here's the workflow for skinmorph
8mb qtime
http://download.autodesk.com/media/MNE/qt/skinmorph_300k.mov

Quote -
I've seen a lot of poser enthusiasts complain that high-enders don't take them seriously... Some of them actually think that poser does more then max???   :blink:   I think I need to go pinch myself!

I saw your comment about max and JCM type morphs. I have to preface this with a stement that most of my max experience is architectural and engineering modeling, and I never rigged a character. (I do poser clothing rigging when I have to because I like modeling clothes for Poser content)

Anyway, just conceptually, do max JCM's work similar as Poser? I always thought that the technique would be a lot more advanced then a JCM concept and that transfering a poser JCM which is created to correct poser's wonky rigging would be pretty useless in max, since the rigging would be different.  Am I totally off in thinking this?

Read the documentation on the Skin Morph Modifier in the Max User Guide for full details.  The skin morph modifier lets you use a bone's rotation (either standard bone or parametric biped bone) to drive a particular morph.  So, this lets you handle problem areas in animation like armpits, knees, groin, etc. with simple morphs.  So my point isn't that you can transfer the JCM's in Poser to Max (although you probably could), but simply that you don't need any special rigging magic to reproduce the same kind of bending that V4 has with all her magnets and JCM's.  You can do it yourself right in Max using similar tools.  The paint deformation tool on Editable Poly objects is a quick way to create your own morph fixes, and since there are no body part "groups" in a rigged Max figure, this process is much more streamlined than the clumsy morph brush Poser Pro has.

Looking forward to sending Evan in on this skinmorph sequence, and following his lead. Very cool.

Meanwhile, whew, filmmaking is so draining! And this time it is not Poser's fault. It's just hard. No dailies! Three more days in this block, I might get it done.

::::: Opera :::::

"....and since there are no body part "groups" in a rigged Max figure, this process is much more streamlined than the clumsy morph brush Poser Pro has."

Many Max users seem to assume that only Max can do certain things, or do certain things more efficiently than lower-end applications, which is usually untrue when you get down to it.

The Poser morphbrush works from parents to childs.
I.e.-you start with a deformation on the parent so that the vertices located on the seam will be included.
Then you just go on working on the adjacent child bodypart.
This makes it pretty easy to work across seams on a "live" (i.e. grouped) Poser figure.

But if you need to really smooth a mesh across the seams, import it with groups welded, do your morphbrush work, then export the finished mesh while welding it, re-arrange vertex count, and Bob's yer uncle.
I do that almost daily and the import/rearrange takes about a minute or two of extra time.
It's not a morphbrush problem, but a grouping problem.
You have to do exacly the same in ZBrush, and I doubt MAX can smooth/morph across seams on a grouped (=cut into separate bodyparts) mesh.

In other words: Poser 7 or Pro can rig a mesh towards the same standards than MAX or any other high end app using weightmapping others can do. Period.
It may take a few minutes longer, but the tools are out there.

As for the JCM's, even IF you could port them over, they'd be useless in Max.
V4.2 was rigged to make heavy use of magnets, which MAX of course can't "read", and her JCM morphs are matched to such a "magnet enhanced" rig.

So, if you loose the JSM mags, you have to remove the JCM morphs, too, and start from scratch.

Really naive question that shows I am not the tech genius of my team: Looking at the V4 morph list, including any injected by Base, ++, Muscle,Elite, 3rdParty etc, how do I know which ones are JCMs?

::::: Opera :::::

JCM's are usually not shown as morph dials. They exist internally, in the CR2, and can be seen when editing a cr2.
I think D|S has a feature where you can expose hidden dials and see the JCM's, but it's been a while since I did that, so I could be remembering wrong.  Most of them are prefixed with JCM. DAZ is pretty good at keeping their nomenclature straight.

There are actually not that many JCM's in V4 (compared to magnets)... about half a dozen pairs of JCM's - L, R. There's almost three dozen pairs if magnets L, R

I was going to list them, I just used them couple of weeks ago on my outfit, but at the moment I can't find the paper where they're written and the spreadheet I made is on the different computer.

