Making Faces

Lookalike face crafting in Daz Studio and Hexagon

deslea@deslea.com

Tutorial: Lookalike Faces in Daz Studio and Hexagon

deslea@deslea.com

This tutorial walks through copying a celebrity face (or any face) in Daz Studio and Hexagon. The primary application

for me, as a fanartist, is scenes featuring movie and television characters. However, it can also be used as a means of

getting inspiration for your own characters, and breaking out of the perfect-young-model mould. The approximate

time usually is 2-3 hours, but probably more on your first go. I'm using Daz Studio 4.6 Pro and Hexagon 2.5, but the

general concepts will carry over to other software. You don't strictly have to have a 3D modelling program to achieve

a reasonable approximation, but your model won't have the character lines that really bridge the gap between the

right shape and the person.

First, let's talk about why I do this work manually. I have used

FaceShop and the other plug-ins for this purpose, and I don't like

them. Firstly, the lines tend to be jagged, no matter how carefully you

enter the guidelines. Secondly, the transition between the base head

and the imported head tends to be pretty dodgy, often with a major

change in width and depth. This can play havoc with necklines in some

poses, and also the fitting of hair. See the example on the right (this is

after some cleaning up - I no longer have the original of this figure,

which was much worse). In addition, the character lines that really

make a face don't tend to be captured.

Next, let's think about what base character to use. There's no right

answer here. For me, my interests, and my personal collection of

content, it's a no-brainer to use Genesis 2. I came to Daz as Genesis 2

was starting, so I have very little Genesis content, and my Generation 4 content auto-fits pretty reliably to Genesis 2.

So I can use my full wardrobe of hair and clothes on a Genesis 2 figure. (The character morph portability aspect is

irrelevant in this instance because we're making our own). The main downside is that my best skin textures are

Generation 4, and I can't use them without some conversion. However, I have bought a couple of high quality

merchant resource files for this purpose.

On balance, I think it's better to go with the latest figure your content collection will support, simply because the

best and latest skin resources over time will correlate to the latest figure. That said, the gender-neutrality of Genesis

1 may be a plus for an androgynous or cross-dressing character. Similarly, a character with extreme body features

may lend itself better to one figure over another.

So this is very much a personal decision, and the right answer is simply the one that best matches your character and

your current and expected content library. One caveat here: You will need the full range of morphs to do this well, so

if you have only the basic morphs for Genesis 2 but the plus morphs for Generation 4, that's a really good reason to

use Generation 4. Or buy the plus morphs - one of the two.

A final note: Resist the temptation to load a character that gets you partway to your character. This will create a

dependency and/or unintended effects that may not be helpful. An old morph of mine done this way brought in

some muscular body morphs that weren't necessary for the character and played havoc with clothes later. Always

work directly on a base character.

In this case, I am creating a morph for Harry Potter's Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), using Genesis 2 Male as a base.

Step 1: Gather Source Images The first step is to gather your reference images. I'm assuming this is celebrity work and you are limited to what's

publicly available - you will have an easier time here if you're using a person you know personally who will allow you

to take photographs. Make sure your Google search tools are set to large size images only - only go to medium if you

strike out on any of the desired shots.

You want one very clear full-frontal image, preferably with no rotation at all and a neutral facial expression. You

need the full head, from crown to chin and ear to ear. You need to be able to make out very clearly the lines of the

lips, the position of the eyelids, etc.

Ideally, you want one profile from each side, but you might have to settle for a couple of partial turns. You will

probably find that the celebrity has a preferred "side" and it will be very difficult to find the other side, or any profile

at all. Try screenshots in this instance. The profiles don't need to be quite such good quality and you don't need the

crown. The main purpose of these shots is to get the relative depth and slope of the nose, brow, jaw, and chin.

The final picture needs to be a front-on shot, not necessarily straight or neutral, but very good quality with some

strong contrasts. This will be the source of your character lines and shaping, so make sure the sculpting around the

eyes, the nose-to-mouth, and the mouth-to-chin zones are very clear.

The pictures I'm using for Draco are below.

Step 2: Decide on your approach There are some pretty universal rules-of-thumb here. The things you really need to do in Daz are the proportions of

the face, and the position of the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Trying to move these features in a 3D modelling

program like Hexagon will be unnecessarily complicated because you will also need to move interior features -

tongue, nostrils, eyeballs, etc. Ideally you should only be tweaking by adding lines and dips and swelling of the flesh

in Hex. Fortunately matching the position of features is generally quite feasible in Daz.

You should also decide what you will and won't compromise or stylise. If for some reason you can't get the positions

to work perfectly - say, the person's face is a little too high on the head and it pushes the limits of the morphs - it's

more important that the area from the brow to the chin stays right. You can compromise on the distance between

the crown and the brow and it probably won't break the effect. However, in my experience, you probably can't

compromise on the width from ear to ear.

