I don't know yet exactly what the mechanism of the problem is, possibly to do with evaluating the morph before evaluating the JP's, or vice versa. But the cause seems plain, morph channels added at the bottom of the stack, in stead of at the top.

This would seem to have serious consequences for the current Antonia-114, who at the moment relies exclusively on PMD to inject morphs. It would seem to me a high priority to find some alternative to PMD injections.

In the attached image, the figure on the left has morphs spawned directly from magnets in Poser. The figure on the right has the same morphs injected via a PMD injection pz2. This is P6, don't know if later versions have the same problem.

lesbentley: Thanks for testing this. I had the same suspicion. It's a bummer that PMD injection seems to cause that kind of problem, but at least now we know.

By the way, as far as Antonia is concerned, I've always thought of PMD injection as a temporary solution during the development stage. It was pretty clear to me that at some point we'd have be able to support traditional delta injection.

Quote - > Quote - If anyone's interested, I can package all that stuff together in a jar file that you should be able to run by double-clicking if you have a correctly installed, relatively recent Java (at least on Windows; on a Mac you might also need to sacrifice half your lunch to your favorite pagan deity). I might even provide a quick-and-dirty GUI if you ask really nicely. :laugh:

Hello odf,

even if I am not part of the current Antonia development team I'd be really interested in such a package, especially the low/ high-rez exchange of morphs.
Will it only be usable for the Antonia or can it also be used for other meshes, like conforming clothes?

Well, the low/high-res exchange only works if the high-res mesh was derived from the low-res one by Catmull-Clark subdivision. That's what most modeler use for subdividing meshes, so it might not be a big restriction. But on the other hand, if the high-res morph came first and low-res one made by some form of mesh reduction algorithm, then my morph transfer code will definitely not work. In that case, you might try something like Dimension3D's MorphingClothes.

Quote -
I am pretty sure I know what went wrong with apollyonpt's morph from the previous page. Even though he did not say so, I bet this is a PMD injection of a new channel. I'm sure it is the same issue I flagged in "PMD/JCM problem". When a PMD injection creates a new channel, that channel is added at the end of the channel stack, and that can create a problem when the morphed area falls on a bend zone.

I don't know yet exactly what the mechanism of the problem is, possibly to do with evaluating the morph before evaluating the JP's, or vice versa. But the cause seems plain, morph channels added at the bottom of the stack, in stead of at the top.

This would seem to have serious consequences for the current Antonia-114, who at the moment relies exclusively on PMD to inject morphs. It would seem to me a high priority to find some alternative to PMD injections.

In the attached image, the figure on the left has morphs spawned directly from magnets in Poser. The figure on the right has the same morphs injected via a PMD injection pz2. This is P6, don't know if later versions have the same problem.

yes i think that was it, i morphed it with the morphing tool from poser

Would someone do me a huge favor and load Antonia and run the Print FigAndActorInfo script and tell me what you see? It's telling me that "Left Thigh Actor" not found. Hmmm...

Laurie

There is nothing named "Left Thigh" in  Antonia, however there is a "LeftThigh" (no space), "LeftThigh" is the display name of "actor lThigh:1".

[edit]
Running the script does indeed generate the message ""Left Thigh Actor" not found". Why it does this is beyond me.

Quote - There is nothing named "Left Thigh" in  Antonia, however there is a "LeftThigh" (no space), "LeftThigh" is the display name of "actor lThigh:1".

[edit]
Running the script does indeed generate the message "Left Thigh Actor" not found. Why it does this is beyond me.

K, was just curious. Odd that it does it for just the Left Thigh.

Laurie

Quote - Odd that it does it for just the Left Thigh.

Very odd! There is no "Right Thigh" either, but that does not generate a message.

[edit]

I just now opened the py script. There is a line in there:

actorsToScrutinize = ['Left Thigh']

Quote - I just now opened the py script. There is a line in there:

actorsToScrutinize = ['Left Thigh']

Ok...lol. scratches head

Laurie

Quote -
I just now opened the py script. There is a line in there:

actorsToScrutinize = ['Left Thigh']

This is a leftover from the Aztec version or a futur addition to the Betelgeuze version ;-)

@odf,

What is the purpose of the "toe caps"on Antonia's feet?

