Model interaction (posing couples etc)

angstyg

I'm super duper new at this. So far I think I've managed to find my way around quite well. I've worked with blender and poser a little bit, so the concepts all seem familiar. The renders I've managed so far have been just... wow. Totally amazing.

I was wondering if there were any resources or advice regarding working with multiple models, especially couples? Touching, embraces, that sort of stuff. How to make skin interact with other skin, instead of the models just melting into one another. I design book covers for LGBT romance genres, so the stock male+female couple poses available in the shop are exactly what I'm looking for, only I need male+male and female+female, and there aren't many of those. I've done a couple tests with my own poses and they seem okay, but nowhere near as organic as the poses you see for sale.

Any tips for how to make models' skin interact? Or I'm not sure... maybe there's a way with the male+female couple poses in the store to change from one gender to another? I haven't actually bought any bundles yet since they weren't what I was looking for, so I'm sorry if that's a stupid question.

Any advice appreciated!

DDCreate

Well, this is just me talking but given your area of focus, I'd say that getting good at poses will be your best bet. There are a few F/F interacting pose sets here but they are more of the "OMG you're my bestie!" sort of thing and you seem to be looking for something more intimate. It takes some time do make a pose from scratch and I dreaded it at first but the more you do it, the easier it gets. And remember, even if there was LGBT style pose sets available here, they would be made by a person that spent a lot of time getting them just right like you will! I'm sure that could be something that would sell here. Maybe you're going to be the next PA doing poses! Just have fun with it and it will all turn out.

BeeMKay

Try renderotica dot com. They have all sorts of intimste interaction poses 

warning, adult material, not work safe.

angstyg

Thanks for the encouragement, DDCreate! I don't mind putting in work. Tedium is my jam! The only thing that makes tedious graphic work more appealing is having a super important deadline or 3. I mean, according to my brain :D I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing some really obvious tool or resource, lol. "You're doing interactive poses and you didn't even use SkinPressShadowCreator v6?!" Lo, the sorts of things that keep me up at night. So I guess I will continue forcing the attractive stock Genesis dude into very romancey and slightly naked things. Gosh. What a burden. The cross I'm bearing here.

BeeMKay: I had no idea that sort of thing existed! It's way too steamy for my work (more lovey dovey romance than erotica porn stuff), but I'll keep that in mind just in case, thanks!

ArkadySkies

There is a trick you can use when models skins are touching eachother and you want soft body interaction (ie skin pressing on eachother): Set the smoothing/collision modifier to "Collision Item... [otherFigureHere]". You may have seen this method mentioned when dealing with converting or layering clothing.

HOW TO:

Select figure. Go to top menu: Edit -> Figure -> Geometry -> Add Smoothing Modifier. Then go to Parameters -> Mesh Smoothing -> Collision Item and adjust collision iterations as needed.

Also works great for hair and character interaction, or holding/touching other objects. Just be wary that if one figure presses to far into the other the figures will warp weirdly. You'll know what I'm talking about when it happens, it's easy enough to undo.

ArkadySkies

Have you watched through Daz3D's Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool Tutorial (youtube)? Along with the rotation tool (which you CAN use on individual bones, and is far more intuitive than the regular pose wheel for me), pinning and active posing is a serious time saver.

Also you definitely can use male poses for female models and vice versa, so you can make straight couple poses gay if you don't mind taking the time to adjust them (which you'd have to do anyways unless you planned on never using body morphs - it'll still probably save you time in the end). Here I've tested the Affection Poses for Genesis 2 with two female models and probably five minutes of adjustments with the tools above.

Although poses for the "wrong" gender won't show up in your smart content by default (or under the posing tab), you can still find them in their folder in the content library tab and apply them. You can also use G1 poses for G2 with some modification this way, though you'll probably want one of zev0's tools for using older generation poses for G3 or G8, or V4/M4 for G2, otherwise you probably are better off just starting from scratch. Female poses on Males may look funny sometimes to due the prevelance of what looks like scoliosis or just broken backs you'll see on many premade girl poses, but I tend to avoid those when possible because I think they look just as painful on girls.

angstyg

ArkadySkies said:

There is a trick you can use when models skins are touching eachother and you want soft body interaction (ie skin pressing on eachother): Set the smoothing/collision modifier to "Collision Item... [otherFigureHere]". You may have seen this method mentioned when dealing with converting or layering clothing.

HOW TO:

Select figure. Go to top menu: Edit -> Figure -> Geometry -> Add Smoothing Modifier. Then go to Parameters -> Mesh Smoothing -> Collision Item and adjust collision iterations as needed.

Also works great for hair and character interaction, or holding/touching other objects. Just be wary that if one figure presses to far into the other the figures will warp weirdly. You'll know what I'm talking about when it happens, it's easy enough to undo.

@ArkadySkies Omg that's exactly what I was looking for, thanks so much! Had no idea that existed.

Sven Dullah

angstyg said:

ArkadySkies said:

There is a trick you can use when models skins are touching eachother and you want soft body interaction (ie skin pressing on eachother): Set the smoothing/collision modifier to "Collision Item... [otherFigureHere]". You may have seen this method mentioned when dealing with converting or layering clothing.

HOW TO:

Select figure. Go to top menu: Edit -> Figure -> Geometry -> Add Smoothing Modifier. Then go to Parameters -> Mesh Smoothing -> Collision Item and adjust collision iterations as needed.

Also works great for hair and character interaction, or holding/touching other objects. Just be wary that if one figure presses to far into the other the figures will warp weirdly. You'll know what I'm talking about when it happens, it's easy enough to undo.

@ArkadySkies Omg that's exactly what I was looking for, thanks so much! Had no idea that existed.

It works but you lose some detail of the mesh so it's a trade off (as usual).

ArkadySkies

 

Sven Dullah said:

angstyg said:

ArkadySkies said:

There is a trick you can use when models skins are touching eachother and you want soft body interaction (ie skin pressing on eachother): Set the smoothing/collision modifier to "Collision Item... [otherFigureHere]". You may have seen this method mentioned when dealing with converting or layering clothing.

HOW TO:

Select figure. Go to top menu: Edit -> Figure -> Geometry -> Add Smoothing Modifier. Then go to Parameters -> Mesh Smoothing -> Collision Item and adjust collision iterations as needed.

Also works great for hair and character interaction, or holding/touching other objects. Just be wary that if one figure presses to far into the other the figures will warp weirdly. You'll know what I'm talking about when it happens, it's easy enough to undo.

@ArkadySkies Omg that's exactly what I was looking for, thanks so much! Had no idea that existed.

It works but you lose some detail of the mesh so it's a trade off (as usual).

If you don't want to lose detail in the mesh, you can do a main render without smoothing enabled, then do full-sized spot renders where needed with smoothing enabled, then layer them in Photoshop or Gimp. For full sized spot renders, go to the Tool Settings Tab while the spot render tool is selected, you can change it to Render in a New Window and it will render at the same scale in a new window. Best of both worlds, but a little extra time.

angstyg

Oh that's a great idea, @arkadyskies! Thanks!