\

Another Pose

Action Tool from tools menu.

Here is a video tutorial on How to do the IK (called Action Tool in the Tools menu) which turns your cursor into a tool for moving the body parts.




First I loaded the 2EZStudio  (made yesterday in Modeling Monday 4) from Scene Subsets

Then I loaded Victoria 5, and V5 Ponytail and chose a standing pose with arms raised from V5 poses.   Y rotate to about the best orientation and pined the feet (like the video) and switched to the mid Thigh camera.  Move the hip with your Action Tool cursor and then pin it.  Next I positioned the head and pinned it. Now click on a hand and move it to about the nearest location like the Mucha original.  Then the other hand.  For me, this was faster than the previous approach.  I could not move the fingers well with action tool though and wound up using the sliders in the parameters tab to pose the fingers.  It took a long time.  I really need to get some hand poses.

Next I worked on the expression.  I prefer to get the pose close to done before working on the expression.  So, I can be sure it works with the pose and camera.

There are two basic rules to remember.

1) Always brush your teeth twice a day.

2) Never, never use the zero expression.

:)

I tried quite a few clothing changes until I got some clothes that allow some transparency.  I used Adam Thwaites Bodysuit.  A Freebie at  bodysuit

It fit the pose well, and changed color easily by changing the Diffuse color of the various sections of the body suit.


First I tried dropping the opacity of the sleeves, torso, and legs to 80%.  I left the shorts at 100% because I don't want my blog to fall into the adult content world.

As you can see there are a number of spots that look about like holes in the body suit.  These don't show in the preview, but are in the render.  I tried the Mesh smoothing in the parameters with some success.

but not enough.  This is more than I want to try to fix in post works.  The curved surfaces will make post work fixes hard than just clone stamping.

I put the sleeves and legs back to 100% and got useable results.

A note about using the preset lighting -- the 2EZ lighting I set up before.  This is certainly not the best possible lighting.  At this point in my 3D Art Journey I am not looking to get great lighting.  I want beginner's lighting -- a clear figure and environment, with some shadows for shaping.  I'm sorry.  I am just not up for trying out a lot of lighting now.  I think that will slow me down from learning posing, colors, surfaces, shaders, and a number of other topics.  I will try to improve the lights from time to  time, but I now have a platform that let's me work on figures and faces and I can work on lighting later, when I have something I actually want to light well.


These images make clear that a lot of Mucha's charm comes from the extreme, fanciful detail. That level of detail and additional stuff for the image is far beyond my abilities and budget just now, but I think these images have benefited from study of the Mucha images and have a charm of their own.

Certainly 3D Art is capable of a finely detailed expressive face, that would be nearly impossible in a hand drawn lithograph.

2EZ Studio

First improve 2EZ lights

The Uber Environment Light 2 was borrowed from the Fiery Genesis Tutorial and has been a big help in letting me concentrate on learning other aspects of 3D Art.  I have studied this light from a number of sources and am ready to make some improvements.  First change the intensity scale to 100% and the Intensity to 50%.  This makes the intensity easier to match with the Distant Light.  Next change the color to White.  The orange color we were using fit the Fiery image very well, but can cause havoc in other setups.  Although, it is a good light in special situations, white is a better general purpose color.

To be better as in general use rather than specialized change the occlusion color to black.

<< s03 >>

Make the simple set

Create a 4m plane, name it floor and set the color to 128 100 64
Create another 4m plane, name it wall and set the color to 96 96 72

X rotate the wall 90 Y translate and Z translate until it is a very slightly overlapping wall and floor.  Do not move the floor, move the wall only.

Use the create group to combine floor and wall into a group called set.  Use the create group to combine the lights into a group called 2EZ Lights.

This is a basic and very versatile set, which is good for studio like images and quick testing of new characters, clothes, etc.  The figures will load in the middle of the floor and we can move (Z translate ) the wall back and forth to get the shadows we want.

Define Cameras

Load a figure, clothes, and hair.  Pose it and use that figure to predefine a number of useful cameras.

  Genesis basic female in basic female Fashion pose 01
           Full Figure

             Mid Thigh

               Mid Abdomen

              Head & Shoulders

           
                   Head 3 Quarter

           
                     Face Features only

           
          
      Create a new group for the cameras.
     
     
      Remove the figure and all clothes, hair... then
      Combine the set, lights, and camera groups into a group called 2EZ Studio
     
      Use save Scene subset  to save it for future use.
      

