Questions: Saving Morph-Parameter used on Gen 4 Chars in Carrara and using Gen 4 Skin Shaders on Gen

Rhian-Skyblade

I am still holding out for Carrara 8.5 Pro and using Genesis. But I also dread the huge heap of work that most likely will pounce me... when I move over to Camp Genesis.
The potential of Genesis is really interesting - now that I have seen various Character Morphs from example Mass Effect Game (Turian Morph and so on) ---> yep I love doing Fan Art. Simply no time and brain right now to follow up my OC projects. Maybe one day when I retire... (gets her dust-bin ready)

I have tons of M4 and V4 stuff - a lot customized either mesh or texture/shader wise. Tons of time invested, tons of money over the years and tons of "love" and "detail" which I do not want to lose when I start working with Genesis.

Question1:
Can I use my custom skin shaders I created in Carrara 8 Pro, also in Carrara 8.5 Pro on Genesis?
(They are a mix between my own skin textures and the Carrara Delphinia Shaders customized for my needs)
I heard there is an extra channel/slot for Gen 4 Textures being used on Genesis...
All I found about it only concerned using DazStudio. But most who have read my posts know I hate that piece of software due it's extreme limitations in comparison to Carrara.

Question 2:
Is there a way I can save the "morph" setup inside of Carrara and use it on new Gen 4 characters - should my old figure ever turn out corrupted? (I had that happening twice, lucky me had a back up)

Can I use that saved morph setup on Genesis - so that they facial features look more or less like my old Gen 4 Facial Features?

Background:
I have created various carefully morphed V4 and M4 Characters which I even have manipulated in Zbrush to give them some more distinctive features.

Question 3:
Do Gen4 (V4 and M4) Clothes now work with Genesis and Auto-Fit? (I am confused here - because it was said, they work on Genesis, but then again, the artists release old V4 clothes for example again for Genesis... so what's the catch there?)

I got myself Cross-Dresser to convert some V4 clothes into M4 clothes and some M3 clothes into M4 clothes (there aren't simply enough high quality male fantasy clothes/full-clad dangerous looking armor alá Lord of the Rings or Skyrim)

Would those transformed clothes work on Genesis as well, has anyone experience with that? M3 turned into M4 and then using AutoFit Tool in Carrara on Genesis?

Does anyone also know if Genesis male clothes can be made useable for M4? Is there any decent well working converter for this?
Because, should Genesis not be able to handle my old Gen 4 stuff I think I'll pass on that whole Carrara 8.5 stuff and just get the clothes for conversion... and wait for Carrara 9.

Dartanbeck

Rhiana said:

Question1:
Can I use my custom skin shaders I created in Carrara 8 Pro, also in Carrara 8.5 Pro on Genesis?
(They are a mix between my own skin textures and the Carrara Delphinia Shaders customized for my needs)
I heard there is an extra channel/slot for Gen 4 Textures being used on Genesis...
All I found about it only concerned using DazStudio. But most who have read my posts know I hate that piece of software due it's extreme limitations in comparison to Carrara.
Yes, but just dragging a saved shader from Gen 4 to Genesis will place the shaders in wrong areas. I think the new 8.5 fixes this, acording to the release notes. But if it doesn't, you simply save the shaders individually - giving them names you know, like: Torso, Face and Limbs, Iris, Pupil, etc., and drag those shaders into the proper allocations on Genesis.

Rhiana said:

Question 2:
Is there a way I can save the "morph" setup inside of Carrara and use it on new Gen 4 characters - should my old figure ever turn out corrupted? (I had that happening twice, lucky me had a back up)Yes. Make an NLA Master Pose. In the dialog, deselect the figure, which deselects everything. Now scroll down and select "Body Morphs". Name this file appropriately and save it to your browser.
To load it onto your new figure, load that pose file into you clips tab and leave it there. Go back to the instances tab, select the figure and go to the NLA tab. Select "Load Clip Data" and select the file you just put in the clips tab.

Can I use that saved morph setup on Genesis - so that they facial features look more or less like my old Gen 4 Facial Features?

Background:
I have created various carefully morphed V4 and M4 Characters which I even have manipulated in Zbrush to give them some more distinctive features.

I think there's a utility to do the Gen 4 to Genesis thing for D|S, and then you could take the character from there into Carrara. It's called Gen X, I believe. Never used it.
For your own custom creations, you'd need to save that somehow. I believe that you save the morph itself as an OBJ, and load it in as a morph. Do not use Carrara to export that morph as obj, from what I've heard - as it is not the same obj as normal. Use Z Brush.

Question 3:
Do Gen4 (V4 and M4) Clothes now work with Genesis and Auto-Fit? (I am confused here - because it was said, they work on Genesis, but then again, the artists release old V4 clothes for example again for Genesis... so what's the catch there?)

