WIP Converting M4 Textures to L'Homme

:D

Very nice. I'd love to convert some of M4's textures to L'homme.

What happened to your TT work on La Femme? At one point when DCArt started converting V4 and Genesis 2 characters to La Femme, she let slip that a texture transformer module had been created for La Femme. Never a word more was heard. Did Rendo catch and kill? No TT module emerged. I hope the L’Homme project  works out.

I do have a TT module for V4 to LaFemme, call it a TTLight, only does torso limbs and head.  The last I heard, Rendo had someone working on a V4 to LaFemme, so I stoped development.  Rendo DID NOT kill or even speak to me about what I was doing.  I just thought if they were paying someone to do it, I would not.  Only problem I have with the V4 module is the damn nose plugs on so many of the V4 textures

How does it work? Is the result redistributable? Everything I've ever seen out of TT looks off in some way, things that you could just fix easily in a 3d painting software or an image editor, nipple alignments, nostril placement, etc. As a matter of fact it always seems to be the nostrils are horribly wrong. The advantage must be a distribution safe version sort of like things people used to do with figure obj files and RTEncoder. Because otherwise results look better for placement just via manually altering the textures themselves, well I mean if you have a little experience doing so. You can easily clone stamp those nose occlusion "plugs" away in a matter of minutes. It must be a redistribution thing that's the advantage?

Like in the image above the nipples are misaligned. Why not just fix that by clone stamping, copying the original nipple to a new layer, moving into the proper position on the new target uvs and blending via clone stamping? The hair might be a little tricky though. I guess if you edit it in such a manner, fixing those things, it would be a copyright violation?

I don't know. I was looking at TT but frankly the results never look good. Halfway good isn't good enough.

As I stated in the original post, it is w WIP

Results ARE NOT redistributable unless you won the copyrights to the original textures.

If you do not like the results, you should prbably not get TT.

Oh I see. The results aren't redistributable. I won't get TT. I have mudbox and photoshop. That doesn't help fit to UVs of course., but as far as fixing things and painting textures for original UVs, pretty good. Maybe this is something where AI could come in handy. Just sharing my thoughts about what I see and have seen from TT. To each their own.

For those of us who aren't in the know, what is TT, please? Thank you!

Rhia474 posted at 6:56 PM Thu, 8 September 2022 - #4444154

For those of us who aren't in the know, what is TT, please? Thank you!

https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/?search=Texture+transformer&newsearch=1

It's from the same developer as Blacksmith3D software. You can refit textures from one uv set to another. Sort of a Holy Grail/Unicorn type thing. I've never used it, only have ever seen examples. And not that many to boot, so I suppose I can't judge the software too harshly. You can win a copy along with Blacksmith3D if you happen to place in the upcoming Rendo Halloween contest. Blacksmith is developed to be very Poser formats friendly. I believe TT may be bundled with BS3D pro.

Texture Transformer is a program similar to the old Universal Texture Converter and Texture Converter 2 that were sold at DAZ 3D.  It's probably a poor man's version of the Blacksmith3D app except it's a one-time purchase and you add module packs for the different model conversions.  Unlike the older converter programs where the algorithm redraws the texture maps, this one requires a model with the texture already loaded.  You need to simplify the texture maps in the Material Room first; don't attempt to add fancy mathematical node arrangements or SSS, it will not recognize those connections and totally screw up the converted output.  And forget about converting into Cycles; its main focus is building the Material files around the PoserSurface node.  Do you want PBR?  Expect to go into the Material Room and get your hands dirty rebuilding the nodes.

hborre posted at 9:32 PM Thu, 8 September 2022 - #4444158

Texture Transformer is a program similar to the old Universal Texture Converter and Texture Converter 2 that were sold at DAZ 3D.  It's probably a poor man's version of the Blacksmith3D app except it's a one-time purchase and you add module packs for the different model conversions.  Unlike the older converter programs where the algorithm redraws the texture maps, this one requires a model with the texture already loaded.  You need to simplify the texture maps in the Material Room first; don't attempt to add fancy mathematical node arrangements or SSS, it will not recognize those connections and totally screw up the converted output.  And forget about converting into Cycles; its main focus is building the Material files around the PoserSurface node.  Do you want PBR?  Expect to go into the Material Room and get your hands dirty rebuilding the nodes.

This is no longer correct. You can use a cr2 file to get the maps, but you can also use a pz2, mc6, or a duf file to get the textures. Output you can choose between mc6, pz2 or Duf and choose image format, png or jpg. IIRC it can also use more complex shaders. I'll confirm that when I can get Poser to load. It seems to think it has today off.

Okay, Poser finally loaded. It was able to work with a complex shader, but it transformed to a basic one, using only the maps.

