Hi lesbentley,

As you know from the current version of the Beach Volleyball Bottom has 5 JCMs on each side just for kicking; 3 JCMs on each side for spreading.  The question I asked is related to that.  I wonder if I need 15 JCMs on each side just for the "2-ways JCM"!  It is way too many!  Or I just need 5 or even less?

For the new version, I modified the mesh already, I hope I can cut down the number of JCM but still produce the same quality.  I'm working on the spread (zrot) now.  Just one JCM is not fine!

Yes, propagatingScale seems to avoid the problem (I was mistaken about that before).

Quote - It may be possible to compute a combination of x-, y- and z- scale values for the thumb that would make it scale consistently with the hand.

That possibility also crossed my mind, though I haven't plucked up the courage to dive in and try it as yet.

Attached above is ERC injection I have so far, in case it is any use to you as a basis for modification. Of course it is meant  to be used with the smoothScale channels removed from the hands and fingers.

I found that when applying xScale to the hand, changing the slaving code in Thumb1 to the following, made an improvement.

        scaleX xScale
            {
            valueOpDeltaAdd
                Figure
                lHand
                xScale
            deltaAddDelta 0.75000000
            valueOpDeltaAdd
                Figure
                BODY
                One
            deltaAddDelta -0.75000000
            }

Hi amy_aimei,

Quote - As you know from the current version of the Beach Volleyball Bottom has 5 JCMs on each side just for kicking; 3 JCMs on each side for spreading.  The question I asked is related to that.  I wonder if I need 15 JCMs on each side just for the "2-ways JCM"!  It is way too many!  Or I just need 5 or even less?

When I made my (not very good) JCMs for the kick + spread, to the best of my memory I think I just made one JCM for each leg, that was on top of the JMCs you had already put in there. I don't know if there is any theoretical minimum number you should have. I'm no expert on making JMC morphs. Personally I would hope to get away with no more than two morphs for each movement, one for the positive movement, and one for the negative movement. So, kick, spread, kick+spread, times that by two, that's 6. If you need morphs for twist as well, that's another two, equals 8 per leg. That's what I would aim for, but hope and reality are not the same thing. I guess it takes as many as it takes to get the job done. For the 2-ways kick+spread I think you should be able to get away with one morph for each leg, but I may be wrong.

Did I send you the cr2 I made with the 2-ways kick+spread JCMs? I can't remember now, it seems so long ago.

Les, I think I've found the problem with the smooth scaling. As it turns out, the channels were all messed up. There was a smoothScaleZ channel on the hand with otherActor = thumb1 and a smoothScaleY on thumb1 with otherActor = hand. Both should have been smoothScaleX. After I fixed it in the CR2, scaling the hand produced almost usable results. So I think a little bit of tweaking, and we may finally have hands for Antonia that scale properly.

Why the heck did I not figure that out earlier? facepalm

Follow-up on the last post: okay, I've tried that "little bit of tweaking", and it's still looking like a major pain in the butt. I think it's mostly the way the thumb and pinky are attached to the hand that Poser can't really deal with that well. At least the results make some kind of sense now, unlike before when it was more like "what the heck is Poser now???"

Quote -
Did I send you the cr2 I made with the 2-ways kick+spread JCMs? I can't remember now, it seems so long ago.

Yes, you did.  Right! That's long time ago.  It took me about few hours to make a good JCM.  And I put few hours into 3D in a week.  Now, you understand why I'm so concern about how many JCM I need to make.

With you descriptions, I think the 2-ways JCM is independent from the JCM that made for the 2 rotation directions it covers.

Yes my JCMs were new independent morphs, not based on your morphs, but used in conjunction with your morphs to make slight adjustments to the shape when the thigh was both kicking and spreading. The new morphs were made to suit Antonia's "LegUp" pose, which has a 90° kick and 45° spread. This seemed like a good point to aim for, as I think a high kick is rarely associated with a spread of more than 45°. Your kick morphs can't quite cope with a 90° kick without some poke-through, and your spread morphs can't quite cope with a 45° spread. If they could, perhaps you would not even need an extra 2-way morph. Your original question was about how to produce such a 2-way morph, so that's what I answered. As to whether you actually need a 2-way morph, I don't know.