Thanks for the video link, Stefan!

The magnets can be seen in the Heirarchy. They won't go over to Max, I know. Anyway, we'll see how the raw mesh without the JCMs and magnets behaves once BiPed rig is in place and go from there with skin morphs and other tools mentioned above.

It's a little strange to be so deep in concentration making a film, totally focused, while this gigantic storm is churning up the middle of the Gulf and nothing seems to be deter it from slowly proceeding to its fated destination. At least everyone will get out this time.

PoserPro is behaving extrememly well, by the way. I'll write about that later, after I can show the film.

::::: Opera :::::

@ Stonemason

I would also be very interested in that script.

OperaGuy,
Well now that you have our attention, is there any possibility of a short renedered sneak peek? Lord knows I wish to see a naked babe holding a sword...animated!!! lol.

snicker
just kidding

Quote - The magnets can be seen in the Heirarchy.

That's right, I keep forgetting it. My hierarchy editor disappeared off the screen and I can't gat it back. I have a sneaky syspicion I'll have to fish for the UI defining xml's and reset someting by hand.... bu I haven't mustered up the umph to worry about that detail. I'm pretty zapped from rigging my current piece... major crash course :-

Have you tried Ctrl + Shift + E (keyboard shortcut for Hierarchy editor?)
Have you tried Edit -> General Preferences -> Interface -> Launch to Factory State?

Quote - Have you tried Ctrl + Shift + E (keyboard shortcut for Hierarchy editor?)
Have you tried Edit -> General Preferences -> Interface -> Launch to Factory State?

yeah, and it has no effect. Very puzzling. :-
It started with an errant click where it looked like I accidentally flicked it off the screen. However, it happened in the middle of the screen, but it disappeared anyway.  I was sure that reset to factory state would fix that (it does in many other programs) but no such luck.

I don't have a scrolling or extended desktop where it could hide, it's not hiding in some odd corner or behind the task bar.

Also, it's resistant to any saved UI dots, and it won't show up in any of the panels (posing, material, clothroom, setup)  I don't think I tried hair. Maybe I minimized it top a sub pixel size... but then again, reset to factory state should have fixed that.

My guess is that my xml file got corrupted. This happened shortly after I upgraded to SR3, and some other xml parsing errors were happening too.

DarkEdge LOL I know a lot of people are following this thread, because the topic is important. And both Evan and I are on schedule to resume the V4/Max project with full focus starting Tuesday.

I'm reluctant to show any animation footage from the piece I am making in PoserPro this long weekend...all the dallies are rough because I do so much in Post Processing.  I'll just say the story is about a young artist on a special evening. The 'school' of literature is Romantic Realism. The visual style is stylized-glowing-noir and the audio and music is more important than the visuals in this case.

Nevertheless, here is the text of the story and are a few stills. Sorry no swords!

http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle.pdf

http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle-001.png
http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle-002.bmp
http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle-003.bmp

::::: Opera :::::

No swords, huh? Sheeeeeesh! I'm starting to get the jitter withdrawls....ahhhhhhhhh!

I really like the black and white grainy feel. Personally I feel there is more color in b/w than actualy color pics...looking good mon.

Yes i agree, it's looking very  nice. You've definitely got a flair for lighting OG, great work :)

As for swords, well just think of it as an invisible sword of doom +5 :P

Good morning. Evan will be here in an hour or so but I am trying to get a head start.
I want to prove out actualizing V4-17K in PoserPro with textures and morphs working properly.

Once I have this model functional we will try various methods of export/MaxImport to get the mesh materials over, then attack the BiPed phase.

To get a head start, I installed D|S and thus obtained the 17K .OBJ. Attached see viewport in PoserPro.

Now for the morphs; I visited Spanki's monumental 41 page thread and worked/skimmed my way along a while, then skipped to the end. I also visited Spanki's website. I don't see to find the exact script download link anywhere, needed to follow JoePublic's instructions.

