Gen 8 or gen 2 conundrum

globally

Looking for some thoughts or opinions. I have recently found a genesis 2 head id really love to use with my gen 8 textures and preferably with my gen 8 body morphs. the conversion from 2 to 8 done some weird things with the eyes and face shape (which i see in parts of this forum that could be the case) so i started down the road of getting my gen 8 textures transfered to gen2. All going well, but as im tackling the eyes im starting to reconsider. Everything i have from poses to clothes are gen 8 so im now facing two options. 1. continue with the gen 2 and have to convert everything (if thats even possible) or 2. try to get the head i want by using the "snap to surface tool" in blender and make a good version of the head for 8.1. Any blender users know if that would work? I'm ok with blender but havent used the snap feature much. Any opinions would be apperciated.

Cheers

 

Ok minor edit, i think i want to stick with gen8.1 so any tips for how to copy the gen2 head to gen8.1 using shrinkwrap or snapping in blender would be great.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

I wonder if you could use R3DS to wrap a G8.1 around a G2 and create a morph...

globally

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I wonder if you could use R3DS to wrap a G8.1 around a G2 and create a morph...

Thank you, i think that maybe what im looking for. Luck that R3DS has a trail version. Ill give it a try.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

globally said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I wonder if you could use R3DS to wrap a G8.1 around a G2 and create a morph...

Thank you, i think that maybe what im looking for. Luck that R3DS has a trail version. Ill give it a try.

Holy crap, it can be done with just Blender, with some limitations, particularly that the body, without the head and hands can be done relatively easily:

Pose the G2 to match the G8.1 as closely as you can get it. Do not modify the G8.1 at all. This is important.

Remove the tears and lashes from the plain G8.1 and the G2 shape you want as OBJ, at base resolution. Import both into blender. On both, you want Forward = -Z Forward, and Up = Y Up, so that they match DAZ Studio visually, without actually changing the mesh. On the G8.1, make sure to select "Keep Vertex Order", it is essential that Blender does not optimize the mesh, or it will confuse DAZ Studio's Morph Loader Pro. This doesn't matter for the G2, as we will just be "stealing" its shape with a shrinkwrap modifier.

Make a copy of the G8.1 and hide it. This is your backup copy in case you accidentally do something that changes vertex order.

Scale the G2, (Not the G8.1!!) to match the G8.1 as closely as you can get it, around the areas that you are interested in.

Create an empty vertex group on the G8.1. You can leave it as "Group".

Remove the eyelashes and brow surface from the G2. If your G2 is symmetrical, find the center-line edge loop, hide it, delete the other half, unhide it, set the transform pivot point to Median, hit S X 0 to line them up, go to the N panel, under Item, enter 0 for Location X, and then back in object mode, add a mirror modifier on the X axis.

Add a shrink wrap modifier to the G8.1, choose Wrap Method = Nearest Surface Point, Snap Mode = On Surface, Target = <Your G2 Mesh>, Offset = 0, and Vertex Group = Group.

Now, on the G8.1, select the Vertex Group you made and go into Weight Paint mode. As you paint around the G8.1, it will start conforming to the G2. This way, you can get really get it to look the way you want it. You'll have to decrease the radius and weight to get in some of the tight spots where the Shrink Wrap modifier got confused, and you'll probably have to alternate between add and subtracting to get everything to blend in a visually pleasing way.

If the hands are completely wrecked, I found a reasonable edge loop near the wrist of the G2, hid those vertices, selected the disjoint hand, hit ctrl-L to get all connected, deleted the hand, and then unhid the edge loop. I then made a copy of a similar region from the G8.1, deleted everything but the hand, joined the meshes, got the graft vetices reasonable close with proportional editing and a pretty large radius, snapped them together, and them merged all vertices by distance. Yes, you'll have to wreck to topology in order to do this, but we don't care; the Shrink Wrap Modifier will do its thing.