So you can make 2nd skin stockings. Put a nylon shader on it and you can see through it. The rest of the leg would just have a combined nylon/skin shader.

See this thread:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2719482

The stocking+legskin shader works fine until you get to the toes. Then the toes look like a nylon glove instead of a stocking.

The 2nd skin approach otherwise is superior to clothing, as it automatically takes all morphs and joint bending into account perfectly.

I was going to make shaders for it.

But, he's thinking of removing it.

Ah thanks. I suspected as much,  but was wondering if it had some other purpose.

Uploaded to Expression Morphs section of the developers site, "JawSlave-LB.zip". A file to make the lower jaw open as the JGL "Mouth Open" or "Mouth Yell" morphs are applied. If you make a mouth morph that requires the lower jaw to xRotate, you can edit the "JawSlave-LB.pz2" so that the jaw moves as your morph is applied. Here is how. in General Preferences set Poser to use "Poser native units" . Apply your morph at a value of 1.0 to the standard Antonia-114 (without JawSlave-LB loaded). xRotate the jaw until it suits your morph, note down the value on the dial.

Open the JawSlave-LB.pz2 in a text editor. Find the line that says:

"# Add new slaving directly under this line."

and add this code under that line:

            valueOpDeltaAdd
                Figure
                head
                DialNameOfYourMorph
            deltaAddDelta 15.500000

Replace "DialNameOfYourMorph" with the name that appears on the dial of your morph. Replace the value in the 'deltaAddDelta' line with the value you noted down earlier. Save the file.

@ odf,

Please don't remove the toe caps, they sound very useful. Just set them 'off' by default, or set the material to transparent.

Whoah, thank you, Les!
I've been reading some of the ERC/JCM/PMD stuff as time allows and I was hoping to find out how to do such a thing. You make it sound so easy. ;-)
Thanks again for the morph and the info!

Best regards,
   Michael

(Click for full size)

Since that isn't the case, a mask texture is required to control the 2nd skin. I don't do drawing of any kind, so I gave up.

Quote -
Here's a little stocking+skin+toecap anti-demo - by that I mean that it demonstrates they don't work the way I'd hoped they would. ;-)

That looks... really good there BB. No, really.... good. ;-)

Problem is, the toe cap mesh is really close to the foot polys, in some places it looks like the polys might be right on top of the foot polys, causing poke through and artifacts.

I guess the whole "second skin" idea has come a long way since the early days, what with masking now a possibility. Used to be you simply made a new texture for that sort of thing.
Can Poser read the alpha channel in a psd file?

No - that's a material room boo boo, IMO.

Quote - Here's a little stocking+skin+toecap anti-demo - by that I mean that it demonstrates they don't work the way I'd hoped they would. ;-)

(Click for full size)

Hi,
the right foot seems to be a mesh hickup, the left foot looks good. I'm sure the artifacts can be fixed. (And those would exist for conforming stockings as well, even worse, all along the leg!)

The main issue seems to me, that a seamless-for-the eye transition between the skin+stocking shader to the two separate shaders "stocking only" for the toecap and "skin only" for the feet must be created. 

Best regards,
  Michael

Best regards,
   Michael

Quote - Hi,
a render with lipstick, before I go to bed.

Best regards,
   Michael

 

Whoa that's great! Is that with Poser 8 and IDL? Looks very real. Such presence.

I think it's Carrara, Bagginsbill.

Michael, I think the skin looks awesome. The lips are really good, but not quite as realistic as the skin, IMO.

And with that, I'm outta here for the night.
Later all.

Good looking eyeball render, but I really don't understand why the iris geometry is shaped like a dish.

isn't it supposed to be slightly dished, in real eyes I mean

Dished or concave? I'm talking about how the rim is a steep slope and forms a sharp edge with the sclera. Like the shape of a dish. Only the edge is turned up sharply on a dish, even if the rest of it is somewhat concave.

