Protecting Generation 4 Mesh from Morph Distortion with Rigidity Groups in DS (and Poser)

bringho

This is so fundamental I thought it had been implemented a long, long time ago. But I'm not so sure any more...

Is it possible to create Rigidity Groups for non Triax weighted generation 4 meshes to protect them from warping by morph / joint rotation?

If so: How does one do it?

Nothing I do seem to affect anything...

niccipb

Hi bringho....

bringho said:

This is so fundamental I thought it had been implemented a long, long time ago. But I'm not so sure any more...

Is it possible to create Rigidity Groups for non Triax weighted generation 4 meshes to protect them from warping by morph / joint rotation?

If so: How does one do it?

Nothing I do seem to affect anything...

As far as I know, no, not for parametric rigging. You have to create morphs to fix things like buttons, buckles and other "rigid" bits.

If the distortion is from a 'bend', then a JCM will be needed to fix it. If it's from a 'shaping' or figure morph, then a corrective morph for that morph.

Hope this helps... :)

bringho

You are fast becoming one of my favourites around here :-P

Well, I guess I have to do it the hard way then...

Have to get some sleep, should have been in bed at least 3 hours ago :shut:

niccipb

I was up 'till 5 this morning working on a sculpt... %-P Time just got away from me...

Right now I'm still stuck at work for at least another hour... all because someone called out... >:(

Have a good sleep....

nicci.... :)

Richard Haseltine

Never mind, already said.

bringho

Next roadblock...

Since my model is a pair of extreme high heel shoes the bend of the toe cause the deformation of the heel to change in a way that makes JCM morphing to counter the joint rotation deformation - if not - impossible, at least very difficult.

The heel should not deform ever, likewise the attachment point of the shoe. This gave me the idea to separate the heel from the figure and load it as a prop. I've tried to place the heel geometry in the figure three but it's not saved as a part on the figure (I'm not directly surprised by this...) when I export the cr2..

Is it possible to save / load that prop mesh as apart of the figure.cr2 or is there another way to do this?
Is it done in the pose.pz2 file?
Would I have to make another figure that only holds the heel mesh and got rid of the toe bone and load them both in a pose.pz2 file?

While wring the above I figured that adding a new bone and placing it as the original Foot bone I could achieve the same thing.
Then the next question becomes: How do I control one bone inside a figure to follow another bone within the figure?

Well, I'm ready to experiment some more while waiting for "daz experten" (you know who you are) to come up with some answers. :cheese:

Richard Haseltine

The heel, and anything else that should move as a unit, should have a single weight applied to the whole thing - that way it won't deform. With a high-heel there's usually little flex in the shoes, which is why some people simply make them as props, so you should probably just concentrate on getting them right in the default position and then making sure the ankle bends OK. Even some commercial shoe products warn against posing the toes, or simply don't have toe bones (which allows for a bit of toe-wiggle without deforming the shoe).

bringho

Hi Richard :-)

Single weight?

Yes, that's cool how do I do single weight on a non Triax generation 4 figure?

I thought there were no way to protect the mesh from the influence of the joint deformation stuff?!?

Richard Haseltine

Sorry, I keep forgetting that this isn't Genesis - using just the falloff zones can be tricky. All I can suggest is looking at how others have handled the issue - you'll probbaly find that the green sphere is moved down and scaled quite large to enclose all it should.

niccipb

Hi bringho...

Just like Richard said, you will need to adjust the spheres on the toes and/or feet, in position and scale to ensure proper coverage. Also don't forget to check and adjust the angle matrix's.

You just have to adjust - bend joint - adjust - bend joint - adjust ... etc... etc... tedious.... :roll:

Another of the reasons I so love weight painting.... ;-)

nicci.... :)

bringho

The trick which included an additional heel bone worked out like a charm!

I edited the .cr2 to line the new bone up with the original foot bone and made the appropriate polygon group changes.

Then I ERC froze the x, y & z rotation of the new bone to the foot bone and finally turned off the selectable switch on the the heel bone.

Now it's good enough (within +-5 degrees of twist rotation at least) as long as you don't rotate the toe in a way tat you would not do unpunished in the real world. ;-)

The problem with tweaking the spheres and angle matrices is that I use the toe bone rotation from 0 to -56 degrees to shape the shoe in the "normal zero position" of the shoe which is -56 degrees. This means that if I want to try to change the deformation influence spheres I don't really see what I am dong until I have deleted and reimported the shaping morph. So I can be satisfied with what I got so far.

Next step is to get it working / rig the whole thing in Poser, but that might not be necessary due to the new "DSON Importer for Poser", I'll sure be checking that out before going any further with this...

As seen on the attached image the heel is now totally unaffected by side-side and twist rotations :coolsmile:

Edit,: the image is an animated png, click to show full image and it will animate (in Firefox 15.0.ö1 at least ).

niccipb

Hi bringho...

Nice trick with the heel bone... ;-) I'm glad you made it work for you

-56 on the toe... ouch... :ohh: that makes my toes hurt... lol... :lol:

I can see how that could pose issues with the matrices

I thought you were converting these for the Gen 4 users, for the Poser users that want to use Genesis all you should need to do is create the DSON companion files for your Genesis version using the utility in the new version of DS.

Also, you shouldn't need to re-rig in Poser, you just need to create Poser materials. Every thing that I have made in DS using parametric rigging has worked just fine in Poser for me.

Keep up the great work...

nicci... :)

bringho

niccipb said:

Hi bringho...

Nice trick with the heel bone... ;-) I'm glad you made it work for you

-56 on the toe... ouch... :ohh: that makes my toes hurt... lol... :lol:

I can see how that could pose issues with the matrices

I thought you were converting these for the Gen 4 users, for the Poser users that want to use Genesis all you should need to do is create the DSON companion files for your Genesis version using the utility in the new version of DS.

Also, you shouldn't need to re-rig in Poser, you just need to create Poser materials. Every thing that I have made in DS using parametric rigging has worked just fine in Poser for me.

Keep up the great work...

nicci... :)

Hi Nicci,

Yeah, the brave ones that dare to take on the challenge in real life have to endure more than a bit of pain... but they look great!

Originally I created them for Genesis, Daz did not respond to my request to put them in their store so they ended up at Rendo (#94620).

Unfortunately more than a few Poser users bought them not realizing they were Daz/Genesis only so I set out to convert them to Gen 4 / Poser.

Now with the DSON Importer for Poser I hope this is unnecessary since the original shoes with the recent released extensions cover most of the female morphs for the Genesis figure. Currently supported figures are: Basic Female, V4, V5, V5 Supermodel, Aiko3 & 4, the Girl 4, Stephanie 3, 4 & 5, Chibi Girl, Hitomi, Jasmine, Kiyoko, Nata, Taiga & Toon Amy and more to come. V3 should have been a part of the first expansion package but she awaits Daz feet surgery, when she's recovered I'll update the product. With the latest, about 1 inch lowering "downgrade" included in the expansion I'm proud say that these are the most versatile heels available for the Genesis figure as of today.

I'll test the DSON Importer asap and if everything goes well this is my final venture into the old generation 4 world.

Thank's for all the help on the way!