You might want to do the same thing for the feet. I didn't have to (I did this with a V4 whose hands are posed totally differently from the G8.1). But you can make the feet match more closely with proportional editing, or weight paint the differences out.

When you're done, apply the Shrink Wrap modifier to the G8.1, and export it as OBJ. Don't forget to select Keep Vertex Order again.

Now, just load the OBJ you just exported with Morph Loader Pro. No need to Reverse Deformations.

Here's a G8.1 that is pretty darned close to The Girl Next Door 4.3 at Rendo, actually a V4.2...

 

globally

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

globally said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I wonder if you could use R3DS to wrap a G8.1 around a G2 and create a morph...

Thank you, i think that maybe what im looking for. Luck that R3DS has a trail version. Ill give it a try.

Holy crap, it can be done with just Blender, with some limitations, particularly that the body, without the head and hands can be done relatively easily:

Pose the G2 to match the G8.1 as closely as you can get it. Do not modify the G8.1 at all. This is important.

Remove the tears and lashes from the plain G8.1 and the G2 shape you want as OBJ, at base resolution. Import both into blender. On both, you want Forward = -Z Forward, and Up = Y Up, so that they match DAZ Studio visually, without actually changing the mesh. On the G8.1, make sure to select "Keep Vertex Order", it is essential that Blender does not optimize the mesh, or it will confuse DAZ Studio's Morph Loader Pro. This doesn't matter for the G2, as we will just be "stealing" its shape with a shrinkwrap modifier.

Make a copy of the G8.1 and hide it. This is your backup copy in case you accidentally do something that changes vertex order.

Scale the G2, (Not the G8.1!!) to match the G8.1 as closely as you can get it, around the areas that you are interested in.

Create an empty vertex group on the G8.1. You can leave it as "Group".

Remove the eyelashes and brow surface from the G2. If your G2 is symmetrical, find the center-line edge loop, hide it, delete the other half, unhide it, set the transform pivot point to Median, hit S X 0 to line them up, go to the N panel, under Item, enter 0 for Location X, and then back in object mode, add a mirror modifier on the X axis.

Add a shrink wrap modifier to the G8.1, choose Wrap Method = Nearest Surface Point, Snap Mode = On Surface, Target = <Your G2 Mesh>, Offset = 0, and Vertex Group = Group.

Now, on the G8.1, select the Vertex Group you made and go into Weight Paint mode. As you paint around the G8.1, it will start conforming to the G2. This way, you can get really get it to look the way you want it. You'll have to decrease the radius and weight to get in some of the tight spots where the Shrink Wrap modifier got confused, and you'll probably have to alternate between add and subtracting to get everything to blend in a visually pleasing way.

If the hands are completely wrecked, I found a reasonable edge loop near the wrist of the G2, hid those vertices, selected the disjoint hand, hit ctrl-L to get all connected, deleted the hand, and then unhid the edge loop. I then made a copy of a similar region from the G8.1, deleted everything but the hand, joined the meshes, got the graft vetices reasonable close with proportional editing and a pretty large radius, snapped them together, and them merged all vertices by distance. Yes, you'll have to wreck to topology in order to do this, but we don't care; the Shrink Wrap Modifier will do its thing.

You might want to do the same thing for the feet. I didn't have to (I did this with a V4 whose hands are posed totally differently from the G8.1). But you can make the feet match more closely with proportional editing, or weight paint the differences out.

When you're done, apply the Shrink Wrap modifier to the G8.1, and export it as OBJ. Don't forget to select Keep Vertex Order again.

Now, just load the OBJ you just exported with Morph Loader Pro. No need to Reverse Deformations.

Here's a G8.1 that is pretty darned close to The Girl Next Door 4.3 at Rendo, actually a V4.2...

Thank you so much. I did end up doing it with the trial version of r3ds but you taught me a lot of useful stuff there. I will always use blender in the future so this process will be perfect.