Hello all, I'm supposed to be in bed, but I sneaked out. ;) (probably not very smart, since I have to work tomorrow and I'm beat as it is) Anyway, I've only been using Poser since the beginning of May, so please bear with me here. One of the first things I learned about it was about morphing and morph targets. I started asking questions about it here, and someone led me to a tutorial by Traveller which uses Amorphium as a source for making one's OWN morph targets outside of Poser, and away from those &^%())&((*( magnets. Since I do have Amorphium, I thought, "Wow! Great! My enthusiasm was quickly extinguished though, due to my own inexperience but also the tutorial was just too damn much for me at the time. I tried it over and over again, for several days, before simply giving up on it. Since then, I've learned that I'm not the only one. It used a version of Compose which has been updated since then, and the interface was different from what I was seeing and... well anyway, it involved a whole lot of renaming, importing, grouping, exporting, ad nauseum, and it simply was beyond my scope at the time. I'm not knocking the tut...after all it DID say it was not for the beginner. The one thing that stuck in my mind though was the part about Traveller's "Magic Triangle" which was a requirement in order to help Amorphium "see" the imported .OBJ to be worked on. If I remember right, this "Magic Triangle" was a single polygon which sat somewhere in the outside of the perimeter of the .OBJ in question, and somehow re-scaled the .OBJ for Amorphium's use. I've been using Objaction Scaler to a great extent so I can export Poser .OBJ's into Amorphium, for other uses. But, just now, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder...."what if...?"... So, I did a quick export of a body part from Poser, using .OBJ and checking all the boxes EXCEPT "Export as morph target (no world transformations)". Using Objaction Scaler (version 3.0, by Maz---available at Renderosity/Poser Free stuff), I re-scaled the body part by a factor of ten (raising the value from 100 to 1000), and imported it into Amorphium (inverting normals...a MUST) , where I distorted it a little bit, and then exported as Wavefront .OBJ. Then of course I loaded it into Poser as a morph target with the proper body part selected, and it actually worked! At first it EXPLODED poor Posette's chest, but after reducing the sensitivity of the morph WAY down, I got exactly the effect I had just created with Amorphium. Is this something new, or have others been doing this and I just hadn't heard about it yet? i've asked about using Amorphium for this several times, and I've always been directed back to that same tutorial, so I'm thinking that either this is a tightly guarded secret, or I managed to stumble on to something new. Any comments? Cheers, Mike J<<< think I'm just going to stay up now and experiment with this!

You didn't have to rescale it before using it as an MT?

Hi again, Well, it seems as though I might have spoken a little too soon. Due to the nature of my first experiment, it APPEARED to be working, but all it seems to be doing is re-scaling the body parts. I haven't tried using Objaction Scaler to downsize the .OBJ yet... maybe that's it, but I wanted to say something before someone told me I was wrong. I'm sure there's GOT to be a way to make this work, though and get the desired effect, but I couldn't say what it might be yet. Jeff, what do you mean? I hadn't EXPORTED it as a morph target if that's what you're talking about...hadn't really though to try it yet, that is, but I think I'm going to be staying up pretty late messing around with this--re-sizing, exporting as MT, etc, etc ( my boss will be less than thrilled with me falling asleep tomorrow, but oh well!).....I can't help but think that this should work, SOMEHOW or other. I'll let ya know what, if anything I come up with. Cheers, Mike

Me again, Well, running it back through Scaler and reducing it causes it to move on the Y axis, and doesn't rescale the body part. Again, NOT resizing it after exporting from Amorphium, simply causes it to rescale on ALL axes. This is not completelt undesireable though, because I can use my first test to rescale it back down after using a different morph target to change the shape, but I know this is definitely NOT the way to get what I want, and it also causes a really "bumpy" sort of a look. Between Poser (4.03) and Amorphium (1) there are way too many variables as far as mesh density, normals, importing/exporting options, rescaling, etc. I think I'm pretty much pissing in the wind right now, and I can't help but feel I ought to be thinking about "placement" as far as the axes are concerned, when exporting/importing. Trouble is, I've never yet had occasion to even worry about learning any of that, so I'm REALLY lost as to what to try next! Amorphium allows you to multiply the polygon count by 4 times, but I'm betting that Poser then won't recognize it as being a valid geometry, but I guess I'll be trying that next. Why? Hell if I know! LOL... just seems like something to look into! Sorry to be wasting so much time here... I'm betting some of you more experienced Posers out there will check into this, so I'm just trying to document what I've been doing. Cheers, Mike

PS Exporting as "Morph Target (No World Transformations) doesn't seem to make a difference in the outcome.

