Back on G8 geoshells on G9
AndrewJJP
Posts: 711
I have 15 geoshells I want to convert from G8 to G9. Each has a base color map, a normal map, an opacity map and a gloss map (I forget which). Although I've not tried it yet and I would love to be corrected, baking in Blender seems quite a manual process and it would need to be done 60 times. I'm finding it pretty hard to work up the motivation to do it.
So these products interest me, especially given the prices they have today, but I'm not confident either would do what I need.
The first one has a statement I don't understand (first bold part aboute being a culling conformer - it's not a term I can find anywhere else).
https://www.daz3d.com/rssy-genesis-8-and-81-female-material-suit-for-genesis-9
It can’t be used to put Genesis 8 geometry shells over a Genesis 9 skin because the Material Suit is a culling conformer that removes all Genesis 9 geometry under it.
You have to put the Material Suit on and then the geoshell (same with LIE materials).
Because I don't understand the first bold part, the second bold italic part about putting the material suit on, then the geoshell, doesn't make much sense to me. Is it an explanation of why the product doesn't do whar I need, or is it giving me a workaround whereby the conversion isn't possible but I could still use the shells by applying the suite then putting them on top? Or is it completely unrelated?
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Secondly, there's this product.
https://www.daz3d.com/rssy-character-converter-genesis-8-and-81-female-to-genesis-9
Could I create G8 characters whose textures are the geoshells and batch convert those, then save their materials?
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Or absolutely anything else that doesn't require me to bake 60 UV maps one at a time, either using Daz or Blender?
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Comments
TL;DR version: basically, you can't put G8 geoshell materials onto G9 characters without doing some sort of conversion, because the geometry and surfaces are different. The Material Suit allows you to put G8 character materials onto a G9 base, and THEN put the geoshells onto the Material Suit and THEN put the geoshell materials onto the geoshell. Since you seem to want to put the geoshells onto G9 characters, this probably doesn't do what you want. The Character Converter converts G8 shapes to G9 geometry, but does not convert materials.
Long Version:
The first bold part is both explaining why it doesn't do what you want the way you seem to want, and how to make it do something close to what you need with fewer steps (or at least not using Blender) ... up to a point. There's a bit of a process involved (though still less cumbersome than using Blender for this).
You would need to do the following:
1) Put the Material Suit on your G9 Character. This will make it possible to put G8 character materials -- but NOT the G8 geoshell materials -- onto the Material Suit that G9 is wearing. The suit is now parented to the character and at this point, as far as most materials are concerned, you're working with a sort of G8 character.
2) Put G8 materials on the Material Suit -- for example, Victoria 8's materials. G9 character materials, like Victoria 9's, will NOT work on the Material Suit. G8 Geoshell materials, as mentioned, probably will not work directly on the Material Suit itself, because they're configured to need a geoshell and that's not what the Material Suit is.
3) Once you have the G8 skin/texture materials on the Material Suit, to add a geoshell product to your character, select the Suit that is parented to the character, NOT the character itself.
4) Apply your G8 Geoshell preset. Depending on how it's made, it should pull both the geoshell and the desired materials into the workspace, parented to the Material Suit.
I've done this process, so I do know that it can work. That said, how well/if it works depends in part on how the geoshell product is made, and that can be variable. You won't know if it works until you try it.
"Culling conformer" essentially means, for government work, that it's hiding the G9 surfaces and geometry from Studio so that Studio kind of-sort of thinks it's a G8 character. This also means that if you were thinking to hide the Material Suit's surfaces and try to put the geoshell materials onto a G9 character, that won't work because the Material Suit has completely hidden the G9 surfaces and geometry from Studio. With the Material Suit on the character, there's nothing to put G9 materials onto.
Nope. That product converts ONLY the character shapes, not their materials. That's why the Material Suit exists. The materials will not work on G9 without either using Blender or some other process to convert them, or using the Material Suit.
Hope this is helpful.
