Question about converting ancient poses
paulawp (marahzen)
Posts: 1,460
For various reasons, I am considering a long-term project of mass converting some older generation poses up to G8 and G9. I have various converters that cover all of the generations, back to V4/M4. My question is: With "V4 Pose Converter for Genesis and Genesis 2 Female(s)" would you convert to G1 or G2 for this purporse? (I have means for converting both G1 and G2 onward to newer versions.) I seem to recall seeing that one or the other was considered more problematic.
I freely admit that I started to reading the dozens of existing threads about the subject, but after a while, figured I'd cut to the chase and just ask again. 
And yes, I have all of the relevant Minions and I love them.
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Comments
If I may chip in as someone who has written pose transfer scripts, I'd like to comment. Now, obviously my comments will be highly coloured by the way I wrote my scripts, and as I haven't figured out a way to do a batch conversion, my comments possibly don't apply to the commercially available scripts.
I have done a V3 to G8F pose transfer script, and in that script I know the transfer is pretty good in one step all the way from V3 to G8F. In this script I applied half the abdomen bend/side-side/twist to each of G8F's abdomen bones, same with the chest and neck, and played about with the rButtock/lButtock applying part to G8F's pelvis and part to the thighs to be added to the thigh values.
The V4 to G8F pose transfer script I did actually does slightly worse transfer than the V3 one unless limits are set to off. The reason is because the zero pose for V4 is close to being out of limits for G8F in terms of hand shape and finger positions even before any pose is added on top, so it's common for V4 poses to be out of G8F limits. If I had not tried to simulate the cupped palm of V4 with the G8F carpals then the pose would have looked less similar, but also be less likely to go out of limits.
Expressions - I must admit I didn't even try to convert expression poses because there is no facial rigging on V3/4 and would have to be taking the expression morph dial values and trying to convert that into appropriate G8F facial rigging settings. Also, with my (then) limited scripting knowledge, had the expressions not been injected into the base character before transfer, the script could have crashed DS. Hope I know enough to avoid that now.
I would strongly recommend that you don't have G2 as an intermediate step in a transfer. There seems to be odd linkages between foot and shin in G2, such that when doing a transfer between G2 and G8F the script has to reduce the shin angle, as if 88 degrees of G2's shin is 90 degrees inG8 and then reduce the foot bend by 2 degrees at the same time.
There are errors, differences and compromises in every conversion. Doing the pose transfer in 2 steps allows for 2 sets of errors to creep in in the transfer, if done in one step the result should be closer to the original. It's starting to look as if transfers to G9 are needed from every generation.
Regards,
Richard
For info, my 2 scripts are here:
V4->G8F https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/448391/v4-a4-pose-transfer-to-g8f
V3->G8F https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/6136862/#Comment_6136862
If you have got a lot of poses, I suspect you will want to use a batch processor. You mentioned the V4 to G1/G2F pose converter from Zev0, that is a batch pose converter. I would convert to G2F, since there is no commercially available Genesis 1 to G3 or G8 converter. In fact G1 poses a problem to convert using the batch converter. There is a G2F to G3F batch converter, and it will also convert G2M and Genesis 1 poses, since G1 and G2 have the same bones. However the default G1 hand is in a partial grip pose, and as such I find the hands do not convert well from G1 to G3. The V4 to G2F and then onwards to G3 or G8 also struggles with getting the hands right.
There is free batch converter available here: https://www.sharecg.com/v/89846/browse/8/Script/Daz3d-Pose-Converter-Standalone. It currently supports G1, G2, G3 and G8, although in my experience it does not do any better a job going from G1 to G8 than Zev0's batch scripts. The minions from Riversoft do make a better job with the hands when converting from G1 to G8, but there is no batch option, so it is pretty tedious to convert a lot of poses.
Personally I have used Zev0's scripts to do all my converting.
Thanks for your comments.
Basically, while there are several things I might like to do one day, what's pushing me to action at the moment is that I have a lot of interesting and viable older poses that are overlooked on an everyday basis - many acquired elsewhere, some just lost in Lost and Found - and a newly available, vast expanse for my custom content directory. I'm thinking of converting them and gathering the converted versions under a single, easy-to-find folder. Right now, they're scattered all over the place - under the Poser folders, or in the various generations, under often-unfamiliar PA or product names. Of course, once I find them, Minion works great, but what happens now is that I don't take the extra step of going hunting for them.
