How to apply G8(.1) Geoshell items to G9?
BlueFingers
Posts: 904
I have quite a few G8 figures and clothing that come with geoshell items that I want to use on a G9 character. Has anyone figured out how to apply G8(.1) Geoshell products to G9? I only have two G9 characters, but if I can use these older products on G9 I might get a few more G9 Characters.
Post edited by BlueFingers on
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G9 has a completely different UV, so geoshell products won't necessarily work. If you get the legacy UV product, you might be able to make certain things work that don't cross UV islands.
while i do not use geoshells very often, i think to remember that i successfully exported and re-imported a geoshell as an object. (i tried this for 3d-printing purposes)
might be possible to export the shell as object and then use it on a g9 with g8 shape?
might not offer the same functionality. and there might be additional steps necessary to make this work.
but, with my little experience, thats how i would approach it if there is no other solution to be found.
I have, although I've yet to sort out a practical way to share that method.
I created a modified version of Cayman Studios' Legacy UV product so I have one mesh that has full access to all the standard G3, G8, G8.1 and G9 UVs, at which point I can use DS's Map Transfer to bake over maps, with considerably less fuss than having to export to Blender or the like to do a texture bake.
Thanks, you guys gave me an idea. I selected a G9 in the scene and Create > New Geometry Shell , then selected the G9 GeoShell and opened up the surface tab and selected the G8.1 UV set. I applied the MDBD Blood 'n Dirt for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Females shader and materials and got the following:
Please note the materials on the Geoshell do not cover all of the arms (see the missing dirt on the shoulders), and parts of the head (see missing dirt on the neck and a spot in top of the head, back of the head too).
At first I thought I selected the wrong UV set (G8.1 instead of G8) but I got the same result when I changed the UV sets.
Does anyone have suggetions?
Blender, Ultimate Unwrap 3D, Blacksmith 3D, Zbrush
anything that does vertex colours and you can bake textures
use your clone shapes to transfer, workflow varies between apps
I'd rather not use another program to get it to work, I am not experienced enough in Blender to make this process work.
Shouldn't the Geoshell just adapt to a G8(.1) UV set if I set it that way in the surface tab? I don't get it.
No. The Legacy UV product needs a geograft to change where the surface boundaries are, so without the geograft, its UV is not complete.
Conversely, the geograft does not by default support base G9 textures, so you can't use G9 textures on the figure while the grafts are attached.
So you can't, by default, combine G9 textures on the figure and a G8 geoshell UV; I had to modify the geograft to make it possible to fully support both UVs simultaneously.
One Youtube video on Geograftng later I have come to the conclusion that I'll require a lot of knowledge I just don't have and may take quite a bit of time to acquire. Hmmm, maybe I'll just keep to G8(.1) then.
@Matt_Castle: I hope you'll find a way to make the method you mentioned earlier in the thread into some sort of product, I would defintely buy that! Also thanks for your explaination, very much appreciated!
So, let's say you have a Gen9 texture you want to convert to Gen8...you use the clone on Gen9 to make it into Gen8. Then import that Gen9 figure into the baking program and bake it onto an actual Gen8 figure. Does the next texture become compatible with the regular Gen8 base (depending if you picked male or female)?
as I said it varies between programs and I don't know how to do it in Blender which is the free option
there is also 3Dwrap some use I know nothing about except it's apparently very pricey
in Ultimate Unwrap3D I use the repaint option under export
I import 2 identical shapes with different UVs and export as Ultimate Unwrap.U3D files or use their DAZ plugin to export each mesh as .u3d
collapsing UVs so don't export as UDIM
the clones just have to be the same shape, it can work either way but G9 includes G1:2:3,8 abd 8:1 clones
it actually works with any identical shaped 3D meshes with different UVs
you choose the source and target and it generates textures
with Zbrush the fact G3, 8:8.1&9 are UDIM is what's important
it's rather complicated TBH and I only use it if wanting 8K textures
I need to export both highly subdivided and convert the textures to vertex colours again using UW3D or Meshlab
then use Zprojection to transfer the vertex colours over and the multimap exporter to export the texture maps
I have SubstancePainter, and I think I can do this. I'm still new with the program, but it might work. It didn't even occur to me to use clones to match the shape. Substance Painter also uses UDIM. Of course, it will be trial and error.
Thank you Wendy!