My mistake was not ridding the figure of the 2 huge cubes I used to originally boolean the dome. Once I deleted them, I could import to Poser no problem. Now I see the stepping blocks are all wonky and that isn't a big deal ... I can fix that ... and some scaling. Then the detailing and texturing. I think I have a good start.

You have a great start, Boni! It's looking good. Scaling looks fine. Have you experimented with a seated character on those steps to make sure the depth is correct? I don't know anything at all about Poser, so unfortunately I can't help with anything once it's exported from Blender but you're doing great!

I was wondering how difficult it would be to cut out the steps instead of adding them? Like what Keppel showed. Also, now that I know how this is working in Poser, Would it be difficult once the chips and cracks are added to add ivy and scattered leaves on the structure? I'd like to do a procedural texture on it that I can translate to Poser since Poser uses a light version of cycles. Although having a UV map in case I need it wouldn't be a bad idea since detailing and a normal map would enhance it quite a bit. Am I overdoing?

Also how do I smooth the basic structure without rounding the corners too much? I did the edge crease already.

Another question ... would this look better if it looked like stacked blocks ... like bricks, but just stacked? How hard would that be to create as a texture?

Boni posted at 3:38PM Tue, 25 August 2020 - #4397688

Also how do I smooth the basic structure without rounding the corners too much? I did the edge crease already.

I'll answer this one first. You can add support loops to the steps as we did for the dome and then subdivide it to smooth things out. Support loops are required for that, because edge crease may not translate to the other software when you export the model. Another option is to just bevel the outer edges of the steps, which will give them a rounder appearance. Either way, you'll need to add more geometry.

Boni posted at 3:51PM Tue, 25 August 2020 - #4397687

I was wondering how difficult it would be to cut out the steps instead of adding them? Like what Keppel showed. Also, now that I know how this is working in Poser, Would it be difficult once the chips and cracks are added to add ivy and scattered leaves on the structure? I'd like to do a procedural texture on it that I can translate to Poser since Poser uses a light version of cycles. Although having a UV map in case I need it wouldn't be a bad idea since detailing and a normal map would enhance it quite a bit. Am I overdoing?

I'm not sure what you mean here. In Keppel's example, he's created the steps by using instances or copies in an array I believe. That allows you to adjust things and add things to just small parts of the steps and then it will automatically copy those changes to other parts. It's a good way to work but it's slightly more advanced. Does your other software have this capability? Because once you export the model, it will need to be together as one object anyway.

Do you mean adding Ivy and Leaves as part of the procedural material? Honestly, I wouldn't bother doing it that way. The Ivy and leaves can be done as objects and exported along with the model. I guess you could bake that stuff into texture maps that use displacement and normal map, but personally I would just do that stuff as geometry.

If you can get Keppel to join the thread again maybe he can help you with what will work best for Poser. I don't want to give advice regarding that, because I really don't know anything about Poser or how it works with Blender. I suppose if Poser has displacement, then all those details, including the cracks, Ivy, leaves, etc. can be done that way. I just think leaves and ivy always look best as geometry, even if it's lower poly.

Here is the worn, cracked cement I made.

I will have to translate this to Poser, but I think I have a good start.

That looks really good, Boni. Did you try using that one on the dome? It looks different than the dome texture.

The dome texture was inside of Poser ... this one I made in Blender. I would like to save the shader and use it again, but it looks like you have to go through a big process ... Can't you just name the shader and save to a shader file?

And ... copy and paste a node set from one object to another in the same scene?

Boni posted at 6:37PM Tue, 25 August 2020 - #4397716

And ... copy and paste a node set from one object to another in the same scene?

Yes, you can save a node tree in Blender. Have a look at this video...

You can also copy a shader from one object to another...

Actually, you can copy any type of data in Blender from one object to another, even Modifiers.

If you want to save materials to use in other blender scenes, you can also do that in a variety of ways. The easiest way is just to Append a material from one .blend to another. That will import a material from one .blend scene file into another one, then you can apply that material to any object.

