GoZ can be a bit glitchy (in my experience) and I have not had much help on GoZ-ZBrush issues as "DAZ3d does not support ZBrush". I'm not sure how they know that the problem is always with ZBrush and not GoZ, but heyho!

So these days I always (when I remember  ) do a quick check to see if the link is working properly: After having loaded the figure/object in to ZBrush (via GoZ) and selected Edit, I apply a morph brush at max so it has an easily visible effect, then GoZ back to DS. If the link is working, DS will popup the option for naming and applying the morph. I cancel that (though you can apply it just to double check) and go back to ZBrush where I delete my crazy morph. I can then spend a lot of time morphing without the fear of the link failing when I finally send the morph back to DS via GoZ.

As Mama used to say, "Use it or lose it." I figure if I chronicle here what I learn about dForce, applying Weight via the dForce Weight Node, and how I overcome some of the challenges presented by older wardrobe products, I'll have a reference for later down the line when I've been working on other things and need to come back to dForce.

Quick Index

Links to topics within this thread:

• Medieval Cloaks
  • Part 1; November 14, 2017
  • Part 2; November 14, 2017
  • Part 3a; November 16, 2017
  • Part 3b; November 16, 2017
• Geometry Editor Tool: Selection Sets; November 17, 2017
• Platinum Cocktail Dress
  • Part 1; November 20, 2017
  • Part 2; November 22, 2017
• SY's Unicorn Mane; November 21, 2017
• Simulation Error: No objects to simulate; January 15, 2018
• How I Used A Cylinder With KA's Ultimate Dforce Bed; February 14, 2018
• Merimay Dress; February 25, 2018
• Turning Your Perfect Simulation Into A Morph; March 2, 2018
• Sorceress Dress for G8F; May 23, 2018

I've run into a serious issue. As I understand it, Genesis Generation requires, in addition to the add-ons for Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, morph clones for the various figures. However, I'm missing some of the clones, such as CloneGenesis3Male. Any suggestions on how I can get them?

They're all available for sale in the DAZ store. 

I re-downloaded G3F Starter Essentials just this day, just to be on the safe side. There was no sign of CloneGenesis3Male in Clones.

For the record, I found a file marked CloneGenesis3Male in Base, which I assume is the Auto-Fit Clone that allows G3F to wear G3M clothing. However, when I tried placing it in the Clones folder of G3F, it would not work in conjunction with Genesis Generations. I can only assume that there is a difference between the two clone files.

Update: When I tried using Genesis Generations with the clone found in Base, I got this error message; Invalid formula in morph.

I've run into a serious issue. As I understand it, Genesis Generation requires, in addition to the add-ons for Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, morph clones for the various figures. However, I'm missing some of the clones, such as CloneGenesis3Male. Any suggestions on how I can get them?

Backward compatibility refers to being able t AutoFit clothes and other conformers, and to using the Genesis 3 mapping. The tools exist to transfer morphs and there is a thread discussing this, older textures will require an add-on however.

where is the addon to be found

pete

1. Install Genesis 8 UV Swap.
2. Load the figure you want to use. For example, DM's Jackson for G8M.
3. Apply the skin materials from a G8F. For Example, DM's Clarke for G8F.
   • Go to the Surfaces->Presets.
   • Uncheck the "Filter By Context" box if checked.
   • Go to Materials->Iray->Feminine->Clarke for Genesis 8 Female->Skin
   • Double-click on the ""Clarke Base" icon.
   • Apply any other options you want as well.
4. In the Surface-Editor, select the surfaces for Jackson.
5. In the filter field above the properties column, type "UV" without the quotes. That will isolate the UV Set property.
6. From the dropdown list, select Base Female.
7. Now Clarke's skin materials fit Jackson.

It's pretty much the same thing you do now when you put one character's materials on another, except you have to change the UVs.

