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Doesn't anyone know, is it possible to convert textures from Gen 2 to Gen3 not by Blender but within Autodesk Maya? I'm a hopeless noob in Blender and more familiar with Maya. I know there is a tool in Maya called Transfer Attributes (to make UV transfer) and another tool for Map Transfer, but I found no tutorials how to make map transfer for human figures. If I remember right, in that thread - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/58379/v4-uvs-for-g3f/p5 someone wrote that the trick with baking V4 or G2F textures is possible in Maya. How to make it exactly step by step and more desirably excluding unnecessary textures for mouth, teeth, eyes, nails?
And it would be excellent if I can bake textures backwards too - from G3F to G2F and from G3M or Michael 7 to G2M. New male figures have amazing textures, but old Genesis 2 Male (at least in my case) has much more morphs and characters. I'd like to use G3M textures on G2M and M6 - how to make such backwards conversion with Blender or Maya? If anyone tried Maya instead of Blender, I hope for sharing a brief tutorial. The Blender way is explained well in PDF but when I open this app, I feel my head a bit dizzy and lost in this tangled Blender UI. At least for transferring UVs Maya fits better. Are there any important differences in output results (the quality of textures or any other problems during conversion)?
I've read new Legacy UVs product by Cayman Studios is very easy to use, but there is no male version and no backward texture transferring from Gen 3 to Gen 2. And the new Blacksmith 3D has no G2F to G3F or G2M to G3M addons. So it seems that the baking way remains the only reliable alternative now. Thank you in advance for any help.
I'm not sure of what the tools would be named in other software, but yes it is possible. In anything capable of a) baking textures and b) using alternate UVs to do the bake.
And once you have the from/to pair set up...you can invert them and use the 'to' as the 'from'...to go the other way.
One more question - there is an advice in the PDF Tutorial how to assign materials for G2F and G3F - quoted below:
"Now, pick one of the material zones in that section and click Assign. Now all of those faces you just selected are now assigned to the same material. At this point, I click in the box (in the image above where it say Torso.002) and rename the material zone to something like G2F_Torso. So, for the Torso material, you would select the Torso, Head, Neck, Hips and Nipples materials, then highlight Torso in the box and press Assign. "
When I need to repeat this process for G3F, what materials to collect properly -
1) Torso + nipples +head
2) Face + lips + ears + eyesocket
3) Arms + fingernails
4) Legs + toenails
As I understood, I don't need any materials for eyes and inner mouth and I may ignore them completely, right? The same is right for G3M.
Yes, but there is no nipple or head material zone. Mouth & Teeth for inside the mouth (it may need tweaking though after the conversion). Eyelashes is its own. Cornea, Irises, Pupils, & Sclera if you want to do the eyes, but it may be easier to do by hand.
No 'may be' about that....it's a thousand times easier to do it by hand...
Also I ignore the nails...they are usually better transferred manually (cut and paste in an image editor).
Take and look at what is on the maps...even though there are differences in material zones, the best approach is to look at what is on each map and when reassigning zones, match to the maps.
Thanks. And what about this "Collapse UV" option - does it exist only in DS above 4.8? (I'm trying to export from DS 4.6 now, there is no such option)? And it seems I will have to convert all bump, specular and normal textures independently, but I can do it, if loading normal or bump textures as diffuse, right? Will they correspond precisely to converted diffuse textures or they may differ in some spots? I can recreate these textures in Photoshop, of course, but I'm afraid they will lose in quality, compared to the original ones.
Ummmm... not sure about before 4.8 (but that would make sense since g3 was released at the same time as 4.8 or right after). It will only occur on the stuff that uses UDIM though like the G3F/M. Basically, it just rearranges the UV tiling system so that program that don't use UDIM can use it. For the other maps, yes, you'll have to convert each set individually. Will it correspond exactly? That I can't say. Theoretically it should align exactly as the diffuse does. If you need complete precision, I'd remake the maps.
Ooph... I mastered again this Blender way of conversion - the hardest part was to do the template file and re-assign surfaces on both figures properly, that's all. Especially tricky were Genesis 2 Female and Male - they contain more splitted material zones, than Genesis 3 and often I forgot one of these zones. At any case, here is the list of Genesis 2 Zones to combine -
1) Torso Map - Torso, Head, Neck, Hips, Nipples, Ears
2) Face Map - Face, Lips, Nostrils
3) Limbs Map - Legs, Forearms, Hands, Feet, Shoulders. Fingernails and Toenails
So Genesis 2 has three resulting maps and Genesis 3 has four image maps.
