Renderotica

I've seen many postings on the Internet on transferring the high resolution UV maps from the Golden Palace color shell to to the Golden Palace object so when exported via FBX in DAZ Studio and the Golden Palace mesh gets merged into the character as a single mesh, the UV maps are all messed up. All I've found including from the supplier of Golden Palace, is using the DAZ Map Transfer tool or using the Blender Diffeomorphic plug-in that changes all the vertex point indexes making the character useless in other 3D applications.

But I just found out a better and much easier way that also enables the user to use the existing high resolution Golden Palace designed for the shell object.  Heres how:

With a character in DAZ with the Golden Palace Gens and Shell installed.

1. Select the Golden Palace shell.

2. Click on the Surface Tab and make Editor mode is selected.

3, There will be five items within the long list that has the name starting with GoldenPalace. 

4. Find the first one with Libia Minora in the prefix. 

5. Clicking little arrow expanding icon and look for an item tabled "Geometry"

6. Expand the Geometry item.

7. Look for the item UV Maps. Click it.

8. Right-click the UV Map and a menu appears, Click "Copy Selected Surfaces".

9. Now select the Golden Palace Gens object in the character tree.

10. Do the same steps 2 - 8 above, except on step 8 select the menu option "Paste Selected Surfaces".

Done! If you turn off the shell, you see the texture and the UV map has been transferred.When I  export via FBX and load the character in Cinema 4D, II can delete the Golden Palace objects and bones leaving only the character object, The Golden Palace gens are merged into the character as one mesh and as well as one UV map that includes the UV mapping for the shell. 

When doing this process, don't transfer the two GoldenPalace surfaces that have the suffix "torso" as this will over write your character UVs and textures.

 

 

 

Hi Masterstroke:

I just tried it and requires an additional step to modify texture image file because it includes base character's torso which Golden Palace has a separate material for the torso, hence why in my last part of my instructions not to copy the torso maps.

Here's how you do transfer 3feetwolf's UV Mapping:

1. Perform the same steps in my original posting above for Golden Palace.

2. Remove the 3feetwolf's alpha/opacity image from your new material.

3. Make a copy of all your base character's torso texture image files.

4. Using an image editing application (Photoshop, Paint.Net, etc), re-size all the images down to 1024 x 1024. This is the size of 3feetwolf's textures.

5. Or better yet, don't resize the copies of the character's torso texture image files, and increase the 3feetwolf's textures size to match character's torso texture image size.

6. If you look at the 3feetwolf's textures, you'll see on the very bottom in the middle, what should be from your character's torso's "gen" area but all pink looking.

7. I loaded the 3feetwolf's image and my character's torso image in Paint.Net as separate layers so the images are aligned the same.

8. With the 3feetwolf's texture layer selected, create a selection around the the "torso gen" shape, doesn't have to perfect and a little bigger is safer,

9. Switch to your character's torso layer and invert the selection then delete. All you should have left is just the "gen" area from your torso image,

10. Move the character's torso layer over the 3feetwolf's layer. Your character's torso "gen area" should now be replacing the 3feetwolf's pink looking "gen" area.

11. Repeat these steps for all the other 3feetwolf's images (Normal, Bump, etc,)

Done!

NOTE: One additional step that applies to 3feetwolf's and Golden Palace, is the transfer of the UV maps creates a sharp transition between the torso and the Libia Minora. I fixed this in Cinema 4D by adding the polygons that surrounds the Libia Minora to the material selection tag and adding an feathered opacity image so the two materials overlap with a smooth transition. You could also modify the newly created 3feetwolf's / Golden Palace images and use some of character's torso texture color.

Over, this is the best method of merging UV maps, because unlike using the DAZ Map Transfer tool that results in a huge loss of texture resolution, this method I've outlined results in no loss texture resolution.

If anyone has challenges with this process, let me know and I'll create an new posting including 3feetwolf's and Golden Palace a .png file with all the polygons outlined in thin black lines that can be used as an overly guide to make clean image transitions. I used this to make more realistic bump and displacement maps on the "hood area" and other areas.

