Free 3D Modeling Progams - Great to use with Xara

Hi Folks!

I know that some of you are already using 3D modeling programs along with Xara, and I think that some of you may be intrigued with the idea of using a 3D modeling program with Xara. In previous posts in the XaraXone fourm, Gare has shown how useful it can be to trace over your own modeling work and how to use a modeling program learn more about how photorealistic lighting and shadows work.

For the month of February 2012 you can add three 3D programs to your toolbox for free. DAZ is offering DAZ Studio Pro, Bryce Pro & Hexagon for FREE in both PC and Mac versions.

DAZ offers lots of free and low cost readymade models to get you started and there are lots more out on the web.

If you haven't seen Bryce in a while DAZ has worked on it and made lots of improvements. Hexagon is a full featured modeling program.

You will need to create a DAZ account (free) and then buy the programs for $0.00. They will email you the registration numbers. These are 32bit apps and if you are running 64 bit Vista or Windows 7 to avoid any problems with dependencies, you should install using the compatibility options set to XP Service pack 2. (For example: Right click on Hexagon_2.5.1.79_Win32.exe>Properties>Compatibilit y Tab>)

The DAZ press release says: "The free 3D software is available via download only on DAZ3D.com between now and February 29, 2012. The download is eligible for free updates and upgrade pricing on future versions of each product, a potential savings of hundreds of dollars."

To be able to get for free these great tools to help you improve and speed up your XARA work, well I just had to mention it.

(Disclosure: I have no affiliation with DAZ paid or volunteer.)

Barbara

thanks :D

Thanks Barbara I downloaded and installed all 3 earlier today. Now I just have to see which I like better any of those or Blender. Of course I have messed around with all of them some time ago but I am still determined to learn Blender.

Thanks Barbara. I downloaded all three apps yesterday. The 64bit and 32bit versions of DAZ Studio Pro were among the files in the download area of my account.

Thanks Barbara, I'll have a look when I can. I would also be interested in the comparisons of others between these and Blender.

Hi Frances,

The products from DAZ are specialized 3D applications.

Daz Studio Pro provides features to work with people, animals, and other types of objects like clothing. It has the ability to pose the figures and to make adjustments to facial features.

Bryce Pro is designed to make it easy to create environments and scenes using trees, bushes, lightning, etc.

Hexagon is a modeling application that can use 3D primitives and other mesh objects.

All three work well together and there is an application that can send your Daz Studio work to ZBrush.

A sample render from Daz Studio using the Cartoon presets is included in the attachments.

I am downloading DazStudio to start I have always found drawing the human form difficult to get right so I'm hoping to be able to use Daz to create poseable models that I can use sort of like a digital artist's manikin. Even if I can create a bitmap image that I can import into Xara would be great.

Hi Angelize—

DAZ Studio is sort of an inexpensive alternative to Smith Micro Poser. In fact, back when a 3rd party content provided called Zygote was making stuff for Poser, the two companies had a falling out, and DAZ started providing content for both Poser and for themselves via a virtual studio called DAZ Studio.

I believe, definitely YES, to your plans to pose figures and then draw over a render in Xara. DAZ Studio has no modeling tools, but it comes with Michael and Victoria, highly detailed "mannequins" you pose by dragging body parts or sliders. Then you render and export the bitmap of the scene.

Let's also not kid ourselves why DAZ Studio is free; it's the ploy Kodak might have used 30 years ago: give the cameras away for free—we'll make it back on film and processing. Check out DAZ's website. It's very easy to buzz through a couple hundred bucks buying wigs, makeup, props, and costumes for your free copy of DAZ Studio! To be fair, it's the same way with Poser.

I took a good look at Hexagon, it doesn't have a rendering engine, and actually looks quite like the modeling workspace in their Carrera product (formerly known as Ray Dream Designer a million years ago). I'm happy to report that anything you do model in Hexagon can be exported to OBJ and 3DS file formats and UV texture mapping is retained. Try loading the violin sample (which is very nice), and see what you can import in your existing program.

Bryce 7 shows the most work/improvement. Because Bryce has been the perennial orphan (like Poser), it's been owned by MetaCreations, then Corel for 15 minutes, and now DAZ—it must have been hard continuing to develop it.

But the rendering engine in Bryce is quite good; here's one of their sample files I rendered.

