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lol. Funny render for the top of the page (former Lekku obj test, and poking fun at "RTX on")
yeah, I was looking at that, and wondering just how many loops/bones to reduce that by and not end up with something that is limited in possibility.
I agree that And also less bones = less posing trouble.
At least it looks like the easy copy and past surface settings UV mapping does work. I will not lie, I really am having some difficulty following what I'm reading about that bone weight smooth selected thing, as it's not right in front of me this instant.
I have some shaping left to do, I will check out that page on rigging.
Oh, a SubD level of 2 is quite sufficient for some things to have nice curves from a base mesh.
ugh, weight map smoothing, I hope this is not that thing I read about from Studio three-dot-something that no longer works, lol. If I remember, there was a point in the tutorial that was broken and you simply could not do to get to the end result. (Now where did that thing go). There was a lack of explanation of what direction on the settings does what, etc, as well.
This thing?
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/rigging/tutorials/weight_map_brush/start
Conver to TriX, rrrrrr, Noooooooooo. Convert to figure, lol.
The bone structure dif between Gen8 and Gen7 and former, is just too drastic for rigging to work at all if done that way, lol. A parented prop may work better for some things. Hmmmm.... That rigging Utility may be what I was looking for to just automatically add bones to a prop, or maybe not. Ok, some of this looks like it has the right idea, in that we want our own bones to move the tales instead of Genesis's neck and shoulder bones. It also assumes that a few things have already been done, so starting with a brick with no rigging (UV mapped obj file) is going to need some work before looking at weight maps for bones. Especially if the 'Brick' doesn't even have face groups, lol. Do I even want or need face groups on this thing, hmmm.
Here is another issue I ran into, fussing with fancy auto-rigging stuff. The Add Geometry thing does not actually import the object into the scene, lol. And if it is already in the scene, there does not appear to be a apply the rigging to the preexisting object (AKA I can't add an object from the scene tab).
so, in any case, I think what I'm going to do is remove some loops, fix the back of the head where it is bunched up, and go from there.
that should reduce it to 14 bones from 19, that should be a tad more reasonable and hopefully not be so limited with pose options.
Some good points there and tool options that I hadn't looked for before.
a few hours of poking and prodding at points on the mesh just under the scalp. I know it doesn't look like much, just cleaning up that edge a tad, lol.
OK that already looks pretty good, once its textured you could add a transparency map to get it seamless. Adding a Smoothing Modifier with colision on this item and it would fit almost every characters head.
Screen Recording
You couldn't belive how long I struggled now with my screen recordings. I was searching for good free software to help me with that, now I've downloaded two screen recorders, a stopwatch and 8! "keystroke screen cast" freewares to at least show people what keys I'm pressing.
The Screen Recorder I use is Open Broadcaster Software Studio (OBS) https://obsproject.com/, first it didn't record my mouse cursor but showing the keystrokes was the biggest issue.
Blender has an addon for that called Screencast keys but its somehow outdated and it dosn't show everything. I mean I press R for rotate G for grab and S for scale that gets showen but then I press X-Y-Z to limit to one axis and that isn't displayed. Also Ctrl+click dosn't show up.
The first I found for that was QiPress https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2531 but it simply dosn't get recorded with OBS.
At least the simplest little freeware a compiled AHK app called ShowOff was one solution https://www.dcmembers.com/skrommel/download/showoff/.
Searching for more AHK scripts I found the best that works for me is KeypressOSD https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=225&hilit=keypessosd#p1856
Finaly I've understand how OBS works for recording diffrent sources like windows and screens. Now I wonder what video codec works the best tried MKV and FLV thought thats what youtube likes. Blender video editor dosn't work well with MKV and it takes ages to render the final video - I skip that.
Prior to this I've already recorded the 1:30 hour Blender session, currently uploading the videos on youtube...
OK here they are, first Daz Studio Twi'leks for G3F.
Import the OBJ, creating Face Groups later, using Figure Setup pane with no usable result yet. Part 3 for Figure Setup, Rigging and using Transfer Utility is in the making.
Blender Twi'leks for G3F The making of:
You see me starting with the Curve Objects getting defining the tube shape messing around with Shape Key deleting that later, then converting to mesh, all kinds of modifiers used like Mirror and Boolean. You see me trying to fix mesh issues and in the end it dosn't matter because it gets triagulated several times, then I delte those again with Tris to Quads. Also I've deleted one half of the mesh several times I'm surprised that the GeoGraft still fits, that means I didn't touch the outer edgeloop and the Genesis 3 mesh is absolutly symmetrical, maybe I should have mask that outer edgeloop somehow before scupting. But half of the time I'm not exactly shure what I'm doing hence the legth of the videos. There are some missing parts of creating the UV map and ZRemesher in action sorry for that after a break I just forget to hit record again. I'm also sorry for screen lagging I hope its still interesting to watch.
Dyntopo
Now I found Blender's Manual for Dyntopo "Adaptive scupting" https://docs.blender.org/manual/ko/dev/sculpt_paint/sculpting/adaptive.html
Here is a quick tip video on Blender's Dyntopo, since I still use v2.78 I've noticed changing the brush size or zoming changes how much mesh detail gets generated under the brush. You see me constantly changing settings not knowing what i'm doing.
Some Blender Market addon Dyntopo plus Demo Video
cool
That was about, almost when I fell asleep on the keyboard, I fussed with the mesh too much, and didn't consider other figure shapes. Apparently mis green has narrower temples than vanilla G8F...
so I will need to make an adjustment dial for that at least, notes for later on.
I collapsed after testing the lekku UV mapping on her, only to discover the need for the dials to work with some head shapes. (feels bad about not getting to looking at adding bones yet)
I hadn't thought about an edge opacity map, that is an interesting idea. And I do know what some hairstyles look like when the skullcap never gets it's opacity maps, I just hadn't thought about merging things that way.
(I need coffee) I ran into similar with Sonar X1 and DirectX VST windows vs non-DirectX windows, lol. Some tools wouldn't show up simply because the used the wrong graphics mode, lol. it was a Pita to find anything that would work at all, tho that was years ago. I will do my best, to follow, despite no middle mouse button.
