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New TriAx Character, clothing to moving with character morph - Solved

richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
edited October 2023 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I wonder if someone could help me please. I have converted Victoria 3 from Parametric joints to TriAx Weight Mapping. This means I can get autofit clones to fit clothing to the character, and have a rough & ready G8F autofit clone that allows G8F clothing to fit V3.

I do have one problem, though. The clothes don't follow the base character morphs such as 'Slender_Hips'.

I was wondering if that's due to the way I saved the character or whether it's due to something else.

I saved the character using menu item: File| Save As| Support Asset| Figure/Prop Asset... and then in the Figure/Prop Assets Save Options Window, I set the 'Set Content Type' to 'Actor'. Should this have been set to 'Actor/Character' to get the character morphs to follow through to the clothing? Or is there something else I should have done?

Thanks in advance,

Richard.

Post edited by richardandtracy on

Comments

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited October 2023

    Did you switch to edit-mode and check auto-follow for those morphs?

    You need to re-fit all clothing etc after making changes in there.

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
    No, I didn't. I'll check it out, thanks. Regards, Richard
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,994

    Dose V3 have mechanics of Auto Follow with body morphs ? Converting V3 to G8 might be a better way...

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
    edited October 2023

    Crosswind: No, V3 as a parametric figure does not. The figure is no longer a parametric figure, having been converted to TriAx weighting. As with every other TriAx figure created from scratch, the effect of morphs seems to need to be set so it'll affect the clothing.

    The only tool available that I know of (Gen-X2) does not effectively permit character transfer from V3 - the transfer is on the unrecognisable side of not-good. Further, using tools written by someone else does not help me learn how to create a character from scratch in DS, which is part of the point of this. I want to use G8F clothing on this figure (and I can at the moment) not use this figure on G8F. There are some G8F features that work due to the settings in DS, and I want the V3 based character to be able to take advantage of the same settings. Just severely hampered by the lack of DS documentation.

    Regards

    Richard.

    Post edited by richardandtracy on
  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
    edited October 2023

    Sven Dullah said:

    Did you switch to edit-mode and check auto-follow for those morphs?

    You need to re-fit all clothing etc after making changes in there.

    I have done this, and it doesn't seem to work. Odd. When I select the smaller chest morph, the clothes remain in the same place & a gap develops between the clothes & the character.

    Do I need to put 'fbm' in the name or something similar? Or something in the parameter type. At the moment it has type 'None', but changing it to Modifier or Modifier/Shape seem to have no effect.

    Regards,

    Richard

    Regards,

    Richard. 

    Post edited by richardandtracy on
  • BejaymacBejaymac Posts: 1,889
    edited October 2023

    Don't have the time to explain atm, but if you used the "Convert Figure to Weight Mapping..." feature, then you might as well delete everything you have done, as using that was a major mistake.

    Post edited by Bejaymac on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,994
    edited October 2023

    richardandtracy said:

    Crosswind: No, V3 as a parametric figure does not. The figure is no longer a parametric figure, having been converted to TriAx weighting. As with every other TriAx figure created from scratch, the effect of morphs seems to need to be set so it'll affect the clothing.

    The only tool available that I know of (Gen-X2) does not effectively permit character transfer from V3 - the transfer is on the unrecognisable side of not-good. Further, using tools written by someone else does not help me learn how to create a character from scratch in DS, which is part of the point of this. I want to use G8F clothing on this figure (and I can at the moment) not use this figure on G8F. There are some G8F features that work due to the settings in DS, and I want the V3 based character to be able to take advantage of the same settings. Just severely hampered by the lack of DS documentation.

    Regards

    Richard.

    Okay, understood. The 'old' non Genesis figure I ever used was V4 and I could only used GenX for conversion at that time... Then I always use Wrap for figure / textures conversion so as to take features of 'new Genesis'.

    Thanks!  

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    richardandtracy said:

    Sven Dullah said:

    Did you switch to edit-mode and check auto-follow for those morphs?

    You need to re-fit all clothing etc after making changes in there.

    I have done this, and it doesn't seem to work. Odd. When I select the smaller chest morph, the clothes remain in the same place & a gap develops between the clothes & the character.

    I can do some testing later, long time since I did this;)

    Do I need to put 'fbm' in the name or something similar? Or something in the parameter type. At the moment it has type 'None', but changing it to Modifier or Modifier/Shape seem to have no effect.

    I'd set them to modifier/shape, so I can save shaping presets in the future. The type won't change the way the morph behaves. Just a way of categorizing them, so you can save them as various presets.

