Digital Art Zone

Hello, everyone.

First - apologies if this is in the wrong forum. I’m sure there are moderators who will move it, if it is, but as I am a new user (with aspirations of greatness! But aren’t we all?), I figured this would be a good place to start.

Second - Having recently bought the “Platform Pumps (by Idler)”:

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/platform-pumps

I find that I have a few questions. And the solution to all of them (or almost all of them) appears to be “Find a way to get these to properly fit Genesis - even if you have to drag them into Hexagon to do it.”

So, to get right to it:

I am using Daz Studio 4.5 Pro on Mac OS X on a current MacBook Pro (last revision sold before the Retina/CD-less Macbooks went on sale).

1 - The item says that it comes with a “loosen” morph - yet I am darned if I can find this in the parameter tab for the item.

2 - The item only appears to have installed the Poser files - and I did check to ensure that I used both installers for the product, so I am fairly certain that I didn’t miss any files. As the “what’s included” section on the product indicates it should have both Daz and Poser installs, I am a bit concerned about only finding the “Platform Pumps” items under my Poser Library in Studio.

3 - When attempting to auto-fit (I knew I would have to do this when I bought it - I almost got the Open-Toed Pumps for Genesis ( http://www.daz3d.com/shop/open-toed-pumps-for-genesis ) instead, but I wanted (a) closed toes and (b) closed toes)) I am running in to what I assume is a common problem with auto fit - namely that the option for “shoes - heeled” is not actually a real option. The only auto-fit available is “Boots - Thigh.” So even though I can tell Studio that the items should fit Victoria 4, I can’t actually tell it “These are heeled shoes, not thigh-high boots, please map and collide accordingly.” This is not that big an issue, except:

4 - Attempts to use the shoes and the foot-morph result in the entire front end of the shoe distorting grotesquely, and as there are no bend-morphs for the toes/soles and no fit-morphs for the shoe overall, like there are with the “Perfect Shoes” (http://www.daz3d.com/shop/perfect-shoes-and-stockings-for-genesis), I can’t go in and tweak them out to make them work the way I want them to.

So, after spending several hours wracking my brain last night, my question boils down to this:

Is there a way to fit these shoes to my model in such a way that her toes don’t protrude from the shoe at every opportunity, so that the shoes don’t distort oddly, so that the feet actually morph the way they should to the shoe, and - heaven forbid - do it all without having to drag the entire lot into Hexagon and rebuild it? Or at least “remodel” it? (in much the same way someone remodels a house, I would say.)

If I end up having no other option than to drag the shoes into an editor (and while I am not afraid to do so, I am a self-professed neophyte, so I’m not entirely confident that I could do it reliably or properly) - how hard would it be to do so? I’ve seen some products that have been updated from previous iterations to work with the Genesis bodies and morphs.

Has anyone done this?

And, before I commit myself to storming Thermopylae, as it were, has anyone already done this, and if so, would they be willing to share? I’d hate to duplicate someone’s efforts if it’s been handled already.

I hope I’ve been clear in what I’m asking, and I appreciate any help anyone might offer.

Thanks!

There are no circumstances under which Autofit is going to handle detailed high-heeled shoes well.  It’s not a matter of the only preset being for thigh boots; that basically just determines what bones are included.  Autofit will always destroy custom morphs. 

You can do slightly better by instead converting with the Transfer Utility.

Select the shoes.
Go to the scene tab and click the tiny square on the top right and choose edit-convert figure to weight mapping.  Choose TriAx.
Now start the transfer utility.  It looks like an arrow pointing up to the right on your task bar, probably in the building/scripting tab if you use default layouts.
Choose Genesis, Clone, Victoria 4 on the left and the shoes on the right. 
Expand the options and add “smoothing modifier” and “reverse source shape from figure.”  Click accept.

This keeps the extra morphs, but it probably will still have distorted results with shoes.

You will also lose customs with manual refitting in an editor, but if you can manage it you will get better results.  How long it takes depends on how well you already know the editor.  If you’ve never touched Hex or Blender (or whatever) before, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with it first.

V4’s zero pose has downward-pointed feet and Genesis has flat feet.  So refitting means you will have to reshape the feet to fit a flat shape while still getting the heels pointed in the right direction.  My experience with my own products is that this is doable but it can be tricky (which is why automation doesn’t handle it well, it’s just inherently difficult).

Thanks SickleYield for such a fast reply. I’ll try these suggestions out tonight after work and see what can be seen.

