Stupid questions thread

[Anonymous No.564025]

General or stupid questions
Previous is auto saging

[Anonymous No.564029]

I saw the models for this show have solid sculpted hair. How do they get it to look like this? Is it all normal maps?

[Anonymous No.564089]

Where can I find some tutorials on creating realistic shaders with Arnold and 3DS Max? Please, I'm desperate, last 2 weeks were wasted. If there is something good on CGPeers, tell me, but I can't find anything.

[Anonymous No.564094]

>>564029
thats not just solid. I see hair strands that means hair sim.

The trick to getting hair shading on solid meshes is Anisotropic shading

http://www.3drender.com/glossary/anisotropic.htm

[Anonymous No.564108]

>>564089
Don't limit yourself to Arnold. Material creation works more or less the same in every engine. Some things might be different, but the underlying concepts are always the same. I started out using VRay and 99% of what I learned there transfered right over to other engines.

The people I admired and learned from used everything from VRay to Corona and Octane, and in almost all cases I was able to apply the knowledge I gained from their tips and tutorials to whatever engine I happened to be using at the time.

For a good introduction on how to approach realistic and physically correct shader creation I'd recommend Grant Warwick's Mastering VRay series. A lot of the VRay specific parts are pretty dated by now, but the overall concepts and methods he teaches will always be relevant.

[Anonymous No.564115]

>>564025

I'm using blender for reference.

How do games manage to get hard surface objects that are smoothed?

I'm using an ashtray as an example, my model is on the right, but sometimes I see objects in UE4 or unity games that have smooth shading but look flat and crisp.

Whereas the models I make, low poly or not, look really weird and don't have defined surfaces.

Are developers/game asset designers just using really high poly models? Are they baked in normals?

Or are objects flat shaded on surfaces and just smoothed in certain places?

[Anonymous No.564117]

>>564115
You can do smoothing groups rather than smooth the entire model

And they are generally pretty high poly, depending on the dev

[Anonymous No.564118]

>>564117

Huh, neat, as in, just smooth the top of the ashtray and the base for example or is there a more efficient way of doing this?

Thanks for answering

[Anonymous No.564120]

>>564115

Just get through some quick smooth modifier tutorials, basically you shouldn't smooth out flat surfaces. In your picture you can see that sides are smooth, but the top ring isn't. It's not, because it's flat.

[Anonymous No.564121]

>>564117
Blender doesn't have smoothing groups yet, does it?

[Anonymous No.564122]

>>564121
Sure does, you can set individual faces to smooth shading and they'll export correctly

[Anonymous No.564136]

>>564094
there are only a couple of hair strands. If you see the animation, the hair is always moving as a solid mass with maybe a few hair strands on top. I'm wondering how to make the solid parts look like hair strands though. good to know how the shading is done

[Anonymous No.564138]

>>564136
untextured models https://vimeo.com/47746325#t=10s

[Anonymous No.564144]

>>564108
I went through a part of that series but I'm still too nooby to figure out how to translate that knowledge to Arnold. Parameters are not the same - e.g. fresnel and refraction sliders are missing, while I have things like metalness. It's a different process and I need some hand-holding. I even tried following Arnold for Maya and Cinema4D and it's still problematic, and I can't find any Arnold + 3DS Max courses yet.

I can use Vray, but since I have 3DS Max 2018 now, I thought about really learning Arnold.

I downloaded some example libraries but they are extremely basic and don't help at all.

[Anonymous No.564145]

>>564144
Oh btw, is it possible to make shaders with Vray but render with Arnold? Will that be bad if the standard material is not optimized for Arnold?

[Anonymous No.564147]

>>564144
Generally, you can't create shadees in one engine, and then render them using another. Some engines like Corona and FStorm come with conversion tools (usually limited to just VRay as input, since that's the most popular choice), but in my experience the results tend to be rather rough and almost always require additional tweaking.

[Anonymous No.564163]

wtf do "better" graphics cards actually do for 3D software?

[Anonymous No.564165]

>>564163
rendering i assume.
more cuda/opencl cores = faster rendering

[Anonymous No.564172]

>>564163
depends on the software but in general they improve your rendering times dramatically. For me using GPU is 10x faster than cpu rendering in blender. other software like 3dcoat didnt even run for me until i got a decent gpu.

[Anonymous No.564310]

how do i make low poly that doesn't look amateurish?

[Anonymous No.564311]

I'm using UE4, when building skyscrapers, is it easy/better for optimizing to just model 1 floor, then copy paste instances until I have all the levels? Or is it better to make one building and just directly import and disable collisions.

(Assuming both have LODs)

[Anonymous No.564353]

>>564311
A to-scale modular workflow is usually the go-to for repeating geometry, especially since you can make variations of pieces and kitbash to make new buildings without modeling the entire thing over.

But if it's a prominent setpiece that will only be used once then there's a case for having an entire model.

[Anonymous No.564358]

Somebody please guide me to a good archviz tutorial for UE4 + 3ds max with Arnold, CGPeers is fine too.

I have my model and materials finished, but I don't know what to do next. How to export it properly, should I remove all the materials and use those from UE4 instead or what. YT tutorials are really basic.

[Anonymous No.564447]

>rendering in UE4 vs 3ds max, maya or blender

What are pros and cons? It seems that UE4 is the only right way today. Why should I even learn Vray, Arnold or whatever else?

[Anonymous No.564448]

>>564447
the only benefit is interactivity
but since most render engines can do panoramas. it doesn't matter.
if no one asks for real time, its best not doing it. you are only limiting yourself.
>but VR is getting popular
well no one asked for VR. but people keep pushing it

[Anonymous No.564452]

>>564448
What seems great about it for me is real time rendering and that it doesn't crash every few minutes like 3ds max does to me when I try to place some furniture inside the building. I'm fucking SICK of 3ds max already and I started learning 3D with it like 2 months ago.

[Anonymous No.564455]

>>564452
then use modo
im suprised 3ds have so many problems

[Anonymous No.564483]

Why Can't I ever Get textures to properly import when using programs like make human?!?

[Anonymous No.564484]

>>564483
Into Blender Specifically

[Anonymous No.564485]

>>564455
3ds and maya are both crash happy. i tried blender last week and was fucking amazed that it doesn't crash at the slightest thing like that's something that you should be surprised about instead of basically take for granted.

[Anonymous No.564488]

I'm building a curved bridge in Blender, is there any downside to making a segment of the bridge and then using an array and simple curve to create the rest of the bridge?

[Anonymous No.564489]

>>564025
In blender How can i deform the mouth and place it like this?

[Anonymous No.564490]

>>564447
UE4 is great for render speed, like for animations where you don't have the time / budget for a slower but better renderer.

The reason to learn the others is based on your job or your personal preference or the personal preference of the person trying to valid their own investment in time / money by convincing you to follow them.

The other reason to use not-UE4 is that I don't know if UE4 can take advantage of render farms. Cycles actually has a "free" (you have to earn render credits by rendering other people's stuff) render farm called Sheep-it (I think).
>>564483
User error? Importing rarely makes a Material, so you often have to define a Material and then change the color node to Image Texture and then select the texture from a dropdown

the XPS import add-on for blender has a 'Convert materials to Cycles" button that I use a lot since it does exactly what I described

>>564488
>is there any downside
Mostly no, the only downside is when you make something out of segments that way, all the segments look identical

You can get around that though a couple of ways, like varying the texture used via the Object property (I think), or Position, or Rand, or you can project a decal onto an object via the "UV Modifier" (shit name but that's what it does)

"UV Modifier" is also a great way to have details be procedural

>>564489
You could use the Deform modifier along with a Matrix, or the Curve modifier, or you could Rig it (look up Rigging) so that you can animate it.

[Anonymous No.564498]

How do i get into modeling, im looking for something to do this summer.

[Anonymous No.564500]

>>564485
I'm also surprised how many good tutorials Blender has. Ok, for 3ds max there are 2 awesome guys (Arrimus and Warwick), but it is pain in the ass to find anything else that is good, and it seems most of it is for archviz.

But my college uses 3ds max so I can't switch, but I might still try Blender. That was actually the first 3D program I tried to learn when I was a kid, although it was hard as fuck at that time.

[Anonymous No.564501]

How can I render realistic grass with Arnold in 3ds max? Fucking hell, I literally can't find any tutorial for anything, switching to arnold was the biggest mistake as a beginner.

[Anonymous No.564502]

>>564500
blender has a very driven community behind it so there is a wealth of tutorials and other resources. it is also much easier to get support in general if you get stuck. by all means grow familiar with max though, if you plan on working for a studio or company, it is more commonly used afaik

[Anonymous No.564510]

>>564501
Please help.

