Getting smooth-modified clothing from Daz to Hex

kaotkbliss

I got an .obj from share CG that I started modifying. It's mostly good but I noticed a couple spots where the poly's need adjusted. I'm trying to shortcut a ton of editing to make the clothing completely form-fit a G2 model as the original model was created in Max with a custom made character.

This means that most of the clothing has pokethrough, so I used mesh smoothing in Daz to push all the clothing to the surface and remove all the pokethrough. I need to send the clothing back to hex just the way it is now but if I send just the clothing, it removes the smoothing modifier and if I hide the G2 model to export the clothing as an object to import into hex, it also loses the smoothing modifier.
If I try and export the figure and the clothing as an obj, they get merged together and become a single piece.

I've not been able to see if sending the G2 figure and the clothing item to Hex will work because both stop responding when I try.

Any suggestions?

Roygee

Firstly, the smoothing modifier is a DS- only feature. You need to remove that, make sure that the resolution is set to base - same with G2F.

Next, Hex can't handle the high resolution textures on G2.

You should be able to get the clothing modified and fitted in Hex by doing the following, once you have the smoothing modifier off and the figures set to base resolution.

1. Hide the clothing, select G2F and export from DS as .obj - untick "Write groups" and "Write surfaces"
2. Import to Hex at scale factor 1
3. Hide G2F in DS, unhide and select the clothing, doing the same as 1 and 2 above.
4. You should now have the figure and clothing in Hex. Make the changes to the clothing and get it to fit. Save the .hxn file in case of mishaps.
5. Once done, delete G2F in Hex and export the clothing as .obj at scale factor 1.
6. Delete the clothing in DS and import the altered clothing at DS default scale.
7. Apply the transfer utility, convert to sub-D and apply the smoothing modifier.

kaotkbliss

I've never had a problem using the "send to Hexagon" feature in Daz to send of a G2 figure (which I use as a mannequin basically)
And I found that exporting the clothing to FBX keeps the modified form :)

But now it's really huge (resource-wise) and is hanging Daz when trying to send to Hexagon so I'm going to import the fbx version into daz and try to export as an obj and see if I can get the obj to load into Hex.

The reason I haven't directly loaded the clothing into Hex is because there's just way too much work getting the outfit to fit correctly on the G2 model manually which is what I normally do (it's already been resized to the correct height and parts rotated and moved to line up for rigging transfer) but this is a full body-suit with lots of detail that I'll just mess up if I start moving lines, vertecies and faces around.

Roygee

You don't have an issue with sending G2F over the bridge fully textured? I, and everyone else who has reported find it seriously laggy and liable to crash. If you don't have this problem, why not do it that way and save your changes as morphs?

If .fbx keeps the smooth modifier, that is the way to go - export as .fbx, import it back and export as .obj. I've just tested and it works - thanks for the tip:)

You will still need to export the figure and clothing separately to keep them separate in Hex.

BTW, a simple method of getting rid of .obj bloat is to import it into the free UVMapper Classic and export it without doing anything. The way to avoid bloating the .obj in Hex is to save it as .hxn every time you save and only as .obj when finished.

kaotkbliss

That's usually the way I do do it, I'll send the G2 figure and the clothes to hex from Daz using the bridge but this time there's something with the outfit (I think way too many polys as I can't even send it over on it's own) that's causing it to not work this time.

Early this morning I did finally manage to get the altered outfit into hex (export as fbx in daz, import fbx in daz and export as object, import obect into Daz and send over the G2 figure via bridge)

I'm in the process of decimating the outfit now, but I did find that I get errors about 50% of the time when trying to save (in any format) from Hex. Something wasn't created right with the outfit :(

Hopefully by the time I'm done with my edits, whatever that problem is gets fixed.

Roygee

I love a mystery - could you post the link to the item - I'd like to take a look, see if I can spot the problem :)

kaotkbliss

Do you want the original or the one I've been working on?

The original can be found here:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/37787/gallery/5/3D-Model/Tia-human-girl-V-

Roygee

The original is fine, thank. Just downloaded, now to have a look:)

kaotkbliss

I've already converted a few of his models to Daz outfits :), they are a lot of work though. (you can see a couple I've made from his Seraph model in the New user contest WIP thread for March :) )

Roygee

My goodness, you have really set yourself a challenge - I would far rather model from scratch than try to convert :)

Firstly, the mesh is well-constructed and there is nothing wrong with the original - although I hate working with tri's. I used the high poly model and it imports easily into both Hex and Studio. Sending the outfit with G2F over the bridge works and after removing the textures, there is no lag or any other problem. Possibly the outfit you are using became corrupted after all the trials you have made.

The two figures are so disproportionate, that proportional scaling doesn't work and disproportional scaling distorts the outfit.

If I had to do this, I would either rig Cia, or, more easily, morph G2F to fit the outfit. There are a lot of objects in there that I can't work out what they are intended to be - look like they are possibly armatures. I deleted those without any ill-effects.

The challenge is to work out what parts of the outfit are made to deform with the figure and what are rigid, to move with the limbs, but not deform. Don't know how this is done in DS - in Carrara I would parent those to the appropriate limbs.

