How to turn imported items into custom clothing?

no nose

I've figured out how to import and give texture to meshes, but whenever I try to use them on a character there's some issue with rigging, size, or a good amount of the body just goes through it. The tutorials I was able to find are either insanely outdated, or not very infromitive. Do I have to do all the steps in Daz or Blender?

Illidanstorm

ideally the clothing already fits the basic figure and you just have to rig it.

the tutorial is about MD but can also be useful if you done your clothes in blender 

at around 9 min in.

CGHipster

Here is a good free tutorial from one of the PA's, they also have more advanced tutorials (comprehensive) in the marketplace:  http://www.digi-dotz.com/index.php/free-poses/tutorials/daz-studio-tutorials/26-basic-genesis-clothes-rigging-in-daz-studio-4-5

no nose

CGHipster said:

Here is a good free tutorial from one of the PA's, they also have more advanced tutorials (comprehensive) in the marketplace:  http://www.digi-dotz.com/index.php/free-poses/tutorials/daz-studio-tutorials/26-basic-genesis-clothes-rigging-in-daz-studio-4-5

Thanks, only issue is that a good chunk of the shirt seems to dissaper when I use the transfer utility tool, any way to fix that?

CGHipster

Hi, there are some clothing morphs that can do this for you in the marketplace but it could be a factor of which base figure you used when making the item, when you modeled the clothing which figure did you use?

no nose

CGHipster said:

Hi, there are some clothing morphs that can do this for you in the marketplace but it could be a factor of which base figure you used when making the item, when you modeled the clothing which figure did you use?

I used Genesis 8 as to figure out how to fit it

CGHipster

Ok, maybe these tutorials would help.  One is from Sickleyield about fitting clothing made for other figures to a different figure, she is one of the PA's, another tutorial is one I bookmarked on Youtube that seems useful although I have not made many clothes yet but plan to someday if I have the time.  From what I do know when you go to make the item the default character figure should be zero'd shape, and base, so low geometry.  It could be a matter of figure settings you used when modeling but maybe these tutorials can help you sort it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugdhxgo_wGU

https://www.deviantart.com/sickleyield/journal/Tutorial-Convert-Clothing-G3-to-G8-G8-to-G3-686682065

no nose

Ok I think I got it to work, Gonna have to mess with putting the clothes in their proper place in blender, but besides that I think I got it mostly down

CGHipster

Excellent

barbult

no nose, welcome to the Daz forums! Which came first, the avatar or the username? 

I don't know your level of experience with Blender or clothing creation, so it is hard to gauge what you need to know. You may very well know more about both than I do! SickleYield has some excellent tutorials on her Deviant Art blog. Try this one. It is part one of a many-part tutorial with much more detail than the overview I will try to provide here.

When creating clothing for a Daz Character, it is best to model that clothing around the BASE CHARACTER, not a scaled or morphed version of the character. You handle specific character shapes later by adding morphs to your your clothing. When you want to make clothing for a Daz character in Blender, I think it is easiest to start by exporting the Daz character to an OBJ file to use as a mannequin in Blender. Then you can create your clothes in the right location, the right size and the right shape. This is a brief overview of the steps involved:

1. Start a new scene in Daz Studio.
2. Load the BASE character for the generation and gender that you want to make clothes for. For example, Genesis 8 Basic Female, or Genesis 8 Female Dev Load,  or Genesis 3 Male, etc., not Victoria 8 or Ivan 7, etc.)
3. In the Parameters pane, make sure that the character's scale is 100%. Do not pose or move the character.
4. Since you are going to make clothes and not character morphs, you don't have to worry about setting Mesh Resolution to Base, but you can if you wish, to make your file smaller.
5. Select the character in the Daz Studio Scene pane and turn off the visibility to anything else in the Scene pane, including the parented eyelashes for the generation 8 models. Daz Studio will export everything that is visible and you want only your mannequin. If you forget and leave the eyelashes on, that is OK, because you are making clothing, not morphs.
6. Select File/Export and export the model as an OBj file. Remember what conversion scale you chose in the export dialog, because you will need to import your clothing at the same scale later. I use Daz Studio scale, which is huge in Blender, but it works fine for me.
7. Open Blender and import the OBJ that you exported from Daz Studio. The import settings are important and the Blender default settings are not what you need. I will attach a screenshot of the import and export settings I use.
8. Now you should see your mannequin model in the Blender viewport. Don't modify the mannequin size, shape or position. 
9. Create your clothes to fit the mannequin.
10. Export your clothes as a Wavefront OBJ file (don't export the mannequin with the clothes). Export settings are important, and default Blender settings are not what you need. Try the settings in my attached screenshot.
11. Go back to Daz Studio and File/Import your clothing mesh. Select the same conversion scale that you used to export the mannequin.
12. The clothing should appear in the viewport and should be sized and positioned on the model in Daz Studio just like they were in Blender when you created them.
13. For simple rigging of the clothes, use the Transfer Utility. Specify your model (Genesis 8 Female, for example) as the Source and your imported clothing item as the Target.
14. Save the clothing item: File/Save As.../Support Asset/Figure Prop Assets

