DAZ Studio is a very entitled parent!!!

WendyLuvsCatz

I cannot parent a figure to another figure, in place or not

use a null or group without the most bizzare results

I am stumped, Carrara, Poser or iClone don't do this

not saying it's lesser for it, it's just a superior feature I don't understand coming from softwares that don't do it 

WendyLuvsCatz

Mrs Chow has Scaling issues in Carrara so it might be related to that and the HD morph, just guessing maybe parenting zeros the scaling not the morphs

Richard Haseltine

What steps are you going through to get this?

WendyLuvsCatz

change parent in scene tab tried both in place ticked or unchecked and alternatively dragging onto

it seems to behave as if conform or fit to checked but it's not

I still think it might be a scaling thing 

Richard Haseltine

Yes, but what are you patenting to what?

WendyLuvsCatz

the Heart of the Matter swing seat

Remembering how to fly

none of which are in the DAZ store any longer, were by Lisa B

Richard Haseltine

I think I have them, you were parenting Mrs Chow to the seat of the swing?

WendyLuvsCatz

yes and I actually found it is scaling the length of the ropes that does it

which I find very odd but apparently expected behaviour parenting stuff to other rigged objects in DAZ studio

WendyLuvsCatz

just as an aside,

this is the videoI rendered keyframing Mrs Chow unparented

the first bit is the old Nvidia New Dawn demo followed by my animation

took a lot more time than I expected as spent ages trying to parent the old dear in many ways before tossing in the towel

I still wanted to solve this for future animations and if scaling things disproportionally is an issue parenting I am going to have problems

 

Richard Haseltine

OK, so you've more-or-less solved it?

WendyLuvsCatz

Richard Haseltine said:

OK, so you've more-or-less solved it?

 

not sure solved is the word but gained more of an awareness of this odd little quirk of DAZ studio 

manual keyframing of everything is becoming the norm rather than the exception 

I was rather used to all the cheats I use elsewhere like target helpers, tracking, motion paths etc but admittedly scaling figures nonunifomly was something not doable elsewhere in the first place so shouldn't be surprised it affects other things

WendyLuvsCatz

Premier Artists who don't instance stuff but parent all their ooodles and ooodles of highpoly massive textured props in place  apologies the other option that sends it to a position deserve a special place in hell 

Richard Haseltine

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Premier Artists who don't instance stuff but parent all their ooodles and ooodles of highpoly massive textured props in place deserve a special place in hell 

On a newish product or an old? Older items may well pre-date instancing (in which case you might want to use a script to replace the duplicate nodes with instances). Do note that textures are loaded only once, even if they are used on multiple un-instanced items.

WendyLuvsCatz

Richard Haseltine said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Premier Artists who don't instance stuff but parent all their ooodles and ooodles of highpoly massive textured props in place deserve a special place in hell 

On a newish product or an old? Older items may well pre-date instancing (in which case you might want to use a script to replace the duplicate nodes with instances). Do note that textures are loaded only once, even if they are used on multiple un-instanced items.

its not old, it's post iray and instancing  

and no the script has to reorder items the same as me unparenting everything

these sets break apart on FBX export and often obj export too

you cannot even use them in DAZ studio except as is because if you decide to unparent or reparent to something else it breaks

WendyLuvsCatz

actually I admit I may have stuffed up my terminology and must apologise

it's not parent in place its the other option 
i have been using DAZ content for 11 years but DAZ studio itself not that much up until the last few years

so yes I do find a lot of it's quirks challenging and terms confusing, I can send an accessory to any joint in iClone using attach for example and it will stay in that spot detached

that still does not excuse the way such sets are set up

WendyLuvsCatz

no matter how I do this, parent in place checked or not, if I parent the doll to her hand it flies halfway across the room and rotates too

and it's a prop (obj export/import)

since the girl is Genesis 2, I am kicking myself for not doing this in good old predictable Carrara instead of DAZ studio

it's an animation, so I already have to do several takes as no enable disable for picking the doll up using tracking or animated visibilty etc

Sven Dullah

Is the centerpoint aligned with the object center?

I would scale the doll down to 0% from frame a to frame b, and use a duplicate for the one she's picking up and reverse the scaling on it. I've found no better solution in DS. Every other method is clunky to say the least, like animating mats etc...

Well of course you can use translation too and send it to the edges of the known universe...never to be found again...could be interesting as the doll would spin around, possibly blocking the sun, in which case we would experience a dollar eclipse...oh I'll see myself out...

WendyLuvsCatz

it's the act of parenting thats the issue and I tried 2 dolls

it's odd as I have parented objects before but seems somehow related to the aniblock baked to keyframes on the character which was then grouped to move her.

anything parented to the girl behaves the same way

other things are usually parented to a t posed figure first

the animation itself is simply two separate clips joined which shouldn't have been an issue if the parenting in place didn't act so bizarre 

Padone

I believe there's a misconception here. As I know it daz studio doesn't support dynamic parenting, so everything must be parented or not at frame zero, before starting the animation. Parenting an object to an animated figure could result in unexpected results and I guess it is what's happening here.

The trick by Sven is doable in this case, then you can animate the scale.