Cybersox said:

memcneil70 said:

Today there is https://www.daz3d.com/golden-years-shapes-for-genesis-9 for $2.99 which is a morph pack of six older females by @Virtual_World. With the G9 Base Essentials that are free with Daz Studio non-adopters might have a product that could give them a product that could still be useful and not break the bank. And with older people, it is easy to adjust them to the other sex.

That's fine if budget is the only reason for for not using G9.  However, a lot of us have plenty of other reasons for not using G9, most notably due to the onging issues with bend morphs.  I'm not a ludite when it comes to 3D products, and I've spent a lot money on G9 products, but despite that I very rarely use the G9 figures themselves.  One of the PAs who sells both here and at Rendo, Tri-X, is well known for making all of his characters in multi-figure versions over at Rendo and I think he rather nailed most of the common issues by printing a chaart on his product pages there explaining the positives/negatives of each figure system and why he makes duplicate figures:

 

   

I have only been around for 10 years, joining half-way through Genesis 7 so I am no way an expert on bend morphs or on figures. I do look for PAs at the DAZ store that have addressed those bend morphs though. But some of those items listed are non-starters for me. With Bone Minion I have all the poses available for G9 and backwards for other generations on the fly, without clogging up my drive with duplicates. Nipples (or other private areas of the body) are worthless to me, I don't render nudes or sexual images. If others do, it is their own business.

If I have a quibble with G9 is the lack of diversity that we had in G8 and G8.1. But I have those characters if I need them. There are times I feel we are back in Generation 7's days of white women/men all the time with a colorized version of another race thrown in as a bone. This is not 100% as there are some wonderful characters out there.

My post was simply to highlight an item for those on a limited budget who may not use G9 because of that budget and that it could be a help to expand their options. And that it was from a PA with an excellent reputation for her characters.

I understand that those with a great deal of experience in 3D have a better understanding and that is fine. We live in a world where we can shop as we can afford and prefer the products.

memcneil70 said:

Today there is https://www.daz3d.com/golden-years-shapes-for-genesis-9 for $2.99 which is a morph pack of six older females by @Virtual_World. With the G9 Base Essentials that are free with Daz Studio non-adopters might have a product that could give them a product that could still be useful and not break the bank. And with older people, it is easy to adjust them to the other sex.

That's fine if budget is the only reason for for not using G9.  However, a lot of us have plenty of other reasons for not using G9, most notably due to the onging issues with bend morphs.  I'm not a ludite when it comes to 3D products, and I've spent a lot money on G9 products, but despite that I very rarely use the G9 figures themselves.  One of the PAs who sells both here and at Rendo, Tri-X, is well known for making all of his characters in multi-figure versions over at Rendo and I think he rather nailed most of the common issues by printing a chaart on his product pages there explaining the positives/negatives of each figure system and why he makes duplicate figures:

frisquet said:

Richard Haseltine said:

You may well need to adjusty the rigging to match the shape for the eyes and expression bones, which means moving the joint centres and possibly the end points and changing the alignment to match (DS does have an Adjust Rigging to Shape command, but don't expect it to be a one-click  fix). You may also need additional morphs that will correct the shape when you have your morph applied and some other bone rotation or shape.  Once you have all of those you will need to link them to your morph, and to the other rotation/shape in the case of corrections, which usually invovles using the property Hierarchy pane and putting the Parametrs pane in Edit mode so that you can drag-and-drop to build the basic links.

Thank you for the reply! Just to clarify, I have already successfully run Adjust Rigging to Shape and completed the ERC Freeze for my custom shape. The bone alignment itself seems correct.

However, the result is still unsatisfactory. When I apply a base expression like a smile, the geometry completely breaks: the gums clip through the lips, and the mesh tears badly.

I understand your point about needing "additional morphs" (JCMs/MCMs) to correct the shape when the expression is dialed in. This is exactly where I am stuck due to a lack of specific, step-by-step information. Since standard expressions use complex FACS morphs, how exactly do I approach creating and linking a corrective morph specifically for this torn smile? Are there any specific tutorials or step-by-step workflows you could point me to for fixing mouth/teeth clipping during expressions on a heavily customized shape?

If you want custom correctives for FACS, you make one per FACS shape.
E.g., if you want a corrective for Blink, you make a corrective for Blink Left and then a separate for Blink Right.

To manually set up the controllers for your correctives, you do this in Property Heirarchy.  E.g., the original FACs Blink Left would set up as controller for your corrective shape by putting it as 1st Stage Controller (DeltaAdd type). I explained this recently in a seperate thread so just read this.  Unfortunately my diagram is in english... https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/9599431/#Comment_9599431

frisquet said:

The first problem is the eyes. I created custom eye morphs as well, but when I make the character look at the camera, the gaze never feels quite right. No matter what I try, I can't get the eyes to look naturally at the camera. The result is still far from acceptable.