[Anonymous No.564513]

>>564310
Practice

[Anonymous No.564527]

Currently i am working with Blender and i want to make "additive" or layered animations, but i have no idea how.
Basically, i want to use animations while other animations run, or turn off animations etc and blend them. Anyone knows a good tutorial?

[Anonymous No.564532]

>>564527
here is an answer from blender forums:

>The NLA does have an Add mode. You can keep each animation in it's own strip and merge them or solo them.

[Anonymous No.564533]

>>564532
and here is the tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDOFg2spySg

[Anonymous No.564536]

>>564532
>>564533
Nice, thanks mate

[Anonymous No.564651]

>>564510
>>564501
bump

[Anonymous No.564657]

How to copy weight wrom one vertex group to another?

[Anonymous No.564665]

Does anyone know where I can get x-particle for C4D? I'm just getting into using the program but seeing that a lot of the cool stuff people are making with it are using that plugin.

[Anonymous No.564666]

>>564657
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/16272/how-do-i-copy-vertex-groups-from-one-object-to-another

>>564651
look into particle system and groups

[Anonymous No.564667]

>>564136
Not that guy but possibly displacement map.

[Anonymous No.564669]

>>564310
Do actually drawing on paper,learn the basics of sketching.
Keys to drawing should help you.

[Anonymous No.564670]

tl;dr;: I want to merge some bones weights in my already rigged mesh. What is the best way to do this in 3ds Max currently?

Long version: I'm adapting a rigged mesh to other similar skeleton, which is a bit simpler and has less bones. In the past I used this script
http://polycount.com/discussion/96670/3ds-max-2011-combining-rigged-weights
but I wonder if there is a smarter way to do this in 3ds Max 2017.

[Anonymous No.564675]

>>564667
thanks!

[Anonymous No.564706]

What are good modern tutorials for texturing for complete beginners? Also whats a good place for modeling terms?

[Anonymous No.564707]

>>564448
>>564490
I'm trying UE4 right now and it almost feels like cheating. It makes things so much easier when I'm able to see everything in a real time while working on a scene and everything is so smooth. Maybe my CPU just can't handle Arnold and Vray, but I can't see why I would use those when I have to wait for 10 minutes for every tiny change. I wasted hours trying to work with those.

Enlighten me, maybe I'm doing something wrong with Arnold, but it is incredibly slow and my CPU is always at 100%. I can't work like that at all.

[Anonymous No.564717]

I have four 1070's and a 750ti in my workstation. When I choose compute device in blender its geforce gtx 1070 (4x) + 750 ti. Anyway to make it only render on the 1070s?

[Anonymous No.564718]

>>564707
cpu rendering is always slow and shitty
>>564706
there are 2 approaches to texturing. the first approach is by hand, like painting a picture and the second is with base materials (quixel etc).

i always suggest to study the first when you start. it gives you an idea of all the basic tools

[Anonymous No.564735]

While texture painting on a 3D model in Blender, sometimes the colors won't reach the edges of the faces. Is there a way to fix this while still only painting on the model itself? Thanks for any help.

[Anonymous No.564738]

How do I get my model to deform good?

[Anonymous No.564743]

>>564738
weight painting

[Anonymous No.564751]

>>564735
go to options tab in paint mode and increase the bleed

next time, don't have the islands too close to each other

[Anonymous No.564752]

>>564738
If you're going that low poly then you might want to look at the topology page on the polycount wiki.

[Anonymous No.564755]

how do you typically bake a map? Like I get how to create a normal from a high poly mesh and apply to a low poly for example, but what do people mean when they talk about baking ao for example? In the past, I've rendered an AO map, put it on a layer on top of the diffuse texture in photoshop, colorized it, made it multiply blending mode and merged. This is now my diffuse map. Is this how you bake AO? What other tasks can you apply the term baking to and what do they entail?

[Anonymous No.564756]

I got kind of a specific problem, I'm not sure if you guys can help me.

I was using Blender 2.76b on a separate hard drive, then I recently bought a new one and did a fresh install of windows on it. I redownloaded all my software including Blender 2.78c. I can access my old save files fine, but saving them in any way causes Blender to crash and my graphics drivers to fail.

What gives?

[Anonymous No.564758]

I need an opinion, guys.

Basically, I'm using i5 6500 and GTX 960 4GB with 3ds max 2018. I used pirated Vray for a few weeks and then switched to Arnold. Now, since Arnold doesn't have GPU rendering yet, it is really slow for me, but working with it is so much better, compared to Vray. Should I:

>go back to Vray, although I don't like it's a pirated version
>stay with Arnold
>learn UE4?

[Anonymous No.564760]

>>564755
usually you use xnormal to bake AO. just learn how to use it and you will get the hang of it

you can also bake AO without a highpoly model, but that's not as good, you need the highpoly data transferred to lowpoly model

[Anonymous No.564761]

>>564760
ok, but does xnormal bake it into the diffuse map? or is AO its own map?

[Anonymous No.564762]

>>564761
oh you want to combine your AO into a diffuse? AO is usually its own map but you can combine both maps in photoshop and maybe change blending mode to mix instead of add

[Anonymous No.564763]

>>564025
Fgh

[Anonymous No.564764]

>>564762
no i just wanted to know if it was its own thing. I'd rather use it properly than bake it into the diffuse. I'm still confused about texturing basics and don't know all the maps I should be producing for my models if i were to make a model for a game for example.

[Anonymous No.564765]

>>564764
a material is usually comes with a shader output, this shader output usually have those options in them

diffuse - represents the color either through the material color, or a texture or vertex colors
specular - represents the highlights of how glossy your model will be, and where (specular maps exists too)
AO- usually defines where the crevices on a model are, and it gives them a dark tint which helps to define them better. usually combined with cavity map (altho not common)
emission - gives your model a glow if you need it to emit fake light
opacity map - usually used on things like fences to save some polygons, not very common because people just use alpha transparency instead

other properties -
metallic & roughness usually come to replace specular and look better

normal map and world space normals represents the highpoly detail from a highpoly model and the location of each polygroup

[Anonymous No.564766]

>>564765
thanks for breaking it down for me! I'll look into these maps and how to make them.

[Anonymous No.564774]

Using Arnold, how come my light becomes grainy on some surfaces only when changing its position? The white cement on the side here becomes very grainy when I set the scene as a sunset.

[Anonymous No.564775]

>>564774
Here's the scene with the sunset. As you can see, the light becomes grainy on the cement.

[Anonymous No.564781]

>>564774
>>564775
increase the diffuse samples.

[Anonymous No.564784]

Getting a bit weird lighting here. Is there something wrong with the model? Pls help, anon.

[Anonymous No.564787]

>>564774
>>564775
Check if increasing the samples on the light source (whatever your sun is) affects it.

[Anonymous No.564791]

>>564787
>>564781
I'll try both these things. Do you have any idea why it becomes grainier depending on the light's orientation, though?

[Anonymous No.564797]

>>564751
Thanks very much.

[Anonymous No.564801]

>>564784
What are you trying to achieve?

[Anonymous No.564802]

I've tried cutting out eye holes for this face but the geometry is screwy.
Can anyone tell me what the problem might be?

[Anonymous No.564803]

>>564756
I solved it. It had to do with objects in the file using open subdiv which is disabled by default which explains why my video card kept crashing.

[Anonymous No.564809]

>>564802
well it depends how you cut them

[Anonymous No.564815]

>>564802
Try alt-selecting the inside ring and smoothing it a few times.

[Anonymous No.564817]

>>564784
Looks like non planar geometry to me

[Anonymous No.564841]

>>564817
Is it bad? Im new to modelling and dont know about good topology or geometry? Later ive made everything triangle but light in edges still abit weird.

[Anonymous No.564843]

>>564115
Use "edge split" modifier.

[Anonymous No.564844]

>>564738
You're welcome. https://youtu.be/ON3gsB5AxII

[Anonymous No.564845]

>>564784
Check your normals orientation

[Anonymous No.564846]

>>564802
Retopo that thing. Do it right.

[Anonymous No.564891]

How can I show that rgb checkered background in material preview in 3ds max?

[Anonymous No.564897]

I dont even work in Maya yet.

But can you have a mesh change the properties of a fluid colliding with it?

[Anonymous No.564932]

>>564841
With polygons yes that's very bad. With nurbs, curved surfaces are their specialty. You might want to use nurbs.

[Anonymous No.564933]

>>564932
So you see someone apply a single smoothing group over some random low-poly geo and your first piece of advice is to have them learn nurbs instead?

