OK, here I go again.
Im working on some anatomical animations and still images for which I need a male figure which can show either the skin or the underlying muscles and skeleton.

WHAT I HAVE:

1. I have Michael 2 figure which has morphs for most important muscular structures which can be modified individualy.
2. I have DAZ's TJS Muscle textures for M2 which work fine with M2 muscular morphs.
3. I have P4 skeleton which is not good enough for my purposes.
4. I have DAZ's AV Skeleton which has better detail then the P4 Skeleton.

PROBLEMS:

1. I need to place the AV Skeleton inside M2 (with and without the muscular textures) so that if I turn M2's texture transparency to 50% the skeleton shows through the skin.
2. According to DAZ, the AV Skeleton is based on the P4 male character but not exactly, and for sure it doesnt correspond to M2.
3. I can place the skeleton inside M2 and scale it to be proportionate to that figure. However, even turning IK off on both M2 and the Skeleton, if I try to conform the skeleton to the skin so that they move togheter, one of them deforms grossly and gets useless.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. I need somehow to adapt the AV skeleton so that it can conform properly to M2 in order to pose and/or animate the compound picture.
   Ockham's Conform.py script partialy solves that problem, but not completely as the bones and skin/muscles dont move in exacltly the same way.

Can someone please tell me how can I start conforming or modifying DAZ's AV Skeleton ("P4ish") to M2 structure?

Your help will really speed up a lot of teaching materials.

Thanks

Alberto Odor
Mexico City

I suspect you'll need to change the joint centers on the skeleton. I did a few similar animations using Posette and the DAZ skeleton (arms only) and noticed that the joints are not centered in the same place. Another possibility: try changing the scale settings of the chest and abdomen on the skeleton, while the joint centers are displayed. That may align the shoulder and hip joints better.

Alberto, I believe ockham is correct. The skeleton joints need to match M2 joints. Tim

Try this:-

• Set Mike in the zero pose, no joint rotations, no scaling, no body or hip translations.
• Load in the skeleton.
• Scale and pose so that the skeleton fits as required.
• File/Export the skeleton OBJ. Select only the options to keep body named parts and weld. Save to a convenient folder in the Geometries directory.
• With Mike still at zero select him and go to Edit/Memorise/Figure.
• Next save Mike figure back to the library as "Mike Bones".
• Open Mike Bones.CR2 in a text editor and search for the two instances of "obj". Change the file path to point to your saved skeleton. You may also want to remove existing redundant morph data. If its left in no harm will be done but it will add to file size. The utility called Morph Manager from the freestuff may help here. File/save.
• Delete the previously loaded skeleton and load in Mike Bones. This should now be able to conform to Mike and fit correctly.

Hope this helps.

So, what I have to do is load M2 and annotate ceter ccordinates for each joint, then load the skeleton and change the center of the joints to those of M2 and save the modified skeleton as a new figure? Is that it?

Thanks PhilC I'll do as you suggest in your message and post the results.

Dodger mentions that Phil forgot something. You'll want to remove affectors for the skeleton in the CR2 too, otherwise the bones (as in the skeleton bones) will bend. But he says there's another problem. The skeleton doesn't have an UpperNeck or Buttocks as far as he knows, which means that it won't conform to Mike 2 either way, because it's grouped wrong.

...And those articulate vertebrae will not load in because they have their own groups. You'd have to regroup everything to suit Mike 2's grouping.

How do I find the affectors in the CR2 file? I open the file in notepar and look for ......? Yes, the skeleton doesn't have UpperNeck nor buttocks, and has the patella in the knww joint. By the way Audrey, who is Dodge, who knows DAZ's skeleton so well?

As a nurse / educator I thought about the benefits of having something like this myself. It would be even better if someone made conformable organs - heart, lungs, etc that could be loaded as needed into a suitable body and skeleton.

I have plans to do that, but first I want to conform the skeleton to the skin and muscles which is being harder than I thought

affectors: anything in the channels block with names like 'twisty' and 'jointy', 'twistx' and 'jointx', 'twistz' and 'jointz'. This includes ones that says just those and ones with names with those plus a body part name (like 'lCollar_twistx' and such). Dodger is the person who created She-Freak figure, the Puck figure, JICC 3000, the Freak Primitive packages, the Dungeon Lighting Kit, the Hot Dog Cart, the M3 Samurai Armour, and heaps of lightsabres, plus some other stuff forthcoming from DAZ. He knows all this stuff, but doesn't post -- but sometimes I pass things along.

I see Dodger is an expert and if he thinks it can't be done then I'll have a hard time to achieve my goals. Maybe DAZ should think on a skeleton which can acomodate in M2/M3 as I think there is a great niche for Poser in Anatomical illustration. I'll take care of the affectors, Thanks for the info. Alberto

If you have Michael 2, you should also have M2 P4. Would not the P4 version have joints and groups more adaptable to the P4 skeleton? Also... I thought the skeletons fit exactly within the older P3 figures? For innards, there are hearts, brains, and I think lungs... but no livers or spleens or kidneys. Carolly

I'll try M2 P4. The reason I want to use M2 is that he has the muscle morphs which can be used with TJS-Muscle maps over the skeleton. The AV Skeleton which has more detail than the regular skeleton does not conform to P3 figures. Alberto