unrealblue opened this issue on Feb 08, 2021 ยท 13 posts
Ken1171_Designs posted Mon, 08 February 2021 at 7:58 AM
One thing I can tell you about exporting meshes from Poser is - don't do it. Poser does not support unimesh internally. This is the same with 3DSMAX and Maya, where none support unimesh geometry. In all these applications, the moment we import a grouped mesh with rigging, the mesh is automatically split into multiple separate meshes, and once this happens, you will never get the original mesh back. If you are exporting the figure just to use as a base for morphs, use the original OBJ from the Geometries folder instead. If you export from Poser, the mesh will be split into separate group geometries, having a different vertex winding order and count. The number of faces is still the same, but all vertexes shared between body groups will be duplicated. You cannot use this "broken" exported geometry for anything. Even if you weld it back together into 1 piece, that alone will change the vertex winding order and invalidate all your morphs.
Another thing is that the concept of "donors" is different between figures using legacy rigging or the newer ones with weight maps. With modern weight mapped figures, I would rather call this as "clones" if you want to use then solely for morph projections. A "clone" is a version of the figure shape that is more proper for morph projections. This concept is built-in into DAZ Studio, but in Poser we have to do it manually.
I absolutely agree with you on how poorly Poser projects morphs from figure to clothing. I have a ticket on this with Rendo, to improve projections and reduce distortions. The same applies to weight map projections, because these also introduce too much distortion (comparing to competing software). I spend more time cleaning up the distortions on morphs and weight maps than anything else in the conforming pipeline. However, modeling has always been quick comparing to rigging. No surprises there. It has always been like that, and Poser is no exception.
As for how Poser projects morphs and weight maps, I have no idea, since we cannot see the source code. But we know it's bad and it can improve, because nearly all competition does it better. Like I said, I have an open ticket on this, and it will be fixed over time. We just have to be patient.
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