I merged all the torso UV selections into the character's material. I I could post a FBX file to this forum you could simply cut and paste the UV tag , as the UVs are the sane regardless of your characters shape.

So while this did work, I finally decided to spend about 36 solid hours with Diffeomorphic the last 2 days and was able to find a way to copy the UVs and merge the shell and geograft with 2 clicks in blender. Total game changer. I've got a pipeline to UE I'm working on that gives a lot of control to add giggle bones and such too.

Unfortunately, my original tutorial posting described how to transfer the UV maps from the shell to the character, but I didn’t cover what you do with them.

First as a reminder, when exporting from DAZ to another 3D application you don’t want to export the shell, so once the UVs are transferred in DAZ, delete the shell in DAZ before exporting. This is because during the DAZ exporting process, the Geoshell geometry mesh gets merged into the character geometry mesh as a single object, but the shell gets exported as a static separate geometry mesh and no longer has any value (as well as it won’t move with the character).

Second, it’s important to understand what DAZ does Geoshell geometry mesh materials during the exporting process. Even so the Geoshell geometry mesh has been merged with character geometry mesh, it still exports Geoshell geometry’s materials and UV selections as separate materials. This is why users will see more than one “Torso” material.

For users that don’t know how 3D materials are exported, I’ll give a quick description. Except for eyelashes and brows, your character is a single 3D geometry object made of polygons. Each polygon (and its four corner points) is assigned a unique ID number. All Genisis 8 females with the Golden Palace Geoshell have the same ID number regardless of the body shape. This is an important note as once a new UV map is created, it can be simply copied to other characters, again regardless of their shape. The UV map tells the 3D application where to put the flat 2D materials (images, colors, displacement, etc.) on the geometry mesh, hence why its called UV wrapping. On our Genisis 8 female characters, we want to use more than one material for the single geometry mesh. To manage this, a polygon selection tag is exported for each material. Each polygon selection tag tells the 3D application what collection of polygons belongs to each material (using their ID numbers). Since the UV map is flat (2D), some if the maps polygons can be very small even if the geometry mesh polygons are very large. This results in material to look “blurry” or lack of detail a common issue with the Golden Palace (and all other gens products).

When DAZ exports, it creates a polygon selection tag for each material including one for each material from the Geoshell including the polygons that overlap with characters polygons (this is where the additional Toros materials are coming from).

To use the exported materials (images) without modifications, it’s best to “merge” as many polygon selection tags as possible and delete the redundant materials. This will greatly reduce render time because the 3D application doesn’t have to load the same images multiple times. The other benefit of doing this is when using a high-end render engine such as Arnold, VRay or Redshift like I do. When using Sub Surface Scattering (SSS), most render engines will have “bleed” where two materials come together. This can show up as dark or gray seams. This is why I merge the lips and ears to the single face material and delete the separate lip and ear materials.

For Golden Palace (and other gen products), I don’t simply do what many others do by just merging the selections tags. I merge some of the Golden Palace UV polygons to the Torso material where the polygons are already small and don’t require the detail, so I have more room to expand the remaining Golden Palace UV polygons to obtain more detail and hide the material seams.

Since this process is unique to each 3D application, I can’t explain how to do this. I can though create a FBX file that you could import into your 3D application then simply delete your character’s existing materials tags, selection tags, and UV tag, and copy and paste the tags from my FBX imported file. If interested, someone will need to explain how to attach a file to this forum.

Bruce

 

Hi Astor,

I didn't see a reply (until now) so I thought you figured it out.

By looking at you pictures, it looks like all the shell material properties were transferred which includes a transparency mask. You need to go to the "Surface" and in the Geometry section where there is a Cutout Opacity. If there is an transparency mask, click the icon of the left of the slider and when the drop down menu appears, select "None".  You' need to do this on all GP surfaces.

Let the forum know if this fixes your problem.

Bruce,