Shoes for Poser - Oscillator

Shade tutorial:

Shoes for Poser

www.oscillator.se/3d

Shade tutorial: Shoes for Poser

Notes Welcome to the Shade tutorial: Shoes for Poser. This is my first tutorial for Shade. I was inspired by the friendly and generous people at Shader’s Cafe, www.shaderscafe.com, especially juanmanuel. Thank you, people! Also, thank you e-frontier for making these two wonderful programs, Shade and Poser, and for your excellent tech support. When I write Enter Modify Mode, it means that you should chose Tools > Modify > Enter Modify Mode (or use the Toolbar equivalent). When I write Exit Modify Mode, you just have to press Enter or click the Finish button in the toolbar. This tutorial is written for the Windows OS. If you run It on the Mac OS, just use the Option key instead of the Z key, and the Command key instead of the X key. Most of the time I will give the menu path to the commands used in this tutorial. This is just for convenience. Please use the toolbar if you are more comfortable with it (as I am). I hope you will enjoy this tutorial! Comments, questions and criticism is always welcome! Oscillator

Version: 16th of March 2006 Copyright: You are welcome to pass this tutorial on to your friends, as long as you don’t make any changes in the document. You are not allowed to sell it. Contact: [email protected]



1. Preparation Create a project folder on your hard disk. Name it “shoe tutorial”.

Prepare a figure for Shade

Start up Poser with an empty scene. In my example I’ve used the Poser 6 char acter James, but you can use whoever you like. Make sure the figure doesn’t use Inverse Kinematics. If so, uncheck the body parts in the menu Figure > Use Inverse Kinematics. Bring up the Joint Editor and click the Zero Figure button.

Save the character in your project folder. Name it “figure_zero.pz3”.



2. Modeling in Shade

Lock

Prepare for modeling

Start up Shade and create an empty window using File > New. Bring in the Poser character by selecting View > PoserFusion. If you haven’t already done so, click the Poser... button and select your Poser installation. Click Open... and select the “figure_zero.pz3” document. Shade imports the Poser character (it takes a couple of seconds). Close the PoserFusion window.

Optional

If you want to, this is the time to delete the body parts that you wont need to model shoes, ie everything from the knees and above. 1. Delete the unwanted items in the browser (bring up the browser using Ctrl+9 if you can’t see it). Select everything except “BODY:1 - Body” and press delete. 2. Enter Modify Mode. Switch to the vertex selection mode and select everything from the knees and above. Lock the figure by clicking the empty square in the browser’s lock column. Set up the perspective view: right click in the view and select Display Mode > Shading + Wireframe. Zoom in using the Aggregate - Camera window and switch to Eye mode. This will let us look at our model from different angles by just pressing Space and holding the mouse-button down in the perspective win dow. Do this regularly to check your modeling.



Start the modeling

Time to start the actual modeling. Our strategy is to create the shoe in two parts, the “upper” and the “sole”. We’ll begin by creating the Curved Surface that is going to be the “upper”. Chose Tools > Part > Curved Surface. Rename the Curved Surface in the browser to “upper” by double-clicking it. Control-click in the of the Front View at an appropriate height. Chose Tools > Create Disc and hold down the Alt key as you in the top window draw a disc that streches outside of the ankle joint. Convert the disc to a Line Object by chosing Tools > Convert > Convert To Line Object. The disc will be renamed to Closed line in the browser. Drag it into the “upper” Curved Surface in the browser. Adjust the shape and position of the Closed line by selecting it in the browser and using the Tools > Move > Translate and Tools > Move > Scale com mands.



A surface takes shape

Make a copy by chosing Tools > Copy > Translate and adjust it’s size and position with Tools > Move > Translate, Tools > Move > Rotate and Tools > Move > Scale.



Taking shape

Enter Modify Mode and add two Control Points, one at the smallest toe and one behind the big toe, by pressing down the Z and X keys and dragging across the blue line. Adjust all Control Points to make sure that the blue line follows the shape of the foot. Now adjust the Closed line of the ankle joint in a similar way. Select it in the browser and move the Control Points around and adjust their handles. Only ad just them in the horizontal plane.



An additional line

To smoothen our shoe we need an additional Closed line between our current two. We create it in the following way: 1. Chose Tools > Modify > Switch to adjust the vertical lines. The browser now displays six Open lines. 2. Add a Control Point about 1/3 way up from the bottom by pressing the Z and X keys and dragging across any of the lines. Chose Tools > Modify > Switch again and adjust the new Closed line in the same way as the previous two. Use the Tools > Modify > Switch command and move back and forth between the Closed and the Open lines. For some Control Points you have to add han dles. You do this by pressing the Z key and dragging the mouse from the Control Point.



Model and test

Show/hide

All the time, make sure the foot is not poking through the shoe. If so, adjust the handles and the Control Points. Do some test renders to check out the result. Bring up the render set tings window by chosing Rendering > Rendering Settings. Go for the Scanline Method and select the Resolution Preset 800x600. In the browser, select the parts you want to render and press Ctrl+R. Sometimes it’s a good idea to hide the foot/feet. You can do this by unchecking the correct box in the browser. When you are pleased with the shape, exit Modify Mode. You should see the three Closed lines in the browser. If you see the six Open lines, chose Tools > Modify > Switch. Let’s finish the “upper”.



