Morphs exaggerated on Character Presets and Actors
jayburn00
Posts: 19
I have noticed recently that the characters (Genesis 8) I'm working with in DAZ Studio 4.12 have characteristics that don't seem to match the promotion/thumbnail image, the most obvious thing to me being that the eyes and mouth/lips seem exaggerated (sometimes the whole face in some cases, maybe all cases if it's too subtle to detect sometimes). I am working with Genesis 8 characters. I also think this exaggeration even applies to my base Genesis 8 Actor as well, but I can't be sure. For reference, I am posting the image of a character's face in a button thumbnail, and a render of the face after loading it into a scene. I might be wrong about the eyes being exaggerated, but I'm absolutely certain the lips are. Also, a while back, for extra customization, I installed a large amount of content that gave more morphs to customize things like lips among other things. I looked into the parameters and shaping controls, but didn't find any morph dialed up that shouldn't have been. It is almost like default morph settings of characters have been overwritten or had certain parts scaled up. The render I posted is of the character that is generated from clicking on the thumbnail I posted. I didn't change any morphs, but did apply textures that are not the same as in the thumbnail, and the hair is not the same either, but I tried to closely replicate what is in the thumbnail, minus the angle of the head tilt, without changing the morphs.
Anyway, how can I get the character's features to not be exaggerated like they are being when I load them? I think I have all the morph files I need, but could it be I also have too many morph files (and the extra morph files overwrote the ones I need, or are being loaded in addition to the ones that are supposed to be used)? Or perhaps I am putting them in the wrong place (I don't always use the DAZ installer but put stuff in the neccessarry directories sometimes manually, usually because some of it doesn't use the daz installer), though I don't think I am getting the directories wrong (a lot of other things wouldn't work I would think).
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Comments
You need to increase the camera's Focel Length - if it's a real camera you can do that by the numbers in the Parameters pane, otherwise right-drag on the magnifying glass icon in the view controls (then you will need to dolly, translate the camera or left-drag on the magnifier) to compensate for the extra zoom.
I was using the regular viewport to render, not a camera. The exaggeration appears on other characters too, and angles have no effect. Even outside the render, the view in the regular viewport appears to exxagerate lip size. It has nothing to do with the camera or render. On some other characters whose default morphs have different lip shapes (corners pointing down for example), some load with their mouth slightly open, though that is not their default morph in all the thumbnails, unless certain parameters were amplified. The morphs are legitimately messed up, not the focal length.
While your later comments suggest FenixPhoenix is on the right track, you are always lookingtrhough a camera or a view and, unless it's one of the orthogonal views (front, top etc.) then it has a focal length - and would be expected to affect everything.
I think I was using a front orthoganal view. I think Fenix is partly right, but I could not find any active morphs that could account for the discrepancies (I think I heard of a problem/situation where a morph could overwrite a figure's zero morphs if installed in a certain order, but I can't remember the specifics). Also, just to clarify, this exaggeration seems to occur on all my Genesis 8 figures, and the most obvious effect is the eyes and lips, though other affects on the body may occur as well.
Update: Not orthoganal, but front perspective. Still should not have affected the outcome of the render so much in this case.
By the way, here is a render of two instances of the same character (MbM Catalina) side by side, except the one on the left is a Genesis 3 version while the one on the right uses Genesis 8. While I would expect there differences based on the different base figure, things like eye angle (one figures eyes angle upward while the other has their eyes angled more downward) or lip shape should not be so different when loaded in. This render was definitely from the front orthoganal view this time. The other picture is the thumbnail used for the button to load that character (picture is pretty much the same for both gen 3 and gen 8 versions).
I think you have almost certainly proven that it is not a camera issue. Some other character is dialed in at a percentage other than zero by default. That is an error. Follow the advice from FenixPhoenix above to figure out what is dialed in. If it is a Daz product and you did not dial it in, report the problem to customer service by submitting a help request.
I'm going to first try to uninstall and then selectively reinstall all my Genesis 8 content. If that doesn't work, the problem is with something I put in a library directory manually that overwrites default shapes (but I don't know how I could fix that one).
if you have bought AFE, that sets to default at 100% in parameters for every new loaded char. could be that? i find i have to dial that AFE setting down or expressions always look like that.
I could be wrong because I know there are some others that do it but that looks like a SpookieLilOne's mouth shape they work with Hotlilme4 and DesparateDreamer sometimes they tend to favor that mouth shape.
This has always been a problem for me, too. What I found is that when loading the base G8F figure into a new scene there are characters and other parameters applied by default. In my case the SC Lucy character is preapplied at 100% and the teen Josie 8 body is applied at 50%. The figure's scale is set to 92%, the head propagating scale to 1.4 % and a few others (see figure 2 attached below). I do not why this happens. When I load any new character that uses G8F as its base the new character's morphs are appliied on top of those that are loaded by default.
