Genesis Evolution morph bundle, SWOLE for Genesis and the Greek Rotunda, on the 21st October 2012.

Cheers,

Alex.

 

There is a technical hurdle that I just can't sort out, which unless I can figure out a workaround will probably mean that working with V3 or V4 isn't worth the trouble for me: DAZ's Morph Loader Pro won't recognize a V3 or V4 mesh import if I've reorganized the mesh's polygroups in zBrush. Rearranging the polygroups is pretty necessary for my workflow, mainly to seperate the polygons in the face from the polys in the eyelashes, teeth etc. It's just a mess to deal with otherwise. I've imported custom morphs for Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 figures up til now. With both of those generations I always rearrange the polygroups to suit me, and Morph Loader doesn't have a problem with it. For some reason it won't load a morph for V3 or V4 unless the polygroups stay original though. Unfortunately, in zBrush there is no way I know of to restore a polygroup layout after it has been changed. Maybe someone with experience importing morphs for V3 or V4 has some advice?

It's got to do with the parametric rigging/each group being a separate mesh.   That is one of the major advances with the whole Genesis line.

You, at the very least, are probably messing up the vertex order by regrouping them...

There is definitely something in Studio that slows things down...dumping a scene to render in the standalone 3DL can gain as much as 6x speed increase (something that takes 30 mins to render in Studio, renders in 5 mins or less as a RIB...and it's been that way for a while even when the standalone 3DL was core locked to 2 cores and Studio wasn't...it was still faster on a 4 core machine).  I don't imagine that Iray is any different (other than there isn't an easy way to do side by side testing). 

I've seen you mention this before, is it just as simple as setup the image in studio, export as RIB and open with 3delight standalone? Or is there anything I need to do to make the export/import process smoother?

On a Mac it can be very problematic, but on Windows machine it's very easy...

Under Render Settings, click on Advanced

Then you will find this...

Then, you pick a location to save it in/filename.  There will be two RIBs generated.  One outside the folder that the 'collect' feature creates and one inside.  The outside one points to files in the temp folder...so you may get correct output while Studio is still open.  The one inside the collect folder points to the files within the folder.  I always use that one, as the files are always there.

Then run renderdl from the command line (dos box, whatever it is being called these days)...you can associate the RIB with renderdl and do them by double clicking, but I prefer to associate the RIB format with a text editor (yes, you can edit them and make changes).

 

There is a technical hurdle that I just can't sort out, which unless I can figure out a workaround will probably mean that working with V3 or V4 isn't worth the trouble for me: DAZ's Morph Loader Pro won't recognize a V3 or V4 mesh import if I've reorganized the mesh's polygroups in zBrush. Rearranging the polygroups is pretty necessary for my workflow, mainly to seperate the polygons in the face from the polys in the eyelashes, teeth etc. It's just a mess to deal with otherwise. I've imported custom morphs for Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 figures up til now. With both of those generations I always rearrange the polygroups to suit me, and Morph Loader doesn't have a problem with it. For some reason it won't load a morph for V3 or V4 unless the polygroups stay original though. Unfortunately, in zBrush there is no way I know of to restore a polygroup layout after it has been changed. Maybe someone with experience importing morphs for V3 or V4 has some advice?

It's got to do with the parametric rigging/each group being a separate mesh.   That is one of the major advances with the whole Genesis line.

You, at the very least, are probably messing up the vertex order by regrouping them...

There is definitely something in Studio that slows things down...dumping a scene to render in the standalone 3DL can gain as much as 6x speed increase (something that takes 30 mins to render in Studio, renders in 5 mins or less as a RIB...and it's been that way for a while even when the standalone 3DL was core locked to 2 cores and Studio wasn't...it was still faster on a 4 core machine).  I don't imagine that Iray is any different (other than there isn't an easy way to do side by side testing). 

I've seen you mention this before, is it just as simple as setup the image in studio, export as RIB and open with 3delight standalone? Or is there anything I need to do to make the export/import process smoother?

If you're willing to use other figures, could Genesis 1 with the basic child morph work for you?

@pearbear: Top stuff. I'm wondering if V4 or V3 can be fitted to G3F using something like R3DS:Wrap to do the initial morph to match G3F's shape.

http://www.russian3dscanner.com/

Wow, I hadn't seen Wrap before... Now that looks like a useful tool! Hoo boy, so many toys to investigate...

@pearbear: Top stuff. I'm wondering if V4 or V3 can be fitted to G3F using something like R3DS:Wrap to do the initial morph to match G3F's shape.

http://www.russian3dscanner.com/

I probably should've mentioned this before, but, as I presently have no source of income, I'm looking for a freebie product, if at all possible...Although the Kioki product certainly does look like something I may invest in at some point. If no product of this nature does exist as a freebie for A3, does anyone know of one for V4, Dawn, and/or G2F/G3F? As a follow-up, is anybody willing to create a morph pack for any of these individuals? One final question, does anyone have any knowledge of any other free Anime figures compatible with DS, or, if necessary, in .obj format, as I have recently begun learning to rig obj's? Thanks so much! ~* Phoenix DeFalco *~

j cade, that's brilliant! So simple too. With all of these myriad tools and methods available, I often miss seeing an obvious solution like this.

