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I Need to Know Where to Find the UV Map Files for My Figures

Mage 13X13Mage 13X13 Posts: 433
in Daz Studio Discussion

I want to start making my own Layered Image Editor files for adding features to the skin of the figures I have. To do it right, I need the UV maps for those figures, but trying to find those UV Maps has proven to be next to impossible for me. They don't seem to be included in any folders that are installed to DAZ Studio. I'm not just interested in UV maps for the more recent figures but also for all the older ones I have , from Millennium 3 figures all the way up to the Genesis  and Genesis 2 figures. I want to be able to overlay my addon textures to the existing textures I have for those figures. I have plans to make freckles for all of my figures, to add that special flavor to the looks of those figures. The Layered Image Editor can do this without needing to make changes to the existing textures, and those Layer Image Editor Textures would be applicable to any texures made for a particular figure.

Is there a repository that contains the UV Maps for all the figures DAZ offers? If so, how can I find it? More importantly, can I get the ones I need for free? On the other hand, is there a UV Maps folder within the figure files installed to DAZ Studio? If so, how may I access those files?

Thanks in advance for any help provided on this subject.

Comments

  • NorthOf45NorthOf45 Posts: 5,469

    The Templates are (usually) included as a separate download from the Product Library. Before DIM and the .zip archives, they were all executable installers (or maybe self-extracting archives). Unfortunately, many of them were never converted to .zip archives, and remain unavailable, unless they can be requested from DAZ.

    There is an alternate source, from the WayBack Machine (http://archive.org/web/). In those earlier days, the templates were accessible directly from the store's web page, which would have been included when it was archived. It might take a little work to find the actual page, since the URLs have changed format a couple of times.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,493

    Alternatively just export an  OBJ, open it in lamost any modelling or UVmapping application, and export templates.

  • Mage 13X13Mage 13X13 Posts: 433

    Thanks Guys. I think Blender may do nicely for that. If not, I also have Wings3D, and a much despised Hexagon that may be the best option for doing what you suggested Richard. The reason I despise Hexagon is because it is quite confusing for me, not working the waqy I expect my modeler to work. Even Bryce's limited modelling tools are more understandable. But Perhaps I should download and install Hexagon, if for no other reason than to extract figure templates. I'll keep this thread open for now, as it may be of help to others with similar problems. I think DAZ may need to work on making the templates more accessible.

    I go now to see what I can find through the WayBack Machine.

    Cheers!

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,223
    edited August 2023

    Daz Studio can display the UV template.

    • Load your character.
    • Select your character in the Scene pane.
    • In the viewport camera selection drop down menu, the last one listed is UV  View. Select that "camera".
    • In the upper left corner of the viewport you now see "UV View" and to the right of that there is a drop down menu to select view by material or view by node. Select View by Material.
    • Open the Surfaces pane and expand the list of surfaces.
    • Select each surface, one at a time (Arms, Legs, Head, etc., whichever surface(s) you want to create your LIE for)
    • The viewport will show the UV template for that surface. The UV area has a box around it, showing the square template area. Take a screenshot of it. Windows snipping tool will let you select just the boxed area.This will be limited by the resolution of your monitor, but is probably good enough for a guide.
    • When you are done, go to the upper left area of the viewport and click on UV View to get a dropdown menu to select a camera of your choice.

    If you want to spend some money, Daz has a plugin called UV Tailor that you can buy in the store.

    (It was so much easier to help people when we could upload screenshots. I hope Daz will fix that.)

    Post edited by barbult on
  • Mage 13X13Mage 13X13 Posts: 433

    barbult said:

    Daz Studio can display the UV template.

