Using Carrara to Create a Morph for G9 and Saving for Future Use - With Expression Test
Newer Genesis figures use both geometry morphs and facial bone poses for expressions. Genesis 9 separates several of the facial features from the main figure. This includes the eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, and mouth. I wanted to test Carrara's ability to conform the detail eyes, etc to the face for a custom made morph and an expression pose. I think this was a reasonable success. Excuse the lack of textures. In the posts below, I will show the steps to create the morph in Carrara, load it in Studio for future use, then apply an expression in Carrara. Here is the result.
aa27b apply expression eyes eybrows eyelashes etc seem in correct place see arch left eyebrow copy.jpg
- I created the following head morph in Carrara. Note that I also morphed the body a little, making sure to change height so that I knew the conforming eyes would also have to change.
- To create the morph, I used a combination of the displacement brush and manipulating polygons in the vertex modeler.
- I set subdivision smoothing to none because it has to be none when transferring to Daz Studio. I did not want to have to deal with the steps of creating a separate detail normal map for this test.
- So the unsubdivided result lost some detail but the changes to the brow ridge, etc are still pronounced enough for this test
aa01 results morphing.jpg
800 x 600 - 29K
aa00 displacement brush in modeling room.jpg
1684 x 925 - 139K
aa02 set subdivision smoothing to none.jpg
1519 x 804 - 214K
aa03 lost some detail but still a good morph maybe.jpg
Exporting the Morph from Carrara and Loading on G9 in Daz Studio
- I exported the morphed G9 from Carrara using the obj preset (Daz Studio Morph). See other settings below for this example.
- Opened a Daz Studio scene and loaded the default G9. Note - I did not load the G9 from the development folder. I wanted the eyes to be loaded with the figure in Daz Studio.
- Use morph loader pro. I load it from the edit menu. There are several places to find it.
- Load your exported morph. Use Carrara scale. As a habit, I set change deltas only and reverse deformations to yes. You can change names, locations, not doing that here.
- Should get a message confirming morph creation. If not, likely wrong number of vertexes, such as if forgot to turn off smoothing before exporting from Carrara. Or if you had a stray object exported with it.
- Can now confirm morph is in location in parameters tab.
- Set Morph to 100 and confirm is working.
- Note that because I changed height, etc, the figure bone skeleton no longer matches the geometry so have to adjust rigging in next step.
aa04 save daz studio morph preset and this test include morphs and skinning.jpg
1486 x 908 - 189K
aa05 load default G9 not the developer g9 because want eyes to also get morph.jpg
1614 x 936 - 209K
aa06 use morph loader pro.jpg
971 x 754 - 131K
aa07 load the morph and use carrara setting and deltas only and reverse deformation.jpg
- The skeleton no longer matches the geometry. Use the joint editor tool.
- With joint editor activated, right click on any bone to bring up the menu
- Use adjust rigging to shape
- Accept the adjust rigging to shape menu. Some people check orientation here. Instead, I right click again and choose align bones. I might be wrong but worked so far.
aa09 activate joint editor.jpg
502 x 368 - 34K
aa10 right click bone for menu edit adjust rigging to shape.jpg
Thanks, folks. Some good and some bad with Genesis 9. I am making some progress, but am also seeing some significant challenges. From time to time, the joints seem to go yucky. By yucky, I mean the kinds of imperfections that I put up with in my silly claymation-style figures because I am not going for realism. Scooped armpits. Distended elbows and knees. The kinds of things that a premium figure's wieghtmapping and JCMs should be correcting by default. Have not found a pattern yet. At first, I thought it might be because Carrara relies on blended weight so must lose something in the translation, right? But I have noticed it in Daz Studio as well. Have heard complaints in the Commons Forum which makes me believe it is not limited to Carrara. If anyone notices a pattern or has insights, please share.
