DAZ needs better solutions for these two instances
jdavison67
Posts: 689
in The Commons
1. Hats intersecting with hair.
2. Footsteps in grass.
In the first case, keeping hair from poking through hats is maddening.
In the second case, nothing kills the realism of an image tmore han seeing blades of grass going through your characters feet, boots, etc.
Deformers can help but the kind of suck.
Any products or suggestions?
Thanks!
JD
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Comments
Hats and headgear of any type is a major pain if the headgear doesn't have any adjustments or hair props available. There's a reason why so many renders seem to have bald models when you look really close. The best solution so far as someone suggested in a post about this very problem is to do two passes and fix it in post.
Until there is some kind of native support for dynamics, these will require either vendor provided addons (hat/hair helpers) or postwork (blades of grass through feet). There is simply no getting around that.
Using the geometry editor to hide the offending pokethrough is also an option although it is very tedious if you have a lot of geometry to hide.
There is the Hat and Hair Helper for G2, I'm not sure how it works, but it's by @Sickleyield so it probably works as promised; and there a G3 Version as well.
Does this product fix the hat problem?
https://www.daz3d.com/hat-and-hair-helper-for-genesis-3
No dynamics/physics system, no footsteps and hats : )
As of right now the only solutions available are manual fixes.
So if you want there to be a footstep in the grass, you need to export the object to a modeling software and manually create it. Same with hair although some hats/hair might include a variety of adjustment morphs, it is impossible for the artist to cover every hat & hair scenario.
And of course the fixer producst listed above : )
My machine is rendering now, and I cannot tell you exact names of functions, but here goes:
First, make sure you have fit the hat to the character's head EXACTLY like you desire.
Otherwise, you'll waste time repeating the following process: Select the item (hair, in this case) in the scene tab. Select the Geometry Editor from the Tool dropdown. Right click on the viewport, and a menu appears with several choices. Choose "marquee" from the "select polygons by" (approximate name) menu. Maneuver the viewfinder until you can get most or all of the hair poke-through by drawing a rectangle (marquee). Open/draw a rectangle encompassing all the offending follicles; they should turn yellow (or whatever colour you have set in DS). Now, right click on the selected portion, and the menu comes back up. Choose "assign selected to its own surface" (again, approximate wording) and name it something that you will have no problem recognising (ALL CAPS MAKE IT EASY TO JUMP OUT AT YOU). Now, go to the Surfaces tab and find the surface you just created. Go to the Geometry parameter (by clicking on the surface name and seeing the dropdown; Geometry will be last in the dropdown list) and turn the Opacity to 0. You are now a Daz barber! Save your scene under a new name just in case there is a snafu. If you could not get all the poke-through hair with one selection, go back and repeat the process.
The same process can be used on grass geometry poking through feet (or whatever else). To make footprints through grass geometry, you can combine this process with Footsteps Tool by nerd3d @ hivewire3d.com. This utility has a ground plane that allows you to make footprints in it. By applying a grass shader to this plane and placing grass geometry on top of / in it, you can painstakingly and intentionally match up the footprints in the plane. Of course, if the grass is thick enough, you don't even need Footsteps Tool. But you'll have to be good drawing footprints with a lasso.
I have used Sickleyield's Hat and Hair Helper for Genesis 3, and it is intuitive, working exactly like someone accustomed to Daz would expect. The product menu tells you what to do. But double check the documentation because the utility is applied to either the character or the hair (I forget which), and if you apply it to the wrong one, then you will be wondering why it does not appear to be working. Once you apply it to the correct item, there are tons of morphs that allow you to squeeze the hair out of sight. I suggest you focus on the edges first, because the geometry tool can give a quick medieval monk's bob to the top hairs. Notwithstanding, with the utility alone, there were still a few stray hairs that refused to stop poking through the hat (a baseball cap, and it was biggish hair). But this utility did a great job getting things under control along the edges of the cap.
This seems like a good work around.
I will have to play with this.
Thanks!