Will There Never Be a Way to Transfer HD Morphs?
conscience73
Posts: 42
in The Commons
Just for clarification. The question has arisen many times in morph transfer discussions so, it appears transferring of HD morphs is desirable. Morphs are just better in HD. Alas, there appears no hope. I've scoured forums and the persisting answer (Up till June 2017) is that it's impossible. Why is this so? Must it necessarily be this way?
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Comments
I suspect the PA that made them could release an update most likely if they wanted to.
So maybe bug them
I don't see HD morph transfer ever happening to be honest. I'd like to see it too, but I'm also realistic ;) It's tech that Daz seems to want to keep very close to the vest.
Laurie
Quite possibly. Checking some more, I saw a PA say something to that effect and another thing about using morph loader...
I uncomfortably follow your realism. Seems to be that way.
Still looking out for a "one day" generosity, far far away... Lol.
I feel like it hsould be allowed, considering it's within studio itself.
DAZ wants to make money. Give us too many tools, and we don't buy so much any longer.
Edit: Making money is fully accepted, everybody wants that.
Yeah, just think If the Colonel hadn't had a secret recipe would he ever have sold as much chicken as he did?
Lol, I don't think Chohole was going for a watertight analogy.
Also, I'm not a modeling expert, but couldn't HD be replicated without access to Daz HD? Theoretically, couldn't you export the figure to ZBrush or some modeling program and add more subdivision, then import it back to Daz? Granted, you'd have to create your own UVs, etc, but if all HD boils down to is a more 'subdivided model', it seems entirely possible to replicate...thereby 'changing your own oil' so to speak. Perhaps not easy, but neither is changing your oil (at least for most). :)
I suppose Daz's restricted HD tool does make it significantly easier somehow...by simply allowing you to do it all in Daz itself...or perhaps it just saves you the cost of needing to shell out for ZBrush? Genuinely curious as to the benefit of the HD tool over what we all have free access to.
I agree, signs are they consider it something of a "crown jewel". I'm not sure why though. They don't make lo-res figures better (i.e. good for games) because you have to turn up sub-D to even see them. And hi res detail isn't a big deal on hi res meshes, lots of companies have hi-res figures that are highly detailed. I'm missing something but this isn't my job so clearly they have a better understanding of what the tech can do and why it's special enough to keep totally proprietary.
That's a pretty good argument imo.
I've exported a model, subdivided it then created a changes; I've then imported that back in, coppied the textures onto it and rendered it; i'd post the image if I could find it, so probably one I wasn't happy with; it was a while ago.
Good points, except for one thing. By limiting the HD access to Daz PAs only, they are able to also require that all products made using the HD tools can only be sold at Daz. JiffyLube does not want their special tools to be used for products sold at Valvoline.
THIS!!!!!
DAZ develops a tool to ensure that their store has the highest quality characters. So the characters in their store can have details that far surpass any other stores figures out there.
Why should they give that away?
It is something they worked hard on, spent countless hours developing and then they are expected to give it away an have their hard work now benefiting other stores?
That is a very Ayn Rand type of scenerio, atlas has not shrugged that far.
If other places or people want to develop a tool to do a similar type of thing, then that is always open for them to do so. But you cannot really expect Daz to simply give it away (or sell it) like that. If you want to be the best, you build the path for yourself to do so.
I agree that Chohole's analogy isn't perfectly cromulent. As Outrider42 says, the "recipe" isn't a secret. What we have is actually a restriction—a restriction of access to a tool that enables the artist to import a morph into DAZ Studio that is based on a subdivided model. The Morph Loader tool that we all have access to can only load morphs that are made at base resolution. Anyone can make a morph of a subdivided DAZ figure in any 3D modelling application, but what everyone cannot do is bring that morph into Studio and apply it as a usable morph to a DAZ figure. This can only be done using the restricted HD morph loading tool.
The tool doesn't save any costs. You still need the modelling application (e.g. ZBrush, which as far as I know every PA creating HD figures uses). None of the morphing is done in DAZ Studio. All the HD tool does is enable you to import and apply a subdivided morph to a DAZ figure.
Ahhh, ok. So when Nicstt mentioned above he's been able to import models with further subdivision, he was importing an entirely new figure.
