I was hoping that the Morphing Clothes would do that!  I asked that very question about a dozen pages back, but no one on board the project at that time had it to answer.

Welcome on the bandwagon, svdl and pjz99 !  More the merrier!  I hope not. We're way too merry as it is! :laugh: We're already giddy.  Whatever is beyond that, we're getting there! :lol:

@ odf:"I happen to speak Python quite fluently, just not Poser API."  I hope you mean scripting, NOT the hissing and head bobbing kind.:laugh:

Quote - That's several people I've heard from now that have got on board with the DAZ rigging tools.  Is it just bug avoidance (which is important, to be sure), or are there specific things that are really done better?

What sold it to me is the ability to sculpt JCMs on the posed figure. More specifically, you pose the figure in D|S and export as an .obj file. Then you sculpt that, and MorphLoaderPro plugin turns it into a JCM for you, complete with all the ERC slaving.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's just a world of difference between Poser's pathetic tools and what D|S offers. Just setting up joint parameters is much, much easier and more intuitive, and you can do many things within the tools that previously you had to edit the cr2 or use external programs for.

There are some demo videos up on DAZ's site, but I can't find them anymore since Studio Version 3 was released. Also, it looks like the MorphLoaderPro update is currently broken. So I'm not sure I can recommend getting the setup tools at this point. It's probably better to wait until the "paid beta" phase is over for DS3 or try to get the old versions for DS2. The update was free, which would have been great if it had worked. :lol: But it could be I was just unlucky and everything else works fine.

Quote - On transferring JCMs, frankly Dimension3D's Morphing Clothes does almost all of it automatically.

That's good to know. I wasn't sure how well it handled JCMs. I guess then it just comes down to knowing which JCMs are there and which ones need to be transferred for a given piece of clothing.

Quote - @ odf:"I happen to speak Python quite fluently, just not Poser API."  I hope you mean scripting, NOT the hissing and head bobbing kind.:laugh:

Yes, that's what I mean. I don't have a scar shaped like a flash on my forehead, either.

Quote - > Quote - @ odf:"I happen to speak Python quite fluently, just not Poser API."  I hope you mean scripting, NOT the hissing and head bobbing kind.:laugh:

Yes, that's what I mean. I don't have a scar shaped like a flash on my forehead, either.

With the magic you've put into Antonia, that last I'm less sure of. Just don't wave yer wand around here, Mr. Potter! :laugh:LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Actually, if one were interested in the D|S Figure Setup Tools and had yet to buy them, but they weren't going to go with D|S3 for now, I'm pretty sure (99%) that both the D|S2 and D|S3 versions would be available in their available downloads page.

Quote - That's good to know. I wasn't sure how well it handled JCMs. I guess then it just comes down to knowing which JCMs are there and which ones need to be transferred for a given piece of clothing.

As long as you follow a good naming convention - prefix them all with JCM so they can be picked out of a sorted list easily, and then have some descriptrive name that illustrates what they do, e.g. - then I'm sure it will be fine.  Although Morphing Clothes is bright enough to not create a morph channel in in a given actor if none of its deltas are affected.

Quote - Actually, if one were interested in the D|S Figure Setup Tools and had yet to buy them, but they weren't going to go with D|S3 for now, I'm pretty sure (99%) that both the D|S2 and D|S3 versions would be available in their available downloads page.

It boils down to poverty, I don't really have any money to experiment on software unless it's absolutely required (very hard for me to justify any kind of purchases now).

Quote - > Quote - Actually, if one were interested in the D|S Figure Setup Tools and had yet to buy them, but they weren't going to go with D|S3 for now, I'm pretty sure (99%) that both the D|S2 and D|S3 versions would be available in their available downloads page.

It boils down to poverty, I don't really have any money to experiment on software unless it's absolutely required (very hard for me to justify any kind of purchases now).

In that case, I think it really depends on whether you need to make any JCMs from scratch. As far as I know, DAZ's MorphLoaderPro is the only tool that can generate accurate JCMs for Poser directly from the posed and sculpted figure. I think that's a potential quality leap for everyone who creates primary figures.