  • BejaymacBejaymac Posts: 1,889

    Kicking around here somewhere is a disk with a fully converted Tri-Ax Aiko 3, it also has a partly done Vicky 4, I started them to learn how the systems in DS4.0 worked, and updated them to the system changes in DS4.5.

    The first thing you need to know is the differences between a Poser native figure and a DS4 native figure.

    In Poser you have a skeleton made up of a collection of bones, they are held together by the bone "parent/child" system, the mesh is split into a collection of props using the mesh groups, each prop is then parented to the appropriate bone (left thigh prop to left thigh bone etc), as a result if you move a bone the prop moves with it, so the joint parameters are really only there blend the areas where the props meet. Then there's the morphs, as you are dealing with a collection of props it means one FBM is actually a collection of partial morphs (one for each prop) and a "master" dial stored in the BODY.

    (going to try and keep this easy to understand) In DS4 what you have is a single mesh, doesn't even need mesh groups, you have a skeleton made up of a collection of bones held together by the bone "parent/child" system, the root node (hip usually) of which is "parented" to the mesh, try and move a bone and nothing happens to the mesh, that is what the weightmaps are for, all morphs are FBMs as the interact with the entire mesh, this why everything is in the root node as that is the only place to access everything from.

    The second thing to know is that DS can't use parametric rigging, so the importer has to convert them to weightmaps, but Poser parametric rigging makes horrible DS4 weighmap rigging, as a result there is extra coding being used in the background to make them appear to bend the same way they do in Poser, using the "Convert to WM" feature deletes that "extra coding" leaving you with the horrible WM rigging the importer creates.

    You have similar issues with morphs as the figure is no longer a Poser format figure, it's now a DS4 native figure that people still think is a Poser figure, which means the mesh is no longer a collection of props, it's been combined back into a single mesh and is now the root node for the figure, as a result the morphs on the bones have nothing to work on, so they get removed and hidden in the root node, and an Alias dial is left in it's place (yes that is where the Alias system came from, designed for Poser content only at first). INJecting morphs into empty channels is another part of that "extra coding", you don't actually INJ/REM in DS4 instead the coding sees the empty channels as place holders, and swaps them in and out as needed, you also lose this when you "Convert to WM".

    Best advice is to delete what you have done and just leave them the way the importer created them, as it's a hell of a lot less work than keeping just the mesh and skeleton and rebuilding everything else, which is why mine are sitting on a disk as I'd learned everything about the systems I needed to learn.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,990

    Bejaymac said:

    Kicking around here somewhere is a disk with a fully converted Tri-Ax Aiko 3, it also has a partly done Vicky 4, I started them to learn how the systems in DS4.0 worked, and updated them to the system changes in DS4.5.

    The first thing you need to know is the differences between a Poser native figure and a DS4 native figure.

    In Poser you have a skeleton made up of a collection of bones, they are held together by the bone "parent/child" system, the mesh is split into a collection of props using the mesh groups, each prop is then parented to the appropriate bone (left thigh prop to left thigh bone etc), as a result if you move a bone the prop moves with it, so the joint parameters are really only there blend the areas where the props meet. Then there's the morphs, as you are dealing with a collection of props it means one FBM is actually a collection of partial morphs (one for each prop) and a "master" dial stored in the BODY.

    (going to try and keep this easy to understand) In DS4 what you have is a single mesh, doesn't even need mesh groups, you have a skeleton made up of a collection of bones held together by the bone "parent/child" system, the root node (hip usually) of which is "parented" to the mesh, try and move a bone and nothing happens to the mesh, that is what the weightmaps are for, all morphs are FBMs as the interact with the entire mesh, this why everything is in the root node as that is the only place to access everything from.

    The second thing to know is that DS can't use parametric rigging, so the importer has to convert them to weightmaps, but Poser parametric rigging makes horrible DS4 weighmap rigging, as a result there is extra coding being used in the background to make them appear to bend the same way they do in Poser, using the "Convert to WM" feature deletes that "extra coding" leaving you with the horrible WM rigging the importer creates.

    You have similar issues with morphs as the figure is no longer a Poser format figure, it's now a DS4 native figure that people still think is a Poser figure, which means the mesh is no longer a collection of props, it's been combined back into a single mesh and is now the root node for the figure, as a result the morphs on the bones have nothing to work on, so they get removed and hidden in the root node, and an Alias dial is left in it's place (yes that is where the Alias system came from, designed for Poser content only at first). INJecting morphs into empty channels is another part of that "extra coding", you don't actually INJ/REM in DS4 instead the coding sees the empty channels as place holders, and swaps them in and out as needed, you also lose this when you "Convert to WM".

