Yes I will rig them. Great looking model BTW. I have the rig pretty much worked out so it only needs fitted and extras added. And I want to say knowing your skill with creating a mesh, edge looping , it will be a pleasure to work with a mesh that is built to bend. I know you understand better than me how important the mesh is to how well it can bend, can't wait.

cheers,

Mike.

Excellent!  I'll e mail you sat.  Right now where tryin' to get Milivia's new computer up and runnin'

Quote - Thanks for those dancer foot shots, helps alot. I think with the heel bone I can get that bendable arch going on. Yes I think feet are generally overlooked, but I've had requests from several people over the last year for a better more versatile foot, so I think it is something people want. Especially for dance like ballet the poses look wrong and sort of stiff without the feet being able to pose correctly.  I have this strange sort of theory that we as humans notice even the smallest defects in movement unconsciously if not consciously. I think it goes back to the animal instinctual urge to kill of the weak, sick and deformed and mate with the strongest and most fit. (told you it was strange LOL) That certainly leaves me out in the cold, glad it's not like that anymore.

That's not a strange theory; it's pretty much a fact in my book. As an animator, I do people watch, and once you make yourself aware of it, you find that people key off of all sorts of actions and behaviors without realizing it consciously. You also find that the degree of exposure plays a part. Watch how someone reacts to a person in minimal clothing, as opposed to something that drapes and covers most of the body; in the first case, you get more immediate reactions, but those change constantly, and never seem to get intense. In the latter case, there's almost always a 'solemness' to interactions....although I choose to call it a tenseness, because that is what it is. Deprive people of that visual feedback, and they get wary, unsure. You never have the level of tension, sexual or otherwise, at the beach or the pool, because everyone can tell if anyone is working up to violence....or anything else....and that lets the person relax more. A mall in winter, with everyone a walking bundle of thick clothes always seems to have a pervasive sense of waryness and tension; the 'walking in the unknown woods alone' syndrome.

And as for the feet...... Add me to the list of those who want articulated toes and arch. the Poser Shovel Foot is fine for shod animation; and by shod, I mean -fully- covered feet. Once you get to sandals, the big toe at least has to be boned; morphs can handle what the little toes do, for the most part. But when you deal with actual bare feet, you need control over those other toes, as well. Not so much for the actions you make them do, but the positions that uneven force distribution puts them into. You don't see much in the way of bare feet in CG for that reason; they can take nearly as much time as hands can.....sometimes even more, as people don't make a habit out of studying what the feet are doing. But if you have sandaled or bare feet, and you don't get it right, it totally blows the suspension of disbelief....and most people don't even realize =what= it was that did it. They just know something in the back of the brain said 'wrong'.

An excellent example of getting it right is in Bleach Episode 116, when Orihime is talking to Rangiku in the next room.

Quote - "Thanks for those dancer foot shots, helps alot. I think with the heel bone I can get that bendable arch going on. Yes I think feet are generally overlooked, but I've had requests from several people over the last year for a better more versatile foot, so I think it is something people want. Especially for dance like ballet the poses look wrong and sort of stiff without the feet being able to pose correctly.  I have this strange sort of theory that we as humans notice even the smallest defects in movement unconsciously if not consciously. I think it goes back to the animal instinctual urge to kill of the weak, sick and deformed and mate with the strongest and most fit. (told you it was strange LOL) That certainly leaves me out in the cold, glad it's not like that anymore."

Just so you all know,  a figure of that magnitude,  by the CGindustry standard wage rate would be $72,000.*

I have been fitting the new rig to my male model changed a few things from the Antonia rig to acomodate the larger bulkier male but here's a pic that shows some of the hip action and shoulder action. I was almost able to completely get rid of the dent in the side of the hip in the side to side bend. And in most poses that are not this extreme it's not there at all. Remember too that this model has absolutely no JCM's or magnets. And since it can perform this well with no JCM's I will only have to add a few JCM's to get it perfect. It will let it load and move quicker and less resources used the better.

Thanks Pat, I don't know about this model the geometry is not so great but it works for fitting and testing this rig on a bigger character. I have too many triangles in it and some of the 5 pointed star things are in bad spots. I have a better one but it's not ready for a rig yet.

