Autofitting Shoes: A Few Useful Hints
DWG
Posts: 770
I've pushed about 50 pairs of shoes (mainly Gen 4) through autofit with a pretty high rate of success today. I define success as meaning the shoes can be used in an image that isn't going to focus on the feet as most do have a degree of crinkling when examined up close, but others are fine, and a few, primarily soft moccasin/slipper types, are - IMO - actually improved by the process as they gain a more natural adherence to the ins and outs of the foot.
(I didn't just do this for the fun of it, I saved them all off for future use after any necessary tweaking).
Anyway, lessons learnt.
1) The closer to the foot, the better the results, so in general moccasins and slippers do best, flats are okay and thicker soles mostly show significant crinkling, with heels getting worse the bigger they are - I really didn't bother with any shoe with a significant heel.
2) When tweaking fit, start at the top and work down.
3) The V4 and K4 conversions can consistently be improved by setting Y-Scale to 101%, a few may need more. Even if they seem to fit at the heel, poke through at the tips of the toes or under the toes generally means they need Y-scale tweaking further.
4) For shoes that show poke-through at the sides of the toes after the Y-scale fix, go down the hierarchy to the toes itself, and tweak the X-scale.
5) If the foot sticks out of the middle of the upper - it's probably one where the foot is meant to be turned off!
6) If the toes stick up from the middle of the foot (which usually means it's a shoe with a significant heel) chances of fixing it are fairly slim.
7) Some shoes don't follow the rules. Aery Soul's V3 Fragola fits without a tweak, their V3 Vanilla, from around the same period, needs a Y-Scale fix of 105% and there are a handful of others that initially load halfway up the shin looking like they'll never fit, but slide neatly into place with a much larger than usual Y-Scale change.
8) Hose, tights, stockings and socks follow exactly the same rules.
9) Some items may need a translation fix as well. The best example I found was Bice and Out Of Touch's Superhose from Renderosity. That initially looked like it needed a Y-Scale fix, but applying that fixed the feet, while leaving major problems at the back of the thighs and the front of the pelvis. Removing the Y-Scale fix and instead applying a Z-translation back towards the body gave a much better result.
10) I found one example where what I thought was toes poking through turned out to be an insole poking through the outer sole. Scaling isn't going to fix that because the scale will apply to both insole and outer sole, the only solution there is to turn the insole transparent.
11) Some shoes that appear to be fitted fine to the default pose then cause problems when loaded and fitted to a posed, scaled Genesis (I tested using S5 at her default 88% in a martial arts pose that has the feet at fairly extreme angles). Unfortunately I haven't worked out the common factor to explain why some shoes work even in extreme poses and others need further tweaking. Mostly it's more Y-scale tweaking that seems to be needed. If both shoes are part of the same figure you may need to move down into the thighs to allow different tweaks between right and left.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Interesting.
I very much want to get the boots from Littlefox's Infamous set ported over to Genesis. It's a really *good* model of a Victorian boot. Not too high a heel, but there's a deffinite heel there. I've wondered whether posing Genesis's feet to match the pose that's needed for V4 before trying to do the fit would help.
Wow excellent info you will help a lot of people with this, I'm printing this out now.
Thanks so much !!!
...because the Gen3 figures default foot pose was "flat" rather than pointed down, wouldn't Gen3 footwear work better with Autofit?
I Crossdressed all my V4 shoes to V3. Still some issues but a lot less than when they set for v4.
Be aware that if you've used the Autofit's boot template that the rig in your footware is screwed up, the hip bone in the template isn't where it's meant to be, and shoves the other bones out of alignment when you conform them.
DAZ wont fix it as it's "low priority", which is a load of bull as it's a 2 minute job in a text editor and not a major recoding.
It doesn't. I tried this last night. Only time it works if if you load up a v4 over Genesis in the same pose, conform the shoes to v4, then export as obj, import and transfer shoes to Genesis. What I am busy experimenting with is creating a shoe mould for genesis feet and you set the shoe to collide against that. The mould has no details like toes etc..
Hmmm that didnt work. However I realized the shoes follow the foot and toe shape, so I am going to create a foot morph in zbrush in such a way that the shoes appear to look fine. This will only be a solution for closed shoes. On open shoes you will see some weird looking feet. Beta testing looks promising. By evening out the toes lengtht there is no more crumples in front. Just need to do the bottom and sides.
In theory, yes, but I mentioned V3 Vanilla, and that autofits by default half way up the shin, whereas some Gen 4 shoes come in much closer. Tweak the results by hand and there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of difference. I wonder if some of it is to do with the alignment of the original obj, but I haven't gone off and loaded them in to check (most bizarre result I saw was a freebie that loaded with both shoes twisted 45 degrees right....).
Could you be a little more specific on "isn't where it's meant to be"? Bone Centre and Endpoints? Position within the node hierarchy? I'm happy enough tweaking the raw .DUF files and I'd like to understand what's happening better.
Are any of the other templates better for hip value?