I did a little test - exported a default G3F mesh with subD 3 (about a million polygons) from DAZ, and added some details to the face and torso in Z-Brush. Then I reimported that altered hi-res mesh as an .obj back into DAZ. I used the transfer tool to fit it to G3F (used default "bodysuit" settings) and made the original G3F invisible so that I could only see my high res mesh. Then I applied a pose preset to the original G3F and the high res mesh took the pose with automatic bends applied beautifully. There is some surface lumpiness in the bends though, I asssume that's where it needs weight map smoothing as you mentioned. I have no clue about adjusting weight maps. Is fixing this a trivial thing, or very laborious and difficult? If you have any tips about how to do it or a good online guide, that would be amazing.

As a further test, I did a horn morph on the high res mesh in z-brush and imported it with Morph Loader Pro - it worked perfectly. This opens up some really interesting possibilities :) I'm thinking that even if the weight map smoothing on the joints is a problem, I should at least be able to make some morphable hi resolution faces that can be applied to G3F like masks, since weight maps aren't an issue on the face. Very exciting!

Hang on, I'll search down the thing I wrote up. I didn't go over morphing though, just the export/import for painting.

Edit, OK, here is what I was looking for. Looks like there may have been some issues with morphs. It "should" work, if you be sure you export your figure .obj at base resolution. The "Tweak" room is what you want in 3D Coat to not add any vertices. I'm fairly certain I have succesfully made a small morph for a Genesis figure before, but I a also might have an invented a memory.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/34993/daz-studio-3d-coat-morph-creation

Here is my small write up on using 3DC for texturing.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/49964/ds4-6-pro-3d-coat-need-advice-on-import-export

Snow, if you find something else, please post here for posterity.

cheers!

It's worth noting that flat heeled shoes and boots transfer fairly easy between characters. There's a dearth of flats in general, but if you go back through all the V$ and genesis products, there's a bit more to choose from. 

Personally, I'd prefer to do stuff in post than try to get it to render just right. A .5 gaussian blur can fix some of those issues...

 

As for UE2, yeah, if you want bounce and ambient I guess that would be 2, but I have, so far, not found it necessary to have both. And the nice thing is I can shut off the UE and even shut off the arealights and use a simple distant light when setting up a scene and trying to get everything worked out. Then, for lighting, I usually hide all the complex stuff to get a quicker render to make sure things look roughly right, lighting-wise.

Which is mostly what I did with Iray, too, so the skills transfer. ;)

 

Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it.
If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.
Naomi Wolf

 

Hysteria is caused by the womb Anatomical Elements roaming throughout the body. I imaginine that'd be pretty painful.

But not as painful as missing out on the encrypted specialty Daz Rainbow Unicorn 7 would be. I think I've fooled myself into believing I want my own fictional creation now o.o

 

Wouldn't that be a morph for the Inflatable Pony 7?

March 28 2006. V3, M3, A3 and the morph packs for V3.  Coming up on my 10 year anniversary with DAZ I guess.

None exist yet. You can do the job using the transfer utility inside DS, but with tests I have done results are mixed, as the eyes and eyelids are often messed up.

Hopefully Gen X will get another plug in for Genesis 3, but we have had no news regarding an ETA on this for some time.

ah okay, well I am still trying to create / shape a better hip / hip bone / hip crest / thigh area for G3F and all of the other characters, it allways looks good when the figure is standing straight but if you bend the pelvis or lower abdomen or the thighs I allways get unwanted creases and it looks hoorible, G3F needs a smoother just for the hip crest hip bone area,  this part of the G3F body is really frustrating

Thanks mjc1016 and Havos for that last bit of info. Havos, I did infact decide to go with Genesis and use the basic child morph, it worked out well, and adding in some Undead Fiend+Elf ears+elf ears long, gave me something even a bit more fitting for this scene than the K4 elf. I will just have to get a first use out of them some other time, for another purpose.
Thanks again.

The two pngs are for different purposes  -the first is the thumbnail that appears in the content panes, the second is the image that appears in the pop-up when you hover the mouse over the item.

Funny it shows up in the library in the wrong context. No biggie :) thanks for the replies all

Those two morphs are set to be on by default, this has tripped up many a morph maker.

I will take this one in consideration badly :)

 

None exist yet. You can do the job using the transfer utility inside DS, but with tests I have done results are mixed, as the eyes and eyelids are often messed up.

Hopefully Gen X will get another plug in for Genesis 3, but we have had no news regarding an ETA on this for some time.

What a tool / product do I need to buy to be able to transfer morphs (shape) of G3M to G3F for example?

When 3D Coat was on sale at the end of last year, someone mentioned here that there were some tutorials and workflow guides for using 3D Coat to morph DAZ figures and products but that they couldn't find them at the moment. Does anywhere know where they might be? The only ones I've been able to find on Youtube are extremely old and probably outdated, as 3D Coat has changed a lot since then.

Any advice or links to where I could learn more about importing meshes into 3D Coat, editing, and exporting morphs to use in DAZ Studio would be appreciated.

Easy way...pop old drive out of old laptop...drop into external housing.  Plug that newly created external drive into new laptop...transfer content.