Hi.

Just wanted to let you all know that I modified the OBJ Import/Export programs included in Blender to add support for OBJ groups. The lack of that functionality is what prevented using Blender as a complete solution for creating PBMs and FBMs or clothing/props. 
Poser and DAZ Studio require that a morph is  written by preserving the vertex order and by preserving the groups (lForeArm, abdomen, hip etc) defined in the figure. This is needed also for rigging of conforming figures. 
In the past we could model using Blender but then we need to use some other hack (UVMApper) to add the missing groups. Now all is done internally. Load V4's OBJ file, morph it, save it with another name, load it in Studio with Morph Loader and you are all set.
The new patches have been approved tonight so I hope they will be included in the upcoming v.2.49 but otherwise I will provide them shortly. 
I'm also planning to prepare a video tutorial about the process and complete workflow demonstration.

Cheers!

--
Paolo

This is the most exciting news I've heard in a long time, Paolo. Thanks so much for all your hard work in this essential area. Keenly awaiting further news. Did they give a timeline as to the v2.49 release date yet?

 Thanks. Not yet, there is a Release Candidate 2 that was released a couple of days ago. That one doesn't have my patches but hopefully the next one will. Considering that Blender has one of the best UV Map editor in the market, free or commercial, now we have a all-in-one solution for editing Poser content. 

Interestingly enough, the fix was accepted with some "grumbling" because I used vertex groups to store the OBJ groups. Strictly speaking the two things are not the same and vertex groups "are used for weight painting", in the words of the code maintainer :)

The fact is, if the OBJ contains defined groups, for Poser or otherwise, I believe that the program should preserve them and use whatever method is available in order to avoid data loss.
But the best part is that by using vertex groups we are not stuck to defining materials for grouping, the only other semi-working alternative that was available. Materials could be used except that they made a poor choice because the exporter re-writes the material names and because of the infamous 16 material limit in Blender.

So, now you can create a new piece of clothing using the excellent Retopo tool in Blender, highlight the vertices , assign them a group using the same names of the bone rig, save the OBJ and it's ready for rigging in Studio with the Skeleton Setup Tool. It works like a charm. 
Give me a few days to make the tutorial and I'll post more infos in this forum.

Quote -
Interestingly enough, the fix was accepted with some "grumbling" because I used vertex groups to store the OBJ groups. Strictly speaking the two things are not the same and vertex groups "are used for weight painting", in the words of the code maintainer :)

  That's terrific news.  That sounds just like what I've been working on.  I've been getting ready to release my export script that I've been working on.  I've been working on it for quite some time now and I believe that was one of the first hurdles I had to cross.  I think I started from scratch making a OBJ exporter that does just as you stated, exports an OBJ broken down in to smaller objects based on Vertex Groups.  Since in my opinion, it really depends on full faces, my script goes further and eliminates any face that doesn't contain 3 or 4 vertices.  It also does not include any face that has not been assigned to a vertex group. 
  Dealing with the fact that the original Exporter altered the material names was another issue that I had to deal with as well, since in doing so, it alters the Object names (if I remember correctly, although that may be in my Prop Exporter that I created as well.).

  My exporter goes on further to actually create the CR2 file based on a Blender Armature.  It also takes any bone rotation limits and adds those in as well.  It starts with a default value for 'Angles of Deformation' and then allows you to edit them as well and re-export the CR2. 

  I've also included a 'Welding' script that allows you to add extra welding aside from the default situations which the script does for you.  It automatically welds any seems between a Parent and Child mesh as well as any seems that may occur between to 'Sibling' joints. 

  At this time, I have not implemented any functions that deal with Spheres of Influence or Buldges. 

  Although It's rough around the edges, it still works quite well.  I'm planning on releasing it with a detailed manual for a small fee.  If there's enough interest in it, I'd work on it further adding other features and clean things up.  Based on the man hours I've put into it, I don't think asking for a small fee would be unreasonable.

Sample Images

@Reddog
Sounds like you are doing much more than working on the OBJ files, I'll be interested in seeing your scripts. Replicating the features of Poser file format is quite a hurdle. 
Since I use DAZ Studio and Carrara for my scenes and Studio's Skeleton Setup Tool to do all the rigging for conforming clothing, my target was to make Blender the modeling app necessary to do morph and new props. The only things that was missing was the ability to preserve and save the groups. My concern was also to integrate that feature in the stock importer/exporter of Blender so that there is only one source that is maintained from this point on. 
Now, regarding some of your observations about faces reduction and such, remember that for a morph to work it has to have exactly the same number of vertices in exactly the same order and the groups have to include the exact number of faces of the original geometry. But you probably know that already :)
Let us know when your CR2 exporter is ready.
 

Sounds very good, both of you.

