holding while I work like mad on 6 products for Poser 11's Paul and Pauline. (2 devkits, 2 mag kits, 2 huge morph sets) As soon as I get those done I'll get back to finish this. Might be a week or two.

Shante - you will be able to download the Improved Mildog LE and Improved Mildog free. The pay version will have additional fur conformers and breeds and require the free items be installed. Worst comes to it you can screencap a picture of your DAZ order for the mildog as proof of ownership and I can send you the uncoded obj.

Mac RTEencoder - No idea. Hopefully the linked version still works for you guys.

About the Jaw - I had to reposition the jaw to rig it. I used the Open Mouth morph as a starter and adjusted the jaw length so it fit properly when closed, then exported that obj to use as the new base obj. I need to crosscheck the beast against anatomy charts, and see if there are any adjustments needed, at that time if the jaw is too thin I'll add a morph to adjust it.

Progress - started new unwrapped uvs using UVLayout. Made a basic bump map for the free parts of this project and set all the MATs for the Classic Canine maps with new shaders. Todo: fur conformers, new breeds

Lyrra the OverWorked

shante posted at 1:07PM Sun, 08 November 2015 - #4237383

what happened to Posette Nea for that matter? ;)

Some of Pitklad's freestuff is on Planit3d.com, including NeaP4. I recall he was working on an update last year...

EDIT; here's the thread. No download link, tho'.... https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2879805

Lyrra posted at 2:30PM Fri, 20 November 2015 - #4237463

this project is currently holding while I work like mad on 6 products for Poser 11's Paul and Pauline. (2 devkits, 2 mag kits, 2 huge morph sets) As soon as I get those done I'll get back to finish this. Might be a week or two.

Shante - you will be able to download the Improved Mildog LE and Improved Mildog free. The pay version will have additional fur conformers and breeds and require the free items be installed. Worst comes to it you can screencap a picture of your DAZ order for the mildog as proof of ownership and I can send you the uncoded obj.

Mac RTEencoder - No idea. Hopefully the linked version still works for you guys.

About the Jaw - I had to reposition the jaw to rig it. I used the Open Mouth morph as a starter and adjusted the jaw length so it fit properly when closed, then exported that obj to use as the new base obj. I need to crosscheck the beast against anatomy charts, and see if there are any adjustments needed, at that time if the jaw is too thin I'll add a morph to adjust it.

Progress - started new unwrapped uvs using UVLayout. Made a basic bump map for the free parts of this project and set all the MATs for the Classic Canine maps with new shaders. Todo: fur conformers, new breeds

Lyrra the OverWorked

Hi I might not even be able to do that because I bought the dogs I think, before DAZ set up the on-line order history thing on their site. I have been going crazy there trying to track stuff i bought before all that was set up. They have to literally go back to hard copy accounts data base to find them to prove i bought them so i can reload something purchased way back then. Well, we'll figure it when the time comes dear. Mean time, good luck on the new stuff for Poser 11. Look forward to seeing what comes of all that.

Correction...I have them in the digital database so all is cool. Also, I picked up the LowRes dog set there and it is greatly lacking good textures. Is that something that can be re rigged or rep]mapped to at least work with the MilDog textures? Those dog sets are ok for filler but the textures are really poopie. And also love the demon dogs sets but would love new morphs and textures (retextured with MilDog set perhaps?) for them as well as a Cerberus dog for either of the sets.

just checking in to see if there has been any progress. guess not. :(

There was some work done on woody :D look under toons on hivewire

bill

Sorry. Still busy with poser 11 stuff. I did say I would have a delay on this project while I worked on other sets that I had already committed to.

Probably another week for the batch of Pauline skins and then a week or two to finish up and do promos for Paul's Morphs Plus, bodysuit and Fit Room kit. Then I should be able to get back to this set .. so .. in theory .. Januaryish.

Maybe. Longer if I get annoyed.

Just to note - I've had some people harassing me here, via PM, and on other forums so if that behavior continues I might very well take all my toys and find someplace nice and quiet to work without the trolls. I'm going to give the admins here a chance to do their jobs, but since they haven't stomped these people thus far I don't have high hopes.

LM

Nice work Lyrra!

