I haven't received the script, so I can't test :(

hi spanki,
so sorry, the test are done in two waves. at the moment its mainly retesting of the parts that proved not working good enough in the initial release. and there we things reported still; I have yet to decide if I should enable them or not. guess I will though.
you will receive the edition that has the wave1 issues fixed.
best regars,
cc

In the pic the one on the left is without any JCM morph, the one on the right has the JCM loaded. The morphs load smoothly and look like they should. JCM for the X rotation on the thigh.

In the Pic the JCM for the X rotation of the thigh.  On the left no JCM, on the right with the JCM loaded.  Excellent tool :)

Next I'm working on the shoulders, an area that I usually have to stack many small morphs on top of eachother.

Looks very interesting.
It looks like it may do for Poser what Figure Setup Tools did for DAZ Studio. I love Figure Setup Tools for DS. Huge time saver for content making.

Hi Connie :)

Yes the script works very well for reverse deformation morphs. You still have to set up the erc etc. But I think that is a feature that could be added later with another script. Or by hand.

Yes, it cannot do that, there is no API that would allow it.
For Poser8 I do not know, I just recently bought it, hoping for the hierarchy editor to allow set up of the ERC.
To give an update, we had a problem with shading errors on body part seams, this is now hopefully fixed and about to be re-tested. If its finally ok, then I will do a final review/regression test, write a better manual and submit it to rendo and pray ;).

Small Update: Its looking good currently. Friday I will put the manual online.
Then search for a few count of people for a point of no return test.

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raNM0UvR_Bo

Are we there yet ?

Are we there....yet ?

;-)

Noooooooooooo :lol:

Anyway, i want that script soooooooooooooooooo much :biggrin:

Cheers

Wish I could provide it already, dang >_<.
;)
Making process with the manual, hopefully I can put it on my homepage tomorrow as a sneak preview.

Is maybe someone here that uses Hexagon for making morphs? One of the testers cannot get the morphloader to work, appearently. Hexagon seems to either be losing vertex order and/or polygon group information, does someone know why? ;)

There's a bug in Hexagon 2.2 which messes up the vertex order when you make morphs.  There's a free upgrade to 2.5 which cures it

I use hexagon 2.5  for making morphs, but I always use UV-mapperPro  and kawecki's morpher script to make sure the vertex-order is correct to reload the morph back into poser.
I  still don't understand how to make proper JCM-morphs in a extern modeller without using a  pose.

This script sounds very promising. Can't wait to use it.

Best regards,

Bopper.

If you can also use the morph-brush in Poser 8 or 2010. Not as good as a modeller but some good results.If this tool is similar to DAZ's tool,you export the posed bodyparts as obj tweek the joints and use the reimported obj as a morph target by using this reverse deformation loader.

I have both Hexagon 2.1, 2.5 on my machine.
For the way I work on morph, I prefer 2.1 over 2.5.
It's much smoother.

It was also said that the body parts fall apart when taken into hexagon. If making morphs in this program is so hard then I think about adding a warning/limitation that warns hexagon is no fun, even with the program.

Quote - It was also said that the body parts fall apart when taken into hexagon. If making morphs in this program is so hard then I think about adding a warning/limitation that warns hexagon is no fun, even with the program.

The same is true for Wings, ZBrush and Blender, if one does not take precautions. Unfortunately, each 3d program seems to have its own way of interpreting groups, object and materials in .obj files. I have no first-hand experience in Hexagon, but from what I've read so far, it does not seem any worse than other programs people routinely use to make morphs for Poser.

True. They all have pros and cons.

I have never had a problem with Hexagon.
You export body part you want to morph as .obj with no world transformation.
Hexagon will import it correctly, and after you make morph target, export it fine.
If you want to work on several body parts at the same time, you need a separate program to do that.

Anyway, I have no issue with Hexagon.

Yes, but that is the point. One would want to work on the whole body, to easily make a full body morph no?

Yes, you are right on that one.
And your script seems to be very useful for that purpose.
Odf points out that the Zbrush has similar issues, but I don't have any experience with that program,
so I can't say anything one way or the other.

