ARTICLE

"Rigging
Painted Weight Rigging is the direction DAZ is going as opposed to Inclusion-Exclusion Sphere Rigging that the Poser product espouses. Defining what geometry moves when a particular bone is rotated. A Painted Weight Map assigns a value with each individual vertice in the geometry."

 

 

Uh oh......

 

 

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Weight rigging seems to the way to go forward, not just for DS but - I sincerely hope - Poser too. 

I really hope we don't get into the situation where V5 is incompatible with Poser. That's in no-one's best interests - not SM, not DAZ and most importantly not their customers.

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Windows 10 x64 Pro - Intel Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz (x2)

PoserPro 11 - Units: Metres

Adobe CC 2017

Quote - Uh oh......

...from the company that:

1. promised that OptiTex cloth technology would be a revolution;

2. abandoned Hexagon (while still selling it :mad:);

3. derailed Carrara into yet another Poser clone

...just to remind some highlights.

First wait to see if, when and what they deliver, then bandage your head.

B.t.w., if this technology would not be mirrored somehow into Poser it would split the market and the question would become: how many 3rd party vendors/content providers would follow DAZ (especially if content creating tools were not free?).

Bye...

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Quote - I really hope we don't get into the situation where V5 is incompatible with Poser. That's in no-one's best interests - not SM, not DAZ and most importantly not their customers.

get ready for it ;o). I've been thinking that for a long time now....lol.

The "uh oh" seems given in the absence of having read the several threads going around about weight mapping. Wolf - did you read what has been said elsewhere in the last couple weeks, or no?

If no - here's a quick summary:

Almost every user is very interested in this.

A few fear (mistakenly) that WM-enabled Poser and DS imply that old rigging will stop working. They have been enlightened several times but it keeps coming up.

Dan Farr (am I spelling that right?) has said DAZ is interested in and/or is already working with other vendors to ensure compatibility. Nobody in his right mind thinks he's not talking about SM.

SM has publicly said nothing.

In private, I know something I can't talk about. Infer what you will from that intentionally vague statement.

There ya go.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Quote -
get ready for it ;o). I've been thinking that for a long time now....lol.

The optimist in me says: common sense will prevail

The pessimist in me says: this is going to turn into a real mess

The realist in me says: commercial imperatives will come into play - can either of these companies really afford to alienate or even abandon a huge chunk of their customer base?

EDIT: cross-post with BB. He's probably told us all he can - and a little bit more. So it looks like it will be a win for common sense, the profit motive and... we the punters!

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Windows 10 x64 Pro - Intel Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz (x2)

PoserPro 11 - Units: Metres

Adobe CC 2017

From the cgTalk article:

Quote - With the fifth generation, we are taking this a step further with a completely androgynous base Unimesh," explains Renfeldt. "Our morph targets are generalized to the point that you can give a beer belly or extra muscle-tone just by mixing morphs. Texture packs and morph sets can be added in lean the characters in a particular direction.

This basically makes detailed conforming clothing impossible, hypothetical weight mapping aside.

edit: well, "impractically hard", maybe not impossible.

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Version 5 figures wont be on my shopping list anyway, I just cant justify the expense. I also cant afford to upgrade from Poser 7 for a hobby.  Daz went away from Poser with its dynamic cloth items , and its subdivision figures. Its been obvious for some time that maintaining compatibility was going to get harder.  V4 was not comparible with Poser 5 , lets see what Daz says about V5.

 

Weight maps is certainly a way to go, Lightwave uses them as does every other professional modeller application I know of.

3ds Max's Biped rigging is not all that different from Poser actually.

http://www.ehow.com/way_5990487_3ds-animation-biped-rigging-tutorial.html

Not saying one thing is better than the other, just that the envelope system that Poser uses isn't unique.

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Just to Clarify  My "Uh oh" was because of what  Pjz99 asserted about legacy clothing content.
industry standard weight mapping will make for better Collada Exports from DAZ studio (Right now its basicly worthless for most but the simplest cases)

 

 

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Eh I'm not worried about how they handle legacy content, I wouldn't be surprised if they just implement some kind of flag in CR2 or other Poser file format that says "Use Weight Mapping" and if it's not present then default to the old system - just speaking as a clothing content creator, if the base morph is a featureless androgynous thing, and you're expected to morph the conformer to fit whatever target the user picks, that's going to be an immense amount of labor.  Content creators won't be excited to do that, and users won't be excited to pay for it.  Plus the results of that kind of thing cannot ever be made to mix well (even if you can make them look GOOD, which is dubious).