I noticed that too, which is why I'm not totally committed to Genesis 9, (for use in Carrara). Still holding out till some corrective morphs are put out, Bend morphs in particular, which might help for this sutuation. There is still lots of fun to be had with G8/G8.1, so I'm not too stressed about it
apparently the correctives get turned off zeroing the figure and likely we cannot turn them on again in Carrara since it's obtuse enough in DAZ studio
a saved preset may be needed which may or may not work
Thanks. That is definitely one source. For the zero problem, the generous Mada has made a correction script available. See first post in this thread, after the sentence "Since its easy to zero the base joint correctives with zero figure (to avoid the issue use restore figure instead) I made pose presets to turn them on quickly - this will be added to my top menu bar for sure :) ".
Unfortunately, that is not the only source of the noodle joint problem. My guess is that the joint problems are an unavoidable consequence of emphasizing a consistent sculptable mesh grid. The edge flow does not follow skeletal and muscular forms. Only a guess. I think it is a problem specific to G9, which is less of a problem with the other genesis generations. At least until Zevo and other PAs do their magic. My genesis 9 enthusiasm is starting to swing back toward not enthusiastic. On the other hand, I admit that the square grid is good if I want to abandon modeling my own silly claymation figures and instead morph a Daz figure. Then I'd be able to use my Daz catalog with my silly figures. Could swing back toward enthusiastic again.
The basic idea is that the model is composed of 3 square pieces that can be resized to match your own covers and pages. Each main square surface is UVMapped to fill the entire grid. If you apply a non-square cover to a square grid, it will look distorted. However, the included morphs can be used to adjust the height of the surfaces to match the dimensions of several standard sizes. Each piece is its own animation group. This includes (1) the wrap (cover, spine, and back), (2) a paper thin insert page, and (3) an insert with thickness to approximate unopened pages. Each of the three pieces is parented to an invisible cylinder primitive for convenience.
.
The first animation group is the wrap (cover, spine, and back). It contains a mesh and a skeleton of bones.
.
The mesh of the wrap looks like two square planes connected by a bridge on the left side.
.
Notice that if I select the cover shading domain and uncheck 'show all' in the uvmap area, that the cover fits the entire UVMap. This is the key to applying your own covers of any size. When your image is not square, you will be morphing the wrap to match the domension of your image.
.
Notice that the back shading domain also covers the whole UVMap. Same principles apply. The back UVMap is adjusted because otherwise viewing the reverse side of the plane would invert the image. If you want to look at the inside of the back cover, I recommend covering the inside with a page insert.
.
Notice the spine does not fill the whole grid. I have the spine UVs bunched on the left side.
a01 load the magazine and see that it consists of three figures parented to a cylinder holder.jpg
1915 x 996 - 244K
a02 see that the cylinder holder is just a placeholder primitive and is not visible in the scene.jpg
1417 x 888 - 216K
a03 first group is the cover animation group and has a mesh and a bone skeleton.jpg
1837 x 914 - 217K
a04 the mesh of cover see simple two planes connected by spine.jpg
1889 x 993 - 236K
a05 noitce that if select cover and uncheck show all that the cover fills entire UVMap.jpg
1906 x 942 - 234K
a06 notice the back also fills entire grid.jpg
1893 x 886 - 216K
a07 and the spine shader domain is along the left edge.jpg
The 'hip' of the cover wrap is the spine. The bones are setup like a paperback or a magazine, not a hardcover book. If you want to use as a hardcover book, just limit your posing to the first bone of the cover and the back.
a08 see bone skeleton spine is like hip and cover and back are like limbs.jpg
The second animation group parented to the cylinder spine is a single page insert. It is also a square mesh. It also is UVMapped to fit the entire UV space. It is rigged to approximate the bone skeleton of the cover wrap. It includes morphs to change the dimension to match some common magazine and book standards.
a10 the second group is an insert that is paper thin and is rigged same basic structure as cover.jpg
1879 x 915 - 226K
a11 and the page insert fills the entire square uvmap.jpg
The third included animation group is meant to approximate a stack of interior pages. Like the other pieces, it is square, fits the entire UVMap surface, and includes adjustments for some standard magazine/book sizes. Its bone skeleton is similar to the structure for the single page insert and the cover wrap. The reason the bone skeletons are similar is to make it as easy as possible to pose and animate opening and closing the book without having poke through among the pieces.
