I am determined to get V4 into Max fully functional. I am a fan of CharacterStudio (biped) as opposed to Max bones etc.,

I have  someone helping me fit BiPed into the V4 Mesh and enable it with Physique. Anyone's suggestions, tips, gotchas or warnings on that part of the project. are certainly welcome.

Tonight I'm asking for the general approach to getting the Transition (rotate, translate, scale) rig controllers, and the shaping morphs, and the expression/viseme morphs into Max as functioning Morph Modifiers.

I would have no objection to a requirement to export individual morphs from Poser (I actually don't know how to do that) and load them one at a time into Max and do whatever needs to be done to have them deform the mesh properly in Max.

I have PoserPro license and for Max my license is for Max2009.

Any advice, tips or even whole solutions welcome. I have a budget to pay for professional help on this project.

At the same time, if it should happen this this thread turns into a journal of this idea, for all to gain, that would be very pleasing.

I am going to cross-post in the Max forum but link to this thread.

::::: Opera :::::

I want to say that I am very aware that V4 is considered hi-poly for Max and that previously the wisdom has been to work with low-poly (7,000-18,000 count) mesh for animation, then to smooth, subdived or normal-map at render.

I have already determined that my needs as a story teller can adequately be served by a straight-forward import of the full V4 mesh with a selected set of morph modifiers. I've loaded four V4s Into the program (which is twice as many as I'll need) plus some architectuaral models with materials. The viewport response on my equipment with Max2009 was quite satisfactory. The gain in simplicity is attractive to me.

::::: Opera :::::

Should be interesting to watch your progress.

wayne k
guam usa

I can tell you up front that you're gonna have problems with many deformations that are controlled by Poser magnets, which I'm confident 3ds Max will not import.  V4 is a Poser-only figure, in my opinion.  All the breast movement for example, collarbone deformation of the breasts, and the inner elbow, and various other places simply will not work on import.  It will be a ton of work doing those by hand as well, especially in animation.  IMO you might as well model a figure from scratch, I think it would be about as much work.

My Freebies

Hi pjz

If it is a lot of work -- but just as much work to make "fresh mesh" properly rigged -- then the game is worth it to me. Either way I end up with a lot of work and a master figure.

However, if the mesh is V4, I am left with a straight shot fit for all V4-designed texture maps. I also have the entire library of V4 morphs, assuming there is no barrier to getting those in.

The cool thing is: I don't have to worry about ever manipulating my resulting figure back in Poser or Carrara since I am then "in Max." So, when fitting BiPed to the raw mesh, we can deform it some/a little to work with BiPed and not worry about it being backward compatible outside of Max.

Can you respond to that logic? I definitely welcome all warnings and gotchas.

Thanks pjz.

You are trading the convenience of being able to use somebody else's work for modeling, uvmapping and texturing - in exchange:
- you must rig and weight a 60k poly figure yourself

• you must design MANY MANY joint-driven morphs for a 60k poly figure yourself
• the results won't be redistributable (derivative work, although if you have a student license for Max that's already binding you anyway)
• you will have learned nothing about modeling, uvmapping and texturing (valuable skills you could use every single day)
• you will remain addicted to purchasing content that you could model and texture yourself (and even sell for a profit!)

Have you done a texture for V4?  Do you know how difficult that UVmap is to work with even if you have a good projection painting suite (I have, teamed with jjroland, and I do).  Have you taken a really good look at commercial textures out there?  Have you noticed some of the flaws that are ubiquitous even in the DAZ flagship textures?

You have vision and passion, why settle for somebody else's vision and try to adapt it to your own?  The work of designing your own character from scratch is hard, and there is a lot of distraction and not-so-helpful information out there, but the path you're already considering is drastically harder than you think it is anyway.  It boils down to how much work you're willing to put into fixing the many, many problems you're going to encounter, rather than start from scratch and avoid most of those problems in exchange for different problems that imo will be easier to solve.  To me, it is more frustrating to overcome the many inherent problems of trying to adapt somebody else's character content rather than just model and rig my own from scratch.  Looking back I wish I had spent a lot more time learning the skills required for doing this myself, rather than trying to adapt somebody else's results and failing repeatedly.

My Freebies

Pjz, in response I will post more detail about my mission in this project.

I am in pursuit of a master solution for what I do: storytelling in words, music and stylized-realism animation. That's where my passion and vision reside. It is not in photo-realism, or even the image as central focus. The story has central focus.

This will become more clear when I finish the first film, in Poser. That should be within 2 weeks.

Generally my scenes are one or two human characters interacting with body language, ordinary movement (like walking together) and facial expression. The models are clothed 90% of the time. I require dynamic hair and cloth. This project demands a large number of characters over the course of a series of short films, but no crowd scenes. The body types are not far removed from one another, no giants or way-muscled ones, etc. The faces, however, must be highly varied.

I have spent a lot of time determining if Poser or Carrara could satisfy my requirements, and while Carrara currently can't, Poser nearly can. What I seek in Max is only this: animation tools superior to Poser; more powerful hair and cloth simulation; lighting/render better and faster than Poser.

So, yes, I am hoping to latch on to the 'second half' of Max, not the whole thing. I don't want to model, nor make skin textures. I don't want to rig, for that matter. So I have the opposite perspective of you; far from worrying about being addicted to content, I am out to exploit the rich flow of content.

I purchased a BiPed-rigged human model from Turbosquid. It is great. By working with it for a weekend, I fell in love with Max's workflow for my mission-type. The animating environment, direct manipulation, etc., is wonderful; I like CharacterStudio and need nothing more than it. However, to stay with that model, I'd have to become a texture artist, as well as developing a full set of facial morphs.

My partner and I are in proof of concept of the "BiPed/V4" phase. If I discover, as you hint, that getting the V4 mesh to deform beautifully under translation with BiPed is a nightmare or even impossible, I will go to plan B. If successful, however, I believe I will have my master tools in hand.

Thank you for your comments.

::::: Opera :::::

Attached Link: A New Judy Frankenstein is in the Offing!

You might wait until I finish creating this figure here before proceeding.  It'll give you the V4 head with a lower poly body to skin the biped.  Also, I have a pdf tutorial from 'Thenodemaster' on how to save a Collada imports skin modifier profile, and then transfer it to a new biped skeleton so that everything lines up the same.  Send me an email to [dphoadley2@yahoo.com](mailto:dphoadley2@yahoo.com), and I'll be happy to pass it along. DPH

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Back to my issue about the expression morphs.....

I've heard a few people say this program works. It has no ambitions on rig, only the mesh and the morphs, and I guess the materials!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=53935&

I'm going to try it.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - Have you done a texture for V4?  Do you know how difficult that UVmap is to work with even if you have a good projection painting suite (I have, teamed with jjroland, and I do).  Have you taken a really good look at commercial textures out there?  Have you noticed some of the flaws that are ubiquitous even in the DAZ flagship textures?

Poser textures have to be reworked to make use of fastskin anyways as they have SSS baked into them and this has to be removed so that fastskin can use it's own SSS instead.

The UV map thing is not an issue because you can always slap on whatever UV map you want on V4 and use texture baking to transfer textures from one UV map to another. Once you have your texture transferred to a sane UV map, you can then work on it in regular image editors. The reverse can also be done if you want to sell a V4 texture or something.

And rigging poser meshes is pretty easy if you start with COLLADA. That imports a mesh that's already rigged somewhat decently and you only have to make minor corrections to the weights.

Thanks dphoadley, I've been watching your project. I am a fan of Judy as you might know. I'll send you an email tonight when I get home; no access to email at the moment.

:: og :::

I'm inclined to agree with pjz99. I'm not quite sure why you want to exclusively use V4. I've imported almost every Poser figure (from Don and Judy to V4 and Apollo Maximus) into 3DSMax for comparison. I wanted to see surface topology and poly counts because I want to learn how the pros create figures. My favorites to date are actually James and Jessie. Reasonable poly count, nice surface topology, easier to rig IMO than even V2 or 3 and texture maps are understandable. V4 is a complete mystery to me. If you've managed to have a fully textured V4 in Max then I can see your reasoning. But what you save in UV mapping you'll lose more than  double in rigging.

Even if you don't want to model the figure yourself, there are quite a number of free human characters out there as you already know. I'm sure Turbosquid isn't the only repository out there.

Anyway, all this to say good luck with V4 if that's your final decision. I hope you'll let us know how it goes.

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Quote - The UV map thing is not an issue because you can always slap on whatever UV map you want on V4 and use texture baking to transfer textures from one UV map to another. Once you have your texture transferred to a sane UV map, you can then work on it in regular image editors. The reverse can also be done if you want to sell a V4 texture or something.

Pardon me, but after having done a fair amount of UVmapping I don't think it's trivial to UVmap a 60k poly human figure, not at all.  Making a new UVmap that's better than what is already there (which frankly is not all that great for 2d image editing), for a model with this many polys, is a couple of months of work.

Quote - And rigging poser meshes is pretty easy if you start with COLLADA. That imports a mesh that's already rigged somewhat decently and you only have to make minor corrections to the weights.

