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[Released] Morph Editor for ManFriday's Mesh Grabber [Commercial]

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  • ManFridayManFriday Posts: 569
    L'Adair said:
    thistledownsname said:

    I think I'm missing something here.  Once I modify something with Mesh Grabber, why do I want to save it out as a morph?  I'm envisioning using mesh grabber to fix specific problems - wouldn't the morph only be needed if it kept coming up?

    I assume the idea is to make the morph on one figure and then have it available on others.  But only others of the same base model, right?

    With dForms, you can just add another dFormer to your object and make additional changes. If something doesn't work the way you expected and you decide you don't want it, just delete the dFormer that isn't working and those changes go away.

    But with Mesh Grabber, the changes are cumulative. If you make changes to the object on day 1, then come back to the scene over a period of days, making changes to that object as needed, then realize the changes you made on day 1 need to be removed, your only option is to reset all the changes and start over. On the other hand, if you created a morph out of the changes on day 1, you could just dial out the morph.

    I suspect once you discover how crazy easy it is to create morphs with the Morph Editor Addon, and how much flexibility having those changes as morphs gives you, you'll find yourself creating morphs frequently.

    You said that a lot better than me. Thank you :-)

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    ManFriday said:

    You said that a lot better than me. Thank you :-)

    You're welcome.

    I've just spent several hours creating more than a dozen morphs to a dress created for V4 that I'll be using with G2F. Two of those morphs are fits, one for the skirt and one for the bodice. The rest are for a bow at the neckline. A lot of trial and error with the changes, but spawning the morphs took seconds. Literally. And being able to edit those morphs is, as Mastercard would say, "priceless." 

    I haven't even tried to modify other morphs, but I know it will be just as easy.

    Thank you.

  • DkgooseDkgoose Posts: 1,451

    haven't been on the site for a while lots of new great

    products, this is definitely in my cart, 

  • bamboojibambooji Posts: 37
    ManFriday said:
    bambooji said:

    I have the Mesh Grabber which I use in Daz 4.10.  Will this Morph Editor also be able to work in Daz 4.10.  Thanks for your help! 

    I'm not testing it daily but Yes, it should!

    Thanks!  I purchased it today and it works OK in Daz 4.10.  I am very pleased with the new Morph Editor! It's great to be able to save morphs within the parameter pane.  And to be able to increase or decrease the strength of the morph.  

  • bamboojibambooji Posts: 37

    Please could you let me know how I can find the instruction manuals for both the Mesh Grabber and the Morph Editor.  Although I can use it straight out of the box, a little bit more advanced information of its functionality would be extremely useful.  Thank you! 

     

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited October 2020

    @bambooji, There is a PDF manual that comes with the base Mesh Grabber. It should be installed to your Plugins folder of Daz Studio. (For example: C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\plugins\Mesh Grabber\Mesh Grabber Manual.pdf on a Windows computer.) The manual includes information for both the base product and the rotations addon.

    I just looked at it, and it hasn't been updated to include information for the Morph Editor. However, Ignore the marked out text. Read the PA's post immediately following this one.

    ManFriday explains it succinctly in the OP:

    ManFriday said:
    The new add-on helps you to create your own morphs with Mesh Grabber and edit any existing morphs with two new "Load" and "Save" buttons in the "Tool Options" pane:
    • The "Load" button allows you to import the deltas of any existing morph into Mesh Grabber for editing. Simply mark one or several morphs as "favorites" in the properties pane and press "Load".
    • The "Save" button allows you to save the current Mesh Grabber deltas as a morph.

    At the bottom of the dialog you will see a Reset button, with Load and Save buttons to the right of that. If you click on the Load button, any and all morphs you have favorited will be transfered to Mesh Grabber. A dialog will pop up and let you know what morphs have been loaded. You can then make any changes and save the morph. You can use any morph, too, not just those you've created with Mesh Grabber.

    It's very simple to save a morph, and the dialog is pretty much self-explanatory. But I'm sure it will make more sense after you've gone through the PDF.

    And you can always ask specific questions in here, and someone will respond; I'll be happy to help as I can, if the PA doesn't beat me to it.