I got myself Cross-Dresser to convert some V4 clothes into M4 clothes and some M3 clothes into M4 clothes (there aren't simply enough high quality male fantasy clothes/full-clad dangerous looking armor alá Lord of the Rings or Skyrim)

Would those transformed clothes work on Genesis as well, has anyone experience with that? M3 turned into M4 and then using AutoFit Tool in Carrara on Genesis?
They should. Of course there is always a chance that anything that is automated will fail. It's a time saver - but not an all-inclusive fix it for everything. I'm hoping that 8.5 Pro will simply the re-adjusting capabilities of auto fit clothing. Right now it can be next to impossible. Most auto-fits that I've tried worked great. The reason that Gen 4 and some 3 things are being made into Genesis clothes is how you would truly fix the clothing to work as if it was initially designed to fit Genesis - which is a huge difference from allowing auto fit to try it.

What auto-fit does, is attempt to shape the clothing according to a template to fit the base Genesis figure, and then apply the morphs you've added to Genesis from there. So if you auto-fit something and then open it in the modeler, it won't have the morphs applied in there. You may find it easier to adjust clothing using the model tools in the Assembly room.

When I wanted to change my main characters from Gen 4 into Genesis creations, I ended up changing my mind. Don't get me wrong... I do love Genesis. But the right products haven't been made yet to replace what I need, and the auto-fit makes the long hair morph about whenever she blinks her eyes, and the clothes are too tight.

ManStan

Auto fit still needs work. Most of the time it works ok as long as you are not trying it on a female figure with a shirt/blouse, and as long as no shots show the back; which is out most of the time. There are morphs to fix the poke through and boob tuck issues, but like any work around these fixes present issues themselves.

I'm not sure why dartanbeck goes for saving individual shaders when you can save the multishader and have them all.
I will point out that DAZ has done something so Studio reorders the shaders. This may work to put Mil4 shaders on genesis, but it screws up mil4 figures so you can't use preset mil4 shaders on them. Guess DAZ figured no one was still using the mil4 figures so reason to worry about DUF reordering the shaders.

Rhian-Skyblade

Dartanbeck said:

Yes. Make an NLA Master Pose. In the dialog, deselect the figure, which deselects everything. Now scroll down and select "Body Morphs". Name this file appropriately and save it to your browser.
To load it onto your new figure, load that pose file into you clips tab and leave it there. Go back to the instances tab, select the figure and go to the NLA tab. Select "Load Clip Data" and select the file you just put in the clips tab.

Thank you for the heads up.
But now the question. How and where do I do that? I searched with google and went through my Tuts I bought.

I do not even have a clue where to click/start menu-wise. Is there anywhere a step by step? Under what category would I have to check in my Advanced Carrara Tutorial or the old Carrara 7 Pro Tutorial from Mark Bremmer? (I got the feeling it's not called morphs at all)

Does that NLA Master Pose also save the "injected morphs", or only the parameter I used. So that I could for example load a blank V4 without any morphs, except for the Xam Perfect fixes to have a smooth body - and then load the NLA to have all I want? That would be totally great :D

When I wanted to change my main characters from Gen 4 into Genesis creations, I ended up changing my mind. Don’t get me wrong… I do love Genesis. But the right products haven’t been made yet to replace what I need, and the auto-fit makes the long hair morph about whenever she blinks her eyes, and the clothes are too tight.

Well, I know that feeling. Genesis offers a lot possibilities. I am even very keen to try ZBrush on Genesis, to create vein, warts and wrinkle morphs. That's what I am looking forward. Alos that I do not have those kinks in bending anymore.

But its the number, quality and variety of male fantasy clothing I am worried about.
Sadly, Genesis with its uni-sex possibilities still hasn't changed a thing on the male cloth/armor market :-/

For me Aery Soul / Alfa Seed has set a standart for quality armor and clothing and that's why I always compare everything to their products. Their products have many morphs for fits and movement, and each body part got its single seperate armor piece. That also allows mix and match with other armor pieces, which also increases the possibilities and therefore the interest in customers.

Too bad they do not do male clothes. Because I think that's just the problem why male clothes and armor do not sell so well. I never have seen anyone even trying to create armor in the very same quality... each body part as seperate armor piece and plenty of movement morphs for all sorts of wild combat scenes and sitting positions...

Had already discussed this at Rendo, where they explained that male stuff doesn't sell because M4 is soooo ugly and hard to morph because of muscles... and most Poser/Daz user prefer to play only with V4 in skimpy clothes or armor... because its easier (which pops up the question if the majority of Poser/Daz user are hormone driven male teenager?)

I really regret that I haven't walked the path of a semi-professional modeller and rigger when I started 7 years ago with Poser - after realizing that the content I am looking for is never going to happen and that Poser itself is too limited in its uses.
I would love to see/create armor that looks very similar to the Daedric Armor in Skyrim, or LotRo elven armor or ring-wraith armor. Something dangerous looking with spurs, thorns or spikes and jagged shoulder pieces - not just plain and smooth with textures as detail giver.

Really had hoped Genesis would stuff that hole in the market :-/ and that's why I put so high hopes into cross dresser and autofit tool