Answering DAZ questions!

[31971207]

Question about subD and textures. I keep reading about increasing subD to get the best of textures, so even if the character is not HD i.e. everything bought outside Daz3D.com will be capped at subD2, should still render at subD4. So I look at my characters and they all just have one set of textures at fixed resolution, I think they are 4K. If I am rendering at 1080P and not 4K, how does going from subD2 to subD4 improve the textures in the render?

 

[KiaAzad]

how does going from subD2 to subD4 improve the textures in the render?

it doesn't.
SubD is for dividing the geometry and doesn't do anything for the texture, the only case it can effect the look of your texture is if you have a bump map and it needs more faces to move up and down to create finer bumps.

 

[recreation]

thin coat: makes it look oily or wet.

"Top Coat" or "Thin Film"?

31971207 regarding shaders, Kia is right for the most part, so here is a more general explanation of shaders: https://f95zone.to/threads/daz-iray-pantyhose-meshes.47046/post-3109906
Regarding subdivisions: please note that higher Subdivision levels can (will) impact performance: https://f95zone.to/threads/answering-daz-questions.46468/post-3118852

 

[31971207]

Sorry about asking so many questions, this one is about breasts and nipples. I don't do super size breasts so Breastaculuar+Headlights is probably not for me. I like the looks of High Resolution Nipples but I also see that Breast Control and Breast Utilities have HD areloa and HD nipples, respectively. I think High Resolution Nipples is just textures and its areloa looks flat. Does High Resolution Nipples geograft cancel out the HD morphs of the other two breast packages?

As for getting the breasts to adjust with gravity and collision, which package is the easiest to use? Breastacular vs. Breast Control vs. Breast Utilities?

Thanks again.

 

[PJWhoopie]

Ok... I've been trying to put what I am learning here into practice... so I will post my 3rd ever Render, and ask a question.

Here it is... "guard duty"

While there are lots of things wrong, and plenty of room for improvement, what I'd like to know is how to fix that loose looking bra strap?
The asset is "Daz3d Primal. I highlighted the "top", and tried to see if there were any "fitting" sliders but couldn't find any.
Ideas?

 

[Yonamous]

Ok... I've been trying to put what I am learning here into practice... so I will post my 3rd ever Render, and ask a question.

Here it is... "guard duty"
View attachment 586870
While there are lots of things wrong, and plenty of room for improvement, what I'd like to know is how to fix that loose looking bra strap?
The asset is "Daz3d Primal. I highlighted the "top", and tried to see if there were any "fitting" sliders but couldn't find any.
Ideas?

There are a few ways to do that. You can get Mesh Grabber (https://f95zone.to/threads/mesh-grabber-1-0-0.42430/) which will allow you move parts of the clothing around after highlighting those areas. Or you can get Fit Control (https://f95zone.to/threads/fit-control-add-on-for-genesis-3-8-female.30184/) which will add sliders to the object.

 

[PJWhoopie]

Getting a Character to hold something...

G8F... I'd like her to hold the freakin' spear.

I have "1001 Spear Poses Mega Pack", but I click the character, click the pose and the Spear is rotated in a different direction and nowhere near her hand.

I parent the spear to her hand... select a pose, and its as if she is just trying to piss me off.

There has to be an easy way... right?

Please tell me there is an easy way.....

 

[KiaAzad]

G8F... I'd like her to hold the freakin' spear.

You just have to add the spear to the character and it should stick to the hand, after that you just pose the character and the spear follows like a piece of clothing.
reset all transforms on your spear and let the character pose take care of the rest.
if it's an imported asset and not fitted to the character, make a new scene, add the character with the default pose, add the spear and transfer utility from the figure to the prop, it's better if you place the spear in the correct place before importing

 

[mickydoo]

You just have to add the spear to the character and it should stick to the hand, after that you just pose the character and the spear follows like a piece of clothing.
reset all transforms on your spear and let the character pose take care of the rest.
if it's an imported asset and not fitted to the character, make a new scene, add the character with the default pose, add the spear and transfer utility from the figure to the prop, it's better if you place the spear in the correct place before importing

If you move the hand the spear/object will stay put. You need to select the hand so it opens in the scene tab, then select the spear in the scene tab and drag the spear into the hand

 

[KiaAzad]

drag the spear into the hand

ow yeah, I forgot about parenting. I've forgot the simple solution and jumped to the complicated one

 

[PJWhoopie]

I thought that is what I had done. If you look at my screen shot, the scene tab is open, and I hightlighted the spear which is parented with the left hand. Yet... as if by using the force, it doesn't go "to" the hand.