The easiest solution for me has been to load the standard G8F figure. Select it in the scene tab. Then select Edit > Figure > Zero >Zero Figure. Then I merge in the Person/Figure/Character/Actor I wanted to start with. It seems like a bug. But maybe it's a feature. I don't know.
Below I've attached screen shots: (1) result of loading the G8F figure directly into a new blank scene with nothing else in it. (2) the "Currently Used" parameter settings immediately after loading the figure. (3) the figure after zeroing it. I did not include a figure of the parameter settings after zeroing the figure, but they are all set to zero.
SC Lucy for Teen Josie 8 is a Daz store product. If it is getting loaded into your base G8F by default, please submit a help request to Daz customer service and ask them to verify the problem and fix it.
Unfortunately, I have found that the morphs in question are being loaded from files I located manually, meaning they did not use DAZ install files. This in turn means I have to find them and delete them manually. Which folder would they be in, because it isn't simply about going into the people folder and deleting every instance of genesis 8? I'm thinking somewhere in the data or runtime directory in My Daz 3d Library Directory, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Morphs are dsf files in a subfolder of the data folder. You could search the data folder for "Lucy". Or look for a Second Circle or SC subfolder, something named like that, and then look for a Lucy folder under that.
You can use the File List for "SC Lucy for Teen Josie 8" as a reference to find the figure's morph in the data folder. If you don't mind losing the character to fix your base G8F's corruption, you'll want to delete the data folder for the character:
Or you could edit the .dsf file following TheKD's advice and:
Thanks! Just to let you know though, I don't have SC Lucy for Teen Josie 8, but I imagine the same instructions apply? I also think the character that is messing up the morphs is Kitten, but I'm not certain.
Well, it was partly successful. After clearing those files and then reinstalling Gen 8 and the non-offending characters, the eyes are definitely not exagerated and the lips are not as exagerated either, but the lips I think are still a little off, though that could just be me. It is definitely better though. The eyes are pretty much spot on. The lips still seem over-sized, but are not as bad as earlier. I think I may have missed some files when I was trying to delete stuff. I only reinstalled the content that had daz installer files, didn't do any of the manually placed files. Could some of the content that has proper daz installers cause the problem still? Or did I miss a file or files when I was deleting the "corrupted" morph files? Also how can I avoid the problem if I install some of the manually installed morph options, as I want to be able to dial certain morphs that the regular files don't give options for?
@jayburn00, could you post what your Base G8 looks like now? Outside of checking to see if a hidden morph is still kicking in, the only other way to revert back to your regular Genesis 8 Base, is by process of elimination. Wherein you eliminate possible culprits one by one and check if the base is back to the way it should be. For reference, I'm attaching what my Genesis 8 Female looks like out of the box. The only thing I did is rotate the dome by 60 so her face wasn't in shadows.
Just a shot in the dark here, but would installing new content/putting new files in while daz3d studio was still running possibly cause the issue? I have been installing content after content, closing daz3d studio when i go into the installer each time and so far no problems. Previously, I sometimes would install stuff while studio was still running. Also, before I reinstalled everything, I was having no problems until I loaded a particular character into a scene, after which when I loaded other characters that previously had no issues, they would have their morphs distorted. My gen 8 renders are currently looking exactly like yours, though before I reinstalled stuff, the lips were definitely different, as were the eyes.
If you installed that character and right after that your base G8F got corrupted, then it's safe to say that character's morph may not have been saved correctly. Deleting or not reinstalling it should suffice. Do you recall which character that was?
Also, installing stuff while running studio shouldn't cause the problem you're having, unless what you're installing hadn't been saved properly.
Its actually been several characters. And its not actually after installing them per se, but after loading them into a scene. Then, if I load another character, the new character and all other subsequent characters have their morphs distorted (if they use Genesis 8 as a base; somehow the default Genesis 8 morphs must be getting altered when this happens). These distortions are then carried on into the next time I run daz studio. I'm really thinking its been because I was installing/creating directories for new characters and their morphs while daz studio was running, because it hasn't had the problem so far now that I close Daz Studio before I install a new character, though that could also be because I haven't installed anything that causes the problem yet. Actually, I think it was being caused by a combination of things, certain character/morph files being installed, installing stuff while dazstudio is actually running (including moving new morph files into the library directories and not using daz install manager), and also loading certain characters (possibly ones not installed properly) into a scene followed by loading another character whose morphs are somehow altered afterward by having loaded the previous character into a scene. Anyway, the characters that most likely triggered this previously are RY Charlene HD, Kitten, Chanel, and a few others I may have forgotten. I have also installed other morph options in the past that I have not installed yet that may play a role, mainly morphs that control the lips.