Unable to define surfaces for a geoshell

jsdaz_5811013940

I would like to define surfaces for a geoshell. When I select the Geometry Editor tool, the cursor does not work properly. Hovering over the shell does not give me the red selection circle. When I select the geoshell parent, all works just fine. I can redefine surfaces.

Is it possible to define surfaces with the geometry editor for a GeoShell?

Thanks!

Richard Haseltine

jsdaz_5811013940 said:

I would like to define surfaces for a geoshell. When I select the Geometry Editor tool, the cursor does not work properly. Hovering over the shell does not give me the red selection circle. When I select the geoshell parent, all works just fine. I can redefine surfaces.

Is it possible to define surfaces with the geometry editor for a GeoShell?

Thanks!

A Geometry Shell is a live clone of the original, it is like an Instance in most repsects but can have its own materials and visibility settings. I don't believe it can have different surfaces, however, as those are prt of the geometry definition that is being instanced.

jsdaz_5811013940

Thanks for responding so quickly. Wow.

My goal is a geoshell catsuit. The problem is the material break on the upper thigh of G3F and G8F. A simple solid color is OK, But, any pattern or satin effect causes a linear discontinuity running horizontally around the thigh. Looking at the material maps, this is easy to understand. My idea was to change the surfaces of the geoshell to a single surface below the neck. Alas, that won't work.

Natch I can buy loads of catsuits but they all have inevitable small poke through errors that the geoshell won't have. I could also reset the surfaces on G8F, but the best fabric shaders have small gaps in the weave. This can make unsightly regions where there is apparently no skin under the fabric. Also the geoshell offset gives a better appearance along the border between fabric and uncovered skin.

If you have other ideas, I would love to hear them.

Thanks again.

Richard Haseltine

In principle you could remap the figure (an exported base resolution OBJ, with no add-ons), load that as a new UV Set, and apply that to the shell - how easy that would be would depend on what tools you have and what end result you want (a simple planar prjection along the z-axis would be trivial, but you'd get nasty shearing in the sides if there were any detail in the textures).

jsdaz_5811013940

You are wonderfully helpful and correct again. Just for grins I created a single surface group from the neck down for a G8F character. Saved and reloaded. Created a Geoshell. Alas, the break was unchanged. So yes a fully remapped Geoshell or G8F would be required. Not in my skill set or time budget. So back to catsuits and poke through.

Thanks again.

BlueSirius

I have pretty much the same question hence found this thread when looking for answers. I have a solution in terms of script renaming but wonder is there a way within Daz?

My situation is that I am using a Genesis3 with THREE geografts. One was purchased the other 2 self made. My scene is animating transitions from human to not so human - extra limbs and such by changing opacity and or displacement on multuple geoshells riding on the G3. The geografts all work fine.. but I have three sets of surfaces plus the base figure to worry about animating surfaces. A geoshell helps my workflow as it becomes one surface I can save/load/animate much more quickly with the geometry models hidden with default materials.

However when GeoShells fit they add the name of the Graft infront of the surface. The names are too long for my view and I would rather set them to existing materials where the UV is the same.This is where I went to Geometry Editor and quickly noticed no geograft surfaces show up on the "Geoshell" skin just original figure surfaces.

I'm doing a quick script to rename a shells surfaces once generated but think that it might well be making unique names for the surfaces where XXXX is a number for example my limb Graft has fingernails and this fit as "Rabe_G3_4350_Fingermails". By XXXX I mean the 4350 might be an on the fly number and I don't know if it will be consistent. In this case I just want it to use the materials from the Main Actors fingernails.. I don't want to reasign the geometry surfaces to "Fingernails" but want a second instance of the material in the surfaces tab such that I can hide/show this geografted fingernail depending on timeline.

I'm rusty at scripting so it is just a static rename not taking into account dynamic naming of the surfaces.

Is there a better way to force the names of these Geoshell surfaces in Daz when they are fitted or is my little script the right approach?

My second approach is maybe to do a rename in DSON Editor.

P.S. The script worked fine to rename GeoGraft surfaces but found it won't list more than one surface called say "Torso." When I save material presets it does have 3 Torso options so I am best to give a name like Torso, TorspGraft2 and TorsoHip.

Below worked and an iteration of the last section for each material I want to rename.

var oNode = Scene.getPrimarySelection();
var oObject = oNode.getObject();
var oShape = oObject.getCurrentShape();
if(oShape.findMaterial("Rabe_G3_4350_Fingernails"))
{
print("Material Rabe_G3_4350_Fingernails found.");
oShape.findMaterial("Rabe_G3_4350_Fingernails").setLabel("FingernailsGraft");
oShape.findMaterial("Rabe_G3_4350_Fingernails").name="FingernailsGraft";
}