Here is a little goodie for those interested: a Camaro 2009 Spline Cage for free use in your commercial or personal projects.

Happy modeling, and don’t hesitate to post a link to your results here.

camaro_splinecage

Hi all, it’s been a long time since I posted a tutorial here, so here is a quickie.

In this video, I show how to import several reference images, to copy and paste parts of them onto the model using projection painting and how to blend them together using layers and layer masks.

I’m obviously projecting in a lousy way here, but the goal is to show the process, not to produce a masterwork

Don’t hesitate to post a comment if you have any questions.

On a side note : you’ll notice I use the parallel camera, and constant shading mode. The parallel camera allows to project on the model the best way, since there’s no deformation coming from the perspective. Projection painting projects the texture onto the model based on the view angle, so this is an important step, in my opinion.

Constant shading mode is as important, as it allows to see every detail of the texture without having its aspect affected by the diffusion of the material.

Hi there,

here is a simple Xpresso setup to create a switch between two materials without reaffecting it to the texture tag manually. Especially useful when working with proxy texture (or low resolution videos) to switch back to the high resolution one at render time.

First, you need to create the User Data that will hold the boolean switch. Here, I placed it on a Null Object.

Then, add a Xpresso tag, and drag the texture tag of your object, as well as the Null Object containing the User Data.

Using a condition node, you’ll tell your boolean User Data to act as a switch between the 2 materials. Drag the two materials from the material manager, and link their “object” output to each input of the condition node.Set your condition node mode to “material”, otherwise it won’t link your “object” outputs.

That’s it. Enabling/disabling the switch will yield a 0 and 1 value, which will make either the red or green material to be affected to the texture tag.

Here is the file : switchc4d

Here is a quick video showing how to select empty/unassigned texture tags quickly by making use of the layers and filter options of the Object Manager.

Click Image to Download video

P.S : In the video, I am locking the “texture tags” layer, so you can better see what is happening, but it is more efficient to just hide this layer in the hierarchy, as it will filter out all the unnecessary textures tags (the ones already assigned to a material). Especially useful if you have tons of objects and materials in your scene.

Ever wished you could set presets for your tools such as the Knife or Weight Tool much like any parametric object?
Well, this is possible by creating a simple script for each preset you wish to create. Here is the step-by-step procedure.

>> First, you’ll need to launch the Command Manager, by going into the menu “Window>Layout>Command Manager” (Shift+F12).

>> Now, enter “script” into the name filter field, and select the Script log and Script Manager and open them (hit “execute” to launch them).

Continue reading ‘How to set presets for tools’