RAMWorks Tutorials: PP2 and HR2 to figure & Painting Genesis in ZBrush

RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
edited November 2012 in The Commons

Over in my freebie thread for SAV's Kouros Hair in the Freepozitory a nice person informed me there was a work around for getting hr2 hair to conform to Genesis WITH the morphs. I was very thrilled to know of this. The information this person left with me though was good for DS 4.0 but things have changed in 4.5 so I'm glad I was able to figure out where everything is! It may not be the perfect solution for all things but it DOES work. SO here is the tutorial.

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1) Load up Genesis, keep Genesis selected.

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2) Load up Hair (.hr2) or prop (.pp2) (like Antennae or similar) it will then be auto parented to the correct area, ie: Head

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note: DO NOT reposition the prop, DO NOT!

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3) Look up at your icons on the main tool bar and look for the "bone with a band-aid" or if your more of a menu person look under Tools menu click that (Key strokes are: Alt-Shift-J, select the parented object in the Scene tab. It will become highlighted in white.

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4) Go to the Tools Settings panel and click in the little menu box in the upper right corner of the tab, the menu will fly out. If you don't have this tab activated you can find it under: Window > Tabs > Tool Settings

You can also now access the Convert Prop to Figure through the Scene menu: Edit>Rigging>Convert Prop to Figure

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5) Edit > Convert Prop to Figure : Leave it as it is: radio buttons clicked ON: TriAx Weight Mapping and Inherit Skeleton of Parent click Accept. The Edit > Convert Prop to Figure option can be found in the context sensitive menu on the top right corner of the Tools Setting pane/dialog.

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Once this is done the newly boned prop will now be a figure and automatically unparented from Genesis!

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6) Then go up to the Scene tabs fly out menu, click that and Assets> Transfer Utility and follow the steps below:
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a: Source: Scene Item: Genesis
Item Shape: Clone, a dialog will pop up, choose Michael 4 (or Victoria 4 depending on what the prop was originally made for)

b: Target: Scene Item: converted prop name will be in the selections, select that!
Item Shape: Default (leave this setting alone for this transfer)

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5) Projection Template: If it's a face mask, antennae I chose Hair> Short... your call....

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Show Options, click this to expand

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6) Leave all checked that’s checked but also check “Reverse Source Shape From Target” and “Add Smoothing Modifier”

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7) Click: Accept and let it run.

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Once this is finished then you need to save this out as a .duf file.

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8) File> Save As> Support Asset fly out and choose the top most item in the menu: Figure/Prop Assets

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9) Save dialog will come up.
a: Name the Vendor Name: (whom ever made it or your name, up to you)
b: Name the Product Name: converted Props name, no spaces or _ to connect the words if you want.
c: Leave the “Item Name” filled in as it is!

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10) Click Accept.

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My Antennae that I made for M4 to do a Chameleon Boy character works perfectly. All the morphs are there and resizes just fine!

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I've also brought over SAV's Spartacus and Goldtassels Timeless Male Hair and both look awesome.

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Please don't forget, as much as you want to move the prop into place please don't do that. Just leave it where ever it loads. It will conform perfectly. IF you do move it and it conforms like crap don't come in here and tell me I'm giving bad advice. I've tried it 10 ways to Sunday and found leaving it in place as it loads into the scene is how it's supposed to load and will conform very nicely to Genesis and work as expected.

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Hope this proves useful to some folks! :-)

Post edited by RAMWolff on
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Comments

  • Fille123Fille123 Posts: 44
    edited December 1969

    Many thanks for the step-by-step instructions! :-)

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    Your most welcome. Maybe some of the prop makers that are kinda Jonesing for an opportunity to make stuff that will resize with Genesis MIGHT have a chance at this after all. Not tried jewelery of any kind thus far. I was actually getting my Cham Vest I made for M4 rerigged and fitted to Genesis but keeps crashing DAZ Studio. SO I'm now understanding why so many are not pleased with the constant crashes. I did manage to save it TriAx to an old .daz file format so I'll keep trying. Genesis though, is so huge now with morphs it loads with each new iteration it takes quite a while. I wish there were a version of Genesis for content makers that doesn't need morphs, just the base to load up. :bug:

  • s l fs l f Posts: 147
    edited December 1969

    Thank you very much for these detailed instructions! :) Very helpful information.

    I hope you are successful in your endevours to rerig your charm vest. :)

  • atticanneatticanne Posts: 3,009
    edited June 2012

    Thanks for the step-by-step, RAMWolff. I'm going to try this. Lord knows I need all the help I can get.

