[Released] ManFriday's Mesh Grabber [Commercial]

droidy001

Install issue.

It is not showing in DIM and if i try to manually install then it does not show in Daz.

 

Any Ideas?

Sven Dullah

marble said:

 As many have pointed out, something like this should replace dFormers as part of the standard DAZ Studio package (and, seeing what has happened with Keymate/Graphmate, etc., probably will).

Still can see the benefit of being able to independently animate the dFormer components for various effects:)

Mattymanx

I got to play with this ahead of time and can add my 2 cents that its very easy to use.  Having modeled before, I found the Mesh Grabber to be very much like an extention of modeling in DS. 

marble

Sven Dullah said:

marble said:

 As many have pointed out, something like this should replace dFormers as part of the standard DAZ Studio package (and, seeing what has happened with Keymate/Graphmate, etc., probably will).

Still can see the benefit of being able to independently animate the dFormer components for various effects:)

Yeah, sure ... some of the features of dFormer would need to remain. I have no idea how difficult it might be to integrate the two but DAZ seem to have done that with integrating Keymate/Graphmate into the new 4.12 timeline.

ManFriday

marble said:

Unless I missed it, I don't believe there was an answer to my question about whether those requested features that this tool lacks will be included in an update or as a paid-for add-on. As many have pointed out, something like this should replace dFormers as part of the standard DAZ Studio package (and, seeing what has happened with Keymate/Graphmate, etc., probably will). That's not to devalue the work of ManFriday but to congratulate for showing DAZ the way to do it.

I said earlier (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5179826/#Comment_5179826 ) that I'm thinking about making separate add-on products that will require this base product, but I haven't decided yet. I'm going to take a few days off for Christmas and then have a think :-)

bambooji

jesusaramenes said:

That's exactly what I was looking for! Unbelievable
Please tell me this works on daz 4.10? 

I had asked the question for this kind of plugin on the forum some time ago, if it works under daz 4.10 I buy it directly!

WORKS FINE ON MY DAZ 4.10

Leonides02

ManFriday said:

marble said:

Unless I missed it, I don't believe there was an answer to my question about whether those requested features that this tool lacks will be included in an update or as a paid-for add-on. As many have pointed out, something like this should replace dFormers as part of the standard DAZ Studio package (and, seeing what has happened with Keymate/Graphmate, etc., probably will). That's not to devalue the work of ManFriday but to congratulate for showing DAZ the way to do it.

I said earlier (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5179826/#Comment_5179826 ) that I'm thinking about making separate add-on products that will require this base product, but I haven't decided yet. I'm going to take a few days off for Christmas and then have a think :-)

TAKE MY MONEY!

But, seriously, would love to see add-on's to extend this product. It is incredibly useful.

bambooji

Would love to know where the PDF can be found.  Installation of plugin fine, but can not find the tutorial within Daz studio. 

bambooji

ManFriday said:

marble said:

Unless I missed it, I don't believe there was an answer to my question about whether those requested features that this tool lacks will be included in an update or as a paid-for add-on. As many have pointed out, something like this should replace dFormers as part of the standard DAZ Studio package (and, seeing what has happened with Keymate/Graphmate, etc., probably will). That's not to devalue the work of ManFriday but to congratulate for showing DAZ the way to do it.

I said earlier (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5179826/#Comment_5179826 ) that I'm thinking about making separate add-on products that will require this base product, but I haven't decided yet. I'm going to take a few days off for Christmas and then have a think :-)

Daz is free.  But depends on content creators to create extra featues to enhance Studio.  I'm happy to purchase this excellent product, as a way of thanking Daz and the content creators for what they do! 

nicstt

I love this, love this, love this.

