Making Studio Content Poser Native
philebus
Posts: 242
Converting DAZ Studio Content to Poser Native Formats
Introduction
This is a subject that I’ve tackled in a previous thread but I felt that, after revisiting it, I would do better to start again. It’s going to be a work in progress while I’m rebuilding my own copies of Genesis and Genesis 2 following recent sales.
There are going to be five principle posts that I will edit and expand upon over time – others are, of course, welcome to comment.
The first post is this brief introduction.
The second is a guide to how I have gone about converting Genesis figures and accessories, such as hair and clothing, to a Poser native format. There will be a table of Genesis accessory products that I’ll expand as I work through my content library, with notes about their conversion, if I have found it possible.
The third is a guide to how I have gone about converting Genesis 2 figures and accessories, followed by a table of Genesis 2 accessory products with conversion notes.
The fourth will be notes on converting other Studio only figures, such as animals and creatures, followed by a table of products with conversion notes.
The fifth will be notes on converting Studio only props and environments, followed by a table of products with conversion notes.
Poser is my software of choice and I don’t mind paying for it. It presents me with a way of working that I am comfortable with and a tool set that best suits what I want to achieve. I’m enough of a realist to accept that the value of the program cannot be expressed only in its functions – without the content, all the functions in the world count for very little. For those of us who have been using the software for any significant measure of time, Victoria 4 and Michael 4 have been our go-to figures, each with a vast range of accessories to make them some of the most useful and valuable figures ever brought to this market. They have extended the life and value of Poser significantly over the years.
Still, it is difficult not to crave more – more variety means new avenues for creativity, while better features, means less work trying to make up for faults in older content. The release of Genesis came as a bit of a blow.
When DAZ3D launched their first Genesis line of human figures, it marked the beginning of the end of their support for Poser. However, they did throw Poser users a life line in the form of the DSON Importer plug-in – using this, Poser could import the new Studio format figures for posing and rendering in its own environment. Support for the first generation of Genesis remained strong and during this time, many of the prop and environment models sold at DAZ also supported either the Poser format or the DSON Importer. Support largely continued for the Genesis 2 line, though there were some clothing items that were not Poser compatible and support for the Importer for other models began to wane. By the time of Genesis 3’s launch, there was very little Poser support at all in new products and Genesis 3 itself made no pretence – it was just not designed with use in Poser in mind at all and the Importer wouldn’t do the job.
While Poser support for a lot of models is no longer there (though there are content creators that continue to support Poser), a great many of them can still be used by creating Poser Companion Files (PCFs) within Studio and for Windows users, there is even a software solution that enables the use of Genesis 3 by the Importer.
For many Poser users, the use of the DSON Importer has not been the solution they were looking for – running Studio in the background, with its drain of computer resources, is reason enough for that but I think there is also a nagging desire not to be so dependent on software they don’t want to use.
Thanks to the File Optimizer script in Netherwork’s Creator’s Toybox (a package of python scripts for Poser sold at a couple of other stores), it is possible to convert most of the Genesis and Genesis 2 product lines into a Poser native format, to be used independently of Studio. This is also true of many other animal and creature figures, along with prop and environment models. There are exceptions to this but the wealth of products opened up to Poser this way is vast enough to make it worthwhile. Thanks to the fact that the Genesis and Genesis 2 product lines are now frequently sold at very, very low prices, I have been able to build a large library that I am working to convert.
I’ll be honest, it does require a bit of work, particularly at the start when getting the base figures set up but if you work through this tutorial, you’ll get the job done – and when it’s done, it’s done for good.
Please note that I cannot guarantee what will and will not prove usable and convertible in Poser, I can only say what I have found useful and what has worked for me. There are plenty of products out there that either don’t convert well or are entirely unusable in Poser and knowing which they are can really come down to taking a chance and trying them.
What Will You Need?
Poser 10 / 2014 Pro / 11 pro – If you have Game Dev or Poser 11 Standard, then you will have upgraded to Poser 11 Pro due to changes in product registration after the software was purchased by Bondware/Renderosity from Smith Micro.
