Howdy, I wanted to know when you model an item that shares two body parts (IE a kneepad for M3 that will share rThigh and rShin), when you are about to "group" this kneepad, how exactly do you determine which polygons belong to the rThigh body part and which polys belong to the rShin body part?  I know you can use automatic grouping system utilities such as OBJ2CR2 converter or Tool Collection's ConCloth, however, I'd like to know if you prefered to group the polys manually to match M3's body parts (int his case a kneepad which shares both of M3's knee and shi), what factors if any do you use to determine this?  Is there some colorcoded guide that can be used to determine this or would it be mostly guesswork and/or trial and error?

Thanks in advance,

-J
 

Use the Grouping Tool to select the Body Part, e.g., "rThigh" ...
Then "Assign Material" >>> "kneepad"

Then select the other Body Part, e.g., "rShin" ...
And ...  "Assign Material" >>> "kneepad"

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Whilst grouping as close to the underlying body part is a good rule of thumb the exact split is often much less critical.

In the case of this kneepad it could all be in the thigh group and still work. Try it and see. The only time it would not work is if the kneepad extended so far down the shin that it required to be influenced by the foot.

Quote - Use the Grouping Tool to select the Body Part, e.g., "rThigh" ...
Then "Assign Material" >>> "kneepad"

Then select the other Body Part, e.g., "rShin" ...
And ...  "Assign Material" >>> "kneepad"

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Thanks Dr Geep, however, I'm familiar with how to actually group the kneepad, what I was really asking was if there was a way of actually knowing or determining "which" polys should be grouped to "rThigh" and "which" polys should be grouped to "rShin"

Quote - Whilst grouping as close to the underlying body part is a good rule of thumb the exact split is often much less critical.

In the case of this kneepad it could all be in the thigh group and still work. Try it and see. The only time it would not work is if the kneepad extended so far down the shin that it required to be influenced by the foot.

Thanks PhilC. 

Hi Pan,

Ok, sorry, didn't mean to be pedantic. :sad:

I will defer to the very knowledgable PhilC to continue.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

There is no need to apologize Dr Geep, my explanation was a bit convoluted so I may not have been clear in what I was asking.  :) 

P.S. Just so you'll know, I love your website and visit it quite often.  It has helped me understand the intricacies of Poser so much better.  Thank you.  ;)

 

Quote - ..... what I was really asking was if there was a way of actually knowing or determining "which" polys should be grouped to "rThigh" and "which" polys should be grouped to "rShin"

Sometimes, it is obvious.  Sometimes, it is not.  As PhilC said, it may not need groups assigned to the shin even if it overlaps them a little bit.  IMO... it "Depends."

The only way to know for sure is to experiment.  If you group it and find that you just can't get good control over pesky problems no matter how much you spin joint parameter dials, you might have to regroup it.  For your kneepad, it probably isn't a big deal.  But, for something more complex, it could take a lot of tweaking.

It helps when modeling to keep in the back of your head the figure you're modeling for and how its mesh is grouped.  Sometimes, it's not a problem and doesn't matter much.  But, in complex pieces (IMO) it matters a great deal if you're creating conforming items.  There's only so much control you can have and it works best if you build you mesh to take advantage of that as efficiently as possible.

**Actually, I just started a new thread in the LW section here on 'Rosity and I'm thinking it might apply here as well.  Here are the contents of that topic:
**
I'd like to know if anyone can enlighten me on how to group my model (kneepad) based on a color coded figure (M3) so I can see the exact grouping of the base mesh and split mine accordingly.  I was told to import the mesh of the figure I'm making the object for into LW and color code the body parts (IE rThigh, rShin, etc.) so they could be identified and then make the display of MY model transparent so I could clearly see which polys belong where. 

Problem is that I'm sure I'm overlooking or doing something wrong because the M3 base I imported into LW only shows surface names such as SkinArm, SkinFeet, SkinForearm etc., in the Surface editor. It does not list the parts I'd need for grouping a kneepad, such as rThigh, rShin etc. (maybe I'm looking in the wrong place in LW for the "M3 part names"?)

