Grouping and rigging with content creator tools?

grinch2901

So frustrated. I decided to learn to rig so I get a copy of a dynamic dress and tried cutting it into groups in Hexagon, which was a disaster after it crashed about 50 times. So I said "wait, didn't they say you could create groups in Studio now?" So that's what I tried. Created all the groups fine. Now after a lot of tedious work I have a dress with groups that match v4. Great, but now what? I've exported the figure initially and all the groups were gone when I imported it again so I did each group separately and re-imported them individually, then exported the whole thing and this time it came back all grouped so I can save my work at least.

So now I have a single object with a bunch of groups. When I open the Figure Setup tab, it doesn't show up in the geometry. I'm stumped. All the tutorials I could find were for rigging figures like a fish or something. I want to match an existing skeleton and I can't find any guidance. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

3WC

http://www.schells.ca/ConformingItemswithDaz.pdf

This will help, I hope.

Also check out this thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/41/

grinch2901

Thanks wwes. Those links helped a lot, I was able to get a good skeleton in place, copy the dress geometry in, and delete the unneeded bones. Then created figure and the dress did in fact bend. The issue I now have is that the parts aren't welded together. So if I bend the left thigh part of the skirt it bends as if it's not connected to the other part of the skirt. See the picture. Also, the bends are very sharp. I copied the skeleton from V4 so I am not sure why the bends seem so much more harsh than hers.

Some of the tuts say something like "export the object from studio so it will be welded before you do this" but I don't see how. If I do I either lose the groups or they are renamed to generic stuff like "group 1", "group0" etc.

It's getting close but still can't make it move like a dress. Thanks for the help, moved me a lot further.

JoeQuick

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=44570

Autogroup and quickconform will save you endless hours of effort if you're making clothing for the 4th gen figures. The transfer tool included in ds4 pro to ease content creation for Genesis largely seems to imitate the functionality of these two apps.

Richard Haseltine

Poser rigging doesn't allow two sibling groups to touch, so if your skirt has thighs that join that will give you the tearing you see - one solution is to make the skirt all hip, which the thighs can both influence. The falloffs always need adjustment on clothing, the copy from the base figure (V4?) is only to get the joint centres (which must match) and for a starting point.

grinch2901

Thanks to all for your tips. I just wanted an early 60s style dress for renders set in that era because there are lots of things from then I like, Doctor Who, Silver age comics, early James Bond for example, and I'd like to do renders set in that era. So I adapted a freebie "pencil dress" to make it more of that era and tried to rig it for V4, which is still my figure of choice for females.

But I have so far failed miserably and have to decide if I want to invest the $50 in the tools Joe mentioned or finally bite the bullet and go to genesis. Rigging in Genesis is a snap but I do need to learn about how to do ghost bones and stull to make posing skirts and coats better. The dress I struggled all day with rigging for v4 rigged up for genesis in about an hour, and about 50 mins of that was me refitting the dress to the default genesis shape (see below). It might be the time to just move up finally and spend the money on GenX instead. Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions.

grinch2901

Just an update, I splurged and got the Auto Group Editor and Quick Conform. Wow, now we're talking! Below is the same dress I posted earlier (on Genesis) now conformed to V4. Really easy. With these tools I can finally begin to experiment with creating clothing of my own. Thanks for the advice everyone!