I will rig him. Is this the character you mentioned?

Yep!  He's the start of the fantasy line.  I figure we could release him as a freebie(commercial use) what's your thoughts?

I think it's a great idea. Let people get a feel for the new figures. I'm really happy there are going to be some new figures. I think they did better with M4 but it's just not enough of a change, so new models built on new ideas are truly needed to push the technology. Know what I mean? Without people working on new innovative ideas the poserverse stagnates.

Awesome!  What if we recreate a certain scene in a certain movie using Demon Man and Old Wizard and a cave backdrop!?!  Think people would like it?

I know I would like a scene like that. Have to try it and find out. I've always been partial to fantasy. Ever read George R Martin? He's got to be my favorite fantasy fiction writer.

Say Pat have you checked out 3D Coat yet? They are adding volumetric sculpting to all the rest, I've been waiting on the edge of my seat to get the upgrade.

Cool!  I grew up on fantasy!  Conan,  Fafner and the Grey Mouser,  Sword of Shannarra,  LOTC.  I also dm Dungeons and Dragons. 

My boss called me this mornin' at 4 said work was canceled cuz of the ice storm,  so I'm headed to the library now I'll look for George R Martin.

I'll check out 3D Coat, but you know I'm no good at texturing.

Hey,  think we could get Bill to do the special effects?

BTW check this out  http://www.draconian.com/home/frameset.htm
I think we should do a dragon.  What do you think?

Mike, your stuff looks great.

A dragon would be fantastic, it should be something entirely different than the Daz dragons. They have so many dragons too, but I think if we think about it we should be able to come up with a new type. I used to play AD&D back in my Seattle days, but haven't run into any groups since.

Bill? (baginsbill?) I don't know, he may do it for you, don't mention me or it's likely a no go.

3D coat has lots of tools with it too, I got it just for the retopo tools, they are so easy to use. Makes making the geometry for clothes a snap.

I want to make a real looking horse, a big one like a destrier. I started one but before I knew anything about edge looping so it's no good but maybe I can use the shape and the retopo tools in 3D coat and redo the topology. I need to get some good books on mesh creation, how to set up the base, low poly modeling. I just don't do well with tutorials on the computer, need a hardcopy book, so much better.

Quote - Mike, your stuff looks great.

Thanks momodot, that model is also to high poly but it's fun to play with, and great for morphs, but too many poly's.  58000 without the gens.

That looks very good. I am always frustrated with the feet in kneeling poses. The heel is sliding back very nicely. What is interesting about this figure is how the topology and rigging give lovely skin creases as opposed to horrible mesh brakes on the bends.

Quote - Excellent!  I'll e mail you sat.  Right now where tryin' to get Milivia's new computer up and runnin'

Heya Pat, What happened? You get everything going?

excellent foot bending IMVHO.

The foot pose/foot jps  look awesome!  ^^

Hi, I have these two different style hip rigs hooked up to two different models, one high poly and one low poly.  The rigs are not completely done getting hooked up mostly just the hip is working properly but I would like anyone who has the time to take a look at the hip rigging and give some feedback.

There are also some simple pose files to show how the hip is supposed to work.  These two models are just some old versions of brad from past but they work well enough to evaluate the  hip.

The link is in my signature.

Just what do you think of the Idea and the possible usefulness? Can you forsee problems with clothing in poser.

Dont expect the models to bend well for much of the body, as I said I have not fitted most of it to the geometry yet.

Thank you for taking the time to help.

Cheers,

Mike.

The lores has a very nice set up... better than standard certainly but does not require a learning curve so people using the standard figures would have no trouble using it. I think I would like it very much for the female since it doesn't distort the crotch.

The hires rig is utterly amazing but would require some adventurousness on the part of the user. I like the hip set up but could the new hip handle be placed above the head for easy to grab without messing up its functionality? The hip set up works great and I love the buttock handles. The whole torso, shoulders and abdo work very nicely. The neck has the standard problems but no worse. The feet I found difficult to work with... could the foot be done more conventionally with the heels having a seprerate handle like the buttocks? It seemed I had to place the feet by the heel rather than the foot and that caused me some dificulty.

