GoZ not working on some clothes

nevarran

Hi, guys.

Been using GoZ to fix clipping on clothes and fit them better for quite some time. But recently I've encountered some clothing products that wouldn't receive the custom morphs from ZBrush.

I understand I cannot edit objects in High Res, so I always switch the Resolution Level to Base before sending the clothes to ZBrush.
But recently I encountered some products that wouldn't receive the morphs, even when exported at Base resolution level.
Watch My Charm for Genesis 3 Female(s) is one of those products. The cloth items are set to Base level by default, but when exporting from ZBrush all I get is the option to create a new object.

Any idea what's causing this issue and how to get around it?
Thanks.

IsaacNewton

Not sure if the issue is the same, but I reported a problem with GoZ not passing a clothing figure back to DS properly. I think the issue was with GoZ not reading the clothing properly, probably due to a fault in the clothing that does not affect the clothing in DS. Certainly the swimsuits were the only items in the package that caused the error and no other items caused the problem.

The DAZ3d help desk thought that the problem lay with Zbrush and so they could not invesigate it. I have no idea why they thought Zbrush was at fault if the could not investigate it but there we are....

I then posted a thread about the issue (See https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2685601/#Comment_2685601) but got no resolution.

Good luck finding a solution.

Syrus_Dante

@ nevarran

Try this:

1. If you exproting from ZBrush and DS offers you to create the static object let it load in

2. hide all exept this object and save it as OBJ-geometry file

3. select your clothing open morphloader and create a morph from the OBJ-geometry file

...dont trust on GoZ to work properly

IsaacNewton

I'm not sure about nevarran, but this did not work for me as the geometry of the clothing had changed on importing back to DS from Zbrush via GoZ (even if I did nothing to the clothing item). Consequently object could not be used as a morph for the original clothing.

Nevarran.. did it work for you?

nevarran

Nope, didn't work for me either. But I think I'm doing something wrong. Because this method didn't work on a pair of boots that work fine with GoZ.

After making the new object from ZBrush, I delete every other clothes, hid the human figure, so that only the boots are visible and export as OBJ (using the DAZ Studio preset).
Then I re-open the scene with everything in it and start Morph Loader Pro, click the Choose Morph Files... button and select the OBJ. Then I just get an Error "Geometry did not match, failed to create morph.".

IsaacNewton

Maybe someone can correct me but I'm not sure that just hiding a object will stop it from being exported, if it is conformed to the figure. I would at least unconform everything from the figure. In the end, why don't you just delete everything that you don't want exported? After exporting you can either undo the deletions or just reload the original file.

nevarran

@IsaacNewton, I tried doing this as well, the error I got was different, but it still didn't work.

Daywalker Designs

Sometimes there are areas on a mesh that look like they are completely welded togetherbut are just far enough apart that GoZ will notice whereas an object export may weld them; this is probably why one method works and the other doesn't. Beyond that, I'm not sure DAZ could fix this, as the behavior really isn't broken as such.

Syrus_Dante

So there must be something wrong with the GoZ geometry. Did you compare the vertex count? In DS you can select the node and have a look at the Scene Info pane - Primary Selection.

As it seams to me DazStudio just dosnt care about messy geometry data and only shows the polygons and ignores may existing unconnected vertices. And the clothing items seems to work fine as long as you dont try to edit something.

@ daywalker03

I've seen old Poser clothes, that I tryed to convert to genesis, loaded into DS and after I apply the smoothing modifier the unwelded bodypart facegroups splitt up at the seams.

I think there is no restriction on that more than one vertex can exist on the exact same coordinates some call it dublicates some call it unwelded. In some geometry editors like blender and also in ZBrush there are options to weld vertecies that share either identical coordinates or define the distance in which vertecies should be merged / welded.

In my expirience with editing geometry in blender there are no restrictions on that. You may start with a single vertex draw some edges connect them and form a face / polyon at least with three edges but even with more than four edges blender will draw a face inbetween while I think DazStudio dont like such polygons called n-gones. So later in the editing process you have to make shure you cut up the n-gones in triangles or better quads while DazStudio can work with triangles but works best with quads.

In Common

As I stared working with GoZ I had the same issues - see my old post @ G3f textures in zbrush

I remember after DazStudio didnt want to load the GoZ morph - I tryed to export an OBJ file out of the current ZBrush-GoZ session - so instead of clicking the GoZ button I clicked export. But this leads to some trouble with the right scaling for to import it back to DazSrudio and yes I also got the geometry dont macht error.