In the attached pic, I scaled G2F to fit the outfit, although I didn't morph it, so the outfit doesn't move with the limbs - pokethrough is minimal after applying the smoothing modifier and can be easily fixed in Hex.

kaotkbliss

A lot of those extra pieces are the "bones" for 3dsMax and all his models have them in the .obj files. (Must be the way Max exports it's files)

Rigging transfer won't work posing and morphing G2 to fit the outfit (I tried before) So I need to get the outfit to match G2 so I can weight map it and transfer the rigging.

That's why I was trying to get the mesh-smoothed model back into hex, to continue working on it where it's already fit to G2 and I don't need to start pulling and stretching poly's around to make it fit :) Unfortunately the mesh smoothing messed with the wrinkles in the outfit right under the butt cheeks and left some weird lumps there that I want to smooth out in hex.

I managed to get a good copy saved, but decimating the mesh so it would load faster killed the UV mapping :( Been trying to figure out how to create a texture jpg from before the decimation but I may have to go back and use it with full poly's

kaotkbliss

Well here's what I got so far. Still needs some work (need to run the suit back through the FBX conversion as mesh smoothing still needs cranked up to 20 and the boots still need done. As well as adding control bones for the back arm claw things.)

Roygee

Looks like you got it sorted - well done:)

How did you manage to get the suit to match G2F's default pose and deal with the non-proportional scaling?

I'd also like to know what you are doing about the hard parts that need to move with the figure, but not deform. with it. I am not a DS user, but am curious on this score. I've asked a couple of times in other threads, but never got a satisfactory answer, other than to parent them to the bones.

BTW, I took a look at the original, untouched .obj and .3ds UV's in UU3D and they are a complete mess - mostly off the grid. How did you manage to get the texture on the suit?

kaotkbliss

First thing I did was I grabbed a demo for 3ds max (just to make the original posing easier, but in the past I selected a group of faces such as for an arm then rotate and translated them) After getting Max installed, I loaded up the model and got it as close to Daz's T-pose as possible, saved the obj and loaded it into Hex.
Then I deleted all those Max bones and things that aren't needed.

Then I send to Daz and load a G2 figure and just use the overall scale slider to get it as close to size as possible without distorting and send it back to Hex where I begin chopping it up into pieces (sometimes gloves, boots, shoulder pads, etc. are all part of the main suit so I separate them)

I send a G2 figure to Hex and start lining up each of the pieces and scaling them as needed. With this particular project the suit was not scaling good so I sent it to Daz, weight mapped it and transferred the rigging since it now matched the correct T-pose. I then fit it to G2 and applied the smoothing modifier so that it matched G2's shape as well. Saved as Fbx to keep the shape, loaded the fbx, converted to obj.

Sometimes (as with this project) shapes on an object aren't actually part of the object so when it's sent to Daz and fitted, those parts don't push out so I need to send it back to Hex and manually pull out those pieces. With this one, the leg bars were doing that so I selected all the faces and moved them on the X axis to pull them further out from the center.

The textures were all UV mapped so Hex and Daz were able to read them and I ended up not decimating the suit because it would have been just too much of a pain to go in and remap it.

I cheated with the hard parts and left them as part of the suit, but ideally what I would do is cut off each piece then simply parent it to the correct body part in Daz.

So for example, the leg bars I would cut each into 3 pieces, the top ones I would parent to the hip or pelvis, the middle ones would get parented to the thighs and the bottom ones to the shins. That would keep them rigid, yet still move with the appropriate body part. But they might separate depending on the pose. I'm sure there's a better way such as linking them together like a chain but I'm not good with the whole rigging thing yet.

Roygee

Aah -so you used 3DS for the pose - OK, that solves a lot of the mystery:)

Other than that, pretty much what I assumed - still, no solution to the hard armor part, apart from parenting. I was hoping there would be another solution, because Studio will import any object, regardless of how many separate meshes, as a single item, so each little piece has to be made into a separate .obj.

Carrara gives the option of importing as a single object or separate them.

Anyway, well done on a very complex undertaking:)

kaotkbliss

Well, the first couple I did, the cyborg, the seraph (both by rowoss as well) were done all in Hex (it was before I thought of getting the demo for Max which has now run out so it's all back to Hex again LOL)

Roygee

Which forestalls my next question - if you have Max, why go to all that trouble to kitbash?

With all the work you are putting into this kitbshing, I'll bet you have the talent and patience to create your own work:)

kaotkbliss

The trial for Max has run out so I don't have it anymore :(
I'd like to eventually make my own stuff, but there's so much I don't know yet and I'd need lots of practice creating objects in a 3d software. It's a tons easier editing something that's already done than trying to model a suit and have it look good from scratch.

Roygee

Only way to learn is to do:)

Try starting off with one of those models - as simple as you can find. Delete all the materials to make it easier to see, lock it so you don't go selecting any part of it, then build a new mesh over it, using primitives and refining from a rough outline to more and more detail. You'll soon get the hang of it and be making your own in no time:)

kaotkbliss

Someday soon I might start off with some simple stuff. It is time I start learning some of the tools in Hex.

All rigged and ready to go, but I think I need to change the color or add a texture to the arm pieces, maybe make the black parts of the outfit not so black.