Jewelry U3DAC April

[Finis]

Need your help. My spiffy new gtx1060 has the horsepower to do caustics with Iray in a reasonable time. Great for the jewels. I'm trying to change the top of the neck for the display due to messy mesh there. So I deleted the polys on top but now neither Hexagon nor TS will close the hole or solidify the object. I'll probably start over with the original and try to neaten the mesh another way but if any of you can close the many edged hole at the top of the neck I'd appreciate it. Blender, Softimage? Here's the obj file.

Also what is the Abbe number of Emerald or Beryl?

[Draise]

Wha? The workspace won't close it up? it has a really good "Fill Hole", all you have to do is loop select the hole edge.

[Draise]

I capped it for you in the Workspace.

[Finis]

Workspace is not to be used. However, since you sold your soul to that devil to cap this: Thanks! I tried the "close" function in Hexagon but it didn't recognize the opening as a hole. I tried various tricks too. No luck. I wasn't looking forward to fixing the messy geometry by pushing vertices and edges. Thanks again!

Things I learned about Iray caustics: Architectural mode (MLT) takes a long time. It produces simplified caustics. The color is projected but not much focusing effect. Architectural + caustics takes too long even for the new card. Regular mode (path tracing I think) plus caustics produces a good effect much quicker.

I can't find the Abbe number of emerald or beryl anywhere. I read that doesn't have much fire, colorful sparkles like diamond, so numbers for glass are good enough.

[Steinie]

Will this chart help?

http://www.gemselect.com/gem-info/refractive-index.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Finis]

Thanks Steinie but that's not it. No problem. The Abbe number of glass will work since emeralds don't have much dispersion anyway.

I had much trouble getting a good UV so the texture looked right on the bust. I got Sculptris so I let it do the UV and painted the model there and exported the UV'ed bust and the texture. Daz-Iray likes that. However, Hexagon won't put the texture on it correctly. The texture image from Sculprtis looks like what is on the Hexagon picture. It is separate pieces for different areas of the model. So Hexagon is not doing the UV right when importing the obj. I'll try to place the neclace on the bust in Daz. I hope to learn Blender this winter. Then physics, soft body, or cloth can place things like necklaces realistically.

Sculptris is great! However, it wouldn't import the bust until I changed several things. Polys with more than 4 points. Edges with more that 2 triangles attached. Bad geometry caused that. Vertices with too many triangle points on them.

The goal is a picture much like the earlier ones but more realistically rendered. I might make a jewelry store interior someday. I scaled characters (Daz free stuff not my work) to average US height* and used them to scale the counter. Does the counter look right? I think it should be taller with the main surface at female waist height.

*Average adult height for US caucasians: male 5'10" (178.2cm) female 5'5" (165cm). Hmm, I'd have guessed an average lady is 5'9".

[pugman 1]

Finis why do you still fight with all those apps , you must learn blender .sorry you can do what you like .
even 3d world mag sees blender as one of the top software to date .
glass in blender is so easy modeing has so many tools that ts das and other software does not have .
and the help to lern it youtube has the answer for any prob or anything you need to learn.
A couple of mounths and you will not regret the move . maya users are now using blender because its mors efficient work flow .
but you ca do what you like just trying to help you bud..

[Draise]

Whatever gets the job done with the most pleasure.. or in other words: whatever floats your boat. Sometimes the workflow between apps and finding their strengths is the fun part I suppose - problem solving can be fun. I like the strength of trueSpace with the WS and MS. I like Softimage. I like Blender. I like Bryce to a degree. I like Mach Studio Pro 2. I like Krita. I like Inkscape. I like Unreal Engine. Every one is unique and brings something new to the table. It's the final image or video or game that really matters.

I do recommend trying to use Blender in part of your workflow. In my opinion I like Blender for many aspects and use it in my workflow: specifially UV's, texture making, Animatics and video editing, sometimes Motion Graphics. But... having started learning it... Using Blender is a fight in itself, as is Maya.

Blender is not my go to app over all, though it has it's perks having a complete 3D workflow in it (from 2D sketching, all 3D stuff to compositing and video editing)... because if you want it for animation with ease: it doesn't have animation layers and you can't layer/offset animation clips - something that has existed in Maya and Softimage for a very long time and is a requirement for Mocap and library based animation for quick and large productions. I won't put all my effort into it till that area has drastically improved.

It's not the end all solution, and studios going to Blender also know the fact that 30 perpetual licenses of a $3000 dollar per seat application (or just constant infinate pricing being rented out) is a no brainer to go have a similar software opensource and free forever.

But do use it. It's useful.

[Finis]

I use Hexagon, Daz-Iray-3Delight, and a little TS (geometry paint is awesome) because they are free and it's what I have. Blender is definitely on my to do list. Hopefully I'll get started with it while I have some free time this winter.

As a hobbyist who wants to do more than I have been an all-in-one program with plenty of power that is cheap is best. Blender is that. Maybe a few other tools that do specific things better or easier. Draise, sure use what works for you but with too many moving stuff between them becomes troublesome, you have to learn many UI's, and "Jack of all trades, master of none". To each his own though. Some can handle juggling several programs and others will stop doing CG if they can't use TS. The learning curve is initially steep for Blender but look at what those who met that challenge can do. Many people have learned it so you can too.

Look at pic1 and pic2. Do you see any difference? Which looks better? Especially with regard to the emeralds and caustics. One of them rendered in 4 minutes and the other in 25. Still needs work on UV's, lighting, placement, and camera view, and the emeralds need something.

[Draise]

They look practically the same. Go for the 4 minute one in future!

Just a tip, add more specular/reflection to the gems as they do sort of look a little plasticy.