If you've done this yourself, maybe you can show everyone how the inner elbows turned out; how the buttocks and hips look when the thighs are bent in either direction; how the collar movement looks; how the knees look when fully bent.

My Freebies

For those who might be interested, there is no need to map or remap V4.  I've already remapped V4 to take V3 textures.  You can find my UVS file for her here in the MP.

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

The reasons I favor V4 , and why the figure DPH is generating with the Judy body may not be good for me:

1. on my project I am counting on a stream of content, and nothing is as rich as that for V4. I am referring to skin texture maps and custom shaping morphs.

2. shapeliness. Given the V4 base mesh, and the shaping morphs, I can get the pleasing body shapes I want. While I said that mostly my characters are clothed, the females arms and shoulders are often bare. I have to have superb shape in that area. That's V4. Not V3, Jessie, James or even Judy.

I need both of the above; I know beautiful body shapes can be modeled with fresh mesh, but that would lock me out of (1) above.

::::: Opera :::::

OG you've already sold it to yourself.  Go on with it, best of luck.

My Freebies

bandolin thanks for you comments. Luckily, I'll have extremely fast feedback about the most challenging aspect of this project! I should know within a week or two at worse case, if rigging the V4 mesh with Biped and getting acceptable deformation when rotating and translating the rig is going to work or be an invitation to a nightmare.

My partner is at College here in Los Angeles for game design, and has tons of Max teachers, coaches and fellow students nearby. He is in dialog over the BiPedization of V4 right now.

::::: Opera :::::

pjz i've certainly sold myself on the worthiness of investing the next 2 weeks into this proof of concept. I've not sold myself it is certain to work.  Thanks

dphoadley i sent you an email from my yahoo account to yours

Quote - Pardon me, but after having done a fair amount of UVmapping I don't think it's trivial to UVmap a 60k poly human figure, not at all.  Making a new UVmap that's better than what is already there (which frankly is not all that great for 2d image editing), for a model with this many polys, is a couple of months of work.

You can use pelt mappers or proxy uv maps to name just two approaches that are pretty painless and fast. I'm not sure why you think it takes a couple of months to do this. Maybe you need to find better UV mapping tools ?

Quote - If you've done this yourself, maybe you can show everyone how the inner elbows turned out; how the buttocks and hips look when the thighs are bent in either direction; how the collar movement looks; how the knees look when fully bent.

You'll just have to take my word for it. I'm not gonna post my setups here just so some shameless merchant can go and nick them.

I'm familiar with pelt mapping (LCSM and ABF) and they do not unwrap a model with zero distortion.  A lot of manual fiddling is required.  Fixing inevitable distortions and achieving a really flat UVmap is not trivial or quick for a very high poly count figure.  I encourage you to take a stab at an improved UVmap for a 60k figure and show off your skills, if it's really as easy as you say.

Re: bending - Nobody's asking for your setup, just some sample pics of the results.

My Freebies

V4 took me close to four months to remap. and I was working on close to 12-16 hours a day!  The B---- has more vertices thatn she needs, and in places where nobody will ever think to render, -such as close to 50 -100 just between each toe.
DPH

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Well, granted that in your case you had the big complication of making your new UVmap match V3's texture layout, but still, it's not a trivial task even if you have no such requirement.

My Freebies

If one were to ask me, (which no one did), V4 is an example of Turbosmooth gone beserk!  The mesh is so dense, that I constantly had to keep hiding large sections of so that my computer, and UV Mapper Pro could handle the load.  This of course hampered my ability to see the mesh as a whole as I worked.
DPH

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Well, in fact the figure is exactly what you get if you turbosmooth (catmull-clark subdivide) the 17k "LOD" geometry included with current version of DAZ Studio.

My Freebies

See? Exactly the same, point for point.  Of course none of the morphs you might own would work on the low poly version, it's essentially useless for the task being discussed.

My Freebies

What is really a bit sad is that the DAZ morphs were almost certainly designed with the low poly mesh.  You'll never get them though.
edit: ah, not that 17k polys is "low poly"...

My Freebies

Operaguy,
i think youre best option would be to use Paul Hormis Hyperriger.
Not only is paul one of the better riggers in the business, his scripts are one of the best solutions if you rigging for biped.
The hyperrigger script sets up a fully rigged solution with a very nice deformation system.
I use the scripts myself and the deformations you get out off it with V4 are the best you can get.
Trust me , you do not get the same results by weighting her by hand.
BTW weighting in max is done mostly with the skinmodifier instead of Physique.

http://www.hyperent.com/Hyp-Maxscripts.php

You guys probably know this already, but there is a low poly V4 obj (in fact 4 versions) in DAZ Studio.
C:Program FilesDAZStudiocontentdatablMilWom_v4b_68498LOD

Needs rigging but it's doable I hear with a couple free proggies and renders pretty nicely in the 17K version.
Someone posted a step by step here or over at DAZ.

Quote - Operaguy,
i think youre best option would be to use Paul Hormis Hyperriger.
Not only is paul one of the better riggers in the business, his scripts are one of the best solutions if you rigging for biped.
The hyperrigger script sets up a fully rigged solution with a very nice deformation system.
I use the scripts myself and the deformations you get out off it with V4 are the best you can get.
Trust me , you do not get the same results by weighting her by hand.
BTW weighting in max is done mostly with the skinmodifier instead of Physique.

http://www.hyperent.com/Hyp-Maxscripts.php

How is viewport interaction when animating with a complex rig applied to the full rez v4 mesh?
I don't have max, in xsi things slow down a good deal with one of the advanced rigs thrown on her. Otherwise she is fine with a simple skeleton enveloped and deforming the mesh.

wayne k
guam usa

I bought V4 out of curiosity, I don't think I've ever used the figure (lol). Is it really superior to V3?

@operaguy
You say you want to use V4 because of the amount of content available. V4's been around, what, 18 months? V3 for 3 years or so? Is there really already more content available for V4 than V3 (I say this with awe and surprise)? Because I've got about 3 gigs of V3 content, about 2/3 of which I haven't even gotten to use yet (lol). I'm asking because I'm about to delve into clothing content and I want to choose my figure carefully.

@ghonma
You say that UV mapping a 60K poly figure is not much work depending on the UV tools? I've used quite a few different methods and unwrapping that dense a figure has never been lickety-split, although I must admit I haven't used XSI, which I believe is your software of choice. There is a way you could give use a general overview of your work flow without giving too much away so fear of unwanted merchant appropriation could be lessened. I simply say this because the entire idea of a forum is sharing.

I viewed your gallery BTW and I like your stuff. Especially the worm under water, but I think you could have added to the atmosphere by adding caustics along with the DOF that is already there. I just wish you would post more of your artwork.

@ksanderson
Is there not a LPM of V4 in Poser? Why only D|S?

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Quote -
@ksanderson
Is there not a LPM of V4 in Poser? Why only D|S?

Nope. DAZ put their flagship model in basic form and LOD in their software of choice which is D|S not Poser It's only an unrigged obj and DAZ has it work with V4 data in Studio. To use it in Poser requires some fiddling in the Setup room and using I think Morph Manager to re-do the CR2 file. There's a thread around here that tells how. Most people over in the DAZ forums don't know about it.

whkguamusa,
The script let's you work with a "driver mesh" and a "render mesh"
The rendermesh is skinwrapped over the driver mesh so typical you animate with a low res driver mesh and render the animation with the high res.
Therefore no viewport slowdowns.

Quote - whkguamusa,
The script let's you work with a "driver mesh" and a "render mesh"
The rendermesh is skinwrapped over the driver mesh so typical you animate with a low res driver mesh and render the animation with the high res.
Therefore no viewport slowdowns.

Sounds like a good way to go. Does it also drive blendshapes/morphs for facial animation & cover hair/cloth sims on the low res driver?

wayne k
guam usa

Here are two links to threads talking about the lo res V4. Scroll down... look for JoePublic's posts.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2747942&page=3

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2741796&page=10

**whkguamusa,
Yes, the drivermesh is splitup in a head & body so loading facialmorphs keeps the file "light"  , hair & displacement or normal maps etc, are only used on the high res rendermesh, cloth is typical skinwrapped to the low res driver mesh. **

Wayne I was worried about that for sure. So, I loaded many V4s into Max (just the mesh) see image attached.

I then loaded in the fully rigged figure I purchased. Viewport response was smooth. No hesitation grabbing the direct manipulation widgets and rotating/translating. Now, I can't say that this littel test is the equivelent to two V4s with BiPed, texture maps, hair and cloth. Finding that out will be part of this proof of concept.

Strides have been made along these lines in the last two upgrades to Max, 2008 and 2009. The 2008 release specifically was mostly about viewport response, due to feedback from production facilities having lag with a lot of assets in the viewport.

The combination of Autodesk attacking the viewport response (you can get shadows in the viewport in real time), my computer upgrade, and my light burden requirements -- says to me that with all due respect to the strategies of the past that centered around lo-res figures (at least until render time), my situation lets me operate with impunity. Pretty much as if I were in Poser!

