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10 Exporting Geografts to standalone Export of Male Gens Hip Textures from plugin to full Octane not working.

compare:
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=47686&start=240#p242996

In the past products with Geo Grafts and Geometry shells often required a lot of manual adjustment to make them work in OctaneRender.

Geo Graft

This term is used to describe the technology behind the seamless integration of one TriAx™ figure into another, with one figure serving as a host or base and the other as an attachment. Geo-Grafting technology is an expansion on the concept of a fitted figure, whereby one articulated mesh that shares rigging and/or shaping information with another articulated mesh can be made to follow or Fit To that mesh.

Source:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/s ... ting/start

A try to phrase this in different words:
A prop or wardrobe item is simply parented to a figure. A Geo Graft is combined with the figure in a way that the materials of the figure and the geograft merge seamlessly. In DAZ Studio the connecting surface faces of the figure are hidden. Only the surface zones of the attached Geo Graft are displayed.

Examples for Geo Grafts are tails, horns, human anatomy add ons and other creature specific features that cannot be achieved by simply morphing the figure.

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Often in addition to the two surface zones of the original figure and the Geo Graft also a Geometry shell is added as a 3rd layer to further blend the different layers of materials.

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Geometry shell

A Geometry shell adds another surface layer on top of the original figure.

Examples are tatoo, wet skin and wound effects. Geometry shells are in addition often used in combination with Geo Grafts.

In the past additional surface layers were often added with the L.I.E. (Layered Image Editor) that mostly works well with 3Delight.
With the move to Iray Geometry shells may become more popular.

compare:

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/s ... tion/start

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Tests with Geo Grafts and Geometry Shells

Users reported in the past several issues with Geo Grafts and Geometry Shells.

I made some quick tests with 2.24.2.3 to see were we are at.

- Test 1: M7 with Pro Bundle Anatomy Geo Graft

Products used:
http://www.daz3d.com/michael-7-pro-bundle

Export as .ORBX to OctaneRender standalone. No issues detected.

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- Test 2: V7 with horns, tail and spike Geo Grafts

Products used:
https://www.daz3d.com/tara-sachra-hd-for-victoria-7

Export as .ORBX to OctaneRender standalone. No issues detected.

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Test 3: Geo Grafts in combination with Geometry Shells


Issue: Hidden areas on the bottom surface layer cause surface layers on top also to be hidden when three surface zones are stacked on each other.

It seems there is a general issue in OctaneRender when three different surface layers including Geo Grafts and Geometry Shells are stacked on top of each other.
In general when a Geo Graft is attached to a figure the surface parts on the figure where the Geo Graft connects are hidden.
In DAZ Studio then simply the overlying surface zone of the Geo Graft is displayed.

Nevertheless it seems this leads to issues in OctaneRender where the bottom hidden layer still impacts how the other layers on top of it are displayed.
This issues does only seem to appear when in addition to the Geo Graft a Geometry Shell is present in the scene as well.

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Example: Laguna-Mermaid Set for Genesis 3 Female in combination with Victoria 7

Products used:
http://www.daz3d.com/laguna-mermaid-set ... 3-female-s
http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-7

In this example there are three surface zones layered on top of each other

- Geometry Shell of the Mermaid Tail "Torso" surface (opacity map for the tail material)
- Mermaid Tail "Torso" surface (Victoria 7 skin surface)
- Victoria 7 "Torso" surface (the surface part that is overlapping with the Geograft is hidden in DAZ Studio by default)

If you follow this simple workflow you manage to make Geo Grafts and Geometry shells look properly in the OpenGL viewport and Iray and may be able to reproduce two issues in OcDS:

1) place Victoria 7 in the scene
2) type laguna in the Smart content tab to find the product "Laguna-Mermaid Set for Genesis 3 Female"
3) apply wardrobe preset "Mermaid B Load All"
You will notice that there is a gray area in the torso surface zone.
Currently in the DAZ Studio Iray version there are now three layers of surface zones:

- Geometry Shell of the Mermaid Tail "Torso" surface (opacity map for the tail material)
- Mermaid Tail "Torso" surface (gray area)
- Genesis 3 female "Torso" surface (the surface part that is overlapping with the Geograft is hidden in DAZ Studio by default)

To fix this we manually apply the V7 material to the torso surface zone of the mermaid tail.

