Geograft or Morph?

MelissaGT

Hi there!

I'm trying to recreate a game character who has a very distinct face topology (picture attatched). I'm not sure what the best approach would be - geograft(s) or morphs? I have been able to sculpt some semblance of the brows and chin in Zbrush, however the details needed to sculpt something that resembles what I'm trying to do requires subdividing, and then of course when I bring it back to DAZ as a morph, all of that pretty detail is gone (even if I have the figure's subdivision levels set to 3 or 4 - and then the irises get wonky even though I didn't touch them, which is a whole other can of I dunno). If I try to sculpt without subdividing (even using dynamic subdivision), I just can't get that detail because there isn't enough to grab onto and move. 

My next thought was geografts. I'm able to take apart the actual game model (this is for my own fanart use) and sclupt them right into the model in Zbrush...and it looks great. Awesomesauce. However, when I tried to create a geograft of the jaw area (wrapping from ear to ear), DAZ either crashes when I run the Transfer Utility, or...if it doesn't crash, when I get to the "Fit To" part, the graft just -will not- fit. It floats above the head. This leads me to a couple questions - what am I doing wrong here, for when I import the piece, it matches perfectly. Secondly, can I do an actual geograft of his whole face? Which would save me sanity since I can just put everything into a single piece? His facial geometry should still match G3 for the most part...all I'm pulling out of the in-game mesh are the bone spur details (each separately) and building them right onto the G3 cheeks/jaw/chin/brows. If this is a possibility, will it still animate properly? 

For reference, I was using two video tutorials - 

(SickleYield's) and 

I will at some point need to add bones to some of the protrusions (the longer tendrils on either cheek) - which I figured the first tutorial would definitely apply. I haven't even gotten to that point yet - right now I'm just trying to get a handle on the other bone spurs. 

It should be said - I'm new to sculpting in Zbrush...but I think I got some bit of a handle on it. I just don't know if I'm missing something on being able to get detail into sculpting at lower poly levels. The brushes only seem to really shine when I take the Gen 3 figure up over 1mil or higher. If morphs are the answer (and not geografts), would I find a better time in Blender? I tried Blender, and started taking tutorial classes, but I figured Zbrush was the answer in the sculpting departement (though I would -love- to not shell out $900 as my trial ends soon). Right now my absolute favorite thing about zBrush is the GoZ button. Love it. Love it. Whenever I try to use the Morph Loader Pro tool things just...explode. Like literally. My mesh explodes when the morph gets added. The same morph. *shrugs*

Cris Palomino

For what you're showing, probably geografts. You're pulling out the geometry quite a bit.

For morphs, you have to stay at base or you'll get a "doesn't match" warning on bringing them back to Studio. You can only use tools that move mesh around. Any addition or subtraction of mesh will break it.

MelissaGT

Cris Palomino said:

For what you're showing, probably geografts. You're pulling out the geometry quite a bit.

For morphs, you have to stay at base or you'll get a "doesn't match" warning on bringing them back to Studio. You can only use tools that move mesh around. Any addition or subtraction of mesh will break it.

Thank you. Geografts will allow me to sculpt and re-use the already-created topology from the in-game model (again, this is for my own fanart use). However, can I make a single geograft of just the face? Would that be able to animate, since I will be building directly onto my already-created G3M face that emotes very nicely (shot included below of the base face I created that I want to add this stuff onto)? And why was it that the geograft I tried to test insisted on floating above his head when I tried to fit it to the Genesis 3 model during the geografting process I followed above in the tutorial vids? I'm also concerned about all of the crashing that happened during the Transfer Utility process. Perhaps there was something wrong with the test mesh I tried to use. SickleYield is pretty descriptive in her step-by-step instructions throughout the video, and short of not using bones at this point, I'm confident I was following the steps pretty closely. I'm wondering if the other video is already out-of-date. 

If I cannot use a single geograft of the entire face, how can I get around overlapping them? The simple spurs can easily be moprhed since they're just single points (the ones along the jawline and in front of the ears), but the brows and chin are the concerns right now, especially since I know the two cheek tendrils will need to be rigged and are situated right next to the chin.