Notice that the front and back of the stack have separate shading domains, and back has been adjusted so that it can be the 'left side' of an open book (like the back cover).
a13 third group is like the page insert but has some thickness hard to see.jpg
1901 x 980 - 277K
a14 can see thickness better in modeling room see that front covers whole UVMap.jpg
To find the adjustment morphs, have to select the mesh contained in each animation group piece separately.
.
Although the cover and the thick insert can be morphed to make a thicker magazine/book, most of the morphs are to adjust the ratio of height to width. In order to avoid complicating the bone skeleton, the dimension morphs change only the height. Therefore, to make a wider book, reduce the height them increase the overall scale.
Here is an example of increasing the dimension for a book of dimensions 9 height to 6 width (1.5 to 1).
a15 see that the mesh for the cover has morphs for common dimensions of book covers inclding 1 point 3 to 1 and 1 point 5 to 1.jpg
1755 x 1003 - 260K
a16 see if morph 1 point 5 to 1 to full morph that make common dimensions.jpg
Select the mesh contained within the cover wrap animation group. The morphs will appear in the general properties tray. Set the 1 point 5 to 1 morph at full strength.
.
A test render shows the cover distortion is greatly reduced. Yay.
'In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.' Most of you know the story. Apply the image of the interior writing to the shading domain of the insert page, which is the second animation group. Again, it will be distorted at default. So select the mesh and find the dimension morphs in the properties tray. Match the image.
Comments
On Body Shader Surface, Apply a Fabric
- select body in surface editor
- find any fabric preset you want, such as denim
- apply fabric to body geoshell
Set Body Opacity to Saved Painted Map
- in body geoshell opacity channel, load the map created in Carrara 3D paint
Pose Michael 9 and do a Studio Test Render
wow thanks for all this Ted, looking forward to sitting down with ten cups of coffee and going over this
LOL!!! I just did the Samer Thing, HewDax!
Using Carrara to Create a Morph for G9 and Saving for Future Use - With Expression Test
Newer Genesis figures use both geometry morphs and facial bone poses for expressions. Genesis 9 separates several of the facial features from the main figure. This includes the eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, and mouth. I wanted to test Carrara's ability to conform the detail eyes, etc to the face for a custom made morph and an expression pose. I think this was a reasonable success. Excuse the lack of textures. In the posts below, I will show the steps to create the morph in Carrara, load it in Studio for future use, then apply an expression in Carrara. Here is the result.
Creating a G9 Morph in Carrara
- I created the following head morph in Carrara. Note that I also morphed the body a little, making sure to change height so that I knew the conforming eyes would also have to change.
- To create the morph, I used a combination of the displacement brush and manipulating polygons in the vertex modeler.
- I set subdivision smoothing to none because it has to be none when transferring to Daz Studio. I did not want to have to deal with the steps of creating a separate detail normal map for this test.
- So the unsubdivided result lost some detail but the changes to the brow ridge, etc are still pronounced enough for this test
Exporting the Morph from Carrara and Loading on G9 in Daz Studio
- I exported the morphed G9 from Carrara using the obj preset (Daz Studio Morph). See other settings below for this example.
- Opened a Daz Studio scene and loaded the default G9. Note - I did not load the G9 from the development folder. I wanted the eyes to be loaded with the figure in Daz Studio.
- Use morph loader pro. I load it from the edit menu. There are several places to find it.
- Load your exported morph. Use Carrara scale. As a habit, I set change deltas only and reverse deformations to yes. You can change names, locations, not doing that here.
- Should get a message confirming morph creation. If not, likely wrong number of vertexes, such as if forgot to turn off smoothing before exporting from Carrara. Or if you had a stray object exported with it.
- Can now confirm morph is in location in parameters tab.
- Set Morph to 100 and confirm is working.
- Note that because I changed height, etc, the figure bone skeleton no longer matches the geometry so have to adjust rigging in next step.