I would like to remind you of the cons of using Material Suit... If you need HD morph on the G9 character you use, Material Suit won't show any of HD detail when rendering 'cause it's a conformer using the technique of Auto-Hide Faces of underlying G9's geometry...
Besides, the prerequisites of using all of these "suit" and "geo-graft" products (Material Suit, Legacy series from Cayman Studios, etc.) is that you have to apply G8's skin texture on them... If you want to use G9's skin texture + G8's shell textures at the same time, it's not achievable. You still have to go for the "real conversion of texture maps".
A while back, I did an alteration of Cayman's geografts to give them full support for the standard G9 UVs meaning you could have any combination of textures or geoshells as long as they were on the standard UVs. (Additionally, a further modification can then be done to make it possible to use Map Transfer to permanently bake over textures far more conveniently than via Blender).
Unfortunately though, I've not yet worked out a way to make that modification redistributable, and I've only been able to share it with anyone else by walking them tediously through the process of doing the alteration themselves.
Technically it's achievable with modification on Cayman's products but you should not be allowed to distribute it directly, while making a new one or showing a tutorial is doable.
Besides, there's also a cons with Cayman's product(s): if you go for using HD morphs on the figure with Legacy geo-grafts, you'll get ugly deformation at the seams. So for the time being, there's no perfect product for this subject matter...
Thanks to everyone that has replied, vwrangler, crosswind and Matt_Castle.This is all phenominally useful!
I should clarify that I didn't really mind how it was done or what the process was as long as it wasn't going to get too tedious, because I only have limited time for Daz, and I'd rather spent it making pictures and building models than making maps!
If I'm understanding correctly:
Obviously the modification can't be distributed, but I'm happy to buy the product and modify it. I've never done Daz scripting but have enough software development experience not to be too worried but that. So I'm going to have to ask how difficult it is to do...?
I'll buy the material suit today, as it's a good price, I want one of the new releases which makes it cheaper, and I have a couple of tokens, so cheaper still. I'll pick up the legacy UVs when they are on sale. I will also look into whether it would be possible to write a batch conversion in Blender. Again, I've never written a Blender script, but it would be an interesting excercise.
And again, thank you all very much. I appreciate it.
It's HD morph not HD map... Material Suit doesn't support to show HD morphs that you dial. Legacy UV products can show HD morphs but not flawless.
No, it doesn't limit you to using G8's textures no matter they're are G8 skin textures or G8 shell textures, with either the suit itself, or a geo-shell or LIE layers on the suit surfaces.
Yes, sort of remaking the Legacy graft to support both G8 and G9's UV sets.
That depends on the graft you use but more or less... and Legacy UV itself is a geo-graft. Some flaws are shown in the attached screenshot.
Thanks. Yes, sorry, I meant HD morphs, not maps.
My undertanding of the Material Suit is that I apply it and it sits over the G9, taking its shape, but its UVs match G8. Therefore I couldn't use a G9 texture under a G8 geoshell. If that's not right, it's great. but even if it's correct, it's actually the geometry that attracts me to G9. so it's not a disaster to use G8 textures.
I've made a graft once to remove an annoying split in an item of clothing, but what you're describing sounds beyond anything I would attempt. Writing code is fine, but it's not that.
I have the suit now (not tried it) and I have a feeling we may see everything on sale again tomorrow it Daz repeat their past patterms, so I'll get the UVs then.
Again, thanks, I really appreciate all this.
Yep, your understanding is correct. But since you've already got Material Suit... if you DO need to keep G9's skin textures plus G8's geoshell textures as well as keeping HD morphs for rendering, there's also a work around ~ i.e. alter to disable the Auto-Hidden G9's geometry.
Then you may have two sets of Material Suits, one is the original from the product, one is used for the cases of keeping G9's skin textures. It also has little flaws , as I mentioned above, but it is a solution. Let me know if you need it.
Thank you! So essentially, it's a material suit that's hidden with another one inside. I'm happy to have a play with those settings. Thanks also for the offer. I may well take you up on that if I have any further questions. I know I said it before, but much appreciated!