Creating skin with Quixel for Daz People

ObscuroArcanum

Hopefully I've dropped this thread in the correct board.

I've looked on the forum and have been unable to locate an answer to my question. What I want to do seems simple enough in theory: create skin textures for Daz figures - V4, M4, G2F, G2M and I don't know about the G3F and G3M figures because I have read comments slamming Substance Painter and unable to handle something with Genesis 3's UVs (I understand very little of this, as I'm new to this degree of texture creation)

Exporting V4 from Poser as an .obj file, she has 60-odd groups and that was a bit much for Quixel as it gave me one of those "Are you really sure you want to be doing this?" cautionary messages, so I'm wondering if it's possible to break V4 (and the other figures) down into a smaller number of groups, following the method the figures adopt with the layout of the UV layout (grouping toes, feet, shins etc as they are on the texture images) and import that altered .obj into Quixel.

If it is possible to take V4, M4 etc into Quixel to texture them, I was hoping someone would know the method and steps I need to take to accomplish this.
(And please, don't suggest that I use 3DCoat instead to create textures for my human figures. I have tried the trial of 3DCoat and it crashes on my computer: the program launches normally, but as soon as I click on any part of the screen it crashes. Every. Single. Time.)

Thank you!

patience55

I know nothing about Quixel.

I do know that for many programs to handle the UVs of the G3s and G8, first you have to export out an .obj file [no textures required, just write surfaces and groups of course] with the UVs "collapsed." Use that .obj for painting on.

Lissa_xyz

The problem with collapsing UVs is that you will either paint on everything at once, or need to create separate material groups, and like Substance, Quixel cannot paint across it's material/object groups.

lululee1

I use UV mapper Pro.

UVs "collapsed."

In the top menu bar go to Map

Color by material

Substance designer recognizes the colors so quixel might.

it does not paint across the materials but if you pad the seams it might work for you.

I believe Blacksmith 3D does paint across the material zones.

Cheerio

lululee

Cheerio

lululee

 

ObscuroArcanum

I don't understand how to collapse the UV's. Is it a setting when I'm exporting V4 from Poser, or something when I'm saving from UVMapper?

I have gone into UVMapper and gone Map>Color by Material but this has only changed the way my UV maps are displayed to the left of my model. It does noting to condense Victoria 4 from 62 groups or 28 materials.

I have tried taking V4 into Zbrush and manually grouped the elements together into a single polygroup, matching the layout of the textures - grouping the limbs together, grouping the torso and grouping the face etc. Is this a correct method? Is this what you mean by collapsing the UV's?

I know I can paint the skin in Zbrush, but because I am adding Quixel (and later Substance Painter) to my working pipeline for general texturing, I would like to know if it is also possible to create the skin in these programs also.

Also, I'm not really looking to purchase Blacksmith3D just to paint skin. From what I have seen done with Blacksmith3D, it is aimed at people who are using photographic references to create the skin textures for their characters - I am looking to create the skin textures without using photographic resources.

Oso3D

When you export the obj from Daz, there's a checkbox for 'collapse UV tiles.'

Tick it

jestmart

You don't have to collapse UVs for pre-UDIM figures, Genesis 2 and earlier.

ObscuroArcanum

timmins.william said:

When you export the obj from Daz, there's a checkbox for 'collapse UV tiles.'

Tick it

I'm using Poser, as I mentioned in my opening post. I double-checked the export settings today and I cannot see anything that appears to be associated with collapsing UVs.

 

jestmart said:

You don't have to collapse UVs for pre-UDIM figures, Genesis 2 and earlier.

Does collapsing UVs condense the number of groups an exported .obj has? This is something else I'm not understanding - not only how to collapse UVs but also what it will do and how it will help make take a humanoid figure into Quixel to paint the textures and not be wrestling with 62 groups, which is what I would need to do if I took V4 exported directly from Poser into Quixel.

Lissa_xyz

You need to understand UVs to understand what's being said. UVs has nothing to do with the amount of groups. G3 and G8 have UDIM style UVs, whilst G2 and previous are all collapsed. Take a look at this thread.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/58159/previous-uvs-vs-udim-a-visual

I'm assuming the 62 groups you are seeing are all the things like lfoot, rfoot, lhand, rhand, etc, you'll need to take the obj into a modeller to get rid of those. Those are the vertex groups, which have nothing to do with uvs.

ObscuroArcanum

I understand the other thread and the differences between the layout of the UV's. I'm familiar with the stacked layout as this is the way V4 has her UV's displaying in UVMapper.

The discussion of this thread appears to have been derailed along the way about discussing the UV's and collapsing them and the UDIM- whatever that stands for. My original post was enquiring about the number of groups in V4's figure when I export it from Poser (not Daz Studio as another person posted, saying there is a checkbox I need to check to collapse the UV's) and making it a more manageable number for importing into Quixel without receiving the cautionary message about my .obj file having so many groups.

 

Vaskania said:

I'm assuming the 62 groups you are seeing are all the things like lfoot, rfoot, lhand, rhand, etc, you'll need to take the obj into a modeller to get rid of those. Those are the vertex groups, which have nothing to do with uvs.

 

You assume rightly. These are the groups that I see and the groups I am asking about, if I condense them into the like-groups that are portrayed on the UV's.
Thank you for getting back to the original question and answering my question. I was originally asking about these groups - not the UVs.

jestmart

Don't export from Poser, just grab the object from the Geometries folder.  Even if you consolidate the the material zones and vertex groups that will not change how the mesh is UV mapped.

ObscuroArcanum

I have Poser opened when I'm working, so it's easier for me to just export my figures when I need them particularly when I'm working on M4 and need him complete, human figure plus the genitalia.

Thanks anyway for the tip.