Question about subd and creating morphs
Oso3D
Posts: 15,009
So I understand that you can't create high definition morphs in Daz (IE: SubD above 1).
If you TRY to create a morph from a higher subd figure, does it simply make a lower resolution morph, or does it fail outright?
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You can sculpt it at hi resolution and export the obj format file, but it will fail on import with morph loader.
How easy is it to convert hi resolution to low resolution that keeps the proper faces? Trying to think of workflow.
It depends. I use zBrush and GoZ, so I don't run into the same issues as with blender and Hexagon. Let me check, as I do have Hexagon installed on this PC.
Ideally Carrara, but any relatively easy approach...
Only method that has ever worked for me is normal maps, and I have only used it for still renders. Pose etc, save lowres copy, go into zbrush and make hires mesh. Then using those two mesh make normal map.
I'm not seeing one, short of scripting. It will probably be faster to start from low resolution than writing a script to convert existing obj format models.
My concern is that if I do low resolution, mold it, then make a higher subd version, that my tweaking of the high def version will 'wander' too much.
but before I get crazy I should probably attempt just doing paint sculpting from subd 1 and not get ahead of myself.
The process of making HD morphs is basically two steps
- make a geometry morph at subd zero to get the overall shape and proportions of the new character
this will be your base shape for sculpting
- based on the base shape above, make a sculpt morph then save it as displacement map
Back in DS you will have to apply the base morph and the displacement map to get your new character
optionally you can use the bump map too for fine details
It occurs to me to do base morph, export a high subd figure to paint on. Mmm.
if you never go back to D|S after sculpting you are golden.
use displacement brush in Carrara, Morph brush in Poser whatever Blender has etc on your rigged figures in your program of choice and render there.
sorry Will, got sucked in (again).
to your question, I wonder that, if G3's HD elements are related to normal maps, can't those be found and 'updated' like we do with texture maps?, or is it more interwoven/complex than that?
to be honest, I stopped at Genesis1, which can be finessed to do way more than I can throw at it. I have seen a few 'HD' products for G1 - do you happen to know if mere mortals can create HD stuff for G1 or is that constrained to PAs the same way?
cheers,
--ms
Thanks. Having pretty good luck with the maps so far.
Frankly, I might be better off with this for now, because I while I have loads of map-related tools, I have very few sculpting things yet.
Mindsong: I'm pretty sure Genesis 1 is also constrained. And it's certainly possible to take HD elements and 'bake' it to Normals with various apps. I demonstrated this with Exile -- I can take a SubD4 Exile skin, bake it to Normals, and then apply it very convincingly to a SubD1 Exile.
This also helps with prior generations and cross-generation (or cross gender) use of GenX2; if I do a Reptilian 6 HD body, I can bake the HD details to Normals, then use it on a Genesis figure or G2F.
On a related note, does anyone know an easy way to bake Displacement to a mesh?
Thanks for the tip Will - knowing that this *can* work adds to my toolkit in a big way. It wouldn't have occurred to me to use genx2 in that way. Clever workflow!
digital silly putty!
--ms