Question on Pose CTRL
Dumor3D
Posts: 1,316
Hmmm.... how to ask this....
Horse 2 has a pose control named CTRLNeck Side-Side. With Morphs and JCMs I can sub my accessory to autofix as needed. Is there a way to sub my accessory to auto-pose when this main Horse 2 pose control is used? In other words, my pose operates in conjunction with the use of the Horse 2 pose? I'm not finding anything in the docs on this unless I've gone blind from too many late hours. ;) It seems like there should be a way to do this...
Thanks!
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Hi...
Yes this is possible to do...
While I don't have Horse 2 (yet...) , I have done this on a set I made for the Mil Horse...
Whether you use rotations or morphs on your accessory, all that is needed is to give it the same name as the Controller on the main figure (Horse 2)
So if you want to use the CTRLNeck Side-Side on Horse 2 to control your accessory, then name your 'morph' CTRLNeck Side-Side...
If you choose to use a modeled morph for this, you would need one for each side...ie:left and right... then you would want to create an actual Pose Control to control both morphs and you would give this control the name CTRLNeck Side-Side...
If you use bone rotations, then just set the pose of your accessory to one side, then with the accessory selected do an ERC Freeze to create a Pose Control, and name it CTRLNeck Side-Side...
This is just a quick overview, but it is pretty simple...
Hope this helps... :)
Thanks Niccipb! I have been working on fixing breed morphs and JCMs and placed into my thick head to not use the existing name, but instead something to identify it as my work. Duh. So, I now have my pose working to the one side and just need to figure out what to set to let it work on both sides. This is for reins. I'm trying to set these up so that each of the standard poses for Horse 2 can be moved without moving the ends of the reins, which would be posed to the hands. So, the user could move the head after having everything pretty much done without moving their posing work at the hands... or not moving them much.
I have a set of bones on each side. At the moment I'm only working with Y rotation (side to side) on the first bone on each side. Seems I'm not figuring out something here, but will keep trying things.
I am using Delta Add at the moment, but might need to switch to something like multiply as I'm not getting the negative values. Horse 2 uses +0.5 to -0.5 in as its control limits. I needed to multiply my settings by 2 for it to work on the one side, which tells me I'm on the wrong method as I don't think the math can work this way. When I go to multiply, I can't seem to find where to set the multiply factor. I think I need to go back and look at the JCM docs to see where I did it for them.
Were your Mil Horse sets in the Daz store? If so, what were they named? I might have them on my system as I have a good bit of Mil Horse stuff. I might be able to learn a bit from them. ;)
Hi...
I'm not a vendor or anything... the sets I did were for a project I was working on about a year ago...
If your reins are rigged with bones, then that should make it much easier to do...
First, pose the Horse 2 using the Neck Side-Side control all the way to one side, then with your reins figure conformed to the Horse 2, adjust it's pose to how you want it...
In the Property Editor perform an ERC Freeze and select your reins figure as the Figure in the dialog, and then create a new Property...
Here's where you may want to create separate left and right Pose Controls first... Now I don't have the Horse 2 to check, but I would guess that it also has separate CTRLs for left and right... if it does, then use those CTRL names for your left and right... then you don't need to create a master CTRL to match the Horse 2's master CTRL.... if it doesn't then just give them your own unique CTRL names... then finish the ERC Freeze dialog, set limits etc... and complete... do the same for the other side...
If the Horse 2 does have separate left and right CTRLs that you used, select the Horse and try the Pose Control... if everything was done right, the reins should now pose as the head moves side to side...
If you need to create a matching master CTRL.... then in the Property Editor in the left pane under Pose Controls for your reins, Right-Click and select Create Property... follow the dialog to create a new master CTRL for your two CTRL's and use the name from the Horse 2... CTRLHead Side-Side... or however it is written...
Then in the right pane find your new master CTRL and expand it... then Drag-n-Drop your CTRLs from the left pane to the Sub-Controllers section of your master CTRL in the right pane... now select the Horse 2 and test the Pose Control both ways...
Phew.... hopefully I remembered all that correctly, as I'm at work and only half way through my first cup of coffee... %-P
If you need more help I'll gladly try...
nicci... :)
Woot!!!! That got it!!! Now all I have to do is add all the other bones into each one on each side and get it tuned!
Thank you thank you thank you! It did take me a while to get the + and - and limits set right on everything, but then the rotation settings all matched up from side to side. Sweet! The Horse 2 CTRL uses limits of -0.5 to 0.5. So, I had to set one side to operate from 0 to 0.5 and the other side from -0.5 to 0. And get the auto follows set and geez... when I get finished with this I should write it all down.
