Oh I did not know about the Miki2 plugin, so I guess it's not just for DAZ characters, but I hasn't seen a whole lot of other characters supported other than DAZ figures...

I still think we need this plugin because it took me 2 years to paint my first skin all on my own... And when figures like Dawn come out it's not as easy for newbies or inexperienced artist whom are just looking for a hobby to come up with new textures because they don't have the money/experience/programs to create their own... And there's only so much you can do with a Merchant Resource.

I'm no longer a newbie, but I still got a lot to learn and don't have a lot of the really cool programs out there cause of money issues... I do have TC2 but I only use it for V4 > K4, V3 > V4, ect... I've had my sights set on Miki 4 but I feel like she's lacking a lot, although I do love the clothing that EClark keeps making (so thanks to EClark) and some hairstyles like the parted dynamic hairstyle by RedPhantom (also thanks to RedPhantom)... but I don't see many texture sets for Miki 4.

So the point is we need this if we wanna play with our new "toy," otherwise it's like mom and dad getting a cool new toy for their kid, forgetting the batteries and telling the kid you can have the batteries in 2 weeks! lol

So regardless of whether there's already a program that can do this, I would totally get it. I also like the idea of buying the character plugin seperately, but I would hope the software would still come with a few to get you started and then you can buy extra's if you need it.

I'd prefer a base converter that you buy licences for the figure/s of your choice in the same way as XDresser, rather than packaged with conversions for figures which may not be ones I use.

I second that notion of add-on modules.  Makes it easier to build your own series.  

The problem with TC2, genitalia will not be supported in the author's own words.

1. Would you be interested in this tool?
   Yes.

1. What would be your top 3 texture transfer paths ( e.g. Victoria 4 -> Roxie, Michael 4 -> Rex, etc. )?

1. V4->V3
2. V4->Roxie
3. V4->V2

1. Are you REALLY interested in it?
   Yes as a Stand-Alone but I must admit that your products have always been to expensive for me aside from HeadForge.

I liked HeadForge very much since my objective is always about getting a figure away from the default in different ways as easily and quickly as possible - a Head Forge with on-the-fly area selection by paint for whatever figure would be awesome - that or a third party riff on the Face Room that would alow for scaling and translating face areas and doing rough texture mods via blending with overlays.

Quote -  

1. Are you REALLY interested in it?

Yes as a Stand-Alone but I must admit that your products have always been to expensive for me aside from HeadForge (I liked Head Forge very much since my objective is always about getting a figure away from the default in different was as easily and quickly as possible - a Head Forge with on-the-fly area selection by paint for whatever figure would be awesome).

You will be pleased to know that this utility will be very affordable. Haven't set the price in stone, but we definitely want to take a volume approach with this one.

Quote - Is there any release date on the Dawn figure? Cheers

August 9th, actually.

Quote -  

You will be pleased to know that this utility will be very affordable. Haven't set the price in stone, but we definitely want to take a volume approach with this one.

Any plans yet for how you're going to organise it? Base utility and buy the figure licences you need, several bundled together, or a different approach? I'd prefer the first idea, don't really want to pay for figure conversions I'm never going to use or figures I don't own.

1. Would you be interested in this tool? You bet!
2. What would be your top 3 texture transfer paths ( e.g. Victoria 4 -> Roxie, Michael 4 -> Rex, etc. )? V4 to Dawn, V3 to Dawn, V3 to Cookie
3. Are you REALLY interested in it??? If it moves the texture to the other figure without distorting it, absolutely. If it stretches or compresses the texture obviously, it's less desirable.

Now I'm going to ask the silly - but to me, obvious - question: which is more useful and practical to the end user: a utility that converts a texture map from one to another, or a set of UVs for target figures based on the UV-mapping of the source figure, with a utility that swaps the UVs dynamically within Poser or D|S? Would this be more or less difficult for the creator - to create UV mapping for a figure that aligns with that of a completely different figure - as opposed to both needing to map the polys of one figure to another and then ALSO engineer the migration of pixels from their original location to their new destination?

Quote - 1) Would you be interested in this tool? You bet!

1. What would be your top 3 texture transfer paths ( e.g. Victoria 4 -> Roxie, Michael 4 -> Rex, etc. )? V4 to Dawn, V3 to Dawn, V3 to Cookie
2. Are you REALLY interested in it??? If it moves the texture to the other figure without distorting it, absolutely. If it stretches or compresses the texture obviously, it's less desirable.

Now I'm going to ask the silly - but to me, obvious - question: which is more useful and practical to the end user: a utility that converts a texture map from one to another, or a set of UVs for target figures based on the UV-mapping of the source figure, with a utility that swaps the UVs dynamically within Poser or D|S? Would this be more or less difficult for the creator - to create UV mapping for a figure that aligns with that of a completely different figure - as opposed to both needing to map the polys of one figure to another and then ALSO engineer the migration of pixels from their original location to their new destination?