Everything else the setup tools provide you can probably do quite well in Poser or with external tools if you have to, just maybe not as easily or conveniently. For example, it's quite nice to be able to create an ERC by dragging and dropping, but if you know how, you can just as well do it in a conventional CR2 editor.

For the occasions where I do need to make a JCM by hand, I'm familiar enough with the tools and file formats to build it into the rig if required - although if I had a lot of money to spare it would be different.  The thing is, I've already spent a lot money to acquire tools to do this stuff, so it's just really hard to justify buying more tools that do things I'm already able to do.  If I had it to do again, you know, I'd still probably have bought the same tools I use (Dimension3D's utilties and interPoser Pro for Cinema 4D import/export and morphing).

Need some advice, please.

In the past I have created a couple of conforming clothes, they both took me quiet a while to do the conforming stuff on them. At present I use only Poser 6. I would like to speed up this process. DAZ have 3 setup- tool packs:

1> Figure Setup Tools
2> Advanced Figure Setup Tools
3> Figure Setup Tools Bundle

From what I've read in this thread, these tools considerably easy the workload. Though I have not used D|S before I am willing to learn it to use the setup tools. My main interest is in creating more clothes, for example I have a pair of Capris waiting to be setup once Antonia's JCMs are done.

So my question is which pack should I go for and should it be for D|S2 or D|S3?

(edit: I forgot to mention, I will be getting Morphing Clothes by Dimension3d - will it also copy across the multi-stage JCMs?)

tlc:  If I were you I would go for the bundle, it's the best deal.  And if you still can get the setup tools for D/S 2 get those, the upgrade for the setup tools to D/S 3 is free. I know the setup tools for version 2 work very well. And they do indeed ease the work load. I started in the Poser setup room but as soon as I got the Daz setup tools and found out all they could do I haven't gone back. I also primarily use Poser but for rigging and all other figure setup processes I use the Daz tools.

Hi, pjz99, svdl, Penguinisto. Really happy to see you here. :biggrin:  I really like all three of these people, they're tops in my book. Penguinisto, I was getting worried about you, have not seen nor heard from you in sooo long, I know you have been busy with your new job. Glad to have you back.

cheers,
Mike.

The point I tried to make earlier was that, I'm 99% sure that anyone who now purchases the D|S Figure Setup Tools will receive both D|S2 and D|S3 versions. Additionally, they are currently on sale through July 15th in conjunction with the launch of D|S3, so anyone sitting on the fence, now may be the time.

Now, I did leave the 1% caveat, but if someone were to make the purchase and find that I'm mistaken, DAZ3D has always been very easy to work with in getting refunds to people who are unhappy with their purchase within 30 days, so there's little risk.

BTW, I do wholeheartedly agree the the bundle is the best way to go. I have absolutely NO Poser rigging experience, and I've been playing with them recently with surprising ease. I still don't know all the ins and outs for a completely rigged figure setup that works well in Poser and Carrara, but I'm certain I'll get it figured out. (I think it'll be easier than learning how to UV map the thing)

@phantom: I'm still breathing just fine :) Recession or no, working in a renewable energy company is pretty cool - we're still growing like crazy.

I may not be worth much for time, but at least I can get up a decent set of poses to get things rolling (the skeleton and basic joints are pretty much set, yes? ) . I'll start working on something this week :) 

futzing around... no poser installed on the laptop, and didn't mess w/ shaders/textures yet :) 

(gah! I forgot how %#$*! retarded the r'osity forum and gallery software actually is... fuggit - I'll just post a link.)

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1903610

BTW - are the toes supposed to be kinked off-kilter by a few degrees? (Note toes on upper foot... I'm using DS 3.0 if that helps)

nope, toes should look more normal than Vicky's...  grab the DS mats from my file locker

Antonia has really NICE toes ;o).

Laurie

Hi Penguinisto! Glad to have you on board.

