Using Gen 3 skins on Genesis

DWGDWG Posts: 770
edited July 2012 in The Commons

Up until now, the perceived wisdom has been that using a Gen 3 skin on Genesis needs you to run it through Texture Converter 2 to get a Gen 4 skin, but in the thread here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/3192/ Ebahr pointed out that you could autofit V3 to Genesis to make second skin outfits available, and I realised that would be equally applicable to full character skins.

The example below has V3 with the V3 Real Woman character autofitted to Genesis, with Genesis morphed with a GenX version of V3 Real Woman. In the first picture V3 is on the left, Genesis on the right. In the second picture she's wearing the Genesis Day Dreamer Outfit and that's a V5 pose.

Issues noted to date: Set all the Genesis textures from Lips to toenails to 0% opacity to eliminate poke through between the two textures, you'll want to use Genesis eye textures, and for some reason the toe bones disappear from V3 when you autofit her (note the left foot in the second image). Smoothing works better if you target V3 rather than Genesis.

With the skin issue solved I think the major remaining issue in Genesis-Gen 3 compatibility is the lack of clone figures for Luke and Laura.

Post edited by DWG on

Comments

  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited December 1969

    Ebahr pointed out that you can fix the disappearing toe bones issue by copying Contents/Data/Daz 3d/Genesis/Base/Genesis.dsf (or .duf) to Contents/Data/Daz 3d/Genesis/Base/Projection Templates and then selecting Genesis when autofit asks.

  • RCDescheneRCDeschene Posts: 2,798
    edited December 1969

    I was beginning to think the same thing when I saw it! :cheese:


    However, when I did it with Hiro 3, I quickly discovered some mesh warp with the eyes...


    Hiro 3 Eye Warp

  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited December 1969

    Definitely something weird going on there!

    From the colour I'm guessing those are H3 eyes, does turning them transparent and using Genesis eyes help at all? (Basically I'm wondering if Hiro's eye sockets are projecting through the Genesis eyelids)

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,808
    edited July 2012

    DWG said:
    Ebahr pointed out that you can fix the disappearing toe bones issue by copying Contents/Data/Daz 3d/Genesis/Base/Genesis.dsf (or .duf) to Contents/Data/Daz 3d/Genesis/Base/Projection Templates and then selecting Genesis when autofit asks.

    Yeah ... I'm not sure that's the best way to go. First, it loads a second copy of Genesis into the scene and Skin Binds it to the first, which takes a very very long time indeed. THEN Studio configures the Gen3 figure to fit over/around/through that.

    The other, more annoying, issue is that which Genesis parameters and which Gen3 parameters work on the figure seems utterly random. For example, I fitted David3 to Genesis, dialed up both David for Genesis and the GenX'd ART_Kieran shape that I have, and then applied the Kieran M3/D3 texture. No problems at all that I could see at that point. However, I discovered that the Genesis expressions work on the combined figure as a whole, but if you try to use the Genesis mouth parameters to open the mouth, nothing happens. And because David is being worn as a skin, his mouth parameters, whatever they may have been, seem to have disappeared completely. Also, it seems to be that while the outside belongs to the Gen3 figure, and you can fit clothing and hair to the combination as though it were Genesis, the mouth interior belongs to ... well, I'm not sure which figure owns the mouth, because when you look at the surfaces for the Gen3 character, the teeth and tongue say only "Default UVs", and they don't have an option for anything else, because of course Genesis has no idea what a Gen3 UV actually is. (Seriously, that image is just kind of horrifying, that is.) There's also a bit of deformation around the eyes, as RCDeschene reported, but less than with Hiro3, because his eyes aren't as extreme.


    His toes are, however, magnificent.


    I'm really baffled as to what that grim mouth thing actually is. I tried making David3's lips, inner mouth, tongue and teeth invisible and making the Genesis inner mouth, tongue, teeth, gums and lips visible, and that works, although it leaves him without any mouth textures. I tried bringing back just his lips, since his mouth really doesn't have to match the rest of his textures, but the lattice thing comes back as soon as I turn his lips or any one of those surfaces back on. (Something of a side note: GenX has a real problem putting David's inner mouth in the right place and making it mobile enough. I don't think that's related to this, though.)