Adjusting Rigging to Morph Shape
- The skeleton no longer matches the geometry. Use the joint editor tool.
- With joint editor activated, right click on any bone to bring up the menu
- Use adjust rigging to shape
- Accept the adjust rigging to shape menu. Some people check orientation here. Instead, I right click again and choose align bones. I might be wrong but worked so far.
ERC Freeze and Morph Dial Adjustments
- the changes need to be saved through ERC freeze
- In parameters pane, right click on morph dial to start Edit mode
- right click on the morph dial a second time to select ERC Freeze
- accept the ERC freeze menu
- while here, can change other parameter settings by clicking the gear icon
- I like to change the color of my custom morphs so they are easier to find. Made this one red. Can make other changes.
- Remember to right click and uncheck Edit mode when finished.
Save Morph for Future Use
- Save File As Support Asset
- !!! - in save morph menu make sure check only the new morph. Find it in the file tree. - !!!!!
- Get a vendor menu, so choose your vendor name, etc.
Test New Morph in Daz Studio
- open a new fresh Daz Studio scene and load the default G9 (or any other G9 character I guess)
- locate the new morph in the parameters pane and dial all the way up
- My test appears to be working. See that the eyes, eyebrows etc moved with the morph changes
Apply New Morph in Carrara
- open a new Carrara scene and load your blended weight G9 character preset. Conform your blended weight eyes etc to G9.
- locate the morph. it could be on figure menu or actor menu depending on where you saved it in Daz Studio.
- Yay, custom morph seems to work in Carrara.
Test Pose Expression for Blended Weight G9 in Carrara
- find a premade Daz expression for G9, select your G9 blended weight figure level (not the supergroup load), and double click the expression
- yay, this test seems to have worked. The left eyebrow is supposed to arch. It does. Other changes for mouth etc seem correct.
Thanks for the new Tute Diomede !!!!
Great Stuff Diomede!!! Took lots of notes, copy and paste actually, into a Word doc.
Thanks, folks. Some good and some bad with Genesis 9. I am making some progress, but am also seeing some significant challenges. From time to time, the joints seem to go yucky. By yucky, I mean the kinds of imperfections that I put up with in my silly claymation-style figures because I am not going for realism. Scooped armpits. Distended elbows and knees. The kinds of things that a premium figure's wieghtmapping and JCMs should be correcting by default. Have not found a pattern yet. At first, I thought it might be because Carrara relies on blended weight so must lose something in the translation, right? But I have noticed it in Daz Studio as well. Have heard complaints in the Commons Forum which makes me believe it is not limited to Carrara. If anyone notices a pattern or has insights, please share.
I noticed that too, which is why I'm not totally committed to Genesis 9, (for use in Carrara). Still holding out till some corrective morphs are put out, Bend morphs in particular, which might help for this sutuation. There is still lots of fun to be had with G8/G8.1, so I'm not too stressed about it
apparently the correctives get turned off zeroing the figure and likely we cannot turn them on again in Carrara since it's obtuse enough in DAZ studio
a saved preset may be needed which may or may not work
Thanks. That is definitely one source. For the zero problem, the generous Mada has made a correction script available. See first post in this thread, after the sentence "Since its easy to zero the base joint correctives with zero figure (to avoid the issue use restore figure instead) I made pose presets to turn them on quickly - this will be added to my top menu bar for sure :) ".
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/597726/genesis-9-clothing-questions-answers/p1
Unfortunately, that is not the only source of the noodle joint problem. My guess is that the joint problems are an unavoidable consequence of emphasizing a consistent sculptable mesh grid. The edge flow does not follow skeletal and muscular forms. Only a guess. I think it is a problem specific to G9, which is less of a problem with the other genesis generations. At least until Zevo and other PAs do their magic. My genesis 9 enthusiasm is starting to swing back toward not enthusiastic. On the other hand, I admit that the square grid is good if I want to abandon modeling my own silly claymation figures and instead morph a Daz figure. Then I'd be able to use my Daz catalog with my silly figures. Could swing back toward enthusiastic again.
