This is unfortunate - I understand the reasons behind the decision but it means that for those who have invested heavily in Genesis figures to use in Poser, there is a choice between losing some or (for Genesis 3 & 8) all of that investment, to keep relying on Poser 11.2, or to make the switch to Studio. The last two options likely mean loss of sales for Poser 12.

For myself, I don't fancy the switch to Studio but I'm not going to drop the figures and functionality of the content I've purchased, so for as long as they don't break the Poser 11 activation, I'll be sticking with that. For the time being - and things may change - Poser 12 will not be a worthwhile purchase. It's a reluctant decision, I've been using Poser since version 4 and have purchased upgrades on day of release since Poser 6.

This is not a criticism of any one, it's just how things worked out. It's a pity to be sure but there it is.

tchamberlain2 posted at 10:22AM Tue, 24 March 2020 - #4382517

I believe all of the morphs come over too. The morphs that came with the G2 Characters that I brought over worked. Also, some added ones. The only issue I have is bringing over the tongue inside the character (in this type of transfer). The Genesis 2 tongue works perfect in a basic DSON transfer. However, the reason why I prefer to bring the character over in the way that the Youtube demonstrates is because this version of the character works faster (like a regular installed character in Poser), no program crashes and can work better with inside plugins like Bullet Physics.

If you really need to squeeze out a little more performance, then your best bet might be to convert the figures to a Poser native format. This can be done using Netherworks' Creator's Tool Box and works well with both Genesis and Genesis 2 lines (not Genesis 3 though). However, there are pros and cons to this method.

First of all, you lose high definition morphs because Studio and Poser use different methods of subdivision. Secondly, you lose out on the Transfer Active Morphs feature of DSON.

If you can live without HD morphs (a lot of the base character's finer details are in the normal maps), then to work around the loss of morph transfer in Poser, you would need to do a little work in Studio to convert the clothes. Inside Studio, apply the clothes you want to a figure and dial up all the morphs you will want available in the clothing for use in Poser - the figure will look monstrous but no matter. Now un-parent all the clothing items (they will now have the morphs automatically added by the Morph Following feature) and save each item out as a scene subset in a temporary folder within your content folders. Find them in that folder and create Poser Companion Files from them which you can load into Poser, re-save and convert in the same way as the Creator's Tool Box requires for converting the figures.

It's not perfect and you will still need to make some use of the morph brush but otherwise, it might be the way to go for what you're doing.

(I would also suggest making 'light' versions of figures, with only the morphs you will need for them - this is particularly important for the first Genesis figure, which being both male and female, can have a huge number of morphs in it. In fact, you might want to do this if you are going to stick with DSON import, as even that enjoys better performance this way.)

3dcheapskate posted at 9:03AM Sat, 21 March 2020 - #4384116

erogenesis posted at 3:21PM Sat, 21 March 2020 - #4362498

...They're quite easy to edit btw...

I love the idea of being able to use one of my own renders for the splashscreen - so how do you do it ?

Hi,

If you look in Poser's own Runtime, there will be a folder called ui - that's where all the interface graphics are kept. You want a file called 3000_credits_spalsh.psd - just back it up and open in any image software that handles PSDs and have your way with it.

Genesis 8 Characters for Genesis 3

In a recent sale, I was able to pick up a Studio script for converting Genesis 8 female morphs to Genesis 3 (a male version is also available). While Genesis itself 8 can be converted for Poser in the same way as Genesis 3, I have the impression that most of the clothing items probably can't - or if they can, they won't have full functionality as most of them seem to use Studio's own flavour of dynamics.

I had picked up a handful of Genesis 8 morphs when cheap or free and so I've been trying it out. The plug-in seems to have some quirks but you can work around them.

First of all, it will want to save the characters to a different content folder - let it do that. However, when converting a character, it will create a folder in the morphs of your Genesis 3 figure called Genesis 8 - it will place all the morphs in there.

For some reason, even using an external content folder, if I try to convert a batch of characters at once, each seems to overwrite the others, so that every dial expresses only the last character you converted. Also, if you are not creating these as light figures (as described above), then you can be facing conversion times of up to 3hrs for some of the DAZ character bases. You can work around these problems.

First of all, you need to prepare to create these as light figures. So, move all the Genesis 3 morphs into a temporary folder and then copy back only the morphs you want present in the character.

Run the Character Converter for a single Genesis 8 character. Once the process is complete convert it right away to TriAx and save as a scene subset, from which you should then create a Poser Companion File. Go into Poser, load the character and save back out to the figure folder before running the Poser Genesis 3 Updater.