Assuming I got Dropbox open. This is where I am at before coffee this morning. I had decided before the RTX "3delight On" funny render was finished being set up, that I like this enough to at least see it through with rigging and some fit morphs as a parented prop at the least. I may even ad some other stuff, depending on how easy it is to make it work. I am also planning to at least add some lekku tapering shape dials, as apparently the taper from base to tip is not quite the same for most references that I've seen so far (it will have 'follow' on for wearable things if I ever get there). As for a wearable item or GeoGratf, (cringe), I have never done that before, I may need some practice before I am comfortable sharing an item that I don't know how to fix if something doesn't work for someone, lol.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y7yrwsnlvt0buzp/g8f_lekkupre_02004_07uv3.obj?dl=0
Sorry, just UV mapped, and the base mesh. Just import into Daz Studio at 100% size. No Bones, no surface zones, no face groups, just the obj shape. (let me get a cup of coffee) I may lower the outer most loop around the head (under the scalp, the sub-d edge extra loop thing) a tad to be a tad friendlier to other head shapes, the visible part on vanilla G8F I am happy with at this point. (OK, I have vids to watch, and an OBJ file to attempt to rig up)
That moment Firefox wants to restart for an update, then I get blasted with five vids all playing at the same time, lol. Good morning, ROFL.
At least it asked, and let me finish up and save what I was doing, instead of throwing out all my work (looks scoldingly at win10)
ok.
Before watching any vids (I will get there), The first thing I will do, is set the "Center point" to where the head should be about. This is just so when the item is selected in the scene tab, the move it around arrows are near the item and easy to use instead of way off in the blue yonder.
This does not actually move where the item will sit when zeroed out, it just moves where the transit control arrows are in the Viewfield (mostly). There is nothing like trying to position a prop like a pen in some one's hand, when the transit control (and center point of rotation) is over fifty meters away out in the sky, let's not do that to people shall we, lol.
ok, I will presume that face groups is just a nicety for things like clothes, and as easy to make in hex as surface zones.
it is just so much easier using the 'L' and shift-click method in hex to set up surface zones than the brush method in Daz Studio. And the menu things are just as tedious to use in Daz Studio. I've gone through that already trying to set up surface zones on outfits that lacked borders and hems, and for d-force stuff. Exporting the clothing item to hex, strips out all the wearable figure follow stuff making it even more work to fix outfits, and the tools in Daz Studio can be tedious at times, so I've just not used some stuff instead of fixing it, lol.
Geometry editor, selection sets, ok... I think I follow, not sure why yet (watches some more)
Isn't the idea of Selection groups to make it easy to do stuff without needing to use the brush tool. Yet you need the brush tool to make selection groups that let you do stuff without needing to use the brush tool.
(sound of crickets) 
I'm sorry, that was supposed to be funny somehow. I'm grabbing the notepad, this is going to be a very long night from the looks of this. This is diving into stuff I have never fussed with before.
Damn. I know from first-hand experience making a nice clean edge like what is on the right is near impossible with that brush tool, not without reselecting mistaken selects back to whatever realm they came from to clean up the edge. You can do it by making the brush outer size way smaller than the smallest quad, however, you will be there all week selecting faces.
With larger mesh quads, it is a bit easier. (Note to self, Ctrl+click is same as Shiftt+click in hex. Shift+click does nothing in Studio, lol) FYI, that Symmetry thing is working much nicer than trying to count quads to get both sides the same on some high-density meshes.
ok, 3 min in, and I have a lot more to watch, so the answers may be in a frame I've yet to see. I think I follow with the selection groups, and I have a theory of what is happening with the magically appearing face groups tho I'm not 100% sure just yet.
Never mind, I had no clue what was happening, and now after some blind right clicking, I have fixed part of my deficiency. Select the surface then right click the 'face groups' text in the tool tab and "Create Face Groupe from selected" (watching some more)
I'm sorry for that part of the video its lagging and skipping frames that bad even some dialogues don't get showen but also without the keys I press it looks like magic happen LOL.
Yes Selection Sets are just not associated to something like rigging or material, you can easily add and remove without sqrew things up, while assigning to FaceGroups removes those polygons from other FaceGroups.
But also I have no other choice since changing my mouse button modifier key bindings I have a conflict with the subtractive selection °_°.
You first see the OBJ comes with a head and a tail group. Then I selected the tail and pressed Ctrl+NumpadMinus to shrink the selection, the result I save to the Selection Set Tail_02. Unselecting anything then selecting the part that I don't want by hand Drag Selection Mode. You still see the red highlight of the current group focus in the Tool Settings. Next right-click on Selection Group choose Remove from Selected. Now I want Tail_01 its done by selecting original full Tail and removing Tail_02 from the selection, some lag skipped that part.
If you magicaly see the red drag selection radius brush changing size its my custom Modifier Key Alt+MouseWheel can be changed under Customize. I think I also invert the selection once with Ctrl+NumpadDivide and Ctrl+NumpadMultiply is Select Conected, I've also added the action Ctrl+NumpadDel for Clear Selection. Right-click the viewport Geometry Selection gets you to those commands, I found it to be too slow to navigate to that submenu. Now I just work my way down the segments pressing Shrik Selection eight times and creating a new Face Group from that.
You see I had turned Symmetry on and forgetting that I need left and right segments as I fired up the Figure Setup pane. Again a simple one half right selection helped my with that splitting up to left and right.
I promise to improve on that now with KeypressOSD, I wasn't even shure to publish these takes also because of theiry framerate quality. I think MKV works best with decoding on my mashine all Blender Videos got recorded that way and they play fluid, but I got trouble to edit them so recently I tried FLV and MP4 for the DazStudio records. But hey these are my first ever youtube videos - learning by doing.
It's better than some random forum post asking what to do, followed by "Never mind I figured it out" with no further explanation, lol. Or the dozen threads that say, "just add bones and rig it" with no hint of what to click to do the oversimplified steps. I was sort of wondering why the odd "selection set" and "face groups" ping-pong, that did confuse me a tad, lol. About 4 min in, and I feel like an idiot for making 13 selection groups before watching the rest, lol. So, I'm about 4:15 in on the first 12min vid, so I have a lot more to fumble through, lol.
