Is it possible to "build" a morph direct manipulating system by parenting a primitive to a morph? Specifically, I instead of spinning Expression dials on V4, I'd like to directly manipulate her face morphs. This would establish the function supplied to Paul and Paulina in PoserPro 11. Possible? Other ways?

::::: Opera :::::

Parenting a prop would never work for this the Paul/Pauline Face controls are driven by facial bones. similar to the Genesis 3/8 figures

One could theoretically add some new facial bones to V4 and edit her CR2 to achieve this feature according a post in this poser forum thread:

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2902239

Thanks Wolf, that thread is informative. Boni cited a tutorial that shows facial rigging. If she reads this, can a link be posted? I'll go looking for it ...

:: og ::

HI operaguy ... I'm signing off for tonight ... send me a site-mail reminder and I'll get that link to you tomorrow!!

You can easily link props to morphs, I do it all the time for stuff.

Load your figure. Load the prop you want to use and position it. If you want the origins to be 0,0,0 on the prop, export it, then re-import it. Parent the prop to V4's head.

Now that you have the prop there, decide what you want the 3 directions (x,y,z) to do. (You can do far more than 3 things with each prop, every channel in the prop can be linked to another prop, figure, light, camera, whatever....) Lets use blink. Add a dependency to the x axis. Click start learning in the editor. Set blink to -1 as (in V4's case, eyes closed). Move the prop on the x axis a bit, set blink to .5 (Eyes wide open) Click stop learning in the dependency editor. Set the min and max x values on the prop x axis and force limits in the setting area so you can't drag the prop further than the setting.

Poof, the impossible to do in Poser prop Blink controller is now done....

Wolf, stop telling people what you can't do in Poser. It doesn't matter if you can't do it...... You have repeatedly posted you don't even use Poser anymore. Telling people that something can't be done when it obviously can is nothing more than you answering in a thread with absolutely nothing to add but disinformation..

shvrdavid, thank you. I will explore this later today. I have spent parts of the last 10 days attempting to learn rigging from the ground up, in order to place helper bones in V4 head to accomplish direct manipulation for lip sync. I'm making progress with that, but if i can simply connect a prop to the already-existing morphs, that would be spectacular.

Can you parent the prop to, say, head, so that the prop stays positioned around her head no matter the pose?

Yes, parent all the controllers to her head so they follow her.

Problem: when I click on the prop to move it, or even move it's dial, the ball's y goes to zero (drops to floor).

Sequence:

Place ball next to the head.

Select the V4 head.

Scroll down to "Browup-down"

Open the dependency editor on that morph.

Switch tabs from Value operations to Keyed Dependencies. (There are already two dependencies in place, for the r- l- morphs)

Click on "start teaching."

Click on the ball with the intention of moving it a little. Ball drops to the floor.

You need to open the dependencies on the parented prop. Not on the V4 morph. First parent the prop to her head, then open dependencies on the prop axis you want to use. Now you can select V4 head and add the morph you want to it.

Ok, i'll try that. Thanks ghostman

Okay, working! I've got a prop with a y-axis dependency to the V4 morph BrowUp-Down. When you grab the ball and move it up/down, the brows raise/lower.

Click here for short demo vid

Thanks shvrdavid and ghostman.

I may or may not abandon my "18 helper bones for facial animation" project. First I want to see if this idea...prop with morph dependency...gives me the control I want.