Now find the Genesis 8 folder that was created in your Genesis 3 morphs and delete the contents before returning to Studio, clearing the scene, and then running the converter for the next character. You don't need to close either Studio or Poser to work through the characters you have (you'll need to refresh Poser's content folder though), so it won't take long to complete the job (the character conversions done this way only take between 3 to 8 minutes). When you're done, restore the rest of the Genesis 3 morphs from your temporary folder.

Some of the base characters have conforming eyebrow figures - l didn't bother with those at all, as everything you need to modify face textures to have eyebrows baked is in the texture folders.

DAZ base characters have a lot of corrective morphs as part of their package and the good news is that the converter will convert these elements for Genesis 3 as well. On the downside, it doesn't appear to handle HD morphs.

it is also worth noting that you will be working with Genesis 3 expressions which will create a difference in how they look in their Genesis 8 promos.

Finally, Genesis 8 characters all seem to use the base Genesis 3 UVs, so there is no conflict using the characters' texture maps on the Genesis 3 versions you create.

I thought I would note something about the problems of saving DSON imported figures with conforming items. As a rule, very strange things happen if you try to save a figure with conforming items back to the library as a CR2. I have had more success by saving them as a scene file instead, either exported or using the scene folder on the library panel - you'll want to delete the lights before saving and then relight by clicking on the double tick option on the library to add to scene instead of to replace it.

EnglishBob posted at 10:53PM Tue, 11 February 2020 - #4379731

One way to get around conforming problems is not to conform... We could go back to the old Poser 3 way of doing things, before conforming was invented. Copy the figure's pose, and apply it to the clothing. The boots' toes are still not perfect, as you can see, although it's good enough that I could postwork around what remains. To be fair, those boots seemed a little distorted around the toes even in DAZ Studio.

However the really weird thing about this scene is that visibility no longer seems to work. I hid the figure's feet to help with that pokethrough, but they didn't disappear. Poser is Weird, we know that, but this is taking things to extremes!

I'll have to give this a go over the weekend - it does seem odd, though I usually deal with poke-through using morphs or the morph brush (I think that's the way to go here).

EnglishBob posted at 6:39AM Thu, 06 February 2020 - #4379234

Thanks from me also! I'd previously tried to get Genesis 3 into Poser using two different methods, without success - this time it worked! Actually, a large part of the problem might have been that I wasn't expecting Genesis 3 to have expression dials only in the body, so I may have had a working figure before now without being aware of it. That part of your tutorial - minor as it may have been - has made all the difference, if so.

If I may add a couple of additional points:

• Only visible parts of the selected figure will be transferred, so make sure all required parts are visible. I opened a pre-existing G3 scene in DAZ which happened to have body parts hidden (because poke-through) and, like the Poser mesh exporter, hidden parts are excluded.

• Convert clothing and hair as a sole item in the scene: load each item individually into an empty scene in DAZ. If they're conformed to a figure, you seem to get a copy of that figure in your scene preset even if it was deselected.

Now I just need to get materials sorted out. I assume there's no easy path to doing that? I've got a simple diffuse map attached to the first material in the list in all my transferred items, but everything else is empty. (Correction - the G3F figure itself has transparency maps applied to EyeMoisture and EyeLashes, but no diffuse maps.)

Hi,

Sadly, there's not much we can do about the materials. For most things, I do make PCFs from any 3Delight material settings a product might be supplied with (don't bother with IRay settings, virtually nothing carries over to Poser) - this provides a starting point. It is worth noting that Studio does not include displacement or normal maps when generating PCFs (DAZ has never liked to support these features in Poser), so do check a product's texture folder to see if any are there.

For the Genesis figure itself, I started with one of the Base Characters and built a very simple material which I saved out as an mt6 and then applied to each of the other characters which have their own UVs, simply swapping out the different maps before saving them again.

For clothing, you might want to have a look through your library of Poser products for material settings of different fabrics, saving screen shots as a quick reference - it saves a bit of trial and error. Because I don't render for realism but with a view to creating faux paintings, I'm afraid my crude settings wouldn't be of much use to others, or I would share them in free stuff (still, if I do get around to improving the settings I'm using at the moment, then I'll probably try to do that).

With regards to clothing - I mentioned that I use the Fit Control product, so my process is this...