Attachment 87116

Anyone care to bring this into Xara and render it? :)

If you get into Bryce, I recommend that you set up overnight rendering sessions, because Bryce is a 32x app and the rendering engine slow and inefficient. But you can't beat the price, and if you need fairly photorealistic trees, Bryce is a good alternative to the entry level Vue program from Pixelogic.

—Gary

I remember getting Bryce as a freebie on the front of a magazine many years ago. I eventually bought a later version but never used it to its full potential.

The attached image is dated 1999 and was rendered on a pentium 166 (11 hours) :eek:

One thing I am thinking about trying is to model props in Blender and see if I can import them into Daz, but for now I am happy with my virtual manikins for creating illustrations with Xara.

Here is one I played with last night. nothing really special just a bit of experimentation

Attachment 87123

Fortunately, I don't think there's an Administrator on tg anymore, so I'm going way O/T here.

One of the things I go on about in books is using not one, but several different programs when an inventive solution is needed to visualize something you have in your head. Although the programmers have really stretched the bounds of what a vector drawing program should be able to do with a bitmap image, I think you still need a good bitmap editor every once in a while, even when your work is all vector-based.

Here's a gem of a shareware program ArtWeaver Free. The thing is almost literally Photoshop version 5. And it has two important functions: Threshold and Posterize, under Image|Adjustments.

Now, Barb started this thread with my encouragement (because "free" is a good software price, and these apps don't compete with Xara), so I thought it would be logical for her worser half to pick up the mantle...which is in our living room at the moment.

I created this image by first loading a character in DazStudio and rendering it. I took the render into ArtWeaver and selectively posterized areas so it took on a comic strip-like tone. This was deliberate, this is what I wanted from my approach. I then used Xara's Bitmap Tracer, did a lot of cleaning up...because so far, it's been the programs and not the artist creating this, and here is an approach to working with anatomy in Xara, starting with your free application.

Attachment 87124

The point is you choose the shortest distance to achieving your artistic goal by working between applications, and then you have more time for pure experimentation. And even if you choose not to use the vector conversion itself, I think a posterized copy of an anatomic pose lends itself to learning a lot about the shading and lighting of the human body.

My Best,

Gary

I downloaded the Daz3D files, but can't install them. They all have weird filenames like DAZStudio_4.0.3.47_Win64[1], BryceProContent_7.0.0.19_Win[1], Hexagon_2.5.1.79_Win32[1]. Where did I go wrong, as i see that other people apparently have no trouble downloading and installing...

I'm really going out a limb here politically, guyke. I don't really want to support DAZ products on TalkGraphics, a Xara-run forum, but here goes anyway, just this once (:)):

Your web browser might not have saved the files with the correct names. For example, if the Bryce content folder is 668,116, you did indeed download it but either your browser has stripped of hidden the file extension. Go to Control Panel, Folder Options, View first of all. *Hide Extensions for known file types* should be unchecked.

Attachment 87134

If an *.exe doesn't appear now for your download files, click to select the file name and then click to edit it, and they type ".exe" (without my quote marks!) at the end to label the property if the file.

If still no go, try a different browser, download to a different location, eh?

Sorry for this pause in Xara programming, folks!

—Gary

Thanks Gary, I had to add the extension manually, but then it worked.

guyke, I had the same problem, right clicked on the icon, looked at properties and yes, blocked, so I undid the block.
renamed it with .exe on the end and it went fine after that. it had a mesage like "file is coming from a different computer, so it is blocked."
and I pressed the unblock button, but that didn`t do anything actually, which is weird, also that you got no message stating that a file was blocked. Ah wel, windows, that explains it all. ;)

And Gare, I use my little toes for that it seems, my shins are usually fine. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

...I am happy with my virtual manikins for creating illustrations with Xara.

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Actually that is what it started out as being with Poser. They keep a version alive for a while called Poser Artist for Artist who didn't care about the animation part and only wanted the digital posing manikin. DAZ originally only sold content to be used in Poser but around version 4 they had a big clash about slow development and licensing restrictions placed on the EULA. DAZ stated they were going to develop their own replacement and it would be FREE. They eventually started charging for what they call advanced and pro versions but they remained true to their word and always maintained a FREE version. Soon afterward they starting purchasing software and thus you have DAZ: Hexagon, Carrara, and Bryce.