Re-rigging a freebie prop

Dazzle

I'm looking for advice on how to design or modify the rigging for a broken tripod prop, and to create morphs to open & close the legs. I hope that if I start with a good design, I'll be able to implement it, but my problem is that I don't know what properties a 'good design' would have.

The freebie prop (digital single lens camera & tripod, by shima) was posted on another site 7 years ago. It looks great (see pic) but unfortunately it's not rigged correctly, according to comments by several users who downloaded it in the past. The author hasn't updated it since, so it looks like I will have to try and mend myself.

The tripod was originally made for Poser (which I don't have or want), and it almost works in Daz Studio. It comes with 7 morphs, of which 6 work OK (3 manipulate the head/platform, and 3 extend the legs). The 7th morph should splay & close the legs, but the single slider makes all three legs move together in the same direction. I'd like to end up with a single slider that causes all three legs to open/close in synchrony, but I'd settle for three sliders, one per leg. In either case, I'd like the leg-lock(s) to move as the leg moves.

Any advice on (re)designing the rigging would be appreciated.

Richard Haseltine

Don't foget that morphs are linear - if you try to morph the legs closed they will change length as they move rather than describing an arc.

Kainjy

If it's already rigged (every leg has a joint), i suggest to remake the morph/parameters only (DAZ uses different file format than Poser) . I'd make a parameter to open/close all legs (using Erc on leg joints). Also I'd make a morph to stretch legs (and raise from ground the camera position).

charles

I would recommend you take it into something like Rhino (easiest) or Blender (moderate) or even Hexagon (hard) and explode the object, realign as you need and export as an obj and ignore the morphing elements.

 

Bejaymac

One of my friends downloaded this back when it first appeared, think we were still using DS2 at the time, didn't work back then either.

Basically what you have is a collection of props, that were then saved into Posers Figure Library, which combined the mesh and prop controls into a CR2.

No rigging other than the Body bone Poser 6 added to the CR2, and no morphs, instead you have ERC linked sliders to move the props.

It's the ERC that's breaking in DS.

3WC

Is the prop still available? Can you provide a link so that we can take a look at it?

WendyLuvsCatz

https://www.sharecg.com/v/29500/related/11/Poser/digital-single-lens-camera-Tripod

Bejaymac

The Leg_open slider is the main issue, the main leg props have the X rotation connected to it with ERC, problem is that each leg prop has an initial value set for the rotation and DS doesn't appear to see it, hard to tell that tbh as we have no access to the props inside DS, so instead of the legs splaying out they all move in the same direction, which is the wrong way for all of them.

We also don't have access to the material settings of the props.

Richard Haseltine

Bejaymac said:

The Leg_open slider is the main issue, the main leg props have the X rotation connected to it with ERC, problem is that each leg prop has an initial value set for the rotation and DS doesn't appear to see it, hard to tell that tbh as we have no access to the props inside DS, so instead of the legs splaying out they all move in the same direction, which is the wrong way for all of them.

That sounds like the bone orientation is being lost rather than a loss of some initial rotation.

We also don't have access to the material settings of the props.

Bejaymac

That's just it Richard there is only one bone in the entire CR2

 

 

EDIT

Right I can see the props now, looks like 4.20 turn off "show hidden" in every tab, including the scene tab.

Richard Haseltine

I'm not aware of any recent change that would affect that - it has always been possible to set nodes to be hidden in the Scene pane (unless you turn on the option to see them in the pane's menu - perhaps you used to have that on and it got lost in the layout-saving issues in 4.20.0.2).

Dazzle

Thank you for all the suggestions, particularly those reminding of what morphs can and cannot do.

I decided to go back to basics, by breaking the model apart in Hexagon, then sending it back to Daz, and organising the components into groups. I have not added rigging yet, but using xtrans, xrot, etc, I can now raise, rotate and pitch the platform. I can also swing each leg in and out, and telecope them individually (each leg has four segments, something I forgot to mention in the OP). The leg braces need positioning by trial and error, but I can now produce a configuration which 'looks right'. However, I'm still a long way from making this into a simple prop which can be posed elegantly. Also, some things don't work so well, and I'd be grateful for thoughts on how to address any of them. I've posted a new pic to show where I've got to.

1) Seen from above, each pair of legs is separated by an angle of 120 degrees, so only one leg can align with one of Daz's orthogonal axes. The other two legs must be positioned using xrot and zrot in some combination, and I don't see a way to do this with a single morph.

2) Each leg has a brace (or arm) coupled to a ring on the central column. As the legs open and close, the ring should rise or fall, because leg, brace and central pole form a triangle, with two sides (leg and brace) having fixed lengths.

3) In the real world, the three legs would open and close in synchrony, but I have no idea how a single control can make that happen. I don't see a way to ensure that all 3 legs move together, or that the ring rises and falls to reflect the positions of the legs.

Incidentally, if I make more progress, what would be the rules, ethics and/or conventions of sharing the results here?

WendyLuvsCatz

well usage rights are noncommercial only so pretty limited even render wise

the only things you can modify and share are those which are marked redistributable and this isn't 

you can of course modify it for your own use which many of us can also do but cannot share the modified prop either 

WendyLuvsCatz

this one might be better

http://www.ageofarmour.com/3d/free/video-camera-accessories.php

Richard Haseltine

You could use the Joint Editor to rotate the origins of the legs so that they were correctly at 30/60 degrees to their orthogonal axis. Turn it into a figure and use ERC to link the ring height and rotations to a single property, you could either throw in the braces or just pivot them to the legs and set them to point at the ring.

Dazzle

WendyLuvsCatz said:

this one might be better

http://www.ageofarmour.com/3d/free/video-camera-accessories.php

Thanks for this. The learning exercise is important for me so I'll persevere, but I did download the freebie props you linked to, and may end up using the tripod. I also looked at the Professional Video Camera prop they are accessories for, and it's currently on sale at $4.68, so I snapped that up too.