How do you save weightmaps?

sckrtst

Trying to save dforce modifier with weightmaps, how do you save those?

 

It's always the reletively simple things in Daz Studio the hardest to figure out for some reason. I'll refrain from mild jokes regarding daz's documentation this time.

Novica

Is this the answer? 

L'Adair

Novica said:

Is this the answer? 

From that thread:

maclean said:

If you created a weight map node, when you save the clothing, the node is saved with it. However, when you reload, the map is inactive. You have to select the weight map brush, then go to the Tools pane and click on Map to activate it.

This is not quite accurate. The node gives us access to the weight maps, so we can modify the weights, but they are active whether or not we access them. With dForce, an unmodified weight map will be 100% throughout. I suspect the same is true of weight maps for other features. There are several maps available for dForce, but the one most commonly used is "Influence." When we modify a weight map, we are reducing the influence of the feature that map controls.

If you modify the dForce weight maps and save the scene, the modified weights are saved with the clothing, even if the weight node is not. (I haven't tested this recently but early on, the nodes were not saved with the file).

I have not tested Mada's solution from the other thread, but it should keep the dForce Weight Node with the item. If you are looking to share your weight map for a product with others, a Wearable preset will do that. The people using your preset will need to own the item for the preset to work. This is the legal way to share your weight map.

Mada said:

If you want to share the new weightmap you can do that by saving your item as a wearable preset. Select Genesis figure, then File -> Save As -> Wearable preset. Now select the item with the new weightmap and untick everything else and save with a preset name. The wearable preset will have the weightmap info embedded. Not sure how that would work with V4 clothing but that's how to share Genesis clothing weightmaps :)

However, the last entry in that thread is over a year old, and much has evolved with dForce. I've loaded dForce clothing that had the Weight Nodes load with the items, though the node names were customized. I don't believe these were Wearable presets, but saved with the item when it was saved as an Asset. You could try that, as long as the item is your own creation. You could also do that for any product you did not create, as long as you do not distribute the resulting Asset.

Weight maps are specific to the mesh they are created for. If you have multiple copies of an item, you could copy the weight map from one to another. But you cannot copy/paste weight maps between products. So if you create an influence weight map for one dress, it cannot be pasted into the influence map of another, regardless of how similar the two may be. (This may be the reason we cannot save a weight map directly.)

To access the dForce weight node, you must first Create a New dForce Weight Node, (unless one is already there, from the vendor.) To access the maps of the Weight Node, select it in the Scene pane, and then with the Weight Map brush active, go to the Tool Settings pane and "Add" the map(s). Selecting a map in the Tool Settings pane will add a colored overlay to the object.

This answer is not definitive, some things may have changed with dForce since I last tried to save a weight map, but I hope it helps.

 

sckrtst

Sorry took me so long to get back, haven't been messing with daz last few.

It's actually a weightmap I made for the genesis 8 female figure to use dforce with her breasts (for arms folded under, or when hugging, basically anything that would cause them to deform out of normal shape. Even seems to work with clothing, say a tight shirt). I can save the modifier as a wearable, but the weightmap doesn't save with it.

So far it works fairly well btw too.

sckrtst

Oh I'm not wanting to share it btw. Well I'm not, not wanting to sharing it either, just not my primary concern. I want to be able to transfer it more easily to other genesis 8 characters