My first few questions of many... (new game developer)

[i11uminati Productions]

I've been studying hard on both daz and renpy and I've got a million questions. Here are the first 3:
First of all is it possible to use a G3F item (hat) on a G8M (hopefully without learning another program!)?
Secondly should I keep my renders at 1920x1080 for easy use in renpy? Is there a way to lock that because it seems to reset? Also any other render settings that I should be changing? Such as the file format?
I have invested in a pretty good machine adding a 2080ti and upping my RAM from 8 to 40 but I'm still using an old pretty mediocre monitor. I'd rather not spend a fortune upgrading that after all the money just spent so how necessary is it?
Thanks to anyone who can help. I've already learned a lot on this forum and even some of you from youtube!

 

[mickydoo]

Yes, it will (should) autofit, a window will pop up asking you a few things. You will have hair clipping issues with any hat though. (There are ways around that)

Yes, if you save the scene, re opening will keep the settings, or you can save the settings.

You should render the image as a .png so it is transparent and is of better quality.

Most of your other many questions will be about rendering and lighting.

 

[i11uminati Productions]

Yes, it will (should) autofit, a window will pop up asking you a few things. You will have hair clipping issues with any hat though. (There are ways around that)

Yes, if you save the scene, re opening will keep the settings, or you can save the settings.

You should render the image as a .png so it is transparent and is of better quality.

Most of your other many questions will be about rendering and lighting.

Thank you. You have a great game btw. So would it be best to just have the character with no hair or very short to avoid that issue?
Should I keep it as .png for renpy? I have seen suggestions to use a format that is smaller but I don't want to lose quality since I'm trying to make really nice renders.

 

[i11uminati Productions]

Any suggestions on animated fire and smoke?
Also realistic bullet wounds and blood.

 

[mickydoo]

Thank you. You have a great game btw. So would it be best to just have the character with no hair or very short to avoid that issue?
Should I keep it as .png for renpy? I have seen suggestions to use a format that is smaller but I don't want to lose quality since I'm trying to make really nice renders.

Once the image has been rendered out if it's just for shits and giggles to show off keep it as a .png. If it's for a game it needs to be a .jpg or .webp to make it smaller, as 100 .png's start making a massive file. I save them as a jpg in photoshop, others use converters, 90% of my renders need to go into photoshop anyway for a touch up so it's not an issue.

The hats issue - in Daz in the tool menu there is a geometry editor, you can use it to give the characters the old bowl haircut with it, put the hat on and trim what hair you can see.

Animated fire and smoke are usually best done outside of Daz as animations, in general, is a whole new ball game. I have smoke from a joint in mine but it's just a simple renpy effect. Same with bullet wounds, best left to photoshop.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Yes, it will (should) autofit, a window will pop up asking you a few things. You will have hair clipping issues with any hat though. (There are ways around that)

And if you have some money, there's Mesh Grabber that you can use to finalize the adjustment if necessary ; if you don't have money, there's still a way.

Yes, if you save the scene, re opening will keep the settings, or you can save the settings.

Wasn't he more searching for the

You must be registered to see the links

line located in top of guy.rpy ?

 

[i11uminati Productions]

I was able to get the hat on and just adjusted it up since it was cutting off the top of ears. Kept the character bald to avoid any hair issues. Also, got a copy of photoshop to be able to convert image formats. More to learn...
Okay my next question is on animation rendering. How do I "remove all normal maps from scene textures"? Also how much do you lose by rendering animation at 720p? And then how do you scale back up to 1080p for renpy?

 

[mickydoo]

I was able to get the hat on and just adjusted it up since it was cutting off the top of ears. Kept the character bald to avoid any hair issues. Also, got a copy of photoshop to be able to convert image formats. More to learn...
Okay my next question is on animation rendering. How do I "remove all normal maps from scene textures"? Also how much do you lose by rendering animation at 720p? And then how do you scale back up to 1080p for renpy?

This will allow you to remove maps among other things, you can do it manually but this is easier
https://f95zone.to/threads/scene-optimizer-mar-2019.9973/

Animation rendering.

You will get different opinions on this, none of them including mine is 100% right. Rendering animations involves trickery, this is how I do it.

Keep the camera focused on the job at hand, if you want to render an animation of nun blowing a donkey, focus on that (literally the blowing bit)

Don't try and make a scene in front of a cluttered kitchen or a messy bedroom. On a bed, wall with minimum decorations is what you want.

Use low iterations and the denoiser. As opposed to static images, the human eye is more forgiving when it comes to animations, I render them at 200 and the denoiser set to 199. In the progressive render tab you want rendering quality enabled off and set to 200 iterations, and in the filtering tab all three post denoiser tabs checked and set to 199.

I render mine at 1080p so I can't answer that one.

 

[i11uminati Productions]

Okay I have downloaded the scene optimizer. I can't really simplify this animation much so hopefully this will help a great deal. I will take your tips into account for future animations though. I have looked through the 21 page manual...any chance you can provide a less complicated procedure for me?

 

[mickydoo]

. I have looked through the 21 page manual...any chance you can provide a less complicated procedure for me?

Do you mean for the scene optimizer? I never knew there was a manual lol, much less read it.

