Hi everyone. About a week ago I posed a question about morphs here in the Poser forum, and I was unable to respond due to some personal issues. After a while I changed up my model, as time allowed and now I have a different issue I hope someone can help me figure out. The model is of a rocket pack with retractable wings. I made a morph so the wings can deploy or retract with the turn of an ERC dial. When I load the morph and turn the newly created dial, the wings go from an extended position to a retracted one as I was aiming for, but also the rocket (which I'd saved as a smart prop parented to Michael 4's back) suddenly flies up 20ft over the character's head. Turning the dial to extend the wings, the wings go in and the rocket re-positions itself on Michael's back. Any idea why the rocket shoots into the air when the morph is applied?

Steve

Honestly don't know but why don't you rig it as a figure, rather than use morphs? Hard surface models are dead easy to rig.

Sounds like you forgot to scale back to default before exporting your morph target. Import just the morph target obj into a scene and translate it into a position to compare with the prop. It's probably much larger.

Do you want me to show you how to set up your wings so they open and close without using a morph but rather using rotation dials and the joint editor, linked to a single dial? The problem with using a morph to create rotations is that morphs only move in a linear direction. No arcs. It's very easy to set up.

And I agree with SamTherapy, although you can just as well adjust the centers of the wings for the desired rotation, force limits, and set up a master dial easily enough too. In the end same result. There are certain advantages to having it as a figure though.

I already have a winged model set up for the demo. Unfortunately I'm not going to create the demo unless you respond in some time less than a week. I'm in the midst of finalizing a new freebie. Here's an illustration of why you shouldn't use a morph for rotations...

Notice how when the wings unfold that the scale of the wings goes all wonky in the midst of the morph from a closed state to a final open state? While this isn't much of an issue for stills, for animations not the optimal solution...

:D

Hi, and thanks for the response. Eldritch, I'll try the import here in a little bit and check the size. And the wings don't rotate. They tuck into the body or frame of the rocket pack, and extend outward along what was the x-axis as I built it (to make it easier for me as I modeled it, the polygons that make up the right and left wing segments overlapped inside the frame, but the user wouldn't notice that.... I had an earlier version in which I utilized the same technique and it worked fine). But you said there are advantages to having it as a figure... what might they be? One disadvantage (I think) is that if the rocket is a figure, I don't believe I can parent a figure to another figure (Michael 4). And the thing isn't an article of clothing, so I wouldn't make it as a conforming figure (I've never been able to correctly make any conforming clothing before anyway, despite several attempts).

You can apply poses to a figure without fuss. But seeing as this prop will be parented to a figure, not of concern. Poses can easily be applied to props that are parented to a figure.

I see. The wings come straight out. Morphs should be fine for that. I'm actually glad, I'm having problems with my computer's fan (it's still under warranty though) so I'm avoiding anything but preview renders until I send it in to get serviced... sigh.

You can parent a figure to another without incident. People commonly do such with hair meant for other figures.

As far as your morph problem goes it's hard to tell what the cause might be but it sounds like scaling. You stated that it's a smart prop though, so that introduces another layer of uncertainty. Probably best to make sure everything works as intended before saving as a smart prop.

As far as making a conformer goes, it's not really that difficult. It's been a while though.

I would get a stripped out version of the target cr2 (commonly known as a blank or dev cr2) which has had all morphs, IK, and Materials stripped out. I'd take a copy of that into the set up room and delete all the bones except for the neck, chest, collars, abdomen, and hip. Resave this version as rocket pack M4 cr2, open in a text editor and point the cr2 at your rocket pack obj. Make sure that the Obj has a chest group. That's really about it... although it's been several years since I last made a conformer so I may be forgetting some things. It's the kind of thing that is easier in execution and problem solving than spontaneously describing really...

Hi Eldritch, well we can rule out the scaling issue I think... I did as you suggested, and I imported both of my rockets (wings extended and wings retracted) in their native .obj format, and both are the exact same size. And last night I checked out something you addressed here; I imported the .obj, saved it as an unparented prop, then imported the morph target I'd created, and the exact same thing happens... when turning the dial to extend the wings, the entire rocket shoots up into the air. Retracting them brings it back to it's starting position. So, it's also not an issue with it being a parented prop.... it happens whether it's parented or not. It's been a long time since I tried making a conforming figure of any kind, and the process as you've outlined it here seems a bit daunting... I'm sure I'm overthinking it, though

Hm. So your prop obj and morph target obj are the same scale and position, exactly the same, when you have them together in a scene. When you apply that morph target to the prop, the prop translates Y. This happens while both parented and unparented.

Is the prop scaled at all? Not the morph target but the in scene prop? If so there's a discrepancy between the morph target default scale and the expected in scene prop scale. The in scene prop should be default 100 scale when dialing the morph target. That's the only explanation I can come up with... if it's not that I'm stumped.

Your prop is haunted? :)

...You're not fitting the prop to the figure via a morph?

Nope, but I figured it out. Well, that is to say, I corrected the problem. I can't truly saying I figured it out, because I don't know what the issue was. But here's what I did differently.... When I first imported the .obj, all I did was hit the "save to library" button in my props library, gave it a new name and then deleted the .obj. I then loaded my new prop, loaded the morph target and had the problem. This time, I followed the same set of steps, except... after importing the initial .obj, I used the grouping tool and highlighted everything on the rocket, and saved that as a prop.

So, using the grouping tool was the key. Why? I'm not sure, because I've made props before with and without the grouping tool. So now, it's on to mapping

Very strange. So when you opened the object in the grouping tool it wasn't all red initially and one group?

No, it sure wasn't. There have been times before when creating a prop when that was the case, and it makes everything a much easier process. But other times - like today - it wasn't, and I had to go and bit by bit highlight everything. I even went "inside" the model and highlighted any hidden geometries, just to make sure I had the exact number of vertices. It's a pain, but in this case it worked

Do you use UVMapper or do you create your groups via material assignment in Wings3d?

I use UV Mapper pro to make the map, after I assign material zones in Wings 3D