Geometry shells - Studio
stitlown
Posts: 282
Hello again ever-helpful forums.
After a long absence I'm back tinkering in Studio. This time I'm builing a rope figure that is more suited to what I need than I've found in the products. I think (touch wood) it is going OK. I was going to build four different (but very similar) figures. A short 16 bone rope for detail knots etc. and a long 16 bone rope for ship's rigging, cateneries etc. For each I have two different geometries. One with a fairly tight rope weave and the other with a more loose rope weave (neither actually technically correct but they look cool). But suddenly geometry shells (or alternatively multiple geometries for one figure) have floated onto my radar. Maybe I just need two figures if I can either attach two geometries to one figure or wrap a geometry shell over the original figure then hide the original. I'm pretty sure I need two figures because the long ropes are not just scaled-in-one-dimension versions of the short ropes - there is way more geometry per bone than in the short rope.
But ....
I haven't found any useful documentation on creating / applying geometry shells or asigning mutliple geometries to an existing figure.
Can someone please point me in the right direction (or directions).
Thanks in advance.
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Comments
A Geoemtry Shell is created from the Create menu, it starts with a Push Modifier applied to offset it from the base item but you can adjust that (or weight map it using the Push Modifier Weight Map node, also in the Create menu). A shell always takes the shape and pose of the original (other than the push modifier) but it has its own materials. Save using a Wearables preset or Scene Subset.
Richard, as always, a star. Let me take some time and play. Cheers, Lx
Ok Richard, or whomever. It appears Geometry shells are not what I'm trying to do in this case. If I understand them now, they are another instance of the original geometry (which can be textured differently and can be scaled differently.
What I'm exploring is one set of bones which has two different geometries available between which you can toggle (ie one or the other, not both). In figure set up seems it is possbile to assign multiple geomentries I believe (I've not done it but when playing it appeared possbile). But I've created my figure out of the joint editor and now wanted to somehow say, not this geometry, but this other geometery. Is that possible?
Geometry Switching is the term for what you want I think, like the old Changing Ponytail? It has been problematic with DS4 - I think it's working now with legacy content but I'm not sure if it can be made to work with weight-mapped figures. A GeoGraft might be a better bet - that's a separate figure that welds to, and usually hides part of, the base figure.
Ok, I'm also having some trouble with geometry shells. I made one, then turned off everything but the test area. I used a brush that I had with a matching opacity mask, and the visibility is fine. But it's stretching the image across the entire area - how do I shrink the size of the brush on the shell?
The shell uses the same UVs, or UV sets, as the base figure so you need to have the texture work on the UV set you use (or create a new UV set that works for your maps). If you apply with the Layered Image Editor you can adjust the scaling and placement of the layer.
How do I activate the layered image editor? I can't find the button for it.
In the Surfaces pane/tab, select the surface you want, then under the diffuse (usually, that the one you are going to layer), click on the image map (it will be the box to the left of the color bar). That will bring up a dropdown menu. Layered Image Editor is a choice on it. Click it. The LIE will then open.
Learn something every day. Some days two. Thanks Richard and mjc1016
Did some playing with geografting. For what I'm after it is not the solution. It is great for add ons or replacements, but for my purpose here (toggle two different geometries) I need both figures in the scene and to toggle I'd have to fit and "un fit" the second geometry.
I had a little explore of levels of detail. The geometries are conceptually similar, but physically different so I don't think that has any legs. In my experiementation the replacement geometry appeared not to import. I can see in the log there are no matching vertices.
It looks what I's like to do is not a capability of DS. Sigh!
Is it possible to make a geometry shell out of only a part of a figure? Say, Genesis 3 male?
In the Parameters tab you can hide different parts of the geometry shell.