Are there any tutorials or books that explain how you make morphs for poser figures? And what program can I use to make them? I have Lightwave 8, Amapi 7 and ZBrush. I think I read somewhere that Amapi did something to the file so you couldn't use the current version to make morphs. But I'm not sure about that. Thanks.

Personally I prefer ZBrush. Though if you are using v1.5(versions before & after sre ok) you will need to download the X-flip zscript from ZBrushCentral if you are making morphs for poser. Plenty of advice on Poser morphing(full body even) in the ZBrushCentral forum. I have no experience of the other 2 apps, but there are plenty of members who do.

Morphs using Lightwave is very simple. Select your body part in poser, export it as .obj to a safe location (not on your poser directories). Import the object in lightwave. Move your points as desired, but do not add any new geometry. Do not cut and paste anything either. Do nothing that will alter the point order. Lastly do not move the object in space. If you move the whol object say 2 ft to the right , that move will be counted in the morph. Export the transformed object as .obj again. Then back in poser select the body part again and load the new .obj as a morph target. Bang Zoom.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1649170

Dr. Geep, Would this tut also work for morphing clothes?

The instructions for Amapi are exactly as TalleyJC gave for Lightwave. One thing you especially want to avoid, even though it supposedly doesn't add or subtract any points, is the Bump/Smooth tool. (The clothes-iron icon). For some reason this causes the vertices to be rearranged. Also, if you're familiar with Amapi, take a look at my latest post in the Amapi forum here, which describes a way to make sure the morph doesn't "slide" one way or the other.

Hi Cyhiraeth,

"Would this tut also work for morphing clothes?"

Yes, but ... <------------- there's alway one of these, isn't there? ;=]

If you are asking if the same morph that is used on a figure can be applied to a piece of clothing for that figure, the answer is ... probably not because the number of vertices and the geometry is probably different between the figure and the clothing.

You can effectively "morph" any geometry that you want - be it figure or clothing - whether the 2 separate objects will be compatible (i.e., play nicely) with each other after being morphed is another question altogether.

Ok?

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

I tried something just now and it doesn't work and I would like to understand why... I exported the abdomen part of Sara sweater as a wavefront object. I scaled the Y in a modeling program and export again as obj. Loaded the morph target to the sweater in Poser and adjusted the length of the abdomen to cover that?"?"?" navel of hers. I exported the whole sweater as an object. So far, so good. I opened the new object in UV Mapper and saved the map for it to texture. So far no good ;o) The map is identical to the original sweater object. Why is that? France

Thanks, Dr. Geep!

Hi Francemi, re: "Why is that?" I don't know ... the only thing I can think of is to suggest that you double check all the filenames and make sure you are using the files that you think are and that they are the correct ones. Sorry I can't be of more help. ;=[ cheers, (anyway) dr geep ;=] P.S. It is possible to have two texmaps that look the same (or similar) but are mapping two different geometries.

I opened the new object in UV Mapper and saved the map for it to texture. So far no good ;o) The map is identical to the original sweater object. Why is that? Because the UV mapping itself has not changed. The vertices, although they have been moved by you, are still associated with the SAME original points on the UV Map. Consequently you may see texture stretching or squishing in those areas which can only be corrected by creating an entirely new obj with different mapping.

Thanks for all the help. Now to try things out....

Okay but if I remap the new object then it won't conform anymore, will it? France

France: Re-mapping the obj will not affect the conforming in any way as long as you did not alter the grouping or the positioning when you made your morphs. Poser's conforming information (mostly the joints info) is in the cr2, not the OBJ, so you could just copy the cr2 of the original sweater, and edit it in a text editor to point to your new OBJ and it should conform fine.