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Also there's the question of how to package content rigged for a hypothetical new system - don't expect many content makers to be eager to do dramatically more rigging work (current system as well as any future weightmapped system) and charge the same prices.  I'd expect the great majority of content makers will simply pick one system rather than try to support both, probably the newest, which means pretty much those that don't buy into all the new tools required will not be getting much content to use.

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I do not understand this hype about weight painting. From a mathematician's point of view, the falloff-zone poser uses are clearly the more general concept. With them you can easily differentiate between the geometry of the mesh and it's topology, with weight painting these are tightly coupled. Meaning: when you cut off your V4's arm and redo it in a modeling application with a different topology, you can still use your falloff-zones, but your weight-map is gone (because the weight-map is based on vertex-numbers, while the falloff-zones are based on location in 3-dimensional space). Also, if you absolutely need the weight-map, you can use your falloff-zones to create one, while the other way around is much more difficult and likely to result in one falloff-zone per vertex. The falloff-zones essentially say something like "the vertices around [origin of elbow here] are effected by bending", where the weightmap says something like "vertex 7,8 and 9 are effected by bending" the latter being far less useful for different figures than the former.

And what is the plan to actually create the weight-maps? Sure, one can export collada, from eg. wings or blender, but as long as one cannot do the armature animation within the same program as the weight-painting, the process would be rather uncomfortable (except for big fans of poser's group editor of course).

 

Hypothetically speaking, if Poser were to support a weightmap system, one would hope it came with tools to create said weight maps.  I am cynical enough to expect that such tools will be in the $500+ "Pro" version rather than in the base app.

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About being compatible....

One CAN already use some kind of weight mapping inside POSER.

Not the real thing, but some alternative.

You Can move anything with a displacement map.
One can add flesh, muscles, weight, anything with a displacement map to any textured figure.

But then comes the problem..
How can one "gues the final shape", if it is not even visible before render time??

Conforming clothing will always be too small.
The same for dynamic clothing.
A Displacement map does not exist for the cloth room.
The cloth room calculates the draping around the obj.

Then, during the render, the displacement map comes into play, and gladly pokes through any dynamic cloth... 

If one alters the shape with any form of rigging, mapping, displacement, weight mapping, conforming and dynamic clothing will "HAVE" to know about it, before coming into action.

Just my 2 cents.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Nah displacement mapping has nothing at all to do with weight mapping in rigging, they're really completely unrelated.

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Quote - The "uh oh" seems given in the absence of having read the several threads going around about weight mapping. Wolf - did you read what has been said elsewhere in the last couple weeks, or no?

If no - here's a quick summary:

Almost every user is very interested in this.

A few fear (mistakenly) that WM-enabled Poser and DS imply that old rigging will stop working. They have been enlightened several times but it keeps coming up.

Dan Farr (am I spelling that right?) has said DAZ is interested in and/or is already working with other vendors to ensure compatibility. Nobody in his right mind thinks he's not talking about SM.

SM has publicly said nothing.

In private, I know something I can't talk about. Infer what you will from that intentionally vague statement.

There ya go.

 

Why I worry...

SM won't say anything... publicly. They almost seem not only content but encouraging of people to form these types of opinions.

As for what's in companies best intersts to cooperate... my local Time Warner cable company is in a dispute with a company of local channels about carrying them on cable. Both companies benefit from the agreement, but on December 31, Time Warner has to pull the plug on the channels as per their carry agreement.

Time Warner has said nothing publicly about the dispute, but the channels, which are free over the air broadcast stations, are trying to paint the picture that TWC is being greedy, and manipulative.

Weight-mapping, if it's a single-skin solution (which DAZ have said theirs is and so, if we build on BB's comment, presumably Poser's will be) means that any bone can affect any part of the mesh - no more having to use body handles or morphs to get skirts and the like to work, and things like webbed hands and bat-wings that join all the way down to the hip become possible. Also, a weight-map can be arbitrary making it much easier to do things like epaulettes where part of the shoulder mesh needs to move and part needs to stay put (though the new P8+ falloff options should also help there).

Personally I can't weight for the wait mapping . I hope it will be somehow compatible with Max at least the ability to get it into max to use the rigging tools there.

Conforming clothes IMO have always been a sad idea anyway. Hopefully Poser /DS will adopt a sane aproach. IE no body under the clothes to poke through.

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A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

As long as Poser character figures and associated content remain in the 70k+ poly count range, and conformers are expected to have similar polygonal detail, weight mapping rigged content is going to be pretty immensely difficult. 

