White Geograft on My Character

[Rendar Rockbrok]

So I have my futanari character looking exactly the way I want her to look in DAZ. I’ve used the Meipe Futalicious geograft with the Roasty addon. I’ve got the shell attached, I’ve done the mat copy, and I’ve added topography to it. I’ve made sure to go to Parameters in DAZ and shut off all unnecessary body parts associated with the Futalicious shell. It is, in fact, the only shell I’m using. When I import her into Blender she looks great, except that her genitalia has gone completely white in Cycles (black in Eevee)

I go into Material Properties and see that shader node trees have been created for Torso, Shaft, glans, testicles etc. I go into the shader tab for each of these and see that elaborate trees are there for each component. They just don’t translate to the preview screen or to renders.

This is literally the last major obstacle I have to getting what I want: all of the conveniences of both programs. I seem to be the only one having this problem as there is no mention of it anywhere that I can find. I will owe anyone who can help me with this bigtime!

[Rendar Rockbrok]

So I’ve done some experimenting and can see why this is not a widely reported issue. I uploaded the default Genesis 8.1 Model, attached Roasty, copied mats, and applied ridges and veins. I exported out of DAZ and imported into Blender. Everything is perfect or almost perfect. I tried doing the same for my character model, who is based on CB Sabah 8.1. I imported after attaching the graft, no problem. It’s only when I copy the mats that I get the image above in Blender, even though everything looks fine in DAZ.

[Thomas Larsson]

Sorry, I don’t follow. Do the materials look fine in DS? After the file has been imported into Blender? Because you write that problems only appear after you copy materials, which you do in DS, i.e. before the character has entered Blender. Or are you using the button called Copy Materials in Blender?

My version of futa does not support G81F, but I can import G8F with futa, roasty, and a futa shell. It was a bit tricky to get rid of the white materials in DS, but once it was done the imported materials looked fine in Blender.

[Thomas Larsson]

Btw, the node tree you posted does not show the problem, because it occurs inside the node called Futalicious shell at the right. If you select that node and hit tab you can see what is inside it.

[Rendar Rockbrok]

Thanks for the quick reply Thomas and thanks especially for making Diffeomorphic! With it, I hope to achieve all the easy realism of DAZ along with all of the easy pose-ability and animation of Blender. If I get past this one issue I’ll be golden! Yes, the materials look great in DAZ. You see, in an attempt to pinpoint the problem, I did an import into Blender each step of the way. I load Roasty onto my character and I transfer into Blender. So far so good. The figures look the same. Back in DAZ now I copy mats onto the futa figure. Looks great there. I then take that DAZ figure into Blender and I get what you see above. The Matt copy was done in DAZ. I actually had no problems at all porting in the generic G81F with futa attachments. The vein topology was slightly de-emphasized (fixable) but it was otherwise a perfect port. For the character above, I started with CB Sabah, which is an 8.1 model. She looks completely different now except for the skin tone. Here are a few couple screen shots that might reveal an issue before I open the Futalicious shell node.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

The only reason why that could happen is the shell visibility in daz studio.

That is, diffeomorphic does not import the “face groups“ visibility, but only the “surfaces“ visibility. Because shells in blender are “per material“, not “per face group“. This is a good optimization and also saves time if you have then to edit anything.

So to be sure to export everything fine you can check in daz studio all the “face groups” in the shell visibility, that will make all the groups visible that’s the same as blender does. Then render and fix the “surfaces“ visibilty if required, that will be what blender imports. You have to do this for all the shells if you have more than one. Then you can export.

Usually the surfaces visibility is good so you don’t have to fix anything, but the above procedure may be required in some cases.

p.s. Also to export HD figures with geografts you have to enter the geometry editor as explained in the docs.

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2020/09/hd-meshes-and-geografts-revisited.html

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@Thomas, may be this note can be added to the docs.

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[Rendar Rockbrok]

Now, going into each Futalicious shell component here is what I have:

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[Rendar Rockbrok]

There doesn’t seem to be much going on for components like Main and Glans as far as the shell goes. Just a Group Input and a Group Output node. I hope these snapshots can help you find what’s causing the whiteout on the attachment, Thomas. I’ve had great luck getting dedicated G8 products to work on my G8.1 models so far. I’m hell bent to make this work somehow, so I’m happy to pay a consulting fee for a solution. Perhaps I can make progress if you share what you did to get rid of the whiteout on your G8.

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Thanks again Thomas!

[Rendar Rockbrok]

Hi Alessandro! Let me do a deep dive on your comment and report back!