Joe, or ksanderson or anyone, can you point to the proper script? I'll keep reading in the meantime.

::::: Opera :::::

The script I used to transfer the morphs from V4.2 to the 17K LOD was one of Cage's earlier ones: geom_test4g.py

The link is on the very first page of that thread.
Just download and rename .doc to .py

But there's no reason the final script shouldn't work, too:
http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/~Cage/scripts/scripts.html

It's called TDMT

Btw, lots of other VERY usefull scripts on that page.

Thanks Joe, will go after that next....

Following instructions on this little thread at DAZ linked above, I was able to create a CR2 file that accesses the 17K obj.

The character in PoserPro accepted a "mat pose" so it looks like the texturemap issue is okay.

In this screen capture, you see the mesh as imported in with no maps, and next to it the character as loaded thru the library with the edited V4cr2.   Wonder abouit the size difference and also the fact that the imported .obj the feet have a bend.

Worth noting that when you load in a default V4, like most characters, the figure is at a non-zero pose.  You absolutely must zero all joint rotations before exporting, and joint scales as well.  This includes "morph" dials that actually do bone scaling surreptitiously, like "Legs Length" and many others.  If you don't, these will be exported to OBJ as permanent deformations, and the resulting mesh may not fit the Poser rig any more.

pjz, in the screen capture I showed the smaller figure is the 17K mesh imported as obj and that's all. So, by definition, that is the official zero-pose, right?

And, the other CR2-driven loaded figure has non-zero settings then, probably scale and some others, as you said, like "leg length or whatever."

Is that accurate?

I'll see if I can get the loaded-in cr2 completelly zeroed.

:: og ::

If you import the DAZ-originated OBJ, yes it will be in zero pose.  If you're applying your customized character's CR2 onto this mesh, it will give you trouble.
PS: TURN OFF IK!

got it, ok thanks for the help

Interesting...the problem was the raw import of the 17K.obj

I had "Percentage of Original Figure" checked, but the amount was 100% and I thought that was a good thing. Apparently not! It came in small (around 92.5%)

When I unchecked that box, the imported .obj matches both the normal full res V4.2 and the new 17KLODCharacter I created, once I took off IK and zeroed. They all have that angled bend in the foot so that is the default, no problem.*

I am going to try to document all my small baby steps for the benefit of nearly helpless guys/gals like me who might read this later, could save them some grief.

::::: Opera :::::

*It occurs to me the V4 default angled foot is because she is "Conceived To Be Always Wearing High Heels." Gotta laugh at that.

Quote - *It occurs to me the V4 default angled foot is because she is "Conceived To Be Always Wearing High Heels." Gotta laugh at that.

I despise it actually, and it's the reason the heel looks wrong when the foot is in a "barefoot" pose.  Fixable, but irritating.

Well, i have to take a break...frustration and bad news.

The bad news is that Evan is not going to be available for this project. So here I am again, a non-tech writer/animator, grappling with these complex tech issues.

The frustration is: script to transfer morphs is not fully intutitive, Help button not leading to help, gives false positive morph is transfered, no morph appears in target figure, attempt to exit to 'reset', PoserPro so very stable for the past three weeks now destablizied by running this script (or something else) won't quit (hangs); control alt delete, go back in, morph is there in the head, but in a different place than normal and it does not function.

I just want to throw up my hands right now, so I need to chill and come back at it in a few hours.

PJZ you can toss in a 'told you so' and you may be right; but I don't think this is due to my chosen workflow, etc, it is because I am not tech oriented and all this is above me. If I started from scratch things would be no better; I am out of my comfort zone.

See you later tonight.

::::: Opera :::::

I would entertain serious offers to run the tech aspect of this project for me. I am not wealthy and there is no "funding", but I do have a budget and could pay for professional help to get a stable rigged human figure in Max with CharacterStudio and a workflow that leads to variety in faces and a small variety in body shapes, male and female.