Go look in the mirror. Do you see a sharp specular highlight around the rim of your iris, because of a dish shape? I dont'.

Ahh I see what you mean now

Quote - Good looking eyeball render, but I really don't understand why the iris geometry is shaped like a dish.

I don't understand that either, and think the it should be changed.  if you Google "eye anatomy" most images depict the iris as a fairly even convex curve.

Also the eyeball bulges out at the front. This may be true to life, but a real eyelid can easily deform to accommodate this as the eye rotates. In Poser the morphs to mimic this could be quite hard to make, and I suspect that a spherical eye might be better (with perhaps a very slight bulge of the cornea) .

Having said what I did in my last post, about spherical eyes, I actually went and checked. I don't think that is a problem, and Antonia's eyes seem to look quite good when rotated, but I still think the dished iris is a problem.

Guys, let me know which iris or cornea shapes you'd prefer. It's very easy to change this, and if necessary, we could have have a variety of shapes via morphs to accommodate different types of eye shaders. I don't have much time now, but I can explain to you in detail why I made the shape the way it is.

Because I work with two different resolutions for the mesh, it will be quite tricky to get rid of that sharp edge, though, no matter what the shape. Question: is it really necessary to use a specular on the iris? If only diffuse were used we wouldn't have that problematic highlight there.

Edit: By the way, if at any time someone comes up with better eyes, it should be very easy to drop them in via geometry switching (lesbentley, correct me if I'm wrong).

Michael314: Love that lipstick render. Beautiful work!

bagginsbill: I have to admit defeat regarding the UVs. I just couldn't manage to get them the way you wanted without breaking other things. One needs the right tools and - since existing UV tools are sparse and mostly crappy - a lot of patience. I meant to write some software myself to help with the creation of UV with more strict side-conditions like that, but I lack the time. If someone paid me a wage for a year or two I could write you a UV tool that would blow your mind. Alas, I don't think anyone will ever do that.

At any rate, I made a mask for that and I posted it here at some point. I'll find it when I get home and upload it again.

As for the mesh problem you showed: is that the latest version of Antonia (should be Antonia-114)? I changed the grouping in the foot specifically because of problems like that.

By the way, I've decided to keep the toe caps. Getting rid of them now would be just as much of a headache as keeping them and dealing with the welding issues. I might decide to hide them within the heel by default and provide a morph that puts them back over the toes, but I haven't tested that idea yet.

Laurie

Thanks, and we already had this discussion several pages ago:
www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

I don't think that's going to link to the correct page though, since for me that's page 172...

Les had asked about real eye anatomy and I replied by posting this picture above and then adding this link:
images.google.com/images
Then in my next post I said,

Quote -
Actually, going by the above image it looks like the iris should be a little more convex towards the outer edges, but concave towards the center.

And the subject just kinda died there. ;-)

It was that which made me curious, so I tried the render experiment. I actually modeled a lens and put it behind the pupil, to see if I could use it to make more realistic refraction and absorption, using LW's dielectric node, since polygons have no real thickness like a cornea, iris and lens would. A pupil is just a hole, but the reason it looks dark is because the retina absorbs all light. I wanted to try to simulate that effect with refraction, and the pupil in my render is mostly transparent.

LaurieA: frigging fantastic job! Thank you so much for those morphs. I'm sure either lesbentley or myself will be able to hook up the eyeball positions correctly.

Quote -
Go look in the mirror. Do you see a sharp specular highlight around the rim of your iris, because of a dish shape? I dont'.

That's not a sharp specular highlight, that's an artifact from the subpatching in LW distorting the UVs. I didn't feel like fixing it because it was just a refraction test.

**@ odf,**The concave iris still seems a bit strange to me, and I think it's a pity about it being "tricky to get rid of that sharp edge", but I guess you are right about the specular thing, it probably won't be noticeable with specular turned off.