Also, I knew there was a brush size thing in the joint editor tab, I had no clue this brush could be resized at all, lol. And when making a new surface zone for a neck collar/hem/edge, it is incredibly easy to end up selecting quads on the other side of the shirt with this tool, lol.
lol, oops. ok, Face groups and Selection sets do NOT get saved with an OBJ export, lol. ok, should be easy enough to repaint the thing, and assign the selections to the correct thing anyway, lol. I wonder if that rigging tab will let me import a scene subset instead of an OBJ. That may work better, possibly, I hope. (the coffee cup is empty, I need to fix that as well, lol) And no, adding the obj to the 'Figure Setup' tab did not add it to the scene, that was another import of the obj to see what was going on, lol.
Hmmm, looks like add to Figure Setup tab is only OBJ or OBZ file types. Ok, how does one get the Face Groups from the Geometry tab over to the Figure Setup tab? (ok, trying this on the other comp, brb)
Nope, it is Bust-i-kate-ed. This tab has no clue what is going on in the rest of daz studio, and has no way of importing anything with even 'geometry' from the looks of it. Also, all I can do is add fake bones under the bone part of the tree, yet the end result is nothing in the scene altered except a new 'null' with some bones by name only in the scene tab when the Create button is clicked. Aside from the add bone thing, and the "add a new OBJ", the rest of the right clicks are only for removing that part in the lists.
Unless there is secret key codes or secret buttons, this tab does nothing useful at all. Oh, and I can change the fake bones from XYZ to YZX orientation in that list, I forgot to mention that. In Studio 4.8, 4.9beta, 4.10 and 4.11beta that Figure Setup tab behaves exactly the same, Useless.
And I don't think I exported the OBJ from Daz Studio Wrong, I don't think? (Nope, Ignore Invisible did nothing unchecked) Then again, as seen in the second vid....
That is what broke the import side of the Figure Setup tab, I think. That fixed the lack of Face Groups in the OBJ file, however, the Figure setup tab is still refusing the acknowledge any hint of geometry at all.
Oh yes damnit Selection Sets are a Daz Studio thing and has nothing to do with the OBJ file format, better leave a copy of the original in the scene. You can also Edit>Dublicate Nodes (w/o hirarchy for figures and duplicating parented stuff). Having an earlier stage duplicaded version in the scene can save you from some headache, leaned this from blender.
Export the current grouped OBJ I think I've showen that in the video adding "G3F_Tekku_007_Grouped.obj" to the Figure Setup there the Face Groups show up. I simply was exporting twice this one with only 8 groups is the first try I shortly removed from the scene after seeing the bones running down the center. Rotation order is also important but can be changed later in the Joint Editor.
As my first subsciber you have signed up to be the test subject to proove my tutorials make any sense at all lol. And I can not guarantee that you keep a sane state of mind by following.
Long talk short sense, currently uploading a "ReDone" version, again two parts until now. The first takes 16 minutes and repeates the Face Group creation process, it may include better solutions and I spent more time working in Geometry Editor now with using six rings / loops for one bone segment getting a good even number of ten bones for every tail. OBJ export did freeze my mashine so I stoped the video there.
The second part is 24 minutes and goes into the Figure Setup pane, it showes how to setup an IK chain, this option is only available in Parametric(Legacy) rigging mode (I think you need to change the IK Weight value behind Chains by dividing a full of 1 weight value for the whole chain). Now witrh Shift select its even easier to change the Rotation Order. Then I've set all bones to "weld" to parent whatever that means in this case. Finaly you will see how the tails bend with grabbing one segment and translating it, the others in the chain follow quiet nicely, don't know if its the weld to parent or the IK chain that caused this. Anyway next I've converted it to General Weight, Figure Setup works only with TriAx and Legacy(Poser rigging), but I heared that the IK behaviour remains if you convert it. Lately Daz Studio crashed by switching on symmetry in the Weight Brush tool. And before I forget I've used the the Mirror Bones action this time and shortly after remembering what was discussed in the "Mirror Bones Problem" thread you need Left/Right, left/right or l/r in front of the bone name to have it work propperly, I remember also Pose Symmetry relyes on that node label Prefix, so quickly renaming those labels and suddenly the Mirror Bones action in the Joint Editor works. Later you can now pose one side and press Shift+Y to mirror joint rotations onto the other side. The videos are still a bit lagging but hopefully better to follow along this time.
DazStudio Twi'lek for G3F ReDone 01 Face Groups
DazStudio Twi'lek for G3F ReDone 02 Figure Setup
ok, I'll swap over and watch them. I figured out why the Figure Setup tab was not seeing the face groups, however, it is still not seeing the geometry and still producing a null with fake bones, lol.
Looks better so far, except full screen, the YT play/pause speaker and vid timer are covering up the 'key used thing'. Hmmm.
Oh, so that's what face groups do, ok. Even if I never get that FigureSetup tab working, this does something useful. Select bones by click in the scene tab, ok...
Very nifty indeed. In one bone at a time rigging mode, the thing to assign faces to a bone is there (points at pic with red scribbling).
Oh, and rigging symmetry in the single bone at a time method, is simple to do by manually typing in the numbers, so it is exact. Moving the end of the child bone with the arrows not bad, and good to get it close, then just typing in the zero to round it out isn't a bad idea. And at that point, the other side can just be entered in by numbers.
Oh, and before you go to stir crazy adding child bones, "Check Your Staging", rrrr Check your "Auto Align Nodes", lol.
A few hours later, got bones, now to weight map them. (and rewatch the end of that vid again, I know I missed a few things. rrrrr, the rest of the vid looks like just straightening out the random bone directions the Figure Setup tab puked out, lol)
One thing to keep in mind, is unlike the Geomitryedetor selection, the weight map brush works on the points not the faces of the mesh. So it sort of is best to have the end of the bone at 100%, and not touch the base of the bone where it pivots, as that should be the end of the previous bone.
And don't forget to copy the selected weight map and 'paste' it to the other maps in he list.