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • ManFridayManFriday Posts: 569

    There is only one PDF manual for Mesh Grabber, which comes with (and gets updated with) the base product, which also documents the add-ons.

    There are many ways to get to the PDF documentation by now:

    1. Right-click into the viewport and select the "Help" item while the Mesh Grabber is the active tool.
    2. Press the question mark button at the top of the Tool Options pane while the Mesh Grabber is the active tool.
    3. Press F1 anywhere in Daz Studio, and in the window that opens find the "Plugins" in the left pane and then "Mesh Grabber".
    4. Have a look at the attached file. :-)

    (If you don't see some of the above, or your PDF does not document the Morph Editor, then maybe your PDF or your Mesh Grabber base product is out of date. The current version is 3.0.1.)

    win_screenshot_1603364214.jpg
    283 x 131 - 8K
    pdf
    pdf
    Mesh Grabber Manual.pdf
    1M
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited October 2020
    ManFriday said:

    There is only one PDF manual for Mesh Grabber, which comes with (and gets updated with) the base product, which also documents the add-ons.

    There are many ways to get to the PDF documentation by now:

    1. Right-click into the viewport and select the "Help" item while the Mesh Grabber is the active tool.
    2. Press the question mark button at the top of the Tool Options pane while the Mesh Grabber is the active tool.
    3. Press F1 anywhere in Daz Studio, and in the window that opens find the "Plugins" in the left pane and then "Mesh Grabber".
    4. Have a look at the attached file. :-)

    (If you don't see some of the above, or your PDF does not document the Morph Editor, then maybe your PDF or your Mesh Grabber base product is out of date. The current version is 3.0.1.)

    Hmm. I have 3.0.1 installed, but I didn't notice information about the Morph Editor in my PDF. I'll have to investigate…

    ETA: Okay, here's what I found. In spite of having the correct version of Mesh Grabber in all my installs, the PDF was not updated. It shows a date of 04/03/2020. The PDF in the package file does have information about Morph Editor, but for whatever reason, DIM did not install it!

    I am manually extracting the latest PDF and putting it where it belongs. (I cannot believe DIM failed me! I feel so betrayed… lol)

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • ManFridayManFriday Posts: 569
    L'Adair said:
    Hmm. I have 3.0.1 installed, but I didn't notice information about the Morph Editor in my PDF. I'll have to investigate…

    ETA: Okay, here's what I found. In spite of having the correct version of Mesh Grabber in all my installs, the PDF was not updated. It shows a date of 04/03/2020. The PDF in the package file does have information about Morph Editor, but for whatever reason, DIM did not install it!

    I am manually extracting the latest PDF and putting it where it belongs. (I cannot believe DIM failed me! I feel so betrayed… lol)

    Admittedly, I didn't test for that with the latest installers... does anyone else have that problem? The installed PDF should loudly say "V3.0.1" in the heading on the first page, like in the PDF I attached above.

  • DaventakiDaventaki Posts: 1,624
    edited October 2020
    ManFriday said:
    L'Adair said:
    Hmm. I have 3.0.1 installed, but I didn't notice information about the Morph Editor in my PDF. I'll have to investigate…

    ETA: Okay, here's what I found. In spite of having the correct version of Mesh Grabber in all my installs, the PDF was not updated. It shows a date of 04/03/2020. The PDF in the package file does have information about Morph Editor, but for whatever reason, DIM did not install it!

    I am manually extracting the latest PDF and putting it where it belongs. (I cannot believe DIM failed me! I feel so betrayed… lol)

    Admittedly, I didn't test for that with the latest installers... does anyone else have that problem? The installed PDF should loudly say "V3.0.1" in the heading on the first page, like in the PDF I attached above.

    Mine is correct says V3.0.1 at the top.

    Post edited by Daventaki on
  • adam_fe6a705dadam_fe6a705d Posts: 4

    Hey ManFriday! Hopefully you're still watching this thread. Had a quick question for you. Is there a way to delete or remove a saved morph after you're done with it?

