Transfer Utility on Morphed Character

ebergerly

Okay, I successfully exported a MORPHED G3 character out of DAZ Studio as OBJ, brought it into Blender, made a clothing object and did a nice cloth sim on it, then exported as an OBJ. Keep in mind I built the clothing over a morphed character, not the base character.

Now I brought it into Studio and it fit perfectly on the morphed character. I then did the Transfer Utility to automatically rig the clothing (selected to fit to character as a post operation), but the result was a mess. It looked like the clothing had double morphs applied or something.

So I then tried to first zero the character shape, apply Transfer Utility, and then restore the character shape, but again the clothing was grossly distorted.

I'm guessing that the Transfer Utility doesn't like that I'm applying clothing that's already morphed. But the problem is that I need to do a cloth sim over the final morphed character, otherwise it doesn't look right.

Anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong? Maybe I need to make two cloth-sim'ed clothing objects...one over the base character, then one over the morphed character, and then do a Transfer Utility with the base clothing and load the morphed clothing as a morph target? Or is there an easier way?

Thanks.

ebergerly

Well now I've got my final clothing, all rigged via the Transfer Utility, sitting on my morphed character, and it looks fine. It's just not fitted to the character. HOWEVER, as soon as I fit the clothing to the character, the clothing inherits the character morphs and explodes. I guess it adds the character morphs to the existing morphed shape.

So I guess the question is...is there some way to Fit clothing to a character without having it inherit the character's morphs? That would fix my immediate problem

Thanks.

Richard Haseltine

In Transfer Utility set the Source Shape to the morph you used (or Current, but people have reproted an issue with that). Then in the options check reverse Source Shape from Target.

ebergerly

Thanks. I tried Current, but the same problem...the clothing exploded.

The problem with selecting the morph I used is that it's a bunch of morphs I dialed manually, not just one. 

I even tried zeroing the clothing shape after fitting it to the character, but that didn't work. Neither did "Clear Generated Morphs". 

Any other ideas? Thanks much.

Richard Haseltine

The solution that worked for another user was to hide everything but the base figure, export as OBJ, Edit>Figure>Moprh Loader Pro, select and load the exported OBJ - that gives a one-slider morph for your compound shape. Now when using the Transfer Utility select that new morphs as Source Shape. Don't save the nwe morph, it's just a tool to use when rigging.

ebergerly

Darn. Frustrating. I did exactly that, erased everything but the base figure (no clothes or anything else), saved the OBJ, then tried to morph load on the exact same figure with all poses and shapes zeroed. But I got an error that the geometries don't match and it couldn't generate the morph.

Is there some magic setting on the OBJ export or Morph Loader import that makes it work?

Thanks. 

ebergerly

Nevermind...thought I had made progress but still stuck...

Richard Haseltine

Make sure that the Mesh Resolution iss et to Base.

ebergerly

Hey, that sorta fixed it !!! At least it transferred the morphs...

But in the process it really distorted much of the clothing mesh. I added a smoothing modifier in the transfer, and that helps a bit if I crank it up, but still it's really different from the obj clothing. 

Perhaps I'm missing another setting? Thanks.

ebergerly

Okay, I'm real close now. I took a purchased dress figure and transferred its rigging to my obj clothing and it did a real nice job. I fit it to the base G3 character and it responds great to any bending. 

Now my only problem is when I take that base G3 and apply the preset morphs that made the character shape that my new clothing is based on, the new clothing inherits those additional morphs and explodes.

So all I need is a way to make my rigged clothing ignore any morphs applied to the character it is fit to...

Is there any way? Thanks ! 

ebergerly

Okay here's my final clothing figure, originally built and draped in Blender over the morphed G3 obj, now it's all rigged and fit to the base G3. Now all I need to do is apply the morphs to the base G3 and it will be perfect. However, my clothing figure has to somehow ignore the morphs I apply to the base G3 or it will explode. 

ebergerly

HEYY !!!! I DID IT !!!