DAZ Studio – I’m using 4.10 and have that backed up. When you have a version that works for your needs, make sure you make a backup on the installer as DAZ don’t allow you to download previous versions after a new release.
DSON Importer Plug In – available from the DAZ store for free. Again, back it up with a working version of Studio.
Netherwork’s Creator’s Toybox – available from Renderosity and Hivewire. This is a collection of python scripts that includes the File Optimizer used in this tutorial.
A Text Editor – Microsoft’s Notepad will do the job but there are many alternatives out there. You will need this to edit some references in your created CR2 files when converting Genesis and Genesis 2 figures. Ideally however, a dedicated CR2 editor of some kind would be better.
I’ve used Notepad in the past but I’m now using Dimension3D’s Reference Editor, which is sold at the DAZ store. I got it in a sale but I think it’s about $16 at regular price – after editing a little shy of 50 CR2 files and given how much time it has saved me while doing this, while also reducing the chance of making errors that I have to find a fix later, I’m going to say that the full price is absolutely worth it.
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Comments
Working with the Genesis Line of Figures
Working with Genesis
It would be useful to look at how the Genesis figure differs from the generations of Poser figures that preceded it.
The Millennium Man and Woman were the first generation sold by DAZ3D after they broke away from their parent company, Zygote. These were two very basic human figures but were an improvement on the figures included with Poser 4 (which, as it happens, were created by Zygote). They had expressions morphs but lacked anything by way of morphs to create distinct characters. Each of these figures consisted of an obj file, which contained the geometry and UV mapping, a CR2 (Character Reference file) which contained their morphs, and texture files (image maps).
UV mapping determine how a texture file is ‘shrink-wrapped’ around a figure.
Michael 2 and Victoria 2 marked the start of the second generation and were actually the same figures as the original Millennium people but packed with morphs for character creation. The range was added to though – the original Stephanie was built from the Michael mesh, as was the original Aiko. From the Victoria mesh, they also the Millennium Boys and Girls, and a baby. Again, each of these had it’s own geometry/UV file, CR2, and textures.
Michael 3 and Victoria 3 introduced a new innovation – morph injections. The base figures consisted of the geometry, CR2 with expression morphs, and textures. The morphs were then purchased in themed packs and using coded pose files, could be ‘injected’ into the CR2. The range was added to again with Stephanie 3 Petite, Aiko 3, some more children, The Freak, and She Freak. All again, having their own geometry/UV files, CR2s, textures, and range of expansion morph packs.
Michael 4 and Victoria 4 continued to use morphs packs with a refined version of the morph injection system. The new innovation here, along with improvements to rigging, was that the Michael and Victoria figures served as base figures and all the other characters who were originally independent figures were now sold as morphs packs for these – this included Stephanie 4, Freak 4, She Freak 4, Aiko 4, The Girl 4, and some more children.
Genesis built on this foundation and served as a base figure for all other base characters, both male and female. However, not being designed to work with Poser at all, there are some major differences in the way it was implemented.
Rigging: Genesis uses a system of rigging called weight mapping. A weight mapping system was also introduced into Poser that was sufficiently compatible that this feature can be enjoyed natively in Poser after conversion.
UV Mapping: The Genesis geometry is coded in a proprietary format along with multiple UV mappings, with different UV maps optimised for each of the base characters. With the figure loaded in DAZ Studio, users are able to toggle between different UV maps according to their needs. In theory, it would be possible to do something like this in Poser using an old feature called geometry switching – however, this feature hasn’t been updated to work with Poser’s subdivision, so we need to work around it by having an obj file and CR2 for each of the base characters shapes.
HD Morphs: High Definition morphs take effect at higher levels of subdivision, which allows for some very fine detail. While Poser can employ HD morphs, it uses a different method of subdivision to Studio and so cannot make use of these morphs save through the DSON Importer. Very few products for Genesis make use of HD morphs, so this won’t have much of an impact but there are more Genesis 2 products that use them, so you will need to take note of that when converting those products.