I did not seem to have any trouble posing or saving and loading poses. The novel hip set-up gives very much more realistic posing. The mesh load on both figures is very nice for posing on my machine.

This rigging is quite wonderful.

The link is in my signature.

The feet are still causing me trouble... if I pose the parts after the heel they throw off the body but that was dealt with easily by using the chain break tool. I am having trouble controlling foot distortion on the bends but the fall-offs may not be finalized right?

The only additional comment I have is about the hands... I hate to suggest adding a new body part but these hands would really work better if there was an 'upper palm' in addition to the hand so that palm folds the way it does when you "cup" your hands... this is basically the large knuckles represented by the 1st joint on each of the fingers but the hand grasping or folding almost hinges all these knuckles together in a way the fall-offs on the individual finger joints cannot really acomplish.

Thanks for the feedback momodot:there is much to do with the feet ,did you notice how terribly flat they are? I must get in and fix them. Posing the feet with IK on makes them get all messed up, I wonder why, any ideas?

For the hands,  I wonder if that might work to get that palm fold, an extra bone. I think about the way the hand also folds together from index to pinky too, because the finger joints actually end at the wrist and not at the first knuckle, but how to get such a thing out of Poser?

Momodot I apreciate the feedback, keeps me thinking on how to make things work, I'm going to work on these things you've mentioned, and I will be back with new files soon.

Right now I must get to work on Antonia and get thes final things into her rig, then I am done and I can concentrate on Brad, I'm going to get him done this month if it kills me LOL.

Keep coming with the ideas when you think of something.

Thanks.

Mike.

Well apparently I'm not allowed to post a link to brad in my signature, it will not work but you can download him fro my filelocker. Isn't that strange?

Well go directly to my home page and get it there from Artists input/file locker, at least till that get cut off too.

Attached Link: "K"

You know I already think many morphs could best be replaced with body handles, breasts, thighs, and maybe even jaw and brows.

I forgot to say what I intended to start with... thanks for letting me try the rig!!

You're welcome, I had so many different ones I went through them the other day and picked two that I thought were the best although they were unfinished, and moved all the rest out to storage. These two I liked overall even though they are not done.  But as we go forward you will be able to download the updated figure all the way to the final finish, and with your insights and others Brad should come out all the better. I really think with some work the low poly guy is going to be very nice too.

They are in terrible shape right now as far as being a finished working figure but the underlying frame work is there, just need to configure it all and work out new solutions to problems like feet and hands That's where a group of thinking people are much better than me by myself, I have limited knowledge, as we all do, but together the knowledge pool is formidable.

cheers,

 Mike.

Oh ya, I had to leave the dangle off cause right now I can't pose it and TOS and all that. Also it has some broken poly's that I need to fix and I havn't worked out the geom switch, but I have the no gen piece that fits in there.

The body handle on the penis is a very interesting idea... I actually prefer the single piece body part to the multi-part design for penis and tongue... that is partly why I thought of the geometry switching as being easier to pose for foot shapes then adding parts. I actually would love to see a mainly body handle based figure... what would it be like to have body handles for the jaw and tongue?

Quote - The body handle on the penis is a very interesting idea... I actually prefer the single piece body part to the multi-part design for penis and tongue... that is partly why I thought of the geometry switching as being easier to pose for foot shapes then adding parts. I actually would love to see a mainly body handle based figure... what would it be like to have body handles for the jaw and tongue?

I've never been able to get any kind of chain of body handles to work effectively.  They all need to deform the same parent part, but they need to move in a chain.  I've found that parenting them in a chain leads to problems deforming the desired part correctly, while parenting them all to the target part leaves you without a chain setup and the results are bad.  If it can work, presumably some sort of ERC linking is required, to set up the false hierachy and correct parenting.

On the other hand, I'm not the master of Poser joints that Phantom3D is!  I hope it is a possibility.  :D

That picture looks great, momodot. If one can get a figure into a contrapost easily, that means all kinds of standing and walking poses and animations should be much more fun to make.

