[Resolved] Geograft hiding base polygons

Stan Nice

Hey,

 

I have a Geograft on a genesis 8.1 F character that have its own UV and materials. I would like the materials of the geograft to blend with the original skin of the character, so I'm using a cutout opacity on the geograft materials. 

But it displays the inside of the G.1F, like if the geograft is hiding the polygons, no matter what I do for it (no properties on the geograft for displaying hidden polygons,geometry editor tool doesn't help).

Is there a way to display some or every polygons hidden by a geograft ?

felis

A geograft is normally set to hide the faces it covers, to avoid issues.

You can in princip change the hidden faces to at least one polygon.

Using cut-out oppacity on skin will remove subsurface scattering (on that surface), so not recomended.

But it sounds more like that the surface of the geograft has issues, e.g. a different shader.

What type of geograft are we talking about?

DrunkMonkeyProductions

AFAIK, this isn't going to work as you want.

if you're trying to match materials to a particular surface, such as "Body" of g8.1f, you'll need ot go into photoshop(or another image tool) and and match the materials from g8.1f to the UV maps of the geograft.

This may not be possible, especially with (human reproductive organs in the lower abodominal area), as some texture maps lack "certain" details. In which casey, you'll need to make a whole new set of texture maps.

Other solutions, could be to use Layered Image Editor, for a "best guess" match, using a geoshell, or possibly an iray decal.

Unfortunately i only use photoshop these days for this kind of issue, so it's a bit outside my wheelhouse for the others.

 

Richard Haseltine

A Geoemtry Shell is the most comon option, just give it a mask to fade it out as it goes from original mesh to the GeoGraft. You do, though, have to give the graft UVs that match the base figure's (you can have two UV sets, one custom and one matching at the edges and just doing anything where it will never be visible).

crosswind

1stly clarify if you made that geograft or just use a geograft product (better name the product....)

It's not like the Auto-Hide funciton with clothing, a geo-graft is meant to be used with hiding underlying polygons on the Genesis figure. There's a way of unhiding the hidden polygons but that'll make seams on the geograft edges and bring problems for rigging and posing, etc. Besides, using a Cutout Opacity map is not a proper way for your case.

So, as Richard said, using a geoshell is a much better option. Tailor make a UV as well as the blended texture map + Cutout Opacity for the geoshell and load the geoshell to the Genesis figure.

 

Stan Nice

Thank you all for your replies.

The package I want to use is indeed a creator's package. It's the "Pig Tail" from the "Pearlette" bundle.

At first, I thought the polygons still existed (since they reappear when I remove the geograft), so I assumed there had to be a way to make them visible again. But since that doesn't seem to be the right approach, I'll go with the more painful method instead: matching the Genesis 8.1 textures to the geograft's UVs, then using a geoshell with a cutout.

If I understand correctly, if I want to take this further, I'll need to learn how to use a third-party application (such as ZBrush or Blender) to modify the geograft's UVs. That would allow me to directly copy and paste the Genesis 8.1 shaders onto the geograft. Is that correct?

In the meantime, thank you all for taking the time to help me. :)

lilweep

Stan Nice said:

 

 using a geoshell with a cutout.

you technically dont need to use a geoshell. There are multilayer shaders too, and also LIE. But geoshell with opacity mask is a common approach if you dont want to deal with multilayer shader or LIE.

That would allow me to directly copy and paste the Genesis 8.1 shaders onto the geograft. Is that correct?

Yes that is what they might be telling you to do, but take any advice from Daz forum posters with a grain of salt.  I assume this is for a personal project? You dont need this super complicated solution and there is a much more standard solution that doesnt involve any such impractical and convoluted steps.

Much easier solution for creating new textures:

Export the Character + Geograft as obj.

Import this mesh and the base color textures into Substance Painter or another 3D texture painting software which supports a multi UDIM texture painting workflow.

Blend across the region. E.g., in Substance Painter, use the clone stamp tool or some such to create the blending.

Export the updated base color textures (for the body and the geograft) and load them onto your figure + geograft in Daz.

 

crosswind

Stan Nice said:

Thank you all for your replies.

The package I want to use is indeed a creator's package. It's the "Pig Tail" from the "Pearlette" bundle.

At first, I thought the polygons still existed (since they reappear when I remove the geograft), so I assumed there had to be a way to make them visible again. But since that doesn't seem to be the right approach, I'll go with the more painful method instead: matching the Genesis 8.1 textures to the geograft's UVs, then using a geoshell with a cutout.

If it's the Pig Tail from Pearlette, actually what you mentioned would be still a doable way which'll be much much easier than any ways of re-making textures ~~  Here's the way if you have interest. 

1) Make a Cutout Opacity map as per the Pigtail's Base color map (I believe you've made one). You need PBRSkin Plus if that's the shader used on your character's skin... so has to have a Cutout Opacity slot.
2) Now let's handle AutoHide issue. 
    a) Alt Shift + G to switch to Geometry Editor tool. Unfit Pig Tail (Fit to None!) and Hide it in Scene pane, select your character. Select a Polygon on the back of Body surface as shown in (Screenshot 1).
    b) Right-click in Viewport, Geometry Assignment > Set Auto-Hide Faces for Attachement... (Screenshot 2) Select Pig Tail in the dialogue. (Screenshot 3)
    c) Fit Pig Tail to your character. Unhide it. Alt Shift + T.  Assign the Opacity map to Cutout Opacity Slot of the Pig Tial in Surface pane (Screenshot 4)
    d) Finetue the shader settings ~~~ Iray Preview. I used Victoria 8.1 as the example (Screenshot 5)  The tail played well !

Edit: For the final render, you further can re-touch the render image by using Healing Brushes in Image Editors like Affinity or GIMP... so as to further make more natural visual effect on the tail seams if you'd like...

If I understand correctly, if I want to take this further, I'll need to learn how to use a third-party application (such as ZBrush or Blender) to modify the geograft's UVs. That would allow me to directly copy and paste the Genesis 8.1 shaders onto the geograft. Is that correct?

Blender can be a better tool which is strong and free. And for this Pig Tail which has a unique UV map though, you don't have to unwrap a new UV Set. Making as geoshell can be a much better and easier way to have a good blending effect as we mentioned above ~~
You export the geo-shell to Blender, paint the texture on the areas of Body + Pigtail and bake the diffuse + opacity map. And setup the maps back in DS accordingly.  You can use and learn this free add-on: ucupaint and learn tutorials from the creator on his youtube channel... well if you have more time  ~~~

In the meantime, thank you all for taking the time to help me. :)

Stan Nice

Thank you so much, Crosswind, it worked!
This option had been suggested to me by AI, but I hadn't understood the "polygon selection" process. Your screenshots made it much clearer.

Thanks to all of you, I now have a much better understanding of how it works, and I've learned several techniques that will help me manipulate geografts in the future. I can also see that I really need to spend more time learning Blender.

Thank you once again for your time, your quick responses, and all your help. You guys are awesome!

I wish you all the best

crosswind

That's great ! All the best and good luck !