SimTenero Shape Reprojector [Commercial]

simtenero

Hello All,

SimTenero Shape Reprojector has just been released!  For your consideration:

http://www.daz3d.com/simtenero-shape-reprojector

Guide:

http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/public/read_me/index/33193/33193_shapereprojectorguide.pdf

This tool is really powerful and also a little complicated, so please feel free to post your questions here.  Also feel free to share tips/tricks/settings learned during your reprojeciton adventures!

stagwolfgaragekits

Loving it so far.  There was no way I wasn't grabbing this.  Amazing amazing concept and execution.  

simtenero

stagwolfgaragekits said:

Loving it so far.  There was no way I wasn't grabbing this.  Amazing amazing concept and execution.  

Thank you, that's great to hear!!!  Let me know if you have any questions, there are a lot of parameters to sort out :-D

Oso3D

Argh, just bought a new computer so finances need to lay fallow for a bit, but this is at the top of my must haves. nicely done

stagwolfgaragekits

OK, I do have one technical question, and get as complicated with the answer as you need.  The documentation indicates that there are "some cases" where you can/should start with the receiver object in a non-zeroed state.

What specifically happens if you attempt to project an object onto a receiver in a morphed state?

I'm wondering if it's possible to achieve some more extreme morphs by projecting a more moderate source onto a default-shape-receiver and then running the process again using a futher-aggressively-shaped source projected onto the receiver with the "partial" shape from the previous projection already dialed in.

Setting aside the liklihood of ending up with a stack of morphs that would all be needed to achieve the final target...is this theoretically a viable approach?   If not, reiterating the initial question, what DOES it do when you project a source-shape onto a morphed-receiver? 

(Also, I love your new "graffiti style" helpful hint background images) 

Oso3D

I am excited to get this when I can because I've tried to do stuff like this with dynamic draping of sheets, collision, depth camera -> displacement maps, and so on. All those methods stink hard.

stagwolfgaragekits

timmins.william said:

I am excited to get this when I can because I've tried to do stuff like this with dynamic draping of sheets, collision, depth camera -> displacement maps, and so on. All those methods stink hard.

100%  Those kinds of applications will definitely be much easaier with this, that kind of thing seems to be working great "out of the box" with the default settings dialed in.   I'm just a fool who learns by doing crazy stupid upper limits stuff first :)

simtenero

stagwolfgaragekits said:

OK, I do have one technical question, and get as complicated with the answer as you need.  The documentation indicates that there are "some cases" where you can/should start with the receiver object in a non-zeroed state.

What specifically happens if you attempt to project an object onto a receiver in a morphed state?

I'm wondering if it's possible to achieve some more extreme morphs by projecting a more moderate source onto a default-shape-receiver and then running the process again using a futher-aggressively-shaped source projected onto the receiver with the "partial" shape from the previous projection already dialed in.

Setting aside the liklihood of ending up with a stack of morphs that would all be needed to achieve the final target...is this theoretically a viable approach?   If not, reiterating the initial question, what DOES it do when you project a source-shape onto a morphed-receiver? 

So, one quick clarification, morphs are no problem, you can project onto a morph shaped.  What usually needs to be zeroed is "sub-root" rotations, and even then, usually only "hip" rotations.  In the promo image where Genesis 3 Male is getting his lights punched out, he was already posed before having the face indentation applied and it worked great.  For reasons I have not been able to sort out, when I apply a morph programmatically, it's treated differently than a morph loaded via .duf.  The result is, a morph will look fine when you first create it, but when you reload the scene, it will be skewed.  I ran into the same issue with Zone Smoother, so that script actually zeroes world space transformations before it runs and then restores them after.  I didn't want to do that with this script because I wanted people to have absolute control over the finished product.

Long story short, it's typically just first level/hip level rotations that need to be zeroed. 

As for combining multiple morphs to get more extreme or exaggerated results, absolutely you can!  There are a few ways to do it.  What you described actually works great and I've done it myself a bunch.  I'll create one set of very smooth, subtle morphs, and then another more extreme, less smoothed morph, then dial them, together.  Alternatively, you can use the "fixed distance" projection methods to create m,ore extreme morphs.  You can also edit the morphs to allow them to be dialed above 100% and exaggerate that way.

Also worth trying, dial up a really high "Before" smoothing value with Quads 2 or Tris 2, run the projection with Separate Smooth Morphs enabled, then dial back the Smooth Before morph to zero or less than zero.  It can actually add back original shape details, pretty cool effect :-).

stagwolfgaragekits

Gave G2M a morph so he can sport an exposed M4 Brain.   Other than swapping the "project inward/outward" settings, this was just a few seconds on the default settings.  Great result for quick fiddling.

stagwolfgaragekits

 

simtenero said:

So, one quick clarification, morphs are no problem, you can project onto a morph shaped.  What usually needs to be zeroed is "sub-root" rotations, and even then, usually only "hip" rotations.  In the promo image where Genesis 3 Male is getting his lights punched out, he was already posed before having the face indentation applied and it worked great.  For reasons I have not been able to sort out, when I apply a morph programmatically, it's treated differently than a morph loaded via .duf.  The result is, a morph will look fine when you first create it, but when you reload the scene, it will be skewed.  I ran into the same issue with Zone Smoother, so that script actually zeroes world space transformations before it runs and then restores them after.  I didn't want to do that with this script because I wanted people to have absolute control over the finished product.

