Can any software guru's come up with a texture converter for figures other than the Universal Texture Converter than only does DAZ figures?  It would be great if we could convert from Posette to P4,P5 and P6,Miki,Apollo and the DAZ figures.I know it is a big ask,but what a great product it would be! Cheers

I wish! There was once a Photoshop action for converting Poser 4 to Poser 3 textures I think. I would love to be able to have an automated way to convert between Posett/Dork and M2/V2. V3 to Miki would be neat too.

I have often wondered if someone could join forces with the maker of the Universal Texture Converter and make a third party plugin for above mentioned. It seems to happen with other software.Cheers

It is a pity that UTC only does daz figures and now seems to be abandoned.

It would be a great product if it could use (much) more figures, like wardrobe wizard.

The task isn't as hard as it might seem. The trick is in matching the object geometries and then relating this via the UV co-ordinates to the texture map. Thus if you want to convert a P4W map to P6W, you take a polygon on P4W, find the pixel reference on the map, find the equivalent pixel reference on the P6W map, and then translate the fragment of bitmap to the new position.

Writing the converter program is less of a job than getting the figure translation, since there are stock routines for image manipulation you can draw on. I think this is why DarkWhisper would be reluctant to co-operate with a third-party plugin.

Quote - It is a pity that UTC only does daz figures and now seems to be abandoned.

It would be a great product if it could use (much) more figures, like wardrobe wizard.

There may not have been any program updates but Dark Whisper put out two new plugins not too long ago (Young teens and Mill 3 baby)

There was a request for apollo, but dark whisper didn't think there was enough demand (a poll was taken) so it wasn't worth his time to produce it. If apollo can't get enought support then i doubt the Poser people would get enough support.

I did say that it is a pity that UTC only does daz figures.

Like the Mil 3 Baby is going to be useful! What V3 texture is going to look sensible on the Mil 3 Baby? Or M3 texture for that matter?

I would think there would be interest for the P6 figures, since far more people have them than have Apollo.

The mil 3 baby is a strange choice, because adult textures don`t work for it and there are not a lot of p4 baby textures.

OK, I think we should have an informal comp for the weirdest looking result achieved by converting a V3 texture (other than fantasy ones) to the Mil Baby.

Since I don't have the baby myself I can't try this myself.

Neither do I, which is another reason for the mil baby being a strange choice.

Quote - OK, I think we should have an informal comp for the weirdest looking result achieved by converting a V3 texture (other than fantasy ones) to the Mil Baby.

Since I don't have the baby myself I can't try this myself.

I've seen an avatar of a M3 texture on the baby... stubble and all.

I wonder if the data that PhilC has gathered up for Wardrobe Wizard wouldn't make his creating a texture converter cost effective? I'd buy it at a reasonable price (WW$ or less).

M

You know, it also occurred to me that Phil might be the man. However, he'll need to use something other than Python for this job.

What PhilC's line of thinking could achieve I would think is shape shifters... load source figure, load target figure, analysis target figure and shrink wrap source figure to its shape, transplant bones, exempt  face and ears of the source from shrink wrapping, maybe hands too if possible. Fantasy, would never work. Also would take hours to run I guess. Concievable it could be done with python though... it would just be a superversion of WW. Stahlratte did show that Posette could be conformed to the shape and bones of V3 but his was hand work.

As for the Mil3 baby, there are tons of textures made for the DAZ girls (original PreSchool and PreTeen) which have the same mapping as V2 and can be converted.  The PS textures, in particular, are good for the baby.

Momodot wardrobe wizard already had a shape shifter thing like you mentioned and it worked great, but it was taken out for copyright reasons.

That is such a bummer.

What could the copyright issue have been? if the  script contained no information from either figure when it was shipped then it would be no one but the user's business if they ran the script.

The script would analyze (I mean "render") the two figures .obj in the geometry folders and deform one of them to the other, the rigging information would be also be obtained on the client end from the character folder, the deformed figure and rigging might not even "exist" as a new entity if they are not saved as new figure :) I believe one is still permitted to use deformers on a figure during a poser session.

