Forgot to say .... I also like the way she moves

This here might be something I might consider releasing ! a medusa tail and probably a sushi Tail that goes into the same genere or design.

Still Prototype ( Concept )  There would also be a head-dress and a collar chest armor. For the sushi not sure weather a Shark tail style or a feather style ! 

I asked about the JCMs, and Hivewire has responded. Apparently that's how it's intended to work.

"Yes zero figure turns off the JCMs and all morphs. Restore figure will leave the JCMs on."

I don't get it. Maybe it's the DS way of doing things or something, but I don't understand the benefits of doing it that way in Poser.

Hmm. Looks like I have to build in a master dial that forces this one to 1 at dial value 0.

randym77 posted at 12:43 AM Sun, 29 September 2024 - #4489845

I asked about the JCMs, and Hivewire has responded. Apparently that's how it's intended to work.

"Yes zero figure turns off the JCMs and all morphs. Restore figure will leave the JCMs on."

I don't get it. Maybe it's the DS way of doing things or something, but I don't understand the benefits of doing it that way in Poser.

Zeroing a figure has always been a dumb thing to do in Poser as well as Studio, when you zero the figure you also zero the rigging, which means the figure now has a high chance of suffering gimbal lock, restoring puts the figure back into it's memorized state which will avoid gimbal lock.

She sure looks good, but...

Victoria 3

Victoria 4

Dawn

Project Evolution

La Femme

La Femme 2

....

I'm not sure if I want to an can afford to equip yet another female poser figure :-/

Is there something that really makes her stand out compared to the others?

She sure looks good, but...

Victoria 3

Victoria 4

Dawn

Project Evolution

La Femme

La Femme 2

....

I'm not sure if I want to an can afford to equip yet another female poser figure :-/

Is there something that really makes her stand out compared to the others?

What makes her stand apart from the other figures you mention is that she is available for both Poser and DS and thus, in theory, it would be easier to make supporting items for her that serve both worlds. Rigging systems may be different but a geometry facet is a geometry facet, a morph delta is a morph delta and a texture map is a texture map. The other differences between Poser and DS systems are mere  administration and should be open to automatic conversion. 

Somehow however this is not capitalised on in the communications so I am not sure about the value in practice.  

The face is plain for easy character morphing. The body looks realistic and is easy to play with. She takes Victoria poses quite well.

What makes her stand apart from the other figures you mention is that she is available for both Poser and DS and thus, in theory, it would be easier to make supporting items for her that serve both worlds. Rigging systems may be different but a geometry facet is a geometry facet, a morph delta is a morph delta and a texture map is a texture map. The other differences between Poser and DS systems are mere  administration and should be open to automatic conversion. 

Want a bet

In Poser a figure is a skeleton made from a collection of bones, the mesh is split into a collection of props, each prop parented to the appropriate bone (LThigh prop to LThigh bone, Head prop to Head bone etc), move a bone and the prop moves with it, joint parameters are really only there to smooth the area where the props meet. Now morph's need direct access to the mesh to work, so in Poser that means a FBM is actually a collection of PBM's and are located on the bone (targetGeom) with the ERC linking them to a valueParm in the BODY.

In DS4 a figure is a fully welded mesh and a skeleton made from a collection of bones, the root node of the skeleton is parented to the mesh, so move the mesh and the skeleton moves with it, move a bone and nothing happens to the mesh, that's what the WM's are for. Now because the mesh is basically the root node of a figure it means all morphs and pose controls have to be located there as well, so in DS4 every morph is an FBM wether it moves one vertex or every vertex.

That is what I refer to as the Genesis system and it's the only system DS4 has, so if it comes through an import plugin then it has to be converted to that system, and yes that includes Poser content.

I know from personal experience that getting a Poser only morph into the DS4 version of Dawn 1 was a lot of work, I have the knowledge and skills to do it, but a good 99% of the DS user base doesn't, especially if they don't have a copy of P9+.

In DS4 a figure is a fully welded mesh and a skeleton made from a collection of bones, the root node of the skeleton is parented to the mesh, so move the mesh and the skeleton moves with it, move a bone and nothing happens to the mesh, that's what the WM's are for. Now because the mesh is basically the root node of a figure it means all morphs and pose controls have to be located there as well, so in DS4 every morph is an FBM wether it moves one vertex or every vertex.

That is what I refer to as the Genesis system and it's the only system DS4 has, so if it comes through an import plugin then it has to be converted to that system, and yes that includes Poser content.

