How do I make multiple Genesises?
drcharbonneau
Posts: 0
I appreciate the tips from all. It's more than keeping my interest in DAZ. As time permits, I'm getting the feel of this.
My query:
I was successful at deleting morphs from the original Genesis. Learned that. I saved a copy of Genesis and created morphs on the new character, but they also showed up on the original. How do I go about keeping the original Genesis pristine while making changes to a differently named character?
Sub query:
Let's say I made a tentacle morph on Genesis. Would I need to make it a chain of d-former/morphs or one long morph then add bones and rigging? Imagine making a Medusa or other Gorgon. How would I get all those snakes to move, high five and such?
Naturally the second query relates itself back to the first. Do I end up with a standard Genesis with a mile long list of morphs that can be morphed into just about anything, or is there a way to make an army of individual Genesis type starter forms?
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Comments
Morphs should not be used to make things move as the change from the start position to the end position is linear. For instance using a morph to open a lid of a box would cause he lid to distort at the intermediate stages instead of following an arc. The snakes would have to rigged but could be slaved to a few ERC dials to pose.
http://www.ehow.com/how_6158759_make-easypose-dial-poser.html
Not much detail in the link but is starting point.
Almost forgot, you cannot make multiple Genesises (Genesii?). The best you can do is organize the morphs so they are not all visible at once. And on that note I really wish DAZ would put out some guidelines as to morph organization.
Is it possible to create a separate directory... say, Genesis2, then copy everything from Genesis to that one and start a new model that way?
As for the morphs, couldn't I make a series of them, one atop the other, then rig them? I suppose the morph could involve rotation so the next part of the metaphorical totem pole could change direction?
Someone ask about making a GenX Genesis, a Genesis that contained only the V4 and M4 shapes and morphs. I looked into it and determined that while it is possible it would be more than work it was worth. Besides needing a new folder for each you would need to change the names of the files and change the references in the files to match the new names, and that is an over simplification of what is involved. Plus the next time there is an update or you add a new morph set you would have to do all over again.
I don't understand what you mean by rigging the morphs, you rig the mesh. A morph is just relocating the vertices to adjust the shape of the mesh, they cannot be used for things that need multiple bones.
I do not see a need for different Genesi for what you wish to do. You can Morph your Full Genesis with the Custom Morphs and then save as in three different ways that will reload the Morphed Genesis each time. Yes, you will still have a HUGE list of Morphs but your Custom figure can be used (loaded) into any Scene this way.
Save As>Character Preset - This will just save the Figure and Morphs.
Save As>Scene Subset - This will save the Figure and all textures and Clothing and Parented items.
Save As>Scene - Works the same as above but for full scenes.
The Character Preset sounds like the one you need at this time.
Hmmm... now Blender is sounding better. At least it will export something Poser 8 can use. Especially with recently being pointed toward scripts that offer some expansion to DAZ, I was having higher hopes, but it sounds like I'd have to create new characters as objects and rig them in DAZ. I was considering buying the LAMH or Gerabaldi(?) hair plug-in, but it makes no sense to do so if I still have to do all the extra work.
I was able to create a thin cylinder primitive, then create a few morphs along it to make it curl into a flexible shaft. I saved it as a subset and it doesn't relate back to the original cylinder, rather the original contains no morphs, where the subsets do. It seems so odd that this doesn't work for Genesis. Of course I haven't tried saving a character with morphs as a subset, I think. I can look to be certain.
I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet and just rely on Blender, Vue and Poser. I'm just a trifle disappointed.
I really would like a universal tool. Now I'm actually considering returning to Vue because I know it works with my own CAD/modeler program, Poser and Blender, etcetera. I keep hearing about Hex crashing. Well... I'm in no hurry just yet. In fact I'm in less of one to actually purchase.
Edit:
Hi Jaderail.
I posted just after you did. At the moment I'll likely keep fooling around with morphs. I'm assuming I can always morph the Genesis to my heart's content and save as an object to rig in Blender then export in a rigged format Poser can use?
The quandary, here, is choosing the foundations that work for me as a set of fundamentals I can safely propagate. It's not unlike choosing the correct religion. Inherent error can ruin so much downstream and cause so much grief.
Saving a Genesis with new morphs in a scene or scene subset should work, changes that haven't been saved as assets should not propagate to the master files, but it does seem a little unreliable judging by other users' reports.
But why do you want to keep the morphs separate? If it's essential, just save the figure as a new asset (File>Save as>Support Asset>Figure or Prop Asset) being careful to give new Author and product names to keep the files separate. But if you do that you won't be able to access new morphs you buy or make for the base Genesis in the new version, at least without some fiddling.