Another option is to use the Material Library VX addon in Blender 2.8x.

Ok, figured it out. What do you think?

Very impressive, Bon!. I don't know if you want to do it, but maybe scale down the size of the cracks on the dome a little bit? It's up to you. Looking good,

Yes, I think that is a good idea too. I will do that. The material zones transferred to Poser but I need to build a compatible node tree in Poser. I still want to add ivy, leaves dirt and other details. Maybe tufts of weeds and grass growing in cracks.

Blender has an IvyGen addon built-in which can be used to create ivy growth on any object or surface. There's also many 3rd party ivy generators and addons which work very well for growing realistic looking ivy on surfaces, but I'd start by checking out the included IvyGen addon first. Unless you want to just do it as a texture/material, but most of the time I feel like that doesn't look as good. It can be useful as a way to include more detail, but I think at least some of the ivy and grass need to be geometry to really give it that extra detail.

Unlike Ivy, I think grass can be done mostly with just textures/materials. Maybe include just a few blades of real geometry here and there to make it pop, but grass and dirt can go a long way with displacement and normal maps. What's your plan for doing those?

I will most likely need to use geometry grass for the model as Poser hasn't updated cycles displacement abilities to 2.8 levels. I have a plant generator I might use, but I'd rather do as much inside of Blender and Poser as possible.

Boni posted at 12:55PM Wed, 26 August 2020 - #4397749

I will most likely need to use geometry grass for the model as Poser hasn't updated cycles displacement abilities to 2.8 levels. I have a plant generator I might use, but I'd rather do as much inside of Blender and Poser as possible.

You really wouldn't need advanced techniques for grass displacement. It's really just a noise pattern displacing a grass color texture. Any kind of simple displacement would work for that, but I agree that using some geometry grass in certain places will look great.

I'll be honest in saying that I really don't like the way the IvyGen addon in Blender works. There are tutorials on Youtube for using it, but I just never cared for the results. You may have better luck with it. Personally, I've always used the Ivy Generator by Thomas Luft. It's only a 32-bit software, but still the results were alway reliable and much more realistic to me than anything the IvyGen addon produced.

I don't know if you've ever used it before, but this is the industry standard Ivy Generator, and pretty much what all other Ivy Generators are based on anyway, even Blender's IvyGen. http://ivy-generator.com/

You just import your objects as OBj into the software, pick a spot to begin growth of the ivy, and it does the rest. Then you can export the results to whatever software you use.

I respect your skill but as you don't use Poser you don't see the issue in that there is no micromesh-displacement. It's ... chunky because it follows the vertices. that and a shadow catcher are the primary cycles additions we are pushing for in the next version. I will look into the third party ivy maker, thank you. I would like to add a layer of dirt and dust to the model ... do I just add that to a new slot?

Boni posted at 8:08PM Wed, 26 August 2020 - #4397774

I respect your skill but as you don't use Poser you don't see the issue in that there is no micromesh-displacement. It's ... chunky because it follows the vertices. that and a shadow catcher are the primary cycles additions we are pushing for in the next version. I will look into the third party ivy maker, thank you. I would like to add a layer of dirt and dust to the model ... do I just add that to a new slot?

Oh no problem. Yeah, I fully admit I have absolutely no knowledge of Poser at all. I distributed a lot of my free models for Poser years ago, but only in OBJ format. Honestly, the only reason I found this website was because I used to use the 3dsmax and 3d Modeling forums here, until switching over to Blender. I really didn't know it was mostly for Poser stuff.

I've had success using the hair particle system in Blender for some grass before. It allows you to weight pain over areas of the model where you'd like to have grass, and then gives you options for randomness to make it look more realistic. I'm sure there's a way to bake the results for exporting to other software too.

Regarding the dirt and dust. Since you're doing this as a procedural shader, then yes you'll need to create a new shader for the dirt and dust. Then you would need to mix those together with a mix shader node, and create some kind of texture mask or use the layer weight node to control the location. That's probably something you'll do directly in Poser I imagine.