I know that might sound like a deliberate attempt to insult. I assure you it is not. I have sincere respect for those strategies and proven production methods.

It happens that I am not in a "production" situation with this paradigm. It is more like a kid artist struggling along with beginner tools who sneaks into the master's workroom and gets to turn on the big toys.

Anyway.........I am intesely determined to get my base tools established for my project and get on with the movie making.

I'm running XPPro-64 with 8GIG RAM, Core2 Quad Q6600 with fast hard drives, Nvidia 8800 video card.

::::: Opera :::::

klozen, thank you for the link to that site with maxscripts pertinent to what I'm doing. I went over there quickly, drank in a little, will download and dig in. It's been a long day in the ""real world"" and I am wiped out, plus partner was at school today. Tomorrow we will be pushing ahead with this project and I'll send him to check out these scripts.**

::::: Opera :::::**

Quote - Tonight I'm asking for the general approach to getting the Transition (rotate, translate, scale) rig controllers, and the shaping morphs, and the expression/viseme morphs into Max as functioning Morph Modifiers.

When it comes to transferring morphs, I would go with Collada import/export because it carries over most of the morphs for you. As far as mesh rigging, you can have you friend collada exported mesh with a biped instead of bones.  Since Collada came out, I gave up using Pomax. Quick not though, I'm using D|S collada, not Poser collada to get my basic V4, textures and morphs out and into Max.

max doesn't work with bodyparts like poser, so for any little morph you have to have the entire mesh loaded. Putting all of those morphs into Max at once is a pretty good way to choke it up, so you'll have to be judicious about what you put in. But, you can still have a 'fully loaded' startup master saved.

If your biped is expertly rigged, with good joint parameters and falloff zones, you may not need poser's JCM's or figure out how to mimic magnets. I'm not even sure if Max supports the concept of JCM's. I don't have any rigging advice, since I never seriosly ventured in that direction with max.

I'm very curious though, what it is that Max will offer that Cararra won't, for what you're needing, is it the cloth sims?

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
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Connie hi,

I exported V4 out of PoserPro using Collada export and did not get an option to create BiPed on import using FeelingSoft ColladaMax.  It gave me the rudiments of (I think it is called) max bones, no of which were linked up. I put that option aside. Are you saying that the D|S Collada export ends up giving you a BiPed rig on import into Max? (I'm not assuming a 'perfect' or no-tweak needed biped in any case.)

Second, the transfer of morphs will indeed be judicious. I am hoping to do my shaping in PoserPro for different characters, including male, so no shaping morphs need go over. After that, expression morphs you'd be suprised how few I use! Visemes, brow, eye squint, etc. Point well taken about the morph target burden, however. Thanks.

As you probably noticed, I was very hopeful and high on Carrara. But, no............at least not at this time. The animation tools are inferior to Poser's (my poser animation tools include a lot of Ockham scripts), there is no dynamic cloth module, and the hair module is not functional for animation (they may fix that.) Finally, access to MentalRay and VRay (costs another grand!) puts Carrara in the dust. And...the Max community and plugins....amazing.

I have the $3200 put aside. I am emotionally ready to pull that trigger. I just have to perform this proof of concept.

Thanks for your input.

::::: Opera :::::

By the way, one workflow that might be functional for me is: Shaping in PoserPro, export mesh as deformed, rig for BiPed in Max, no or few morph modifiers, and then attack facial animation with LipService.

http://lbrush.com/

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - 2) shapeliness. Given the V4 base mesh, and the shaping morphs, I can get the pleasing body shapes I want. While I said that mostly my characters are clothed, the females arms and shoulders are often bare. I have to have superb shape in that area. That's V4. Not V3, Jessie, James or even Judy.

If you're talking about her shoulder and neck bending that area of V4 is heavily magnet controlled, and one of the things taht you probably won't be able to transfer to Max at all. Without the magnets, it's bends are not any better then V3.

How well that particular element bend and looks in Max is going to heavy depend on how skilled your MAX rigger is, and how well he unnderstand poser rigging. Or how well he understands human antomy if he has to recreate this functionality from scratch.

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Quote - Wayne I was worried about that for sure. So, I loaded many V4s into Max (just the mesh) see image attached.

I then loaded in the fully rigged figure I purchased. Viewport response was smooth. No hesitation grabbing the direct manipulation widgets and rotating/translating. Now, I can't say that this littel test is the equivelent to two V4s with BiPed, texture maps, hair and cloth. Finding that out will be part of this proof of concept.

A truer 'test' of what you;ll be up against is to transfer a fully rigged and morphed collada exported V4 into max.  The load on max and the computer and workflow will be very similar. Closer to comparing apples and apples.

For example, if you use fae morphs, and body morphs, you could easily end up with something similar to 100 copies of V4 in there - all in one scene object.   if that's the workflow that you go with - which is what most poser users tend to want to do - recreate their workflow in Max as much as they can.

What may be worth checking out ios if D|S will collada export lower poly version of V4.

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Ok connie, thanks, i stand warned. A lot will be revealed over the next six days. I'm glad people have been willing to step up and forwarn me of these troubles ahead, and I am satisfied I can contain the damage to one or two weeks effort even if the ultimate result is failure or no net gain by the attempt.

Quote - I exported V4 out of PoserPro using Collada export and did not get an option to create BiPed on import using FeelingSoft ColladaMax.  It gave me the rudiments of (I think it is called) max bones, no of which were linked up. I put that option aside. Are you saying that the D|S Collada export ends up giving you a BiPed rig on import into Max? (I'm not assuming a 'perfect' or no-tweak needed biped in any case.)

No, no, I was saying have your friend re-rig the collada exported mesh with a biped. That way you should be able to use all the morphs without manual import and export of them.
Or in other words, do the collada import with everything that it will bring over. (Rigging, mesh, morphs and textures). Then dump the rigging, and have him rig it with a biped. You still get to keep the morphs and textures. With a reasonable amount of teaking. I'm assuming you;ve already acepted the fact that just about every step of this process is going to include some twaeking and experimenting, so I'm figuring tweaking will go without saying.

Quote - Second, the transfer of morphs will indeed be judicious. I am hoping to do my shaping in PoserPro for different characters, including male, so no shaping morphs need go over. After that, expression morphs you'd be suprised how few I use! Visemes, brow, eye squint, etc. Point well taken about the morph target burden, however. Thanks.

What I did is created a master export with everything in it, and saved it as a max file. Then when I start on a specific task, I start with my master, and delete parts I won't be using. It goes reasonably well.

I don't know about the timing of your project(s), if this is ongoing, I'd keep an eye on Daz Studio developments. Coming back from Siggraph, I'm seeing them more and more rubbing shoulders with the high enders, and making connections in that direction, while Poser seems to be lagging behind.

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Ok, that makes more sense. I get your workflow suggestion now. We will try it tomorrow or over the weekend.

I'm perfectly will for Daz to step up to bat with 'whatever' tools they put on the table. If they are trying to play with the big boys, V4 alive and well inside those apps has to be on people's minds.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - Ok, that makes more sense. I get your workflow suggestion now. We will try it tomorrow or over the weekend.

I'm perfectly will for Daz to step up to bat with 'whatever' tools they put on the table. If they are trying to play with the big boys, V4 alive and well inside those apps has to be on people's minds.

::::: Opera :::::

I've also seen Mental Ray like rendering and nonlionear animation tools inside DazStudio, over at siggraph.  I have to say, my jaw was dropping, because I didn't realize just how much D|S has grown while I've been neglecting it.

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Wow. Ok, I'm ready for that....but hey Mr. Farr what about the HAIR!

AFAIK, the cloth simulation is under 'coming soon' tag. It seems to me that Hair and cloth make appearances not too far from one another. I know users over on DAZ commons pester them about it all the time.

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Also, if you are willing to hire some serious help, rather then paying hefty moiney for a rigger, you may want to explore an option of someone writing you a Studio<>Max type bridge plugin with their developers kit:
http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/developer?&_m=d

I'd have to ask a serious programmer type to translate in plain english what all this object oriented, SDK and integration means... but if I were you I'd be very curious to see how it may help me... and of I (or the programmer) could not sell it as a plugin later on.

The impression I got from those guys as siggraph was that they're dying to have more people write plugins for DS anyway.

You may even be able to find a college student whom would be willing to work on it as a school programming assignment or something similar. I've hired people in the past to write me plugins for my engineering software, from Max to Rhino, to CAD. So far it's turned out great every time.

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Its sounding like D|S is worth another look. I haven't used it since it first came out.

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**Conniekat8 & operaguy
The collada route will not give you the results for what operaguy is after,
if i understand well operaguy whants to have a fully "editable" rig ?
Collada gives you not the bones but helpers !! 
The envelope weighting is baked and only useable if your willing to weight by vertex ,
which is a nightmare with poser meshes.
Loading morphs with collada is very "heavy" because the morph is bassicly a deformed mesh and you bring MAX to its knees.
JCM in MAX is bassicly the skinmorph modifier with works much better than JCM's because you can model the morph the way you want it to deform.
The dvd paul made on this subject is a must have in my opinion and saves you hiring a rigger because i think that although it may look intimidating the proces is very straightforward with the right tools.