I love the idea of UV switching. But, transferring textures using a software program could help deal with UV stretching (e.g. V4 to M4). I guess if you're particularly adept at UV mapping, you could fix that as well in a UV switching scenario.

If someone could pull off UV switching for all the Poser figures, I'd be thrilled. I'd much rather have that than to manually have to convert a gazillion textures.

yes, I would be interested!

 I'd mostly want:

 V4 to dawn

 M4 to Dawn's counterpart

 Since I have reams of content for both V4 and M4.

It seems to me a "texture converter" would be much more wasteful than a UV conversion tool, since you really only need to create the file (after modifying the UV coordinates) and then create a copy of the CR2 to correct the .obj reference and then change material names, if necessary. If you have 100 megs worth of V4 textures and then convert them all to 4 other characters, you end up with 500 megs of slight variations of the same textures. 

I'd be interested in v4->Dawn, as long as the results look good. I have no interest in making modified copies of all of the characters, though. That just seems like a waste of diskspace. 

Also, I'm a mac user, in case anyone is keeping track. 

People used to distribute tiny .uvs files that would let you use the textures for one figure on another figure with the .obj modified by the free UVmapper Pro and the .cr2 redirected. Not only does it mean no duplicate MATposes and textures but it means the original MATposes with thier fancy shaders could be applied to the figure with modified .obj. I want to use my V4 textures on V3 not just for the better maps but also for the shaders.

Hey Everybody,

I've achived the basic prototype of the utility. Here, we see a texture converted from V4 to Roxie...

There are some rough spots near the eyes, ears and lips, but these will be improved. It's not a technical limitation, just needs to be configured more accurately.

 On the back of the head, where the seam is on Roxie, we can see that the translation went across the seam perfectly, so seams wont be an issue ( unless the original textures have imperfect seams ). Likewise, the transition between multiple maps will be equally seamless.

The resolution on these maps is not very high ( 2K ), and there will be a smoothness/sharpness setting for outputted map. As you can see in the first image, it looks great, but a wee bit smoother compared to the original, since the smoothness setting is higher for this image.

Anyway, this project is moving along smoothly and I'm pretty excited about it :D

Dave

Seems good so far!

Would love to be able to use my V4 and M4 textures on Anastasia and Tyler.

Wow - those are some pretty nice results in not much time. How about the nostril area?

I love progress ;). Good job konan!

Laurie

Quote - Wow - those are some pretty nice results in not much time. How about the nostril area?

For this example, I removed most of the materials, so the nortrils were left out. They won't be an issue in the final product.

Excellent, Dave. Thanks for the quick reply. This is going to be super-nice. I'm very much looking forward to its release and especially that you're working on Roxie right out of the gate.

Am I allowed to mention the corners of the lower lip? There seems to be some bleeding ...

Quick question:  will this application have the ability to extract bump/displacement, specular and transparency information from a MATPose file?  TC2 has the ability to breakdown a MATPose file and convert the maps to a new PZ2.  Just wondering if this will express a similar algorithm for conversion.

It would be great if it could "batch process" through a folder full of materials. E.g. Main Skin, Eye Options, Lip Textures, Makeup (face/lips or just face), etc.

I think Dawn is a great shaped figure, To get it to Be A Poser Stand out will be a real task. To do this She needs A Male Counter part. I like M4 & V4. Dawn is very comperable. But one thing I don't like about the other Poser figures since they broke away from DAZ, I can't get the cloths to stay fixed to the charatures very well. The male figures were pretty compatable with M4 figures. But I have to work to hard to get results that work for me. With M4. I put on the cloths and wham! I can animate. With Poser's figures, I never know what I'm going to get. Same with clothing with Posers females. The Quality of the Poser Females haven't been up to snuff with V4.

If Dawn can move very smoothly, and the cloths don't have issues fiting and moving as good as V4, (same with a M4 figure) if a male is intro duced. I guaratee if you introduce those 2 figures Into one of the next Poser's programs, You will be off and running. DAZ has the V5, and V6 fingures out. But who wants to go through all the messing around just to get them in to Poser. You would have Poser the way it was before Poser & DAZ split.

Dawn looks just as good as V4. if she moves and can keep her cloths on as good as V4, Then Poser would have everything they need that I would  buy to fit those new charatures. I had Poser since Poser 4, and everyone to the latest. Dawns legs look just a little short, but then I like long legs, Shame on me!

Great Charactures is what Poser is missing, and I think Dawn, if she and a male counterpart would be the bigger step than a lot of people think. The Lastest Poser Pro 2014 is the best Program advances I have noticed. On Paper it doesn't sound as good as it is. I times my Renders, and Poser now renders twice as fast as my Poser Pro 2012. Now I can save a ton of time rendering rendering my movies. The Poser morphing Tool works much better, and more flexable. I have nothing against DAZ, They have great products, But I only buy things like Scenery, things that you don't have to mess around with. Time is important to me. I like to spend my time perfecting my animations instead of Do this, and do that to get products into Poser.