I hope I'll have a chance to play with Brad tonight. Can't wait.

Momodot: I'm working on just that,  someday I'll have it.

Cage: It's difficult but yes it can be done, I have a rig I have been working on forever that the whole bottom half of the model is basically body handles and one huge hip group that encompasses the whole bottom half of the geometry.  But you're right it needs other controls.........

Hi odf: I'm finishing Antonia, you know what? I didn't know all this time that Antonia had a whole hidden group of groups? or materials? like head 1, 2, 3 etc.  I just found them in Max WOW that must have been some work? I was in max adding the body handle geometry so as not to mess up the materials (something Zbrush does as a matter of course.) And surprise a whole other set of groups :)

Huh? I hope I haven't sent you the wrong geometry file then. Wings has no way of defining groups, so the material names in my working copy are composed of both the group and material. I have a script to convert those into groups and materials (and also split groups that have to appear in left-right pairs) to make them ready for Poser. I'm at work now and can't check, but if you have group or material names starting with 'body_', I sent you the wrong file. Or you could of course just try to use it with your rig and see if it works. :biggrin:

If you have the correct file, I've got no idea what you're talking about.

Regarding the handle geometry: sorry about removing it. I had to because it got corrupted during the various torturous procedures I subjected the geometry to. I'm still not quite sure how that happened, but I decided that it was easier to get rid of it then to try and repair it. I think for the final version it would probably be better to define the handle geometry in the .cr2 file, anyway, and maybe have pose files to add and remove it. Those little cubes have a tendency of getting in the way, so I guess it would be good to have an easy way to get rid of them when they're not needed.

Sorry for hijacking your thread with this issue, but I imagine it's kind of relevant for other figures with body handles, such as Brad.

Mike, the Brad lo materials were pretty straight forward but the hi res Brad materials were nuts on the file I downloaded... just in case that helps isolate the source.

Interesting rig. Here are some observations. I realize it's still Wip but you said you wanted feedback so here goes.

The neck looks fine to me but the head bends have alot of sharp distortion. The collars need to be used sparingly to avoid what I would call soft distortion. This is true for most poser figures so I think yours are better than most.

Shoulders, Arms and ForeArms can cause sharp distortion when using Rot-X. Rot-Z has some problems as well but not as much as Rot-x. Rot-X and Z do need work but if you use each part sparingly it's not really as much of a problem. Rot-X from Shoulders to hands is the weakest part of the rig IMO.

Rot-Y has possibly some of the best bends I have ever seen. Being able to move the arms straight in front of the figure without it collapsing/distorting the chest/deltoid/Lat areas is something just about every figure has big trouble with but you rig does it really well.
It aint perfect but it's really really well done. The best part of the rig IMO or atleast close to how good the 2nd hip bends.

The Chest,Abdomen and hip all look fine to me.

The 2nd hip could take some getting used to but it is impressive and powerful for natural movement and posing. It's quite interesting that the hip and upper thighs are one group. I know nothing about rigging but I can see that is the main reason it bends so well in that area. I could be totally wrong but it just seems to me that's the reason it bends so well there ( that and JP's of coarse ).

The legs
With IK on, the heel moving with the legs when twisting the leg/shin is a bit odd. Fine for stills realistic I suppose but not so great for animation.

I only checked out the higher-res one so far. Over all it's an impressive rig that has a lot of potential over other figures if posed right. He can look bad if not posed right but alot of figures can look bad even when posed at thier best in the more difficult for poser positions.

Quote -
Cage: It's difficult but yes it can be done, I have a rig I have been working on forever that the whole bottom half of the model is basically body handles and one huge hip group that encompasses the whole bottom half of the geometry.  But you're right it needs other controls.........

