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Weight mapping

jaebeajaebea Posts: 454
edited December 1969 in Daz Studio Discussion

Could someone explain weight mapping to me and why it is needed....or why I might like it? Its confusing when I go to save out a figure and it tells me I need to convert it to a weight mapped figure. I am sure it is a very good thing.

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,781
    edited December 1969

    Do you know how old-style Poser rigging works? It defines a pair of angles, sticking out from the centre of the joint, with everything between the static angles staying put, everything between the dynamic angles moving, and everything between a static and a dynamic angle moving in proportion to the distance from the angles; optionally it adds a couple of spheres that work in a similar way to further limit the effect, but fine control is still tricky. Weight mapping allows each point of the mesh, for each joint, to be told how much to bend which makes it much easier to deal with awkward corners and to handle sticky-out bits.

    You are being told you need to convert to weight mapping as certain features of DS, notably saving as an asset, don't support the legacy way of working - converting to weight mapping shouldn't change the way the figure bends, it just takes those angles and spheres and stores their influence on each vertex as a weight map.

  • jaebeajaebea Posts: 454
    edited December 1969

    Thank you! I have noticed some want to convert their clothing figures to weight mapped also. Is this really necessary if the conformed clothing follows its host?

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,634
    edited December 1969

    jaebea said:
    Thank you! I have noticed some want to convert their clothing figures to weight mapped also. Is this really necessary if the conformed clothing follows its host?

    No, but if you're using DS anyway, it will 1. bend better and 2. give you access to the smoothing and collision, which hugely decreases pokethrough.

  • BejaymacBejaymac Posts: 1,886
    edited December 1969

    As someone who has converted some of his Poser figures to Tri-Ax, I can safely say it doesn't make them bend any better, you need to alter the rigging and paint new weights before that will happen.

    What most don't realize is that when you load in Poser content, it's already been converted to WM rigging, because at no time has DS used Posers parametric rigging, the devs had to create a "crippled" WM system that could mimic Posers rigging.

    When you use the "convert to WM" function in DS4 it doesn't have to convert it as it's already in WM, so what it does is changes the "flags" on it and saves a DSF asset file into the "data/auto_adapted" folder, it then deletes the figure from the scene and loads in the asset file, materials are then reapplied and the morphs (which were in RAM) are bolted back into the figure, which then leaves DS waiting on you to finish the process with "Figure/Prop Assets".

    I'll add a warning here, when you "convert to WM" make sure that you have all of the figures morphs INJected before you start, because once you finish converting INJ/REM's will no longer work.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,781
    edited December 1969

    Also note that, at least in the past, things like dress and skirt handles didn't come across well - I haven't tested in the newest versions, with the option for non-normalised rigging (which should make handles easier to set up).

  • KatteyKattey Posts: 2,899
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine said:
    Also note that, at least in the past, things like dress and skirt handles didn't come across well - I haven't tested in the newest versions, with the option for non-normalised rigging (which should make handles easier to set up).

    Wait, new DS has an option for non-normalized mapping? O_o
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,781
    edited December 1969

    Kattey said:
    Wait, new DS has an option for non-normalized mapping? O_o

    Yes, normalisation is on here (I just selected Genesis) but this si where it's turned off.

    NonNormalisation.JPG
    722 x 618 - 62K
  • KatteyKattey Posts: 2,899
    edited December 1969

    Does it mean that several bones now can weight-affect the same area, with added up strength more than 100% instead of 100% we have now?

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