Dartanbeck said:

Ooooo... Cool PC+ Flash Sale!!!

I kept it simple, but got something I've been wanting to find, but never knew it existed - Will Dupre's The Pirate for Hiro (3)

Rosie's gonna look cool in this shirt! I Love the combination between Genesis 1 and VWD!!!

Yep. She looks cool, alright!

This is the version of Rosie I've been animating - Rosie 5.2, dressed in her new Pirate Shirt for Hiro 3. Not the greatest of the images, this is the first frame of an animtion that will end up in a scene where she just came to land from her ship.

Fit Control doesn't work in Carrara. However, we can still use it to shape the garment before saving to the library. You might see the morph dials come through to Carrara, but if you do, they won't work - at least that's been my experience.

 

That said, I've been using Fit Control morphs to shape the clothing a bit before running it through VWD. It's very handy.

In this case, I can set how loose or tight the lace strings are amongst other things. This shirt was reshaped only using Fit Control (in DS) and VWD. This is the second version of this shirt I've tested, liked and saved to my library for Rosie to wear. I like it. I think it's sexy on her!

I would've just used the transfer utility to transfer the morphs and then use the geometry editor to remove stuff I didnt need or stuff got messed up.

Thanks for the replies and info!
All that cross-generational stuff is a bit dizzying for me to wrap my head around for now. 
This is why I'm choosing one Character "base" to work with, and sticking with that - at least for the time being. When I'm more comfortable with the Carrara ecosystem and how Daz figures play within it, I can expand. But for now, "Keep It Simple" is the dictum I'm operating by. So, I'll be sticking with Genesis 1 for now.
I do still have the question of knowing what is compatible with Carrara, specifically. I linked this above: https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-5-elite-ponytail. Is that usable? I don't want to purchase items if they won't be compatible - even if DAZ would refund them. I rather avoid purchasing them in the first place.

I did purchase a variety of "morph packages" for Genesis some time back, A3 and H3, A4 and H4, and a few others. Just playing with the sliders, mixing and matching those various options, I'm gonna be busy coming up with characters. 
I've been scrolling through DIM, and I have a lot more stuff for Genesis than I realized. So, I can at least see what I can come up with for that for now.
Thanks!
 

SickleYield said:

marble said:

certaintree38 said:

marble said:

What is it with collars and ties? Are they such a huge challenge to PAs? They are certainly a huge challenge for me to get one to look real (or even to fit).

I've just been fiddling with the Trading Floor shirt and tie and it seems to be impossible to prevent the tie from poking through the back of the collar. And the collar does not look real in anything but the base pose. I don't have G8M so perhaps things have improved since the clothes produced for G3M but, looking at many of the promo pictures, I doubt it. I'm also a bit wary of buying G8M clothes to retro-fit to G3M - not sure that it works that well. However, if anyone can suggest a solution for G3M I would appreciate it. I should add that my characters are never standard G3M ... I always have characters morphed to my liking but they are certainly not monsters.

I used  SY G8 clones for G3 for some time and never had a problem. I don't usually do extreme poses/morphs and only used it for a few months before going to G8. But I did definitely do sitting poses and the like, and used custom and PA characters. So YMMV. 

OK thanks - good to know. I already have that SY product so I shall give it a whirl. I've avoided buying G8M clothes because I didn't think they would transfer nicely but I have lots of G8F clothing which I will try on G3F to make sure. 

I do wish that Sickleyield would include promo pictures with contemporary clothing though. I know that there is a general obsession with the Historical Fantasy genre but some of us are not into it. Maybe I am just a bit overly aware of it at the moment because I've just been trawling through pages and pages of books looking for my next novel and a huge proportion have the kind of fantasy covers that immediately brings my mind back to DAZ.

You're right, I am definitely a big fan of medieval/Elizabethan/Georgian era fantasy.  :D  But that wouldn't stop me if the money was a real concern with it.

The reason I do this making promos is that when I'm making promos for conversion sets I have limited time to do them and need to sell the product as hard as I can to as many people as possible, so I have to go for broke on using the most difficult outfits the product can handle in terms of them being drapey and layered, etc.  That being the case, regular contemporaries often don't make the cut.  Suiting is also harder to make look good in any circumstances in 3d, so I'm going to avoid it when possible if I can get most people to buy the product using something easier to deal with.  