Finishing the “upper”

Select the Closed line at the bottom of the shoe. Chose Tools > Copy > Translate to create a copy below the sole of the foot. Enter Modify Mode and move the Control Points of the new Closed line around so as to make a nice, shoelike bottom for the “upper”. Make sure you pull the Control Points inwards, below the foot, and that you pull up the heel and the front (but only a little bit). Chose Tools > Modify > Switch and adjust the lines going vertically to the other Closed lines. Now the uppers are finished. Time to start working on the soles.


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The soul of the sole

Chose Tools > Part > Curved Surface. Rename the Curved Surface “sole” in the browser. Copy the lowest Closed line from the “upper” Curved Surface and put it into the “sole” Curved Surface. Chose Tools > Copy > Uniscale and make a copy that is a bit larger than the shoe. This will be the circumference of the sole. Enter Modify Mode and chose Tools > Modify > Switch and adjust the horizon tal lines connecting the two Closed lines. Remove their handles (press the Z and X keys and click the handles) to create a clean surface. Exit Modify Mode.


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Stepping up

If necessary, chose Tools > Modify > Switch, so that you can see the two Closed lines in the “sole” Curved Surface. Chose Tools > Copy > Translate on the outer (larger) Closed line to create a copy below the original. As you have already removed the handles of the Control Points, you should get a nice clean vertical surface for the sole. Enter Modify Mode and pull up the backward facing Control Point. Adjust the other Control Points of the bottom Closed line so as to get a nice planar sole bottom surface. Exit Modify Mode. Copy the lowest Closed line and paste it outside of the “sole” Curved Surface, to create a “bottom lid” for the sole.


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High over heels

To create the heel, chose Tools > Part > Curved Surface. Rename it “heel” in the browser. Copy the bottom Closed line from the “sole” and put it into the “heel” Curved Surface. Enter Modify Mode and create two new Control Points on either side of the sole, right where the heel is going to start. Delete all other Control Points on the Closed line except the one which is facing backwards (you delete a Control Point by clicking it and then pressing the Delete key). Adjust (remove) the handles on the two new Control Points to make sure that the angle across the sole is not smoothed. Exit Modify Mode.


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Finishing the heel

Chose Tools > Copy > Translate to create a copy of the Closed line inside the “heel” Curved Surface, a small distance below the original. This creates the height of the heel. Copy the lowest Closed line in the “heel” Curved Surface and paste it outside of the “heel” Curved Surface, to create a “bottom lid” for the heel.


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Shoes with volume

We probably want our shoe material to have a bit of volume and not be infinitely thin. Select the uppermost Closed line of the “upper” Curved Surface, use Tools > Copy > Uniscale to create a copy just a little bit smaller than the original and move the copy to the top of the “upper” Curved Surface. Enter Modify Mode and chose Tools > Modify > Switch and adjust the hori zontal lines connecting the two uppermost Closed lines. Remove the handles as sociated with the horizontal lines (press the Z and X keys and click the handles) to create a clean surface. If you have followed this tutorial closely, you only have to do this on the backward facing Control Points. Exit Modify Mode. If you haven’t done so already, now it’s the time to save the Shade project in the project folder under the name “shoe.shd”.


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Exporting for Poser

Check to invert normals.

Delete the Body by selecting “BODY:1 - Body” in the browser and pressing the Delete key. Rename the “Body” group to “rShoe” (the name doesn’t really matter, we will create a new proper group inside of Poser). Convert all items in the browser to polygon meshes by selecting them one at a time (“upper”, “sole”, “Closed line”, “heel” and “Closed line”), and chosing Tools > Convert > Convert to Polygon Mesh. Use Surface Subdivision “Fine”. Before we export the shoe, we have to check the normals. Enter Modify Mode and chose Tools > Modify > Show Normals. Small red lines should protrude from the surface of the shoe – they must not point inwards. In my example eve rything checked out fine except the bottom of the “sole” and the “heel”. Check the correct box in the browser to invert the normal if it’s pointing in the wrong direction. Exit Modify Mode.

Export the shoe Chose File > Export > Wavefront OBJ. Use the following settings and save it with the name “shoe.obj”.


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3. Setting up in Poser Importing into Poser Switch to Poser. If you don’t already have the original character loaded, load it, remove Inverse Kinemantics and zero the figure in the Joint Editor. Chose File > Import > Wavefront OBJ and select “shoe.obj”. Use the follow ing Prop Import Options.

Positioning the shoe

Position the shoe so it fits the right foot of the character.


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Enter the Setup Room

Now, select the shoe and enter the Setup Room. Either build your own skeleton for the shoe or load the bones of the original character by double-clicking it in the library. Delete all unnecessary bones, ie all bones above the knee of the right foot. Next, with the shoe selected, bring up the Grouping Tool. We have the following groups: “upper”, “sole”, “Polygon”, “mesh” and “heel”. We want to bring them all into a group named “rFoot”, so we create a new group by clicking the New Group button, name the group “rFoot” and use the Add Group button to add the aforementioned groups into the “rFoot” group.


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And try it out!

Switch back to the Pose Room. Select the shoe once again, bring up the Joint Editor and click the Zero Figure button. Chose Edit > Memorize > Figure. With the shoe still selected, chose Figure > Conform to and select the charac ter. To try out the shoe, select the character and apply a few action poses from the library. As it is a conforming cloth item (ie a figure), it even bends. Well done!


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