The green icon called V3DSO 02 Scene Optimizer opens it.

If you want to remove bumps and/or normals press the buttons that say remove bumps and mormals

Up the top you will see the number 2 is checked, underneath the file list you will see "Set lower resolutions Maps blah blah". Clicking that while the 2 is selected will halve the texture size for the scene, freeing up memory when you render, increasing render times. I use it only when I have to, you get feel for it.

I never use it on the models just the scene.

 

[i11uminati Productions]

Okay with some great assists from Mickydoo I've made some decent progress. But a couple new issues:
1) how do you fit background characters into a scene without blowing out your limited vram needed for the main characters and environment? Can you use older gen models, blur the background characters out, or some other technique?
2) what can I do with 3D Object files (.FBX,.obj and .max) and IPROP files?
3) How can you get a full screen of text with an image behind? Is photoshop best for this?

 

[mickydoo]

1 - My personal way is spot rendering

Click on the camera icon to activate the spot render tool, then the arrow to open the tool settings, you need to tick that new window box every time you start daz or it will just render on your screen.

Left click and drag around what you want in the spot render. As soon as you let go of the button it will start to render. While you are still holding the left button, clicking the right one will cancel it.

The spot render will render with the exact same light setup and resolution so it will match up fine. You need to watch the shadows but, where the character is you have to take into account where the shadow off them is casting and get that in the spot render.

If you want say 5 background characters, do it one by one and use the iray preview mode to see where the shadows are falling, you can then just then hold ctrl and click the eye icon in the scene tab to hide them once you are done and move onto the next one.

Then in photoshop, you can either drag the spot render onto your main pic, or copy it and then paste special, paste into place, it will sit where its meant to if you have kept the resolution the same.

2 - what can I do with 3D Object files (.FBX,.obj and .max) and IPROP files?

fbx and obj - File import. fbx usually has the texture, sometimes not, obj usually not, you have to add them manually

max - is a 3d max file, you meed 3dmax to open them

iprop - is an iclone file I think, likewise, you need iclone to open them.

3 - Yes

 

[i11uminati Productions]

So just to make sure I understand for question 1: I setup the image exactly as I want with background characters included. Then cut around a background character or group and render just that section. Then hide those people using the eye so they won't show up in or hamper the main render. Open the main image in photoshop. Then add the secondary spot render. Will there not be a seam of some sort? Do I need to cut perfectly around the characters? Or is the cutout still going to be a full size render just with a lot of blank space and so the image lines up that way??
2. Thanks I can clear out some stuff I can't use
3. Thanks now to learn photoshop...

 

[mickydoo]

Say you want a scene with two characters in the foreground primarily, but others in the background. Set up your scene how you want, hide the horse and the barman and render the scene with just Jade and Penny in it.





Spotrender the barman area where he is and anything he touches



Hide him so he is not clogging shit up and render the horse and everything around him, including part the part of the girls.



It will come out like this


Easy peasy, if its the same resoultion it just sits on the original render like magic

 

[i11uminati Productions]

Does anyone have the ability to share the Gen 3 female base model? It doesn't appear to be in the Gen 3 starter essentials just the male figure.
What do you use to edit songs down to a clip you want to play in your game?

 

[osanaiko]

Does anyone have the ability to share the Gen 3 female base model? It doesn't appear to be in the Gen 3 starter essentials just the male figure.
What do you use to edit songs down to a clip you want to play in your game?

If you grab Daz Install Manager from the offical Daz site, and sign in with a Daz website account, you should have the option to download/install the G3F starter package.

I've already got them installed so they show on my "Installed" pane. If you don't have them yet, you'll see them on the "Ready to download" pane.

 

[i11uminati Productions]

That worked perfect thanks osanaiko. And much thanks to Mickey again with the incredible detailed explanation above.

Along with my question above about trimming songs down how do you acquire assets that don't exist in the Daz ecosystem? I'm looking for a type of vehicle that doesn't exist and I know I can't sculpt it myself. I'm sure there are people who will do that for money but where do you find them and any ideas on price range? Or are there other communities of assets for other programs that you can still use in Daz (I've only searched Daz store and renderocity not sure of other options).

 

[osanaiko]

That worked perfect thanks osanaiko. And much thanks to Mickey again with the incredible detailed explanation above.

Along with my question above about trimming songs down how do you acquire assets that don't exist in the Daz ecosystem? I'm looking for a type of vehicle that doesn't exist and I know I can't sculpt it myself. I'm sure there are people who will do that for money but where do you find them and any ideas on price range? Or are there other communities of assets for other programs that you can still use in Daz (I've only searched Daz store and renderocity not sure of other options).

It's possible to get 3d assets for programs such as Blender and export them from Blender to obj files which can be imported to Daz. However, you don't get any textures or anything "poseable" (opening doors etc) on your vehicle. It takes some effort to add the textures so there is that.

 

[amster22]

Go there

You must be registered to see the links

for free car models.
It may require some work to have the doors open, and you will probably need to add/tweak shaders, but the largest part of the work is already done.

 

[i11uminati Productions]

Amster that was a great recommendation thanks.

Does anyone have suggestions for 1 or 2 good quality older (50's) asian male gen8 model?