Posing in Daz is still too difficult

marble

takezo_3001 said:

marble said:

takezo_3001 said:

Oh, and puppeteer is excellent for pose storage, and animation as well!

 

 I've seen this mentioned before but I wonder why saving a pose with Puppeteer is better? I just save a pose preset but then I never did get along with Puppeteer so I hardly ever use it.

Because you can not only save an unlimited number of morphs, and poses in each tab, but you can also alter those morphs, and poses by sliding the preview in between different dots to create new poses, plus you can also record cameras and their customized settings and movement/animations as well as lights, and every prop/and clothing state!

So instead of having to load from different separate library folders for each separate pose/morph/cam/light settings or scroll through endless script entries, you can just go to the puppeteer tab and click a pose dot instead...

Plus when it gets stored in a scene you can load entire separate libraries full of different poses, morphs, cameras lights and props/clothing within a simple puppeteer tab instead of navigating to multiple libraries!

Let's say you have a scene with two characters, and you want to render your character/s into 20 morphs, and poses for one character, and a totally different set of 20 morphs poses made for another character you can just load a pre-saved puppeteer setting to the character/cam/light directly instead of navigating to 20 different poses and morph libraries/script menu.

But I'm not trying to convince you either, just explaining the many uses for it as it's an amazing tool!

I wasn't looking to be convinced, just to understand why people love puppeteer so much. I *think* that I understand your example but I would have to try it to gain some more insight. Maybe if DAZ were to document both the feature and examples of the possibilities, then the tool would be used more widely. I'd definitely watch a video showing your workflow. 

kenmo

marble said:

takezo_3001 said:

marble said:

takezo_3001 said:

Oh, and puppeteer is excellent for pose storage, and animation as well!

 

 I've seen this mentioned before but I wonder why saving a pose with Puppeteer is better? I just save a pose preset but then I never did get along with Puppeteer so I hardly ever use it.

Because you can not only save an unlimited number of morphs, and poses in each tab, but you can also alter those morphs, and poses by sliding the preview in between different dots to create new poses, plus you can also record cameras and their customized settings and movement/animations as well as lights, and every prop/and clothing state!

So instead of having to load from different separate library folders for each separate pose/morph/cam/light settings or scroll through endless script entries, you can just go to the puppeteer tab and click a pose dot instead...

Plus when it gets stored in a scene you can load entire separate libraries full of different poses, morphs, cameras lights and props/clothing within a simple puppeteer tab instead of navigating to multiple libraries!

Let's say you have a scene with two characters, and you want to render your character/s into 20 morphs, and poses for one character, and a totally different set of 20 morphs poses made for another character you can just load a pre-saved puppeteer setting to the character/cam/light directly instead of navigating to 20 different poses and morph libraries/script menu.

But I'm not trying to convince you either, just explaining the many uses for it as it's an amazing tool!

I wasn't looking to be convinced, just to understand why people love puppeteer so much. I *think* that I understand your example but I would have to try it to gain some more insight. Maybe if DAZ were to document both the feature and examples of the possibilities, then the tool would be used more widely. I'd definitely watch a video showing your workflow. 

 

I've not seen a good tutorial on the puppeteer. Most videos on it simply confuse me more.

kenmo

marble said:

takezo_3001 said:

marble said:

takezo_3001 said:

Oh, and puppeteer is excellent for pose storage, and animation as well!

 

 I've seen this mentioned before but I wonder why saving a pose with Puppeteer is better? I just save a pose preset but then I never did get along with Puppeteer so I hardly ever use it.

Because you can not only save an unlimited number of morphs, and poses in each tab, but you can also alter those morphs, and poses by sliding the preview in between different dots to create new poses, plus you can also record cameras and their customized settings and movement/animations as well as lights, and every prop/and clothing state!

So instead of having to load from different separate library folders for each separate pose/morph/cam/light settings or scroll through endless script entries, you can just go to the puppeteer tab and click a pose dot instead...

Plus when it gets stored in a scene you can load entire separate libraries full of different poses, morphs, cameras lights and props/clothing within a simple puppeteer tab instead of navigating to multiple libraries!

