Looking for a Converter "Male Genesis 2, 3 and 8" Hair to M4 - so I can use it in Carrara
Rhian-Skyblade
Posts: 223
Hi everyone,
Is there something that allows me to convert G2, G3, G8 (or just G2) hair into conforming stuff that would fit M4 and work in Carrara?
I am still using M4 and V4 most of the time, especially with the "Perfect V4 and M4" mods.
From time to time I use Genesis 2, but found that there is not really that content that really interests me. I am usually creating scenes that help me visualize my Dungeons & Dragons Characters or characters from my novel I am writing (I am just a hobby writer). I do a lot of "Frankensteining" various armors, weapons and even hair for V4 and M4, to make stuff look more unqiue and having some variations.
Now I noticed I am lacking a bunch of "pony tail" and "bound back" hair styles for M4 that look actually like hair and not like sleek-licked cartoon helmets mildly resembling hair.
The M4 Feather Hair is nice, but too short and not really bound back hair. Also since it is not conforming, using the parameters to adjust it, is a bitch.
The M4 conforming "Blue Hair (looks like the Hair used in the Avatar / Pandora movie) is nice but I overused it and I am looking for hair that is just bound back without being braided.
Example - like the hair used in this promo shot: https://www.daz3d.com/igd-deerstalker-for-m4
I am looking for comforming hair that is like that G2 ancient warrior + addon that allows you to attach a tail that is NOT braided :)
I have seen the Genesis 2, 3 and 8 got a bunch of nice long male hair in general... but 3 and 8 don't work in Carrara. And I can't get G2 fit to M4s head :-/
One of the prodcuts here featured another product called "Raven Hair" but when you click at it you just end up at the Daz3D landing page. It was for M4.. but seems to be no longer sold :(
I unfortunately don't know which one it was, can't find it anymore.
Cheers,
Rhi
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Comments
If you use that plugin for Carrara called DAZ Studio there are quite a few options available for M4/V4.
Genesis 3 & 8 have a workaround available to Carrara thanks to Misty.
Converting Genesis 2, 3, & 8 to M4/V4 requires Clones, if you are up to speed in DAZ Studio then you will be aware of how useful they can be for conversions.
and then there is
Carrara dynamic hair 
for some nice M4 and V4 hairs check out Studioartanian at Renderosity
You can't convert to V4/M4 with autofit, it works only with weightmapped figures.
For clothes you can convert to G1 with autofit then use Xdresser to convert from G1 to V4/M4. Not sure how well it would work for hair though.
you can always parent other hairs to the heads too
and in Carrara easily move the gizmo hotpoint using CAPSLOCK (or just center hotpoint)
Yes, and M4 can use the Carrara strand-based hair grown on V4's mesh. Not all figures can, but M4 can.
Here is M4 using a V4 hair contained in "4 Times a Lady" package. I'm not sure if that product is still available because I don't remember where I got it, but the point is that other V4 hair Carrara hair products can be used on M4.
Although several Carrara hair vendors have been removed from the Daz store, I believe there are still one or two left. PhilW is still a vendor here with Carrara hair, for example. By coincidence, his store is part of today's sale.
Hello Leana
Yes and no on the M4 clone process, I was talking about using it in Carrara, mainly hair !
Genesis 3 and 8 items mostly work if Rigging is converted to blended weight.
Although you can use Genesis clothes on Legacy 4 figures but the mileage varies on the items. I have XD and use it as well, definately recommended !
Below is G3M basic wear fitted to M4, shorts worked okay but the top was out a bit.
For the hair I use the G3M M4 clone to get the shape right, then once converted to BW I parent it to M4 head in Carrara.
My new Dartanbeck character is Genesis, but this would work for M4 the same way:
Use a prop hair for the main hair cap - I'm using Mon Chevalier hair for a nice full base
Then add some Carrara Dynamic hair for the long hair in the back
For a tail, a simple vertex object can be parented to the prop hair (or the head of the character) and just grow the hair out of that. Works great! The toughest job now is to match the hair color - which is fun too!
Dartanbeck at the very beginning uses the hair I describe above
Carrara can also become a good conversion tool when used with Daz Studio to help bring it all together. This video is for making clothing for Genesis 2, but if we use the Blended Weight trick as mentioned in previous posts, we can get the hair you want into Carrara.
