Analog to digital modeling technique

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[robcat2075]

That is wonderful! Low density mesh... high detail.

 

Shader Map sounds like a useful tool.

 

That figure reminds me of Rachmaninoff.

 

[John Bigboote]

That looks great Tore... looking forward to your next 'absurd theatre' episode... what a style!

 

I had to Google shadermap 4:

https://shadermap.com/home/

 

Needs further investigation... might actually get me to start using Normal Maps!

[robcat2075]

I'll note that there is also a photographic process for creating normal maps from real objects...

Normal Map Photography

 

 

It probably works best for matte white objects.

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[robcat2075]

Needs a piano.

[itsjustme]

Great stuff, Tore!

[detbear]

Looks Awesome Tore. I'll have to check out Shadermap. I've experimented with this some also, but not with Shadermap....

 

If you use photoshop and have an Invidia graphics card, there is a free plugin that automatically

converts an image into a normal map.

 

I can't remember the link at the moment, but it should be easy to find in a google search. Normal maps are quite

powerful to use in this way.

 

I WISH A:M could add animated maps for creating animated wrinkles and such. That would be a huge help.

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[robcat2075]

I WISH A:M could add animated maps for creating animated wrinkles and such. That would be a huge help.

 

Yes, you can do that.

 

You can tie the frames of an image sequence to a pose or a smartskin.

[robcat2075]

 

I WISH A:M could add animated maps for creating animated wrinkles and such. That would be a huge help.

 

Yes, you can do that.

 

You can tie the frames of an image sequence to a pose or a smartskin.

 

 

 

Demo Project

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[itsjustme]

Looks great,Tore!

[Fuchur]

That looks creepy and very great .

 

Best regards

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

That's very impressive!. Make sure to mention A:M in the credits or people will never know!

[Shelton]

Very nice!

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[detbear]

Reminds me so much of "James And The Giant Peach."

 

Looks fantastic Tore. Very creative and stylized. You have such a realistic look to your models and characters.

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[Rodney]

Tore,

While Xtas's method certainly will work there are other approaches that will work too and if it meets your needs...

 

The easiest way I know to use different images to change facial expressions or textures is to:

 

1. Number the images sequentially

2. Crack open the Decal's properties and adjust the Frame setting

Some care might have to be taken to make sure that still frames don't get interpreted as animated frames.

For instance, you might have a face go from frame 1 to 5 to 3 to 8 of a period of several seconds and you wouldn't (necessarily) want that to play out sequentially (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) or whatever over that same period of time. Therefore you might want to set the Frame's key interpolation to "Hold" to get that snappy movement from one change to the next (1...5....3.... 8).

 

The reason the images need to be named sequentially is so that A:M will recognize and import them together.

As such it's the naming and numbering that is the most important thing.

You can change what appears in those images (i.e. alter the sequence) via another program.

Or animate that sequence in another program and then have it play directly in A:M as a Decal, Patch Image, Layer, etc.

For ease of re-use set up a Pose Slider that adjust that Frame setting to the ideal frames.

 

There can be a few other gotchas but those apply to any image sequence.

An example would be that sequences should be the same size/resolution or it will likely break the sequence.

 

As for Xtas's tutorial... 'tis gone.

But Robert Holmen created another one almost just like it.

[Tore]

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Edited April 19, 2018 by Tore

[Rodney]

(Could be interesting to animate a displacement map this way...?)

 

Yes indeed. Although... I recall a recent post by Robert that suggested displacement didn't work as well as desired.

 

I just did a quick test of an image sequence to make sure I wasn't imagining being able to directly link the Frames to a Pose Slider. Yep. It works!

It might be time to request a few updates to the Pose Sliders so that we can get at some 'defined' settings.

In other words we can do quite a bit now with Pose Sliders (set them to negative etc.) but it'd be nice to have some descriptive tags or such that would assist in finding specific settings.

I suppose that's where we divide and conquer by making additional Pose Sliders to handle each of those areas.

Then we just drill down deeper until we get to the Pose Slider that stores our desired setting.