Let's say you have a scene with two characters, and you want to render your character/s into 20 morphs, and poses for one character, and a totally different set of 20 morphs poses made for another character you can just load a pre-saved puppeteer setting to the character/cam/light directly instead of navigating to 20 different poses and morph libraries/script menu.

But I'm not trying to convince you either, just explaining the many uses for it as it's an amazing tool!

I wasn't looking to be convinced, just to understand why people love puppeteer so much. I *think* that I understand your example but I would have to try it to gain some more insight. Maybe if DAZ were to document both the feature and examples of the possibilities, then the tool would be used more widely. I'd definitely watch a video showing your workflow. 

 

I've not seen a good tutorial on the puppeteer. Most videos on it simply confuse me more.

Vially

I guess what I am talking about with the bone heiarchy is that yes, other applications have a seperate twist and bend bone, (thus giving 5 bones per arm.) however, the twist is NOT a part of the actual heiarchy, but a seperate bone added.

Example being in Daz Studio, you have a heiarchy that looks like this

• Hip>
  • Thigh Twist>
    • Thigh Bend>
      • Shin Twist>
        • Shin Bend>
          • Foot>

Most characters and/or other applications, while they maintain a twist "bone" it is seperate from the chain, giving you something like this:

• Hip>
  • Thigh Twist
  • Thigh Bend
    • Shin Twist
    • Shin Bend
      • Foot

There is a direct, linier chain from Hip to foot. The G8 Characters there is potential to bend at the "joint" where twist meets bend.

Vially

And to whomever mentioned limbstick, thank you!

This can be a very useful tool from the descriptions, have it in my wishlist and will be getting it as soon as I get paid again...

I'm going to add to that list of usefull additions: https://www.daz3d.com/pose-architect-for-genesis-8-females (there is also a male version)

Someone has taken the time to put all the movements of a pose together, figured out center of gravity, and created single dial pose controls for a whole sweat of movements. (watch the video, you'll see what I mean.)

And on the side note: both of these are exactly what I mean when I say "I have to buy some 3rd party voodoo magic add-on to get base functionality to "posing" a character. The program should know Ground, Root, Center of Gravity, ballance... blah, blah, blah :)

cain-x

You can probably use IK-Chains to do similar things like Limbstick but it does not work well with Puppeteer. 

Richard Haseltine

Vially said:

I guess what I am talking about with the bone heiarchy is that yes, other applications have a seperate twist and bend bone, (thus giving 5 bones per arm.) however, the twist is NOT a part of the actual heiarchy, but a seperate bone added.

Example being in Daz Studio, you have a heiarchy that looks like this

• Hip>
  • Thigh Twist>
    • Thigh Bend>
      • Shin Twist>
        • Shin Bend>
          • Foot>

Most characters and/or other applications, while they maintain a twist "bone" it is seperate from the chain, giving you something like this:

• Hip>
  • Thigh Twist
  • Thigh Bend
    • Shin Twist
    • Shin Bend
      • Foot

There is a direct, linier chain from Hip to foot. The G8 Characters there is potential to bend at the "joint" where twist meets bend.

There is nothing in Daz Studio to stop a figure being set up that way, it's just that Genesis 3 adn 8 were not. Though I'm not sure what you mean at the end there

Dazzle

 

juvesatriani said: This one maybe suit your need https://www.daz3d.com/limbstick-for-genesis-3-and-above

Thank you - that looks very interesting.

takezo_3001 said: [...] The best way I find to pose the hand is to ignore the finger placement at first while just focusing on the palm's accuracy in the placement, then simply fit the fingers around the cup/pole/resting on the leg/etc...  // I also use power pose to get the fingers into the general position and then use the pose tab (NOT parameters) for fine-tuning as you can select multiple body parts and move them with the various bend/twist/forward/backward sliders!