Are there any particular options I should or shouldn't be checking when I export the M3 base out of Poser? When I went to export it under "Select Objects" I deselected "Ground" and selected "Figure 1" and everything below it. After saying okay, I checked the following for "Export Options" (weld body part seams, include body part names in polygon groups, use exact internal names except spaces, include figure names in polygon groups and include existing groups in polygon groups)

Can someone "walk" me through the correct way to approach this process so I could see where I'm going wrong?

Thanks in advance,

Probably the best way to understand all of this is to open Poser and load the figure you want to attach or create all of this stuff to (m3). As you glide your cursor over the figure you should see the individual body parts highlighted in white, these are the body parts that you need to become aquanted with. (rThigh, lShin, hip, chest, etc) Look under the properties tab and Internal name...upper and lower case is important. When you export from Poser do not weld your verts as then you will be able to select these individual obj's in your modeling program and might be able to see and understand the body parts better. Yes, check include body part names in polygon groups. These should be your rThigh, lShin, hip, chest, etc I described earlier.

As Phil mentioned earlier the seams don't need to be exact but you will need to become familiar with rigging your modeling to Poser. There are threads floating out there that might help you with rigging, but if a picture is worth a thousand words I do have a conforming clothing tutorial coming out soon (available at Content Paradise) that is over 2 hours worth of video showing you how I rigged my clothing to this figure I created.

Regards

Well, unless there's something about how or if LW can display these part names that I'm not understanding (which seems to be the case) I still can't get M3's body part names (IE rThigh, rShin) to show up in my LW view.  Only the surface names (SkinHand, SkinHead) are showing up.  (sigh)

So, I tried it in Modo, and I hit pay dirt.  I was able to find the listing for the body part names and able to hi-light on the imported M3 model.  Don't know why I can't seem to do this in LW but for now I'll work it in Modo until I do. 

I'll be looking forward to your upcoming tutorial DarkEdge.  If you can, could you please send me a "site mail" here on Rosity when it's available?  

Thanks again for everything. 

-J.

I don't know anything about LW.  But, if you really want them in there as named, export them individually from Poser as objects.  Just don't change their position.  Then, import them into LW, don't change their position but rename them to the appropriate group names.  Then, just lock them in place once they're all imported (however LW accomplishes that) so you can't move them and save the file as a default start file for creating cloth.  Unless your're rigging in LW as well (I wouldn't know) you don't need the skeleton for anything.   (I don't know sqaut about LW so none of the above may yield any help at all. :) )

Thanks for the feedback Morkonan.  :)

Loathe the grouping tool in Poser; with this in mind I created "dummy" objects color coded by group for each character to use as a visual reference for creating groups in a clothing item directly within the modeling app, Blender in my case.

Having the visual reference greatly simplifies the process plus allows you to see the interactions and decide on best grouping prior to import to Poser...should be applicable to Lightwave, etc also.

Okay, it's kinda been confirmed that this seems to be a "LW issue" as apparently it's also happening with Richard Haseltine.  I've posted in the Daz forum as well as here in the Poser and LW forums and RHaseltine has since replied that he is having the same exact problem I'm having when he tries loading M4 into his LW 9.6 running on Windows 7.  I'm also running LW 9.6 but running it on Windows XP.  So I'm guessing now that the next step is probably alerting Newtek of this possible "bug" or "software conflict" within their program.  Before doing that, I think I'll load up LW 9.5 and see if that problem exists there as well. 

At the very least, some of my LW confidence has come back as I was really beginning to feel "incompetent" because I couldn't get the part names to show up.  :) 

Okay, just tried it on LW 9.5 and have the same issues.  And just to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the M3 exported out of Poser, I loaded the M3 OBJ into Modo and Modo showed all of M3's part names successfully.  Seems to be a LW issue.  :(

Okay, props to Richard Haseltine who just solved this big LW mystery (by posting in one of my threads over at the DAZ forums).  Apparently you need to have the "Zbrush OBJ" option in the "General Options" section checked.  Something about doing so reverts the importer/exporter functions back to the 9.3 and earlier versions of LW.

tips hat off in recognition of Richard Haseltine's diligence in solving this LW mystery