Please PM/IM me if interested.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - PJZ you can toss in a 'told you so' and you may be right...

I would never say it can't be done, but I can tell you I feel my own efforts at similar stuff have been largely a waste of effort that I wish I had spent on other stuff.  At least you only spent a few days on it instead of a couple of years.

Look at these modeling tutorials, they may inspire you to take a stab at this on your own.  They're very well done and the guy shows some very smart topology techniques.  Modeling a human figure from scratch is hard, but dicking around with all these one-off tools to try to adapt pieces of other people's work isn't exactly easy.

http://www.erraticimagery.com/extras/tuts.html

Operaguy, I've been buried since I got back and never got a chance to try Joe's methods yet - I was out of town longer than I thought I'd be. I hope to try it in the next few days. If you are looking for different faces, go to runtimedna. They have Ultra Morphs Set 2 with a face randomizer to make different faces for V4. You might try that out while waiting for someone more technically inclined to pop up.

www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php

pjz99, neat modeling vids. Thanks for the link!

Kevin

No I have no problem creating full specttrum of body shapes and faces in Poser with this great model, V4; that is what I do well, and I enjoy it.

However....I am no texture artist; i depend on a flow of skins and there is nothing better off the shelf than the library existent and forthcoming for V4.

But the flow from the shaped body and morphed face and textured skin into Max with low grief....ready for animation......that's the problem.

::::: Opera :::::

Well, these are things you know how to do.  You are at a turning point.  You are not satisfied with what you can do in Poser, and you need to learn new things in order to progress.  You can learn to bring the Poser content into a different application and adapt it to your vision, which is not at all a trivial task unless you are lucky enough to have a vision that is the same as the Poser content you're starting with; or you can learn the skills required to realize your vision yourself.  Both paths will require a lot of skill, but only one of them leaves you with something that is completely your own when you travel down that path.

You will also be completely dependent on other people when your vision changes, or when you want to realize some new vision.  You will be the proverbial man handed a fish.  While there are many helpful people and you will likely always get handed some fish, it may be a herring when you really wanted a salmon, or even a tuna.  I hope you like herring, because you will have little choice unless you learn to fish for yourself.  Herring is pretty good though, and there is a lot of it available, so that's okay. 

You can learn this stuff, or that stuff, take your pick.

Quote - Well, these are things you know how to do.  You are at a turning point.  You are not satisfied with what you can do in Poser, and you need to learn new things in order to progress.  You can learn to bring the Poser content into a different application and adapt it to your vision, which is not at all a trivial task unless you are lucky enough to have a vision that is the same as the Poser content you're starting with; or you can learn the skills required to realize your vision yourself.  Both paths will require a lot of skill, but only one of them leaves you with something that is completely your own when you travel down that path.

You will also be completely dependent on other people when your vision changes, or when you want to realize some new vision.  You will be the proverbial man handed a fish.  While there are many helpful people and you will likely always get handed some fish, it may be a herring when you really wanted a salmon, or even a tuna.  I hope you like herring, because you will have little choice unless you learn to fish for yourself.  Herring is pretty good though, and there is a lot of it available, so that's okay. 

You can learn this stuff, or that stuff, take your pick.

Very well laid out post, good stuff.

wayne k
guam usa

A little warning: beware the lutefisk.  It is rough on the "pipeline".

With all due respect, I still disagree.

I could spend a year going back to square one and learning to model the human form, something I have no urge or desire to do. Modeling is not interesting or enjoyable for me.

I'd have to learn to make textures from scratch starting from pictures I take of models, or from resources at the over-rated sk.3k or whatever it is called.

Then, I'd have to learn to rig the mesh in BidPed or Max Bones.

Then, having no morphs whatsoever, I'd have to learn to build them.

After all that, I would then be no further along towards my goal than I am now , assuming I find a collaborator for whom all of that stuff is bliss. I have no fear of collaboration. I am ready for collaboration. I thought I had my collaborator. He bailed out today.

