I'm currently trying to materialize a DAZ Imported OBJ Character and the process was difficult, but I'm making good progress in the translation. However, I've run into a wall.
Im trying to simplify the materials and I'm trying to work my way to only a few materials for the model. The problem occurs when I try and take exact node groups of a material, and plug them into another material in order to effectively combine them.
This is my Node group. When I put it into another material and use the necessary UV Input node and connect it to that materials output node, I get a black mesh error. You can see the error on the straps. They should all be white.
The above image is a picture of me disconnecting the Bikini strap material, because its not necessary. I have copied the nodes into the Bikini Bra material from the bikini strap material.
In the above picture you can see how I put both the Node group along with the parent material into a mixed shader. It still doesn't work. In this picture we can see the data pane as well. My thought was that there was some kind of UV or extra data that I wasn't seeing, that somehow connected to the materials, making them specific to the nodes. Effectively only allowing me to use certain materials, excluding me from the new ones I created. Hence causing my current predicament.
The major problem seems to stem from the objects inability to deviate from the materials directly imported from DAZ, for a reason that I don't know. As long as I use the original generated material slot directly imported from DAZ, my custom node group works. The logic is working.
But if I copy and paste that same logic into another material, even if it was originally generated like the other materials. It wont work. The bikini strap example was used with two imported materials from DAZ, the only materials that seem to work.
The above image shows my Torso.004 Material working, even though I made the material a unique copy. Independent of my newly created material I will show you next.
As you can see, the newly created material, is using the same exact nodes from the torso.004 material imported from DAZ. The only difference is that I created a new material to house those same nodes that worked before.
Anna_Body is the new body material I wanted to use so it could house my different node groups into a combined single material for the mesh body. I find it peculiar that it doesn't seem to have the same data children as the other materials. Even though in the nodes, they reference the same images as the original materials do.
As above, you can see my new Anna_Body material doesn't have any of the kd.91 texture files, even though I do in fact reference them in the node group I made and put into the custom Anna_Body material.
In this picture you can see into Anna_Body Material group. I even made sure to make a copy of the image as unique so there wouldn't be any cross over conflicts. This unique node group works in the original torso.004 material as well, just not when I disable Torso.004 Material and try to use the Anna_Body Material instead. The nodes are effectively the same.
I really tried to make this as clear as possible, if you want more information I can give you pictures. Because this is a Daz proprietary model (victoria 7) I am not allowed to distribute the blend file.
Any suggestions or ideas would be welcome or even references, I've scoured the interwebs but I really don't have any idea of what I should even look into to find a solution or even the cause for this. Anything would be awesome, thanks for taking time to even consider the post.