I have my character... highlight the G8F in the Scene panel. Find the spear I want in Content library. Click AWO spear, with G8F selected, and it put the spear in some random place, no where near here hand.

I parent the spear to the hand... but drag and dropping the name of the spear in the scene panel on top of the Left Hand callout in the scene panel, and nothing happens.

I then change the pose, and the G8F moves, but the spear stays in place.

I am sure its operator error... I just can't figure out what magic I need to perform.

 

[osanaiko]

it doesn't.
SubD is for dividing the geometry and doesn't do anything for the texture, the only case it can effect the look of your texture is if you have a bump map and it needs more faces to move up and down to create finer bumps.

Technically I think that the bump map has nothing to do with the sub-d level. The bump operation is applied on the calculation of light reflection on the surface, but does not affect the mesh geometry.

You are thinking of Displacement. For displacement the mesh is subdivided (often to quite high levels) and the vertexes are moved along the average face normal a distance depending on the image intensity at the corresponding point of the uvmap.

In Daz, the subdivision level can be set at the figure setup level (in Daz, this is the the Parameters -> General -> Mesh Resolution settings) or in the shader level (in the Surfaces tab, under the Geometry section of the standard shader is the Displacement tab).
In the shader, if you set a image map, and also set the displacement level higher than 0, then you some more controls appear, one of which is the "SubD level". The subD in the figure setup and the subd in the shader are added together to get the final subD level. This can create literally millions of triangles in your final mesh, which can give you a hit on your render speed....

Displacement basically lets you move a lot of mesh detail to an image map, and make the render engine do the hard work - you can get some interesting effects.

 

[KiaAzad]

You are thinking of Displacement

exactly, though, I haven't seen any displacement option in daz and assumed bump is how daz refers to displacement, like always just wrote down my assumption without testing because I'm lazy

 

[PJWhoopie]

4th Attempt at Creating and image and Rendering.

Progress.... I still struggle with placing things in hands that are not native to the figure (see gen2 era lute below)... But I am getting there.
Some of you recommended mesh grabber, so I got it, and that helps... but often I push/pull the underlying item and forget to just select the item I want to manipulate... ugghh.

I'm exploring some characters for a game concept... here is my 4th ever Render.

 

[Yonamous]

4th Attempt at Creating and image and Rendering.

Progress.... I still struggle with placing things in hands that are not native to the figure (see gen2 era lute below)... But I am getting there.
Some of you recommended mesh grabber, so I got it, and that helps... but often I push/pull the underlying item and forget to just select the item I want to manipulate... ugghh.

I'm exploring some characters for a game concept... here is my 4 ever Render.

View attachment 593284

Hands are always an issue as even Gen 8 doesn't have enough maneuverability for the hands.

 

[31971207]

How do I fix this? The only breast morph dials in the pic are Daz's own body morph with Breast Size = 100, Breast Natural = 100 and Breast Heavy = 30. I've tried every dial on Breast, Chest and Rib Cage and nothing worked. Everything but zero all Breast dials where the body has a flat chest (Daz HD Body Morph Casual 100) or using only the Breast Implant morph results in this unnatural underboob.

 

[osanaiko]

How do I fix this? The only breast morph dials in the pic are Daz's own body morph with Breast Size = 100, Breast Natural = 100 and Breast Heavy = 30. I've tried every dial on Breast, Chest and Rib Cage and nothing worked. Everything but zero all Breast dials where the body has a flat chest (Daz HD Body Morph Casual 100) or using only the Breast Implant morph results in this unnatural underboob.