Geo-Grafts: A geo-graft is an item of geometry that replaces and area of the geometry on Genesis. It can have its own UV mapping, and even its own rigging. It is a method used for adding extra limbs, such as additional arms or tails, or even just horns. It is also the method that DAZ has employed to add genitals to their new figure lines – although they are only included with Pro character packs. This is not a feature that works natively in Poser.
All-In-One Philosophy: While the 4th generation line used a single base male (Michael 4) and female (Victoria 4) and created base characters from them, Genesis uses a single figure base for all of it’s characters. This has some obvious advantages: clothing, hair, and even morphs, can be used for both male and female characters without much additional work (products such as Fit Control help to eliminate the shrink-wrapped breast effect that can come from this). There are disadvantages though. The first is that it makes it harder for the morphs and rigging to reflect some of the subtle (and some not so subtle) differences in male and female anatomy. The second is the impact on the figure’s performance when weighed down with so many morphs. This last problem is one that can really make Genesis difficult to work with, even after conversion – but there is a work around which I’ll cover and which solves the performance issue very nicely. Fortunately, with Genesis 2, DAZ went back to separate base figures for male and female.
Preparations
Folders
Before starting the work, we need to make a couple of preparations. In the Studio Content folder, open the Runtime sub-folder and, if there isn’t one already, create a Geometries folder. Within this, you will want a DAZ Conversions folder, and within that a Genesis folder, and within that folders for Figures, Hair, Clothing, and Props (which I use as a catch-all).
Under the Libraries>Characters, folder, you might also want to create a Poser Native folder, then Genesis, and within that, Figures, Hair (the hair figures tend to be CR2s, so need to be saved in the Characters folder to start with – you can move them to the Hair folder later if you prefer), and Clothes. You’ll probably want to create a similar arrangement of folders for materials and poses.
Morphs
As I’ve mentioned, because of the all-in-one philosophy of Genesis, the large number of morphs in the figure weigh down the conversion, impacting its performance in Poser. Our work around is going to give us three groups of figures – one with all the morphs for female characters, one with all the morphs for male characters, and one with some basic male and female morphs and all the morphs for creatures. Splitting the morphs this way still leaves us with all the function we need while improving the figure’s performance.
Create a temporary folder and within that you want folders for Full Backup, Male Morphs, Female Morphs, and Creature Morphs.
Now open up the Studio Content folder and under data, navigate to….
Content>data>DAZ 3D>Genesis>Base
Select all the contents and CUT, then paste into the Full Backup folder and then paste the contents again into the Male Morphs, Female Morphs, and Creature Morphs. You can now start editing the contents of these three folders. If you have the Fit Control product, then delete that from all three to start with. From the Male Morphs, you want to find all the female and creature morph products and delete them, likewise from the Female Morphs, you want to find all the male and creature morph products and delete them. From the Creature Morphs, I remove all the character bases, save for Michael 5 and Victoria 5, and I also leave all the child morphs, and evolution morphs.
Now, copy and paste the contents of the Female Morphs folder back into the Studio directory and fire up Studio. Open Genesis and you will have only the female morphs present for exporting CR2 files.
Exporting CR2s
With Genesis loaded, open the surfaces tab and find the UV drop down menu. Click on the little down arrow and you will see that the UV options for all the base characters you have are offered but we just want the female ones for now. Select the first female option on the list and go to File>Export and export a CR2 file as below with an appropriate name to your prepared location.
Repeat this for each of the female UV options and then open Poser.
Conversion and Creating Obj Files
In Poser, find the Toybox python scripts and run the File Optimizer to convert the figures to being Poser Native, following Netherwork’s guide.
Now open up the folder with all these CR2s and you will see not only a lot of CR2s but a lot of pmd files (these are external morphs) taking up a lot of space. Personally, I like to be tidy. Delete all the CR2s and pmd’s save for the Genesis Base Female. Refresh the folder in Poser and open the figure.
First, change the skinning method to Poser Unimesh. You can now set up subdivision for the figure.
