Drudgery-Converting all my old clothes to G3 and G8
will2power
Posts: 270
I realized just recentely just how little I use a lot of my old clothing items. When I move figure generations a lot of times I don't look back at the old ones. Only I came to realize just how much stuff that I have and am missing out on because I've been too lazy to convert all the items of clothing. So I've taken it upon myself to start my clothing conversion process. I'm going through my entire runtime and picking out all of the clothing that I actually have and converting them to Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 figures. Starting with Genesis I'm going through and converting them wholly --including updating the shaders to Iray. So I'm going to be tearing my hair out over the next couple of weeks. It made me wonder if anyone else is in the midst of doing the same thing?
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I didn't even know you could do such a thing!
There are some tools that make it easy. It's just time consuming and tedious. But the good thing about it, is that I get to sort outfits as I see fit and in a way that makes sense to me. I started to think about how I wanted to do it and I'm separating them by genre first, then by the name of the outfit instead of the vendor name. In my personal runtime, the vendor name adds an unnecesary level to an already complex setup. This way I'm only searching through contemporary clothing items instead of ALL the clothing items. Or if I want Sci-fi clothing I go to the Sci-fi section and so on. It really is an opportunity to take control of my runtime. If you're looking to do the same, I started with a product that's available in the store that you might find useful.
https://www.daz3d.com/wear-them-all-autofit-clones-expansion-for-genesis-3-male-s-and-genesis-3-female-s
If you're converting to G3 then that's going to get you 95% there. It doesn't do so well with high heel shoes but flats tennis shoes and flat heeled boots are a breeze. I switch off between G3 and G8 so I am converting to Genesis 3 first. When it comes to actually converting to G8, I plan to redo the rigging for Dforce on everything that it will work with. When I have it converted to Genesis 3, I just pose the G3 Figure in the G8 Pose, export the geometry and then bring it back in as a new figure and do the Dforce weight maps and such. I just don't like the idea of abandoning a lot of old clothes because they are made before Dforce --or re-buying outfits.
i don't know WHY you would do such a thing pther than your idea to reorganize, but when you can just load a clothing figure and autofit it, that seems like a lot of unneeded work and HD space.
Before autofit and genesis you HAD to do this because when you added morphs to clothing with Morphing clothes, you had to save the new clothing figure, those days are long gone IMO.
Because:
I'm not one for avoiding things that will benefit me in the long run. It's a lot of work, certainly but it allows me to take advantage of what I have already purchased as well as advantage of new technologies like Dforce and Iray. If I'm working on a story or a set of animations then I have to autofit, correct any unexpected results, redo the shaders to what I am working with anyway. This way I do it one time and I don't have to do it again. Being able to recategorize in and of itself is one of the greatest benefits to me, but if you're using older clothing and hair in your runtime, you're going to end up doing all of this anyway. Do it once and get it setup in a way that works for you, and be done with it. And when the next generation of figures comes out, my runtime will be organized the way I want it and I will only have to go to one location to convert all of my generation clothing to the latest and greatest.
It took about 20 minutes to set a figure like this up for Dforce but once it's done I can go back to it whenever and not have to mess with it again. To me the work is worth it.
In this image, the Orc's clothing is autofit.
(Limit on image widths on the forum is 800px. ~Mod)
If you'll focus your attention on his breastplate, you can see exactly what I'm talking about. That's an Autofit conversion. The strap is distorted. In this image, there were also distortions on the Elf's hair that I had to hide in shadow and photoshop. That's why I don't go with straight autofits --they always cost me more in time if I try to go directly with an autofit on more than a simple cloth.
More power to you, I just don't know of anyone else that is actually converting clothing which is why I was surprized to see your post.
Don't know if you know this, but with G3 clothing, in most cases you can just change the ID identifier and resave and it should fit G8 like it does G3.
the off figures too or just the default G8 figure
Anything G8 from what I read. since they are all based on G8. I haven't done it as my DS doesn't give me the option since I don't use DIM or Connect
Autofit loses bones and existing morphs. Converting clothing using Sickleyield’s tutorial preserves existing morphs.
Not always. I have autofitted plenty of items that kept their morphs. Just autofitted this G3 dress on G8 (basic dress option) and the morphs are still there. Just saying, whatever method works for you, that is cool, just seems like a long tedious road IMO..
I haven't been going thru and redoing everything, but when I fit an item of clothing to another generation and adjust the shaders for an image I'm working on, I almost always save it....seems silly to do it more than once ;).
Laurie
I think what fastbike means is that autofit always destroys custom bones. As an example...April_YSH almost always does the movements for her hair with custom bones rather than traditional morphs. When her hair is autofit, the movement "morphs" are gone, rendering it rather unusable. Stuff you already know, I'm sure. LOL
Laurie
I work on it sporadically. I get an old clothing item from the bimonthly freebie bin, or I want to do a picture and think, gee, I think I had something like that for V4 or M4, and then I go look it up and try it out. Some things transfer really well, some things don't. (If it involves high heels or armor plating don't bother, unless you're a rigging pro or can parent instead of autofitting. If it involves straps, well give it a try and see if you can live with the deforming. Sometimes SY's Demuscler morphs for making clothes less shrinkwrapped can help.) I certainly haven't been doing it systematically. I tend to save out the whole outfit (or as much as can be made to work) as a wearables preset, and I have separate folders under G3F/Clothing and G3M/Clothing for Genesis Converted Clothes, V4M4 Converted Clothes, etc.
if I want to use it in Carrara I need to save anything autofitted as a support asset
so yes I am one of those who do this
with Genesis 3 and 8 items it is even more work as I need to change the weight painting type too
I mainly (99.9%) still use G2M/F so I am a/ converting my V4/M4 skins using Draagonstorm's Batch Converters and M4/V4 for G2 b/ converting my thousands of V4/M4 poses using Draagonstorm and Zevo's Pose Converter and c/ have converted all my G3M/F, and Gen1 clothing, now starting on V4/M4. Also converting K4 clothing and textures to G2M/F.