1. In Studio, load a Genesis 3 base and then load a complete outfit.
2. Select the Genesis figure from the scene tab and then run Fit Control to transfer these morphs to all the clothing items. I then select the individual clothing items in the scene tab, right-click and unparent them.
3. Next I convert the rigging on each item to TriAx.
4. Save out each item as a Scene Sub-Set to the same temp folder I used in converting the figures (you'll need to uncheck the other times from the list on each save).
5. Select the clothing items in the scene and delete them.
6. You can now move on to the next set of clothing with Genesis still in the scene.
7. Once you've worked through all the clothing items, go to the temp file and create PCFs for them as you did for the Genesis 3 figures.
8. In Poser, load items (Genesis figure or clothing) on their own and with no other figures in the scene, build the material and then save back to the Poser folder.

Do make sure you create PCFs for any foot poses as well and in Poser apply them to the figure before loading the footwear.

I don't want to sound like a shill but I've found the Fit Control products for all three Generations (I've yet to work with Genesis 8) to be a worthwhile investment as it doesn't just provide morphs to avoid shrink-wrapping but also some extra options for fitting I can use before breaking out the morph brush.

I found an unexpected spare moment, so here are a few notes on things like fit control and creating light figures...

Addendum #1: Fit Control

One product for all the Genesis line that I’ve found very handy is Fit Control. This is a set of morphs that, with a script launched from the contents folder, will transfer fitting morphs to clothing. This can be very useful for dealing with poke-through as well as avoiding the shrink-wrap look that particular plagues breast shapes.

There is a problem though. If the morphs are present in the Genesis figure when you create your poser version, then the dials in converted clothing items that have the morphs applied will be tied to the dials in the Genesis figure in the same way other body morphs are.

The solution is to locate the morphs and move them (and the FC Addon if you have it) to a temporary folder while you create your poser version of the figure before reinstalling them to be available to apply to clothing prior to converting them for Poser use.

Addendum #2: Building Lighter Figures

I’ve mentioned that when you have a lot of morphs installed, you can find Genesis figures lose some of their responsiveness.

This problem was most pronounced in the original Genesis line, which had all the male and female morphs in a single figure. It was much less of a problem for Genesis 2 with just over a dozen Base morphs for the female. The Genesis 3 female has, including creature Bases, like the vampire Lavinia, over twice that number – and it shows in the performance in Poser.

Of course, if you only have a dozen or less Base characters, then you probably don’t have to worry about this tutorial at all. However if you do, whichever version of Genesis you are using, then the answer is to create light figures with a reduced selection of morphs. It’s a time consuming job but once done, you will really notice the difference.

In my case, I’m creating an individual figure for each of the main DAZ Base characters that includes only that character and what I think of as the core morphs: the DAZ head and body morphs for customization, along with utility morphs for such things as ageing, creasing, improved bending, etc. I will also do one figure of the Genesis 3 base which will include all the Base creatures I have, along with, again, all the core morphs. Finally, I will have a figure that is focused just on toons, such as Star, Toon Generations, The Girl, etc.

On the subject of what I call core morphs, I would just note that products such as Ultimate Natural Bend Morphs and HD Folds & Creases, work just fine with Poser – you’ll just need to remember to bump up the mesh resolution a notch prior to rendering.

It’s best to create a temporary folder with the same file structure as the Studio Content one, as this helps to keep track of where you need to replace the folders to.

Take a look at the morph data folder for Genesis 3 Female:

Most of the non-DAZ 3D folders are going to be utility morphs but anything that is Base character specific, I move to the temporary folder, keeping a written note of which Bases each folder relates to.

Then in the DAZ 3D folder, select the Base character folders only and move them to your temporary folder as well.

You can now start adding some folders back to build a figure to convert to the Poser format. I shall start with Victoria 7.

In Studio, refresh your Genesis 3 folder.

Load Victoria 7 – under the shaping pane, you’ll see that she has a limited number of full body morphs but plenty of morphs with which to customise her as needed.

Following the instructions from the tutorial above, convert the figure to TriAx weights, save out as a scene subset, and then create a Poser Companion File.

In Poser, refresh the Studio runtime and load this new figure before saving out again and run the Genesis 3 Poser Updater.

You can now remove the Victoria 7 specific files again and replace them with those for the next Base character base. Once you're done, just put everything back where it was.

Conversion (part 2)

Start Poser and in the Studio Content Runtime, find the Poser Companion File and load into the scene but don’t do anything with it yet. While this figure will poser correctly, it’s expressions won’t work at all.

Now save it back to the folder you want it (Genesis 3 Female>Figures) as a CR2, then clear the scene.