[Anonymous No.564938]

>>564933
Based on what it looks like he's trying to make, yes you fat bald faggot

[Anonymous No.564939]

>>564933
Gas yourself faggot nigger loving bitch

[Anonymous No.564941]

>>564938
>>564939
>getting this defensive over being being called out on terrible advice

[Anonymous No.564943]

>>564939
>>564938
>>564933
you guys are fucked

[Anonymous No.564963]

Any good tutorials on how to properly unwrap and import objects from 3ds max to UE4?

I can't believe how low quality some paid courses on Pluralsight and Lynda are, I even regret torrenting them, that's how bad they are.

[Anonymous No.564978]

Hello guys. Why does blender deform shapes when I unwrap and how can I fix this?

[Anonymous No.564983]

>>564978
Seems to be a problem with scaling. You need to apply scale to your object.

[Anonymous No.564989]

Thoughts on zclassroom as a guide for zbrush? I'm trying to get into zbrush and blender, and the impression that I'm getting is that blender allows more precise control while zbrush is more "organic"

[Anonymous No.564992]

>>564978
>>564983 's right. In general you should avoid non-uniform scales.

Or you changed the image aspect ratio after unwraping.

[Anonymous No.564993]

>>564978
When you unwrap, tick or untick "correct aspect" in the unrwap window, or use "project from view" unwrapping.

[Anonymous No.565006]

Searching for this book,no luck on cgpeers,google,duckduckgo.

>Anatomy for 3D Artists: The Essential Guide for CG Professionals by Chris Legaspi

>why do you need it
Building contemporary reference stack of books on digital modeling that I plan to share here for future newcomers.
I already managed to find rare book only to find that is trash.
I dont want people to waste time on these books and especially dont like when information is locked behind paywall.
t.Medfag

[Anonymous No.565016]

>>565006
I like how you just had to mention that you are a medfag.

[Anonymous No.565017]

>>565016
sci-hub biggest supporter.
Information should be free.

[Anonymous No.565018]

2 questions for Cinema 4D:

What's the best way to weight paint this polygonal hair to the character's head? There doesn't seem to be any appropriate tool to pull this off.

How can I get rid of the artifacts that show when two planes intersect? I've turned off AO and self shadowing, and I still get these nasty lines that aren't present in Substance Painter.

[Anonymous No.565020]

Can anyone tell me why only one of these gears has a floor reflection? Also why only the front part has a reflection in the bottom right of the image?

[Anonymous No.565021]

>>565020
>why only one of these gears has a floor reflection?
either camera angel or distance

[Anonymous No.565024]

>>565020
Is it because the other two gears are copies that we're combined into one object? Could that cause this? Also the reflections are only visible in the shadow.

[Anonymous No.565029]

>>564755
'baking' in this sense means you render stuff onto a texture map instead of calculating it dynamically every frame.
'baking AO' simply means you rendered some ambient occlusion onto a fixed texture to be used to darken parts of your model instead of calculating it at run time.

You can bake anything to texture, like say render a complete map of all the specular/gloss/reflection etc hardcoded to a texture, but that wont make much sense since it's only gonna look right from one angle.

Baking stuff like global illumination or AO is popular because these will look good even on a moving animated object without being very obvious that they're not calculated properly.
Fixed occlusion or GI works since the occluding shadows tend to be very similar from pose to pose for say a character moving around straight up in a environment where the diffused light
is coming from all sides and mostly from above (Like in a room with a light in the ceiling and ambient bounced light from the surrounding walls, or outdoors with the sky making up the ambient and so on)

[Anonymous No.565055]

How can i convert a normal mapped mesh to an AO map or normal-facing light map , or any kind of useful image that can help in texturing?

[Anonymous No.565059]

>>564978
Like said before it's the scale. In object mode, select the object and press CTRL+A, then hit scale. Alternatively go to the object tab in the properties window and manually set all scale values to 1.0 under the transform tab.

[Anonymous No.565069]

Trying to simulate a photo tent environment in Maya but I'm stuck with the lighting.

What types of lights would you use?

[Anonymous No.565109]

I am planning to make pic related.
I could model everything with easy except the face of the boy. ( hairs would be ok, too).
So where would I find character models or heads ?

[Anonymous No.565111]

>>565109
since you only have the front of the face use polygonal modeling and it should get you there with no sweat.
Its not like the kid is detailed in the first place.

[Anonymous No.565115]

>>565111
>polygonal modeling
I could do that , exspecially with the almost diffuse colored faces in the back.
But I will invest way to much time into learning to texture actual faces, been struggling with this for years.I can only texture basics in photoshop, as most of the vases , flowers etc are.

[Anonymous No.565116]

>>565115
I dont know what to tell you,maybe some veteran can help you out.

[Anonymous No.565139]

Is using programs which generate vegation, mountains, seas and basic furniture "cheating"?

At what point do I become a glorified level designer? Just placing props around, feels like when I was a kid and was making my own tracks in modnation racers. Too easy.

[Anonymous No.565140]

>>565139
vegetation*

[Anonymous No.565148]

>>565139
What's your goal? You're using computer architecture and programs that took thousands of hours to create and don't feel like you're cheating there.

[Anonymous No.565150]

>>565139
There is not cheating when designing a level lol.
High maps,quick placements its all game to get the result you want.

[Anonymous No.565161]

>>564802
I've got the eyes fixed but now the middle of the face is wonky.
Wat do?
I'm using the mirror modifier btw.

[Anonymous No.565175]

As a noob, let me get something straight: when creating assets for a game with graphics based on realism, the workflow is high-poly -> low-poly -> creating a textures from the high-poly and using it on the low poly?

[Anonymous No.565176]

Why can't I find a torrent for arnold? Also is it safe to use pirated renderers with the student edition of 3ds max?

[Anonymous No.565179]

>>565175
yes

[Anonymous No.565197]

>>564844
Holy shit thanks anon

[Anonymous No.565211]

What should I do to improve this lighting? I spent a few hours trying to tweak parameters in Vray, but it is hard as fuck for some reason.

>watch some archviz tutorial
>other guy shit some hdri image in his dome light
>perfect lighting

>I place my HDRI + sun and tweak it for hours
>piece of shit lighting

I think it needs to be brighter, but if I increase anything, it will burn my furniture.

God, I'm either completely incompetent for this or I'm doing something very wrong, but according to tutorials this shouldn't be THAT hard.

[Anonymous No.565223]

And here it is in Cycles (didn't even use filmic). Took me 10 minutes. Don't know how to get rid of the noise though, started with blender 2 days ago.

[Anonymous No.565237]

>>565211
It shouldn't be but perhaps you just need a refreshing course. cgpeers is your friend anon.

[Anonymous No.565243]

>>565237
I probably watched every Vray course there is. That's the problem. I can't get that contrast, still trying.

Am I wrong, or does Cycles render look better?

Actually, I can't get rid of default lights, even when everything is turned off, my scene is still illuminated. I think that's the problem.

[Anonymous No.565262]

>>565211

1. Are the materials finished yet? Because I wouldn't advise tweaking the lighting until they are. Adjusting lighting because of how your whitebox looks is not a good move.

2. Remember photoshop is your friend. Don't be down on yourself because your immediate beauty render doesn't look bright / contrasty enough. That's what post-production is for. Just make sure you've got good stuff to work with in post.

What's the tutorial you're looking at? I've done em all. I may be able to help if I know which one you're following.

[Anonymous No.565263]

>>565243

Don't worry too much about contrast prior to post.

If you really ARE worried about contrast in your GI, try putting a value of 0.75 inverse gamma on the HDRI you're using for IBL.

[Anonymous No.565264]

>>565223
>>565211

Check this guide for interior lighting. I promise it will help out 100%

http://www.peterguthrie.net/blog/2014/7/hdr-sky-lighting-for-interiors

[Anonymous No.565270]

>>565262
It's this tutorial:
https://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/interior-architecture/
I'm trying out Blender so I'm going through some tutorials. But I wanted to see how it would look like in Vray, so I imported a scene in Max and added some basic materials (they are not finished, only chrome is "done", and some objects don't even have anything on them yet).

I'm actually battling with lighting for a month. Started learning Vray (and lighting in general) with some exterior archviz and I still can't nail it at all. Went through mastering Vray and lighting by Warwick and tons of YT tutorials but if I'm not lighting one single object in a studio setting, it will always come up shitty.

I also watched this one, and I don't understand how is he able to get such a nice lighting in a matter of seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un_j0rX2Akc

I think I'm using correct parameters, ISO 100, 1/100, f/8 etc.

Now I'm trying to figure out why is my scene still illuminated when all Vray lights are off. I think that's what is ruining my render here.

>>565263
>>565264
Thanks for the tips and I'll check the tutorial, didn't read that one yet.

>pic is the latest render of my exterior, not really related, but it seems something is still wrong here

[Anonymous No.565292]

>>564963
Which tutorials? Let me know so I can avoid them too.