Quote - Conforming clothes IMO have always been a sad idea anyway. Hopefully Poser /DS will adopt a sane aproach. IE no body under the clothes to poke through.

That isn't what drives the DAZ market at all.  They are all about the Unimesh and conforming clothing, it's easily 90% of their money.

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Oooh!  I suppose you have a point pjz99. But wouldn't it be great?  I see Poser as a much eaier way to pose and animate, but Max or C4D, they are tops for creating content. Of course you can animate and pose, set up scenes in the technically more advanced apps, but it is much more time consuming and complex than Poser. And not much fun IMO.

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A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

Quote - > Quote - Time Warner has said nothing publicly about the dispute, but the channels, which are free over the air broadcast stations, are trying to paint the picture that TWC is being greedy, and manipulative.

Ah there's the rub -- I notice the same thing, too.

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o.k., then we can only hope the SM weight-mapping thing will be easy to learn and that it will be in the paid beta of poser 9.  maybe they'll fix the transparency issue in the final release of poser 8 patch.  I've never used weight-mapping or even seen it in use.  perhaps there'll be another room in poser to paint on the model, or else we use APS to paint on the UVmap or the obj file.  they didn't say anything about weight-mapping in carrara yet AFAIK (which also uses daz models).

Nah I've worked with both methods, and the current envelope system is way easier than weight mapping.  Not like weight mapping is conceptually hard to grasp, it just takes a lot of labor for a complex model.  The envelope approach certainly has downsides (impossible webbed fingers mentioned earlier e.g.) but it has the advantage of being a lot less labor-intensive, at least for most models.

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Quote - In private, I know something I can't talk about. Infer what you will from that intentionally vague statement.

Obviously this means Poser will be skipping weight maps and going right to using simulated muscles and skins and soft body dynamic stuff, like at WETA.  Yay!  :lol:

Quote - Meaning: when you cut off your V4's arm and redo it in a modeling application with a different topology, you can still use your falloff-zones, but your weight-map is gone (because the weight-map is based on vertex-numbers, while the falloff-zones are based on location in 3-dimensional space).

Blender includes a very useful script which can copy weight maps between figures, based on closest vertex matches.  The same basic script could be created easily for Poser (although it might run a bit more slowly), if a built in tool for this purpose isn't included.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

That's not too different from what Morphing Clothes/Wardrobe Wizard and similar tools do for morph conversion, and somewhat like the Group Editor's auto-group feature - while it will give you a starting point, if the conformer is not absolutely skintight, a lot of manual weighting is going to be required.

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Quote - That's not too different from what Morphing Clothes/Wardrobe Wizard and similar tools do for morph conversion, and somewhat like the Group Editor's auto-group feature - while it will give you a starting point, if the conformer is not absolutely skintight, a lot of manual weighting is going to be required.

Yes, that's true.  Any of the processes for transfer between different meshes would seem to require manual tweaks in some cases.  In the case of lopping off a figure's arm, the basic weighting could be transferred by script if the shape of the arm hasn't been changed too much.  But if the shape were changed on some hacked actor on a figure which uses the current joint system, the joint parameters might still need adjustment under some circumstances.  I guess such a weight transfer script could be like joint insertion poses are now.  It might get the process started, at least, so every case doesn't require full joint-weighting from scratch.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Would something for Poser like DS's "Morph Follower" work? (I don't use DS, but my impression is that Morph Follower allows conforming clothes to fit even if they don't have the correct morphs.)

Ideally, you could use envelopes for basic rigging and improve deformations by creating custom weight maps where needed. The two methods aren't mutually exclusive (in Maya at least.)

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That's a pretty neat idea actually, although I have no idea how hard it would be to implement - I don't pretend to understand the math or programming involved, just familiar with the practicalities of working with both methods.

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Spheres -> weight maps would be trivial. After all, Poser and DS are in effect doing it already, it just needs to be output to a vertex map (which is just a list of values for each point). However, I believe that many if not all weight-mapped systems use a single set of weights per joint while Poser rigging has separate weights for each parameter - however, even if that's true there's no reason a new system shouldn't use a map-per-parameter (if you wanted the same values in each it would be a simple copy and paste at worst, and perhaps just a tick-box at best).

