Released : Face To Face Autopose Arms (Commercial)
V3Digitimes
Posts: 3,049
Face to Face Autopose Arms is a set of tools allowing you to super easily :
- Edit existing pose arms,
- Or create arms poses from scratch
so that the selected face(s) of the hand(s) of a figure or of a prop parented to a hand reaches a target in the scene. This target is a very small plane which can be either loaded as a prop, or directly created (via a script) on the face(s) of any object in your scene.
The solution is simple and very flexible : simply create a target, select hand (or child prop) faces, and launch the script. Happy with the result ? Stop here! Want to modify something (elbow too high, collar too twisted)? Simply manually change your arm pose and relaunch the script : a new solution (a new pose) will be calculated taking into account your new ‘initial pose’.
Four main tools are available, each of them existing both in a “pose” version and in a “animation” (timeline actions) version :
- Basic versions allow you to automatically pose the arms, but not the hand or the fingers.
- Complete versions allow you to automatically pose the arms and/or the hand and/or the first and second bone of the fingers. As a counterpart, the face selection is limited to the fingertips. The “posed” bones must be chosen via a configuration script and Daz Studio remembers your choice. Two complete versions exist, one “up” (from finger to collar) the second one down.
- Child versions allow you to pose the arms, and the selected faces must be on a prop parented to a hand. This way the selected faces of the child prop reach the target (for instance the tip of a gun on a head…).
Amongst the other features included you will find :
- Automatic recognition of the arm to be posed,
- No interface for the pose scripts (except if you have several targets so that you can choose the one you want), and a minimal interface for the animation scripts,
- A strong documentation, even if it is easy and intuitive to use,
- The possibility to change the “precision” of the result (the distance between selected faces and target faces below which the convergence stops)
- The possibility to use all this via a menu or a toolbar and…
- … my support here if/when you need me :)
It is highly recommended to install it with DIM (Daz Install Manager) or manually if you prefer, since, as all script products, it can have issues with Daz Connect installations. Please any question, remark, feedback, use this thread or you MP. Two "eductation-presentation" videos can already be found :
Short video : Educational Face To Face For Arms: Principle (7 minutes, because there are a few additional details and explanations)
Long video : Educational Face To Face For Arms Details (29 minutes because it is very detailed, BUT you have the time codes when you start the video so that you can go exactly to the part you want).
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Comments
Hands are a pain, so this should be very useful.
Thanks a lot richard. I hope this will help you :)
The project was intially focused on arms, not including hands, but since I managed to include hands in the algorithm, I added this. Yet I personally prefer using the basic "arm only" version, and I used only the full version (hand + 1rst and 2nd bone of the selected finger) when there was a real gain to autopose everything.
Looks VERY useful! Unfortunately I'm broke, so it's a wishlist for now, but definitely something I'll snag up when I have some more money!
Can this work on fitted clothing, such as shoes, to make the foot pose to contact the floor?
@Thyranq : No worry, I know this is the end of the month....
@Mart1n71 : No, the only faces you can select (to reach a target) are on hands or on a prop parented to the hand, and the only bones which can be automatically posed are arms bones, (+/- hand, +/- finger level 1/2). The legs or feet control were not included. I know from what I developped with ultimate pose master that leg is harder to handle, so I did not want to include it. What you ask should be technically possible (as another product), but it is not possible with "autopose arms".
Will this script run in DS 5? Apparently, some scripts will not. I do like what I see. I'm not trying to be negative. I'm just wondering about DS 5.
For now I have no clear information about the specific issues that will occur with DS5. I read that for now there will be issues with all (most of) scripts, and that Daz works to minimize that problem. But so far I have no more information than the users, so I cannot answer. Yet, once DS 5 is out, I will have the opportunity to see how all my scripts can be adapted (all my scripts, not only this one, which makes a collosal amount of work). I read that most of the issues will be linked to the use of an interface (most of my projects use interfaces), but I have no clue of the amount of work which will be required to adapt all the programs from DS4 to DS5, or if it will possible to adapt them all. For this specific project, there are not a lot of interfaces (dialogs), so I have a good hope that it will be adaptable. But honestly I don't know.
Thank you for taking the time to answer. I hope that all of your beautiful work and scripts will be able to run on DS 5.
Thanks... Well on my side I hope that the update efforts of all my scripts will not cost me one full year of work... I'd prefer 2 or 3 months only, but I must admit that it is a huge stress for me at the end of this year... I feel as if I'm in the dark with a big hammer falling on my head, but I don't know the size of the hammer, and I don't know when it's gonna hit my head..
Really sorry you have to go through that. If it's any consolation, your products are one of the main reasons I won't be adopting Studio 5 in quite a while. You are just that good, and I would rather use outdated software than a program deprived of all the functionality you have brought to the table.