::::: Opera :::::

Or, you can learn the various techniques discussed in this thread to try to convert the morphs; convert the rig; yadda yadda.  It may be you'll enjoy that a whole lot, I can't say (I didn't and still don't).  It's your time and money, only you can make that judgement.  Good luck either way!

Quote - Hate to muddy the waters (or perhaps reveal my ignorance) but...

Have you considered Quidam?

http://www.n-sided.com/3D/quidam.php?rub=1

Example movie: http://www.n-sided.com/3D/video.php?video=export.flv

  "Thanks to additional plug-ins, export directly your ready-to-be-animated creation (equipped with its textures, UV, bones and skinning) into Maya, 3DS Max, LightWave, Cinema 4D, Carrara... Multi resolution, your characters can be exported at the resolution of your choice."

It allows you to import custom figures.

Quote - After all that, I would then be no further along towards my goal than I am now , assuming I find a collaborator for whom all of that stuff is bliss. I have no fear of collaboration. I am ready for collaboration. I thought I had my collaborator. He bailed out today.

Oh, man, that sucks, I'm sorry to hear your guy bailed.

I wonder if finding a rigger for Max may not be as hard as finding a rigger for Poser. It seems to be the least liked part of the process, and one most people don't want to tinker with a lot unless they get a reward of creating something too.  Sometimes even when they are paid hourly!

Often one ends up rigging out of necessity.

Quote - This is what I get importing the 17k model and after loading a default V4 - then turned off IK, zeroed the figure.  The mesh overlaps like I'd expect.  For the bend on the feet, it may be just that the CR2 that you've created is also not zeroed, which should be OK - although I strongly recommend zeroing before going to any export step, on your way to getting the figure to Max.

I noticed with V4, even when she's zeroed with JP editor, and exported, there's a tiny knee bend in the exported mesh. It's been plaguing me while working on the last outfit, but I hadn't gotten to the bottom of it yet. Testing through several imports and exports and variations couple months ago, it seems that this bend is around 2°.

Quote - I noticed with V4, even when she's zeroed with JP editor, and exported, there's a tiny knee bend in the exported mesh. It's been plaguing me while working on the last outfit, but I hadn't gotten to the bottom of it yet. Testing through several imports and exports and variations couple months ago, it seems that this bend is around 2°.

Why do you peps use Poser as an exporter when we all keep telling you to grab the obj file from the Runtime folder???...it's for this very reason (above quote).

Is it really possible for everyone with the desire to become a quality 3D figure maker? I don’t know, but I have my doubts. I believe an element of talent is required to get anywhere with this sort of thing.

If you intend to make independent short movies, it would be most convenient to be a modeler/texture maker/animator, but how common is such a comprehensive skill set? How many years would it take to acquire?

I still haven't begun to learn animation with any serious intent. I've been too busy modeling, texturing and rigging. 
 

Today thru Friday I have a heavy "real world" day job committment, so progress may slow for a while, until the weekend.  I am nothing if not persistent and will come around for another go.

I appreciate all the comments, suggestions and feedback from all.

::::: Opera :::::

ksanderson or anyone else inclined to get morphs transfered from standard V4 into 17K V4, here are the links for the Cage/Spanki scripts which ended up not working for me. It is probably no big thing, and failed because of my non-facility in these areas.

This is the big thread:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2677445
downloaded geom_test4g.doc from the FIRST POST in the above thread, change the extension to .py for a file name of geom_test4g.py
Got a GUI but could not seem to get a sequence down; some morphs transfered, some did not, none worked, Poser hung.

JoePublic's other link suggestion : 
http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/~Cage/scripts/scripts.html
It's called TDMT
I downloaded but scripts were throwing off runtime errors, did not get anywhere with it

As for the rig and texture maps for V4-17K, I just followed a bouncing ball at the thread below and was able to establish a cr2. When I did that, 'morph poses' for textures worked, and the rig for rotation/translation worked.