Jaws are interesting. This isn't true of Draco, but many men have quite a wide jaw and quite a shallow angle from the

chin to the ear. One of the oddities of 3D work is that you can perfectly replicate this, and it will look good in real life

and it will look rather blunt and brutish on a 3D model. I have no idea why that is, but I've seen it several times. So

now I know that in those cases, I am willing to make the jaw just a fraction narrower and the angle just a fraction

steeper. Cheek sink is another one you can do a bit more aggressively on the model than in real life, but don't over-

do it.

When I did Voldemort recently, I made a decision not to fully replicate his disfigured nose. I made a version with

Ralph Fienne's "everyday" nose, and a version with his nose pushed up and in only to the extent the morphs would

allow. Obviously there was a practical aspect here, but there was also a stylistic one: I have always thought that

Voldemort's disfigurement was poorly handled in the movies, overdone as a visual shorthand for "monster," and I

think a more subtle treatment is called for. (I also have made a movie-style disfigured version for a specific purpose

since then, but I doubt I will use it much).

Step 3: Set Up Your Workspace Your workspace consists of: Daz on one half of your screen with your base figure loaded, your browser on the other

open to your full-frontal picture, and Photoshop open in the background. Use your Default Camera and zoom and

angle on your base figure so that the view is a very close match for your reference image.

Take a screenshot of your workspace and paste it into a new document in Photoshop. Paste another copy of the

screenshot, make it semi-transparent, layer the figure over the photo to check your angle, and correct your zoom

and angle on your base figure if necessary. You want the head lengths to exactly match, because this grounds your

other measurements. (ie, the head length is the same on your figure view and your picture).

In the image below, you can see that I'm already pretty close for height. You'll notice that the features are way off.

That's okay, we'll fix that later.

Once your workspace is just right, in Daz, go to Create -- New Camera. Select Apply Active Viewport Transforms, and

call your new camera Full Frontal. This means your new camera is going to have exactly the view you just set up and

you can always find your way back. Don't forget to save your scene.

Step 4: Face Width The next thing you need to

get right is the head width.

This is less of an alteration for

male characters, and more of

an alteration for female

characters. Most of the base

female characters' heads are

artificially narrow - I think it's

a young-and-slender

stylisation thing. The key

message here is, don't be

concerned when your female

characters need a major

change here, and don't be

concerned when this artificially expands lips and the gaps between the eyes. We'll clean that up later.

To modify head width, we'll be using X Scale. Select the head, and in Parameters, use the X Scale slider. You're trying

to match where the ear joins the head. We won't be checking every movement in Photoshop, but check this one the

same way you checked your workspace setup.

Step 5: Feature Height Now we get into the morphing. For Generation 4, you will need the head selected for this, but for Genesis 2 you will

need to select the whole figure. This is because the extended Genesis 2 facial morphs live under the main figure in

Actor - Head.

First we want to position the

brow. Use the search box up

top in Parameters to find the

brow height morph (it may be

called Brow Height or Brow

Up, depending on the figure).

Position the brow. You want

the main line of the brow to match, not the upper or lower point of the eyebrows. For now you can use your fingers

against the screen to match them - we'll do some more precise tweaking later on, but just finger-measurement will

get you most of the way there. Measure from the brow to the chin (not the crown to the brow).

Do the same for Eyes Height, measuring from brow to the centre of the eye. If you get into trouble with anything,

position-wise, it will be the eyes. These have the smallest range of up-down movement. If you find you can't get

them high or low enough, get them as close as you can. Then you will need to re-orient your workspace and re-do

your width - the outcome you're looking for is a match for the head length between eyes and chin, and a match for

the width, with the non-match being on the length of the head above the brow. It's a bit fiddly, but if you don't do it,

you won't get the outcome you're after. This happened with Draco, so we'll be walking through this process later.

Once you have Eyes Height, use Eyes Size to match the real eye size, which is probably only two-thirds of that of the

base figure. You will need to re-adjust Eyes Height after that.

Next you need the nose, measured from chin to bottom, but be careful here. There are two ways to do it - Nose

Height and Nose Size. Try Nose Size first, and match the width of the nose as well. If you use Nose Height but it turns

out you needed Nose Size later, it will move the mouth as well, and you'll need to re-do it. That's why we try Nose

Size first and do it before the mouth. In practice you will probably match the width with Size first, then adjust with

Height. Don't worry about the tip of the nose, and don't worry if the nose has a bit of skew. Just match the centre

where the cartilage between the nostrils meets the face.