Thanks to Mr. Haseltine's excellent 2013 post on turning props into conforming clothing, I selected my conforming clothing, then used the Property Heirarchy, and deleted anything that looked like a morph from the LONG list of various properties the clothing has. And that included PBM's, JCM's, and even a CTRL thing for some breast morph. 

In any case, SUCCESS !!!

Thanks. This is a very cool and easy way to convert Blender cloth to conforming clothes. And I think an important part is to transfer rigging from a similar conforming clothing (like a draped dress in this case) since it already has bone influences more appropriate for clothing, as opposed to a G3 rig.

ebergerly

Now my only remaining issue...

When I remove all the morph properties from the conforming clothing and save it as a Scene Subset (BTW, I couldn't figure out how to save it as a wearable preset...it just saved the base figure not the clothing) it fails to remember that I deleted all the morphs. So when I load it in and fit it to my morphed character all those morphs still apply. So I again had to go thru and delete the morph properties manually. That worked gread, and all is well, I'm just wondering the correct way to save my new conforming clothing and have it remember that I deleted the morph properties.

Thanks.

Richard Haseltine

The problem is that you have baked the morphs into the dress. You can block them by, before fitting the dress to a morphed figure, creating new properties with the same name (not label - get the name from the Parameter Settings dialogue, via the gear icon on the slider). To create new properties right-click on the Parametrs pane and put it into Edit mode, then right-click and Create New Property - you can make them hidden so they don't clutter the view.

Before you can save a wearables preset you need to save the item as an asset - File>Save as>Support Asset>Figure/Prop Asset.

No remember that since you used another dress as the source for the rigging (if that still applies) you can share (or sell) the model - you can still use it in renders, of course.

ebergerly

Ahh, okay. I see the stuff you're talking about. So I guess the idea is to make dummy properties with the same names, and they'll overwrite the existing morphs making them inactive?

Looks like there are almost 50 morphs baked into the clothing (ie, those with an "M" icon in the Property Heirarchy), so I need to slog thru and create dummy properties for each? 

Seems like it's easier to just load the clothing, let it explode as it assumes the morphs from the character, then just shift-select all the "M" morphs, delete, and then somehow save the clothing with all the morphs deleted? 

Richard Haseltine

Yes, I'm afraid so. But once done it should be a permanent solution.

ebergerly

Cool, thanks. 

Toonces

Is there a step-by-step tutorial for this process? Now that we have dForce, it would be nice to convert clothing back to conforming once you have it simmed the way you like.

I've written my own instructions in several places but i haven't found a consistent solution. I find myself exporting as obj and re-importing to fix base xyz coordinates (thinking there must be a way to bake this without export/import). I also find myself wondering whether to click the reverse source shape from target or not. I end up trying several different approaches and often just give up, lol.

Richard Haseltine

It would probably be better to drape each time, or to run simulations for certain poses and load the (base reolution) OBJs as morphs rather than trying to rig a draped model. If you drape and rig the results you will be freezing in folds that work for soem poses but not others.

daovuong1544

Not sure if someone still needs it but I sorted out a similar problem by using Zbrush GoZ.
Here's the morphed figure I have: (Pic1)
Now I import a mesh exported from Zbrush: (Pic2, 3)
Run the transfer utility: (4,5)
The mesh will be deformed: (6)
Send the mesh back to Zbrush via File -> Send to Zbrush: (7)
Ignore the deformed mesh: (8)
Select the original mesh in Zbrush that is not deformed, Hit GoZ: (9)
Tick Update an existing object in the pop-up: (10)
Naming, then accept: (11)
Dial the new slider to 100%: (12)
Done!

Hope this help

(Images removed due to nudity. Please read here on https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/3279/acceptable-ways-of-handling-nudity#latest)

Blackbirdx61

Mentioned above but not linked https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/18760/turning-props-into-a-conforming-figure