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=88372&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=18

Last post has the sequence. MikeDazFan  was interested in LOD:V4_LOD_2K.obj  but of course I changed that to 17K. He also finalized in Carrara while I find the CR2 in PoserPro.

I believe the entire community will benefit from a fully-functional V4-17K.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - > Quote - I noticed with V4, even when she's zeroed with JP editor, and exported, there's a tiny knee bend in the exported mesh. It's been plaguing me while working on the last outfit, but I hadn't gotten to the bottom of it yet. Testing through several imports and exports and variations couple months ago, it seems that this bend is around 2°.

Why do you peps use Poser as an exporter when we all keep telling you to grab the obj file from the Runtime folder???...it's for this very reason (above quote).

Because when I need anything with a morph, like a character (Alice, GND, Eleite etc...) or any other FBM or a PBM, or a roughed in JCM, you have to export the mesh with that morph out of poser and into a modeling program. There's no original OBJ geometry to grab when dealing with a morphed figure.  I'm not aware of Hexagon, Max or Zbrush being able to read poser deltas and apply them to the loaded mesh.

Maybe someone will write a script for Max or Z to do this.

Quote - I'm not aware of Hexagon, Max or Zbrush being able to read poser deltas and apply them to the loaded mesh.

Cinema 4D + interPoser can :)

Quote - > Quote - I'm not aware of Hexagon, Max or Zbrush being able to read poser deltas and apply them to the loaded mesh.

Cinema 4D + interPoser can :)

So can Collada into Max, but since you're importing rigged figure from the cr2 (where I think this small shift happens) and are making tight, skin fitting clothing, you still end up having to deal with this little shift.

Does interposer let you manually load an OBJ (from runtime, for example) and then let you read deltas from a pose file and let you pick which morph to load in? (thus circumventing V4's cr2), or does it start off with reading the cr2, and build on that?

4:32 pm
Pasadena, CA

Well I am home from an intense database programming day. I am hoping to recharge and take another run at the morph transfer into 17K. My baseball team is on rain delay in Detroit. Cranking up air conditioning. Having a diet coke.......

Meanwhile in my email is a typical missive from CGSociety. Good, let's go see what's happening over there. Reading about Quadro 3700....browsing cool new images........wondering how much a cloth dynamics in Maya person makes (hot jobs department).......

Then, I see a small thumbnail of an image that almost looks like "my style." You can bet I'm going to click on that. Okay, beautiful sculpted shape. Beautiful skin and lighting. Don't know what the red stuff is. Not familiar with the photographer he is honoring.....

ZBrush and Photoshop, hmmmm....those are not modeling apps....

And then I notice something.............

The underarm cut. Way too high. Her right one curving funny........

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.........WAIT A DAMN MINUTE!

I think you can all figure out where I am going with this........

http://mechahatechimp.cgsociety.org/gallery/667015/

:::::::::: thud :::::::::::

 Yep, but it may be his. I've seen high up armpits on Turbosquid models and others.

I'm probably going to try using the python script in the next couple days when I can come up for air.
In the meantime, why not try just V4 to V4 - just in case there were discrepancies in the figure you were trying to transfer morphs from. Perhaps it has a custom head, I don't know. It would at least give you a baseline to work from and more could compare to see if the problems are the same.

Also, going through that gigantic thread, someone mentioned the python script worked better in Poser 6. I have only been jumping to and fro it's so long, but that might be worth a shot. And maybe try their more finalized version... TDMT - links to it around the middle of the thread around page 28 - 30 or so.

I would try one morph at a time for starters to see if all is going well.

The rain looks like it has let up here in Farmington Hills, NW of Detroit, so maybe they'll play soon.

BTW using the new Google Chrome browser. Working pretty well right now... seems faster than IE and Firefox.

Yes the game just started, the Angels are out in order and the darn Tigers have four hits and two runs already in the bottom of the 1st.

SHHEESH.

I probably will get the energy to try again late tonight. Might try your V4 to V4 idea.

::::: Opera :::::