I use a different program to group body parts together, and then work in Hexagon.
Then you can work on the .obj seamlessly.
You can group the whole body too, if you want.
After the work is done, I use the same program to separate the .obj back into original parts.
It's a quick process.
But I love to try your script.
I'm sure many people are waiting for this to be released, like right now!

Attached Link: http://poserpros.daz3d.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=52585

It's relatively easy to do full body morphs, you need to do some pre- and post-work on the OBJ (see linked thread at PoserPros), and use a script (there are several around for older versions of Poser that can't do this natively) or plugin (for D|S) to load the morph.

Yes, I am doing all I can >_<.
That hexagon thing is a bit a pity. I wonder why it is actually treating the body parts as individual objects. Maybe it does help to remove the group commands out of an exported .OBJ file with a text editor? Then it should logically be one single group.

I have put up the manual of PoseMorphLoader as far as it is done. So in case one is interested, there is a look to see what it its like.
http://cgscripts.colorcurvature.com/PoseMorphLoader_Manual.pdf

I still want to include the required export/import settings for the most popular deformers, and also a list of known figures that work that do not work. I think there was only one of the DAZ3 figures that did not work out of the box, have to go through the emails.

Since I use Silo, which also imports groups as separate objects I've come up with a fairly simple work-around. I export the figure to be morphed as an object then load it into UVMapper pro (I assume the free version would also work). I export the UVs of the object. Then I select all and assign them to ONE group. I export the object under a new name. I load the new object into silo and make the changes I want, then export the file. I load the modified object into UVMapper pro and import the UVs I saved earlier which returns the groups to the object so it can be saved as a new object that can be used as the full-body morph.

I've had pretty good success with this method.

Oh and another "trick" is to use Objaction Scaler3c to Enlarge the object(s) to be worked on by about a factor of 10 (make a note so you can later reduce the object(s) to their original size) before working on them this lest to work better in most 3D programs which use soft select.

Oh and P.S. I'm also barely containing myself waiting for this to be released!!

Thanks for the link!
It looks very promising and I can't wait.

Well, it would be great if you can find some ways to import .objs  into Hex as a whole, so many more people would be able to get the great benefit out of your excellent script.

Using the separate program to deal with this issue in Hexagon is a set routine for me now.

Keep up your great work, and I'm looking forward to see this product  in the market place very soon!!

Ah, it was GG3.1, the only one that makes a problem because it has has invisible unresetable morphs. So the big question remains, what to do about hexagon.
I remember there is no trial version I could download, right?

Oh, I thought there was, no?

I just checked DAZ, and no trial version. Sorry.

They hid it well:

http://www.daz3d.com/i/support/downloads?product=hexagon&_m=d

That's cool.

Wings3D likes to load the groups as separate objects, as well, but one can prevent that by explicitly defining an object at the start of the .obj file, that is, by just adding a line that says something like 'o body'. I don't know if the same trick would work in Hexagon, but it might be worth a try.

bookmark

 This looks too cool to be true!!    I want it!!

Quote - Wings3D likes to load the groups as separate objects, as well, but one can prevent that by explicitly defining an object at the start of the .obj file, that is, by just adding a line that says something like 'o body'. I don't know if the same trick would work in Hexagon, but it might be worth a try.

Just to expand on this a bit... "o xxxxx" is an "object" record in a .obj file and is separate from a "g xxxxxx" - "group" record.

Group records tell the program groups/selections/sets of related polygons, whereas Object records are typically used to deliniate both sets of points/vertices as well as polygons.

Based on the fact that both exist, it makes sense to me that any "object" within a .obj file can have multiple "groups" defined as part of that object (and in fact, they are laid out that way, hierarchically within the file).  Unfortunately, many 3D apps make no distinction between Objects and Groups - they will just split either/both into multiple separate meshes.

With the above in mind, it sounds like what odf is saying is that if there IS an Object record in the .obj file, Wings (at least) starts making that distinction and leaves all the Groups in the same Object.  I have no idea if Hexagon does this though.

