Hi all, This is a hypothetical question, I guess. How can I apply a custom face morph to only part of the head ? For example, just suppose that the custom morph has elven ears. How could I possibly apply this morph, but "freeze" the area around the ears, so that the ears are not affected by the morph ? Perhaps the grouping tool ? thanks, Andrew P.s.I'm only using the ears as an example. I could equally be talking about the nose or mouth

i think grouping sounds fine but you gotta remember that if the ears stretch the mesh that you might get some enlongated polys. so you probably want to be careful how far out the grouping goes, might need to go a little further. perhaps 2 groups if that becomes a problem....the ideal one at full morph, then the outer stretched polys at half and combine the two.

Thanks, but how would you use the groups ?

You cant.

A morph in Poser always applies to the complete bodypart.
Otherwise youll get the "Wrong number of vertices" error.
When you import a morph into Poser, it isnt for example just ears, but a complete head WITH morphed ears.
Or a complete head WITH a smaller nose. Not just a smaller nose.

You can use groups to create morphs, but you cant use them to extract "sub" morphs. (Like Faerie-ears from a Faerie head morph). Poser always saves and uses the whole bodypart as a morph.
And modellers also always export a complete bodypart as a morph.

Theoretically, you could use a text editor and only extract the deltas for those vertices that belong to the ears, and then fill the rest up with unmorphed vertices to make the vertice count correct again. But youd have to know the exact data for any vert that is part of the ears.

There is also the chance to import both your Faerie morph and an unmorphed head into a modeller, cut along the ears of both and simply switch them. That new morph would only create new ears but leave the rest of the head unmorphed.
This doesnt work in Wings3D, because it renumbers the vertices, but might work in over modelling programms.

stahlratte

There is a python script by Ockham that might do it, MT carver, in Free stuff. I tried it out on Posette and MilGirlPT, but I could only make it work on Posette. It's PC only.

I use Blacksmith for exactly this sort of thing. Works like a charm, both Mac and PC. bB

Ockham's MT Carver does it. I've used it for elf ears with P4F, a year or so ago, but have had trouble using it with V3. I'll try inviting Ockham in here, I asked him about this a month ago, he said he did'nt know why it was'nt working. Can we get any screenshots of Blacksmith? = )

Okay, here's a sneak peek at a character I'm working on. This is about 4 days work so far. The base head is M3. This is my 6th character head I've worked on inside Blacksmith. I run Blacksmith Suite under Mac OSX2 and OSX4. The morphing tools are great, so is the support. For me, a Mac user, this is the best way to do morphs outside Poser. It's pretty easy to use, and with practice, you'll get better. The painting features are there for 3d paint, but honestly, if you want hardcore 3d paint you should go for a high end 3d paint program. This one will give an option that won't break the bank. I find it handy for seam cleanup, difficult things to texture map correctly (like the unimesh tongue) and for adding graphics to an object. bB

Bb, Does Blacksmith allow you to apply someone else's custom morph and "freeze" one part of the head ? regards, Andrew

Yep.

First import the default figure (or just the head, which is how I work). Import the morphed figure (or head) obj as a morph. Then say you only want the morph for the lips from the morphed obj, just select the lips material, soften the selection a bit, inverse the selection, then apply unmorph. Wa la! The lips only have the morph now, the rest are the default. I perfer to export the new obj, but you can export a cr2, or an inj pose.

On the head above, the skull cap, ears, and neckline were all unmorphed to the deafult M3 head. I do that so it's easier to fit hair and the neckline seam is smooth. There's a little bit of area around the ear I need to clean up, but at least that kinda shows were the morphed head meets the default M3 head. Make sense?

bB

Message edited on: 02/21/2006 07:24