For the people asking about ties and collars, it's because they are literally one of the hardest clothing interactions to manage in a technical sense (and I say that having made these several times with different levels of success), right up there with loose-fitting male pants.  Making a clip-on would help, but doesn't fix one of the major problems, which is that a tie and shirt combo fights with every single body morph unless it's one that's very smooth through the chest area, which most male body morphs, to put it mildly, are not.  An artist can try using rigidity on the tie, but then it's going to look weird when the shirt under it molds to pectorals and it does not.  So you can manually do a bajillion body morphs, which isn't a cost-effective use of time, or you can do a small number and use them in the promos, or you can use rigidity anyway and do a bunch of fixit morphs and pray it's enough.  (Or, like some Genesis-era male shirts with ties, you can brazenly show the tie dipping into the chest against gravity at the edges of pectorals and hope for the best.)
Don't even start me on dynamics.  dForce does not handle layering of multiple pieces with stiff fabric.  I'm not saying it doesn't handle it well, I'm saying it doesn't handle it at all.  Most "dynamic" suits you can buy have barely any effect of dForce on them for this reason, just a tiny adjustment of the drape on sim.  Using it on a tie is more likely to make the tie do the Spiky Samba than have it drape nicely on the shirt.  And if you did get a tie to drape properly with dForce and not explode, it's going to look too limp and thin to pass for realistic.  It's an untenable situation in general.

 

Wow, I'm glad I started this thread now. I'm certainly getting my money's worth of PA interection but then the two of you are particularly helpful which is always appreciated. I'm sure that you know best with the promos - what tends to sell, etc. All I ask is for at least one example of a "regular, contemporary" item - maybe a shirt or jeans? Perhaps it is as time consuming to do one as a set of promos in which case I understand.

As for the fantasy genre - I was as taken with GoT as anyone and my favourite book of all time was Lord of the Rings but that's where it ends. I have no desire to make my own images of warrior queens and centaurs. 

@Mada Classic stripes and abstract patterns would be a must. Simple silks too. Also, my husband has some fun nerd ties that I think would be cool. Maybe something like this, in black and white, but in a pattern that gets around the copyright issue? And if you can give it a morph to make it fat or skinny, that would be icing. 

Summerhorse said:

What do you guys think about metahumans? They look interesting-  but kind of depressing. I'm wondering  if they are going to make all my learning Z-brush ect pointless?

Hoping it is OK to put this link here :https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/digital-humans

 Nahh, Daz's own characters are immensely complex and still the most fully realized pre-made characters around, (Turbo squid be damned!) as the sheer amount of morphs that you have via dials is massive, not to mention any morphs that you can create along with ZBrush!

To give you perspective just how densely packed Genesis 8 is with all her morphs, just try exporting that bad-boy with all the morphs via dxf format over to Unreal, I literally had to force a Daz studio shut-down due to 60gb ram being devoured in order to accommodate the exported model!

It is really quite remarkable that Daz studio is able to handle such a densely packed model into a scene!

SnowSultan said:

Most likely due to Daz not supporting ZBCore, only supporting the full ZBrush program, which really sucks for people that want to get into ZBrush but who don't want to spend nearly $1k

It actually isn't that big of a deal, OBJ export and Morph Loader Pro work just fine for getting morphs back and forth between Core and Studio. I just wanted to try GoZ.  :)  Also, you get $100 off the full Zbrush if you own Core - still $800, but it's truly professional-grade software.

Metahumans are cool, but there are two major limitations: they're primarily made to work in Unreal Engine, and in order to maintain animation and clothing fit capabilities, Epic has said there are no current plans to implement any sort of advanced body morphing. They're basically customizable talking heads; very detailed and amazing for animation, but extremely limited overall compared to what we've got. 

Cool, I'm glad it wasn't a deal-breaker then, but yeah, if ever you want to use GOZ, I'd give bypassing the ZBrush dialogue as daz studio is pretty a flexible program, it's why I made the switch so long ago!

Metahumans, schmetahumans, you still have to be online in order to use it, so yeah, it would be much better for you to import genesis into the program... just do NOT attempt to import all of the morphs as I did!

marble said:

certaintree38 said:

marble said:

What is it with collars and ties? Are they such a huge challenge to PAs? They are certainly a huge challenge for me to get one to look real (or even to fit).