I tried that. I saved the object (jersey) with the morph applied then remap that object in UV mapper. I copied the cr2 for the jersey and only changed the name of the object in it. When I load it in Poser, nothing shows up. I must have missed a step somewhere. ;o( France

"I saved the object (jersey) with the morph applied then remap that object in UV mapper." After you remap you need to save the object again to get the new mapping in the obj. Also be SURE that you INCLUDE UV coordinates when you export from UVM and do not export as a single group. In the cr2 you sometimes have to change the name (and path) of the OBJ in more than one place - you might have missed one of them, and be SURE that the paths are correct. If you want to do a simple test, go to the geometries folder where the original sweater geometry is located. If the original file is "sweater.obj" then rename it to something like "sweater-o.obj" and then place your new geometry in this same folder and name it "sweater.obj" - it is best to do this with Poser CLOSED because Poser will not always swap geometry once it is loaded even if you change the geometry file. Then launch Poser and using the origal cr2, see if your new sweater comes in OK. If it does then the OBJ is OK and you only need to fix your cr2.

Okay so it is the object that is incorrect because I did what you suggested and nothing shows up. ;o(

In the original object, there was only one material "Preview" (cheap of DAZ to do that IMHO). When I remapped the object with the abdomen part added to it, I assigned parts to different materials. Is that why it doesn't work, do you think?

France
Nope... I checked and with this new object I tried, I didn't assign materials so it can't be the reason. France

Message edited on: 07/04/2004 12:53

If you are willing to try a couple of things we might be able to track it down. First: Do a fresh launch of Poser with an empty scene. Then: Do a File>Import>Wavefront OBJ and bring your NEW object into Poser with NOTHING checked on the import dialog. Tell me what happens, and we'll go from there.

maybe you didn't read my instructions so here it is again: bring your NEW object into Poser with NOTHING CHECKED on the import dialog then tell me what happens

OK, it appears that your new OBJ has been translated (moved) from its original location which is a definite no-no when doing morphs or conforming clothing. You may also have lost your grouping information, and the scale may have been changed too. Did you have to zoom the camera back quite a ways to get this capture? Maybe you could load a prop sphere or cube that comes with Poser to show me the relative scale. Do not re-position or scale the reference prop, just leave it where it loads, so it can be seen in your next capture. To see if grouping is still there, select your prop and use the grouping tool to see if the list of groups is there. If it is you should be able to select each one and that group will turn red as you select it from the list. Some body parts (such as the hip) may have a group but no polygons in it so they will show nothing, but that's OK. Let me know if you can see the groups for the body parts that should be in the sweater.

To see the groups on a conforming Figure you need to select one of the BODY PARTS - you currently have the main camera selected and not a body part. Remember when selecting things in Poser you need to select BOTH the figure (e.g: "Jersey" or "Figure 1") and then the body part where it currently says "Main Camera" under the preview window. Body parts have names like hip, adbomen, chest, etc. Do not just select the "Body" body part because that probably has no groups in it. In your new OBJ which is currently just a prop as far as Poser is concerned, the groups (if they are still present) will be available on the drop-down list which you will see at the top of the group editor. In your picture above, you can see the group called "Figure_8" in the list. Just click the little triangle near that and see if there are any oterh groups on the list.

Yes, that's the problem - you have lost your groups, but it didn't happen in UV Mapper because that preserves groups unless you specifically check "Export As A Single Group". It probably happened when you created your new mesh or when exporting from Poser or even when doing the original morphs. So, without the grouping information, Poser will not be able to pose or conform it. If you have MarkDCs Auto Group Editor you may be able to create a new set of groups based on the original jersey. Fortunately there are tutorials around that tell you how to "split" your obj into proper groups, but I can't talk you through that complete process :-( Basically, from where you are right now it would be best to forget the original clothing item and treat it like you have an entirely new clothing mesh which needs to go through the procedure to group it and turn it into a conforming figure. If you look around you will find tutorials on how to do that.

Thank you for all your help. I will look for such tutorials. France

Is that for Kosh, Francemi?

No, it's for that poor neglected Sara! ;o) France