And... In case you missed it. I love this, :)

Any chance of an undo that returns the widget to its previous position?

koalitywench

thank you so much for this!!

hphoenix

ManFriday said:

I'm glad you're all excited already. :-)

This is the my first geometry plugin, so it won't have all features of all the 3D modelers you might be used to yet. I can't rewrite ZBrush on my own in a couple of months. :-) However, I do plan to publish add-ons to this which will implement many of the suggestions and more. In detail:

• Symmetry and "freeze" (to protect geometry) is not included yet, but that shouldn't be too hard to implement.
• Re morphs, at this time the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file. You can create your own morphs by exporting an OBJ of the modified object and reimporting that immediately with Daz Studio's own Morph Loader Pro. This works already, but a more convenient "spawn morph" feature is planned as well to make this easier.
• Re subdivision, the plugin works with subdivided geometry, but you can grab only the base-resolution polys / edges / vertices. The others will be interpolated by Daz Studio. Modifying the subdivided mesh is not possible from a geometry modifier plugin like this.

This is a wonderfully intuitive tool.....but I have one question.  Per the portion about "the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file", does this mean if you deform a figure, then save the figure accidentally, it will overwrite the mesh data of the original figure?  Other plugins have had this issue, where the underlying base mesh is altered, and then when you load up a different scene with that same figure, the deformations are still now part of that figure, requiring the base figure to be re-installed to get back to the original mesh.

 

Greybro

Well worth the price to skip the drama of DFormers. Keeping going. Once rortate and scale are added this is off the hook!

Daventaki

This Rocks!  I started to not get it just yet but then decided I would go ahead and take the plunge not realizing I would be using it so soon.  I am working on an image for the Raining Men contest and the pants I wanted to use have a bowed out shape at the lower inside thigh area; I used the Mesh Grabber to pull this area in so the armor fits appropriately to the thigh.  Wonderful! and easy to use I did not crack open any guides yet just selected the tool and took off.  Image included, only look at the bottom straps as I haven't made any other adjustments.

wscottart

bambooji said:

Would love to know where the PDF can be found.  Installation of plugin fine, but can not find the tutorial within Daz studio. 

Looking for this as well.

If you choose another tool and come back, your previous selection is gone? Is there a way to quickly reselect the previous geometry quickly?

WOW, I love this tool!

wscottart

"This tool adds actual geometry modeling functionality to DazStudio."

Does not add geometry though, Am I right? That would destroy its use for morphs, yes?

RGcincy

ManFriday posted the PDF earlier in the thread. Get it here

ManFriday

hphoenix said:

ManFriday said:

I'm glad you're all excited already. :-)

This is the my first geometry plugin, so it won't have all features of all the 3D modelers you might be used to yet. I can't rewrite ZBrush on my own in a couple of months. :-) However, I do plan to publish add-ons to this which will implement many of the suggestions and more. In detail:

• Symmetry and "freeze" (to protect geometry) is not included yet, but that shouldn't be too hard to implement.
• Re morphs, at this time the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file. You can create your own morphs by exporting an OBJ of the modified object and reimporting that immediately with Daz Studio's own Morph Loader Pro. This works already, but a more convenient "spawn morph" feature is planned as well to make this easier.
• Re subdivision, the plugin works with subdivided geometry, but you can grab only the base-resolution polys / edges / vertices. The others will be interpolated by Daz Studio. Modifying the subdivided mesh is not possible from a geometry modifier plugin like this.

This is a wonderfully intuitive tool.....but I have one question.  Per the portion about "the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file", does this mean if you deform a figure, then save the figure accidentally, it will overwrite the mesh data of the original figure?  Other plugins have had this issue, where the underlying base mesh is altered, and then when you load up a different scene with that same figure, the deformations are still now part of that figure, requiring the base figure to be re-installed to get back to the original mesh.

 

The mesh grabber keeps the original geometry intact, like morphs do as well. Even after saving and reloading the figure, you can right click into the mesh (when the grabber is active) and select "reset mesh grabber". That will restore the original geometry. The mesh grabber saves all the deltas separately from the original geometry in the scene file. 

ManFriday

wscottart said:

"This tool adds actual geometry modeling functionality to DazStudio."

Does not add geometry though, Am I right? That would destroy its use for morphs, yes?

Correct. Mesh Grabber is a Daz Studio geometry modifier, like any morph or the push or smoothing modifier. As such, it can move vertices around, but not change their number or their edges or polys. 

ManFriday

wscottart said:

bambooji said:

Would love to know where the PDF can be found.  Installation of plugin fine, but can not find the tutorial within Daz studio. 

Looking for this as well.