Now you want to take a look at the arrangement of morph and posing dials in the Body and Head. Personally, I find them a little muddled and like to re-arrange them to my liking. Once you are happy with this, check that your Poser preferences are set to save external morph targets and save the result.
Now open the folder with this CR2 in and make as many copies of the CR2 in the folder as you created Obj files for. Rename the CR2s, each corresponding to one of the base characters and then edit the reference within it so that it points to the corresponding obj. You can now look for the thumbnail images in the Studio People folder, copy them to the Poser native folder and re-name them appropriately. Viola! You are now good to go.
A Clothes Horse
OK, nearly good to go. In Poser, making sure that you have Studio running in the background, navigate to your Poser Companion files and load the Genesis Base. Save this to your new folder with your Poser native figures and call it Genesis Female Clothes. You are not going to convert this, instead, you need it to be a figure that connects with the DSON importer but which has baked in just the female morphs for that bit of efficiency. This is a clothes horse that we’ll use in converting clothing and hair.
Rinse and Repeat
You should now have Genesis figures for female characters without excess morphs that work efficiently in Poser, along with a clothes horse for later. The next job is to empty out the morphs folder and replace the contents with those for the Genesis male, then repeat all, and then again for the creatures. Just remember, at the end of it all, to replace the full backup of all the Genesis morphs.
Done? OK – being careful, that probably took you a couple of hours but it was time well spent. Now all you need to do is learn how to convert clothes and hair as you need them and you can get started working with the Genesis line of products.
Converting Clothes and Hair
The process for each of these is going to be the same. Hair models tend to be CR2s but you will need to keep an eye on clothing items, as some, such as hats, are likely to be props..
There are two methods that we can employ. The first is the one I prefer but which sadly doesn’t work for all items – in particular, anything with body handles (if you switch the view to wireframe and see little cubes and cones that can be moved around to affect things like skirts, those are body handles). For reasons I don’t understand, body handles will break the mesh. They can be converted but the method takes a little longer.
Preparations
Again, you will want to do a little preparation, creating geometry folders and folders in the library for the clothing/hair CR2s.
Method #1
1. In Studio, open up the Genesis figure and dial up all the morphs you want to be available in the clothing items you want to convert. This will leave Genesis looking horrible – that’s normal.
2. Conform the clothing items you wish to convert and if you have the Fit Control product, use it to add those morphs to the clothing now – they will help a lot in dealing with poke-through later.
3. Open the scene tab and select an item of clothing and export a CR2 to your Runtime.
4. In Poser, run the File Optimizer and making sure to use the Accessories preset, convert your new clothing CR2s, creating obj files and making them fully Poser native.
5. You can now load Genesis and conform the clothing item – uncheck ‘include morphs’ on the Body part properties tab. Set the skinning method to Poser Unimesh, and then add some subdivision – you may want to save it back out again to preserve those last changes. The morphs you loaded in Studio will be present in the clothing and will follow their namesakes if dialled in the figure. There will very likely be some poke through, which is one reason I recommend the Fit Control morphs as they help with this – otherwise, you may need to make use of Poser’s morph brush (which is sometimes the faster method anyway.
Method #2
1. In Studio, open up the Genesis figure and conform the clothing or hair that you want to convert.
2. Add the Fit Control Morphs and save as a new figure or Scene Subset, either seems to work, using a unique name.
3. Select the saved item and create a Poser Companion File.
4. Open Poser and load the Clothes Horse figure you created.
5. Find the Poser Companion File and conform to the Genesis Clothes Horse and load morph pose from your preparations.
6. Using the DSON script, copy the active morphs.
7. Saving the CR2 at the point can have unpredictable outcomes. The most reliable procedure is to delete the Genesis figure and then for your clothing, set the skinning method to Poser Unimesh, then add subdivision and save out the clothing CR2. Clear the scene, load up the clothes horse and confirm the next item.
8. You can now run the File Optimizer on the new CR2 files. You can then conform them to your Poser native Genesis, remembering to set the skinning method to Poser Unimesh and adding subdivision.