[Anonymous No.565294]

>>565161
Complete noob answering you but I remember seeing a fix for this and how to avoid it in The Gnomon Workshop - Introduction to Maya 2017 sculpting section. Too lazy to check what the video said right now.

[Anonymous No.565306]

>>565270

If that's the scene you're working on - you don't need a VRay sun on that. A good quality peter guthrie HDRI sky by itself will suffice.

[Anonymous No.565308]

>>565306
That's another project, I'm still using both HDRi and a sun, though, yes. I have some higher quality ones, I think I have one from Peter too, and I'm sometimes using NoEmotion HDRIs. They do make a difference, but it still doesn't look right to me... Is the problem with materials maybe? I watched multiple tutorials for everything, they should be good enough now, idk.

Or the render IS good, but I just need to go through a post now.

Btw, I'd appreciate a link to some good grayish HDRi which is free (if it exists). I want some neutral light but don't have any.

[Anonymous No.565309]

>>565308

viz people have a good set of mid-res free HDRI skies for non-commercial use.

https://www.viz-people.com/product-category/hdri-skies/?sidebar=no-sidebar

[Anonymous No.565311]

>>565309

wrong link sorry

https://www.viz-people.com/portfolio/free-hdri-maps/

[Anonymous No.565314]

>>564025
I want to make character models in Zbrush that'll be in a pose for eventual 3d printing.

Should I:

A: Make the character in a t-pose (or whatever the one is they use now that isn't literal t-pose) and sculpt them with symmetry then pose them and clean up anything that goes off during posing.

B: Make a mannequin, pose it, start sculpting on top of the mannequin asymmetrically except for the head which is done separately with symmetry on and then applied later on to the mannequin.

Would like to understand the pros and cons and also if either is the generally accepted method for making static posed character models.

[Anonymous No.565316]

>>565314
I sculpt in A pose then pose. Would be a huge headache to do it any other way.

[Anonymous No.565318]

>>565316
although I would make an exception for super cartoony designs where they deform to fit a 2D aesthetic, resulting in a heavily assymetric sculpt.

Say the character has an arm resting at a neutral position along the body - this is going to be pretty much "glued" to the body and it will be a pain in the ass to sculpt it in that position, so i sculpt it stretched out slightly, then move it to its proper position when its done.

[Anonymous No.565321]

>>565309
Thanks, I actually have those, but I've used NoEmotion HDRI for my interior. Now I tried with one of these.

Sorry if I'm pain in the ass, guys, but I figure I won't improve if I don't ask somewhere.

I can't tell if this is any better, but now I don't even know what am I supposed to do anymore. There is this diffuse light which makes my walls too bright and I'm losing shadows, but I thought that light automatically turns itself off when you add custom lights. I can't get rid of it no matter what I do.

That Cycles render still looks better to me, and I'm pissed with the fact that I was able to do that in literally 10 minutes and I'm killing myself over this in Vray for hours.

[Anonymous No.565322]

>>565321
Now that I'm looking at it, it is still shit. Fucking kill me.

[Anonymous No.565342]

>>565309
Thanks, I actually have that pack. Used it in this render.

This is what I've got now, don't know what to do anymore. Why is it so hard? I guess I improved it, but Cycles render STILL looks better than Vray.

Also, do you think this image went through post?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/blenderguru.com/uploads/2016/12/bathroom_filmic9.jpg

I'm trying to achieve this, but maybe I can't without post.

[Anonymous No.565356]

>>565309
>>565311

Thanks, I actually have that pack, I've used it in this render.

I've tried everything and followed this tutorial >>565264

And pic related is the latest result. It was still too washed out so I had to do some post, but I'm trying to achieve a good render without post.

Do you think this image went through post?
https://s3.amazonaws.com/blenderguru.com/uploads/2016/12/bathroom_filmic9.jpg

Btw, inverse gamma actually reduced my contrast, so I had to put it on default 1.0 in the end.

Would appreciate the feedback now. I'm still not satisfied at all, and I don't think this looks photorealistic, but I'm pissed with the fact that I spent a whole day just trying to achieve a render which I got in 10 minutes with Cycles.

Best thing would be if somebody just took my file and fixed the lighting, then showed me how retarded I am.

[Anonymous No.565381]

>>565356
I won't bother anymore, just want to post the same same scene rendered in Cycles. Vray is hard.

[Anonymous No.565392]

>>565381
the secret is to artificially boost the lightning then lower it through composition or something like that.
i don't know why get too technical about it, its really all that is

[Anonymous No.565418]

>>565381
i dont know ifyo uwere posting for critique but the lack of finishes on the shower glass is bothering me a lot, it really stands out imo

[Anonymous No.565419]

>>565418
Oh yeah, the materials are definitely basic, I'm just following tutorial. I know this is not a right place for critique, so I was just asking for some help with my lighting, because I can't achieve the same quality of it with Vray like I can with Cycles.

[Anonymous No.565430]

Couple of Qs.
1. Is Marvelous Designer really that great to make clothes? Saw a bunch of vids (MGS iirc) that talked about creating clothing with it. How is it vs blender?

2. An example: People are able to replicate Nier 2B's dress pattern when making zbrush models. How do they do that? I don't see anything which points to a clear design of the dress itself. Is there something I'm missing?

3. I tried to recreate a face via blender and zbrush. However, what I thought it would look like vs what rendered was very different. Is the trick to constantly re-render while overlaying the reference?

4. How are human skin textures done? I see people mention zbrush or a procedural texture generator but the answers are kinda vague. Was hoping for some more detailed answers if possible.

[Anonymous No.565433]

>>565430
bump for no. 4

[Anonymous No.565435]

>>565176
Please halp

[Anonymous No.565437]

>>565176
I don't know about pirated Arnold, but I'm using Vray with a legit student version of Max 2017 and it works fine. I guess just don't login with your 3ds max, then.

I'm also using Max 2018 with Arnold, you can always download that too, you can have multiple versions of 3ds max installed and 2018 comes with Arnold.

[Anonymous No.565443]

>>565430
1. You can sculpt cloth, or you can sim it. MD gives good results way faster then sculpting. Its therefore the best program for cloth...
Blender is a shitty sculpting program and you can forget cloth sim (like ANY simulations in Blender).
MD - good
Blender - shit

[Anonymous No.565447]

As I get more and more into digital modeling and no have intermediate level of understanding I have a question.

Example working on a game,how much is required for a professional modeler in a job environment?
Do they pump out certain number of props per day?
How is it all regulated,does complexity allows bigger deadlines?

[Anonymous No.565448]

>>565447
>and now*
my acer keyboard is failing.

[Anonymous No.565470]

>>564025
I need to know if I could render an archicad proyecto on unreal engine? does it accept a .pln (archicad file) or sketchup files? Thanks

[Anonymous No.565473]

>>565447
You have to pump every single prop every day and the bigger it is, the more you have to pump it. It's a cruel industry.

[Anonymous No.565482]

>>565470
I doubt that unreal can directly load sketchup files or the like, you'll probably have to export to FBX or something.

[Anonymous No.565483]

>>565443
Is there anyway for MD to work with solid/rigid objects as part of the sculpt? I mean things like hoops or plate which form part of the clothes that should not deform.

[Anonymous No.565501]

>>565419
by finishes i meant the actual metal fittings that hold glass to the wall etc

[Anonymous No.565504]

Are there any series that take you through absolute beginner to pro?

I'd like something that leans more towards a sculptor work flow. I spent a long time learning art for animation only to find the work is to tedious. I figure being able to make and keep my resources would lighten that load considerably and I figure CG looks better than the models I rig up in flash.

[Anonymous No.565507]

would anyone use blender if it, max and maya cost the same?

[Anonymous No.565511]

of cinema 4d and modo, which has a better particle system and which has better realtime physics/dynamics? has anyone used both?

[Anonymous No.565519]

What exactly is meant with "workflow"? I've seen it thrown around here a lot but don't really know what it means in this context

[Anonymous No.565520]

>>565519
The best order to go about things that is efficient yet delivers quality. Usually there are no rules, only tools, but for most things their a tried and true method for various approaches. That would be the workflow.

[Anonymous No.565522]

>>565520
There's a*

Sleepyposting

[Anonymous No.565548]

>>565507
you probably mean if people would still use blender if it had a price.

well c4d is very unpopular but people keep buying it alot, so you can't really make these type of comparisons

[Anonymous No.565555]

What's the best software to get accustomed to if you want to start painting clothes? Cloths, leathers, metals, etc

[Anonymous No.565561]

>>565473
Epic XXDDDDDD

[Anonymous No.565562]

Do you guys create every shader from scratch every time, or do you use preexisting ones?