    EDIT: Apparently, that weird texture issue thing can spread. The first character I tried this with, before Kieran, was The Executor. (I'm pretty sure his creators meant to call him the Executioner, but nobody ever caught the error. So now he's a very sadistic lawyer, I guess. But anyway.) It seemed to work well, so I closed the file and went on to Kieran. After I saw the issue with Kieran's mouth, I went back to Executor, and saw that you see in the second image below. It's not fixable except by deleting the Gen3 character and reconforming; normally you could fix this sort of thing by toggling the UVs, but there's nothing to toggle. The Gen3 character has only one option, and Genesis doesn't know what the Gen3 character's UV is -- if it did, we wouldn't be doing all this.

    genesiswearingexecutorM3.png
    800 x 783 - 2M
    genesiswearingkieranD3.png
    775 x 759 - 2M
    Post edited by vwrangler on
  • RCDescheneRCDeschene Posts: 2,798
    edited July 2012

    DWG said:
    Definitely something weird going on there!

    From the colour I'm guessing those are H3 eyes, does turning them transparent and using Genesis eyes help at all? (Basically I'm wondering if Hiro's eye sockets are projecting through the Genesis eyelids)

    Not really. the mesh error is mostly in the face itself, or the "SkinHead" surface.


    EDIT: Apparently, that weird texture issue thing can spread. The first character I tried this with, before Kieran, was The Executor. (I'm pretty sure his creators meant to call him the Executioner, but nobody ever caught the error. So now he's a very sadistic lawyer, I guess. But anyway.) It seemed to work well, so I closed the file and went on to Kieran. After I saw the issue with Kieran's mouth, I went back to Executor, and saw that you see in the second image below. It's not fixable except by deleting the Gen3 character and reconforming; normally you could fix this sort of thing by toggling the UVs, but there's nothing to toggle. The Gen3 character has only one option, and Genesis doesn't know what the Gen3 character's UV is -- if it did, we wouldn't be doing all this.


    You know, that actually looks like what you get when you pose Genesis with previous generation poses. There is a Script made by adamr001 that can actually fix that as far as the hands and feet go. But seeing your images made me realize something with what I just said. Perhaps this warp issue can be corrected with a head-oriented equivalent of the script.
    Post edited by RCDeschene on
  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,565
    edited December 1969

    I don't think it's the same issue, but rather a problem with vertices being grouped to the wrong body part.

  • RCDescheneRCDeschene Posts: 2,798
    edited December 1969

    I don't think it's the same issue, but rather a problem with vertices being grouped to the wrong body part.

    I see...


    Is there a way that this can be corrected?

  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited July 2012

    I don't think it's the same issue, but rather a problem with vertices being grouped to the wrong body part.

    There's definitely some of that going on. I reloaded my original example and it came out looking like a Star Trek transporter accident. So I set about disassembling that by setting all the fit to values to 'none'.

    The reloaded V3 SAE now has all her normal bones, plus big toes, abdomen 2, pectoral bones, and carpals - iow the full set of Genesis bones, and moving some of those, particularly abdomen 2, causes massive displacement across the whole body (interestingly the carpals look to work fine). Clearly using genesis.dsf as an autofit model isn't the way to go if you want to be able to save the piece and come back to it later.

    I need to check how much of the problem originates from that autofit to Genesis.dsf, and how much from the general process - more when I've a better idea what is going on.

    Post edited by DWG on
  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited July 2012

    Some further research and the lips melting together effect is definitely the autofitted V3 mouthparts rather than Genesis, presumably what should be lower lip vertices are being mapped as lower lip and vice versa. In fact this seems to affect all of the V3 mouthparts other than the tongue, and that distorts at anything more than very small movements. Presumably the same goes for all the other Gen 3 figures.

    I've also tried substituting the GenX clone V3, FBM V3 and FHM V3 dsfs for the Genesis.dsf, with, unfortunately, identical results. There aren't any other obvious alternatives I can think of that would link V3 and Genesis in such a way that the mapping for the mouth parts works. I can see why that wasn't developed, but it's frustrating when an idea comes so close to working, but ultimately doesn't.

    I have managed to save and reload a version of my original example image without any distortion occuring, that was using the Genesis X FBMVictoria3.dsf figure in the Autofit Projection Templates, cloneVictoria3.dsf might work as well, but I haven't tried that. I'm not clear why the version autofitted using Genesis experiences the issues on reload, but works when first autofitted - that may actually be a bug in the save or load routines.

    So, as long as you don't want a figure showing any expression, or with their mouth open, then we have a way of mapping a V3 skin onto Genesis, but if you actually want full expressivity, then we aren't there yet :(

    I suspect the method could be made to work for mouthparts as well as the rest of the body, but it's likely a rigging problem, maybe with mapping issues thrown in on top, and my rigging skills aren't up to it.

    I don't know whether using Studio v4.5 will make a difference here, I know there are some fairly major improvements to Autofit bound up with that, but I'm waiting for it to move to final release before I upgrade. If anyone else wants to experiment, let us know how it goes!