This leaves out many important finalization steps, like adjusting weight maps, defining surface materials, creating JCMs and MCMs and other morphs. I hope it gives you enough of an idea of the process to take you next step forward. 

no nose

ok some for some reason, it seems like when I turn the actual mesh into a shirt some of it seems to change in shape, is there any reason why?

barbult

What process are you using to "turn the actual mesh into a shirt"?

no nose

barbult said:

What process are you using to "turn the actual mesh into a shirt"?

went to object, transfer utility, and then set the options like the tutorial said

barbult

Did you create the mesh on the unmorphed, unposed, base character scaled to 100%? Can you show some screenshots of the mesh right after you imported it and then again after running the transfer utility, and a screenshot showing all the settings you selected in the transfer utility? Maybe someone will notice something set incorrectly.

no nose

Alright, these are the before/after and settings I used.

barbult

Nothing jumps out to me as being wrong. You could try the transfer utility with "None" for the projection template instead of Full Body to see what difference that makes. 

I've asked another community volunteer to take a look at this thread, too. Maybe he will see the problem.

Richard Haseltine

As Barbult asked, is the clothing item made to fit the base figure? If not - if there was a morph or set of morphs applied to the figure you modelled around - then in the Transfer Utility set Source Shape to Moprh and pick the one used, or for multiple morphs set it to Current, then in the checkboxes at the bottom check Reverse Source Shape from Target.

no nose

Richard Haseltine said:

As Barbult asked, is the clothing item made to fit the base figure? If not - if there was a morph or set of morphs applied to the figure you modelled around - then in the Transfer Utility set Source Shape to Moprh and pick the one used, or for multiple morphs set it to Current, then in the checkboxes at the bottom check Reverse Source Shape from Target.

I didn't shape it around any morphs, just the base genesis 8 female.

Richard Haseltine

OK, that eliminates a lot of possible issues. I can't, however, follow the iamegs to see what is happening - if possible, could you post a larger screen shot showing more of the figure - if it's going to show too much skin click the sphere icon at top-right of the viewport and select Smooth Shaded view mode.

no nose

Pretty much this, I think it's one of the settings in the transfer tool that is causing this, but I have no clue which one

no nose

Yeah if I dont change any of the settings (besides the source / target items) it doesn't happen

no nose

Well now i'm having an issue where if I bend the arm enough this happens

Richard Haseltine

Try going again with your previous settings, except for the Add Smoothing Modifier.

no nose

Richard Haseltine said:

Try going again with your previous settings, except for the Add Smoothing Modifier.

Doesn't help

barbult

Then you probably have to adjust weight maps and/or create JCMs for such extreme bone rotations.

no nose

barbult said:

Then you probably have to adjust weight maps and/or create JCMs for such extreme bone rotations.

Where in Blender can I do that?

barbult

You do weight mapping in Daz Studio with the weight map brush.

JCMs (Joint Controlled Morphs) are morphs that are associated with bone rotations. After you create the morph and associate it with the bone, the morph is activated automatically when the bone is rotated. You modify the mesh shape in Blender and use Morph Loader Pro to import it into Daz Studio as a morph. You will need to use some Google skills to locate some tutorials and forum discussions for those topics. There are also tutorials in the Daz store that discuss JCMs.

Preparing clothing for Daz Studio is a big job, to make it fit morphed characters and adjust nicely to character poses.You might also consider using dForce on it to make it drape nicely.