Take for example some steel handle or whatever, would you just download some steel shader and work on details or would you remake that steel material for every single project? Since those materials always have same values, I don't really see the point why I wouldn't just download some library for them and just work on dust/dirt/whatever when applying them.

[Anonymous No.565598]

>>565504
No amount tutorials makes you a pro only doing it (but even this is not granted.)

>>565507
For me they cost IS the same (nothing) and i use Blender and Max, when i get to animations i will probably use Maya too.

>>565511
Cinema with Plugins (X-particles, Krakatoa, Realflow) smokes Modo in the pipe.
You can play physics in realtime but no DCC is made for that.

>>565548
>c4d is very unpopular but people keep buying it alot

Either its unpopular OR people buying it a lot.
Is it always this confusing inside your head?

>>565562
You answered your own question.

[Anonymous No.565601]

>>565598
Yeah, that was poorly worded. I was just wanting something that took you through the proper steps of sculpting a model that would later be rigged for use, though it would be nice if whoever put out that series also would mention things like design and other tips to make the model look nice.

[Anonymous No.565620]

>>565601
You won't get that from one tutorial, just watch a shit-ton of them. Also the meme of learning the basics applies very much even if people who don't learn classic art basics will tell you otherwise.
If you can draw a character with good anatomy you'll have it easier when sculpting one.
Same applies for nearly everything. You want to know more about design, then learn design.
Don't expect people to feed you this knowledge go out and find it.
Get an account of CGpersia/CGpeers and regularly raid the tutorial section.
Skip watching boring Blockbuster movies and watch a shit-ton of tutorials and practice. Do that for a year and you'll see yourself advancing. The beginning is the hardest, just don't give up.

[Anonymous No.565644]

>>565598
>Either its unpopular OR people buying it a lot.
im just implying that autodesk is full of piss and think that only their software is viable
>>565562
no i have some premade shaders

[Anonymous No.565645]

>>565644
Maxon is full of piss too, they price their product similar to Autodesk while C4d is only good for fast and cheap jingles, advertising and motion graphics, anything serious or complex and C4d shits the bed.
If you want to do some more complex stuff you need to buy a fuckton of plugins which make the whole affair even more expensive, but not necessarily successful.

For certain things Autodesk IS the only viable option, that is the reason for their arrogance and why they can milk their customers so much.

[Anonymous No.565689]

>>564029
What you may have seen were proxy meshes of the hair volume. They're used to represent the form of the hair during animation and the FX hair is used when everything is ready to rendering.

[Anonymous No.565754]

How can I make stainless steel more realistic? I try to keep it simple and use falloff map in the reflection slot with custom rgb curves taken from refractiveindex.info.

[Anonymous No.565755]

>>565754
roughness texture

[Anonymous No.565765]

Can somebody explain differences between sculpting a character from scratch with something like zbrush, and modeling it with polygons with the help of a reference image?

What to use when? So, basically this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJsf4DNdK4c

Opposed to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv0tjldopzY

Also, a different topic, but when you see that first sculpture made in blender, it seems pretty great to me, how is this inferior to other programs?

[Anonymous No.565770]

I want to create some exterior scene in the nature. What's the usual process here? Model the grass, flowers, rocks and trees by myself or do artists usually use some premade assets or plugins which proceduraly generate stuff like that today? If so, is there anything free, or at least somehwere I can "download it for free"?

I've seen a lot of tutorials on YT, but they all kinda lack quality, so I'm not sure which one to follow. I want it to be as realistic as possible.

[Anonymous No.565771]

>>565770
you make about 4 different type of glass blades and about 4 different type of stones then you put them in groups then use the particle system to raise them on the ground.
for trees i just recommend making 1 tree and use alpha planes as grass blades

[Anonymous No.565805]

anyone have any experience finding an indie game dev team to work with? i need more shit for my portfolio because i doubt i'd land a job with what i have right now.

any red flags to watch out for?
i don't really want to have to spend the time applying for a team, only to realize it's just 9 idea guys jerking themselves off over some shitty design documents.

what websites are good for this stuff?

[Anonymous No.565815]

I ripped these textures from Overwatch, what are the bottom two textures for and how do I use them?

[Anonymous No.565817]

>>565815
If I was to take a guess, spec and mask maps.

[Anonymous No.565818]

>>565817
I've only seen those in greyscale, does the red & blue serve a purpose that grey can't?

[Anonymous No.565819]

easiest way in blender to model the "X" shaped indentation on the center of the can?

[Anonymous No.565821]

>>565818
It is a method to combine multiple grayscale maps into one texture image. One value in the material reads the red channel, another reads the blue channel. It doesn't matter what the image looks like as long as each individual channel looks correct by itself

>>565819
It is entirely pointless to model an indent. You will likely never see it on an angle such that the lack of an indent in the geometry looks wrong. Just use a normal map.

[Anonymous No.565827]

>>565815
I'm pretty sure the bottom right one is a material ID mask

[Anonymous No.565840]

>>565815
diffuse,normal,ID(?) and emission

[Anonymous No.565843]

why should i even bother to learn rigging if i can just use an auto rigger?

[Anonymous No.565845]

>>565821
Yeah the point is to model the indent on a high poly in order to bake the normal onto a low poly

[Anonymous No.565846]

>>565845
you can do an alpha of this shape in photoshop and stamp it in zbrush.

[Anonymous No.565847]

Are there any laptops that are good for 3D modeling?
I've heard some people say that desktops are the only way to go.
I'm only able to get one or the other so I'm conflicted.

[Anonymous No.565851]

What do I need to do to make a burnt texture like this?

[Anonymous No.565898]

Are all polygonal boolean tools garbage and can't handle anything more than stacks of cubes?

[Anonymous No.565914]

>>565847
You can get laptops with decent specs for 3D but its going to cost you about twice as much as just building a desktop, and laptops typically don't allow you to exchange parts, so once its outdated then its worthless.

[Anonymous No.565915]

>>565847
>>565914
This + unless you really, actually, honest to god, need the mobility you should go with a desktop every time.

[Anonymous No.565916]

Is there a "best" program for UVs and unwrapping and such?

[Anonymous No.565934]

What program do toy makers use?

For vehicles and robots I imagine some CAD software but what about those waifu figures and statues? How do they cut joints and holes while maintaining smooth, probably high-poly surfaces?

[Anonymous No.565936]

>>565934
>What program do toy makers use?
Any 3D modeling application.
There are few guidelines you must obey so you can create sample and 3D print it,then its up to the factory in china to manufacture the thing they create molds and everything.

[Anonymous No.565937]

>>565936
How would you create the insides of that torso after cutting it in half? You'd just have two complex planes.

[Anonymous No.565938]

>>565936
>cutting it in half
Who said anything about cutting?
they are pre-modeled to be attached/detached together in the 3D application,with basic 3D printing program the whole thing is sliced first including the holes and everything and you get accurate print of the model.
visit /diy/ 3D printing general they have ton of info on the whole process.

[Anonymous No.565939]

>>565938
for
>>565937

[Anonymous No.565940]

>>565938
>they are pre-modeled to be attached/detached together in the 3D application
I know that. I'm saying how the hell do you model those holes and pegs after you're done with your model and it's like 200 million polys.

[Anonymous No.565941]

>>565940
You retopo your model.

[Anonymous No.565942]

>>565941
But then you lose all the detail. I have a 3D printer. It spits stuff out exactly as defined by the model's geometry.

[Anonymous No.565943]

>>565942
then you are doing something wrong.
again diy has all the info on prepping your 3d model

[Anonymous No.565944]

>>565943
You're not making any sense. The stl can't magically turn shader info into slicing paths because the geometry info literally doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.565949]

>>564025
Why is mudbox literally just hot trash? Tried a hundred times and I can't get it to import .fbx generated by Max at the proper scale or with UVs even though I tried everything on autodesk's knowledge center or w/e. Did those lazy kikes really try to compete with zbrush with this shit?

[Anonymous No.565959]

>>565949
While I'm at it what's the cheapest legal store for Zbrush? I'm noticing some of their retail partners sell for a bit cheaper than the full price on pixologic's site.

[Anonymous No.565974]

This is a long shot, but does anyone have a download link for that 11 hour maya 2017 tutorial that's listen on pluralsight?
I don't have $300 to subscribe to that shit right now. I just got my damn wisdom teeth removed for $2000.

[Anonymous No.565980]

If I'm rendering 3D models onto 2D sprite sheets for a mobile game, can I use models that are as high poly as possible?

[Anonymous No.565988]

>>565980
yes.
but you have to take into consideration rendering times, if its a problem

[Anonymous No.566064]

I am interested if anyone here has some grass renders they created, either with Max, Blender, Maya or any other software. I can't really make it really photorealistic, nor are there any tutorials that I have followed that really nailed it either.

