HD Morphs Tool
marth_e
Posts: 187
I'm so frustrated. Trying to create a new character with Genesis 8 is so hard. The base mesh is so low rez that trying to define any new morph details in Zbrush is almost impossible on subdivission level 1. As long as DAZ won't free the HD multi-resolution morph support, I'm not buying any new characters. It's just waisting money if Daz don't give us the ability to morph those characters to successfuly be able to create our own.
Come on, the tool exists for several years now. You can charge for that plugin. I would pay good money for it and I know for sure that there are other people here that would do the same.
I really had high hopes that with Genesis 8 and Daz 4.10 they'll free the HD multi-resolution morph tool. But as long as they don't free it then it's more of the same regardless of the Genesis generation. I don't see the point to buying everything all over again if it's going to be the same old struggle trying to create new morphs that look good and realistical.
Martha E.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
In order to make morphs for genesis, you have to know how to sculpt the base genesis as that's what is the actual mesh you're working with. The HD tool for PA is for adding details, not making the base morph. It's not impossible to make morphs with zbrush at base resolution, that's really what some PAs use (others use other tools, but they always work with the base mesh) before they can even subdivide to make the details.
I would continue practicing on the base mesh to make moprhs because that's the only thing genesis takes as a base morph.
I agree with the OP, regardless our voices will never be acknowledged because we are ignored. For years.
Let us stop pretending that "consumers" (which is how we are viewed exclusively), are not capable. The response from PAs are always "well its hard stuff guys" yeah, thats it.
PA here do not cover my needs on my timeline. Free willy! I no longer buy HD morphs. I won't support the practice.
The base mesh gets lower and lower in each generation. No one is clueless here. And for years the circle goes on, so I already know the default PA responses. They do not ever address the core issue. Allowing capable users create thier own art.
The reality is that you can only go so far with overextending the base mesh to compensate for Sub-D. And ultimately the base mesh is too sparce in areas some of us feel are more important. :/
Oh well I've said it again, Where's Richard to do the usual.
Uh. You can sculpt in HD in ZBrush and then return to the base resolution to export that as a morph. There is not and has never been a requirement that morphs be sculpted at base res, it's just the best place to fine-tune.
This is a pain if you want to add details in a morph for sure. What I would suggest is sculpt in high-res and then bake displacement maps for your details off of the base morph (or normals if they are small details that do not need displacement).
I agree that DAZ keeping the the ability to create HD morphs away from most end-users is irritating.
The poly count hasn't gotten that low over the generations where it has become totally impossible to make a morph for genesis. Again, the tool is only used to import a mesh to add details like pores, wrinkles or veins to a mesh already made at base resolution. You still have to make the base morph; the HD tool won't help you one bit. And once you have the base morph, a person not having access to the tool will subdivide and make their details and generate a normal map.
Keep in mind, when genesis was released the HD tool didn't even exist, however this was made. How do you think that happened?
By learning to sculpting the base and generating normal maps. And that's where a user will start.
What Male-M3dia is saying is that you need the low resolution shape as well as a higher resolution detail shape to make the HD morph.
I'm not so much directly addressing him, there just seemed to be a starting impression in this thread that the base resolution needs to be sculpted directly. Of course you need both, but you can get a base morph directly out of ZBrush without ever touching anything but the high-res directly.
Actually subdividing the mesh and returning to base mesh changes the vertices of the whole mesh, though it would work. But if you're only working with a head or body morph for a commerical product, this will fail QA, unless you use the tools in the geometry editor to remove altered vertices not part of your morph. But yes, it needs to be at base resolution or you will be cleaning up your mesh to remove the parts that weren't part of your morph.
It's very true everything moves slightly. You can get around this by creating a morph from just the base res of a subdivided genesis model, and dialing it "backwards." But someone sculpting characters just for themselves probably won't have too much problems.
I've mentioned this issue countless times. The base mesh is way too low resolution. And not giving users the ability to create higher resolution morphs is really frustrating.
THIS!!!! I absolutely agree with you. I don't know why they immediately assume we don't know how to create a base resolution morph. What I'm talking about here is how can you detail your character if you can't create a subdivision morph. For example. Let's suppose you want to detail your character with the serratus anterior surface anatomy details (which BTW all Daz characters until now have always wrong). It's impossible to achieve that with the base mesh. No matter what they say you'll need more resolution on your mesh. PERIOD!
Martha E.
What's wrong with displacement maps and Normals?
A lot! You won't be able to achieve the same quality than with subdivision morphs. Displacement and normal maps are hard to create and hard to set if you export your posed mesh to other software for rendering (for example, Blender, Zbrush or Keyshot). On the other hand subdivision morph are true geometry and you just need to export your obj and you are ready to go.