That's a nice pose. Eventually, we'll get a complete workout program together. :biggrin:

I'm not sure what happened with the toes there. Did you apply any twists? I remember there was a small problem with the rig that made the toe twist all wanky, but I can't recall if I fixed it before or after the version in my locker.

I'll just leave this for now, but remind me to do a thorough check of all her digits before we go into beta land.

And yes, except from possible last minute repairs like that, her skeleton and joint setup will stay as they are, so you can pose away. Just don't use the groin actor for anything, as it will very likely be removed.

So the toe/feet rigging is staying the despite the top cap breaking?  If so I can try to rig her shoes..

Yeah I see what is going on with the feet as well, it appears to me that there is some Translate value going on in that pose (whether it came from joint rotation of what I've no idea).

Quote - So the toe/feet rigging is staying the despite the top cap breaking?  If so I can try to rig her shoes..

Oops! Sorry, no, not the feet. I forgot about that bit.

I think you don't even have the current skeleton for the feet. I'll post a new cr2 shortly with my latest JCMs (which are still not finished, but getting closer). You should be able to use that for rigging the shoes, although it'll probably have no JCMs for the toes yet, so you might need to add those at a later stage.

kayo...  I've not rigged any cothing before and I have no idea how to do jcm's.  =)

To make a long story short: 
1 - Check the figure one joint at a time, for each direction of bend one at a time, and find a place where the joint doesn't deform the way you want it to
2 - create a morph target that repairs it, whether with magnets/D-former or morph brush or whatever (not very many options for "whatever")
3 - zero the skeleton again (or don't, if you're using DAZ|Studio's rigging tools)
4 - implement these instructions however you are able to get them done repeatably

As you might imagine, for humanoid figures, this can add up to quite a lot of joint fix morphs and consequently a lot of work.

I don't know anything about conforming clothes, either. I think I need to make a blank cr2 with the ERC rigging for the JCMs included but without the actual deltas. Then, supposedly, you group your clothes, apply that cr2, remove unnecessary actors and transfer the JCMs via Morphing Clothes. Except of course if there's skirts and such. I hear skirts are the devil.

Hopefully, pjz99 can educate me further.

PS: Hey, post crossing. :biggrin:

For the blank CR2 (donor bones figure): leave the channels in, but take any deltas out, they'll be useless with different geometry (as you've already realized).

Skirts are pretty much impossible to rig the same way as the figure, as there is simply no way to group the polygons below the hip such that you will a) get remotely realistic deformation and b) have the same bone structure as the legs.  A given bone can deform its own polygon group, or its parent; so, if you have bones for hip -> thigh -> shin, then in order for the shin bones in the skirt to do anything, they cannot be children of the thigh; or you have to come up with a polygon grouping for the skirt where the hip goes to the floor (will look very wrong when the shin is bent).  You're welcome to look at some of the skirt rigs I've published in my freebies, particularly the dark sorceress dress; all bones below the hip are children of the hip.  This does not and cannot follow the character's leg movements but it's at least flexible enough to get some amusing movements out of the skirts.

k.. I'll be using the studio rigging tools.. I had the basic ones, finally invested in the advanced bundle last week so I can do easy pose stuff easier and the better morph loader thingy if it works with 3.0.. but I have 2.3 still installed so I can grab the 2.0 verison of that too.

@odf - as you found out, nope... everything was done from scratch, one joint at a time :) My missus was watching a yoga thing (Namaste? I forget) on TV when the idea struck me to mess with something in that direction, just to see how it would look. (Heck, the last pose set I did was for, err, r'otica... I put 'em together to help Diane out a bit during the site rebuild, before we could find her someone to help her with the servers full-time. Now, if you really want me to give the joints a serious run-through test... >:) )

No worries offhand on the toes, though... I see what you were shooting for, and yeah, they look way better once you get 'em centered (just that in close-up it looks kinked-out along the y-axis, like it was translated). Tried loading a fresh figure, same deal. "Restoring" the element (CTRL+E in D|S) swore that that was where it was supposed to be.