[Rendar Rockbrok]

So I went to the geometry editor in DAZ. I noticed that the shell immediately disappears and I’m left with an untextured unit that has the same color as the main mesh. (as an aside, the unit also goes from the Roasty shape back to the Futalicious shape. Everything goes back to normal when I switch to the node selection tool.) While in geometry editor, I matched the display and render subdivision levels to that of the main mesh per your article's instructions. Still in the geometry editor I save the file as both a subset and do an export to Blender. I do an import to Blender and…progress. The character has imported with the Roasty attachment and no whiteout on the graft. The basic color matches the body and the geometry is perfect. Unfortunately, the texture mat did not reappear. The unit basically looks the same as it does in DAZ’s geometry editor, except that the Roasty shape has returned.

‌ I ran a couple experiments. I was able to get the same results just exporting from the geometry editor without matching SubD levels. When I matched sub-D levels, went back to the node selection tool in DAZ (where the texture map and Roasty shape reappeared) and exported from there, the Blender Import had the whiteout effect again.

One more note, CB Sabah is an HD character but it is my understanding that an HD export is not required. I need a lower low poly count for animation, and shade smooth/sub surface modifiers get me near identical results. Please let me know if I’m wring about that.

Also, it seems to make no difference if I import with cycles or Evee set on my render rab. It also seems to make no difference if the basic DUF file is imported or the DUF.png file is loaded. I load the larger file just to be safe. Please let me know if I’m wring about that.

My goal now is to find a way to import those texture mats for added topography. Specifically the one marked Shell DK Veins Preset.

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[Rendar Rockbrok]

P.S. I made absolutely sure to switch off all unnecessary items in Shell visibility. Here’s a full list of what I shut off and kept on.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

No you don’t need to export HD. And you don’t need to match the subd level in the geometry editor, unless the geograft is HD that usually isn’t. As for the veins preset you should be able to just apply it in daz and export to blender, it should import fine.

note. As for HD items in general it may happen that multires can’t unsubdivide because of blender limitations. In this case you get a warning on import, and may produce the “white effect“ as well.

edit. As for turning off face groups it is just how it works. In daz studio face groups take precedence over surfaces. In blender they are ignored, that is, they are supposed to be always on.

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[Rendar Rockbrok]

I’ll include this part in case it’s relevant info. The Futalicious genitalia items apply to surfaces. The WG_0 sliders apply to the faces. I find that if I turn any of either of them off in DAZ’s Node Selection tool mode bits of the texture mat start to disappear.

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[Rendar Rockbrok]

Good to know Alessandro. I’m going to get some sleep and dedicate all day tomorrow, if necessary, to figuring out why the texture mats that come up fine in DAZ are not making it into Blender, seemingly. I’ll report my findings here and hopefully we can close out this issue and provide a solution to anyone else having a similar problem.

[Rendar Rockbrok]

So when I transfer out from DAZ while in the geometry editor, I get an import with a good basic color match but not shell, no texture, no bumps. You can see here that there is no shell in the shader node tree. When I export from DAZ with any other tool selected, I get a shell and a shell node but everything is whited out.

[Alessandro Padovani]

Please upload a test scene as simple as possible in duf format. That is, the daz scene, not the blender scene. If possible use G8F or V8 and futalicious. Unless the issue arises only with the specific figure, in that case please provide a link to the store page of the figure you use.

note. Of course I trust that you followed my instructions above, otherwise please do or we just waste time here.

[Rendar Rockbrok]

Hi Alessandro. I’m folowing all instrusctions to the letter or at least to the best of my understanding in order to respect your time. I’m also going through every permutation here to try to get this solved on my end or provide as many clues as possible and rule as much out for you as possible. I really appreciate your help. I think I found the culprit. It’s the model. https://www.daz3d.com/cb-sabah-hd-for-genesis-81-female Loading the base actor (not the HD version) and attaching the Roasty geograft - then copying the Mat with the figure selected. Everything looks fine in DAZ, but it seems as if the materials just don’t carry over to Blender Via Difffeomorphic. I can load the base Futalicious and Roasty Units with shell just fine. Everything loads fine with a regular 8.1 model. https://www.daz3d.com/cb-sabah-hd-for-genesis-81-female Here’s also a temporary link to the file. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1azv6V4OwftJ66FqrwVfYM_xAvdmwCdki/view?usp=sharing She’s a great model and I’m sure folks will like having the option to bring a futa version of her into Blender. Let me know if I can wire you funding for the product and for your time.