Okay. You may find some circumstances where applying the female materials to the males, or vice-versa, will need you to manually change the UV Set, however, it appears Daz Studio has been updated to automatically change UV Set to the correct UVs, if the UVs for that figure are installed. It didn't matter if the materials I used were my own from SB3, or materials from G3F or G8F characters I purchased. As long as the UVs were Base Female, the materials applied and the UV was set. The same was true of Teen Josie 8, the only "8" I own, at the moment. (Didn't Daz move to all the "8" figures using the Base Male and Female UVs? If so, all the 8s will apply to the opposite gender flawlessly.)

This means you can create and save a skin for your guys in Skin Builder 3, (or SB4, once released,) and simply apply the materials to your male model, as long as you have UV Swap for G3M installed if using G3M or UV Swap for G8M if using G8M.

FYI, attempts to apply any female "7" figure, (for example, Aiko 7,) caused this error: Invalild hierarchy for selected node(s) and "preset_hierarchical_material" type; no root(s) found. On the otherhand, I don't know of any UV Swap product for the female "7" figures to Genesis 8 Male anyway, so applying those materials will result in a mismatch regardless.

ETA: Unless you're really desperate to use, for example, Rune 7 on Michael 8. In which case, you can use my Map Transfer tutorial to convert Rune 7 materials to Base Female, and then apply to Michael!

For the most part, I've been very pleased with Genesis Generation X2 and its GenX2. The capability for mixing and matching various morphs has allowed me to come up with some extreme creations. However, I have been unable to transfer some of my morphs, and I think I know why.

As I understand it, in order to transfer morphs, you need a morph clone. For example, I have CloneGenesis2Female for Genesis 3 Female, and so I can transfer morphs from G2F to G3F without a problem. However, I don't have a CloneGenesis2Male or CloneGenesis3Male. And when I re-downloaded the various Genesis Starter Essentials, those clones were missing. So can I get some assistance with this dilemma?

If you mean a character morph, not directly.

Characters morphs are specific to a figure mesh. For textures it depends: G2F/M can use V5/M5 textures, and G8F/M can use G3F/M textures, but other combinations won't work by default.

There are tools available to convert morphs or use textures accross generations, though.

 

For clothes, by default G2F/M have autofit clones for G1 clothes, G3F/M for G2F/M clothes, and G8F/M for all previous versions of Genesis.

Once again there are tools available to add other options.

The item is a kilt

You said you reinstalled the morph files. Can you check manually if they are still at the proper location in your runtime? http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/12994/file_list

If not, has the location of installation changed for some reason (assuming you are using DIM)?  Maybe set it accidently back to default settings while your path is different from default?

It is a shame that  Maxon has ignored serious Characte animation tools in Cinema4D
in favor of broadcast graphics.

Yes, Maya or motionbuilder  is much better for character animation than C4D

Too bad the interposer  pro developer never got his planned "InterGenesis"
plugin off the ground.
We might have had fully functional genesis figures inside C4D
but ahh well...  we work with what is available.

 

Genesis already works in C4D as FBX . Exported morphs show up under the pose morph tag

But only "fully functional" only in terms of FBX.  But those are the same limitations of FBX which this plugin shares . (Only because DS's FBX export is limited, probably purposefully)

Genesis1/2/3/8 models based on FBX (or this plugin) are base resolution only. No HD morphs, no DS specific subD, JCM's - that's different than IPP which only worked on Gen4 and below / poser content which used full resolution. It depends on what you are using, but on some characters and creatures, the quality is significantly lower. Missing detail, and oversmoothed. Or for others, some movements and bends don't look right.  To "jailbreak" them out of DS at full quality, it has to be exported again in a "baked" format such as obj/mdd , or alembic, but you lose the rigging. All that back and forth might not be worth it for some scenarios or scenes

But animating a lower poly mesh is much better than a higher poly mesh. It's better for hard/soft body physics sims, hair , cloth,  responsivenes for animation, solves, etc...It's like the "bendy" proxy in IPP. The FBX base mesh is like a proxy (but can be sufficient in some scenes)

This plugin doesn't really do anything different than FBX. You don't save much time. You save maybe a few seconds and a few clicks - it's not that difficult to setup the HIK rig . You still have to relink other textures manually . You still have the same FBX limitations. If this plugin could overcome those limitations, I bet 10x more people would buy it. But those FBX limitations are on DS's SDK side

If you mean a character morph, not directly.

