Novica & Invited Guest Contributors Tips & Product Reviews Pt 4
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UberSurface Hair
1. Select hair in in Surface tab. (all of it)
2. Either in Surfaces>Presets>Shaders>Other>UberSurface OR D.S.Format>DAZ>Shader Presets>Omnifreaker>UberSurface you want to LOCATE UberSurface Base.
3. Hold down CTRL and click it. When the popup appears, change images to Ignore
4. In Surfaces, Occlusion Off, Raytrace On.
For Geometry Shell
1. Repeat steps 1-3 above to add UberSurface
2. In Surfaces, turn Opacity to 30%.
3. Skullcap or Base Opacity to 0
4. Fantom and Occlusion ON
5. Accept Shadows and Raytracing Off
6. Then go to Parameters and under Display, Cast Shadows Off.
If you have UberHair, you can use that to do the UberSurface. It is D.S.Format>DAZ>Shaders>UberHair.
I'd print this out, it's helpful to have it in a summary, or write it down. It really sped me up!
And sorry, got sidetracked- no, it is just the default loaded Meru Hair, no tweaking at all. No smoothing, no morphs. I remember from using it last year that it takes quite awhile to render.
Headed to bed, I am testing Pure Hair Darling. Rendering the default hair, with some of the same lighting but let's test UE2 to see how that affects the Shell results. I think the tutorial said it would have more impact. I am not going to be able to time any results though as I am going to get some sleep. It's 5:15am. Will then do one with UberSurface added to the hair and shell.
Only reason was because it was rendering slowly - with Raytrace on it would have been even slower (but probably would have looked a little better...see the third render there, the one with the default settings).
I'm surprised how little difference the fantom occlusion method made in terms of render time, to be honest. Based on previous tests I expected it to be significantly faster. Could be something specific to the hair and lights I was using--but your own results seem to parallel mine. Maybe something changed in DS that either makes fantom occlusion less efficient, or else makes rendering transmapped hair with default settings and no shell more efficient than it used to be? Or, maybe users with a slow computer (like the one I used before) will see a greater benefit to fantom occlusion than those with a fast computer (like my current one)? Clearly more experimentation is needed!
Yes, not seeing a HUGE amount of difference. To continue playing with this, let's go with UE2 lighting with SOME of those same lights. This will now be Pure Hair Darling with 6 distant lights, 1 spotlight from our Eruanna lightset (yes folks, remember we are still using some of those) and then UE2 (white, on 37.8% intensity) with it's Sunlight spotlight 28.7%
EDIT: Before you ask (lol) use the UE2 setup from Angkor Wat Temple with the Eruanna lights (not all of them, remember- I gave you which ones to use)
So this is the default that rendered overnight.
So here we go- this is default. I'll add UberSurface to both the hair and create a G.Shell with it too. First, I'll re-render just to see how long the default took. But here's the end result with many distants, a few spots, and UE2. (Wow, I'm doing pretty good guessing on the lights without any spot renders!)
And here is the hair with the geometry shell, both with the UberSurface applied. See next post for rendering times.
Okay, funky.
I DID NOT TOUCH THE LIGHTS. I was only in the Surface tab, doing the tweaks to Occlusion, etc- and went once in Parameters>Display to Cast Shadows Off. Why is my lighting different when I add the Geometry Shell and UberSurface Base to the hair and shell? Look at her face!
Well, the tutorial hinted that this process would probably make more of an impact when you don't use default lights- spotlights, distant lights, and that you'll see more of a difference with UE2. YES. And this shows me you can have BOTH (Spots/Distant/UE2) and that UE2 combination really speeds up the render time. I eliminated some distant and spot lights from the Meru Hair, and put in UE2, and using the Geometry Shell instead of just the Default Hair, I whacked off almost TEN MINUTES of render time. WOOT!
Look at this!
Percent Default Hair Time UberSurface Hair & G.Shell Time
16% 5 minutes 1 minute 30 seconds
25% ----------- 5 minutes
60% 21 minutes 12 minutes
70% 24 minutes 14 minutes 42 seconds
100% 27 minutes 42 sec 16 minutes, 48 seconds
We interrupt this hair to bring you some hares. Theme: Dust. Llolalane, you crack me UP.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/33447/P210/#653298
Now testing: Marja Hair (V4) same lightset, with the UE2 combination.
Check back here.
Can NOT recommend that hair- tested four times, sat at 11% with the exact same light set and setup as used by the others, for over 17 minutes. Tested again, was only 16% at FORTY MINUTES.
Now testing Stefania Hair. Going well. This is with the UE2 combination. Added a spotlight overhead due to darker hair color.
