As posted to Carrara board:

Last night I set up a V4-based character in Daz Studio. I dialed in the shape, added materials, then also hid the model’s head, substituting a prop head, which I parented to V4’s invisible head. I saved as a duf. Everything was behaving nicely in Daz Studio.

Then I opened the duf in C8.5. V4 + prop head loaded, but with some problems. The FBM that looked fine in Daz Studio came through, but seemed to distort and break the mesh in C8.5. Also the prop head moved from the precise location where I had parented it so there was a noticeable gap between neck and head. [AND none of the materials came through on the prop head, but that’s easy enough to fix.]

Does anyone have any ideas on what’s happening? I thought for sure that V4-based figures would load faster and work better in C8.5, so this obstacle is very disappointing.

On the plus side, I used default lighting and cameras to render a beautiful shot, just like the main promo, of HowieFarkes’ World Gardens Maze, which reminded me why I’m trying so doggedly to learn this software in the first place. ^_^

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Someone told me that I had to remove all the magnets from V4, so I’ll try that this evening.

Very disappointing is an understatement. I’m really pissed off by the amount of time this back-end prep is taking. First there was the likeness problem, which required down-porting morphs, adjusting rigging, and making the G2F bases look as much like the G3Fs as possible. Then there was the texture problem — making sure that the G2F textures roughly matched the G3F ones in tone. Then there was the pokethrough problem, which required a dead-end detour into second skin clothing and was eventually solved with fitting clothes to a bodysuit. Then there was the excursus into texturing a standard outfit for everyone. Then there was the business of consolidating duplicate shaders, followed by getting fed up with how long it takes Carrara to save any changes to a G2F-based character. This was followed by an attempt to do V4-based bodies and prop heads, which required creating a G2F prop head with all requisite morphs, approximating characters’ body shapes with V4 morphs, making morphs for upper arm fat and for bulge in pants, converting characters’ G2F materials to V4 UVs, then adding custom character shapes to clothing with the help of Wardrobe Wizard. Just when I thought I had finally found a way to load my people easily and quickly into Carrara, this goddamn mesh distortion happens. ARGH, ALL I WANT TO DO IS PLAY WITH DIGITAL MODELS!!!!!!!!!
I feel like I’m never going to have my characters satisfactorily up and running in Carrara at this rate. -_-