I would say that the most laborious converting is footwear, especially heels as using autofit can scew them right up but it can be done just takes a lot of patience..
I don't do full conversions, but I do save Autofitted clothes and hair I think I'll use often as new items because it reduces file sizes in the long run. (That is, Autofitting and save it out once then using that version in five scenes takes up less space than autofitting anew in each scene)
I convert some of my older clothes to the newer generations as well, sometimes you have to fix the weightmaps in some areas so the mesh doesn't break or crush when posed. Or I will swap fixed version of the mesh with the autofitted version to correct issues. It just depends on what you need convert, particularly if you're pulling clothing from G2 and earlier.
I just finished the conversion of my Genesis 1 female clothing last night --as far as the contemporary outfits go. This evening I am going to work on the shoes that I absolutely want to keep, but there aren't very many of those. I handle them as a rig from scratch and sometimes I just model a pair like them instead of wrestling with someone else's geometry I basically sit down with Zbrush and content myself to doing nothing but converting and tweaking. When it was all said and done, I converted 15 female outfits five pairs of flat heeled shoes and a few props and jewelry. For an evening's work and spending nothing but my own time --this was pretty effective. Now that the outfits are converted, I'm going to be working on their Dforce weightmaps this evening. All it cost me was time and I'm learning a lot about rigging and the conversion process.
I convert; G3 I change the identification of what I want, then resave.
G2, I create a custom fit morph if needed, and the same for Genesis; even converted a Generation 3 item - and used it once. But its there now.
If they've been remade for G8 (or G3), then I usually don't bother unless I have a need before they appear. Also depends on their price versus the time I'll spend.
But despite the comments of everything is just remade and/or recycled, there is an aweful lot out there that haven't been; sure some have similar items, but quite often, similar isn't close enough.
It makes good sense to do that. It\s a lot of work though but if you saved the new re-fits in a organized way that made sense to you then you're set really.
I'm as lazy as the next guy. If the PA re-releases the article and I really like it, I'll buy the re-release. But a lot of Genesis clothing didn't get that kind of love so I took it upon myself to make sure I could convert them. To me it was just a couple of hours, but if I purchased 15 outfits from the DAZ store, I'd be spending like serious cash unless they were on some kind of sale.
I will say this, though. It is my life's dream to be able to convert Aven's shoes from 3Duniverse without any distortion. It haunts my dreams.
I was thinking of exporting the old PC+ clothing I bought as OBJs and retransferring the rigging and such to them on Genesis 8. I wouldn't bother with Genesis 3 (myself).
Have you done any clothing in such a manner yet?
This is the problem - I'm never sure what really needs to be done to make a prop into rigged clothing. It must be more than transferring the rigging? What about JCMs and ERC doo-dahs (which I still don't understand) and extra movement bones? I am sure there must be a tutorial on it somewhere (probably SickleYield) but I've either seen one and thought it way above my head or I've missed it altogether.
I am doing Genesis 3 First and then moving onto Genesis 8. This was because there is a direct path for most of the G1 and G2 Clothing to get to G3. With the G3 bones being very close to G8, I basically only have to pose the G3 Base figure in the G8 default pose, then I can export the garment and bring it back in to rig for Genesis 8. For me, the reasoning behind that is that I still use some G3 Figures with G8 and on their own. I got to organize the outfits, and now all I have to do is carry the structure on in the G8 platform. I honestly got tired of the way the runtime is arranged in that you have to remember the PA in order to find their clothing. This way I can at least separate my general categories by genre.
I was thinking more in line with establishing clothing that fit in a t-pose and using dForce more than using and maintaing a quadrillion different morphs & JCMs which given the trouble autofit has with these already seems like a waste of modeler productivity.
As far as the materials go the material zones can be exported too however on some clothing brand new surfaces with iRay PBS materials are probably more in order.
I've heard others say they have better fit with Genesis & Genesis 2 on Genesis 8 than Genesis 3 on Genesis 8 and I agree, at least for the clothing I have tried (which isn't much). And that is one reason why I decided to export or OBJs and re-rig old clothing as new clothing so I can learn to overcome those problems with clothing and hair in DAZ Studio. I do need to learn all the times it is appropriate to ERC and I may learn JCMs & such but i think ultimately the JCMs & similar are a waste of time and hope the dForce functionality improves weel enough to supercede those methods.
Laurie, you are correct. Thanks for clarifying my statement.
Indeed! I only tinker with dForce but if I get one out of four drapes that doesn't explode I'm having a good day. Just far to unstable to be taken seriously right now.
Yeah, personally, I was badly scarred by some rigging experiments back in the V4 era, and haven't tried to see if it's gotten any easier recently. If you KNOW for a fact that an article of clothing will work with dforce (and some of the old V3/V4 stuff can be surprising in that dept, maybe because the PA wanted to make it compatible with the Poser cloth room), then it's not inherently unreasonable to do the route nonesuch describes: old outfit->OBJ->basic rigging with transfer rigging tools+dforce. It *might* reduce some of the mesh breaking you see at thigh, knee, ankle and lower torso on converted clothes, but oftentimes dforce will fix that by itself.
I go on conversion binges and convert stuff grow tired of it and then stop. I really prefer to just click and go with clothing and autofit takes a while and is tiresome to wade through its dialogs so periodically I do it. I still have trouble with a few areas mainly the sleeves.
i would love it if someone made a conversion script or tool. I would buy that in a heartbeat.