Happy Thursday my people!
I have several early access videos for you today that I'll drip-release over the coming weeks on my various channels. I'll see if I can convince Midjourney and the new Photoshop AI tools to whip up some snazzy thumbnails for them.
The first batch is a small series on bringing Daz characters into Unreal Engine and making them usable with the third person template. I've been meaning to make one or perhaps two videos on this topic, and accidentally ended up with four so far:
- 1 - Creating a playable Daz character in UE
- 2 - Creating a custom retargeter
- 3 - Fixing Clothing in Blender
- 4 - Attaching Hair
Other items to cover on my list include adjusting materials, using existing animations on Daz characters, and animating morphs/limbs in UE. I'm also planning German versions of these in the near future.
Speaking of Unreal Engine, I've managed to chop one of my recent streams into 6 or so quick tips on using UE, covering anything from groups to bookmarks and other navigational nuggets of goodness I don't see mentioned in other beginner videos. At this rate, if I release two videos a week, my upload queue will last until the beginning of October!
Speaking of German things, I did a small series on wrapping characters recently that I've uploaded without any thumbnails (lack of time you see), and it looks like it's enjoying some success despite the relatively low subscriber count over there. Looks like there's demand for German 3D tutorials out there, and I'm happy to oblige in my spare time (just in case I find any).
I'm going to make one more video in the Wrap series, which deals with using a head scan and how to turn it into a Genesis head morph. It's a subject I haven't covered even in English yet, so I'll do that while I'm at it. Wrap is the app that keeps on giving, and I love figuring out new ways of putting it to good use.
In other news, I've bitten the bullet and bought a rather hefty Reallusion software bundle, including iClone and Character Creator, plus all kinds of other exciting stuff! It's been on my radar for a while, but I've not had the mental capacity to take in another app. Not only is it an excellent animation tool with the capacity to make use of existing Daz content, it also has a ton of fascinating live link features, hooking in to ZBrush, Substance Painter, Blender and of course Unreal Engine. I'm hoping to use it as an additional animation front-end for the latter.
Because I know literally nothing about either iClone or Character Creator, Brian has very kindly offered to teach me the ropes via live Zoom sessions. We'll see if we can record them and turn them into a series like "Jay learns iClone", so I won't forget how a feature works, and for likeminded folks who can learn alongside me. Stay tuned for more news on this develops.
And finally, we saw this incredibly cute baby squirrel behind our house today when we got back from a routine dentist appointment! I was able to put my GoPro right in front of it as he was eating what appears to be a bit of chicken batter!
Have a great week 👋