Next comes the mouth, using Mouth Height. You want to match the centre of the centre line of the lips. Ignore lip

thickness - they're almost certainly going to be much too thick. Again, it's an attractiveness stylisation thing. The

curve will also be wrong - again, ignore this.

Now adjust the Ears Height and, if necessary, Ears Size. Women's ears tend to be a bit higher than the base figure,

but Snape is the first time I've had to significantly adjust size. Unless your character is bald, these needn't be perfect,

but the earlobes need to be right for a character who wears earrings. In Snape's case, since he has long hair, I'm

willing to keep his ears a bit shorter.

Now, do another Photoshop overlay comparison, and tweak as needed. Keep comparing until the features are at

exactly the right height. Don't worry about the overall effect - it still won't look anything like your character. Just

focus on the feature height.

A Problem!

Now, with Draco, I've run into a problem. As you can see above, Draco's

features are lower than I can manage with the morphs. The main culprit

here is the eyes - these have only quite a small range of movement.

So what I need to do here is re-adjust my zoom so the eyes and chin are

the right distance from each other - this means the head will be too short

from brow to crown, but I can live with that. It probably won't disrupt the

look, and if it does, I can mask it with hair. That means I'll also need to re-

do the width, since the height-to-width ratio will change.

The re-worked face so far is on the left. Feature height is now almost

exactly right - I just need to tweak the eye size and adjust the ears.

I might also do the face shape now (Face Heart, Jaw Angle, Jaw Corner

Width, Chin Width) to see if I can match enough. This is because Draco's

face shape is quite an exaggerated heart, and I suspect this will give me

problems. I want to figure that out and decide on a solution

before I go any further.

The image on the right is as close as I can get it in the end.

I'll have to knock those corners off the jaw in Hexagon later,

and while I'm there I can increase the upper head height

and width, too. Importantly, I can do this without touching

the ears. This is important because moving the ears moves

the inner ear as well, and that gets very time-consuming. It

isn't actually difficult in terms of technique, but anything

involving internal parts tends to be very error prone and

very fiddly.

Step 6: Feature Width We've already covered the width of the eyes and nose

under Eyes Size and Nose Size, so now it's time for Brow

Width, Chin Width, Mouth Width, Nose Flesh Size, and Jaw

Corner Width. Again, measure with your fingers to start

with, then compare in overlay in Photoshop and refine.

You may need to compensate for facial expression here. If

your character is angry in the reference photo, the nostrils

will be flared. Alternatively, there may be a slight smile you need to dial back. It's important that your morph has a

neutral expression, otherwise any subsequent ad-hoc morphing (smiles, eyes closed, etc) may be skewed.

Step 7: Refine The Features We are refining everything except depth here. We will deal with feature depth later when we're comparing with the

profile pictures. Before you do this, double-check your overlays in Photoshop and make sure you don't need to

rotate a fraction. Otherwise you could end up introducing skew where it wasn't needed. In many cases, these

morphs have individual left and a right equivalents, which is useful where there are noticeably asymmetrical

features. The morph names may differ slightly in Generation 4 or Genesis. Check again in Photoshop after all these

are done, and tweak further as required.

Forehead

There's not much of use here. Forehead Wrinkle adds worry lines, but they're pretty mild and only show up in

closeups.

Brows

The main things you'll do with the brows are Brow Inner Up, Brow Inner Down, Brow Outer Up, and Brow Outer

Down, all of which do exactly what they say. However, watch out for facial expressions in the reference photo and

compensate accordingly. My Narcissa Malfoy morph has permanently arched eyebrows because I missed this. It suits

the character, so it doesn't matter much, but it would have been better avoided. The other thing you might tweak is

Brow Squeeze. This narrows the V-shape between the eyes, and at full strength, adds a little furrow in the brow.

Eyes

There are a lot of eye morphs, but you won't need them all. Start with Eye Width (which is actually the distance

between the eyes, not the width of each individual eye), Eyelashes Length (always make them long, even if the

celebrity doesn't), Eyelids Bottom Define, Eyelids [Bottom and Top] [In and Out] Height, Eyelids Fold Down, Eyelids

Heavy, Eyelids Lower Height, Eyelids Almond Outer, Eyes Angle, Eyes Iris Size, Eyes Puffy Lower, and Eyes Wrinkle.

You can experiment from there if necessary. Be very careful that you're not introducing any facial expressions - if the

reference photo is smiling, chances are the eyes are squinting a little, so you'll need to compensate.

The other thing you might want to do with the eyes is select each eyeball individually and Y-rotate it downwards a

little. The base figures tend to look upwards slightly, and the effect is more pronounced once you start relaxing the

eyelids. (No one's eyes are as wide open as the base figures!) You may want to also slightly X-rotate each eyeball

outwards, for more of a straight gaze.

