Item is parented or not? interesting inconsistency

mindsong

Probably a simple setting if you know which one...

I'm trying to find the setting/flag that causes a parenting inconsistency:

My teeth add-ons (Toon-Teeth) that are parented to a Genesis1 LowerJaw move with the LowerJaw with some controller but not others.

I happened upon it with SimonWM's great 'Genesis Expressions & Face aniBlocks' set, where, when using the pose/morph controllers (not the aniblocks) that come as part of the package, any controllers in that set that happen to move the lower jaw don't move things that are parented to it (e.g. teeth). Other similar pose-controls that move the LowerJaw (e.g. the standard Genesis1 'OW' viseme) work correctly on the same figure/context in the same session.

Context:

Brand new DS 4.8 x64 scene with a base Genesis1, with a simple sphere parented to the figure's LowerJaw for simplicity.

Move the jaw with the 'OW' viseme or 'Open Mouth Wide', and the parented sphere moves too.

Move the jaw with the 'ArmyGeneral' (or other) controller from the mentioned package, and the parented sphere does not move with the jaw.

Test Sequence to parent a sphere to the lower jaw and try two similar actions that behave differently:

 - new DS scene
 - add base/default genesis1
 - add new sphere primitive
   (scale down and place next to genesis1 head for viewing)
 - parent sphere primitive to genesis1 'LowerJaw'
   (I parent sphere in place, because I've placed it where I want it.)
 - Note that there's no auto-fitting going on here - just a simple parenting

 - open 'parameters' tab
 - select genesis1 head in your 'scene' tab
 - in parameters, find 'head->pose controls->head->visemes->OW'
 - test the 'OW' slider and the parented sphere moves in concert with mouth/jaw
 - assuming you have the 'Genesis Expressions &  Face aniBlocks', now try
   the 'ArmyGeneral' slider, and the expression occurs on the figure and the
   jaw moves, but the sphere does not for this action.

My *rough* guess is that the 'Genesis Expressions &  Face aniBlocks' controllers uses ERC to group/collect various morphs and poses into one control, and some flag is set in the controller or morph/pose group that doesn't honor the parenting.

I like SimonWM's sets and don't think it's exactly broken, but maybe related to something that gets set during the controller creation, and I bet other controllers are floating around our systems with this same setting/effect. Searching the forums didn't result in anything meaningful that I could find.

My Question:

Which setting(s) control this, and can this be fixed (manual edits or changes within DS)?

 

Thanks,

--ms

Richard Haseltine

If this is a parented prop then it will move with the bone in response to transforms but will not get morphs transferred as a figure would.

mindsong

tnx, hence the sphere test - no morphs, etc., simple parenting, and the jaw motion is about the same on both sliders, but the sphere only tracks on one of the slider/controllers.

for it to track the lowerjaw on  one controller that has morphs+jaw, but not on another that has much the same feels like a flag is set on one, but not the other.

tia,

--ms

Richard Haseltine

The OW control is ERCed to the lower jaw rotation, so that's a transform. I don't have the other set, but I would suspect it's linked only to morphs and not to bone transforms.

mindsong

ahh, ok, so am I to understand that the jaw movement in question that *looks* like it's driven as a bone transform, is actually a pure morph (mesh-adjustment) that behaves the same way, and is not controlling the bone at all, even if it appears visually identical?  Never occurred to me that it could/would be done this way. Wow - the mental gears are going now, as I see all kinds of places where the different mixtures of these two controller types might really 'compete' in odd ways until you know how they're configured. hmmm. This seems similar to the morph/bone changes made in the G3 face architecture, I imagine, and may result in the same sort of effects?

So, to test this with my 'inconsistent' controller, when enabled/active, the parameters listed as being 'used' in the OW controller would include a bone transform, and the 'ArmyGeneral' would not show that bone as being used...

Or, visually, if I were to show the figure's bones I could see if 'Army General' expression controller actually moves the jaw bone when the controller is changed, or if the bone remains in place, it's a morph, right?

That means that this particular expression set may not be useful to me for animating a character that has parented teeth without manual teeth adjustment for each expression, if I read this right.

Or - Is it possible to bind (parent-like) a prop to a mesh element rather than a bone to get a similar result using some clever tricks? Conform or fit-to, perhaps? I've seen some autofollow side-effects that kept from doing that with the Toon-Amy teeth, so I think there may be some overhead in that approach too. urg.

Ever curious, is there a practical reason/trade-off someone would use a morph for the jaw movement like this rather than using the bone?

Thanks again for the insight! Big 'ah-ha!' moment here for a few things I've read and wondered about as I work through this all.

cheers,

--ms

 

mjc1016

mindsong said:

 

Ever curious, is there a practical reason/trade-off someone would use a morph for the jaw movement like this rather than using the bone?

Since for some of the facial bones, they are rather new, my guess is it's done that way because before Genesis 3, it couldn't be done using pure bone movements.  And that's the way they always did it...so...

mindsong

"And that's the way they always did it...so..."

heh, I could also see using the common "export tweaked char as obj->re-import as a morph" process leading to this sort of pure morph, even if the pre-export version was driven with bone transforms, those bone adjustments would be lost on the re-import, etc.

This really clears up some brain-muck for me, so thanks to all for the feedback. I hope this dialog is useful to future explorers!

ETA: comparing the controllers with the bones visible confirms the difference.

It's a great expression set, but not so useful for animating characters with teeth parented to the lower jawbone.

cheers,

--ms