Figure Setup - Just when I thought I knew what I was doing...

SpottedKitty

After my little adventure in Figure Setup the other week with the Space: 1999 Stun Gun, I thought I'd have a go with a different prop, Age of Armour's old Crossbow model. I'd already converted it to a D|S-format Prop Asset.

It might be a bit elderly by modern standards, but it still looks good (and authentic for the period!), the materials convert to Iray well, and there are useful morphs for drawing the string and raising the little clip that clamps on to the end of the crossbow bolt.

Okay, I went through the Figure Setup procedure and only had to go back to the beginning once. Progress, I suppose. There were already Face Groups set up for the bits I wanted to rig, the trigger and the little round spinny whatsit that holds the string back, so AoA must have had this in mind when he made the original prop. I did it, the bits work, they work properly, success!

...well, nearly. I figured out later that when I clicked the "Create" button in the Figure Setup tab after setting up the bones, the two morphs were stripped out of the mesh.

I now have a prop with morphs and a figure with moving bones. The screenshot shows them, the prop with morphs on top and the figure with bones (you can see the trigger and spinny whatsit in their "firing" positions) on the bottom. Is there something I should have done in creating the figure that would preserve the morphs? Or do I need to export the morphs from the prop then use Morph Loader to put them into the figure? Answers on a postcard to...

Catherine3678ab

SpottedKitty said:

After my little adventure in Figure Setup the other week with the Space: 1999 Stun Gun, I thought I'd have a go with a different prop, Age of Armour's old Crossbow model. I'd already converted it to a D|S-format Prop Asset.

It might be a bit elderly by modern standards, but it still looks good (and authentic for the period!), the materials convert to Iray well, and there are useful morphs for drawing the string and raising the little clip that clamps on to the end of the crossbow bolt.

Okay, I went through the Figure Setup procedure and only had to go back to the beginning once. Progress, I suppose. There were already Face Groups set up for the bits I wanted to rig, the trigger and the little round spinny whatsit that holds the string back, so AoA must have had this in mind when he made the original prop. I did it, the bits work, they work properly, success!

...well, nearly. I figured out later that when I clicked the "Create" button in the Figure Setup tab after setting up the bones, the two morphs were stripped out of the mesh.

I now have a prop with morphs and a figure with moving bones. The screenshot shows them, the prop with morphs on top and the figure with bones (you can see the trigger and spinny whatsit in their "firing" positions) on the bottom. Is there something I should have done in creating the figure that would preserve the morphs? Or do I need to export the morphs from the prop then use Morph Loader to put them into the figure? Answers on a postcard to...

You're on course ;-)

Morphs are not saved when "creating" the rigged figure. Before trying to make morphs for it, "save" the figure!

Then I'd recommend a fresh load of both the newly created figure from the just saved file and also of the original. Do not move either from their location.

Select and apply one morph to 100% on the original. Shoot it over to Hexagon {or export it - whatever you do for making morphs} - in D/S select the new rigged figure, in Hexagon shoot the morphed prop back over the bridge to D/S - make the morph. After checking it [just simple dial in/out] if it's a keeper, zero and save the morph.

Zero morph, delete the prop in Hexagon {click accept whenever returning to Hexagon} in D/S select the original prop {zero out morph 1} and dial in the next morph, send it over the bridge to Hexagon. Repeating the steps of how the first morph was made as often as required.

n.b. if there were any geometry changes then the above will not work. Then one has to make the morphs from scratch.

SpottedKitty

Success!

I went the export-obj-load-with-Morph-Loader-Pro route, since I'm still not sure what I'm doing half the time in Hexagon. Here's a test render, in mid-shooty, with the bolt included. Trigger pulled, spinny thing spunged, drawn string in mid-twang.

Thanks for all the help! I'll get my brain wrapped around this stuff eventually...