View attachment 595467

The underlying issue here is that all 3d characters are made of a mesh of points. The way that morphs work is that the vertexes of the original mesh are moved into new positions in a separate 3d software and the new shape is saved. The morphed mesh is loaded back into the Daz program, and a slider is setup that will interpolate the position of the affected vertexes between the original and the morph positions. More than one slider can be used at a time, and the sum of the positional changes will take affect on the relevant mesh points.

Whoever made the morph mesh for the sliders that are not doing what you want must not have paid enough attention to some of the vertexes at the join between the body and the underbreast - at least when they are used in combination.

Note that in my experience, extreme sized boobs or other body morphs often cause issues with poke-though on any clothing, or collisions with arms etc on various preset poses. It's generally harder to get a render setup to look good with unrealistic, ludicrous size morphs, unless it is naked t-poses that crank your handle.

However, all hope is not lost! There are several different breast morph packs around. Try looking in the Asset Releases forum and try some of them out. Hopefully you'll find something to satisfy,

 

[31971207]

The underlying issue here is that all 3d characters are made of a mesh of points. The way that morphs work is that the vertexes of the original mesh are moved into new positions in a separate 3d software and the new shape is saved. The morphed mesh is loaded back into the Daz program, and a slider is setup that will interpolate the position of the affected vertexes between the original and the morph positions. More than one slider can be used at a time, and the sum of the positional changes will take affect on the relevant mesh points.

Whoever made the morph mesh for the sliders that are not doing what you want must not have paid enough attention to some of the vertexes at the join between the body and the underbreast - at least when they are used in combination.

Note that in my experience, extreme sized boobs or other body morphs often cause issues with poke-though on any clothing, or collisions with arms etc on various preset poses. It's generally harder to get a render setup to look good with unrealistic, ludicrous size morphs, unless it is naked t-poses that crank your handle.

However, all hope is not lost! There are several different breast morph packs around. Try looking in the Asset Releases forum and try some of them out. Hopefully you'll find something to satisfy,

Strange thing is I decided to junk the character and started a new one. Using the exact same morphs and sliders and the unnatural underbreast protrusion is much less obvious. So I compared the two characters in Parameters and set the Currently Used sliders same for both. One has the obvious protrusion and the other much less so. Same morphs and sliders. The only difference is the unnatural one has had many morphs installed and uninstalled over her creation. Does uninstalled morphs leave traces that cannot be undone?

EDIT: The underbreast protrusion is not just at large breasts. It happens even on flat chests with Natural breast slider more than 10. Dialing any slide up, all Daz Original, other than Breast Implant will result in this protrusion for the first character.

 

[osanaiko]

Strange thing is I decided to junk the character and started a new one. Using the exact same morphs and sliders and the unnatural underbreast protrusion is much less obvious. So I compared the two characters in Parameters and set the Currently Used sliders same for both. One has the obvious protrusion and the other much less so. Same morphs and sliders. The only difference is the unnatural one has had many morphs installed and uninstalled over her creation. Does uninstalled morphs leave traces that cannot be undone?

EDIT: The underbreast protrusion is not just at large breasts. It happens even on flat chests with Natural breast slider more than 10. Dialing any slide up, all Daz Original, other than Breast Implant will result in this protrusion for the first character.

Well that does sound strange.

There are also "hidden" morphs that generally are not intended to be used manually, but are instead linked to other morph sliders or to positioning of joints (Joint Controlled Morphs). You can see these morph sliders if you enable "Show Hidden Properties" in the Pane Option menu of the Parameters tab. Perhaps your "first character" has something left over in one of these sliders.

Having said that, the approach you have taken of throwing away the borked character and redoing your designs is very sensible and useful. Daz is not a simple or transparent software and some errors are just inexplicable or not reproducible.

I have learned through experience that it is better to write down your steps to re-create a character from the various presets and morph slider settings. This way you can always get back to the same look, even if the DUF file you have spent weeks with for a whole series of renders gets corrupted and you have no backups. ASK ME HOW I KNOW THIS.

I'm not bitter. lol

 

[Alexios8118]

Daz studio is keep crashing after saving face transfer data on Windows 10 it worked before but now keep crashing.