The next thing I did was to load that file into blender to inspect it further. If you enter the edit mode in blender you can highlight all geometry with the keyboard shortcut A, and suddenly thanks to the big bright orange highlighting in Vertex Selection mode, I saw some - so called loose geometry consisting of singel Vertices floating around that are not connectet to any edges or faces.

Blender offers some automatic functions to clean up the geometry in edit mode: Mesh > Clean Up > Delete Loose. Also there is an option called Merge to weld / delete Duplicate Vertices that can clean up the geometry.

But be careful with that because it will delete any loose Vertex or Edge like you want but also Faces that are not connected to some others I think. You may dont want to delete a unconnected Face / Polyon because maybe you have a prop object with a single unsubdivided plane for a glass window or something.

Otherwise I dont think any figure or cloth geometry should have singel unconnected Faces/polyons or even single Vertex and Edges in it. I cant always tell where those messed up geomerty came from, maybe its in the original content file or DazStudio and ZBrush messed up something with the export import process. Also you can easily trick yourself if you forget to set it to base resolution and more important - dont forget to check the Ignore Invisible Nodes in the OBJ Export Options.

@ nevarran

I dont think you have to delete all other fitted clothes before exporting - just unfitt everything else and make shure all other nodes are invisible.

GeoGrafted Items

I once tryed to use GoZ on a Geografted item while it is fitted to the figure but this didnt work. Either if I hide the figure or the Geografted item before I used GoZ or OBJ Export. A further investigation on that leads me to the conclusion that DazStudio just hides the faces but keeps all vertecis of the other - either if you hide the figure and export the Geograft or you hide the Geograft and export the Figure.

Conclusion

Anyway if you end up with a piece of geometry from DazStudio that you cant edit and make morphs for with GoZ. I would recomend you to use the traditional OBJ export and Morphloader import process like I've decriped in my old post at section My workflow without GoZ @ G3f textures in zbrush.

Its almost the same method that can be adapted to any other Geomerty Editor like Blender - there the morphs are called ShapeKeys - you simply load them in as a new object with the OBJ files Shift+select both objects in the right order go to Object Data in the Properties and in the ShapeKeys section there is an dropdown menu with options for to Transfer Shape Key and Join as Shapes. Also keep in mind that witchever geometry editor you use for the OBJ export and Morphloader import process you should make shure to keep up the original Vertex Order of the geometry. I think this is caused by the OBJ file stucture itself - you can open an OBJ-file with a simple text editor and see a long list of coordinates that are listed in some order. If that order gets somehow altered by the external geometry editor and you try to load the OBJ morph back you get something that is known as "exploding mesh". Also there is an option "Keep Vert Order" you have to check in blender import OBJ file.

Workaround

As I had trouble with the Morphloader that dosnt want my morphed geometry to load onto the clothing/figure item in DS, I've found a workaround for that. So instead of working with the current geometry that comes as an export or GoZ session from DazStudio I first used bender to clean up the base shape geometry like I've descriped and then I've imported that OBJ as an static object into DazStudio.

I also loaded the original figure / clothes and I saw that the shapes did match because all faces starts to flicker as I orbit around in the PreView. Next I've used the Tranfer-Utility to copy all figure / clothes specific data like the bones, weightmaps, morphs and properties to the new cleaned up base geometry. You need to have the Repalce Source With Target option selected otherwise the properties and the parameter groups get lost. What I did get was a clothing/figure item that behaves like the original but with the fixed base geometry I can continue to work with and create morphs for.

Now you can try it again with GoZ and see if loose geometry causes the problems with the plugin - like I believe - or keep up the OBJ export & Morphloader import - process.

I personaly like to use the Morphloader option Reverse Deformation allot. It took me quiet a while before Im got used to that workflow but with Morphloader and Reverse Deformation its possible to work on a custom morphed shape from DazStudio and as long as you stick to the original shape of the item in DazStudio and load your morphs onto it with Morphloader and Reverse Deformation you can continue to add new shapes without saving any existing shape morphs from Daz to your new morph.

IsaacNewton

Syrus, yes I counted geometry, both rectangle and triangle polygons match in DS and Zbrush. However, when GoZ sends it back to DS, there is an error in the geometry. Now, to me, that says that the issue is with GoZ and as GoZ is from DAZ3d I would have thought that they would feel some responsibility to investigate this issue. However, they clearly disagree with me. So I am left with a product that I cannot use in the way I want as I need to make smoothing morphs to correct the DS autofit mess. I'm not happy about it but as Larry Niven's Moties would say, DAZ3d has the gripping hand!

nevarran

Using OBJ export and Blender did the job. Not as good and intuitive as ZBrush, but it'll do for the products that refuse to work with GoZ.
I followed those two SickleYield tutorials for the export/import process:

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. Much appreciated.