Detached skeleton -last seen on the run

starboard

Happy New Year,
I have been working my way through Infinite Skills, Phil Wilkes tutorials on Carrera 8.5 basic and advanced - the fog is starting to lift at last and I am beginning to nibble away at some work product. I have used Infini D 3D for years so I have come across with some experience, but Carrera with its multi shaders, runtimes, and DAZ figures is another species. I feel like I have a Hal 2000 brain in a Hal 3000 world.

I have begun to use Phil Wilkes deadly clever trick of using an alpha channel to mask parts of M4 clothing - in this case a shirt. However what I would prefer doing is to delete the sleeves of the shirt itself. In lesson 0721( Advanced) it covers how to detach a skeleton from a model so that the mesh can be edited. This I was able to do with a coat model, but after corrections, I could find no way to re-attach the skeleton to the coat. The skeleton was not moved, neither was the the mesh object. Is it possible to re-connect the skeleton at all ?

Happy New Year - watch out for unattached skeletons, I inadvertently set some loose.

Ray

I have a mac Mini 2.3 Ghz. Mem 8 Gig/ Os 10.9.5 Carrera 8.5 Pro / + Mac Dual 2.7 Ghz Power Pc G5. I am trying to build 18th century RN uniforms for clips in a documentary on Captain James Cook...for the web.. My own project.

Diomede

There is more than one way to do most things in Carrara, and this is one of them. There are a couple of issues to consider. One is that detaching and reattaching the skeleton may reset some of the joint parameters. Another is that editing the mesh may affect the uvmap.

I would actually recommend creating a duplicate mesh to edit, then uncheck the visibility of the original mesh. That way, you can always go back to the original at any time.

One way to do that is to export and re-import the figure as an obj back in its default position. Edit and texture the duplicate mesh to your hearts content. Select the figure hip and the duplicate mesh simultaneously. From the top menu, use animation : attach skeleton.

Note: you will likely have to edit bone influences of the duplicate mesh after it has been attached.

evilproducer

I don't know if this works with Genesis, but for the V4 or M4 (and earlier) based figures, you can open the model in the vertex modeler and select the portion of the mesh you wish to remove and got to View--> Hide Selection. This will hide the part of the clothes you don't want to see without destroying the mesh, the ability to conform, the morphs or the shading domains.

A note about hiding the selection. It is a modeling tool. If the object is not rigged, the mesh will be hidden in the vertex modeler, but not in the Assembly room view.

When you do this with the Poser/DAZ style figures, the mesh remains hidden in the Assembly room as well as in the VM. I don't know why, but if it's a bug, it is one that works in our favor.

I have had some luck and some failures using this method with Carrara rigged figures. Once I tried it and it failed, so I revealed the hidden mesh, and decided to try again the next time I opened the scene and it worked!

I don't know what happens to the mesh if you export it with hidden geometry.

The samples below use the method on conforming clothes for A3 to go from dress to bustier and on a V4 to hide her leg below the knee. Note that in all cases the rigging was not effected and I could pose my figures like normal.

These videos demonstrate how well it works even for animations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQhoy3hB9J0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkWBRuJlQhA

starboard

Diomede64,
Thanks for spending the time to help me. I have really been puzzled about this. I tried what you suggested and it works. I don't quite understand why. Are they both sharing the same skeleton ? I suppose they have to be. It is amazing that Carrera does not crash. It has crashed on me for a far, far lesser reasons...Amazing.

Again thank you for your time...Enjoy the New Year.

starboard

Evilproducer,
Thanks for getting back to me. Thanks for the time spent on the response. I tried what you suggested twice. Very carefully the second time and in both case Carrera crashed. Here is what I did.

1. In Vertex Modeler selected a section of mesh to be hidden (I chose most of the arm of a shirt)
2, In View chose, dropped down menu to Hide Selection and clicked on
3. Carrera crashed,

This is still very new to me so I may have done something wrong. However, since what Diomede46 suggested works, I think I am ok.

Thanks again, This forum is quite a resource, where people like yourself are willing to help. Truly appreciate it.

Ray

starboard

Evilproducer,
I can see by the attachments you provided how it must work and quite well. I also checked out the links to the videos. Very impressive.
I will give it try again tomorrow.
Thanks again.

evilproducer

msteaka said:

Evilproducer,
I can see by the attachments you provided how it must work and quite well. I also checked out the links to the videos. Very impressive.
I will give it try again tomorrow.
Thanks again.

The method you listed in your previous post is how I do it. In the case of the dress, I went to Select--> Select By--> Shading Domain. To hide the leg, I selected using the Marquee tool.

What figure are you trying it on? I use Carrara 7.2 Pro, and I have heard that this little trick may not work on Genesis, but I have no way to test it. I'm thinking if the trick doesn't work for Genesis, then it probably won't work for the clothes either.