1. Run the Genesis 3 Poser Updater, click Open and navigate to this new save, then click Update. The message will say ‘processing’ for a few moments before changing to ‘saved’. You should now be able to load the saved figure with all it’s expressions working properly.

You will find all of the morph dials, including expressions, in the Body part of the figure. Full body morphs are under the Actor group, with other shaping morphs under groups for individual body parts. Posing and Expressions are under the Pose Control group.

The DAZ character shapes that you can buy, such as Darius 7, Lee 7, etc, all have their own UV mapping, so you will need to do this process for each of the characters. You will also need to do the work of building the material settings – my own are rather crude but that’s because I don’t render for photorealism – however, you should remember to add any normal maps (these are the blue coloured ones) as they add a lot of the finer detail that would otherwise require high defination morphs.

Also, when you save the figure to Poser’s library as part of the conversion, you will ‘bake’ in the morphs you have, so you will need to repeat the process to include new morph purchases.

Another consideration is that as you get large library of morphs, you may find the figure becoming less responsive when posing – you can get around this problem by creating ‘lite’ versions of the figure, each retaining only the morphs for a particular character. I’ll put together anohter tutorial on doing that another time.

Compatibility

While almost all products in the Genesis and Genesis 2 product lines were compatible with Poser (there are some exceptions), there is a much greater number of products in the Genesis 3 line that just wont work at all. In fairness, this product line was never promoted or sold as compatible with Poser, so to a large extent, we have to risk our money on trial and error.

The majority of clothing products will work, while on the other hand, the majority of hair products don’t. I have a thread in the Poser forums at DAZ where I’m starting to post the results of my own conversions which should help take some of the risk out of purchasing. I’ve a lot more products to post about but not a lot of time lately but I will get around to expanding it soon.

Conversion (part 1)

Open up DAZ Studio and load a Genesis 3 figure. Under Edit>Figure>Rigging Convert General Weight to TriAx Weight.

When complete, save the figure as a scene subset in your Temp Conversions folder.

Choose a name…

… then make sure that the Genesis 3 figure is the only one selected.

Find the figure in the Temp Conversions folder and create a Poser companion file for it.

Make sure that you’ve selected the correct destination runtime…

Continued in next post...

I found Willdial's user guide to be very clear - so long as you follow his instructions, you'll get Genesis 3 and the bulk of its product line working in Poser just fine. Shoes can sometimes be a problem but most will work fine if you apply any included foot pose before adding them to the scene. There are some clothes that won't work and I'm afraid that most of the hair items won't work either, so it's better to re-fit older hairs.

If anyone is interested, I have a thread over on the DAZ Poser forums listing all the products that I've tested and the results - it could help you choosing what to buy and saving money on what doesn't work. I haven't had time to test everything that I've purchased yet but I think there's a long enough list to be useful (I would reproduce the list here but it's in a table which I don't think these forums support)..

I wouldn't worry about this - it's just been poorly worded. If they wanted to remove the ability to install from a zip, what would that mean for adding existing runtimes? Apart from the fact that preventing people installing content that way would require a lot of costly programming, it would wipe out a large chunk of the user base - they wouldn't be doing either. If memory serves, you can install from a zip within Poser and I would imagine that's the facility that's getting changed.

Here's the Creators' Toybox in this store: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/creators-toybox/116432/

I dare say there may be other ways to make a full conversion but this is the only one I've used - and it does have the virtue of being quite easy. As a rule, any clothing that I've been able to use via DSON has converted we enough as well.

Sadly, it won't work on Genesis 3 though - for some reason it breaks all the dependencies for the controlled morphs.

To set up G2 without using DSON I use Netherworks' Creators' Toolbox. I use DSON initially to open Genesis 2 in Poser, which has the tongue, then save a new CR2 and run that through the File Optimizer included in the Toybox package - this modifies the CR2 to remove any calls to DSON and creates an obj file. You'll need to do this for each of the characters that have their own UV set so that each has it's own obj.

If you do use G2 figures divorced from DSON in this way, then you lose the DAZ subdivision, which means that HD morphs won't work - on the other hand, much of the fine detail you see in the promos for this generations is in the normal maps which aren't a problem to apply. Just remember to set the skinning method to Poser Unimesh so that you can apply Poser's subdivision at render-time.

I think it's also worth noting that there are those of us who don't render for photo-realism. I have a library of art shaders for Firefly that can be handy but by and large, it is just faster and provides me with the output I need to post-work the hell out of for a faux painting.