Now to start the other bones to make sure what I'm seeing is really what I'm seeing. LOL!!!
Hi...
I'm glad you got it all figured out... I'm kind of surprised that I remembered it at that hour of the morning... %-P
The one I did on the Mil Horse was very complex, as it was the full tack for a six horse draft team...
I work on alot of different kinds of ERC's all the time, and some are way more complex than others... remembering what methods work best for any given situation makes my brain spin sometimes...
Getting the values set on things that use partial limits can be hard sometimes, not always, but sometimes....
Anyways, good luck on the rest of your project...
nicci... :)
Well, I think I do have it figured out, but the save process in Daz is doing something strange. I'm seeing a stack of directories which include these morphs. Basically, things are getting nested and the connections between like the main CTRL and the left and right are lost from one another. Aside from that, this for sure isn't how it should be for a final product. I think I need to copy this area over as a backup and then manually move the latest versions into the root of where all this begins. Maybe I have a slash somewhere in my paths that shouldn't exist or there is a bug in Daz doing this?
I think I have maybe 20 or so stacked up directories for my various morphs. It did this with my breed morphs as well. Looks like the deepest level contains one breed morph (I think the first one I did), the next level that first breed plus the second one I did and then the next those 2 breeds plus the next one I did and so on through the 8 or 10 morphs. I did save the reins after doing each of those breeds. Obviously something I need to figure out before this becomes a nightmare of hodgepodge.
Hi...
This is in the /data folder for you product?... If I'm understanding what your describing, each morph file is in it's own folder and that's nested in a folder for another morph?
If that's the case... then something is wrong there.... all of the morphs (vertex, JCM, CTRL...) should all be located in the same folder for the product... /data/vendor/product/morphs.... (I forget the exact path ATM)
When you save your morph assets, double check the paths in the dialog, DS autofills this and I have never had it nest the folders like that, so it may be a bug, or you might have a slash or something that DS is just remembering with each save.... I'm not sure... I can try forcing DS to replicate this behavior when I get home tonight...
nicci... :)
You do understand correctly. I started this nearly 2 weeks ago so each step along the way is starting to get a bit dull in my head. I did however start with one of the tutorials and thought I followed the instructions. I need to figure out about when this started as I do remember questioning something at one point. I need to roll through all of these and look at creation and edit dates to see if I can figure out why. I think I'll just copy that product's folder over to a backup and then manually get the newest into the root morph folder and see what happens when I load the product. I sort of hate GUIs where decisions are made for you, especially if its choices aren't very transparent.
With Daz, I'm still trying to understand when it is meta and when it is file pathing which adds an additional layer to my confusion. I'll get better with that over time. I started with computers in the Dos days and I pretty much knew where every file was and what every file did. Today, I manage Linux webservers. I'll not pretend to know where every file lives and what every file does, but directory structure is obvious. Everything in its place and a place for everything. Maybe I'll better understand when I get time to work in Poser? I know a lot of what landed in Daz was due to changes at SmithMicro.
Yes, /data/vendor/product/morphs, which contains vendor/morphs and that morphs has vendor/morphs and so on.
Don't worry on this for the moment Nicci... It was like 5am when I found this and I just quit for the night. :) Today was nuts. I may get to look into it around midnight or so... If the world doesn't come to an end on me. LOL!!!
Hi...
Well the world didn't seem to come to a crashing end, but it did seem as though anything that could happen or go wrong did... :-S well, for me at least... %-P
Okay, I played around with saving morph assets to try and replicate what you are seeing...
The only way I managed to nest folders was to fill in a path in the Product name field of the save dialog...
That's usefull if you are wanting to organize your morphs, but in general, you just want to fill in the name of your product only...
Just remember to use the same product name every time you save new assets for your current product...
So, anything you type in the Product name field will become the name of the folder that the morph will be save in... adding / 's will denote a path of folders...
The folder nested in folder nested in folder and so on... that you described, I could only do if I actually created a path like that in the field, and anything that long would stand out... so I don't know how that happened to you...
DS defaults the top level folder as your vendor name in the / data folder... within that will be a folder named for your figure as "product / item / "... then for your morphs "morphs /vendor / "... next is the Product name you filled in the field "product / " and then DS uses the morph name for the asset .dsf
The full path being " / data / vendor / (figure)product / (figure)item / morphs / vendor / (asset)product / asset.dsf"
Unfortunately, if the asset .dsf's are saved in nested folders, then you can't just drag and drop them all into one folder... those paths are written into the .dsf's...