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[Rendar Rockbrok]

I’ve made a couple more discoveries and conclusions. Everything works except for the Blender import of the CB Sabah figure’s mat copy to the futa unit (image 3). This is an 8.1 mat for an 8.1 figure. Diffeomorphic might not officially support 8.1 but it works perfectly for every other 8.1 asset I ever tried it on. I’m determined to find a workaround, and I mostly have now. The Futalicious shell DK mats DO transfer and there is a dark option that matches Sabah’s ebony skin tone. So shaft and glans are covered. I’m just getting a whiteout effect at the base and rectal areas. I try to do an eye dropper color cut and paste onto those areas inside of Blender, and see if I can make it seamless.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

At first I had an issue with your scene because I didn’t install the roasty G81 update. Once I updated everything works fine. Though there’s an issue #1084 so you have to delete the CB eyebrows to avoid the crash until Thomas fixes it. Thus I suspect you’re using an old version of the plugin and that’s why it doesn’t work for you.

When reporting bugs/issues it is expected that the user gets the latest development version that’s the one including fixes. Try this and let me know.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/downloads/

[Alessandro Padovani]

@Rendar if you have nothing to add I’ll mark this as invalid.

[Rendar Rockbrok]

Hi Alesssandro. Sorry, I was away from my studio on business these last couple days, but I’m home now for the next 3 days and ready to give quick feedback. The version I have is from March, so fairly recent, but I’ll make sure to check for any updates before reporting any issue. I see there’s a new version of DAZ out now too. I’ll update everything today and report back.

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[Rendar Rockbrok]

Hi Alesandro. So far so good. I updated to the latest versions of DAZ and Blender. I downloaded the latest version of Diffeomorphic and did a from scratch install into DAZ and Blender, removing the old version from Blender. I managed to do this without nerfing anything and my old files seem to load properly. I did a quick import of the modified file I sent you (no eyebrows this time). Everything looks 100% perfect. I’ve done this all with no eyebrows. I’m going to see if importing with eyebrows causes the crash you experienced on my end. Then I’ll try all of this with my custom character. The goal will be to import her into all of the scenes I’ve saved for my current slideshow project and do a copy/ paste of the texture nodes from this new, imported character onto the old, posed character in each scene.

[Rendar Rockbrok]

I managed to repeat the experiment with CB Sabah, eyebrows included this time. Everything looks perfect in Cycles, even the render. In EEvee, the character appears to have a force field around her that does show up in the render. I don’t care though because I only work with Cycles. Let me now try to get my custom ebony character, Visola imported with these more realistic futa unit upgrades I’ve applied successfully in DAZ.

[Rendar Rockbrok]

OK, I think we’re done here. Visola seems to port into Blender perfectly now, at least in Cycles. The only warning error I get is a notification of unsupported shaders. I don’t get this when I import default CD Sabah. I’m not worried about it. I see no evidence of a defective import in terms of what the character looks like. I experimented with importing the character without eyebrows or hair and got an entire screen full of Python errors. After minimizing the error screen, the character seems to have ported in just fine. The geografts didn’t merge, but I was able to do that manually. You can let me know if seeing some Python errors when importing is common and something not to worry about if no noticeable glitches are detected.

‌ I’m having some trouble cutting and pasting the new textures from the imported character to the old, posed and lighted character, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion and something I won’t ask for your help with as this is not Diffeomorphic related. I want to thank you for your time. I’m very relieved and also very apologetic over the fact that this seemingly impossible obstacle was overcome almost entirely by something as simple as updating my products to latest versions. You should probably mark this discussoin as invalid as it’s a lot to wade few, and there are few lessons for users to learn other than the fact that updating to latest versions really does solve a lot of problems.

Best to you and Thomas!

R.R.

[Rendar Rockbrok]

And even my last issue has now been solved. The mats and textures copy perfectly from one character to the other. It’s a quick and easy process. I don’t even have to go into the shader tab. Visola will be able to make amore now to her GF with Rigified intensity and precision: something impossible, or at least entirely impractical to do in DAZ. That’s a few projects down the line though. For now, I’ll be able to pose and render in Blender with speed and efficiency and quickly improve faulty renders (I always save a session file for each). It’s great to make rapid progress creating again after being mired in an easily avoidable technical issue quicksand. Thanks again!

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[Alessandro Padovani]

Glad that you got it.

The eevee “force field” is because you use the bsdf option for materials that’s for cycles as noted in the tooltip. To render with eevee there’s the principled option.

The shader warning means there’s some daz surfaces in your scene using 3delight shaders. Those get a limited support and some features may not work fine. For 3delight shaders it is best to convert to iray before exporting, you do it by applying the uber shader.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

user was using a old version