I dusted off TT last night and yes, it is capable of recognizing the other formats you mentioned.  It's been a long time since I used it that I'd forgotten.  And as you found out, the app only returns a basic conversion; that is why I strip down the texture shaders to their basic setup in the material room, run TT, and then rebuild the shaders with EZSkin 3.  There is less likelihood of missing texture maps and reduces conversion processing time.

RobZhena posted at 4:54 PM Thu, 8 September 2022 - #4444143

What happened to your TT work on La Femme? At one point when DCArt started converting V4 and Genesis 2 characters to La Femme, she let slip that a texture transformer module had been created for La Femme. Never a word more was heard. Did Rendo catch and kill? No TT module emerged. I hope the L’Homme project  works out.

Thanks for the update, DCArt. 

Thank you for the clarification, DCArt, but frankly said I think all one is after in the end is a set of image files. iRay, Superfly, 3Delight, Firefly are just different media, like watercolors, gouache, acrylic and oil paint are for good old real painting. They all yield different results for the simple reason they are based on different technologies. On top of that the Poser engines and the DAZ engines are designed to work in different environments with different post processing. Trying to convert complex shaders to get the same result is a waste of time. I therefore wonder if it is worth holding a release. If the product  is not for beginners, so be it.

As a minimum one needs the skin of body, head and limbs cut, stretched as appropriate and then sewn and laid out as needed for your target figure.  From there they can be copied into an appropriate shader for the target figure or fed into EZSkin to build one from scratch. Irises, nails, brows and lashes are options that can go same route. If the conversion tool can do this also even the better. I really doubt converting teeth, tongue and what else is worth spending time on. Noted exception are the male genitalia but they usually are a separate figure anyway.

 

FVerbaas posted at 3:43 AM Sun, 11 September 2022 - #4444290

Thank you for the clarification, DCArt, but frankly said I think all one is after in the end is a set of image files. iRay, Superfly, 3Delight, Firefly are just different media, like watercolors, gouache, acrylic and oil paint are for good old real painting. They all yield different results for the simple reason they are based on different technologies. On top of that the Poser engines and the DAZ engines are designed to work in different environments with different post processing. Trying to convert complex shaders to get the same result is a waste of time. I therefore wonder if it is worth holding a release. If the product  is not for beginners, so be it.

As a minimum one needs the skin of body, head and limbs cut, stretched as appropriate and then sewn and laid out as needed for your target figure.  From there they can be copied into an appropriate shader for the target figure or fed into EZSkin to build one from scratch. Irises, nails, brows and lashes are options that can go same route. If the conversion tool can do this also even the better. I really doubt converting teeth, tongue and what else is worth spending time on. Noted exception are the male genitalia but they usually are a separate figure anyway.

 

Yes I agree that all one is after are the image files. However, as stated above, Texture Transformer doesn't recognize some image types and will not convert them directly. For example, if the original figure has normal maps that are connected to the Poser Surface node through connection with the Gradient Bump connection and the Tangent type selected, Texture Transformer will not convert them. Instead, the user will need to create a temporary MAT file that connects the Normal map to the Color input of the Poser Surface Node and convert that separately. 

Same for other map types that might be in the original figure that the Poser Surface node will not recognize. 

So there appears to be some sort of misunderstanding about what I'm trying to say. The Texture Transformer conversion kits basically project textures from the original figure (say, V4) to a version of La Femme that is morphed to match V4 exactly in shape and size. So in that respect, the user doesn't need to match UVs at all. 

Basically, Texture Transformer recognizes the types of maps that you used to assign in the Simple material view. But if anything passes through other FireFly nodes before connecting to the Poser Surface Node, Texture Transformer will throw an error. Likewise, if you are trying to convert textures that connect to the Physical Surface Node or the Cycles node with Principled BSDF, they won't be converted either, because Texture Transformer was last updated in 2016 before SuperFly was in its prime.

Yes, I realize the ultimate goal is to generate textures. But Texture Transformer doesn't recognize several map types commonly used today, and that is what needs updating in the utility (not the transformer kit). Otherwise, users will need to create custom MAT files to generate all of the textures in the source object - and that is the part that beginners with no experience with creating MAT files would have difficulty with. 

Just to Join back in :D

Some members with no knowledgeof TT do not realize that given a useful  TT pack, you can do the conversion of a texture in minutes without using any other software

Shaw (m4) to L'Homme

There are two ways to use the (head/torso/limbs) image maps reasonably quicklly

1. use the output pz2/mc6 files to load the images and then use an mc6 file to insert the distribution textures  that were not converted and then use ezskin3 to set up a superfly mc6

2. load the basic L'Homme and load the images in the material room

Both will work, but the first will get the bump maps from the conversion (TT converts these automaticly)

Neither require more than a small amount of knowledge of the material room

Superfly render of Shaw