The Power of aniMate 2

Join us at Digital Art Live 

Sunday, Decemeber 3rd (part 1) and 10th (part2)

19:00 GMT / 2PM EST / 1PM CST / 12PM MST / 11AM PST

Two Part Event - I will cover all of the Amazing possibilities discussed in this thread Live, so we can get interactive and see a personal view of how we can put all of this to good practice.

aniMate 2 and Daz Studio make for a Powerful combination - making Animating in Daz Studio a real dream come true! I'm Loving It!!!

Rosie 8 Continues to Succeed!

I am absolutely Loving this journey! 

I get an idea of what she needs to be doing next. 

Several ideas for a base motion capture aniBlock come to mind immediately.

If Partial aniBlocks are needed, I know pretty much what I need and which aniBlocks will get me there in no time - so I create them and save them.

Put it all together and bake it all to Daz Studio's Timeline where I fine tune everything.

Run her through VWD Cloth and Hair for Dynamic Morphs Simulation (soft body)

Save, then Simulate the hair and Save again.

Set at least one camera and render. 

I often come back, like this one, and shoot it again from another angle.

I started this thread to help uncover many of the less-known but incredible things we can do with aniMate 2.

My entire workflow flourishes because of aniMate 2 - and how it so easily passes motion data between itself and Daz Studio's Timeline and back again in any order and for any reason.

After Getting through that, there has been no stopping me pushing forward with more explanations of how I use this wonderful setup to work out the animations I create.

Of course that all leads me down more paths, techniques, and useful tools to help along the way. 

So this thread has turned into a wonderful means to Get Animating in Daz Studio with very little cost and easy to follow guidelines and techniques. 

Having the article in the forum instead of here gives You the opportunity to ask questions, comment, make suggestions, share your own workflows... it's a big win for us all.

A living, breathing workflow experience that can evolve however we need it to :)

Come on In... the Water's Fine!

Special Thanks to Daz 3d!

Along with the newly revised Daz+ Experience and Daz+ Cloth Frenzy pages comes an updated and ready-to-grow Thanks to Daz 3d page, which again will become a lot more pages. 

After the generosity, patience and kindness they've given me over the Many Years I've been a Member, there simply isn't enough time, nor enough words to properly convey my appreciation to this Amazing Art Zone. So the least I can do is to sponsor:

Thanks to Daz 3d!!!

aniMate 2 - Real aniMating Power for Daz Studio!

A new thread I've started in the Daz Studio discussion forum at Daz 3d with short explanations and videos from GoFigure that show Powerful features and functions that exist in aniMate 2+, which is the paid version of aniMate sold at Daz 3d.

I'm not entirely sure how many of these features and functions are in the free version that comes with Daz Studio, because I've actually owned the paid version longer than I've been using Daz Studio (I bought it for use with Carrara using the aniBlock Importer for Carrara plugin)

Having this article in Discussion Forum format allows folks to pop in and ask questions if they like, making it a living, growing learning session as well as it being a great place to find these incredibly useful feature videos.

Now, the videos are old, so Daz Studio has changed quite a bit since they were made. Don't worry, it all still works the same. Where he shows us to use the "Tabs" menu, we'll be using Window > Panes instead, for example.

So come on in and join me for this fun exploration of a most powerful animation tool that can be owned for a simple, one-time small price.

More Fun in the pages of Dartanbeck's Journey - CG Filmmaking

There's a Lot of exciting things going on in the world of Dartanbeck Animations right now so I try to break into my news thread when ever I can to report about all of this absolute Glee I'm feeling each day as I animate, simulate, and render my story elements.

Being a Daz + Member has its benefits - a Lot of them.

In a very short time with some Amazing back-to-back sales events, Daz + members can really score big without having to empty that pocketbook.

With just a few well-placed purchases it's amazing how much falls into place for next to nothing. I feel very fortunate because I don't have much of a budget at all. 

Daz + really helps out!

Adventures in Hexagon!

I've known 3D modeling for quite a few years. My first steps into 3D was creating textures which immediately led to me the wonderful world of UV Mapping. 

Most people I talk to don't particularly like UV Mapping but I think it's powerful and wonderful! Enjoying that bit gives me a kind of a fun advantage - I think.

I'm already familiar with the Many modeling tools in Carrara. I really Love Carrara!

Now working in Daz Studio, I really enjoy having the Hexagon bridge. Being able to use Hexagon with Studio like this is very powerful for me because I'm always customizing shapes of content I buy.

Nowadays I'm thinking about making my own stuff rather than (better yet - in addition to...) reshaping purchased content, so I'm going to give a deeper look into my little friend Hexagon.

Made by the same team as Carrara, Hexagon came later as a stand-alone modeler, built as such from the ground up - whereas Carrara was built in the ground up as a complete 3D suite - capable of having more features for this and that added on along the way - and that they did. Carrara is for a Lot More than modeling, yet it has many types of modeler built in as well.