4) Apply the "V7 All Mat" to Mermaid Tail Torso surface
Now the gray area is gone and both V7 and the mermaid tail render properly in Iray.


5) Trigger the OR auto conversion

Now you may be able to detect two separate issues:

- The mermaid tail surface is overlapping with the Mermaid Geometry Shell surfaces
Issue: It seems the Iray Cutout Opacity was not properly auto converted to OR.
For now we can fix this manually.

Since the Mermaid Tail Geometry Shell is on top of the Mermaid Tail we can simply hide the unwanted mermaid tail surfaces.
This area is now fixed in OR as well.

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The remaining issue as described at the start of this post is:

Hidden areas on the bottom surface layer cause surface layers on top also to be hidden when three surface zones are stacked on each other
You can observe a black hole in the area where the three surface layers are stacked.

My guess is that the hidden faces of the Victoria 7 torso surface zone where the mermaid tail Geo Graft is attached somehow interact with the mermaid tail torso and the mermaid tail geometry torso surface zones.

Bottom line is:
- Geografts seem to be rendered properly when there are only two surface zones of the original figure and the Geo Graft.
- As soon as a Geo Graft is used in combination with a Geometry Shell and three surface zones are on top of each other there seem to be issues.

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Question is:

- Can anyone figure out a workaround how to make this three layer approach working in OctaneRender by changing some material settings of the three stacked layers?

or
- can this issue be addressed from the coding side?


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Attached a .zip file with the .duf Scene file

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Thank you for helping to figure this out.

Maybe you can experiment with other products that use Geo Grafts and Geometry shell to test what is working and what not?

For just the geo-grafts alone: Have you tested different UVs or models? I tried it a bit when I was working with batch rendering in the standalone, and I found that some G2F models worked perfectly fine, while others had the messed up geograft texture.
Tested with the official G2F gens. I can try to dig up the files if it makes sense?

Update / Edit:
Added guess about mixed up surface layer order in OR caused by the hidden "facets" on the parent figure

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DrHemulen wrote:For just the geo-grafts alone: Have you tested different UVs or models? I tried it a bit when I was working with batch rendering in the standalone, and I found that some G2F models worked perfectly fine, while others had the messed up geograft texture.
Tested with the official G2F gens. I can try to dig up the files if it makes sense?

At the time of the original post I only run those 3 Tests I mentioned with those 3 models I mentioned.
I did NOT have a closer look if changing UVs does affect the results.

In the meantime I also tried:

- Preferences tab: Try to map Geo Graft replacement materials internally.

In the Laguna mermaid example that setting did not improve the situation. Instead the black hole in the torso area just seemed to be slightly different.

- Very Quick UV test with the Laguna mermaid example
changing the UV DID seem to have an effect on the specific look of the hole. (Tried V7 instead of base female)
BUT I did not manage to find an UV combination that removed the hole completely)
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Test 4 - Genesis 2 female with tail, horns, wings Geo Graft

http://www.daz3d.com/succubus-add-ons

Succubus Add-Ons Iray
G2F Succubus Add-Ons OR Auto Conversion
Geometry Shell Succubus Wings
Instead of a smooth transition between the figure and the Geo Graft as in Iray there is a hard edge border visible in OctaneRender.

In this example there are again three layers including Geometry Shells that yield weird results in OR.

Subjective Speculation:

It could be that the underlying reason for issues with Geo Grafts is that the order of the surface layers is messed up when reading them in to OctaneRender because the hidden "facets" on the parent figure interfere in some way with the surface order.

In Iray and 3Delight it may be:
top: Geometry Shell
middle: Geo Graft
bottom: Parent Figure

In OctaneRender it may be

top 1: Parent figure (only in those areas where the connecting "facets" are)
top 2: Geometry Shell
middle: Geo Graft
bottom: Parent figure

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Subjective Impression:
I get the impression that DAZ 3D and the artists are still in the process of improving how Geo Grafts work.

Facets are no longer required for a figure to accept a geo-graft

source: Change Log - build number to 4.9.0.39:

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/s ... ld_channel

So maybe in the future Geo Grafts created with new techniques without those "facets" may work better in OR without much figuring out what to change where.