Not to mention I find it quite objectionable that Daz is offloading the full responsibility of this to the creators. But that's another can of worms, and likely to get this post moderated.
@Uthgard : Thanks so much for your very nice words, it makes me feel good to read that. Concerning Daz, this is a necessary update or they would not make it regarding the associated drawback, and I think I read that if there was not the sripts and pluggins issue, this update could have been released. Now it seem that they worked to minimize the impact since in a promo mail I saw that there was already an API update to "improve forward compatibility" in the public version. But improve how much, this is the question. Due to personal issues I've been unable to dig further into this issue, but now I feel that the clock is ticking and I'll have to contact them to see "what can be done" on my side to anticipate as much as possible what will happen. I just keep my finger crossed that the update will be more like "a few lines to change" rather than "almost rewrite everything". We'll see :)
This looks interesting. I currently have a project with a character in a car. It is going to be an animation and from what I gathered from your video, I could simply place the targets on the steering wheel and have the arms follow it when the wheel is turned. But I assume I would have to bake my aniblocks for the character to the timeline first, right? (at least those that affect the arms) Would it be a problem if the steering wheel (parent to the target) is still animated by an aniblock?
Yes it's in the documentation, you first have to transfer from the aniblocs to the timeline. Then you will probably have to parent the targets to the steering wheel. I have no idea if it's a problem if the steering wheel is animated by an anibloc, but "by instinct" I would say no (the condition for it to work is that the location of the face of the target can be read by the script, I never tried, I always baked everything to the timeline, but I "suppose" that DS is able to analyse the location of an the target in an anibloc). In your case I think you would require two or three "sessions" of the animated versions of the script, because, even if you will maintain hands on the steering wheel after the "first session", you cannot be sure that the angle of the hands and the steering wheel is the one you want, so you will have to adjust using the "pose" scripts a few frames in the timeline after your first session (you rotate the hands and twist forearm, the hands get off the wheel, but you relaunch the pose script at your given frame, and the hands come back in contact, with the angle you want). So the scripts would be a lot of help, but if I were you I would use "pose" versions on a few frames of the timeline to ensure your angle hand/wheel, then the "animated" versions when you're happy with your "few frames". In this case, maybe a single session is enough...
Thank you for your effort on making this script. It is, of course, suuuuper helpful.
I was wondering wether you could impliment the plugin in the "customize" workspace section of daz because I seem to be unable to make custom shortcut keys for your plugin which would make this such an ultimate tool.
Or is there another way to assign custom keys outside of the "customze" workspace section?
Kind regards.
I hope in the future the script can be improved in a way to extend the chain of bones used for posing(if chosen) to the upper body as well. If that is even possible. It would be cool to see. But it is already very, very cool this way.
Hi, thanks for the feedback!
For the shortkeys, you can add them this way : normally you have a button, at the bottom of the "V3DF2FIK 01 Convergence settings" interface, which allows you to install these scripts both in a menu and in a toolbar (and to remove this toolbar if you prefer). Once done (once they are in the menu & toolbar), when you launch the DAZ interface customization (F3), you can find all the scripts of this project in the "Custom" area of "Actions" tab of the left of the "Customize Daz Studio" window, and you can assign a shortkey (right click and "change keyboard shortcut"). But for this you need to install the menu first using the button at the bottom of the convergence settings script. Take care, this menu installation is warranted only for a DIM or manual install, (it is better to avoid a smart connect installation). In brief it seems that you can add a keyboard shortkey only if they exist as custom actions, so first set them as custom actions the way you want, then assign a keyboard shortkey.
For the full upper body change, I have to look at two things, first how much it makes sense, then how technically it could be implemented... So nothing to expect in the short term.
Let me know if you don't manage to create a keyboard shortcut, but I hope this should be fine now!
Such a tool would be extremely helpful for posing legs.
Imagine you have a girl sitting relaxed e.g on a set of stairs. With shoes on, the heels should not protrude the stairs. Most pose set come with poses for a given figure and/or Genesis 8. Some of the other characters are smaler, so the fine tuning begins. Same applies if the shoes are high heels. I suppose having such an autopose tool would really ease that pain
Yes, but in a lot of legs cases, "ultimate pose master" is already super efficient, not only because you can put the foot where you want but also because you can change the various leg and pelvis orientation while keeping feet in place. And I don't know if I could do better for the specific case of the legs. Actually handling arms or legs are super different issues, because even if the algorithm is very similar from one to the other, this is much more natural for an arm to be twisted or side sided than for a thigh for instance. Plus, for a leg you have less "control bones" for the final location than for the arm (where the collar can be exploited too). This adds globally a tendency to a thigh twist to reach a location which is sometimes not super natural. Well in brief, this requires more investigation on how to control not only the foot location (this is the easy part), but also the "look" of the leg (and this is the difficult part, which is handled in "ultimate pose master", where you can adjust this "look" in parallel with the adjustment and "locking" of the foot location and orientation).
This seems like it would work good in combination with Face To Face for positioning and then arm posing. Would that be an accurate assumption?
If by "it" you mean ultimate pose master, yes they are very complementary products, you can autopose with face to face, then adjust hands and arms poses with pose master while keeping the hand in place, but often the contact point will "lift off" but will remain pretty close (because hand absolute angle depends on the whole top bones chain), so you just close pose master and relaunch an autopose to "finalize" the work. Then when the angle is "perfect" you can still use the pose master, but this time activating the option to "keep hand orientation", so that the absolute orientation of the hand (and the contact point) does not change when you adjust other arm bones (while keeping hands in place thanks to the helpers). So, very complementary projects already for the arms, and it would be the same for the legs, except that for people who do not use pose master, I wonder what I could do so that a "autopose leg" is not an unsatisfying experiment. But an "autopose leg" would be super complementary with pose master indeed...
If updating scripts to version 5 takes up a lot of your time, you could consider an upgrade cost for the new version (for those who have the old one). If the amount of work is like starting from scratch, I for one, would not expect you or any PA to do it without charging for a new product. It might not be ideal, but your original versions will still be accessible and usable on DS4. Try not to stress over it. You'll figure out what to do when you know more :)
I'm sorry. I wasn't being clear. I meant that it seems like this Face To Face product would work well with the original Face to Face product.
I will absolutely buy this because, V3Digitimes, you make Daz sooo much more efficient it's crazy. I use most of your products daily. Thank you!
I have pose master, but it's the one product of yours I don't use because, well, it intimidates the hell out of me.
@Worlds_Edge : That's an idea, but for now, I cannot really take any decision. The only thing I can do is to wait... We'll see... But I don't feel super comfortable with the idea of a price increase. World is not super fair, and I don't feel like contributing to this issue :(...
@Quasar : Oh, ok, sorry I misunderstood. Yes both are very complementary. Plus, the targets of any of them can be used by both of them!
@Leonides02 : These are super nice words from you, one more proof that there is still benevolence in humanity. Thanks so much, I really appreciate your words! For pose master, you should try, the only thing you risk is to undo what you did if you don't like it... See this as a lottery : 100% of the winners have played ;)
Damn, I totally forgot that I have Ultimate Pose Master :-). Will not happen again, I have added it to my DS menu bar. Indeed, it DID solve my issue with posing the feet of one of my girls in a render. Thanks a lot, and keep developing such great products (btw. I would perfectly understand if you need to charge for an upgade once DS5 has been released).
No problem Mark! Yes for feet to floor, pose master already solves the problem pretty easily, with a "simultaneous" control of legs bones. But maybe you remarked that it is solwer than arms, it's because it's more complicated for the algorithm. I will need to invesigate the interest and feasability of a face to face autopose legs anyway, but since pose master covers a lot of needs, there is no emergency;) And thanks a lot for your feedback!
I bought this the day it came out but wanted to swing by and say this is going to be one of the products (along with Ultimate Pose Master) I recommend as a must have. I'm really picky about getting hand and arm connections right and this is saving me actual hours of work!
Hey plasma_ring ! That's super nice from you to come here with this great feedback ! I'm really glad to see that this helped you saving time, since this is the original goal of it (well it is rather to save nerves rather than time, and to bring comfortin posing but this is personal). Thanks a lot for taking the time to post this!
BTW I also want to thank here @Sevrin for giving me the idea of this project on the forum when he mention a "IK voodoo involved" in the Face to Face and Virtual Origin thread.
I already have another product - LimbStick - and was wondering whether they both do the same thing. I know that LimbStick doesn't select finger-tips but it does put the hand (or foot) on a target. Is there a point to having both?
It depends on your needs. With autopose you can put any exact face(s) of any part of the hand in contact with any face(s) of any mesh (or any location in the scene, no need for a mesh). And you can adjust the arm pose (as many times as you want) so that the arm has charcteristics you want (elbow higher, shoulder less bent, etc etc). so this is super flexible. You can work on static poses as well as animations and if the target is out of range you can use it to stretch your arm to the target. You can choose to pose only the arms or the arms and the fingers, or the fingers only or the hand only etc etc. So if one day you need these features then it will help. I don't know the limbs tick, and how flexible it is in how a hand reaches a target (I thought it only maintained it in a target once it was already placed) so I cannot answer more precisely. Eventually if you want, try autopose to test and use the 30 days return warranty if you see you don't need it. But I cannot compare, and I don't know how you work your scenes, so I think the best is you compare yourself. ...
And ... happy new year !