Characters morphs are specific to a figure mesh. For textures it depends: G2F/M can use V5/M5 textures, and G8F/M can use G3F/M textures, but other combinations won't work by default.

There are tools available to convert morphs or use textures accross generations, though.

For clothes, by default G2F/M have autofit clones for G1 clothes, G3F/M for G2F/M clothes, and G8F/M for all previous versions of Genesis.

Once again there are tools available to add other options.

At the time I posted this, I was not familiar with Studio's mesh-editing tools. They were never as intuitive for me as Poser's Direct Manipulation and other tools. With those, I activated and used them without reading the manual or watching a YouTube video, and got the results I was after quickly.

Same for me but with studio. It really more about where your comfort level is initaly than the program I think.

Over a year later and I'm only now getting into the Geometry Editor, and that's only to make new Surfaces for hair to use with dForce.

At the time I posted this, I was trying to pose a figure on the Flight Of The Swan furniture prop. It's a beautiful piece. The top of the seat cushion is 2 polygons. Have you tried to morph that with the Deformer? You know where it flexes? At the center.

I "fixed" it by exporting it as an Object and using Poser's intuitive tools to reverse the normals of the top, then took Poser's high-res square primitive, using the built-in tools to cut it to size, and parented that to the cushion, then imported that to DS to render in Iray. But, as I said, I was not (and still am not very) familiar with Daz' built-in editing tools.

You can reverse normals in studio via the editor. And you can create primatives at as high a resolution as you choose in studio. I'm not sure what mean about cut to size in poser. Does it do boolian now or something?

Now we've got dForce and it shows promise for clothing. I was hoping for a full-on Marvelous Designer bridge, which had been rumored, but so much for rumors. At leas MD has a Daz Studio scaling preset, which is better than nothing. They're also getting a lot of suggestions on how to make it more functional for Daz' imported figures as avatars.

You would need to ask Marvelous about that bridge. But I also would not hold my breath on it since they said they wanted to do it years ago. I think the market would have to grow drasticaly before they would think it was finacialy fesable for them.

 

While I'm not actively tracking the development of any sort of add-ons for game engines like the Unreal DevKit or Unity which would turn them into competition for Poser or Daz Studio, I can't imagine it will be too much longer.

Daz has a Unity store and from what understand assets that go in there need at least some modification. Of course that is to use them as game assets. Not sure about using them as render engines and if the higher poly count etc is an issue.

"As you can see, if properly set up, you can have full articulation of the face. 
 Here I am setting up a GUI interface for connection to bones and blend
 shapes, basically duplicating what is available in Daz with its morph 
sliders and Posemaster (or whatever it's called).   

I have never used Maya in any capacity
what are its built in autolipsyncing options regarding using preprecorded audio??

As far as I know, there are no native autolipsyncing options in Maya.  Animators who want lipsync probably just use facial mocap.  There may be a lipsyncing plugin, but I haven't heard of one.

"As you can see, if properly set up, you can have full articulation of the face. 
 Here I am setting up a GUI interface for connection to bones and blend
 shapes, basically duplicating what is available in Daz with its morph 
sliders and Posemaster (or whatever it's called).   

I have never used Maya in any capacity
what are its built in autolipsyncing options regarding using preprecorded audio??

A Daz character brought into Maya doesn't change the mesh, just the method of animating and rendering it. Daz to Maya is just a plugin to get the character into Maya, to animate and render there, much like Interposer Pro for Cinema 4D, which I've been been using for almost a decade. If you follow the link in my signature you'll see Daz characters in Cinema 4D--not in Daz or Poser, but they're still recognizably Daz characters. I was just hoping to see some animation in Maya with Daz characters.

Oooh, you want to see animation work from Maya users using DAZ characters.  Youtube is probably the best way.   Maya animators who are not students, tend to be in the professional CGI field and as a whole, they won't admit to touching DAZ characters with a 10 foot pole.  Student animators want to impress them with their demo reels, so I think you won't see much of their work using DAZ characters either.