So all I can say is Go Dawn, and Male Dude counter part.

This looks very interesting. I can't wait to see the final results :)

I would be very intersted in it as a stand alone program V4>Dawn Please!

Thanks! :)

Thanks so much for all of the input, and please keep it coming.

It looks like it'll be a stand-alone product for sure, and maybe it'll be included in realityPaint as well. For the latter, it will depend on how user friendly I can make the setup procedure. If it is a part of realityPaint, it should allow the user to setup their own custom conversions. Anyway, that part may come later.

No promises, but we're aiming to have this released by no later than August 1st.

On the technical side, I'm working on optimizing the procedure so a conversion can take place within a reasonable time. Keeping in tradition of realityPaint's ability to handle high resolution textures ( 4K+ ), this utility will in all likeyhood not have a texture size limit, short of what your system can handle. If we do have to impose a limit, it will be no less than 4k ( 4096x4096 ).

The target is to have a conversion of a character happen in no more than 30 seconds. I'm not positive that will be achieved, but given the current state of the project, I'd say that there is a 75% chance of achieving this goal.

As requested, batch conversions are being considered as well. For this, we may have it create a new folder for every converted character, since there will be many files generates ( per character ), and we wouldn't want things to get too messy.

Anyway, keep the suggestions coming :D

Quick conversions and availability around August 1st!  WOW!!!  That is something very promising and good news.  Waiting with great anticipation.

Quote - No promises, but we're aiming to have this released by no later than August 1st.

This is great news. ^^

This is so awesome. Any thoughts on price so we can start budgeting appropriately?

Will this have the option to output an MT5, or even better, an MC6 with the new texture(s) applied to the appropriate target figure's material zones? If so, will it retain the original material room settings?

That's a good question because TC2 is able to output as such Material Room files duping the original settings.  However, IIRC, it didn't handle any node setups, just simple connections.

Precisely. The full advanced material room node set-up should be transferred if at all possible.

Thrilled to see it will be a stand alone product! And so soon...opps, my bad ;)

I look forward to seeing this in the market place. I love switching textures around.

At some point, I'd love to see an M4 to V4 & an MV4 to K4. Not asking much huh?? 

But for now, I'll look forward to a V4 to Dawn :)

M4/V4/K4 can all be done without anything but UVMapper now.

Bill

This is really exciting to me.  I emailed 3DUniverse about an update to TC2 for Dawn but have not received a response.  I love that program but there haven't been any updates to it in a long time. 

I've stopped spending on V4 so I can buy Dawn some items when she comes out.  This texture converter will be at the top of my list! 

I'm looking forward to the other modules you will offer.  I'm particularly interested in Anastasia (Alyson2), Terai Yuki 2, and all of the Miki versions. 

I also have a ton of other characters that could benefit from the newer materials for skin:  Antonia, all the Poser People ) from Dork & Posettte to Roxie and Rex), Apollo Maximus, Ball Joint Doll, Britta, Cherry Anime, Cookie, , David , Dina, Elle, Eva, Evelinee, the DAZ people (v1-v4), Gloria, Haru, Ichirio, Kiki, Kit, Koshini (1&2), Krystal, Lalala, LaRoo (1&2), Little One, Lusitana, Mariko, Mavka, Maya Doll, My Michelle, Natu, NearMe, Polly Gon, Rosy Cheeks lina, Sadie, Sara, Skye, Staci, Terai Yuki (1&2), and Wampico Doll.

Thank you.

Quote - M4/V4/K4 can all be done without anything but UVMapper now.

Bill

 

That's very interesting information Bill, could you point me to a tutorial on how to do that, I'd really love to use the skins among all the Gen4 characters.

sorry to go OT, but I'd really like to know how, lol

Not sure where I saw it, so I will give you the steps: example  V4 to K4

Make sure in (5) you save to a differnt file name.

1. with uvmapper load the V4 object file

2. save the uvs file such as V4.uvs

3. load the K4 object

4. import the V4.uvs

5. save the obj to a different filename.obj

6. copy the k4 cr2 to k4-v4uv.cr2

7 edit the k4-v4uv.cr2 to change the .obj reference to  the filename you saved the obj in 5. to.

Now if you did everything right, you should be able to load the k4-v4uv and apply V4 textures.

same applies to all the gen4 figures M4-V4, etc

Bill

30 seconds.... wow!

Any ideas yet on which figure conversions you'll be supporting?

The only problem with the UV conversion for those models is you won't be able to apply any morphs packages directly.

