Iray Smart Converter and Advanced Skin Managers for Genesis 2
ALLIEKATBLUE
Posts: 2,983
Are you kidding me? This is the best iray converter ever. I haven't even really fiddled with all the bells and whistles yet because the one click preset works so great. I love the different presets for white and black skin. Now I can further convert all my lovely converted V4 textures to iray using this tool. My life is complete. A lot of work went in to this product and it is well worth the wait and so happy for the holiday punch discount too. Excellent job on this and thanks for the video.
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
Thank you so much for this feedback Alliekatblue! It makes my Christmas evening even more happy!
As I said, apply and you are ready to render. Maybe a little gloss initialisation if the maps of your figure really differ a lot from the "average of gloss maps for G2", but otherwise you are ready to render ;)
The rest of the files are there for people who love playing with skin settings, or who really want to achieve something very specific in term of skin gloss, tone, or translucency. But take care, as soon as you begin with skin customization, it becomes an addiction!
Have a merry Christmas Alliekatblue
Oh so happy to give the praise. Many time people post complaints, and that's ok, I do it too. But when I come across a product that is fantastic, I have to let you know that too. Merry Christmas and keep up the great work!
I have the Generation 4 and Genesis Bundle. They are quick to apply amd can be tweaked. I am glad I go those.
Yes, this looks very good indeed. A great innovation long overdue.
Any plans for a G3 version?
Thanks a lot! You're right, nice to see people can also "not complain"! I'll keep up.
I'm happy that you're happy with the Bundle! All these are made to make your skin setting easier and more efficient, and finally more pleasant, so my goal is reached.The Genesis 2 is on the same basic, with a smarter converter, and some interfaced managers added.
Thanks! If you have feedback, questions, render sharing, you can use the commercial thread on which I go several times a day!
Yes! The adaptation of all the customization scripts should not be complex. I'm more worried by how long it will take me to know how to "convert the best" Genesis 3, and the options I will provide (I could provide tons of options but there is the fact that the initial conversion must be kept simple for the less advanced users...). But yes, this should be my next or second next product.
Now for today and tomorrow I will not have an easy access to internet, maybe I won't be able to answer all, or immediatly!
Have a nice Christmas day all!
+1, I'm moving to G3 soon, so I'm relucant to spend more money on G2 :/
OMG YES!
What a great Christmas present, V3D! It is on the wish list. Next purchase I make (probably tomorrow now!!!) this will be in the basket.
Thanks so much. I love the Genesis one!
Oh, don't get me wrong -- I still have a lot of G2 Iray work, but I'm just slowly shifting my purchases over to G3 :) It's happening faster than I expected because G3 is *that* much easier to work with.
I agree, this is a fantastic product and thank you for going to Gen2. I have so many really beautiful textures for V4 especially no makeup, natural looking and fantasy skins now they look brilliant:)
Thanks! The Genesis 2 one is even more complete, I hope you will enjoy!
Oh ok no issue I misunderstood initially. Yes a good choice to go on G3 too. Some Genesis 3 figures are really nice. On my side, I cannot make a choice then.... I use them all! (they all have nice features).
Hurrayyyy! That's what it was build for! Thanks ;)
One more little thing I wanted to add for people who don't follow the commercial thread. There is a small mistake with the "Reset Inital Dial Value" button of the "G2 V3DC !Mgrs All Gloss Base Manager.dse" located in the "03 Further Gloss Management" of the product. The Glossy roughness and reflectivity are not correctly reset to their initial values as they should be. This is minor and by luck does not touch the core of the behavior of this full gloss interface, but this requires an update which is already ready (I corrected this this morning it was a single "r" too much in a variable grrrr). I just have to post it and this should be very fast (only one button in one interface to test). All the rest of this interface works properly. Only the roughness and reflectivity are impacted by this mistake when using the "Reset Initial Dial Values", all the rest works perfectly.
I try not to spam different threads with the same image, but this one applied heavily to different topics, so I`ll drop it here as well because in 10 years I`ve been doing this, it`s been very few the times I`ve been so excited with a product. Seriously one of the most useful ones I`ve ever tried. This is my first test.
If I could add a personal suggestion, the only thing it would have made this even more perfect in my opinion, is some kind of next/back button to switch between the manager windows, so you can adjust all settings in one go without using the folders. But that`s asking too much to an already awesome item.