Add Measuring Aids

      Slosh has create a nice freebie called measuring wall.  It looks kind of like a police line wall (at least from movies ) We can use it to expand the capabilities of the 2 EZ Studio.  First download and unzip to your library location.  It is found on sharecg  .Measuring-Wall
 
When it is installed it will look like this in content library  
   

     
      It is a little different to use.  To add to your scene, first double click the middle icon called MeasureWall.  That loads a wall with feet and inch markings.  If you prefer metric, select MeasureWall and double click Metric. Double clicking inches will change a Metric Wall back to feet and inches.

 As this render shows it also has a floor which will interfere with our floor so we need to remove it.
     
In the scene tab the MeasureWall is not expandable so we can't just remove its floor or hide it with the visibility icon.

 Fortunately, there is another method.  Select the MeasureWall then open the Surfaces tab.  The MeasureWall shows a floor.  Go to its Opacity and set it to 0% and its floor is no longer visible in preview or the render.

     
      I added two more MeasureWalls hide the floors and X Rotate -90.  I rotate the second one Y rotate 180 and arrange the two pieces into a floor centered at the origin with measurements going each way.

      Group these measure elements into a group called Measure.  You can turn the whole measuring set on or off with the visibility icon for the group in the scene tab.  Add the measure group to the Studio group.
     
      Save and Scene Subset ( I just saved on top of my earlier 2EZ Studio ).

     
      It will be necessary to reaim the cameras with figure and pose changes, but that always the case.

More DM Freebies

The 3D artist team DM offers another excellent free model they call the Stair Wall

Available at
Stairwall

If we start with Fiery Genesis like we have before and then add the Stairwall, we can see chances for some good scenes right away


Lets add in another Stairwall and Y rotate 90 and align them so that we have a corner and the possibilities go way up.

This set is good for dramatic lighting as well.

When a piece is a high quality stand alone, often it is also an excellent high quality component of a larger construction.

Here I combined several Stairwalls with a Chapel (see Freebie Friday 3) to make a set as complex and rewarding as some expensive props.

Here is a list of the contents of my "Castle"

Because the pieces are so compelling the combination has many view points for your dramatic scenes or stories

By turning strategically placed elements the set can have many more rooms/scenes than a simple building alone.

<< r15 >>  << r16 >>

Although this isn't technically a freebie, I want to alert you to an chance at a great bargain.  Recently, at a Friends of the Library sale, I picked up a copy of Les Pardew's book about DAZ Studio for $2.00.  It has a DVD containing V3/M3 A3/H3  A4/H4 V4.2/M4.2 and a few clothes and props.  This is the first edition and although the text is solid it is somewhat out of date.  There is a second edition which is a better book, but does not contain any models.  So, if you shop for used books, you might just get very lucky.

Using Pose Guides


Choose an image for a posing guide.

in a 2D editor (I use Gimp 2.8)  create a new transparent layer over the image.
In the new layer with the brush tool black out everything in the image that is not the figure.  Export as jpg.  Working on the transparent layer preserves the image so it is simple to check your work and make corrections.  Don't spend a lot of time.  Good figure isolation can be very time consuming, but we don't need good edges this time, just be sure the pose is evident.

Create a new Plane 2 m and in diffuse color click on the small triangle on the left side and browse to your blacked out pose guide.

For the plane click on the small triangle for Opacity strength and browse to your pose guide again.

Do it all again so that you have two planes with your guide and arrange a zero level corner with the two guides at right angles to each other with one in the back and one on the left.  Create a third plane, but leave it blank and don't rotate.  Z translate it until it aligns as a floor for the guides.

Add in Genesis

Add skin, hair, and a long dress

Find the closest pose available and apply it.

Make what adjustments possible to fit dress to sitting pose.  Try to find a long dress with a sitting adjust  (SittingAdj or just Sitting in parameters Moves)  This is Genesis MFD. Arrange the view as straight on as possible.  Try getting the grid center line straight back into the distance and until the floor almost disappears.  << r07 >>

In this example the background guide is too large, but that is expected. First turn G's head until it is straight ahead like the guide.  To do this expand Genesis until the Head can be selected.

Use the bend, twist, and side-side parameters that are available for the head.

Generally align the figure with the back guide then Parameters-scale the back guide to the closest size match.  Remember this scale amount.

Save your work often.  Please do what I say and not what I do.  I just lost it all here.  I will get as close as I can and resume.

Apply the exact same scaling amount to the other pose guide.  For this pose this side is much less useful, but it still can give us some check points.  In this example the side guide is good for measuring, but not for aligning.

In the scene tab right click on Genesis and expand all.  Choose body parts in scene and adjust with parameters trying to align with the back guide. Check against the side guide often to be sure sizes still look right.  I have the best luck when I position the hip into the closest "location" and then move each body part from the hip out until it looks right.

This is near the pose for positions, but nowhere near the pose in feeling.  I scaled the chair to fit the pose and opted for fantastic hair.