Otherwise, seriously, the joints and the mesh's reaction to movement kicks 98 shades of well, you know :)

--

FWIW, rigging clothing manually is more art than science... a blank cr2 will be worth its weight in platinum (with gold slathered on top, naturally). 

PJ speaks wise ab't the skirts, too. They're evil, and before dynamics, it was easier to just paint the $@#! things. :)

Nota Bene: I remember (again, the r'otica thing - sue me) having an idea about making an invisible hip (or a fake intermediary hip, with the real hip consisting of a single small invisible pair of vertices) in skirts and pants, so that they could slide up and down somewhat realistically (tweak a pair of conformed pants sometime by dragging the hip up and down along its y-axis with IK on the pants but not the underlying figure... and watch what the pant cuffs do :) ). Never had the time to really dig into that and do anything fun with it.

--

@Fisty - will give yer MAT files a shot and see how they hold up :) Want me to hunt for flaws, or...? 

Fisty, I'll go and check the morph loader again for version 3.0. It occurred to me that maybe it just didn't know how to deal with the geometries and scripts I had exported from 2.3.

It took me a while to figure out the work flow for making JCMs using MorphLoaderPro, so expect to fiddle around a bit (and watch the videos if you haven't already). But once you understand the basics, it's really easy. Also, with the property editor, ERC setup is much less painful than it used to be. For the basic theory, you might still want to read Nerd's tutorial that pjz99 linked to, though.

pjz99: I was hoping to use you as my guinea pig for conforming clothes support, if you don't mind. Of course, I still have a lot of work to do on those JCMs before that can happen.

Quote - nope, toes should look more normal than Vicky's...  grab the DS mats from my file locker

Oh - looked, and no joy.

Edit/addendum - the toe caps are off by (roughly eyeballed) -0.58 y-axis (D|S std. units).

one gallery upload a day!? bleh.

'kay... just wanted to chime in with the fact that this figure has the absolute best damned arm movements and mesh deformations thereof that I have ever seen. You know that position where you swing one arm behind you with the hand kinked up to lean against a tabletop? Damn... it was a breeze to set up that arm (shoulder to fingertips) and make the forearm kink back just a little in an elbow-lock position... and make the whole thing look damned real doing it. Dunno who's doing the joints and morphs thereof, but send 'em my regards (and maybe a big, wet sloppy kiss while you're at it).

Quote - [Oh - looked, and no joy.

well crap.. I'm sorry about that!  Got set to private for some reason..  should be able to grab it now..
http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&userid=408411

and yeah, tell me if you find anything wrong with the matfiles... if you find something wrong with the texture maps tell blueecho.  =)

Ah - now I see, sez the blind guy :)

Thx muchly, ma'am!

That's a phantom rig Pengi,  :biggrin: Thanks for the kiss.  I had some probs with the rigg but I think odf has fixed the toes all up in the next version.

Quote - pjz99: I was hoping to use you as my guinea pig for conforming clothes support, if you don't mind. Of course, I still have a lot of work to do on those JCMs before that can happen.

Yeah I'm looking forward to that, just whenever you get to the point where you have the basic rig nailed down, I guess you will be working on the JCMs for some time still.  I can help you out putting together (or rather, cutting apart) a "blank" CR2 also.

Uh, Phantom3D the same offer extends to you, since you moved most of your work over to the new site it's a bit off my radar now so I hadn't thought about that.

odf it occurs to me to warn you of this - there is a bug that occurs for me in Poser 7 with the DAZ Gen 3 (V3/M3 etc) rig when rigging skirts, where after adding 5 or so bones as children of the hip to control the skirt, one or more bones will stop deforming the skirt.  This problem doesn't occur with the V4 rig.  I don't know what causes it and I don't have any advice for avoiding it - I spent a lot of time looking at both CR2s to try to pick out why this occurs and I couldn't find anything.  Just letting you know about this in advance.

Just popping in to check how things are going.
I've been very busy all week and not feeling good as well.
As a result my work has slowed wayyyy down.
Hopefully it will pick up again soon.