This was the vid that got me started with adding bones to stuff, by Madcatlady. I made the mistake of skimming through it the first time and missed some of the things mentioned above and the rest was from trial and error discovery since then. It's not the same method as the Figure setup wizard tool, that I have yet to figure out how to make it work. This method does work, it's just a tad more time consuming is all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N56wo8iHM-Q
ok, where I'm leaving off.
It is rigged, will take G8F torso maps, and has some scalp adjustment dials.
I just need to finish the second half of the vid to get bone smoothing stuff going.
(Edit, new ver. Fixed click&drag-around posing)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/10487utz1quchoi/TwilekLekku%20WIPdraft0200507uv3_Rigtmp_01010.zip?dl=0
There is the current Scene subset, I used that file on another computer in the above render, it should function. I need sleep (headdesk) Zzzzzzz.
Here is the old misspelled WIP, if you want to follow along with a vid that may or may not be floating around.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ygjme1v4u2tu414/TwilekTekku%20WIPdraft0200507uv3_Rigtmp_01005.duf.zip?dl=0
ok, first cup of coffee, some much-needed rest, and some mind twisting 'terminology' decyphering later, lol.
My first attempt didn't go so well, tho I know this was my inability to grasp what CY had typed rather than the steps or procedure being wrong.
So, Right click in the viewfield "Geometry Selection" -> "Select All" had not been done the first time, so it did nothing, oops.
And doing that for X, Y, Z, and Scale weights is important as well.
Ok, so having figured that out, time to try it again till I have all the correct bones selected for this to look good.
Rrrr, second try, I only had the bones on the right side selected, and yet it smoothed everything from the looks of it. The results 'look' ok, however, I'm not sure that is good for other things that don't need Everything smoothed.
SickleYield, My apologies for my exhausted mind's inability to read what you had typed, and thanks. Also, Please don't ask me how it did work, because my pore little mind still can't comprehend this rigging stuff, lol.
Ok, I think I can sort of portray this in terms of Learning curves. There is Eve Online that requires you to know everything about the game and live breath and be the game, or you won't make it on day one. Then there is the order of magnitude more difficult Apollo era Astronaut, that if you don't have the 'right stuff' to begin with, you don't have a chance to make it. About ten times beyond that is Rigging static OBJ files to have movable parts. You need to know where every single button is in Daz Studio and a dozen other apps, and the multiple acronyms they can each be referred to as, and already know the lingo, and that is just to have a clue what you are reading on forums about the stuff. I never made it past the Eve online level of things, and sometimes simple text is just inadequate to describe rigging stuff in 3D land, lol.
Syrus_Dante, thanks. the second batch of vids did help me remember the bone setup things, even tho I never got the Figure Setup tab to acknowledge geometry in an OBJ file.
Bend smoothing, and a fit morph for FWSA Krisandra (excluding the I forget the Daz-o's name shape. I'm poor, and couldn't afford all of it).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/10487utz1quchoi/TwilekLekku%20WIPdraft0200507uv3_Rigtmp_01010.zip?dl=0
Hi I'm back online now, yes it was getting late yesterday even at my side - you know this time zone thing.
I let it rest for a while since I got no further with my rigging attempts. Having issues with my current figure, if I now activate Symmetry with the Weight Brush or try Symmertize weightmap Daz Studio crashes everytime, wondering what had caused this? I will have to start over another day and do run the OBJ though Figure Setup again, I've saved a Template so all the bone hirarchy I once drag&droped is saved.
Its already looking good in the render, nice to see you getting further with rigging even without using Figure Setup. I was also confused by this Figure Setup pane and avoided it for long time now. The interactive mode is far more intuitive with adding a child bone at a time but this is tedious to do and the automated process has some advantages. I mean most of the bones get automaticly alinged with the Face Groups and with the weld option you get something like IK posing abilities.
These are the old official videos I once found on this subject and I learned a few thing from. I never mind to mention them before because this is very basic and simply presenting the tools. Outdated but maybe still helpful Skeleton Setup = Figure Setup.
Rob aka rbtwhiz Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSBsiYvJ9hFzW5_Y6ndCtkA
DS: Figure Setup Tools: Skeleton Setup - Creating From Scratch
DS: Figure Setup Tools: Joint Editor - Center and End Points
DS: Figure Setup Tools: Skeleton Setup - Editing Existing
I was a bit in a hurry and you may already noticed I had uploaded the third video yesterday. But good thing needs time and some are not done in one day. I'm not shure if those slideshow videos are of any help.
DazStudio Twi'lek for G3F ReDone 03 Weight Map
Sorry these videos are a pain to watch. Somehow I can't even check them completly because if I fast forward my player crashes or it takes ages until the video starts playing again, that could be some problem with the keyframes or I need to update/change the player and or MKV video decoder.
Anyway as I tested to record again today checking and changing some video codec settings like 24 fps instead of 30 and switching the decoder from "veryfast" to "superfast" the video was playing smoothly.
But that can't be the reason for this video lagging yesterday, because after recording another video suddenly it starts to lag again and CPU usage went up. By a look in the task manager I've noticed my antivirus software was running wild using 50% CPU for about 15 minutes and I don't even know what it does since there is no scan schedule defined and no info what it does on the interface. You cant even kill the task because yeah its the protected antivirus process, its Avast Free Antivirus.
I was downloading your dropbox scene subset and loading it up in Daz Studio I've done some things like a head fit morph with adding Smoothing Modifier and a DFormer to fit it behind the ears.
If you don't mind I will upload the video showing what I did now playing smoothly. I also downloaded dropbox so I can post you a link to my altered version. You see me saving that smoothed colision shape including the DFormer into a head fit morph. Then I decided to run Figure Setup with this mesh and without even noticing the time soon 55 minutes where recorded, not finished yet but I managed to make it already fit to genesis 8 with Fit To. I can continue with the Transfer Utility to project figure morphs to the Twi'lek head item just confirm that I can show my work on your item you will be mentioned as the modeler in the desciption.
A bit OT Bruce Willis timelapse, made with Blender.