I have to say that harassment has no place whatsoever in the community. I really hope this issue will be taken a bit more seriously in the future because it scares off a lot of the people that actually have something to contribute.

Oh please don't run away Lyrra! I love what you are doing for the dog, poor thing needs all the help it can get

Oh, please ignore the peanut gallery, Lyrra, your stuff is too nice to rush!

I did most of a a greyhound morph for the Mildog myself, a long time ago, and never finished because I could find no way of getting the ears and paws right without remodelling them completely. Hopefully your greater experience and skill will overcome, when you do get back to this project. Let me know if you need any sight-hound reference pictures for details, I'll point a camera at mine (unless you want running, he always moves too fast for me to catch him in the frame when he's running!)

Progress!

My Paul projects are temporarily stalled while i wait for Smith Micro to sort out a little technical issue. In the meantime I have finished remapping the mildog. This was not an easy task. Some parts of the geometry really did not want to get unwrapped, like the inside of the mouth and between the toes.

A snapshot of the original uvmaps (in UVL) you can clearly see stacked and intersecting mesh as well areas of stretch and compression (blue and red respectively). For the time of creation this wasn't bad (12 or so years ago).

I have completely remapped the entire mesh. Some pieces will look pretty much the same, but I chose to cut in different places. The odd snip at the back of the ears for example removes the distortion areas on the under chin and back of neck areas. I also pulled the eyes to a new map and made them much larger to get more detail. I also completely unwrapped each claw and tooth. I did snip off the belly, which adds a seam, but it much improves the mapping of the sides and groin area and removes that difficult arch on the stomach area which makes shaggier fur and markings so difficult on the mildog.

Next step: All New Maps and then All New Morphs.

Release date: Don't even ask. Later. Much Later.

Do NOT start textures on this map, there is a chance it will be changed.

LM

Hai Gan If by any chance you have a brindle some nice all around shots of the coat would be nice .. thats one of the few coat types where I need a full set of the same dog to get the markings lined up. I think the new ear rig will make all the sighthounds much easier to make now, although I have not tried yet. Are the paws significantly different? as I recall they are mostly smoother and elongated. My afghan hound (after you wetted down all the shag) had very delicate feet for such a tall dog. I havent had a chance to examine any greyhounds or the like in person.

As I recall a long long time ago Lynne? or maybe Capsces? did a decent greyhound on the poser4dog (of all poor creatures)

I read a bit by Gerald Durrell about his attempts to film a ferret for a tv nature show. The thing moved so fast it literally crossed the set stage between camera frames ( back in the mm 80s or so) I don't know how fast greyhounds are compared to ferrets but I can imagine trying to get a shot of one at speed must be tricky :)

LM

willshetterly posted at 10:20PM Tue, 19 January 2016 - #4232543

A free version and a pay version seems like a fine plan. I have wondered if DAZ has a Dog 2 in the works. I think that's an argument against doing a brand new dog, unless you thought it would be fun for its own sake, of course. Knowing DAZ, any new dog would cost a lot more than what you're estimating for your pay version.

I don't know if Daz has a Dog 2 in the works but I'm pretty sure Hivewire has one in the pipeline, as well as a deer, Asian elephant and large cat (and so far they look pretty good).

Laurie

Lyrra I am still up for this and willing to help test. I know it doesn't help that atmosphere around here is not too conductive to positive Poser progress.

thanks parkdale... but it will be a long while before I need testers. I'll put out a call then, so you should keep an eye out for that :)

LM

Hi, sorry for the delay, I forgot to check for responses. I don't have a brindle, the only brindle I know right now has a very attractive but very unusual head marking- one side brindle the other side white. The paws are longer, more slender and very much more bony than, say, a Labrador, I'll get photos standing on a hard surface (after I clip his claws, he objects to having his running-spikes reduced but they do need doing!). The ones here are clipped from non-reference-type photos I've taken, but they're mostly relaxed/bent not weight-bearing.