**

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=3320&cat=&_m=d

There is also this option for V3. cheerio  lululee

klozen, connie and i have re-communicated; we are not trying to get a automatic rig out of a Collada transfer: the helpers you describe will be discarded. The point is to get the mesh, the morphs and the texture maps over.

She made the point about the morphs being a massive task, also. That will be handled (i hope) by preshaping in PoserPro so the shaping morphs are not brought over, and then judiciously selecting the expression morphs to go over.

I will look into the subject of skinmorph modifier

What "dvd paul made"? Can you give me a link or more info so I can find it?

Thanks for your comments

::::: Opera :::::

http://store.cgsociety.org/product/000369/

oh yes,.....i just did not recognize the name and make the connection. thanks. My partner will be here in a few hours and we will perform triage on all these options. That DVD is high up on the list, and his scripts.

Please keep the info coming.

I am on a similar path as you and find your research invaluable.

Have you looked at any 3rd party rigging solutions... like puppetshop or CAT ?

no i have not jeff. thanks for the links. will investigate and put them on the list of possibilities.

right away i need to see if they are CharacterStudio, because that's what I want.

> Quote - I bought V4 out of curiosity, I don't think I've ever used the figure (lol). Is it really superior to V3? > > @operaguy > You say you want to use V4 because of the amount of content available. V4's been around, what, 18 months? V3 for 3 years or so? Is there really already more content available for V4 than V3 (I say this with awe and surprise)? Because I've got about 3 gigs of V3 content, about 2/3 of which I haven't even gotten to use yet (lol). I'm asking because I'm about to delve into clothing content and I want to choose my figure carefully.

bandolin,
Quantitatively there are more free and for-sale items for V3 than V4, but not by much. And the stream of V3 items has slowed. Moreover, the quality of models keeps going up, and those provided for V4 are, as a broad generalization, of higher quality. That's just my opinion.

However, my choice of V4 is based largly on body shape; I can't get good arms and shoulders on V3 or Jessie or Miki. The attached render is and example of why I like V4; you can't get great human upper torso/arms/shoulders/neck with other models. By 'content available' I was referring to morphs and skin textures.

::::: Opera :::::

Rendered in PoserPro
Raytrace soft shadows
Strand hair
Dynamic dress by pjz  (newly added to freestuff)

Click for full resolution.

Speaking of arm/shoulder shapes, there is a big problem with any Poser figure I can think of (no offense to anybody).  The latissimus/tricep area is just kind of a mess - it's hard to model, and in Poser it's probably not practical to rig that area to come close to how a human body behaves.  Spherical falloff areas fail badly, in that area.  I like V4 as much as anybody, but like all Poser figures, she is not anatomically correct, most particularly in the arm/shoulder areas.  While you can fix this - you can also model your own and maybe do a better job. photo by [stefan soell](http://www.stefansoell.de/)

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another example, no poser figures I am aware of (no offense to anybody!) are modeled to support muscularity like this. ^^ stefan soell again

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Let me add one more to your list:

Automatron

And for interested parties, here's a lengthy thread about 3rd party character rigging tools:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-441066.html

agree not anatomically correct, but thankfully in my window between V3 and Zygote

http://www.zygote.com/

These two renders are not to claim spcimen status, only to show why V4 is in that window for me....

front. v4 with muscle morphs

jeff, thanks for the additional links.

Our research and investigations have begun. Might be 24-48 hours before we show any results.

::::: Opera :::::

Automatron looks very promising...anybody try it yet?

Comitted to excellence through art.

Quote - I viewed your gallery BTW and I like your stuff. Especially the worm under water, but I think you could have added to the atmosphere by adding caustics along with the DOF that is already there. I just wish you would post more of your artwork.

Ah my gallery is just silly stuff i do in my free time, kinda like digital doodles. Even the city scene was mostly a test to see how heavy a scene I could handle. I agree about the caustics though and if i get time i'll rework that render, thanks for the suggestions.

Quote - You say that UV mapping a 60K poly figure is not much work depending on the UV tools? I've used quite a few different methods and unwrapping that dense a figure has never been lickety-split, although I must admit I haven't used XSI, which I believe is your software of choice.

So as not to derail, i'll start a new thread with my method.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2748594

That's pretty a impressive technique.  OG if you can get Max to do this it is definitely worth a look.

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*"if you can get Max to do this it is definitely worth a look"

3dsmax can do that via the Projection modifier.

I've had some good success at using Collada with DAZ|Studio,I've got several different resolutions of V4 in max,though my needs are not nearly as advanced as Operaguys but  for a basic rig it's the fastest way to go,
I think Wahooneys 'Rigging Army Knife' tools include a bones to biped script.

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ghonma, I just have to say your city scene is awesome, imaginative and amazing. It makes me want to run out and buy XSI. I wouldn’t have seen it at all if it wasn’t for this thread. 

(We now return to the regularly scheduled topic.)

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Good morning everyone.

Having stirred myself up for this project, we have decided to insert a pause for this holiday weekend. Evan has a diversion to get out of the way and I have decided to spend the next four days finishing the first of the short films that constitute this project. Having the first film in the can will also be an excellent aid to "Max-izing" it as well, because the style, demands and mood will have been made tangible..

I will watch this thread over the weekend and interact with any discussion, but we are not going to resume the BiPed/V4 work until Tuesday of next week.

Thanks for all the responses.

::::: Opera :::::

Another resource:

The following fully rigged model:  http://www.axyz-design.com/axyz-design-3d-humans-characters-metropolyhd-rigged-cwom0001.php

is available for free in 3Dworld issue #108

Might be useful for comparison purposes.

That's a good link and a good idea. I'm currently using this model

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3ds-max-4-women-characters-woman/415294

as my comparison. The texture is nothing but a placeholder (no detail at all!) but the CharacterStudio rig works great.

If my path were to become a texture and facial morph creator, I'd just go with this model and/or others like it. If I can get V4 to behave like this model, I'll be happy.

::::: Opera :::::

P.S. Workweek over, revving up PoserPro and going deep on my scene.

dont forget there's a bunch of rigged example models that come with Max..you might be blowing money on those turbosquid models when you already have what you need in the tutorials & scenes folder.

btw,if your using PoserPro then you like this script,depending on how clean you want your mesh
http://www.scriptspot.com/files/IN_tools-detriangulator.mcr.txt

it doesn't add or take away verts so shouldn't affect any morphs

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Stoney,
What exactly does this script do?
What does it do to triangles???

Comitted to excellence through art.

if you use PoserFusion to send a mesh to max then that mesh will be triangulated,,if you run that script on a triangulated mesh it removes all those extra edges & gives you a clean quad based mesh again.
there's not really anything wrong with having a triangulated mesh,it'll still render & animate the same,for me I just prefer the clean look of a model as it was originaly made.

idealy they should have made triangulation as an option on export with Poserfusion

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incidently,I made these scripts recently to make exporting to Poser quicker,it's focused more towards content creators than end users but if anyone wants it I'll be happy to give them a copy. it has basic functions that I tend to always use when sending models out of max to Poser..figured it would be easier to refine some of those steps into Maxscript & then make a floater to hold them :)

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Oh yes please, that would be me wanting that little diddy!
Can you send to
darkedge@sbcglobal.net

Thanks!

Comitted to excellence through art.

we played with the Max-included models and several free and very low cost ($10) ones, and learned a lot. I really felt I was headed away from V4 and other PoserDazDom models, so I wanted to obtain a first-class rigged model to see how it would behave.

But the texture on this expensive thing was a joke, and we felt the UV map was too. So, we are giving the V4+resources paradigm its moment; if failure, I'll be looking for ways to get variety on Max-purpose-built rigs......or hey, maybe we'll put on our pjz.

::::: Opera :::::

darkedge..I've got a couple more features to add but I'll keep your adress on hand & send a copy when ready,if anyone else wants it email 3dsmorrell@gmail.com  (these scripts are specific to my workflow & wont suit everyone)

Opera...I'm totaly biased here but I think using V4 is a good idea,particularly as it's a final model that comes in several different resolutions & a seemingly endless supply of 3rd party add-ons,
idealy you should have an understanding of modeling so when things do go wrong you'll know why & how to fix the problem.
And while you've said your quite happy to work the hi-res mesh I'd seriously look into using one of the low-res versions & letting a skin wrap drive the final hi-res mesh
skinwrap workflow:
http://download.autodesk.com/media/MNE/qt/skinwrap_300k.mov

btw,Maxxmodels has done a lot of work in getting Poser figures into Max,I'm sure he'd have some good advice

Cheers
Stefan

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Thanks Stefan (hold for render you'll like I'm about to post in about 15 min or check it out another time)

If I go get the lo res V4 cage(s)......I am picking up that the morphs won't apply.....so be it.

But will this vast resource of beautiful skin maps still work with the 17K V4?