Nose

There's quite a bit to tweak on the nose. First up, check Nose Skew, which shifts the bottom of the nose to the left or

right. Follow this up with Nose Bridge Skew, which can add a slight (or not-so-slight) curve to the downward path of

the nose. This is not the same as a curve in the profile of the nose, which we'll look at later.

Once skew is sorted, look at Nose Bridge Height (the deep point at the top of the nose, between the eyes), then

Nose Bridge Width. Nose Ridge comes next - that's the extent to which the flesh on either side of the nose either sits

or slopes inward. (Think of breathing in through your nose - the bits at the side that collapse in are what's affected

by this slider). Nose Ridge Width manipulates the width of the top line of the nose, but you'll get more control with

Nose Tip Width. Nose Tip Height and Nose Tip Round are important ones to get right, as are Nose Flesh Size, Nostrils

Flare, and Nostrils Height.

Mouth

The three things you're likely to tweak here are Lips Thin, Mouth Curves, and Mouth Corner Up-Down. You can

refine further with Lips Heart (adds a downward point to the lower lip), Lip Top Peak, Lip Lower Width (makes a

narrower bottom lip than top lip - a very common need), and Lips Edge Define. There are also various Lip Up Down

options for upper and lower, left and right if you need to introduce a bit of skew.

Chin

The main tweaks here are Chin Width, Chin Crease,

and Chin Cleft. You can be quite heavy-handed with

Chin Crease - it's a subtler morph in render than it

looks in preview.

Jaw

The main ones to use are Jaw Curve, Jaw Define,

and Jaw Angle. Avoid Jaw Height and Jaw Size -

these will have the effect of reducing the size of the

chin, which we've already put in place.

Cheeks

You can fiddle with Cheek Bones Size and Cheek

Bone Width, but unless your character has very

pronounced cheekbones (think Spike from Buffy), it

really isn't going to have that much effect at all. I

used to agonise over them, but now I usually don't

bother. The same goes for Cheek Dimple Crease.

That said, I am doing it for Draco because his

features have quite exaggerated angles, and the

cheeks form part of the angular framing of the

overall look.

Cheek sink is, in my view, one of the more

important shaping morphs. You can go a little deeper than the real character, but don't go too far - it will look right

in full frontal but distort the profile.

Cheek Crease (the line between the corners of the nose and the corners of the mouth) is worth doing, but it doesn't

normally go anywhere near deep enough. You'll almost certainly deepen this in Hexagon. However, be aware that it

may sit in a different place or angle to your character - if so, leave it turned off and do it in Hex from scratch.

Cheek Flex and Cheek Eye Flex are worth doing, but you'll probably want to check them against profile view later.

Ears

Generally these can be left alone, unless your character is bald or wears very short hair (like Draco). Most of the

morphs are self-explanatory, but the most useful one is Ears Angle. This makes the ears either stick out or flatten

against the head.

Step 8: Feature Depth At this point, switch from your Full Frontal camera to Default or Perspective, and turn sideways (or part-sideways) to

match one of your profile pictures. Line up your workspace and save a camera in the same way as before.

Be aware that your features won't sit perfectly on the new picture. This is because of the skew created by different

perspectives and angles. Don't worry about it - just line up the profile as best you can. Then, start refining the profile.

You'll want Nose Bridge Depth, Brow Depth, Eyes Depth, Cheeks Depth, Jaw Line Depth, Chin Depth, Mouth Depth,

Nose Tip Depth, Philtrum Depth, and Face Center Depth. You should also look at Cranium Slope and Nose Bridge

Slope.

Next, take a quick look at the opposite profile in the same way. You probably won't need to make many further edits

unless your subject has a very asymmetrical face.

Step 9: Final Refinements We're stopping the quasi-scientific approach now, and pulling in good old instinct. Put on some hair of about the

right length and colour for your character so you can start to see the character emerge. Now, flit back and forth

between all of your pictures and your figure, and look for things to fix. You're looking for things that jump out at you.

Don't go looking for them in any sort of systematic way - you'll just find tiny anomalies that are due to perspective or

postwork rather than things that actually change the outcome.

Step 10: Spot The Difference I do a test render here as a sanity check. Throw in a distant light plus Uberenvironment for ambient lighting, and dial

the intensity down to 50% on each. Do a spot render and compare with the reference pictures side-by-side. By this

point your figure should look broadly similar to your references, but there will still be something missing.