As for Cinema 4D, the default (built-in) .obj file - in addition to re-ordering the vertices - Import will split any Groups or Objects into separate meshes.  The default Export loses all Group information entirely.  Because of these (and many other) issues, I wrote my Riptide (and later Riptide Pro) plugins for Cinema 4D. 

That's very informative  and interesting, Spanki.
Unfortunely, Hexagon does not do this.
Or at the very least, I'm not aware of it.

Not to go too much off topic by concentrating on just one modeling application, here's what I think is a pretty common kind of workflow for making multi-actor morphs for Poser:

1. export an .obj file from Poser (or use the original .obj file wherever that's feasible)
2. remove all grouping information (e.g. via UVMapper)
3. import into application of choice, sculpt, and export
   3) restore vertex ordering if necessary (e.g. via kawecki's Morpher)
   4) restore grouping information (e.g. via UVMapper)
   5) feed the result into some application or plugin that computes the deltas and creates the morphs for each actor (e.g. colorcurvature's new morph loader that this thread is about)

I'm assuming that most of us will only have experience with one or two modelers, and optimized our workflows for those. But maybe it would be useful to identify one that works pretty much independently of the modeler (if such a beast exists) and that colorcurvature could then use as a reference, concentrate on in testing and recommend to novices who are planning to use his tool.

Just my $0.02.

That sounds like a good plan for those not-so-Poser-friendly apps, odf.  My personal experiance is mostly with Cinema 4D + my Riptide Pro plugin... in which case, all vertex-ordering and grouping and material zone assignment is maintained, so (just for C4D users,)you simply Export from Poser, Import into C4D, make your adjustments and re-Export.  In fact, my plugin even preserves UVMapper's "Region" selections (just another means of categorizing polygon selections.. I typically use them to specify uv-mapped islands (sets of polygons that wil be using the same texture file)).

Very many steps for making a morph :/.
I can finally have a look at hexagon later this day.
I guess one could remove all grouping information from the file with one call to SED.
Its amazing how those tools that cost hundrets of dollars are not  capable to do this out of the box.
:/

There are obviously shortcuts, depending on the modeling tool. If you're willing to go through all the commonly used tools and figure out the best workflow for each, more power to you. In principle, I think, one could even include steps 3 through 5 in a morph loader and write a special export plugin for Poser that omits any grouping information (or maybe, it's enough to tell Poser not to generate any group names on export). That would solve the problem once and for all (or so I hope).

I have written a Scala program that takes two .obj files and creates an output file with all the grouping and the vertex ordering of the first, but the vertex positions from the second. Of course, the mesh topologies must match for that to happen. I actually managed to make this work even if the mesh topologies differ a little (because accidents sometimes happen somewhere in the workflow), but that slows the whole process down quite a bit. So porting it to Python and integrating it as a Poser script while keeping it at a practical speed might be a bit of a challenge, but it could be tried.

But that sounds more like a project for the future, I guess. :laugh:

PS: Yes, people fluent in Unix command line tools could just use sed to get rid of the grouping.

I am about done.

A fresh version of the manual is now available at
http://cgscripts.colorcurvature.com/PoseMorphLoader_Manual.pdf

If there is anyone here that is using hexagon and could help me with a test, please drop me a mail. That would be superb. Other ones are also welcome ;)

I have reached a point of no return. Its now either good enough for a release or is dead. I have been trying to find a recipe for optimal morph deltas for smooth shading at the body part welds, but this is something that exceeds my small talent. Each morph delta affects the normals not only on the local vertex, but also on the verts nearby, making it extremly hard to solve problem.
But I think its mostly very good results coming out.

It will take a few more time to offer it for sale here, because of legal issues in my country. They make it not easy to sell things. And also not cheap. If it wont sell, I'll be on a big loss, hehe :(

Well a lot to learn. Could you please ,or anyone else who is familliar with this tool , post a tutorial when it is released ?  thank you

Yes, I will put some deformer-specific tuts on the homepage.
Its basicall easy. Export, Deform, Import.
Mostly, the import/export settings in the deformer have to be set correctly.