I've been in close contact with Greg (maxxmodels) and he normally would be one of my gurus on this, but he is buried in work right now. I'm still hoping to lure him into this thread, especially after I post this first film.

::::: Opera :::::

Click for full resolution Rendered in PoserPro with raytrace soft shadows.

This is NOT the set for this week's scene. However, I've been holding it quite a while because I have a script for a story, and this is the location. No martial arts, however; it is a love story.

Early Stonemason!

::::: Opera :::::

These two are. Click for full resolution

click for full. postwork needed at shoulder.

Quote - Click for full resolution
Rendered in PoserPro with raytrace soft shadows.

Early Stonemason!
:

wow there's an ancient model :..I bet the materials need a good amount of tweaking for poser pro too...it was made I think for the original poser pro(the one after poser4)

btw which render engine are you planning to use in 3dsmax?..just curious

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Depends on the style of the story....this current one is "stylized glowing noir". Others are bright sun. Evan, my right hand guy, is getting good in MentalRay. Greg encourages me to go to VRay, but that's another $1000.  With some of the simpler stylized sets, scanline will be plenty. Lot's of Adobe in this project: it is not photorealism.

On your set, installer was flabbergasted, had to install to an old Poser folder and move things over. Also, when you show it where one texture is, it is not smart enough to find the others in the same folder!

No tweaking of any files in 2D, and this is just default simple shader.

:: og ::

OG, V4 was originally designed as the 17k model, and then subdivided when she was "Poser-ised". So yes, skin maps will work. I also believe other people have used Morph Manager to transfer the V4 morphs to the 17k version. That might help when working on Max.

Really.

I was given to believe that the V4 morphs simply can not be made to work with the 17K; that they cannot be moved over in any way, because they are mapped to the subdivided full V4 mesh. If it IS true that both the texture maps and morphs can be utilized on the low res, we will definitely go the 17K route into Max.

Can anyone else comment about the morph applicability? I'll have Evan check when he resumes work on the project Tuesday.

::::: Opera :::::

(V4.2 left, LOD 17k right)

The LOD 17K can use all morphs that regular V4 can use.
But morphmanager won't do.
It's a bit more complicated than that to transfer them.

Well there you go. Obviously the "Alice" morph can be transfered.

Well this is an interesting development!

:: og ::

I used Cage/Sparki's python script to transfer all head morphs as well as several body morphs from V4.2 over to LOD 17K. http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2677445

Once the script has analyzed V4.2 and the 17k LOD, you can transfer any morph over in a few seconds.

Just note that several of V4.2's face "morphs" are just ERC dial settings, so you first have to spawn an actual morph target that you can transfer.

A friend also used the Morphing Clothes program for the bodymorphs and was quite satisfied with the results.

Hurrah for 17K and thanks for the info and link Joe.

Joe, is it a simple click to transfer V4.2's rigging to the 17K LOD in Setup or do you have to name groups, etc. first and get the rig to fit? And when you do the new CR2, do you change just the two lines pointing at the obj (someone else suggested that over at DAZ site forum) or is there more involved? I think you mentioned in another thread something about a clean CR2... where do I find that or does Poser generate it automatically?

TIA!

Quote -
max doesn't work with bodyparts like poser, so for any little morph you have to have the entire mesh loaded. Putting all of those morphs into Max at once is a pretty good way to choke it up, so you'll have to be judicious about what you put in. But, you can still have a 'fully loaded' startup master saved.

There's workarounds to this.  Such as putting all your necessary morphs into a "dummy" .max file, and merging the ones you need into the actual scene (morpher modifier) as needed.  Kinda like using Injection Deltas in Poser.

Quote - If your biped is expertly rigged, with good joint parameters and falloff zones, you may not need poser's JCM's or figure out how to mimic magnets. I'm not even sure if Max supports the concept of JCM's. I don't have any rigging advice, since I never seriosly ventured in that direction with max.

JCM's are basically the same thing as "Skin Morph" modifier in Max, so yes, Max supports that concept.  You can research Skin Morph in the Max manual if you want further info regarding it's functionality.  In fact, you can take that concept a few steps further using the Reaction Manager in 3dsmax, and have morphs control other actions in the scene, or each other.

Quote - I'm very curious though, what it is that Max will offer that Cararra won't, for what you're needing, is it the cloth sims?

For character animation, there's a lot that Max can do that Carrara won't.  Aside from pure rendering optimizations (which one may or may not utilize), there's things like morph-driven textures (allowing you to do such things as change to a custom bump map automatically when certain morphs are dialed in), adding to the realism of expressions, etc.  I could go on if you like.

@ksanderson: The SetUp room can't handle V4.2's multiple ERC layers, so just save the 17kLOD object somewhere in your runtime and edit a V4.2 cr2 to point to it.
No need to rename bodyparts or groups as they are named exactly the same.
No need to edit the rigging as V4.2 and the Lod are shaped EXACTLY the same.

The original V4 morphs won't work anymore of course, so you have to delete them, either with a cr2 editor or MorphManager.
Then resave that "empty" cr2 to a folder in your runtime.

Then let the Cage/Spanki script analyze V4.2 and the Lod geometries, inject the morphs you want transferred into V4.2, and then transfer them over to the empty Lod cr2.

If you want the fully automatic functionality of the original V4.2  you'd also have to transfer/convert the various JCM morphs and put them into th exact same position as they were in the original V4.2 (with the exact name), so that the ERC will still work.

Given how complex V4.2's cr2 is, that can be pretty complicated and error prone.

Instead I simply deleted all the JCM morphs as well as all the JSM magnets, and just added a few morphbrush morphs to fix the joints where necessary.
A lot simpler, a lot more efficient, and a lot more flexible than the original rig.

Quote -

Quote - I'm very curious though, what it is that Max will offer that Cararra won't, for what you're needing, is it the cloth sims?

For character animation, there's a lot that Max can do that Carrara won't.  Aside from pure rendering optimizations (which one may or may not utilize), there's things like morph-driven textures (allowing you to do such things as change to a custom bump map automatically when certain morphs are dialed in), adding to the realism of expressions, etc.  I could go on if you like.

While all of the above is true, before you go on thinking I'm clueles about max, I need to clarify that my question to Operaguy was within the scope of specific items that he was interested in, and not a comparison of Max Vs. Cararra. Operaguy is interested in non-photorealistic animations made with use of poser content, and not full featured use of Max's abilities, AFAIK. So, within scope of his interests, I was curious where Cararra fell short.

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Thank you for the detailed response, Joe. I can't wait to try this over the weekend!

Kevin

Connie is right and her question was appropriate.

Quote -
While all of the above is true, before you go on thinking I'm clueles about max, I need to clarify that my question to Operaguy was within the scope of specific items that he was interested in, and not a comparison of Max Vs. Cararra. Operaguy is interested in non-photorealistic animations made with use of poser content, and not full featured use of Max's abilities, AFAIK. So, within scope of his interests, I was curious where Cararra fell short.

Fair enough regarding your carrara comparison.  I didn't necessarily think you were clueless about max, but I've learned that when dealing with Poser enthusiasts, you do come to find  a lot of dissemination of  misinformation regarding higher-end applications.  Many Poser users seem to assume that only Poser can do certain things, or do certain things more efficiently than higher-end applications, which is usually untrue when you get down to it.  Conforming clothing is one example that I see mentioned a lot.  People tend to think that only poser has this kind of thing, and all clothing in high end apps is dynamic.  Strange.

Quote - > Quote -

While all of the above is true, before you go on thinking I'm clueles about max, I need to clarify that my question to Operaguy was within the scope of specific items that he was interested in, and not a comparison of Max Vs. Cararra. Operaguy is interested in non-photorealistic animations made with use of poser content, and not full featured use of Max's abilities, AFAIK. So, within scope of his interests, I was curious where Cararra fell short.

Fair enough regarding your carrara comparison.  I didn't necessarily think you were clueless about max, but I've learned that when dealing with Poser enthusiasts, you do come to find  a lot of dissemination of  misinformation regarding higher-end applications.  Many Poser users seem to assume that only Poser can do certain things, or do certain things more efficiently than higher-end applications, which is usually untrue when you get down to it.  Conforming clothing is one example that I see mentioned a lot.  People tend to think that only poser has this kind of thing, and all clothing in high end apps is dynamic.  Strange.

I've seen a lot of poser enthusiasts complain that high-enders don't take them seriously... Some of them actually think that poser does more then max???   :blink:   I think I need to go pinch myself!

I saw your comment about max and JCM type morphs. I have to preface this with a stement that most of my max experience is architectural and engineering modeling, and I never rigged a character. (I do poser clothing rigging when I have to because I like modeling clothes for Poser content)

Anyway, just conceptually, do max JCM's work similar as Poser? I always thought that the technique would be a lot more advanced then a JCM concept and that transfering a poser JCM which is created to correct poser's wonky rigging would be pretty useless in max, since the rigging would be different.  Am I totally off in thinking this?

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here's the workflow for skinmorph
8mb qtime
http://download.autodesk.com/media/MNE/qt/skinmorph_300k.mov

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Quote -
I've seen a lot of poser enthusiasts complain that high-enders don't take them seriously... Some of them actually think that poser does more then max???   :blink:   I think I need to go pinch myself!