Thanks for it! Seriously recommended. I`ll wait patiently for the Genesis 3 version :)
The very first post in this thread (by ALLIEKATBLUE) convinced me to buy it! It's now in my 'DAZ Staging' folder, awaiting installation. (Come on, cut me a little slack here! I only bought it ten minutes ago!)
I cannot wait to get it installed and start messing with it! Perchance to break it...? (I'm a software developer; it's what I do!)
I suppose that means I'm going to have to download it again. My only question is about latency: how many days should I wait to download the updated package?
(I'm actually beginning to understand DAZ's thinking with respect to DAZ Connect.... Rather frightening, when you think about it...!)
Not really worried about that. If worse comes to worst (observe the spelling, all you non-English-majors out there!), I can download it while I'm hanging out at Mom and Dad's place. Or, I can drop into the local library (they have WiFi). Or my local Burger King (they do too). Or Starbucks (ditto). Or Panera Bread (ditto-squared, plus really tasty croissants!)
Or, I can wait till I get to my hotel in Wisconsin (yet again, free WiFi!), before I start my new gig.
In short..., it's all good!
AAaaaaaand....it's mine! :)
Thanks again, V3D!
Wow! What an amazing image! Thanks for the so nice feedback about this. The words that you're using for my product make me happy you could not imagine!
I tried to make it as efficient as possible, and it seems to work fine. Concerning the improvement, well it is not recommended to have a manager which would open another manager, because it requires the path of the managers to be written (which is not an issue), but if someone moves the content in a different folder, then things fail (the file does not exist anymore in the destination).
I have a much bigger "all in one" interface for my own usage, but it is not easy to include this one in a product, at least not without a strong tutorial about what does what because otherwise I fear it is too complex for the "general user". I can show to you what it looks like (with the image linked), this is my own development interface now, but if you give this the way it is to a beginner or not advanced user and you will have a "this product su***" feedback, you can be sure.
I'm gonna think what I can do for the Genesis 3 version, if I have a way to link things a little bit more, but still make it usable by everybody, even an early beginner. I don't promise anything, but I'll think about.
Yes barbult found some minor issues, which won't prevent the product to work at 99,5%. The first one is the "reset button" of the "all gloss manager" (located folder 3) does not reset properly "glossy roughness" and "glossy reflectivity". This is already re-scripted on my side and submitted as an update.
The United States still being sleeping, I'm gonna try to submit the second set of corrections, which are correcting the fact that when you use the interface to "initialize the gloss weight" (folder 2 gloss initialization), the fact that the maximum limits that the interface script sets as being 3 times the values of the dials can prevent the "simple presets" (which are not interfaced) to reach the desired value (I have to script the maximum limit to change too for them. It is not long but there are many). So I have to add to all of them the maximum limit change too. It does not prevent the gloss initialisation interface to work, but it will prevent the presets to work IF the value for the preset if higher than the maximum limit set by the interface. For now witht the "simple presets", if the values they try to set is higher than the limit that you set using the interface file, then the value set is the maximum limit for the property. This is strange now I think about that, I was sure I had already done something for that... hmmm...
You're really really welcome! Thanks for buying it, I hope you'll be happy with it.
I have been using and enjoying this converter, but I am having an issue with certain models, where the skin seems to come out very dark. I've tried the various presets and changing some of the settings, but there are so many different options, it is hard to know which one(s) to use.
The model I am using is FW Cassie for Teen Josie 6. She has a very nice skin, and originally I used the JMS skin shader to do the convert, and it looks good.
But I feel like the Smart Converter generally does a better job, and I would like to switch to that. However, the skin as I say is coming out very dark. Here it is with Presets 1 (right) and 3 (left) applied. I have not done a lot of other tweaking yet. This is in the same exact lighting conditions... literally all I did was reload the original DAZ mats for FW Cassie, and apply the presets.
Any recommendations on how to remedy this? Which setting should I look at?
I am using 4.9. In fact I *just* upgraded to 4.9 yesterday. Sorry, I should have mentioned that.
Ok no worry, if you swapped to 4.9 yesterday, what you have to know is that between 4.8 and 4.9, the Iray render engine has been udpated. As a consequence, as soon as the skins will use translucency and SSS, they will appear different from their 4.8 versions, and this independently from my shader (or from whatever shader using SSS and translucency, and even more different if the base effect is set as scatter transmit instead of scatter only).
