[Tutorial] From Map Transfer to Material Presets

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  • What a fantastic tutorial! I've been texturing and Dazin' off and on for over a decade and I'm always so astounded to know just how much I DON'T know. Love all the extra tips and tricks, and I especially enjoyed your writing style. It made it very easy to follow along. I'm coming back to walk through it again in the morning.  BTW, where is the Paypal Donation button?? I would pay for that excellent lesson!! Thanks so very much for your time and generosity in providing the 3D world your knowledge.  :)

  • MBuschMBusch Posts: 547

    Ok! That's an amazing and very detailed tutorial. Thank you for take your time to us.

    Anyway, I would like to make one question: why should we create the Materials presets in the Genesis 3 Female?

    Seems more logical and easy create them over Genesis 8 Female. After all, the UV layout won't be changed when you apply Victoria 7 All MAT over G8F. So, you just need change the maps and save the Material preset again.

    In fact, I just copied all Victoria 7 presets to my new folder in Genesis 8 and applied the presets over G8F from there. Changed the Maps and resave the presets overwriting those copies. The partial maps are a little bit faster if you just reset all surfaces and apply those partial presets. After changing the Maps you save the preset and choose Check Modified Only

    Does it make sense?

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    MBusch said:

    Ok! That's an amazing and very detailed tutorial. Thank you for take your time to us.

    You're welcome. laugh

    MBusch said:

    Anyway, I would like to make one question: why should we create the Materials presets in the Genesis 3 Female?

    Seems more logical and easy create them over Genesis 8 Female. After all, the UV layout won't be changed when you apply Victoria 7 All MAT over G8F. So, you just need change the maps and save the Material preset again.

    I use G3F throughout the tutorial for several reasons. First, to use the Map Transfer, the figure must have both the source and target UVs. G8F does not have V7 UVs, nor the UVs of any other "7" figure, so Map Transfer cannot convert "7" figure materials directly on G8F. Second, G8F now has the eyelashes and EyeMoisture (Tear) as an anatomy add-on. By using G3F to create the presets, we can continue to include the eyelashes in the Full Materials preset. Instead of applying the "All MAT" preset to the figure and then applying an Eyelashes preset to the Eyelashes add-on, you can select both the figure and the add-on and apply the "All MAT" preset to both at the same time. Third, I thought it would be easier to follow along if I didn't suddenly jump from one figure (G3F) to another (G8F) in the middle of the instructions.

    MBusch said:
    In fact, I just copied all Victoria 7 presets to my new folder in Genesis 8 and applied the presets over G8F from there. Changed the Maps and resave the presets overwriting those copies. The partial maps are a little bit faster if you just reset all surfaces and apply those partial presets. After changing the Maps you save the preset and choose Check Modified Only

    Does it make sense?

    Yes, I think I understand what you did.

    With the tutorial, I tried to keep things as basic as possible. I wanted people who had no idea what they were doing to come out of the tutorial with a good grasp of both the Map Transfer and the Material Preset dialog. While what you describe might be easier, (I haven't tried it yet, but I sure will!) the steps I used in this tutorial will give a newbie a solid base for creating other material presets in the future.

     

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @dracorn, Thank you. (I guess my past has caught up with me... lol)

    @AgathaPaige, Thank you. I'm glad you like it, corny sense of humor, and all. (There is no Paypal Donation button for this, but if you'd like, you can make a donation to JGreenlees' Gofundme page instead. It's the red link in my signature.)

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited July 2017

    December 2014, one of the holiday freebies was Kids 4 UVs for Genesis 2 Male(s) and Female(s) from SloshWerks. (I looked online, but I couldn't find it listed anywhere legitimate, like ShareCG.com or Renderosity. Sorry.)

    I decided to convert the Kids 4 Base materials to Genesis 2 Female, to see how well the process works. For one thing, it's hard to find good skin materials for children. Most females look too mature, and most males have too much facial and/or body hair! The process was the same as in the tutorial, but it was necessary to convert all seven templates.

    I think she turned out pretty good, but her skin is really flat, especially the legs. It definitely needed Iray specific settings.

    Here's the WIP:

    Happy Girl WIP, by L'Adair

    I created a material preset for G2F using the settings from the base Genesis 8 Female. (I copied material zones from G8F and applied them to the appropriate material zone on a G2F, then saved the material preset without images. I then applied my new preset to the girl. It looked considerably better, but way too dark. I did the bulk of my tweaks in the translucency settings. One thing I discovered was the "new" Scatter & Transmit Intensity" option. Using that instead of Scatter & Transmit really toned things down a lot. Then turning the weight down from .5 to .35 helped even more. Also, I swapped out the girl's face for the boy's. It may have just been the expression I used, but I don't think the pink cheeks look right.

    Notice the area between the girl's breasts. The stripes on the shirt texture compensates for the distortion of the adult female's bustline, and that translated into oddness in the area without the breasts. So I swapped out the texture for a striped shader. I made the sole of the sandals yellow so they'd show up better against the flooring, adjusted the angle of the toes on the right foot, so the sole of the sandal was flat and moved the girl down a bit. She is floating, slightly, in this render. In post, I filled in the transparent areas with green for grass and used one of my own photos to add the blue sky and white clouds. You can see the final image here.

    The more you work with the Map Transfer and use the skills you've learned from the tutorial, the easier it will be to convert one generation to another.

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,163

    looks good and easier that what I've been doing, thanks

  • sapatsapat Posts: 1,735

    Wow, I don't know how I missed that!  I have Xmas freebies going back to 2006 from rendo.  I looked in my folder for 2014 and have stuff for weeks 1-3.  Not sure if maybe I missed it in a later week, or maybe I didn't dl it at the time cuz I didn't know what it was and I'd need it 3 yr later. crying

    Amazing work on yours!