I've just been fiddling with the Trading Floor shirt and tie and it seems to be impossible to prevent the tie from poking through the back of the collar. And the collar does not look real in anything but the base pose. I don't have G8M so perhaps things have improved since the clothes produced for G3M but, looking at many of the promo pictures, I doubt it. I'm also a bit wary of buying G8M clothes to retro-fit to G3M - not sure that it works that well. However, if anyone can suggest a solution for G3M I would appreciate it. I should add that my characters are never standard G3M ... I always have characters morphed to my liking but they are certainly not monsters.

I used  SY G8 clones for G3 for some time and never had a problem. I don't usually do extreme poses/morphs and only used it for a few months before going to G8. But I did definitely do sitting poses and the like, and used custom and PA characters. So YMMV. 

OK thanks - good to know. I already have that SY product so I shall give it a whirl. I've avoided buying G8M clothes because I didn't think they would transfer nicely but I have lots of G8F clothing which I will try on G3F to make sure. 

I do wish that Sickleyield would include promo pictures with contemporary clothing though. I know that there is a general obsession with the Historical Fantasy genre but some of us are not into it. Maybe I am just a bit overly aware of it at the moment because I've just been trawling through pages and pages of books looking for my next novel and a huge proportion have the kind of fantasy covers that immediately brings my mind back to DAZ.

You're right, I am definitely a big fan of medieval/Elizabethan/Georgian era fantasy.  :D  But that wouldn't stop me if the money was a real concern with it.

The reason I do this making promos is that when I'm making promos for conversion sets I have limited time to do them and need to sell the product as hard as I can to as many people as possible, so I have to go for broke on using the most difficult outfits the product can handle in terms of them being drapey and layered, etc.  That being the case, regular contemporaries often don't make the cut.  Suiting is also harder to make look good in any circumstances in 3d, so I'm going to avoid it when possible if I can get most people to buy the product using something easier to deal with.  

For the people asking about ties and collars, it's because they are literally one of the hardest clothing interactions to manage in a technical sense (and I say that having made these several times with different levels of success), right up there with loose-fitting male pants.  Making a clip-on would help, but doesn't fix one of the major problems, which is that a tie and shirt combo fights with every single body morph unless it's one that's very smooth through the chest area, which most male body morphs, to put it mildly, are not.  An artist can try using rigidity on the tie, but then it's going to look weird when the shirt under it molds to pectorals and it does not.  So you can manually do a bajillion body morphs, which isn't a cost-effective use of time, or you can do a small number and use them in the promos, or you can use rigidity anyway and do a bunch of fixit morphs and pray it's enough.  (Or, like some Genesis-era male shirts with ties, you can brazenly show the tie dipping into the chest against gravity at the edges of pectorals and hope for the best.)
Don't even start me on dynamics.  dForce does not handle layering of multiple pieces with stiff fabric.  I'm not saying it doesn't handle it well, I'm saying it doesn't handle it at all.  Most "dynamic" suits you can buy have barely any effect of dForce on them for this reason, just a tiny adjustment of the drape on sim.  Using it on a tie is more likely to make the tie do the Spiky Samba than have it drape nicely on the shirt.  And if you did get a tie to drape properly with dForce and not explode, it's going to look too limp and thin to pass for realistic.  It's an untenable situation in general.

TwoCats said:

I've installed V5 and, so far so good. Everything's working, and the folder structure seems better organized than V4 did.  Or, at least I'm having an easier time finding stuff.
I do have a related question, since it's to do with content.
Most of the content I've purchased has been for Genesis 8 or Genesis 3 figures. I don't have as much for Genesis/V5 figures. So I'm looking to make a few purchases as kind of a "booster" of content to work with, but I'm curious about compatibility with Carrara specifically.
For example, I found this: 
https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-5-elite-ponytail
Will that work okay with Carrara? Asking because I don't see it listed in the 'Compatible Software' list.
Thanks yet again

Yes. In fact it will work quite well.

Genesis 1 is The One Genesis figure that is fully compatible in Carrara. Development never did quite get Genesis 2 perfected, but they work as well, except for one important issue for me - since I need this stuff to work:

The Auto-fit system for Carrara hasn't been developed far enough to recognize the difference between different generations of Genesis, so auto-fitting from one Genesis generation to another simply doesn't work. The Fit To dialog never opens, it just conforms the item wrongly without hesitation.

There's a simple fix for this, if you like using Genesis 2 over Genesis 1: Simply create a Genesis 1 version of the other generation clothing using Daz Studio.