Quote - Spheres -> weight maps would be trivial. After all, Poser and DS are in effect doing it already, it just needs to be output to a vertex map (which is just a list of values for each point). However, I believe that many if not all weight-mapped systems use a single set of weights per joint while Poser rigging has separate weights for each parameter - however, even if that's true there's no reason a new system shouldn't use a map-per-parameter (if you wanted the same values in each it would be a simple copy and paste at worst, and perhaps just a tick-box at best).

IMO the 3 joint-zones are a good fit for poser's euler-angle posing system (not that i am friends with it). With weight maps, you really want to have only one value per joint, not three, so when switching to  weight-mapped posing, it is very likely and advisable to disband the euler-angles for a slightly more unambiguous system, e.g. quaternion rotations or axis-angle, so that multiple maps would not be needed. Everything else would probably be sheer nightmare-horror for content-creators.

Quote - Ideally, you could use envelopes for basic rigging and improve deformations by creating custom weight maps where needed. The two methods aren't mutually exclusive (in Maya at least.)

This idea would make the most sense...imo. Gives you the best of both worlds.

Comitted to excellence through art.

Quote - In private, I know something I can't talk about. Infer what you will from that intentionally vague statement.

There ya go.

 

 That's funny I can sometimes talk about about things that I don't know- and be unintentionaly vague! :-)

I am looking foward to weight maps- and I do believe they can just offer the "old fashion" method as well.

 

Quote - Nah I've worked with both methods, and the current envelope system is way easier than weight mapping.  Not like weight mapping is conceptually hard to grasp, it just takes a lot of labor for a complex model.  The envelope approach certainly has downsides (impossible webbed fingers mentioned earlier e.g.) but it has the advantage of being a lot less labor-intensive, at least for most models.

Well it`s all about how good the tools are implemented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJfUie-bBko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvQm6nGEZIg

 

 

Meli

"Der anzige der do wos hacklt is da Ventilator..."

 

For actual figure modelling, I would rather see a displacement map that actually moves poly's.
In preview, and it solves another problme too.

In the current setup, a displacement map comes last.
AFTER the cloth room calculation.

If a displacement map would actually move the polygons, you could morph a figure-prop with a displacement map.
That woud be a novelty!!!

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

I think being able to bake in displacement might be interesting or useful in certain cases.  A displacement map can have much more detail, however, than is actually present in a model on the polygonal level.  Displacement baking would only be able to move the vertices which exist on the model.  Poser already seems to use much higher-resolution figures than most other apps, and the current implementation of displacement is one of the key ways to make a low-res model look like it has more detail.  Personally, I'd prefer to see Poser move toward tools which could improve handling of lower resolution geometries, starting with better rigging and some sort of subsurface smoothing.

Displacement is also limited to deforming a surface along its normals, so the types of baked deformations would be limited.

But being able to see the displacement in preview while posing could be useful.

I think displacement baking could probably be done via a Python script, right now.  (I'm not volunteering, though.  :lol:  Anything with UVs in the mix is too much of a headache for me.  )

And, edit: You can bake in displacement using UV Mapper Pro, too.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

The whole point of displacement mapping is that it's a render-time effect.  If it's important to you to have displacement in preview, and to have it interact with dynamics, then it's actually a lot simpler and would require less overhead to just use higher poly content.

Baking a displacement map that has very much detail on it to polygons (if I understand you correctly) would give you a figure with a poly count in the hundreds of thousands for sure, probably more like multiple million.

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mark mentioned that poser has already got python cmds to handle weight maps, but apparently nobody has tried 'em yet and publ. results here.

What I would sugest is to make a displacement map to move existing points relative to the existing mesh.
So you only influence existing points.

For fine work you can use a "real" (the current existing version) displacement map, at say 4096x4096 per material. (Thus giving zillions of micro points.)

But using a proposed displacement map to move exiting points in real life would allow to morph the figure-prop by a map. (if only relative to the surface)
Allow the cloth room to drape around this morphed figure-prop.
Allow the hair room to "hair" the thus morphed mesh. 

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Quote - Displacement is also limited to deforming a surface along its normals, so the types of baked deformations would be limited.

stewer (Stefan Werner - SM's maintainer of Firefly) told me that Firefly displacement is actually 3-dimensional. It accepts a vector, much like normal maps do. But only a simplified form (equivalent to bump mapping) was exposed in the material room.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Correct if wrong, 

my experience is, that a displacement map works in full 3D Space.

But only, vertical to the mesh: In and out relative to the mesh surlace.

if at all possible with R, G, B, values, one could mathematically speaking, have: in-out, up-down, left-right, again, relative to mesh surface.
But that would complicate things beyond . . . . ., even beyond usability.

