Genesis 8, 3 and 2 in Carrara Alt Method

Dartanbeck

I have purchased Misty's Genesis 3 presets for Carrara and have her Genesis 8 versions as well, and in my opinion these are Great!

They can use any morphs collected for the main base figure and, aside from a few minor obstacles work very well as a Carrara version of the official release versions. 

 

I'd like to illustrate an alternate method as well.

For me, it's always been beneficial to stick with earlier versions of Daz figure since it can be problematic for me to invest in replacing everything I've already collected for a newer base figure - like clothing, hair and animations for example. The later being my biggest obstacle.

 

Genesis Generation X2 has been my new tool for converting Genesis 1 (which works very well with Carrara and previous generation figure addons and animations) into shapes of the newer and older generations alike. In fact, it allows us to mix and match to a certain degree as well - but it does not have an addon to include Genesis 8 figures.

I bought Riversoft Art's Character Convertor from Genesis 8 Female to Genesis 3 Female and it works really well and is quite powerful in its use. It does have a problem with eyes for stylized shapes that enlarge the eyes, so for those types of characters. we need to pick a face shape from a different generation or use other morphs to enlarge the eyes and shape the face - but it does work great for bringing Genesis 8 Female figure shapes over to Genesis 3 Female.

So we can use that to convert Genesis 8 shapes to Genesis 3, then use GenX2 to add those new morphs to Genesis 1, and it works great!

We don't get the added bones and such, but the shapes come over well and Genesis 1 is incredibly compatible with Carrara, aniBlock Importer for Carrara, and Carrara's Fit-To for clothing items of previous generations.

Riversoft Art also has a convertor for the males as well: Character Convertor from Genesis 8 Male to Genesis 3 Male

For newer generations of clothing (Genesis 2 and newer) I have purchased all of SickleYield's clones that I need for these conversion processes. I don't worry about something that can convert all the way down to Genesis 1 since I can convert clothes that I have already converted.

 

We use Daz Studio to convert the clothing and store the conversions in our library

 

SickleYield offers some great advice on this stuff, so it's good to read through anything and everything that she includes. It's all very good to know. 

Here are some helpfuls:

• Using auto-fit works fine for one-off use. But if we want to add a converted item to our library, use the Transfer Utility instead.
• Never attempt to work with a freshly converted item. Save it as a figure asset to your library first. Delete it and load it from the library.
• I save my converted assets under the appropriate name for the item in the appropriate generations library

 

So let's run a full example of converting a clothing item from Genesis 8 Female to Genesis:

 

1. The clothing is made for G8F already, so we don't need to have her in the scene. Let's begin by loading in Genesis 3 Female, then deselecting her and load in Genesis as we'll need both of those for the Transfer Utility
2. With both figures deselected, load in the G8F garment item
3. start the transfer utlity
4. The upper left set of options (Source) are where we load the target Figure - so use the drop-down to select Genesis 3 Female
5. Next option down, use the drop-down to select Clone > Genesis 8 Female
6. On the right set of options (Target) choose the garment
7. Expand the dialog to show advanced options
8. Put a check in "Reverse Source Shape from Target"
9. At the very bottom, confirm that "Fit to Target" is checked, but I like to uncheck "Parent To" (easier to save afterward)
10. Run the Transfer

Use the eyeball icons on the left of both Genesis and Genesis 3 Female to hide them both

We'll now see a converted garment

Before doing anything else, go File > Save As > Figure Asset

Save under People > Genesis 3 Female > Clothing > "________________"

Delete the garment from the scene

Find the new garment just saved in the library (People > Genesis 3 Female > Clothing > "________________") and load into the scene

1. start the transfer utlity
2. The upper left set of options (Source) are where we load the target Figure - so use the drop-down to select Genesis
3. Next option down, use the drop-down to select Clone > Genesis 3 Female
4. On the right set of options (Target) choose the garment
5. Expand the dialog to show advanced options
6. Put a check in "Reverse Source Shape from Target"
7. At the very bottom, confirm that "Fit to Target" is checked, but I like to uncheck "Parent To" (easier to save afterward)
8. Run the Transfer

Before doing anything else, go File > Save As > Figure Asset

Save under People > Genesis> Clothing > "________________"

 

We'll now have a G3F and a Genesis version of the clothing.

