Newbie questions about ERC freeze

Kitsumo

Ok, so I'm trying to learn chain rigging. I'm not a newbie to the forums, but I'm new at this. I've got the rigging done and I'm setting up morphs to make it more user friendly. I want to have a Bend After morph that bends all segments after the selected point. It's relatively easy to set up, just use ERC freeze to set BendAfter to control the next segment's Bend and BendAfter properties.

My question is: Is there a way to automate this process so I don't have to repeat it manually for all segments? I'm only practicing with a 10 segment figure, but to make anything useful (rope, chain, snake, garden hose, etc) it would need 20 or more segments and to make a morph for BendAft, TwistAft, SideBendAft, BendFore...etc, it could get out of hand quickly. I'm thinking there has to be a simple way of copying paramaters from one segment to the next. I tried setting up the first few, then going into the .duf file in a text editor and copying all the properties to the following segments, but it didn't work, I probably missed something. I guess I could use Daz Script to alter the needed properties then ERC Freeze the control for them, but I'd have to learn Daz Script first.

Yes, I know there's a product in the store that covers this, but I've already learned most of this from Youtube. I don't want to have to buy the whole tutorial just to learn this last bit (plus I'm broke), and I certainly don't want any purchasers to reveal what's in the tutorial, that wouldn't be right. But if there's a feature in Daz Studio that covers this, I think it should be freely documented. If there isn't such a feature, there needs to be, it would really be helpful.

Syrus_Dante

OK I see you want to create something like the easy pose controls like some of the older Poser content has.

Since you can select multible joint segments in the chain and rotate them all together with the Consolidate Properties setting in the Parameters pane option menu those easy pose controls are less needed.

But anyway I think there is no way you can simply copy-paste the pose control properties to the other segments since every control property is different because it always contains a segment less up the chain with bend after for example.

Another way to setup the ERC links is the drag and drop method with the Parameters pane in Edit-Mode. Then you also have to have the Property Hierarchy pane opened and you can drag and drop the properties from the Parameters pane into the Property Hierarchy pane into the control property Sub-Component list under 1st Stage (Add/Substract).

Here I have two of my youtube videos maybe those can help.

DazStudio G2F BasicWear 02 BeautyBend

DazStudio Rigging a Cylinder

Kitsumo

Thanks. I've seen your cylinder rigging video and I'll check out the other one once I get a chance. You're right, selecting multiple segments and moving them at once is easier and probably more precise, I just figured users would be used to having everything done for them. I learned a lot by looking at the power cord from the Modern Home Appliance Pack which I'm pretty sure was made for Poser. I usually get my design clues from products in the store, but I don't see many power cords, cables, chains or anything of that sort. It's funny how everything in the Dazverse is wireless. I guess I'll just go with the basic rigging for my project. It's going to be a freebie anyway. Thanks for the reply

Syrus_Dante

The first video is about how to create control properties for all those JCMs. I just posted it because you see how I drag and drop the properties from the Parameters pane to the Property Hierarchy pane. This can be an easier method than ERC freeze but it has some disatvatage in case of dropping the property to the 1st Stage (Add/Substract) section it is by default set to Add and gets a Scalar value of 1. This is not useful if you want to 'freeze' a specific slider value into a controler slider. Actualy I don't know what happens to the Scalar value if you drop a rotation slider in there.

SickleYield is an expert about the long chain figure rigging items and she also did a few tutorials about this.

[Tutorial] Create Pose Controls To Move Extra Bones

[Mini-Tutorial]Posing Long Bone Chains

 

I think there is a reason why vendors prefer 'wireless' because no matter which tools you use in Daz Studio its hard to pose both ends of those bone chain figures precisely. Not to mention all the work with rigging.

There are a few products of that sort that have different versions one with forward and one with reverse easy pose controls. With the base segment and the bone direction reversed. And a third variant is to place the base segment in the middle and having the segments bone directions runing to both sides. Placing the base at the center seems to be a compromise between the forward and the reverse posing.

One thing to mention about the free hand posing with one selected segment and the universtal tool translation in the viewport is the method of creating a Legacy Rigging figure with the Figure Setup pane and having the "Weld to Parent" setup. Lateron after pressing Create Figure you can Convert Rigging To General/Triax weight and still got the "Weld to Parent" behaviour where the other bones in the chain try to follow the translation.

You see what happens if you select and translate a segment 'not welded to parent' here at 8:47

DazStudio Twi'lek for G8F 01 Editing ZarconDeeGrissom's Version at 8:47

And how it behaves after the trick with Figure Setup pane and "Weld to Parent" setup, Convert to TriAx (or General), and then translate a segment.

DazStudio Twi'lek for G8F 01 Editing ZarconDeeGrissom's Version at 15:15

Kitsumo

I did discover the drag and drop feature yesterday from an old Rbtwhiz video. He was using Property Editor which no longer exists, so it took me a while to figure out that I could drag properties from the paramaters tab like you said. Both methods are about the same to me. The drag and drop method is faster at first, but then I have to set the scalar so the morph control (-1 to 1) matches the translation (-20 to 20). Overall, I can't complain, it's still a pretty easy process compared to doing everything by hand.

That "weld to parent" concept is interesting and also depressing at the same time. It just reminds me that every time I think I've got a handle on this stuff, there's always more stuff that I don't know. Rigging isn't terribly complicated, but I am recording videos of what I'm doing so I can refer back to them later. I've bookmarked most of the relevant Youtube vids, but some of them are out of date, using a different interface or I have to scan through the whole video to get the part I'm looking for.

Anyway, I think I have enough info to accomplish what I'm trying to do. It's going to be a multi-purpose cable. Just a simple cable, but then you can fit or parent different connectors on the ends of it, so it can be a power cord, an ethernet cable, a usb cable or whatever the user needs. I need that for the real project I'm working on.

I also considered using inverse kinematics, but I think it would take too much work on the user's part to make the cord drape realistically. Then I thought about dforce, maybe turning off the dynamic strength for the two ends and letting the cable segments drop to the floor or whatever in the middle. I'm just going to go with normal rigging for now. Thanks for the help.

Edit: Looking through my product library, most of the cables I see are props, no movement whatsoever. I guess they think users don't want/need poseable cables. Maybe they're right and I'm just being pedantic. Maybe the average user doesn't care about posing cables. Plus there's the fact that most settings don't even have wall outlets.

I just found SY's Christmas lights in my library, and those just have the basic rigging, no easy pose controls, so that's what I'm going with.

Kitsumo

Update: I'm getting there. If any DS developers read this, please include a function to create a series of Face Groups in Geometry Editor, similar to how you can add bones in Figure Setup. Adding Face Groups one by one is an arduous task, but when the window opens and the cursor isn't already in the text box each time, that just adds insult to injury. Other than that, everything else was a breeze.