Morphing points in-out, relative to mesh surface would be very uselfull and help the rooms calculate around this point displacement.

One could use the same "gray" map ond in this node only re-calculate, and effectively displace the points.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

You'd need a modeling/sculpting app to actually make use of a feature like this, but that's all kind of beside the point - you are talking about pretty much defeating the purpose of using a displacement map (not having to cope with the extra overhead that the polys produced by the displacement map creates at render time).  I don't understand how this could possibly be preferable to just working with a higher poly model.

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Quote - stewer (Stefan Werner - SM's maintainer of Firefly) told me that Firefly displacement is actually 3-dimensional. It accepts a vector, much like normal maps do. But only a simplified form (equivalent to bump mapping) was exposed in the material room.

That is interesting.  So the displacement vector isn't wholly inherited from the polygon normals?  Or what? 

I've tried Poser's normal maps and they didn't seem to be able to move the surface against the polygon normals, but only along them.  I assumed I was doing it wrong.  Hmm.

Quote - But using a proposed displacement map to move exiting points in real life would allow to morph the figure-prop by a map. (if only relative to the surface)
Allow the cloth room to drape around this morphed figure-prop.
Allow the hair room to "hair" the thus morphed mesh.

This does sound like it could be useful, to prevent poke through in dynamic simulations on areas of a mesh which are highly displaced.

===========================sigline======================================================

Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking.  He apologizes for this.  He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.

Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below.  His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.

Why use a high poly model when you can do the same, and a lot more with a lower poly model?

For 3D X-Y-Z- morphers, high poly models are worse then low poly models.
A mosquito net mesh does not morph well at all.
You simply do not have the room between the points to move them left-right, up-down.
Lack of space, the mesh crushes, ripples, breaks.

The latest models have great obj files, but close to impossible to rig well, mainly due to excessive poly count.
Each and every bend crushes the mesh.
Every morph (worth the name) crushes the mesh.
Then, pose, twist and bend, and bye bye mesh. Try to cloth a crushed mesh, and cloth room goes bananas too.
Use lower poly meshes, morph the hell out of them, there is room to morph between the points, and use bump-displacement.

Anything over 25K is pure pollution for a serious XYZ morpher. No room any more, no space left to move the points around in…
Take any high poly mesh, and lower the breast to a normal real world altitude with her arms down. “Lower breast-nipples about 2-3 inch”.
The Posette or Judy mesh are about as high in Poly count as one can go.
I do not like those balloons that are closer to the chin then to the chest.
I even have a hard time calling then breasts.

But:
The main reason for the “proposed” displacement map is to displace existing points into a new position in 3D Space.
Creating a point displaced, real world morph using a map, and one that, if needed, the cloth room understands for its calculations.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Simple example.
All modern models are build in the "T" pose.

Most of them include morphs to lift the breast when the arms go up.

NONE include morphs to lower the breasts when the arm lower.
Now, my wife does not go shopping with her arms in a "T" pose you know.

When modeled in a "T", the upper breast skin is already under tension, and breasts are already halfway lifted.
When the arms go down, skin relaxes and breasts go down too.
Well my wifes ones do, and my moters did.

Well, on this side of the world anyway.....

For this you need 3D room, and lots of it.

It can be done with a high poly mesh, but pay attention to morphing, twisting, bending and combining everything.

But??
I have not seen it yet.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

I don't get it - if the polys are there for collision and morphing, then they're just polys whether they came from a displacement map or from the base geometry.  This concept of translating them to and from a displacement map just means more overhead (a lot more) than dealing with a high poly mesh, because you want the conversion to be realtime as you work with the model in preview and in dynamics.  Even Zbrush does not attempt to do this on the fly, it treats creating a displacement map as a single action that you do with a finished model.

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And that is too late for the coth room.
The poly's need to be dispaced, morphed before the cloth room calculations.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Just as an example, I include a render of a medium and a lower poly model. Both morphed. The left one is Alyson Lo res, with one of her standard materials, as provided. The right one is something I am working on. Rendered in PoserPro2010, smooth Poly's ON.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

And now the ultra High Mesh :-) just a screengrab from the above..... LOL :-)

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Unrendered to compare!

And lastly I added an untouched Alyson as reference.
Sorry, that are no breasts.
That are helium filled balloons :-)
Sorry my dear ladies, for the expression.

See why we need X Y Z Morphs ?
See why we need ROOM to morph.

Do this on a high poly mesh, and she does not twist or bend, without breaking or crushing any more.