How a script with no propriatal data could be a violation is beyond me? Should I be denied access to scissors because I could take a render of V3 and cut out the face to paste on a render of Aiko? Maybe only the glue :)

There is that whole problem with Poser! I could use that application to spawn a prop of the V3 head and parent it or even even "substitute prop..." it to a Posette figure.  This Poser application is clearly intended solely for the purpose of pirating DAZ data... thank goodness there is D/S :) It must all be okay if I buy the scissors from DAZ. It is good to see the lessons of Apple are well understood. Cut off your nose to spite your face :)

Hmmm! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! I set up a render of V3 and I wake up in the morning with a sore bum! Is that how the joke goes?

I think that the problem was mostly with the daz stuff (surprisingly ).

I think the best way would be to make highres templates of the figures and manually line everything up, as compared to doing the shrinkwrap method or anything else based on the mesh.  I've converted a few P3 textures to P4, and it was basically a matter of moving and stretching areas of the map to new locations, which would somehow need to be automated.  I know that not all characters are unwrapped the same, but I do think someone could probably write a tool to do this.

Might make more sense to convert the UVs of the figure. I put the P2 Nude Woman and the P4 Nude Woman Lo to Posette's UVs using UVmapper Classic. AprilYSH remapped Posette and Steph 1 to V2.  and Dork to M2. Be neat if the old figures could be mapped even roughly to the unimesh UVs but I am not up to the task myself. I think people would pay for a miki.uvs for the V3 texture.

Bear in mind that the analysis only has to be done once. Once you have the data on how the geometry of two figures relates, you then build up a table of pixel-to-pixel conversions - actually polygons. Copyright wouldn't be an issue. Each module in UTC just tells the program that on a 1000x1000 map, the polygon 333,345-338,342-334,338 needs to be transformed to 611,615-617,620-616,622 or whatever.

I would definately like to see a UTC type of proggie but supporting Apollo, Miki, James et al. I have a ridiculous amount of male and female textures for daz characters but I'd love to be able to use them on different figures. I also suspect that people would be slightly more willing to buy new figures if they could use thier pre existing textures. It would be one less expense for them. It's one of the reasons I don't use Apollo as much as I'd like, same goes for James.

DarkWhisper WANTED to do an Apollo plugin, but because of his custom bodyparts, it would have been A LOT of more work than any of the previous plugins.

So he wanted to make sure to at least brake even, and asked for a minimum of 250 votes.
(And we all know that saying "Yes, I´d like to buy that" in a forum, and actually BUYING an item once it is released are two completely different things)

And what happened ? He got a measly 170 votes.

So unless you are willing to pay $100 for an Apollo UTC plugin, forget about it.

Supporting anything besides V3,A3 and M3 as a merchant is like flushing money down the toilet.
If the mainstream figures don´t do it for you, be prepared to either pay a lot more for support, or start to learn to create your own content.
I spent a lot of time with Posette and Dork because they are quality meshes, but it was strictly for fun.
Had I wanted to make money from my work, I wouldn´t have touched them with a ten foot pole.

As for remapping figures, that, too, is A LOT of work.
I read that it took AprilYSH weeks to do a single figure, and the enormous polycount of todays figures doesn´t make such a task exactly easier.

I sure wish someone would remap MIKI, James, Jessi and Koji to V3 and M3 textures.
(Although I´d rather have them converted to V2 and M2 to keep them compatible with the other remapped figures.)
But doing so would be strictly a "work of love", as I doubt one could make enough profit from it to justify the time needed.
Also don´t forget that Unimesh mapping is also protected by the DAZ EULA.
So a MIKI that can take V3 textures would have to be encoded against V3, while a MIKI remapped to V2 wouldn´t.

And EF will soon re-release all of their meshes with a completely new mapping and joints, making the "old" meshes obsolete, anyway.

Stahlratte

Quote -
Supporting anything besides V3,A3 and M3 as a merchant is like flushing money down the toilet.

It seems to me that there are a lot of releases of stuff for Miki these days. Just look in the MP here.

