♥ PosetteForever ♥

You may have noticed I've been merrily loading RM's vivid SCG freebie RE2 sets into Poser, wrangling masks etc to give the sets' luminaires 'natural' lighting for fun renders... <br /> <br /> And you may have noticed several days have passed without a fresh post to the gallery... <br /> <br /> Well, I've hit a hard one. RE2 "Room 115 STARS office" has a few desk-lamps and bulkhead lights, for which I've ambiance masks. Problem is the ceiling, which has six luminaire panels, some ducting supporting them as 3+3 and a 'riser' wall-duct. All on the same RE2 texture. So, if dialled to 'super ambient', all the ducting etc lit as bright as the lights... <br /> <br /> Okay, I'll just mask it... <br /> <br /> Um, remember the problems I had mapping the eye-textures <b><i>mostly </i></b>right for that 'MLP' render ? This began harder, got worse... <br /> <br /> I managed to copy/paste ducting +lights out of the main OBJ, and they still recognised the texture. But, mask as I would, the ducting 'leaked' and lit, spoiling the look. <br /> <br /> I tried several UV mappers and 3D editing programs, could not split out the luminaire panels from the ducting yet still have the latter accept the texture. <br /> <br /> After converting their OBJ to 3DS and studying it in classic Draw3D, which offers vertex XYZ lists, I realised the luminaires were shallow boxes, but the wall and ceiling 'ducts' were flat. No wonder I'd had problems. <br /> <br /> Upside, this meant the ceiling 'ducts' had a common 'Y' height ~ 3.8, which was different to the luminaires' top and bottom 'Y' heights of 3.36 + 3.34, which were very different to the wall-ducts' top + bottom 'Y' heights of 2.70 + -0.02... <br /> <br /> So, just by looking at the lights + ducts OBJ in eg Notepad, I could pick out which was what. <br /> <br /> All I had to do was add a few mtllib + usemtl calls to divert the luminaire panels to use eg lightmap_white.jpg which appears in several scenes... <br /> <br /> Yeah, right. <br /> <br /> Of course, the panels came up white, but the ducting did not call their texture... <br /> <br /> After a weary hour on hottest day of 2021 to date, I had to leave it, go eat. Made a picnic of sliced roast-chicken and chilled beetroots, pre-steamed. Still had enough chicken to eat well after cats stole several slices while I drained the mini-beets... <br /> <br /> Wasn't the first I'd seen of those cats today, not quite: But, suddenly, swoosh, bounce, gone... <br /> <br /> Cats will be cats... <br /> <br /> The texturing ? I'm going to save what I've done, have a pint of tea then go soak my head...

<img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> Cats are sneakier than dogs, gotta watch them around those delicious sandwiches! I hadn't realised that separating & calling the textures would be so complex <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/dontknow.gif" alt="" /> , I wonder if there's a simpler way <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/eusa_think.gif" alt="" /> ...

I think I screwed-up the test OBJ's external calls. <br /> <br /> Seems an OBJ shall have only one (1) MTL, even if referenced multiple times... <br /> <br /> So, I shall carefully craft a new, combo MTL, sanitise the test OBJ and try again. <br /> <br /> This is what I should have tried first, uh, first after the failed masking, but no, I tried to be toooo clever. <br /> <br /> I blame the heat... <br /> <br /> It was so hot yesterday that, with kitchen door wide open to catch gentle breeze, a dozen flies had got in and were zooming around like ebon foo-fighters. I've a rechargeable fly-zapper, but those flies were dodging my swings with ease. Then I <b><i>accidentally </i></b>caught one on back-swing. <br /> <br /> <b><i>CLICK !! </i></b> <br /> <br /> Within a minute, <b><i>all </i></b>the other flies had scooted out of the door into the garden... <br /> <br /> Kitchen does have an industrial-strength fly-zapper with twin 15 Watt 'blue' tubes. But, of course, it greeted start of UK heat-wave by dying. I'd cleaned the grille, changed the tubes etc etc, but no luck. Ordered same model from Amazon. It arrived late yesterday, much sooner than expected, and minus a 'heads-up' e-mail. Got me out of wash-room, of course, of course. <br /> <br /> Surprise, NOT identical. Other had chain-hangers and wall-mounting key-holes, which latter I'd used. This only had the hangers, so needed new wall fixings as would otherwise over-hang top cupboards' doors... <br /> <br /> Solved, hung. Curiously, this version has 'trad' thumb-joint starters for its tubes instead of previous all-electronic system, which I reckon was what failed...

