Character creation, adjustment, saving and sharing questions.

Stryder87

I'm wanting to create some of my own characters and was hoping someone could give me some help on how to do a few things?   Some of this information may be in other threads, but I can't figure out how to search the forums easily, and I'm hoping to compile all this in one nice, neat little package.

Here's the basic idea:  Start with a base character (ex: Mei Lin 7), add in some other character body (ex: Olympia 7), add in some adjustments using Zev0's Breast & Glute Control, maybe some Aging morph (again, Zev0 product), perhaps a bit of Growing Up (Zev0 again... does that guy own everyone else's world too?!?) and maybe a couple other minor morphs.

1) How do I save this character as a character for future use (standard T-pose, no clothing, pretty much like a purchased character)?  I try to save as a Character Preset, but for some reason they always seem to end up as a scene, and never in the character folder (always in the Unassigned section of Smart Content)... weird.

2) If I were to create a character just using the base Genesis 3 Female figure and wanted to make adjustments to the UV for skin colour, and there wasn't a G3F character I already purchased with a UV similar to what I wanted, what would I use to make that kind of adjustment?  I already have 'Skin Builder Pro for Genesis and Genesis 2 Female(s)' and 'LIE Baker'.  Would those be the items I would use to do that with (if I was working with a G2F figure)?  I also have the Amazing Skins For G2F and the G2M version.  It seems like they do the same thing as Skin Builder, with Skin Builder doing a little more.  I'm hoping there's a G3F version of Skin Builder coming soon.  Also, are those usable with G2M/G3M?

3) If I wanted to share this character with someone else, would they also have to have all the same products I used to create her?  Example: Mei Lin? Olympia? All the Zev0 stuff?  Or would it be enough for them to have the Genesis 3 Female base character (or G2F if I used that instead) and the G3F head and body morph packs?  Ex: Annelies for Olympia 7 lists needing Olympia 7, Genesis 3 Female Body Morphs and Genesis 3 Female Head Morphs, yet SS Janya for Mei Lin 7 only lists Mei Lin 7 as required.

4) If I did share a custom character, how would I export them so someone else could import and use them?  Does Daz have a way to automatically package this or would I have to manually compile all the pieces and create an installer?  If manual, how do you do this?

5) If selling a custom character, what are some of the 'Gotchya's'?  What type of things would you have to look out for regarding things other people have made (ex: UV's of the base character, altering a UV for something like skin colour)?

Item 5 isn't something I really think would be a big issue as I doubt I would create anything that people would want, but, if for some reason people did like a character I made and I were to give it away for free, I may still need to consider the concerns in item 5.

Are there any other things I would need to consider in this entire process that I may have not listed here?  I have all these tools to use but don't really know how to fit them all together.

 

Richard Haseltine

1) Character preset will work, though that stores both shape and materials. Don't confuse the categories with location on disc - Uncategorised is everything you saved and haven't added to a category, not just scenes.

2) I'm not sure whether you mean adjust the UVs, the way textures are wrapped around the emsh, or chnage the textures. Editing textures is OK for your own use (in any image editor), but the esults cannot be sahred (unless the base is sold as a Merchant Resource and used according to its terms - which will usually exclude freebies).

3) yes - the presets store the location of the assets used and their settings but not the assets themselves. That is why they can be shared.

4) if you mean presets and perhaps maps, assuming any licensing issues are squared, then no there isn't an automatic emthod. My recommendation is to create a new content directory, add it to the list of content directories in DS (right-click on the Daz Studio Formats heading in the Content Library and select the Add New Base Directory), place the textures in that folder in \Runtime\Textures\Some folder of your choice, apply the textures, apply the morphs, and save the preset(s) to People\Genesis whichever\Characters\Your folder. Now you should be able to add a readme to that, zip it up and have a self-contained character package.

Stryder87

Richard Haseltine said:

1) Character preset will work, though that stores both shape and materials. Don't confuse the categories with location on disc - Uncategorised is everything you saved and haven't added to a category, not just scenes.

