Jay Versluis

DAZ Studio 32bit Lip Sync Test with Michael 8 - it still works 😁

Did you know that the 32bit version of DAZ Studio has a tool included  called Lip Sync? It's a separate tab that lets you add a WAV file,  specify a DMC configuration file and generate visemes from the audio. I had never tried it out until today, inspired by many a conversation with viewers asking me if Anilip2 is worth the $90 (spoiler: it probably isn't). 

Here's Michael 8, rendered in  Filament, with a voice file I've recorded on my iPhone. I might make a video on...

Disable those yellow flashes in DAZ Studio 🎃

In this episode I'll show you how to disable the yellow surface flashes  that happen when you hover over parts of a figure. It's enabled by  default and not quite obvious where to find the option to leave us in  peace. 

I made this video for Solomon, he has a great channel on many  things 3D and DAZ Studio, check it out here: https://youtube.com/SolomonJagwe

Animating with Spring Dynamics (preview)

I've just investigated the Spring Dynamics script by 3D Universe.  This thing rules! I've applied a walk animation to the Toon Mouse, then  added the spring effects to his ears, nose and tail. Now everything  wobbles, without manual animation work. I love it! 

I'll make a video on  how to use it soon.

Making Polygons Invisible in DAZ Studio (great to fix poke-through)

In this episode I'll show you how to make a group of polygons invisible on any given object in DAZ Studio. I'll also explain how to create selection sets to turn your inivisbilised faces on again with ease. This is a great trick to fix poke through without changing the actual geometry of your figures, or to hide parts of an object that are otherwise in the way (think of hair poking through a hat). Enjoy!

For Jeff.

Co-Stream Rehearsal with Jeremy

Yesterday I've spent about 4 hours with Jeremy in Singapore re-configuring my OBS for two camera sources. We've been co-streaming Raft for a bit last year, and we've been meaning to try this out with video. Such a workflow presents various challenges from a production point of view:

• the guest needs to see my presentation without delay to react, rather than having to wait for Twitch or YouTube
• my mic audio needs to be routed to two audio destinations: OBS for streaming, as...
  2021-01-29 13:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Adding Links and Documentation to your DAZ Studio Products

In this episode I'll explain how you can create icons in your DAZ Studio product that will open links and internal text/PDF documents. The trick is to write a super small DAZ Script that will launch either a web browser, or the appropriate app to read your included document. It's a little fiddly, and there are tools you can get to make this easier, but I thought I explain how to add those finishing touches to a good product.

Here's my article that contains the code snippets for y'all's ...

Packaging DAZ Studio products for distribution

In this episode I'll explain how to package a prop so that it becomes a shareable ZIP file. The principle is the same for other objects you want to share, like clothing or scenes, only the way in which each item is saved will differ. I'll walk you through the whole process using the Tangaroa Coffee Mug from Raft, made by Brian. You can download it here: https://ko-fi.com/s/540b3fa06a

For Pablo.

Fun Fact: I mana...

Adjusting the walk height of an aniblock in DAZ Studio

In this episode I'll show you how to adjust the walk heigh of an aniblock animation for a Genesis 8 figure in DAZ Studio. Sometimes aniblocks don't line up well with others, particularly when you're mixing and matching those from different vendors. We can either edit keyframes, or use a clever way of layering an "adjustment" block on top of your current animation. I hope this helps make your runway animations look spectacular.

For Dorelle.

Animation Madness: Mixamo to DAZ Studio to Marvelous Designer (and back) - oh my! 😎

I did a stream this week in which I was bringing a Mixamo animation into DAZ Studio, then export it to Marvelous Designer and animate a skirt. From there I brought the skirt animation back into DAZ Studio - and it all worked with no poke through! 

There are a great many steps to the process, so I'll leave you my notes here, before I get a chance to tidy them up and expand them with screenshots on my website. My plan is to turn this into a mini series this month (before I forget how...

DAZ Studio: OBJ Sequence Export (and Import)

In this episode I'll explain how to extract an OBJ sequence from DAZ Studio, using Blender as intermediary application. All that's required to make it work is the full version of aniMate 2 and a copy of Blender.

I've made this with Serge in mind, who needs this feature. There's a script that can export OBJ Sequences directly from DAZ Studio, but it stopped w...

From Marvelous Designer to DAZ Studio: Applying Poses

In this episode I'll apply a pose to the skirt I've imported previously. This involves exporting a posed OBJ of your character from DAZ Studio, importing it as a Moprh Target in Marvelous Designer, then exporting the posed garment again as a Morph in DAZ Studio.

Direct Link to the video: https://vimeo.com/497712582

From Marvelous Designer to DAZ Studio: Exporting Maps

In this episode I'll show you how to export a garment from Marvelous Designer or CLO into DAZ Studio.This involves setting up UVs, baking maps and creating a new material with them in DAZ Studio.

Direct Link: https://vimeo.com/497694850

How to resize patterns in Marvelous Designer (precisely and from the center)

In this episode I'll show you how to resize patterns in CLO and Marvelous Designer, both vaguely and in precise increments. I'll also explain how you can resize the outside edge of a pattern without affecting any internal shapes. https://vimeo.com/496970237

For DreamLab.

Pictures of Panam (not the airline)

I've been playing a bit of Cyberpunk 2077 over on Twitch recently. I don't know much about the story or its history, nor do I understand much of what's going on in the game, but from a 3D point of view it's an incredible gem to look at. The attention to detail on characters, clothing and environments is breathtaking.

I'm having great fun with its photo mode feature, and although it's frequently bugging out on me, here are some images I took of a character whom I did some missions with. ...