Quote -
Also don´t forget that Unimesh mapping is also protected by the DAZ EULA.

The mapping would not need to be redistributed, so that can be got round. But working with the V2 mapping is fine anyway, because the UTC does convert V3 to V2. I have managed to get a V3 texture on Posette that way.

"It seems to me that there are a lot of releases of stuff for Miki these days. Just look in the MP here."

Then ask the merchants if they make anything close to the profit from their MIKI products than what they could have made from a similar V3 product.

Unless the sales for a MIKI item are better or at least equal to a V3 item, YOU ARE LOOSING $$$.

And no wishfull thinking will change that.

See, I don´t care what merchants do with their time.
It´s entirely up to them to decide in what product they want to invest their work.

My point is that those merchants who rather stick with V3 don´t do that because they are stubborn and /or mean, but because they want to get the most back for the time they invest in creating a product.

So unless customers are actually willing to pay more for an item that supports a less popular product to make up for fewer sales, they have simply NO RIGHT to bitch about "Not enough support" for their favorite figure.

I guess several merchants would love to support "non-Daz" figures, too.
But as long this would mean less $$$ at the end of the month, it just won´t happen.

Stahlratte

And EF will soon re-release all of their meshes with a completely new mapping and joints, making the "old" meshes obsolete, anyway.

Hi Stahlratte. What is this about?  Can you point me to info on what EF and Daz are up to on new figures? When are these figures due to be released?

Is there anyone interested in this for whom money is no object? They could just subsidize someone by agreeing to purchase the work at full price and taking a percentage (or not) of any additional sales that come in after. I actually did this a couple times back when I had money... sorta bing a patron on the arts as it were...

Personal I can't see any reason why re-mapping the Miki .obj UVs to a non-DAZ texture that also fits the uni-mesh is any sort of EULA violation much less a copyright or patent issue, especially if it a partial re-mapping  involving say the skin and no other elements.

I don't really get the whole texture issue... it seems to me that the "uncertainty" principal is at work: the higher the resolution of the mesh the less effective the texture... the lower the resolution of the mesh the greater the  effectiveness of the texture.  I have done all sorts of tests and the texture just doesn't seem to make a big impact as far as the essential character, just only for facial hair, pore texture, make-up. Having one really good base texture for each figure and customizing it to the character works pretty well for me... I do have some texture building resources like facial hair and tan line brushes for  unimesh textures... maybe the answer is just a nice base texture .psd for each the other figures with some layers for tint, facial hair, make-up, and tan lines. I would stake it for a share but I am bust these days :)

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2643860

http://www.contentparadise.com/forums/contentparadise/index.php?showtopic=727

"There will be a new standard for the second generation of e frontier characters that is currently being referred to internally as “G2”. The bodies of the characters will be standardized to accept each other’s textures, morphs, clothing, and etc. UV’s and bending will be greatly improved, textures and materials will be new, and Walk designer and Face room compatibility will also be delivered.

New versions of James and Koji, and our newest character Kelvin will be released in the coming weeks to Passport members as a free download. New “G2” versions of Miki, Jessi, and another new character Olivia, will be released sometime later, but are in the making as we speak. "

As for the UV´s, sorry, but I´m sure if you remap any Non-Daz figure to take Unimesh textures, you´re creating a derivate work, and thus violate the EULA.

Stahlratte

Quote - As for the UV´s, sorry, but I´m sure if you remap any Non-Daz figure to take Unimesh textures, you´re creating a derivate work, and thus violate the EULA.

This looks dubious to me, but arguing it one way or the other in a court of law would most likely be a lottery. In any case, what is at issue is what protection is offered by copyright legislation. Rights claimed by Daz in its EULA are not necessarily legally valid if they go above the protection already mandated by the statute books.

Someone could make a texture converter that doesn`t do daz figures.

Most of the main daz figures have been done for UTC anyway.

Yes, but the aim is to get V3 textures onto Miki, Jessi, etc. Even if it were forbidden to use the V3 mapping, as previously mentioned, the V2 mapping is open for use, and one can convert V3 textures to V2 already.