Transferring Raiya's Genesis 2 Characters to G8
missuskisses
Posts: 918
[Edited Title to reflect subject more accurately, now that I'm converting more than just Ariadne!]
I love Raiya's characters, and work exclusively now in G8, so I decided, after yesterday's G2 blowout sale, to buy whatever remaining character I didn't already own and start the conversion process!
First up for me is Ariadne. More renders here, and my process here. If anyone has ideas on how to simply the process, I'm all ears. 
Post edited by missuskisses on
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I transfer my characters similarly. However, for the maps, I would only use Map Transfer for the face (would've gone V6 to G3F in G2F, because I got the Cayman G3F on G2F geografts), unless the characters have tattoos or something. Then I'd edit in the face and makeups to some similar "donor" G8F skin with GIMP. For most normal human characters, I feel like I don't need to have the same skin "twice", besides the older generations just have lower resolution maps that may not often compare with contemporary G3 or G8.
This is Valea's Cat Character and Hair (originally V4 UV) to G8F (with Lyoness' Kinsley HD for G8F as the texture donor, though this could also be done with any other merchant resource. But I use this as an alternate for Kinsley). The shape is not exactly Cat, but an approximation with other morphs I have.
This other one was also mostly V4 face maps, limbs, and torso to G8F. (It's RM Nieves for V4, but now in base G8F UVs.) I used a merchant resource with G8F UVs and made it the same color as the maps I transferred. Shape is not the same, had trouble converting her. :/
Looking very good.
I transfer a lot of character textures; some shapes too, but mostly textures. There are some really good V4, G1 and G2 textures that are worth it too. There seem to be more merchant resource textures on later characters, unless it's just easier to tell.
Thank you, and agreed! Lots of great textures in the past, even if the rendering engine did not bring out all the details. Before this I mostly transferred textures, and then sometimes morphs, but never a full character for whatever reason.
Gorgeous!! I have the G3F UV for G2 also, but I wasn't sure how I could group all the surfaces correctly. Seems like it's time to experiment!
I don't remember what exact surfaces I chose. But I do remember that I looked at some G3F UVs, then picked out lips, face, nose, nostrils, and lacrimals. Due to how the geografts are, I don't think I transferred the ears. There was some overlap with them. Not sure. The shoulders and arm pits from the map transfer don't really line up either thanks to the geografts. Same with the thighs. For me, it's easier to blend these in with a donor texture in GIMP or Photoshop.
For certain skins, you might also need to create your own SS maps. Still it's less work than trying to convert everything.
Thanks! Yes, been playing around with it and it looks like for my purposes of converting everything (as opposed to just the face and then looking for skin donors) I do need to do one full set. But for eyes, makeup, I can just use the Cayman UVs and Map Transfer to do the rest and fill the holes with the base transferred map. That just cut down my workflow for quite a bit, so thanks so much!!
And now, I've converted Daphne as well!
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/v2mWKd
Same method, except this time, after making a full set of the base Daphne textures, I used the Cayman UV product (V6 for G8F) for the remaining makeup looks and eye colors and used Photoshop to merge it with the base textures. Since I'm faster in Photoshop, it was a lot less tedious than saving all those presets for Texture Transformer. Thanks to MimicMolly for that idea!
Just wanted to post some more updates and conversions!
Felicity: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5XY6eA
Yanmei: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XnbZ30
Updates on process here: https://www.artstation.com/missuskisses/blog/1967/transferring-felicity-hd-from-g2f-to-g8f
Thanks so much!
Photoshop is just a very small portion (and not anything very advanced), and you can do without it if you use "donor" eye settings and Texture Transformer.
Oh, I love the Felicity and Yanmei you did!!! Those two were my absolute favorites back in the day.
I'm going to try to follow your process!
I read your Artstation blog about your progress. I've not tried to do anything with male skins, even though I've considered it for SAV's Alpha Male M5. His baked-on tan lines make his skin unique, although I think the skin itself might be too dated for Iray because I felt this way about SAV Lynn. (Sanjay 8's skin is a great substitute for Lynn.)
I don't think transferring anatomical elements would be that difficult. If you have the G2M UVs to G3M, those come with geografts and UVs. I'll try to make an attempt with how I do things when I get back home. (Don't have Texture Transformer or Blacksmith 3D, just GIMP.)
Thanks so much, and good luck!! I think I used RY Tessa as the initial materials base for Felicity before using Altern8 and then playing with the skin settings from there (and RY Rika for Yanmei). Please share your renders and let me know if anything I wrote was unclear.
Thanks so much! I'm working on Mia, and then going to work on Amon. It'll be interesting, since I don't think I've rendered a single male nude ever, ha.
These are great! I have several of her characters that I am wanting to transfer as well. I am not quite sure about how you are doing the materials tho ... what is texture transformer?
Thank you!