If you choose another tool and come back, your previous selection is gone? Is there a way to quickly reselect the previous geometry quickly?

WOW, I love this tool!

No, the selections are remembered in the tool when you switch another. They are not saved with the scene file though. Also, using the daz geometry editor will probably overwrite the selections. 

Hurdy3D

ManFriday said:

hphoenix said:

ManFriday said:

I'm glad you're all excited already. :-)

This is the my first geometry plugin, so it won't have all features of all the 3D modelers you might be used to yet. I can't rewrite ZBrush on my own in a couple of months. :-) However, I do plan to publish add-ons to this which will implement many of the suggestions and more. In detail:

• Symmetry and "freeze" (to protect geometry) is not included yet, but that shouldn't be too hard to implement.
• Re morphs, at this time the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file. You can create your own morphs by exporting an OBJ of the modified object and reimporting that immediately with Daz Studio's own Morph Loader Pro. This works already, but a more convenient "spawn morph" feature is planned as well to make this easier.
• Re subdivision, the plugin works with subdivided geometry, but you can grab only the base-resolution polys / edges / vertices. The others will be interpolated by Daz Studio. Modifying the subdivided mesh is not possible from a geometry modifier plugin like this.

This is a wonderfully intuitive tool.....but I have one question.  Per the portion about "the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file", does this mean if you deform a figure, then save the figure accidentally, it will overwrite the mesh data of the original figure?  Other plugins have had this issue, where the underlying base mesh is altered, and then when you load up a different scene with that same figure, the deformations are still now part of that figure, requiring the base figure to be re-installed to get back to the original mesh.

 

The mesh grabber keeps the original geometry intact, like morphs do as well. Even after saving and reloading the figure, you can right click into the mesh (when the grabber is active) and select "reset mesh grabber". That will restore the original geometry. The mesh grabber saves all the deltas separately from the original geometry in the scene file. 

it's non destructive? that's awesome! 

ManFriday

nicstt said:

I love this, love this, love this.

And... In case you missed it. I love this, :)

Any chance of an undo that returns the widget to its previous position?

I'm not sure what you mean... the undo should work now and undo any drags you have made on the mesh, step by step. The position of the gizmo is always computed on the fly depending on the selection and the camera of the viewport: it will always be on the vertex that is closest to the camera. You can test this by moving the viewport camera around while something is selected in the tool. (Except for the bug that rgcincy reported.)

i do want to add undo steps for selections together with some other improvements for selections. Is that what you mean?

ManFriday

droidy001 said:

Install issue.

It is not showing in DIM and if i try to manually install then it does not show in Daz.

Any Ideas?

All I can say about installer issues I said in https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5179751/#Comment_5179751. If that does't work please contact Daz since I have no control over the installers. Sorry!

ManFriday

gerster said:

ManFriday said:

hphoenix said:

ManFriday said:

I'm glad you're all excited already. :-)

This is the my first geometry plugin, so it won't have all features of all the 3D modelers you might be used to yet. I can't rewrite ZBrush on my own in a couple of months. :-) However, I do plan to publish add-ons to this which will implement many of the suggestions and more. In detail:

• Symmetry and "freeze" (to protect geometry) is not included yet, but that shouldn't be too hard to implement.
• Re morphs, at this time the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file. You can create your own morphs by exporting an OBJ of the modified object and reimporting that immediately with Daz Studio's own Morph Loader Pro. This works already, but a more convenient "spawn morph" feature is planned as well to make this easier.
• Re subdivision, the plugin works with subdivided geometry, but you can grab only the base-resolution polys / edges / vertices. The others will be interpolated by Daz Studio. Modifying the subdivided mesh is not possible from a geometry modifier plugin like this.

This is a wonderfully intuitive tool.....but I have one question.  Per the portion about "the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file", does this mean if you deform a figure, then save the figure accidentally, it will overwrite the mesh data of the original figure?  Other plugins have had this issue, where the underlying base mesh is altered, and then when you load up a different scene with that same figure, the deformations are still now part of that figure, requiring the base figure to be re-installed to get back to the original mesh.

