Sculpting male and female anatomical elements in ZBrush workflow suggestions
grrinc
Posts: 12
Hello fellow Dazers. I hope you and your loved ones are safe, well and finding joy in these uncertain times.
I am looking to implement ZBrush into my workflow to tidy up some morphs, etc. However, I am running into a snag regarding grafts and other anatomical elements.
When I use the GoZ function, I find that my scultping doesnt affect the entire model, grafts etc - it only affects the base G8 mesh.
Are there any know work arounds, workflows, etc?
Kind regards
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Could you be a bit more specific. Do you mean that morphs to the base character don't affect the graft, or the other way around?
Hi Issac.
I'll try to break this down.
Daz3d - G8F with anatomy attached.
Sent to ZBrush via Goz
ZBrush - Model loaded in and ready to sculpt, but the anatomy part and the base mesh part are separated and can only be sculpted individually as if they are not one whole model.
I can switch between the two mesh parts and sculpt them separately, but they lose their connection to each other and no longer line up
However, if I export the smae model from Daz as an OBJ and load into C4D, the model is complete and connected as one piece.
This is actually a prety serious problem with grafts, as you cant work on the full model. you will have to work on them as on separate models.
if you want to edit anatomical elements you need to select and edit exactly that in the ZBrush then import changes a morph.
if you export the full model you will no longer be able to reimport it back as morph and lose all rigging and morphs
there are no problems if changes are confined to the geograft area but if changes go beyond the geograft it becomes pretty troublesome.
Hi Onix
Thank you for your input. May I ask, have you explored this kind of workflow before? Im struggling to find tutorials or guides on how to acheive these kind of anatomy morphs. I am assuming it is possible because there are morph packs and other anatomy or graft models available - on Renderosity for example. I'd appreciate any nudges in the right direction. Many thanks.
I do have some experience with this but what exactly you are trying to do anyway? normally if you just edit the graft you should have no problems at all, so I suspect that you are trying to do some extreme expansion morphs ;) Also, I do not see that many morphs out there who can go beyond the graft so everyone is mostly going the easy route.
My suggestion for that would be to import both figure and graft with deformations and probably already applied some initial morphs as usual as disconnected items.
then modify host figure in some ways expecting that this modification will be projected to the graft as well. Probably your modification will start with scaling up a certain part which will proportionally scale up the graft and then fixing the surrounding area to bend it with the unaffected body
send modification back to Daz and create a morph for the host figure apply it and look at how your graft was affected
if it does not look good, go back to brush undo changes or make other changes and make a new morph and do that until it looks reasonably good.
then send all that figure with the graft back to brush again and now you can work on the graft
when everything looks finished and you want to create a consolidated morph keep in mind that morphs will be created as differentce from what you see in daz and what you send from zbrush
that's a pretty messy work flow, but I don't know any better way to do it.
Thank you for your feedback Onix. Im not going to lie, Im finding what you have suggested hard to follow. I guess Im newer to this than I thought. I know my way around C4D very well, and Zbrush reasonably well. But Daz seems to be unweildy to me.
I'm mostly looking for a video tutorial with step by step instructions.
Thank you for helping anyway - it is very much appreciated.
Regards
G
It sounds like you should be able to do this. From a normal user perspective, DAZ Studio plays very little part in this process, with one exception I'll get back to; the main work is in ZB. In DS export the main figure, with the graft parented or conformed as you prefer, via GoZ with deformations checked. (Only parenting is necessary for the export, but if you want your figure movement to influence parts of the graft then you'll need to have the graft conformed to the figure). In ZB you can select either the base figure or the graft to work on (only morphing the mesh) and remember to export each item (tool) you change back to DS via GoZ. In DS select and apply the morph you made (under Parameters/ZBrush). That is pretty much it as far as DS is concerned. For conformed items, DS will continue to apply appropriate figure morphs and Joint Controlled Morphs to the graft. Here comes the exception; sometimes, depending on the morphs you already have applied to the figure, DS can distort your graft mesh in ways you cannot see in ZB due to "autofollow". It is possible to track down which morph or JCM causes these unwanted distortions and then make alterations to them but it is not a job for the faint hearted.
