DAZ Studio / 3D-Coat - Morph Creation

Renpatsu

I am trying out 3D-Coat at the moment and wonder, if I got something wrong in my workflow to e.g. create morphs or shape adjustments for DAZ Studio objects.

Currently I am using the following steps, which as of now fail:

1) Load e.g. a clothing item into DAZ Studio (TriAx weight mapped clothing item with handles, base resolution)
2) Export to obj out of DAZ Studio with "Daz Studio" settings
3) Import the exported object into 3D-Coat as "Reference Mesh"
4) Switch to "Tweak" room and tweak around, e.g. smoothing
5) "Export Model" from 3D-Coat, again with default settings (low resolution mesh)
6) Import of said new object in DAZ Studio yields a slightly different vertex count, so e.g. Morph Loader fails as well complaining about the geometry not being the same.

My observations so far:
* The scaling appears to be correct on export/import.
* Comparing the old versus the new, the count of triangles / quads / faces is identical (according to "Scene Info" in DAZ Studio)
* The count of vertices differs, however, with the old being 18208 and the new being 18018 in an example
* It doesn't appear to matter how the object is grouped on export, just that in 3D-Coat I either end up with multiple object groups or only one. The end result is the same.

Does anyone have a hint as for what to look out for? At least to me it is at the moment not that obvious, if I missed an option there or per chance a setting in 3D-Coat. As far as I know the "Tweak" room is supposed to keep the model intact (contrary to "Voxel" room).

Thank you in advance :)

SickleYield

And there you have why I don't use 3dCoat for morphing, only for texturing. I never did figure out the answer to this.

Richard Haseltine

I was able to take Genesis in, morph it, export and load as morph in DS - when I figured out how to freeze the morph so it exported, instead of just altering the normals. I used File>Import>Model for per pixel painting in 3DCoat rather than using one of the start screen options, and I told it not to auto-centre in the dialogue (with all other check boxes off). I then exported with everything unchecked (actually, I had the Add Morph option on - but I didn't get an extra OBJ just now, though I had yesterday) and the result loaded as a (very bad) morph in DS.

Renpatsu

Thank you for the replies to the both of you :)

Wondering if it is perhaps caused due to the handles, some grouping issues, or perhaps a misguided model, though I think I tried at least every grouping approach possible. I will post in the 3D-Coat forums as well, I was just hoping that someone in DAZ realm already had a quick hint here :)

Dream Cutter

The fact you said the OBJ is being imported as a "reference shape" suggests that the object will be retopo'ed rather than having the original mesh morphed. This may be because the app is limited to voxel structures. Its been a few years since I tried 3DC. so I dont have an exact answer.

millighost

Renpatsu said:

Thank you for the replies to the both of you :)

Wondering if it is perhaps caused due to the handles, some grouping issues, or perhaps a misguided model, though I think I tried at least every grouping approach possible. I will post in the 3D-Coat forums as well, I was just hoping that someone in DAZ realm already had a quick hint here :)

3dcoat does not load unused vertices, i.e. vertices that are not part of a face. If you have a single mesh, this should not be a problem, because there are no unused vertices. But if you have for instance a poser item (V4 clothing or so), the mesh is made of multiple parts which are "welded" at load-time. "Welding" means it makes one vertex out of two vertices if they have the same position. And since it must not change the total number of vertices (otherwise morphs will not work any more) it generates unconnected vertices instead.
I think if you could figure out how to import and export an obj-file containing only 1 vertex, say this one:

# obj data containing only one vertex
o myobject
v 0 0 0

you could probably also do morphs of more complex objects with unconnected vertices. Unfortunately i do not know, how. A workaround could be to process the obj-file with a script to generate faces for those unconnected vertices (or even to make a daz script that exports an obj file without unconnected vertices; that would make a nice exercise for learning some daz scripting :-).

Renpatsu

Dream Cutter said:

The fact you said the OBJ is being imported as a "reference shape" suggests that the object will be retopo'ed rather than having the original mesh morphed. This may be because the app is limited to voxel structures. Its been a few years since I tried 3DC. so I dont have an exact answer.

I also tried the "pixel painting" import and basically the same happens, but as I am new to experimenting with 3D-Coat I might miss something. Unfortunately the manual is not that much in depth there and also resources concerning morphing appear to be sparse.

...

3dcoat does not load unused vertices, i.e. vertices that are not part of a face. If you have a single mesh, this should not be a problem, because there are no unused vertices. But if you have for instance a poser item (V4 clothing or so), the mesh is made of multiple parts which are "welded" at load-time. "Welding" means it makes one vertex out of two vertices if they have the same position. And since it must not change the total number of vertices (otherwise morphs will not work any more) it generates unconnected vertices instead.
I think if you could figure out how to import and export an obj-file containing only 1 vertex, say this one:

# obj data containing only one vertex
o myobject
v 0 0 0

you could probably also do morphs of more complex objects with unconnected vertices. Unfortunately i do not know, how. A workaround could be to process the obj-file with a script to generate faces for those unconnected vertices (or even to make a daz script that exports an obj file without unconnected vertices; that would make a nice exercise for learning some daz scripting :-).

Interesting ... and that would explain the differences between Genesis and the clothing Item at least ...

Dream Cutter

While there are modelers that will import and export modified obj mesh without changing vertices count, its an involved process. ZBrush is great, however this 3dBlacksmith does what you want very well. Its made for morphing Poser and DAZ figures specifically and its much more affordable [edit -than ZBrush] . http://www.blacksmith3d.com/main/

Renpatsu

Dream Cutter said:

While there are modelers that will import and export modified obj mesh without changing vertices count, its an involved process. ZBrush is great, however this 3dBlacksmith does what you want very well. Its made for morphing Poser and DAZ figures specifically and its much more affordable. http://www.blacksmith3d.com/main/

Thank you for the tip :)

Morphing and texture painting is only one aspect I am after though, voxel modeling / retopo etc. are others. 3D-Coat is simply quite affordable in that regard, not to mention that I automatically fell in love with the user interface without requiring much introduction :)

Renpatsu

For anyone interested / wanting to chime in, I created a thread on 3D-Coat forums. There is no solution to this problem though, yet.

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15596

carlosa

Andrew (administrator)
2014-01-17 14:31
Try to import for perpixel painting and ensure that welding is OFF in import settings.