Smart Props
Studio doesn’t export PP2 files (Poser Props), so you will need to load these onto your clothes horse and then save out as a prop which you can then convert using the File Optimizer.
Table of Products
Below is a table of products that I have attempted to convert for Poser native use. The first column is the product name and store link, the second is the type of product, which will largely be either clothing or hair, the DSON column is to indicate if the product was advertised in store as being compatible with Poser via the DSON Importer, Converted is for a conversion rating (either No, Limited, Good, Excellent), followed by some notes about it. Conversion method #1 is by far the easiest and quickest, while method #2 is frankly a clunky process in practice. Fortunately, for most outfits there may only be one or two elements that need the later method.
The Blouse, Sweater, Shoes, and Socks all Method #1
The Skirts both need Method #2
The Cap, Dress, Belt, Nylons, and Shoes use Method #1
The Cape needs to be Method #2
Comes in 2 versions, both convert with Method #1
There are no companion files, so you will need to prepare materials.
Working With Genesis 2
The Genesis 2 line expands the number of character bases open to users quite dramatically and enjoys some better rigging and morphs, along with the improved efficiency of having separate male and female base figures.
However, we are going to have to go about setting them up a tad differently to the previous figures thanks to some quirks of the Importer and it’s behaviour with Poser 11. First of all, if you export a CR2 from Studio and open that up in Poser, you’ll find that it has no tongue. Grand! The solution to that is to open the figure in Poser using the provided Poser Companion file and then re-saving a new CR2 – sadly, this can also result in a strange bug in the jaws, albeit only in Poser 11, which has a simple fix, given below.
Once again, we are going to want to end up with an obj file for each of the base characters, so that we can use their individual UV mapping. We’ll also want to end up with a CR2 for each character but with just the one pmd file for all the morphs – again, you might not feel the need to bother with doing that but I like to be tidy. While I do have the creature creator morphs, I don’t have much in the way of special creature characters, so I’m not going to work separately on them as I did for Genesis.
Preparation.
You’ll want to create a folder for the Genesis 2 geometries. I created separate folder sets for the Male and Females, each with folders for Figures, Clothes, Hair, and Props.
You’ll also want to create folders in the Characters directory of the Library for the Characters, Clothing, and Hair.
Also, if you are have the Fit Control products for Genesis 2, then you will need to uninstall them again.
So, now you need to navigate to the PCFs for all of the Genesis 2 characters you have and which have their own UV mapping. Find the Genesis 2F Base, open it in Poser and then save it out again, with a pmd file, to the prepared folder. Run this CR2 through the File Optimizer, as you did for the Genesis figures, which will make it Poser native and create a geometry which, again, you’ll save to your prepared folder. Now open the figure again and set the skinning method to Poser Unimesh, uncheck Include Morphs in the Body part’s Properties tab and then add some subdivision. Finally, you might want to edit the dials to an arrangement that best suits you before saving it out once more.
Finally, try posing the head and checking the jaw parts. Some people have found the jaws take on a life of their own in Poser 11 – this is not a bug that I’ve encountered but there is a fix here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/232296/genesis-2-jaw-issue-after-dson-import#latest. I believe it is a bug that only occurs when using shapes created with Generation X.
Of course, you now need object files for all your Base Characters – generating these is best (by which I mean fasted) done using the method employed for the previous Genesis line (the problem of the missing mouth parts is in the exported CR2s, not the obj files generated from them, so this will work fine). Open up Studio and load Genesis 2 Female, then, switching the UV set on the Surface tab, you’ll need to export a CR2 for each Base Character with it’s own UV (save for the Base as you’ve already done that one in Poser).
Back in Poser, run these new CR2s through the File Optimizer to generate the obj files, after which you can delete them, along with their pmd files. Make as many copies of the Genesis 2F Base CR2 as you have Base Characters and name them accordingly, then open them in a text or reference editor and point them to the correct obj file for the character.
You can now re-install the Fit Control products if you have them.