The usual culprits are creases under the eye, the crease between the corner of the nose and the corner of the mouth

(smile lines), the crease between the corner of the chin and just near the end of the smile line, the puffy bit of flesh

at the apple of the cheek, and the puffy bit of flesh at the cheekbone near the eye. For a gaunt character, it might

also be some extra hollows, and for an ageing character, it might also be jowls. Strangely enough, crows' feet around

the eyes don't seem to make or break the effect. Draco's changes look minor (other than head height, which I'm

currently masking with hair, and the jaw width) but they'll make a big difference in reaching the final likeness.

If you don't have the knowledge or the software to tweak your results in a 3D modelling program like Hexagon, you

can stick with what you've already done - it should at least be basically recognisable. Go on to Step 16 to save the

morph as-is.

Step 11: Defining the Hexagon Workflow Once you're happy with the base morph and have saved your scene, get rid of the hair and the lights and select your

figure. Select File - Send to Hexagon. (If you don't have this option, and you do have Hex, then you don't have the

Hexagon Bridge. Go and download it from daz.com - it's free).

By the way, you might be tempted to make your body changes at this point as well. I recommend that you do these

as a separate morph. That way you can dial out the changes if they don't work at full strength with the clothes,

without dialling down the head. My Tom Riddle morph includes the genital buldge, which I apply as standard to all

male characters. However, it's been a real pain because I use the djebala from Moroccan Dreams for Michael 4 for

his usual robe, and on the way in to Genesis 2, the djebala picks up the morph and creates a ripple in the crotch. It

can be dialled most of the way back out, but I wish I'd left it out.

Once in Hexagon, decide what order you're going to do your edits. Start with the simplest and least error-prone,

which are the creases. The worst that will happen with your creases is that you will need to smooth them out or

deepen them - you won't screw them up so royally that you need to start fresh (which would also wipe any later

edits). Go up in increasing risk. The last thing you should do is any hollows or puffiness around the eyes, since this is

probably the one where you could mess up the whole thing. Make sure you do incremental saves after each

characteristic, so you can backtrack if needed.

I'm assuming here that you have some basic Hexagon knowledge, but there are no advanced techniques here. It's

just pulling and prodding faces, lines, and vertices. There's no surface modelling, no line modelling, no welding, nada.

In fact, you actually can't do any of these things - if you do, the number of vertices in the figure will change, and Daz

won't accept it as a morph.

Step 12: Head adjustments In most cases you will want a change made to both sides

of the face, so switch X Symmetry on before you begin,

and save (because Hexagon crashes a lot). Make sure

you have your undo levels (under Edit - Preferences)

dialled up far higher than the default of ten - say fifty - so

you can back out of moves if need be. This is especially

important for when you're doing point-by-point moves.

The first thing I'm going to do is select the entire top of

Draco's head above the mid-forehead with the lassoo

tool, then use Y translate (green arrow) to make it taller

and X Translate (red) to make it wider (not pictured). I'll

check this against Photoshop before going any further,

because unlike the creases I'll be able to pretty much see

the effect in real time.

I'll do the jaw (previous page)in much the same way. I'll try both X

Translate inwards and X Scale, and see which leaves less clean-up work at

the transition. What I found was that X Scale distorted the effect too

much, so I used X Translate and also a little X Rotate and Y Translate.

Then it's just point-by-point easing out of the effect, which is discussed in

detail in the next step. For now I'll just point out a couple of broad things

about the jaw transition (right).

The main line (1) is in the right place, but it needs to come straight down

(line select then Y Translate). But before we do that, we need to bring the

underside of the chin (2) inwards (face select, X Scale, then probably a bit

of X Translate) to make room for it. The line at (3) will probably need

point-by-point fixing, but it won't be clear how much until the other two

tasks are done. There will also be some easing to do up next to the ear.

For steps 13-16 below, I am showing examples from an attempted Severus Snape morph, because these changes

were a bit more challenging and may be more helpful. (The morph didn't work out for other reasons). The techniques

are the same as for Draco but they will not directly reflect the final when we pick Draco up again at Step 17.

Step 13: Creases Zoom and pan so you have a good view of the region of the face where you want the crease. I'm starting with the

furrow in the brow.

Using the line

tool, select the

polygon edges

where the brow

furrow should

be, and push

directly inwards

using the blue

arrow (Z

translate). This

is a deep

furrow, so you

can go in a good

four or five increments (assuming you're zoomed to fairly close range as below). It isn't depth that makes something

like this discordant, it's an abrupt transition, and we'll deal with that in a moment. The pictures

below show a three increment furrow, which wasn't enough - I later deepened to five.

Now, let's clean up the edges. We do this by moving the surrounding points in as well, but to a

lesser extent. Switch to the point tool, and select the points directly above and below the line

you just moved. Push them in by three increments. Do the same with the next points out, to

one increment. This means your line will ease in and ease out.