What are the keys to making a REALLY photorealistic grass? Take this for example, it's a bit stylized I guess, but looks really nice, how could I achieve this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI-1KTy0pOA

Also, I've seen some amazing shit created with UE4, and I could follow those tutorials, but I'd like to be able to do it in Max and Blender. E.g. here are some grass scenes created with UE4 and it looks insane.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?102319-Striving-for-Photorealism-in-UE4/page7

[Anonymous No.566065]

>>566064
i did it about a year ago, people here probably remember.

used this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q0c2zzdNKA

[Anonymous No.566066]

>>566065
Nice lisp.
Good tutorial too.

[Anonymous No.566074]

If I want some seamless texture on my ground, and if I want it to be smaller, is it bad if I just scale the UV up? Why does it have to stay inside of the grid? I can't see the difference between that and resizing a texture inside of a node (that even doesn't work sometimes). I also don't see any seams on the texture, but that depends on a texture I'm using.

[Anonymous No.566081]

>>566064
unreal means its real time rendering only? Or does it do normal renders as well? never worked with game engine stuff

[Anonymous No.566082]

anyone got some cool reference material for 3d practice or know a neat place i can get some?
just tryin to hammer out some practice since the project i'm working on isn't all that challenging.

[Anonymous No.566092]

Is there a free tool/software I can use to view a video or gif frame by frame?
I need it for learning animation

[Anonymous No.566189]

A question about gamedev modelling. Say I've got a game character with animal ears. Lets say cat ears. Or dog ears. Whatever
What would go into making the ears floppy i.e. kind of bounce up and down a bit when the character runs? Is that something that would be handled by the game engine, like applying physics to that part of the model?

[Anonymous No.566239]

>>566189
have it part of your walking cycle
if you implement it as physics based its just gonna cause unwanted problems

[Anonymous No.566291]

I want to start learning how to paint terrain, what's the modern way to do it? Can you just load your terrain into Mari and just paint textures directly onto it via projection? Is that weird?

[Anonymous No.566292]

>>566291
its okay.
but substance designer is probably the way to go.
textures from photos are not tiled well tho.
you need something to be repeated

[Anonymous No.566340]

Let's say I am modeling some table. Is it wrong if I create it from literally 5 boxes, i.e. create each leg and just place it somewhere inside the main mesh, or should I extrude those from the table itself? Or e.g. when I'm creating some knobs on some old TV - is it wrong if I just, like, put them a bit inside of the parent object?

I've seen people do both and I don't know what is the right way to do it. Obviously, creating separate objects is easier, but would that create problems down the pipeline?

[Anonymous No.566345]

>>566340
the correct way is to extrude everything
think of a real life object like a screw driver. it would make sense that the tool would have 2 parts

[Anonymous No.566357]

>>566292
do people typically use procedurally generated textures to texture terrain?

[Anonymous No.566360]

>>566357
well yeah.
but it dosen't mean people use substance designer all the time. there is a good chunk of artists that still make procedurals with photoshop

[Anonymous No.566364]

What are some good courses about environment design?

[Anonymous No.566384]

how are eyelashes made in cartoons?
especially animu sculpts

[Anonymous No.566386]

Greetings everyone. I'm a beginner and I want to make low poly human characters. I know I should make elbows and knees like this so they won't look terrible when bent, but that's pretty much all I know about joint topology. What should I know about how a mesh deforms as a character moves and poses? And how do I model the shoulders and hip joints?

[Anonymous No.566421]

This is unity

Trying to play around in unity but coming across what I would think is a stpid problem.

How come I can't navmesh this custom obj? I have tried putting a terrain and terrain collider component on it but it just doesn't bake, it just does this with the ground terrain.

No bully just trying unity for some fun

[Anonymous No.566467]

>>564025
Lets say I have 3d assets I want to sell and made them in max with a commercial license.
If I used zbrush for the process of making details for, lets say, a rock, and import back into max and baked out the normal information will I be ok or get B&?

[Anonymous No.566470]

>>566467
yeah.
i think it would stupid to upload zpr files online. same thing applies for 3ds files

[Anonymous No.566472]

>>566470
Im not talking about uploading the zpr files or max files. I wondering the legal consequence with using a pirated version of zbrush by simply using it for highpoly detail to bake.

[Anonymous No.566475]

>>566472
legal consequence? you could get sued for lost profits, possibly more. but probably no one would ever find out. not a risk i would personally take though, especially if you already can afford 3ds...

[Anonymous No.566476]

>>566421
You need a convex (there is a checkbox to make it convex) mesh collider on your custom mesh.

[Anonymous No.566492]

How exactly do you texture lowpoly game assets? Texture the high poly first and then bake the diffuse?

[Anonymous No.566494]

>>566492
the high poly is for baking normals, which make a low poly surface appear to have more details than it physically does have. The other textures like color and metalness/specular are independent of the highpoly-lowpoly relationship.

[Anonymous No.566496]

>>566494
Ahh, so the diffuse is done directly onto the lowpoly object?

[Anonymous No.566497]

>>566496
>>566494
Also, can substance painter be used on these lowpoly objects?

[Anonymous No.566501]

>>566496
yes, the diffuse is made for the lowpoly object.

>>566497
substance painter can be used with whatever model is put into it.

[Anonymous No.566513]

>>566384
pls respond

[Anonymous No.566515]

>>566513
looks like its part of the sculpt
alpha planes (alpha transparency) at worst which will require an additional texture map

[Anonymous No.566522]

>>566384
Textures.

[Anonymous No.566542]

>>566476
Thanks, I did try this but it didn't change anything. I tried both giving the collider to the meshes or the parent group or then both, but none worked.

The backgroud is what I'm trying to recreate this for, but made the simple stair mesh thing to test if it worked. I mean, there must be ways for people to make houses they can walk around in in unity right, but I can't find a workflow for something like that online anywhere.

[Anonymous No.566547]

>>566542
have you looked through the doc?
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/nav-BuildingNavMesh.html

[Anonymous No.566551]

>>566547
Hey thanks anon its working now.

Still a bit messy gotta clean up the details but thats a big step for me, thanks.

[Anonymous No.566691]

How would I add detail to a scene like this? I created a terrain with World Machine, but those always look nice from afar, but not from a close-up.

Would I have to sculpt a detail with a zbrush, and apply custom made textures to everything or is there some different method?

[Anonymous No.566693]

>>566691
Actually, I just went and tried that, I have no idea what I'm doing since I never sculpted before, but this could work, right? I can even sculpt directly from a camera view.

I'm still looking forward to some help on how to approach this, though.

[Esoba No.566694]

https://youtu.be/1qeiiClGnPk

[Anonymous No.566695]

I have a completed joint set with maya muscle attached between the joints

how do I link its influence into my mesh? it asks for a muscle system? how do I make all these muscles into one system?

is there any maya muscle tutorial that can walkthrough me into fully rigging with muscle systems? I can only find bits and pieces around

[Anonymous No.566698]

>>566695
>ow.
>Still a bit messy gotta clean up the details but thats a big step for me, thanks.
>>>
> Anonymous 05/31/17(Wed)18:00:21 No.566691▶>>566693
>File: wm_test.jpg (256 KB, 800x450)
>How would I add detail to a scene like this? I created a terrain with World Machine, but those always look nice from afar, but not from a close-up.
>Would I have to sculpt a detail with a zbrush, and apply custom made textures to everything or is there some different method?
>>>
> Anonymous 05/31/17(Wed)18:16:45 No.566693▶
>File: sculpting.jpg (448 KB, 813x675)
>>>566691
>Actually, I just went and tried that, I have no idea what I'm doing since I never sculpted before, but this could work, right? I can even sculpt directly from a camera view.
>I'm still looking forward to some help on how to approach this, though.
>>>
> Esoba 05/31/17(Wed)18:17:52 No.566694▶
>https://youtu.be/1qeiiClGnPk [Embed]
>>>
> Anonymous 05/31/17(Wed)18:47:42 No.566695▶
>I have a completed joint set with maya muscle attached between the joints
>how do I link its influence into my mesh? it asks for a muscle system? how do I make all these muscles into one system?
>is there any maya muscle tutorial that can walkthrough me into fully rigging with muscle systems? I can only find bits and pieces around

Took me a second to get the joke. When I did, I must admit, I had myself a good chuckle.I typically don't find 'nigger humor' especially amusing or relatable. Nonetheless, in today's bitter political climate, I find solace in a little bit of an injection of humor into this crazy world. Anyways, good job, hope to see more of this in the future.......

[Anonymous No.566700]

>>566698
somebody explain this post

[Anonymous No.566703]

>>566700
stroke, maybe?