Once we're in Carrara, select the model level (Actor, in this case) and go Edit > Fenric > Unlock Figure
So now we have Prop hair. We can now use scaling or the vertex model tools in the Assemble room to shape the hair to M4
Once that's done, export as OBJ using the Daz Studio preset - I never include texture with export in this phase
In Daz Studio, load in M4, the import the hair prop you've just exported as OBJ. Don't parent it to M4 or anything, just bring it into Studio
Now open the Transfer Utility and transfer from M4 to the hair. By the end of the process, you'll have hair that follows M4's poses but perhaps not shapes. We can use Carrara (or Hexagon) to model morphs for shaping or movement or whatever, and add those to your new hair via MorphLoader Pro.
Go to Josh Darling's YouTube channel for all of the tutorials you'll want on using the tools in Studio to make this all happen. ;)
Hi everyone,
forgive the late reply.
Thanks everyone for your answers :)
Cuffed Tail 2 looks like the style I am actually looking for ! Thank you @Dartanbeck! Question. The product says that I need to have David Basic for it? Do you know if that is a mistake or do I really need that one?
I only want the hair for my M4. And that David Basic is for M3.
I tried to use the G2 hair on M4, by just parenting it to his head. But it did not really work with the parameters. I couldn't style the hair. The parameters only seem to work when the hair is conformed.
@Dartanbeck - I will try your conversion trick this weekend :) Thank you for the links to Josh Darling's YouTube channel
As for Carrara hair. I only used it so far for normal long hair.
Like here:
https://www.deviantart.com/rhian-skyblade/art/Craving-for-Attention-194896178
https://www.deviantart.com/rhian-skyblade/art/Slacking-At-The-Lake-213660522
Never managed to get any Carrara generated hair to look nice when bound together. No matter how many segments I use to make it flow/bend more naturally. The hair always keeps jumping out of the ribbon-placeholder after I brushed it into position and started the simulation.
@Bunyip02
Thank you. Is there any guide/tutorial how to do that cloning?
I googled, but only ended up reviews, articles and stuff about the autofit tool that is integrated in Carrara.
As for Daz Studio.
To be honest. I barely use DazStudio. It's only on my computer since I need it as a library. So my knowledge about tools and tricks in there are as good as non-existent.
I tried several times out of desperation to pre-create something in DS... it never went far as I just got heavily turned off by that whole fat clunky untidy mess of a UI and horrible posing and navigation tool :-/ (same with Poser, and I know how to use that...) If there is a trick to make DS look and feel more like Carrara UI-wise, I would be happy to try again.
Ever since I switched to Carrara I got used to a certain kind of freedom and sleek & tidy UI and Navigation system... I think I am pretty spoiled in that regard... That's as if you went from Duplo (Poser or DS) to Lego-Technic (Carrara incl. ZBrush) and now all they keep selling and working on is a fancy flashy Duplo... but still just Duplo... dunno if I explained well what my issue is with DS and Poser.
yeah simulated is another story, if using it static you can style it any way you want
a ponytail I would do in two parts,
brush one head of hair to a bunch,
parent a shished sphere as a scrunchie
grow the ponytail on that
setting shape high and checking convert after styling helps keep shape during animation
First of all using clones in DAZ Studio is not a cure all for working in Carrara. There are problems with Autofitting Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 (no Auto-fit in Carrara), as well as some Genesis 2 in Carrara. The result will be potentially a lot of pulling/pushing the affected mesh in Carrara's Model room. I have used it to resize Genesis 3 hair for M4. Also mucked around trying to convert Genesis clothing For M4 but there are usually problems in doing so. Most of the time I am actualling converting M4/V4 clothing to Genesis to mix and match various clothing, as well as hairs.
There is a tutorial for making clones, but if you are already going "Eeeeeekkk" at DAZ Studio, you might end up double cursing me for the suggestion, have used the Tute to make an Aiko 3 clone for Genesis 8F.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/193296/freebie-how-to-create-a-v4-clone-and-transfer-other-figures-for-g8f-now-with-video/p1
Clones that have already been done:-
Wear Them All - Autofitting Clones and Clothing Smoothers for Genesis 3 Female(s) - https://www.daz3d.com/wear-them-all-autofitting-clones-and-clothing-smoothers-for-genesis-3-female-s
Wear Them All - Autofitting Clones and Clothing Smoothers for Genesis 3 Male(s) - https://www.daz3d.com/wear-them-all-autofitting-clones-and-clothing-smoothers-for-genesis-3-male-s
Michael 4 for Genesis 2 Male - https://www.daz3d.com/michael-4-for-genesis-2-male
Genesis 3 Clones for Genesis Bundle - https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-3-clones-for-genesis-bundle
SY Victoria 4 and Michael 4 Clones for Genesis 8 - https://www.daz3d.com/sy-victoria-4-and-michael-4-clones-for-genesis-8
SY Genesis 8 Clones for Genesis 3 - https://www.daz3d.com/sy-genesis-8-clones-for-genesis-3
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2954866/#Comment_2954866
Genesis - I think it already comes with clones for Generation 4 (M4, V4 etc), I also have clones for Generation 3 (M3, V3) but unsure if they came with Genesis or another package.