I know from personal experience that getting a Poser only morph into the DS4 version of Dawn 1 was a lot of work, I have the knowledge and skills to do it, but a good 99% of the DS user base doesn't, especially if they don't have a copy of P9+.

If so, then it's easy, no?  Export the morphed mesh in either app as an OBJ then apply/import it in the other.

Also, when creating custom morphs on an un-morphed figure, wouldn't you just import that OBJ into (say) Blender, sculpt it, then export the OBJ back out and import that?  Blender keeps the vert order so long as you don't change the vert count (split or weld).  

According to my testing, this seems to work because poser splits the same OBJ the same way every time.  If you bring in a poser ordered OBJ, it's already in the order poser needs so it works.  If you bring in a OBJ with original order, then it splits it the same way it did when creating the figure which produces the same poser order, so it works.

The difference is outside: sculpting a split mesh es no bueno.  It tears.

Anyway...

If you want to *further* morph a Poser morphed figure, you can export that OBJ and use a script (I have one) in Blender that applies the Poser vert ordered OBJ exported shape back onto an original vert ordered shape.  Takes about 1 second.  I can either make a new OBJ from that Poser exported mesh, or APPLY that shape as a shape key to an existing blender OBJ (imported original OBJ mesh).  Then export whatever shape keys (combined or otherwise) are applied to that mesh as an OBJ suitable to apply as a FBM.  I do it all the time.

Here's a sculpt I'm working on for Dawn 2, in Blender.  It's a shape key on the original Dawn 2 OBJ in a stack with a bunch of other "morphs".  I export that object in OBJ form with whatever morph(s) I want, and it just loads as a FBM.

The panel I wrote looks like this:

It takes 2 meshes (to calculate the mapping between the original vert order and Poser's vert order).  Then there's the 2 working meshes.  They are the morphed meshes.  One is poser vert order, the other is original vert order.  "Cast unimesh" applies the shape of a morphed original mesh to a poser ordered mesh.  (Not typically useful, but I needed it for something).  "Make unimesh"  applies the poser vert ordered mesh shape to a copy of the original mesh.  If the mesh is chosen, it either makes its shape the same as the Poser mesh OR adds a shape key with those vert positions (super convenient).  If the shape isn't chosen, it copies the original then applies the Poser vert positions to the correct verts (as determined from the map it calculates from the first two meshes).

Here is Dawn 2, with multiple shape keys (ie: "morphs") some of which are selected, all at a value of 1 (doesn't have to be, the value is also a slider 0-1).  When I sculpt, whichever shape key is selected is where the vert values being affected.  This helps me tune morphs so they work well together.  I can apply multiples, but select which ONE I'm modifying when I sculpt.

When I want that (or those) morphs in Poser as a single morph, I export the Blender Object in OBJ format, then I can load that as a FBM.

I'm thinking about putting two script together.  One in Poser, one In blender.  In poser, you'd select all the morphs you want to export and it exports each as an OBJ into a single directory.  In Blender, it imports those OBJs as Shape keys on a single Object.

Maybe two more parts: import that directory as a bunch of FBMs in poser, and export those shape keys as a bunch of OBJs from Blender.

Then I could bring a figure into Blender, with all the morphs I like, tweak/tune those morphs, maybe adding some.  And setup that figure with all those morphs, back in Poser.

At this point, it's just some scripting.  The essentials already work :)

Dawn 2.  Just the character and muscle morphs (made in Blender).  One click each, applied as FBM in Poser.  10 minutes to make those shorts and top.  roughed in blender, using the "fit brush" in poser, back in blender for quad remesh, solidifying edges, import into Poser, one click setup applied Dawn 2 as Donor rig.  one button copied character and muscle morphs.  In Poser I only had to use the smooth brush at the joints as the WM from Dawn 2 will not produce the correct movement for leg and arm openings.

No correction morphs.  And she's not bent to her limits (and she works best with limits.  They are really well setup.)

This is a v4 pose with only a few degrees of correction in the legs.  LF hair.  No corrections beyond Y and Z.

Single HDRI.  Ground as shadow catcher.  One button click (Ken's script) with a couple of checkboxes.  Superfly (ie: CyclesX) on MBP M3max (128GB RAM) 40GPU cores.  Took under 2 minutes, for 1200x1200px.

I have found Dawn 2 to be the easiest figure to work with (in Poser) and sculpt in Blender and Poser.  Her rig bends very well.  Probably the second best I've seen, but with waaaaay less complexity.  Which is what makes her so easy to work with.