I can't remember if I can link to Rendo on these forums, but it's there if you search for it. You'd also need the Female Add-on pack. If you want to transfer V4 textures, you'd have to get the V4 add-on pack as well.
You don't absolutely have to have them if you're willing to work with the Legacy UV series. For these Raiya V6 characters, you'd need: https://www.daz3d.com/legacy-uvs-for-genesis-8-victoria-6. If you plan on using Altern8 or even Anagenessis, I think you have to apply the same settings to the geograph portions.
I prefer Texture Transformer because I can use other G8 products if need be, and it's just easier for me to mess with the skin settings. I apply Altern8 and then make more adjustments from there, trying to match their skin tone a little closer to the original figures.
I do have all Cayman's Legacy UV products, but I didn't think there was a way to save the textures once you apply them because of the geografts.
I've tried something. Perhaps it's the character I chose (Alpha Male), but the transfer is easier if you apply everything on G8M. Another thing, the Cayman UVs don't come with a Michael 5 UV for the gens, since it's apparently the same with G2M. But I don't think that would be much of a problem in your case since Raiya was pretty good about only using M6 and V6 (or M5 and V5, when it was strictly a Genesis-only character.)
Example in screenshot is Ryuu for M5, who uses M5 UVs but no longer available. It's another character I'd love to transfer over but the tattoo is a challange with what I'm working with. If the PAs who made him ever decide to re-release this skin for G3M UV's, I'll happily buy it again.
I would think saving as Hierarchical Materials would do the trick, but I haven't tried.
I am amazed that there has never been a proper texture transferring product in the Daz store (not a geographing one). I would love to have a fresh alternative to BSTT. TT leaves so much to be desired. There is a large spot on the right ear of every transfer that has never been addressed, and the ears are a mess in general with some sort of texture that does not even belong on them. The lashes are literally broken in 3 or 4 pieces. There are stretch marks all over the place. The lines on fingers are out of place, the big toe is totally crooked...I could go on and on. Also, there is almost always a texture that TT cannot locate, and I have to manually point it to it. I know there will be limitations to any software that does this, but I feel this could be so much better with a more modern software.
Texture Transformer is definitely not perfect, and I've been experiencing the failure to locate a texture on every conversion. That said, I don't think I've experienced the disaster that you've described here either. It has been workable, for the most part.
Of course, I would welcome something more streamlined! I would love to just feed a program the textures and have it convert instead of needing to save to presets that TT won't even be able to locate a file...
Thanks for checking! I just finished Mia and will be diving into Amon, so I will be checking this out very soon.
And here is Mia:
So, I'm working on converting Amon, and while I have been able to transfer the genital maps through Texture Transformer (there is a special setting just for gen maps)...what is up with the G8M gens attachment? Never worked with it before until now. Even with the G8M base shape and G8M Gens base shape, part of the gens mats is sitting behind the G8M figure, so its mats aren't showing. I've also tested lots of G8M character mats that come with gen mats, and the gens look very much like an attachment that does not belong. Am I doing something wrong? Is this an issue that anyone else has experienced?
It's driving me bonkers! I'm foregoing the gen mats for now.
And here is Amon: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/YeOOkd
Do you have a deviantart account where you could maybe put things in Stash, if you don't want them showing, or somewhere you could show what you're talking about? I've not generally had that issue with G8M and his gens.
I do know that with some characters, Texture Transformer working with the gens can be a bit wonky. That seems to depend on whether or not the character might have a dedicated genital UV torso texture, or if they've got heavily burned-in pubic hair, or the state of the moon and stars and whether or not they're aligned with Jupiter. (Seriously, TT can just be ... odd. It persistently leaves behind the bump map when I do transfers, but never ever has an issue transferring the specular maps. Oh, also, it will always ALWAYS have issues transferring the bump and specular maps for the gens figure itself -- I don't know why or how to fix it. I corresponded with the Blacksmith people about that and some other issues way back when TT first came out, and they were able to make things a tiny bit better, but not to get rid of the issues.)
As a geograft, the anatomical elements attachment does just cut out part of the figure that it attaches to. If you use the eyeball in the scene menu to turn off the gens after it's attached, you should see just a hole where they were. If you're seeing the torso texture, then they're somehow not properly attached.
I've got Amon, but I can't remember offhand if I moved him to the G3G8 UV. If I didn't, it was probably because I didn't want to do the two-stage M6-to-G2M-to-G3G8M UV thing, but I can check when I'm at that computer.
EDIT: So I checked, and I did move Amon to G3G8M UV and his morphs to G8M, and he's fine. His genital map came over pretty well, actually -- the G2 to G8 transfer generally works better than M4 to G8 because the genital texture itself is so much larger. Both the regular texture and the genital hip texture looked fine.
Thanks so much for looking into this! Well, for some reason, the gens weren't going on right. But, derp, a fresh restart and now it's working for me. Thank you so much!