I think when you made the renders with "clear" skins, you may be either with low translucency, or with "Base scatter only" option.
You have two options to help you solve your issue, all in the same manager, which is located folder 4 and named : "G2 V3DC !MgrS Translucency Strength And Color". So select your figure, browse to folder 04, and double click this manager. Now 2 choices :
1. Case 1 : EITHER you don't bother at all about translucency and SSS issues : in this case, and set the "Base scatter Option" choice to "Scatter only".
2. Case 2 : OR, on the contrary you want to keep more realism in translucency details : in this case, keep the "Base scatter Option" choice to "Scatter transmit" as it is, and then change the SSS reflectance tint to something even more blue than it is presently (for instance 184 - 235 - 235 -take care this is a VERY sensitive parameter, it changes things fast). You can as a second step also lower a bit translucency weight (down to 0.1, from the same interface). Finally, but this is not necessarily recommended, you can desaturate a bit the translucency color.
This should help a lot, I join the 2 renders I made while writting this explanation (I used case 2 solution for this renders). The first one is just after the conversion, the pale one is when I made the steps of "case 2".
Let me know if one of these two solutions are ok for you (I prefer the second solution but the final choice is up to you)
Wow thanks for all the info, V3D... you rock. :)
What you have said about the change from .8 to .9 possibly explains something else I have noticed... ALL the skins, including basic Iray ones, from the older Gen 7 figures that came out with 4.8, seem a bit darker than they used to be. Oddly the JMS shader does not seem to have been affected by this. After seeing it with other figures I rendered Cassie from an old scene that I had rendered a couple weeks ago, and in PS layered them, and they are identical. So it seems like some shaders are getting hit with this and some are not. I'm curious as to what JMS did that made his shaders immune... but not sure I have the know-how to investigate it.
I will try the measures you recommended and see what happens.
EDIT: Follow-up... I like the way Case 1 works, actually. It looks almost exactly like it used to under the 4.8 rendering. Since I am using this character long-term in my webcomic and want to maintain consistency, I will probably go with Case 1 + some minor tweaking.
You're welcome. To answer your question, if the other human shader you mention is not affected by the render engine change, it is because there is in it (tested on cassie) almost no translucency, and that translucency is not mapped (is constant) and is using a pale pink color, and the option this shader use is "Scatter Only" (well in brief, all skin sub-scattering phenomenons are minor, or almost neglected).
In the materials my product provides, realism is the goal, and it has been developped using both my competencies as a physicist of light (which was my education and work), and the best compromise for plenty of figures and plenty of lights sets (because real world physics is not sufficient to take into account the approximations of the render engine and the usage of various maps). This is why, on the contrary from the shader you mention, for DS versions where the render engine has been updated (4.9) for coherent scattering simulation, all the skins have been set to scatter transmit with appropriate "Base Scatter Transmit" choice, and appropriate values and colors of scattering elements (SSS and translucency). This is also why you have a DS version detection.
And this is also why the "Case 1" is your solution. You come back to a solution which is more "stable" but less representative of skin scattering phenomenons (but for a long term figure in your story, you are right to do so).
I will probably keep mucking around with it using the Case 2 tweaks and see what I like best. For now I think she looks really good as is... and realistic enough to satisfy me for my purposes.
Anyway thanks for all the info. I know a lot more now about what parameters to investigate to make skin look better.
:) You're welcome. Glad I could help.
I use a number of v4 characters i've converted to G2F....so what product would I look at? The v4 one or the G2F?
Hi, if the skins are already converted to G2F, and if the figure you are using is a Genesis 2 figure, then the product you need is the G2 one. The choice of the product depends only on the figure currently selected in the scene.
There is yet one thing to know, which is that the specular maps generally used for Generation 4 figures are generally very much brighter than the ones used for the Genesis 2 figure. Genesis 2 converter has been optimised for the generally very dark specular (or gloss) maps provided with the Genesis 2 figures. This is why, when you convert, the skins will probably appear too glossy. Don't worry in this case, you simply have to use the toolbox included in the gloss weight initialization folder and reduce glossy layered weigth at least, and eventually top coat weight too.