An alternative approach to dealing with the unwanted autofollow distortions may be to make specific pose correction morphs to your graft or the figure in ZB using the usual process via GoZ. You can even make your correction morphs in to JCMs so that they are only appllied when the specific joint is changed (eg leg twist or bend). There should be tutorials available to show you how to turn a morph in to a JCM.
Good luck and have fun
Thank you Isaac for your thorough reply. Your confidence in me has lifted my spirits somewhat, but I am stuck on one notion...... " with your graft parented or conformed "
Could you kindly explain the difference and how I even get to choose it as an option in GoZ?
Actually, we still don't know what exactly you are trying to do. and it may cause considerable misunderstanding.
it is impossible to give you step by step instructions on how to achieve a goal when your goal is unknown
Thank you for replying Onix. Apologies for not making myself clear. I'll try again....
I have a G8 figure - male or female, with anatomy elements - basically their 'naughty bits'. When I pose them, there's often poor deformations where the original G8 mesh and the anatomical elemnt meets. I wish to be able to correct this with a custom made correction morph. I'd also like to be able to creat my own morphs for the anatomy elements.
When I send a G* figure, plus anatomy elemnt, to ZB via GoZ, I find that both parts do not arrive 'attached' and when I sculpt across them, they break away form each other. This is what i am trying to solve. I wish to make my own custom correction morphs for certain poses, plus my own shaping morphs for the anatomy parts.
Thank you for sticking around and trying to understand.
Hi grrinc, You mentioned being new to DS so I'll try not to miss too many steps. In DS when you have a figure selected and you load an item such as hair, clothing or a geograft, it will normally be automatically conformed to the figure if this is posible. However, you can change this to be parented, or if it was not conformed then you can conform it manually. I would recommend always conforming clothing and grafts but hair is often distorted by the "autofollow" process and so I often change this to be simply parented to the head. Basically see what works best for your purpose. Autofollow can also introduce distortions to clothing, even in the default position, depending on how heavily morphed the base figure is; this may mean that you have to make correction morphs in ZB, as mentioned previously.
So, in DS select the item you have loaded on to your figure (clothing, hair or graft, usually) in the Scene pane. Right click the item in the Scene pane and a menu pops up giving the various options. Here you can choose to conform the item to your figure (or another figure) if it is not already conformed, or choose to unconform it, using the "Fit to" option. If you want to just parent the item, then first fit it to none and then choose the "Change Parent" option. Take note of the Parent in place option; if it is unchecked then the item will return to its default position.
This is not a GoZ option, rather the item will be sent to ZB via GoZ in whatever state it is set.
I hope that helps.
PS: Conformed or parented items are always kept as separate meshes in DS and so GoZ will export them to ZB as separate subtools.
Ahh! thank you Isaac, that's a hugely helpful and something for me to start trying things out. Many thanks indeed to you and Onix.
OK, now it is more understandable and what I said before is not that relevant to what you want to do.
although it is not entirely clear why do you need those occasions because in my experience there is nothing to correct as those naughty bits are pretty much limited to their own space and figure pose deformations do not affect them in any way.
Yes if you export things into Zbrush they will get detached from each other (as in practice they newer were attached to each other Daz just welds together any vertices that have precisely the same position so that they always move together but you still have 2 separate objects) but not sure why that is a problem for you, if you are just trying to make some small changes that are limited just to one item.
You do not need to worry that when you sculpt, figures move away from each other all you need to care is to keep changes at the perimeter minimal or else you will have a pretty sharp transition.
same with custom morphs: just do what you like and do not worry about the host figure that much.
Thank you again Onix - you have been super helpful.