Should post Jay's video for eye size correction here as well because the main flow for morphs in general is above.
Free Magazine/Book Rigged in Carrara - Apply your own covers and Pages
Model is posted in the Challenge #65 thread here. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7922816/#Comment_7922816 I will post a series of screen shots explaining how to apply your own covers and morph the model to fit, then pose/animate.
Composition of the magazine/book figure.
The basic idea is that the model is composed of 3 square pieces that can be resized to match your own covers and pages. Each main square surface is UVMapped to fill the entire grid. If you apply a non-square cover to a square grid, it will look distorted. However, the included morphs can be used to adjust the height of the surfaces to match the dimensions of several standard sizes. Each piece is its own animation group. This includes (1) the wrap (cover, spine, and back), (2) a paper thin insert page, and (3) an insert with thickness to approximate unopened pages. Each of the three pieces is parented to an invisible cylinder primitive for convenience.
.
The first animation group is the wrap (cover, spine, and back). It contains a mesh and a skeleton of bones.
.
The mesh of the wrap looks like two square planes connected by a bridge on the left side.
.
Notice that if I select the cover shading domain and uncheck 'show all' in the uvmap area, that the cover fits the entire UVMap. This is the key to applying your own covers of any size. When your image is not square, you will be morphing the wrap to match the domension of your image.
.
Notice that the back shading domain also covers the whole UVMap. Same principles apply. The back UVMap is adjusted because otherwise viewing the reverse side of the plane would invert the image. If you want to look at the inside of the back cover, I recommend covering the inside with a page insert.
.
Notice the spine does not fill the whole grid. I have the spine UVs bunched on the left side.
Rigging of Cover
The 'hip' of the cover wrap is the spine. The bones are setup like a paperback or a magazine, not a hardcover book. If you want to use as a hardcover book, just limit your posing to the first bone of the cover and the back.
Single Page Insert
The second animation group parented to the cylinder spine is a single page insert. It is also a square mesh. It also is UVMapped to fit the entire UV space. It is rigged to approximate the bone skeleton of the cover wrap. It includes morphs to change the dimension to match some common magazine and book standards.
Thick Page Stack Insert
The third included animation group is meant to approximate a stack of interior pages. Like the other pieces, it is square, fits the entire UVMap surface, and includes adjustments for some standard magazine/book sizes. Its bone skeleton is similar to the structure for the single page insert and the cover wrap. The reason the bone skeletons are similar is to make it as easy as possible to pose and animate opening and closing the book without having poke through among the pieces.
Notice that the front and back of the stack have separate shading domains, and back has been adjusted so that it can be the 'left side' of an open book (like the back cover).
Finding Morphs for Dimensions
To find the adjustment morphs, have to select the mesh contained in each animation group piece separately.
.
Although the cover and the thick insert can be morphed to make a thicker magazine/book, most of the morphs are to adjust the ratio of height to width. In order to avoid complicating the bone skeleton, the dimension morphs change only the height. Therefore, to make a wider book, reduce the height them increase the overall scale.
Here is an example of increasing the dimension for a book of dimensions 9 height to 6 width (1.5 to 1).
Example of a Common Book
The Hobbit is a classic book that has several editions. One edition is approximately 1.5 to 1. Here is how to use the model.
Find the cover
.
Load the cover in the shading domain cover in the first animation group with the cover, spine, and back.
.
A test render shows that the square default shape of the magazine/book model distorts the the cover. All squashy!
Adjust the Hobbit Book Cover
Select the mesh contained within the cover wrap animation group. The morphs will appear in the general properties tray. Set the 1 point 5 to 1 morph at full strength.
.
A test render shows the cover distortion is greatly reduced. Yay.
Repeat for the Insert Page
'In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.' Most of you know the story. Apply the image of the interior writing to the shading domain of the insert page, which is the second animation group. Again, it will be distorted at default. So select the mesh and find the dimension morphs in the properties tray. Match the image.