Props with multiple targets... (bind to arm, or bind to leg, or bind to head)

JD_Mortal

I know how to setup one asset/prop to bind to a set individual target... EG, binding a bracelet to an ankle, manually. (Still not sure how to force it to just load onto the ankle when it loads.)

However, is it possible to have an item that has multiple targets for a potential auto-load situation? EG, Having a bracelet that fits on the wrist, the ankle, or around the head... Causing a pop-up to ask which one to drop it onto? Or some kind of on-screen 3D pre-selection when there are multiple compatible targets. Like highlighting the potential positions it can go, then just selecting the location you want it to load into.

I realize there are few "actor" uses for this, but they exist. Honestly, this is just for an object, which had to be turned-into an "actor", to get it to work. I am trying to setup one asset/prop that binds to one of many potential drop-locations... Like you would do with a giant "X" and "O" on a large Tic-Tac-Toe board. Expecting everyone to manually re-bind from one potential location to another, or manually position each letter, is too demanding for my needs. However, making an individual "X" and an "O" for each of the nine locations, is too demanding of me and a storage-killer of redundant objects.

I think in most other programs they are called drop and target nodes. Something to that event... However, I need the targets to be the bones, as the attached objects I am making, move with the parent as it deforms.

This stuff comes-in handy with IK poses too.. Put one on each actors lips, and just make an IK-KISS... and they join lips, no matter what shape or size the model is, or if it was modified from the original form, as long as the IK-KISS targets are still on the lips... (Works for hands and feet and rumps... When IK, walking, dancing, opening doors, sitting...)

Endless possibilities when you attach emitters or attractors... (Catch a ball, throw one to another to catch, punch x-actors ribs then change actors and you still hit the ribs even if they jump or twist... etc.)

But I just need multiple target bones for one accessory/prop... I can live with them having to manually pick a target after it loads, if it doesn't give them a list of 1000 potential attachments that are not relevant to the compatibility.

fixmypcmike

I don't know if there's a way -- usually such products have multiple props, each smart-propped differently.

JD_Mortal

Fixmypcmike said:

I don't know if there's a way -- usually such products have multiple props, each smart-propped differently.

I am floating a few ideas to work-around the reality that there may not be a way to do this...

Just wait until I ask about setting-up assets on assets on assets on assets... Daz loves nesting, Users hate it, I need it, they are going to have to live with it, until they invent smart-trees.

I would much rather that people spent more time rendering walls filled with windows and picture-frames, then trying to hang a hundred picture-frames and box-in 100 windows... Then realize it doesn't render the way they want, and have to go crazy doing it all again. (As for the IK-Stuff, it saves TONS of bloat on animations and asset-saving when you don't have to remember all the individual pose data for each individual model-type and model-size and other non-static information. I'd rather have another 100GB of HD graphics than have lost 100GB to animations I would never use and bloated morphs that could be simplified by things like linked-bones and target-nodes. Goes back to the whole KISS method. Sometimes we need morphs, other times just a simple link to have one bone modify another is all we need. Like clock-hands. One turns 1/60th of the other. Morph that. Link a leg to a dragon with 100 hips, then do it with the other 199, then change your mind and decide that you want tenticles instead of legs on half of them... Manually setup by binding individually from a drop-down list is a nightmare. Finding leg 86r is a bigger one.)

Richard Haseltine

A script could do what you want, offering a choice of parent. ERC can be used to link one property to another, for something like your clock.

JD_Mortal

I was looking at your scripts post... I'd love to attempt to tackle learning more code, but at the moment, that is above my allotted time consumption. (Soon though.)

If the scripts were automatic, and included within the objects, without users having to find them, add them, and do stuff to them to get them to function... That would be perfect. However, I don't know how the scripts are setup here. I see a few scripts in my script area, but nothing I want to use in modeling. (Click to add. Not sure if anything I use in modeling has scripts bound to them, as they are behind the scenes, I am sure.)