And after all I managed to convert my first set of diffuse maps for G2M (from G3M to G2M), but there is a problem with the baking progress bar - I don't see it at all in no mode, even when leaving UV editor. And no progress in my taskbar panel. How to figure out when the bake process is over? I waited for 4-5 minutes and then stopped baking by pressing Save all Images, and got the textures. And they need minor editing, yes, but in general I find them quite acceptable.But I'm not sure about the quality - how long they should be rendered and which format settings (RGB, RGBA, 8 or 16 bit) to get the closest quality?
A little update to questions - in general, Blender texture conversions work very well, but i found 2 main problems - the first is the genital texture maps, which cannot be converted via Blender baking, because there is no clones for Genesis 3 and Genesis 2 gens yet. The second is material and shader presets (DUF material files), where amount of surfaces and reference links to texture maps differ very much. But they need to be converted too to keep the desired look of character skins. How do you manage with all that?
For gens, as I found, there exist a way of Map Transfer within DAZ Studio, but the only tutorial about this way I found on DeviantArt is a bit unclear for noobs - is there any illustrated or video tuts about DAZ Map transfer? Or there is any simpler way how to create gens texture in Photoshop etc? I made several attempts, but Hip surface on the torso and the gens don't fit (visible seams and color mismatching). I guess Seam Guides for Genesis 2 gens (Male and Female) would help, because a simple white template doesn't help much. Are there Seam Guides for Genesis 2 genitals?
As for ther second problem with DUF, it is not easier too, because DUF files are very hard to edit manually in any text editor - they contain shader info and a great bunch of reference links to maps, and these links mismatch too (G3 Eye Socket should be replaced with Lacrimals and EyeMoisture with EyeReflection - at least, these are best counterparts I could find or I am mistaken?) Is Dimension 3D DSON Editor capable to make such replacing surfaces faster and easier, or there is any other easier way, aside from struggling with text editors? What do you do with such mismatching surfaces, especially for eyes? I tested Genesis 3 Native Eyes with replaced G3M converted textures for irises - but on G3M with all shaders and presets eyes look much better.
And the third problem is textures made specially for IRAY - diffuse and bump maps look the same as for 3Delight, but specular maps look strange as if inverted and SSS maps sometimes gray. I don't use Iray and now switched to Reality 4, but sometimes it needs adjusting native 3Delight maps. Do I need to convert Specular and SSS maps too via Blender or I'd better to remake them by myself from Diffuse? Are such Iray maps usable in Reality or 3Delight?
To get a progress bar, you need to be in Info mode, and then it will show up on the top info bar of Blender. If you're in another mode, it should show up on the Blender icon on your task bar if you're in Win 8 or 8.1. For other versions of Windows, I have no idea. For how long they should be rendered, until the bar is done so far as I can tell. 4 to 5 minutes is usually what it takes me for them to be completely done for a full set. I leave all the settings at their default for baking that were not specifically mentioned. That is RGBA 8 I believe. (I'll answer your next post in my next post :D )
Ok, so on the gens converting. While there isn't specifically a clone for gens, if you export them while fitted to the character with the clone active, you will at least get the seams to line up. The interior topology is vastly different, so you'd have to do that by hand. The Map Transfer utility in DS won't work because you need to have both UVs available to transfer between on a single model.
I make new utility maps. Otherwise, you have to convert each type of map set one at a time. I've done that as well, and it's not so bad once you have the base figures set up.
There might be, but I doubt it. The genitals don't come with the base figures, only with the Pro packs for the adult morphs (Victoria, Michael, etc).
Notepad++ is what I'd recommend for editing duf files in a text editor. I am not real familiar with Dimension 3D's editor, so I can't speak to its capabilities. I have my own shader presets that I've set up within DS, so I just use those.
No idea about Reality. For 3Delight it just depends on how your shader is set up. You can convert the maps or make new ones. If you want things to look exactly as they are from the other model, convert every set of maps, copy over the shader.
Thank you, ChangelingChick. What about gens, I found at last the way to make own textures, partially via the same Blender baking - I exported G2M fitted gens, imported them into Blender along with the prepped G2M OBJ and transferred the Hip (Torso Map) texture from G2M to the Hip surface of the gens - it worked just fine and the upper Hip texture of gens blends seamlessly with the torso map. The second part of that job can be done in any graphic editor (mixing this baked texture with any native G2M gens texture). The same is true for G3M (not sure about females, but maybe I'll try it some day later). So your Blender baking method is usable in many cases.
As for DUFs, I stopped at Bred3 so far, because this text editor can remember text elements to replace and shows them in a dropdown list. I'l give a try to more powerful text editors - they may have other useful options as well.