But wait - the next lines on each side of the furrow are really sharp. So let's select those with

the line tool (but not for the full length of the centre line) and push them in by three increments

(right).

We'll do something similar with the smile and chin lines, but the cleanup is a lot more fiddly,

because we have zig-zagging points close by due to the slant of the lines. So there's a lot of point-by-point evening

out.

For these lines, feel your own face to work out the direction. You'll note

that smile lines go both inward and, to a lesser extent, sideways, pressing

towards the sides of your face. So you could do, say, three increments on

Z translate and one or two on X translate.

The line coming from Snape's mouth down around his chin presents a

challenge. The polygons curve out, around the cheek, but Snape's line

curves in, to fold under the chin. I'm doing a partial-match on this by

stopping the line just before it folds back around the chin, allowing that part of the line to be implied.

So let's talk a bit more about how we even out these two lines. We'll start with the cheek. On a real person's face,

there is a depression between the top of the smile lines and the sides of the nose.

Sometimes it's below the crease, as with Snape, and sometimes it's above, as with Draco.

So we'll select those faces with the face tool and push them in a bit (above left).

Now, when we rotate, we can see we have a couple of really sharp points (right). Those

will look wrong, so we'll select them with the point tool and push them in. Rotate again

and look for more of these hard points around the transition areas, but be careful not to

ease out your crease itself. That's supposed to have a bit of an edge to it.

The crease towards the chin illustrates what else to look for in easing out the

connections. Your natural polygon lines should be smooth. We can see on (left)

that some zigzags have been introduced - these

need to be pushed back into line to avoid

unwanted ripples in the face.

Now, we can see the cleaned-up curve (right). For

the most part, all lines follow a clean path. The

circled part is still a bit sharp, but it corresponds

to a broader change in the line of the lip. I'm going to take a punt that it will be all

right - I can always clean it up later if it isn't.

Step 14: Hollows and Puffiness So now let's add some puffiness. I'm starting with a couple of spots on Snape's

forehead. This is just a case of selecting the main zone with the face tool,

pulling out a little with Z translate, and cleaning up the edges with the point

tool. Hollows work the same, in reverse. If working near the eyes or mouth, be

careful not to accidentally select any faces on the interior parts (eyeball,

tongue).

I'm also adding puffiness to the eyelids and the area under the outer eye.

These are quite fiddly jobs, but the process is exactly the same.

Step 15: Skew We have a couple of skew tasks now - pushing down the inner points of the eyebrows, and introducing a diamond-

shaped flaw in the nose where the actor appears to have broken it. The eyebrow is easy - that's just pushing points.

The nose, however, is a challenge.

What I've done here is selected some faces on the nose, used X scale to

make them bigger on the side-to-side only, and then switched off

symmetry and moved it a little to the left, in the direction of the skewed

curve. As always, we then clean up the join using the point tool (right).

So now, we have a finished first draft of the face, ready to send back to

Daz.

Step 16: Import and Save the Morph Select the figure and click on File - Send to Daz

Studio. In Daz, you will see the Morph Loader

Pro dialogue. Expand the little triangle to change

the name.

I name all my morphs !!Deslea_[whatever] so

they'll always group together and they'll always

be easy to find. Make sure you put Test1 at the

end. You might tweak and re-import several

times, and you need to be able to keep track of

where you're up to and you need to be able to remove the tests later.

Click Accept, and the morph will come into the

scene, for this scene and this instance of your base

figure only. Now we want to make it easy to find and

work with.

So select the base figure you've been working with

and, in Parameters, go to Morphs - Morph Loader

and find the morph. Right-click it and select Edit

Mode (left).

Now click on the little settings wheel and

click Parameter Settings (right).

You're going to make two changes here

(over the page). First, you're going to click

the little downward triangle next to Path,

and change the Path from Morphs/Morph Loader to Actor/Head (for Genesis), or wherever you like for Generation

4. We're using Actor/Head under the main figure for Genesis because this mirrors how Daz would like it done in the

marketplace. You might as well do it their way so that if you get a taste for this and get into making morphs for sale,

you're already following their rules. And you have to put it somewhere so it might as well be somewhere consistent,

and Actor/Head is as good a place as any.

Secondly, you're going to click on Color B and choose a background colour that you'll use for all your own morphs.

Again, it will help you find your own morphs quickly. Click Accept.

For Generation 4 Figures

Save your scene, and then save again under a new name using Save As - Scene. The idea is to keep your original Daz

base morph setup intact in a backup copy of the scene, because you're going to have to wipe out all your morphs to

try out the customised one, and the morph won't carry over to other instances of the figure or other scenes. If you

don't cancel the existing morphs you will effectively have double morphing and it will look very odd.