Time Default Hair Hair & Shell With UberSurface
6 min 26% 29%
15 min 34%
20 min 42% 56%
25 min 48%
30 min 59% 84%
34 min 70%
35 min 75% DONE
37 min 88%
37 min 31 sec DONE
Not posting the second render as I accidentally X'd it out. But I think everyone gets the gist. Hope you enjoyed the experiments!
Okay, note to those using UberHair, which is a fast way to apply UberSurface. Remember to hold down CTRL, the same way you did for the UberSurface, so you can change Images to Ignore. UberHair is very easy, you simply have all the hair selected in Surfaces and in Scene, click (with CTRL) Images Ignore, then change Occlusion to OFF in Surfaces. Done, you have the same settings in the process that I listed from Scott's tutorial, for UberSurface.
Remember UberHair is in Content Library (DAZ Formats) >Shaders. Easy smeazy.
Am doing the Geometry Shell the same way and using the settings in the tutorial.
Genesis GenerationX2
Ksenia For V4 (DAZ 3D / Thorne)
http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-generation-x2
http://www.daz3d.com/ksenia-for-v4
Just a heads up, I notice the upgrade from GenX to GenX2 expires August 15th.
A few notes, for those who haven't tried anything GenX. This is my first one. Had this for a year and just not explored it, so since I've been doing the material transfer from one generation to another, then shell geometry, figured I might as well tackle this too. A lot of questions, but it's 3am so headed off to get some sleep.
However the questions I have- is there a reason to do the head and body separately? Is it so you can apply the body and heads as a mix and match?
Resolution- default is 50, most people in the video have it at 10. But another video said if you get it too low, you lose detail. What's the best to have it on? I was thinking 20.
Genesis has the UV set of Victoria 4, is there any known problem areas when applying the materials onto the morphed Genesis with the V4 GenX character? (Aka, stretched seams or anything?)
Is it common to lose the eye reflections?
Kisenia's eyebrows are different. I don't think I did anything wrong, but does that happen?
I did screenshots of the process, I followed two different videos. I don't have a clue how to do this other than what was shown. I'm just glad I finally tackled it. G'nite!
Victoria 4 left, Genesis right.
Looks good. Gen x is a great tool, and I love that now the flexibility of genesis 2 is available to the older figure shapes.
Glad you're tackling GenX! I'm planning to buy it soon...
With regards to your questions:
The default V4 UVs for Genesis aren't perfect. There is some texture stretching that's generally not that noticeable unless you view a side-by-side comparison like what you have here. The eyebrows are one of the more obvious differences. To improve upon this, bringho created the Corrected V4 UV for Genesis. You could try that product if you want a closer match.
Eye reflections: remember that V4 has an extra material zone in the eyes that Genesis does not have (they added it back with Genesis 2). If the reflections on the V4 character are linked to that surface, then they'll be missing when the character is converted to Genesis. Again, there's a product you can buy in order to give Genesis that surface: Eye Surface for Genesis.
Hi Novica
I'm sorry I haven't had time reply back to thank you for the heads up on a sales item you pm me about, I may have missed it other wise. and i did have it in my wishlist.
Thank you for looking out for me :)
Ivy- you're welcome :)
Scott-L
I have both those products! It's just a case of having so much stuff..and that's what I am wading through. First it was the V4 skin converter thingie, now GenX. I have gone through many threads on it, and am doing a copy/paste for myself on snippets that I'm running across. I'm not very good at remembering things, either. (Like this generation has this, that one doesn't, who uses what UV map, etc. SIGH. I just want to render!)
Here's a few tidbits from the threads- from this thread. I reworded most of it to get it concise.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/5878/
GenX transfers morphs relating to an existing shape, it doesn't transfer shapes. The base shape must already be modeled as a morph for Genesis.
The full range of gen 4 figures are supported by GenX: Victoria 4 including all morphs like Aiko 4, Girl 4, Stephanie 4, or SheFreak 4; Michael 4 including Hiro 4 and Freak 4; and the Kids 4 (if you use the clone morph to turn Genesis into Kids 4)
The other gen 4 figures are morphs even if they come with their own CR2. Aiko 4, Stephanie 4, Girl 4, and SheFreak 4 are morphs for Victoria 4 and Hiro 4 and Freak 4 are morphs for Michael 4. GenX can load their CR2s as well as inject their morphs into V4 or M4 base figures.
Generic Michael 4 by himself will only show “head.”
The simple way to get the Kids 4 clone morph into a working morph is to use DSF Toolbox.
(I found the step by step) http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/5878/P225/#276506
(Then later in the thread, there was a change) http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/5878/P285/#320256
(Here's the product) http://www.daz3d.com/dsf-toolbox
“Selected morphs” creates one morph in Genesis for each morph that is selected in GenX. “Create single morph” sums up all selected morphs into one morph and transfers this as a single morph for Genesis. Only the “Create single morph” transfer mode requires that the morphs have a value other than zero because it calculates a new morph from all selected morphs and their values. The “Selected morphs” mode will transfer each selected morph independent of the value.
