Okay, I wanted to share some tips and ideas for the Dependent Parameters Editor in P8.  If you're unfamiliar with it or don't know how to use it there is a video tutorial on it here:

http://shaderworks.rois-sorciers.com/tutorials/P8_dependant/
I will also try to describe how I use it below.

Now, before I start babbling I want to make few things clear. Dependent Parameters are not new to P8. What is new is the DP editor. I´m not an expert on the subject, in fact all I know is that a DP is a parameter that controls other parameters. My hope with this thread is that someone will hopefully learn from it and others will point out any errors I might present. That being said, let's get started...

Where is the DP editor and where should I create a master dial?
First of all, you can create a master dial on anything and let it control anything.  For instance, you could load a sphere prop and create a master dial on it to control the lights in your scene or to bend a character at the waist.

To create a master dial:

1. Select the body part or prop you want use.
2. Go to the Parameters tab.
3. Click the little white arrow (next to properties) and select "Create new Master Parameter".

This opens the DP editor. You'll see a button that says "Start Teaching" and value knob at zero.
Below are the steps that I take to create a dial.

1. Set the value to '1'
2. Hit the "Start Teaching" button.
3. Adjust your parameters (again, this could be anything. To keep this simple, start by bending an arm on a figure or something similar).  As you adjust any parameters you see them listed in the window below the "Start Teaching" button.  You can select any parameter in the window and hit "Remove Selected" if you want to get rid of it.
4. When you're happy with your selection of parameters change Master value in the editor to Zero.
5. Here comes the tedious bit. Backtrack every parameter change you made and put it back to zero.
6. Hit "Stop Teaching" and close the editor.

You should now have a dial on your prop or body part called "Master 1". You can change it's name in the dial settings. If you want to edit the parameters click the arrow next to the dial and select "Edit Dependencies". This will open the editor again and you remove parameters or add new ones the same way you did before.

**
Some Tips**

There are millions of uses with DP and I wanted to share a couple of tips on how I´ve found it useful. This may seem pretty obvious uses but I want to share them anyway ;)

Tip 1 - Expressions.
I stopped using library expressions a long time ago. When you have custom head morph you usually have to tweak it to be useful especially regarding V4's mouth. So I like to create Master Dials on V4's head for expressions.  The benefit is that you can also include her jaws.
For instance, if I want to make nice open smile it usually includes moving her mouth down a bit, adjusting her upper and lower jaw and adjusting her lips with various morphs.

Tip 2 - Dynamic Cloth
When I create a new character morph I usually try make a new Master dial for the body so I have V4 "Zeroed" at '0' and my character morph at '1'.  This makes using Dynamic cloth a lot easier.
I load the Dynamic cloth, make sure the Master Dial is at '0' at frame one. I put it to '1' at frame 15.  I then run a 30 frame simulation and if I like the results I spawn a morph target on the cloth. This way I can start a simulation at frame 1 with the cloth morphed to my figure.

Some ideas

Here are some ideas for DP uses that I haven't tried yet:

1. Control conforming clothes that has dynamic morphs
   This would be for skirts and dresses that dynamic movement controls. You could make a Master Dial that bends your character and controls the dress morphs accordingly.

2. Hair movement
   Create a dial that moves the hair with your characters head.

3. Basic Poses prop
   This is something I want to try. Make a prop that has basic poses for a character. This could be various standing poses, sit pose and a couple of lying poses.  If it would a female character you could morph her breast to more realistic when lying down.

Some Questions (actually it's just the one)

Like I said earlier I´m far from being and expert on this and I have a question  for someone who knows more:

1. I´ve tried saving a prop with master dials to the library to use it in another scene but this doesn´t work. I was using V4 in both scenes and made sure it had all morphs loaded in both scenes. How can I save a "control prop" in the library?

That's it! Hopefully someone will find this useful. I've never written a tutorial or anything like that so if anything is unclear don't hesitate to ask.

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