I have a couple of small requests in case someone's up for it:

• a scale option in both the import and export dialogs, so it doesn't have to be done manually all the time since content tends to be in a rather small scale
• remember previously used settings

@hoplaa Poser-specific updated are not going to be accepted easily. Blender is and will remain a neutral tool and in the land of Open Source commercial apps are not seeing too favorably. I was able to get the patches accepted because support for groups is more of a general issue and because a) Campbell Barton has seen more than a fair share of complaint from DAZ/Poser users and b) I advocated the update convincingly up to the point of making a short video to present the submission. That was, IMHO, key in making the process fast and simple.
To give you an  idea about what kind of resistance there is consider this: initially my patches were totally invisible, the processing of groups happened completely transparently. Campbell asked me to add some UI to make it optional. I did and I set the option to be "on" by default. He changed it to be "off" by default :)

I'm just very happy that the feature is in the codebase, it's gonna be there for the time being and now we can add Poser-specific importers/exporters by calling the OBJ routines as modules. That is one very cool feature of Blender. By implementing the import/export process in Python, the developer gave us  access to it and we can chain those modules together.

Regarding the scaling issue, you can work with  Poser-scaled geometry OK but, yes, it's pretty tiny. I'll look into a Poser-scaler script, similar to the plugin in Z-Brush. Thank you for the suggestion.

 Just wanted to let you know that the new OBJ importer/exporter made it in the latest release of Blender. 2.49 RC3 is available: http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/changes-since-248/

And the Wavefront OBJ routines now preserve the groups. Just be sure that the "Poly Groups" buttons are pressed in both cases. I'm putting together a video tutorial but you can grab the update today and play with it.

great news, well done to get it accepted.

 Thanks!

Fantastic... this is brilliant news. Will download this version and have a go as soon as our broadband is back at full speed. Great work, pciccone!

Quote -  Just wanted to let you know that the new OBJ importer/exporter made it in the latest release of Blender. 2.49 RC3 is available: http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/changes-since-248/

And the Wavefront OBJ routines now preserve the groups. Just be sure that the "Poly Groups" buttons are pressed in both cases. I'm putting together a video tutorial but you can grab the update today and play with it.

Thanks a lot, best News ever THANKS

 To everyone, you're very welcome, much appreciated. I'm recording the tutorial, should be out next week.

--

Paolo

Can we get the python code now?

I am quite interested in testing it with Meshfoot which uses Campbell Bartons OBJ import to load it's meshes into memory.

Is your code a drop in replacement?

Here is a snippet from the Meshfoot code:

import_obj.load_obj(localObjFullPathFileName, CLAMP_SIZE=
0.0, CREATE_FGONS= True, CREATE_SMOOTH_GROUPS= True, CREATE_EDGES=
False, SPLIT_OBJECTS= False, SPLIT_GROUPS= False, SPLIT_MATERIALS=
False, IMAGE_SEARCH=False)

Does your code leave the most recently imported object selected?

@Enivob  The code is part of the OBJ import/export scripts included in Blender. You just need to download Blender 2.49 RC3 or higher and you're all set to go.

Hi. As I mentioned a few days ago, I worked on a video that shows the new workflow, starting from the stock V4 obj file.

The video tutorial, 17 mins, is now available, you can watch it at

http://paolociccone.com/tutorials/blender_poser_fbm.html

Enjoy!

[quotehttp://paolociccone.com/tutorials/blender_poser_fbm.html

Thanks a lot Paolo and if you have time why not a  video tut for a piece of clothing.

Thank you an awful lot for this man ! Now i finally can make my own custom morphs on figures without using tons of magnets inside Poser :-)

Oh and yes please, if you would have the time to show us how to adjust the clothing to fit the  morphed figures, that would be very cool too ;-)

Hmmm... very strange, i just downloaded the 2.49rc3 for Mac OS X PowerPC and when i unzip this, it contains the 2.48.4 version ???

 @sirenia Th eversion number has not being changed yet, you can see the same number in the tutorial. Just run the OBJ import and if it has the "Poly Groups" then you have the right version.

 @Pol Good suggestion, I'll see what I can do.

I don 't have the 'poly groups' option when i import an .obj as you do in your video.

Strange. I didn't try the PPC version, it might be that that one is different. The Intel version has it. 

Aha they 're there indeed. I don 't get that  'poly groups' option when importing, but when in edit mode they appear in the panel window and i can work with them. Still a bit strange no ?

 Interesting. That was the original behavior of the plugins when I submitted them. My rationale for that was that since groups are defined they should be included anyway, I mean there is not damage in importing them. Campbell Barton argued about a UI option and I added it. At the end of the day it was more important for me to have the updates in the new code release than trying to argue philosophical points. 
Anyway, let us know how it goes.

Just downloaded the official release, and now i have the 'poly groups' when i import and export :-)
Gonna play with it some more now and see that i can import in Poser without problems then.

Thanks for the added functions !

If i load the morph target into Poser 6, the app crashes :-(

Hello Paolo,

want to thank you for your work on Blender and the instructional video. Very professional and I learned a lot.