With Antonia in the LegUp pose, and your morphs active, I just used magnets to tweak the shape in that pose until the poke-through was eliminated. Then I zeroed the figure before spawning the new morph from the magnets. I would have had great difficulty in producing the morphs for the Beach Bottom from scratch, I'm not very good at producing complicated (for me) morphs like that. Fortunately your morphs were already doing most of the work. My new morph only needed to make small adjustments to the shape your morphs were already producing.

I might add that, as you can see from the image, my morph pulls the bottom of the panties down to compensate for where they are disappearing into the buttock in your morph. It also pulls the bottom of the hip strap up and in, to make a better fit where the thigh meets the hip.

I got round this ages ago by making the .obj into a dynamic prop.

CHEERS!

Quote - Follow-up on the last post: okay, I've tried that "little bit of tweaking", and it's still looking like a major pain in the butt. I think it's mostly the way the thumb and pinky are attached to the hand that Poser can't really deal with that well. At least the results make some kind of sense now, unlike before when it was more like "what the heck is Poser now???"

Well at least we have options now, ERC, or tweaking the rigging. Unfortunately it seems like neither of the options are producing the type of results we would like to see, yet. The ERC seems to work perfectly for the overall scale, and I have got it working to what I consider an acceptable degree with xScale (hand/finger length), but I'm still in a state of despair over zScale and ySacle. I did try adding some translation of Thumb1 into the mix, and it looked promising for a while, but seemed to come to nothing in the end.

It's interesting to turn Bend Body Parts off (Display menu), when the fingers are being scaled via ERC. The fingers stay close to where they should be, but the thumb breaks apart badly, see image above.

Ouch!

CHEERS!

Quote - I got round this ages ago by making the .obj into a dynamic prop.

   If I had to do a cloth sim every time I moved a figure, I would not have time to eat, sleep, or go the the pub!  

Don.t get me wrong, dynamic clothing can produce some spectacular results, but it's nice to have conforming clothing as well.

That's so true, but it gave me something to use while the others were being sorted out.

CHEERS!

No, we did not forget about you all. Blame it to the first of May and more cat-babies (now we have six of them) LOL But now we are sober again and I catched up with what happened so far. We will replace the mirrored Antonia with the recent version in some hours and I will let you know when she's ready again.

About the online store: We have a small one for our "outdated" products that where pulled from the Renderosity marketplace and so far we had no problems with charge backs.
Our refund policy is pretty much the same as the one here at Renderosity:
http://www.german-3d.com/market/refund_policy.htm

But for brandnew products I would recommend the marketplace here, the audience you will reach is far, far larger.
If you, on the other hand, plan to release very small add-on's, worth let's say up to five Dollar a private little store can make sense - and you will hardly have to deal with fraudulent purchases as your products are simply not expensive enough.

Done! Leo has uploaded the recent Antonia to the Freestuff-site (under Base-Figures) and changed the link that held the mirror to point directly to the Freestuff site. This way it's easier to prevent things like having an outdating mirror.

Leo just asked of a "test area" on the freestuff site is useful where things like the eyelid-correction or the hand-finger scale can be uploaded (and deleted as soon as they are part of a new version)?

Quote - Leo just asked of a "test area" on the freestuff site is useful where things like the eyelid-correction or the hand-finger scale can be uploaded (and deleted as soon as they are part of a new version)?

Basically that sounds like a very good idea. One thing I think you might have to watch out for though. I think a "test area" could become clogged up with junk that people have uploaded then forgotten to delete, eating up space that could be used more productively. Perhaps the area should have  a warning "Items older than 3 [or 2, or 6, what ever] months may be deleted without warning". Then you could have a periodic clean up, without it coming as an unexpected shock to those who posted stuff there.

Good idea, Les!! I'll pass it to Leo as soon as he comes in with his macaroni with olive-tomate sauce As said we are a bit exhausted as our second cat gave birth to a band of five and it all happened so quickly that we had to care for cutting the cord and such  - now we both need a good portion of carbohydrates :laugh: .

by the way: I am about to finish the first makeup. With the combination of the new blink-morph, sazzyazzca's liner and a mask for the shadow that Leo painted in C4D I have finally something nice that doesn't stretch more than on any other figure. A render will follow as soon as I found the right amount of gloss for the lipstick.

SaintFox, that looks really good! 

A Walk Cycle for Antonia?