Re:Transfering the anatomical elements, there is now a very useful freebie available over at Rendo: Torso UVs for G3F Anatomical Elements, by Cayman Studios. This allows you to project the G3F torso texture onto the gens, so once you have baked your torso texture to G3F, it is possible to just use the new UV on the gens, or to bake from the new UV to the default in Blender. As has been said, the internal details may still require some manual adjusting, but I find this a very simplified and cleaner way to transfer the textures.
Thanks, Reds, it seems to be a useful utility for G3F. As for making utility maps for converted textures - there is a little question about specularity maps, because all the latest G3 Figures and their textures were made specially for Iray and adapted roughly for 3Delight. I noticed that Iray-ready specular maps are much darker and more noisy than old maps for Genesis 2 guys and girls and V4-M4 characters. Look at base specular textures of G3F and G3M (Jeane and Eddie) and you'll see it. Are such maps specific for Iray needs and unnecessary for other render engines or they can improve the look of any texture set? If I convert any old texture from G2F or V4, which has lighter spec map, how to make my own specular map in Photoshop, closest to such Genesis 3 textures? I know the old way - desaturate the diffuse and adjust the Levels to make high contrast but I couldn't achieve such noisy effect by this way.
The maps aren't specific to the rendering engine but to the shader. I've seen both very light and dark spec maps for Iray. My own tend to be right in the middle. It comes down to personal preference on how you want to change it. For the lighter spec maps, just lower the spec value until you get the amount you want.
Problem here trying to apply this method reading the pdf tutorial. Please help. I Hit in bake, wait but I don't understand the next point:
52. Once everything is done, go up to that bar at the top and click on the word Image.
53. Choose Save All Images. The converted images will NOT save unless you do so. Alternately, you can save
each image individually, but that takes forever.
¿which word image? I don't get nothing like this in any toolbar in blender.
Make sure you're in the UV/Image Editor mode (?) in the top bar instead of the Info mode. Then Image should show up there. (see attached images)
Thannnnnkkksssssssssss!
It Works. Eye texture was mixed with face texture, but I believe to know where I am wrong.
In other hand I find blender very nice, it is the first time I used it.
Thanks for the tutorial(s) - I followed them successfully but I am having an issue where one map (Face) is baking properly, but the rest of my maps bake to solid black. I didn't do anything different to the the Face UV map on the G3F model, so I'm a bit confused why it is working and the rest are not? Does anyone know if the flat back mats a clue to the problem?
--- Figured it out. For some reason the UV coordinates on G3F were wrong, The Face UV's fit inside the 0-1 texture space but the others (legs, arms, etc) were outside of the texture space. Editing the UV coords in Blender so that they all fit into 0-1 fixed the problem. Maybe I had a setting wrong on export from DAZ?
It sounds like you might not have flattened the UV when you exported.
One quick check, in Blender, if you didn't flatten the UVs is to select a surface (like legs) and go into the UV/Image view and see if the highlighted surface is NOT centered on the image..if it's off to the side, then no, you didn't flatten the UVs.
Having a little trouble with Blender.
Bake failed at 20%.
"Warning: Circular reference in texture stack"
I've imported both the G2F and G3F models into Blender.
Left click on G2F in scene hierarchy, hold down shift, left click on G3F in scene hierarchy.
Click Bake button. Get error.
I don't use Blender, so all of this is new to me. Too bad there isn't a video tutorial.
Ah, nevermind. I found my problem.
It's trying to render out more than one texture, but I only setup one texture.
I can see the texture being rendered in the UV/Image Editor while Bake progresses.
And I can still save the image to file, even though Bake stopped at 20%. Problem solved.
I have been trying to use and understand the newbie tutorial and it is about as clear as mud as it is asking me to do things but not exactly showing me where in picture form what to do as some of the images of blender look different to the version 2.79 that I am using..
Well after much roaring and gnashing of teeth I got it to work beautifully and I have solved the issue of cross contamination problem of the torso texture.. Since under Genesis 2 the ears share the torso texture with the torso/hips/head and so on I was getting messed up texture when baked.. The thing is in Genesis 3 the ear textures are on the face texture in a different position and because of that it was repositing the ears on the torso texture..
Long story short I seperated the ears on both Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 so they have their own designation they still use the torso texture. But Blender does a wonderful job of creating a new texture for the ears in the correct position and no cross contamination.. Also found that I had to make seperate out arms and legs so they also have their own designation as well and it worked in creating all new textures..
Sorry to necro an old thread, but out of curiosity did you happen to create a similar morph for Genesis? The G2/G3 morphs have been unbelievably helpful for other uses besides texture conversion (like converting morphs from G2 to G3!).
Did this process changed somehow with Blender 2.8? I don't seem to be able to pass the baking part.