[Anonymous No.566704]

>>566693
first you need decimate the entire landscape or just punch it in dynamesh and get a better low res model.
then approach texturing and detailing, your blockout is pretty much done. i recommend baking as well

[Anonymous No.566711]

Question regarding Maya 2016 / Vray:

I want to have an animated smoke effect coming from a chimney, but not have to render the whole scene every frame - only the areas of the render which change as the smoke moves.

Is this possible?

[Anonymous No.566712]

can anyone else confirm that this build is broken? i open it and it seems fine but the interface soon bogs down so slow it's unusable.

http://graphicall.org/1206

[Anonymous No.566715]

>>566711
render layers

[Anonymous No.566716]

>>565765
I forgot about this question. Somebody explain, please. Bump.

[Anonymous No.566717]

>>566716
the difference is the baking process. when you create a character in zbrush you can go wild with the polygons and then bake it to a clean mesh similar to the one in the second video.
the second video is how they made characters in the early 2000's. just raw polygons and a texture ontop

[Anonymous No.566718]

>>566716
the two are used for different things.
sculpting is
>more intuitive
>don't have to worry about polycount
>much more detail in much shorter amount of time
polygon modeling has a completely different workflow. With sculpting you just kind of put in detail whenever and wherever you want it, while with polygon modelling you generally have to continuously iterate and drag points floating is space.

The modern workflow usually combines the two.
>block out with polygon modelling
>put in detail
>retopologize the highly detailed sculpt
>bake the surface detail from the sculpt into the retopologized model


>Also, a different topic, but when you see that first sculpture made in blender, it seems pretty great to me, how is this inferior to other programs?
the artist is what matters. different programs just give you different ways to accomplish the same thing. Some may be more efficient, but it doesn't really matter if the artist knows what they are doing.

[Anonymous No.566719]

>>566718
>put in detail
read as >sculpt in detail

[Anonymous No.566721]

>>566717
>>566718
Aha, so I can start with a workflow from that second tutorial and then export my basic face to zbrush (or use blender, but I just started playing with zbrush) where I'll refine it, and then back to blender. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.566722]

>>566721
yep. that's one way to do it. it really depends what you find yourself more comfortable with. some do the whole blocking out in scultping and others use a generic mesh to modify.

[Anonymous No.566729]

alright so I must be missing something fundamental with normal map baking and need some help

I made a high poly hydrant as well as a lowpoly, baked the normals, but im getting some funky results

here are the models side by side. ill dump a few more pics

[Anonymous No.566730]

>>566729
heres the rendered result, i circled the problem areas

im getting these uneven marks where it should be perfectly circular indentation

[Anonymous No.566731]

>>566730
heres the lowpoly with the normal map for more clarity

[Anonymous No.566732]

>>566731
heres the position of the two models as i baked them, red is low poly, blue is high... used pretty basic settings and messed with them a few times to try different stuff but none of them were bueno

[Anonymous No.566749]

>>566729
your lowpoly model is retarded. please give it proper silhouette
also there is no need to use smoothing groups on a highpoly mode. you have edge crease

[Anonymous No.566756]

>>566729
>>566730
look up what smoothing groups and bake cages are
your smoothing groups are shit and limit your normal range
your cage dosnt match the high poly position and leads to high poly model being projected into wrong places
also for your hard poly
never ever have such hard edges, bevel them up

you will never bake onto such a simple low poly mesh without a cage or proper smoothing group set up

[Anonymous No.566757]

>>566467
>>566472
Highly unlikely, the final file won't even contain any information from ZBrush at that point surely.

[Anonymous No.566758]

Quick generalized zbrush/sculpting question:
How often do people start their models entirely in zbrush/any other sculpting program versus modeling a basemesh in a regular modeling program and working from there? Are the "From scratch" options in zbrush all they're cracked up to be?

[Anonymous No.566761]

>>566758
everything is done in zbrush, almost always.
i even seen people make the character and then the gun + gear in zbrush

[Anonymous No.566763]

>>566756
i want to correct what you said, you don't need a cage these days anymore. you just need to export your polygroups information when importing to substance painter or xnormal.

in his case, he needs to do traditional retopology + shrinkwrap. shrinkwrap modifier makes sure the mesh dosen't get warped and the polygons always stay ontop of the model.

[Anonymous No.566769]

What is the best YT series for learning Substance Painter?

[Anonymous No.566775]

>>566769
Allegoritmhic's own channel/site for the basics, further than that I'm not sure.
Sharpstance does material breakdowns that are cool and varying degrees of useful, since it's mostly just learning how to use a bunch of generators at its core you can get a lot of info out of the material breakdowns and he goes through his workflow a bit.

[Anonymous No.566776]

>>566758
depends
in production you almost start with a base, today often with 3d scans,marvelous mesh or blockout made by others in your team
no time to fuck around with zbrush idiotic interface

for yourself? depends what you make, zbrush can be good for some random sketching in 3d but a lot of artists still do this even in standard 3d packages
overall it dosnt matter as the end result is what is important

[Anonymous No.566777]

>>564025
how do i make this menu larger?

[Anonymous No.566783]

>>566756
>>566749
>>566761
So one of the things I'm getting from this is that my lowpoly needs more definition? If im doing this for a mobile game, and everything needs to be very lowpoly, then what do I do?

[Anonymous No.566784]

>>566783
you should have said its for a model game then, jeez.
but i suspect that you simply baked by lowering the subd levels rather than retopology

[Anonymous No.566785]

>>566784
Not the case, but I guess I dont know how to properly retop. Any tuts?

[Anonymous No.566786]

>>566785
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hEHtKH55Us

[Anonymous No.566788]

>>566776
This is the answer that I wanted to hear so I'm going with this one, thanks.

[Anonymous No.566800]

>>566783
how the fuck did you get that?
what you should have gotten is that you have no clue how baking works
did you use a cage? or did you just used an automatic one
also your low poly mesh dosnt match your high poly one in position

look up how baking projection works, how smoothing groups influence it and what is the ray casting distance

[Anonymous No.566806]

>>566800
*ONE* of the things I got from that. The other is, yes, I don't know shit about baking.

Any links would be appreciated

[Anonymous No.566807]

what is pbr? how is it different/better than no pbr? where is it used? someome help me understand textures

[Anonymous No.566808]

also how do you split 1 model to have several sets of textures for more detail?

[Anonymous No.566809]

>>566806
i seriously can't find a single tutorial that teaches you how to bake without this crappy multires modifier or just baking onto a plane but i REALLY don't recommend using blender for baking.
yeah you can get a hold of it, but every time i learned how to do it i forgot after 2 days since its so archaic and shitty.
just use xnormal

[Anonymous No.566810]

>>566807
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjGCtnEDDeU

[Anonymous No.566816]

>>566763
>i want to correct what you said, you don't need a cage these days anymore. you just need to export your polygroups information when importing to substance painter or xnormal.
are you fucking retarded?

[Anonymous No.566817]

>>566816
i have perfect bakes with multipart objects. but i can't blame you for not finding out

[Anonymous No.566818]

Is it better to :
- render an animation directly with motion blur
- or add motion blur in post-process ?

[Anonymous No.566819]

>>566808
its called uv sets

[Anonymous No.566820]

>>566818
do you have access to a supercomputer? If so post-process will usually always be more efficient. motion blur at render time takes a shit ton of time as well as dof

[Anonymous No.566821]

>>566820
if not*

[Anonymous No.566827]

I need to make a film strip model for my animatin.
Is there any reasons not to use planes for that (i.e. discard Y dimension) other than that it might look not good?
Also, what's the fastest way to cut an object like this in C4D?

[Anonymous No.566849]

>>566820
Thanks
I'm using Redshift : a frame takes around 3 min without motion blur and around 5 min with really good motion blur
And I think the right workflow for animation is to add dof and motion blur in post process, it's more versatile.
What process is recommended ? I've seen ReelSmart Motion Blur plugin on aftereffect. Also I've read that you can apply motion blur to the depth pass, but I can't find a good tutorial

[Anonymous No.566851]

>>566827
Just a plane with texture is perfectly fine. It's not like there's any depth in a strip of film.

[Anonymous No.566852]

>>566849
depth pass is used to do your depth of field. The map itself is just black to white based on the distance from the camera. If you have motion blur on your main pass, then the same motion blur should be on the depth pass for the two to match up properly. can't really help you with motion blur plugins and shhit since I've always just used the one that comes with after effects.

[Anonymous No.566857]

I need to rotate this finger joint around Z ONLY so that it's parallel to the wrist joint.

I would normally orient constrain it so that -X points towards the wrist, but the problem is that that creates Y rotation as the joint location is not aligned to the wrist.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Anonymous No.566858]

>>566857
I said parallel but i think a better word would be planar. Anyway this is what I want

[Anonymous No.566862]

>>566704
Forgot to reply to you, thanks, but I'll probably need some more help with this.