Okay it is time that someone asked and it might as well be this cranky old fart. Doc, you have all these programs but just how much do you real know about 3D, modeling, morphing, and rigging. The cylinder example you gave, sure it works but it isn't the best or IMO proper way of bending it, rigging is. And now that I have reread your original post I would like to point out you wouldn't make a tentacle morph on Genesis, there are not enough vertices in the mesh to be able to pull out a tentacle. You would either make a conforming tentacle or better a geografted tentacle.
Richard,
I'll try those. Thank you. I've perused some of your tutorial videos in the User's Guide. I find them intriguing. Sometimes the audio is too low in some of the YouTube videos. I think the ones you did on rigging and weight mapping came through okay.
Jestmart,
As for your query about my knowledge of 3D and modeling:
http://jootbox.forumchitchat.com/post/Homes-That-Float-and-Roll-With-the-Punches-5651111?pid=1277635509#post1277635509
Also you get to see my smiling 60 year old face. I've been drawing people since I was 7 and painting portraits of people and animals since I was 12. Built my first Heathkit at 10. Won a 1st at our science fair with a human anatomy project at 12. Won Grand with a project on animation at 10. Earned a BScME at 20 through USAFEES (Univ. of Maryland) worked as an engineer for many years, also writing and illustrating technical manuals. In 1998 I redefined and submitted to NASA my theoretical findings concerning the tachoclinic regions of a G2 star (ours) and, after SOHO proved my concept correct in 2005, went on to have a circuit court judge, of all people, ratify my demand for doctorial recognition.
As for my knowledge of morphing? I'm learning that right now. I WROTE my own modeler/CAD program that emulates ProE5 (took over a year), so NURBS, polylines, faces, etc. are old hat. Even that has some wild capabilities that rival Hex, but it's very plane oriented, so biomorphic objects, especially non-solids, would take a lot of work and trajectories must be hand rolled. RAM intensive.
Rigging? Just a noob, but I understand the concept in Blender and a tentacle might make a nice practice study in DAZ. I would likely pick it up rather quickly, but, as in the fundamentals statement, I hope to go in the right direction. I ask questions hoping for direct answers.
Addendum:
Define conforming and geografted, please.
...and @Richard,
It sounds as though you understand what I'm attempting to do. Yes, I'm wanting the morphs for the new characters saved and effective, but, no, I don't want them to become a fundamental asset of the original. And yes, that sounded encouraging. I'll give that a whirl.
Conformers are figures that follow the pose of the main figure - Fitting and item to another is the DS version of conforming, as the clothes and much of the hair in the Starter Essentials. A GeoGraft is a special kind of conformer that actually welds to the fitted to figure, so that there can be no gaps when the figure is posed or morphed - things like the tails and some of the wings in Genesis monster characters would be examples.
The grafting would be great to learn. I think I need to learn to make objects to conform before learning that and tackling clothing. Do you have a link, or is it something you can point me to and it is self explanatory, or perhaps a few tips?
Actually, grafting is probably a bit trickier than clothing - essentially you need to decide where the graft will attach, then select a ring of vertices defining that area on the Genesis mesh in your modeller, copy to a new mesh layer (you will may need to create a polygon to do that, depending on the modeller) and grow your attachment from that and UV map it. Then you load the new OBJ into DS, use the Transfer utility to rig it, then add new bones as required (something like a tentacle will obviously need bones to make it posable, horns probably won't), and adjust the weight maps as needed to get it working. Then you need to tell DS to hide the polygons inside the lop on Genesis, and to attach the geograft there. Blondie's Advanced Rigging Tutorial in the store covers the topic.
it might not have anything to do with what you are talking about but.....
I have made characters for Genesis and scratched my head whether or not to "apply" the morph over top of Genesis itself, Victoria 4, or Victoria 5..lol. My reasonings for this would be MCM and JCM like arm bends etc. So I have some of my original characters in 3 different places with in the Genesis figure itself some requiring V4 or V5 to be "turned on" just to see if the end resulting MCM would make the character movments better. In the end I believe that making my own MCM and JCM the better option because the exsisting ones were not designed for my shapes. But my point is....In doing this I have realized how much Genesis is a layered character. In Daz 4.5 its not that big a deal because it loads these morphs as you use them, but in poser if I am not right they all load all the time and it is what causes slow load times? So I can see why maybe you would want a toned down version of a "Genesis" Character, but you would also have to take into consideration you need the MCM and JCM.
Interested to hear what anyone has to say about my observations (and if I am wrong or right)
A lot of the slowness using Genesis in Poser is because it has to update the mesh after every change to pose or morphs for the changed SubD, as I understand it.