Hidden Morph Area

starboard

I have some poke through in a coat that I am trying to resolve by using morphs. Normally not a problem. Go into the "Edit Vertex Room" > enter the animation mode > go to morphs > choose the part of the figure >  create a morph....etc. which I have done for the body of the coat.  The problem is that the arms from the shoulder down to the cuffs do not appear to have a morph area to choose from.  The mesh is there but there is no way to selct the arms that I can find.  When I go to Selection > Select By > Morph Area there are no arms to select.  When I choose full body, everything but the arms come up in red highlight.  I have gone to the Help/ Carrara Manual but there is no mention of this scenario. They do show how to define a morph area, but I am unabl to bring up the menu shown with its "Create" button.

Its a puzzle.  Would  appreciate any help,

 

 

Starboardtack

 

 

 

SileneUK

I'd like a better tut on that tool as well. I have trouble using Animation mode to edit or make a morph area. The Carrara 7 User Manual does have a section. It starts on page 266 of the pdf (or page 254 in the manual document). It covers editing or adding a figure's morph, but the principle looks the same.  I do think someone, maybe Diomede, had a post going about this once. Hope he's around.

OK  ETA:  I see you cannot get the CREATE menu up on the right side. I am trying in Car myself and I do get the menu. Maybe it depends on the model you are trying to change. And doing an Invert Selection did not seem to help.

On the other hand, have you tried using the magnet in the toolbar and just pulling it a bit to fix the poke-through? I usually have to un-tick Protect Topography first. Depends on the item. I have found that helps in 90% of my cases. However, I do not animate and that may not do it properly for you. 

  Silene

 

DUDU

To create a morph area on a rigged character, sometime that works, sometime not in my case.

What I do when I have some pokes through, I select the polygons with a soft selection and move them a little.

SileneUK

Hi Dudu, I wish I knew why you can and cannot... does it maybe have to do with whether it's  DS content or Poser stuff?  Hopefully someone out there will know. It's one of those things I have wanted to understand better for quite some time.

Cheers, Silene 

starboard

Thanks Salene and DUDU..

I think you talking about changing the mesh permanently and not with a morph.   What  happens when you move the arm to a different position..you might have to change the mesh again..and have a number of bumbs.

There must be a way to assign a morph area to the arms.. I don't understand why I cannot bring up the create morph button...Very strange.  Somehow the morph areas were assigned originally.  The morphs work so well I don't want to give up on them.

Salene, on page 250 of the Help/ manual it tells how to make a morph area...I assume that is what is missing.  However I cannot bring up the  image shown in the manual...

Starboardtack

Jonstark

I know that I use Fenric's 'unlock figure' plugin a lot when I'm working on changing premade set characters and props.  Maybe that would help?  Not sure, but I'm pretty sure Diomede ran into this problem before and figured out the solution for it (forgive me if I'm misrembering though), may be worth doing a forum search to see if you can uncover the prior thread where it was discussed.

SileneUK

I see... is it a DAZ product or for Poser? What is the name of the jacket?  I wonder if that makes a difference.... hmmmm.

starboard

Thanks Silene and Jonstark for the help,

After much trial and error...an abundance of error I have decided to try the Fenric's "Poser Pack 3 for Carrara."  The description sounds like it could solve my problem of missing morph areas. I could not find a previous thread on the subject of missing morph areas or unlocking morphs...So thanks Jonstark for the tip.

 However a new problem has arisen,  I have bought the plugin but  now I cannot open the  Fenric compressed package so that it can be placed in "My Daz Studio".    I have followed the Mac instructions to over-ride the security filter..but it does not work.  This maybe best directed to Fenric himslf.as he might have come across this before .so I though it best to start a new thread.

Starboardtack

Roygee

Unless there is something very different in C8.5, (compared to C8.1, which I use) you are stuck with the morph areas defined by the maker of the product.  A few years ago, in the days of Studio 3.XX, we could take it into Hexagon through the bridge, make a tiny change and save the whole body as a morph area, which showed up in Carrara and gave you access to any part of the figure to make a morph.  This no longer works with stduio 4.XX, so you would either have to install an old Studio 3.XX or know how to use ExP to define a new morph area.

starboard

Roygee,

Thanks for getting back to me. Actually I have downloaded Fenric's plugin for unlocking  Morph's.  I was stuck with the morphs that the model maker provided as you described above but I did'nt know it - and was stumped about what to do, thinking the problem was hidden in all the grey fog which I do not know about Carrara.  Like SileneUK I also have trouble using the morph/ animation mode and was searching everywhere for an answer. Jonstark, above suggested Fenric's plugin.   When I finally checked it out, the description seemed to apply to my problem. It was only $12 so well worth the chance.  After doing everything wrong that is possible (its a gift ), I  finally got it installed. All I can say is "Thank you Fenric".... The plugin really works and does what it says it will.  ....  The Un-locking plugin is part of a group of Fenric plugins...Outside of the names of these other plugins I have no idea what they do...

Starboardtack

Roygee

As a matter of intesrest..does that plugin give you the ability to open up a new morph channel and write it to the .cr2 file?  If so, it really is a bargain!

Jonstark

I was going to offer to test it in advance to make sure it would allow you to add morphs, if you let me know the figure, but you've already sprung for it, anyway it's an incredibly useful little plugin, I have no idea why so many content makers tend to 'lock' their stuff so that you can't work on it.  I think the 'duplicate tree' plugin is part of that same pack (where you can do a duplicate of anything, including a group of figures, even if the normal 'duplicate' command is greyed out).  I also didn't get here in time to help give tips about how to install it, but for anyone following behind and reading this thread later, fenric's plugins don't go into daz studio at all, but rather into Carrara's extensions folder, then the next time you open Carrara the commands will be in the 'Edit' drop down menu, under 'Fenric' and there will be a whole list to choose from.  I have grabbed pretty much all of his plugins, though I confess I don't know what half of them do, but the other half are all incredibly useful.

starboard

Jonstark,

Again thanks for the tip.  It cut short my endless groping in those foggy netherlands of Carrara. I would stil be out there- getting hungry and looking for a fire.

Roygee..I really don't know enough about the file nomenclature..etc,  Perhaps Jonstark can help there. However,  Fenric's plugin allows  you to make a new morph area where the originator of the figure left out.  The mesh is there, say for the arms but it does not show up in the morph areas.

Once youu have made your morphs they show up only under "model" in the Instances tray.  All the regular morpphs show up in the parameter tab under the main title of the object in the Instances tray.

 

Roygee

It is really geat that the plugin allows you to make a new morph.  I imagine it would not become a permanent part of the figure - you would have to save it to your browser as a new figure to be able to use it again?

Fenric

Yeah... Carrara doesn't keep quite enough of the original CR2 to be able to write it back out again. If you wanted to do that, you'd need to export the obj file and then use Studio or Poser Pro to import it as a morph.

Roygee

Thanks for the explanation - still, great to have that ability in Carrara :)

Don't know whether Daz has fixed this in the latest Studio 4.XX, but at my last try a year or so ago, we found that Studio no longer wrote morphs to .cr2 files.  You could make a morph and save it as a new figure, but that overwrote existing morphs. The other alternatives were to use .duf or ExP.  Some folk keep Studio 3.XX just for this purpose.