I saw your comment about max and JCM type morphs. I have to preface this with a stement that most of my max experience is architectural and engineering modeling, and I never rigged a character. (I do poser clothing rigging when I have to because I like modeling clothes for Poser content)

Anyway, just conceptually, do max JCM's work similar as Poser? I always thought that the technique would be a lot more advanced then a JCM concept and that transfering a poser JCM which is created to correct poser's wonky rigging would be pretty useless in max, since the rigging would be different.  Am I totally off in thinking this?

Read the documentation on the Skin Morph Modifier in the Max User Guide for full details.  The skin morph modifier lets you use a bone's rotation (either standard bone or parametric biped bone) to drive a particular morph.  So, this lets you handle problem areas in animation like armpits, knees, groin, etc. with simple morphs.  So my point isn't that you can transfer the JCM's in Poser to Max (although you probably could), but simply that you don't need any special rigging magic to reproduce the same kind of bending that V4 has with all her magnets and JCM's.  You can do it yourself right in Max using similar tools.  The paint deformation tool on Editable Poly objects is a quick way to create your own morph fixes, and since there are no body part "groups" in a rigged Max figure, this process is much more streamlined than the clumsy morph brush Poser Pro has.

Looking forward to sending Evan in on this skinmorph sequence, and following his lead. Very cool.

Meanwhile, whew, filmmaking is so draining! And this time it is not Poser's fault. It's just hard. No dailies! Three more days in this block, I might get it done.

::::: Opera :::::

"....and since there are no body part "groups" in a rigged Max figure, this process is much more streamlined than the clumsy morph brush Poser Pro has."

Many Max users seem to assume that only Max can do certain things, or do certain things more efficiently than lower-end applications, which is usually untrue when you get down to it.

The Poser morphbrush works from parents to childs.
I.e.-you start with a deformation on the parent so that the vertices located on the seam will be included.
Then you just go on working on the adjacent child bodypart.
This makes it pretty easy to work across seams on a "live" (i.e. grouped) Poser figure.

But if you need to really smooth a mesh across the seams, import it with groups welded, do your morphbrush work, then export the finished mesh while welding it, re-arrange vertex count, and Bob's yer uncle.
I do that almost daily and the import/rearrange takes about a minute or two of extra time.
It's not a morphbrush problem, but a grouping problem.
You have to do exacly the same in ZBrush, and I doubt MAX can smooth/morph across seams on a grouped (=cut into separate bodyparts) mesh.

In other words: Poser 7 or Pro can rig a mesh towards the same standards than MAX or any other high end app using weightmapping others can do. Period.
It may take a few minutes longer, but the tools are out there.

As for the JCM's, even IF you could port them over, they'd be useless in Max.
V4.2 was rigged to make heavy use of magnets, which MAX of course can't "read", and her JCM morphs are matched to such a "magnet enhanced" rig.

So, if you loose the JSM mags, you have to remove the JCM morphs, too, and start from scratch.

Really naive question that shows I am not the tech genius of my team: Looking at the V4 morph list, including any injected by Base, ++, Muscle,Elite, 3rdParty etc, how do I know which ones are JCMs?

::::: Opera :::::

JCM's are usually not shown as morph dials. They exist internally, in the CR2, and can be seen when editing a cr2.
I think D|S has a feature where you can expose hidden dials and see the JCM's, but it's been a while since I did that, so I could be remembering wrong.  Most of them are prefixed with JCM. DAZ is pretty good at keeping their nomenclature straight.

There are actually not that many JCM's in V4 (compared to magnets)... about half a dozen pairs of JCM's - L, R. There's almost three dozen pairs if magnets L, R

I was going to list them, I just used them couple of weeks ago on my outfit, but at the moment I can't find the paper where they're written and the spreadheet I made is on the different computer.

Thanks for the video link, Stefan!

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The magnets can be seen in the Heirarchy. They won't go over to Max, I know. Anyway, we'll see how the raw mesh without the JCMs and magnets behaves once BiPed rig is in place and go from there with skin morphs and other tools mentioned above.

It's a little strange to be so deep in concentration making a film, totally focused, while this gigantic storm is churning up the middle of the Gulf and nothing seems to be deter it from slowly proceeding to its fated destination. At least everyone will get out this time.

PoserPro is behaving extrememly well, by the way. I'll write about that later, after I can show the film.

::::: Opera :::::

@ Stonemason

I would also be very interested in that script.

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OperaGuy,
Well now that you have our attention, is there any possibility of a short renedered sneak peek? Lord knows I wish to see a naked babe holding a sword...animated!!! lol.

snicker
just kidding

Comitted to excellence through art.

Quote - The magnets can be seen in the Heirarchy.

That's right, I keep forgetting it. My hierarchy editor disappeared off the screen and I can't gat it back. I have a sneaky syspicion I'll have to fish for the UI defining xml's and reset someting by hand.... bu I haven't mustered up the umph to worry about that detail. I'm pretty zapped from rigging my current piece... major crash course :-

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Have you tried Ctrl + Shift + E (keyboard shortcut for Hierarchy editor?)
Have you tried Edit -> General Preferences -> Interface -> Launch to Factory State?

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Quote - Have you tried Ctrl + Shift + E (keyboard shortcut for Hierarchy editor?)
Have you tried Edit -> General Preferences -> Interface -> Launch to Factory State?

yeah, and it has no effect. Very puzzling. :-
It started with an errant click where it looked like I accidentally flicked it off the screen. However, it happened in the middle of the screen, but it disappeared anyway.  I was sure that reset to factory state would fix that (it does in many other programs) but no such luck.

I don't have a scrolling or extended desktop where it could hide, it's not hiding in some odd corner or behind the task bar.

Also, it's resistant to any saved UI dots, and it won't show up in any of the panels (posing, material, clothroom, setup)  I don't think I tried hair. Maybe I minimized it top a sub pixel size... but then again, reset to factory state should have fixed that.

My guess is that my xml file got corrupted. This happened shortly after I upgraded to SR3, and some other xml parsing errors were happening too.

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DarkEdge LOL I know a lot of people are following this thread, because the topic is important. And both Evan and I are on schedule to resume the V4/Max project with full focus starting Tuesday.

I'm reluctant to show any animation footage from the piece I am making in PoserPro this long weekend...all the dallies are rough because I do so much in Post Processing.  I'll just say the story is about a young artist on a special evening. The 'school' of literature is Romantic Realism. The visual style is stylized-glowing-noir and the audio and music is more important than the visuals in this case.

Nevertheless, here is the text of the story and are a few stills. Sorry no swords!

http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle.pdf

http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle-001.png
http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle-002.bmp
http://jjkirnan.com/light/13/gabrielle-003.bmp

::::: Opera :::::

No swords, huh? Sheeeeeesh! I'm starting to get the jitter withdrawls....ahhhhhhhhh!

I really like the black and white grainy feel. Personally I feel there is more color in b/w than actualy color pics...looking good mon.

Comitted to excellence through art.

Yes i agree, it's looking very  nice. You've definitely got a flair for lighting OG, great work :)

As for swords, well just think of it as an invisible sword of doom +5 :P

Tuesday 9:55 AM Pacific

Good morning. Evan will be here in an hour or so but I am trying to get a head start.
I want to prove out actualizing V4-17K in PoserPro with textures and morphs working properly.

Once I have this model functional we will try various methods of export/MaxImport to get the mesh materials over, then attack the BiPed phase.

To get a head start, I installed D|S and thus obtained the 17K .OBJ. Attached see viewport in PoserPro.

Now for the morphs; I visited Spanki's monumental 41 page thread and worked/skimmed my way along a while, then skipped to the end. I also visited Spanki's website. I don't see to find the exact script download link anywhere, needed to follow JoePublic's instructions.

Joe, or ksanderson or anyone, can you point to the proper script? I'll keep reading in the meantime.

::::: Opera :::::

The script I used to transfer the morphs from V4.2 to the 17K LOD was one of Cage's earlier ones: geom_test4g.py

The link is on the very first page of that thread.
Just download and rename .doc to .py

But there's no reason the final script shouldn't work, too:
http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/~Cage/scripts/scripts.html

It's called TDMT

Btw, lots of other VERY usefull scripts on that page.

[ http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=88372&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=18](http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=88372&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=18)

Thanks Joe, will go after that next....

Following instructions on this little thread at DAZ linked above, I was able to create a CR2 file that accesses the 17K obj.

The character in PoserPro accepted a "mat pose" so it looks like the texturemap issue is okay.

In this screen capture, you see the mesh as imported in with no maps, and next to it the character as loaded thru the library with the edited V4cr2.   Wonder abouit the size difference and also the fact that the imported .obj the feet have a bend.

Worth noting that when you load in a default V4, like most characters, the figure is at a non-zero pose.  You absolutely must zero all joint rotations before exporting, and joint scales as well.  This includes "morph" dials that actually do bone scaling surreptitiously, like "Legs Length" and many others.  If you don't, these will be exported to OBJ as permanent deformations, and the resulting mesh may not fit the Poser rig any more.