    • Load your character.
    • Select your character in the Scene pane.
    • In the viewport camera selection drop down menu, the last one listed is UV  View. Select that "camera".
    • In the upper left corner of the viewport you now see "UV View" and to the right of that there is a drop down menu to select view by material or view by node. Select View by Material.
    • Open the Surfaces pane and expand the list of surfaces.
    • Select each surface, one at a time (Arms, Legs, Head, etc., whichever surface(s) you want to create your LIE for)
    • The viewport will show the UV template for that surface. The UV area has a box around it, showing the square template area. Take a screenshot of it. Windows snipping tool will let you select just the boxed area.This will be limited by the resolution of your monitor, but is probably good enough for a guide.
    • When you are done, go to the upper left area of the viewport and click on UV View to get a dropdown menu to select a camera of your choice.

    If you want to spend some money, Daz has a plugin called UV Tailor that you can buy in the store.

    (It was so much easier to help people when we could upload screenshots. I hope Daz will fix that.)

    I am quite familiar with the Surfaces Pane, as I use it in almost all of my composition sessions. I like taking what's there and modifying it in many ways to get unique results in my renders. The Edit page of the Surfaces Pane is where I do most of my modifications.

    On your first steps in your instructions; I did not know there was a way to see the UV view in DAZ Studio. I'll copy and paste your instructions for future use in a Notepad document for reference purposes. Some questions still come to mind though. Will these instructions work for Mil 3 figures? I ask because after trying to extract the UV templates in a modelling program I found that the Aiko 3.0 figure has hundreds of them. They crashed Wings3D, because that program cannot handle that much memory. In Blender, those UVs stacked ontop of each other into a mess of polygon edges that could not be resolved, and finding just one head UV, one Arms UV, one Body UV, and one Leg UV is an exercise in futility. One reason is that each UV shares its name with several others. I found this out in Wings3D. I really don't undderstand why there has to be so many UV templates for one figure. Seems like overkill to me. And the crazy thing about it is that looking at the texture maps, I see that there are just a few; most likely less than 12. For a low resolution figure, in polygon count, that is outrageous. Maybe they are different pixel sizes?

  • Mage 13X13Mage 13X13 Posts: 433

    Blender is not goinfg to give me anything of use, and neither will Wings3D. I'm hesitant to download Hexagon, because I think it will be something similar. So trying Barbult's instructions may be what I need.

    One thing I have thought of is why not use the base figure texture maps like templates? Those are usually laid out in the same patern as the UV maps. If I do layers in my image editor, I will not haqve to keep the originals in the resulting Layered Image texture. And the White on Black Mask will be able to be made from the color map. So that I think is an option if I cannot extract good usable UV templates.

  • scorpioscorpio Posts: 8,403

    Snow Sultan made seam guides for the older figure I think there's a Aiko 3 one

    https://snowsultan.artstation.com/pages/seamguides

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,493

    What are you wanting templates for - the Daz figures or things like clothing?

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,223

    Richard Haseltine said:

    What are you wanting templates for - the Daz figures or things like clothing?

    First sentence of first post says "I want to start making my own Layered Image Editor files for adding features to the skin of the figures I have."
    So, I'd say the answer is Daz figures.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,223

    The key to getting usable UV templates, if following my instructions above, is to select only one surface at a time in the Surfaces pane, so you don't see all the surfaces at once layered on top of each other, making a useless mess of crisscrossing lines. This is particularly important for Aiko 3, which has 34 surfaces, if I counted correctly.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,223

    Here are some screenshots of the process of displaying UV templates in Daz Studio. I had to SPAM them to the gallery to get a URL to post here, since forum upload hasn't been fixed.

    Select the character and select the "camera" named UV View.

    In the top left corner of the viewport, use the dropdown menu to select View by Material.

    Select ONE surface at a time.

    Don't select multiple surfaces!

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,316

    I have some "colourful templates" for G8M and also for G9 base uvsets in my freebies at Renderosity.

    Much as I like working with Hexagon, NOT for making uv templates. A screengrab off of D/S would likely be better quality [keep the area square]. There are several uv utilities {free} that one can use to extract out templates.
    If you happen to have a copy of StitchWitch in your product library, that still works even in W11.

     

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