    Post edited by DWG on
  • RCDescheneRCDeschene Posts: 2,798
    edited July 2012

    DWG said:
    Some further research and the lips melting together effect is definitely the autofitted V3 mouthparts rather than Genesis, presumably what should be lower lip vertices are being mapped as lower lip and vice versa. In fact this seems to affect all of the V3 mouthparts other than the tongue, and that distorts at anything more than very small movements. Presumably the same goes for all the other Gen 3 figures.

    I've also tried substituting the GenX clone V3, FBM V3 and FHM V3 dsfs for the Genesis.dsf, with, unfortunately, identical results. There aren't any other obvious alternatives I can think of that would link V3 and Genesis in such a way that the mapping for the mouth parts works. I can see why that wasn't developed, but it's frustrating when an idea comes so close to working, but ultimately doesn't.

    I have managed to save and reload a version of my original example image without any distortion occuring, that was using the Genesis X FBMVictoria3.dsf figure in the Autofit Projection Templates, cloneVictoria3.dsf might work as well, but I haven't tried that. I'm not clear why the version autofitted using Genesis experiences the issues on reload, but works when first autofitted - that may actually be a bug in the save or load routines.

    So, as long as you don't want a figure showing any expression, or with their mouth open, then we have a way of mapping a V3 skin onto Genesis, but if you actually want full expressivity, then we aren't there yet :(

    I suspect the method could be made to work for mouthparts as well as the rest of the body, but it's likely a rigging problem, maybe with mapping issues thrown in on top, and my rigging skills aren't up to it.

    I don't know whether using Studio v4.5 will make a difference here, I know there are some fairly major improvements to Autofit bound up with that, but I'm waiting for it to move to final release before I upgrade. If anyone else wants to experiment, let us know how it goes!
    Funny you mention Weight Mapping, because that's what adamr001 told me in a PM discussion I am having with him about this. Here's exactly what he told me in the PM when I suggested if the warp could be fixed with a head script:


    The cause of the distortion is polygons moving outside of the range of their weightmaps. At least that's what the cause on the hands/toes were. It was easy to tell though, just check translation values. If you've got translation on the eyes, tongue, jaw, etc. then that's the issue. If not then it may be something else that'll be harder to fix than my hands/toes script.


    I checked as he suggested and all translations were 0.


    Though, when he mentioned that the issue involves Weight Mapping, I tried seeing if maybe applying the TriAx/Transfer Utility method on my Gen 3 figure (after Figure Zero Posing, of course) would make a difference in the outcome. However, durring the Transfer cloning process my program froze and crashed informing me that the process was taking up too much memory...


    So, I suppose someone with a larger amount of RAM will have to seek out the results of my hypothesis. Then again, I'm currently undergoing a nasty trojan virus that's really slowed down my laptop something ferice, so I strongly urge anyone interested in trying this out to do so and tell us what you get.

    Post edited by RCDeschene on
  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,808
    edited July 2012


    Though, when he mentioned that the issue involves Weight Mapping, I tried seeing if maybe applying the TriAx/Transfer Utility method on my Gen 3 figure (after Figure Zero Posing, of course) would make a difference in the outcome. However, durring the Transfer cloning process my program froze and crashed informing me that the process was taking up too much memory...


    So, I suppose someone with a larger amount of RAM will have to seek out the results of my hypothesis. Then again, I'm currently undergoing a nasty trojan virus that's really slowed down my laptop something ferice, so I strongly urge anyone interested in trying this out to do so and tell us what you get.


    Alas, there is still no joy in Mudville. The process kind of worked, but not in a way that you'd want to use. I was able to get through weight mapping and transferring David to Genesis as though he were a normal asset ... but just barely. (Transferring David as a clone of himself is just ... weird.) Even after exiting my browser, between normal system resources and what Studio was doing, I got up to 7.56 GB of 8.00 GB RAM in use.


    It also ran into some weird issues. The file did save, eventually, but I wound up having to kill the Studio process after the save because it just wouldn't let go.


    At first, it looked like it hadn't solved the mouth/vertices issue. I tried opening the mouth before I saved, and it was still all sticky latticework. But then, unlike before, when I reopened the file, David looked fine. Still some deformation around the eyes, a bit of weirdness around the mouth, but when I used the David head controls -- which were actually present, as long as I burrowed down through the scene menu -- when I opened his mouth, it was perfectly normal, and not a horror show.