Dartanbeck

Of course, fit-to or not, VWD Cloth and Hair can make anything fit our people - no matter what they are - at least in Carrara it works like that.

Carrara is such a powerful tool in how we can completely alter anything we bring in - for better or for worse, depending on what we're after.

 

All of the plugins we have available along with VWD, Fluidos and all of Philemo's additions, we have a Rockin' set of tools for getting what we want with only a smidgeon of imagination/inspiration.

 

The more I see the example videos of PyCloid and PyCarrara, the more I want to start experimenting with those, too. There's so much to try and so little time! :D

SileneUK

Dartanbeck said:

Of course, fit-to or not, VWD Cloth and Hair can make anything fit our people - no matter what they are - at least in Carrara it works like that.

Carrara is such a powerful tool in how we can completely alter anything we bring in - for better or for worse, depending on what we're after.

 

All of the plugins we have available along with VWD, Fluidos and all of Philemo's additions, we have a Rockin' set of tools for getting what we want with only a smidgeon of imagination/inspiration.

 

The more I see the example videos of PyCloid and PyCarrara, the more I want to start experimenting with those, too. There's so much to try and so little time! :D

I have struggled with VWD. Maybe I have the wrong version, but I did buy it. It is probably me.

Thanks for the above tut, really really useful!    SIlene

SileneUK

Double post..ack.

Dartanbeck

SileneUK said:

I have struggled with VWD

Like many things, it does require a bit of practice. I have upgraded to version 2, which includes "Assistant" modes that help (me) immensely.

When I free up some time, I'll do some more tutorials on it. I do, however, have a bit of a mini tut in this video:

Simulation/Animation/Compositing Workflow Demonstration - Dartanbeck.com

Stezza

great info @dartanbeck as usual.. 

one question though.. does the character converter work on the new 8.1 models?

the only app I have is the Gen x2 which is awesome and haven't bought anything much in the way of G8... I think a muppet is about it lol

Dartanbeck

I'm not sure. I think they (Daz 3d) mentioned that 8.1 is not backward compatible with 8. Shapes for 8 will work on 8.1 but not the other way around. If that's the case, I doubt it. And if that is the case, I wouldn't doubt that Riversoft Art is working on a new convertor. Just a guess.

Dartanbeck

Speaking of Genesis 8.1

Faba made that cool demonstration of Fenric's ERC for Carrara, using controllers to operate hand movements and gestures. We could use that same principle to operate facial morphs if we liked that workflow.

But we could take it so much further in Carrara, like having widgets that control arms up/down, front/back, shoulders, etc., etc.,

 

Truly, if I could only use One piece of software for my animation work, it would be Carrara hands down!

The incredible power of tweeners, animated Everything, total 'on-the-fly' editing of anything, multipass rendering, graph editing (real graph editing, I mean), oh for crying out loud... this list wouldn't really stop anytime soon!

I'm feeling eager to try so many things right now but too busy pushing forward....

Dartanbeck

So my method is to do all of this heavy morph lifting in Daz Studio, then create the character I want and save as a Character Preset. Now it loads in both Studio as well as Carrara - unlike how I used to build my characters.

Mistara

Dartanbeck said:

So my method is to do all of this heavy morph lifting in Daz Studio, then create the character I want and save as a Character Preset. Now it loads in both Studio as well as Carrara - unlike how I used to build my characters.

DS is a powerful plug in coulnt save autfit as morph assets without it.  

invisigoth

Dartanbeck, when i open transfer utility, i select Genesis 3 Female in the source

but the "Next option down, use the drop-down to select Clone > Genesis 8 Female" i dont have genesis 8 female or male

WendyLuvsCatz

invisigoth said:

Dartanbeck, when i open transfer utility, i select Genesis 3 Female in the source

but the "Next option down, use the drop-down to select Clone > Genesis 8 Female" i dont have genesis 8 female or male

grab Catherine's freebies 

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/491296/auto-fit-clones-genesis-through-to-g8-reup#latest

Dartanbeck

Yes, and Sickleyield sells them too. Clones are our friends!

 

Bunyip02

https://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?mature=true&q=sickleyeild+clones