As a side note, completely unrelated, I absolutely love your Morphing Business Suit product, and I may ask you a few questions directly via PM about it later, if you don’t mind.

Thanks!

jim - 10 October 2012 04:37 PM

Thanks SickleYield for such a fast reply. I’ll try these suggestions out tonight after work and see what can be seen.

As a side note, completely unrelated, I absolutely love your Morphing Business Suit product, and I may ask you a few questions directly via PM about it later, if you don’t mind.

Thanks!

The answer is “yes, it can do that, you just didn’t look at all the morphs.”

Just kidding.  :D By all means, send a PM.  I will help as best I can.

Just as a learning exercise I modified the Mechgirl Aiko outfit for the old Aiko figure to fit a genesis figure. It was quite a bit of work and an interesting learning experience. The results are pretty mixed. The body suit came out nice, the leggings and boots less so. I didn’t bother to tackle the gloves.

Certainly wasn’t something I’d want to do a lot of unless I had an outfit that I absolutely had to have on Genesis that was not otherwise available.

I have to admit, even though I know how good Autofit is, and what a fantastic feature it is to have, I hate shoes!

I have given up and got some just for Genesis.  It does mean that sometimes I’m going to miss out on having the ‘official’ footwear for some of my V4/M4 content, but to be fair, provided I’m not doing a fairly extreme pose I’m quite happy to still use Generation 4 characters anyway.  But Genesis does bend better!

I put the Aiko stuff onto Genesis, and then morphed it to Tessa I think.

I used Poke Away to fix the boots, but the gloves fit fine.

I just used Hexagon to modify the clothes. Of course the downside is now everyone has the same boobs when they wear the Mechgirl Aiko outfit.

ghastlycomic - 11 October 2012 06:42 AM

I just used Hexagon to modify the clothes. Of course the downside is now everyone has the same boobs when they wear the Mechgirl Aiko outfit.

So how hard would it be to modify or build content in Hexagon, and bring it into Studio with morphs and dials and bells and whistles?

I fully intend to craft up a few Neo-Victorian/Cyberpunk style outfits for the projects I have in mind - I admit it’s going to be a long haul and a high learning curve, but I have made my decision. For an idea, I’ll be working on a long-running project (“Alice in Cyberland”), with some stuff detailed here: http://jemstone.deviantart.com/gallery/348852 (If you’re interested).

SickleYield - 10 October 2012 04:30 PM

You can do slightly better by instead converting with the Transfer Utility.

Select the shoes.
Go to the scene tab and click the tiny square on the top right and choose edit-convert figure to weight mapping.  Choose TriAx.
Now start the transfer utility.  It looks like an arrow pointing up to the right on your task bar, probably in the building/scripting tab if you use default layouts.
Choose Genesis, Clone, Victoria 4 on the left and the shoes on the right. 
Expand the options and add “smoothing modifier” and “reverse source shape from figure.”  Click accept.

This keeps the extra morphs, but it probably will still have distorted results with shoes.

So I tried this, and when I try to convert the shoes to weight mapping, it gives the following error:

“You must selected (sic) a figure built using Parametric Joint Parameters to perform this action.”

It appears that the shoes can’t be converted. Unless I’m missing something?

I’m willing to spend the money to get the open-toed pumps for Genesis, but closed-toes would really help.

The more I fiddle with this, the more it looks like it’s going to end up being editor-ville.

jim - 11 October 2012 09:38 PM

ghastlycomic - 11 October 2012 06:42 AM

I just used Hexagon to modify the clothes. Of course the downside is now everyone has the same boobs when they wear the Mechgirl Aiko outfit.

So how hard would it be to modify or build content in Hexagon, and bring it into Studio with morphs and dials and bells and whistles?

I fully intend to craft up a few Neo-Victorian/Cyberpunk style outfits for the projects I have in mind - I admit it’s going to be a long haul and a high learning curve, but I have made my decision. For an idea, I’ll be working on a long-running project (“Alice in Cyberland”), with some stuff detailed here: http://jemstone.deviantart.com/gallery/348852 (If you’re interested).

SickleYield - 10 October 2012 04:30 PM

You can do slightly better by instead converting with the Transfer Utility.

Select the shoes.
Go to the scene tab and click the tiny square on the top right and choose edit-convert figure to weight mapping.  Choose TriAx.
Now start the transfer utility.  It looks like an arrow pointing up to the right on your task bar, probably in the building/scripting tab if you use default layouts.
Choose Genesis, Clone, Victoria 4 on the left and the shoes on the right. 
Expand the options and add “smoothing modifier” and “reverse source shape from figure.”  Click accept.