There needs to be a page we can link to with all steps fully written out for cases like this - it would save explaining it every time.

There are steps you need to do in order.
 

Fitting the eyes

Load G9 Devload (i.e., Resting Focus should be off)

Load your Head morph only 

Load the Eyes onto the figure

Export the eyes at base res and position them in your modelling software so they are perfectly aligned

Bring them back into Daz as an autofollow morph, following standard process for creating autofollow morph (i.e., loading onto the eyes while the head shape is active, loading with reverse deformations set to "Yes", and "Deltas only", and the eyes morph should have the exact same Name as the Head morph)

Save your eyes autofllow morph to directory

Now the head morph and the eyes are all in position, you can proceed with rigging.

Rigging the Head morph and Eyes bones
If you have already done Adjust Rigging to Shape and ERC - please just delete whatever you already did and start from scratch.  (In theory, you could go to "ERC Bake..." to remove the ERC links for your head morph but if you run into complications doing this im not helping you so it is easier to just start over)

Run Adjust Rigging to Shape but DO NOT check the boxes for Right Eye, Left Eye, and the four Eyelid bones

Once you have Adjusted Rigging of evertyhing but the Eye and Eyelids, you can do ERC Freeze. Scan through the list of bone adjustments before committing to ensure you are not ERC freezing anything stupid. It should just be the face bones without the eyes and eyelids

Run the "Adjust Eye Rigging" Script for G9, under the G9 Starter Essentials Utility 

If you look at your ERC'd subcomponents, you see you now have the Head bones you manually ERC Freezed plus the eye bones and eyelids that the "Adjust Eye Rigging" script completed.

You can now save the Head morph to your directory.
 

The second problem is facial expressions. As soon as I apply expressions, the character starts looking unnatural and ugly.

Do those expressions look ghastly on G9 default anyway? They might just be awful expressions.  Check each FACS expression individually to troubleshoot and ensure your head morph and ERC'd bone adjustments arent messed up. 

My goal isn't to create a Frankenstein character—I want the morph to work well with Genesis 9 expressions.

At this point I'm not even sure what I should be learning next. Is there a proper workflow for fine-tuning custom Genesis 9 morphs so they behave correctly with eye poses and facial expressions?

When you did Faceform wrap, did you use latest Faceform with the option to wrap with splines? Did you do wrapping/alignment using the splines or old point pairs method?

Whichever method you used, did you ensure the geometry follows G9 geometry? Did you use the Landmarks texture map that comes with G9 utility to ensure you are following landmarks and preserving topology flow? If you didnt, then topology for expressions could potentially become weird.  You can look at the wireframe for your morph vs default g9 and see if the topology flow looks off.

There doesn't seem to be much information on this topic, or maybe I'm just searching for the wrong terms since English isn't my native language.  If anyone could point me toward tutorials, documentation, or explain the correct workflow, I'd really appreciate it.

Many tutorials for setting up G9 characters are just generally bad or they are good until they decide to just completely miss out steps concerning ERC or saving.

Faceform wrapping concepts about preserving topology etc are universal so those tutorials should apply to all software.

Richard Haseltine said:

You may well need to adjusty the rigging to match the shape for the eyes and expression bones, which means moving the joint centres and possibly the end points and changing the alignment to match (DS does have an Adjust Rigging to Shape command, but don't expect it to be a one-click  fix). You may also need additional morphs that will correct the shape when you have your morph applied and some other bone rotation or shape.  Once you have all of those you will need to link them to your morph, and to the other rotation/shape in the case of corrections, which usually invovles using the property Hierarchy pane and putting the Parametrs pane in Edit mode so that you can drag-and-drop to build the basic links.

Thank you for the reply! Just to clarify, I have already successfully run Adjust Rigging to Shape and completed the ERC Freeze for my custom shape. The bone alignment itself seems correct.

However, the result is still unsatisfactory. When I apply a base expression like a smile, the geometry completely breaks: the gums clip through the lips, and the mesh tears badly.

I understand your point about needing "additional morphs" (JCMs/MCMs) to correct the shape when the expression is dialed in. This is exactly where I am stuck due to a lack of specific, step-by-step information. Since standard expressions use complex FACS morphs, how exactly do I approach creating and linking a corrective morph specifically for this torn smile? Are there any specific tutorials or step-by-step workflows you could point me to for fixing mouth/teeth clipping during expressions on a heavily customized shape?