Hello again, I finally came up with something semi-useable using the Amorphium technique I've been talking about. It's a chest morph for the P4 woman ONLY. It's really not too bad... it makes her "stick out" a bit, but also gives her more of that "torpedo" effect (LOL...boy, I bet THIS sounds sexist!), and adds a bit to the base of her rib cage. It's far from perfect, but like I said, not without it's uses, and again, was only the result of my first couple of hours of testing this (new?) method. If anyone wants to check it out and try to figure out what I've done to get this, or what it's properties or whatever might be, I've put it into a .ZIP file and uploaded it. It's only 39 KB, and is here: http://www.jacksonville.net/~mowenj/Morphs/MorphTest1.zip Cheers, Mike PS You don't want to set the dial any higher than about .750, and probably even lower than that. This seems to me to be somewhat "different" somehow than the morphs made with magnets, or any I've previously downloaded and tried out before. I can't quite figure out why, but it just does. I would greatly aprecciate any info anyone might have about this. Thanks!

Have you tried RDS? You just export the part as a morph target, load into RDS, reshape as you want (forget Objaction scaler by the way, you don't need it), load as a morph target in poser and away you go. Warnign though, dont physical rotate or move it in RDS, use the Ctrl-1,2,3,4 and Alt-1,2,3,4 keys to move the camera around instead. If you move it, rotate it or add anything to it, it won't work.

pdblake, I've heard alot about RDS, and I have the demo, but not the full program, and I'm pretty much planning on buying Carrarra anyway. The Amorphium thing... the fact that I KNEW it was possible, but couldn't figure out HOW...has been bugging me for a LONG time now, and so I just HAD to do something about it, know what I mean? I think I saw RDS 5.5 at Amazon for only like maybe 90 bucks or something, so maybe I will try it... I know there are alot of people who swear by it. Thanks for the info! cheers, Mike J

heyas; what i understand the poser-to-amorphium-and-back problem to be is this.... first, of course, is the scaling factor. this is obvious, and typical. if you want the thing not to be microscopic in amorphium, you gotta size it up a heck of a lot. the other problem is this: when amorphium imports something, it centers the obj. so if you wanted to do an arm or hand or leg morph, for example, you could grab the obj bit, size it up with objaction scaler, import it, etc etc.... but when you export it, amorphium will send it to the center of the universe, and not where it originally came from. the steps in the amorphium conversion include not only scaling, but translating the piece back and forth to the center. i'd be all for objaction scaler if it's faster than the compose method, but you have to take this into account, too. the compose method isn't so bad once you get used to it. and the buttons/commands are the same, just not in the same place they used to be. just look around for 'em ;)

I am working on an updated version of the tutorial (Well it's on the list to be done anyways) What Bloodsong says is 100% on the money. Amorphium loves to mess with .objs on import, moving and scaling.... the two biggest no-no's of morphs. And once you have the base file for a body part, you don't have to do the first part of the conversion over again. Compose is a big part of the process because you MUST have the magic triangle in there to keep amorphium from scaling the object, and Compose is the only program that will let you merge 2 .obj files and then split back to original vert order. -Trav

Traveler, bloodsong, Thank you both for the info. I'm really not understanding what you mean by "centering", though. I know, for example what it means to be centered within the Poser "stage", and Amorphium also has a "centering" setting. I guess the thing is that the two programs read this "center" in entirely different terms? Traveler, the biggest problem I had with the tutorial was all the re-naming and such ( I WAS able to figure out the new windows). I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be renaming with the file extensions as part of the new name or not, or to let the program do so itself. I must have tried it over a hundred times, but like I said, I had essentially NO knowledge of any of the technical aspects back then, which was in May, I think. Not like I'm any kind of an expert NOW, but I'd like to think I've learned something since then. :) I've had to re-format since then, and I no longer have either the tutorial, the Magic Triangle, or the Compose program, but I would LOVE to give it all another shot, if you could please tell me where I might find this stuff. Anyway, it may have been the back-asswards way of doing it, but my workaround does seem to work, although with rather unpredictable results, as I'm sure you would have been able to foresee. But, the only way I can make it work is to use a combination of several different Amorphium-made "distortions", playing around with the settings, and then save the results as a newly-spawned morph target. Then I set the other two or more to 0.000, and the new one to 1.000, and I have a new MT. Like I said, the few I've actually come up with, although unorthodox, are useful, and somehow different than any I've been able to make with the magnets and Anim8or. No money for RDS or anything else at the moment, though, so until I learn something better, I'm pretty much stuck with this stuff. One other thing: are you both saying it's impossible to do it any way other than with the compose method? When you speak of scaling, do you mean to say that it's something different than simple re-sizing? Please excuse me my ignorance... it was hard enough for me to understand how these things might relate to only one program, but when you add in the second one to the mix, it seems to be a complete mystery. Cheers, and thanks again. :) Mike PS I might mention I haven't yet tried this with a hand yet... I guess I will, and I bet then I'll understand it a bit more, eh?