As an example, auotfitted and saved V3 Vanilla gives this in the .DUF for hip:
{
"id" : "hip",
"url" : "/data/DavidG/Product/!AS Vanilla R/van_rshoe_6595.dsf#hip",
"name" : "hip",
"label" : "hip",
"parent" : "#van_rshoe_6595",
"preview" : {
"type" : "bone",
"center_point" : [ 0, 103.876, -5.09233 ],
"end_point" : [ 0, 86.807, -11.9198 ],
"rotation_order" : "YZX"
},
"translation" : [
{
"id" : "y",
"type" : "float",
"name" : "YTranslate",
"current_value" : 4.629278
}
],
"extra" : [
{
"type" : "studio_node_channels",
"channels" : [
{
"channel" : {
"id" : "Selectable",
"type" : "bool",
"name" : "Selectable",
"current_value" : true
},
"group" : "/Display/Scene View"
}
]
}
]
},
I'm doing the autofitting specifically to provide an alternative to that mechanism - which I have managed to use successfully - where a shoe is suitable and a crinkle-free result isn't needed. There's no doubt using matched poses and export/import gives better results than autofitting, but it is a much more involved process, whereas you can throw a shoe through autofit and tweak it in a couple of minutes.
I really don't get why DAZ thinks this low priority. I still cannot do this. The shows come on crooked and parenting is messed up. Boots are a nightmare. I have wasted a lot of money it seems on boots and shoes. I watch a YouR=Tube instructional video but all due respect to the guy who did the video, his method does not work. I love DAZ and I love Genesis,but, I never had problems fitting shoes and boots in Poser - ANY edition. Come on DAZ, I mean you put out a great product, yet there are MANY threads and posts that clearly show that footwear fitting IS a major hassle. I know that individual vendors and members are trying workarounds, but, please explain to me why everything else is almost a snap yet this problem persists? I will not buy anything else dealing with footwear - sorry vendoers -until there is a definite solution..
In the past you could only use clothing made for that specific figure. Then came Wardrobe wizard and crossdresser and they let you use other figures clothing with hit or miss results, especially with footwear, so we are very lucky for what we have with genesis, even with less than perfect footwear. Just stick with genesis only footwear and you'll be fine
I have nearly every heel that idler168 made for V4 and i emailed that vendor awhile back asking for genesis versions and was told they would be coming, i hope they still are.
Here's what I've been doing. I've been applying a smoothing modifier to the shoes, and then going into the smoothing modifier and switching it from base shape to generic, and then upping the smoothing a few notches. While I haven't done exhaustive testing on it, the only problem I ran into that wasn't fixed was the bottom sole of the shoe over-conforming to the foot. I didn't have any crumpling in the toe after this. But I will freely admit that I'm not too experienced, and this method may have drawbacks I haven't discovered. Or it may just not work on some shoes. (I primarily used this on V4 shoes.)
What a great community! I've been a customer for years but only just joined the forum. :) I really do love the possibilities with Genesis and really it has only been with footwear that I have had any issues. Speaking in generic modelling lingo, each and every construct in DAZ is a mesh (obviously textures aren't a construct so I hope I'm making sense. I am still half asleep - I'm a musician and had a late gig last night). So what is vexing me is the foillowing: hands have more articulative possibilities than feet yet glove fit, well, like a glove! lol In desperation I bought both the V5 and V4 shoe packs. I have V$ and V% installed along with Morphs ++ and all. But I am even experienceing a bit of weirdness with the V5 shoe pack: The V5 thigh high boots for instance appear but with that annoying crooked heel problem.. The V4 shoe pack morph is very hit and miss unfortunately. I am used to working in a number of 3D programs and basically you create or import a construct and manipulate it onto another object and voila. Even the now defunct and relatively unsupported TrueSoace allowed this.
The Genesis Supersuit has been a quick fix, but, it is more (another bad oun) not really suited for realistic looking apparel.
I wonder if maybe I need to pose the figure first THEN try fitting the footwear? I My usual workflow has always been to work from the "T" pose, do the wardrobe then do the posing. Would changing that workflow help?
I am really sorry to be a pest, but there simply has to be a way to do a relatively simple operation more efficiently. Any help would be appreciated.
Namaste,
Vlad
...they need to do "normal" shoe styles for Genesis. There's already enough sci-fi/goth boots, flip flops, and fantasy footwear.
I'd like to see plain ol' sneakers (retro high tops?), loafers, oxfords "work" shoes/boots (office and industrial), deck shoes, kids shoes, comfy slippers, cowboy boots, galoshes (has anyone ever made old fashioned galoshes save for the original Toon Girl Sadie's Rainy Day wear?), hiking shoes/boots, and rollerskates (classic & inline) as well as ice skates that don't deform when posing (tried to use the V4 sport shoe inline skates but the wheel blades bend and distort badly when posing the foot).
For me it has been hit and miss with Autofitting gen 4 footwear and the Transfer Tool for some reason now crashes the app.
Not into messing with scripting (too counter intuitive for my tastes as the whole attraction of these new 3D tools for me was that they no longer required programming to use).
Great thread with lots of info. I('m mainly posting because my thread subscriptions keep disappearing, and this way I can find things by looking up my own posts.) One thought I did have is that there's a "sock-toe" morph out there that turns all of genesis' foot into a single smooth object. I would think conforming to that rather than autofitting would probably help... but I have to find that morph in my files first...
You mean this? http://www.sharecg.com/v/62118/related/21/DAZ-Studio/Genesis-Sock-Toes
As for the foot fitting thing, I've also had some issues with it, but mostly for footwear that has the naked feet showing (like sandals). Boots and shoes are easy enough to work with and resize and simply hide the feet up to the shins. Not always perfect, though, as some boots don't cover up to the lower knees. But I do find it surprising why this hasn't been fully resolved in 4.5. Hopefully something for 5.0 to put a nail on.