Thank you - that is excellent advice! Particularly the hint about fine-tuning

Vially said: Most characters and/or other applications, while they maintain a twist "bone" it is seperate from the chain, giving you something like this:

 

• Hip>
  • Thigh Twist
  • Thigh Bend
    • Shin Twist
    • Shin Bend
      • Foot

This may make it easier for users, or at least some of them, but would it work if the pose is being created by software? Maybe Daz has such a feature (I have barely scratched the surface), or is planning one? The commonest type of industrial robot arm has six degrees of freedom (1 shoulder, 2 elbow, 3 wrist), and its tasks involve moving an end-effector (aka 'hand') to a desired orientation at some XYZ point in space via a clear path. Finding solutions for a new task involves avoiding singularities through which the arm cannot move. Even moving close to singularities can be problematic due to high joint velocities and/or reduced path accuracy. In summary, I suspect Daz's approach may have been influenced by techniques used in robotics. OTOH, this could be a figment of my vivid imagination. One or the other. Probably.

chicago1921

 I was in the same situation years ago til I learned how to "close" the pose.

kenmo

chicago1921 said:

 I was in the same situation years ago til I learned how to "close" the pose.

Close the pose? I have no idea what you mean. Care to elaborate?

Mart1n71

The biggest issue I have with posing is using the rotation function of the Unviersal Tool. Once I grab the rotation section no matter which way I move the mouse the joint always bends in the exact opposite direction to what I expected, or it jumps massively too far. That said, saving out frequently used partial poses for arms and hands is a massive time saver later on, plus V3d's Move Arms utility is a massive, massive time saver.

Petra

I find posing in Daz Studio very easy.

I use ready-made poses, but also pose myself if I can not find a pose that suits the scene.

Or I use a ready-made pose as a starting point and modify it.

Very easy to do.

P302

Petra said:

I find posing in Daz Studio very easy.

I use ready-made poses, but also pose myself if I can not find a pose that suits the scene.

Or I use a ready-made pose as a starting point and modify it.

Very easy to do.

Same here. I think posing is one of the strengths of DAZ Studio. Sure there is always room for improvement. A good collision system would be cool: define collision-relevant objects (a staff, handlebars, etc.) place it on the palm, and then dial in "grab" -> the fingers close wihout intersecting or - even better - with slight deformation of the skin on touch. For me grab and hold poses are the most tedious ones.

Sometimes I just mimic the pose myself: "how would I step over that item", "how would I hold a box and look into it", "what orientation have my bones if I stretch like this" just to get a feel for a natural pose.

I also work with pre-made poses as a base for refinement. Problem here is the sheer amount of Poses accumulated over the years. To reduce the seek and find time I set up my custom categories and put every single item I purchase or create and find worthy to archive in my proper custom category. Being only an amateur roughly 1/3 of my work goes into keeping everything organized, try out new Items and other housekeeping tasks. (The precious database gets backed up every day - just in case.)

Another way to pose I use a lot is IK using the ActivePose tool. And there lies also my biggest problem: the sluggishness of the system. On my system dragging a hand of a figure with only the pelvis pinned is a slideshow with <1fps. This is barely usable. If anybody has some advice how to speed up this (other than switching off smoothing, interactive mode and deinstalling content) I would be grateful.

 

gederix

P302 said:

Another way to pose I use a lot is IK using the ActivePose tool. And there lies also my biggest problem: the sluggishness of the system. On my system dragging a hand of a figure with only the pelvis pinned is a slideshow with <1fps. This is barely usable. If anybody has some advice how to speed up this (other than switching off smoothing, interactive mode and deinstalling content) I would be grateful.

Set your figure resolution to base in the parameters tab, hide anything in the scene you dont need to see while posing (often easiest to add things to a group and then hide the group). There is also an accurate/fast draw settings slider at the bottom of the tool settings pane for the active pose tool. 

FirstBastion

Both animating and posing is intuitive with Daz Studio and puppeteer is an excellent tool that helps save countless hours.

nicstt

Posing is horrible and time-consuming.

Studio actually makes easy in comparrison. Note that I included, 'in comparrison'.

My advise, use a pose as a started then drag, use slide, use pupetteer - whatever works best as a particular time to get the pose you want.