Inflatable Boat Animation

Here's a 4K version of my inflatable boat animation. This is an Eevee render with screen space reflections and ambient occlusion enabled. It takes less than a second for one frame to render at 3840x2160. 

I've scheduled the stream as a Premiere for Chrsitmas Day, drop by if you don't have any other plans.

How to import OBJ Sequences into DAZ Studio with animMoprh

Several years ago I showed how to exchange animations between Marvelous Designer and DAZ Studio. It's still a hot topic and not achieved in a hurry. The magic ingredient is a script called animMoprh. Its original sources on the internet have long been extinct, so I've decided to host in a central place for years to come. 

Yesterday I spent some time updating the animMorph repo on GitHub and made a more el...

Inflatable Boat - Product and Scene Files

I've recently built an adorable inflatable boat animation with Marvelous Designer. I didn't get a chance to upload the final version yet, but I'll do that tomorrow (hopefully). In the meantime, I've got this quick Twitch Clip for your consideration.

I thought it might be fun to turn this into a usable product for DAZ Studio, and I've just done that - see attached 🤩

Feel free to use...

City Park - Animatics Compilation

I've been working on a new animation through the City Park Environment  set by Silver TM in Unreal Engine. Here's a compilation of all text  renders I've made during the session. The whole thing including  rendering took about 3 hours to put together during a Twitch stream. You  can watch it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/821853095, I'll premiere it on YouTube later this week.

There'...

Urban Future 6: Unreal Engine Animation

In yesterday's Twitch stream I've imported Urban Future 6 from DAZ  Studio into Unreal Engine and built a camera animation. The whole  process took about 2 hours, including rendering. I did a 4K pass just  now and uploaded it on my 3D Shenanigans channel. I've added the Iray  render from last year for a visual comparison. This is seriously  exciting: all 800 frames in 4K take about 1 minute to render in Unreal  Engine, compared to 5 minutes PER F...

How to apply Shaders in DAZ Studio

In this episode I'll talk about how to apply a shader to an object, how to select material zones, and the differences between a Shader and a Material Preset. I'll also show you how to create a shader from an object's material zone description.

This was a viewer question and a subject matter that crops up every once in a while, so I thought it's time I'd make a quick video about it. Enjoy!

Polygon Western Demo

I've been working on this little project on Twitch over the last few days and thought I'd share the first playable demo with you. It's nothing special, but it gives you a chance to play with the code we've been putting together. 

I'll see how difficult it is to make some or all of the Frontier characters selectable. I'll add future builds to this post when they're available.

Enjoy!

Version 1.3

• added auto menu dismissal when using Gamepad 2020-11-18 23:12:17 +0000 UTC View Post

New Twitch Trailer

I spent an hour this morning putting together a new trailer for my Twitch channel. They only gave us the option to add one with this interface upgrade earlier this year, limited to exactly one minute in length. All I could think of that fit the bill back then was the BTracer animation of my Twitch URL written out, much like the one I made for Christina in this stream. 

I'm currently on Twitch every day in the afte...

Simple Dress Animation - made with CLO and Marvelous Designer

I've great fun following Lori's new Marvelous Designer course and made  this dress. I really liked the animation and wanted to break it up a  bit, so I used all four CLO runway stages and rendered it from different  angles. That way I had a few cutaways. I love the way the cloth drapes 😍  

Music by Noir et Blanc Vie (YouTube Audio Library).

Fun with CLO and Marvelous Designer

I've had great fun getting back into Marvelous Designer this week, as well as its big sister CLO. You may not know this, but MD was not originally designed to be a 3D app. It's more of a "little brother" project made by their Korean parent company CLO Virtual Fashion, and they have their sights set on bigger and more profitable things, like real life garment creation. 

CLO is their flagship software, available for $50 a month. Features coming to MD are usually introduced in CLO a y...

Getting Started with Filament in DAZ Studio 4.14 Beta

In this episode I'll show you how to get started with the current implementation of the Filament Engine in DAZ Studio. It's early days, and things may change for the final release. In essence we need to adjust how the lights are translated so that the Filament render looks approximately like our Iray render, and then we'll reap the benefits of a more usable realtime viewport. I'll also explain how to render higher resolutions with Filament.

Further Reading:

• 2020-11-12 00:17:35 +0000 UTC View Post

Character Selection in UE4 - Part 15: Finishing Touches

In this final episode of the series I'm adding a few minor tweaks to the project: adding a gamepad specific message, dismissing the menu automatically when we're using the controller, and removing the debug messages.

Character Selection in UE4 - Part 14: Pre-selecting out Character

In this episode we'll implement a way to make the currently selected character highlight in the menu. To make this happen we'll write a Map Variable, extracting the name of our mesh and translate it into a Button object.

Character Selection in UE4 - Part 13: Adding Gamepad Support

In this episode we'll add support for game controllers to our Unreal Engine project. We'll take a look at what functionality is already working and find a way to amend the missing bits with something called Keyboard Focus.

Written instructions and more info: https://www.versluis.com/2020/09/gamepad-navigation-ue4/

Character Selection in UE4 - Part 12: Adding a Text Description

In this episode we'll amend the current menu with a descriptive text above the icons, so that users know how to change the outfits and skin tones. We'll add another animation to this text to finish off our previous foray into animating Blueprint Widgets.

Character Selection in UE4 - Part 11: Animating our Menu

In this episode I'll talk about how we can animate our menu with a neat fade. Up until now it just pops into place, so we'll make it look more handsome. This will be a good foundation for another animation we'll add later on.

Written instructions can be found here: https://www.versluis.com/2020/10/how-to-animate-ui-widgets-in-unreal-engine/