Any others that people are aware of please add them !
It's just prop hair, so it just loads into the scene no matter who you have in there. It has morphs to fit (without further tweaking) :
In the video I posted above, my Dartanbeck character's side burns are a separate set of Carrara hair! :)
I opted not to make Rosie an Elf, but when I was experimenting with making her one, I put a conforming hair on her that made the main hair on her head look the way I wanted that, then I made a really quick and simple (very low-poly) big ol' hair tie thingy and parented it to the upper back of her head, and simply selected the end of that vertex object to attach the hair to and grow it from. Worked great! I changed her hair to that so we could see her ears. I'll have to see if I still have an example of her around so I can shoot a render of her.
Here. I made a playlist of JonStark's awesome dynamic hair tutorial series. It's awesome to watch if you want to animate the character. PhilW's Animation in Carrara is also an excellent video course!
But you've been getting some nice results it looks like. Very cool renders!
Oh, and Cuffed Tail 2 being prop hair means that we'd have to animate (or not) movement by hand, sice it won't auto-follow the figures neck and back. That was the biggest reason for me cutting his hair by giving him Glynn hair for years. Mon Chevalier hair was in my wishlist since way back then too, so it was fun to finlly buy that as the base for Dartanbeck's new hair. The I just gave him the same hair cap as I use for Rosie 5 (parented prop scalp) but only grew the hair around the bottom portion. His is a LOT (I mean... No Comparison!) easier to handle in animations than hers! Hers truly takes a lot of work (and time), but I've deemed it to be entirely worth it.
Now, back to the question at hand: I'm not entirely sure you'll find a happy solution to trying to use Genesis 1, 2, 3 or 8 hair on M4. Bunyip has some sound solutions and I've seen Wendy do it too. Is it animation friendly? Not sure.
For my animation work, I truly enjoy using things that work.
...if the morphs work in Carrara at all. Some of the post-Genesis 1 DUF files' morphs just don't do anything in Carrara.
If you're just looking to style the hair and leave it that way, you could style it to M4 in Daz Studio (if it let's you fit it to M4 - otherwise leave it by itself) and save it as a Suppert Asset > Figure > DUF
I'd also suggest converting to Blended weights while in Daz Studio
But also keep in mind, like Bunyip says above: It's really common to open the hair in the vertex modeler in Carrara to further shape the hair with modeling tools. Soft-Selection rocks for this!
Hmmm... I wonder if this would work:
With Cuffed Tail 2 being a Prop, I wonder if we could run that through the Transfer Utility in Daz Studio to turn it into a conforming figure and export it as a CR2 (Poser file - I bought the Poser Format plugin for DS way back when)
It would basically be like I'm demonstrating for Genesis 2 in the video tutorial above.
Didn't we have a 'head' model. (not just a scalp)... wasn't it John Stark who created it for collision purposes or something? It has only basic polygons to get the shape. That started it all for me.
Then PhilW made one and uses it for his Carrara Adrea Hair. I have it saved and parent it to the heads of my G3's. If I am not using Carrara hair (rare) then I just make the 'head model' invisible and make sure the scalp area is right next to the character's scalp (you can stretch the head model x y z) and fthen parent the legacy hair to the head model. 99% of the time it works great as everything follows the character's head movements. If using Carrara hair, I make sure to use PhilW's head model, again invisible, as his have the needed scalp polygons, though there can be some challenges if you need to adjust the hair lines by thinning the density in the hair room. Still, it gives a lot of versatility for legacy hair... and includes those from other sites.
I don't know about that head. Must have missed it or something. But for the dynamic hair I''ve been doing, I don't need anything that sophisticated because I'm not showing the root zones of the hair. I use the Mon Chevalier hair for Dartanbeck's roots zone and a head wrap for Rosie's. Her hair would always be in her face otherwise. So I'm just using simple vertex spheres for collision.
Dn't have a decent root-zone hair cap? Well it's a good thing we have Carrara and Fenric's tools!
Most conforming hair products have a separate mesh for the scalp. So the hunt is on for a favorite one for the character you're working on. Let's go!
Now we have only the scalp of the hair. Some of these are really quite detailed in texture and will make for an excellent hair cap to grow hair upon!
Oh... and don't forget:
The head shield is for speed of calculation of hair physics, I believe. It is not to obscure the scalp during a render.