    Thanks :)

  • lamoid_5f20d3e469lamoid_5f20d3e469 Posts: 297

    Dumb question, perhaps: I've created a morph by saving the MG deltas using the MG morph add-on. Now I want to use that saved morph on a new figure in a new scene. The documentation reads:

    • The "Load" button allows you to import the deltas of any existing morph into Mesh Grabber for editing. Simply mark one or several morphs as "favorites" in the properties pane and press "Load".

    Q:  how can I mark the the morph as a favorite it I have not yet loaded it? 

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,245

    lamoid_5f20d3e469 said:

    Dumb question, perhaps: I've created a morph by saving the MG deltas using the MG morph add-on. Now I want to use that saved morph on a new figure in a new scene. The documentation reads:

    • The "Load" button allows you to import the deltas of any existing morph into Mesh Grabber for editing. Simply mark one or several morphs as "favorites" in the properties pane and press "Load".

    Q:  how can I mark the the morph as a favorite it I have not yet loaded it? 

    After originally creating the morph with the Save button, did you follow the instructions in the Mesh Grabber manual to write the morph out to disk as a permanant moprh file (“File” → “Save as” → “Support asset” → “Morph asset”)?

  • lamoid_5f20d3e469lamoid_5f20d3e469 Posts: 297

    No, Barbult. I did not do that. The instructions you gave above are actually not in the meshgrabber 2.0 manual. (See p. 5 where I thought it would be.) I will do what you suggest. I presume that when saved as a morph asset, the morph appears in the properties panel for a new scene so that it can be marked as a favorite. However, even though it appears there, it has not been loaded. Am I correct?

    Thank you very much for your help Barbult. You have helped me many times in the past. I appreciate it!

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,245

    Maybe you need to update your Mesh Grabber. I have version 3.0.1 (2020-09-14). The instructions are in version 3.0.1 of the manual.on page 9. Maybe you have the right Mesh Grabber version but are just looking at the old manual.

    I think the name of the "Save" button for the Mesh Grabber morph is kind of misleading. It should be "Create", in my opinion. It creates a morph from the moved vertices, but does not save it permanently to disk for future use in another scene. Hence, as described in the manual, you must manually dial the morph to 0 and save it as a morph asset. (If you only want the morph used in the current scene, not available for other scenes, there is no need to save it as an asset.This is often the case, because you just want to make a change to avoid poke through with a particular pose, or something like that.)

    Once you have saved the morph as a morph asset, it will be available as a slider in the Parameters pane when the same model is loaded in a new scene. As long as you were careful to zero the morph before saving, it will be available, but not dialed in automatically. To use the saved morph, there is no need to "Load" it with Mesh Grabber. It is just available for you to dial in, just like any morph that you purchased.

    As I understand it, the purpose of the "Load" button in Mesh Grabber is to import existing morphs as vertex deltas that you can modify with Mesh Grabber. I have never used this.

  • lamoid_5f20d3e469lamoid_5f20d3e469 Posts: 297

    Excellent explanation, Barbult. Thank you!

    (I was looking at the v 2.0 manual.)

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,245

    lamoid_5f20d3e469 said:

    Excellent explanation, Barbult. Thank you!

    (I was looking at the v 2.0 manual.)

    Happy to help. smiley

  • lamoid_5f20d3e469lamoid_5f20d3e469 Posts: 297

    I cannot find the MG manual that coresponds to vers 3. Do you know where it is located after running 

    65751_MeshGrabberforDAZStudio45Win64bit_3.0.1.0_ds.exe

    ?

  • ManFridayManFriday Posts: 569

    Thank you @barbult for helping out :-)

    The Mesh Grabber manual can be accessed in multiple ways:

    1) press F1, then select "plugins" -> "Mesh Grabber" -> "Documentation", which should open the PDF;

    2) when Mesh Grabber is the active tool, press the little "?" (question mark) icon on the "Tool Settings" pane;

    3) when Mesh Grabber is the active tool, right-click into the viewport and select "Help (open Mesh Grabber documentation)";

    4) look for the PDF in C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\docs\Plugins\Mesh Grabber.

    Hope that helps!

  • gimley7gimley7 Posts: 6

    Do yourself a favor and buy it. It's the best add-on product you can get.

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