Hey Mannixman, thank, I'm glad it was helpful.

This is very good news. Thank you so much for your efforts in making Blender more useful for Poser users.

I was just getting ready to start using Blender, and even tho totally a newbie I am very excited to hear of the new innovations you have both been working on!

Hugs

~A~

Thank you. Have fun and don't hesitate posting here if you need more help
 

:D I already have one question on the board!!!

Hugs

~A~

How do you load the morphs in Poser?

Quote - How do you load the morphs in Poser?

Sorry, don't know about that, I don't user Poser anymore since DAZ Studio 2.3 
Maybe other people here in the forum can suggest a workflow for that? If you can create a PZ2 file that refers to the FBM geometry file then you can use the PZ2 in Poser and apply the morph. 
Seriously suggest to look at Studio, it makes a lot of things much simpler to do.

Basically you select the body part then in the properties bit of the parameters tab, click "load morph target" and away you go

Quote - Basically you select the body part then in the properties bit of the parameters tab, click "load morph target" and away you go

AFAIK that doesn't work for FBMs

not for an FBM no, you'd have to save the morph out as a bunch of separate bits then import them all one at a time which is a serious pain.
There might be a script or something like that to load an FBM into Poser

Attached Link: http://www.svdlinden.nl/webposerstuff/downloads/morphfromobjp6.zip

There are a few, the one I've linked is by sdvl (see this thread for info -> http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2634045), and I'm fairly certain that one of PhilC's products has something for doing this.

It was always possible but if you make it easier, that's great. Will be looking forward to using it.

Quote - It was always possible but if you make it easier, that's great. Will be looking forward to using it.

The update addresses a problem that prevented the use of Blender-generated OBJs for FBMs: Blender did not retain or export the group names defined in the original OBJ file. So, techincally, yes, you could make modified meshes from the original Poser figures but those meshes would not be  recognized by Poser or DAZ Studio because of the lack of groups. 
The updates in v.2.49 fix this issue.

Like I said, it was always possible. Just because you didn't know how to do it doesn't mean it hasn't been doable all along. ;O)

Quote - Like I said, it was always possible. Just because you didn't know how to do it doesn't mean it hasn't been doable all along. ;O)

Yep. Been doing it  using Compose, Blender and Poser's Little Helper for a couple of years now. Started making FBM's in Blender for use in D|S before I even had Poser.

The update that retains groups is very nice but a convenience not an absolute necessity.

Quote - Yep. Been doing it  using Compose, Blender and Poser's Little Helper for a couple of years now. Started making FBM's in Blender for use in D|S before I even had Poser.

The update that retains groups is very nice but a convenience not an absolute necessity.

Exactly! ;O) Even with the upgrade in Blender, Compose is a useful utility.

Been told you can do the same thing using UVMapper in place of Compose but I haven't achieved equivalent results....but then I am old slow and slightly simple minded.:laugh: (Have to take off socks and shirt to count up to twenty-two.)

It continues to amaze me that Compose was last update in 1999 and still does the job.

In terms of software life that makes it what.....about a million years old.

Quote - Been told you can do the same thing using UVMapper in place of Compose 

Yes, but that's exactly the point of the update.  Export the mesh from Blender, load it in UVMapper, apply tthe groups, export it again. It's hardly a good workflow. It works but it's a kludge. Not to denigrate UVMapper or Compose, they served us well in the past but there is no reason to not have this all integrated in one tool. Blender can now be your one-stop-shop for modeling, morphing, UVMapping, and texturing. When using Blender to make new cloths of morphs of clothes, having to jump through so many apps every time you need to test the update adds substantial time.
Now you simply export to OBJ, launch Studio, run Morph Loader and you're done!

That's a great concept that I'm amendable to but, still get some wonky results when running the sculpt brush across group boundaries....results with Compose are consistent....shrug.

Plus Compose works in those situations that don't involve Blender. (some of us slip around and visit other applications on the sly)

Note: I'm not saying that the irregularities have anything to do with the update to .obj handling, which I like by the way.

Oh yeah, it's worth reading the doc that comes with Compose.

(Besides who tests updates to morphs, get it in one and call it done....sure,right.:laugh:)

Tried the Blender method in terms of Sculpting, and I am pleased with the results (referring to Poser thread: "you dont have money for zbrush? ")

Thank you Pret-a-3D for that info, and nruddock for the Python link.

i noticed that in the new Blender 2.5 version we can not import OBJ objects with vertex groups.

http://www.blender.org/download/get-254-beta/

if someone can fix this this would be awesome because modeling in 2.54 is better IMO then in 2.49

thanks

How is it better, ice-boy? I am having issues with hotkeys all being different in 2.5x. The whole point to Blender - what made Blender so fast - was the hotkeys, and now I have to relearn all that? Makes absolutely no sense for them to do that.

belive i was like you. it looked different.

but then i found out that modeling with the solidify modifier and all the other features makes my modeling faster.