You may well need to adjusty the rigging to match the shape for the eyes and expression bones, which means moving the joint centres and possibly the end points and changing the alignment to match (DS does have an Adjust Rigging to Shape command, but don't expect it to be a one-click  fix). You may also need additional morphs that will correct the shape when you have your morph applied and some other bone rotation or shape.  Once you have all of those you will need to link them to your morph, and to the other rotation/shape in the case of corrections, which usually invovles using the property Hierarchy pane and putting the Parametrs pane in Edit mode so that you can drag-and-drop to build the basic links.

Padone said:

@lilweep I'm not sure to understand your note. I supposed to use non-zero as default value is perfectly legal in DS. Why the PA should avoid it ?

non-zero as default means when it is zero it will show under "Currently Used", which is annoying if there are many vendors doing such.  "Currently Used" becomes populated with pointless information.

I also gave a look at the stage one controllers for the specific morph, having -70 as default, and looks quite complex, not sure how you are suggesting to "fix it".

I never suggested anything of the sort. I said the vendor should have set it up differently so it would not show up on "Currently Used" when it is not in use
But if you wanted advice on how to fix it I would actually need to see a screenshot... properly expanded out.
EDIT: Sorry for some reason attachments werent showing when i came into this thread but now i see the attachment.
EDIT: From what I understand this morph at -70% is currently reporting as not in "currenlty used" in your screenshot because you have Aleda dialled on. But if you have Aleda dialled off, it will go down to 0% and be reported as in use?
My suggestion was that instead of the vendor forcing this to -70% by default, they should have dialled in the -70% using ERC by controlling the CBS morph with the character body morph. 
I.e., in practice:
1.  in Properties, change the default of the morph to 0 
2. make a new ERC on 1st stage controller - the Controller will be the body morph, the type will be DeltaAdd, and the scalar will be -0.7 . That will do the same as setting it to -70% (but importantly only when the character is actually in use)
3. You cant have both the body as 2nd stage multiply and 1st stage deltaadd controller. so need to be creative about what should function as 2nd stage multiply controller in lieu of character body morph

For sure fixing by hand all the non-zero defaults in all the figures would be a nightmare. Unless this is going to really fix something we better leave it as it is, I suppose ?

Yes you should probably leave it as it is. I think the vendor should have taken a slightly different approach.  I think this vendor is good, so not to suggest their product is not good, just that when you have a few products like this it convolutes the currently used tab.
Sorry for constant editing of my post. I am finished editing now!

Hi everyone!

I'm having a problem with custom Genesis 9 morphs, and after searching for over a month I still haven't found a solution—neither on the Daz forums nor anywhere else online.

Here's my workflow:

• I created a custom morph in Blender.

• I wrapped it to the Genesis 9 base using FaceForm Wrap.

• I imported it into Daz Studio with Morph Loader Pro.

• Then I made a few more adjustments in Blender and imported the updated morph back into Daz.

I'm pretty happy with the result in the neutral pose, but that's where the good news ends.

The first problem is the eyes. I created custom eye morphs as well, but when I make the character look at the camera, the gaze never feels quite right. No matter what I try, I can't get the eyes to look naturally at the camera. The result is still far from acceptable.

The second problem is facial expressions. As soon as I apply expressions, the character starts looking unnatural and ugly. My goal isn't to create a Frankenstein character—I want the morph to work well with Genesis 9 expressions.

At this point I'm not even sure what I should be learning next. Is there a proper workflow for fine-tuning custom Genesis 9 morphs so they behave correctly with eye poses and facial expressions?

There doesn't seem to be much information on this topic, or maybe I'm just searching for the wrong terms since English isn't my native language.

If anyone could point me toward tutorials, documentation, or explain the correct workflow, I'd really appreciate it.

@dennisgray41 and others, I've posted some athletic morph comparisons over in the Kristina 9 thread.  Dialing in the athlete shape morphs does trigger Kristina shapes, so you have to dial out the Kristina shapes manually.  

@lilweep I'm not sure to understand your note. I supposed to use non-zero as default value is perfectly legal in DS. Why the PA should avoid it ? I also gave a look at the stage one controllers for the specific morph, having -70 as default, and looks quite complex, not sure how you are suggesting to "fix it".

For sure fixing by hand all the non-zero defaults in all the figures would be a nightmare. Unless this is going to really fix something we better leave it as it is, I suppose ?