2) I'm not sure whether you mean adjust the UVs, the way textures are wrapped around the emsh, or chnage the textures. Editing textures is OK for your own use (in any image editor), but the esults cannot be sahred (unless the base is sold as a Merchant Resource and used according to its terms - which will usually exclude freebies).

3) yes - the presets store the location of the assets used and their settings but not the assets themselves. That is why they can be shared.

4) if you mean presets and perhaps maps, assuming any licensing issues are squared, then no there isn't an automatic emthod. My recommendation is to create a new content directory, add it to the list of content directories in DS (right-click on the Daz Studio Formats heading in the Content Library and select the Add New Base Directory), place the textures in that folder in \Runtime\Textures\Some folder of your choice, apply the textures, apply the morphs, and save the preset(s) to People\Genesis whichever\Characters\Your folder. Now you should be able to add a readme to that, zip it up and have a self-contained character package.

Thanks for your reply Richard.  Regarding item #2, I'm talking about, in particular, changing skin tone and maybe darkening things like eyelashes (I assume they are on the UV since they generally aren't a morphable item).  Would the products I listed be the most efficient way of doing that?

 

Richard Haseltine

Simple darkening can be done by adjusting the colours in the Surface pane, Skin Builder does allow you to change colours and use different tones of map. Amazing Skins does geenrate new textures the way Skin Builder does, it modifies the settings for the materials (using textures) that you have. But if you are planning to share the results then they are not suitable tools - if you want to share texture-based products you need to make your own base textures or find a merchant resource set that allows the use you intend (and as I said, freebies are not geenrally allowed). There is a recipe builder tool for Skin Builder that will allow you to share thes ettings sued with others who have Skin Builder.

As I said, it's best not to call the textures UV maps as that has a specific meaning related to the geoenmtry, not the textures themselves.

Stryder87

Ah yes... I always get texture and UV mixed up.

Ok, here's wht I'm hoping to do.  I created a custom character (custom in the sense of taking a pre-existing and morphing till the cows come home), but there are some things on the skin I want to change, remove spots to be exact.  I'm not sure what file I would adjust/modify, what it would be called (I think the extension is .duf?), or what to do it in.  I see a number of files related to makeup and a couple .png files that seem to do with the skin, but I'm not exactly certain how to go about it.  I think I saw you mention in another thread that it could be done in Photoshop (or Gimp) but which file would be the right one? I'm using Yumi as my base character if that helps for file adentification and location.  Is there a thread dealing with this kind of customization that I could be directed to?

Thanks!

 

Richard Haseltine

The .duf files are not the textures, they are settings for the surfaces - including which textures to use. The textures themselves are usually plain jpgs, though other standard image formats may be used.

The simplest way to get at the textures is to go to the Surface pane with the area you want to edit selected (Surface Selection tool), then find the little mini thumbnails on each mapped property, click on them, then click Browse to open a file dialogue, right-click on the image you want to edit and select the option to Edit it to open it in an image editor (at least on Windows, I assume Macs allow a similar approach). Once you have the image open in your editor you can either cancel the file dialogue or leave it open until you have edited the image and saved it under a new name, then seelct that new file top assign it to the surface. Remember that these will be derivatives of the original textures so you won't be able to share them with others.

Stryder87

Richard Haseltine said:

The .duf files are not the textures, they are settings for the surfaces - including which textures to use. The textures themselves are usually plain jpgs, though other standard image formats may be used.

The simplest way to get at the textures is to go to the Surface pane with the area you want to edit selected (Surface Selection tool), then find the little mini thumbnails on each mapped property, click on them, then click Browse to open a file dialogue, right-click on the image you want to edit and select the option to Edit it to open it in an image editor (at least on Windows, I assume Macs allow a similar approach). Once you have the image open in your editor you can either cancel the file dialogue or leave it open until you have edited the image and saved it under a new name, then seelct that new file top assign it to the surface. Remember that these will be derivatives of the original textures so you won't be able to share them with others.

Thanks Richard!  I think you just opened up a whole new world for me in Daz.  Nothing will safe now!!!