 Any estimates on the release date...?

Yes, when

• Hexagon is also working without day-long workarounds. We did not make the final beta work with Hexagon. It is stealing vertices.

(A) If we export from Poser with [x] include body part names, hexagon imports this as a set of split objects which is unwanted.
(B) If we export from Poser with [ ]include body part names and [x]weld, then the figure stays as a whole, but on saving, hexagon removes some of the vertices and adds a DEFAULT group, my main theory is that they are unused in the polygons because of [x] weld.

To the hexagon experts:
What happens if you import an export like (A) into hex with "merge groups" activated. If you export it from hexa, are the original groups still available or are they lost? Is there no way in Hexa to either strictly preserve the groups or the verts?

It would be really good if we could find proper import/export settings for Hexa. Its difficult for me to programmatically dodge the behaviour of programs I do not understand or own.

Quote -
(B) If we export from Poser with [ ]include body part names and [x]weld, then the figure stays as a whole, but on saving, hexagon removes some of the vertices and adds a DEFAULT group, my main theory is that they are unused in the polygons because of [x] weld.

The welded mesh would have fewer vertices than the unwelded one. Does your program require one to work on the unwelded mesh? That would be quite limiting. Or does Hexagon also remove vertices that weren't originally welded?

I don't have Hexagon, but now I'm wondering how I would fare with my usual Wings3D workflow. The settings you mention under (B) are exactly what I'm using. Since I'm currently working on the final (hopefully, sigh!) JCMs for Antonia, I wouldn't mind giving your program a spin, if you're interested.

Urg. Wings3d :( Another thing in the game. Is it a free tool?

To clarify: PoseMorphLoader works on welded geometry.

To explain it a bit more what we tried and failed at:
 - PoseMorphLoader requires the group information to find out which vertex in the .OBJ belongs to which body part.

• Hexagon cannot deal with the group information, at least in the default import settings.
• So we exported a second file from Poser without group information, that can be edited in Hexa.
• The idea was to use the vertex information from the deformed .OBJ, and the group information from the first exported file including the groups.
• When you export something welded from Poser, then you have the same number of vertices in the .OBJ then if you would export unwelded. And I think, in consequence some of the verts of a welded export are unused. When we saved in Hexagon, these unused vertices were not saved in the .OBJ
• This means the vertex count changed, and the "cross-transplant" of the group information did not work any more.

I really search for hexagon import/export options that change nothing but the vertex positions.

Oomph! I'm afraid you would very likely have similar problems with Wings3D, as well. If Poser exports vertices that are not used in polygons, I'm almost certain Wings will ignore them and not include them in the export. Also, Wings has no concept of groups at all. If there are groups in the obj file but no objects, it treats the groups as objects. If there are objects, it ignores the groups. The usual trick is to convert groups to materials before importing into Wings and back to groups after exporting. Or one can use UVMapper to save and remove the original grouping information and add it back before importing the morphed mesh into Poser.

Yes, Wings is free and open source (but written in Erlang, which I am not familiar with).

If you manage to keep the groups alive (to material, from material trick), then this is sufficient.
Maybe can be applied to hexagon as well?
How is this done?
Texteditor sufficient?

Basically, I think you would need to change every g at the beginning of a line into an m and remove all the lines that originally started with an m (if Poser produces any of those). Then on the way back you'd change the m's back into g's. I can easily do that in emacs (or use sed), but I'm not sure if the average user would know how to do it in a text editor. UVMapper might be a better solution if user action is required.

I have a pair of Python scripts for the conversion from back when I was working on Antonia's base mesh because I needed to preserve the materials and smoothing zones as well and also do left-right adjustment of mirrored groups.

Yes, this indeed could be the solution. We succeeded with replace operations in the text editor =).
I will try to add a helper to the posemorphloader so that it works (almost) out-of-the-box for hexagon/wings3d as well.