Finally getting my hands on Kibaretto's Beautiful Astromaster starship, I really wanted something different for its interior. The new supplemental Cockpit kit is Gorgeous. It really is. But it doesn't really fit with the look of any of the interiors I'd like to use for other parts of the ship. I already knew what I wanted, so it went together like a dream!

One of my very first purchases at Daz 3d, when I bought Carrara, was Kibaretto's Commander - Starship Interior Solution.

This has been my favorite starship bridge to date, although I do like many others as well. 

I could tell before getting Astromaster that it was going to be considerably smaller than the Massive Commander, so I was thinking I'd use the Geometry Editor to carve parts away and move stuff around a bit. You know... having fun with a good ol' kit bash!

I think my life has changed permanently now. MeshGrabber is such a blessing for Daz Studio. I can't thank ManFriday enough for creating this amazing tool! 

I'm usually using MeshGrabber on cloth and making corrections to hair simulations - which it's amazing for, by the way - but this time I had to be careful... symmetrical. 

I took my time making my selections. Having two starships overlapping each other doesn't make selection processes easier. The really nice falloff adjustments for how the rest of the mesh behaves is fantastic. Several smoothing options for the falloff range too. Sweet.

Commander has these really cool corridors that lead out of the bridge deeper into our imagination - one on each side and another in the center. Above that center doorway is a balcony leading to the lift - again... imagination time. 

The main fuselage fit pretty darned nice right away, but the rear corners by those corridors stuck out just too far, so I trimmed them back a touch with Geometry Editor, but the cool Sci-Fi décor was able to stay - all of it!

Those three rear corridors are pretty long (Commander is an amazing setup!!!) so that was my first attack zone for MeshGrabber. Going back and forth with the falloff, I was able to shrink those corridors right down, which gives a really nice dimension to the Astro. Still a work-in-progress, the lift will take us up and out the airlock (which I'll have to make) and down to the lower deck.

It's my plan to use Petipet's Sci-Fi interiors (various collections) to stage events in other parts of the ship. Being three times larger now, AstroMaster (now Astro Commander) has some room for breathing. We can stage some long distance adventures with this thing - and so we shall!

Another early purchase of mine was Kibaretto's Star Carrier, which is equally as amazing. It's a massive launch bay, but there are all kinds of nooks and crannies throughout that are fully detailed and beautiful  - perfect for staging nearly anything. 

Rounding out the image is The DigiVault's Stardomes, which I've performed some Iray magic to. Check this out:

In the Surfaces pane, click the main texture map to see where it is in the list, then select None for Diffuse, and set the color to black.

Now load that map into the following: Translucency Color (first set Translucency Weight to 1.0), Gloss Color (probably don't need that one) and in Emission Color. 

Load a nice HDRI into Iray's Dome (I use JoeLeGecko's HDRI Photoshoot) and then blast the Emission Luminosity with a few extra zeros to bring up those levels until you get a good match for your Dome. I didn't make the dome visible in render, but I'm sure you could. It would certainly add to the background. 

The Digivault's Stardomes have some really nice options. I'm really glad I grabbed it. 

Then I did my color grading, motion blur and signature using Project Dogwaffle Howler. My goto for artistic 2D!

HDRI Photoshoot, by Joelegecko, is the lighting solution you see on most of my work over the past couple of years. He's a master, that's for sure. He's the one who does some of the best promo art we see at Daz 3d. 

This set has over twenty HDRI and their mirror, so some 46 or 48 HDRI altogether. There are a lot of HDRI packs out there, and I have quite a few. When it comes to rendering my characters (using an alpha (invisible) background for compositing over backplates layering in other elements along the way) I always use this. 

That dark blue and red from my Rosie 2023 Demo was almost always number 21 and its mirrored version. Rotate the dark to the front and let the light seep in over each shoulder - red contrasting to blue. Fun! I love number 21!!!

The medieval video that followed almost exclusively used 22. Right now Rosie 8 is enjoying quite a few, but her Base scene is set up with number 10, rotated to have a subtle bit of sunshine coming in from behind her on one side with a cool blue center, and a sunrise pink over the other shoulder. 

It's really fun because rotating the dome around gives a limitless supply of excellent character lighting - like my new starship! :)

Woah... I thought I'd have to wait another year for this, but...

...here she is!!!

Rosie 9!

She still needs the Genesis 9 Essential Shapes Bundle in order to function properly, at which time finishing touches will also be made, but I think the look is right. She's ready to take on the world!

Wow. I am stunned that this is happening right now.

Check out my page for Rosie 9 for more information about her.

Please Help Support My Cause!

(or not... your choice!)

Feeling generous? Perhaps a little Kind Hearted?

Drop by Daz 3d and buy me a Gift Card! 

It's the Best Gift EVER!!!

After purchase, simply PM Dartanbeck at Daz 3d with the code

Thanks in Advance!                Dartanbeck