How does one create an ARMS UP Controller with ERC morphs?
RAMWolff
Posts: 10,212
I think I'm finally ready to learn this. Summer is on it's way out and I need to get busy finishing up Bruno. I need to LEARN how to create ERC's but I've realized that I mostly need them for when his arms are up since the shoulders deform funny using the more muscular morphs. So I've created the helper morphs but need to find out how to create a controller ARM UP dial and then slave these 5 helpers to it to deform that area so it looks better when he's got his arm(s) up.
I tried just posing the arm UP and taking him back and forth from DS to ZBrush and then back to DS and while the dial works the arm on it's way up shrinks and then grows back to normal proportions when it's all the way up. Very odd but I guess that's wrong! lol
Helper morphs I created in ZBrush (along with Right counterparts where applicable) and the percentages that are needed for balance are:
Bruno Up Arm morphs:
RAM-BentElbowFix-Left - 45%
RAM-LatMeetArm-BringIN-Fix - -55%
RAM-ShoulderBulgeDown-Left - 85%
RAM-ArmsUpFix-02 - 35%
RAM-ShoulderRound-Left - -35%
Please someone point me in the right direction. I am more of a visual learner so pictures help!
Thanks much!
Richard
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Comments
Essentially you set the morphs and the bend (as long as it's just a one-parameter bend) as you want them, then you open the ERC Freeze dialogue (from the Property Editor option menu - remember you can just right-click on the docked tab even if the pane is behind others in its group). Select Genesis, the arm part you are bending and the rotation you are applying as the controller, and select all five morphs to be controlled, then click Accept.
The shrinking and then growing does sound odd - you may need to adjust the ERC, to subtract a constant so that the correction that causes the problem doesn't kick in immediately say, for which you would need to use the full Property Editor
Hmmm... OK, that's very helpful Richard but how does one make a controller dial to put the arm up? If I'm using the Arms up/down controller I can't very well slave those morphs to it and then redistribute that as my own can I?? Also is there a way to set the positive or negative of the slaved morphs and the amount through the Property Editor or is a free for all? As you can see there are specific amounts of each morph needed and a couple of the morphs are used in the negative to achieve the right look.
Thanks for the help sir! :-)
As I recall the ERC can go either with the controller property or with the controlled property - otherwise every new major reshape would require updates to the base morphs to add the links for the new correction morphs. I think you set that on exporting the morph asset but I can't check just now. Alternatively, if you have several bones moving as part of the arm raise and you want a control to do that plus the corrections (bearing in mind that third-party poses will then fail to trigger your corrections) you can create a new property in ERC Freeze i think, and slave both the morphs and the joint settings to that.
Ah, I plumb forgot that 3rd party poses will not work with the corrections automatically! DANG! The correction morphs, upon export from DAZ Studio are mostly set to various degrees of negative (-) but mostly 100% positive (+) so folks can determine this on their own.
What I did last night while waiting for your replies is create a combo set of morphs (combined the 6 morphs, exported to ZBrush and saved as new morphs), a total of 9 to be exact.... 3 right sided, 3 left sided and 3 full (both sides affect equally). SO rather than go the ERC route might just leave those in the main Bruno folder so folks can apply them if they so desire and won't have to look around for them.
On a side note I really wish there was an easier way to make a better fist controller, I've found that with these full body morphs, regardless of how carefully I mask things off in ZBrush the fist looks off. Either too loosely closed or (and this is really weird) the pinky 3rd digit travels outwards a tiny bit making the issue look worse. Resetting the bones doesn't help the issue, in fact it makes it worse. WEIRD!
I just saw a post by one of the devs in another forum - the option to set whether ther ERC links save in the controller or controlled morph is in Property editor, so you are going to have to go into that I'm afraid.
Issue is though I have no idea how to create my own controller for Bruno. Keep hoping that someone does a really thorough vid tutorial for a start to finish morph set that included controllers, morphs and ERC's. I think Blonde mentioned that she MAY do one but that's been a while so maybe not...
What do you mean? A controller like the Pose Control sliders, that adjust several bones at once?
Hiya, No, I meant like my own arms up dial. I opened up one of those controllers and of course they are in that non readable code format. Not sure how to create a dial that does that. I feel weird using DAZ's so creating my own for Bruno would be better I think!
Then I don't understand - raising the arms uses the joint parameters, not a morph, so you don't want to add a new set of joints (even if that were possible).
Ah but the Arms Up / Down is a slider so it's a Controller morph from my understanding. So what was done then to make that? Take one of the rotations and add the others to as follower slaves? I'll have to look into that more.
Screen shot of what I was referring to...
Hi Richard... :-)
You're correct, it is a controller for the arms and linked morphs. And you should be able to use it and have it only apply your corrective morphs when your Bruno shape is applied. It is much easier to do than you might think using the Property Editor.
This might be a stupid question, but have you read this section of the Docu Center? Advanced: Creating Joint Controlled Morphs
You can create the necessary links for the morphs and controls by Drag and Drop and then save out when done
The instructions (with pictures) are written for 4.5, and if I remember correctly that is what your using.