I was looking at the dynamic clothing plugin, which seems automatic... sort-of. However, coding is NOT intuitive at all, on any level. Without full documentation, code is essentially useless. Not that there isn't documentation, but for me, at the moment, there is no free time to rummage through pages of documentation to hope I stumble across something that might sort-of do what I want, then attempt to master it. (I program in many languages, but that only makes me a jack of all trades, master of none. I know how everything works, but applying it is a task and a half for me, with all the specifics of each of the hundreds of variations of the same remade wheels. That is my fault for trying to do it all, and not having enough time to get it all done.)

Yea, rambling done...

Waiting for DAZ-V to come around. Hopefully with more things like this already part of the core functions.

I think I decided that, for the moment, I will live with compound-stacking. That is the only way I can think-of, to get something like this done, without too much over-complexity in use or design.

EG, Making designated multi-target children to parent individual assets to. So each set of targets retains individual grouped arrangements, but within those groups, the individual components can have thier own unique adjustments that don't disturb the rest of the model. They will still have to pick targets and/or move things around... (Making three rows that each have three slots. You still have to drop an item into each individual hole, but you can move each row up or down, moving three at once. While you can go into any row and arrange the three items "X" and "O"'s, as desired, within that row.

I could make all individual targets, 9 of them... but then you lose the adjustments as you alter the heights or widths of the rows and columns that hold the X's and O's. (This is not for tic-tac-toe, but for my dressers, which have dresser drawers that are not all full-width or full-height, but need to be adjustable wide or high, with the whole row and/or column. While having the ability to drop-in a "shelf" instead of a drawer, or a "door-cubby" (The "X" or the "O".) While still retaining the same shape. With three sets of drawers, one may have one, one may have two wide, one may have three wide, so a "morph" will not work, since they also may have different widths within the row, and column heights.

But I also want ONE texture application to the "drawers", if there are one or 100 of them, and the "shell", and the "trim"... (The multiple targets.) Instead of having to make everyone pick each component and texture it individually, in the horrible tree display. Same on reverse... The objects auto-matching the dresser, as the multi-target enters the parent. (Saving you from having to retexture each new added component.) {Script-city!}

Again, I can live with burdening them to hunt the items in the tree, since you can't select children components for some reason, with the default selection tool. They just turn blue and never get selected, even though they have selection targets. Assets on assets on assets... Total nightmare to manage within trees that list every bone along the way. (Needs to be a smart tree that only shows bones when you have bone manipulation selected, and only shows objects when you have the standard selection tools selected. Hiding bones that don't do anything, like the ones bound to parent bones that can't be manipulated except on the parent. EG, clutter.)

Oh, and thanks again. Stop being so helpful... I hate saying thank-you!

JD_Mortal

Also, This can be done, just not on native models... You have to alter the native model to have a hip/leg etc... on each place you want to drop the item. (That's ghetto!)

That is essentially what I am doing.

The alternative is to make a sub-asset that has those paired bones, and attach it to any location on the primary model. Eg, a ghost-model with ghost-bones... Adding hip/leg to each drop-point, so when you build the bracelet with the hip/leg, it fits on her wrist or her ankle or her head, without distorting. (While it is actually being dropped onto the invisible asset, that just holds the matching named bones, bound to the three individual locations.)

Not the same as just dropping it on her ankle or her wrist or head, but ghetto-enough to function like it does.

Ran into that problem when I made a drawer with the same bones, but they were not the same locations or sizes... it distorted the drop-on component and it took me an hour to realize that it didn't just duplicate the bones sizes and positions, but it did set them in place. Just one pointed out into space as the end-bone XYZ didn't match. Obviously, if the bones were named heel and toe, they wouldn't match-up to hip and leg. (I don't think this does that. I'll have to see, but I doubt it. The point of attaching is that it attaches to the target-bone as a ghost-clone, which is what I was seeing. Even if it didn't match-up correctly.)

The confusing part is that everything has "body parts names", which makes my dresser a "Figure" with a "hip" and the drawers a "waist accessory". As if this wasn't confusing enough... Try finding this stuff when CMS buries it or just doesn't display it at all...

Richard Haseltine

Although anything with posable parts is a figure, the bones don't have to be named for body parts - if you use Edit>Object>Rigging>Convert Prop to Figure uncheck Inherit Skeleton of Parent and you can change the name of the root bone from the default hip.