Opinions on character look when using geoshells...

SapphireBlue

I decided to start making some very simple music videos, to see how I can be creative with those and have fun.

The one I'm working on has a G2 couple in shaded geoshells in a series of mostly dance poses. I have only started work on it, but was wondering whether it looked somewhat inappropriate especially since I see no way of smoothing the geoshells to not follow the body quite so closely. 

I was trying to emulate bodysuits, since the bodysuits I tried didn't work out well. I'm aiming for 'artistic', but don't want to accidentally fall into 'weirdly provocative' - it's meant to be for general viewing etc.

I did a couple of renders with them as is and with underwear - one in a general dance pose, one a more extreme dance pose. Doing those pretty much ended up answering my question. I'm going with the underwear option - it seems more appropriate and feels like what real performers might do, even if I meant to go a little abstract with this.

Anywho, I'm still curious to hear others' opinions on this and the conundrum with plain geoshells like these when making stuff for general viewing. P.S. If anyone knows of ways to smooth out geoshells, please do share! (Of course, if the mods remove my geoshell-only images, I'll have my answer too... Hahaha)

Cheers! 

 

 

nicstt

They're 3D figures, without gens; modesty is an alien concept in such a situation - especially considering they are an uniform dark-purple.

outrider42

I like the ones without the undies. Since they are abstract, the clothing actually becomes distracting IMO.

First remove any normal and bump maps from the models and see how that looks. You can also use morphs on the Genesis figures to smooth out things. The geoshell will follow the morphs you use, so if the morph is smooth, then the geoshell will be smooth.. That is how I would tackle it, change the Genesis model not the geoshell. There should be plenty of morphs to alter the shape of the models enough to smooth out the details. Various toon or doll shapes could probably do the trick, perhaps dialed in just a little bit. I think Sakura even had morphs specifically to smooth out some spots, like abs and feet, though they are meant for the Sakura shape, not the default.

If you know how to do some modeling, you can make your own morph to do what want. You can use the Hexagon bridge and send one to Hexagon, bust out the smoothing tool, and send it back. Then save as a new morph.

Another thing can be your material setup. The reflections can make details pop out more, so messing with the gloss settings might help. Or make them slightly glow a little, or a material that gives them an ethereal quality.

SapphireBlue

nicstt said:

They're 3D figures, without gens; modesty is an alien concept in such a situation - especially considering they are an uniform dark-purple.

Yup, true nicstt, a little alien indeed with purple 3D people. Oof, modesty was perhaps not the best choice of word. I've changed it now to just 'look'. 

It's just tough trying to see past my own perception, to what a general viewer (different ages, cultures) might see it as. I know my tween daughter thought it was weird having them sorta 'naked' and preferred them with underwear. And when my husband saw my monitor in passing, he joked I was embarking on 'naughty renders'. Groan. Not what I'm aiming for with a slightly abstract music video. So suddenly I really wasn't so sure... 

SapphireBlue

outrider42 said:

I like the ones without the undies. Since they are abstract, the clothing actually becomes distracting IMO.

First remove any normal and bump maps from the models and see how that looks. You can also use morphs on the Genesis figures to smooth out things. The geoshell will follow the morphs you use, so if the morph is smooth, then the geoshell will be smooth.. That is how I would tackle it, change the Genesis model not the geoshell. There should be plenty of morphs to alter the shape of the models enough to smooth out the details. Various toon or doll shapes could probably do the trick, perhaps dialed in just a little bit. I think Sakura even had morphs specifically to smooth out some spots, like abs and feet, though they are meant for the Sakura shape, not the default.

If you know how to do some modeling, you can make your own morph to do what want. You can use the Hexagon bridge and send one to Hexagon, bust out the smoothing tool, and send it back. Then save as a new morph.

Another thing can be your material setup. The reflections can make details pop out more, so messing with the gloss settings might help. Or make them slightly glow a little, or a material that gives them an ethereal quality.

Those are super great suggestions outrider42! Thanks heaps! 

I had tried morphs first, but couldn't target just the abs or specific areas. I'm using M6/V6 so I could use some specific pose packs with them, and many of the body morphs changed them so much, it meant too much reworking of the many poses. I'll revisit the morphs in case I overlooked any that might work.

But Hexagon and smoothing out the morph?! That sounds like a great alternative and I guess I might as well do a little crash course and figure out how to tackle that. I've only tried out Hexagon a couple of times, but it'll be useful for other things, so no better time to learn.

The material set-up and glow is another great idea. Their colors and reflective look is meant to fit with some 80s vibes, so I'll experiment and see what might work there. Thanks again for the very helpful suggestions! 

Gordig

Putting underwear on them does, paradoxically, draw attention to their nudity. Think of the T-1000 in Terminator 2: when it's in its liquid state, you probably don't think of it as being naked, even though it's actually "naked" throughout the entire movie, because any clothing you see on it is actually just it's metal body taking on the appearance of clothing. But if the metal T-1000 had underwear, it would suddenly be really weird. 

Serene Night

I'd just go with shaders on the basic form and smooth out the nips if there are any. 

SapphireBlue

Thanks Gordig. That's a very good point and example!
Thanks Serene Night. I had checked for those, but I don't think I checked for the navel...

Okay, you've all convinced me to go back to the shaders-only geoshell. I'll just try smoothing out the morphs a little if I can and mess around with the material set-up a bit. I think the focus will hopefully be on the whole and the mood when it comes to the final video, so I'll just get working on it and see what I get. Hopefully something that works! Thanks for all the feedback! 

outrider42

I use Hexagon a lot for little stuff like this. Hexagon has issues, but if you take a couple steps they can be avoided. Hex has a memory problem that causes it to crash easy. The best way to deal with this is to remove all textures before export. You can throw the old Daz Default Shader on them, which is 3DL based. Hex being old doesn't like Iray materials much either. I made a material preset for Hexagon to speed this up.

The smoothing tool in Hex can your best friend in this situation. It does exactly what it says. Plus since you are using basic shaders you don't really need to worry about warping the texture.

You could also do this in Blender or whatever, too. It just takes some prep to export correctly so you can import back.

SapphireBlue

outrider42 said:

I use Hexagon a lot for little stuff like this. Hexagon has issues, but if you take a couple steps they can be avoided. Hex has a memory problem that causes it to crash easy. The best way to deal with this is to remove all textures before export. You can throw the old Daz Default Shader on them, which is 3DL based. Hex being old doesn't like Iray materials much either. I made a material preset for Hexagon to speed this up.

The smoothing tool in Hex can your best friend in this situation. It does exactly what it says. Plus since you are using basic shaders you don't really need to worry about warping the texture.

You could also do this in Blender or whatever, too. It just takes some prep to export correctly so you can import back.

Thank you very much outrider42! I'll follow those steps - remove the textures and use the default shader. Very helpful to know. I appreciate it! 

BandoriFan

While I prefer outfits if a vendor feels like a geoshell fits better I trust them on it 

SapphireBlue

BandoriFan said:

While I prefer outfits if a vendor feels like a geoshell fits better I trust them on it 

Hi BandoriFan. This wasn't a vendor created geoshell, where they'd have designed and crafted it with a purpose. The renders shown are of the basic DS geoshell that I added to the G2 characters and shaded, so it's just a second skin that follows the sculpt exactly.