I've noticed a presure sensitive pad is used for scupting. Retopology after sculpt is also done in Blender finaly the head gets rigged.
when I first saw that red blob, I thought I was looking at Z-brush except for the Boeing 777 cockpit around it was all wrong, lol. The result does look incredible.
Oh, and for the other thing, I am impressed, considering it is 3D printer mesh friendly rather than 3D render quads.
Easy to fix hovering buttons aside, the overall shape matches the cartoon one very well. Oh, and I do like the trick for the lightsaber blade, I had not considered doing it that way.
There is alot of free star wars stuff over there at vanishing point, what about a star wars fan art render challenge?
mCasual also did rigging with an AT-walker see here: mcjQuadBot and here AT-AT for Poser @ sharecg found at https://poserdazfreebies.miraheze.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Resources.
Featured in this video.
The light saber laser is made from two planes with an opacity map. Here I have some pictures of what I meant with add an opacity / transparency map and a Smoothing Modifier and it would fit to almost any head.
Also a DFormer whas used to push it up over the ears. Finaly I've exported that collision+DFormer shape and loaded it with MPL the SmoothFit morph keeps the mesh slightly above the head.
Tutorial - Creating Twi'leks in Daz Studio (G2F) the creature creator addon
I wouldn't paint the textures like that and its only a diffuse map, there are no bump, spec, displacement maps used, also much post work involved.
ok, dug around a little bit, found why the drag around the viewfield was not working, and turns out that was a translate limit setting on the bones, not a rigging thing, I guess.
Select the hip and all child bones in the scene tab, go over to the Parameters, and under 'All' set the lock icon for the three translate controls and click the gear and set the Use Limits to zero and checked off. That is exactly how G8F is set up for the bones by the way.
I'm still working on the weight maps on the scalp to stop the bones from messing with the scalp line. I am still a tad burnt out after that smoothing lingo-decypher thing, lol.
I am very behind on stuff above, and one post I tried to read a day ago and could not grasp I was so burnt out, getting only 2 hours of sleep probably didn't help, lol. FYI, Orange kitty is a stray that hangs around these parts, the same one that slept on the roof of my Blazer years back. Glorius road construction, no sleep for us that day.
I totally misread that as a shader script thing, lol. I like the idea, and it would work better than my attempts to match the scalp mesh angle where they meat. opacity/transparency map sounds good.
before I forget to say it, thanks Syrus_Dante. I just got the weight map symmetry thing working, and am still working on the scalp line. I have a few shape morphs I want to add before I commit an obj for each figure duf thing. The vids really are helping a lot, even the less than 1FPS ones.
Tutorial - Creating Twi'leks in Daz Studio (G2F) - I really bit my tongue on that one, as Google suggested it after a search for "Lekku OBJ". The ear cones do work, the rest requires the Daz Store product to morph the horns into Lekku. It is a great idea, I just don't have the horn set and it is for gen 6, not 8. I was originally looking for an easy to use free prop at first so I could get to other things on my to-do list, however here I am making a posable item instead, lol.
And this is exactly what I want to avoid, making it work by post-processing. That is not going to be good for so many things, lol. I like the fuzzy edge hair trick more and more.
Fixed the posing thing, I think. Still a WIP.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/10487utz1quchoi/TwilekLekku%20WIPdraft0200507uv3_Rigtmp_01010.zip?dl=0
To stick with the Star Wars theme I should have posted this timelapse I found later, same author showing more in depth view of the workflow. The animated expressions in the last seconds are looking shockingly realistic, this guy knows how to setup a face rig.
John Boyega timelapse | Made with Blender
The advantage of this painting technic showen with the diffuse and bump/displacement map: its a low poly geometry and you paint on UV maped texures instead of using recource heavy Polypaint (vertex color) like in ZBrush.
Currently uploading more Youtube videos while the antivirus again starts running crazy and even freezing my mashine. Just at a time where I was editing this post by Ctrl+X cut out half of it then forgetting to paste it somewhere, next copying a video URL then the feeze for the next few minutes and just at the time my cursor starts moving again the forum draft gets saved over and my writings are lost and can not be reverted by Ctrl+Z. Only a reboot helped to continue my work. I think I will need to use a text editor to write my posts in future.
Followed my own advice and updated my Media Player Classic included in the K-Lite Codec Pack that I use since years and occasionally update. https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
Also updating VLC player v2.2.6 to v3.0.4 no surprise that my outdated players refused to show my videos. Yay now I can play and fast forward all my records with Media Player Classic and VLC.
Currently searching a way to edit those videos opening my HitFilmExpress2017 installation I grabed as a free giveaway a while ago. But I havn't found a way to edit those MKV videos in any software yet.
I wonder how to write custom subtitles in youtube to explain a few things that happen in the video.
I also was busy on the Twi'lek project. Here is the video I was talking about earier, recorded on wendsday but didn't get posted here.
DazStudio Twi'lek for G8F 01 Editing ZarconDeeGrissom's Version
DazStudio Twi'lek for G8F 02 Opacity Map
This is showing how I did the opacity map for the screenshots. I've using Blender to show the UV placement and exporting an UV Layout as PNG. Next opening Photoshop and creating a few layers and masks with blur, shrinking the selection by 10 pixels and playing around with the blur width. My Photoshop is set to german language but I just want to show the concept here. This method should be adaptable other image editors like Gimp. with the UV layout on one layer you could define and aling the blur line exacly along some UV edges.
[Edit]: I've attached the opacity map and the UV layout.
DazStudio Twi'lek for G8F 03 Transfer Utility Failed
After running the smooth fit Twi'lek item OBJ through the Figure Setup again the original morphs where lost. But this dosn't mean we can bring them back on the new figure with the use of Transfer Utility.
I was trying around for a while but somehow I couldn't transfer the morphs, by writing this I suddenly realise I could have exported every morph as OBJs and load them back with Morph Loader Pro since the geometry has not been changed. But the Transfer Utility method is much faster and should be adaptable to other items like if you weld unconnected face groups of old Poser items or deleting loose vertices of the original geometry but want to have all the existing morphs in the figure.