PS, the lady on the right is, ahum, was,  the PoserPro female. :-)

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Not quite the face for close-ups yet, but it is a WIP

To vertically lower the breasts like this, you will need an external app.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Sorry, just had to try it. Fresh out of the cloth room. LOL.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

 

Rigging weight maps for clothes in fallout or oblivion takes seconds with weight copy scripts. I would guess they would add a script to do this in poser/DS to make content creation quicker, then adjust as needed. I would love to see weight mapping because then lower poly models could be used. This would open a range of possiblities for the artist that does crowd scenes. It is rare that I go anywhere in the real world and see only 2 people posing with each other. Though I admit I do not visit old temples.

 

Weight mapping could also allow proper rigging of fantasy armor that does not bend like rubber.

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGvpdACiCCA

> Quote - [ **ARTICLE**](http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5986&referer=cgnews) > > "**Rigging** > Painted Weight Rigging is the direction DAZ is going **as opposed to Inclusion-Exclusion Sphere Rigging that the Poser product espouses.** Defining what geometry moves when a particular bone is rotated. A Painted Weight Map assigns a value with each individual vertice in the geometry." > >   > >   > > Uh oh...... > >   > >   > > Cheers

a nice vid about 5th gen figures is on youtube Victoria 5 Requests for Studio 4 5th gen figures, need weight mapping, deformers & good rigging... I like the article, big changes daz need to do! else programs like(daz vs poser) are dead very soon.

This all depends on the end result and how it is done. But if it does not work well or takes more time in the process, I see myself doing the whole model in ZBrush and then just making the textures for it as needed. When in ZB4, I have done very high poly models just because I need close up and great looks. It also depends on what you want to do. I have a VERY high-end main production computer with two additional render nodes for network rendering. Everything is possible, even very high poly models with lots of detail and complex scenes if you have the equipment for it.

Like I said though, will have to wait to see how this will turn out.

Jeff

Development on: Mac Pro 2008, Duel-Boot OS - Snow Leopard 10.6.6 & Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon , 10GB 800 MHz DDR2 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT.

Quote - > Quote - Displacement is also limited to deforming a surface along its normals, so the types of baked deformations would be limited.

stewer (Stefan Werner - SM's maintainer of Firefly) told me that Firefly displacement is actually 3-dimensional. It accepts a vector, much like normal maps do. But only a simplified form (equivalent to bump mapping) was exposed in the material room.

I'm not 100 % sure about this, it's been several months since I saw the thread at DAZ...

In DAZ Studio normal maps can be used to control the direction of displacement. I.e. you'd use a regular displacement map and a normal map together. I don't remember exactly how this works; I don't use DS so it was just a curiosity quickly (almost) forgotten.

I don't know for sure, but that doesn't sound plausible. I agree that it is possible to use normal maps while also using displacement maps, in either app. But the normal map only alters normals. It does not influence displacement, at least not in Poser. What I was talking about is the ability to use a vector displacement where a point can be moved anywheere, not just along the line defined by the normal.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Quote - markschum wrote Version 5 figures wont be on my shopping list anyway, I just cant justify the expense. I also cant afford to upgrade from Poser 7 for a hobby.  Daz went away from Poser with its dynamic cloth items , and its subdivision figures. Its been obvious for some time that maintaining compatibility was going to get harder.  V4 was not comparible with Poser 5 , lets see what Daz says about V5.

Weight maps is certainly a way to go, Lightwave uses them as does every other professional modeller application I know of.

Looks like Optitex is now involved in making Poser dynamic items, too...

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/poser-dynamic-jeans?item=11744&_m=d

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/new-releases/poser-dynamic-qi?item=11738&cat=421&_m=d

There's no feud between DAZ and SmithMicro like there was with the previous Poser owners. Maybe things will change. SmithMicro stuff has been in the DAZ marketplace recently.

Kevin

 

Just in usability terms, I'm sure you'd have to have a sculpting app that would translate hard geometry into a "map" (obviously it couldn't be a simple grayscale map) in order to get anywhere at all with a feature like that.  I guess when a tool to make that kind of displacement "map" it might be a neat feature.

My Freebies

Quote - Looks like Optitex is now involved in making Poser dynamic items, too...

The only innovative thing Optitex and DAZ did with dynamics was to agree on a proprietary format that excludes everyone but them from producing content.  Hopefully that approach won't rub off on the Poser business model too much.

My Freebies

I wonder if one could access the 3d displacement abilities of firefly thru python?