Yes, and yes, that's absolutely true--Daz (and Poser) is despised by "serious" animators--and it's a shame, since the Daz mesh is often as good or better than the figures used in a lot of these pro and student works. But a big part of the problem is that Daz has great characters, but their animation tools suck, so you rarely see them animated well. I use Daz figures, but animate them in Poser (whose own figures suck). But even the Poser animation tools--while better than Daz--are still crap compared to the pro tools, but I do the best I can, and can at least render in a pro application like Cinema 4D. I have always thought that if Daz played nice with a high-end program with high-end animation capabilities, their figures could finally shine, so this Maya plugin has me really intrigued. I am only cautiously optimistic, however, since my wife can tell you that my constant animation lament is that any solution I investigate to employ the Daz characters in a better workflow than I have now always falls flat in usually a single but crucial way, so, while I appreciate the discussion of this Maya plugin, the proof is in the pudding--I'd like to see some actual character animation in Maya--walking, sitting, talking--using this plugin to get the Daz characters there.

What you say is so true.  We share the same lament.  But you are asking the wrong question.  What you really want to know is if animating characters in Maya is worth it. Because a Daz character in Maya is just like any other character in Maya (using a HumanIK rig).  Daz or this plugin has nothing to do with it.  If you have the patience to learn to setup a character in a professional way, you will get professional results, regardless of the source of the character.  DaztoMaya puts your Daz character in a postion to be used just like any other character rig (which is a very good thing).  I assure you, there is no problem with the workflow (other than the problems that are common with any other workflow in Maya).  You will then be in Maya and free to do what you can dare to do.  The plugin will save you much of the modeling, texturing, skinning and rigging headaches that creating a character from scratch entails.  You are ready to animate.  The only thing I find necessary is to create a face rig, which is what I am doing now.

All true. In my case, I could probably create and rig a passable character from scratch if I really had to, but Daz has already done a better job than I could hope to do without years of training and work on my part--not to mention created a giant catalog of clothing, hair etc. representing thousands upon thousands of hours of work. The fact that I'm pretty much a one man operation means that I have to save time where I can, and the Daz characters are a great way to do it. If I had had to model and rig all my characters, I'd still be working on my first movie! My interest in Daz to Maya is to see if it would save me time to work directly in the rendering application I plan to use, rather than have to deal with the Daz to Poser to Cinema 4D workflows and the issues that causes, not to mention seeing if a high-end character animation interface is faster and less limiting as well. I'd also like access to the Genesis characters, something I really haven't been able to swing using Poser and Interposer Pro. Of course, all of this depends upon whether the Daz figure that has been imported into Maya with this plugin performs well--that is, no weird rig/morph/weights/texture issues. Assuming that it comes in cleanly, then theoretically I'd have a quality character with a robust animation interface, already living inside a high-end 3D application, rather than having a foot in three different applications and forced through a plugin that imposes its own limitations.

We are in the same boat.  I am also a one man crew working on my first movie.  There are no workflow issues.  The script does exactly what it says.  Your main challenge would be learning how to use Maya.   The sole reason I suscribed to Maya is this plugin.  I was reluctant.  I was intimidated.  But it was so easy to bring a Daz figure in and begin work.  There is no easier way.

A Daz character brought into Maya doesn't change the mesh, just the method of animating and rendering it. Daz to Maya is just a plugin to get the character into Maya, to animate and render there, much like Interposer Pro for Cinema 4D, which I've been been using for almost a decade. If you follow the link in my signature you'll see Daz characters in Cinema 4D--not in Daz or Poser, but they're still recognizably Daz characters. I was just hoping to see some animation in Maya with Daz characters.

Oooh, you want to see animation work from Maya users using DAZ characters.  Youtube is probably the best way.   Maya animators who are not students, tend to be in the professional CGI field and as a whole, they won't admit to touching DAZ characters with a 10 foot pole.  Student animators want to impress them with their demo reels, so I think you won't see much of their work using DAZ characters either.