Long story short, it's typically just first level/hip level rotations that need to be zeroed. 

As for combining multiple morphs to get more extreme or exaggerated results, absolutely you can!  There are a few ways to do it.  What you described actually works great and I've done it myself a bunch.  I'll create one set of very smooth, subtle morphs, and then another more extreme, less smoothed morph, then dial them, together.  Alternatively, you can use the "fixed distance" projection methods to create m,ore extreme morphs.  You can also edit the morphs to allow them to be dialed above 100% and exaggerate that way.

Also worth trying, dial up a really high "Before" smoothing value with Quads 2 or Tris 2, run the projection with Separate Smooth Morphs enabled, then dial back the Smooth Before morph to zero or less than zero.  It can actually add back original shape details, pretty cool effect :-).

 

Oh that is INCREDIBLY helpful advice and clarification.   Thanks so much, gonna play some more!

evilded777

This kind of seems like a must buy. I do lots with interating figures and props... always hated the lack of any sort of soft body deformation.

stagwolfgaragekits

Gotta figure out a good workflow, but I think this may (FINALLY) be the solution I've needed for importing morph targets for standard figures that were sculpted in my Mesh-editor of choice (Mesh Mixer) which has the one tiny fatal flaw of scrambling vertex labels and blanking out group identifiers on export.  This seems like it can do the "Hey Daz, trust me, I know the metadata is wrong, but look, those ARE all the right verticies and faces you're looking for" intervention I need. 

Loving it the more I play with it.

twitchew

i have to grab this. it will save me a ton of time learning a modeling package. I am in the same boat as @timmins.william ,  Magnets and displacement maps were just killing me

I had a question about the ability to make "sharp" projections on a figure. I was thinking of something like taking a pyramid and pushing the point into a wall or plane and retaining an reasonably sharp impression of the pyramid in the target. What i am gping for is some simple archetetural destruction or even smashing up a car, tank or dumpster.  (HULK smash, but not want create new OBJ files!) 

thank you for this tool and anything you can offer on how to use it in this way. 

luci45

This looks great so I grabbed it. I am confused about something - How do I project a face unto a ball as shown in one of the promos?  looks like I can only select material groups on the receiver. So I would have to project the whole figure unto the ball?

stagwolfgaragekits

luci45 said:

This looks great so I grabbed it. I am confused about something - How do I project a face unto a ball as shown in one of the promos?  looks like I can only select material groups on the receiver. So I would have to project the whole figure unto the ball?

I think if only the face is intersecting with the ball it should work even if technically the whole figure is selected as the source, but if that fails, you can definitely hide everything except the face, export that as "source.obj" or whatever, and then import it back in to use as the target.  That's what I've been doing all morning with my tinkering.

simtenero

luci45 said:

This looks great so I grabbed it. I am confused about something - How do I project a face unto a ball as shown in one of the promos?  looks like I can only select material groups on the receiver. So I would have to project the whole figure unto the ball?

Thanks for getting the script!  You can scale and move the "source bounds" in the parameters tab to only include the parts of the figure you want to project.  This, combined with the "projection distance setting" (which determines how far each vertex should "look" for a face to collide with) will limit the projection to just the areas you want to check for collisions.  The material select on the receiver object is there in case you don't want the new morph to be applied to the whole thing.  So, if you were doing this same process in reverse, and projecting the ball onto the face, you might not want the teeth or eyes to be affected, so you could exclude this.  When projecting the face onto the ball, though, the ball likely only has one material anyway, so you should be good just using the source bounds...  i hope that made sense :-D

simtenero

twitchew said:

i have to grab this. it will save me a ton of time learning a modeling package. I am in the same boat as @timmins.william ,  Magnets and displacement maps were just killing me

I had a question about the ability to make "sharp" projections on a figure. I was thinking of something like taking a pyramid and pushing the point into a wall or plane and retaining an reasonably sharp impression of the pyramid in the target. What i am gping for is some simple archetetural destruction or even smashing up a car, tank or dumpster.  (HULK smash, but not want create new OBJ files!) 

thank you for this tool and anything you can offer on how to use it in this way. 

Sharp edges a little tough, but definitely possible.  You just have to limit how much smoothing you use.  The really critical thing is the face count on the receiver object (the one getting the morph).  It needs to have enough faces to represent the shape you want.  The one thing you'll find with shapes that come to a fine point is that the point itself is difficult to get.  You can end up with a convincing pyramid shape, but the very tip may look rounded or flattened.