I for one would love to see a much improved version of the Millennium dog, especially in the way the feet look and behave, which currently reminds me more of horse hooves than paws.

and there are textures! Still need to do - wild dogs, foxes, hyeanae, dalmations, more brindles, and merles

oops

Looks pretty impressive. How do you go about creating those maps?

did you know in photoshop newest versions you can paint on 3d models? Slowly. Buggily. With ugly stretches. but you CAN

So I have a large complictaed layered psd with all the markings as separate layers so I can mix things togetehr. I've already found a few things i need to add to my mixer and found a couple small issues. (the dobermans chest triangles aren't symmetrical for example)

The wolves use stock photos for the agouti pattern as well as a lot of brush work. pretty much most of the rest is all filterforge, brushwork and pure photoshop. I'm not entirely happy with it as it stands, and I may add a disp map for the wolves later to fluff up the heavy fur a bit

I have options for pink skin, black skin, pink pads, pink nose, freckled nose. The fur can be any colour and all the shadings and markings go over top the colour and under the texturing layer.

Now I get to look at breed morphs and take notes on what texture I need to mix up and save out as well as additional layers needed.

LM

Ok. I use PS 7 (CS). That's before 3d painting capabilities in photoshop. I use Carrara pro and Modo for 3d painting. Both are a little laggy on my old machine but I plan on getting 3dCoat for painting once I upgrade my hardware. I really like 3d painting though, recently won copies of Manga studio EX and filter forge pro so I'm looking forward to adding those also. Again, hardware is holding me back. I'll get there. Thanks for the explainations Lyrra. Your progress looks really good... looking forward to the Hyena!

I did most of the work with regular pshop. the painting on 3d part is .. well. rough starts to cover it. I mostly used it to fix seams on the markings and suchlike. Most of the work though was done flat. You can do the 3d seam checking in blacksmith, which is cheaper and has a trial you can check with your hardware so that might be an option for you.

Filter forge is great for all those odd little bits. I used 'rough leather' for the paw pads. 'woodland animal' fur I think? for the base of the fur texture, I made my own brindle striping, and I used some bone filter for the teeth and claw bases. There are a lot of great eye and iris filters.. I know I used the eyewhite from one of Rawarts filters. The skin which is really only visible around the mouth where the fur is patchy, and the inner ears is from a nice human skin filter, colour tweaked in pshop. I'm going to be trying me hand at a merle fur patching pattern, and other patches as well. Dalmation spots I have a photoshop brush for already Lyrra

Thanks for the info, you have me excited to use filterforge now. Great thing about 3d painting is not having to worry as much about seams. Ditto with baking textures. Still, in all, a good uv map is something to strive for, an art. Your mapping is very pleasing to look at... Beyond its intended function... as the thing itself. If that makes any sense. :) As far as upgrading my hardware, I should have enough saved by summer. I want to get a decent hp workstation. I've got enough projects achievable with my set up now to keep me busy. I am itching for some of the new toys though.

willshetterly posted at 11:28AM Wed, 17 February 2016 - #4232543

A free version and a pay version seems like a fine plan. I have wondered if DAZ has a Dog 2 in the works. I think that's an argument against doing a brand new dog, unless you thought it would be fun for its own sake, of course. Knowing DAZ, any new dog would cost a lot more than what you're estimating for your pay version.

....AND BE FOR D/S ONLY! That would drive me out of my freaking mind!

LaurieA posted at 11:40AM Wed, 17 February 2016 - #4250304

willshetterly posted at 10:20PM Tue, 19 January 2016 - #4232543

A free version and a pay version seems like a fine plan. I have wondered if DAZ has a Dog 2 in the works. I think that's an argument against doing a brand new dog, unless you thought it would be fun for its own sake, of course. Knowing DAZ, any new dog would cost a lot more than what you're estimating for your pay version.

I don't know if Daz has a Dog 2 in the works but I'm pretty sure Hivewire has one in the pipeline, as well as a deer, Asian elephant and large cat (and so far they look pretty good).

Laurie

As much as i like Hivewire goals and ambitions and the few items i have purchased there, there are too few content creators there yet to work on projects at a decent clip. Takes forever from inception of the mesh to final completion. to get something out and so far they have left users panting hungrily in the sidelines. DAZ has a slew of content creator there and seem to get work done quicker but alas, from now on no matter what they create will systematically exclude Poser and poser users.