At 2:33 you see the Transfer Utility Preforming progress writing "Loaded File: G8F_Twi'lek_Lekku_005" in the log and thats is showing the issue with my transfer attempt.
To have the Transfer Utility working propperly and projecting the morphs you have to save them once into some Daz Studio library / Content Directory. Even the current figure comes from the original scene subset you provided in the dropbox download and is also nowhere saved as an figure asset. This is not the first time Daz Studio had tricked me with that. I mean everytime you edit something like the morphs, rigging or weigth map a new independent version of the item is saved within the scene or subset. This can get realy messy if you edit something in another scene file like saving morph assets and later come back to an older setup scene and you getting conflicts with the existing "unsaved" morphs and the ones you have saved as assets with the same name. I'm talking about these "Duplicated Formulars Found" messages I get with this.
Anyway the next video will be called Transfer Utility Succes where I show how to save the figure asset once into the library with File>Save As>Support Asset>Figure/Prop Asset. Then deleting the figure from the scene and loading the figure asset from the library, because this is neccesary otherwise you would continue to work on the old version. After that the morph transfer did work with no issues.
DazStudio Twi'lek for G8F 03 Transfer Utility Succes
BTW: You see my Daz Studio interface is heavily modified I've added all kinds of extras to the main menu and using customized shortcuts. If you like to know how to change those settings and download these extra menus, toolbars, layout or even the interface color style have a look at my thread: How to Customize Daz Studio - to speed up Workflow!? [WIP]
ok, and the follow along prop is here.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ygjme1v4u2tu414/TwilekTekku%20WIPdraft0200507uv3_Rigtmp_01005.duf.zip?dl=0
Looks cool, and again, thanks. I'll watch them now, as I just finished Buildzoids breakdown vid over at GN.
Yeah, looks like what I was thinking of doing in GIMP. I think the transparent layer bit may be a tad trickier without PS.
Oh, and I am playing with some shaping morphs for the Lekku, it's not ready yet.
ok, I may need to think about this some. I do find that opacity map anomaly effect in the viewfield a tad distracting, if not annoying at times. I wonder if a separate skull cap like with hair would be better, or if it would have the same problem as the original prop with blending in with the figure and lekku. (EDIT, I wonder if setting that up as 2 separate zones would make that better, hmmm)
I appreciate that very much.
Sorry for the current delay of the third video. On sunday I was visiting my parents and celebrating my sisters bithday there.
[Edit_1]: It may sound like an excuse but belive me I allready got this thing that I tried in the last video with the Transfer Utility working and was also transfering the character shapes from Genesis 8 Female over. I just didn't record this to try it once before I show a second fail. Also it would have showen how I save the item under my author name to the library and I'm not shure under which author or product name this item should be saved or released in future. So please give me advice on how to name it, once this is clear we can continue to work and exchange the item saved as an asset to the library, this would also eliminate those problems with creating / transfering morphs. Instead of having a scene subset this would mean we get an compressed package like a ZIP or RAR product, I could even package this up as a DIM zip product installer file.
Now trying to open Daz Studio and for the first time I think I broke my Daz Studio installation. Was working on a big scene lately then for what ever reason Daz Studio freezed up as I tried to close it, the interface was gone but by opening the task manager I saw DazStudio.exe still hanging in there taking 2GB memory. So I thought OK it just don't want to release the memory, I wonder why DazStudio is slow on that cleaning up by closing anyway so I killed the task. Now if I try to open DS the splash sreen remains a white box and the exe is only using 35MB without loading any interface.
I hope reinstalling DazStudio will get me back to the project soon.
I think this Lekku item is a perfect example on how to create a custom rigged figure with the tools in Daz Studio. With the Head bone in place it will become a Conforming item for Genesis 8 Female while a WearAble item has a much broader definition that could also be a simple static prop just parented to the figure. With the opacitiy map it is getting more like a hair item.
[Edit_2]: Let me see if we can make this item fit to multible genesis figure generations. I mean we only have to ERC-Freeze the head bone placment done with Transfer Rigging (Figure Space) to a property for every generation. Then there is this figure ID thing that some edit to fit genesis 3 clothin on genesis 8. But I think this figure ID is meant as an indicator for the conforming item (eg. clothes) to detect on which figure it is fitted to. It may be possible to set the fitting morphs and properties like the head joint automaticly with clever ERC-Freezing and working with the Figure Hierarchy pane. Once I found out how to do it I will show it in some upcomming videos.
That is a good idea just create a seperated surface for the blend area and only apply the opacity map to this. It is a common issue of the preview in the Viewport with transparent objects, I've seen a few threads where people complain about or thinking something is set wrong. You also cant see an transparent object through an transparent object so your figures are looking bald behind windows for example. But there hasn't been any bugfixes on that maybe any change in the way the preview works would just slow it down further.
Currently saw a promotion of Grammarly before a youtube video wondering if this could help me with my writings since I have no idea if this is good english what I'm posting. Maybe thats the problem why people don't understand me because I can't express myself propperly. It's not my native language and beside of this forum I don't talk or write it. Have to check the spelling of a few words from time to time in an online dictonary but try to avoid too much automated corrections because I want to learn to write without them.
Offtopic:
Hybrid facial animation system | Blender
Another interesting software helping with face motion capture. FREE Plugin for Maya.
Faceshift: Markerless Motion Capture
What is faceshift studio?
This is working with a stereo camera like you can buy them on eBay: XBox Kinect 360 or One for about 50 dollars.
mCasual is working on a motion capture plugin for Daz Studio see here:
mcjKinectKit for Kinect V1 and in June 2018 Kinect V2
Kinect V2 kit for Daz Studio Mocap (First Beta )(PcWin)
Before other things take even longer than expected, lol. That is totally understandable as I am looking at two completely different unrelated things as well (core dif between 3DL vs RTX rendering, and DMX control for computer RGB). In short, I have refrained from providing more than a simple scene subset (as obj does not allow for morph dials) simply because with my limited knowledge, saving a daz asset is essentially etching so much in stone that I am not sure about just yet, including where and how many mesh lines, and even (default) UV mapping to name a few. I am not opposed to sharing what I have for others to play with, it's just the extra work of finding all the asset folders to copy the contents to a temp folder tree to make a zip for just the asset is a lot of work in itself. As you see in my last post, simply adding a second set of mesh for a skull cap, would require the new OBJ be re-rigged, if I went that way. Simply put, rigging right now, is just so I can see how the mesh is affected by posing.