Quote - > Quote - Displacement is also limited to deforming a surface along its normals, so the types of baked deformations would be limited.

stewer (Stefan Werner - SM's maintainer of Firefly) told me that Firefly displacement is actually 3-dimensional. It accepts a vector, much like normal maps do. But only a simplified form (equivalent to bump mapping) was exposed in the material room.

Dumb question, but why not have poser or DS use a sphere mapping system to give you a begininng weight map?  Auto convert it over.  That would allow you to at least have a starting point.  Maybe include a 3d painting option for your weight map and you're good to go. 

Or you can import a 3d mesh for some boolean weight mapping.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Will we finally see the long antipated final break between poser and d/s? Will DAZ finally break free from Poser?

Will we poser user finally be freed from the depandancy upon DAZ figures and see other figures flourish because of it? Will other figure creators finally get the chance they do deserve, without being overshadowed by DAZ? Will DAZ finally stop dominating the poser market with ever repeating slut items and allow creativity outside of the DAZ universe to come back again? Can this really be true?

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

"flourish" or be forced to use inferior other figures because daz vickies and michaels won't work anymore?

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month.  Oh, and it's free!

Quote - I wonder if one could access the 3d displacement abilities of firefly thru python?

Quote - > Quote - Displacement is also limited to deforming a surface along its normals, so the types of baked deformations would be limited.

stewer (Stefan Werner - SM's maintainer of Firefly) told me that Firefly displacement is actually 3-dimensional. It accepts a vector, much like normal maps do. But only a simplified form (equivalent to bump mapping) was exposed in the material room.

Nope.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Quote - Eh I'm not worried about how they handle legacy content, I wouldn't be surprised if they just implement some kind of flag in CR2 or other Poser file format that says "Use Weight Mapping" and if it's not present then default to the old system - just speaking as a clothing content creator, if the base morph is a featureless androgynous thing, and you're expected to morph the conformer to fit whatever target the user picks, that's going to be an immense amount of labor.  Content creators won't be excited to do that, and users won't be excited to pay for it.  Plus the results of that kind of thing cannot ever be made to mix well (even if you can make them look GOOD, which is dubious).

I haven't read the whole thread, but I didn't want to get there and forget to comment about this. I understand the concern on the issue above, but I imagine that even if we end up with one single mesh for any shape, there will be still some "standard", male-female predefined shapes, which would be a starting point for modelers and content creators to start at. Then one could state a piece of clothing is compatible with "Gen5 Female" or "Gen5 Male" only. It doesn't mean every piece of clothing from then on should work with any shape of the figure, just that, hypothetically, it could.

I seriously doubt the Poser cloth room will go proprietary like Optitex.

Weight mapping is over-glorified JCMing.

 

 

Weight mapping is nothing like JCMs.  Weight mapping defines the flexablity of the mesh at individual vertices.

"Will we poser user finally be freed from the depandancy upon DAZ figures and see other figures flourish because of it? Will other figure creators finally get the chance they do deserve, without being overshadowed by DAZ? Will DAZ finally stop dominating the poser market with ever repeating slut items and allow creativity outside of the DAZ universe to come back again? Can this really be true?"

 

LOL, you so funny.   :D

 

SnowS

my DeviantArt page: http://snowsultan.deviantart.com/

 

I do not speak as a representative of DAZ, I speak only as a long-time member here. Be nice (and quit lying about DAZ) and I'll be nice too.

Weight mapping is nothing like JCMs.  Weight mapping defines the flexablity of the mesh at individual vertices.

Let me see if i have this correct.  You use weight mapping to control vertices.

 

 

JCMs are morphs - which move vertices along a straight line between the base position of the vertex and the morphed position - that are controlled by the value of another parameter, such as a bend. Weight-mapping is an alternative way of deciding how strongly a vertex responds to a bend (or other parameter), like the current falloff angles and spheres (and capsules and extra zones in Poser 8+). They are totally different things. There are two desirable aspects to weight-mapping - first, that it allows any weight to be applied to a vertex rather than being restricted by the falloff shapes which should be a boon with more complex items; and second, as long as it's a single-skin system, that you are no longer restricted by the group boundaries (to choose a common example, it would be possible to have a webbed hand and the finger bends would affect the skin between fingers; the current limits on grouping - mesh may touch only its parent and its children - and deformation - a bone may partially affect only itself and its parent - prevent that.

I was going to write the same, RH, but then while explaining the big difference between linear interpolation of a set of displacements (what a morph does) versus rotation, I suddenly realized something.