Excellent news!  Is it ERC for the faux chain hierarchy, then, or what?

odf: No this geometry is fine.  I can only see the extra groups in 3DS Max in everything else it just has the regular groups and material zones.  I'm thinking they may have been material zones cause the head one looks like what you would make for a hair region. It has ones named head 1 head 2 etc. and jaw1 jaw2 etc. but in poser they are not there as groups so i figure they must be material zones.  But no problem it all works fine, in Poser. I had no trouble just popping in the handle geometry from the old one. The handle geometry could easily be made like a conforming prop you could just pop it in or out as you wanted, like they did with the
M3 Gens.

momodott: Ya I need to totally redo all the materials since I have worked on the model in Zbrush which basically destroys materials no matter what I do. Materials are something I don't know very much about either.  But I figure when I get to it I will ask for advise and help to understand what is best for the material groups.

JB123: Hi, thanks for the input, The Xrot for the collar and shoulder is truely a pain, I have been working on them since I uploaded this version and I think you'll like what I have done. Not going to upload another version yet, but as soon as I get enough extra work done to warrant it I will. Your right about the large hip it allows all the various bends that come together in that area to share poly's and not have to worry about child parent boundary's
I have changed the rotation on the heel and gotten rid of that strange heel deformation when the leg is twisted. I really need to get the model back into Zbrush and reform those feet, I shudder every time I see them. LOL.

Cage:  Yes partly ERC and you still cannot use IK so still lots of problems with it to work out but it bends so liflike, more organic, I thought it was worth developing. I have some pics of it somewhere. I posted a couple in the critique forum of that rigg  Here's the pic:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/media/folder_9/file_404045.jpg

Quote -

Cage:  Yes partly ERC and you still cannot use IK so still lots of problems with it to work out but it bends so liflike, more organic, I thought it was worth developing. I have some pics of it somewhere. I posted a couple in the critique forum of that rigg  Here's the pic:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/media/folder_9/file_404045.jpg

Interesting.  I came into this thread and missed posts on the previous page(s).  I assumed the body handle chain was being considered for tongues or male genitalia.  In the linked image, it's being used for... what?  The arching of the back?  Hmm!  Excellent work, at any rate!  :D

In the image the whole bottom half of the body from the waist down is all body handle chains and all one big group. That's from a different thread in the critique forum, I talk about it a little there.

I thought the hi-res one felt quite natural and bent really well, except for the heel thing. I wasn't that impressed by the lo-res one, although it's still a good rig. I definitely liked the way the hip handle worked, and the placement over the head. Very useful. Other than that, I don't think I have anything substantial to say that hasn't already been mentioned. I'm afraid I'm useless as a tester - too easily distracted. :biggrin:

Hey, when Antonia and Brad are both out in the wild, they'll be the undisputed Poser dancing champions. Although we might have to hunk Brad down a bit to fit him into a suit.

Hey Mike

You may already know this but an easy way to preserve your materials if Zbrush eats them is to
load what ever changes you make on the already mat/grouped original in poser.  As long as it's just sculpting ( not sub-d or geometry) changes your good. I do this alot when making morphs with Blender ( It eats materials too Lol ). In poser just load your sculpt on the original mat/grouped version as a morph target dial it to 1.0 then export. Use the export option "Include existing groups in polygon groups". You can also use uvmapper to get groups back as well.

I have wondered about this idea for quite some time. I noticed that some of the rigs in Blender have handle geometry for intuitive facial animation. So I was thinking could this idea be translated into Poser. Can a bodypart have more then one bodyhandle in poser? If so I think it would be really useful but I really don't know if it would be worth the trouble. I think one of the reasons it would be great besides the obvious is often when you dial up a combination of morphs on a character for a specific look you often find something is a little off like an eye corner could be rotated a little more etc. So you have to use magnets or make a seperate morph to fix it. with bodyhandles ( atleast in theory ) you could make an adjustment basically in realtime without having to make a morph fix or go through the pain of setting up carefully placed magnets.