Yes, and yes, that's absolutely true--Daz (and Poser) is despised by "serious" animators--and it's a shame, since the Daz mesh is often as good or better than the figures used in a lot of these pro and student works. But a big part of the problem is that Daz has great characters, but their animation tools suck, so you rarely see them animated well. I use Daz figures, but animate them in Poser (whose own figures suck). But even the Poser animation tools--while better than Daz--are still crap compared to the pro tools, but I do the best I can, and can at least render in a pro application like Cinema 4D. I have always thought that if Daz played nice with a high-end program with high-end animation capabilities, their figures could finally shine, so this Maya plugin has me really intrigued. I am only cautiously optimistic, however, since my wife can tell you that my constant animation lament is that any solution I investigate to employ the Daz characters in a better workflow than I have now always falls flat in usually a single but crucial way, so, while I appreciate the discussion of this Maya plugin, the proof is in the pudding--I'd like to see some actual character animation in Maya--walking, sitting, talking--using this plugin to get the Daz characters there.

What you say is so true.  We share the same lament.  But you are asking the wrong question.  What you really want to know is if animating characters in Maya is worth it. Because a Daz character in Maya is just like any other character in Maya (using a HumanIK rig).  Daz or this plugin has nothing to do with it.  If you have the patience to learn to setup a character in a professional way, you will get professional results, regardless of the source of the character.  DaztoMaya puts your Daz character in a postion to be used just like any other character rig (which is a very good thing).  I assure you, there is no problem with the workflow (other than the problems that are common with any other workflow in Maya).  You will then be in Maya and free to do what you can dare to do.  The plugin will save you much of the modeling, texturing, skinning and rigging headaches that creating a character from scratch entails.  You are ready to animate.  The only thing I find necessary is to create a face rig, which is what I am doing now.

All true. In my case, I could probably create and rig a passable character from scratch if I really had to, but Daz has already done a better job than I could hope to do without years of training and work on my part--not to mention created a giant catalog of clothing, hair etc. representing thousands upon thousands of hours of work. The fact that I'm pretty much a one man operation means that I have to save time where I can, and the Daz characters are a great way to do it. If I had had to model and rig all my characters, I'd still be working on my first movie! My interest in Daz to Maya is to see if it would save me time to work directly in the rendering application I plan to use, rather than have to deal with the Daz to Poser to Cinema 4D workflows and the issues that causes, not to mention seeing if a high-end character animation interface is faster and less limiting as well. I'd also like access to the Genesis characters, something I really haven't been able to swing using Poser and Interposer Pro. Of course, all of this depends upon whether the Daz figure that has been imported into Maya with this plugin performs well--that is, no weird rig/morph/weights/texture issues. Assuming that it comes in cleanly, then theoretically I'd have a quality character with a robust animation interface, already living inside a high-end 3D application, rather than having a foot in three different applications and forced through a plugin that imposes its own limitations.

As you can see, if properly set up, you can have full articulation of the face.  Here I am setting up a GUI interface for connection to bones and blend shapes, basically duplicating what is available in Daz with its morph sliders and Posemaster (or whatever it's called).   It is meticulous work, which is why I lament that DAZ doesn't have acceptable animation capabilities.  Such a waste.

From the Daz to Maya intro video, it seemed to suggest that it transferred the face morph sliders. Is that not true?

What you saw in the video is the Shape Editor.  It is a good place for organizing and editing the blend shapes, but it is not an interface for animation.  There is also a way to turn on and off blendshapes in Channelbox (another editor), but again, this is not a control an animator would use.  The only way to get decent animation controls for the face is to make them yourself.

...not sure if the "weighted" or tri-ax features of genesis will make the trip...

In my limited experience transferring morph targets from one generation to another,
in DAZ Studio, I have found that General Weight gives much smoother results, so,
when I develop a character in DS, I promptly convert to “weighted”.

P.S. THANK you for your updates!

As you can see, if properly set up, you can have full articulation of the face.  Here I am setting up a GUI interface for connection to bones and blend shapes, basically duplicating what is available in Daz with its morph sliders and Posemaster (or whatever it's called).   It is meticulous work, which is why I lament that DAZ doesn't have acceptable animation capabilities.  Such a waste.

From the Daz to Maya intro video, it seemed to suggest that it transferred the face morph sliders. Is that not true?