    Best advice is to delete what you have done and just leave them the way the importer created them, as it's a hell of a lot less work than keeping just the mesh and skeleton and rebuilding everything else, which is why mine are sitting on a disk as I'd learned everything about the systems I needed to learn.

    I would be wary about interpreting the reasons for certain features, at least.

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
    edited October 2023

    Bejaymac, thanks for taking the time to answer in such a detailed manner. I will have to think long and hard about how to proceed. 

    I have a strong attachment to the Glamorous Vickie character and wish to continue being able to use it for a good while. The character is not  a direct morph of V3 (using a different .cr2 file but the vertex and facet count is identical with the positions being equivalent), which makes it fiendishly difficult to obtain a range of clothing. For me, the ability to use autofit clones with a TriAx based figure is enough to make a lot of posing limitations an acceptable price to pay, especially as I have already been limiting the way I use the character to avoid elbow and buttock distortion.

    I will check to see if the 'Nominally Parametric' and 'TriAx' versions are much different with elbow and buttock bends. My gut feeling is that they aren't much different - but without a side-by-side comparison I'm not certain. If they are similar, it could be one of the hidden improvements to DS over the years.

    Regards,

    Richard 

    Post edited by richardandtracy on
  • DaremoK3DaremoK3 Posts: 798
    edited October 2023

    @richardandtracy :

    Bejamac knows his stuff, and the more I see crosswind on the forums, he/she seems to know a lot as well, so there advice is sound.

    However, for Sven Dullah's original advice (which is correct for the morph transfers), I would like to add one thing I did not see in posts above  --  Live environment changes versus fresh (reload) environment.

    If you are working from a live session where you are trying to retroactively assign the auto-follow value of character morphs to the auto-followed clothing  --  This will not work, because the state is already (live) stored in memory, so even if you make the change, you will not see it propagate to the already established clothing link.

    You must delete all clothing, make the character morphs auto-follow changes, resave the character asset with the new parameter declarations, delete and reload the character, then reload the auto-fit clothing to establish the new parameter link for auto-follow.

    Post edited by DaremoK3 on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    DaremoK3 said:

    @richardandtracy :

    Bejamac knows his stuff, and the more I see crosswind on the forums, he/she seems to know a lot as well, so there advice is sound.

    However, for Sven Dullah's original advice (which is correct for the morph transfers), I would like to add one thing I did not see in posts above  --  Live environment changes versus fresh (reload) environment.

    If you are working from a live session where you are trying to retroactively assign the auto-follow value of character morphs to the auto-followed clothing  --  This will not work, because the state is already (live) stored in memory, so even if you make the change, you will not see it propagate to the already established clothing link.

    You must delete all clothing, make the character morphs auto-follow changes, resave the character asset with the new parameter declarations, delete and reload the character, then reload the auto-fit clothing to establish the new parameter link for auto-follow.

    Yes I guess just re-fitting won't work, thanks for filling in! 

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
    edited October 2023

    AHH. Autofollow. I must be both unable to see what's at the end of my nose and extremely slow. Thank you.

    It now works as well as I could have dreamt. Thank you so much.

    The Nominal Parametric & full Triax give the same bends in DS4.21. Dreadful, but no worse than Poser 4.

    Regards,

    Richard.

    Post edited by richardandtracy on
  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
    edited October 2023

    Just an image to show a V3 based character wearing G8F Clothing (Denim Diva) that follows the character morphs. I'm tickled pink.

    Regards,

    Richard

    Triax GV3 2 R01.png
    600 x 1080 - 976K
    Post edited by richardandtracy on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    Nice!!

    You do know you can enter parameters/edit mode and select all morphs in one go (drag with the mouse or command-click), then right-click or in the parameters menu set auto-follow ON?!

    I was working on a Lorenzo lo-rez clone for G1 at some point, will need to check it up again;)

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,688
    I didn't know that. I do now. It would have saved me quite a bit of time. Ahh well. Thanks. Regards, Richard.
  • Faeryl WomynFaeryl Womyn Posts: 3,628

    Are these 2 threads of any use to any of you, seems 3dOutlaw also worked on converting A3

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/91536/weight-mapped-aikot3

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/63109/aiko3-as-triax-and-autofit

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