Ciao Crios, conosco già i tuoi freebies, sono molto belli e liho scaricati già quasi tutti. In particolare mi sono piaciuti tanto i cani, i draghi, Nekomata, la sella per il cane (monster dog saddle) ed i morph per i Big cat. Ho inoltre di recente comprato l'Husky di Daz per poter applicare il tuo morph. Grazie per tutto il tuo lavoro che rendi disponibile! :)

Today there is https://www.daz3d.com/golden-years-shapes-for-genesis-9 for $2.99 which is a morph pack of six older females by @Virtual_World. With the G9 Base Essentials that are free with Daz Studio non-adopters might have a product that could give them a product that could still be useful and not break the bank. And with older people, it is easy to adjust them to the other sex.

surv0101 said:
I think I know what Edit mode is, but I have never used it.

I cannot tell if this is a question. But if you are asking what to do, you need to go into Parameters tab and right-click then select "Edit Mode". You are now in edit mode.

2nd Stage controller? Yup, right over my head, lol. 

The method for automatically controlling morphs in Daz uses the Property Heirarchy to define these controls ("Enhanced Remote Controls" <-- long-winded unnecessary name).
In the Property Heirarachy tab, for each morph you have the option to set Controls via different methods.  The options are:
1) 1st Stage - here you can use Add, Subtract, Keyed logic to control morphs

2) 2nd Stage - here you can use Multiply or Divide logic to control morphs

It doesn't seem too bad of a process once you know what you are doing. I am just not very experienced, and I am going to have to learn what each step is first.

Well the steps are already described by Crosswind above. So yes you would have to follow the instructions. Whether following steps requires any "learning" is debatable. The instructions all fit on one image (see the attachment)

Padone said:

for characters other than Aleda the value is zero so different than the default. I don't think this is a issue though and everything works as intended. Or anyone has anything to add ?

It is not an issue if a morph value is zero without the character dialled in.  The only annoying thing is that it presents itself as "currently used" when it is not.

By the way, it would not need to have a non-zero default - the vendor could have added appropriate controls instead.  If the vendor wanted the value to be -70 at default, then they should bring the value to -70 under control of the character morph on stage 1 rather than changing the default.

They will technically work but likely won't look like the promo pictures at all if used with another character morph. Whether the result looks good or not is anyone's guess.

Sakura has a separate morph for anime teeth, not sure how well it works with other characters. 
 

nightwolf1982 said:

The only real issue I have with the Bow is that there's no draw morph, yet the main promo for the High Fantasy Clothing Bundle clearly shows the Bow drawn back.  Other than that everything looks and works fine.

dFormer?

Has anyone thought of or know of a more modular way to add sketch line details within Daz. That way muscles get outlines around the creases, As well the skecth line bruises. When i look at content like FPE Scars i can't help but wonder if such an approach was used to quickly add various sketch lines all over the body and face DBZ Style.

Sketch lines that outline the eyes, and then be able to add a sketch line preset on the face to add the lines we see on Anime Characters Such as Goku, who also has various sketch lines in between his eyes, near his eyebrows, under the mouth near the chin, on the neck. I belive any anime face and anime body morphs would look more detailed if such outlines were provided. 

Anime Abs, would look more defined as well any other Anime Muscle Details. 

As well the anime style of bruises or clothes scuffs are different then the realistic bruises that's currently in the Daz 3D Store. The only way to achive this look is to transfer the Daz 3D Anime charachter to Blender, Z brush or another similar program and brush the lines in. Then  transfer them back. I know because i already have such models in Daz. Perhaps another system such as the fpe scars could be created to add these sketch details. or some new Daz sculpting tool to achive such result without having to go outside of Daz to create anime modles like in the DBZ & Bleach images here. 

crosswind said:

Right ~ though it's tedious but adding character's morph as a Controller to the 2nd stage of corrective blended shapes (cbs) is the only correct way to fix the issues, if one doensn't want to uninstall the char products ~~ 

Anyway, each step is still simple: with Edit mode, locate the problematic cbs, right-click to Show in Property Hierarchy..., drag character's body morph to the 2nd Stage Controller of the cbs, then Save Modified Assets... It always works as long as you do it correctly.

If the issue persists, try Clear DSON Cache Files in Preferences... then load G9 to check.

If there's other better solution, I'd love to know as well.

Thank you for such a detailed explanation. I am going to give it a try, but I am going to have to put my learning cap on and do some work first. I think I know what Edit mode is, but I have never used it. 2nd Stage controller? Yup, right over my head, lol.  It doesn't seem too bad of a process once you know what you are doing. I am just not very experienced, and I am going to have to learn what each step is first. But that is ok, there is nothing wrong with learning new stuff. I have some work to do it looks like. Thanks again for taking the time.

Are you sure that your Genesis character hasn't been corrupted by a rogue morph?