Sneak Peek - Hair Conversion System Pro

[Netherworks]

Okay guys, I have a sneak peek available for HCS Pro.

Summary:

Hair Conversion System Pro (HCS Pro) is a complete and professional system for converting Prop and Figure hair from one figure to another. The Core system features a modern, unified utility that is the framework for hair conversion. Each Add-On provides the tools necessary to convert hair to a specific figure via Magnet Sets and support files to integrate it into the system. HCS Pro produces clean, smooth results that are suitable for production-level work.

HCS Pro does not handle Poser's dynamic hair.

The Pro version builds on the strength of earlier editions and provides smarter file handling and automation to the system.

Effort has been made to provide a much quicker conversion guide that is faster to read and easier to digest.

Testing:

• Requires Poser 9 or higher all the way to Poser 11 Pro.
  
• If you have add-ons for HCS 2012 and HCS 2014, you are more than welcome to test those as they should work natively with the new system.
• The only add-on offered here is for Jessi and it comes with the system.
• Please share with me if you feel the guide is easy to follow, makes sense or doesn't.
• As best as you can, please document crashes if they occur with scene information and what steps you were doing.
• Feel free to share results in this thread, though you can use the messaging system if you are shy about it.
• Though the core system will be free, please do not share it around. Send folks here if they are interested so that they can become involved with the process.

Files:

Core (required, Jessi add-on integrated): Dropbox - NWS-HCS_Pro_rc2.zip

Quick Installation:

Core is unzipped to the same location as the Poser executable (or PoserPro if you have Pro 2012, 2014).

 

[Miss B]

WOOT!! Downloading, and will be playing with it later.

 

[Glitterati3D]

If we already have the Jessi content and scripts installed, do we need to re-install?

 

[Netherworks]

Nope! If you do a Jessi conversion, it should find them. Not that anyone is running off to do that, I'm sure

 

[Glitterati3D]

OK, reporting in........

in PoserPro11, HCS Pro installed and functioning well except........

When I tried to add it to Creator's Toybox it did not work. Just nothing on the menu.

I did have to install my HCS addons for Dawn, Roxie and Miki in PP11 (had not installed them at all in P11) and then everything worked fine.

My first conversion in PP11 Paris Tail for Dawn from V4

 

[Netherworks]

Okay, I can get that sorted out. thanks.

Also I am toying with some kind of Genesis to Poser hair ideas. I can't say anything will come out on that front in the next 2 weeks but who knows, I might have an epiphany.

 

[Glitterati3D]

One more note......

When I respond yes to "Do you want to move morphs.." HCS assumes a .hr2 file and I cannot change it to a prop or conforming hair. Therefore, if it's either, I cannot move the morphs through HCS.

 

[Netherworks]

So even if you are converting figure hair, it is assuming that you have a prop hair?

 

[Glitterati3D]

No matter what I am converting it assumes an hr2 file only and I cannot change it.

Let me make this clearer for you:
I converted SAV's Marina Hair from V4 to Dawn. The hair is a .pp2 file

The hair converted beautifully and works great. But, when I got to the prompt asking me if I wanted to move the morphs, I said yes. I got the prompt to select the hair, in the same directory where the MarinaHair.pp2 file was stored but it was looking for .hr2 files and I could not change the file extension and select the Marina Hair file. My only option was to cancel.

 

[Netherworks]

Okay, I understand part of the issue. I'm not sure why the author made it a pp2 unless it's some sort of "building your own hair" by adding different props together.

If you do a full conversion it's going to try and build an hr2 if you use a prop because the templates are designed to build a hr2 or a cr2. Being fully honest, it might not be an issue whether you want a pp2 or an hr2 but I might have to tweak some things internally or that could make some messes.

--

Besides all of that, if you do a full conversion on a cr2 hair, are you getting the same issue or only with the prop versus hr2 scenario?

 

[Glitterati3D]

When converting a CR2 hair, at the same point, I get a CR2 file specification on the "Move Morphs" prompt which is fine, but, once again, I can't change it. In this case, I can save a CR2 with the morphs loaded.

So, it's only prop hair.

 

[Netherworks]

Well "browsing" a prop if the conversion is a hr2 isn't hard to fix, it's just allowing an additional extension so it can see the hair in browse. And you said the hair works fine, so it might be okay in this case.

What I'm concerned about is someone wants to convert things like the "kit based hair". I have one called Avalon Forrest that is a kind of mix and match system. And I know fabi has some extra parts in her hair that you can add-on like curls. People right now would think well, it's a prop hair (pp2) and that should be no different that prop hair (hr2) and right now can be an issue.