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pjz, in the screen capture I showed the smaller figure is the 17K mesh imported as obj and that's all. So, by definition, that is the official zero-pose, right?

And, the other CR2-driven loaded figure has non-zero settings then, probably scale and some others, as you said, like "leg length or whatever."

Is that accurate?

I'll see if I can get the loaded-in cr2 completelly zeroed.

:: og ::

If you import the DAZ-originated OBJ, yes it will be in zero pose.  If you're applying your customized character's CR2 onto this mesh, it will give you trouble.
PS: TURN OFF IK!

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This is what I get importing the 17k model and after loading a default V4 - then turned off IK, zeroed the figure.  The mesh overlaps like I'd expect.  For the bend on the feet, it may be just that the CR2 that you've created is also not zeroed, which should be OK - although I strongly recommend zeroing before going to any export step, on your way to getting the figure to Max.

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got it, ok thanks for the help

 

Interesting...the problem was the raw import of the 17K.obj

I had "Percentage of Original Figure" checked, but the amount was 100% and I thought that was a good thing. Apparently not! It came in small (around 92.5%)

When I unchecked that box, the imported .obj matches both the normal full res V4.2 and the new 17KLODCharacter I created, once I took off IK and zeroed. They all have that angled bend in the foot so that is the default, no problem.*

I am going to try to document all my small baby steps for the benefit of nearly helpless guys/gals like me who might read this later, could save them some grief.

::::: Opera :::::

*It occurs to me the V4 default angled foot is because she is "Conceived To Be Always Wearing High Heels." Gotta laugh at that.

Quote - *It occurs to me the V4 default angled foot is because she is "Conceived To Be Always Wearing High Heels." Gotta laugh at that.

I despise it actually, and it's the reason the heel looks wrong when the foot is in a "barefoot" pose.  Fixable, but irritating.

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I think women are far more appealing when standing flat on the floor. Really. I mean it. There's something about that steady, grounded posture.

Well, i have to take a break...frustration and bad news.

The bad news is that Evan is not going to be available for this project. So here I am again, a non-tech writer/animator, grappling with these complex tech issues.

The frustration is: script to transfer morphs is not fully intutitive, Help button not leading to help, gives false positive morph is transfered, no morph appears in target figure, attempt to exit to 'reset', PoserPro so very stable for the past three weeks now destablizied by running this script (or something else) won't quit (hangs); control alt delete, go back in, morph is there in the head, but in a different place than normal and it does not function.

I just want to throw up my hands right now, so I need to chill and come back at it in a few hours.

PJZ you can toss in a 'told you so' and you may be right; but I don't think this is due to my chosen workflow, etc, it is because I am not tech oriented and all this is above me. If I started from scratch things would be no better; I am out of my comfort zone.

See you later tonight.

::::: Opera :::::

I would entertain serious offers to run the tech aspect of this project for me. I am not wealthy and there is no "funding", but I do have a budget and could pay for professional help to get a stable rigged human figure in Max with CharacterStudio and a workflow that leads to variety in faces and a small variety in body shapes, male and female.

Please PM/IM me if interested.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - PJZ you can toss in a 'told you so' and you may be right...

I would never say it can't be done, but I can tell you I feel my own efforts at similar stuff have been largely a waste of effort that I wish I had spent on other stuff.  At least you only spent a few days on it instead of a couple of years.

Look at these modeling tutorials, they may inspire you to take a stab at this on your own.  They're very well done and the guy shows some very smart topology techniques.  Modeling a human figure from scratch is hard, but dicking around with all these one-off tools to try to adapt pieces of other people's work isn't exactly easy.

http://www.erraticimagery.com/extras/tuts.html

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Operaguy, I've been buried since I got back and never got a chance to try Joe's methods yet - I was out of town longer than I thought I'd be. I hope to try it in the next few days. If you are looking for different faces, go to runtimedna. They have Ultra Morphs Set 2 with a face randomizer to make different faces for V4. You might try that out while waiting for someone more technically inclined to pop up.

www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php

pjz99, neat modeling vids. Thanks for the link!

Kevin

No I have no problem creating full specttrum of body shapes and faces in Poser with this great model, V4; that is what I do well, and I enjoy it.

However....I am no texture artist; i depend on a flow of skins and there is nothing better off the shelf than the library existent and forthcoming for V4.

But the flow from the shaped body and morphed face and textured skin into Max with low grief....ready for animation......that's the problem.

::::: Opera :::::

Well, these are things you know how to do.  You are at a turning point.  You are not satisfied with what you can do in Poser, and you need to learn new things in order to progress.  You can learn to bring the Poser content into a different application and adapt it to your vision, which is not at all a trivial task unless you are lucky enough to have a vision that is the same as the Poser content you're starting with; or you can learn the skills required to realize your vision yourself.  Both paths will require a lot of skill, but only one of them leaves you with something that is completely your own when you travel down that path.

You will also be completely dependent on other people when your vision changes, or when you want to realize some new vision.  You will be the proverbial man handed a fish.  While there are many helpful people and you will likely always get handed some fish, it may be a herring when you really wanted a salmon, or even a tuna.  I hope you like herring, because you will have little choice unless you learn to fish for yourself.  Herring is pretty good though, and there is a lot of it available, so that's okay. 

You can learn this stuff, or that stuff, take your pick.

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Quote - Well, these are things you know how to do.  You are at a turning point.  You are not satisfied with what you can do in Poser, and you need to learn new things in order to progress.  You can learn to bring the Poser content into a different application and adapt it to your vision, which is not at all a trivial task unless you are lucky enough to have a vision that is the same as the Poser content you're starting with; or you can learn the skills required to realize your vision yourself.  Both paths will require a lot of skill, but only one of them leaves you with something that is completely your own when you travel down that path.

You will also be completely dependent on other people when your vision changes, or when you want to realize some new vision.  You will be the proverbial man handed a fish.  While there are many helpful people and you will likely always get handed some fish, it may be a herring when you really wanted a salmon, or even a tuna.  I hope you like herring, because you will have little choice unless you learn to fish for yourself.  Herring is pretty good though, and there is a lot of it available, so that's okay. 

You can learn this stuff, or that stuff, take your pick.

Very well laid out post, good stuff.

wayne k
guam usa

A little warning: beware the lutefisk.  It is rough on the "pipeline".

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With all due respect, I still disagree.

I could spend a year going back to square one and learning to model the human form, something I have no urge or desire to do. Modeling is not interesting or enjoyable for me.

I'd have to learn to make textures from scratch starting from pictures I take of models, or from resources at the over-rated sk.3k or whatever it is called.

Then, I'd have to learn to rig the mesh in BidPed or Max Bones.

Then, having no morphs whatsoever, I'd have to learn to build them.

After all that, I would then be no further along towards my goal than I am now , assuming I find a collaborator for whom all of that stuff is bliss. I have no fear of collaboration. I am ready for collaboration. I thought I had my collaborator. He bailed out today.

::::: Opera :::::

Or, you can learn the various techniques discussed in this thread to try to convert the morphs; convert the rig; yadda yadda.  It may be you'll enjoy that a whole lot, I can't say (I didn't and still don't).  It's your time and money, only you can make that judgement.  Good luck either way!

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Quote - Hate to muddy the waters (or perhaps reveal my ignorance) but...

Have you considered Quidam?

http://www.n-sided.com/3D/quidam.php?rub=1

Example movie: http://www.n-sided.com/3D/video.php?video=export.flv

  "Thanks to additional plug-ins, export directly your ready-to-be-animated creation (equipped with its textures, UV, bones and skinning) into Maya, 3DS Max, LightWave, Cinema 4D, Carrara... Multi resolution, your characters can be exported at the resolution of your choice."

It allows you to import custom figures.

Quote - After all that, I would then be no further along towards my goal than I am now , assuming I find a collaborator for whom all of that stuff is bliss. I have no fear of collaboration. I am ready for collaboration. I thought I had my collaborator. He bailed out today.

Oh, man, that sucks, I'm sorry to hear your guy bailed.

I wonder if finding a rigger for Max may not be as hard as finding a rigger for Poser. It seems to be the least liked part of the process, and one most people don't want to tinker with a lot unless they get a reward of creating something too.  Sometimes even when they are paid hourly!

Often one ends up rigging out of necessity.

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Quote - This is what I get importing the 17k model and after loading a default V4 - then turned off IK, zeroed the figure.  The mesh overlaps like I'd expect.  For the bend on the feet, it may be just that the CR2 that you've created is also not zeroed, which should be OK - although I strongly recommend zeroing before going to any export step, on your way to getting the figure to Max.

I noticed with V4, even when she's zeroed with JP editor, and exported, there's a tiny knee bend in the exported mesh. It's been plaguing me while working on the last outfit, but I hadn't gotten to the bottom of it yet. Testing through several imports and exports and variations couple months ago, it seems that this bend is around 2°.