Boni, just a quick question so I don't waste your time with answers or suggestions that aren't helpful: Will you be doing all the materials and textures for this project as procedural nodes? The work you've done already looks really great, but I was just wondering how you're doing the materials going forward. I thought you'd be creating them with nodes in Blender, then baking those down into texture maps to transport over to Poser, but it seems you've decided instead to just to keep everything native to Poser with the node system there, Will that also be the case for all the items in the scene like the ground, grass, rocks and Ivy?

I just want to make sure I understand so that I'm not giving you more work than you would need, or worse, giving you suggestions that don't fit the project at all.

Hi Boni, just wanting to comment on a couple of things mentioned in the more recent series of posts.

Firstly with the steps in the seating area example that I posted earlier [@4395611](https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2950071&page_number=2#)
The steps were not cut out of the seating area mesh, they were modeled into it from the beginning. As Lux mentioned to take the sharp edges off the model you would need to add controlling edge loops with a sub-division modifier. If you used a boolean operation to cut them out the topology would be messed up making it hard to add any proper controlling edge loops.

Another thing to be mindful of is trying to keep the polycount as low as possible whilst still maintaining your models shape. In the attached screen shot I show the typical progression. As Lux advised earlier start with a low poly mesh to get your shapes then add complexity to it to define it. Removing excessive edge loops can reduce the models polycount considerably. You can see that the smoothed edges of the steps still remain after the excessive edge loops are removed.

When it comes to adding vegetation to a scene in Poser you hit an obstacle because Poser doesn't support particles systems. As an example the amount of vegetation I added to this scene as particle systems in Blender would be impossible to do in Poser. Gallery image

Adding mesh object plants, trees, grass etc can quickly increase the scenes polycount by huge amounts. A single tree may have as many faces as your whole ampitheatre. Another option that you might consider is using planes with transparent PNG textures applied for your plants. In the attached screenshot from Blender the first panels show the simplicity of the actual mesh. The second panel shows the same model rendered in Poser with the transparency and shadows. A good result with minimal additional polycount.

Regarding getting the scale right between Blender and Poser. I mentioned in an earlier post that if you export a base figure from Poser as an obj file it will assist in getting the relative scale correct of all the objects in your scene, but it also works in exporting from Blender to Poser.

When you export the base figure from Poser, leave the export scale percentage at the default 100%. When you import that obj file into Blender leave it at the scale it imported at. Now scale your Blender scene to the correct size relative to the base figure. When you export out of Blender again make sure that the export scale stays at the default 100%. Now when you import the Blender obj models into Poser they will be at the correct scale within Poser.

Great suggestions guys. I'm experimenting with different ideas. Including building the nodes inside of Poser as I did with this render.

I'm thinking the "bake down" will be better in the end ... and somehow creating different texture zones. But again just experimenting here. BTW, this is rendered inside of Poser with a concrete shader and a basic green base color added to the leaves of the ivy.

The ivy looks really good! I think Keppel has a great idea for doing at least the grass with image planes. Will save you a lot of geometry and probably look fine in Poser.

I might do hair room for grass ... Once I have all the mats right in Blender I want to bake it down and do mat zones to be more compatable with poser

Boni posted at 3:37PM Sun, 30 August 2020 - #4397994

I might do hair room for grass ... Once I have all the mats right in Blender I want to bake it down and do mat zones to be more compatable with poser

One thing you might want to do before deciding on the bake down process is to take a very simple object, like a cube, and assign several different material zones to it. Then export that cube over to Poser and make sure the material zones still show up. If you exported with correct settings, it should work no problem. I haven't used the File Locker here on Renderosity in a long time, but I made a very simple .blend scene file for you with a cube that has 6 different material zones assigned to it. You can download this scene file from the link, then try to export that over to Poser to test out the export settings. The cube should import to Poser with the same 6 material zones intact if all went according to plan.

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/rrfilelock/download.php?fileid=54633&key=1414

Oh! Thank you, I will do this tomorrow when I am on my work computer.