Help needed, please: M4 Skins Auto Converter For G 2 Males

zawarkal

Rogerbee said:

If you loaded an M4 Elite texture and didn't touch it, the material preset you save will have the EHSS. If, after you loaded the texture, you decided to use the SSS shader as a replacement for the EHSS and then save the preset then the preset will then have the SSS shader.

Using CTRL double click and choosing ignore means that the texture will be retained but the shader will be replaced by whatever you load. Whatever you load will be what is saved by the material preset.

What you do when you use the converter is to select a file which loads the texture, the texture will have whatever shader the artist gave it. The script converts the file that loads the texture into a DUF, that's all it does. Something has gone awry though as something is messing up the DUF and giving us the issue that I pointed out.

Basically, saving a material preset is us manually doing what the script does

CHEERS!

Thank you for clarifying that for me. That is what I needed to know.

Slosh

Rogerbee said:

From what I can gather, the G2M has the M5 Philip texture which had the EHSS, M6 and M6 HD load with textures that use the SSS Base shader. G2F has the V5 Bree texture which uses the EHSS and Gia, V6, V6 HD and Josie all use the SSS Base.

The converter does something odd when it loads the textures and I wouldn't use it till Slosh figures out what went wrong and does an update. The clone UV's for V4 and M4 are fine.

CHEERS!

Sorry if I'm coming to this too late. The Set M4 UVs preset does indeed remove the shader information and resets it to DAZ default. The V4 equivalent actual removes all textures as well. Currently, I have not been able write a preset that does not do this, although I have tried. The preset, if opened in a text editor, only has settings for UVs and absolutely nothing about a shader, so I don't know why it changes it. I think the script would need to read the current shader, then re-apply it afterward. I will work on that, as I too find it frustrating that it changes the shader.

Edit: I figured out the problem and fixed it, but will have to resubmit the product before you will get the changes. In the meantime, I created a set of UVSetters for Genesis 2 and uploaded them to ShareCG: UVSetterGen2

This freebie includes: Base Male, Base Female, Gia, Girl 6, Michael 4, 5, and 6 and Victoria 4, 5, and 6. Please note that the presets only work if you already have the UVs in your runtime. Michael 4 will not work without having Michael 4 for Genesis 2 Male, Victoria 6 will not work if you do not own Victoria 6, etc.

Rogerbee

Ok, that's fine,

However, it's the Skins Auto Converters where I've found the problem, not the UV setter, I don't touch that and if I need to change the UV I do so in the Surfaces tab. The Skins Auto Converters seem to mess up the DUF or whatever it is they create to load the textures. I've detailed the issue fully on the previous page. The Clone UV's are all fine as I've made my own material presets and they all work properly for me.

CHEERS!

Slosh

Rogerbee said:

Ok, that's fine,

However, it's the Skins Auto Converters where I've found the problem, not the UV setter, I don't touch that and if I need to change the UV I do so in the Surfaces tab. The Skins Auto Converters seem to mess up the DUF or whatever it is they create to load the textures. I've detailed the issue fully on the previous page. The Clone UV's are all fine as I've made my own material presets and they all work properly for me.

CHEERS!

I will talk to DraagonStorm next time I see her in chat and tell her what I did to fix the problem in my product. I don't know if she can do the same in hers, but we'll try to come up with a solution. It may need to be that she removes the UV settings from hers altogether and then you would apply my preset after applying hers. Whatever way, I will discuss it with her and see what we can do.

DraagonStorm

I have figured what is happening with the ear issue, but need to look into exactly what the fix is.

All of the other properties have an 'match' with the original M4/M5 textures. For example what was 1_SkinFace is now Face, or 2_SkinTorso is now Torso. But Ear didn't exist in M4, it was part of 2_SkinHead. So when the script is doing the conversion it is getting the Shaders for all of the old surfaces and assign that Shader to the new... But not to Ears. The script does a copy from SkinHead, but that copy command is not bringing over the Shader, just the textures and values.

I will look into it.

Slosh

DraagonStorm said:

I have figured what is happening with the ear issue, but need to look into exactly what the fix is.

