How do I save a character morph without it going into parameters

michellecelebrielle

I'm working on a character for selling. I have already got all his merchant resource morphs into an obj file and imported to Daz, but I also have Evo morphs to complete the character. I have got my merchant-morphs parameter and the Evo morphs together now in a Character Preset, but I don't want my merchant-morphs part in the parameters, as it is only about half of the character. Is there a way I can have the two together in a single preset that won't be illegally distributing the Evo morphs? Preferably as a Character Preset of some kind and not showing in the Parameters tab.
Hope this makes sense :p
I'm using DS4.6

Richard Haseltine

You shouldn't distribute the raw MR morphs either, I suspect. If you have a single morph created from the MR morphs, set up a new, empty DS content directory - that is, create a new folder on your drive that isn't inside an existing content directory, then in DS open the Content Library pane, right-click on DAZ Studio Formats, select Add a Base Directory..., and select your new folder. Now save your morph as a Morph Asset and set the base directory, at the top of the options dialogue, to your new content directory. If you place your textures in there, and save your preset to \People\Genesis\Characters\Some folder in that directory, then you will have all of your files neatly separated from everything else ready to zip up (with a readme etc.) and send for testing or to the store.

michellecelebrielle

EDIT: deleted, please see next post

michellecelebrielle

Hi, sorry, I have found an answer via google, but am unclear on a couple of things. Can I check the process with you?
-I save the merchant morphs as an exported obj file. (this is what I have done previously)
-I use Morph Loader pro to load the obj file - but how do I prevent it from going into the parameters tab? This is what has happened before - since it's only half the character I don't want a parameter. If I save the Morph Asset to a different directory does this mean I won't have to have the Parameter for it?
-I then save as a Morph Asset, preferably to a separate content directory.

-Then I reload the full character, removing the merchant morphs and loading my Morph Asset in their place - how do i load the Morph Asset if I'm not using a parameter?
-Check it all still works and save as a Shaping Preset WITH the Evo Morphs, or a Character preset with the Evo morphs and the textures.

Richard Haseltine

Any morph for a TriAx figure, such as Genesis, is loaded with the figure and appears in the Parameters pane. You could set the morph to be hidden, so it couldn't be set other than via your presets, but that might annoy people who wanted to tweak the look of the character. You could also use ERC Freeze to link the morph to the other morphs used, so that dialling it up set everything, but again that might annoy some users - and I've no idea how QA would view it.

SpyroRue

Wouldn't it be more ideal to make it simply one morph dial(slider) or two by having the full body morph and full head morph? The later being more preferred by customers because people like to use character sets to create their own and don't necessarily want both the face and body on any given character. I know in characters I create use a % however low of several characters, many with corresponding negative values on the head morph to keep it base shape so i can make the head/face look how I want it to. Sometimes the other way around, depending on what I'm working on.

Or is it because evolution morphs make up half the character and as Evo morphs aren't a resource it can't be baked (so to speak) in the full body/head morph as one with the Obj made from resource morphs?

I don't know much about it, I just know I'd rather it all be a head and body morph with a single slider each like V5 or M5 etc. But that's just me :)

michellecelebrielle

Richard Haseltine said:

Any morph for a TriAx figure, such as Genesis, is loaded with the figure and appears in the Parameters pane. You could set the morph to be hidden, so it couldn't be set other than via your presets, but that might annoy people who wanted to tweak the look of the character. You could also use ERC Freeze to link the morph to the other morphs used, so that dialling it up set everything, but again that might annoy some users - and I've no idea how QA would view it.

Okay, but even if I were to hide it, couldn't the buyer use the option to unhide it using the 'Display The Active Pane Options'?

michellecelebrielle

Spyro said:

Wouldn't it be more ideal to make it simply one morph dial(slider) or two by having the full body morph and full head morph? The later being more preferred by customers because people like to use character sets to create their own and don't necessarily want both the face and body on any given character. I know in characters I create use a % however low of several characters, many with corresponding negative values on the head morph to keep it base shape so i can make the head/face look how I want it to. Sometimes the other way around, depending on what I'm working on.

Or is it because evolution morphs make up half the character and as Evo morphs aren't a resource it can't be baked (so to speak) in the full body/head morph as one with the Obj made from resource morphs?

I don't know much about it, I just know I'd rather it all be a head and body morph with a single slider each like V5 or M5 etc. But that's just me :)

Hi, yes the Evo morphs make up about half of the face so without them it looks nothing like the person I've based my character on. Also, I personally don't like having a full character preset in the parameters tab, I prefer them to be in the Characters folder. I would try to make a separate head morph, but one of the merchant morphs changes the width of the whole body sothe head wouldn't look right without it.

michellecelebrielle

Okay, I have my character as a morph asset and Shaping preset.
Now I have a problem with a couple of things; firstly my character looks slightly different to the original with all the parameter settings. It's like he's been pushed out slightly - I can't really explain it, but if you overlay the two pics, the original and the new morph preset you can see what I mean. Could it be a that I selected the wrong unit to convert to when I used Morph Loader Pro? I chose to leave it as 'custom', but should I have used the Poser option?
Also, when I try to open up some of the original files I had my character saved in (with just the parameters dialed in) I now get messages saying certain morphs are missing. Hoping I've not messed things up :p The original files are on my usual hard drive for my DS work, the new MorphedCharacter is on the new blank one.

Richard Haseltine

Saving a custom morph in the scene file only can be risky, in at least some versions of DS. I always make sure I have the settings and/or an OBJ to rebuild the morph.

I'm not sure why you want to have the custom morph hidden -the whole point of the MR morphs is that you can combine then to make a new morph and distribute that, subject to the limits in the EULA. People won't have access to the original morphs or to the settings you used via the morph created by export and import - indeed, the MR morphs should not be needed at all for the final character.

michellecelebrielle

Richard Haseltine said:

Saving a custom morph in the scene file only can be risky, in at least some versions of DS. I always make sure I have the settings and/or an OBJ to rebuild the morph.

I'm not sure why you want to have the custom morph hidden -the whole point of the MR morphs is that you can combine then to make a new morph and distribute that, subject to the limits in the EULA. People won't have access to the original morphs or to the settings you used via the morph created by export and import - indeed, the MR morphs should not be needed at all for the final character.

Hi, I don't think I explained myself properly. The one I call the original is the one I built 'from scratch' before I thought i might release him. I took screen shots of the parameters I used, then started a fresh Genesis project zeroed, with 0 subdivision, and then added my merchant morphs. Then I exported as obj, opened a new file and imported the obj into parameters. I then added the Evolution morphs and saved as a shaping file.
I was comparing the original 'from scratch' file and the new Morph. That's where I see the difference in the two. Since the whole character is meant to look like someone specific that's why I didn't want the parameter showing, because it only includes about half the morph for him, and he doesn't look right without it. I didn't want people getting confused - I couldn't achieve a reasonable likeness with only the merchant morphs or the Evo morphs on their own. He also uses the M5 shape.