Hope this Helps... :)
Oh, thanks so much! That's one of the links that went missing. XOXO
Glad I was able to locate this old thread. I'm really stuck here and want to know how to fix a mashed morph. Working on getting Fuzzie Small finished up. When I raise up his arms above his head the stupid pecs practically collide into mashed points. The lats sort of collapse. I've done all I can with the rigging bulge areas and ERC Freeze and all that. The interesting thing is if I use the Medium sized Fuzze and then scale it down to 45.3 it's the same size as my Small Fuzzie morph and when I pose it like that works fine. But when I export it out to ZBrush and bring it back in to DS and use that as a "fix" morph I'm right back to square one with all the crap that's going on with the morph. I don't understand one bit how the medium sized Fuzzie poses perfectly but when I have more or less a more miniture sized version of the medium sized one it starts to totally mess up like that. I just don't get that. Makes ZERO sense to me at all. Pec mesh is IDENTICAL to the medium sized mesh. IDENTICAL!
If anyone knows how to export the mesh to ZBrush or even Blender to repair the mess that's made when it's got it's arms up I'd love to know how step by step.
I tried numerous other things like DForms and all that but nothing gives me good results. If DAZ Studio were more mature I would hope that some basic sculpting tools would be there so I could smooth down the mesh were it's poking up and colliding like that. That's all I really need and a way to pull back out the lats. I can't seem to eyeball what I need to do in ZBrush because you can't export a posed figure like that that I know of.
Are the joint centres in the same relative position on the medium and small versions?
Hi...
I tend to agree with Richard H.... it looks as though the joint centers are not aligned to the mesh correctly on the small one, which would cause that sort of distortion...
The medium one scaled down works because the joint centers are scaling properly in relation to the mesh and were probably in the correct positions...
You could try this... scale down the full or medium sized one to the same size as the small one...
Make sure they are both in zero pose and located in zero world space... then in the scene tab select the larger one first, then CTRL select the small one.... with the Joint tool selected, Right-Click in the viewport and find the option to "Copy figure rigging (figure space)"... I think that's what it's called... and follow any options that may be presented...
What this should do is copy the joint centers from the "good" rigging to the other figure... then "memorize" the rigging in the Tool Settings...
I think this should work even with the larger figure scaled down, not sure though...
Out of curiousity... why are you using a scaled down mesh? You could just create Character presets with scale or a morph controller that applies scale for the medium and small ones... just a thought...
nicci... ;)
Do your collar bone bones touch or overlap?
I think so. I used the Joint Editor to refit the bones to the smaller one and then ERC'd it to write the new coordinates and saved it out as a new morph.
I'm just back from the gym. I seriously needed a work out after spending 3 hours trying to figure out the magic formula to get this area to work correctly.
I'll give that a try.
It was very odd to me to have a scaled down version of the medium sized one bend just fine and when applying movement morphs like "arms up" there was no bad deformation. So I knew there must be something that happened when it was resaved out as this tiny version. I actually did allot of the rescaling of the limbs in ZBrush for the medium sized one so resizing the tiny one in DAZ Studio didn't feel like cheating since the proportions were what I was after.
No overlap!
Eeeeek! This is not good. Did the Transfer Rigging selecting the Medium one first, resizing to the tiny ones size (45.3 Scale exactly), then CTRL Selected the tiny one in the Scene tab as instructed and right clicked and found the Transfer Rigging (Figure Space) and away it went and when I thought nothing had happened but the bones were gone until I zoomed back a bit to investigate. OMG! lol
If you look closely not only are they upside down they are turned backwards.
Wow.... that's weird... I have never seen it do that before.... I'm kind of at a loss as to why that occurred... it might come to me if I think on it for awhile....
Is the tiny one the same exact morph as the medium one, but just scaled down and then saved out as an object, then brought back in as a morph target?
nicci... ;)
Hi hon,
Yea, basically that's it. Happy with the medium one so scaled another copy of Fuzzy down to the tiny version, exported to ZBrush and back in as a morph target. I then Adjusted Rigging to Shape and then ERC Froze it.
Think it might be worth a try to somehow delete the old rigging and transfer the scaled medium's over?? Not sure if that's even possible but thought I'd bring that up. If so same steps as before?? But then how does one properly deleted an entire rig?
Okay, that should have worked just fine since the mesh only changed in scale... so the face groups would be un-altered and the bones should have positioned correctly.... the confusing part is that the bones do not seem to be behaving the way the should in relation to the weight maps and skin binding... just thinking out loud here...
I'll try some experiments when I get home to see if I can duplicate the problem and hopefully figure out a solution that will work for you... maybe someone else might have an answer sooner for you....
The only other option, which I think would save you the headaches and frustration, would be to scale the larger one down, then ERC freeze it and save it out as the small morph... this is how the shape morphs work for several of the DAZ female morphs....
nicci...
That would require using the Figure Setup pane to copy the rigging to the geometry... you can delete an entire skeleton, but it can be a pain... also you would then need to use the TU to transfer the weight maps...
nicci... ;)
So, that seems just too easy! lol So I keep the one in the scene I have and just ERC Freeze it and overwrite the current Small morph and it should be OK?
Never transferred just the weight maps before.
So, that seems just too easy! lol So I keep the one in the scene I have and just ERC Freeze it and overwrite the current Small morph and it should be OK?
Yea, pretty much... the freeze should lock in the scale setting, so when you apply the shape morph, the scale parameter should also change to reflect the desired scale... it's been a while since I did a figure that needed scale, but I'm pretty sure that's what I did....
You may want to save a back-up of the original small morph just in case... :)
nicci... ;)
I have to run right now, but I'll check back in later...
I'll also list a step-by-step on creating a shape parameter that applies scale for you...
nicci... ;)
Thanks my dear! XO