Hi there!

I've been trying to recreate a video game character (for fanart) who has very distinct facial topography. I've already reached out on the DAZ forums and received advice back that my best approach would be to use geografts rather than try and sculpt morphs (I've attached a screenshot of the in-game model I'm trying replicate for reference).

I was able to "slice and dice" the in-game model and sculpt the specific features right into the DAZ G3M model using Zbrush, and it looks great. However, this is where I get stuck. Am I able to use a single geograft for the entire face? Would that still animate properly?The geograft will still have the same basic geometry as the G3M face, as all I'm doing is adding the extra topology (bone spurs and texture).

As a test, I tried to make a geograft of the lower jaw (from ear to ear), and DAZ kept crashing during the Transfer Utility process. When it didn't crash, the graft would float above his head when I applied the "Fit To" step. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here, as I made sure the graft had the unaltered border of polygons to graft with, and it lined up perfectly upon import.

So I guess this boils down to three questions -

1 - Am I able to make a single graft of the face? If no, how will I avoid overlapping grafts?

2 - Will this graft still be able to emote, as the features will be built into my already-created G3M character who emotes very nicely (picture attached as example)

3 - Why is it floating above his head when I try to fit it to the figure?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as my trial for Zbrush expires soon, and I would like to be able to finish this character to prove to myself that the program is worth buying (and it's a gigantic investment).

If you think I can sculpt these features as morphs, please let me know. One of the DAZ moderators said that I'm altering a bit too much for morphs. I -was- able to sculpt them quite well, however it required subdividing the model, and upon importing back into DAZ, all of the detail was reduced down to nubs. I'm not sure I can sculpt what I need with so little polygons to work with.

Thank you!!

Scourge Face Screenshot.PNG

Scourge Screenshot - 1.PNG

To better explicate my issues, I did a test -

I haven't even -done- the actual geograft yet, because I can't get the graft mechanics to work right. For reasons unknown to me, whenever I go through the Transfer Utility process and get to the "Fit To" step, the graft floats above the character's head rather than fitting. As a "control test" I decided to just try and graft a copy of the base character's head without even doing anything else to it. Here are the steps I followed -

Mouth HD and Navel HD to Zero

Resolution to Base

SubD to Zero

Export using DAZ settings

Import to Zbrush

Chop off the head

Export from Zbrush

Import to DAZ using DAZ settings - matches G3M character still open in DAZ perfectly

Transfer Utility - this is where things go awry - please see screenshots for example

Can anybody please tell me where I'm going wrong here? I didn't change -anything- with the model in Zbrush. I just chopped off the head and exported right back to DAZ. Things matched perfectly...and then it won't fit after the Transfer Utility does its thing.

You might want to check what the figures scale parameter is in the parameter tab when your exporting from DS it should be at 100%. A lot of figures use different scale sizes to make the figure larger or smaller which can effect things similarly to what you have shown above.

Razor42 posted at 9:21AM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334829

You might want to check what the figures scale parameter is in the parameter tab when your exporting from DS it should be at 100%. A lot of figures use different scale sizes to make the figure larger or smaller which can effect things similarly to what you have shown above.

Yes, I'm exporting at 100% and importing back in at 100%.

I did some more testing, and what is happening is that when I apply "Fit To", the graft is basically doubling-down on the existing morphs, which throws everything off. I'm not sure if there's a way to prevent that from happening. On the DAZ forums, the feedback I received was that I cannot (or at least should not) build grafts on anything other than the base G3M (or whathaveyou) models. It's a very undesirable restriction, as this character is already built, and his features are much more defined than the base model. Building the graft onto the base face, which is much smaller and softer-featured will end up changing the end-result when I add in my character's shaping preset.

My wish is to build the graft directly onto my character, who is obviously using morphs. However, at this point, I haven't figured out a way to prevent the graft from doubling up on the morphs, and then ending up not fitting properly.

As I said in my reply on the Daz forums, you can create a morph for the graft to match the moprh you are applying to the figure and it will end up looking the same as creating a graft for the morphed shape would have.

RHaseltine posted at 6:07PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334881

As I said in my reply on the Daz forums, you can create a morph for the graft to match the moprh you are applying to the figure and it will end up looking the same as creating a graft for the morphed shape would have.

Do you know of a tutorial on how to do that? This particular character is using quite a few morphs (little of this face, little of that face, a dash of this face over here...not to mention all of the various purchased facial morphs out there). I do have him saved as a shaping preset - unless that is what you mean?

First, don't forget that DS will project morphs into fitted figures (which is why you are getting the doubling up). But if those aren't adequate you would sculpt a new morph in the graft, then in Morph Loader Pro you select the Graft option in Load Morphs For. Other than that, I think, it's like creating a regular body morph.