Seems reasonable for Daz to lock that down, at least in my opinion.
You also mentioned: 'Anyone can make a morph of a subdivided DAZ figure in any 3D modelling application,'
Is that true? Every time I've attempted an export from Daz, it forces me to export at Base resolution (if I recall)...or maybe I'm misremembering. Maybe I had to export at base because I planned on re-importing back to Daz. Now it's all becoming clear. :)
I think the real real HD tools are withheld from us customers is because they are so easy to use to do even low-res regular modeling with.
I agree with your main point here that there is an argument that restricting the tool isn't necessarily good business sense, but I do think that's a matter of debate (I am not saying that I agree with their policy, by the way). However, I'm not entirely convinced by all your arguments. Clearly, making the tool publicly available would not result in customers not buying products, so we can discount that as a reason. What I think DAZ's reasoning is, is that it would increase competition from artists selling at other outlets (e.g. Rendo). I don't agree that the restriction stifles creativity in DAZ's own market, though. This is how I understand it: if PA who doesn't have access to the HD tool offers a product that requires HD and that product is acceptable to DAZ as commercial, then that artist will be given access to the tool. By the way, I have heard from a PA here in this forum that not all PA's have access to the tool so it is more restricted even within DAZ's own market than you are saying. However, I do agree that it is not a "secret", as I've said above.
I like the analogy of the oil change, though :)
I'm not sure I see your point... For HD morphs you do the actual modelling in an external modelling software, like for a standard-res morph. The only thing the HD tool does is import the modified HD mesh back as a morph of the original figure...
You can definitely export the subdivided version. Having forgotten to set resolution to "base" before export is actually one of the most common problems users face when they try to create their first morph.
It seems this topic comes up every few months and generally the response should be the same. HD is an internal tool that DAZ and PAs use to for selling products in this store. PAs that have access to is can only use it for items sold here and can't distributed outside the store. It's basically their brand and they're under no obligation to give it away or sell it. If you wish to use the tool you have to be a PA with a prduct to sell that uses it. Everything beyond that is speculation. Even without the tool, people need to be able to morph a low poly mesh because that's what it requires to begin with. If you don't have access to the tool, then learning to sculpt on a low poly mesh along with making displacement/normal maps is your only option.
I think working on LoRez and using normal maps is a really good way to go. This is how the game industry works and their realism is looking awesome.
True, but they do this for a reason which is the game engine usually has a finite amount of resources and in order to achieve a certain level of detail they can't get with straight modeling because it would take away from resources, they rely on the normal maps for the detail. Think of it as a heavily biased renderer, but for textures and mesh. I would much rather rely on the mesh and modeling for render assets such as figures
Full agreement here.
And it's nice that I'm quoting RawArt as he's someone who makes good use of HD. My chief "HD complaint" is that it's so little used to any great benefit in the products in the store.
No, the gaming industry uses tools like bumps, normal, displacement and so on because it's faster, easier, more accurate and lets them automate more of the process then hi-res sculpting because their old work flow is high-res sculpting to lo-res model plus those various geometry image maps for details.
That approach makes for smaller downloads, lets LOD be a function of GPU capability and not something that requires extra storage and work to create for pre-inclusion, and so many other advantages that I wonder when they are going to come up with 3D models that are nothing more than a set of mercator and/or some other styles 2D projection maps as appropriate for the data that are put together at runtime at a level of detail that the GPU the SW is running on can handle.
RawArt and DzFire are able to create unique Genesis 8 creatures, so it should be possible to assign G8 rigs to the previous generations.
In that case, it's no longer a Genesis 8 morph but it's a new kind of figure compatible with Genesis 8.
HUH?? I didn't understand a word you just said...
Not to mention a high res mesh would be a royal pain to animate...
I don't know why you are already using much of the technology I just talked about to make your models.
If one can create a 2D projection from a 3D scan or a 3D projection from a 2D scan and those can be done and are done then really allot of the manual 3D modeling work will be made unneeded by good 2D drawing tools that were designed to be converted to 3D models. Workflow wise that is more sensible anyway since computer montitors are 2D devices. Just draw a 3D drawing in 2D with the 2.5D drawing tools like a regular artist would do and have them converted to 3D model. Why is that hard to understand?