RobynsVeil opened this issue on Feb 28, 2012 · 218 posts
Diogenes posted Mon, 05 March 2012 at 10:34 AM
These are the conditions Daz 3D gave us to work with.
***"Having discussed this internally, the view is that as long as the new ***
***weight map can be separately shipped without needing to include any ***
***proprietary DAZ data (models, weight maps, material definitions, etc.), ***
***then it's fine - note that this would preclude converting a DAZ figure ***
***to weight-mapping and then tweaking those weights. The distribution ***
method proposed here http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forum...ead_id=2836045
looks as if it should work."
***The figure Victoria 4 is in whole owned by Daz 3D. That includes not only the mesh but also the rig (cr2) the morphs and the materials as well as the shape of the figure. ALL of those are proprietary and copyrighted.
Many people may not know that but yes all of that is proprietary. Regardless of what Daz 3D may have ALLOWED others to do in the past with shipping morphs or clothing and so on, the conditions above are what we had to work with. And the point here is that Daz 3D has only allowed others to ship things like morphs or clothing that uses the original joints, they do not have to allow it.
There are no complaints in this from Poser Place or myself. To be honest I am surprised they said yes in any form. But they did say yes and they did not have to. So for that I am gratefull that I was allowed to work with the figure. Arguing the legalities or protecting a site really is secondary to abiding by the wish of the owner and creator of the figure. I am sure I could argue legal points and try to worm my way around some of the restrictions but I did not want to do that. I would rather follow their guidelines as set out.
There were many things I would have liked to do that would have improved the figure. Such as changing the proportions and shape as well as recutting the mesh into groups that better fit weight mapping. I was not able to do so because such things could not be shipped as part of the project.
That said, there were still many things that could be done with the figure and still follow the stated wish of the creator. I made a new rig from scratch and weight mapped the largest part of the figure while still maintaining the most use of morphs and secondary figures available for the V4 figure.
Is she perfect? No she is a long way from perfect, but much improved in an out of the box state and now without all the extra magnets and JCM morphs which made her so cumbersome.
There is room for many things to be added. Things that we could not ship. JCMs are still a valuable addition even to a weight mapped figure. Perhaps some muscle and tendon morphs that will work like JCMs would also be an improvement. If these type of things will be allowed as additions to the figure, I dont know, you would have to ask Daz 3D it is their figure. I do know they were something we could not include with V4 WM under the charter we were given.
Some things, like the bent straw effect on an elbow, will be present when dealing with any mesh in varying degrees depending on the mesh itself. This is simply because mesh no matter how much we want it to does not behave like human flesh. Weight mapping can do many things but not all. With a morph you can use all directions to move the vertice. Weight mapping will only move the vertice in the direction of the bend or reversed with a bulge map if desired.
In combination the two will work very well together. With my own figures I use both the weight mapping and JCM morphs. The same with older style P6 rigging nothing new. There are even ways to practically eliminate texture streatch. Many ideas and methods of bulding figure improvements. Getting those into use in the mainstream is a different story, it seems almost immpossible to do. I dont care about nor want to argue the reasons for that.
Well we did the best we could with V4 given that people wanted it right now and not later. There are always the folk who come along to these threads to tear down anything you build or those who wish to build a name for themselves at others expense. Seems to be the nature of things.
So in closing, take it or leave it. But the effort of building V4 WM was offered in the spirit of building something for all of us in the community.
Cheers,
Mike.