Problems with parenting and item search

intrinsicanomaly_262dc77de2

I'm hoping there are some shortcuts I don't know about. Two issues.

One, when I search an item in the content pane, say, a backpack. Instead of taking me to the location of the backpack, it will only take me to the very top of the tree where it is. I then have to 'click down' through every bone in the character's body that is wearing the item until I finally reach it. Isn't there some way of getting it to just take me directly to the item itself?

Second problem, parenting. Similar issue. I click and item and want to change it's parent. Daz opens a window with EVERY single item in the entire scene, with EVERY tree fully expanded for all of these items. There is no search function, and I have to scroll through countless hundreds of irrelevant spots trying to find the character I want to parent the item to. There has to be better ways of doing this, right?

Richard Haseltine

On one, do you mean the content pane or the Scene pane? If you mean the Scene pane try right-clicking on the highlighted node and choose Expand from Selection - you will then see the chain of bones leading to the match(es).

Two - you can parent using drag-and-drop in the Scene pane, which might be more manageable (for this parwent in Place is controlled by a checkanble entry in the Scene pane option menu - the lined button in the top corner, or right-click the tab).

JonnyRay

Also on your first point, you may be better off selecting the item in the viewport, which will expand the Scene pane to where the parented item is located. When I'm doing that, I use the Node Selector tool instead of the universal one. Mostly because in my mind I'm just selecting something, not wanting to accidentally move it by clicking on a translate or rotate gizmo.

intrinsicanomaly_262dc77de2

Thanks, Richard! The expand from selected works well for problem one. So does just clicking on the item directly, Jonny, for some reason I never click on things to select them.

However for the second problem, drag and dropping doesn't seem to work well unless I want to parent the item to the base character. I want to parent a gun to a character's hand, for example. The hand is very deep down the skeleton tree. I tried doing a search for hand then using the expand from selected tip, but this still opens a huge can of worms. For one thing, many of the items the character is wearing also have 'hands' and so this opens a huge number of trees. Additionally, I now have to dig back through the pane to find the item I wanted to parent in the first place, then drag it down.

It is a bit less clunky than the terrible scrolling that comes up when you simply right click and ask to change parents, but it's only a bit : /

Aabacus

Adding things like a gun to a hand is a little clunky but it's manageable. What I do is, in the scene pane, twist everything closed making sure I can see the gun. Then I open whatever I'm looking for all the way out. So "Right Hand" and yes, it's way down the tree. Drag the gun to the hand so that the hand lights up with a yellow box and not a line under it. The box means you are parenting TO the hand. The line means it's a peer of the hand and is parented to the arm the hand is connected to (probably.)  

You'll eventually learn how to navigate but once you do it'll make more sense. Everyone has their own tricks so keep asking, reading and learning!

Richard Haseltine

There is a SnapParent script in /Scritps/Utilities - I think it's from the Default resources package. As I recall that parents the selected non-bone to the selected bone, so it may not cover all instances.

scorpio

intrinsicanomaly_262dc77de2 said:

Thanks, Richard! The expand from selected works well for problem one. So does just clicking on the item directly, Jonny, for some reason I never click on things to select them.

However for the second problem, drag and dropping doesn't seem to work well unless I want to parent the item to the base character. I want to parent a gun to a character's hand, for example. The hand is very deep down the skeleton tree. I tried doing a search for hand then using the expand from selected tip, but this still opens a huge can of worms. For one thing, many of the items the character is wearing also have 'hands' and so this opens a huge number of trees. Additionally, I now have to dig back through the pane to find the item I wanted to parent in the first place, then drag it down.

It is a bit less clunky than the terrible scrolling that comes up when you simply right click and ask to change parents, but it's only a bit : /

I use the power pose tab select the hand and the scene tab should select and highlight it.