Not sure what morphs have to do with UV maps, but if your really want to use M4/V4 on K4 http://www.sharecg.com/v/45885/browse/11/Poser/Mix-K4M4V4-morphs

works well

Bill

Thanks Bill!! For the tut and the link to the Mix morph :)

As long as it will convert the boys junk mats, sign me up :)

Hey everyone!

Sorry for long silence. I have been working all day, every day getting this utility ready and I'm pleased to say it's almost there!

We're aiming to have it ready for August 9th, the release date of the new character "Dawn".

Initially, it is going to support the conversion of V4->Dawn, and V4->Roxie, with new characters being added via demand shortly there-after. The way the process works, setting up a particular conversion takes a bit of labor, but 99% of the work is done in a generic way. i.e. Once it works for once character, it can be easily adapted for others. 

The pricing has not 100% set as of yet, but I can say that it will be very, very reasonable. Since we are expecting this product to be in high demand ( hence high volume) , we're not concerned with selling it to existing realityPaint customers... so.... it will be provided for FREE with all realityPaint purchases. So, if you were on the fence about buying realityPaint, or upgrading from a previous version of Blacksmith3D-Suite, Paint or Morph, here's your excuse :D.

Also, we are updating realityPaint itself to include a few new features that were developed specifically for this project. Those features are...

• TransMorpher... Morph a portion of one object's surface into the shape of another based on it's close proximity. Not a dummy-proof one click tool, but an extremely powerful tool when used as intended.

( coming in realityPaint v1.0.4.3, this weekend )

• Unwarping tools... When heavily morphing an object, sometimes parts of it get extremely bent out of shape, and restoring the "original shape" can be difficult without "unmorphing". These new tools will allow you to restore the general shape of a portion of the surface, while preseving the new size and positioning.

For example, if you morph a character's head so it's dramatically different in scale than the original, but the nose get's all bent out of shape, you can use this tool to restore the nose to it's general shape, while keeping the new size and position.

These tools will also help to reduce the UV Warping that occurs with heavily morphed objects. They will reduce or eliminate the warping, while keeping the overall new shape. 

**( coming in **realityPaint v1.0.4.3, this weekend )

• TranTexture... Similar to the TransMorpher, it will allow you to transfer the textures from a portion of one object, onto another object. This is the heart of the new texture transfer utility ( which will do all of that automatically for you ), but if you have specific jobs that require this functionality, you can do it manually yourself.

( coming in realityPaint, ASAP )

Anyway, I'm extremely excited about all of this, and as mentioned before, I'm working extremely hard to get it to you ASAP. 

Dave

Wow, Dave! Those are some major additions. Bravo! :) Will there be an upgrade price for those of us with Blacksmith3d Suite 4?

Quote - Wow, Dave! Those are some major additions. Bravo! :) Will there be an upgrade price for those of us with Blacksmith3d Suite 4?

Yuppers, there is an upgrade and it's currently on sale for 20%, so it's $79.95.

So, if I buy the upgrade while it's on sale, then when the texture transfer tools (e.g. V4 > Dawn) come out, I will get the free upgrade for that. Or would I have to upgrade again? I just want to make sure I understood your earlier post properly. :)

Quote - So, if I buy the upgrade while it's on sale, then when the texture transfer tools (e.g. V4 > Dawn) come out, I will get the free upgrade for that. Or would I have to upgrade again? I just want to make sure I understood your earlier post properly. :)

When it comes out, you'll get a free license to the texture transfer utility, or it will be included inside realityPaint ( not 100% decided on this yet). In any case, you'll get it for free :D

That's terrific!

(Dave, the PayPal link to buy for the upgrade option is broken on your site - just wanted to let you know. I'm using Chrome in case that's it. The other purchase buttons on the page look fine.)

Quote - (Dave, the PayPal link to buy for the upgrade option is broken on your site - just wanted to let you know. I'm using Chrome in case that's it. The other purchase buttons on the page look fine.)

Thanks! Just fixed it. :D

What about those of us who have Reality Paint?  I just bought this right before the Poser Expo.  Will this be handled as an update to that version and what will be the price for us?

Great features and new tools!  Thank you!

Quote - What about those of us who have Reality Paint?  I just bought this right before the Poser Expo.  Will this be handled as an update to that version and what will be the price for us?

Great features and new tools!  Thank you!

Yes, indeed, you will get a free copy of the new transfer utility!

Here is my rational for making the utility free with realityPaint...

The expected number of sales of this new utility is much greater than the extected number of sales of realityPaint, due to the low price and high demand. If a small percentage of the new customers interested in the utility opt to buy realityPaint, then that would be more overall sales vs. selling the utility separately to existing realityPaint customers. It could also encourage more Blacksmith3D-Suite v4 ( or v3 ) customers to upgrade.

So, if the rationalle is correct, then it's best for everyone. Value added for realityPaint customers, and more overall sales for us. Win, win, win :D