Converting a Dress from V4 to G8F for dForce

So, vwrangler expressed curiosity as to whether the Rovescio dress for V4 might be able to be converted to G8F for dForce use.  It sounded like an interesting challenge, and the dress is $2.99, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Note:

This will only work for rigged clothing.  Dynamics will require a different workflow entirely and aren't very workable with current available options.  I'm working on a product for that.

Workflow:

To go from Victoria 4 to Genesis 2 Female, I first set the dress to weight mapping using the edit--rigging option in the Scene Tab.

Then I dialed the V4 clone to 1.00 on Genesis 2 Female (making her the shape of V4).  I used Transfer Utility and the "Current" option under "Source" instead of the usual clone/reverse shape from selected option.  This avoided the "chunky hem" and crotch triangulation problems surprisingly well.  There was some clipping in the hip area when I dialed V4 clone back to 0 again, so I used the smoothing modifier and a mesh offset (you can apply both from the Scene Tab button's edit--geometry menu options) to fix the clipping.  Then I hid everything in the scene but the dress but left the modifiers on, exported to obj, and then used that scene tab edit menu again to use edit--geometry--update figure geometry, and loaded the exported obj through that.  This ensures I have a non-clipping version before I autofit.

To go from Genesis 2 Female to Genesis 8 Female I used the same Transfer Utiltity workflow, but this time I dialed in the G2F clone on G8F before I activated the Utility and used Current under Source again.  I used one of my templates from Ultra Templates because I prefer posing the skirt manually,  but this will probably work without that.  Again I got decent results except in the hip area, so I used the dress's morphs plus the smoothing/collision export trick to fix it again.  You have to fix clipping before you start dForce.  Just regular autofit to G2F, then G8F worked all right for the necklace and bangles.  I used Olympia for Genesis 8 Female plus a larger breast morph to demonstrate that it works without having to use the default.  (That's a couple of Faces of Asia faces dialed in smaller amounts.)

So then I was ready to select the dress, then go the Simulation Settings tab and its little top-left button and add a dForce dynamic modifier.  I went to Create and added a dForce Influence weight map too.  Then I used alt plus dragging the mouse in the Weight Map editor (alt shift W, and the Tool tab, create one if you don't have one) to lower the influence of dForce under the breast area to stop it from stretching downward too far.  I also went to the Surfaces tab and increased stiffness in the dForce settings there, but just for the lower Skirt material, to see if I could save more of that look that the original had.

Finally, I simmed with the default settings except with Stabilization Time increased to 1.5.  I updated the material to Iray.  This is the result.  The transverse tiny wrinkles are actually from the displacement map; the dress doesn't have enough polygons to do that with its actual geometry.  That would be a pretty heavy sim if it was; if you want to try for that you can increase the subdivision and set the Simulation Settings' Collision Mesh Resolution to "Viewport" instead of the base geometry.

In fact, I tried that exact thing for the second pose.  It took longer to simulate, but not by as much as I expected.  Next time I would also use the same conversion method as the dress on the necklace rather than Autofit it, I think.  It actually had custom bones that are now lost.





If you do this, don't forget to save the dress or other item as a new library item so  you don't have to repeat your work.  When I do this I try to use the original author's name and if possible the same product name, as long as it doesn't overwrite anything (from V4 to G8 it won't because their file formats differ).  You don't have to save that little "dForce Modifier Weight Node" token.  It's only there to make the dForce map visible for editing.  The map is actually still saved to the garment when you save, and you only have to add another one when/if you want to edit the dForce weight map(s) again.

I've got an idea for a way to maybe make this process a lot faster, but I'll need to do some experiments before I consider it workable.