I've written some nice articles on both subjects:

 

Genesis 1 Rocks!!! is all about why I prefer Genesis 1, and how I am able to use Genesis 1 to be virtually any generation of Genesis figure, and wear virtually any clothing.

 

Content Generations Conversion is all about using Daz Studio's tools to create clothing from newer Genesis (2-8) clothing that fits, and works with Genesis 1. I create my own listings in Daz Studio's library for these new items under the People > Genesis > Clothing category. 

Just know that some Genesis 8 stuff doesn't convert well to Genesis 3, in which case we'll either not be able to use that as clothing, or we'll have a bit more work to do before we get there.

For things that I really want from Genesis 8 that doesn't like to convert (which is due to the A pose instead of the T  pose - likely a weight mapping issue, so I need to learn weight mapping in Daz Studio - all in good time!) I simply give Genesis 8 a T pose and export the clothing item as an OBJ, then bring that OBJ back in onto Genesis 2 or 3 and use the Transfer utility to turn it into a conforming cloth. Then I convert that down to a Genesis 1 cloth.

Or if I'm converting clothing made for a male figure, I can do the above process directly to Genesis 1 instead of first converting to Genesis 2 or 3. This is because Genesis is fully unisex, and defaults at the male shape. So when converting female clothing, the Transfer Utility provide a method to subtract the female shape during conversion for us, which is very handy!

I did a few conversions directly to Genesis by importing the object (OBJ) into Carrara, and shaping away the female shape using the modeler, which can also be even better (if not more work) than the automated process. But the automation of Daz Studio usually does a wonderful job.

Here's a little video I made that might have some helpful hints, and my site (Dartanbeck.com) has a lot of info that I feel compelled to write while I'm waiting for renders to finish:

Mada said:

I like that idea a lot :) it would be easier to rig a tie with moveable bones if it was used like a prop and the user moved it into place, and then dforce can take care of the last bit of draping (if its needed at all). What kind of designs would you guys like to see... trying to figure out if its worth it making a pack. I could make a morph to take a tie from thick to thin but you'll have some texture distortion - better to have 2 separate with material zones that makes it easy to drop a shader onto it.

 

If you are thinking in terms of a pack - maybe include a bowtie? 

I like that idea a lot :) it would be easier to rig a tie with moveable bones if it was used like a prop and the user moved it into place, and then dforce can take care of the last bit of draping (if its needed at all). What kind of designs would you guys like to see... trying to figure out if its worth it making a pack. I could make a morph to take a tie from thick to thin but you'll have some texture distortion - better to have 2 separate with material zones that makes it easy to drop a shader onto it.

 

Escapism, they say. Having fun, they say.

Like... erm... fun.

So I did buy this Beowulf suit for M3, by Uzilite, since it was among the "PC for a day" selection a few days ago. In theory, M3 (a subdivided M3 RR, in this particular case) is still usable - although not for closeups because of the eyelids, eyelashes and eyebrows; M3 Hi-Res skin is still one of my favourite male skins evah (outside of that hairy chest, of course); I even seemed to find a sweet spot for the smoothing modifier... but then you start dressing the figure, and all hell breaks loose. 

Elleque's shoulder magnets are fine for the non-RR M3, but what I never managed to justify buying were M3 and V3 morph packs, so that's why I'm using the RR versions (that came with morphs built-in). RR's have a somewhat different zoning, so the mags are wonky. And we get those infamous round shoulders full-blast as a result.

Then, I always see texture stretching - like above the top lip, or, again, on the shoulders. 

And actual poses look laughable - and what's that with the bottom of the pants? I keep seeing that. Always needs re-rigging, taking the bottoms out of the "feet".

The question is, will it survive dForcing? No-one knows.

I'll try next time I have a chance to use DS. Don't know when. Too much work.

A couple I posted elsewhere a while back after purchasing a bunch of A3 clothing and a few characters that were majorly discounted. BioSiege outfit with the Aemelia Doll texture using Kioli morphs, and Lily Dress (shader re-textured) with the Aiko 3 Toon morph and Sheriwyn Hair (also re-textured.)

 

Here's my take on Kiko.  I replaced her skin with Mousso's Fan Ling and did custom texture on the Ktarya Hair.  And just for grins, because I'm not real fond of Kota, I decided to morph Kiko into a male Kitsune. He's got Lee 8's skin.  And now, I get to see what trouble they can get into...