As for Grammarly, yes I use it because my English is beyond bad, and I never went past preschool with my primary language, lol. Your writing is very good. The prob I have with Grammarly is it sometimes sends the keyboard off into some odd window-alt-command-thing in the middle of typing (causing Firefox to do odd stuff instead of the characters appearing in the text box), it sometimes removes spaces between words if you pause to think too long causing squished up words it can't figure out what it is supposed to be, and often it will suggest correct spelling words that completely change the meaning of what you intended to type, lol.
And best of all, sometimes you need to refresh forum pages for the green circle to appear and the grammar thing to work. Given Google search word verifications and some vigilance over what Grammarly is doing, it is overall ok. A lot better than just the word spell check in Open Office that I had used for years before Grammarly existed.
As for the, set in stone bit. There are outfits I would Love to take into hex, rearrange the mesh to line up with UV zones that were not there on the original outfit, and then send that back to daz to use.
The problem is, once you start adding and deleting mesh lines, it is no longer the same obj, and a simple morph will not work to keep the PA's fit and bend morphs for the item. Hell, deleting and adding mesh lines in hex will even strip the UV mapping for the OBJ, so something do sort of have an order to do them (Grammarly, what!? so some things do sort of have an order to them), given my limited knowledge. I'm not a big fan of "paying twice for the same piece of real estate" as the saying goes, lol. (FYI, LilFlame's newer stuff is MUCH better. That just happened to be one of a very few G3F items at the time that actually fit G3F without poke-through, making the lack of hem and upper surface zones just bring tears to my eyes)
EDIT, I just noticed the opacity maps on the other post, thanks so much.
I don't own that item but I know what you mean. Well in the past I spent quite some time learning how to use the Transfer Utility to convert old Victoria 4 clothing and hair to Genesis 2 Female.
This was done in times when I had not much clothing, hair content but I found these items suited what I was looking for very well and are done quiet nicely.
Another thread about rigging:
Easiest way to rig a new character - Page 2
The outfit was used in this OpenGL render to show how stupid easy it is to convert a prop into a conforming figure project name cone hat lol.
Tutorial_ConvertPropToFigure_ConeHat_ConformedFigure_Step1_1.png 1214 x 480 - 265K
I was thinking about something like this - guess what movie this is:
yeah, the Nostromo and Narcissus were cool sets.
That's a really cool way to make a static prop wearable. Perhaps if I ever get around to fixing the geometry on something else, I may try that. sitting at 29.3 of 32GB, I need to free up some memory on this pore comp so I can get some work done. I need to move that Tekku upper end out of the scalp so I can play with opacity maps and zones.
I'm always in search for a few more free recources - currently downloading... don't know if you have some of them already?
Cloth and armor is for Victoria & Michael 4 but who cares.
LOL I also found the Victoria 4 Lekku Package
Star Wars Imperial Space Ships:
Star Wars Rebelion Space Ships:
Star Wars Vehicles:
LightSaber and Weapons Update:
Unrelated to Star Wars:
Star Wars Alien Races:
Rebelion Fraction and Jedi Masters:
Imperial Troops:
Robots:
Buildings
Alien
The different developmental stages of the xenomorph alien race in chronological order. First the queen lays eggs, out of it hatches facehuggers, those need humans as hosts, they breed out the chestbusters, even Ridley Scott didn't care about that in the latest successors of this movie series. I have the theory about that he let to much out of hand and cared more about this damn the martian movie. In my opinion the both latest Alien movies pretty much failed in trying to tell the storys origins.
While I think on the other hand dizney did a pretty good job to continue the star wars movie series lately.
Alien - Giger like @ ShareCG
There is also a queen head addon somewhere.
Swidhelm's Predalien @ ShareCG
Alien Egg (final version)
Face-Hugger-2007
FaceHugger 2007 Sample Video
Chestburster Yautja Hybrid for Poser
USS Sulaco Hanger @ ShareCG
Since I got this poseable Power Loader included in the Sulaco Hangar set on my harddrive I wanted to animate a genesis figure inside, I wonder how to rig that?
Aliens USS Sulaco
Yay finaly I found the original Sulaco space ship.
This shop item would go well along with this theme:
KindredArts Projects [Commercial] - Poseidon Station
Narcissus there is a trader for that
OK found it the Vanishing Point version looks accurate
USCMC M240A1 Flamethrower could be done in Blender
Pulse Rifle @ ShareCG
Aliens Smartgun
Aliens-M41-Assault-Rifle
To hire the crew that is another story.
Ripley in search of the missing xeno-morph... the slider must be somwhere around here...
I wonder if there are is any celebrity look alike for Charls Bishop and how I would do the GeoGrafts for let him look like this. °_°
yeah, eons ago, there was a few web forums that discussed the set vs ship models for the various ships. It was quite interesting to see how others tried to morph the set layout to the revised Nostromo models. It's not that I don't have an interest in Aliens stuff, I lack the time or brainpower to work on that stuff with the other dozen in progress projects. I had a short distraction the past day going over stuff I had ordered, and I'm still going through the stuff...
among other distractions in life (like the GN Overclocking live stream tonight at around 7 PM EST).
As for the Lekku, I need to get the outer edge outside of G8F's head and set up a second surface zone for the transition area between objects. The difficulty will also be dealing with the lack of lateral mesh lines makes Sub-D try to suck the outer edge in. That wasn't an issue with the mesh going into the head as it was out of view, it will be an issue I'll need to ad mesh to fix that in place for doing the hair skullcap method. I just haven't had the time in front of the computer the past few days to get into there (That! Grammarly! grrr, lol) when I wasn't already falling asleep on the keyboard (because of life).