 

The mesh grabber keeps the original geometry intact, like morphs do as well. Even after saving and reloading the figure, you can right click into the mesh (when the grabber is active) and select "reset mesh grabber". That will restore the original geometry. The mesh grabber saves all the deltas separately from the original geometry in the scene file. 

it's non destructive? that's awesome! 

Yes, non destructive is a good word. I should have added that to the product descriptions. :-)

Hurdy3D

ManFriday said:

gerster said:

ManFriday said:

hphoenix said:

ManFriday said:

I'm glad you're all excited already. :-)

This is the my first geometry plugin, so it won't have all features of all the 3D modelers you might be used to yet. I can't rewrite ZBrush on my own in a couple of months. :-) However, I do plan to publish add-ons to this which will implement many of the suggestions and more. In detail:

• Symmetry and "freeze" (to protect geometry) is not included yet, but that shouldn't be too hard to implement.
• Re morphs, at this time the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file. You can create your own morphs by exporting an OBJ of the modified object and reimporting that immediately with Daz Studio's own Morph Loader Pro. This works already, but a more convenient "spawn morph" feature is planned as well to make this easier.
• Re subdivision, the plugin works with subdivided geometry, but you can grab only the base-resolution polys / edges / vertices. The others will be interpolated by Daz Studio. Modifying the subdivided mesh is not possible from a geometry modifier plugin like this.

This is a wonderfully intuitive tool.....but I have one question.  Per the portion about "the changes you make with the mesh grabber tool are saved with the object data in your scene file", does this mean if you deform a figure, then save the figure accidentally, it will overwrite the mesh data of the original figure?  Other plugins have had this issue, where the underlying base mesh is altered, and then when you load up a different scene with that same figure, the deformations are still now part of that figure, requiring the base figure to be re-installed to get back to the original mesh.

 

The mesh grabber keeps the original geometry intact, like morphs do as well. Even after saving and reloading the figure, you can right click into the mesh (when the grabber is active) and select "reset mesh grabber". That will restore the original geometry. The mesh grabber saves all the deltas separately from the original geometry in the scene file. 

it's non destructive? that's awesome! 

Yes, non destructive is a good word. I should have added that to the product descriptions. :-)

you can still do this. I thought all the time it would be destructive... which would have made this product only half as useful for my purpose (doing comics) 

bambooji

ManFriday said:

I'm attaching the Mesh Grabber PDF documentation that should be available from the store page, but that link seems to broken right now.

The PDF should also be under your "C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\docs\Plugins\Mesh Grabber" directory. I just checked, the installer does seem to put it there.

In any case, here's the PDF.

THANK YOU!  for for the PDF.

 

ggs_26de60e5b2

Daz Studio and all its' related items are not installed in the usual fashion on my machine. i.e. My Daz programs are on an isolated drive along with all the related items set up as Directories. Therefore anything I buy like this I know I'm going to have problems to install. I thought I had just two Versions of Daz on my machine, 4.12 and 4.12Beta, but the Screen Grabber managed to find and old 4.11 lurking somewhere and installed on there. I tried to get it to install on my 4.12 Beta version but wasn't having it. So I let it install on the old version, went and found it and pulled the relevant file out of there and then put it in my 4.12 Beta version and all is well. I then made a point of deleting this old version and anything else I could find loitering from previous installs. Daz can be a real pain when you want to get rid of it. Great program though.

Lx75

Got it! Thank you Mr. ManFriday!

No need to use Zbrush anymore for minor fixes.

Most useful product in recent years...in my opinion!

wscottart

Does anyone know how to add this grabber tool to the viewport?

nicstt

ManFriday said:

nicstt said:

I love this, love this, love this.

And... In case you missed it. I love this, :)

Any chance of an undo that returns the widget to its previous position?

I'm not sure what you mean... the undo should work now and undo any drags you have made on the mesh, step by step. The position of the gizmo is always computed on the fly depending on the selection and the camera of the viewport: it will always be on the vertex that is closest to the camera. You can test this by moving the viewport camera around while something is selected in the tool. (Except for the bug that rgcincy reported.)

i do want to add undo steps for selections together with some other improvements for selections. Is that what you mean?

Not quite.

Ctrl Z to undo; this undos changes made to the mesh, it doesn't move the Gizmo to a position it was in previously. That would be useful - very useful.