How can I replace a bone in the DAZ skeleton without losing the "bones" for animation or skinning

slrouse_1232cc85af

I am working on scientific illustration, and want to replace the femur on the DAZ female skeleton, with a 3D bone made from a scan of an actual skeleton. I want to do this without losing the ability to skin and animate the original skeleton and figure. Is there any way to accomplish this? Reason? The original right femur is 26 mm shorter than her left, and the right knee is rotated 87 degrees from its normal position. I need to pose and animate this difference.

I can import the bone and move into place while hiding the original, but as you can see, I cannot move and rotate the Tibia and Fibula with the associated foot and soft tissue without breaking the "bone" relationship for posing and animation. I can export the figure into C4D and work with it there, but I am losing the whole relationship that makes the posing work.

Anyone help me?

Stephen

Thomas Windar

The easiest way would be the Duct Tape approach. 

Go to Windows -> Panes (tabs) -> Tool Settings. You now have the Tool Settings pane that you can dock somewhere.

Select Geometry Editor. Switch your view from Texture shaded to Wire Shaded.

With the Geometry tool, paint the surface of the bone you want to get rid of. Make sure only that surface is selected. 

Move to the Geometry Editor and Right Click on Surface Groups. Select "Create Surface from Selected". You cna name it anything like "HideBoneGroup".

Now you can go to the Surface Pane. Set the opacity of the "HideBoneGroup" surface to 0. It is now invisible. 

Take your new bone, position it in the correct place. Now Parent it to the bone you just removed. 

 

This is a duct-tape sort of way of doing this, but it usually gets the job done one simple swaps. 

If this is not what you are looking for.... well, maybe someone else will have an idea.