I noticed that there were a pair of shoes for Antonia on the Antonia's Free Stuff site. It got me thinking (not for the first time) that one thing Antonia is lacking is a Walk Cycle. I remember trying to make a walk cycle for one version of the Victoria, without any success. I'm wondering if I am masochistic enough to try it again with Antonia. If anyone has any insights into the arcane world of walk cycles, and the best way to create them, please speak up.

There is a tutorial or was one for making walk cycles for other figures at DAZ. I've made a few but don't have much time for a few days.

Thanks for the heads up Tashar59. I'll see if I can find the tutorial at DAZ.

SaintFox, your makeup is really good, so realistic!  I like "Amethyste" the most.

Quote - Thanks for the heads up Tashar59. I'll see if I can find the tutorial at DAZ.

It was written using the Girl. I can't remember who but had Girl products. So if you look up the original girl and find walk cyles, you will know who to look up for the tutorial.

It was Cliff Bowman, I remember but I can't seem to get the DAZ search to work to find the tutorial. kind of would like to read it again myself as a refresher.

Very lovely SaintFox! :D

Tashar59,

I found the Walk Cycle tutorial!

Thanks.

Great work SF can't wait till it's up.

CHEERS!

Okay, I am glad about the feedback, in fact I need it as I would (athough I like to wear MakeUp) never paint my face in such a colorful way. So everything beside taupe, gray, sand and maybe a dull violet or anthrazite can not be found in my little box with eyeshadows. With V4 I am used to create such flashy makeups but Antonia is different because she looks more natural.

I will see what I have in some hours and then need some more time to write matposes for both versions (vss and classic) and for the lips only (and I plan to give people a choice if they want real gloss or just some shine).

@sazzyazzca: As I already said: The eyeliner is a big help for me, somehow my attempts did not look so soft and natural!

And here is the complete set in it's VSS-version with glossy lips. Additional mats with lipstick only (glossy and silky matt)  and the whole collection for the "Classic" material system are the next to-do's. If tomorrow will be as calm as I hope for I should be able to post the set before the weekend.

Those look great, SaintFox. I've hardly ever used make-up in a render, but with such nice options, I definitely will in the future.

*I've hardly ever used make-up in a render, but with such nice options, I definitely will in the future.

That's the reason why I've added some pretty subtle styles (the last three in the preview)* as these will go together well with everyday-clothes and nude renders*.* But as soon as Antonia has a glamorous wardrobe she may need the more flashy looks as well*.* I was amazed how Antonia's attitude can be changed with just a bit lipstick and powder - like a real woman she can be a vamp, a business lady or a young girl*.* You've created a very believable 3d-being!*

Very nice makeup SaintFox

Quote - You've created a very believable 3d-being!*

Thanks! That was the plan.

Gorgeous!

Thanks for the flowers! Once I found the right shapes for everything it was pure fun. As I saw that most of the renders of Antonia with the Toni Polygon-texture use the face with the asymetric eyebrows I've created everything with this set. I hope that you all understand that I am not very fond of the idea to do all sets with the other eyebrows and the browless version as well. But if someone very badly wants to have for instance a browless version it is not too hard to combine the basic browless face texture with this makeup in a grafic application. Just be sure to not compress the textures any more. I use a quality of 10 in Photoshop for all the textures - unfortunatly ImageReady/"Save for Web" refuses to save 4000x4000 textures and doesn't care for me wanting more control over the compression...

They are superb!!

great looking job on the makeup  :)

I'm done, just uploaded the MakeUps to the Freestuff-site
http://antonia.bluecho4u3d.com/start.htm

You can find it under Character-Texture-Sets. In fact this does not make much sense as the file contains nothing but textures. But when I uploaded the Basic set (Toni Polygon) I dropped it there and this way people will not have to browse the complete site to find both sets.

Thank you sooooo much! :D

Super, thanks.

just checking in.
too tired for comments but will catch up soon. :)

Oh and: Yes, I am aware that she is floating on some images

Float all ya want to.SaintFox

What softwares do you use to make the texures , maps n stuff ?

Perfectly formed!

CHEERS!

SF, that is a stunning set of morphs!

That looks good SaintFox, not just the morphs, the poses are very nice too, interesting hair, and a very nice render. Yes, please upload the morphs to the freebie site. I wouldn't mind having some of those poses too, if they are something you can distribute.