If you're wondering why the "Accept" button won't work to do the transfer:
If you use the transfer mode “Create single morph”, you must enter a name for the morph to create. Otherwise, the “Accept” button will do nothing because of the missing parameter.
Cypherfox's video, one which I had watched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYCapNih-A4
Check your emails if you haven't recently. I received a VERY nice promo offer from DAZ, that applied even to new releases. No strings attached shopping discount.
The only email from Daz that I have received in the past week are order confirmations. Are you pulling my leg?
Sorry, nada in my inbox for promos. I think the last thing I got was that one about training.
Come to think of it, I haven't received any newsletters from the Platinum Club either.
Nope, no joke. There was a $20 minimum spending with a whopping $10 off. So 50% off if you spent $20, but applies to NEW RELEASES and everything. If you don't get a new release, remember that 25% off the PC items (no new releases) would stack with that too (and that ends today.)
EDIT: And this offer goes through August 9th- so just hold on, I'm sure they are releasing this in batches and you'll probably be in the next group or so.
Heads up Admin- don't know if you have this noted already, but when adding to the cart from the wishlist, the items are NOT being removed. In the old wishlist, they were taken off.
In that deal for today (buy $10 worth PC items, get 25% off) it's nice as they go down to 1.49 or 1.50. (Funky.)
BTW, is the thread closed at 1500 posts, or 100 pages?
It is closed at 1500 posts, which is the last post on page 100
Thank you :) About ten minutes after I asked that, I thought, "Wait a minute...DUH."
If I understand you correctly, the items are removed from the w/l now, after you buy them. That way, if you just want to see if the item gives you a sale price in the cart, it stays in the w/l if you decide not to buy it until later.
I like the behavior better like that.
No- this is all prior to purchase. Remember when you had an item in the wishlist, if you added it to the cart FROM THE WISHLIST, it took it off the wishlist? Now, if you do that, it doesn't go off the wishlist. I haven't tested it to see if, once purchased, the item disappears. I decided to be a good girl and not buy anything else at the moment. Has anyone noticed if an item added to the cart from the wishlist, AND BOUGHT, disappears?
Because otherwise, it stays put if just added to the cart from the wishlist.
Yes, I have. It does. :)
I guess I didn't make myself clear, sorry.
Here's Raevin V4 done with GenX2 onto Genesis.
I've done screenshots and a tutorial for V4 onto Genesis but I still have some questions as to whether what I am doing is right. (Well, seems kinda dumb as they are turning out fine.) One question is when doing just a head transfer, for the Morphs++, it just makes sense to only grab the ones relating to the head. That is correct, right?
Corrected V4 UV For Genesis (bringho)
Raevin V4 (Thorne / Sarsa)
http://www.daz3d.com/corrected-v4-uv-for-genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/raevin-v4
See how the Corrected V4 UV For Genesis compares to the finished GenX2 figure without it. WOW!!!!
So I'm going to use GenX2 for Victoria 4.2 and finish the job with the right UV map! SO easy to use.
You install (via DIM or manually) the corrected UV product. Select Genesis, in Surfaces change the UV map to Victoria 4 Corrected.
With your Genesis selected, go to Shaping>Head>Morph Kits>Corrected V4 UV and Enable Auto Correction should be set to 1.0
THAT'S IT.
Great product!!!
http://www.daz3d.com/corrected-v4-uv-for-genesis
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/16504/start
This is a large render of Raevin V4 on Genesis, without any map correction. I'm going re-test putting that on this figure, because when I tried to do some expressions (Genesis) it warped all over the place. I want to see if I did something wrong. I've eliminated that it was on the GenX side, because I was able to do expressions with the sliders without any problems. I'll add the corrected UV map and try the sliders again. I'll let you know what happens.
BTW, you people having trouble with the Thorne character eyes- are you doing the eye fix after transferring V4 to Genesis? When I click eye fix afterwards, it does a decent job of fixing it. Not perfect. (EDIT: I left the light gray rim inside the bottom eyelid so you can see it. That's with just clicking the Eye Fix for Raevin. No tweaks.)
Hawthorn Hair was smoothed to 10. Otherwise, it's crinkly.
EDIT: Teeth diffuse changed to 175/175/175 so not so bright white.
Okay, I've tested Raevin with the GenX and then the GenX with the UV map correction, and when using the Eye Fix from Raevin, both set the eyes fine. Not shown, I also tested Grid Girls poses, and when I used the Eye Fix, they were PERFECT.