I can't answer how easy for DS.  But if DS can import a shaped OBJ as a morph, then, when sculpting in Blender, it should be as easy as Poser, which is literally 2 clicks: export Object as OBJ from blender, load FBM from file in Poser.

@Bejaymac: true, but again that all is just a matter administration. On loading the figure mesh Poser duplicates vertices when the facets they define are members of different groups that have the names of body parts. That's all there is to it. The problems are:

1 This subdivision is not transparent to the user. The .obj that is generated with the. cr2 is exposed and may overwrite the original. That is bad. Had it been named differently, say have extension .pfg (PoserFigureGeometry) and preferably be in a binary format nobody would have known or cared. 

2 Poser does not keep record of the relationship between the original figure mesh vertex number and body part mesh vertex number, or if it does, this is not exposed or utilised: this is again a matter of administration.  Note that the Python method 'unimeshinfo()' yields a weled mesh and a with full mapping of the relationships that is stable on reload.    

3 Same holds for the fbm's. Poser simply exposes more than it should do, and yes this clutters the parameter list to an irritating level. Exposure of parameters, again, is just an administrative thing.  

@unrealblue:  Fully agreed there! 

@ Nevertrumper, do you see me mention other software or figures for other software, no I haven't, I was trying to explain the difference between a Poser figure and a DS4 figure for people that have no idea there is a difference. Trust me most of the community (both sides) have no clue, all they see is the shape and that they can dress them up.

So most have no idea of how big a headache it is to convert content made for the Poser version of a figure, into something the DS version can use.

They also have no idea that Poser content doesn't work as is in DS4, it all has to be redesigned by the importer into a basic version of Genesis, that is why I refer to it as the Genesis system. The problem is Poser content converts badly, they bend like a wet noodle, most morph ERC won't work especially if it's setup to avoid Cross Talk, V4's magnets don't work, and you can't INJect morphs. So extra coding was added to make it "appear" that it all still works the same, it doesn't, but as most users couldn't find their own backside with both hands, it does what is needed.

@ unrealblue, last time I had a character morph come with an OBJ was probably Posette. Dawn 1 didn't have INJection channels and I'm betting Dawn 2 doesn't either, DS needs channels in the Poser figure otherwise you can't use INJ/REM PZ2's, and PMDs only load when called from a CR2, so if a DS user doesn't have a copy of at least P9 then they have a headache getting an OBJ of the morph to use on the DS version of Dawn 2.

It can still be done, but you need to know your way around the inside of a CR2, as you will need to create a "loader" CR2, one that loads the figure, any PMD's as well as add in every valueParm and targetGeom channel the morph has. All that just to get the morph into the Poser version in DS, just so you can export an OBJ to use on the DS version.

Now I've lost count how many "loaders" I've made since my Poser 4 days, so I have the knowledge and skills to do that, there aren't many that can say the same, especially not on the DS side of the fence.

Oh and btw I also explained how to do this over on the old Hivewire site (before they got hacked) for Dawn 1.

@ unrealblue, last time I had a character morph come with an OBJ was probably Posette. Dawn 1 didn't have INJection channels and I'm betting Dawn 2 doesn't either, DS needs channels in the Poser figure otherwise you can't use INJ/REM PZ2's, and PMDs only load when called from a CR2, so if a DS user doesn't have a copy of at least P9 then they have a headache getting an OBJ of the morph to use on the DS version of Dawn 2.

It can still be done, but you need to know your way around the inside of a CR2, as you will need to create a "loader" CR2, one that loads the figure, any PMD's as well as add in every valueParm and targetGeom channel the morph has. All that just to get the morph into the Poser version in DS, just so you can export an OBJ to use on the DS version.

Now I've lost count how many "loaders" I've made since my Poser 4 days, so I have the knowledge and skills to do that, there aren't many that can say the same, especially not on the DS side of the fence.

Oh and btw I also explained how to do this over on the old Hivewire site (before they got hacked) for Dawn 1.

What's needed is:

- the original unimesh OBJ file.  This is referred to in the CR2.  It's in the geometries folder.  With few exceptions (none of the major figures) it is "unimesh".  That is, a single mesh with face groups named for the eventual actors.  But the mesh is not split; there are no co-located verts.

- a Poser (non welded) but zero'd OBJ export of the same figure.  This produces a Poser vert ordered OBJ, with the same face groups, *but* co-located verts (duplicated verts that are shared verts when Poser splits the mesh, effectively making a new one).

