Making and Saving Facial Expressions on DAZ

So, its always nice to buy something that is already made and gives you ease of use for your characters. But how about creating your OWN set of, for example, facial expressions! It's very easy! just a few simple steps:

1.- Setting up for creating and saving:
First just load any character that you want to make the facial expressions on (These expressions will work for any character tough, i simply chose the character that i'd like to see on the load icon for the expression)

Go to the [Posing / Shaping] tab. On the panel to the right, go to Parameters and then Pose controls.
For easy saving click on the two small arrows that will open the content library.

This is how my screen looks like

Having the tabs to the left will let you access the small [+] symbol for easy saving your pose
Set your character close to the screen so that when you save your pose you will have a good preview icon.

2.- Changing the Pose controls

Change and make the face as you want it. Adjust the sliders to create the facial expression of your choice

3.- Saving your Facial Expression

Once you are happy with how your face look, its easy to save for later use.

Go to the folder where you want to store your expressions (in my case Daz/Genesis/Poses/Faces)
Click on the [+] sign at the bottom left of the content library and click on [DSF Pose File ...]
Chose the save location (DAZ\People\Genesis\Poses\Faces)
choose a name, hit [Save] 

Then a DSF Pose Save Options screen appears. click on the Genesis (to deselect all) and then only select as shown here:

Saving your Facial Expression

By only choosing the pose controls and just the head you are assuring that your other characters wont turn into this one and still make the facial expression you wanted.

When you are done, an icon with your new facial expression will show on your library, double click on it to change your characters face.

I suggest you also save a "Neutral" face so you can reset the face at any time, for whatever reason.

And that's it! Happy facial expression making!!

Ivy generator!

Looking at one of FireKDragon's pictures, he mentioned an ivy generator he used for his wonderful image. I started to look into it and I found it. An easy to use external, small program that will generate an ivy plant around your object!

Heres the link to the page: http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/

And quoting Drea, I put the important Vue notes she made that I use:
All of her post can be found here: http://www.yurdigital.com/forum/software-forums/vue/ivy-generator-free-tool-boost-your-forest-ruins

In Material Editor:

• If wanted, add bump map to the color map and 
• set bump to 0.8
• change highlight color to a light gray
• add backlight between 95% and 100%

For textures I used a picture I took of a ivy in a trip to the UK. It is from the Lake district near Keswick. You are welcome to use them for free if you want. You should be able to right click and download the full size. In Vue I change the trunk texture into the mossy green or something else.

Fixing skin in Vue imported from Daz

One of the first things I noticed when exporting my character from Daz to Vue, was that the skin looked really bad! my characters looked like made of plastic.  

I looked at this tutorial "OPTIMIZING POSER & OTHER ITEMS FOR VUE"  and found great information with useful tips! 

On this post I just highlight quickly what i need to remember to set up next time I import. If you want to read more detailed all the useful things they have over there, I really recommend it. But for now ill put here the quick list for what I have done. I have tweaked to what works for me so feel free to do what you think works best for your models and your scenes.

On Material Editor for EACH skin material :

1. Highlight color to WHITE
2. check Variable Highlights - Edit Function - Link Highlight to map (grayscale)
3. set Global Intensity and Global Size to 10%
4. Bump - Edit Function - Link Bump to texture map (grayscale) - Depth to 0.01

For the lips (after applying the previous changes:

1.  Change the Overall Color to the tone you want (in a very light tone)
2. set Global Intensity to 80% and Global Size to 50%

For the face and neck I use Global Intensity at 35% Looks nicer I think.

Don't mind the quality, left is on ultra and right is on broadcast.

RENDER QUALITY

One more thing I'll add here is the comparison of the quality of the renders, so you can choose  what works best. The renders were the same size (the full image not the strips I show) and the time in the image is how long it took to render, so you can compare quality versus time. Those images were rendered before Skin adjustments. Actually no material adjustments at all.

*I* personally dont think the quality difference between broadcast and Ultra is that huge (at least for my hobby purposes) and I dont think its worth 3 times the time. but every once in a while its nice rendering the full quality. You choose.

Anyways, have fun!