I select in one place, use another to adjust.

https://www.daz3d.com/pose-architect-add-on-pack-1-for-genesis-8-females

This (and the original) is one of my most used items when posing, some great sliders to use as a starter

frank0314

nicstt said:

Posing is horrible and time-consuming.

Studio actually makes easy in comparrison. Note that I included, 'in comparrison'.

My advise, use a pose as a started then drag, use slide, use pupetteer - whatever works best as a particular time to get the pose you want.

I select in one place, use another to adjust.

https://www.daz3d.com/pose-architect-add-on-pack-1-for-genesis-8-females

This (and the original) is one of my most used items when posing, some great sliders to use as a starter

I swear there are some positions that are absolutely impossible to get right and have to do it from a pose set as a starting point. No matter how much I play I just end up flubbing it up starting from scratch. I always start from someone else's, which is why I don't do pose sets.

P302

gederix said:

P302 said:

Another way to pose I use a lot is IK using the ActivePose tool. And there lies also my biggest problem: the sluggishness of the system. On my system dragging a hand of a figure with only the pelvis pinned is a slideshow with <1fps. This is barely usable. If anybody has some advice how to speed up this (other than switching off smoothing, interactive mode and deinstalling content) I would be grateful.

Set your figure resolution to base in the parameters tab, hide anything in the scene you dont need to see while posing (often easiest to add things to a group and then hide the group). There is also an accurate/fast draw settings slider at the bottom of the tool settings pane for the active pose tool. 

Unfortunately hardly any improvement at base resolution. I get a sluggish response even with nothing but the naked figure in the scene. However: since I have more products for G8M installed, male loading and posing is slower than female on my system. So i reckon - as it was addressed in some other threads - it has to do with the amount of morph-related products for a particular gender/generation.

The accurate/fast draw slider IMHO only sets the ratio in which the mouse movement gets translated into the movent of the selected node while dragging when posing. I guess its purpose is to provide precision positioning. Therefore smaller and more precise movements but basically the same "slideshow". But thanks for mentioning that slider. I can use it not to accidentally overshoot by so much. The only annoying thing about that slider is that moving it during posing interrupts the workflow. A modifier key (ctrl - more precision than normal, alt - more speed than normal) while dragging the node would be fine.

lauraminiel_c2ab5717f9

There is a trick I use when you are focusing on a certain action, for example, when one hand is doing one thing and the other hand is doing something else.

I make a duplicate of Genesis that is outside the field of view, that way you have two separate arms.  It looks crazy if you zoom out but when you zoom in you can manipulate each arm independently and moving one doesn't cause any accidental effects or movements on the other. It is a good trick when you are animating small complex hand movements

brendan.thomas26

marble said:

kenmo said:

Richard Haseltine said:

With a post like this you need to be more specific - what exactly are the issues, and how would you like it to behave?

 

The posing tools in Daz have not improved much in the past 15 years. They are still as awkward, tedious and unintuitive it has been since I first used Daz. I like Daz. It's a stellar product. But the posing tools are complete garbage and need to evolve to something more user friendly and less tedious/frustrating.

I can not comment on Poser but do own Poser 11 Pro. However I find ALL of the features and tools in Poser a complete pain in the butt. Not sure if posing in iClone and their line of products is easier or worse. Maybe one day I will download their trial and see for myself. 

Can you suggest a way posing could be improved? I'm all for new tools and better ways of doing things - especially time-savers - but as I said, compared to Blender and Poser, DAZ wins hands down (forgive the pun).

The problem with posing is that we do it in simulated 3D space (on three axes) and that can be tricky on a 2D screen. That's why I don't use the tools that, for example, grab a hand and push and pull the connected bone-chain. I've watched videos of people doing it that way but I can't get used to thta method. So I stick with the sliders unless I'm using the Active Pose tool with parts (like feet) pinned (now that is really a tool that could use some improvement).

Are you able to suggest any good YouTubers who do good tutorials on poses and using the sliders to perfect them etc? I'm brand new and no idea where I'm going wrong.