    Post edited by atticanne on
  • MedzinMedzin Posts: 337
    edited December 1969

    Is this specific to DS 4.5?
    I don't get checkbox for "Inherit Skeleton of Parent " in DS4 and of course, only 4.5 supports ".duf" extension.

    It gets a very nice fit for hair this way after saving to a ".dsf" but I don't know what happened to morphs.

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    I'm sorry Medzin, I no longer have .47, it was so buggy that I was glad to finally get 4.5, even though it's got some bugs too!

    Vest is coming along fabulously. Got it rigged and working on morphs via GoZ and they are looking wonderful. It will be my first fully rigged clothing piece. Not perfect but it's MINE! lol

  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,860
    edited September 2012

    I highly recommend DS4.5 over DS4. The improvements made to the program is awsome. I am tempted to leave DS3 behind though i still have some testing to do.

    Thanks Richard

    Post edited by Mattymanx on
  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    Your very welcome Matty. It's a very useful tutorial for those items you really really wish you could have for Genesis but because they are made for another model you feel left out... no more of that! :coolgrin:

  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,860
    edited September 2012

    I normally do manual fits for boots and hair (yes I saw the other tut) but at the same time if its bennificial I will try another method. After all if I cant get this or something else to worl for me, theres always the manual method!

    Post edited by Mattymanx on
  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    RAMWolff said:
    Your very welcome Matty. It's a very useful tutorial for those items you really really wish you could have for Genesis but because they are made for another model you feel left out... no more of that! :coolgrin:
    Thank you so much. I really need this for some of my items, such a life and time saver.
  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    Y'all are very welcome. I've actually got a full thread for all my freebies going over at the Freepozitory found here:

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/6841/

    I used the tutorial to bring AprilYSH's Lyon hair (HR2) for M4, along with the ruff and hat (both CR2's) over to Genesis. Perfect! :-)

    Working on new mats for it now.... using Aprils wonderful textures. Screen shots at the link above, scroll down...

  • rbtwhizrbtwhiz Posts: 2,162
    edited December 1969

    Medzin said:
    Is this specific to DS 4.5?
    I don't get checkbox for "Inherit Skeleton of Parent " in DS4 and of course, only 4.5 supports ".duf" extension.

    See entries in the DAZ Studio 4.5 Change Log for the following builds:

    - 4.1.0.66
    - 4.1.0.72
    - 4.1.0.83
    - 4.1.0.86

    Yes, 4.5.x was 4.1.x until it was decided that 4.5 would be the released version - as noted in the 4.5.0.1 entries.

    -Rob

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    Rob, I really hope you guys NEVER EVER change Studio's ability to make props conform to Genesis. If it's one of those happy flukes who cares, it works.

    Now for your next assignment is figuring out how to have Studio auto add ghost bones and get the transfer shoes to Genesis fixed. :P *runs* :ahhh:

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,622
    edited December 1969

    <3 <3</p>

    Thanks, Ram!

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,018
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for such detailed instructions. That is what I need to learn these tools. I was able to fit the hair and save the DUF just fine and the morphs work, but the PZ2 material presets for hair color do not work. Any suggestions?

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    This process absolutely does not change the UV's so not sure what's going on with that Barbult. I'm working on mats for the Ruff from AprilYSH's Lyon set and hair, hat and ruff all load up their respective PZ2 matt files just fine.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,018
    edited December 1969

    I just tried another one - Jai hair from AprilYSH. The PZ2 hair colors work fine on that one. Maybe I'll redo my first one and see if I did something wrong along the way. Thanks again for this great tutorial. It is very well written.

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    I try to always write my tutorials like I'm the one learning it from a newbie's perspective. So if I leave out steps I usually figure it out pretty fast and add those in. I've not gotten it perfect every time in my tutorials but I try. I'm glad it was easy enough to understand! Have fun! :-)

  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 5,942
    edited December 1969

    I commented on your other thread, to clarify a couple of the steps. The process works nicely, thank you.

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    Yes, I noticed. If folks use menus rather than the bar and icons I will add that to the tutorial then to satisfy everyone. THANKS! :-)

  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 5,942
    edited December 1969

    RAMWolff said:
    Yes, I noticed. If folks use menus rather than the bar and icons I will add that to the tutorial then to satisfy everyone. THANKS! :-)

    The main 'problem' is that with all the various styles and layouts, plus the customisation it can be a real pain to be sure that everyone has things in the same place. I'd be inclined to use the 'fixed' things, such as menu trees for the 'formal description', and add a 'hint' about where else and how a short-cut can be found ;)
  • GiGi_7GiGi_7 Posts: 1,343
    edited December 1969

    barbult said:
    Thanks for such detailed instructions. That is what I need to learn these tools. I was able to fit the hair and save the DUF just fine and the morphs work, but the PZ2 material presets for hair color do not work. Any suggestions?