Scaling is the technical term for resizing. Why the .obj that poser use need to be resized in amorphium, (and other programs) is because poser's .objs are very very small in 3D sapce. So if you import it without scaling it first, you can't even see the .obj file in the amorphium window. The renaming parts is the conversion process from Body Part-->Import Triangle-->Merge Two Togther-->Save Map for conversion back later. Get comfortable with that part, its the most important. The tutorial, triangle, etc are at: http://morphs.bbay.com :) -Trav

Traveller, Thank you, and I will be trying that again (and again and again and AGAIN if I have to, until I figure it out-- I am OBSESSED with the idea of defeating Amorphium's repeated attempts at foiling my plan...muhahauahauahauahau!!...I'm OK now, really!) Anyway, as long as I seem to have gotten your attention, I would like to apologize for the somewhat mean email I sent you several months ago. It's been bugging me ever since. You've probably forgotten about it, but I never did, and never will. It was simply out of "Newbie Frustration" and nothing more than that. I sincerely regret it, and if you remember it, I DO hope you will forgive me for it. Thank you for the info, the tutorial, and the link. Cheers! Mike

heyas; amorphium can't really work with things that are not in the middle of its workspace. the potters wheel trick, the symmetry tools... they all depend on having the object right in the middle of the universe. now the poser figure is in the middle of its universe, right? but look where the right hand is. it's... well, way over on the right! :) amorphium will move it over to the center. even worse, it won't tell you how far it moved it or anything useful. and when you export the obj out, it won't put it back. all the magic triangle does is sit out on the edge of the amorphium's imaginary workspace limit and keep amorphium from moving and sizing it when imported. in other words, it tricks amorphium into thinking your obj is the same size and shape of the default amorphium sphere. now... to help with the compose conversions. the best thing you can do is take notes. remember pencil and paper? :) write down the trans values you need for your obj, plus the scaling factor and its inverse. follow along with trav's tutorials with your obj. keep notes on what things are called. write down what the maps are named, and also write down what the thing is that the maps point to (the maps will tell you with an error if you try to load them on something with that wrong name). remember you can click on the names of things and retype them. develop a convention for naming things, so you can keep track. i usually put a -a suffix on things going into amorphium and an a- prefix on things coming out. once you get used to the process, the distilled version is really quite simple. here are my notes on doing whole-figure morphs: TO AMO 1... merge parts, join vertices = map1 1a.. clear map1 2... transform 3... add MT, merge all = map2; save obj IN AMO: mesh remain same invert normals NOT center NOT join vertices NOT protect edges OUT OF AMO: 1... open morphed obj, change name to match map2 1a.. load map2, rebuild parents, del MT 2... transform 3... open map1, import orig obj (merge!), morph parent objs 4... sel each body part and export as morph target.

Thanks, bloodsong... I will be studying this. I've decided to devote as much attention today to this as necessary until I get it right. I tried my technique with a hand, though, and with my usual combination of things, I was able to create a new morph, although it was essentially a useless morph (unless pathetically deformed hands are one's "thing" LOL), nevertheless, I was surprised that it worked. I tried to use the "technique" on Poser's box prop though, and I got the error message, "target geometries are not the same"(I can't remember the exact wording, but you know what I mean). But, I will get at this some more now. I got the tutorial and the magic triangle. It took me a while to find Compose, but I just found that as well. You can believe that when I've finally "got it!" you'll be the first to know. Then I guess I have to worry about learning how to fine tune things in Amorphium. I hate to say it, but so far all I've been able to do with Amorphium is to make the incredibly bizarre. Well, not entirely... I've made a few decent hair models with it, but only ones drived from previously existing ones. Oh well, enough talk... I'm gonna get at it, taking "stress relief" breaks by hitting the various forums through the day. I'm not gonna give up on this unless it kills me, so if you don't hear from me again.... ;) Cheers, Mike