All of the other properties have an 'match' with the original M4/M5 textures. For example what was 1_SkinFace is now Face, or 2_SkinTorso is now Torso. But Ear didn't exist in M4, it was part of 2_SkinHead. So when the script is doing the conversion it is getting the Shaders for all of the old surfaces and assign that Shader to the new... But not to Ears. The script does a copy from SkinHead, but that copy command is not bringing over the Shader, just the textures and values.

I will look into it.

I'm sure you don't need verification from me, but hopefully it will help. I just ran your script and it does indeed transfer the shader from the newly chosen texture. If the user was getting DAZ Default all the time, it is most likely because the new texture has DAZ Default as the shader. I checked the M4 Elite characters and they all have DAZ Default if using the PZ2 files. More correctly, they have Poser Default, which defaults (no pun intended) to DAZ Default in DAZ Studio. If converting the .ds files, the HSS is applied as required. So, for the user that had the DAZ Default issue, it is likely that the preset you were converting actually uses the Default shader.

As for the ears, it is a matter of writing the shader definition into the script, which I am sure DraagonStorm will fix as soon as possible. The good thing here is that the shader issue was brought to attention and I discovered it in my own product (not to be confused with DraagonStorm's converter) and I was able to fix it.

Rogerbee

Ah, yes, I get it,

I can see what was happening now. Glad you guys are on top of it, I look forward to the update.

Regarding the shaders, for ages I was using the Poser versions of the Elite textures in DS and then manually applying the EHSS. I kept wondering why things didn't look quite right, then, when I bought one of the Elite textures later, I realised that I'd never installed the DS versions of the textures before, so I went beck to my Product Library and remedied that.

CHEERS!

caravelle

I didn't visit this thread for a while, but now I see that there will be an update. Fine. But still I didn't find any Readme (to hope for a proper instruction would be illusionary, I suppose...). >:-(

DraagonStorm

polka dot said:

I didn't visit this thread for a while, but now I see that there will be an update. Fine. But still I didn't find any Readme (to hope for a proper instruction would be illusionary, I suppose...). >:-(

Fixed the script(s) [Both M4 and V4].. And have been sent to DAZ QA. Update should be forth coming.

Proper Instructions:

1. Load Genesis 2 Male (or Female for V4 skin converstion)

2. Select Genesis 2 (Male or Female)

3. Double click on New Surfaces For Old... icon

4. Select the MAT file for M4 or M5 to apply to G2(M/F). You will see the .png file associated with the .pz2, dsa or ds file. and click on open.

The script does the rest.

If you want to save the converted version. File->Save as->Material(s) Preset

Rogerbee

Not quite, it should be:

2. Select Genesis 2 (Male or Female) in the Content Library

3. Click Scripts, click V4 (Or M4) Skins Auto Converter, double click on New Surfaces For Old... icon

Folk won't get lost then.

CHEERS!

PS (Looking forward to the update, I've done most of the ones I wanted manually now!)

caravelle

Thank you, DraagonStorm, Slosh and Rogerbee. I hope that in all this Christmas turmoil I'll find the time to try it... :) Merry Christmas to you all!

Rogerbee

Merry Christmas to you too,

Hopefully the update will be soon (not Daz soon)!

CHEERS!

Rogerbee

One important thing to note, if you're going to manually port over a Gen 4 texture to G2 by saving it as a materials preset, load the Gen 4 figure and load the texture you want to save onto it, this way you get all the material zones. I forgot to do that before and of course the eye textures were messed up as I forgot that Genesis doesn't have the eye surface and G2 does.

DOH! :red:

CHEERS!

GDBoone

I'm not finding the icon for the New Surfaces for Old in Daz. Installed it, and it's not available to select in the scripts portion.

Rogerbee

Which scripts portion? There are Scripts folders in People: Genesis 2 Male and Genesis 2 Female and the scripts are in the M4 or V4 Skins Auto Converter folder there.

CHEERS!

GDBoone

Sorry, for the G2M figure.

Rogerbee

They should still be where I said they would be, in the scripts folder under Genesis 2 Male, not in the main scripts folder.

CHEERS!