    Load original hair. Apply pz2. Save as material preset. This material works fine with converted hair.

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    gilikshe said:
    barbult said:
    Thanks for such detailed instructions. That is what I need to learn these tools. I was able to fit the hair and save the DUF just fine and the morphs work, but the PZ2 material presets for hair color do not work. Any suggestions?

    Load original hair. Apply pz2. Save as material preset. This material works fine with converted hair.

    Correct but keep in mind PZ2 files are actually created for Poser so you may want to get in there and tweak the Surfaces a bit.

    I usually hit the Specular area and set that between 67 to 85%, depending. Leave the Specular Strength at 100% for the most gloss but lower it if you have allot of lights in the scene as it will blow out the color too much. I usually make sure there if there is a bump map file to add more detail to the hair. It's pretty easy. First click on the Diffuse drop down showing all the texture maps for the scene. Find the main one used for the hair in the Diffuse channel and set that as your Bump map as well. Now go back in there and select Browse. It will take you right to the correct folder containing all the textures for that pack and look for a Bump map (should say *bump* or *b* at the end or beginning of the .jpg file name) if not then just leave Diffuse map you originally loaded as the bump map and set it to 100%. I sometimes will do the same for the Displacement map but I set that around 48%, sometimes lower.

    Make good use of your Spot Render tool.

    When you get the hair looking the way you want it then select the hair name title to select all the surfaces of the hair and save it out as a new hair color preset in your "My Library". If you only have a few to do it won't take long and you will have native presets.

    Also, If you have your Poser runtime in another directory other than the My Library/Runtime/Textures/ area I would suggest copying the folder(s) over (make sure you bring over all the parent folders that go with that hair or it won't load up right) to My Library/Runtime/Textures/ so that it's all native.

    Also don't forget to back up your My Library for safe keeping.

    Best.

  • AeonicBAeonicB Posts: 165
    edited December 1969

    Unfortunately, I tried to bring over the Mitsu Hair included with the old Aiko 3 bundle, and it hasn't seemed to have kept its morphs. At least its a cheating way to fit on Genesis, but its useless without the posing morphs. Any clues?

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited September 2012

    Is Mitus hair a CR2 or an HR2 file? I'm assuming it's an HR2 file but it SHOULD retain the morphs. I just loaded it up. I don't have the time tonight to try messing with it but the morphs are there so they SHOULD transfer... oh what the hell.. now I'm going to wonder about it... Be right back.....

    OK, just ran my tutorial and it works fine and the morphs are there. Make sure you followed the tutorial to the letter except choose Aiko 3 as your morph target (number #6 in the tutorial).

    Suggestion, make sure, before you save it out as a .duf file to Convert to Sub-D since the conversion does tend to kink up the area where the shoulders are in the hair. Sub-D smooths that out just fine.

    Have fun! :-)

    MitsuGenesis.jpg
    1271 x 1019 - 394K
    Post edited by RAMWolff on
  • AeonicBAeonicB Posts: 165
    edited September 2012

    RAMWolff said:
    Is Mitus hair a CR2 or an HR2 file?

    It's an HR2 file.

    XD Keeping people awake since ever.

    Post edited by AeonicB on
  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    See my post above... works fine!

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    I've been playing around a little with some hair using this tutorial.

    One of my favorite hairs to use for 'something quick' is the old classic Koz_Messy. Well, it was originally for Gen3 (maybe even Gen2?) and there is no 'clone' option in the basic transfer utility (don't they get added if you get the Gen3 Shapes package?)...but I thought I'd try it by adding a 'fitting pose' to it before the conversion.

    The 'fit' that was easiest to find (in my very disorganized DS3 content folders) was a K4 fit. I applied it, after following steps 1 through 3 (sort of a 3a.), but before converting it to a figure. Then when running the Transfer Utility, Kids4 was the 'clone'...

    This should work for any convertable hair that doesn't come for a figure you have a clone shape for, but does have a 'fitting' pose to one of those figures (lots of Gen3 hair has Gen4 fit poses).

    kozhairgen.jpg
    800 x 1000 - 278K
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    Just did Mitsu...with a V4 fit and it came out great.

    So, if you don't have the Gen3 shapes, then using commonly available fit poses is a viable workaround.

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,139
    edited December 1969

    That's interesting. Good to know. I have all the shapes with their fitting templates so never thought to do it that way.

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