additional material zones for Genesis1

sriesch

I could have sworn I owned some product that added a whole bunch of additional material zones to Genesis1, but I can't locate it (and I'm not sure if it exists.)  Any ideas what said product might be?

I can of course just create my own, but if there was a quick and easy way to do it that I maybe already have, that would be better.

mindsong

I've recall seeing folks use the super-suit like a geoshell, taking advantage of its material zones (though not the same as the figure's) w lots of transparent zones..., or perhaps a normal geoshell with similarly varied uses of the default Genesis material zones that it contains, or you could find/create then apply a completely new home-made UV to the geoshell (only) that suits your project?

I thought it was a cool trick to apply a different UV map/texture to the geoshell than the UV the underlying figure was using...

Wouldn't more material zones on the real base figure make any existing UVs meaningless (which might be OK), or are those two elements less 'bound' than I've been led to believe?

cheers,

--ms

sriesch

I will have to look into the geoshell option.

I wasn't able to use the supersuit for this, partly because it's zones didn't line up with what I needed and partly because even if it had I couldn't apply my figure's material to it.

While I don't know exactly how it works, I have been able to add a material zone via the Geometry editor in order to hide the new surface, which (other than doing that) doesn't prevent the original parts of the now-modified material from working.  But I don't know if it's just creating a new map based on the old one and transferring it over or what; I've never tried to reuse one of those or apply a different material after doing this.

I realized I overlooked explaining my actual goal in the first post, which was just to hide the bits of G1's legs that extend below the harpy legs from "The Lilithai Strigoia Accessories".  I was originally thinking that the line separating the harpy legs from the original legs might have been chosen based on some existing product's material zone that I could easily reuse somehow.  It's not an exact fit, there's a bit of a seam, but depending on lighting and angle and if I'm not zoomed close up hopefully the seam won't be noticeable.

DaremoK3

mindsong:

Yes, they are less bound than you were led to believe.  The UV's are hard-coded to the mesh via textue vertices designations, but are interchangable with Studio's Shader Tab tech (UV Switching).

Material/Shader Zones are only tied to texture/mapping designations which get hard-coded into product DUF's (pick an internal format -- etc.) via saving.  They can be reassigned by hand, and new shaders (comprised of material textures [all inclusive -- Diffuse, Normal, Displacement, Bump, Specular, etc., etc., etc.]) can be resaved once you assign your original textures to your new MAT Zone designations.

Example would be that you use the Geometry Tool to add six new MAT Zones on a figures arm; The original textures are mapped to the original zone, and when you name your new zones, you lose the tie that binds them together.  All you need to do is in the Shader Tab is to assign the original textures to the new zones, and then save that as a new Shader or Material preset (which will hard-code the textures addresses to the new zones).  These presets will only work on the new modified figure, so don't forget to save as a new figure/figure preset (whatever desired/needed).

 

sriesch:

If I understand what you are looking to accomplish, I don't believe you need a geoshell.  Just select all the geometry of the Genesis figure where needed (looks like shin group on down), and then create a new MAT Zone for the selected geometry.  Once created, just set to hide in the Geometry Tools Tab (click the eyeball).

As far as blending, that would probably be more involved, but it could probably be done...

3Diva

sriesch said:

I will have to look into the geoshell option.

I wasn't able to use the supersuit for this, partly because it's zones didn't line up with what I needed and partly because even if it had I couldn't apply my figure's material to it.

While I don't know exactly how it works, I have been able to add a material zone via the Geometry editor in order to hide the new surface, which (other than doing that) doesn't prevent the original parts of the now-modified material from working.  But I don't know if it's just creating a new map based on the old one and transferring it over or what; I've never tried to reuse one of those or apply a different material after doing this.

I realized I overlooked explaining my actual goal in the first post, which was just to hide the bits of G1's legs that extend below the harpy legs from "The Lilithai Strigoia Accessories".  I was originally thinking that the line separating the harpy legs from the original legs might have been chosen based on some existing product's material zone that I could easily reuse somehow.  It's not an exact fit, there's a bit of a seam, but depending on lighting and angle and if I'm not zoomed close up hopefully the seam won't be noticeable.

You can always use the Geometry Editor Tool to select the legs (the parts that you want to be hidden) and then make that a separate material zone so that you can turn the opacity of it to zero.

mindsong

DaremoK3 said:

mindsong:

Yes, they are less bound than you were led to believe.  The UV's are hard-coded to the mesh via textue vertices designations, but are interchangable with Studio's Shader Tab tech (UV Switching).

Material/Shader Zones are only tied to texture/mapping designations which get hard-coded into product DUF's (pick an internal format -- etc.) via saving.  They can be reassigned by hand, and new shaders (comprised of material textures [all inclusive -- Diffuse, Normal, Displacement, Bump, Specular, etc., etc., etc.]) can be resaved once you assign your original textures to your new MAT Zone designations.

Example would be that you use the Geometry Tool to add six new MAT Zones on a figures arm; The original textures are mapped to the original zone, and when you name your new zones, you lose the tie that binds them together.  All you need to do is in the Shader Tab is to assign the original textures to the new zones, and then save that as a new Shader or Material preset (which will hard-code the textures addresses to the new zones).  These presets will only work on the new modified figure, so don't forget to save as a new figure/figure preset (whatever desired/needed).

 

sriesch:

If I understand what you are looking to accomplish, I don't believe you need a geoshell.  Just select all the geometry of the Genesis figure where needed (looks like shin group on down), and then create a new MAT Zone for the selected geometry.  Once created, just set to hide in the Geometry Tools Tab (click the eyeball).

As far as blending, that would probably be more involved, but it could probably be done...

I missed this... Thanks for the reply! Good to know more about how it works and be able to deviate a bit from the 'standard' setup to get a specific effect. I'm always wary of doing that, but getting more confident about doing it when needed, and being able to keep track of it and even reverse-engineer what's going on when I forget what I did last week...

So, this gets me thinking a bit... can you have more than one material zone on a given part of a figure? I wouldn't think so when I consider how the surfaces tab would get confused, but maybe you can... If you have more than one material/shader zone on an area, e.g. a hand, which material 'wins'?

If I understand you correctly, you would set up new material/shader zones, then save and use that version of the figure and its UVs as needed, and use the standard figure for cases that use the standard DAZ products/packages, etc. So, I suppose you could end up with a whole library of 'new and improved' V4s or Genesis-s with different surface mappings/UVs, etc., if you wanted to fine-tune your character(s) to a specific need.

Could you create a geoshell and remap its shader/material zones and save it by itself as a merge-able item for a 'standard' character? (If so, it becomes a lot like a super suit... I would think).

cheers!

--ms