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited July 2017
    sapat said:

    Wow, I don't know how I missed that!  I have Xmas freebies going back to 2006 from rendo.  I looked in my folder for 2014 and have stuff for weeks 1-3.  Not sure if maybe I missed it in a later week, or maybe I didn't dl it at the time cuz I didn't know what it was and I'd need it 3 yr later. crying

    Amazing work on yours!

    I was so new to this hobby, I didn't really now what it was! I didn't have Kids 4, but I liked the eyes in the promo. And it was free. I grabbed almost anything that was free back then. It seems like a lot of the Christmas freebies showed up on other sites later, usually the vendor's own site. But if Slosh put it up somewhere else, I couldn't find it. (I did see it on a couple of Pirate sites. Jerks. May they burn in the seventh layer of hell...) Slosh has another UV freebie for G2 over at Sharecg: UVSetterGen2. Something else I nabbed before I really understood what it was or what it could do for me.

    Thank you. I'm glad you like the image.
    smiley blush

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • sapatsapat Posts: 1,735
    L'Adair said:
    sapat said:

    I was so new to this hobby, I didn't really now what it was! I didn't have Kids 4, but I liked the eyes in the promo. And it was free. I grabbed almost anything that was free back then. It seems like a lot of the Christmas freebies showed up on other sites later, usually the vendor's own site. But if Slosh put it up somewhere else, I couldn't find it. (I did see it on a couple of Pirate sites. Jerks. May the burn in the seventh layer of hell...) Slosh has another UV freebie for G2 over at Sharecg: UVSetterGen2. Something else I nabbed before I really understood what it was or what it could do for me. Thank you. I'm glad you like the image.
    smiley blush

    Yep, I grabbed anything free too which is why I'm surprised I missed it.  Thanks for this other link though, I did grab that one!! 

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    Bringing up this old topic as I'm trying to get a texture set onto G8F and am not having much luck.

    The original texture is for M4. Someone pointed me to an item on shareCG that would add the M4 UV map to G2F

    So I'm trying to use the Map transfer on G2F with the loaded textures to create a proper G2F texture set so I can load them onto my G8F that has the legacy G2F UV map.

    Unfortunately, when I do the M4 to G2F transfer, the textures don't come out right (even when trying to load the new textures onto the old G2F)

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    Bringing up this old topic as I'm trying to get a texture set onto G8F and am not having much luck.

    The original texture is for M4. Someone pointed me to an item on shareCG that would add the M4 UV map to G2F

    So I'm trying to use the Map transfer on G2F with the loaded textures to create a proper G2F texture set so I can load them onto my G8F that has the legacy G2F UV map.

    Unfortunately, when I do the M4 to G2F transfer, the textures don't come out right (even when trying to load the new textures onto the old G2F)

    I'm looking at the folders on my computer that hold M4 and G2F. The thumbnail images for the torso and limbs look very similar, with the heads having the most obvious differences. However, some of my M4 textures are at 1024 pixels square while my base G2 female has textures of 4096 square. Which makes me wonder, are the image maps for the M4 texture you want to transfer the same size as the G2F materials you're using? I'd have to revisit my own tutorial to be sure, but it would make sense to me the Source (M4) and Target (G2F) would need to have maps of the same size.If they aren't, I'd suggest using Irfanview to resize the G2F materials to match the M4 materials, in a new directory of course. Then try again.

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914
    edited February 2018

    I hadn't thought of that. I figured size would be auto-adjusted to fit

     

    *edit*

    I think the problem lies with the G2F legacy UVs for G8F, they simply don't work. The shoulders are still part of the torso and so lave a black empty spot because the G2F torso doesn't include the shoulders, etc.

    *edit again*

    Actually, I don't think I'm using the legacy UVs correctly (after rereading the product page in my library) Apparently it's like a geometry shell for G8 with new UV coordinants. I'll try again

    Post edited by kaotkbliss on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited February 2018

    @kaotkbliss, I didn't realize you were editing your post, so I didn't think you'd come back!

    Yes, the Legacy UVs product creates several small geoshells. That, along with custom UVs, allows the G3/G8 figures to wear the earlier model skin materials. It's a multi-step process to prepare the figure and then apply the materials. Once you figure out the procedure, it's relatively simple to use the Legacy UVs.

     

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • Singular3DSingular3D Posts: 532

    What an amazing tutorial and so helpful! I thought about writing a utility that maps bitmaps from one UV layout to another one pixel by pixel. Then Texture Transformer 2 was released and helped me to get V4.2 textures to Genesis 3 at least without that geograft thingee. Now I have the extra mile to get this even to Genesis 8.

    Thank you so much for this detailed explanation. Just wonderful!

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @Singular3d, You're welcome. I'm glad you found it helpful.

  • ArkadySkiesArkadySkies Posts: 206
    edited August 2018

    I was never able to make heads or tails of the Map Transfer utility so thankyouthankyouthankyou. I've gotten it to work now.

    Heads up for anyone who normally renders 3DL with gamma correction on 2.2: this will ruin the colors on the transferred textures for some reason. Make sure to leave Gamma Correction Off and on 1.0. (I believe Iray renders with GC 2.2 by default, so perhaps this is why you need to switch render engines to 3Delight for consistent results?)

    Post edited by ArkadySkies on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    @ArkadySkies, you'rewelcomeyou'rewelcomeyou'rewelcome! laugh

    And thank you for the tip on Gamma Correction. I'm sure that bit of information will come in handy from time to time.

  • Oh no! The print screens between the tutorial are gone? Can they be uploaded again?

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