I haven't been able to replicate the not sending to creator's toybox issue. It seems to work fine here. I'd like to see if anyone else has the same issue.

Btw, appreciate your help.

 

[Miss B]

OK, sorry it's taken me so long since downloading to play with this, but here are my first impressions.

OK, so far I've only tested in Poser 9, and the new Hair Conversion System Pro seems more streamlined, and that's always a good thing. I went and converted the Natsumy Hair (a figure/cr2), originally for V4, to Dawn, and the render below shows how it turned out. I only had to adjust the prop sticks because they set themselves too far back, and the bangs, but there are morphs for the bangs. A quick adjustment of each of the sticks worked out easily enough, but since they load separately, I don't think there's anything else that can be done as far as the conversion goes. I'll just have to make a note for future reference when loading up this particular hair on Dawn.

I had copied my dawn related files from HCS 2014 to the HCS Pro folders, but it wasn't until I was looking through the Guide that I realized you had included Dawn already by default, so that wasn't necessary. Oh, and I haven't tried sending it to Creator's ToyBox, but I will try it shortly.

Next I'm going to install to PP11 and play with a prop hair (hr2) from V4 to Jessi, to see how that goes. I've never used the native Poser figures in earlier versions of Poser, but I've been playing with the new Pauline figure in PP11, and I hope you plan to include her as well at some point. No rush though, but keep her, and Paul, on your to-do list for the future.

 

[Miss B]

OK, just checked, and as Traci already reported, Send to Creator'sToy Box is not working in Poser 9 either.

 

[Miss B]

I converted SAV's Marina Hair from V4 to Dawn. The hair is a .pp2 file

I just checked this out, and sure enough it's a .pp2 file, and unfortunately, with Joanna's passing earlier this year, we can't ask her why. Usually .pp2 files are for actual props, like the hair sticks for the Natsumy hair I just finished converting for V4. Not sure why she would've made the hair a .pp2 rather than an .hr2 file.

 

[Sunfire]

She has several hairs that are both .cr2 and .pp2 the .pp2 are the hairs she has set up for the fits for other figures usually. At least that's what I recall from the hairs in my runtime of hers that I've used.

 

[Glitterati3D]

She has several hairs that are both .cr2 and .pp2 the .pp2 are the hairs she has set up for the fits for other figures usually. At least that's what I recall from the hairs in my runtime of hers that I've used.

Marina Hair is a pp2 file only. No CR2 with that hair.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I just checked this out, and sure enough it's a .pp2 file, and unfortunately, with Joanna's passing earlier this year, we can't ask her why. Usually .pp2 files are for actual props, like the hair sticks for the Natsumy hair I just finished converting for V4. Not sure why she would've made the hair a .pp2 rather than an .hr2 file.

Almost every type of file in the Poser family (pz2, hr2, pp2, etc) is very similar. Both .pp2 and hr2 are exactly the same in structure with the exception of the file extension and what folder they are placed in. You can simply rename hair.pp2 to hair.hr2 (or vice-versa) and move it to the proper library folder and it will work.

 

[Miss B]

She has several hairs that are both .cr2 and .pp2 the .pp2 are the hairs she has set up for the fits for other figures usually. At least that's what I recall from the hairs in my runtime of hers that I've used.

Yes, I've noticed that with quite a few of her hairs. I don't happen to have Marina Hair installed, so I had to unzip it to check. Not sure why she didn't do the two formats with this one. Maybe it's something she started doing with the newer hairs, but didn't think to do with her earlier hair products.

Almost every type of file in the Poser family (pz2, hr2, pp2, etc) is very similar. Both .pp2 and hr2 are exactly the same in structure with the exception of the file extension and what folder they are placed in. You can simply rename hair.pp2 to hair.hr2 (or vice-versa) and move it to the proper library folder and it will work.

I would never have thought that Ken, as I always thought there was something(s) different between them, but then that's probably just when comparing them with a .cr2, which I would assume has a lot more info in it. I've not actually sat there and compared the two types of files.

I'll definitely have to make note of this though. Good to know.

 

[Netherworks]

Yes, that's true but hr2 has some interesting "special" functionality. A hr2 is a dedicated smart prop for the head, it will always replace any prop attached to the head that has the internal name of "figureHair". If you load a prop ball, attach it to the head and then save out in the hair library, it will still show internally as "ball_1" or whatnot but when loaded, it internally becomes "figureHair".

The only thing I can think of doing to separate the head props from the hair is to check for internal "figureHair". I am working on this now.