If you create a dict of verts (keyed on a tuple of xyz ) for each mesh, with an array of indexes at the vert, the keys of one mesh will == the keys of the other.  The only difference is, the Poser split mesh will have different indexes for each key, and some keys will have multiple indexes (the split verts: two or more  verts at the same xyz).  This is why I save the indexes as a list keyed on the vert XYZ.  To make it faster, the XYZ are converted to INTs (multiplied by 10^6, which in controlled with a precision slider).  a dict keyed on a tuple of INTs is very faster lookup.

This creates a map between indexes.  You can use the second (Poser vert dict) index, get the key, use that key for the first mesh (original vert dict) and grab it's index.  Set that vert in the original OBJ to the position of the vert in the second OBJ.  Do this for all the verts.  The result, the first OBJ (original) is now shaped like the second (Poser).  The mapping *and* setting of verts for meshes of "figure vert count" takes under a second.

Using this script, I can take a figure morphed in Poser, export that as a Poser OBJ, "convert" the Poser OBJ back to an original OBJ format (but shaped like the Poser morph).  Then use that in DS or Poser.

In it's simplest form, you apply a specific morph in Poser, take it through Blender into an OBJ you can use to load that same morph in DS.  No file editing.  Entire process takes under a minute (if you've setup the map and know the process).

The entire script is not very long.  It just iterates through the verts.  For a figure like Dawn 2 this is well under 50k verts.  Blender's python can do than in a small fraction of a second.

Anyway, I'm about to setup a pair of scripts to batch this.  Batch export the morphs from a figure, then Blender batch import them as shape keys, then Blender, batch export a dir of morph OBJs.  Which I think can be batch imported in DS.

More to come :)

I wrote this to make it easy to Blender-sculpt morphs for Poser.  But the same technique produces OBJs suitable for using to load a morph in DS.  And it also allows exporting a figure's morphs from Poser to DS without having to edit files or using anything other than FREE Blender and Add-on script.  That seems like something to *me* :D

Cheers!

Same morph, imported into DS:

This is a morph I'm working on for Dawn 2.  The morph was done in Poser AND Blender.  The end result is a Blender Object "Dawn 2" with a shape key "muscle" (other morphs are other shape keys).  I export the finished shape from Blender as an OBJ and imported it into both Poser and DS.  

(It's a work in progress, not done.  Just started.)

The point is, I can take a shape back and forth between Poser and Blender and, from Blender, produce a morph that can be used in Poser *and* DS.

Of course, if I want to distribute that morph for Poser, then I *do* have to edit files.  But, for creators, that's only a last step.  Being able to move the morph between apps easily is all I've done.  And, if it's something you're just using yourself, you don't have to make it "distributable" :)

Wow, this is the least talked about figure *ever*.

And she's so nice.

So true, disappointing the lack of content so far, basic conforming clothing not seen yet, hopefully soon

Yeah, as I said over on Hivewire, I think the boat was missed with her release without all that content/morphs/ textures/ shapes that was showed before. As she is now, she was a blip on the radar of most users-- it doesn't help that the quality of promos for her content (not for her) was...not the best, but that's my usual soapbox so I get off of it.

I take her out and stare at her in Poser and try to spin something of her that doesn't look like all the other twentysomething pale skinned figures out there and am uninspired.

Was waiting for a Hype before starting to support Dawn, she is a great figure, she has potential. 

Anyway .... here a little trick if someone wants to make some neat textures for Dawn , a little helpful timesaver. I am not that much into making Dolls preferring to make my standalone models, so this might speed up things a little and make her more versatile

https://blendermarket.com/products/auto-painter-ai  

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Versum posted at 9:13 AM Thu, 26 September 2024 - #4489762

Forgot to say .... I also like the way she moves

Is it meant ironical?
This pose looks terrible. Her neck looks brocken, her shoulders dislocated and the Thigh joint bending is off. 

sort of :)

Actually do not even try turning the head .... with open mouth this gives a quiet amazing effect ! neck twist works so la la . There is allot that needs to be fixed for sure .... The conflict is redistribution after fixing these, then also conforming outfits that would need to be updated. A high risk for creator investing time into it same thing with other models that tried replacing V4 ( New Flagships are a very bad idea ) 

Still waiting for some Dawn 2 content.It seems that Renderosity is now only supporting Daz products.

Still waiting for some Dawn 2 content.It seems that Renderosity is now only supporting Daz products.

I'm anxiously awaiting Cath's characters which will inspire me to create some stuff.  Pins and needles. 8-)