It is possible to implement a true rotation using a pair of orthogonal displacement morphs. You simply use a weighted sum of the two morphs based on sin(a) versus cos(a), where "a" is the rotation angle of a joint. One might call it a double-joint controlled morph, or DJCM.

As far as I know, I'm the first person to ever mention such a thing. 

Once I started thinking how that could work, it became clear to me that a DJCM can do things that cannot be done with weight mapping. 

So I decided that if I could think of it, probably somebody else did, and I should not say what weight mapping can do that JCM cannot. Because I'm pretty much convinced that DJCM can do even better than weight mapping.

For example, I think to truly simulate the movement of clavicle, collar bones, scapula, etc. or perhaps the strain of tendons against skin, you would do it best with DJCM, not with weight mapping.

But I'm not a morphing or rigging person - just thinking about these things from first principles.

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OK i apologize for my general statement.  Thing is weight maps for joint deformations are still controlled by bone rotations.  Thus given we already have spherical fall off zones,  bulges,  and JCMs,  wouldn't weight mapping be a redundancy?

Perhaps instead of weight mapping maybe it is time to introduce an advanced rig?

 

 

Please re-read what Mr. Haseltine wrote, then maybe do some additional research in weight mapping.  Weight mapping is the first step to a better advanced rig.  It is what most of the rest of the CGI world uses.

Well... if we're going to "back the train up" so to speak let's start at the start.  With Poser figures,  are we dealing with euclidean or non-euclidean geometry?

 

 

If "back the train up" means we get better tools for rigging, thus figures can bend better and I can rig bodyparts with attached props without hacking the cr2 then I see no problem.

Unless, there are far better alternatives to weight mapping, such as the implementation of what BB proposes. I'm not in the bussiness so I don't know any.

Interesting point on using double-functions, BB. Though the idea of implementing it is bringing on a fit of the vapours.

Man this is one of those days where I'm glad I don't know as much as you guys, since there seems to be a little worry about possible changes that may or may not happen.  I look forward to whatever they decide to do since the purpose of it is to improve things.  I'm also sure that from a business sense that they aren't going to damage their existing revenue base.

Seriously even the DVD industry had fixes that allowed VHS users to use VHS tapes and even to convert them to DVD.  I see this same possibility with Daz and Poser. They won't chop their money tree just for the sake of trying something new. 

 

If "back the train up" means we get better tools for rigging, thus figures can bend better and I can rig bodyparts with attached props without hacking the cr2 then I see no problem.

Unless, there are far better alternatives to weight mapping, such as the implementation of what BB proposes. I'm not in the bussiness so I don't know any.

The tools are there.  btw do you play pool?

i wouldn't worry about daz.  If they stay fine,  if they leave that's fine as well.

 

 

 

Personally, I wish it was like it use to be in that Poser upgraded Poser Program structure, and DAZ made the models. DAZ Studio 3 is a great Program. But it's like doing Brain surgery with Boxing Gloves on.

They have so many tools, which is great in one since. but it is a nightmare to pull tools onto the screen. The pop into areas without wanting them to go there.  Poser, estecially Poser Pro 2010 I can work with no effort fast, knowing that the tools don't dictate to me, I dictate to the Tools.

And as far as the People that come with Poser. I like the Poser 4 figures better to work with than the figures from Poser 6 on. I can't get their clothes to work correctly on those charactures, where as. DAZ's charactures I have no problem with 85% of all the clothes made by the many talented people I by from.

The best features that DAZ has in there DAZ Studio, is AniMate. but even that has bugs, everything I use in DAZ seams to be more time getting use to animating with Animate and Importing it into Poser so I can clean it up with confidect. There is nothing like making an Animation in Animate, then half way through. the animation disapears, just because you ad another characture an put a characture in the scene.  This doesn't happen every time. but when you spend 20 minutes trying to tweek things. Then lose it is a big waist of time. When there is a mistake, I like it to be mine. That away I can learn what it is and correct it or learn what it takes to correct it.

I know that DAZ and Poser are Taking about trying to keep the charactures to be compatable from a reliable source. But that doen't mean much, if the final results don't end up that way.

Yep, all I want is great animating tools, People an dynamic clothing be faster, and easer to work with. same with the Hair. People with great rigging where arms, and legs bend. the body parts look more natural. Also, like the Caractures shown on the first thread to DAZ on V5. that has the capabilities of those and other charactures shown in their pop up. And of course, For only $500. dollars.  Woops! I must have dosed off while my finger kept typing in my last Paragraph.  Time to go to bed.