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Quote - I noticed with V4, even when she's zeroed with JP editor, and exported, there's a tiny knee bend in the exported mesh. It's been plaguing me while working on the last outfit, but I hadn't gotten to the bottom of it yet. Testing through several imports and exports and variations couple months ago, it seems that this bend is around 2°.

Why do you peps use Poser as an exporter when we all keep telling you to grab the obj file from the Runtime folder???...it's for this very reason (above quote).

Comitted to excellence through art.

Is it really possible for everyone with the desire to become a quality 3D figure maker? I don’t know, but I have my doubts. I believe an element of talent is required to get anywhere with this sort of thing.

If you intend to make independent short movies, it would be most convenient to be a modeler/texture maker/animator, but how common is such a comprehensive skill set? How many years would it take to acquire?

I still haven't begun to learn animation with any serious intent. I've been too busy modeling, texturing and rigging. 
 

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

Today thru Friday I have a heavy "real world" day job committment, so progress may slow for a while, until the weekend.  I am nothing if not persistent and will come around for another go.

I appreciate all the comments, suggestions and feedback from all.

::::: Opera :::::

ksanderson or anyone else inclined to get morphs transfered from standard V4 into 17K V4, here are the links for the Cage/Spanki scripts which ended up not working for me. It is probably no big thing, and failed because of my non-facility in these areas.

This is the big thread:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2677445
downloaded geom_test4g.doc from the FIRST POST in the above thread, change the extension to .py for a file name of geom_test4g.py
Got a GUI but could not seem to get a sequence down; some morphs transfered, some did not, none worked, Poser hung.

JoePublic's other link suggestion : 
http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/~Cage/scripts/scripts.html
It's called TDMT
I downloaded but scripts were throwing off runtime errors, did not get anywhere with it

As for the rig and texture maps for V4-17K, I just followed a bouncing ball at the thread below and was able to establish a cr2. When I did that, 'morph poses' for textures worked, and the rig for rotation/translation worked.

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=88372&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=18

Last post has the sequence. MikeDazFan  was interested in LOD:V4_LOD_2K.obj  but of course I changed that to 17K. He also finalized in Carrara while I find the CR2 in PoserPro.

I believe the entire community will benefit from a fully-functional V4-17K.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - > Quote - I noticed with V4, even when she's zeroed with JP editor, and exported, there's a tiny knee bend in the exported mesh. It's been plaguing me while working on the last outfit, but I hadn't gotten to the bottom of it yet. Testing through several imports and exports and variations couple months ago, it seems that this bend is around 2°.

Why do you peps use Poser as an exporter when we all keep telling you to grab the obj file from the Runtime folder???...it's for this very reason (above quote).

Because when I need anything with a morph, like a character (Alice, GND, Eleite etc...) or any other FBM or a PBM, or a roughed in JCM, you have to export the mesh with that morph out of poser and into a modeling program. There's no original OBJ geometry to grab when dealing with a morphed figure.  I'm not aware of Hexagon, Max or Zbrush being able to read poser deltas and apply them to the loaded mesh.

Maybe someone will write a script for Max or Z to do this.

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Quote - I'm not aware of Hexagon, Max or Zbrush being able to read poser deltas and apply them to the loaded mesh.

Cinema 4D + interPoser can :)

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Quote - > Quote - I'm not aware of Hexagon, Max or Zbrush being able to read poser deltas and apply them to the loaded mesh.

Cinema 4D + interPoser can :)

So can Collada into Max, but since you're importing rigged figure from the cr2 (where I think this small shift happens) and are making tight, skin fitting clothing, you still end up having to deal with this little shift.

Does interposer let you manually load an OBJ (from runtime, for example) and then let you read deltas from a pose file and let you pick which morph to load in? (thus circumventing V4's cr2), or does it start off with reading the cr2, and build on that?

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4:32 pm
Pasadena, CA

Well I am home from an intense database programming day. I am hoping to recharge and take another run at the morph transfer into 17K. My baseball team is on rain delay in Detroit. Cranking up air conditioning. Having a diet coke.......

Meanwhile in my email is a typical missive from CGSociety. Good, let's go see what's happening over there. Reading about Quadro 3700....browsing cool new images........wondering how much a cloth dynamics in Maya person makes (hot jobs department).......

Then, I see a small thumbnail of an image that almost looks like "my style." You can bet I'm going to click on that. Okay, beautiful sculpted shape. Beautiful skin and lighting. Don't know what the red stuff is. Not familiar with the photographer he is honoring.....

ZBrush and Photoshop, hmmmm....those are not modeling apps....

And then I notice something.............

The underarm cut. Way too high. Her right one curving funny........

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.........WAIT A DAMN MINUTE!

I think you can all figure out where I am going with this........

http://mechahatechimp.cgsociety.org/gallery/667015/

:::::::::: thud :::::::::::

 Yep, but it may be his. I've seen high up armpits on Turbosquid models and others.

I'm probably going to try using the python script in the next couple days when I can come up for air.
In the meantime, why not try just V4 to V4 - just in case there were discrepancies in the figure you were trying to transfer morphs from. Perhaps it has a custom head, I don't know. It would at least give you a baseline to work from and more could compare to see if the problems are the same.

Also, going through that gigantic thread, someone mentioned the python script worked better in Poser 6. I have only been jumping to and fro it's so long, but that might be worth a shot. And maybe try their more finalized version... TDMT - links to it around the middle of the thread around page 28 - 30 or so.

I would try one morph at a time for starters to see if all is going well.

The rain looks like it has let up here in Farmington Hills, NW of Detroit, so maybe they'll play soon.

BTW using the new Google Chrome browser. Working pretty well right now... seems faster than IE and Firefox.

Yes the game just started, the Angels are out in order and the darn Tigers have four hits and two runs already in the bottom of the 1st.

SHHEESH.

I probably will get the energy to try again late tonight. Might try your V4 to V4 idea.

::::: Opera :::::

Regarding morphs...

Check out Morph-O-Matic, much better than Max's built in Morpher.

will do jeff. thanks for all your valuable suggestions.

I still have a mind to engage Joe Alter's sculpting/morph-making/lip-sync program as well, if other tools are inadequate.

http://lbrush.com

::::: Opera :::::

Operaguy, I don't know if you've been folowing this but DAZ | Studio will soon have a new plug-in called aniMate. You can very easily make animations using aniBlocks, and you can export them as BVH files. You could edit the BVH files in Poser, export them as a new BVH file and make a new aniBlock. One of the beta testers has successfully exported a BVH file from DAZ | Studio and imported it with success into Poser. You could also just directly use the BVH file in your program of choice. aniMate will be out soon...it was originally supposed to be September 9th but the makers of aniMate are getting some more aniBlocks ready for the debut. Their demos have mostly dancing right now, but the aniBlocks are capable of much more and can be easily trimmed, lengthened, combined, etc. You can make your own importing BVH files, using aniPad or Puppeteer or even hand keyframing. The beta testers are saying it works great. Looks great in the demo videos.

The thing I noticed was they used the 17K LOD V4 for the animation demos in DAZ | Studio!

More here: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=92446

And here: http://www.aniblockparty.com/vids/index.html

Might be an easier/quicker method of getting your films done. You wouldn't have to fuss with rebuilding your characters - just use the low res to animate and then export/import the BVH file to animate and render your full-mesh in the program of your choice. My idea has recently been to animate in Poser and then import the file into Vue which has a renderer more to my liking (and you can use the very affordable http://www.ranchcomputing.com renderfarm for Vue). But you could do a lot with the free TrueSpace proggy, too, and use the more affordable limited but still nice V-Ray renderer they're selling.
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=6375

I originally wanted to do this kind of stuff in Animation:Master, which is very easy to animate in, but the lack of good polygon model import and problems with BVH export  threw a wrench in that plan and has delayed my film for years until maybe now!

Kevin

Yes, several people have directed me to the aniMate development, and I've been running their demos. I salute the 3rd party company making that software; it is interesting and invovative. It is also brilliantly aimed at the vast DazPoser nation, and the could be gigantic. The program may do for "desktop" animation what, well, Daz and Poser did for 'desktop' still image render of 3D.

The solution is short for me, so far. No dynamic hair or cloth, and I believe no keyframe of morphs with graph mode/splines, etc. Not that it might not get there, someday. Believe me, I'll be watching this development.

Meanwhile, I am realizing that I can get my results -- and pretty much any results subsumed under the paths you have mentioned --  100% in PoserPro. The production of my first important short film is going very well. So, while the variety of approaches you are suggesting are thoughtful and intriguing, I've looked into them all and the are "the road not taken" so far. (I have licenses for Vue, A:M and trueSpace to show for it!) I will focus on my Poser skills and take them as far as I can, until my 'next level" pipeline is good to go

I am pursuing my 3DSMax pipeling in the background here, with promising developments having happened in the past few days. We might not having anything to show on the "V4 in Max" solution for a while, maybe not for a few weeks or until October.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

:::::: Opera :::::

This ANIMate looks exciting. Keeping my eyes peeled.

<strong>bandolin</strong><br />
[Former 3DS Max forum coordinator]<br />
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