And tonight my daughter gave birth to a 7lb 5oz girl, my fourth grand daughter. :D

I'm in a reading-only state as well at the moment - and so got the chance to say my heartfelt congratulations... GRANDMA!! LOL Say hi to mommy and baby from me!! I wish you lot's joy with your little granddaughter!

Quote - Just popping in to check how things are going.
I've been very busy all week and not feeling good as well.
As a result my work has slowed wayyyy down.
Hopefully it will pick up again soon.

And tonight my daughter gave birth to a 7lb 5oz girl, my fourth grand daughter. :D

Hey, CONGRATULATIONS! :thumbupboth:

gratz~!

Quote - And tonight my daughter gave birth to a 7lb 5oz girl, my fourth grand daughter. :D

WOW! Congrats!! I don't have any yet, but my kids are of an age where it could be any time...LOL.

Take time for the new little bundle of joy ;o).

Laurie

Congrats from me, too.

Congrats BluEcho:)

A new life and their new potential must be celebrated.  Congratulations on a new grandchild.

I pray she might  live healthy, Love grandly, stand proud, imagine widely, give deeply and see with clear vision. May she grow tall as the trees, run like the winds, become strong as the mountains and become calm as the seas. May love, peace and wisdom be her inheritance, and may she make her family proud. May the great spirit grant her wisdom.  As I sing up the sun this morning, may the great mystery grant your new new grand baby these things, not just for her and you, but for the whole of the human race..  May she stand on the earth and still touch the sky with her heart.
So I say on this morning, her first morning of the rest of her life.

Congrats or as we say: "Herzlichen Glückwunsch!"

Thank you all, I'm so proud even though I won't get to see her until tomorrow.

Joel, may I copy and show your wish to my daughter later?

Congrats and best wishes Blu.

Quote - A new life and their new potential must be celebrated.  Congratulations on a new grandchild.

I pray she might  live healthy, Love grandly, stand proud, imagine widely, give deeply and see with clear vision. May she grow tall as the trees, run like the winds, become strong as the mountains and become calm as the seas. May love, peace and wisdom be her inheritance, and may she make her family proud. May the great spirit grant her wisdom.  As I sing up the sun this morning, may the great mystery grant your new new grand baby these things, not just for her and you, but for the whole of the human race..  May she stand on the earth and still touch the sky with her heart.
So I say on this morning, her first morning of the rest of her life.

Sounds like a Native American blessing, a people for whom I have immense respect. Beautiful :o).

Laurie

Sure, Blu--knock yourself out. :laugh: The thought behind it is that words are carved into the heart. Symbols like word have the poser to influence the hearts of people which turn the earth. Children have the potential to create things unimaginable.  Give them to your daughter so she can give them to her daughter if she wishes.

One day she might save her corner of the world.

@ Laurie--My blood flows to the Muskegee people of the Creek nation, in Geogia, in SE America.

Thank you, Joel.

Quote - @ Laurie--My blood flows to the Muskegee people of the Creek nation, in Geogia, in SE America.

I had a small feeling ;o). Most people don't give Native American blessings unless they are a Native American.

Unless you're my husband who IS Native American but doesn't care to know anything about them. Astounding. I've been interested in the culture all my life (and I'm German/Italian...LOL). Go figure.

Anyway, I've got to get to work on those textures for Fisty's dress! I'm having trouble squeezing a few drops out of the day with all the projects I have going...LOL. And as long as I'm doing textures for the dress, I may as well do something with the shoes too ;o).

Laurie

I'm finally moving starting tomorrow.  I don't know how long it'll take, but I might be off-line for a day or two between now and Monday.

People are always interested in the different, or the alien. Sometimes the only way we can learn ourselves is by looking into the mirror of others.  A lot of mysticism and myths are attributed to Native Americans.  We are not more spiritual than any one else..  We do not have any more magic or mystic abilities than any other people.  We are just people. All peoples express themselves differently than other peoples.

I'm interested in the Japanese because they are different than the Western peoples.

Michael Jackson is interested in young boys.

Of course, he's a FREAK and most people aren't! :laugh:LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL