Brute-force rigging using faces instead of bones?

FMM_UWF_6b886030db

I'm-a be candid here: trying to rig my stuff to people using the bones scares the heck out of me, mostly because I didn't grow up with it.

PhilC had a group of tutorials for Poser4 on how to do basic rigging using the grouping tool with plain ol' face selection per group to rig.
I had a little bit of success with it on a couple of props.

Trying to rig using bones is a total mystery to me though, and while I tried to follow Smay's "Snake Rigging" tutorial vid on YouTube, one of the reasons it didn't help was because there wasn't any audio to walk us through it.

So the topic question:
Is there a method for me to rig clothes (mostly footwear/legwear stuff that goes thigh-and-shin and shin-foot-and-toes) onto the figures using just selection/assignment of faces, and a way to avoid having to use bones?

Richard Haseltine

In which application? In DAZ Studio the Transfer utility will get you a lot of the way. There isn't a way to avoid bones, though, for items that need to bend.

FMM_UWF_6b886030db

I'm attempting to rig in DS4.6 currently (and yup, it's for things that bend); the Transfer Utility is honestly a completely new and scary thing to me and it feels like I absolutely need a "Rigging in Daz3D for Dummies" book or something.

:(

mjc1016

Metalitia said:

I'm attempting to rig in DS4.6 currently (and yup, it's for things that bend); the Transfer Utility is honestly a completely new and scary thing to me and it feels like I absolutely need a "Rigging in Daz3D for Dummies" book or something.

:(

The Transfer Utility is is pretty much as close to an 'auto-rigger' that Studio gets.

This should cover the basics...

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/rigging/tutorials/transfer_utility/start

And here's tutorial by DigiDots...

http://www.digi-dotz.com/index.php/free-poses/tutorials/daz-studio-tutorials/26-basic-genesis-clothes-rigging-in-daz-studio-4-5

FMM_UWF_6b886030db

Okay, so the DigiDotz tutorial (while pretty much the same as the official one you linked above it...but it seemed simpler and easier to follow for some reason) helped and I was able to get the boot rigged...but now faces of the boot have disconnected (for example, the Sole is no longer connected to the Sole Sides).
What can I do to fix that?

And is there a hopefully-easy-to-follow tutorial for rigging props (that don't get worn, I mean) to bend?
Because I want to make a belt that can open and close (mostly likely posing morphs will be involved later, but the focus here is on the initial rigging of the thing to be able to do it) and unfortunately I started with a hole-punched cylinder instead of starting out with a flat rectangle (which is presumably loads easier to bone-rig than a cylinder, obviously).

FMM_UWF_6b886030db

Okay, nevermind, cuz I played around with it and found out that that face disconnect is from the Mesh Smoothing, so I either turn it off or set it to 0.

The Transfer Utility has been working wonders for me with the clothes, and I always set regions manually beforehand just to make sure the body parts get set to the proper body part conforming.

Meanwhile, the rigging of a non-clothing open-and-close belt prop remains a mystery to me. :(

What help can I get on that end?