I remembered reading back in my early Daz days something about at least one of G1/G2 having some specific weirdness that made it harder to convert to later versions. I figured if I were remembering that correctly, I could convert V4/M4 to one rather than the other since that product does both.
OK, here's my next qustion about converting ancient pose files ...
So I have a workflow that appears to be working nicely for mass conversion and I have just stumbled across old V4/M4-era poses in .ds and .dsa format. That -way- predates my involvement with Daz. I've just discovered that the V4/M4->G2 converter works great on every other V4/M4-era pose but doesn't touch those.
I found a thread so old that I opted not to necro it that mentioned using a script, which seems to still exist:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/scripting/api_reference/samples/file_io/save_duf_pose/start
But that brings up the question ... how do I use a script? Not counting double-clicking a commercially prepared script, I have never used a script in Daz.
I don't think that script will be of much use to you. It just saves a pose preset without popping up some of the usual options.
There is no method that I know of to batch convert ds or dsa pose files. At the time these old formats were still common most pose products contained pz2 files for Poser as well as the ds or dsa ones, certainly most commercial poses sold here did. Check there is not an equivalent installer ending PS for these products, and convert the poser files instead.
If you only have ds or dsa files you will have to apply them manually to the relevant figure, and then save each as a duf. This you can then convert to the newer figures with the batch converters.
Very tedious process unfortunately.
Bone Minions? You don't have to convert or save anything, it's all done on the fly. You have all possible combinations of cross-generational pose compatibility. Granted there are a lot of products, but the right bundle on sale should get you started.
I have all of the minions for the generations I use (G8 and G9) and use them all the time, but this project began with the realization that I have roughly one gazilion poses that I never use, because they're out of sight and out of mind. I decided to convert the ancient poses that are currently buried in Lost and Found or in under random obscure folders in Content Library and organize them.
I've already finished converting all but the .ds and .dsa poses so I started exploring my options. As near as I can tell, I don't actually have any V4/M4 era figures, but I can load these poses onto G9 with a minion and I presume I can then Save As a pose preset for G9. That then leads to my next question. When you get to the Pose Preset Save Options interface, what should be checked? If you expand Genesis 9, there's Hip, General, Actor, Hidden and Pose Controls, and of course these all expand further. I've loaded this pose onto a stock G9 figure.
You likely have some of them if you have purchased all the bi-weeklies freebies from the past year and half, but I think you need to have V4/M4 to use them anyway.
Something I learned recently: you can also load V4/M4 poses on Genesis (I suppose there will be some variations compared to loading them on V4/M4), which as a bonus, means that *.duf V4/M4 poses can also be converted using @n_alexandru's converters.
For poses done only with the base figure, moving the bones only (or baking any pose controls before saving the pose) I'm only saving 'Hip' and it seems to work fine. In your case, it should be enough: best way to check is to save the pose, load another character to apply it and comparing the result with the initial pose.
Save 'General' too if you want to save the figure's translations and rotations values. It's useful if you want to save a pose for, let's say, a room and wants to have the character sitting on a chair directly after applying the pose. Some commercial products are placing all translations and rotations on the hip bone to do that, maybe it's a requirement from Daz, a perplexing one for newcomers: I still remember not understanding why the character was moving so far without any translation or rotation applied to the figure (I didn't know they were on the Hip bone) when I used some poses.
I don't know what Actor and Hidden are used for, so I never saved them.
And Pose Controls is if you're pose is using Pose Controls but they seems to be saved on each bone when saving elements under Hip.
I did what you are talking about pull all the Generation 3&4 poses out of the Poser Pose mess where Material poses and actually poses where all mixed together ,so I went into the folder it's self ,collected all the pose folders into a new Figure Poses folder ,then I used DraagonStorms batch converter to convert those pz2's to dufs .Right now I'm trying to remember if I just aimed the script to a folder in my People folder or if I moved them after they were converted ..... but it made the poses alot easier for me to find .I do not use Smart content at all
https://www.daz3d.com/batch-convert-gen4-poses-to-duf-format
this made finding them and using Bone Minion with them alot easier plus there isn't the whole have duplicate poses in every generation for other generation poses