Putting big dents into vehicles should work great!  Though you'll want to looks for vehicles that are decently high res (sometimes doors and windows are a single plane of just 1 or 2 faces, which case there isn't enough geometry there to describe a nice big dent).  You'll want to experiment with the "project in" and "project out" settings as well.  When you want something to look smashed in or dented, sometimes it's best to project IN but now OUT (as in stagwolf's excellent example up above).

If a vehicle is made up of lots of smaller objects, (the body, wheels, and doors are all separate objects, for example), you would need to run the script on each item individually.  However, you can experiment with exporting the whole thing as an obj (once you've got it posed) preserving material settings, then re-importing it as a single object.   That's also a good trick if you need more faces to work with.  Subdivide then export/re-import.  That's not really a necessary step, but if you are up for tinkering, something to try :-D

simtenero

stagwolfgaragekits said:

luci45 said:

 

I think if only the face is intersecting with the ball it should work even if technically the whole figure is selected as the source, but if that fails, you can definitely hide everything except the face, export that as "source.obj" or whatever, and then import it back in to use as the target.  That's what I've been doing all morning with my tinkering.

Very good tip!  I like to hide areas and export/re-import just to make life easier sometimes :-)  I'm so used to it, it's sort of second nature, but I try to remember that might seem like a lot of extra steps for some folks.  It's definitely not needed, but it can really speed things up if you are comfortable doing it!

Knittingmommy

Just downloaded this, but I won't get to play with it until later this evening as I'm headed out the door.  It looks great, though, and perfect for some couple poses I've been working on.  If this works out the way I hope, I'll be forever grateful!  I'll check back in once I've had a chance to play.

Dkgoose

Definitely in the cart as well as particles again, are they really difficult to use? 

BurstAngel

Can we use this to create morphs in clothes to better fit a figure? Love the effects, too, I can see this used for so many specialized illustrations. But mainly, just want conforming clothes to fit specialized shapes like GND4 and Alice.

JeremyD

I have to say kudos to one of the most unique items I've ever seen on the shop  

and I looove the impressions of the figures on the wall. So much potential for horror movie concepts

Edit: So I actually do have a question :D Often times I am trying to kit bash armor together with mediocre results. If I wanted to weld an intricate 3D design on some armor (like the chest plate), would that be possible with this?

sriesch

I have to say, this looks super interesting.  I'd love to see a much larger pile of examples to get a feel for what it can and cannot do.

sriesch

Does it work on multiple objects at a time, or does it affect one object only?  From the second-to-last example of three figures on a flat surface on product page it appears that it might be able to do multiple objects at a time, but from the documentation it looks as though you can only select a single source and target item, so I wasn't sure if the promo image was made with three separate passes or not.

For example, could I put three random objects inside a sphere, and get a shrink-wrapped bag that evenly stretches to covers all three shapes combined.

ZombieLove

I get a crash when I try to adjust the bounds multiplier quickly... does anyone else get this? 

 

I am using 4.8.0.59 of DAZ Studio.

stagwolfgaragekits

sriesch said:

Does it work on multiple objects at a time, or does it affect one object only?  From the second-to-last example of three figures on a flat surface on product page it appears that it might be able to do multiple objects at a time, but from the documentation it looks as though you can only select a single source and target item, so I wasn't sure if the promo image was made with three separate passes or not.

For example, could I put three random objects inside a sphere, and get a shrink-wrapped bag that evenly stretches to covers all three shapes combined.

This was mentioned above as well, but if you're doing multiple objects (as the source), you can either run it several times to generate the needed morphs for each object, or else you can just export all your source objects as a single object, and then re-import and use the now-grouped obj as the source.  All depends on what you want/need to do workflow wise.

Gazukull

Real quick - can a figure impact itself?  Or would you have to export obj of the (say arm) then have that exported body part impact the original body?

 

 

thenotoriousjed

I keep thinking about the wall scene in the promos and toon type renders ala Looney Toons. Like a figure running into a wall and leaving his imprimt, or swallowing an anvil and the head taking the anvil shape. Seems like it could be very fun to play with and discover just what could be done.

 

Cbird

Can the resulting morphs be saved as duf? Hoping results might be usable in Carrara. ????

michael.o.hovis_901b299d0a

HI, I'm very excited about your product, but I'm having an issue where it says Please verify that the Source and Target shapres are overlapping and at least one overlapping material is included. I've recreated your example with the man and the ball, but I'm trying to project something into a plane. I finally broke it down into  a place as the receiver (which is zeroed out) and I place a ball in the center of it as the source. So I am projecting the sphere onto the plane. It starts to work, but then I get the above error. Once I click ok, it hangs at 16%.

Any idea of what I am missing?

Thanks.

michael.o.hovis_901b299d0a

Nevermind. After I wrote the above, I realized that it 'helps' when there are a few divisions to actually affect in the primitive. I only had 1 for the plane... DOH! Ran it again and it worked fine. :)  Sorry about that.