Select your figure, then go to Edit - Figure - Zero - Zero Figure Shape. This will remove all morphs. Now go to the

morph you just made, and apply it.

For Genesis Figures

For Genesis, the process is different. We want to test

the morph on a clean figure - and we don't want to

lose the work we've already done. So we're going to

add the morph to the library for use across all

instances of Genesis 2.

Go to File - Save As - Support Asset - Morph Asset(s).

You can leave the Asset Directory as the default. For

Vendor Name, be sure to use the same name every

time (eg, your first name or your nickname), because

this becomes a folder name and you'll want to keep

your morphs together. Give it a product name - I just

use the same name as the morph itself (eg,

!!Deslea_SeverusSnape_Test1).

Finally, select the morph you're trying to save by expanding the tree for your figure. (Remember we put it in

Actor/Head?) Click Accept.

Now you can save your scene and close it. Open a new scene, and load a new base figure. Add the hair you chose

before, and now it's time to dial up your morph. Select the top-level figure, go to Actor/Head in Parameters, find

your morph, and dial up.

Now we return to Draco.

Step 17: Test and Refine So now, we have our first draft up and running. Let's do some comparisons.

It's actually not bad for a first draft. It's rough enough to look like a caricature, but it is recognisably Draco. Some of

the roughness disappears in render, so be sure to check that before you spend too much time on cleanup.

The transitions are too sharp in several places - nothing a bit more point tool won't fix. The brow furrow and cheek

depression aren't deep enough or big enough, even though the transitions are harsh. The head height and jaw angle

are close enough for the purpose, once I clean up the sharp edges. Nothing is actively on the wrong track.

So head back into Hex, which should still be open at your figure. Don't re-export it unless you've done further morph

tweaks in Daz. You might need to do this to patch up a problem, but try to avoid it. Multiple exports and imports

seem to result in slight distortions to the polygon lines, which results in rough edges that you can't get out. Usually

you would be better off to either do the extra tweaks in Hex, or go back to your original Daz-generated morph,

tweak, re-export, and re-do your manual changes, as horrible as it may seem.

When you've got another draft (don't forget your incremental saves!) repeat Step 16 (this time calling the morph

Test2) and test again. Keep doing this until you're happy with the outcome.

Step 18: Finalising The Morph My second draft was pretty close. After some more tweaks, I got the figure over the page.

What you might find is that the figure is right but there are still some jagged edges; try setting the morph to around

95%. You might find that gets rid of the problem while still staying pretty close to the desired effect, thus avoiding

further fine-tuning. Obviously you would spend the extra hour(s) fixing the tiny flaws if this were a morph for sale,

but for home use, you can co-exist with an issue like this. I run my Narcissa Malfoy morph at anything from 85% to

98%, depending on how old I want her to look and whether I'm willing to clean the tiny flaws up in postwork.

The mat and lighting will make or break the final effect. But the shaping resemblance is pretty good, and I'm happy

to call it a day on the morph.

So now, open the satisfactory morph's Parameter Settings and follow the steps in Step 16 again. This time, call the

morph by the same name, without Test[number] on the end. This will be your final morph. Make sure you include

your signature colours!

Now, add any preferred mats and additional body morphing and save your scene.

Step 19: Save Character

Presets

Generation 4

If you're using Michael or Victoria 4, or

another pre-Genesis figure, you need

to save this as a character preset. This

is because there's no easy way to

make your morph available in the

Generation 4 figure parameters for

every instance of the figure. The

character pre-set will bring the morph

in when you apply it to M4/V4, for

that instance of the figure only.

So select your figure and go to File -

Save As - Deprecated - Character

Preset. Under Pose, select Record

Custom, navigate down through your

figure (which will be V4/M4 rather

than Genesis 2 as shown here) and find your morph. It will save however you have it right now, so dial it up to your

desired strength first. It will come in ready to go. If it's on zero, you'll see no change until you go into the parameters

and dial it up.

Accept.

Genesis

If you're using Genesis, you don't necessarily need to save a character preset at all, because you have the morph

automatically available already for all instances of Genesis. You might be happy to leave it there. Where a character

pre-set comes in handy for you is if you also need to do things with body morphs, or if you've cherry-picked textures

from all over the place. (For instance, I always use the best eyes I can find - most of my figures use the eyes from

Mihrelle's Helena Bonham Carter lookalike, Hedera Bane). It's also handy if you have further custom settings for the

morph that are separate from the head and use the standard morphs (remember my advice about not folding body

morphs into the Hexagon morph?). So if you want to add an Adam's apple, genital buldge, breast changes, height

changes, etc, do it now (keeping track of which morphs you use) and include them in the character pre-set. That way

they come in as desired, but you can dial them out again if they cause you any problems in a particular render.