Well, you can... load the product in DS and verify all of your morphs are listed in the Parameters pane... then browse to the morphs folder and collect all of the problem morphs into the single product folder... then back in DS go to File > Save As > Support Asset > Morph Asset, enter the product folder name in to the Product field, and then check all of the morphs that you just moved, then save... this will re-write the paths in the .dsf files...
I hope this information helps you sort out your problem, but if not, let me know if I can be of more help...
nicci... :)
You have to have bad days to know what a good day is! Sorry one hit you. I hate those except I keep reminding myself about my first statement.
Yes, you have hit the nail on the head and this is exactly what 'I' did. I didn't understand what the GUI was doing behind the scenes. I was working through one of the tutorials which was a morph to Genesis. I am not working on a Daz figure, so thought too much not realizing the GUI was pulling my vendor name in as the path. Live and learn.
I found this when I thought about the DSF Toolbox and that it might be an aid to creating/editing a mirrored morph. Found it couldn't open my files. Then found that this is most likely due to my allowing compression. So, my next step is sorting through things and saving something not compressed so I can see what is actually inside of those files .
Either way, I have not dug myself into a huge problem here. First I saved each of the edited obj's for the breed morphs. So, that work is done and saved. But, better than that, it seems all of those created those nested folders, but also saved the latest versions in the root. More than likely I'll be able to dump the others with no issues. As for this last work. It really isn't that much work. It just took a huge amount of time learning how to get it to do what I wanted. So again, not much loss if I lose anything which is a lot better than too much of what I have done. Dump it all and start from the beginning. I do use Hex a lot and didn't find the incremental save forever...duh, in spite of it being right in my face hundreds of times.
So, write this up to hmmm... what should I call myself... dumb user.... uninformed? Hard headed? Thick skulled?
Nicci... you have gone way above and beyond on this. I feel like I have received an unexpected Christmas gift and it has warmed my heart. What else can I say beyond a huge thank you!
Of note, if the better half is not getting sick with the flu, we should be heading out to her family's home tomorrow. Connectivity is very limited there so I'll likely disappear from the forum for a few days. I am transferring all of this to my laptop which has a very minimal Daz install... IOW... not much content. I should be able to see what is going on better in My Library on that machine. I do plan to continue working on this while there. And, if I get all of this straightened out tonight, I'll be sure to let you know.
Hi dumorian...
Ahhh... :red: ... thank you... and your are very welcome... I'm am glad to help anytime I can, and to pass on whatever I have learned...
As for having a bad day, well it wasn't that bad really... just the typical work day before a long holiday weekend, when half the staff is gone, half of those left might as well be gone, and the remainder has to deal with all of the emergencies that come up... :roll:
Well I wish your better half well, and a very Merry Christmas to you and your family....
nicci... :)
I did a few things... First I set the saved dsf and duf files to not have compression. First time I've tried that and yes, now I can read them in a text editor. I work in code maybe more than in English... lol... so I am quite at home looking through these config files. So, I've had File Explorer open to my data directory and have been watching what changes when I do things. At the moment, I have all of my work where it should be and have lost absolutely nothing. I did have to re-create that one main CTRL file that held the left and right dsfs. For whatever reason, it just wouldn't hook up to Horse 2's... As it really didn't have squat in it, making it over and dropping the subs back in was like a 15 second job.
I have deleted all those other directories... Each save is going where it should go without any more of the nesting. I really can't tell you for sure what I did to get that started. I did find one remnant in one of the dsf morphs which had // in the path. It was fixed during one of the saves. I've opened all of them in a text editor and they all have the right paths now....
The Horse 2 side-side control uses -0.5 and 0.5 as its limits. This seems to halve my inputs when doing a pose. I haven't found a way to give that a multiplier, so I'm doubling my input amounts in property editor. This leaves me with everything working. Also, I see exactly what I need to do to copy/edit right over to left inside of the dsf files and think that will be multiple times faster than hopping about doing this by hand. It look like the ERC freeze process only stores the changed values. 10 bones on a side with 4 potential value adustments is 40 per side. Many of those were not used. Getting the right items moved to freeze in the interface is a slow process. Doing it in the dsf file is copy -> paste -> to change RT to LF and it should be a done with perfect mirroring.
So, you see your help was successful!
I'm toast for the night.... off to sleep. And I hope you have a very merry Christmas yourself!