Right. I hope I wasn't sounding like it wasn't.
It keeps the hair from having to collide against (and possibly get stuck on) eye lashes, teeth, tongue, etc.,
If I knew of it, I'd likely be using it right now!
The point I was making is that, after I started getting into this dynamic hair (this time around), I knew that I would be using a face shield most of the time to keep the hair from accidentally landing in front of what movies are made of: the eyes. Knowing that, I knew that I didn't need detailed shapes for eye indents, nose or even ears for that matter. We can make something else for the ears when we want to tuck the hair behind them.
So I just used a vertex sphere of quite low polygon-count. Instead of molding the vertex object to the shape of the head, being such a low-rez object I just duplicated it and use two of them to get the very basic collision shape for the head. To help keep if from being too slippery, I reduced the bounce and increased the friction (Effects tab > Physical Properties)
To make this easier, since I was starting from scratch after building my new computer and having tested these ideas on my craptop, the first time I set my physical properties before duplicating it. The first time I duplicated it, I made the original (low-rez vert collision object) invisible and named it "Collision - ___" so that I had a 'master' of the collision object.
I started with the top of the head. Being the first object, it fit rather well. This is the Master. The second one finished the main head shape that a sphee cannot - elongated a bit and quished to form the chin and jaws. Duplicate the master and name it "Collision - Neck", parent it to the neck and shape it.
After a bit of experimentation of this, I enjoy the control I get having these individual shapes to work with as opposed to a single conforming proxy. These shapes are right there even though they're hidden. So I can quickly duplicate the right shoulder and make a bit that catches the hair on the shoulder pad of her armor if I want - as one small example.
That's my number 1 rule each time before saving my carrara scene :) that was one of the best advices I got a few years ago. I think it was you :D
As for the face-shield. I used that one. I bought some Carrara hair for V4 ages ago and there was a tutorial how to keep the hair out of V4 face.
I used that on my M4 elf character (the two links from my previous post).
But the hint from @WendyLuvsCatz by doing the pony tail hair in two steps is actually a good idea.
For the clothes and stuff I think I will keep torturing myself through the tutorials @Bunyip02 suggested. Thanks for that :) and yeah I most likely won't like using Daz... but I dislike Poser as well and still have to use it from time to time... e.g. dynamic cloth for dragon wings or injecting morphs into my M4 and V4 that wouldn't otherwise work in Carrara.
So far I helped myself by using multiple cloth pieces and only kept parts visible I wanted to visually use... the rest got hidden. (I started to call it Frankensteining Clothing)
Doing that clone thing might not be a cure all, but it might add some more pieces I can use for my Frankensteining :D
I really want to try VWD for dragon wings and the like. I just haven't got around to it yet. It works like Poser's cloth room, but even better I think. I haven't had Poser since version 6, so I'm not sure how far it's come. But with VWD, we can even use conforming figures as dynamic cloth without doing anything to it, like turning it into a prop or anything like that.
My introduction to Rosie 5 was just an introduction, not a tutorial, so I didn't show everything in my dynamic rig. That's coming in a future documentary. But I've struggled with various types of Face Shields with her, being that her hair is so long for one, and that there are forces driving the hair away from the head to shape the hair for two, and the shader is what adds the curls, so the rendered hair is actually quite some distance frrom the strand.
So her face shields (yes, she has more than one) require the assistance of two more forces that I set to Not be visible in 3D view, so we didn't see them in the screen grabs. Those mild forces just help keep the freaking long strands from stopping to rest on the shields.
Catherine3678ab has very generously made clones available for several of the Genesis generations.
See this thread. - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/352226/clones-for-autofit-reup
Thanks for the tip, Diomede! That's awesome.
I have Poser Pro 2012 and not upgraded since. But Swidhelm's dragon should be fine with an older Poser version as well. I bought his dragons like 5 or 6 years ago.
If I remember correctly he even added a tutorial how to use the dynamic version of the wings. I at least remember having used these and then exported the wings as a prop and the pose as well.
I do hope you at least did the free update when Renderosity/Bondware bought it or it probably will no longer work
That's a really cool dragon!!!
Oh?
Well, it doesn't start anymore :( It just poofes without an error message at the startscreen
I will try to reinstall it and then update if that is still possible. Oh well... at least it still works as an library.
you should have gotten an email
you just need your serial number, hopefully still possibe
https://www.posersoftware.com/downloads
Thank you for the link! <3
That email is probably lost as that email address no longer is in use they might have send it to ;_;
I have only the key from Poser 2012. Not sure that will be enough. Otherwise, I might buy the Pro version Update. I think it was 99 Dollar.