Rinse and Repeat
Now you can repeat the same procedure for the Genesis 2 male.
Materials – Normal Maps
While the Genesis materials applied by the PCFs are perfectly fine, there is a quirk with those applied by the Genesis 2 PCFs. DAZ have a long history of not supporting some of the material options available in Poser, in particular, displacement and normal maps, leaving customers to apply those features themselves. Genesis 2 characters all come with some normal maps which add a little extra detail to the bodies but, true to form, the PCFs supplied by DAZ don’t apply them. It’s not a great problem though – open up the materials tab and open a texture file, navigating to the DAZ textures to find the normal maps, then apply them. When you are done, save out your new material files in Poser for future use.
And that is all there is to say about Genesis 2 – you are now all set up with the bases and converting clothes and hair items for them is the same process as used for the Genesis line.
Table of Products
Below is a table of products that I have attempted to convert for Poser native use. The first column is the product name and store link, the second is the type of product, which will largely be either clothing or hair, the DSON column is to indicate if the product was advertised in store as being compatible with Poser via the DSON Importer, Converted is for a conversion rating (either No, Limited, Good, Excellent), followed by some notes about it.
All parts convert well with Method #1
There is a quirk with the dress that I haven't figured out yet. It appears transparent, as if there was a problem with the normals perhaps. Anywho, it render well enough and fits well too but this is something I will want to fix at some point.
All can be converted using Method #1
However - there is a tiny bit of mesh separation in the skirt, I won't notice it because I paint over everthing but you might want to use Method #2 on it which will avoid the problem.
You can convert all three parts with Method #1
However - there is a tiny bit of mesh separation in the skirt, I won't notice it because I paint over everthing but you might want to use Method #2 on it which will avoid the problem.
The shirt converts well with Method#1
The skirt has to be converted with Method #2
The classes are a smart prop.
The skirt is no Poser compatible but I don't consider that a deal breaker and recommend the set regardless.
All other parts convert with Method #1
Note that the exported CR2s don't seem to retain any material information, so you'll need to start from scratch in Poser - not a big problem.
Working with Other Figures - Animals and Creatures
The procedure for working with these is broadly going to be the same as for the Genesis figures - success is going to depend on how they have been riggled though. I've not been purchasing many Studio creatures because, frankly, there has been so much available for Poser but there are some very notable examples in the Studio catalogue.
Worthing With Props and Environments
Thank you VERY much for undertaking this discussion. I'm looking forward to testing out your recommendations to see if I can get solid, predictable results in Poser.
I've made some small amendments to the method outlines and have made a bit more af a start on the product lists - I'll continue to expand the lists as I get around to converting more products.
Updated with some more Genesis 2 Female items
Added a few creature conversions
Added the first group of Gen 2 Male items:
Air Defender, Alternate Identity, Cutting Loose, Hazmat Suit, Just Wet, M601, Vintage Aviator.
Updated with some more Genesis 2 Male items:
Hair: Basic, Bold, Brian, Drifter, Kami, Kung Fu, Kyle, North, Omri, and Viking Male
Clothes: DM Suit
I'm sorry to bother such a nice and tidy post, but I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure out why my conversion of Feathered Wings does not work in Poser Pro 2014. The geometry gets corrupted when I try to pose with the provided morphs in the parameter panel, exploding polygons and everything. Funny thing is that, in Poser Pro 2012 I somehow managed to do that, although I do not recall how since it's been years I haven't meddled with Poser (I rendered daily circa 2016, but life happens). I recently come back, due the ongoing situation to relieve my mind of stress. Also clarifying, I tryied your methods and also used the DSON Loader from D3D to use the .duf file directly, but none of the worked. I have no intention in upgrading my Poser since I am a scarce hobbyist and this wingset is my favorite of all times, never truly found a good subistitute.
I wish I could post a picture of whts happening, but I'm having a major internet issue and barely can view or send info. I tryied annexing the files in the panel, but just kept uploading neverending...
PS: pardon for my very rusty english