I am modeling a dress that is going to have a  zipper in the back. I want to have a morph for it to go up and down, but I don't know how. Is there a tutorial or can someone explain how to do this?

would be very difficult, most of them probably aren't modelled in two or more parts. if you cut the mesh to make them 'zipable' then you change the vertice count and it won't work.

Quote - would be very difficult, most of them probably aren't modelled in two or more parts. if you cut the mesh to make them 'zipable' then you change the vertice count and it won't work.

Morphography managed it some how and so has Nerd3D just to name 2.

OK those meshes were modeled with the split in it so that a morph could be made to 'unzip' it or to 'zip' it.

If the split isn't there it would require to create the split and then create the morph and make it conforming all over again. Would probably be easier to model it from scratch. LOL

Quote - OK those meshes were modeled with the split in it so that a morph could be made to 'unzip' it or to 'zip' it.

 

If the split isn't there it would require to create the split and then create the morph and make it conforming all over again. Would probably be easier to model it from scratch. LOL

90% of my model is done, the only part that is not done yet is the back where the zipper is. I have a zipper I created and the teeth are easy to add I just want to know how it can be done. I am thinking possible going with geometry swiching, but would rather go with something like a morph.

Quote - > Quote - would be very difficult, most of them probably aren't modelled in two or more parts. if you cut the mesh to make them 'zipable' then you change the vertice count and it won't work.

Morphography managed it some how and so has Nerd3D just to name 2.

As your building the dress, you'll need to split the mesh appropriately before rigging so that the vertex count is stable by the time you get to making the morphs.

morph should be easy then if you already have it modeled.

Have you done morphs before? They are pretty simple, really. Especially if you own the rights to the model.

The way I would do it would be to model the zipper area open, then morph it closed. You would probably have to begin at the bottom and create several morphs controlled by one dial so that it would zip up.

Yes I have done morphs before, but not for clothing like this.

The way I would do it I believe, would be to create a number of morphs begining at the bottom of the zipper and close one tooth of the zipper with each, then parent them to a master dial.

The boots are a free download, download them and see how they do it.

Quote - The way I would do it I believe, would be to create a number of morphs begining at the bottom of the zipper and close one tooth of the zipper with each, then parent them to a master dial.

The boots are a free download, download them and see how they do it.

I am looking at the obj files and looking at at the cr2s. to see how it is done.

the cr2 is where you will find your answer. look at the dial for the zipper and see what it is named, then look in the cr2 for the morph. There will probably be several morphs mastered to that dial. how they get them to work in a non linear manner would be what would interest me.

Doing one morph for fully open is easiest (giving you the choice of either open or closed), next easiest is to do a small number of morphs for various amounts of unzipped.

Trickiest is to do a set of progessive morphs (from fully zipped to unzipped) using limits  and appropriate added deltas that are driven off a single master dial with ERC.

I believe the latter is what he was looking for though.

The posts above explain it pretty well. To summarise from my point of view:

A single morph won't work as you know, because of course the path of the zipper has to follow the curve of the leg (in my case) or the back (in yours).

I decided to simplify the opening to five discrete stages: fully closed, and quarter, half, three-quarters and fully open. I modelled each stage in the cloth room by constraining more vertices each time. The actual moving part of the zipper wasn't involved at this stage - I placed it in the appropriate position by hand afterwards. It took some jiggery to keep the different stages morph compatible with each other.

However the big decision was to use geometry switching rather than trying to link a lot of limited-travel morphs to one ERC dial, on the basis that it made things a whole lot simpler. Because each of the unzipping stages has the same number of vertices, in the same order (this is not a requirement for geometry switching), styling and fit morphs that I made will apply equally to all stages of unzipping.

Notice also that each boot consists of only one group: lFoot or rFoot. A dress could be more challenging, depending on whether the zip needs to travel across a group boundary or not. Linking geometry dials using ERC is technically possible, I believe, but the idea is making my mind boggle somewhat.

Edit:

Just to address a point from earlier in the thread: I didn't bother modelling teeth for the zipper. It's just a flat plane with an appropriate texture map applied. For anything other than extreme close-up, it looks fine.

thanks bob for the detailed explanation.

Here is what I am seeing so far, if try to use straight geometries to create morphs I see error target geometry has wrong number of vertices.

does anyone know of tutorial for geometry switching?

don't try to weld those vertices when zipping them up. you'll end up with a different number of them. don't know if that is what your doing but it is the first thing that comes to mind.

No I am just moving a group (the zipper pull) and moving some vertices

got no idea then. unless your using the wrong options when you save out.

I have an another question on geometry switching, I have 3 objects created, Base clothing, Morph1 zipper mid way down, and morph 2 Zipper half way.

Do I need to with the morphs to create groups for them and export the groups seperately or do I need to even group them?

Whether it's for morphs or for geometry switching (I'm not clear which it is from your post), you'll need a morph target or alternate geometry for each group in the base figure that is going to change.

okay here is what i have 3 obj files the base which I have already grouped and have created a cr2. I have two object files that will be used for alternate geometry. Do I need to regroup alternate geometry files ? And if so do I need to split the group in to seperate obj files?

For the sake of illustration, say the path of the zipper crosses the chest and abdomen parts of the dress. You'll need [n] alternate geometries containing just the abdomen group, and another [n] containing just the chest group, where n is the number of unzipping stages: 2 in your case.

So the total geometry list would be something like this (names made up by me, of course):

Dress.obj (grouped in the normal way for conforming clothing)

abdomen_unzip_1.obj (contains only abdomen group)

abdomen_unzip_2.obj (ditto)

chest_unzip_1.obj (contains only chest group)

chest_unzip_2.obj (ditto)

Because you're going to slave the abdomen and chest geometry dials together, the only group boundaries you need to be particularly careful about are abdomen-hip, chest-rCollar and chest-lCollar, assuming the usual DAZ grouping. These boundaries need to be identical to the base mesh on all alternate geometries.

Before you go much further, I'd advise you make up additional versions of the dress using the geometries from the two stages of unzipping. These won't be part of the final product, as such, but it will enable you to see how well they conform. You see, the thing is that your alternate geometries have to use the same rigging as the base model (as far as I know), and this might limit how well the unzipped versions are going to conform. I.e. you may not be able to pose the figure as freely in an unzipped dress as you would in the zipped-up one. It's best to be aware of the limitations before you put in too much more work, I think.

I hope that all made some sort of sense.