Another reason to save a character preset whether you strictly need one or not is to simply make your life easier by

grouping all your custom characters together in the Content Library, which is helpful for putting together group

scenes. See Organising Your Presets below for more on this.

Go to File - Save As - Character Preset (not Deprecated - Character Preset - that's for Generation 4 and below).

Define a filename and, in the popup, make sure both Shape Settings and Material Settings are ticked. You should un-

tick Compress File, so the file remains in text-readable format for manual edits and troubleshooting later. I won't

cover this here and you won't need it, but you might want it down the track.

Hair, Prosthetics, and Essential Props

Along with hair, if your character has any "standard" body props that require positioning and customisation -

prosthetics, wings, horns, tentacles, tails, a nuclear reactor in his chest like Iron Man, a standard outfit, etc - you

should consider setting them up as desired and saving each of them as a character presets. My Tom Riddle and

Narcissa Malfoy hair are both significantly morphed, for instance, so I have their hair saved. I also have Bellatrix's

dress saved, since that has custom diffuse and displacement settings. These items will usually not be weight

mapped, so you will need to save them in the same way as Generation 4 presets (not Genesis presets). You can also

use this technique for cross-figure hair usage - if the desired hair is for a different figure to your base figure, you can

manually scale and position it and then save it as a preset.

Using Your Presets

There is a key difference between a Genesis preset and a Generation 4/Prop preset. The difference is if you go to

your character preset library (Daz Studio Formats\Libraries\ Presets\Character) and click on a Genesis preset, it loads

the whole figure with the setup. But for a Generation 4 or Prop character preset, you need to load the figure or prop

first, select it, then apply the preset (exactly as you do with applying purchased mats and poses).

If you're following my tip to also set up presets for hair and props, you need make sure you load the props and apply

the character presets for them while the character is still at zero. Make sure you parent them all together before you

start posing the character for your render.

Organising Your Presets

You might want to group your presets. I have a Harry Potter folder under Runtime\Libraries\Presets\Characters in

order to keep them all together. Note that unlike some subfolders in Content Library, the Preset subfolders are

purely for convenience - Content Library doesn't interpret anything from which one you use. This means that it's

perfectly okay to put all your character-related presets together under Character, even if some are technically, say,

poses. (For instance, I have my Bellatrix Lestrange wand hand pose with the Character\Harry Potter presets).

You want the Content Library to know what to make of these, so don't just move any existing presets from outside

Daz. Go to the right place in the Content Library, right-click and choose Create a subfolder, and then right-click and

cut and paste the presets into the new folder from within Content Library.

I use a naming convention on my presets. They start with the

character name. If it's a Genesis preset (ie, I don't need to load

anything first), then it's just the character name, but if there's a

dependency that needs to be loaded first, then I add that. So

Lucius Malfoy, a Genesis 2 preset, is just "Lucius," while Astoria

Greengrass, a V4 character, is "Astoria V4." Other examples

include "Astoria Caliana" (for her hair), "Bellatrix V4 Fantasy

Dress," and also "Bellatrix Wand LHand" (for her wand hand

pose). This way, all related items are grouped and I know what I

need to pre-load, if anything.

Step 20: Tidy Up Your Environment If you had to refine the morph, you will have test morphs and/or

character presets floating around on your system that you will

want to delete, and, in the case of Genesis morphs, really need to

delete. If you followed the morph naming convention given

above, you should be able to distinguish between your test and

final morph. It's really important to clean up your test artefacts

straight away for Genesis, because otherwise you might

accidentally use sub-elements of them in later work, then lose the

work when you eventually go back and delete them. It's

surprisingly easy to do this - I've lost about 90% of a custom

morph that way! Whereas Generation 4 test character presets

will just clutter up your directories, which is potentially confusing

but harmless.

To delete your unwanted morphs, you will need to find the

directory where your base figure's morphs reside. The Content

Directory doesn't manage these - you'll need to use Windows

Explorer or your OS equivalent. For Genesis 2 in my install (Daz Studio 4.6 Pro), they're in data\Daz 3D\Genesis

2\Male\Morphs\ (where "data" is in the same directory as "Runtime"). I have a subfolder there named deslea, which

was created when I defined myself as the author/vendor of my first morph. My morphs, including my unwanted test

morphs, are there, and I can easily delete them. Note that some are self-contained files while others have either

subfolders, or a file plus a subfolder. I just delete the ones I don't want anymore. If you're a bit wary of this, you can

always move them into a backup folder somewhere instead.

So there you have it - one celebrity morph. The first one is the hardest - it all gets easier from here.

Deslea's art can be found at deslea.deviantart.com. This tutorial may be shared unaltered and free of charge.