I made a pz2 to slave xrot (Open) of the lower jaw to the JGL "Mouth Open" and "Mouth Yell" morphs. I decided to update it to accommodate a Side-Side morph of the lower head. With the "Mouth Open" morph set to 0.5, the lower jaw needs to be rotated to about 8° to match. With things set thus, I found that yRotating the jaw caused it to skew badly. The 'orientation' of jaw the 'origin' is set to -41.1816 0 0. In order to get a good yRotate of the jaw, I found that I had to reset the orientation to -2.0 0 0 with the pose file. It seems to me that this is about the best setting for the orientation, and that you might consider this setting for the next release of Antonia. On the other hand, I may have missed some vital point as to why the orientation needs to remain at -41.1816 0 0.

I will wait to hear your opinion on this matter before uploading the pz2.

I shouldn't have used the word specular in connection to the iris rim. Just that it caught the light funny in that render.

I wasn't using 114 - I went to the dev site. Maybe that wasn't the place to look or maybe the comments threw me off. I saw the description "The latest Antonia base ..." on Antonia-Preview20090414. Guess that isn't the latest, heheh. You should edit those descriptions.

So where is 114?

Now that you mention the leg mask, I think I remember that I tried to use it, but it produces pixellated patterns - not enough resolution. Can't remember for sure, and I don't know where that mask is anymore. It was right around that time that I got pulled in to write the Poser 8 Library GUI and I pretty much stopped doing any "fun" Poser work.

@ LaurieA,

Quote - The only thing I need to somehow figure out is how to make the eyeballs follow the close/apart, in/out, up/down eye morphs.

Laurie, if you like, I can take a look at your morphs tomorrow and see if I can rig that stuff for you. It may take me a while to get it all working though.

Quote -
I shouldn't have used the word specular in connection to the iris rim. Just that it caught the light funny in that render.

It's all good. ;-)

Well what happens is if you sub-d a model with UVs, in Lightwave at least, it will often create UV distortion. In the case of the eye, it pulled the texture back from the edges, for lack of a better way to describe it. But I needed a smoother mesh, in order to pull the cornea out smoothly. It's actually shaped more realistically, but you can't tell because it's transparent. It made a difference with the refractions though, as one would expect.
The lighting, BTW, is two area lights with Monte Carlo radiosity, and from a background HDRI ( a light probe image of a kitchen interior), in case you were interested.

But when using subpatch objects in LW with UVs, you really should UV it as subpatches, as opposed to polygon UVs. Other apps handle it better, but Lightwave's subdivision surface wasn't really designed to be used on imported polygon OBJs. They have Catmull Clark now too, but I don't think they quite got it right.

I was thinking to write a program to generate an eye. I don't draw and I don't model - I program.

I like doing procedurally generated geometry and procedurally generated UV coordinates. It means I can change a few parameters and alter the density, polygon arrangement, etc without having to move a bunch of vertices by hand or with tools I don't understand. Of course, this technique is totally useless for something as irregular as a human. But the eye is basically a few curves revolved around a center line.

I prefer using refraction on the cornea rather than transparency, because when viewed from the side, a transparent surface does not "lift" the iris into view with transparency. But Poser deems a refractive surface to be a shadow caster. That's a problem. An eye that was actually made in two parts would allow me to disable shadows on the cornea. Which is why I was thinking of generating eyes procedurally, as I could not in a million years make the edges line up perfectly smooth between cornea and sclera.

Quote -
I prefer using refraction on the cornea rather than transparency, because when viewed from the side, a transparent surface does not "lift" the iris into view with transparency.

Well, in reality the cornea obviously is transparent, so it seems logical to make it transparent.
But I know what you mean. I think. You also have reflection to deal with too, not to mention fresnel.

The rest of what you said just went over my head. I model and draw, I don't program. ;-)

This is the problem with a "transparent" cornea. You can't see the iris. But on a real human, you can "see" the iris even directly from the side like this. No reflections here, to avoid any visual confusion.

Observe how you can see the iris and pupil now.

I have an IBL and an infinite light. The infinite is being shadowed and is not striking anything under the cornea!!! Only the IBL is lighting things under the cornea. That's why I want to turn shadows off on the cornea, but I can't!