No proper photos yet- I'm limited to natural daylight, and the weather and short daylight hours have not been kind. I've done a quick comparison front and back paws from side and front though:

It would be cool including a foot compress down morph to show weight of the dog pressing on the foot as it appears in the real photo

I'm trying to finish up my other projects right now so this is back to simmering again. I have made a few tentative runs at morphing and I think that my biggest hurdle is de-dobie-ing the mesh before I can turn it into other breeds. So I think I may start with a lab type morph first, which will serve as a base to start all my other morphs from.

Important lesson: For future models be sure to make a medium type species as the base, not an extreme

Haigan - those are some interesting side by sides. You can very clearly see the difference in the shaping of the toes. I'll have to doublecheck to see how much is breed specific, but I'm thinking the dog might get some reshaping on the feet. I've never much liked them anyways, but haven't been sure why.

Oh BTW. New rules on freebies state no posting of outside links. so I may have to move this entire thread, lock stock and barrels, over to Hivewire where they at least aren't hassling me over where I publish freebies. I'll let you guys know if I do decide to migrate.

LM

goes to show how more equals less. the more market share the more traffic the more retentive and absurdly rule driven sites get. wonderful. i hope they don't become like daz.

I only have the one myself but I know some of the other dog walkers around here to talk to, some of them might let me point a camera at their canine companions. It's just a bit random who I meet in any given week of walkies (and whether it's tipping down with rain). From my recollections of teaching labs to 'shake', they have proportionally wider paws with more rounded toes (which makes the claws seem less prominent), and the two center toes don't have the claws so close together, much more like a toon-ish or generic dog paw than the whippet/greyhound paw. My dog's paw's width is about half the height of my palm; labradors of the same height as my dog or a little shorter have paws that fill my palm, so about twice the width of the whippet.

A species like a dog is always going to be a problem for morphs because humans have developed them into so very many shapes- how similar is a dachshund to a mastiff? It may not be possible to come up with one model that does everything. In terms of a 'generic' dog, dogs themselves revert to a very similar type where you get breeding feral populations, regardless of where that population is and what stock it derives from: the 'pariah' type (which, to confuse things, also seems to have been taken as an official breed as well). You can Google it quite easily, but to me it looks something like a mashup between a labrador, pointer, malinois and husky, tending towards a lighter frame in hot climates and a stockier frame in cold ones.

Hope your other projects are going well, Lyrra!

HaiGan posted at 2:01PM Thu, 18 February 2016 - #4255714

I only have the one myself but I know some of the other dog walkers around here to talk to, some of them might let me point a camera at their canine companions. It's just a bit random who I meet in any given week of walkies (and whether it's tipping down with rain). From my recollections of teaching labs to 'shake', they have proportionally wider paws with more rounded toes (which makes the claws seem less prominent), and the two center toes don't have the claws so close together, much more like a toon-ish or generic dog paw than the whippet/greyhound paw. My dog's paw's width is about half the height of my palm; labradors of the same height as my dog or a little shorter have paws that fill my palm, so about twice the width of the whippet.

A species like a dog is always going to be a problem for morphs because humans have developed them into so very many shapes- how similar is a dachshund to a mastiff? It may not be possible to come up with one model that does everything. In terms of a 'generic' dog, dogs themselves revert to a very similar type where you get breeding feral populations, regardless of where that population is and what stock it derives from: the 'pariah' type (which, to confuse things, also seems to have been taken as an official breed as well). You can Google it quite easily, but to me it looks something like a mashup between a labrador, pointer, malinois and husky, tending towards a lighter frame in hot climates and a stockier frame in cold ones.

Hope your other projects are going well, Lyrra!

Could also think on these ideas. Swimming/retriever dogs like the Lab or Newfoundlander will by nature of their breeding purposes have wider feet for better movement in water and stability on ground to fetch masters kills. Stable on feet are good for seeing eye dogs. Running dogs will have different foot/paw architecture to allow better speed/traction/etc. like the Whippit and greyhound Bigger dogs will have bigger paws and smaller dogs smaller paws, etc. German Shepherds like wolves and huskies will also have bigger feet i think because of their nature in the environments bred/used as working dogs. Hairy dogs will have hairier paws which will assuredly hide the claws and appear wider/bigger on the model especially if hair is not included. I am not a dog expert but I love dogs and have seen these differences to varying degrees in dogs I have observed.