No, that didn't work. Nor did five variations. And I cannot see what's wrong. Have shovelled all 'experiments' and 'iterations' into a sub-folder entitled 'OFT' against future investigation... <br /> <br /> And several more tries to UV map failed badly, very badly or hilariously... <br /> <br /> Upside, hottest day of year (~30 ºC in kitchen) let me defrost freezer in half usual time. Appliance now chilling ready to refill from towel-wrapped heaps. Was -17ºC a few minutes ago. When reaches -20ºC, turbo-cooling will switch to 'larder' zone, which is currently hovering at 10º ~~ 12ºC. <br /> <br /> FWIW, I've fitted a couple of neat 15cm braced-brackets to fly-zapper's original mounts, got a palm-width of stand-off distance. This has significantly increased 'knock-down' rate... <br /> <br /> Yes, I used a #4x25mm wood-screw to stabilise each bracket, plus an M4x25mm nut+bolt at each outer end to prevent hanging chain escaping... <br /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> - - - <br /> 'OFT' = 'Oh, F** This'. Been a while since I invoked such....

I reckon I can use the luminaires' lower vertex coordinates --Bottom level of their boxes-- to make six flat 'sheet' objects that I can put into Poser scene just below those wretched 'light-panels'. Texture and dial these 'sheets' to 'super-ambient' as light panels... <br /> <br /> So I would not be changing the originals' OBJ / MTL etc etc in any way, and they'd not need masking. Just copy/paste into eg free Notepad...

That did not work, either. And, again, I cannot see why... <br /> <br /> Needed a nap to clear migraine... <br /> <br /> But, after back-tracking and <b><i>again </i></b>trying several free or budget 3D editors, I <b><i>accidentally </i></b>found how to delete vertices etc in Blender. (BFA fork.) <br /> { Mutter, mutter, <b><i>ijit UI</i></b>, mutter, mutter... } <br /> <br /> So, I took the lights + panels + strip that I'd previously extracted, ripped it back to just the six shallow 'cuboids' of the luminaires. Saving them as an OBJ, I used find/replace in free Notepad to tweak 'Y' coordinates. Moved them down just enough to clear the originals, re-saved. <br /> <br /> With the main scene OBJ loaded at ~25% original, I soon masked its desk lights and bulkhead lights, dialled them to super-ambient etc. I loaded in the modified luminaires' OBJ at same scale. Used XYZ translate to align just below scene's luminaires. <br /> <br /> I made the room door transparent to get a fair camera angle, ran a test render and cheered. <br /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/ayeah.gif" alt="" /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/ayeah.gif" alt="" /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/ayeah.gif" alt="" /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/ayeah.gif" alt="" /> <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/ayeah.gif" alt="" /> <br /> Full render currently running on 'Box'... <br /> <br /> It is a win. Even if took injury time, extra time, a 'tactical substitution' and penalties...

Thank you kindly Nik <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/thumb.gif" alt="" /> ! <br /> <br /> "<b>classic Draw3D</b>"... is this a Corel product <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/eusa_think.gif" alt="" /> ? <br /> <br /> "<b>It is a win. Even if took injury time, extra time, a 'tactical substitution' and penalties</b>"... <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/lmao.gif" alt="" /> It worked <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/eusa_clap.gif" alt="" /> !

Free Draw3D v4.1.3 (July 2009) Shervin Emani <br /> <br /> Reads only D3D, 3DS, ASC, 3D and CSV. But, has a very, very simple, user-friendly and remarkably nimble UI, plus more tools than you'd expect...

<img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/thumb.gif" alt="" /> Thank you kindly Nik, I just checked it out now! Wow, it's really light weight, nice, compact & capable <img src="https://www.posetteforever.com/images/smiles/eusa_clap.gif" alt="" /> !