 

Imago said:

Non credo che il PA abbia a facoltà di rimuovere qualcosa dallo store (fatta eccezione per Muscleman, ma lui è grosso e loro sono piccolini e devono ubbidire )

Vedo che stanno eliminando parecchi prodotti "vecchi" dallo store. E' un peccato che la gente continui a pensare "vecchio uguale brutto", io ho un paio di giga di roba "vecchia" a cui applico uno shader o un atexture un pò più definita e non gliene frega nulla se ha dieci anni.

In fondo alla DAZ stessa fanno la stessa cosa, se guardi bene ci sono un paio di set "riciclati" semplicemente affiancadogli un set di materali IRay. E hanno fatto così anche con DAZ Cat che è letteralmente il vecchio gatto con 3000 poligoni ma con un preset Stranded Based Hair e un pò di materiali IRay.

Vedo sbrigarmi a comprare Sergio vastano prima che lo tolgano di mezzo!

Anch'io se capita prendo roba anche datata nella prospettiva di rifargli il look con nuovi shaders; credo la tendenza sullo "svecchiamento" si abbia di più soprattutto sui modelli umani, dove al di là della qualità delle textures siano anche i limiti del rigging e dei morph disponibili a farli ritenere non più all'altezza di parametri che ormai si danno per acquisiti.

THANK YOU!! The offending morph was not a Daz character - I will direct my reports to renderosity.

Most likely due to Daz not supporting ZBCore, only supporting the full ZBrush program, which really sucks for people that want to get into ZBrush but who don't want to spend nearly $1k

It actually isn't that big of a deal, OBJ export and Morph Loader Pro work just fine for getting morphs back and forth between Core and Studio. I just wanted to try GoZ.  :)  Also, you get $100 off the full Zbrush if you own Core - still $800, but it's truly professional-grade software.

 

Metahumans are cool, but there are two major limitations: they're primarily made to work in Unreal Engine, and in order to maintain animation and clothing fit capabilities, Epic has said there are no current plans to implement any sort of advanced body morphing. They're basically customizable talking heads; very detailed and amazing for animation, but extremely limited overall compared to what we've got. 

well i'm not sure. for genetalia they are found in the Parameters tab/GenitaliaObject/Asection called "Posing" that contains morph dialslike of shaft up-down etc. I guess then they're not morphs.. Then what are they? And how would i get these to transfer to Unity? Not possible?

MinerDave said:

This is not a helpful reply.  Adequate customer service would have indicated which product I should have got, and which tutorial might have been helpful.  I went back to your page on DAZ and couldn't work out which one Jay used, and if I get interested in using the product again I could rewatch the Webinar again to see which it was, but since I have the same problem as others in not being able to get it to work, I have taken it off my main screen.

Puppeteer is part of Daz Studio, you don't need anything further (except possibly the expressions you want to start from). This thread is about an optional, ease-of-use add-on for the 200 Plus morph set which makes use of Puppeterr; it isn't a change to the behaviour of the basic tool.

marble said:

Faeryl Womyn said:

marble said:

Rigging and weight mapping would be nice.

Not going to happen. You ask anyone how to rig clothes and all anyone says is use the transfer utility or use dforce. A search only gives infromation about transfer utility and dforce. No one will give any information on how to rig clothes, they only know how to say transfer utility or dforce. Apparently the concept of rigging by means of properly setting up the bone system no longer exists.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of articulated props. For exampe, a suitcase or a holdall that opens.Sometimes rigged movement is better than sculpted morphs. Other examples: doors and windows, bendable cushions, snakes and hose pipes, you get the idea. 

Jen Greenless has a video on rigging props here 

 

Faeryl Womyn said:

marble said:

Rigging and weight mapping would be nice.

Not going to happen. You ask anyone how to rig clothes and all anyone says is use the transfer utility or use dforce. A search only gives infromation about transfer utility and dforce. No one will give any information on how to rig clothes, they only know how to say transfer utility or dforce. Apparently the concept of rigging by means of properly setting up the bone system no longer exists.

That's unfortunate. That's been the main thing I've been waiting for when they release new tutorials. It's the only software I've ever used where they don't want you to learn how to create your own characters or clothing. On that note, do you know of any tutorials for taking a character or clothing from Blender into Daz and rig it using the transfer utility? Or is that not a thing.