    The downside? All of the Genesis controls and morphs don't work. I can't dial up any shapes, none of the Genesis body parts move, the expressions don't work in this version they way they did when David was autofitted rather than asset-transferred. Genesis is still there -- it's in the scene menu, and the surfaces can be selected. It just can't do anything. Effectively, the only figure in the scene is David.


    Maybe with 4.5, it'll be possible to turn Gen3 figures into geometry shells. With 4.0.X, however, it looks like this process just can't work.


    Sorry to hear about your trojan. Hope you get that cleaned out soon.

    Post edited by vwrangler on
  • edited December 1969

    Hey all. I posted a reply to a bit of the weirdness in the other thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/3192/P15/ . Curious, what versions of DS are people using, where the distortions are going that insane on the fingers and such? I haven't been able to recreate that in 4.5 as of yet, but I may just be lucky.
    Good luck, and have fun experimenting :)

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,565
    edited December 1969

    There was a fix to Genesis in 4.5 to solve the hand/feet distortion problem, so you won't see it there.

  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited July 2012

    I'm using Studio v4.0.3.37, so I don't have the improved autofit. I'm not proposing to upgrade until v4.5 goes final.

    A couple of points I didn't cover in my previous post.

    The first is just a note that I did notice a small amount of distortion, similar to the mouth parts, between the big toe and its neighbour - nothing visible with shoes on, but just a touch when you're looking at bare feet - hopefully this is covered by the v4.5 Genesis fix that FixMyPCMike mentioned. I haven't noticed anything with hands, but that might be figure specific and I've only experimented with V3.

    Second point is that I was able to delete the Genesis figure from the scene, leaving (the previously autofitted) V3 with a set of Genesis bones - which means she can use Genesis poses without compatibility issues (she can also wear Genesis clothing, but I think that's true of an unmodified V3 as well - not something I'd previously realised!). It may be possible to develop a useful hybrid that way. I know there are various unofficial projects underway to convert the Gen 4 figures to Triax mapping, but it may be a while before that process works its way down to Gen 3 and the less used figures like Luke and Laura and this mechanism may provide a short-cut. With the Studio v4.5 Autofit changes that process would hopefully create a roughly Genesis rigged figure while retaining the Gen 3 morphs.

    Editted to add: Ebahr seems to have managed getting the lips and inner mouth open without distortion in Studio v4.5, which is a definite step forward, and it may not be a complete dead-end if we can't fix the teeth and gums, given the existence of the Millennium Teeth - http://www.daz3d.com/shop/millennium-teeth/ which could hopefully be placed in the mouth in their place.

    Post edited by DWG on
  • RCDescheneRCDeschene Posts: 2,798
    edited July 2012

    I have the 4.5 Candidate version I'm not entirely sure what fixmypcmike means by the hands & feet distortion being fixed, but I took the liberty in testing the Autofit process of each Gen 3 figure that has a respective Genesis Shape. After fitting the Figure Zero Posed figures to a Genesis dialed-up with matching shape I received the following results as the outcome:


    Victoria 3
    Head: Minor
    Hands: Minor
    Feets: Minor


    Michael 3
    Head: Minor
    Hands: Minor
    Feets: Moderate


    Stephanie 3
    Head: Moderate
    Hands: Moderate
    Feets: Moderate


    David 3
    Head: Moderate
    Hands: Moderate
    Feets: Minor


    Freak 3
    Head: Major
    Hands: Moderate
    Feets: Major


    Aiko 3
    Head: Major
    Hands: Moderate
    Feets: Minor


    Hiro 3
    Head: Major
    Hands: Moderate
    Feets: Minor


    All Expressions were just as warped as it has been reported here. So again, I'm not quite sure what exactly was improved in 4.5 regarding this sort of thing.

    Post edited by RCDeschene on
  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited December 1969

    I did try one further thing yesterday - taking the Genesis-boned V3 and seeing if I could reapply the V3++ morph set to her, no go I'm afraid.

    I may try installing Studio v4.5RC2 on my laptop to see what effect it has (leaving 4.0.3.37 on the desktop machine), but my laptop isn't exactly powerful, so it may well struggle with the combination figures.

  • RCDescheneRCDeschene Posts: 2,798
    edited December 1969

    DWG said:
    I may try installing Studio v4.5RC2 on my laptop to see what effect it has (leaving 4.0.3.37 on the desktop machine), but my laptop isn't exactly powerful, so it may well struggle with the combination figures.

    What are your laptop system properties? Mine is a customized gamer notebook from CyberPower PC with 8 GB of RAM and a 64-bit processor.
  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited December 1969

    Core 2 Duo (can't recall which sub-variant, but early) and 4Gb RAM

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