This keeps the extra morphs, but it probably will still have distorted results with shoes.

So I tried this, and when I try to convert the shoes to weight mapping, it gives the following error:

“You must selected (sic) a figure built using Parametric Joint Parameters to perform this action.”

It appears that the shoes can’t be converted. Unless I’m missing something?

I’m willing to spend the money to get the open-toed pumps for Genesis, but closed-toes would really help.

The more I fiddle with this, the more it looks like it’s going to end up being editor-ville.

It sounds like they’re already weight-mapped?

SickleYield - 11 October 2012 09:47 PM

It sounds like they’re already weight-mapped?

That is quite possible.

I’ll try the rest of the procedure and see what can be seen. Thank you again, very much.

(Yes, I am usually this polite, why do you ask? )

jim - 11 October 2012 09:38 PM

ghastlycomic - 11 October 2012 06:42 AM

I just used Hexagon to modify the clothes. Of course the downside is now everyone has the same boobs when they wear the Mechgirl Aiko outfit.

So how hard would it be to modify or build content in Hexagon, and bring it into Studio with morphs and dials and bells and whistles?

Building content in Hexagon is probably no more difficult than building content in other modelling programs (apart from Hexagon’s crashes and bugs). Morphs you can make as long as you don’t alter the geometry of the mesh.

If you’re interested in building clothes I’d suggest starting by building a very simple shirt model, pants model, footwear model, etc. Don’t go for any style just try to build a simple body covering then experiment with it to see how it works when you pose the figure differently. Set up a lot of different coloured shading zones to help you keep track of what happens with what polygon groups as you move the figure through different poses.

This is what I’ve been working on so far as a learning experience. Once you figure out how to build a basic item of clothing you can then start working on style.

No point in building an elaborate clothing model right off the bat only to discover you’ve made some basic mistakes that make the whole thing unworkable. Just keep things simple at first.

Right now all the modelling I’ve been doing has been strictly for learning experience. I haven’t begun any production modelling yet, that’ll come after I’ve learned and re-learned the basics.

Crashes and bugs?  My heavens, no.  I’ve certainly never had Blender crash randomly, and of course everyone knows Autodesk’s products absolutely never crash or freeze.

(Heh heh heh.)

SickleYield - 12 October 2012 10:04 PM

Crashes and bugs?  My heavens, no.  I’ve certainly never had Blender crash randomly, and of course everyone knows Autodesk’s products absolutely never crash or freeze.

(Heh heh heh.)

I have brought Blender down…but it was more an out of memory crash….NEVER try to subdivide a nearly 1,000,000,000 face model…it will eat up all your RAM, go looking for more…small children RUN!!!...and then make your CPU break out in tears…it’s not a pretty sight. (And really, I thought I added a DECIMATE modifier to the mesh…not a subsurf one…honestly.)

SickleYield - 10 October 2012 04:41 PM

jim - 10 October 2012 04:37 PM

Thanks SickleYield for such a fast reply. I’ll try these suggestions out tonight after work and see what can be seen.

As a side note, completely unrelated, I absolutely love your Morphing Business Suit product, and I may ask you a few questions directly via PM about it later, if you don’t mind.

Thanks!

The answer is “yes, it can do that, you just didn’t look at all the morphs.”

Just kidding.  :D By all means, send a PM.  I will help as best I can.

It won’t let me answer your PM because it says your screen name doesn’t exist.

I was wrong, though.  The answer is actually no, you can’t.  I did not make the pants that way -  most business pants for women in fact have some clearance and don’t fit that tightly through that area.

SickleYield - 13 October 2012 06:35 PM

It won’t let me answer your PM because it says your screen name doesn’t exist.

That’s… Very odd.

I wonder why that is. I tried to send a message to a forum moderator the other day, but it vanished from my sent-box (I did save it to sent). Forum issues, perhaps?

SickleYield - 13 October 2012 06:35 PM

I was wrong, though.  The answer is actually no, you can’t.  I did not make the pants that way -  most business pants for women in fact have some clearance and don’t fit that tightly through that area.

That’s what I had thought, and I’ll learn to live with it. It’s not that big a deal, and I am nothing if not adaptable.

Thank you, though. That business suit is probably the non-first-party content I am happiest with. Best money I’ve spent on the site, really.