So here's the idea. 24 Facial Handles

**5 Brow handles
**BrowCenter>BrowLeft>BrowRight>EyeBrowLeft>EyeBrowRight
**4 Eye Handles
**EyeInnerLeft>EyeOuterLeft>EyeInnerRight>EyeOuterRight
**6 Nose Handles
**NoseBridgeUpper>NoseBridgeLower>NoseCenter>NostrilLeft>NostrilRight>Septum
**4 Lips Handles
**UpperLip>LowerLip>LipCornerLeft>LipCornerRight
2 Cheek Handles
CheekLeft>CheekRight
2 Jaw Handles
JawLeft>JawRight
**1 Chin Handle
**ChinCenter

I like to know if...
A. If such a thing is possible ( Multiple bodyhandles on one body part ).
B. Would it be resource friendly or would that many handles be really CPU intensive and head into Daz magnet bloat-Lag territory

What do you think? Would it be uber cool or just not worth it? I would love to have a feature like this but in the end I don't know if it would be worth the trouble.

Here is a pic of a face I made in blender and I photoshopped some handles on to illustrate the idea.

JB123,

Yes You can have multiple body handles on one body part And it works well for facial animation, I'm pretty sure that patorak was doing this with his Plane Jane Figure.  I have two body handles hooked up to the Hip2 body part on Brad. I am considering this approach for the jaw and tongue as well as brow movement. It is much easier on the resources of your computer to use body handles instead of morphs when you can.

Perhaps patorak will stop in and comment or you could PM him he has much more experience with multiple body handles and could probably explain the pro's and cons of it better. Ockham as well. Momodott also has experience with body handles.

Doh!!! I guess I could have answered one of my questions. I somehow forgot that brad has multiple handles on the hip. 

I picked up Bloodsong's book on secrets of poser creation about 6 months ago. I haven't tried any rigging though mainly because of time restraints ( and rigging scares me time wise ) but I do want to learn how to rig eventually. Im still ( noobishly) learning how to model and UV map. Im getting pretty decent at it but I don't have the time to learn it all. I'll get there one day one baby step at a time.

Yes it does take time. But you'll get it. I tend to do much too much experimenting with rigging, go off on too many tangents LOL

um, it's not necessarily better on resources to use handles.  Anton once pointed out, a snake with 100 parts is easy to deal with, but a centipede would slow your machine to a crawl.  the more children a single parent has, the more resources you use up.  he's mentioned this as why JCM are better than magnets (magnets add 3 children to every body part they're added to). 

not that i'm against facial handles, though i think you'd have to work really hard at making handles that were large enough to be easy to select but small enough not to be a PITA as you try to get the right expression. 

personally, i'd just perfer better morphs in the first place.  most Vicky's have multiple African American head morphs, and nothing to change the distance between the eye and the eyebrow.  i'm not sure a body handle will actually help control how flat the inside of an eyebrow is, and that's the problem with about 80 to 90 percent of most celebrity morphs i've seen.  i always get Capsces' morphs because they give basic control over features and body parts.  for me, general morphs (like nose tip up, nose tip down, nostrils up, nostrills down, nostrils wide, nostrils round, etc.) over specifics would be preferable to handles.

Interesting thread. You might find it works a bit better on a model with less volume to the limbs; giving you more room to spread falloffs.

Sorry you didn't think we did a good enough job with M4. I did experiment with secondary movements via handles at first with M4 but was concerned about added complexity.

Its always a toss up between the best it can be, vs complexity for the people who have to support it. We try to make a balance, because a lot of merchants depend on it, and ultimately easier to make clothing and support items probably relate to lower prices for users.

Quote - Interesting thread. You might find it works a bit better on a model with less volume to the limbs; giving you more room to spread falloffs.

Sorry you didn't think we did a good enough job with M4. I did experiment with secondary movements via handles at first with M4 but was concerned about added complexity.

Its always a toss up between the best it can be, vs complexity for the people who have to support it. We try to make a balance, because a lot of merchants depend on it, and ultimately easier to make clothing and support items probably relate to lower prices for users.

Hi,

I actually like M4, I think the joint bending is improved quite alot over M3, especially in the hips.

Complexity may be a problem especially for clothing, I have not made any conforming clothing for Brad yet, so we'll see how it comes out.

Lately I have been working on a scanner, trying to get a decent full body scanner put together. I'm trying a "white" lazer instead of green or red. Just wish I could find a video camera that will do HD quality video at 200 or so FPS, and not cost a fortune. :lol: