ISO WMA3 or a tutorial on how to convert A3 to WMA3?

Sfariah D

Is there a Weight Mapped Aiko 3?  or is there any tutorials out there to convert Aiko 3 to be a WMA3 version?  I like Aiko 3 as she was pretty much my first 3D figure I liked.

Bejaymac

Never heard of a Poser WM version and you REALLY, REALLY don't want a DS native WM version.

I have a half done Tri-Ax version I made back in DS4.5, used it as an exercise in learning how DS4 and the entire Genesis system worked, gave up half way through rebuilding her JCMs and morphs. I had learned what I needed to at this stage, so the idea of continuing to climb that huge mountain of work I still had ahead of me wasn't all that appealing.

Now I'm sure some idiot will tell you to use the "Convert figure to weight map" feature, you REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to use that feature. I used it to start with on my A3 and very quickly realised what a stupid mistake that was.

Every now and then the devs have a "bright" idea for a feature, and instead of sitting back and figuring out if it's practical or not, they just run with it and shove it in the program. The best example of this is the Figure Mixer in DS3A, sounds like a great idea at first, but unless you plan on doing bald nudes with it all the time it becomes total impractical to use.

The main problem is that a DS figure and a Poser figure use two systems that are totally incompatible with each other, so with DS4 the devs had a choice, abandon Poser content completely, or find a way to convert it to thier system. Obviously they chose to convert, problem is that it's not a very good conversion, we would have abandoned them ourselves if it wasn't for "special code" helping the converted figure appear to work and bend like they used to.

And that is the main problem, because all that "Convert figure to WM" does is remove the "special code", which leaves us with a just the poor conversion to work with.

Actually the main problem is this lot "points at community", the vast majority have no idea what's going on under the surface with DS, for most it's like watching a swan glide across the water, all they see is the surface, they don't see the feet going like the clappers underneath, so if someone gives them advice they have no idea if it's good or bad.

Much safer to leave "Poser" figures with the "Special code".

Sfariah D

Okay it is not easy.  What my endgame is to learn how to rig original figures.  From what I understand what I learn from the WMA3 project would help me with creating original figures, right?

Bejaymac

Ahh, converting her inside DS wont help you any, she will already be rigged, so all you'll learn is how to mess about with weight maps.

Basically you need to learn how to add bones to an un-rigged mesh, so you are looking for tutorials on the Figure Setup tool as well as the Joint Editor tool.

You can still use A3's OBJ if you don't have one of your own, it has mesh groups which will make it easier to create a skeleton in the Figure Setup tool.