Facegen For Genesis 9
The Ultimate Guide to FaceGen for Genesis 9: Bridging Real-World Faces and Digital Art Introduction: The Quest for Hyper-Realistic 3D Characters For decades, 3D artists have faced a fundamental challenge: creating realistic, unique human faces that don't fall into the dreaded "uncanny valley." Whether you are a game developer, a VFX artist, or a hobbyist in Daz Studio, sculpting every pore, wrinkle, and asymmetrical detail from scratch is a monumental task. Enter FaceGen —a revolutionary piece of software that generates photorealistic 3D faces from photos—and Genesis 9 , Daz 3D's latest generation of highly customizable, morph-based figures. When you combine the statistical modeling power of FaceGen with the anatomical flexibility of Genesis 9, you unlock a workflow that turns a simple selfie or celebrity photo into a fully rigged, animation-ready 3D character in minutes. This article dives deep into how to master "FaceGen for Genesis 9," exploring the tools, the pipeline, the limitations, and the creative potential of this dynamic duo. Part 1: Understanding the Tools What is FaceGen? FaceGen (specifically FaceGen Artist Pro or FaceGen Modeller) is a standalone application developed by Singular Inversions. Unlike simple photo texture mapping, FaceGen uses a sophisticated statistical model based on thousands of laser-scanned human heads. By analyzing at least one frontal photo and one profile photo (though a single frontal photo works decently), FaceGen calculates:
Shape: Head form, jawline, cheekbones, nose shape, and ear protrusion. Texture: Diffuse color maps, specular maps, and even displacement maps for pores. Demographics: Age, gender, and ethnicity sliders.
The output is a low-poly or medium-poly head mesh with matching textures. However, by itself, FaceGen does not produce Daz-ready characters—it produces a generic OBJ file with bitmaps. What is Genesis 9? Daz 3D's Genesis 9 is the latest evolution of their flagship base figure. It represents a leap forward from Genesis 8 and 8.1. Key features include:
Unified Gender Skeleton: One skeleton fits masculine and feminine shapes without scaling glitches. Enhanced Mesh Density: More polygons in the face (specifically around eyes and mouth) for finer morph control. Improved Expression System: 150+ facial expression bones and morphs out of the box. Backward Compatibility: Many assets from Genesis 8 and 8.1 can be auto-converted. facegen for genesis 9
The caveat? Genesis 9’s vertex order is different from previous generations. This means that older workflows designed for Genesis 3 or Genesis 8 (using tools like "FaceGen Converter") will not work natively with Genesis 9 without modification. Part 2: The Classic Problem – Why FaceGen Doesn't Work with Genesis 9 Out of the Box Here is the critical point of friction. FaceGen outputs a generic, symmetrical mesh topology. Genesis 9 has a unique topology optimized for Daz’s TriAx weight-mapping. You cannot simply load a FaceGen OBJ into Daz Studio and expect it to morph Genesis 9. Historically, Daz artists used a product called "FaceGen Converter for Genesis 8" (by Raccoon or similar developers). This tool acted as a bridge: it mapped the FaceGen shape onto the Genesis 8 base using a proprietary morph. As of late 2024 and into 2025, there is no official "FaceGen Converter for Genesis 9" sold directly by Daz 3D. However, the community and third-party developers have found workarounds. The most promising tool currently is the "GF9 - Genesis 9 Face Tools" or modified scripts originally designed for Genesis 8 that have been updated. Why the delay? Genesis 9’s facial bone structure is more complex. It supports "FACS" (Facial Action Coding System) more accurately than Genesis 8. Mapping a static FaceGen shape (which is essentially one morph delta) onto a system designed for dynamic bone/morph interaction requires re-engineering the converter's math. Part 3: The Workflow – How to Get FaceGen onto Genesis 9 (Three Methods) Despite the lack of a one-click official converter, there are three reliable methods to transfer FaceGen data to Genesis 9. Method 1: The Wrapper Method (Best for Beginners) Requires: FaceGen Artist Pro, Daz Studio, Hexagon or Blender, and a Genesis 8 to 9 converter script.
Generate Face in FaceGen: Create your face (e.g., "John_Doe.obj" and its textures). Project to Genesis 8: Use the existing "FaceGen Converter for Genesis 8" to project the shape onto a Genesis 8 male/female. Export this as a Genesis 8 character (DIM asset). Convert to Genesis 9: Use Daz Studio's built-in "Genesis 8 to 9 Converter" (found in the Scripts menu under "Utilities"). This script automatically tries to translate morphs and weights from 8 to 9. Result: The shape will be approximately 85-95% accurate. You will likely need to tweak the eyelids and lip seal, as Genesis 9 has deeper geometry there.
Method 2: The Texture Transfer + Head Shape (Best for Realism) Requires: FaceGen, ZBrush or Blender, and Daz Studio. The Ultimate Guide to FaceGen for Genesis 9:
Ignore FaceGen Shape: Generate only the texture maps (Diffuse, Specular, Bump) from FaceGen. Load Genesis 9: In Daz Studio, load a base Genesis 9 figure. Apply FaceGen Textures: Use the "Surface" tab to apply the FaceGen Diffuse map to the Genesis 9 head. It will look like a mask—wrongly mapped. Warp the Texture: This is complex. You export the Genesis 9 head as an OBJ, load it into Blender, and use the "UVProject" modifier or "Transfer Texture" tools to map the FaceGen texture onto the Genesis 9 UV layout. The free tool "TexTools" for Blender helps here. Sculpt the Base: Manually push/pull the Genesis 9 vertices to match the FaceGen shape using sculpting brushes (toggling between the two meshes as references). This is time-consuming but yields the best results because you retain Genesis 9’s full expression range.
Method 3: The Morph Loader Pro (Direct, but Risky) Requires: Daz Studio Pro, patience.
Export your Genesis 9 base as an OBJ (File > Export > OBJ). Export your FaceGen head as an OBJ. In Daz Studio, load your Genesis 9 figure. Go to Create > New Morph. Use Morph Loader Pro (an included plugin). Load the FaceGen OBJ as the "Target." Warning: Because the vertex counts and orders differ (Genesis 9 has ~24k vertices, FaceGen ~6k), Morph Loader Pro will try to "project" the shape. You must check "Reverse Deformation" and "Per Vertex" but expect heavy distortion around the eyes. Clean up the resulting morph with Puppeteer or the Geometry Editor. This article dives deep into how to master
Verdict: Method 1 (Wrapper via Genesis 8) is currently the fastest, most reliable way to get a decent "FaceGen for Genesis 9" character. Part 4: Texturing – The Secret Sauce Shape is only half the battle. The hallmark of FaceGen is photorealistic textures . Genesis 9 supports PBR (Physically Based Rendering) shaders; specifically, the Iray Uber Base shader. When you export textures from FaceGen, you get:
Diffuse Map (Color) Specular Map (Shininess/Glossiness) Bump/Displacement (Pores and fine lines)