I've imported World Machine heightmap in Zbrush and displaced a plane with it. I subdivided it a couple of times and clicked dynamesh button, then added some details and now I don't know how to properly export it to Blender. I followed some tutorial on exporting a displacement map, but it doesn't work properly at all. I feel this is not even the right way to do it lol, so can anyone help with this? Should I export it as obj, or some map or something else?

This is going a bit over my head, I know the polycount is probably way too high, but I don't know how to bake it or whatever that is. How can I keep this level of detail in Blender? I want to put a camera close to the ground and it has to have more details than it has when I export it from World Machine.

[Anonymous No.566863]

>>566862
well shit man. if you have a height/displacement map to begin with you can just hook it up in cycles.
if its the mesh that worries you. you need to make a lower resolution mesh with dynamesh,export the obj. as _low and then export the high res mesh as _high
when you have both punch it in xnormal. it might not work because it needs to be in same world position (it probably is, unless you used transpose or just moved it around)

[Anonymous No.566864]

>>566863
Yeah, I would just create a (more detailed) displacement map from this, if that is the possibility. World Machine creates it's own displacement map and it looks like pic related when I use it in Blender, so I just thought of importing it into zbrush, adding more details to small areas and getting a better displacement map from that which I can use in Blender. Is that even possible?

The other option is to just sculpt it directly in Blender. I mean, I have no clue how is it done, I just can't find any tutorial on that, it seems that people just use World Machine for mountains in the background, or if they use it in some game engine, the surface remains really basic.

Basically, I want to create a scene similar to this:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/9QDbQ

[Anonymous No.566868]

>>566864
>adding more details to small areas and getting a better displacement map from that which I can use in Blender.

well you can bake a displacement map from a highresolution mesh if you want. i already explained to you the baking process. you can bake displacement maps in addition to normals

>The other option is to just sculpt it directly in Blender. I mean, I have no clue how is it done

well usually its done with height maps made in photoshop or just data scan. i like to use the ocean modifier for this sort of thing. but i sort of forgot how to use it and refresh my memory.

>Basically, I want to create a scene similar to this:
that's completely different from large scale terrain. in this work he made individual rocks in zbrush and sort of put them together.

[Anonymous No.566870]

>>566868
i want to breifly add. if you do highpoly to lowpoly you only need the normal map and perhaps the ambient occlusion.
displacement only works if you use it on a flat plane

[Anonymous No.566871]

>>566858
I figured it out. Set a rotation limit on the X and Y of the finger joint (min and max of 0) then just aim constrain from the finger to the wrist.

[Anonymous No.566872]

>>566868
>>566870
Thank you, I'll save this and google everything, I downloaded Zbrush a few days ago and still have to figure this out.

It doesn't want to export a displacement map properly and I get unrecognizable terrain in blender, so I tried that other method, exporting high and low poly objects and importing them to xnormal and got pic related inside of a blender. Yeah, it's still fucked, but I probably already made some mistake while in zbrush, because I have these terraces now.

I'll have to watch more tutorials first, I'll maybe try sculpting it inside of blender for testing purposes and try again when I learn more. Can't make it work atm.

[Anonymous No.566873]

>>566872
well your terrain have more ridges than normal. i look at it several times since you posted it and it doesn't look right in certain places. it looks like it has been remeshed in a bad way


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9OxD3qbSiM

from my own experience its best to do stuff with 1 program as much as you possibly can.

[Anonymous No.566874]

>>566873
i want to add another something

if you want to mess with height maps and such it might get you frustrated because height maps are not a 100% and you have to know lots of mumbo jumbo related to the displacement modifier and the math node in cycles, and in general there is alot of bullshit you don't want to deal with. use the ANT terrain plugin like i showed you in the video. its not world machine but it does the job

[Anonymous No.566914]

Does somebody know a plugin that manages morphs for max, working on a model with many morphs and only using the channel list in the morpher modifier is way too confusing. Max has such an awesome scene explorer but small things like that are missing.

[Anonymous No.566918]

>>564025
HOW THE HECK do I remember the selection order in maya for parenting and constraints. I always mix it up and then my rigs get broken

[Anonymous No.566919]

>>566695

Maya muscle help pls

[Anonymous No.566954]

Is there a program where you can input a plain drawing and have it output a 2D curve path of it?

Something plain like this for example. I realize that for this shape in particular I could recreate in a minute or two, but it would be neat if I could doodle something really fast in paint and turn it into a curve instantly.

[Anonymous No.566958]

>>566954
http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/
Also does nice stuff like regularizing hand drawings in a similar way that the Flash editor does if I remember right.

[Anonymous No.566970]

>>566918
you don't. I've been using it since 2009 and still do that shit backwards

[Anonymous No.566971]

What rigging tool in Maya do you use for export to game engines like UE4 and Unity?

ART is most suggested, but it doesn't include things for quadruped characters, or for characters with long ears, or wings, or tail.

So what do you use if you're making something that isn't straight up a human character?

[Anonymous No.566972]

>>566919
http://download.autodesk.com/us/support/files/muscle.pdf

[Anonymous No.567062]

can textures be animated? what is the general process to accomplish this?

[Anonymous No.567120]

>>567062
yes. what program?

[Anonymous No.567151]

>>566810
so pbr is just a term for texturing based on these specific maps?

[Anonymous No.567155]

>>567151
It's a term for that kind of rendering style. It's becoming the norm for most realtime engines, compared to the diff/normal/spec the big visual difference (aside from generally being a more versatile set of maps) is that engines generate reflectivity data, similar to a cubemap, that it uses to inform the shading and make the light and reflective elements look a bit more natural. Sort of a hackjob attempt at GI. It's not super accurate but probably the best rendering style available right now for pseudo-realism and just generally making a visual style where everything looks grounded in the environment.

Pic is a frame from an Unreal demo with just the reflectivity showing.

[Anonymous No.567158]

>>567155
that makes sense, thanks for the explanation!

[Anonymous No.567182]

I'm interested how can I achieve this look (game - Rime). My guess are hand painted textures, and what else? I'd appreciate some links to good tutorials, if you have any.

[Anonymous No.567183]

bump

[Anonymous No.567208]

>>564738
>How do I get my model to deform good?

You don't.

You get your model to deform WELL.

[Anonymous No.567211]

Why is this edge loop not going completely straight? Is it because there is a triangle right next to it?

[Anonymous No.567224]

>>567120
lets say blender

[Anonymous No.567231]

>>567224
probably a plugin since blender. sorry only have maya experience

[Anonymous No.567232]

>>567231
maya is fine too. its what im most used to, im just trying to transition to blender cos licensing

[Anonymous No.567233]

>>567232
https://youtu.be/ZQw380ff6SQ?t=211

[Anonymous No.567247]

Anybody know if you can use microfibre and sss on the same shader in Toolbag 3?

[Anonymous No.567254]

Torrented a tutorial. The author makes a lot of extra faces/edges (pic on the right). Are these required for anything special like texturing or something? Mine's on the left.

[Anonymous No.567318]

>>567254
yes. a polygon should never have more than 4 vertices on it.

[Anonymous No.567353]

>>567254
you should start with a more introductory tutorial if you don't understand topology fundamentals and the tutorial's not explaining it.

[Anonymous No.567420]

>>567353
Just watched one on hard surfaces and also studied weapon models from Battlefield and Borderlands. Thanks for the tip!
Though unless I'm doing Perfect Dark Maian weapons, I don't think I'll need to deform my magazine unless I'm doing drastic wear and tear.

[Anonymous No.567435]

Trying to texture paint in blender 2.78c, but i'm getting these weird projection issues, anyone know a solution? I'm not talking about the edge of the circle, just the fact that it's completely ignoring part of it.

>>564115
In games specifically, they use a combination of normal, specular, and diffuse maps to create that effect. It's mostly the normal map that does the heavy lifting. Most engines don't support things like edge splitting.

[Anonymous No.567438]

>>567435
Oh my fucking christ are you kidding me. I changed the image that I was painting on from DDS to PNG and that fixed it.

[Anonymous No.567458]

>>567420
Great. Keep in mind good topology isn't just for good deformation though, it's also important for good subdivision. So while there is little point avoiding poles and tris in areas that won't deform it's still a good idea to ensure good edgeflow throughout. And never have polys with more than 4 verts.

[Anonymous No.567491]

How do I take a 3dm file from Rhino 5 and put it in Rhino 4??

[Anonymous No.568001]

Can anybody remind me the name of the torrent site for 3dcg software and anything artist related?

[Anonymous No.568009]

>>568001
pears