And most of all: how can you create a JCM with just a displacement map for example?
Besides that's precisely my point. If the answer is to keep using displacement maps and normals. Then why update to the new generation if I'm going to have exactly the same limitations as with old generations. If that's the answer then I can still do that with G3.
The point here is just that: There are new technologies. Why not share them and charge for them? What are you really afraid of? Why does the answer always have to be: you can do that with old technologies too. I know I can. Is it the most convenient thing to do? The answer is NO!
It's the Blockbuster kind of mentality. "Why do you wanna stream movies from the internet if you can rent them here on the store as you have been doing for the last 20 years?" And we all know what happened to Blockbuster and what happened to Netflix.
But the thing is, you can do most of the heavy lifting in a basic mesh. What most people use HD for is fine details... which don't require JCMs and the like. I mean, it's not perfect, but I'd say the vast majority of HD morphs are essentially 'fiddly small details.'
There are exceptions, but I'm not sure they are as common as many think.
Tip: You can already do this in Poser
COOL!
+1 OP
You can work HiRes in ZBrush by using Dynamic Subdivision which does not physically subdivde the figure and thus doesn't change the vert order which is what you need to maintain for successful morphs.
Most morphs will be sculpted at low res. The reason for this is that you can easily move masses at lower res. When you try to do this at higher resolution, it will never be as smooth or easy to work with. For the better part, HiRes is not for morph creation, really, it's for a surface where you will do high definition detailing. Those normally then are done with bump, normals and/or displacement.
Actually all morphs are sculpted at low rez, including jcms. Genesis is a low poly figure and everything is done at low rez. Genesis needs to know where the low poly mesh is so that automorph generation, collission, etc calculated. HD does not provide that information at all, it's just a detail pass for the low poly morph. Again, if you can't make a low poly sculpt from the base mesh, you need to learn how to do it because the HD tool isn't a short cut to get around it. Because there are certain steps that need to be done and can cause issues, it's not in the willd for the very reason people are complaining. PAs do not create morphs starting from a high poly mesh. That's not how the process works, you start with a low poly mesh. if you don't get that, the tool is useless to you.
Also Poser tool isn't the same as DAZ's. Because of issues in exporting rigged figures, you do not have zbrush, you can only sculpt at about 2 subd with the morph brush before it dogs the interface. The feature has been in Poser 11, but it hasn't been used much because of the way it was designed and implemented. I wouldn't recommend buying it, thinking you're going to get the same result.
Thing is that isn't the only step that needs to be done to use the tool, and will create a bunch of incomplete items that will break genesis. It's not for the wild. Our work needs to be checked before it's distributed, which is why PAs can only use it at DAZ. Your option to make your details is either displaceent or normals, as that doesn't require the additional steps to make sure genesis doesn't break. i don't see DAZ changing their minds and giving themselves a situation where they are doing extra work to make sure customers morphs are working correctly.
I know this thread pops up every few months and it boils down to this. The HD tool is an internal tool that is used for their products. No company is obligated to give their tools away, especially their internal tools. DAZ gives away their base software that allows you to rig figures, props, clothing, and morphs, as well as render and now do dynamic clothing. I believe they are allowed to keep one thing for their brand, espeically if it's not meant to be used for general consumption.
Hell, I thought it was just displacement maps for the "HD Morphs", and the only reason you sub-d so high is so the details are cleaner. I didn't realize they were actually morphs sculpted on an HD version of the mesh.
If that is the case, is there no way to create a sub-d G8F in daz, save it as new 'base' and use that?
If you change the base mesh then none of the existing morphs will work anymore, including jcm. Moreover from what I understood subdivision is applied after posing in DS, so the rigging is intended to work on the lower-res mesh and probably wouldn't work as well for the subdivided mesh.
So basically you'd need to re-rig your higher res mesh and redo all jcm so that you can pose your new figure correctly, and you couldn't use any of the morphs packs on it.
If anyone wants to experiment with hires morphs, you can create a subdivided geograft, to any resolution you want,and then morph that. It will also follow the figures normal morphs morphs, so long as they have autofollow set true.
Sure, export a divided figure and then rig it from the base with the Transfer utility (for your own use, it isn't sharable). However, by baking in the SubD like that you would lose some quality as the rigging and joints are set up in the expectation that the division will be applied to the posed mesh, not that the division will be applied and then posed - it's likely to lead to scrunching at bends, for example.
You would also loose all the base figures morphs, since they can't directly appy to a higher resolution mesh.