Yeah the Aliens stuff may be way too offtoppic, looking over my post I can understand that you may feeling a bit distracted by all these pictures and animated gif's bloating your thread, I can remove some. They may even barley violate the forum TOS. I just was seraching star wars stuff at sharecg and got excided about all these old Alien stuff I found one after another to complete my collection. I should start my own thread for these freestuff collections. BTW sharecg freebie links in general are still alowed here at Daz3D? These are just ideas for my future projects to render some starwars / aliens themed images. While I think there is much more free Star Wars stuff out there, in comparison with the original Alien franchise. Even thought the original Alien themed renders would be more of a challenge to get the feeling and the dark ambience of the scene right with lightning.
In the meantime I hope you find some rest and recover this weekend.
If you are in the mood again to work on the Lekku project I have a few suggestions for you.
First I don't know if I have downloaded your latest subset, you should count up the version number in the subsets and dropdox zips.
While watching the videos again you see there are some distortions on the fitted Lekku, these are coming from the Smoothing Iterations that where set higher, I was experimenting with some of these hidden Collision settings that didn't change anything. To control how close the conforming item is to the head scalp you can add a Push Modifier Weight Node to paint in a weightmap to define how close it should fit in some areas.
I've found a good thread about the Push Modifier, in general weight painting push modifier maps or dFormer influence maps feels almost like a hidden sclupt mode inside of DazStudio:
How to Use a Push Modifier: Creating a Blanket / Adjusting Clothing Fit and More
Also the Smoothing Modifier colision in DazStudio works in a way that it detects the closest surface point on the figure and let the conforming items vertex points colide with that. In combination with the SubD Modifier there are some things to consider. I think to keep the collision calculation fast in DazStudio only the base resolution mesh collides with the base resolution mesh of the conforming item then the actual Smoothing Iterations are applied. While in Blender you can change the priority of modifiers so it is possible to calculate the collisons of subdivided mesh in various ways. Anyway to overcome these geometry issues I would avoid these problematic "in between quads" I have marked in the ...GeometryIssues.jpg the Smoothing Modifier and even the Weight Map Smoothing Brush having issues to smooth these correcly. Maybe delete a few outer polyloops and extrude the tube shape evenly to get some denser mesh in the scalp area and connect both sides in the middle, Smoothing Modifier collision to better fit to the head shape and SubD will benefit from a denser mesh not smoothing the outer edge loop too much.
Attached a few reference images I found with google search. I will stick to attached images instead of imbedded. In general you see female Twi'leks with those head pieces in costumes, its just easier to wear and hide the hairline. While male Twi'leks seem to not wear any head piece and even some having those bulges on the forehead. I was considering this while working on the GeoGraft to sculpt some morphs on the forehead.
I've just made a huge update to the Star Wars freebies list.
yeah, that mesh density was what I was looking at, and yes figure shape projection morphs only work on base mesh data, and that is why so many outfits have problems with 'HD' figures in Daz Studio.
It has been such a chronic issue on Gen7 that fisty had to make an adjustment dial just for that one spot, lol. And it looks like Gen8 may need it as well unless I missed it already being there.
As for other random thoughts, looking at the way that TDP has escalated since the 8600GT days well past the limits of airflow through a PCI slot for cooling.
I almost think GPUs of the future may be facing similar Power delivery issues, as pulses over 300 watts of Logic switching current in that small of a space will be pushing the limits of PCB and interposer amp density limits and self-inductance losses if not already. It's not like the watt densities are not already exceeding some impressive levels in a graphics card, lol.
uGH, Grammarly lost all of that by shifting the KB to alt-code mode (closing this window somehow), grrrr.
Where did the three weight map editing paragraphs go (headdesk)
I give up, time to make coffee then try that again
I fussed with the weight map smoothing thing (Grammarly please don't close this window Again on me), and it does not look like there is a way to get the weight map to fade off to the neighboring bone and no further. And I have not found a simple way to select a loop of points in the weight map editor with that weight map brush thing. Oh and the rate of fill with the brush tool is directly tied to the load on the CPU when the mouse button is held, the less loaded the CPU the faster it goes from nothing to deep red, lol.
It looks like face selecting in the geometry editor and filling manually may be the only way to do that. The problem being that weight maps work on points and the geometry editor works on faces. So the tedious mess I guess is the only way.
Using the geometry editor to select the faces, then switch to weight map mode to fill the weight map. Then repeat it again to clear out the extra loop of points from the former face selects in the geometry editor, for each bone in a chain.
Tedious may be a monumental understatement as this will need to be done for each loop of points of decreased influence on each bone.
Yes, they are.
Basically if something you post is a no-no on the DAZ forums, you should get a private email from a mod who fixes the thread then. At least that's been my experience.
Oh, one of the things your having issues with, is an artifact of me not caring initially what the mesh was doing under the scalp, more than a figure collision thing.
I was trying to get the angle of the quad as close to the scalp as possible and trying to duck the inner mesh away before the sloap of the forehead made the part that was supposed to be hidden visible. By sucking it all out with a Daz Studio giant d-former, your making the ugly mesh visible, lol.
I need to redo all of that, one point at a time to make it all a tad flatter, so it can sit on top of the scalp, instead of dive under it. Plus I somehow managed to get a spiral of mesh going around the head, and need to fix that as well, lol.
Oh, FYI, the scantily clad pics could have been cropped a tad bit, other than that I really didn't have a 'problem' with the post or pics, or animations. Life has just kept me going many directions at once (that is 28 gigs, of Firefox. I don't even have a scene loaded in Studio, it's empty). As for the pics, I actually have mixed feelings about it, because I respect the actress, and at the same time I'm sure I've posted equally scantly dressed 3D figures in this thread. So in the end, I don't know (shrugs), lol.
I'm really sure the rule for 3D figures is no fuzz showing. And I know I had made a point about skirts without skirt protection on reflective floors way back. I think by those basic guidelines, the pics are close however not 'bad' if there 3D figures. Actual people (shrugs), I've watched that movie more times than I care to say and I honestly never noticed how scant that scene was. My eye has always been on the alien hiding in the pips on the wall, lol. And I know I used a screen-cap of that same scene in another thread years ago to emphasize keeping an eye on things lurking in the shadows of daz studio, lol.